Ashley Akunna: On Lynching, Police Brutality, and Anti-Black Terrorism

Now This Opinions feature short but provocative videos offering real deal perspectives on controversial issues. I often appreciate them. But in the effort to make one clear point, the speaker sometimes has to leave out the broader context. And this frustrates me. I know that only so much can get said in a few short minutes (which is, unfortunately, all many viewers in the U.S. will give a topic, no matter how complicated or crucial). Yet, in my opinion, to leave out the context is to weaken the argument.

I am sharing the op-ed above because Ashley Akunna's voice is one that needs to be heard on lynching, police brutality, and anti-Black terrorism. But after watching it the first time, I broke into tears. Not because of what was said, but because expecting cops to have and demonstrate empathy for Black people sidesteps the point that most cops are not rogues operating individually or exceptionally.

"The Slave Detective of the South"

When you've been blogging for twelve years, you get a lot of emails from all sorts of strangers. They're all promoting some product or entertainer or idea and most of them I just delete based on what's in the subject line because they're not a good fit for what I publish. But a few months ago, I got one from VICE, a digital media and broadcasting company and when I opened it, I discovered that it offered a 20-minute video featuring a woman I've known for a decade. In fact, I had only been in Louisiana a few months when Antoinette Harrell approached me, put me on television, and undertook the project of educating me about the "old" and "not-so-old" South.

She remains not only one of my heroes, but a primary inspiration to me. Sort of a cross between a saint and a locomotive. You don't want to get in her way.

I've written so much about Antoinette and her work through the years that I'm not going to bring you up to speed. Besides, anything I write today will be old news tomorrow. But if you're interested, you can find out more by reading what I've written in the past. Just be ready to spend some time because you'll be a minute.

Anyway, I'm glad VICE found this woman and did her justice. She deserves every bit of spotlight she gets. She never lets up no matter what. And I, for one, am honored to call her my friend. Regardless, though, I'm posting the film VICE did with reverence. Antoinette Harrell will be joining Harriett Tubman and the other greats one day and you'll want to be able to say she touched your life, as she has mine.

 

Senator and Pastor Clementa Pinkney: From The Grave

May all People of Color be comforted in the knowledge that the act of killing this man and eight others at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, day before yesterday will fuel in millions of Americans an ever deepening commitment to root out White Supremacy and plant respect, love, and justice in its place.

Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux: "Armed Resistance in the Civil Rights Movement"

Charles E. Cobb (left) and Danielle L. McGuire

Originally published in The American Prospect.

On his first visit to Martin Luther King Jr.’s house in Montgomery, Alabama, the journalist William Worthy began to sink into an armchair. He snapped up again when nonviolent activist Bayard Rustin yelled, “Bill, wait, wait! Couple of guns on that chair!” Worthy looked behind him and saw two loaded pistols nestled on the cushion. “Just for self-defense,” King said.

In his new book, This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible, Charles E. Cobb, a former field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a visiting professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, explores what he sees as one of the movement’s forgotten contradictions: Guns made it possible. According to Cobb, civil-rights leaders recognized that armed resistance was sometimes necessary to preserve their peaceful mission. Guns kept people like King alive.

Danielle L. McGuire, an assistant professor of history at Wayne State University, argues that armed self-defense was also far more common for black women in the South than has generally been acknowledged. In her 2010 book, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance, McGuire contends that the decision by women to combat sexual abuse and violence—sometimes with force—was one of the sparks that led to the modern civil-rights movement.

On the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer [in 2014], McGuire and Cobb discuss the legacies of nonviolent resistance and community organizing—and how hidden histories complicate familiar narratives about the civil-rights movement.

Henry Louis Gates: "Did African-American Slaves Rebel?"

Posted previously on PBS and BayAreaIntifada 

One of the most pernicious allegations made against the African-American people was that our slave ancestors were either exceptionally “docile” or “content and loyal,” thus explaining their purported failure to rebel extensively. Some even compare enslaved Americans to their brothers and sisters in Brazil, Cuba, Suriname and Haiti, the last of whom defeated the most powerful army in the world, Napoleon’s army, becoming the first slaves in history to successfully strike a blow for their own freedom.

Mississippi Freedom Summer: Bob Moses on Reality Asserts Itself

Part 1

There's a new news source in Baltimore, Maryland, operating as The Real News. It appears to intend to become a formidable contender for our attention and they certainly got mine recently when they ran a series of film reports I knew immediately I must watch and share with you. The series is called "Mississippi Freedom Summer" and features Bob Moses, who was an organizer with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee back in the day, being interviewed by Paul Jay on his program "Reality Asserts Itself."

I waited until they were finished with the whole series so I could upload it all in one post. I don't know what you're going to do, but I had to watch all nine segments one after another because it's that good. It takes us back to 1964 and captures for us in the present a modicum of the tension the civil rights workers had to live in and with during those demanding times.

A Note To Flag Wavers On The 4th Of July

In case you haven't noticed, I'm not your typical "patriot." I don't believe this country has been Numero Uno in any particularly positive way for a long time, if ever. I know what the reality of our unvarnished history as a nation has been and it hasn't been pretty.

On the other hand, I don't want to live anywhere else at this point in time. I like my creature comforts. I just don't think they're more important than life -- my own or anybody else's. I'm happy to pay my taxes. I do wish the government would spend my share on things that meet the needs of the population and address issues of human sustainability instead of trying to bully other nations (because it never ultimately works) or funding local SWAT teams to kick people's doors down unnecessarily.

So I'm pretty low key on July 4th. I don't even own a flag. And I despair of folks who fly them after dark, in the rain, and when they're tattered (all of which are blatant breaches of flag etiquette). I'm grateful I'm a U.S. citizen, but maybe being born into a dysfunctional family teaches you early on how to love an institution you really can't celebrate. And, anyway, I'm clear as a bell that the government is not the nation.

But many U.S. citizens (a goodly portion of which will be in the streets in one way or the other today) don't feel the same way I do. They'll be wearing red, white and blue. They'll be flying plastic flags from their car antennas. And they'll be singing "God Bless America" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the top of their lungs (no matter how far off key). This post is for them.

For Tonight and Forever: American [R]evolutionary Grace Lee Boggs

Last night, I got the opportunity to preview a film that debuts on PBS stations nationally tonight. The title is "American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs" and it's only an hour and twenty minutes long, but it took me over two hours to watch it because I kept pausing the film to make sure I didn't miss a single minute while I was writing stuff down. Six pages of stuff. Not so much "notes" for this post as quotes I want to remember. "American Revolutionary" is more than a film; it's an experience. And Grace Lee Boggs is more than a 99-year-old revolutionary. She's a force of nature.