The Phoenix Will Rise

“If you cannot remember or imagine what it is to lie down finally and wait for an end – that or deliverance; if you cannot consciously feel the pull of your wretched past or the pitiful attempts at a carefully planned life for yourself, there can be no windows or answering tools with which to say ‘this is so’ or ‘this is why.’ And there is no joy, no secret part of your thoughts that can exalt at simple pleasures, simple achievements. You must be fired in adversity, greatly torn, to take any satisfaction in having lived. Pity the poor who’ve never fallen, never lost; the sum of their losing now can be pitifully small and a great price for them alone.”  ~  Charles Ricehill (False Spring, 1974)

Release the Angola 3 Now!!

I will be in class today. I will be talking about religion as a social institution and the sociology of gender. I will be holding office hours and speaking with students on the campus about their grades or their extra credit or their problems. But my heart will be in Baton Rouge, standing on the State House steps with the other Angola 3 campaign supporters, with representatives of Amnesty International, the Congressional Black Caucus, the National Action Network, and others, to present a petition with tens of thousands of names from all over the world calling for the immediate release of Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, the remaining members of the Angola 3 still incarcerated after forty years in solitary confinement.

Forty years. Forty years. Forty years. My heart cries. Because ten days ago, I stood in the visiting room, hugging Albert's neck and leaving him behind...again. Because solitary confinement is torture (see the film above). And because the administration at my place of employment demands that my presence in the classroom take precedence over my taking a stand personally on the State House steps today.

We are kept in position by our slavery to wages, but my soul will stand tall beside Albert's and Herman's on the State House steps this afternoon. If you look very hard at the faces in the crowd, you will see us there. As we always and forever will be wherever truth speaks to power.

By Way of Explanation

I have, from time to time, over the six years since I began writing this blog, been less available to it than usual. When this happens, it wrecks my life on some level, following me around at my heels like an orphan child asking for alms or food or attention. Still, it is what it is.

Do I have things to say about the socially-constructed, political notion of "race"? Oh, yeah. Do I walk around accomplishing the more pressing matters of my life with a half-baked post turning to stone in the oven of my mind? Ad nauseum. Yet, in the greater scheme of things, there are only twenty-four hours in the day and I'm already using seventeen of them -- on average -- at break-neck speed.

Are African-Americans Citizens Or Not?

"We refuse to believe this country, so powerful to defend its citizens abroad, is unable to protect its citizens at home."

~Ida Wells-Barnett, journalist/activist
April 9, 1898

Amnesty International Demands That Louisiana Do The Right Thing For The Angola 3!

The following is the text of a mass email Amnesty International sent out this week. If you didn't receive it or didn't as yet sign the petition to demand the release of Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, please consider doing so now. I'll be going up to visit Albert tomorrow and I'd hate to have to tell him you weren't on board. (Yes, I would rat you out to him in a minute, so don't make me go there.)

Two Black men, confined to isolation in tiny cells for the last 40 years.

No human being deserves this.

Skolnik: From Martin to Martin (Hoodies Up On the Mountaintop)

The following was posted today by Michael Skolnik at Global Grind. Please read and pass it on.

The echo of Martin's last words ring in my head. It rained that night. A drizzle. Not a downpour, just a Memphis, Tennessee drizzle. It seemed like he knew. It seemed like someone had let him know. His words that night would be his last. The mountaintop. Not getting there with us. But, as a people, we would get there. Somehow we would get to the top of that mountain without Martin. He told us that, that night, his last night. And we believed him.

How to Get Away With Murder and Other Things the Killing of Unarmed Black Teen Trayvon Martin Teaches Us

This post by Max Read appeared originally at gawker.com. If you'd like to follow its embedded links, you may find it there.

If you want to kill someone and get away with it, do it before the NBA All-Star game.

Technology R Us (Whites, That Is)

Hope and Hopelessness

Shuffling around my kitchen this morning before the break of day, I was thinking about a couple of young Black men I spoke with this week. They're different from each other, in different situations, and I suspect they will ultimately reach quite different outcomes. But one thing I picked up from both, though manifesting itself differently in each case, was an undercurrent of hopelessness on some level.

It's Not Just Too Short, Y'all. It's Too Little.

I've been posting on this blog for more than six years now and, as best I can remember, I've never taken on the topic of woman hating as it's been mastered by some Black rappers. But every dawg has his day, they say. And I guess it's about time I should go on record.

I'm not even sure why I didn't do it before, especially since I've been teaching courses on the sociology of gender and sexuality every semester for the past several years. I mean, I always knew women got screwed out of their power somewhere along the line. I was born one and I definitely got the memo. But once I started teaching the topic and realized how cold-blooded and mean-spirited male dominance -- as a system -- is, it would seem that I would have wanted to have my say. Besides, I was never a big fan of the genre to begin with, I guess, though I tried to reserve judgement for a number of reasons.

Esperanza Spalding: Black Gold

On Being Black and Gay

Six years ago, when I started this blog, I decided to focus it on the socially-constructed, political notion of "race." Consequently, I have only occasionally broached other issues, even issues I feel fairly strongly about, such as women's reproductive freedom, Palestinian national autonomy, and rights for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered, trans-sexual and queer people, including same sex marriage.

Since I've been teaching courses in gender and sexuality from the sociological perspective in recent years, I've been made increasingly conscious of the rabid homophobic panic that many Black folks seem to feel in the face of the fact that there are millions of people in the U.S. who are GLBTTQ and a statistically representative number of them are Black. Once, during the second lecture of a sexuality course, before anyone had as yet gotten comfortable, I mentioned the word "gay" in passing only to have a young Black male student throw up his hand instantly to announce out of nowhere, "I'm not gay!" I was speechless.

I Double Dog Dare Ya!

Last night and the night before, I watched two separate documentaries that took the top of my head off. So you know you're gonna hear about 'em. They were both on my local Public Broadcasting channel and they are available online for free even as I write, though my understanding is that they will disappear in fairly short order, so you need to look lively if you're going to get a freebie while simultaneously having your mind blown. I realize this doesn't appeal to everyone, but c'mon now, you're reading this blog. You could invite a few friends over, order some pizza, and watch a double feature. I dare ya. In fact, I double dog dare ya.

The Framing of Kevin Cooper

If I read in its entirety every email I get about issues around the globe, I would have to quit my day job and get paid just to read.  I do usually pay special attention to the work of Hans Bennett of Prison Radio, however. I won't front. I don't read every word he writes. This guy is prolific and I just don't have that kind of hours in the day. But I do pay attention.

The piece I'm re-posting here got the nod for another reason, as well. Several years ago, I posted a photo link on the right side of this blog to a site calling for the freeing of Kevin Cooper. I probably responded to a call for action related to an eminent execution date. I'm opposed to capital punishment regardless. Somebody I usually agree with must have asked for a show of solidarity to keep Cooper alive and I put up the link. And then promptly forgot about it. Like I said, I can't stay on top of everything.

In any case, when Bennett sent this interview, I read it. About time, huh? And, needless to say, it was one more of those Oh-my-God-how-do-these-sh*theads-sleep-at-night? moments. So, I'm putting it here. Take a minute. You need to know about this case.

How I Feel

Just in case you're unclear about it..

Bogalusa Still Burns in 2012

This article first appeared in TheFightBack, which comes out of Washington, D.C. I heard about the incident it discusses at an NAACP meeting where I live. I then saw the following reposted at the Louisiana Justice Institute. Sigh.

Growing up in a civil rights family in Bogalusa, Louisiana, Chuck Hicks remembers the constant threats. “We were a marked family,” he told TheFightBack, in an extended interview on the eve of the October dedication of the MLK Memorial. It turns out, Hicks’ use of the past tense may have been wishful thinking.

Around 3 a.m. on Jan. 16, Barbara Hicks Collins, Chuck’s sister, heard a loud knock. She opened the door only to find no one there and her Mercedes Benz in flames. It appears an attempt was also made to burn down the family home, where Collins and her 82-year-old mother, Valeria Hicks, live.

Mumia Abu-Jamal Among the Living

On January 27th, Mumia Abu-Jamal, the journalist and Black Panther Party member who spent thirty years on death row related to a case that many feel is a miscarriage of justice, was released into general population at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy. Three days later, he had his first contact visit and kissed his wife for the first time in three decades.

Last Thursday, he had his second contact visit and the following letter was posted by Johanna Fernandez (left above) to share the experience with the rest of us.

On Justice

"When justice is present, tranquility transcends a land much like the calm, flowing waters of the Niagara. When justice is absent, there is outright unrest; equilibrium in society is disturbed, and progress is paralyzed. Absent justice can be felt as impactfully as the waters gushing from the hoses of police spraying civil rights marchers. It stings. While these raging waters did not kill the civil rights workers, it forcefully halted their functions for the time. Absent justice has the same effect on society. Justice that is selectively present or disparately applied is no less deleterious. Disparate justice leaves a sect of society disconnected and breeds a spirit of divisiveness. Much like a person standing knee-deep in the murky, debris-filled swamp waters of Louisiana, those on the receiving end of disparate justice see what is across from them and know it is within close reach, but experience great frustration knowing they can only get to it if they fight great resistance."

~ Angela A. Allen-Bell, from 'Bridge Over Troubled Waters and Passageway on a Journey to Justice: National Lessons Learned About Justice From Louisiana's Response to Hurricane Katrina' in the California Western Law Review, Spring 2010

OMG! Red Tails!!

I've seen "Red Tails" now and the Boxer and I give it an enthusiastic four thumbs up. We all watched "Roots" in 1977 and were suitably impressed by the fact that someone would be allowed to portray the nightmare of Black oppression during slavery. Then, in 1985, we all watched "The Color Purple" and were suitably impressed that a movie about Black people surviving their pain could make it to the big time. Now, in "Red Tails," we finally have the opportunity to watch Black people outshine -- and even save -- White people just because they were better at flying and fighting than anybody else doing it at the time. It's a matter of public record, y'all, but who expected to see it done like this?

"Red Tails"

"Red Tails," the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, arguably one of the most heroic tales of all time and certainly one of the most inspiring chapters in the Black struggle for respect in the United States, opens today at theaters across the country. One would think that such a film would be a slam dunk for attention, recognition and support. After all, it was produced by George Lucas of Star Wars fame (and who better to offer us heart-stopping aerial dog fights?). It was directed by Anthony Hemingway who was part of the directorial team for the award-winning and highly touted television series, "The Wire." And it stars most of the finest young Black male actors in or even near Hollywood of late (including Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding, Jr.).

Cast & Director of Red Tails with former Tuskegee Airman Roscoe Brown

But it turns out that's a problem. It features so many fine Black actors, there just weren't any major roles left for White folks at all. Gracious. In fact, the lack of White actors meant that nobody would step up to help Lucas fund it (so it took him twenty years to get it done). Once produced, nobody wanted to distribute it, claiming they didn't know how to go about marketing a movie without appeal to White audiences (and why would White people want to watch a bunch of African-Americans saving White bomber pilots?).

So the deal is this: if "Red Tails" doesn't make a boatload of money, George Lucas takes a financial beating for risking his reputation to make such a film, Black directors like Hemingway will continue to be shut out of the making of high budget movies, and Black actors will remain, too often, tokens of color in stories that forever feature Whites. Lucas, the film, and the Tuskegee Airmen deserve better.

Frankly, I have my concerns about the presentation of this film at this time. I'm concerned that it glorifies war at a time when the American public should be gut sick of dying in and paying for wars, wars and more wars all over the world. I'm concerned that economically and emotionally discouraged young Black men will follow the dashing young heroes on the screen down the yellow brick road to fight today's battles for old White politicians. And I'm concerned that Black folks will turn out en mass, but mostly only Black folks, "proving" yet again that Whites won't pay to watch a movie that's not about Whites.

But all that notwithstanding, I know I'm gonna love "Red Tails." I might just see it twice. And I hope you'll go, as well. With all your friends and relatives. And "like" the Facebook site. And, when the time comes, buy the DVD. ;^)

Hear, Hear

"The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, master and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.” ~ Dr. Martin L. King Jr., “Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence,” April 4, 1967

Self-Explanatory

A couple of months ago, I received the following email.  I don't think it needs comment from me to get the point across, do you?

"Hi. I'm in your Racial and Ethnic Relations class. I recently had an experience and I don't know what to make of it. I had to bring my son to turn in a paper and...as I was walking around campus with my son in his stroller, I started to notice the way people were looking at me. I knew the look because you get it from teachers and co-workers all the time. It's that look people give you when they are associating your race with some kind of negativity. I've been getting that look my whole life so I know it when I see it.

The MisAdventures of Awkward Black Girl

This is not clever, ingenius, intelligent, funny and entertaining because it's about being Black. It's not. It's clever, ingenius, intelligent, funny, and entertaining, all right. But it's about being human and it just happens to be done by a Black woman. A very clever, ingenius, intelligent, funny and entertaining Black woman. For real. With more available at Awkward Black Woman. Enjoy. And remember you first saw it here. (You're gonna love me for this.)

A. Phillip Randolph, Organizer Extraordinaire

"Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous ~ for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship." ~ A. Phillip Randolph, who demonstrated how to make 'em listen

On This Day in History

The perception that many people in the United States have is that Africans were helpless victims of their own inability to protect themselves from their "betters" (that would be the White Europeans, of course) and that, as a result, they sort of "deserved" whatever came after that. The 30 million or so who died crossing the Atlantic from abuse, disease, starvation, suicide, or just being thrown overboard so the White slavers (all God-fearing men, needless to say) could avoid prosecution for the crime of being slavers were just collateral damage, as it were. Mutinies on slave ships with the exception of The Amistad have been largely ignored. And the African-American uprisings that have occurred in the past one hundred years have invariably been called "riots" and used to suggest that Black folks are just...well...like that ...you know?

Les Twins!

It occurs to me that this is just one example of why White Supremacy is a joke. It also occurs to me that any group that can produce things of this caliber in absolutely every category of human endeavor (especially under the literal lash of unrelenting oppression) will never be utterly bested. Maybe this is why White folks stress so much. Ya think?

Body and Soul

On January 14th, 2006, I published the first post on this blog site.  It read:

When I wrote the end of last September that I was going to start blogging only on the topic of what I call the "socially-constructed, political notion of 'race'," I really thought I meant a few days later. Apparently, I meant three months later. Regardless, I hope to have a book on race (the story of my life, actually) published this year. Then, I'd like to travel around and tell people what I've got on my mind. But in the meantime, while I work on a couple more books and teach and live my life and all, I'll do this, too.

I did my first piece of research on race in 1963 (I was sixteen) on racial discrimination in the area in which I lived with my college-educated, white-bred (pun intended) parents and four younger brothers and sisters. Years in the prison abolition movement, years on welfare, and years in college and grad school later, I am still learning about "race." And talking about it. Loudly. And writing about it. Passionately.

Nina Simone: Revolution

It's been a minute since I posted. Had to close out the semester. Whew! Glad that's over. Anyway, here's Nina Simone to prime the pump, let you know I'll be around, clear out my head and lay the groundwork for whatever comes next.

Yeah...

"American Grace" by Rick Nagin

Remember those who grew this food
Who picked and packed
Who shipped and sold.
Bronze rainbow arms
Have set this food upon our table.

Remember those who built this house
Assembled, weaved, created
Light and warmth and health.

Remember those who fought and died
To break the king’s command, the slaver’s yoke
And slay the Nazi beast.

Remember those who walked in darkness
Eyes on the gourd and the Trail of Tears,
Marching in Selma, martyred in Memphis

They can’t kill the dream, Jesús y Maria,
Che on his cross in the Andean highlands
Shot in the stadium, pushed from the airplane
Martyrs for freedom
And America.

Never forget
Our ancient foe
His craft and power,
His cruel hate
His endless thirst
Through blood and oil
For profit, profit
Uber alles.

Remember those whose songs of love
Restore us still
Pablo, Diego, Woody and Giant Paul
Mus’ keep on fightin’, Comrades all

Remember those who grew this food
Who mined and forged
Who sang and loved
Who fought and died
Who made all wealth

All honor and glory,
All power and peace
Be unto you
Be unto you.
_________________________________________________

NOTE: This poem/prayer was originally published in People's Weekly World in March 2006. Updated Nov. 23, 2010 and Nov. 23, 2011. Learn more about Rick Nagin here

Why I Blog

"The people must know before they can act, and there's no educator to compare with the press." 

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist and anti-lynching activist (1862-1931)

Terrorism Is As Terrorism Does

The following article on the "nativist movement" that originally appeared, as far as I know, at Reader Supported News, was written by James Ridgeway, one of the writers I respect most in the world today.  The more I think about it, the more important I think it is. Especially as the Occupy movement has developed in recent months, which must, I would assume, make nativists and others who are already agitated, more nervous (and thus more dangerous) than ever.

It is quite interesting, I think, to scan the comments after Ridgeway's piece and notice the range of commentators outside (and sometimes far outside) the box. Which is one of the reasons I'm re-posting it.

Sometimes, I get tired of scaring myself and others. I don't think it's always effective in moving people in the direction we need to be going. Nevertheless, it often seems to me that not to be scared at this juncture is to risk putting oneself in mortal danger. So what are we supposed to do?

Read on, that's what.

"The Threat of America's Nativist Far Right"
by James Ridgeway

As emerging reports would have it, Kevin William Harpham, 36, who is accused of setting a bomb to go off at the Martin Luther King Jr Day parade in Spokane, Washington, was yet another "lone wolf" terrorist, acting at his own behest and on his own behalf. Even groups on the racist, radical far right that so clearly inspired him are rushing to disown and denounce the indicted man. Regardless of whether he was a "member" of an organised group, there can yet be no doubt that Harpham saw himself as part of a movement – one that has an especially broad reach in the age of Obama, and roots as deep as American culture itself.

Lucky Peterson: "Is It Because I'm Black?"

The Fatal Invention of "Race"

Northwestern Law School professor and author Dorothy Roberts was recently interviewed by Tavis Smiley about her new book, Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics and Big Business Recreate Race in the Twenty-First Century. I haven't read it as yet, but it sounds interesting, indeed, while certainly controversial.

Francis L. Holland, Esq. suggests in his review of the book on Amazon.com:

There's a new book out in which author Dorothy Roberts explains that what we have called "race" for hundreds of years is, in actuality, not a biological reality. "Race" is also a name that has been used to refer to social, political and cultural realities.

The Root says:

"According to Dorothy Roberts, author of Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century, it's because, despite centuries of efforts to treat race as if it's a biological category, it is no more than social construction -- created to oppress people -- that changes with place, time and perspective."

To the Prisoners, With Love

A couple of weeks ago, Boxer and I went up to the Art and Craft Fair at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Boxer was incarcerated for twenty-eight and a half years in all, the first twenty at Angola, so we spent much of the day just hanging out with guys he's known for decades, guys we carry in our hearts, guys that can't leave when we do.

We didn't go to the last Fair, so it had been a year since we saw them. They wondered if we had moved on with our lives and left them behind, as so many others have.

"We went through some changes," I explained. "We split up for a minute, had some things we needed to work through on our own. But now we're back together and ready to reach out from the center again."

They were glad to see us. But some of them had gone through changes, too.

Lil' Bobby Hutton

This semester, I'm teaching a Racial and Ethnic Relations class, which I present more or less as a course in White Supremacy 101. Last week, I showed "Passin' It On," the story of Dhoruba bin Wahad, a Black Panther Party member who was targeted by the criminal justice system and spent nineteen years in a cell until he was finally acquitted and released. Reading the startled reactions written by my students after watching the film, I was caused to think about another Black Panther: Lil' Bobby Hutton.

Bobby was the first recruited member of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, joining in December of 1966 at the age of sixteen. Sixteen months later, two days after Martin Luther King, Jr., was gunned down by a police officer in Memphis, Tennessee, the Oakland, California, police department attacked the BPP office and shot Lil' Bobby more than twelve times when he walked out into the street in his underwear so they would know he was unarmed. Long live Lil' Bobby Hutton and all people who unite to fight those who carry on the traditions and practices of White Supremacy.

"We called ourselves the children of Malcolm"

In honor of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which celebrates its 45th year this month; in remembrance of all the brothers and sisters (Black and White) who struggled, suffered and died to advance the goals and aspirations of the Party; and in solidarity with those brothers and sisters (Black and White) who remain in the belly of the beast in prisons and jails throughout the not-just, not-legal system in the United States because of their political beliefs and most particularly Albert "Shaka" "Cinque" Woodfox and Herman "Hooks" Wallace who have spent their last forty years in solitary confinement, I am posting this recent interview with Billy X, one of the earliest organizers for the Black Panther Party. Learn more here or here.

White Is Right...?

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an article about another White Southerner with a really bad case of "Let-Me-Show-My-Ass-In-Public-Over-My-So-Called-White-Heritage." Apparently, Annie Chambers Caddell feels so strongly about her "White heritage" she has to hang a big Confederate flag in front of her house in a -- get this -- Black neighborhood in Summerville, South Carolina.

Yeah.

And it gets weirder than that.

She has a bunch of drawings on her wall of famous Black men, including among others, Tupac Shakur and Barack Obama (one can only wonder how she made her list of who to...er...hang). And she told a British journalist that she sees no contradiction in the fact that she hung both the pictures and the flag.

I can't imagine why she moved into a Black neighborhood last year with her White-is-right perspective. Maybe somebody left her the house in a will. Maybe she just couldn't wait any longer for her fifteen minutes of fame so she hung the flag a month after she got there. Maybe she's crazy as a bedbug.

But one thing I know for sure: she uses the words "White heritage" without the foggiest clue what they mean. Because if she thought about it, she'd think again.

Rest in Peace, Troy Anthony Davis

The United States has shamed itself once again. I am sad beyond words. My heart goes out to his family and to all who suffer in the belly of the beast -- guilty or innocent. We will never stop fighting for you.

This is how we do it in New Orleans.

Will Georgia Lynch Another Innocent Black Man Today?

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has ruled that Troy Davis will die at 7:00 p.m. tonight. Davis was convicted of the shooting death of a police officer twenty-two years ago. I blogged about the case yesterday and the media is blazing with discussion on the issues involved. As I go through my day today, I will be mulling over some questions:

1. How many innocent Black men do you suppose have been gunned down in cold blood by the police in this country over the past twenty-two years without it even being considered a crime?

2. The family says they need closure in the death of their loved one. Wouldn't "closure" include knowing that the actual murderer was held accountable, rather than that he walks around free -- bragging about getting away with killing a police officer -- while an innocent man is sacrified?

3. Doesn't Chatham County District Attorney Larry Chisolm (phone number: 912-652-7308) realize that, since he can personally intervene to save Troy Davis' life -- or not -- public attention to this case and how it's handled will make it political suicide for him to let Davis die?

4.  How long are we going to continue begging for relief from a rampant White Supremacist criminal not-just system before it dawns on us that it isn't going to change until we make it change?

5.  What would it take to make it change?

Same Song, 4th Verse: Don't Kill Troy Davis

Three years ago -- almost to the day -- I first heard and blogged about Troy Davis. And here he is, having been on death row for nineteen years, facing execution once more (for the fourth time) on Wednesday, while a horrified world watches. The Atlanta Journal Constitution says the case has been "perhaps the most extraordinary and controversial legal odyssey in the state’s history."

Despite the fact that most of the family of the police officer Davis was convicted of shooting to death twenty-two years ago still hold fast to the idea that he is, in fact, guilty, seven of the nine "witnesses" recanted their original testimony in 2003. One of the remaining "witnesses" is, unsurprisingly, a guy who is said to have confessed to his family and friends that he was the one who actually committed the murder. These folks have come forward and signed sworn statements, which would seem to make a difference in the state's commitment to kill Troy Davis, but such is not the case.

Toshi Reagon: The Battle of the Broken Word

When are we going to stop buying what we're told as the truth?

I'm just sayin'.

Brotha Wolf: The Deepest Pain

Sometimes, when a Person of Color says or writes something I could never have adequately expressed because it is communicating something extraordinary from their perspective, I try to serve as a bridge between them and others. It's part of the responsibility I feel as a person who looks like me to work toward change in a White Supremacist world. Yesterday, I read a blog post by Brotha Wolf I felt that way about. He had been inspired to write it by another blogger's post and that is how the blogosphere works. Here's to modern technology. And here's to Big Man and Brotha Wolf.

Big Man, the brotha behind the popular blog Raving Black Lunatic, wrote an excellent piece about the thoughts and feelings about today’s world relating to how some people have been on top for so long mostly due to the destruction of other people without any large-scale repercussions while those who still benefit from it avoid any responsibility to try and do the right thing. It also describes the need for vengeance as a way to ease the pain and sadness, and questions why such destruction happened or was allowed to happen in the first place.

I think I know what he was getting at. For me, personally, they were thoughts that I constantly have every day and night, thoughts about the history and reality of white supremacy. Despite the fact there are some whites who do accept responsibility and are working hard to change things, most whites are still so blinded by a world they’ve created they see nothing wrong with it. It is a reality that keeps me either angry or depressed.

How "The Help" Can Help

In the past few weeks, I had read a number of reviews of "The Help" (one of the hot movies of the summer), but nearly all of the ones I saw began with the words, "I haven't actually seen this movie, but..." followed by a castigation of every possible aspect of the film. Reviews without the benefit of reading the book, seeing the film, or hearing the music send up a sociological flag on my analytical playing field. So despite the fact that I thought I'd probably agree with the reviews even after watching the movie and very concerned that I was about to waste time and money on one more flick about how only White people can save Blacks, I decided I needed to see it. Then one of my Black students who is very forthright about pretty much everything -- and especially race -- told me that she had gone to see it twice and loved it. So today, I gathered up my trepidations and went to the theater.

In brief, I give it an eleven on a scale of one to ten with one being "made a White person look like a Savior-figure while making darkies look like sheep" and ten being "made White people in general look like icy-faced monsters who probably deserve to drown in shallow water while being stung by killer bees and eaten alive by starving red ants simultaneously." I have absolutely never seen a better, more nuanced, more ghastly depiction of what real ordinary White people in the U.S. acted like in the 1960s. The fact that many White people still act the same way today is another point and I'll come back to that momentarily. But I kid you not, White folks walked out of the theater after watching "The Help" today veeeery quietly, while Black folks were talking to no one but each other. It's that kind of flick. I give it a "must see" with a warning: if you have any consciousness at all, this one will piss you slap off and if you haven't gotten ahold of your rage yet, you should probably just go ahead and skip seeing it for now.

The Not-Just Not-Legal System

I just finished watching "The Trials of Darryl Hunt" and I'm ready to stick my head out the window and scream. Darryl Hunt, for those of you who may not know, is a a 46-year-old man who did twenty years in prison for a crime of which he was "wrongfully convicted" in 1984. The crime was the brutal rape and stabbing murder of a young White newspaper woman. The location was Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And Darryl Hunt, of course, is Black.

That Mean Old Yesterday

Last year, I read a book by Stacey Patton entitled That Mean Old Yesterday. It affected me greatly. As a person who studies race relations in the United States.  As a person born with a vagina instead of a penis in a country -- and a world -- where that fact matters greatly. And as a person who later reconnected with memories of childhood torture by my own mother, a memory quite frankly that I might not have found the strength to face had I not read Patton's book.

It's well, well written. In fact, it's so well written, it'll make you crazy. Like a horror movie where you wind up peeking through your fingers, but unable to look away or run from the darkened theater. I often wanted to put it down and sometimes did -- mid-paragraph. I had to stop reading it at bedtime entirely because it gave me creepy dreams. But, at least partly for this reason, I had to finish it. I mean, if you can open a non-fiction book that begins with the narrator lurking in sockfeet outside her adopted parents' house in the rain in November with a 9mm automatic, working up the courage to blow their brains out -- and then not have to follow it to its end, you're way less curious than I am.

Locked Into The Locked Up

I remember the first time the subject of prisons and prisoners was presented to me. It was 1971. I was in San Francisco, working on an underground newspaper, the San Francisco Good Times. Black Panther Huey P. Newton had been released from prison the year before. George Jackson had just been gunned down in cold blood by guards in California’s San Quentin Penitentiary during an alleged “escape attempt” that nobody believed. And former prisoner “Popeye” Jackson of the United Prisoners Union dropped by our collective to engage our interest. I spent that afternoon listening to his tales of what was really going on behind the prison walls. But it would be another few months before I locked into what I call “the prison abolition movement.”

I was living now in Iowa City, Iowa, recuperating from a broken jaw I received while riding in a BMW that managed to wind up under a snow truck during a blizzard. Thanks to what I had learned in San Francisco, I was quick to pick up on a conversation in a bar that soon led me to the Prisoners Digest International. When I arrived, the collective was busy fighting efforts of the administration at Attica Prison to keep a special 90-page Attica uprising edition complete with photographs out of the hands of the prisoners inside; the courts eventually said otherwise and we shipped hundreds of copies into the institution.

Choices

Yesterday, I got my student evaluations from my spring courses. I was glad to know I'm "cooler than John Travolta" (whatever that means), that most students gave me high marks and that a healthy handful wrote that I changed their lives. One student even said I should get a raise (a sentiment with which I heartily agree).

But, needless to say, a few students were made uncomfortable enough by my admittedly somewhat ruthless examination of racial issues that they felt the need to mention it. A few always do. Sometimes graphically. This time, for example, one evaluator suggested in three different boxes under "Improvements Needed" that I hate White people, suggesting that the improvement would be to put more Black people in my classes "to make [her] happy."

These are, of course, my favorite evaluations. In fact, if my boss doesn't see enough such potshots, he thinks maybe I'm losing my edge. Nevertheless, I know they don't mean it to be funny. They're trying to communicate something. Some more than others. My first academically-related death threat, after all, was over the phone in the middle of the night while I was in the process of teaching my very first course ever.

Um...hello?

I had to go through four passwords to figure out how to break into my own Blogger account. I guess that says it all, huh? I've been scared to death for the last couple of weeks that I was never going to blog again. After more than five years, that was a disturbing thought to me. I hate being the last one to know something -- especially about myself. Which happens more often than I like, as it is.

But here I am. After all. And maybe there's a few more words in the old girl yet.

It's been a hairy summer.

I thought it was going to be a down time when I could consider my overdriven life and make sense of what to prune and what to keep or even -- Goddess help me -- what to add.

Then, as I mentioned in passing in June, I was blindsided by needing exploratory thyroid surgery with only five days' notice. Everything turned out fine, though I now have a faint but permanent three-inch smile in my neck and the jury's still out on whether or not I'll need replacement hormones to take up the slack for the half of my thyroid that got left where it was.

Exciting? Yes. But, though still in a serious state of recuperation, the initial physical, psychological and emotional trauma of the operation was pretty well over by the time I started teaching full-time again for the month of July.

The Tedeschi Trucks Band: Revelator

As most of you are aware, I've been recuperating from surgery the past ten days or so and my body is confused. Sometimes, I can't keep my eyes open and sometimes, I'm all the way awake at midnight. Even my emotions are all over the place. You can imagine the havoc this plays with the likelihood of my blogging.

But right in the middle of it all, last night, I decided to watch the film made at Eric Clapton's 2010 Crossroads Guitar Festival in Chicago. This kind of show is a perfect example of why I support Public Television. A kick-ass concert and no commercials. Yes, indeed.

The Angola 3 Struggle Builds

Eight days ago, facing surgery, I decided to spend the weekend visiting Albert "Shaka Cinque" Woodfox, one of the Angola 3. Of all the places I might have gone and all the ways I might have spent that time forty-eight hours before going under the knife, I never really considered anywhere else.

I'm not alone in this. Another A3 supporter who had to drive even farther than the five hours I spent on the road (each way), came tearing into the visiting room at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, announcing, "I know I won't get to stay long, but it's my birthday and I just had to see Woodfox on my birthday!"

The guard at the gate, knowing I was already inside, had asked her coming in, "Why do so many people want to come visit this man?"

"That's just who he is," Jackie replied.

Another Big Man Dies

Clarence Clemons, 69, who played saxophone with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band for nearly forty years, died last night after having a stroke last weekend at his home in Singer Island, Florida, (a community I regularly haunted -- drunk -- back in the late sixties).

I won't lie. I was never a rocker. And for whatever reason, I thought Bruce was way too White for me. But you couldn't be in my generation and not know Clarence Clemons played sax.

And now, the Big Man (as he was often called because of his 6'5", 270 pound frame), has played his last solo.

Deborah Luster - One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana

I'm a photo freak. A black and white enthusiast. I have stacks and shelves of books that feature photos.

The topics vary. The first one I remember "collecting" -- The Family of Man compiled by Edward Steichen -- is legendary, though I didn't realize it at the time. Decades later, the photo of an indigenous South American flute player that appears on the cover of that book is the wallpaper on my computer at work.

Since that first one, I've added enough such books to my collection as to cause myself to wonder on occasion what I'm thinking. I rarely look at them after the first long, slow time through. Yet I'm a veritable sucker when I see one that reaches out and grabs me. In fact, I've begun to wonder what my poor daughter is going to do with them all when I move on. Some old ladies collect cats or balls of rubber bands. I'm apparently accumulating art works and photo books.

Anyway, yesterday, I came across my next acquisition, I'm sure. It's pricy, but I really must have it and in a minute, you'll understand why.

Angola (the Prison, not the Country)

It appears that I'm gearing up to do some more posts on the criminal justice system here in Louisiana and some of the cases that highlight it's...shall we say...peculiarity? I realize that it's not just Louisiana. I recently watched "Conviction", for example, the movie released just last fall about Kenny Waters, who did eighteen years on a life sentence for a robbery/murder he didn't commit. The payoff of $3.4 million came, of course, but eight years after Waters died of head injuries sustained in a 15-foot fall that occurred when he was taking a short cut on the way to his brother's house for dinner six months after his release. He had earlier said he was suffering from anxiety attacks, but the fall was considered an accident. Still, we'll never know.

This weekend, I'll be viewing "American Violet", the fictionalized account of the real life case of Regina Kelly, a single mother who took on and beat the District Attorneys in Hearne, Texas, after 28 innocent African-Americans were arrested for dealing drugs there. This was only a year after the infamous Tulia, Texas, case, by the way, wherein 15% of the local Black population was arrested for drug dealing, subsequently sharing a six million dollar settlement because, yet again, it was all a big, orchestrated lie.

Let Freedom Ring!

The main problem with waiting so long between what I call "real" blog posts is that they don't stop writing themselves in my head. Consequently, while I don't publish them so that you, my Faithful Readers, can actually faithfully read them, the process keeps rolling. And when I finally do have time to sit down and write, I'm so backed up, the idea set has gone from being a forty-minute "lecture" to being a three-day "workshop."

It never occurred to me before, but this might be why some of my posts run WAY longer than you have time to read. None the less, it is what it is and here I am, keyboard (rather than hat) in hand, hopeful there's somebody still out there who will wade through what I'm about to sketch out.

The train of thought began back in February, when I was invited to take a look at this post about a situation on a "Christian" college campus in Kentucky. The blogger was basically asking the Black students on the campus (who had apparently had enough of what I imagine was an on-going racist context) to continue sucking it up until White folks have time and the motivation to change. In other words, business as usual.

Toshi Reagon: I Will Stand Next To You

It's my birthday. I am now officially really old. My birthday message to each and all of you: I love you and I will stand next to you.

If Information is the Engine, Unity is the Fuel

Activists protest in Atlanta after police killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, November 2006.
(W.A. Bridges Jr./Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

I often receive tips from students, fellow bloggers, fellow activists and friends that I should take note of one thing or another related to the topic of "race." Actually, I get so much and have so little time these days that I'm often helpless to do more than barely take note. But there are those particularly insidious, flying-under-the-radar type stories that will stop my train and force me to re-post them. This story by Hira Mahmood and Wafa Azari, appearing a few days ago at Occupied Palestine, is one of those. I offer it here in it's entirety:

The racism of the American “war on drugs,” especially in the south, is notorious. So is the racism faced daily by Palestinians. In Atlanta, a university program allows these two manifestations of racism to feed off each other and community activists are organizing to shut the program down.

On the evening of 21 November 2006, the Atlanta Police Department’s recently disbanded Red Dog Unit killed Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year-old Black resident of the northwest Atlanta neighborhood of English Avenue. As she sat in her home watching television, several Atlanta policemen bashed in her front door to execute their fraudulently obtained “no-knock” search warrant. After firing 39 shots, the police officers handcuffed Johnston, placed a dime bag of marijuana on her corpse and vacated her home, leaving her to bleed to death there (Ernie Suggs, “City to Pay Slain Woman’s Family $4.9 million”, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 16 August 2010).

When Old School Becomes Old Hat

I'm old school. In fact, I'm darn near old as the hills. Next Thursday, I'm going to hit one of those landmark birthdays that is assumed to put a human over the hill and out of commission (and I wish I could say it's only the big 5-0, but that ain't even close).

So I'm thinking about things. Taking a look around. Flexing the old muscles, physically and mentally, and pleased to discover that, thus far, at least, I appear to be largely functional. For the most part.

I get a lot of positive reinforcement for living my belief system. I still have hotties coming after me. (Hey, you get here and tell me that's not important any more!) And I can still put in a week of twelve-hour days and not wind up in a hospital.

But one of the things I value most as I age emotionally, psychologically and even physically -- if I'm going to do any of those gracefully -- is input from younger people who care enough about me to urge me in new directions when it's appropriate to move along.