May 31, 2017 The Skanner Page 7
By Maryclaire Dale
Associated Press
With Kam Williams
For The Skanner News
PHOTO BY NATE SMALLWOOD/PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW VIA AP,
Cosby Seeking New Solidarity with
Blacks He Once Alienated
Arts & Entertainment
Nefertite Nguvu: The “In the
Morning” Interview
PHILADELPHIA — Af-
ter two years of silence
amid an onslaught of sex-
ual assault allegations,
comedian Bill Cosby is
sending carefully target-
ed messages about racial
bias across the media
landscape ahead of his
June 5 trial in suburban
Philadelphia.
Cosby, 79, spoke to a
black news outlet last
month for a story that Bill Cosby and his attorney leave Allegheny County Courthouse after
meandered from his the third day of jury selection in his sexual assault trial in Pittsburgh
self-described blindness on May 24.
to the racist history of
the United States to his dream of re- er Black comedians who once paid trib-
ute to him have instead taken to calling
turning to the stage.
His daughters sent audio statements him out onstage.
Hannibal Burress inspired more ac-
to select radio stations last week in
cusers
to come forward when he called
which Ensa Cosby said her father had
Cosby
a
rapist in his act in 2014, while
been “lynched” in the media.
Dave
Chappelle
has talked poignantly
The messaging continued this week
about
losing
faith
in his childhood idol.
in the Pittsburgh courtroom where
On
his
Facebook
page, Cosby posted
jury selection was conducted.
a
photo
this
month
of a bold, new por-
After prosecutors struck two Black
trait
of
a
younger
“Dr.
Cosby” as the art-
women from the panel, defense lawyer
ist
delivered
it
to
his
New York home.
Brian McMonagle attacked what he
Cosby
calls
the
portrait,
“Restoration of
called the other side’s “systemic exclu-
Legacy.”
sion of African Americans.”
And in a longer SiriusXM inter-
view last week, he reiterated his
desire to clear his name, resume
his career and restore his legacy.
“I want to get back to the laugh-
ter and the enjoyment of things
that I’ve written and things that I
Two Black people were among the
perform
on stage,” Cosby said.
12 people chosen for the jury, and two
“I
still
feel
that I have an awful lot to
more were among the six people cho-
offer.”
sen as alternates.
Loyola Law School professor Laurie
They will be sequestered 300 miles
Levenson
wonders if Cosby is trying
from home in suburban Philadelphia
to
signal
to
Blacks on the jury with his
for the trial. Cosby’s lawyers had asked
recent
comments,
by sending the mes-
for an outside jury because the case
sage
“that
you
have
a mission on this
was a 2015 campaign issue in Montgom-
jury,
to
make
sure
he’s
not treated as a
ery County, where Cosby is accused of
Black
man
who’s
come
on
aggressively
drugging and molesting a Temple Uni-
to
White
women.”
versity employee in 2004.
“
Ensa Cosby said her fa-
ther had been ‘lynched’
in the media
Lawyers on both sides
said late Wednesday
they were satisfied with
the jury’s makeup, given
that it exceeds the 13 per-
cent black population in
Allegheny County, where
the jurors were chosen.
“The Cosby team (now)
cares about how the pub-
lic and maybe even how
the Black community
feels about this whole
situation, which is strik-
ing given his diatribes
against the most vulner-
able people in that com-
munity. But we’ve seen
stranger things in these
big trials,” said James
Braxton Peterson, direc-
tor of Africana Studies
at Lehigh University. “It’s
ironic how he makes that
pivot, given that he’s de-
monized poor Black peo-
ple in the past.”
Cosby broke barriers
as the first Black actor to
star in a network show,
“I Spy,” in the 1960s and
created the top-ranked
“Cosby Show” two de-
cades later. But he has
since alienated young
Blacks with his criticism
of their clothes, music
and lifestyle. And young-
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N
efertite is a graduate of New
York’s School of Visual Arts,
where she obtained a B.F.A
in Film. Her thesis project at
SVA won the award for outstanding
screenplay. Nefertite has written,
produced and directed two short
films: a uniquely stylized black and
white romance entitled “I Want You,”
and “The End of Winter,” an emotion-
al meditation on loss, both of which
screened at numerous film festivals.
Amongst other web-based pro-
gramming, Nefertite also directed a
ten-part web series featuring Queen
Latifah for Cover Girl and Flavor
Unit Entertainment entitled ‘U.N.I.T.Y.
Re-ignighted’, ‘Love Star’ a mini
music documentary, as well as an
eight-part web series entitled “Black
America Again,” featuring Academy
Award-winner Common for Univer-
sal Music and Freedom Road Produc-
tions.
As a writer/director/producer, Ne-
fertite made her feature film debut
with “In The Morning,” a film about
love and its inevitable change/decline
charting the emotional anatomy of
several relationships over the course
of one day. “In The Morning” delves
into the emotional landscape of con-
temporary Black life in a way rarely
seen in modern cinema.
The picture debuted at the Urban
World Film Festival in New York
Nefertite Nguvu
City and won the Audience Award
for Best Feature Film. After a string
of successful film festival screenings
across the country and in Paris, Rome
and Johannesburg, the film also won
the award for Best International Film
at the Terra Di Siena Film Festival in
Italy, Best Narrative Feature at the
BlackStar Film Festival in Philadel-
phia, and Best Feature Film and Best
Overall at the Bronzelens Film Festi-
val in Atlanta. The film is now avail-
able worldwide via Video on Demand.
“In the Morning” will be showing in
Philadelphia on Friday, May 26th at 7
pm at the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery,
located at 3401 Filbert Street. Follow-
See NGUVU on page 11