The Arts Today Ezine vol. 5.7

ALAN

GRAY

+

FEATURED COMIC ARTIST pg #68

Vol 5.7

January 29, 2019

View this and past issues from our website.

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MARTIN LUTHER KING - DRUM MAJOR FOR PEACE

PIERRE BLAINE pg #130

...MAXINE WATERS

...PERCY GREEN

HAITI

pg. #12

pg. #22

pg.#116

VILLAGE CELEBRATION

DR. MALAIKA HORNE

BERNIE HAYES

THE TEARS OF MOTHER EMANUEL

John Jennings Associate Professor Visual Studies SUNY Buffalo tumblr: http://jijennin70. tumblr.com/

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

IN THIS

ISSUE:

...Listen people...

Life is a giant, invisible scale with two sides; Good and bad You and your beliefs Are the weights The things you do each day Determine the balance Your conscience is a flawless Judge and jury; It only questions you when you're wrong...

The Temptations,

"You Make Your Own Heaven and Hell Right Here on Earth" (Regarding the last line of this quote from "You Make Your Own Heaven and Hell Right Here on Earth": "It only questions you when you're wrong" Sang by The Temptations on the recording.

"The only question is what you want" Written by: BARRETT STRONG, NORMAN WHITFIELD, NORMAN J. WHITFIELD)

Established 2014 Volume 5.7 St. Louis, MO www.the-arts-today.com/ Layout/Design www.bdesignme.com

NOTE:

As the publishers of The Arts Today Ezine we take care in the production of each issue. We are however, not liable for any editorial error, omission, mistake or typographical error. The views expressed are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of their respective companies or the publisher.

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4

COPYRIGHT:

This Ezine and the content published within are subject to copyright held by the publisher, with individual articles remaining property of the named contributor. Express written permission of the publisher and contributors must be acquired for reproduction.

in partnership with Infinite Scholars Program

6

The Moline Acres Police Department College Scholarship Program wishes to acknowledge some of students in our city that have accepted the promise of a college scholarship for accomplishing the following criteria: 1.

2.

3.

4.

95 percent school attendance 3.3 or better cumulative grade average IN THE NEWS 22 or better composite ACT score INT. TRADE No major discipline problems

8

Through our mentorship program with Infinite Scholars, the Moline Acres Police Department wish help fulfill the hopes and dreams of families in our community wishing to send their children to co The Infinite Scholars program uses it extensive nationwide network of 500+ colleges and universit find a college scholarship for students who achieve the criteria above. The Moline Acres Police Department is committed to helping our students accomplish these criteria. The motto for this pro is “Our Badges Create Scholars.”

NEWS Moline Acres is locatedOTHER in North St. Louis County, Missouri. To learn more, contact the Moline Acr Police Department at NEWS 314-868-2433 or Infinite Scholars at 314-499-6997.

LINKS

16 OP / ED INFINITE SCHOLARS

36

4. Massage Therapy for Health Purposes https://nccih.nih.gov/health/massage/massageintroduction.h

LIVE/WORK/PLAY CALENDAR

54

Pictured are Moline Acres Chief of Police Colonel Ware, Police Officer Donaldson, and students Charmaine and Charles.

VIOLENCE & AM. MALE JERRY WARD

84

VITAMIN E ART OF BEAUTY

124 136 WHAT'S SELF-LOVE...

FRENCHAIRE GARDNER

THE PINK WAVE VILLAGE CELEB.

88

CELINES TAMAREZ FEAT. MODEL

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

IN THE NEWS

Export Opportunities in the Americas: Brazil, Canada & Mexico TIME | DATE | PLACE 8:00 am registration 8:30-10:00 am program Thursday, December 7, 2017 Please note NEW ADDRESS: World Trade Center St. Louis 120 South Central Ave. Suite 1200 St. Louis, MO 63105 REGISTRATION $20 REGISTRATION One-on-one appointments available following the program.

Learn about export opportunities in three major markets in the Americas region. Brazil is recovering from recent political and economic upheaval and reforms have seen growth in the energy and agricultural sectors in particular.

Canada's economy has enjoyed greater than expected growth, outpacing all other members of the G7.

Mexico continues to offer a wide range of opportunities for US exporters from industrial equipment and inputs to agricultural products.

Speakers: Mr. Fabio Yukio Yamada Director, Missouri International Trade & Investment Office - Brazil Mr. Ludovic Ortuno Director, Missouri International Trade & Investment Office - Canada Ms. Gloria Garcia Director, Missouri International Trade & Investment Office - Mexico Click here to view speaker bios and learn more.

Contact John Hensley to schedule.

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Your Source for Art Appreciation

Volume 2.1 March 4, 2015

St. Louis

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Please support our sponsors, many ofART OF FOOD | LENA JACKSON....................................................... pg. 106

fer events or programs with an emphasis on the arts and creativity.

ART OF HEALING | A.T.E.Z ................................................................... pg. 120 KEVIN POWELL | CHARLIE BRAXTON ............................................ pg. 140 OPPORTUNITIES | A.T.EZ .................................................................... pg. 148 CAREERS | A.T.EZ ................................................................................... pg. 150

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Volume 5.75.7 Volume January 29, 2019 January 29, 2019

OTHER

NEWS: FEDS SEEK DEATH...

28 BOOKS...

SAUDI ARABS...

AGENTS OF CHANGE...

RE-DISTRICTING LAW

2020 DEMOCRATIC...

ST. LOUIS POST

JEWS NEWS

AP NEWS

THE ROOT

STLMAG.COM

THE WEEK

"PROTECT Your Peace" Fox 2 News Station's Kim Hudson featuring Brother MPEROR

OCASIO-CORTEZ...

LYNCHING - FED. CRIME

GEORGE CLINTON...

TRAVIS SCOTT SAID...

NEWSWEEK

EUR WEB

NEW YORK TIMES

ROLLING OUT

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RUTH BADER GINSBERG...

HUFFINGTON POST

MICHAEL CASTRO DIES...

ST. LOUIS POST

NORMALIZATION OF RACIST...

TRUTHOUT.ORG

TEXAS INMATE FACES...

NY DAILY NEWS

TRUMP THINKS...

NEWSWEEK

DOW DROPS 653 PTS...

NBC NEWS

LEBRON JAMES ...

USA TODAY

SELMA & BIRMINGHAM...

ALABAMA.COM

FORMER NFL PLAYER...

THE ROOT

SLAVE PLAY REVIEW...

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EXPLOSIVES TOSSED...

STL TODAY

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NEW YORKER

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

MLK 2019 Programs @Your Library In celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the St. Louis Public Library hosts several programs throughout January at various locations to recognize Dr. King’s amazing accomplishments.

Sensory Storytime Stories, movement, music and sensory activity play. This program is ideal for children with autism, sensory integration challenges or who have difficulty sitting still. Ages 3-9.

Nurture your child’s young mind by attending this Born to Read early childhood literacy program.

January 15: Star Gazing Party Experience the night sky in a whole new way through one of the Library's telescopes! Get hands-on training from the St. Louis Astronomical Society. Then head outside and view celestial objects (weather permitting).

January 26: Central Writer's Group Central Writers Group provides an opportunity for authors to share their literary work with others and get usable feedback for how to improve their craft. Think of it as beta testing your novel, short stories, memoirs, poetry or essays.

St. Louis Public Library 1301 Olive Street St. Louis, MO 63103 314-241-2288 slpl.org

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Hello, I would love it if you took a moment to check out my GoFundMe campaign: CLICK GOFUNDME LINK BELOW TO DONATE https://www.gofundme.com/black-archaeologist-season-4

Your support would mean a lot to me.

Thank you so much!

- Michael Lambert

Black Archaeologist.

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

Maxine

Congresswoman

WATERS is in Charge of the Money

Sekou Franklin, agrees. He says, “Given the

attacks on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by the Trump administration, she may be able to offer a checks-and-balances and guardrails for consumers. [But] her chair may lead to tension with Wall Street Democrats, who are sympathetic to the big banks.”

F

Politics from the Ground Up

or the first time in American History, an African American woman will chair the House of Representatives’ powerful Financial Services Committee.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, through a combination of political stamina and personal grit, will head the committee charged with overseeing the financial services industry, securities, and insurance along with the banking and housing industries.

“The Financial Services Committee is very, very important particularly with what was done to undermine the power it was given during the economic crisis,” says Dr. Wilmer Leon, a professor at Howard University and a nationally syndicated radio host. “There was power the committee was given during the Obama Administration during the financial crisis. And, when the Republicans came into power, they did a lot to undermine the protections that the Financial Services Committee provided consumers.”

Congresswoman Waters says she ‘wants to undo the damage’ done by Mick Mulvaney who oversaw the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau.

To accomplish her goal, Leon says Waters will need “strong leadership from Nancy Pelosi” who was re-elected Speaker of the House by her Democratic colleagues.

Leon thinks Waters will be successful. “When you get the backing of Nancy Pelosi, you’ve got pretty big guns in your arsenal,” he explains.

Middle Tennessee State political professor, Dr.

pg.

Waters’ political career began after she worked with Head Start, graduated with a college degree in Sociology, and joined the staff of Los Angeles City Councilman, David Cunningham. After serving in the California State Assembly, she was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1991 and is the most senior of the African American female Congressional members.

“She’s got street cred,” says Dr. Boris Ricks, Urban Politics professor at California State Northridge.

“Look at her longevity, her ability to continually get re-elected, her favorability ratings…her willingness to take on tasks, individuals, and issues that may not be popular, and that her colleagues, in fact, might not even take on. She’s earned the respect of the Body as having been a chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and an individual who advocates for marginalized people.”

Ricks recalls working with Waters’ office on a voter education and registration project.

He adds, “She stands out in Los Angeles because of her vociferous advocacy for women, children, people of color and anyone who is marginalized and disadvantaged.”

America’s millennials often cast side eye at politicians, but Waters is beloved and a social media darling. Ricks knows why.

“Young people want to believe in someone, and in order for them to believe in someone, they need to know you have their back,” he says. “And, I

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

CONGRESSWOMAN... cont.

think that’s one of the things that endears her to millennials. I think that’s what has earned her the moniker, ‘Auntie Maxine.’”

Ricks studies political leaders in California and the nation, and he describes Waters as “a Civil Rights leader who’s powered by Wakanda,” explaining that she understands the struggle and sees it through a contemporary lens.

Mixing 45 and Waters President Donald Trump is not as fond of Waters.

Last summer he referred to her as having a “low IQ” after Waters led the movement to remove Trump from public office.

Leon says the President was “very sexist…and somewhat racist” for attacking Waters in those terms.

Vitriol, however, didn’t stop the St. Louis-born Waters nor will it.

The former president of Ivy Investments, Nikki Newton, is banking that Waters will bring the advocacy she’s known for to her new role (Newton is the brother of TheVillageCelebration Founder, Vickie Newton).

Newton says, “The Financial Services Committee will “ultimately be responsible for ferreting out unfair discriminatory practices in these areas which affect our community disproportionately… like subprime lending. My guess is equality will be the order of the day.”

In less than 24 hours on the job, the Congresswoman is already making headlines with her agenda to fight for consumers. Leon hopes to have her back on his radio show very soon. Yet, he knows it may take some time to get an interview with one of America’s most powerful women.

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s final speech

“I’ve Been to the

Mountaintop” January 17 I 7-8:30 p.m.

Schlafly Library 225 N. Euclid Ave.

“I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” was delivered at the Mason Temple Church of God in Christ on the eve of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, April 3, 1968.

Professional actors will read the text of the speech from scripts and perform musical selections that depict the songs popular during the Civil Rights Movement. Audience participation in the sing-a-long will be encouraged. Images will be projected that depict various events during the era. A talk-back will follow the program.

The Tammi Holland Show

WATCH NOW!

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

OP / ED SECTION

Moline Acres Police Department College Scholarship Program in partnership with Infinite Scholars Program

The Moline Acres Police Department College Scholarship Program wishes to acknowledge some of the students in our city that have accepted the promise of a college scholarship for accomplishing the following criteria: 1.

2.

3.

4.

95 percent school attendance 3.3 or better cumulative grade average 22 or better composite ACT score No major discipline problems

Through our mentorship program with Infinite Scholars, the Moline Acres Police Department wishes to help fulfill the hopes and dreams of families in our community wishing to send their children to college.

The Infinite Scholars program uses it extensive nationwide network of 500+ colleges and universities to find a college scholarship for students who achieve the criteria above. The Moline Acres Police Department is committed to helping our students accomplish these criteria. The motto for this program is “Our Badges Create Scholars.�

Moline Acres is located in North St. Louis County, Missouri. To learn more, contact the Moline Acres Police Department at 314-868-2433 or Infinite Scholars at 314-499-6997.

Pictured are Moline Acres Chief of Police Colonel Ware, Police Officer Donaldson, and students Charmaine and Charles.

pg.

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Editorial Rebeccah Bennett TRUTH: This is not the first time that this country has been run by a bigot.

It is not the first time that we have experienced political isolation and social rejection.

Founder and principal of Emerging Wisdom LLC.

A

nd it is not the first time that we have had to figure out how to metabolize our grief and fear in ways that did not immobilize us, but caused us to actualize our power to change the world.

PERSPECTIVE:

Right

and forefathers lived through horrors that were generational in scope and scale. They persisted through times when there was little chance of a better tomorrow, much less a better life – not even for their kids. Yet they responded to their lot in life by creating resistance movements, aid societies, educational and religious institutions, banks and co-ops, art forms, innovations and spiritual practices that continue to make our lives

now it might do us some good to call upon our ancestors for wisdom, strength and guidance. Our foremothers Copyright Š 2017 - All rights reserved.

better today. Remember that their blood is our blood. Their strength is our strength. They are the ROOTS and we are their FRUITS.

PRAYER:

We call upon our ancestors, those upon whom the sky fell.

We call upon our ancestors who experienced all manner of degradation, humiliation, violation and death. We call upon our ancestors, people who swung from trees and were forced to live on their knees. We call upon our ancestors, many of whom persisted, survived and endured without destroying themselves or others. May whatever it is that nourished and sustained them come more fully alive in us. Ashe.

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

“

I choose to reflect the times and the situations in which I find myself. How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?

(Nina Simone)

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

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Honoring a Civil Rights

ICON

Percy Green fearsome icon, civil rights stalwart and standard-bearer for the working class. These are just a few of the accolades one could bestow on this formidable leader for social justice.

The Evening Whirl, August 7, 1973

At The St. Louis Workers’ Education Society, Friday, September 21, a group of about 60 of Green’s closest admirers gathered to pay homage. Spouse, Jamala Rogers, an activist in her own right, accompanied him. While a powerful and robust octogenarian, Green can be quite understated when he’s not in activism mode. Therefore, it behooved the Workers Education Society to give him his just dues. And they did it in spades.

WES is a “workers’ center drawing on the past to revitalize the radical movement of the present.” Seeking “to build a permanent culture of worker-education in St. Louis,” they were instrumental in gathering 300,000 notarized signatures to block the state’s new right-to-work law that went down to defeat -- like a ton of bricks -- in August.

The organization invited Stewart Acuff, a national labor leader, to deliver the keynote address.

Acuff, for many years was the Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

organizing director of the AFL-CIO. He’s also written several books about labor organizing.

With a booming voice and a cadence of an old-style evangelist, Acuff, who is White, sermonized passionately and eloquently about the importance of workers’ unity and solidarity. He lauded the “great victory over right-to-work” calling it “the great rip off” and later saying the attempt to defang unions was “the greatest fraud of the ruling class.”

Acuff was raised in poverty in the Bootheel, the most southern part of Missouri.

His parents were sharecroppers before they “made the 100 mile trek to the distant galaxy of St. Louis.” His father joined the union and “they scratched their way out of poverty.”

The biggest problem for workers is 40 years of stagnant wages “thanks to the gift of Reaganism,” Acuff said.

Jobs with justice means bringing people out of poverty and paying them a decent wage, not $9.00 an hour or $7.25 an hour. (WES is currently involved for the fight to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.) Not only did he hammer home the point that the labor movement must be rebuilt, it must be more culturally diverse – including more women -- as “a democracy cannot survive without strong unions.” Like others, he spoke highly of Green for being a staunch supporter of the cause.

The awards program is named after its

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

HONORING A CIVIL... cont.

first honoree, Gerald C. Horne, PhD. The program’s full name is Dr. Gerald C. Horne WES Award. Dr. Horne, African American, was born and raised in St. Louis and is an endowed history professor at the University of Houston. He gave comments by Skype about Green’s contributions.

kindred spirits, the first two WES awards have definitely raised the bar.

Green is probably best known for his orchestration of unveiling the Veiled Prophet in December 1972, exposing Tom Smith,

Many of Horne’s books were for sale at the program. Also a list of his more than 30 books was also noted in the program’s booklet which included: His first book: Black & Red: W.E.B. DuBois & the Afro-American Response to the Cold-War, 1944-1963, published in 1985 followed by a series of others including: Race War! White Supremacy & the Japanese Attack on the British Empire -- to later works such as The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in 17th Century North American and the Caribbean.

Still buoyed by the beat-back of the rightto-work law, Horne spoke in glowing terms about it as a conflict between “labor and capital – locally and globally” as it “struck a blow for all working people.” His respect for Green’s on-the-ground activism is undeniable as evidenced by his heaping praise. On a lighter note, he encouraged the audience to take selfies after the program with Green as a way to memorialize posterity with one of the most prolific activists of our time.

Last year when Horne got the first award, Green attended. A photo was published in this publication showing the two pantheons of social justice, the academic and the practitioner, face-to-face/mano-a-mano -showing great mutual regard.

Obvious pg.

vice president of Monsanto. (In looking at their regalia, Horne said in his Skype comments that it reminded him of a Ku Klux Klan gathering; over the years, others have concurred. The boldness and bravado of this multi-racial group in toppling an antiquated ritual (including a parade and a ball) gained it grudging respect and recognition for exposing the rank and swank hypocrisy of the ruling class -- reveling in all its glory of wealth and privilege while exploiting the labor of the working class.

Their research found that corporate wealth mainly funded the event. (See Green on YouTube -- https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4m2Fe_tER5Y):

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Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Celebration

Dreaming In Color ARTS, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION

Friday, January 18, 2019 7–8:30 pm The Farrell Auditorium Free; tickets required

Join the Saint Louis Art Museum for our annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Celebration.

Inspired by the vision and work of Dr. King and Kehinde Wiley, the first African American artist to paint an official portrait of a U.S. President, this year’s program will focus on equity and inclusion in the visual arts. Presenters will include individuals featured in Kehinde Wiley: Saint Louis portraits talking about their experience as models and occupying space in a museum and art history.

Visit slam.org for more information

Tickets are free, but seating is limited. Advance tickets strongly recommended.

Tickets may be reserved in person at the Museum’s Information Centers or through MetroTix at metrotix.com or 314.534.1111. All tickets reserved through MetroTix incur a service charge; the service charge is waived for tickets reserved at the Museum.

Same day tickets, if available, can be obtained on-site only.

Martin Luther King Press conf., 1965; Photo: Leffler, Warren K.; Photographs in the Warren K. Leffler Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.,LC-DIG-highsm-20544

One Fine Arts Drive, Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri 63110–1380 Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

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HONORING A CIVIL... cont.

There’s most likely no one in the nation with the breadth and depth of Green’s working class activism.

But Green did much, much more to challenge the status quo.

For example, he was a leader in fighting for African American men to be hired and receive contracts with unions such as the St. Louis Building Trades and Construction Trades Council but also AT&T (then Southwestern Bell), Ameren (then Union Electric), Spire (then Laclede Gas) and a whole host of others.

His case against McDonnell-Douglas, (since acquired by Boeing) where he worked, went all the way to the Supreme Court. In Green v McDonnell Douglas Corp., May 1973, the

Jefferson Bank Protests

St. Louis, MO 1963

high court ruling established the basis in determining whether racial discrimination occurred. Green won a 9-0 decision. Legal scholars consider it as the most widely cited law in the U.S.

pg.

His courage, sophistication, keen intellect and duty to the frontlines put him in a category all his own. He’s been arrested more than 100 times in 25 years. In presenting his award, Zenobia Thompson, veteran activist, described him as “persistent.” She met him more than three decades ago in the struggle to keep open the predominantly Black Homer G. Phillips Hospital.

Green concluded with his remarks, telling the audience in complicated and layered terms about unmasking the Veiled Prophet. He spoke with such excitement, energy and enthusiasm as if it occurred just days ago. “In 1963,” he started off, “I applied to be the head of the Employment Committee in CORE, (Congress of Racial Equality) which attracted some of the most progressive CORE members, Black and White.” CORE had already demonstrated against Jefferson Bank for not hiring Black tellers and they ultimately realized many went to jail for months (some a year) to get just four Black employees. They decided future strategies would call for more demands.

The group targeted the construction of the Arch.

They met with the MacDonald Construction Company to request the hiring of Blacks but they didn’t express any interest.

“So, we were prepared to fight,” crafting tactics to expose them. After a couple of trial runs, they would walk through the work site and simply touch the Arch. They alerted the press about a picket line and probably

26

some arrest at the Arch grounds.

“The press will cover you when you let them know they’ll be some arrests, particularly if it’s Blacks are getting arrested,” he chortled.

On July 14, 1964, he and a White student Richard Daley walked passed a group of workers (of course all-White) at lunchtime and climbed the Arch.

They wanted to draw attention to the importance of “jobs that benefit the masses and working for a decent wage.” Both were ultimately arrested and he was later fired from McDonnell Aircraft. Later he started a separate group, ACTION (Action Committee to Improve Opportunities for Negroes).

On a more somber note, he clarified his reasons for focusing on jobs for African American males.

This was particularly important to convey during this #MeToo era where sexual harassment is center stage, yet the critical nature of jobs for Blacks males still resonates.

He continued: “When companies do hire Blacks, they tend to hire Black women as clerks or secretaries and males are ignored.” In addition, “White workers are indoctrinated thinking that Blacks are taking jobs from them.” Therefore, they emphasized jobs for Black males as well as demystifying the hateful messages and persecution of Black males perpetrated by the power structure and the establishment media.

should use civil disobedience to disrupt,” he thundered, seemingly his favorite tactic. He also added that we must not disregard “the right to strike.” Picket lines are fine, he said, but sometimes you got to take more forceful action.

Green’s most potent weapon is his ability to deftly pull off strategies and tactics that can leave the powerful flat-footed. Yet the question remains: Why don’t others employ these effective jabs at shaking things up?

Clearly, his passion is the interests and the issues of the working class, but he draws the line in calling police officers working class.

“Police are agents of the establishment,” he quipped.

In Horne’s Skype remarks, he said: “I’m proud and honored to have my name associated with Mr. Green.” Obviously his urging attendees to take selfies made an impact. After the program, doting fans surrounded him with their smart phones angled high to take photos with the legendary veteran activist.

Malaika Horne, PhD, is a book author, journalist and academic writer

“So the strategy is to disrupt,” he said, drawing out the word disrupt as if he were quickly pulling out of his holster his weapon of choice. “We Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

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QUICK REVIEW DECEMBER

7

This evening will also be a good night to head over to the Winter Wonderland at Tilles Park. You will be able to enjoy the magical lighting displays by car or if you’re in the mood, you can jump on the carriage for a ride. You can also stroll through the Saint Louis Zoo’s enchanting holiday wonderland and enjoy 500,000 twinkling lights, illuminated animal displays, seasonal sounds and all kinds of festive fun at Wild Lights.

Also, you can head downtown to The Stifel Theatre, as they host A Charlie Brown Christmas Live On Stage! It is a fresh take on the timeless classic that gives the audience a completely new way of experiencing the storyline as portrayed by real actors who maintain the integrity and spirit of each Peanuts character.

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Facing a new performance by Caitlin McCommis, produced by theTesseract Theatre at .Zack.

Wilda has modeled her life after that of her grandmother: to be fearless and adventure down the same dirt roads. When she’s diagnosed with a debilitating illness, the vision of her future gets ripped away as she’s welcomed to a club that she never asked to be a part of. But when another club member goes through a crisis, Wilda is forced to look her worst nightmare in the eye.

Also on Friday, you can head over to University City as COCA will be performing The Little Dancer: Livre Vivant. This year, the story comes to life in a new and fanciful way! Young

On Tuesday, the 18th, join the fine folks over at Techartista in the Central West End for their monthly book club. Read, expand your mind, make connections and discuss topics relating to business, entrepreneurship and creative thinking as this BYOB affair is open and free to all. This months book is: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou.

On Friday, the 21st, you can check out the Next Generation Theatre Company’s performance of It’s a Wonderful Life in Florissant at the James J. Eagan Theatre.

On Friday, the 7th, you can join the amazing organization, Paraquad, at their inaugural Garden Gallery exhibition, «ACCESS,» which will feature artists in the St. Louis area who are addressing ideas of accessibility in two- or three-dimensional works of art at the Bloom Café, Paraquad’s social enterprise restaurant.

Science Center and learn the real science behind science fiction and mingle with others at First Fridays. It features a different theme, hands-on activities, pub-style trivia, engaging presentations, photo ops for showing

A good time is certainly available on Monday, Dec. 17th, as you can head over to the 550 Music Center in University City for The 442s Holiday Spectacular. They will joined

by Christine Brewer, Peter Martin, Erin Bode, Brian Owens, Montez Coleman, plus other surprise special guests!

On Wednesday, the 26th, you can head over to the Missouri Botanical Gardens to celebrate Kwanzaa Festival of First Fruitswhere you’ll enjoy an afternoon of storytelling, craft and jewelry displays, and authentic African drumming and musical performances.

Thursday, the 27th might be a good day to head over to theFabulous Fox Theatre to check out Anastasia, which is a romantic and adventurefilled new musical inspired by the beloved films.

On Saturday, the 29th, you might want to check out the Caffeine and Chrome event at Gateway Classic Cars where you can bring your collectable car or just check out the others in the showroom.

Make your way over to .Zack on Saturday night for the 20th anniversary celebration of Phat Buddha Productions with a diverse lineup of performances. You’ll enjoy the afro-house styling of Hot House Sessions, along with the rap music of Scrub and Ace Ha & Fresco Kane, the rock rhythms of Decadent Nation, and the funk/rock jams of Brother Francis and the Soultones.

ballerina Mary falls asleep reading her favorite book and to her surprise, she wakes up inside the book where she meetsDegas’ The Little Dancer, and the pair take off on an exciting journey through the streets of Paris.

You can also catch the show on Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday, the 15th, I can hardly wait to take the girls to The Grandel Theatreto check out The Metro Theater Company and their renditionWonderland: Alice’s Rock & Roll Adventure! It is part theater, part rock concert and it features an eclectic mix of everything from classic rock to ska and punk as 7-1/2-year-old Alice chases through Wonderland in search of her own inner musical voice.

off your costume, and food and drink specials.

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Creativity Unbound: The Need for Urban Experimentation, Gabriella Gómez-Mont will draw from her experiences leading the awardwinning experimental arm and creative think tank of the Mexico City government—to address how we can reframe the role of government, citizens and businesses to encourage social, economic and political inventiveness for our urban futures.

Friday, the 14th is the opening

Saturday will be one of your last chances to check out the fresh new staging and reimagined scenery of Les Miserables as it makes its return to theFabulous Fox on Dec 11-16.

Also on Saturday, experience the beloved 1990s box office hit, Home Alone on the big screen with the SLSO performing John Williams’ charming and delightful score live.

See what antics eight-year-old Kevin McCallister comes up with when he is accidentally left behind from family vacation.

Later on Saturday night, you’ll find me and my beautiful bride at the Ferring Jazz Bistro, checking out the jazz / R&B keyboard styling of Robert Glasper.

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On Sunday, Powell Hall in Grand Center will be host to Mercy Holiday Celebration, which sure to make your season merry and bright! Gather for a performance filled with festive sounds of the season with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Santa Claus!

Also on Sunday, the 23rd, you can head to Cherokee Street to Off Broadway to check out some amazing local musicians at the St. Louis Blues and Soul Revue.

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On Sunday, you might find us at the Touhill Performing Arts Center to enjoy The Nutcracker as it fills the mainstage with spectacular sets & costumes led by the professional company of Saint Louis Ballet.

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The Fabulous Fox Theatre will be host to Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer Musical on Saturday, the 22nd.

On Sunday, the 30th, you can enjoy an afternoon of culture, performances and tradition during the Saint Louis Art Museum’s annual Kwanzaa Celebration.

Monday, aka New Year’s Eve, you can skate in the New Year at Steinberg Skating Rink in beautiful Forest Park. There will be party favors, noisemakers & 27,600 square feet of frozen fun!

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DECEMBER

QUICK REVIEW

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Jamaa Habari

For Your

I

iII nformation

Kwanzaa

Desemba 26 – Januari 1

Background and History Kwanzaa is a lively, enriching, seven-day celebration of the Black value system called the Nguzo Saba, a term in the Kiswahili language of East and Central Afrika that literally means “Seven Pillars.” It is further translated to mean “Seven Principles.”

These Seven Principles are the foundations upon which Afrikan culture stands and are traced back to Afrikan antiquity.

These basic Black values can still be found in Afrikan communities throughout the Afrikan Diaspora. This survival is despite the effort by european forces to destroy all remnants of Afrikan culture and identity through the period of chattel slavery. This effort of using racial differences to subjugate a people, called racism, still continues today, thus making the celebration of Kwanzaa a clear act of cultural self–determination and pride.

Kwanzaa is in the Afrikan harvest celebration tradition and means “First Fruits.” It is celebrated from Desemba 26th through Januari 1st. Since its creation in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga and the US organization, it is estimated that over 30 million people worldwide celebrate Kwanzaa today. The holiday is celebrated to heighten our recognition and commitment to those seven basic values, passed to us by our ancestors and to provide a reinforcing, uplifting cultural celebration for Black people.

Kwanzaa is a non-religious and a non-heroic celebration.

The Nguzo Saba Umoja (Unity)- To strive for and maintain unity in self, family, community, neighborhood, nation race and world Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)- To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves instead of being defined, named, created for and spoken for by others Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)- To build and maintain our community together and to make our sisters’ and brothers’ problems our problems, and to solve them together Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)-To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and profit from them together Nia (Purpose)- To make as our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness Kuumba (Creativity)- To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it Imani (Faith)- To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle

How it is Celebrated Each day of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the Nguzo Saba. Activities of that day reflect the principle of that day. The basic items used for Kwanzaa are the Mishumaa Saba (seven candles-3 red, 1 black and 3 green), a Kinara (candleholder) for seven candles, a Mkeka (straw mat), a Kikombe cha Umoja (Unity Cup) and Zawadi (gifts), given on the last day. The Mishumaa Saba are arranged in the Kinara–3 red on the left, 1 black in the middle and 3 green on the right. On each day of Kwanzaa, a candle is lit for that day. On the 1st day, the innermost black candle- Umoja– is lit and words are shared about Unity. Then, the Kikombe cha Umoja is passed to all present. Each person drinks from it and strongly says “Harambee!” meaning “We pull together!” On the 2nd day, the Umoja candle is lit, then the innermost red candle- Kujichagulia– then sharing about SelfDetermination. The next day, the previous candles are lit, then the innermost green candle- Ujima– then sharing. Continue outward each day, alternating colors, until all colors are lit on the 7th day-Imani. On the last day, a great celebration is held between many families called the Karamu (feast) . At the Karamu, the community comes together, eats and participates in activities centered on the Nguzo Saba.

For more information, visit our website- www.teachsociety.org, our page on Facebook, call (314)875-9277, or at ww.teachorg33@gmail.com.

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LIVE WORK PLAY

Volume 5.7 Janaury 29, 2019 St. Louis

We have made our way into the new year! I’m reminded of what Benjamin Franklin said, “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new day find you a better person.” I hope that every day finds you better than you were the day before. Let’s make sure that we get out and and enjoy some of the richness that is offered by the fine folks in my beloved St. Louis this month!

Of course, I have a few suggestions for you. I hope that you’ll join me!

All the best. –Nate

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This evening, head over to Grand Center for a Young Friends Event before checking out The Bad Plusband that will be jammin’ at theFerring Jazz Bistro. The trio’s arrangements range from pop, classical, and other styles. A menu of delicious eats and great drinks will add to your listening pleasure in the popular lounge renowned for excellent acoustics.

This is, of course, First Fridays in Grand Center, and all of the Galleries are free and open to the public. If you are looking to pre-game a bit, you might find me over at the lounge at KDHX for a happy hour starting at 4. Bring your own records from home, or borrow some of theirs for the community spin that runs til 7. After I get thrown out for turning it into ClubNate and/or playing jams that no one wants to hear (#notready), DJ Future Ex Wife will keep the party rolling.

On Saturday, pony up 10 bucks for a good cause to check out Whisky & Thunder at theReady Room while supporting a great cause!Play It Forward STL, a non profit whose mission it is to “ensure each child in St. Louis is provided with the opportunity to discover his or her musical talents” is hosting this event and will also have a musical instrument drop off for you to donate usable instruments. After being cleaned and repaired, the instruments will then be distributed to underprivileged children and lower income school music programs.

On Sunday, Soulard Mardi Gras kicks off the beginning of carnival season and the official end of the holiday season at 12th Night atSoulard Market Park. There will be plenty of entertainment, food and drinks as revelers will take to the streets in this annual tradition that promises some raucous fun...for free!

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Local Events JANUARY

Carib Sundays is jumping off at the Incognito Bar & Lounge in Berkeley for those who love the Caribbean and African culture.

They aim to provide a friendly and welcoming environment while keeping you entertained through Reggae, Dancehall, Soca and Afrobeat Music.

Also on Sunday, DJ Carlos Suarez spins an eclectic mix of house music of feel-good vibes at the magnificent Angad Arts Hotel.

The rooftop lounge features a full bar with panoramic views of the city. Come for the good vibes, scene and amazing ambiance of the newly opened hotel. The hotel is a development within the larger Grand Center Arts District. Oh yeah, and it’s free!

EmbodySexy is a small group women›s latin dance class where you learn the basics of rumba, cha cha, and salsa. Learning to dance nourishes your best self and had great health benefits. No experience or partner is needed. Join in and let’s dance!!

Drop in for one or all four of the series of hour long classes at the Discover Ballroom inFrontenac: January 6th, 13th, 20th,

and 27th.

For a different type of artistic therapy on Sunday, how about heading over toCreve Coeur for Painting with a Twist and Bottomless Mimosas. Paint and sip on mimosas, or your own favorite beverage while enjoying, music, games, and stepby-step instructions provided by talented instructors. No experience required! Feel free to bring your favorite drink, or buy from them! They have a variety of beverages for sale in their studio bar!

Sunday will be a great day to head out to Chesterfield to The Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House as it will be transformed into an enchanted land! Escape the cold and experience Winter Jewels at the Butterfly House. Visit a fierce dragon and noble nights at the Castle, discover tropical jeweltoned butterflies and fairy gardens in the Conservatory, and meet new friends in the Gnome Forest.

Wednesday the 9th is opening night of Canfield Drive performed by the The Black Rep at Washington University Edison Theater. The play continues for several weeks in January and highlights the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, that sparked outrage and a national conversation on justice. This powerful performance will move audiences to ponder the stark realities of our time. A must see!

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LIVE WORK PLAY

Friday the 11th is an opportunity for you to learn about outdoor community building at the Gateway Outdoor Summit at St. Louis Union Station Hotel.

The keynote speaker is St. Louis native Luis Benitez, director of the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office. A six-time Mount Everest climber, Benitez is a strong advocate for expanding business ventures and recreational activities in the great outdoors.Registration required.

On Saturday the 12th there’s plenty to do out and about. The Sheldon Concert Hall always delights audiences with stellar stage performances. Keep in mind, too, the many great exhibits in the Art Galleries, such as The Immigrants: Works

by Master Photographers (last viewing on Saturday the 12th) and St. Louis Through the Lens of a Child: Photographs by Students of Forsyth School(through February 2nd). It will be a treat to see the creations of talented children studying right here in our own home town.

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Art Saint Louis will be hosting a free reception for their new exhibit on Saturday evening.Attention to Detail is a all media juried visual art exhibition that will feature artworks that are predominately defined by the details of their composition: Artworks that are either marked by a density of detail or intricacy, or by details presented in isolation or contrast to surrounding elements—all works where significance, meaning or impact is achieved principally in or through detail.

On Saturday evening, Ignite Theatre Company presents the Disney classicBeauty and the Beast at The Grandel (Thursday the 10th through Sunday the 13th).

If Grand Center Arts District is one of your favorite stomping grounds, check out the lively calendar of events to plan your next visit!

If you’ll be out on Saturday the 12th but not in the downtown area, head over to Maplewood for a good time. There will be over 40 beers to choose from at theSchlafly Cabin Fever Festival. Sure, it’s chilly out there, drinking cold brew and all, but take heart and bundle up. Bonfires, hot food, sizzling bands, and a heated patio will warm your spirit in the middle of winter!

Another awesome opportunity on Saturday is an evening guitar performance

by Cory Wong at Blueberry Hill. Plan on dinner either before or after the show at one of the many Delmar Loop restaurants.

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

LIVE WORK PLAY

Maybe you prefer to be on the dance floor instead of sitting in a chair when the music is in full swing, If so, here’s something for you -- learn a variety of Swing steps at the Majestic Dance Studio on Tuesday the 15th. This is one in a series of classes.

On Tuesday, the 15th, I will be hosting the Keys to Homeownership seminar at the Richmond Heights Community Center. This free seminar will help potential homeowners learn the steps involved with achieving homeownership. If you know anyone interested, please send them my way.

Starting Wednesday the 16th and going through February 2, The Wolves at theThe Repertory Theatre will inspire girls, boys, and athletes of all ages as a team of teenage soccer players make their way through a myriad of circumstances and emotions to pull out all the stops to win the game.

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Illusionists, mentalists, and magicians all wrapped up in to one, Amelie Van Tass and Thommy Ten, are a talented pair. Having toured far and wide and taken second place on America’s Got Talent, The Clairvoyants defy explanation in their show-stopping performances. Friday the 18th. At the The Sheldon, of course.

Also on Friday, Greensky Bluegrass will fill The Pageant with toe-tapping sound. Straight out of Kalamazoo, Michigan, the band transcends the traditional genre to evoke a new way of hearing those iconic rhythms that get everyone moving!

On Saturday the 19th, if classical music is more your thing, a concert ofBeethoven and Schumann, with conductor Karina Canellakis and violinist Renaud Capuçon, is scheduled at elegant Powell Hall.

The second in a series of community conversations organized by Opera Theatre, Representation & Responsibility: Racial and Gender Equity in Film and Television features a panel discussion on an important topic. Change continues to unfold in popular culture, so take a moment to listen or join in the discussion.

A wine and cheese reception follows.

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

LIVE WORK PLAY

Into The Third Dimension at Fontbonne UniversityArt Gallery showcases student and faculty 3D artwork from regional community colleges. This will definitely be a dynamic show. The exhibition continues through February 15.

On Monday the 21st Derek Palacio, Deborah Taffa, and Tiana Clark share their work in the River Styx Reading Series annual multicultural literacy program atRooster on South Grand. Besides great storytelling, the food will be good too. Rooster was voted best breakfast in Missouri -- and best crepes, best Bloody Marys, and best brunch in St. Louis.

From the 24th through the 26th MADCO 2 graces the stage at with vibrant movement and color at The Touhill Performing Arts Center. The audience participates by voting on their favorite choreographed piece on Thursday and Friday. The winning dance will be performed Saturday.

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The Enterprise Center Winter Jam 2019 is an in-the-round performance on Thursday the 27th. Several top groups and musicians, including the Newsboys United, Ledger, and Danny Gokey, to name a few, hit the stage. Tickets are only $15. That is a steal for an evening filled with such a mix of outstanding artists!

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

LIVE WORK PLAY

Be sure to see Kehinde Wiley: Saint Louis at the Saint Louis Art Museum. The exhibition makes a poignant statement about the lack of people of color portrayed in art. Wiley gives ordinary citizens an esteemed place in grand settings that evoke historic portraiture. Continuing through February 10.

Read, expand your mind, make connections and discuss topics relating to business, entrepreneurship and creative thinking. The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy by Mariana Mazzucato is the next book at the Techartista Book Club, which takes place on Tuesday, the 29th Yes, we have another great month ahead of us. I look forward to seeing you out and about enjoying our wonderful St. Louis!

All the best. ~Nate

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Nate K. Johnson ABR,CIPS,CRS,GRI,SRES Real Estate Solutions Group Redkey Realty Leaders 314-575-7352 Direct

JANUARY

31

314-514-9600 Office nate@livingstl.com www.livingstl.com

continued

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

Follo

Read Article Elaine Young ­ Artist

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Experience You Can Trust.

Our products and services have helped millions of American families and businesses prepare for life’s major events and their related expenses.

As a licensed agent,* I can help you: • Meet your everyday needs • Save for your children's education • Save for retirement • Preserve your estate • Prepare for the unexpected • Care for elderly parents

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

ACT

S AND

HADOW

I am in 75th birthday mode and predisposed to write dangerously.

A novel scheduled to be published on January 29, 2019 by PenguinRandom House may be an omen about what some of us may feel obligated to do in remembering 1919 and the race riots that bloodied that year. I refer, of course, to We Cast A Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin, a book for which I have great expectations. My expectations exceed those of the in-house promoters who guessed Ruffin’s novel will appeal to “fans of Get Out and Paul Beatty’s The Sellout.” I would have been more pleased had the promoters said the debut novel will appeal to serious readers of fiction who have not allowed George Schuyler’s Black No More (1931) and Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry (1929) to hibernate in the dustbin of oblivion. That would indeed have been a smart gesture of advertising and contemporary American literary politics, a foil for the claim that Ruffin is “writing in the tradition of Ralph Ellison and Franz Kafka.” I believe that Ruffin is in the black-on-black-on-black tradition of transforming low satire into praiseworthy art, a tradition commodious enough to embrace Ellison the myth-maker and Kafka the parable-blacksmith and the fabulous trickery of unnamed West African tellers of tales from back in the night.

I am in 75th birthday mode and predisposed to champion a novel I have not yet read.

Unlike an award-whipped critic who will wait for We Cast A Shadow to earn a major or minor prize before she or he will offer a generous appreciation, I am secure if I gamble in the casino of the unknown.

As I mentioned some weeks ago to a friend, I believe Ruffin like the poet Clint Smith, the photographer L. Kasimu Harris, and the playwright Harold E. Clark belongs to a new wave of writers and artists from New Orleans who have class, who have mastered craft, and who just naturally address our now-future society (not a nearfuture one) of, to quote from the PenguinRandom House promotion, “resurgent racism, segregation, and expanding private prisons.” In the Age of Trump, they are less surreal than “forreal,” and they know how the “tragic magic” of actuality manifests itself. Read Ruffin’s novel to discover how long the shadows of chaos might be. ~Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

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Available -

NOW!

on lulu.com and Amazon.com Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

“

�

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

--Â Charles Mingus

pg.

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

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“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

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VIOLENCE AND AMERICAN MALE LIFE HISTORIES

O

ur constructions of “reality” convince us, a bit too easily, that violence is an essential feature in the lives of American males and as “natural” as is the history of violence in the founding of our nation.

The same constructions sponsor the myth of gender, allowing us to contend that women are naturally less violent than men. We are socialized in the United States to be gullible, to be worshippers of under-examined truths and full-blown lies. This seems to be our fate, our destiny, our normalizing of cowshit and bullshit .

We can imagine relatively violence-free male visions, as did Clifton Taulbert in Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored and subsequent installments of his autobiography, but the aesthetics of hubris retard our doing so. The American majority has an unholy, acquired taste for the sounds of explosions and gun-fire and the lurid patterns of blood leaking like water. News sources nurture our penchant for violence daily , supported by non-racial ideas pertaining to “social death”; cleansed of race, ethnic, and gender qualifications, Abdul R. JanMohamed’s theory of “the death-bound subject” explains the practices of American thought and life as capital we can’t quantify.

That is to say, that of course violence can be measured in terms of number of casualties and estimated value of property loss. We do not have , I suspect, reliable instruments and methodologies to measure psychological damage for an entire national population. We merely dream the 21st century will donate them to us.

secular, African oral literatures, European drama and narratives ----the bulk of world literature has glorified and transmitted the necessity of violence.

Blame is inherent in human histories.

A body of literature which epitomizes humanity, African American male life histories ----narratives of the enslaved, the post-1865 true stories, autobiographies and memoirs of the 20th and 21st centuries --enable our acts of reading to sweat. Such recent books as Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, Kevin Powell’s The Education of Kevin Powell, and Gregory Pardlo’s Air Traffic satisfy our prejudiced expectations with what Pardlo calls “a transformative moment, a moment in which we experience not just the characters or speaker in the poem, but the poet herself in crisis……If nothing is risked, if nothing is offered in sacrifice, then there is nothing to draw poet and reader together” (211). The narratives are transforming magnets, and they draw us to the invisible mirror wherein we male readers behold the violence that shapes our faces as well as our fates ~Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

We need not have excessive anxiety because mankind has practiced violence for many centuries.

Reserve anxiety for the fact that mankind has so long valorized the three Vs: violence, violation, and victimization. Nor need we bother to deconstruct the fact; the fact deconstructs itself. The Bible, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Homeric epics and Greek tragedies, Chinese and Indian stories religious and Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

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Two upcoming activities need your presence.

Be a part of our working groups to move this dynamic campaign.

Alder Terry Kennedy will open up the 2019 Aldermanic Session on Friday, January 11 at 10 am with three critical bills we have helped to create and/or shape. We need to show our support for 1) legislation to update the Civilian Oversight Board;

2) curb on police Surveillance of citizens; and 3) a

Racial Equity bill. See you Friday at City Hall. Tell a friend!

Ald. Kennedy to introduce three important bills

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

Would you like a printed copy(s) of an issue mailed to your home?

Send your request to us by email **Remember to include the volume/issue** Cost may vary per issue.

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BLACK COMIX RETURNS - African American Comic Art & Culture

A hardcover collection of art and essays showcasing the best African American artists in today's vibrant comic book culture.

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

Jazz in my soul

Marvin Gaye & Bobby Scott

By Edith Anderson

My play “Jazz in My Soul/a Marvin Gaye Story” never started out to be a stage play, I simply wanted to do a jazz show spotlighting the songs Marvin Gaye & Bobby Scott recorded back in 1968, beautiful torch songs from the Great American Songbook… songs Marvin Gaye had chosen to show the world his chops as a jazz singer. I was going to call the show “Marvin Gaye/On the Wings of Jazz.”

I was ready!

After brainstorming the idea with my husband and others I concluded that I had work to do. Almost no one knew these songs existed and had no clue Marvin wanted to be a jazz singer. So, my job was clear… I had to tell Marvin Gaye’s story of his desire to be a jazz singer and have the concert at the same time. Simple right? Well it took about 6 years of starting, stopping, and starting again…reading, researching, fantasizing and dreaming. And at the end of the proverbial rainbow waiting just for me, all tied up in a big beautiful bow was “Jazz in My Soul/a Marvin Gaye Story.”

New attitude, new title!

Now that I’m done writing, and after a successful “reading” I find myself thinking more and more about Mr. Scott, and the relationship between the two men. My research for the play was focused mainly on Marvin. I didn’t give Mr. Scott a voice, (a physical voice). But now I want to learn more about him.

One day recently I felt an urge to hear some music from “Vulnerable” (the album by Marvin Gaye which my play is all about.) Instead of going to my own music file, I decided to google “Vulnerable” and listen via YouTube. One of my favorite pastime activities on YouTube is checking

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out the comments people leave underneath each song. I enjoy reading all the nice things said about Marvin Gaye’s incredible voice. I’m always taken-a-back at the amazement of younger people who are hearing him sing jazz ballads for the first time. That is always a treat for me.

But instead of getting Marvin Gaye’s “Vulnerable” a video popped up! It was the Berklee School of Music! WHAT?!

It was the Berklee Music School doing “The Shadow of Your Smile” from the Vulnerable album with vocalist “Bilal” singing just like Marvin Gaye! Oh My God! I was blown away! Where was this video when I started my research for Jazz in My Soul? I didn’t see it! It was posted in May of 2015, why hadn’t I seen it?!

After I finished beating myself up about it all, I felt a sense of pure unadulterated validation. Suddenly I was not alone.

It was no longer just a story I heard about back in the day, or some old songs Marvin just happened to record. NO! This made things different…this music is alive! It’s living and breathing right now in 2019!

The Berklee Music School brilliantly did what my play calls for at the very end, “A Concert!” The school recreated the entire “Vulnerable” album. (The album by Marvin Gaye arranged by Bobby Scott (some songs) released in 1997 after the death of both men.) It was beautifully done. Berklee’s rendition of the album was arranged and conducted by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson with the Berklee Neo-Soul Ensemble and Berklee Contemporary String Orchestra. The concert was produced by Revive Music founder Meghan Stabile.

It’s on YouTube, check it out for yourself, just type Vulnerable in the search engine. Thank me later

I didn’t stop there, as a matter of fact I can’t stop. I keep finding extraordinary bits and pieces about Bobby Scott, and how much he and Marvin’s life paralleled.

Bobby Scott was a child prodigy, he studied under

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

JAZZ IN MY SOUL... cont.

Edvard Moritz at the La Follette School of Music at the age of eight and was working professionally at 11.

Marvin Gaye was also a child prodigy, he started singing in church when he was four years old, he was encouraged to pursue a professional music career after a performance at a school play at 11 singing Mario Lanza’s “Be My Love.”

Bobby Scott was born in Mt. Pleasant New York, in 1937, Marvin Gaye was born in Washington D.C. in 1939. Bobby was a singer, songwriter, arranger, he played the piano, vibraphone, accordion, cello, clarinet, and double bass.

Marvin was a singer, songwriter, arranger, he played piano, & drums. Okay, Mr. Scott had him beat in the “instrument category” but we’ve got to understand, Marvin had a rough life, grew up in tough neighborhoods. I don’t imagine there were many cellos being passed around. Never-the-less, I’m sure had he been presented with a cello or a vibraphone or whatever, he would have mastered them as well.

Bobby was known for writing and recording the iconic “A Taste of Honey.” Marvin was known for writing and recording the iconic “What’s Going On.” I have also learned that Bobby married twice and so did Marvin, Bobby has one child Marvin has three. Marvin passed away before Bobby in April 1984. Bobby passed away 6 years later in Nov. 1990 of lung cancer. (both men, very easy on the eyes) I found all these little similarities buried in plain sight, but I still haven’t found what I long to discover…I want to talk to someone or read about someone who was in the room when Bobby Scott and Marvin Gaye recorded the songs for the “Ballad Album.” Or I’d like to talk to someone who knows something about the relationship between the two men. Now that would be golden! I can’t find anything, not a single word Mr. Scott has said about Marvin Gaye, directly or indirectly. That makes me sad.

But hold on! Just recently I googled Mr. Scott’s image (as I have many times before,) and for the first time I saw a new photo! This time with a lovely young woman, he had his arms around her waist. WHAT?! Wait a minute! Could this be his wife? No! She turned out to be a beautiful young singer-actress whom Mr. Scott recorded back in 1971 in London England.

It was a lovely online JazzWax article by Mr. Marc Myers, dated August 04, 2011. The lady’s name is Ms. Christine Howe, and the album she and Mr. Scott collaborated on is yet

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another masterpiece, it’s called “What a Beautiful Place” She sings like a bird on loan from heaven, and the interview read like a scene from a movie. The interviewer at one point asked Ms. Howe if she “loved” Mr. Scott, she answered YES! WHAT! Now of course that could mean anything, but to me it meant everything! Ms. Howe has quite a story herself, and yes, I have corresponded with her. She is fascinating! I won’t dare disclose our personal communication other than to say that Mr. Scott did not talk to her about Marvin Gaye.

That was my main purpose for wanting to connect with her, however just getting to know her and hearing her life story is so amazing! I’m eternally grateful to Ms. Howe for sharing some of her story with me. I can tell you this, she is planning to write her own memoir, I can’t wait!

If you have read my play or if by chance you sat through our “reading” back in April of 2018, then you may have guessed by now that I am a “hopeless romantic,” and what I see in the story of Marvin Gaye & Bobby Scott is so intriguing. Every little taste of information I get the hungrier I become. So many questions dance through my head. Why did Marvin ask Bobby Scott to arrange his songs, why Bobby? Were the two men fans of each other? Mr. Scott was working with Quincy Jones a little during the time he and Marvin collaborated, did he ask Quincy first? What really happened in the recording studio in 1968? After the recording session did, they talk again?

You see, Marvin & Bobby still hanging around rent free in my head.

To Be Continued…

New news from Jazz in My Soul/a Marvin Gaye Story coming soon!

Watch this space!

62

Click Here

to read Ms. Anderson's interview of Catherine Howe.

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TEN

The Empowerment Network for Men facing Prostate Cancer From: iHEART COMMUNITIES w/ JADE HARRELL

Prostate cancer is not only an invader of the human body it is an infiltrator of the human spirit. Survivor, Mellve Shahid made a promise to God to support and serve other men battling prostate cancer when he was diagnosed ten years ago. He founded The Empowerment Network and has been changing lives and creating hope for hundreds of men ever since. Click here for the podcast.

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

Featured

Cartoon Art Submission

#blackgodcomics My name is Alan gray, known as BlackGodComics on social.These are some of the latest ips in development for BlackGodComics. Details will come out over time, I want you all to receive this story in the right way. Follow @BlackGodComics on Instagram and other social media platforms.Â

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Alan

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Gray

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“

An artist's duty, as far as I am concerned, is to reflect the times.

(Nina Simone)

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76

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

#BlackDollsMatter

Buy Now!!!

Bring a sense of pride and strength to the extraordinary girl in your life.

Madeline Delilah Doll and chapter book www.stagemotherproductions.com pg.

78

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

I've Been to the Mountaintop!

Join us on Thursday, January 17th, at the Schlafly Library 7pm to see our production of “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”.

Delivered at the Mason Temple Church of God in Christ, on the eve of of his assassination on April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gives voice of the conflicts African-Americans face.

This free performance will highlight how these social injustices still ring true today.

"Time's a Gettin' Harder: Stories of the Great Migration" Save the date of C2C's production" Stores of the Great Migration" in celebration of Black History Month 2019, with the Saint Louis Public Library. The performance will take place: o Thursday, February 21st, 2019 o Schlafly Library (225 N. Euclid Ave.) o 7pm Although emancipated, the hopes of freedom were dashed during the Reconstruction Era, crushed further

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by Jim Crow. African-Americans’ burning desire to control their own destinies led to the difficult decision to pull up long-planted roots and journey into the unknown.

The stories will recount through narratives, music, and slides that will describe true accounts of individual lives and collective experiences of people who participated in and witnessed the Great Migration firsthand.

PRE-ORDER TODAY::

2018 marks the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King death. Here is my new book "My Mother. Barack Obama. Donald Trump. And the Last Stand of the Angry White Man," honest look at America 50 years later on race, sexual violence, guns, more.

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

ART OF BEAUTY

E

Vitamin

pg.

82

A Powerful

ANTIOXIDANT

Antioxidants are substances that inhibit oxidation "or reactions promoted by oxygen, peroxides, or free radicals" (Miriam Webster). Free Radicals can be damaging to the body and have been linked to cancer, premature aging and other diseases caused by oxidative stress.

Antioxidants neutralize the cellular damage caused by free radicals.

Vitamin E is a fat-soluble, lipid-based vitamin that can be taken as a supplement, applied topically or by eating foods found in a well-balanced diet. Its properties are required for the proper function of many organs in the body.

see us. It can show, if we are suffering ailments, our diet, and our age (for some). As we grow older our sking loses elasticity and thins out which results in wrinkles and sagging.

Vitamin E use in skincare goes back many years as help with dry skin and wrinkles.

Today, it can be found in many creams and lotions sold in the health and beauty industry to achieve younger looking skin.

E

Whether you smooth it on after bath or ingest it orally via supplement and/or food, your skin (and body) will benefit from this powerful antioxidant.

Some Natural Sources of Vitamin E

Our skin is the largest organ we have, with a total of about 22 square feet. It serves as a "coat" for our bodies and performs several functions.

Skin:

• Protects internal organs and structures from biological, chemical and mechanical attacks.

• Regulates body temperature (sweat glands) • Protection against cold and excessive water loss • Sense of touch, info exchange between body and the outside world Our skin is an open book to the those who Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

Sunflower Seeds Almonds Cashews Hazelnut Oil Sunflower Oil Almond Oil Pine Nuts Pistachio Peanuts Pecans

According to the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine, healthy adults can take a maximum of 1,000 mg of vitamin E daily.

Black Berries Cranberries (dried) Mango Kiwi Atlantic Salmon Avocado Rainbow Trout

Sweet Red Pepper Broccoli Mustard Greens Spinach (raw)

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DISPLACED

&ERASED

The history of Clayton, Missouri's uprooted black community. emmakriley.com

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84

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Featured

Model

Submission

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Celines

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Tamarez

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Katherine Dunham Fellowship aims to diversify arts leadership

The Arts and Education Council (A&E) recently opened applications for the eighth annual Katherine Dunham Fellowship, which will be offered in the spring semester of 2018. This will be A&E’s first year offering the fellowship after seven successful and transformative years with the Regional Arts Commission. The Katherine Dunham Fellowship was created by Sara and Jack Burke to give AfricanAmerican men and women an opportunity to explore, gain experience and be mentored in arts administration, creating a more diverse pipeline of arts leaders.

The fellowship is named in honor of legendary dancer, choreographer, educator and social activist, Katherine Dunham. Dunham, who was considered one of the most successful dancers of the 20th century, founded the Performing Arts Training Center (PATC) at the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Center (an A&E grantee).

Dunham taught dance, along with foreign language, cultural history and anthropology at the PATC. The fellowship was created and is funded by Sara Burke, who was the first white dancer to study under Katherine Dunham at the PATC. The Katherine Dunham Fellowship is open to African-American undergraduate and graduate students or recent graduates. The man or woman selected receives a $3,000 stipend, experience in all the critical skills needed to manage an arts organization – including fundraising, corporate relations, database management, fiscal and board management – and mentorship from current arts administrators and leaders.

“It’s important that people in power are willing to share it and provide access and advocate for those wanting to get into the arts who are underrepresented,” explained Sara.

“Until we share that power, we are never going to change the complexion of this city, much less the arts.”

One goal of the Fellowship is to see a representation in the city’s arts institutions — large and small alike — of AfricanAmerican and other minority leadership at all levels.

Applications for the Katherine Dunham Fellowship are open through October 20.

For more information and to apply, click here.

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

What do I do?

I help the college bound teens of busy parents write extraordinary college entrance essays. And, I provide perceptive leaders with trustworthy diversity & inclusion facilitation.

My book, Chop: A Collection of Kwansabas for Fannie Lou Hamer, is available at www.femininepronoun.com

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ART OF FOOD

Take it

HOME I’ve learned a lot as a school chef.

I know all the little tricks to get kids to eat their vegetables (which most of us know is a feat in itself). But the biggest challenge is having to look up, modify, create and spruce up countless recipes so our food isn’t wasted at the end of the day. I’ve done just that with my twist on a quesadilla sauce which tastes similar to the one at Taco Bell. It can be used on tacos, burritos, nachos, etc. and your dish doesn’t taste dry and has an added kick.

Our school menu challenges me at times to be creative and flexible. Take for instance, The Southwest Chicken Wrap that appeared on the menu without a recipe, so I had to create one. Which, according to the students, turned out pretty tasty and seemingly was enjoyed by my coworkers. I shared what little leftovers we had with one of my best friends and her son and they devoured it. She even called me a few days later requesting the recipe.

As a kid, I remember strongly disliking Shepherd’s Pie, probably because I didn’t eat a lot of beef. I remember solely eating the mashed Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

potatoes and maybe the cheese off the top. So when I saw it on our lunch menu, I was immediately skeptical that the kids were going to eat it. Miraculously they did!

So for the recipe below, I swapped the beef out with a popular vegan/vegetarian alternative. Sloppy Joe’s was another one of those dishes that I really disliked as a kid. I hated getting messy and I was not a fan of how it tasted. As I’m writing this, I’m finally realizing how much of a picky eater I used to be. I honestly still have not tasted a full Sloppy Joe. However, the from scratch sauce for the “filling” is delicious.

I’m anxious to try this recipe out with some ground turkey when cooking with my nephews and godson.

Enjoy these recipes & don’t be scared to tweak them to make it your own. ~Léna O. A. Jackson www.facebook.com/gspDore www.instagram.com/gspDore gspDoreinfo@gmail.com

Bon Appétit,

Doré

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ART OF FOOD... cont.

Vegan Shepherd’s Pie

2 tsp

Ketchup

½ tsp

Worcestershire Sauce

1 ea

Garlic Clove

12oz/1 pkg

Morning Star Crumbles

½ ea

Onion, chopped

¼ C

Carrots, shredded or diced

¼ C

Green Beans, cut

¼ C

Peas, optional

¼ C

Corn

~ 2 C

Mashed Potatoes

as needed

Daiya Shredded Cheese

7x5”

Baking Dish

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Southwest Chicken Wrap

Taco Seasoning

10-12oz

Chicken Breasts

1 ½ C

Cilantro Lime Rice

2 C

Ranch Dressing

1 ¼ C

Salsa, chunky

1 ½ C

Black beans

12 ea

Tortilla wraps, warmed

½ C

as needed Shredded Cheese 1. Season cleaned/washed chicken with oil and taco seasoning. Bake in oven for 15 – 20 minutes at 350 F. Chop or dice chicken and set aside.

2. Next in a medium sized bowl, combine the ranch dressing, salsa and remaining taco seasoning together. Add your diced chicken and black beans & toss together until fully incorporated.

3. With your warmed tortilla, begin layering in your ingredients at will. Add the cilantro lime rice, chicken-sauce mixture and sprinkle the desired amount of cheese. Roll the wrap and serve warm. *Tip: Make sure your tortilla wraps are warmed.

This will ensure that the wraps will not break when filling and rolling them. There are several options you can try to do this. I recommend separating them, laying them out on a (cookie) sheet tray and using a small amount of non-stick spray in between each layer. Place damp paper towels over the tortillas and let them sit at a very low temp in the oven for about 10 minutes.

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ART OF FOOD... cont.

Quesadilla Sauce 2 Tbsp

Mayonnaise

½ C

Sour Cream

1 tsp

Garlic Powder

½ tsp

Ground Cumin

½ tsp

Paprika

1/16 tsp

Cayenne Pepper

OR 1/8 tsp

Jalapeno Pepper Juice

¼ tsp

Salt

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and use liberally inside your quesadillas or burritos.

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Sloppy Joe Sauce 2lbs

Beef/Turkey/Vegan Alternative

2 ¼ C

Ketchup

¼ C

Brown Sugar

2/3 oz

White Vinegar

2/3 oz

Worcestershire Sauce

1/8 C

Yellow Mustard

½ Tbsp

Black Pepper

1 ¼ oz

Lemon Juice

Combine all ingredients and whisk inside a large pot. Heat on medium-low for approximately 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add cooked ground beef, turkey or vegan alternative to the pot and serve hot.

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CALL FOR ART “All Colors” OVERVIEW: “All Colors” is an invitational and juried arts exhibit featuring the art of approximately 100 artists and 200 pieces of art. The show takes place January 13 through February 28, 2018 at the St. Louis Artist Guild, 12 Jackson Avenue, Clayton, Missouri 63105. We expect strong attendance, as the “All Colors” exhibit is a fund raiser with art and related funds to benefit artist of all disciplines, small not for profit 501C3 organizations and community/neighborhood organizations. Clayton, and the surrounding region have long been supporters of the arts and Portfolio Gallery and the “All Colors” sponsors are committed to make this exhibit a successful fund raiser and to introduce the St. Louis Metropolitan region to artist that mainstream publications have overlooked.

HOW TO APPLY: Online applications may be completed though Portfolio’s website at www.portfoliogallerystl.org Click the Call for Art link that will take you to the sign-up, upload and payment. Each application must include the requested uploaded images and an artist’s statement of 100 words or less explaining the artist’s creative process including specific information about technique and materials.

Submit your art now!

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

LABOR DAY SPECIAL!! ACCEPTING NEW CLIENTS FOR

WEEKLY MEAL PREP, CONTACT INFO BELOW!

Meal prep plans, personal chef, and health coaching services available. Plans starting as low as $75.00- For limited time only!! For more information contact fabulouslyveganme@gmail.com and visit fabulouslyvegan.com!

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Walking the Blue Line: A Police Officer Turned Community Activist Provides Solutions for the Racial Divide

By Terrell Carter Bettie Youngs Book Publishers

$15.00 paperback

“As I recall my experiences, I find it incredulous that people in law enforcement honestly believe and say that a racial divide and racial profiling don’t exist. An officer’s mind is divided: first, between the police and the general public and second, between the police and minorities.”~ Terrell Carter Walking the Blue Line follows the author’s experiences growing up as a black child in St. Louis, MO, a racially charged city still trying to overcome its divided past, and his five year journey as a law enforcement officer which led him to reevaluate his views on citizens and police alike. Readers are taken on a compelling journey as he details personal stories of the challenges of navigating this new world, including how he had to testify against a former partner for falsifying a major drug arrest.

Terrell details the thoughts and tactics of police officers based on their training in the police academy and lessons they learn on the streets and how this information can help citizens better understand why officers do what they do while still holding them accountable for protecting and serving their communities.

Walking the Blue Line can be ordered from www.terrellcarter.net, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and traditional booksellers.

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

Haiti

While so much attention is placed in Trump’s imaginary invasion caravan and migrants from Central America and Mexico, are the Hattians to be ignored again?

Haiti in past months burst into chaos.

Rioters took to the streets, ransacking everything in sight, burning cars in front of American hotels and barricaded streets with burning tires and destroyed hundreds of businesses. The bedlam and panic, triggered by a potential dramatic rise in fuel prices, conjured images of the 1990s when Haitian “boat people” by the thousands fled toward the United States after a violent coup only to be turned around by the U.S. Coast Guard. The Clinton Administration refused them entry claiming they were “economic refugees,” even as Cuban refugees were granted political asylum. U.S. Marines, who had occupied the island from 1914 to 1934, landed again in Haiti.

In

recent years, the US congress has passed legislation to provide relief for refugees from Nicaragua, Cuba and Eastern Europe, but what about the Haitians? Today, there are thousands of Haitian refugees seeking asylum or permanent residence in this country. Haitians are now and have been for years turned away from the United States while people from other nations, mostly European, are being accepted, and often given loans and grants to assure them of the mythical American dream.

During the 1980’s, Cuban boat people were welcomed with open arms while Haitian refugees were returned to their island. What is the reason for these double standards?

What else but racism? If white people cannot accept this term, which is supported by the above-mentioned facts, they must have their heads in the sand, or the hatred for people of color is more deep seeded than they realize.

I am surprised that many of our progressive, liberal, broadminded organizations have not spoken out recently to note the unequal treatment that is so epidemic in the US Congress. Why isn’t the system being challenged because of the discounting the thousands of black refugees who have been crying out for years for freedom and justice, and just a little piece of the American dream?

I ask this question. Do I sound bitter? I am not. I am just being realistic and asking you too also to accept the way America is. I am not condemning this country. I am just asking citizens to realize the fact that race is an issue that we must all face. But being in denial is not a way to progress.

Conditions for Haitians have not improved in recent years.

As a matter of fact, conditions for black Americans have not improved either regardless of what the presidents proclaims. Perhaps Donald Trump, while boasting that more American’s black are working now than ever before, he will visit urban communities in major cities around the country. I wonder if he might conclude that money for loans for small

businesses should be made to poor blacks,

Hispanics and poor whites instead of to millionaires and his personal cronies.

~Bernie Hayes

The United States often label Haitian refugees as economic entrants, meaning that they do not merit asylum. They are treated worse than what Trump considers the migrants in his imagined ‘Caravan’ approaching the US-Mexican border.

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Socks that heal broken a he a rts DONATE Socks for Courtney is a fund-raiser/Sock Drive in memory of Courtney Adavia Kemp

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Shop Online Today at NOrepublicansNEEDED.com

Wear Your Disgust on Your Tshirt

N e w s .T s h i r t s . C h a r i t y Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

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ART OF HEALING Your Ad or Article could be here!

Contact us if you have a contribution to the ART OF HEALING.

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RICKKITA EDWARDS

CARDIO-CORE & MORE AT NORTH COUNTY REC. CENTER

TIMES: MON WEDS FRI 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM

She teaches a class 2 Mondays a month at Faith Miracle Temple 7:15 pm - 8:00 pm.

(ALL CLASSES ARE FREE)

COMING SOON! WAIST-NOT FITNESS PERSONAL TRAINING #GETWAISTEDBYRICKKITA

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Self-Love

What's

?

Got to do with it

WHAT’S SELF-LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

BY FRENCHAIRE GARDNER Explicit language There is nothing like firm hands pressing into your muscles, skin and knots in your body easing your tension. Energy transferring while toxins released. “The Patient Education Institute defines massage therapy as ‘the manipulation of the soft tissues of the body, including the skin, tendons, muscles and connective tissue by a professional, for relaxation or to enhance the body's own healing capability.’ They expand that this is done through the process of ‘applying pressure to the body.’ Even if you are only having a massage to relax, it will have unexpected health benefits, including taking toxins out of your body.”1 What we can stand to do a lot more of is self-care and loving ourselves.

Self-love & self-care are doing those things that heal us mentally, physically and spiritually. We show other people that we love them sometimes to the detriment of our own health (codependency). Save some of dat love for yourself. Take time out of your days to do something special for yourself. Well I’m saying some of the days in the month must be dedicated to your revival, renewal and rejuvenation. Massage therapy is a life-giving source of self-care. A few other tools: lots of positive thoughts, affirmations and gratefulness. Be grateful daily and within each moment for the small things like breath; the beauty of a butterfly or flowers; enjoy the delights of some amazingly refreshing herbal tea or bassy live band sounds. Take the time to always FEEL your feelings. You cannot allow yourself to be extreme in your feelings & emotions on this planet (i.e. desensitized & numb or happy ALL the time). You must remain grounded to stay in tuned with Your Ancestors and the Universe. Massage therapy is also a source of healing for mental health. “Research continues to document the impact for relief of anxiety and depression for people in a wide range of health situations.​8,9,10,11​ For example, one randomized study found women with stage 1 and stage 2 breast cancer benefited from regular massage therapy sessions. The immediate massage benefits included reduced anxiety, depressed mood and anger, while the long-term impact reduced depression and increased serotonin values. Serotonin, a neurotransmitter with functions in various parts of the body, works to regulate mood, appetite, sleep, memory and learning.”2 Loving yourself means you know yourself really well. You have discovered your “Truths” are about yourselves. You know the root reasons why you do what you do.

Yes, I said it self-love or love of self. We must continue to fill our own wells as we pour our waters into other vessels.

1 2

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1W ​ HAT’S SELF-LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? © Frenchaire Gardner www.the-arts-today.com January 29, 2019

SELF-LOVE... cont.

Deep breaths and meditation are sources of rejuvenation and self-care. Meditation helps you get grounded, centered, align your chakras, hear from your Higher Being and/or Ancestors; and relieves anxiety and tension. I am no expert but I have been healing myself from traumatic experiences over the last couple of years. These are some of the tools that I use to lead a joyous peaceful daily life despite the trauma I have overcome and just the regular daily African oppressive struggles and stress. “A 2010 meta-analysis of 17 clinical trials concluded that massage therapy may help to reduce depression. Brief, twice-weekly yoga and massage sessions for 12 weeks were associated with a decrease in depression, anxiety, and back and leg pain in pregnant women with depression, a 2012 NCCIH-funded clinical trial showed. Also, the women’s babies weighed more than babies born to women who didn’t receive the therapy.” 3 Even though, I meditate, get adjustments from my chiropractor, visit my acupuncturist, get reiki, breath deeply; I still hold some tension in my shoulders. Most women do.

Since I was at least 18 or 19 years old, running track at Southern Methodist University, I can recall feeling literal balls or knots of tension sitting ingrained within the fabrics of my muscles. Even though it hurts some at the moment, I really appreciate the relaxation and release that comes from the firm hands of your massage therapist. You can literally feel pressure, gases and toxins leaving those knots when they press hard and long enough. Some massages really dissipate the knots and tension which is something really to be grateful for. Thank the Universe for all manners of releases.

Here is another study discussing the benefits of massage: “Much of the evidence suggests that these effects are short term and that people need to keep getting massages for the benefits to continue...Massage may help with pain due to osteoarthritis of the knee, according to a 2012 NCCIH-funded study.Numerous research reviews and clinical studies have suggested that at least for the short term, massage therapy for cancer patients may reduce pain, promote relaxation, and boost mood.Massaging preterm infants using moderate pressure may improve weight gain, a 2010 review suggested. We don’t have enough evidence to know if massage benefits healthy infants who are developing normally, a 2013 review determined.”4 All of this goes back to what I said in my previous article, “How to Manifest Your Visions,” you must be open to new things for yo healing freedom. We really do perish for the lack of what we don’t know. We cool wit what we know. But damn that stuff we do not know whoops our butts. Growing leads to new knowledge to apply to your lives 3 4

2W ​ HAT’S SELF-LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? © Frenchaire Gardner

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for further leveling up. I visit Soulful Touch Massage or they come to me for massage therapy. The owner describes their services as “Massage for working class people.

Everyone may benefit from massage.” Isaac Peterson 314-753-1287. Follow him on Facebook ​to indulge in the monthly specials. Much love and abundance. Thank you for reading this. Subscribe, support and all dat other good shit. The links are in my bio.

Bio: Frenchaire Gardner is a serial entrepreneur and creative: Mother of Joseph Jr., Frenchaire-Two, Melchizedek Malcolm X and Sarai. Manufacturer of her business’s Be And Us LLC Nigerian Organic Shea Butter and retailer of her own African Market filled with African makers’ products. Founder of FFSMJ For Frenchaire-Two, Sarai, Melchizedek and Joseph Jr. Design House. Creates flyers. Partners with Exhale STL, Yeyo Arts Collective and The St. Louis Natural Hair & Black Culture Expo Foundation.

She is a visual artist, marketer, model, activist, photographer, actress and dancer.

Graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. Pan-African spiritualist. Read her other published works: ​issuu.com/artstodayezine/docs/arts_today_5_1/154 https://www.houseofotem.com/blog/protecting-your-most-valuable-asset-and-you r-practice Follow her on Instagram and Twitter: ​@frenchaire @msfrenchy06 Facebook.com/BeAndUsLLC Youtube channel ​frenchyswonders.healthyplacebotanicals.com FrenchaireGardner.com bit.ly/ScheduleBeAndUsLLC Yeyo Arts Collective Exhalestl.com St. Louis Natural Hair & Black Culture Expo Frenchaire Gardner © 2019 References 1. Massage & Skin Toxin Release by Sharon Therien https://www.livestrong.com/article/262762-massage-skin-toxin-release/ 2. Research Roundup: Benefits of Massage Therapy for Self-Care: 3 Ways Massage Can Impact Your Self-Care https://www.amtamassage.org/research/Massage-Therapy-Research-Round up/Research-Roundup--Benefits-of-Massage-Therapy-for-Self-Care.html 3. Massage Therapy for Health Purposes https://nccih.nih.gov/health/massage/massageintroduction.htm 4. Massage Therapy for Health Purposes https://nccih.nih.gov/health/massage/massageintroduction.htm

3W ​ HAT’S SELF-LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? © Frenchaire Gardner

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Drum Major for Peace

people the instructions that enlighten them to resolving systemic institutionalized disparities in our polity. These issues of race, class and culture clash against the ideals of our founding as a nation. Dr. King led us through the buses, through the streets, through the courts, through the Congress, through the White House, through the churches and through our collective consciousness as a drum major for truth, justice and the American way. He taught us what it truly means to be an American.

By Pierre Blaine We need to reflect on the 51st Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s death because we as a people and as a nation and as a world must stand on the principles which he left on creating the beloved community. We shall either come together and recognize our collective humanity or we shall die because of wars which will end up destroying humanity as we know it. We need to stop running away from the founda-

tion that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. bequeathed to us. Our elders can, have and will give to our young

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The great social movements in America are accomplished by leading a charge of a million points of light. We cannot allow hatred nor the perpetuators of hate to lead our country down a great abyss. We will miss our opportunity if we only deal with curing the symptoms of systemic problems in America. Democracy, just like the atom, has a nucleus - a dense center of highly motivated individuals composed of positive and negative ideas. If we are unable to find common ground, no positive electrical charge will be created to move our cause forward. Factionalism is a fact of life in a pluralistic society, but nothing gets accomplished even when we mean well unless factions can find common ground. The rules of “moral engagement” as practiced by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. offer a paradigm that can be useful in training this army of activists. King’s doctrine of nonviolent social change can be an effective strategy to prepare the people for a movement for improving our communities.

Today, everybody except the elements of our society who think that flying the confederate flag represents our American ideals, loves the teachings of Dr. King to move our country forward to solving the systemic

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MARTIN LUTHER KING... cont.

problems of poverty, racism and mass incarceration.

But during his time, that was not the case and in fact he even had to scold those pastors who were part of the ecumenical community that did not agree with him – at first. Dr. King laid out the basic outline of implementing a nonviolent campaign in his Letter From Birmingham Jail.

If we come together we are more formidable than the money that is being spent to retard the vote, disenfranchise the vote, to purge the voting rolls, to change how the census is being implemented to purge the vote, to decrease the numbers to negatively impact the drawing of the district lines for representation in Congress, to reduce the number of immigrants in this country, to devalue women, to implement injustice. Dr. King shows us the way in his sermon – The Drum Major Instinct.

“In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and This sermon was delivered three months before his direct action. We have gone through all these steps death and Dr. King preaches on how from a very in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact young age all of us crave to want to be first. We all that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birminghave the Drum Major instinct. He preached about ham is probably the most thoroughly segregated how the race question grows out of the Drum Major city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality Instinct – the need to feel suis widely known. Negroes have perior to another human being experienced grossly unjust causing discrimination and ractreatment in the courts. There ism. Dr. King shared the story have been more unsolved In any nonviolent of how when he was incarcerbombings of Negro homes and ated in the Birmingham jail the churches in Birmingham than campaign there are four white prison guards came to Dr. in any other city in the nation.” basic steps: collection of King and Dr. Abernathy to disThere are many in the 21st cuss with him why blacks and the facts to determine century who say that these whites should be separated and tactics of confronting racism whether injustices that Dr. King and the movement and injustice in America do not was wrong for protesting and exist; negotiation; selfwork since we find ourselves trying to bring about change to in similar circumstances right purification; and direct America. now. I submit that we are not action...

Dr. King then asked the jailers where we were 51 years ago where did they live and how although we have not improved much did they earn? in many ways the poverty and racism that Dr. King confrontWhen they told Dr. King what ed. Each generation must confront these issues they earned, Dr. King told them: “You should be until they are fully resolved and they will not be fully marching with us because you are just as poor as resolved until Americans who not believe that these we are and the very same forces that oppress us policies represent who we are as Americans, conare oppressing you.” After the congregation had a front these issues and make the changes necessary big belly laugh, Dr. King pivoted back to his sermon to implement justice in our country. If you are not about the two men who asked God if they could sit part of the solution, you are part of the problem, if on the right and left hand of God? you cannot vote then you are part of the problem, if you cannot put politicians in office who will impleKing then paraphrases Jesus’ response: ‘Oh, I see ment policies that support a living wage, a path to so you want to be great. You want to be first. You citizenship, companies that manufacture goods that want to be significant. Well, you should be. If you do not harm the environment, then you are part of are going to be my disciples, you must be. Yes, the problem. Yes, the money that is being spent in this is a good instinct if you do not pervert it. Keep our elections is unconscionable but we the people feeling the need to be first. But I want you to be first still have the power to change it and the opposition in love. I want you to be first in moral excellence. I only has the votes when we get confused and we want you to be first in generousity… talk ourselves into finding a way not to participate.

Jesus gave us a new norm for greateness. If you Yes, we can overcome the bigotry, hatred, mass inwant to be great, if you want to be important, if you carceration of black people, gerrymandering, police want to be recognized – wonderful. But understand brutality, assault on women, the Latino community, that he who is great among you shall be your serthe assault on our environment, vant. By giving this definition of greatness, it is pos-

“

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sible for everybody to be great, because everybody can serve…

Hauntingly, Dr. King then preached his own funeral: ‘Tell them on that day not to mention that I won the Nobel Peace Prize – that is not important, tell them not to mention that I have over 400 awards – that is not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. On that day tell them I would like somebody to say that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to live his life serving others. I’d like somebody to say that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to love somebody.

I want you to say that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to say I tried to feed the hungry.

I want somebody to say that day I tried to clothe the naked. I want you to say that I did try to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say I tried to love and serve humanity. Yes, if you want to say I was a Drum Major say that I was a Drum Major for peace. I was a Drum Major for righteousness. Say that I was a Drum Major…

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life is not a period, but a comma And therefore, we all must become Drum Majors for Peace.

Pierre Blaine is the author of the book: Movement: Race, Power and Culture in America Available on Amazon.com

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Interview with Lewis DIUGUID: Award-Winning Journalist Uses Example of Father to Encourage Today’s Men

There is much discussion today about ways to stem the downward spiral of young African American men. Veteran journalist, Lewis DIUGUID, mines the past to offer hope for the future. TheVillageCelebration’s Vickie Newton talks with Diuguid about his book, Our Fathers: Making Black Men.

Listen to the Interview

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Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

‘Pink Wave’ The Black Women Who Helped Create the

Are Now in Office

The 116th Congress convened yesterday with a record number of African American women sworn in, ushered into office by an electorate motivated by dissatisfaction with President Trump, Republican lawmakers, and the direction of the country.

who specializes in race and gender studies, says, “Voters realize that Black women can be effective and reliable leaders. Indeed, their history in this country, in so many ways, provides overwhelming evidence of this.”

Georgia Congresswoman, Lucy McBath, took her place among the ranks of the newly elected lawmakers. McBath defeated an incumbent Republican, Karen Handel, in November in a close race. But, McBath’s fierce commitment to gun control after losing her teenage son in a shooting in 2012 resonated with voters.

Democrats elected longtime California Congresswoman, Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House for a second time. Pelosi is expected to continue the effort she and Minority Senate Leader, Chuck Schumer, started before Christmas to end the partial government shutdown which is entering its third week.

Imara Canady, who has worked on local and na-

tional political campaigns and supported McBath’s candidacy even though he does not live in her district, attended yesterday’s Congressional Black Caucus swearing-in which included McBath.

He says, “The previous Congresswoman was business as usual, but Lucy was a voice of change and hope and commitment and connecting with the community. And, I think that’s what will make her successful as a Congresswoman.”

Massachusetts’ Ayanna Pressley, Michigan’s Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tllaib were also sworn in yesterday. Congresswoman Omar is the first Muslim woman elected to Congress, and she called it a “new day in America.”

With Democrats controlling the House, an African American woman will serve as its Floor Director.

Shuwanza Goff will work with House Majority Whip, Congressman Steny Hoyer, and Speaker Pelosi to manage the floor by deciding the bills that will become part of the Democrats’ agenda.

The country witnessed the political might of African-American women when they led the 2012 re-election of former President Barack Obama, thwarted the election of Alabama’s Republican candidateRoy Moore to the U.S. Senate, and organized voter registration efforts around the nation in the 2018 midterm election that resulted in the number of victorious Congressional campaigns run by women of color.

Getting the Job Done

New Day, Familiar Stories Dr. Cherisse Jones-Branch, a history professor

pg.

“There are so many Black women who have been strong leaders and advocated, not just for black people, all people,” says Branch-Jones. “From Harriet Tubman during the Civil War to Mary McCleod

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PINK WAVE... cont.

Bethune in the early to mid-twentieth century to Shirley Chisholm in the 1970s to this recent upsurge in Black women being elected to political office, it is clear that black women have always been capable, if often overlooked and marginalized, leaders.”

The new Congress will get to work quickly, addressing the matters voters elected them to tackle.

The President of the U.S. Black Chamber of Commerce, Ron Busby, also attended the ceremonial swearing-in of the Congressional Black Caucus and expressed pride in the growing number of African American leaders.

He said, “Members of the Caucus hail from every region of the country and represent more than 79 million people in 28 states. We look forward to working with them.”

And, African Americans, many of whom were buoyed by the obvious impact of voting in the midterm 2018 elections, look forward to watching them lead. In the words of Canady, who snapped pictures of McBath and others, the 116th Congress represented “a new era of female leadership.”

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FEATURED

VIDEO:

- Micha

Black Arc

This Is America Parody This Is Black History - Childish Gambino pg.

138

ael Lambert

chaeologist.

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Kevin POWELL Responds to

Minnesota Lawsuit

By Charlie R. Braxton

Recently Kevin Powell, writer and longtime activist and community organizer, along with his wife, Jinah Parker, dancer, choreographer, playwright, and educator were sued for defamation of character by a Minnesota resident by the name of April Sellers, who, according to reports is a White female dancer and choreographer.

The lawsuit stems from what appears to be a simple case of mistaken identity. Here’s what happened.

During the weekend of October 20 of 2017 Parker received an email from a woman named April Sellers lambasting her and her husband for their recent work SHE, a Choreoplay that tackles issues of sexual violence against women. According to Powell, the missive was not only unjustly critical of their work, but it was especially hurtful and hateful toward them as a couple married just four months at the time. After doing some research Powell came across an April Sellers who was a dancer and choreographer in Minneapolis, Minnesota and, naturally, assumed it was the same person. In the midst of all of this, Sellers’s letter appeared on Facebook. When this happened Powell felt he had to respond. On November 4, 2017 Powell wrote an open letter responding to the Sellers’ dispatch and sent it to about 35 people in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area—this included the Twin City arts and media community. Sounds logical, right?

Well, the only problem is that the April Sellers Powell was addressing in the letter he wrote was not the April Sellers who actually wrote the letter in question. That April Sellers was a Black female who lived just outside of Cleveland, OH, which was not discovered until an affidavit appeared in June 2018, nearly half a year later. It was a case of mistaken identity, an unintentional accident that could have been cleared up with a public retraction and apology. Perhaps the three parties involved could have went on a national dialogue tour where they could’ve have used the unfortunate incident as a teachable moment to honestly discuss issues of race and gender issues. th

Unfortunately, according to Powell, neither he nor Parker was ever given the chance to retract or apologize to the aggrieved party. Instead they were hit with a massive defamation lawsuit demanding that they fork over $500,000. After trying diligently Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

to settle the matter out of court to no avail, the two were forced to hire an attorney and fight the suit in a Minnesota court. Sadly they lost just this past December, 2018. April Sellers was awarded over $210,000 dollars by a white judge and predominantly white jury. The couple vows to raise funds and appeal the decision. Recently, we sat down with Kevin Powell to talk about his views on the case, its impact on him and his wife, and the deeper implications for race relations in this country.

Q: You and your wife Jinah Parker just lost a defamation lawsuit in Minnesota, where local dancer and choreographer April Sellers was awarded more than $200,000. How do you feel, and what is the status of your appeal?

KP: We certainly feel the decision was very biased because of who we are, because of who I am, we have lost faith in aspects of the legal system, and are exploring all options, including an appeal.

Q: Why did you send an open letter to the wrong April Sellers in the first place, which started all of this for you and your wife?

KP: We need to clarify which April Sellers you are referring to. Within 30 days of the open letter I sent to April Sellers we received the complaint from her lawyer, Aaron Scott of the law firm Fox Rothschild, demanding more than $500k.

Q: Did you ever attempt to reach out to April Sellers about any of this?

KP: Once we received the letter from Ms. Sellers’ lawyer in December of 2017, we were precluded from speaking directly to April Sellers.

Q: Take us back to how this entire thing began. What was your initial issue with the other April Sellers’ original email and Facebook post?

KP: We feel the chronology of events needs to be clear, as it has been continuously distorted, in court, and by some media. First, an ugly and hate-filled email was sent to Jinah the weekend of Oct. 20, 2017. It attacked www.the-arts-today.com

Volume 5.7 January 29, 2019

KEVIN POWELL... cont.

Jinah, it attacked me, it attacked Jinah’s work, SHE, a Choreoplay, and it attacked our marriage. It came from someone named April Sellers. We waited two weeks to respond, and only because whoever April Sellers was also happened to post the original hate email to Facebook (a space with one billion people), and only after speaking with Rohan Preston of the Star Tribune, my colleague of 25 years or so, who said the email sounded like something April Sellers in Minnesota would send, because he knew her, had observed over the course of years. Between my conversation with Mr. Preston and the research we did at the time where April Sellers in Minnesota was the only name who continually came up, we thought we had the right person. Why would someone not a dancer or choreographer, we thought at the time, send such an email? I did all of this protect my wife, please let me be clear about that. Second, I sent the open letter Sat. Nov. 4, 2017, with my BCCing it to about 35 people, none of whom ever responded in any form. April Sellers in Minnesota responded that day, and again perhaps a week later. And like the first April Sellers email of Oct. 20, this April Sellers posted to Facebook, a public forum. We did not know what was happening, why this was done twice now, and were frankly scared because I routinely gets death threats, abusive outreach of all kinds, because I have been a public figure since the early 1990s, and because we did not know if this person was emotionally unstable and thus, dangerous. That is why we did not respond. And the next time we heard anything was in late December 2017, from Aaron Scott, April Sellers’ lawyer, saying we were being sued for over $500,000. There was no offer from April Sellers’ lawyer to make an apology publicly, no offer to make a public retraction, nothing. Just a demand for money. So it is patently false to say that this could have been remedied from the beginning with a simple apology. The lawyer never asked for one, he asked for money. It was not until June of 2018, around the time of our depositions in New York City, that we were finally told there was a different April Sellers, based in Ohio, who signed an affidavit saying she was the person who in fact sent the hate-filled email to Jinah Parker in October of 2017. From June 2018 to right before the trial in December 2018, we offered several times an apology and a retraction, and every single time Aaron Scott, the attorney for April Sellers, rejected it, saying money had to be attached, as much as $200,000-$300,000. Even moments before trial begun, Aaron Scott and April Sellers rejected an offer to accept an apology. And one of the greatest and most insane ironies of this entire thing: the April Sellers who says she is the real April Sellers who wrote the original hate email to my wife was brought to the trial by the opposing lawyer, Aaron Scott, to testify against us, as the star witness for their side.

Q: What made you decide to send an open letter to April Sellers and some 35 people in the MinneapolisSt. Paul arts and media community?

KP: This situation put me in an emotional place I’d never

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been before. Someone was attacking my wife of only four months at the time, frightening her, and using me to do it. I guess you can say I acted from an emotional place, which is not the norm for me, not at this stage of my life. I, we, are both very sorry for any pain and embarrassment we caused April Sellers of Minnesota and are willing to do this publicly. But the story being told now is positioned to gain a financial settlement we are unable to pay.

Q: Do you feel that you and Jinah were treated fairly during this entire episode, including the trial?

KP: We had to fire our original attorney, but were able to hire the right attorney, Lee Hutton, just weeks before the trial. We believe that too much damage to our case was done to save it, honestly, by the first attorney. However, this is a case about what is punishable financially. Saying something appears to be racist apparently has more protection than using the N word. And it was not lost on us that the judge was a White woman, and 99 percent of the jury were White, with one Asian woman. Not a single Black person was even a part of the jury pool selection.

All of this in a state, Minnesota, which is majority White, where there have been many articles written about it being one of the least desirable places for Black people to live in America. So, no, we feel the entire process was biased against us from the beginning, and that the legal system was used abusively to come after us, especially me. I seriously doubt there would have been a lawsuit against my wife if it were just her. Or if I were not a public figure and, to some, a so-called celebrity.

Q: How has this entire thing affected you and Jinah Parker, how are you coping with what has happened?

KP: 2018 was the single worst year of my entire life, and my wife would say the same. This entire matter led to both of us having health issues from the stress, me a bladder issue and my wife an outbreak of shingles and two hospital visits just before the December 2018 trial. And we continue to receive hate messages on social media from racist trolls because of the local media coverage and the outcome, finding myself having to constantly block people calling me all kinds of names, including “rapist.”

Me, a man who has been a pro-feminist male doing redefining manhood work since the early 1990s, all over the country, and globally too, as an organizer, as a speaker, as a writer, all of which is well documented, including YouTube speeches of mine on re-defining manhood, as well as public conversations I have had with major feminist women leaders like Eve Ensler and bell hooks.

But these messages are coming from angry White men and angry White women, some using their names, some

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hiding behind fake names, all because they believe, or have been led to believe, that Black people, a Black man, has done something very bad to a White woman. No matter how you slice it, there is forever a racial overtone throughout this situation. And the hatred via social media and email is coming from some incredibly racist people in the state of Minnesota, not a state Down South like Mississippi. Minnesota, the state that gave us cultural bridge-builders like Prince and Bob Dylan, yet the ugliness of the messages my wife and I have received since the trial, and because of the two newspaper articles, from these folks in Minnesota is far worse and far more racist than anything I have ever experienced in the American South, either directly in person or via social media or email. Finally, the Star Tribune and City Pages articles, because of how biased they are, how they were written, actually create a climate of danger to my wife Jinah Parker and I. Yes, we think now of our safety because of all the hate messages. Look at the very recent physical assault of “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett because he is Black and gay. These kinds of attacks are always fueled first by words and ideas put out there very carelessly, they enrage and ignite people, then the hate crimes and violence in various forms happen again and again. Or look at how very recently two White Minnesota males admitted to bombing a Muslim mosque in that state, to terrorize Muslims into leaving their state. This is the climate of America, where we other people all over the place, and then people act on what they are being told or taught. That is why even when I sent my open letter to April Sellers, I was clear it was just going to be an email, and only to those 35 people or so, and it ended there.

Nothing on social media, no media interviews of any kind.

And not once during the trial did April Sellers ever say she received hate messages because of my open letter, because that simply never happened. Meanwhile, those Minnesota newspaper articles which malign Jinah and I are read and shared by millions of people, online, offline, everywhere. Huge difference, and far greater harm has been done to us because of what the Star Tribune and City Pages published, literally fanning the flames that should have burned out with the judgement into a massive fire where are now, very seriously, concerned for our safety.

Q: If you are not a rich and famous writer, as some seem to think, a celebrity, then who are you, what are the misconceptions about you?

KP: One of the biggest misconceptions is that just because someone is or has been in the public eye, that automatically means they have money. I said this at the trial. People like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates have money, professional athletes have money, famous Hollywood folks have money. People like me are average Americans just trying to make ends meet. But the opposing attorney simply saw a person who has been on tv, who does speeches, who writes books, and made this very false assumption of wealth on my part. Meanwhile, I owe the IRS hundreds Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

of thousands of dollars in back taxes, I have a $200,000 debt from having to postpone my wife’s theater production in 2018, and even my wife has over $100,000 in student loan debt. I literally borrowed money hours before we had to arrive for the Minnesota trial, just to pay for our plane tickets and hotel and meals in December. At the end of the day I am just an activist and writer whose entire adult life has been dedicated to serving and helping others, to be a truth-teller. It is unglamorous work, there is no regular salary, no benefits, no healthcare, in fact I have not had health benefits since I worked at Vibe magazine in 1996, 23 long years ago. If I need to go to the doctor, I have to pay for it, period. And most writers never make money from books at all, I have never had a bestselling book to date, and I have never made a single dime from any of my 13 books. I write because it is my great passion of life other than being an activist. And we know freelance journalism does not even pay much. So for the opposing lawyer to not even bother to research who he was suing, what income I actually have, what taxes and debt I actually owed, was really mind-boggling to me, to us. And for him to be relentless in pursuing money in spite of that felt like a personal vendetta against me, for God only knows what reasons. I sat there and listened to all kinds of lies and half-truths about me during that trial, when I know I have built a reputation in this country, as both a leader and a writer, of very serious transparency, honesty, integrity. But when folks are pursuing money at all costs, things like justice and truth get thrown out the window very quickly.

The picture that was painted was that I was some sort of immoral monster, a person who waged a calculated campaign against April Sellers of Minnesota, which is all false, as if I or my wife have nothing better to do than try to injure people. No, we were simply responding to an ugly email, and we responded to the wrong person.

This all got blown completely out of proportion. But this is also, again, very racial to us, and is so similar to how Black people, especially Black men, have been painted historically in this country. We are quick to be demonized, villainized, even when basic facts are missing in action, intentional or not. Meanwhile here I am doing speeches and community work all over the country, helping people of all races and cultures all over the country, daily, weekly, yearly, bringing people of different backgrounds together constantly—the complete opposite of how I was depicted at that trial. And the same goes for my wife, and her life work, healing, empowerment, bringing people together. It is an outright lie and highly irresponsible to even remotely suggest we want to see anyone’s life or career destroyed.

That is not just terrible karma, toxic energy, but the exact opposite of who we are as human beings. And if folks actually bothered to do their research, real research, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that we even operate in that way ever, individually, or as a couple. But in the era of social media, short attention spans, and click-bait headlines, this is what happens to people, and then they alone have to navigate through the madness of it all. This is why I never even thought to put that open letter to April Sellers in any form other than email. Meanwhile here folks are sharing those Minnesota newspaper articles about us all over social media. April Sellers testified at the trial that she thought in her head folks might not want to have www.the-arts-today.com

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KEVIN POWELL... cont.

anything to do with her, but no concrete proof was ever presented. Meanwhile Jinah and I are dealing now in real time with complete strangers trashing us every chance they get, saying the most disgusting and disrespectful things, their words and behavior spurred on by those articles in the Star Tribune and City Pages. And many of these folks coming after Jinah and I with emails and on social media are very clearly right-wingers, very clearly supporters of Donald Trump (one even had a Trump banner in the background of their profile pic), very clearly racial bigots who hate Black people, hate people of color, hate anyone who is different than them, because they are using the same exact language and the same exact tactics people like me have experienced for many years: yelling, screaming, bullying, mocking, cursing, belittling, and taking all kinds of liberties with fact and fiction; and they see this situation with April Sellers, thanks to the two Minnesota newspaper articles, as a huge window through which to unleash their anger and hatred upon my wife and I.

Q: What have you learned from this entire experience?

KP: Number one, and no matter what, I choose love over hate any day. This has simply made me even more determined to serve and help others, to be a better leader, activist, a better writer, to fight even harder for freedom and justice and equality for all people. I could be very hateful right now, very bitter, and with good reason. And those thoughts certainly crossed my mind during the trial.

But, again, I do not want to be a part of what is happening in America, the hate, the violence, the fear, the ignorance, the finger-pointing, the division. This trial represented all of what is happening in the country, and here we were, my wife and I, smack dab in the middle of something foul and toxic. So to me this entire journey is a reminder of the classic case of divide and conquer: progressive person versus progressive people, White woman versus Black wife and Black husband, artist versus artists, activist-educator versus activists-educators, person with no money versus married couple with no money.

Aaron Scott, the lawyer for April Sellers, looked up my name, saw MTV’s “The Real World,” which was made in 1992 and of which the seven cast members received a grand total of $2000 or so, and no royalties of any kind since. Aaron Scott also saw my books and writings and various speaking engagements and made a very terrible assumption of wealth. As I said above, most writers and most activists and most educators have no money, live paycheck to paycheck, and that is the case with us. But, again, not once were any of our financial records ever requested or subpoenaed in any form. Not once during the entire year of 2018, including at the trial itself, were Jinah or I ever asked about any personal or collective debt. As I said during the trial, there is a huge difference between being a public figure and being famous. The harsh reality is that we are in the same financial boat as April Sellers of Minnesota before the trial, and we are in

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the same financial boat as April Sellers of Minnesota after the trial. This entire episode brought unnecessary stress and was an incredible abuse of the legal system there in Minnesota. And we feel, because we are Black, and because there was a White woman with a White lawyer suing us, and because it was a White judge, a jury where all but one person was White, that this entire thing was biased against us from the very beginning, that it was a no-win situation. And based on all the hate messages we have gotten from White people in Minnesota because of the local newspaper articles, it is strongly suggested that we as African Americans are not even permitted to be whole human beings, to have feelings about this that feel an awful like many other chapters of America’s terrible racial history. That we are exaggerating, that race has nothing to do with any of this, like we do not even have a right to our own souls, historically and present-day. So the question also begs itself now, for us: where is the apology to us for being dragged through this for a year, for the thousands of dollars we had to spend, borrow, raise, simply to deal with this? And where is the apology to us for having our reputations slandered and smeared over and over again? Yes, we greatly empathize with April Sellers of Minnesota, we would love to apologize to her directly, but two wrongs do not make things right. The lawsuit and dragging us through an absolutely unnecessary trial were completely wrong, and inhumane. And as is what we have had to deal with given all the relentless and racist trolls because of the articles in the Star Tribune and City Pages since the trial.

Lastly, as a professional journalist I also knew that the main local media in Minneapolis-St. Paul, namely the Star Tribune and City Pages, were going to write sensationalistic pieces, whether we spoke with them or not. This is what I have watched American journalism become in the 32 years I have been a journalist myself, in all forms of media.

We chose not to respond to either publication’s inquiry for an interview because of how traumatized we were and are by the entire Minnesota experience, and because I wanted to do an interview where I felt we could say very clearly and chronologically what happened. The whole truth not fragments of the truth as both these newspapers reported, or as was done by the other side during the trial.

Plus the Star Tribune and City Pages are owned by the same company, and one of their writers, the very same Rohan Preston, actually testified against my wife and I at the trial, yet here these publications are writing articles about the trial. The journalistic integrity and objectivity are simply not even there. Plus both reporters from each publication barely were at the trial, yet they write articles about the whole thing? It was drive-by journalism with click-bait headlines. That is why we did not respond to their interview inquiries, the clear conflict of interest and the absence of a serious deep dive into the entire matter, from all angles. And what the folks at the Star Tribune and City Pages fail to realize is that merely by publishing those articles they have fanned the flames of a matter that should have ended with the judgement of $200,000 in favor of April Sellers in December 2018. Instead, my wife Jinah Parker and I, because of those very biased articles,

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have been ruthlessly harassed with racist and sexist and hateful people, pretty much all White sisters and brothers, attacking us via email, on Facebook, on Instagram. Per our lawyer we are saving all of these messages and will certainly have the proper people trace them all, especially the ones clearly coming out of Minnesota. These are the same kinds of messages I have gotten since my days on MTV, and in these times, whenever I appear on CNN or Fox News Channel. They are messages calling us names, cursing us out, mocking us, you name it. The theme is always the same: hate. As the rapper Childish Gambino said, this is America. Indeed it is. That is the great tragedy of our times, and the great tragedy of this situation, because it is so typical of where we are as a nation. This whole thing began with an ugly and hatefilled email to my wife, and here we are all these months later, my wife and I, getting ugly and hate-filled emails and social media messages. There are no real winners here in any form, not even close. We all lose when things like this are allowed to fester and rot, instead of what we really need, healing and honest dialogue where people are talking with each other, not at each other.

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"Quiet Time" by: Lonnie Powell

"Cuban Dancer" by: Ed Johnetta Miller pg.

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June 26, 2017 PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release Contact: Robert A. Powell 314-265-0432 Portfoliogallery@att.net,

Portfolio Gallery today issues its call for art, and invites visual artist of all disciplines to enter at:www.portfoliogallerystl.org The “All Colors” Fine Art Show will feature 100 artist and 200 pieces of art, both local and nationally known artists, collectors and educators to the St. Louis Region.

The “All Colors” exhibition will feature the art of invited artist Dean Mitchell, Charles Bibbs, Manuelita Brown, Ed Johnetta Miller, Lonnie Powell, Robert Hale, Sandra Smith, Cbabi Bayoc, Thomas Sleet, Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi, Ronald Johnson and others.

Our goal is to create an exciting art event that attracts a national audience. Sells income will support general operations of Portfolio, Inc. a not-for-profit 501C3 arts organization and further be used to provide grants to St. Louis artists, small notfor-profits and community based organizations.

Please join the award winning Portfolio Gallery as it presents its 1st Annual “All Colors” Visual Arts Invitational & Juried Exhibition to be held January 13th through February 28, 2018, at the St. Louis Artist Guild, 12 Jackson Avenue, Clayton, Missouri 63105.

Portfolio Gallery is a member of The Alliance of Black Galleries

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