War Is Hell

This post began as a comment on one of dna's posts over at Too Sense. The issue under discussion was the shooting of 7-year-old Tajahnique Lee, who was trying to get home on her bike when she accidentally got caught in the crossfire between two gangs of drug dealers in Trenton, New Jersey, but which could have occurred in any major urban area and many not so major. The focus of the New York Times article about the incident was that, despite the fact that it happened last year and there were numerous witnesses, no one has come forward so that the specific individuals at fault can be held accountable. The Times and their sources attribute this blanket of silence to fear of the dealers. And certainly, I would not suggest that this doesn't play a monumental role. However, I would suggest that there are multiple layers related to this kind of issue that should not be forgotten, but are, needless to say, rarely mentioned, let alone addressed.

One of them involves the fact that street drugs are the basis of an industry the proceeds of which are estimated at upwards of $80 billion annually. Sociologists have found that most of the profits go to mainstream White male businessmen who have the ability to make massive investments in any arena – legitimate or otherwise – without suspicion because of their standing in the community and often with the knowledge of police, prosecutors, and even judges who are bought off as a business expense of sorts. Additionally, multiple sources have told us that four out of five cocaine abusers are also White.

Unfortunately, however, the many African-American men who are summarily blocked out of the employment arena find themselves relegated and, in fact, welcomed and encouraged to become foot soldiers in the army to line the pockets of their much lighter-skinned bosses by delivering the “product” to their much lighter-skinned customers, where the bulk of the risk is taken by the middle-man. The effects of the policy that prevent convicted felons (and most particularly Black male convicted felons) from being hired for other jobs further exacerbates their desperation and increases their willingness to “volunteer” for this role, however dangerous it may be.

To make matters worse, the law enforcement practice of rousting Black male children as young as eight-years-old for no reason and photographing them on the street with numbers across their chests to “build a file,” just in case they ever do cross the line can cause youth to accept their “master status” as “criminals” before they graduate from middle school, ensuring that the prisons will stay full and the Wall Street investment dividends flowing.

The end result, of course, is that many people in very poor neighborhoods have at least one member of the family in pushing “product.” These very poor neighborhoods are disproportionately marked for toxic dumps, sewer treatment plants, and a lack of decent schools or other services, and have been virtually abandoned by legitimate job-providing industries. It shouldn’t be a surprise that they wind up becoming the battlegrounds of the wars not on drugs but over drugs and law enforcement not only can’t, but doesn’t necessarily want to control it in any real sense. Police officers themselves have reported to me that some of them shakedown petty dealers for payoffs. And that’s barely the tip of the iceberg.

So why would the African-American community “cooperate” with law enforcement? It’s a set up. The law enforcement community knows it. The dealers know it. And little girls that catch an occasional bullet in the face are just collateral damage.

I Eight It!

TheFreeSlave has spoken and, being as he's got it like that, I respond accordingly with eight random facts about myself or habits (ahem!) to which I am attached.

First, the rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Second, the "secrets":

1. I'm getting ready to move in three weeks to a state even more known for its "Southern-ness" than the one I've been in for the past eighteen years. This is a major move for me, as you can imagine, and I'm nervous about it on maaaaany levels.

2. I've only had a mind or mood-altering substance in my body three times in the past sixteen years -- twice right after major surgery and once six years ago when I lost my mind for a minute.

3. My only son died seven years ago (two weeks before his twenty-third birthday) as a result of his addiction to heroin. I suspect it was murder, but I'll never know.

4. My favorite form of physical exercise is swimming laps. It used to be sex, but that was before I got tired of all the drama. I don't do relationships well. Or maybe I just pick badly. It's been a while, so I really don't know. Maybe I've/it's changed. In any case, I haven't yet been willing to take a risk and find out.

5. An audience of nearly four hundred African-Americans gave me a standing ovation two years ago when I performed a spoken word piece entitled "You Called Me A What?!?" The word "what" stood for "nigger-lover." It was raw and I'll never do another spoken word performance because that was my first time and when you start at the top, you can only go down from there.

6. I decided this week to begin looking into the possibility of finishing my Ph.D. and publishing some things I've had in a file cabinet for-ever.

7. I've already written a book on race. A couple of authors who are highly published on the topic of race liked it very much, but it crosses genres and I don't know who would publish it. The working title is Reduced to Equality: My Odyssey to Renounce Racial Privilege ~ and Find Myself.

8. The last thing I bought hasn't even arrived yet. It's a collector's item: one of only three hundred copies of an epic poem published in 1964 and written by a man who eventually became my friend, Calvin Hernton. If I'm not mistaken, Calvin, who died a few years ago, once told me he was only nineteen when he wrote "The Coming of Chronos to the House of Nightsong," the story of a White woman thinking on her hundredth birthday about her Black once-lover for whom she bore a child. The lines that knock me out: "The double dying of she who rides in the middle of the wind will reign in the world like an idiot fire and every woman sees in whichever man she gives her sex the potentiality of her whorehood." Whew! I first read these lines more than twenty years ago and they still make me think.

Lastly, the eight bloggers I tag. This meme has been around to most of the bloggers I read, I think, so if I tag you and you've already done it, you can just let me know, pass on the tag, or do it again (you know you've thought of eight more things to tell us!). In no particular order, I'm tagging:

Charles at Kill Bigotry!, dna at Too Sense, Sokari at Black Looks, Stephen Bess at Morphological Confetti, M.Dot at Model Minority, Kyle de Beausset at Immigration Orange, Professor Zero, and The Angry Black Woman.

Passin' It On

While we're thinking about the courts and criminal justice (just-us?) in the good ole U.S. of A., I want to offer a few links to things I've come across recently that you might find interesting:

dna, whose blog, Too Sense, has become one of my hands-down favorites, does a bang-up job of responding to a George Will column about the new Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education.

The Associated Press offers some veeeery interesting information about Georgia's Attorney General, who is almost single-handedly keeping Genarlow Wilson behind bars for having oral sex as a teenager with his teenaged girlfriend. The interesting thing: the AG is Black...?!?

Also in Georgia (why am I not surprised?), Troy Davis -- yet another railroaded African-American man -- remains on death row after fifteen years despite Amnesty International putting out a call to save his life.

In other mainstream news, the New York Times discusses the way the Justice Department is "reshaping" its civil rights mission. The focus is OFF racial issues now and ON the crucial rights of churches that want to benefit from special governmental protections. Be careful to read between the lines on this one and remember that the "civil rights" of African-Americans has always received short shrift from this body.

And finally, Kyle over at Immigration Orange tipped me to this YouTube film that would be hilariously clever if it wasn't so agonizingly true.

Free the Jena Six!

Read any or all of the following: this, this, this, this and this. Watch this. And then DO something!

To Mychal Bell, Robert Bailey Jr., Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, and the still unidentified member of the group, we say: Hold On! We won't rest until you're home where you belong.

And to their families, we say: You do not stand alone.

The Hate Artist

Recently, I wrote that I am caused increasingly to recognize how bound we are to the struggles of people within and outside of our immediate communities. In point of fact, we are not only bound, but similar, in that the monster we fight is the monster we all fight. This poem by Niran Okewole, which appears in the debut publication of African Writing Online, typifies this excellently and with great beauty. I have Sokari at Black Looks to thank for introducing us to this important new source of information and talent. I give you

~~The Hate Artist~~

by Niran Okewole

In the death camps there is a failed landscape

Artist with a meinkampf, brushstroke moustache

Mounting a collage of bones and hair on a canvas

Of Aryan pride.

His reincarnation in Alabama,
Worshipper of a black cross, cross upside down,

Cross burning, burning

He loves the texture of grief, like velvet,

Loves the feel of passion in heat

Waves, shock waves, the erotic melody of a

Bomb blast in Ulster or Beslan, shattering

Glass and crunching steel, the counterpoint.

Today he sculpts wood, leaving splinters in the eye

Of his imago, the other subculture.

He loves to sculpt the lean, lanky Tutsi frame,

Does Darfur bronze casts on the side.

(Nothing like molten ore for

drawing deathscapes on the skin.)

Brush strokes on tarmac, he paints with bombs,

Smouldering pastel, the soothsayer’s recompense,

Like de Chirico, wrought iron sticking out

Like ribs on the kerb, it could be blood or ketchup.

At a council flat in Leeds, munching a sandwich,

Plotting the mother of all intrigues, hate is the juice

That trickles down the chin when he

Chews on a red apple,

Libido rising at the thought of the crowd on the

Madrid metro, a baseball field in Nevada,

A market in Damascus, cinema house in Mogadishu.

Or Wimbledon. Or Kigali. Or Freetown.

Democracy or Despotism?

The sun is down. The fireworks are making much noise. But many of us are thinking tonight of what it would take for us to feel like celebrating. If you're one of them, here's something to watch while you're thinking.

Toward a More Perfect Union

While I am less than impressed with what we now know about Abraham Lincoln's attitudes toward and beliefs about African-Americans as a group, this quote still resonates today with a sentiment many of us feel and a concern many of us share. Several years ago, for example, a truly fine songwriter named Ian Rhett wrote "this song" about the position in which more and more of us have found ourselves now that the U.S. is better known for making war than for anything else.

As the food hits the plates and the fire works hit the sky, may we as individuals re-commit ourselves today to making this the best nation we can by stepping up and telling the Truth as loudly as we know how. I accept the responsibility of making this a better nation in a better world. I am unconditionally opposed to all forms of war. And as a U.S. citizen, I stand with the oppressed peoples of the world -- inside and outside of this country -- in solidarity and mutual respect.

R.I.P., David Ritcheson

In Memoriam
David Ritcheson
1989-2007

Happy birthday, Thurgood Marshall!

On this date in 1908, Thurgood Marshall, the descendant of slaves, was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He eventually became, as most of us must surely know, the first African-American on the U.S. Supreme Court, having originally been the leader of the NAACP legal team that won the famous Brown v. Board of Education case calling for the desegregation of U.S. schools in 1954. One can only wonder what he would think of being "replaced" by Clarence Thomas who has helped, now, to begin the chipping away process to undo Marshall's work, especially since Marshall remained on the Court long after he wanted to step down, precisely because he was concerned about this very real possibility.

When Marshall spoke with the dean at the University of Maryland School of Law in 1930 about his applying there, he was instructed that he would not be accepted because he was African-American and the school was established on the principle of racial segregation. So he went to Howard University instead, graduated, and returned to Maryland where he represented another deserving young Black would-be law student -- Donald Gaines Murray -- and won (see photo above). As sweet as that must have been, it only applied to Maryland, which is why Marshall went on to press for the subsequent ruling in Kansas that gave the legal precedent national scope.

Blessings on all legal teams all over the world this day who are struggling against power to bring justice to all!

Don't Quit

Yesterday, I got caught in a downpour. Instead of fighting it, I surrendered to the rain, standing with my face to the sky while rivulets ran down my cheeks and into my clothing and -- maybe -- healed my soul just a bit. In a world where people I love and respect are locked into cells, where people are being blown up only because they are on one piece of ground instead of another, where children are terrorized into killing other children, where parents despair and babies starve, I sometimes forget that there is reason to wake and celebrate and even dream. This planet, including the faces of its people (as are so deliciously presented in this film), is truly most beautiful. And my heart rushes out this morning to each and every one of you, singing a new world into existence, exhorting each of us to be our fullest, most joyful selves. Don't quit five minutes before the miracle.

The Color of Change

"We, the undersigned, vow to step up in the aftermath of Katrina, to ensure that no one is left behind again.

We commit to doing our part to ensure that all people are regarded as full humans, not as second-class citizens, and that our government is responsive to their needs. We commit to helping those who have been continually ignored gain a powerful political voice.

We will insist that those who have been pushed to the margins become a priority in this country, and that the federal government take responsibility for people in crisis. We will hold the government, and ourselves, accountable.

Together, we will be a powerful force for change."

This is the pledge people are being offered the opportunity to sign at Color of Change. Julian Bond and Michael Eric Dyson are down. I'm down. What about you?
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As ridiculous as it may sound, the photo I was originally using for this post keeps vaporizing. Sigh. It's called "Fourth World" and you can see it here.

Yes, I'll Have No Bananas!

Several years ago, I came across this upbeat, clever little use of film that suggests we are all One. Certainly a lofty concept, huh? And one that calls up visions of people standing in a circle holding hands around a campfire or swaying back and forth, singing Kum-ba-ya. But I keep revisiting the spot and finding new ways to use it because this lofty concept is, in fact, the Truth.

"The Truth?" you wince.

Yes, the Truth. But what does that mean -- especially in a world where we're haggling incessantly and with good reason over the politics related to issues as basic and inescapable as our skin tone, the make up of our genitals, or the nation of our birth? For the past eighteen months, I've been blogging on the socially-constructed, political notion of "race," but lately, I've been sliding over the line, as it were, increasingly including issues that may not for some of my faithful readers appear on the surface to be about "race." The fact is that Africa and immigration and other topics I've visited of late are not only related to the concept of "race," but are deeply couched in the ideology that produced the concept of race (and gender and nationalism, etc.) in the first place.

Case in point: this post by Sokari at Black Looks. When I first read it, I could feel the gloom of disappointed sorrow descending over my memory of Nelson Mandela being released from prison and my hope at that time for the future of the peoples of southern Africa. "Welcome to the world of the African-American," I thought to myself as I read. Oddly enough, I had just come across this video of Malcolm X in Africa in 1964 calling for the leaders of then newly independent African states to bring pressure to bear on the U.S. government and the power structure it represented to recognize and honor the citizenship of African-American people. He mentioned the U.N. He talked about the similarities between the struggle of Black people in the U.S. and the struggle of people of color around the world. I remember African-American men in prison in the 1970's talking about a petition to the U.N. for redress of their legitimate grievances -- as a people -- against the U.S. government.

Yet here we are, nearly fifty years later, and there have been changes, but seemingly only in the faces of those in power. And most people still do not seem to grasp the connection between the pain of the poor and the disenfranchised in one nation with that of those in another. Oppression against African-Americans in the United States is not more reasonable or less horrendous than oppression against people in Darfur or Mexico or Tibet -- in 1964 or now. In fact, I would argue that the oppressors are the same people, no matter what they look like.

Another crystal clear example of the global connectedness of issues related to race, ethnicity, money, and power is outlined by Kyle de Beausset in this post at Immigration Orange. Apparently, and this is pretty much all over the internet at this point, Chiquita Brands International pled guilty in a U.S. court in March to bestowing $1.7 million between 1996 and 2004 on United Self-Defense Forces of Columbia (UAC), a right-wing paramilitary fighting force famous for its attacks on indigenous people who fight against their own economic exploitation and political repression. Chiquita's version is that they were extorted for the funds to keep their workers safe, but UAC leader Carlos Castano has said flatly that “We kill trade unionists because they interfere with people working.” And for eight years, at least, they killed them on Chiquita's nickel. And ours, since we bought those bananas.

This is not new news concerning the corporation earlier identified in its history as the United Fruit Company. United Fruit lost its shirt in Cuba when Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, et al, threw Batista and his collection of corporate and mafioso thugs onto the first plane out. The level of exploitation in Cuba at the time was not remarkable. In fact, it was typical of most Latin American and Caribbean nations and many in other parts of the world, as well. The corporations and governmental elites made out like...well...bandits, if you will, and the people suffered, but then it isn't the fault of the rich that so many are born poor (right?). And United Fruit was just doing what corporations do, after all. But when the dust settled, United Fruit had taken a heavy hit where it hurt them most -- in the pocketbook -- and before it was over, Che, who was going for a repeat performance in Bolivia, lay dead, largely thanks to CIA intelligence and United Fruit funding.

You don't have to be a very rigorous student of the history or political economy of the region to know that the reason Latin American countries have been called "Banana Republics" is that the United Fruit Company/Chiquita Brands International and its other assorted buddies, including Dole and others, have maintained an on-going reign of terror throughout the southern hemisphere since the 1800's. It's hardly difficult -- especially with a modicum of elementary assistance from google -- to connect the dots between the corporations and other U.S. economic interests, the economic elites of the various countries in question, right-wing government repression, and the brutalization of men, women, and children pressed into serving those who have the power to force them to do so and the willingness to murder them if they don't.

But here we have a public trial and guilty plea directly connecting these realities and practices to our daily lives in the United States. The buying and eating of bananas is not just a HUGE business. It's been growing so much every year that they're having to chop down more and more rain forests annually to provide the additional bananas for which we apparently lust.

Now, boycotts always seem a little unrealistic to many of us. I mean, the sense most of us have is: "Heck! What's the difference whether I buy Product X or not? Other people are still gonna buy it anyway and the company is going to go right on making millions. My little $2 isn't going to mean a hill of beans (or bananas)." Nevertheless, I was barely twenty when Cesar Chavez first called for a boycott of table grapes. It seemed like little enough to me to just forego a few grapes. So I did. Then, I lost track of the process and by the time the United Farm Workers had successfully formed and won their battle, I was caught up in the prison movement and missed the memo. So I just lived without grapes. I was into my thirties before it occurred to me that it would be all right now. Boy! Those grapes were tasty!

In any case, it's only by looking back at the historical accounts now that I can see how effective that helpless little effort by a very committed man turned out to be. And I had a part in that. A very tiny, but relevant part.

So I'm calling for a boycott of all Chiquita products across the board from now until hell freezes over. It's not like there aren't other options because there are. And it's not like those other options aren't just as wicked as Chiquita in their principles and their practices, I'm sure. But it's time to make a statement to the corporate world about how it's treating workers. And it's time to give up things, if necessary, not for Lent, but permanently -- in solidarity with those who suffer around the world to provide the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the coffee we drink, the chocolate we dip our hand-picked and pesticide-laden strawberries into.

How is this about "race"? Because there are FAR more people of color than so-called "White" people in this world and they are FAR more likely to be the ones exploited, oppressed and even murdered, to enrich the coffers of European and European-American corporations and individuals who are getting little, if any, indication that anyone not in their fields, not in their sweatshops, not under their guns (literally) either notices or cares. I care! Whatever anybody else does, whatever is or is not part of a mass effort, I for one am done with Chiquita bananas. And it's about damn time.

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NOTE: The poster above is by Ricardo Levins Morales and is available from the Northland Poster Collective.

I Can Say Love

When I first saw this video over at Slant Truth, I was moved to my heart. "Love will overcome"? "Evil will fail"? I don't just hope so.

I'm. counting. on. it.

It's Saturday! Time To Exhale!

Thanks to The Black Commentator for this cartoon. And kudos to dnA at Too Sense for posting this hilarious video on how we might regulate the use of the "race card"! That's right...check it out now. It's the week-end! Doncha need a laugh?

Passin' It On

One of the truly wonderful things about spending serious time visiting my neighbors in the blogospshere is coming across extraordinary posts by writers to which I may or may not have been exposed before. I've been surfing and reading a lot this week and here is a partial list of some posts I just must share:

1. The Free Slave asks some strong questions about racial identity, while Macha at Double Consciousness mirrors The Free Slave's thoughts with some deeeeep introspection.

2. dnA at Too Sense presents some very interesting information about how famous religious leaders helped to lay the groundwork for physical (as well as mental) slavery here.

3. Charles Modiano, whose recently launched blog, Kill Bigotry!, promises some well-researched and interesting considerations, outlines how we can save hip hop music. Even if you're short on time today, his list of links to twenty superb hip hop videos without gyrating, half-naked women is more than worth the trip! See this one about life on the reservation for an example.

4. And finally, Carlos Castillo at ChaTo addresses some of the overarching issues related to immigration internationally, declaring "We Are Not Criminals".

5. The illustration above is from the Northland Poster Collective. They have a WIDE selection of some of the strongest and most beautiful peace, justice, and union materials out there -- a number of them by the highly talented and original Ricardo Levins Morales -- and the latest word is that they are struggling financially. Check them out and if you can buy something or make a donation, now's the time.

The 14th Erase Racism Blog Carnival is up!

White Anti-Racist Parent is hosting the 14th Erase Racism Blog Carnival and, to whet your appetite, this brilliant cartoon by Barry Deutsch ("Ampersand") represents just one of a whole barrage of featured posts. These carnivals get better and better.

History Lesson?

On this day in 1964, after an 83-day filibuster, the United States Senate finally passed the Civil Rights Act, when Senate leader Everett Dirksen said, "We dare not temporize with the issue which is before us. It is essentially moral in character. It must be resolved. It will not go away. It's time has come." Still, as No Face explains in this classic hip hop video (featuring Shock G), when it comes to the rights of people of color, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

While you watch, by the way, don't forget to consider the bull-headed commitment required to keep the Senate frozen for 83 days in an attempt to prevent the vote from happening at all. They read dictionaries, recipes, anything they could get their hands on. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia alone gave a speech more than fourteen hours long! These days, we go to war with less thought. But that’s how intensely they felt about not recognizing the rights of African-Americans as U.S. citizens. And people of color may sometimes feel that the filibuster, in many ways, has gone on and on and on…