All Events
Performance
Roger Guenveur Smith’s Rodney King
MCC Theater
History, poetry and tragedy collide when Obie Award-winning actor, writer, and director Roger Guenveur Smith tackles the thorny odyssey of Rodney King—deemed 'the first reality TV star'—from the harsh initial glare of the national spotlight as the victim of police brutality to his involuntary martyrdom that ignited the L.A. riots to his lonely death at the bottom of a swimming pool. Smith's solo performance seamlessly fuses facts and friction, motion and emotion into a gripping narrative that poses impossible questions while illuminating his subject with grace and empathy. Co-sponsored by American Cultures & Global Contexts; AntiRacism, Inc.; the Black Student Union; and Hemispheric South/s Research Initiative.
Performance
Arthur Adams
MCC Theater
Known as 'Mr. Rhythm of the Blues,' Arthur Adams returns this spring to deliver an energetic and soulful performance of blues music. Born in Tennessee, Adams has performed throughout the US, recording with such talents as B.B. King, Quincy Jones, James Brown, James Taylor, and Bonnie Raitt. Tickets $5 UCSB Students and Children under 12/$15 general. Contact the A.S. Ticket Office at 805-893-2064 or buy online at www.mcc.ucsb.edu (extra fees apply). Limited Seating. Co-sponsored by the Santa Barbara Blues Society
DIVERSITY LECTURE
My Brother’s Keeper? The Intracommunal Practice of Love and the Redefinition of Diversity Felice Blake
MCC Theater
There is a limited range of ideas and actions in our current definition of diversity. If the vision of diversity attempted to include people of color in the institutions that excluded them historically, such inclusion did not (and perhaps never intended to) dismantle the structure of racial power in the U.S. Nonetheless, we live in a moment of social and political unraveling in which we witness, disavow, or simply live with unearned advantage or undeserved suffering. We need to reconfigure the work and politics of diversity. Our ideas about, and our practices, and commitments to diversity need to ask and answer the questions that are valuable to communities of color. These questions are formed, debated, and answered in struggle. Paying attention to intracommunal practices of revolutionary love, care, and support enable us to seek new meanings and values of diversity based on the collective consciousness towards social justice that these very communities envision. Felice Blake is Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Director of American Cultures & Global Contexts at UCSB. Co-sponsored by American Cultures & Global Contexts; AntiRacism, Inc.; the Office of the Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Academic Policy; and the Office of Equal Opportuniry & Sexual Harrassment/Title IX Compliance.
Cup of Culture-Fun at the MCC
Good Hair
MCC Theater
An exposé of comic proportions that only Chris Rock could pull off, this film visits beauty salons, hairstyling battles, scientific laboratories, and Indian temples to explore the way hairstyles impact the activities, pocketbooks, sexual relationships, and self-esteem of the black community. Hair care professionals, beauty shop patrons, as well as celebrities including Ice-T, Dr. Maya Angelou, Eve and Reverend Al Sharpton all candidly offer their stories and observations to Rock. Co-sponsored by the Black Student Union and the Center for Black Studies Research. Jeff Stilson, 95 min., English, USA.
