Black IP Aff-Neg - JDI 2024

AFF
Note: A stitched soundtrack of Janelle Monáe’s “Say Her Name,” “Cold War,” and “Dirty Computer” (in order) plays in the background for all 8 minutes.
Lab leaders have been given the original track, but just in case people want to hear the full songs, they can be found at:
Say Her Name: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQbeUN-IfyQ
Cold War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqmORiHNtN4
Dirty Computer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFK6k-pvXmI
1AC
Section 1: It’s All Bad
Do you even know their names? The US intellectual property regime relies upon a system of antiblack exploitation that is evidence in every area of artistic expression and intellectual work. From #SayHerName to the ongoing refusal to cite Black Women artists in Hollywood, corporate conglomerates and legal maneuvers obscure the self-empowerment of Black and Indigenous artists and undermine Black agency at the constant expense of Black narratives, lives, and intervention in conversations on IP reform.
Green 08, Kevin Green is a Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School. Greene, K.J. "Intellectual Property at the Intersection of Race and Gender: Lady Sings the Blues." American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law. 16, no. 3 (2008): 365-385. JrH24
The history of the production of cultural property in the United States follows the same pattern as the history of the racial divide that inaugurated the founding of the Republic. The original U.S. Constitution excluded both black women and men from the blessings of liberty. Meanwhile, that same Constitution granted rights to authors and inventors in what is known as the Patent/Copyright Clause of Article I, Section 8.1 This clause laid the foundation for intellectual property (“IP”) rights that have become an economic juggernaut not only in the United States, but globally.2 IP rights are inextricably tied to cultural and scientific production, which influences all aspects of society. Thus, before the passage of the major civil rights amendments and acts, the provisions of Article I, Section 8 were unavailable to protect the cultural rights of early black Americans. Congress enacted laws mandating racial equality and effectively protecting the intellectual property rights of blacks in the arts and sciences only within the past few decades.3 This Article briefly explores how women artists, particularly black women, have been impacted by the IP system, and compares how both blacks and women have a shared commonality of treatment with indigenous peoples and their creative works. The treatment of blacks, women, and indigenous peoples in the IP system reflects the unfortunate narrative of exploitation, devaluation, and promotion of derogatory stereotypes that helped fuel oppression in the United States, and in the case of indigenous peoples, both here and abroad. The treatment of women blues artists in the IP system illustrates the racial and gendered nature of IP rights, and that IP has been central to racial subordination from both an economic and cultural standpoint. However, examining inequality in the IP context is not merely a backwards-looking narrative. Racial and gender dynamics offer unique insights that can guide reforms to the IP system with a view toward benefiting, in Derrick Bell’s words, the least-advantaged “faces at the bottom” of our society.4 Traditionally, IP scholarship and jurisprudence has not focused on race and gender inequality. However, these issues are receiving renewed attention in feminist scholarship and in critiques of existing power structures by those concerned with the treatment of people of color, women, and indigenous peoples in the international arena. Analytical inquiries that explore the rights of minorities, women, and indigenous peoples enhance the debate about IP reforms. Further, a focus on the least advantaged segments of society, such as blues women, shifts the debate to focus on the empowerment of artists who create, and not on empowerment of large conglomerates that control IP in the United States and abroad. Part I of this Article, briefly discusses the tenets of critical race theory to show that it can be useful in explaining how IP law has disadvantaged African-American artists and fostered their subordination. Part II explores how feminist critiques of IP benefit from examining the treatment of black women, using blues women of the 1920s as a focal point. Part III examines how the treatment of indigenous peoples parallels IP deprivations of blacks and women.
Everyone benefits from Black women’s intellectual labor EXCEPT Black women. Intellectual property norms reinvest in Black fungibility at every level. Viral content should be used as a heuristic to understand algorithmic antiblack practices that undergird cultural vampirisms and the abstraction of value from Black women.
Yazeed 22 Dr. Carey Yazeed is a behavioral scientist who specializes in psychological safety in the workplace. She is the author of Shut’em Down: Black Women, Racism, and Corporate America, Everyday Struggle: How Toxic Workplaces Impact Black Women (both were bestsellers on Amazon in the category of business conflict), and Unbreak My Soul: How Black Women Can Begin To Heal From Workplace Trauma. “Stop Stealing Black Women Intellectual Property”, 4/5/22-JrH24. https://drcareyyazeed.com/how-a-critical-analysis-of-brene-brown-benefited-everyone-except-the-expert/
In December 2021 I wrote a think piece regarding Brene Brown and the dangers of courage culture as it pertains to Black and Brown people. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the article would go viral, but less than a month after posting it over 30K people had visited my website and read it. When one has a “viral moment” we all believe their lives change for the better. Well, my life didn’t necessarily change, but the lives of others were significantly impacted from my viral moment. Since December, I’ve been invited to participate in one panel discussion where I was told five seconds before going live not to say anything negative about Brene Brown and I was barely allowed to speak. I realized the organizers had used my name and image to draw attendees to the virtual discussion and bring awareness to their work, which had absolutely nothing to do with me or my article. Next, I was invited to be a guest on two podcasts. One was a live audience and it was a great experience, but afterwards I found myself being served legal papers by my now former employer. The second podcast has yet to air. I also sold fifty copies of Everyday Struggle: How Toxic Workspaces Impact Black Women from my website. That’s it. So how did everyone else benefit? Well for starters, I learned from several individuals who shared my article with their audiences on social media that they were invited to be guests on several podcasts, offered paid speaking engagements and served on panel discussions. I found this interesting because these individuals were either Black men or white women who had NOTHING – not a damn thing to do with the article I wrote except sharing it on social media. Those who invited them to participate in these events had gone to MYwebsite to read My article, which clearly has a way to connect with Me for media appearances and speaking engagements. Interesting. I know, right? One individual redirected the organization requesting his presence back to me and they told him “No, we want you,” of which he declined because he wasn’t versed in the subject matter. Another individual used my article as the basis of a training program for mental health clinicians at a university, yet no one asked my permission or for my input. Instead, I was tagged on LinkedIn as they announced the program to the public. So all of these individuals gained significant exposure and some had monetary gains too, simply by sharing my article, tagging me in their social media posts and then crossing their fingers, hoping and praying I would engage, comment and like their sharing of my work. Yet I basically walked away with nothing compared to what they gained in return. I also began to realize that when I commented on the LinkedIn posts of Black men and White women they were going viral. The posts would have nothing to do with Brene Brown, but instead diverse topics that focused on sexism, ageism or discrimination in the workplace. One Black male saw how my presence on his post impacted his audience engagement on LinkedIn with over 20K views and over 5K people liking and commenting. He took it upon himself to reach out to me via DM and ask if I would use MY platform and have him as a guest on MY LinkedIn Live and how much of a great team WE would make. That’s when I had to pump the brakes; “hold the hell up!” Although I wrote this great think piece, no one really wanted to hear from a Black woman who actually has an opinion and (gasp) thinks. I realized that society is more comfortable having individuals who are not familiar with my work in the area of diversity, research, academics and mental health, and who also don’t look like me to speak for me, instead of allowing me to publicly speak for myself. And in the end, society has made a conscious decision to reward these individuals instead of me. Let’s keep it real, no one wants to hear how difficult it is for Black and Brown women to lean in and be vulnerable in the workforce when a white woman says all is well with the world when you know yourself (or whatever Brene Brown is telling people these days). Yes, it’s easier to get people who are uneducated on the topic of courage and vulnerability to speak up and serve as the ‘experts’ instead of the actual experts, because this misinformation and poor representation continues to feed into the Mis-Education of the Negro narrative Carter G. Woodson spoke about. No one wants to hear from someone who actually has the credentials and the experience to call out the discrepancies in Brown’s research in certain areas because that would mean engaging in behaviors that would actually help Black and Brown people. Now I said all of that to say this, I don’t hate Brene Brown nor do I dislike her as a professional, but this is the narrative many have tried to paint as they attempt to make me the problematic Black woman. I simply pointed out what I believe to be a flaw in her subject matter as it pertains to Black and Brown people, which it seems many agree with me because they are profiting from my critique. So how have I pivoted to help make this viral moment benefit me? I am in the process of having the Brene Brown article copyrighted by the Library of Congress. It’s my intellectual property and at the end of the day, I need to protect it by any means necessary, in addition to maintaining control of how it is used and where it is used as much as I possibly can. In closing, this viral moment has reminded me that people will read the work of a woman of color, talk about it and her behind closed doors, and then borrow it like a bowl of sugar with no intentions of giving her anything back in return. Like others who have gone before me, I’ve now been labeled a problematic Black woman, while white women use my work and are uplifted and glorified. And just like bell hooks was passed over to shine the spotlight on someone like Brene Brown, the intellect of Black and Brown women will continue to be used by whites, while we as the experts are talked about negatively, downplayed and pushed aside. Black and Brown women will never receive the support we deserve nor reap significant monetary gains for our labor or intellectual property, because no matter how educated we are, how many books we’ve written or how well spoken we maybe, folks are still under the racists spell that white is right and if we have to hear from someone Black, my God- let it publicly be the voice of a Black man instead of that of an educated Black woman.
The digitization of content and evolution of online information exchange has accelerated the co-option of Black creative genius. Confronting appropriation of Black art and scholarly labor must be at the core of any anti-racist politic. The praxis of indebted citation produces better form of relationality.
Asare 23 Dr. Janice Gassam Asare has a Ph.D. in organizational psychology from Hofstra University. She is a 2x TEDx speaker,workshop facilitator, and consultant. Asare founded an award-winning consultancy, BWG Business Solutions to provide guidance and education for workshops about anti racist/anti-oppressive environments. Author of three books: Dirty Diversity, The pink elephant, decentering whiteness. Author of linked in course, Udemy Business course and a podcast called Dirty Diversity. “The Erasure Of Black Women’s Contributions: From Past To Present”, Forbes. 5/9/23. JrH24
A disturbing trend that does not get enough attention is the continued practice of taking work, ideas, and creative genius from Black women without properly crediting or citing them as the source. This is not a new practice, but with the advent of the internet, these pernicious acts are even easier to spot. Any aspiring anti-racist must understand the insidious ways that this pattern is able to continue and recognize how to intervene when it does occur. This article will unpack the appropriation in more detail, highlight some lesser-known instances, examine more popular examples of this erasure, and explore what Black women can do to protect themselves.In the 19th and 20th century, Black women like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Purvis, and Maria W. Stewart played a pivotal role in the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Despite this fact, their contributions were largely ignored and overlooked, with Black women having to march separately from their white counterparts at suffrage parades. Black women have been behind some of the world’s most pivotal social justice movements (e.g. Black Lives Matter), yet there is a repeated pattern of leaving their contributions out. There are several examples that are important to note. Before Rosa Parks, 15-year-old Colvin refused to give up her bus seat. Although Colvin is now being credited as “the first to really challenge the law,” her story is not often talked about or taught in history classes. In 1969, the Stonewall riots took place and sparked the LGBTQ liberation movement. At the helm of the riots was Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transgender activist who is credited for starting the Stonewall riots but it wasn’t until after Johnson’s passing that her story and contributions became more widely known. In 2017, actress Alyssa Milano encouraged those who had experienced sexual abuse to write ‘me too’ on Twitter. Milano’s tweet caused an influx of stories from users about their experiences. Milano tweeted the #metoo hashtag without citing Tarana Burke, the Black woman who created the Me Too campaign. On social media, many users felt that Burke was being erased from her own movement. Black women are no strangers to the co-opting of their creative genius. A few recent examples: In 2016, Melania Trump made headlines after many noticed eerie similarities between her speech and one given previously by former first lady Michelle Obama. Earlier this year, 60 Minutes ran a story about racial bias in facial recognition and conveniently forgot to include mentions of the three Black women, Joy Buolamwini, Timnit Gebru, and Inioluwa Deborah Raji, who spearheaded the most seminal research in the field. In July of 2021, the Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee was removed from Charlottesville, Virginia. 20-year-old student activist Zyahna Bryant started the petition that led to the statue’s removal when she was just 15 years old. In an op-ed written for Teen Vogue, Bryant shared, “I have read book after book and watched countless documentaries about the political implications of the fall of these monuments. Too many of them never mention the names of the Black women who were essential in making it all happen. It is morally bankrupt and intellectually dishonest to tell a story that leaves Black women like myself out of the narrative.” Bryant’s fears highlight a disturbing trend that has manifested in different ways. Social media is a newer arena where Black women are seeing their work and words appropriated. Critical race scholar Dr. Angel Jones recently posted about this on her Instagram page. In an Instagram live, Dr. Jones shared that an Instagram page had been reposting her work without properly crediting or tagging her as the source. Social media isn’t the only place where Black women are seeing their work being passed off as someone else’s. In 2017, designers Destiney Bleu and Tizita Balemlay accused Khloe Kardashian and Kylie Jenner of stealing designs from their fashion lines. Images from both designers revealed close similarities between their designs and the designs from Kardashian and Jenner’s lines.With the insurmountable evidence revealing how Black women throughout history to present day are not properly credited, cited or referenced for the movements, ideas, creativity that they’ve birthed, it’s imperative to call this behavior out whenever it occurs. Whether it’s on social media or in real life, the first step is repairing the harm. You can start by acknowledging what you’ve done, regardless of whether it was intentional or not. It’s important to remember this tweet from illustrator Danielle Coke who referenced white folks who were stealing justice-related artwork from people of color: “you are reinforcing the same system that we are trying to dismantle. You are not amplifying us, you are centering yourself.” Artist Kendra Dandy provides an excellent lesson for how to properly credit creators you are reposting on Instagram in an Instagram story that is now highlighted on her page under ‘crediting.’ Dandy wrote that “ignorance does not absolve you from consequences,” and she is absolutely right. Those concerned about safeguarding their intellectual property can look into getting their work copyrighted or trademarked. Contrary to popular belief, imitation is not flattery at all. Those who have engaged in misappropriation must ask themselves this: how does the Black woman I have stolen from want this harm to be repaired?
Say Her Name is a reminder that despite the supposed potential of reform, the world is never going to get better…who you fighting for?
Preseley 15 (Katie – reporter – NPR, “Janelle Monáe Releases Visceral Protest Song, 'Hell You Talmbout',” August 18, 2015 https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2015/08/18/385202798/janelle-mon-e-releases-visceral-protest-song-hell-you-talmbout JM
R&B singer Janelle Monáe released a blistering 6 1/2-minute protest song on Friday called "Hell You Talmbout." The song's premise is simple, and that simplicity is the source of its power. The lyrics are the chanted names of black Americans killed by police and vigilantes, followed by the phrase "say his name" or "say her name." The chorus is an anthemic, gospel-leaning repetition of the song's title. Monáe is joined on the track by a drum line and the members of her Wondaland Arts Society collective: Jidenna, Roman GianArthur, Deep Cotton, St. Beauty and George 2.0. All of the vocals are raw, several to the point of breaking. None of the names are sung. "Hell You Talmbout" would be a striking piece of music even if it's your first exposure to Monáe, but is made more so when placed next to her prior releases. She's built a career around grandiose, psychedelic songs that tap into Afrofuturist philosophy and posit her at the center of a sci-fi-inspired musical universe of her own making, one not tethered to terrestrial concerns. Her aesthetic has been deliberate and impeccable, from her physical appearance down to the meticulous choreography of her shows. That cosmic Space Age aesthetic and considered delivery are completely absent in "Hell You Talmbout." It's a ground-level song in both concept and execution. "Say Her Name" is a tag line started on Twitter, stylized with a hashta

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