Associate Professor of Black Studies and Literature
@TCU
| Author of Played Out: The Race Man in 21st C. Satire | Thee I Love | 1906 | He/Him | Ideas My Own
Trump is 6 is trending to blame the woman agent that went to shield the former president. I just don't understand how misogyny is always the order of the day--even after an attempt on the former president's life.
Word finally came down from on high (BoT) that I got tenure and was promoted to the rank of Associate professor. It all seems so anti-climatic 🤷🏾♂️
I need to find a way to celebrate myself ASAP. Do you all have any suggestions?
#AcademicTwitter
I wish Universities treated marginalized faculty leaving the institution as a sign of its moral bankruptcy.
I’m tired of DEI everything except how to treat folks right.
#AcademicTwitter
#AcademicChatter
We should all be watching, talking, and thinking about this present moment. From Cosby to Kavanaugh, we need to talk to our sons about power, patriarchy, and not feeling like they have the right to other people’s bodies, time, and attention.
#KavanaughHearings
First day of the semester! As I feel more and more the onslaught of service at the rank of Associate Professor, my mantra this year is
NOT YOUR MAGICAL NEGRO!
Happy 83rd birthday to Claudette Colvin!
She refused to move to the back of a bus 9 months before Rosa Parks, the NAACP did not want to use her to represent them because she was 15 & pregnant.
Other women who refused to give up their seats before Rosa Parks
A THREAD!
Didn't do a first day picture (year 7
@TCU
) but this about captures my frustration in class with students not engaging Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon like I wanted them to. Not very mindful--not very demure.
#AcademicChatter
#AcademicTwitter
It’s here!
Thanks to all the wonderful folks
@RutgersUPress
. And thanks to my wife for taking such a badass picture. If you’re thinking about satire, Black masculinity, or the importance of humorous expression in the 21st century consider Played Out.
First day of the semester
@TCU
, and it was a wet one. First time starting the semester as a tenured professor. Life is good (in my Future voice). I’m teaching my Black Satire course and a graduate Intro to Ethnic Studies course.
Can we mandate masks on our syllabi? Because I’ve been vaccinated and I’m battling COVID right now and I never want to do this again.
#COVID
#CovidIsNotOver
My Black Pop-Culture course
@TCU
just wrapped and this class was one for the ages.
We started with Black choreographers going on strike on Tik Tok and meditated all semester long about theft, cultural appropriation, redress and reciprocity across various sites of pop culture
Thank you to all of the coaches that reached out and saw something in Isaiah for their program. It has been a whirlwind of a ride but I’m happy to announce Isaiah will be playing for
@TCU
next year.
@TCUBasketball
And just like that it’s official! I’m no longer Dr. Manning—English professor
@TCU
I’m just (
@thezay2k
) Isaiah’s dad lol
Congrats, son! And Go Frogs 🐸!
I had a great time being a guest coach for the
@TCUFootball
win against Baylor this weekend. It was a great game, and I’m so proud of the resiliency of our football players.
#GoFrogs
#knuckleup
Y’all should really read about how slavery informs our current foodways. Scholars have been out here doing the work on Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben and others. I’ll drop some books in this thread for your pandemic reading:
The thing I hate about this "Antisemitism Awareness Act" is that, as minorities, we fight so hard to be seen that we allow chicanery to pass for being seen. That seen-ness is twisted and contorted against our allies and ultimately against our own self-interests.
Every black hooper and coach knows what it’s like to have a ref lock in on you and try and dictate how you play or coach the game.
Dawn Staley deserves better, South Carolina players deserve better, the game deserves better.
#NATIONALCHAMPIONSHIP
Last summer, Zuri and I walked with Ms. Opal Lee in the first federally recognized Juneteenth day.
Shortly after, I nominated Ms. Lee to get an honorary doctorate from
@TCU
. She received that award today. It was wonderful to see the TCU community give her a standing ovation.
I’m really bad about this but if you’re looking for any speakers this academic year for Black studies, masculinity, humor, or pop culture—I’d love to talk about my book with your students.
Played Out: The Race Man in Twenty-First-Century Satire
All of this to say, my university is hemorrhaging brilliant scholars and leaders and refuses to take a look in the mirror—instead it blames the under resourced unit, the scholar, or the environment (that they refuse to acknowledge that they created).
@AcademicChatter
1.) Create community and figure out what forms of care you need. 2.) You are not your work. 3.) Start applying for fellowships, conferences and submitting articles as soon as you can. The piece will never be perfect.
@B1GSP1N
@Seantaneous
And clearly the daughter knows she’s got better options than Scott because not only did he die but no one cared afterwards. Nobody said anything about days afterwards and the daughter looked well rested headed back to college
Y’all are telling your students they don’t have to log onto zoom when they test positive right?!?!
I don’t want my students to feel like they have to be productive when they are tending to their health and medical needs.
#AcademicChatter
#COVID19
As a member of Alpha Phi Alpha it’s horrible hearing some of the talks coming out of the convention. I’m proud my fraternity is more welcoming to our queer brothers, but we shouldn’t stop there. There’s no reason why trans men can’t or shouldn’t be frat.
I’m participating in the
#ScholarStrike
today
@TCU
because you know
#BlackLivesMatter
. I led a teach-in to discuss blackness and the carceral state, and I think I just had one of my most important moments in the (virtual) classroom as a professor. I cried and everything, y’all.
TCU purple looks good on my boy and Zuri made this one of the best pictures they’ve ever taken. This was an unofficial visit so we’ll see what school he lands on this time next year.
S/o
@TCUFootball
for graduating a number of great young men today. I had the pleasure of teaching them their first college course in summer 2019.
They’ve had tremendous adversity and success—so happy to see them walk the stage today.
#GoFrogs
It was a joy writing about Sidney Poitier alongside Everett’s novel “I am Not Sidney Poitier” in my forthcoming book Played Out from Rutgers University.
If representation matters then his impact during the Civil Rights Movement is incalculable.
Rest In Honor, Mr. Poitier.
Districts closing schools because of COVID. Grad students and faculty needing to go virtual because of COVID.
The institution:
We’ve got a new medical school!
As the Universe (-sity) tried to find new ways to disrupt my peace, I needed something tactile to anchor me this semester.
(That was my grandmother’s elephant and she was with me every step of the way.)
#AcademicTwitter
@blkwomenradical
@LaLuchaIndigena
She taught me that patriarchy is an everybody problem that requires men to reflect and move towards radical love and transformation to heal from
In 1904, with only $1.50 to her name, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, founded the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls (now, Bethune-Cookman University).
Learn more about her life and legacy:
Congrats to all the graduates from
@TCU
and
@TCUEnglish
today but these two right here! So proud of them. Deja is one of the best undergraduates I’ve had the pleasure of teaching and
@girlwitlocs
is one of the best graduate students.
If universities really want to fix racism in the academia then beg the faculty of color you didn’t give tenure to (because of fit, teaching, etc.) to be the next generation of chairs and deans.
Don’t get me wrong-I’m happy that the monuments of white supremacy are falling across the world but if it’s not followed by anti-racist and equity based policies then all we’ve done is created a scapegoat and historicized our current problem with racism
#SaturdayThoughts
Isaiah (
@thezay2k
) keeps trying to sell me on this big guard stuff and with these numbers…👀
Stats from Fri., Sat., Sun.
@Tabchoops
Pts - 30, 22, 21
Rbs - 8, 10, 7
Ast - 4, 8, 8
With
#BlameBlackMen
trending now seems like a good time to share my Black Masculinities syllabus. We start with Black Feminism—The Combahee River Collective statement and Spillers’ “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe” because Black women been trying to make us do better.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is protecting more Texans than Senator Cornyn ever did. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse connecting the dots around Cornyn’s active role to end the ACA in Texas was necessary. Waiting to see if Lindsey Graham gets some of this same action.
#SCOTUS
#SCOTUShearings
📚Dr. Brandon Manning
📚Assist. Professor of ENGL &
affiliate faculty in CRES and WGST
📚I teach Blk Literature & Culture
📚Fall courses: Black Masculinities/ &
American Dream: Images of the
Pres. in Blk Cultural
Production
@_TCU_BSA
#WhosWhoAtTCU
I really thought that with the spread of the Delta variant and rising COVID numbers in Texas that the email from the chancellor was going to be about more than the collapse of the Big 12.
From the LA city council to the killing of Jaheim McMillan in Gulf Port, MS. I’m left feeling like James Baldwin,
“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time”
#BlackLivesMatter
This is the logic of late capitalism. The stakes have always been death, but depending on the situation they cycle in different groups for the blood sacrifice. And we are all supposed to be okay with it.
#CoronaVirusUpdates
#COVID19
#Americanvirus
Happy Heavenly Birthday James Baldwin
“I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually,"
Got
@thezay2k
jersey from the campus book store today. Can’t tell me nothing! Now I just need a purple cardigan to match them.
@TCUBasketball
@TCU
Get yours
I CANT WATCH ANYMORE BLACK DEATH! I CANT WATCH ANYMORE BLACK DEATH! I CANT WATCH ANYMORE BLACK DEATH! I CANT WATCH ANYMORE BLACK DEATH! I CANT WATCH ANYMORE BLACK DEATH! I CANT WATCH ANYMORE BLACK DEATH!
#GeorgeFloyd
#ICantBreathe
#BlackLivesMatter
I still haven't barked at a white person who tried to fill up a black space. I'm committing myself to doing it before 2020 is out.
#BlackPanther
#BlackPantherWatchParty
Don’t know how to reconcile that the move to Texas was good for my family yet the state politics make this space absolutely untenable in the long run.
#TexasRepublicans
#TexasGOPIsAntiAmerican
I hate that we all got up and drove into our campuses this morning as if last night and all of the “last nights” never happened.
How do we hold space for our students and ourselves?
#michiganstate
#AcademicChatter
Finishing Love is Blind season 6 (spoiler alert) and I wish someone would’ve talked to Clay about being a narcissist—it’s all “I” and “me” statements. AD deserved better and Black women deserve better.
#LoveIsBlind
The Academy is a fickle place that I've learned to keep at arm's length. My worth is measured elsewhere-with the people I love and mentor.
However, my heart was overjoyed when a scholar at the top of my field invited me to be in conversation with him and is teaching my book.
FINAL — Mansfield Legacy 67, Keller Central 49.
Four-star recruit Isaiah Manning (
@thezay2k
) is named Silver tournament MVP. He finished with 12 points in the title game win.
Yes, to all of this, but I would love it if the face of the professoriate would change in our imaginary and iconography—I’m worried about black women professors that have always died younger than their peers.
Colleges Face Rising Revolt by Professors
@BlrdyDontFollow
@COCOKayyy
@ittybittyny
The report does a victim blaming of Black women for the ills of Black family life and by extension Black masculinity. It acknowledges the vistages of slavery but does not sincerely think through the legacy and continued perpetuation of structural inequality.
These last few years have been difficult for students—especially for students in
@TCU_CRES
but
@SomiariTobin
stayed the course and is a brilliant mind. Congrats!
@BlrdyDontFollow
@COCOKayyy
@ittybittyny
Were there direct quotes or surveys reflecting Black Women’s voices? It’s presumptuous at best and racist, sexist drivel at worst. There are reasons why Black men’s earning potential is what it is and none of them have anything to do with Black women.
When I first saw news of a shooting in an elementary school in Texas the first thing I did was make sure it wasn’t my baby’s school—and then I immediately felt bad for feeling relieved that it wasn’t.
Brandon Manning moved to Mansfield in 2018.
His son Isaiah stars in basketball at Mansfield Legacy and is part of the DFW hoops boom. As North Texas’ population grows, numerous sports besides football feel its impact.
For
@SportsDayHS
2032 project: