COLORLINES - Channing Kennedy

Channing Kennedy

New Media Producer / Community Manager
Oakland, CA

Channing Kennedy is the new media producer for Colorlines.com, tending the site's community and social media presence while managing larger social media campaigns. He's responsible for most of Colorlines' original video content, working with reporters, researchers, advocates, and community members to tell the human stories behind the news — from net neutrality, to the Asian model minority myth, to Detroit's foreclosure crisis, to racial profiling by police. Channing is also an enabled media-analysis junkie; he's written for Colorlines on the agendas of right-wing pundits and the politics of anti-racist internet jokes.

In 2010, he co-wrote and edited the half-hour TV special "Colorlines: Race and Economic Recovery," which met with viewer acclaim and which still airs on stations across the country. Channing came to Colorlines from the world of no-budget guerilla art — making videos, running a record label, and performing in touring bands, while using existing technologies to criticize art's role in society and to explore new methods of artist-audience interaction.

Channing served in Americorps*NCCC in 2000, where he and his team worked hands-on with housing, education, and environmental projects. He trains nonprofits on how to use social media and video in strategically goal-oriented campaigns, and has written at length on the need for a proactive approach to cultural privilege in the internet's still-forming status quo. He enjoys exploring the intersection of nerd culture and social issues, in comics, video games, and comedy.

Channing has written for the American Prospect, and has been a guest on the PostBourgie podcast; his work has also appeared on The Root, Alternet, and Feministing.

Channing is @thatssochanning on Twitter, and is the human behind @colorlines.

Kai Wright on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry Show, on the Politics of Public Shaming

by Channing Kennedy on May 6 2013, 12:35PM

Our editor Kai Wright discusses the failures of our dialogue around gun violence.

Topics: Colorlines Press

Watch Maria Tallchief, Barrier-Breaking Prima Ballerina, Perform ‘Firebird’

by Channing Kennedy on April 16 2013, 1:27PM

The New York City Ballet’s first Native American prima ballerina passed away on Thursday at age 88.

Topics: Arts & Culture, /NOW Blog

Gene Demby at NPR’s ‘Code Switch’: As Our Demographics Change, Will Our Stories Follow?

by Channing Kennedy on April 16 2013, 9:05AM

NPR’s new race-and-ethnicity team makes its debut with real talk about race, language, and the ways our kids will power their identities.

Topics: Arts & Culture, /NOW Blog

Roger Ebert: Don’t Tell Asian-American Directors How to Represent ‘Their People’

by Channing Kennedy on April 4 2013, 5:15PM

The veteran critic was a longtime champion of film as an empowering force for self-representation.

Topics: Arts & Culture, /NOW Blog

How to Get a Black Woman Fired

by Channing Kennedy on April 1 2013, 6:40AM

In light of the Adria Richards debacle, Channing Kennedy, Colorlines.com’s white male correspondent, uses the power bestowed by his made-up title to break down a pattern of Internet harassment, racist and sexist micro-aggressions and other methods of enforcing mob rule.

Topics: Adria Richards, Gender & Sexuality, Media

Bloomberg Businessweek’s New Name-That-Racial-Stereotype Cover

by Channing Kennedy on February 28 2013, 12:52PM

What century is it? It’s hard to tell from this mainstream financial mag’s cover illustration.

Topics: Arts & Culture, /NOW Blog

Mad About Black History Month? Take Some #WhiteHistoryClasses

by Channing Kennedy on February 21 2013, 1:59PM

Humorist Brokey McPoverty gets the internet laughing at the champions of systemic racism.

Topics: Arts & Culture, /NOW Blog

5 Ways The ‘Harlem Shake’ Meme Is (Slightly) More Complicated Than It Seems

by Channing Kennedy on February 19 2013, 10:43AM

The inescapable dance craze is drawing criticism from folks who say it’s just another example of cultural appropriation. That may be true, but there’s more to the story.

Topics: Arts & Culture, /NOW Blog

Keith Josef Adkins Is Making His Own Black Sci-Fi (and You Should Too)

by Channing Kennedy on January 15 2013, 9:08AM

TV writer Keith Josef Adkins was told by the studios that black people don’t do sci-fi. So he’s funding his own webseries, “The Abandon,” to prove them wrong.

Topics: Arts & Culture

Facing Race 2012 Bonus: Junot Díaz’s Press Conversation [Video]

by Channing Kennedy on December 31 2012, 9:31AM

We cracked open the Facing Race vaults to share another Junot Diaz video. Call it a New Year’s gift for your brain, from us!

Topics: Facing Race 2012

Junot Díaz on ‘De-colonial Love’, Revolution and More [Video]

by Channing Kennedy on December 4 2012, 9:26AM

Watch an excerpt of the Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur “Genius” grant winner’s keynote address at Colorlines.com’s Facing Race 2012 conference.

Topics: Arts & Culture, Facing Race 2012

Facing Race 2012: ‘Race and Gender in the 21st Century’ [Video]

by Channing Kennedy on November 30 2012, 8:57AM

Couldn’t make it to Facing Race 2012? Watch the full 70-minute plenary session on race, gender and the spaces in between.

Topics: Facing Race 2012, Gender & Sexuality

Facing Race 2012: ‘Now What? Debriefing the Election and Talking Governance’ [Video]

by Channing Kennedy on November 29 2012, 8:53AM

Couldn’t make it to Facing Race 2012? Watch the full 70-minute plenary session on what political power should look like in the space between elections.

Topics: Facing Race 2012, Politics

Facing Race 2012: ‘Culture Trumps Politics: Or Does It?’ [Video]

by Channing Kennedy on November 28 2012, 10:12AM

Couldn’t make it to Facing Race 2012? Watch the full 70-minute plenary session on the role art plays in powering a movement.

Topics: Arts & Culture, Facing Race 2012, Politics

Negin Farsad on Drive-By Hate, Real Questions and Muslim Mainstreaming

by Channing Kennedy on October 16 2012, 10:14AM

The writer, director and stand-up comedian talks to Colorlines.com about making her film “The Muslims Are Coming.” Join Farsad and Colorlines at Facing Race 2012 in Baltimore.

Topics: Arts & Culture, Facing Race 2012

Meet W. Kamau Bell and Deanna Zandt, Your Hosts for Facing Race

by Channing Kennedy on October 2 2012, 9:49AM

In this new video from the Facing Race team, W. Kamau Bell and Deanna Zandt invite you to Baltimore (between goofing around).

Topics: Arts & Culture, Facing Race 2012

Obama on Nicki Minaj: ‘She Likes to Play Different Characters’

by Channing Kennedy on September 10 2012, 3:24PM

The President of the United States is more hip to Nicki Minaj than you might think.

Topics: /NOW Blog

What’s the Best Way for Hip-Hop to Criticize Itself? [Reader Forum]

by Channing Kennedy on September 4 2012, 9:16AM

Lupe Fiasco’s “Bitch Bad,” and Akiba Solomon’s take on it, kicks off a conversation at Colorlines.com about how hiphop can take a stand while still being listenable.

Topics: Akiba Solomon

Rachel Maddow Features Brentin Mock’s Reporting on Voter Suppression

by Channing Kennedy on August 30 2012, 4:44PM

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow features reporting from our Voting Rights Watch 2012 partnership with the Nation.

Topics:

Who Decides If You’re American Enough to Vote? [Reader Forum]

by Channing Kennedy on August 27 2012, 9:24AM

The Colorlines.com community reacts to Brentin and Aura’s newest dispatches from the voter ID wars, being fought in your state right now.

Topics: Politics

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