whatchusay?! ::: The Black Dot Collective: New Orleans to Oakland

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WhatchuTHINK: mine your mind

FORWARDEVER MEDIA CENTER

Writer Alex Haley writing The Autobiography of Malcolm X with Brother Malcolm.

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."
- Malcolm X

Mission

The Forwardever Media Center is 100% committed to providing unconventional writing workshops and media literacy training to "at-risk" Black youth, particularly males, ages 14 through 24. Working in partnership with The Mentoring Center in Oakland, CA., the Center's writing workshops, website internship, and film forums, help students develop critical thinking skills and discover their creative talents. We recruit youth for our programs from the California Youth Authority (the state's largest prison for youth) as well as from universities and high schools. This cross-pollination of young minds creates dynamic shared experiences.

Programs

Whatchusay Cinema–A monthly film forum hosted at schools or community centers in Northern California that explores issues such as race, class, gender, and society. Students are joined by a panel of activists, educators, athletes, entrepreneurs, etc. to rate the films and convene roundtable discussions about corresponding relevant issues in society. For info about film screenings and schedules contact: cheo@whatchusay.com

Writing Workshops–We offer intensive seminars in journalism, creative writing, cultural criticism, new media, film production, etc. These seminars are taught at the center, located at 1224 Preservation Park, Oakland, CA, 94612. They are also available on location, at schools, community and detention centers, churches, etc. For info about class schedules contact: cheo@whatchusay.com

Internships–Whatchusay.com offers competitive internships to young writers who have clearly demonstrated a passion for the craft of writing or media production. The 3-month internship covers news writing and reporting, feature writing, creative writing, media literacy and new media. Working in partnership with community based organizations, universities and international and national media outlets, we produce a pipeline of informed journalists of color who will go on to create their own independent media organizations or work for major media organizations.

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The Black Dot Collective: New Orleans to Oakland

Ask any Black Oaklander where his "mama anem" are from and chances are you'll hear New Orleans, as well as Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi. Although this Northern California industrial city by the bay is very urban, at the center of the world's most sophisticated technology hot spot (Silicon Valley) where ideas for companies like Google, e-bay, Pixar and countless others are all within a 40 mile radius of each other, it is also a city where Blackfolk celebrate their simple, Southern roots by keeping bits of New Orleans culture alive. From countless creole restaurants to mardi gras and carnival parades, folks in the bay have been welcoming the Nawlins spirit since the forties, when African Americans migrated here from the South to work in the WWII shipyards in Oakland and Richmond.

The Black Dot's Marcel Diallo

One organization that is doing it's share is the Black Dot Collective. Founded in 1996 by Marcel Diallo, the Black Dot is a nonprofit cultural arts organization committed to community development and cultural sustainability through fostering the living arts such as hip hop, freestyling (or emceeing), independent media, digital media production, filmmaking, dance, visual art, vegetarian cooking and theater.

Black Dot, in collaboration with the EastSide Arts Alliance has co-sponsored the Malcom X Jazz Arts Festival for several years for the East Oakland Community, which has brought such renowned artists as Amiri Baraka, Kahlil El Zabar and The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, and The Last Poets. Black Dot continues to program such events as the Annual Ritual Theater Festival and provide workshops for youth through the Beats, Flows & Videos Program. Black Dot is currently in the process of developing a permanent Ritual Space and Black Dot Cafe in West Oakland.

The Black Dot has been at the vanguard of innovative youth programs and the renaissance of community cultural venues in the Bay Area. The Black Dot Café, established in 1998, provides Bay Area artists, activists, residents, community organizations, children and their families with a space that serves as a resource center, a town hall forum, a classroom, a meeting space, a snack bar and a performance venue.

The Black Dot is currently working to bring New Orleans folks to live and work in West Oakland, which is the Bay Area's oldest continuously Black community.

Learn more about their efforts by tuning into a recent interview with the organization founder and director, Marcel Diallo in our WhachuSEE Special Reports video above. Then BlogOn here to continue the conversation online.

BlogOn: What can Black communities do to create sustainable Black communiites in the wake of gentrification? Will the relocation of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the Gulf Coast create a new welfare state or will Black communities reach out and help each other?

Posted on September 12, 2005 11:44 AM