■ -m111191511 . 1. - Arts & Entertainmeni Celebrating Black History Month PBS documentary recalls Jewish anthropologist who redefined "blackness." A first edition of The Michael Fox Special to the Jewish News ,,, 6,:,,,,,: Myth of the Negro Past (1941) by Melville J. Herskovits, which asserted that L ike many a Jewish child ' of Eastern European immi- grants, Melville J. Herskovits spent a good deal of time and energy wrestling with what it meant — and what it took — to be an American. His personal answer lay in scholarship, science, accomplishment and assimilation. Generations of black Americans, how- ever, have benefited from the pioneering anthropologist's revolutionary view that their ancestors carried cultural influences with them from Africa. Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness, a dense and fascinating documentary by Llewellyn Smith, Christine Herbes Sommers and Vincent Brown, revisits a man who left both a great irony and a great controversy as his legacy, yet whose work is largely unknown (if not forgotten) out- side certain circles. The film airs Feb. 7 on Detroit Public Television-Channel 56 and is well worth checking out, although it leaves us wanting more detail, depth and debate than its one-hour length can accommodate. On one level, this is the story of a turf bat- tle in academia, which may not make your heart go pitter-patter. And the impulse to couch incendiary disputes in high-minded rhetoric, a trait of our overly cautious public television system, lowers the temperature black culture was not patho- logical but in fact grounded in deep African roots. another couple degrees. But listen closely, and read between the lines, and you'll be transported back to a time when a fresh idea in the social sciences had the power to alter the lives of millions. Herskovits was born in Bellefontaine, Ohio, in 1895 and raised in El Paso, Texas; there are remarkable photos of him with Pancho Villa's troops during the Mexican Revolution. He was raised Jewish and had notions of becoming a rabbi, although his yen to travel was already apparent. After enlisting in the Army and witnessing the carnage of the last months of World War I, Herskovits re-examined his relationship with God and set out on a new path. He did his postgraduate work in anthro- pology at Columbia under the influential Franz Boas and was attracted to Africa. The film suggests that Herskovits practi- cally had the field to himself when he began traveling to the continent in the 1920s and '30s with his wife, Frances, taking thousands of photographs and recording hours of film and audio; and he quickly established himself as a leading expert. The man doesn't look espe- Melville Herskovits with various African objects. cially tough in his glasses and The controversial Jewish anthropologist gave vital bow tie, but it required plenty of support to the civil rights movement and signaled moxie to trek around Africa in the rise of identity politics with his research and those days. When Northwestern writings. But, ironically, he had no interest in his made him its first Jewish pro- subjects participating in the academic discourse fessor in 1927, one gathers that about them. it was a mild trial by fire in comparison. While Herskovits' work was and is The film depicts Herskovits as an idealist lauded by black scholars for its critique of and scientist who labored to separate his racism and its contributions to African- work from politics. That seems naive in ret- American self-esteem, those same schol- rospect, but it's as if he wanted to influence ars object to the strong-willed professor's other anthropologists more than the public. efforts to dominate the field — that is, He certainly succeeded with the pub- to exclude blacks from participating in lication of The Myth of the Negro Past the debate. Herskovits obtained grants to (1941), in which he exploded prevailing establish the first African Studies Center perceptions that race (and any differences on an American campus, yet opposed between races) was the product of biology. W.E.B. Du Bois' fundraising efforts for an The controversial Jewish anthropologist's African encyclopedia. writings in the '40s and '50s challenged Of course, anyone can use ideas once widely held assumptions about race and they are out in the world. So it was that culture by insisting that we look at the The Myth of the Negro Past became a key world through each other's lives and histo- reference work for the Black Panthers in ries. Herskovits argued that the similarity the fraught years following Herskovits' of dance movements between Surinamese death in early 1963. ❑ men and black Americans, for example, was evidence of a cultural connection. (Curiously, Herskovits at the Heart of Detroit Public Television-Channel Blackness mentions the Nazis without cit- 56 airs Herskovits at the Heart of ing their pseudo-scientific rationales for Blackness 11:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 7, determining that every race was inferior on PBS's Independent Lens series. to the Aryan master race.) Jews >04 l iout I emir eat Nate Bloom Special to the Jewish News Faces And Races Henry Louis Gates, the African American Harvard scholar, hosts wow PBS' Faces of America, a series that explores the family history and the it DNA (genetic building blocks) of 12 1111 famous Americans of varying eth- nic and racial backgrounds. Faces is a follow-up to two similar specials hosted by Gates that featured African American celebrities. As in Gates' prior programs, researchers dig out what they can about the celebrity's family history. The celebs also take a DNA test — and then they are told what percentage of their ancestry is European, Asian, African or Native American. Gates "11 34 February 4 » 2010 JN presents the findings to each celebrity and elicits reactions. The findings are spread out over four weeks, and we get a piece of the family history of each celebrity in each episode. The celebrities include comedian Stephen Colbert, Olympic figure skat- er Kristi Yamaguchi, actress Eva Longoria, TV chef Mario Batali, Queen Mike Nichols Noor of Jordan, TV doctor Mehmet Oz, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, actress Meryl Streep and director Mike Nichols. Nichols, 78, was born in Germany to a German-Jewish mother and a Russian-Jewish father. His family fled to America in 1939. He began as a hip young comedian in the 1950s, team- ing with Elaine May, now 77. In the early '60s, he began directing theater productions and, in the mid-'60s, he started directing films. As a director, he has won eight Tonys and an Oscar (The Graduate). Here are two revelations about Nichols — he is related to a very famous German Jew, and DNA tests disclosed that he and another of the series' celebrities share a common ancestor within the last 250 years. (Premieres 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10. The other episodes air at the same time Feb.17, 24 and March 3.) No Cakewalk The upcoming episode of the Food Network show The Iron Chef features a cooking showdown between Duff Goldman and Iron Chef Michael Symon. (10 p.m. Saturday Feb. 6; encore 9 p.m. Feb. 7). Goldman, 35, a master baker, hosts El-r7 the Food Network Duff Goldman show Ace of Cakes. Born in Detroit, Goldman's first job was baking bagels. He now lives above his own bakery, Charm City Creations, in Baltimore. Symon, who isn't Jewish, found- ed and runs two restaurants in Cleveland, his hometown. In 2008, he opened Michael Symon's Roast res- taurant at the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit. The Free Press named Roast the 2009 Restaurant of the Year.