After Christina Randall was released from jail after a three-year term for battery and robbery, she finished a bachelor’s degree and hoped to get into social work — but with her incarceration history, she couldn’t get hired. So she started a YouTube channel on which, “in addition to sharing beauty tips, … she also talks candidly about life behind bars and the process of re-entry” to more than 400,000 subscribers. – The New York Times
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What It’s Like To Study Ballet While Black
Felicia Fitzpatrick: “With its European roots, ballet has always valued Eurocentric body shapes and skin color, leaving little opportunity for Black ballerinas to even attempt to engage with the art form. Even if they were allowed to participate, they were still othered and singled out for their race.” – Zora
Israel Philharmonic Pulls Out Of Charity Concert Because Rabbi Can’t Abide Female Singers
The November 20 event in Tel Aviv was planned as a benefit for a nonprofit providing medical care to indigent patients. But that organization’s founder, an Orthodox rabbi, asked that no female singers be included, per a stricture observed by ultra-Orthodox Jews. Furious debate broke out around the country, and the Israel Philharmonic was the first among several performers to withdraw. The concert has now been canceled. – The Times of Israel
Playwright William B. Branch Dead At 92
“As a playwright Mr. Branch delved into the black experience, both in the 20th century and earlier, in Off-Broadway plays like A Medal for Willie, about the bitterness that ensues when a black World War II veteran who had been mistreated in the service is decorated posthumously; A Wreath for Udomo, with its theme of colonial oppression in South Africa; and In Splendid Error, about the tangled relationship between the abolitionists Frederick Douglass and John Brown.” – The New York Times
Voters In Charlotte Reject Sales Tax Hike To Fund Arts And Education
For the second time in five years, voters in North Carolina’s largest city and surrounding Mecklenburg County defeated a proposal to raise the sales tax locally by a one-fourth of a percentage point, to a total of 7.5%. The additional tax had been expected to raise roughly $50 million annually, to be shared between the city’s arts (45%), parks (34%), and education (16%), with 5% for arts and parks in the county’s other towns. – Qcitymetro (Charlotte)
Ernest J. Gaines, Author Of ‘Autobiography Of Miss Jane Pittman’ And ‘A Lesson Before Dying’, Dead At 86
“Mr. Gaines, who spent his first 15 years on a plantation near Baton Rouge, later moved with his family to Northern California, but in many ways he never left the landscape, rhythms and painful history of his childhood. … In eight novels and many short stories, Mr. Gaines created a fictional world surrounding a town called Bayonne, in St. Raphael Parish, not unlike his boyhood home.” – The Washington Post
Nigeria’s First-Ever Oscar Entry Disqualified From Best Foreign-Language Film Category
Lionheart, by director Genevieve Nnaji, includes only 11 minutes of dialogue that aren’t in English. A statement from the Academy said that even though the name of the category was changed this year from Foreign Language Film to International Feature Film, the rules have not changed, and they require that a candidate film must have “a predominantly non-English dialogue track.” – The Hollywood Reporter
National Portrait Gallery In London To Close For Three-Year Renovation
“The surprise announcement was made on Tuesday, with the gallery pledging to lend 300 portraits a year to regional galleries and organisations across the UK during the … [£35.5m] revamp.” – The Guardian
‘The Girl With The Golden Eyes, French Singer And Actress Marie Laforêt, Dead At 80
“The daughter of a wealthy industrialist, Ms. Laforêt won a radio talent contest as a teenager and … went on to appear in 37 feature films, including the 1961 dramas Saint-Tropez Blues, where her performance of the title song with rock vocalist Jacques Higelin effectively launched her singing career” — she ultimately sold more than 35 million records as a pop star — and The Girl With the Golden Eyes, a Balzac adaptation with a title that endured for decades as her nickname.” – The Washington Post
Displaying, not Hiding, the Reality of Slave Labor in Art
“Thomas Jefferson, Architect: Palladian Models, Democratic Principles and the Conflict of Ideals … at the Chrysler Museum, in Norfolk, Va., is one example of how some museums are working to incorporate the impact of slavery in exhibitions and permanent collections in a way not commonly done even a decade ago. … Other museums are also grappling with how they can rework or revise their collections, even in small ways, to acknowledge the role of slavery in the art itself or people represented by the art.” – The New York Times