by Yanick Rice Lamb | Oct 28, 2016 | Articles, My Work |
Like a tsunami, the highs and lows of the past rush over visitors to the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. It isn’t so much that the information is news to us, but we aren’t used to being hit with so much of it at once. As one misty-eyed woman visitor put it, “They told it all”—from Black Power to #BlackLivesMatter. They told the good, the bad, and the downright ugly, but it’s an inspiring kind of sensory overload that makes you want to come back for more. The curators start the story below ground, evoking the feeling of being in the bowels of slave ships that stole our ancestors from Africa. Through a glass wall of a descending elevator, time travels in reverse as the years roll back to the 1400s. Walls on the lower level tally the millions of Africans that Portugal, Spain, France, and other countries pushed through the Middle Passage. The evidence is also there in tiny shackles, a sparse cabin, slave narratives, and instruments of torture. They told it all—deeply in some places, but with broad and sometimes light strokes in others. The museum displays only a fraction of its holdings, about 3,000 of 37,000 objects. And for the most part, it does justice not only to the whole of African-American history, but also to the stories and contributions of women within that history. Click here to read more...
by Yanick Rice Lamb | Jun 20, 2016 | Articles, My Work |
Preston Clark was so sure that the Cleveland Cavaliers would win Game 7 that he wore a championship T-shirt to a watch party at LeBron James’ alma mater in Akron, Ohio. By halftime, Ace Epps was envisioning the Cavs pouring “golden” champagne all over the locker room in Oakland, California, even though they were down by seven points at 49-42. And Edith Cunningham-Bowman spoke about the possibility of a ring as if she were about to be betrothed. They were among their own at the LeBron James Arena at Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary High School with perhaps a stray Golden State Warriors fan or two among the 500 followers of King James who cheered his every block and basket, wearing No. 23 jerseys from his high school and pro careers. “What better place to be than at St. V, where it all started,” Cunningham-Bowman said of the gym renamed for and renovated by Akron’s favorite son. The watch party was organized and hosted by Willie McGee, who returned as athletic director at St. Vincent-St. Mary, where he and James were part of a local fab five who captured the state championship in 2003. Long before the NBA Finals, people laughed and called such talk of Cleveland winning it all crazy — especially when Golden State had a 3-1 lead and home-court advantage for the deciding game. People also laughed two years ago when I speculated that James might head back to Ohio. Not only did James have unfinished business in his quest to lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to a championship, but he was also feeling the tug of home....
by Yanick Rice Lamb | Dec 15, 2015 | Book Chapters |
CHAPTER 14 MAGAZINES AND CONSUMER LIFESTYLE: ESTEEM AND ENJOYMENT, INFLUENCE AND APPETITE As published in The Routledge Handbook of Magazine Research: The Future of the Magazine Form Yanick Rice Lamb The U.S. edition of Vogue magazine is a bible of consumptive behavior. Its pages, which may range from as few as 130 to more than 900 per issue, are filled with the gospel of Anna Wintour on everything from fashion to politics. While many magazines place five or more cover lines to gain attention on newsstands, Vogue used only three on the cover of its annual Power Issue in March 2009. That is all the world’s leading fashion magazine needed with its iconic cover girl and a main cover line that boldly stated, “MICHELLE OBAMA: The First Lady the World’s Been Waiting For.” The other two cover lines read: “Spring Fashion Special: Every Look That Matters” and “Super Powers! Queen Rania of Jordan, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Melinda Gates.” It is the perfect combination. Obama is wearing a sleeveless magenta silk dress by one of her favorite designers, Jason Wu, in a portrait that strategically showcases her much-debated toned arms,[1] shot by one of Vogue’s principal photographers, Annie Leibovitz,[2][1] at one of the nation’s landmark hotels, the Hay-Adams in Washington, D.C., for what Vogue describes as a “historic sitting” just before the first Inauguration of the first black president of the United States.[3] As Sammye Johnson and Patricia Prijatel note in The Magazine from Cover to Cover, “Magazines are lively and engaging societal resources, affecting the world around them and, in turn, being affected themselves by that world.”[4] A prime example of the...
by Yanick Rice Lamb | Nov 11, 2014 | Articles, My Work |
Todd Shurn braces his mother from behind, her arms resting on his as they shuffle into a restaurant in lockstep. Alice Shurn is frail and a fall risk, but she has no chance of hitting the ceramic tile floor. Her only son is determined to keep her safe. It’s what he has done day after day for nearly four years. It doesn’t matter to Shurn that he’s a single man in a vibrant city like Washington, D.C. When friends try to nudge him out of the three-bedroom house that he shares with his mother for a night on the town, he usually declines. His world orbits around his mother, and he’s OK with that. Their lives are in lockstep. “My life is dedicated to making her happy,” Shurn says. “The loss of my personal freedom — I’ve accepted that. I can’t do anything.” Men like Shurn are not as rare as they used to be, but they are still in the minority when it comes to caregiving. Only a third of caregivers are men, according to a study by the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP. Men are less likely to be the main or only person in this role. They’re less likely to be involved with personal care and more likely to pay for it. Not Todd Shurn. He has a sister in Atlanta — more than 700 miles from their family home in Benton Harbor, Mich., and she has two children. So, Shurn does it all with the help of an aide who relieves him when he goes to work at Howard University, where he’s an associate...
by Yanick Rice Lamb | Jun 24, 2014 | Notes From Nini |
Lots of people are debating whether LeBron James should explore his options and possibly leave the Miami Heat. Absolutely yes, sports analysts say, claiming that anyone at the top of his or her game in any field should test the waters. In one scenario, LeBron would stay put, free up some money to lure Carmelo Anthony from New York to Miami and collect the multiple rings that had been expected. In another, he would return to the Cleveland Cavaliers to lead a stronger, faster, younger team than the one he left with key backup from Kevin Love of the Minnesota Timberwolves. LeBron would bring home a title, and all would be forgiven in Cleveland. (He still gets mad love from our hometown, Akron, Ohio, where signs along the city limits boast that LeBrown is a native son.) So will this be “The Decision, Part 2?” Stay...
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