CONTENTS | FEBRUARY 2013
FEATURES
28 Blow the Trumpet in Zion: A Decade in the Wilderness Celebrating Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Inc. 34
National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness
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b Socially Responsible with Black Love: Use b condoms
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National Children’s Dental Health Month
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More From The Man Who Sued President Obama and Won: Chris Hedges
DEPARTMENTS 05
From the Publisher
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WRIGHTINGS: “An African American Genius Retires!”
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THE MESSAGE from the Executive Editor: Black Love: Not A Dirty Phrase GLOBAL NOTES 10 40 21 24
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SOUND ADVICE 46 56 14
42 49 20 60 62
BOTTOM 47 Haiti:A Telling Story Icon by Allan Boesak 40 Years Later Later-Justice Violence: The Value of Black Life, Under a Layered Legacy of Lies Ask the Dentist... National Children’s Dental Health Month Go See the Doctor... National Heart Month Practical Implications of Investment Theory
PHENOMENAL LIVING 44 49
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I Am Beautiful Because I Say So! Soul Food
REBIRTH: TRUMPET NEWSMAGAZINE, INC. LAUNCHES AND THE LEGACY CONTINUES SOUNDING ON 19 16 62
...About Self-Love BLACKWARDS: Unashamedly Black! A Renaissance for the Ages
THE ARTS 58
Book Corner: Healing the Wounds of Colorism
REAR VIEW 62 The Idol Smasher
PUBLISHER/EDITOR IN CHIEF Jeri L. Wright EXECUTIVE EDITOR Dr. L. Bernard Jakes MANAGING EDITOR Janet B. Wright COLUMNISTS Colleen Birchett, Ph.D., Erika Bracey, Marjorie Clark, Patryce Denson, Kim Dulaney, Melody Ferguson , Keenan Glover, Jazmin Hall, Dr. L. Bernard Jakes, Rev. Rae Lewis-Thornton, Terry Mason, M.D., Rev. Waltrina N. Middleton, Rev. Derrick Rice, Natasha L. Robinson, Esq., Dr. Susan K. Smith, Brenda Taylor, D.M.D., Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Allan Boesak, John Green, Chris Hedges, Jeri Wright ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Nakia Green DIGITAL SALES & MARKETING DIRECTOR Michelle Anderson-Metcalfe CREATIVE DIRECTOR Quincy B. Banks, Graphix by Dzine REBIRTH OF TRUMPET NEWSMAGAZINE LAUNCH PARTY PHOTOS Jerrold Berry | Alpha Photography 708/357/6235 | www.alphaphotography.net MANDELA PHOTO David Turnley, Photographer THE IDOL SMASHER ILLUSTRATION Mr. Fish FOUNDER Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: TRUMPET NEWSMAGAZINE 939 W. North Avenue, Chicago, IL 60642 Nakia Green, Associate Publisher 312.646.2144 | info@thetrumpetmag.com | www.thetrumpetmag.com Contents may NOT be printed or duplicated without prior written permission from Trumpet Newsmagazine.
FROM THE PUBLISHER Love is the central theme across the United States during the month of February. Everywhere you turn you see red hearts, cupids, signs and symbols of love. Millions of dollars will be spent on cards, gifts, candy, flowers, diamonds, hotel rooms, motel rooms, entertainment, concerts, restaurants, romantic getaways, and the like, as millions of people express the love they feel for those closest to their hearts and/or those with whom they want to get close. But wait!!! Before you get close to that special someone, take a look at what love really means! Take time to ask yourself a series of questions: What is love? How do I act when I love? How do I show love? Do I love myself? If I love myself, do I love myself enough to care about the consequences of sharing myself with someone else? Am I going to care about the risks of sharing myself? What do I know about STD’s? What do I know about HIV/AIDS? In order to authentically love others, you must first love yourself. When we begin to get honest with ourselves, we have to take into account what this really means. Let’s face it, we play with love. We take love for granted. Rarely do we take time to consider the meaning of the word “love.” When we go through life without fully understanding the meaning of love, we find ourselves in a world of turmoil, making one mistake after the next, sometimes, even potentially life-endangering mistakes. In a recent discussion with one of younger sister-girlfriends, I found myself nurturing her through a painful moment of facing her truth about love. She is a very successful sistah who has, for some, what mostly all women want: multiple degrees, a successful career, two homes, an independent life, and a great credit score! She is however, longing for a loving relationship with a strong Black man. In order to face the truth about love, we must dig deep, and digging deep oftentimes can be quite uncomfortable. As you read the pages of this month’s Black Passion issue, I believe you will uncover answers to your answers questions and your realities about love, loving yourself, loving others, and celebrating who we are as Africans in the Diaspora and on the Continent. You will find yourself giving deep consideration to the choices you make, and being socially responsible. You will find yourself, standing taller, with your head held high as you learn about cross-generational history making African Americans. You will also find others who are not people of color honoring the legacy of who we are as Africans in the Diaspora.You will find yourself loving yourself, and the skin you’re in! Additionally, you will find helpful information about National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness and what keeps us from knowing our status, getting treatment, and even simply getting educated. You will learn about heart attacks and preparing meals to become heart healthy during this National Heart Month. You might even find yourself compelled to take your child to the dentist during National Children’s Dental Health Month. It is my sincere prayer as you read this February issue, you will share it with others. Our desire is to encompass the whole family as we seek to Educate, Nurture, and Empower! Watch us grow! Stay tuned for more frequent updates to our website with photos from the screening of The House I Live In. Loving you passionately, Always,
Jeri
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WRIGHTINGS
An African American Genius Retires! Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.
On Friday, November the 16th, the Black Religious Scholars in the United States gathered at Trinity United Church of Christ, in Chicago, IL, to honor me, my work, my scholarship, and my ministry. While we were gathered in our Sanctuary for that ceremony, hundreds of persons gathered in Lansing, Michigan at Michigan State University to honor the life, work, brilliance, and importance of the scholarship of a close friend of mine, Dr. Geneva Smitherman. I was asked to be on the program at Michigan State University honoring Dr. Smitherman. I was honored to be asked to be present as we celebrated the work of such a brilliant scholar—and a personal friend. If you want some idea of what "mixed emotions" really feel like, imagine what was going on in my mind as I was at Trinity, grateful for the scholars who gathered to pay homage to my work while wanting to be at Michigan State University saluting, celebrating, and paying homage to the work of Dr. Geneva Smitherman! Dr. Smitherman has been one of my primary mentors since the mid-1980s! Dr. Bobby Wright, one of the Founders of the Association of Black Psychologists, cautioned us about "starting in slavery" every year as we celebrate Black History Month. (Dr. Wright, a brilliant psychologist, coined the phrase "mentacide.") His warning to us, however, was far more important than the creative coining of a term that describes what has happened to African Americans who have been "mis-educated" (to use Carter G. Woodson's term). Dr. Wright pointed out that every year during Black History Month, we lift up the names of our heroes and sheroes in the African American experience as we celebrate their contributions, their creations, their faith,
their fight for freedom, their importance, and the rich legacy they have handed on to us. We celebrate each year during Black History Month (Dr. Wright pointed out), Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Jarena Lee, Carter G. Woodson, Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and a host of other Africans who were born in slavery, but who rose above the iron shackles that tried to crush their spirits and kill their hope! We celebrate the "success" stories of persons like Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass. They were born in slavery, but they rose to incredible heights in the society of the United States of America. Dr. Wright said that is fine. Dr. Wright said that is excellent. Dr. Wright said that needs to be done! Just as the Griots rehearsed the history of their ethnic group, we need to keep alive the memories and the meanings of those tremendous lives who laid the foundation upon which we stand in the year 2013. Bobby warned us, however, that to start each year in slavery while telling our story as if slavery was the beginning of our story and we had no history before slavery means that we will forever have a "slave mentality!" The story of Africans did not start in slavery. The story of Africans in Diaspora did not start in slavery. The story of Africans in the voluntary Diasporas, which saw Africans leave the Continent and settle not only in the three Americas, but as far away as the South Sea Islands (Melanesia!) did not start in the “involuntary Diaspora” of European slavery. The story of Africans started long before the trans-Saharan slave trade, the East African slave trade and the West African slave trade. Africans brought to the “Black Atlantic” during the European Slave Trade are found in North America, Central America and South America. The story of these people (our people!), however, does not start with the European Slave Trade. Dr. Wright encouraged us to begin telling our story with the story of Africans on the other side of the Atlantic being the starting point for Black History Month, and for a true understanding of the African American experience. Dr. Geneva Smitherman is one of the hundreds of scholars in the 20th century (and the 21st century) who has done just that. Dr. Smitherman is a linguist. That is really an understatement. She is a linguist par excellence! Dr. Smitherman is the University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English, the Co-Founder and Core Faculty of the African American and African Studies
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WRIGHTINGS Program at Michigan State University. Dr. Smitherman was the Founder of the African American Study Center at Michigan State University. Among her many publications are books that have shaped my thinking, shaped my scholarship, influenced my preaching, and become the foundation for my courses I teach at the seminary level. Her books include: Talkin' and Testifyin': The Language of Black America, Discourse and Discrimination, Black Talk, Talkin' That Talk, Language Diversity in the Classroom, and Word from the Mother. Her latest book, Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S., has a description of Dr. Smitherman and her work written by Michael Eric Dyson that describes Geneva and her work excellently. Dr. Dyson says: “Smitherman is a word warrior, and an ancestral definer whose pioneering examination of Black discourse has helped us to understand and accept the blackness of our speech without excuse or apology. Her vibrant prose has sung the story of our linguistic adventures into self-definition and self-knowledge for more than a generation, and her elegant depositions in the court of public reason as a witness to our struggle for self-expression on the front lines of linguistic battle are both legion and legendary!" While I was completing my undergraduate studies at Howard University, I came under the tutelage of another linguist, Dr. Stanley Allsopp. Dr. Allsopp predated Bobby Wright’s warning by making sure we
understood the African origins of our linguistic culture and linguistic style. Dr. Allsopp opened my eyes to the African origins of our speech, our speech patterns and the beautiful languages created by African speakers of French, Spanish, Portuguese and English! Dr. Allsopp exposed me to the writings of yet another brilliant, Black linguist, Dr. Lorenzo Dow Turner. Dr. Turner's work among the Gullah people (the Geechees), their speech pattern and their music deepened my understanding as to the African origins of Black English. While doing research in this area and tying in the African linguistic foundation with the African ethnomusicological expressions, I was blessed to meet Dr. Geneva Smitherman. As a matter of fact, while lecturing on Black English, Linguistics and Ethnomusicology in Baltimore, Maryland, one of the attendees of the lecture was Reverend Dr. Ann Lightner Fuller. Dr. Fuller introduced me to Geneva Smitherman. (Dr. Fuller later earned her Doctorate under me at United Theological Seminary.) At the close of my lecture, Dr. Fuller said to me that it was interesting to hear me quote the works and the research of her good friend, Geneva Smitherman. I had never met Geneva Smitherman. I did not know what she was talking about. I did not know whom she was talking about either! Dr. Fuller called her friend, Geneva, introduced us over the phone and a 30-plus-year friendship was formed that day. Everything I had been saying, I had learned from Dr. Allsopp and from the bibliographical resources to which he had pointed me. Geneva Smitherman knew every author I cited, every postulate I put forward, and every linguistic fact I lectured
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about that day (and every day since!). Using Dr. Bobby Wright's paradigm, Dr. Smitherman started with our African roots in order to explain African American fruit! She was and she is a giant in the field of African/African American Linguistics. Geneva, in short, is a genius! On November the 16th of 2012, Geneva officially "retired." We will forever be in her debt and future generations will forever be blessed by her scholarship, her teaching, her love for our language, and her ability to show the continuity between the thousands of languages on the African continent and the language we hear and speak on a day-to-day basis. During this Black History Month, I salute her work and I encourage you to read at least three of her books! Geneva is a "bad mother-shutyo'-mouf!"
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THE MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Black Love: Not A Dirty Phrase
Reverend Dr. L. Bernard Jakes
While a student at Elmhurst College, I was in a relationship with a young lady of German descent. This young lady and I were quite serious, and we even flirted with the idea of marriage. With my serving as a student leader, and she an athlete, our relationship always found itself in the spotlight of fellow students, and even faculty. I surmised that the infatuation with our personal lives had to do with us being viewed as one of Elmhurst “power couples.” It was not until a “sistah” challenged my relationship with the young lady, during a Black Student Union meeting, that I was made aware of why the spotlight shined brightly on me and the young lady of German descent. The “sistah” challenged me on all points of being Africancentered, rather on how I could adopt the name “Oba,” speak truth to power regarding the injustices levied on the poor, particularly Africans in the Diaspora, fight for the fair treatment of Black students who were of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community on campus, etc., all while having a White woman on my arm. My response to the “sistah” was that fighting for the liberation of our people had nothing to do with whom I chose to date. I offered her the illustration that I do not have to be gay to fight for the civil rights of gay people, and I do not have to be a woman to fight for the equality of women. Attaching being African-centered with dating a White woman was, to me, absurd, and it was a poor argument as to why I should not date the young lady of German descent. I even added to the conversation that “the sistahs” on campus would not give me the time of day, and Black activists need love too (lbvs).
After being challenged, rather feeling as if my Blackness was being called into question, the scales fell from my eyes as it related to why our relationship was the talk of the campus. It was because many of the students did not believe a Black man and White woman should be together. This opinion was not one sided, it came from both Black and White students. For me, it did not matter because I was not going to allow anyone to tell me whom to date, and if we were to have fallen in love, I would not allow the Neanderthal opinions of non-progressive hate mongers to determine my happiness. After graduation, we continued our relationship. It was a slight struggle because I was attending Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and she was attending University of Illinois at Chicago. Nonetheless, we were determined to make it work. For me, I was determined to show the naysayers that like, not love, would conquer all. Fast forward to Valentine’s Day 1998. My friend and I went to have dinner at The Signature Room, atop the John Hancock building in Chicago. Once we arrived and were led to our seats, I noticed different couples, all White, staring at us; it became erringly silent. Nonetheless, we sat down and began having conversation. After having a couple of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres specially made for the occasion, my friend noticed how the patrons of the restaurant continued staring. In her conversation, she commented on how people need to become comfortable seeing a Black man with a White woman. The statement, for reason unbeknown to me, as common as it was, resulted in another set of scales falling from my eyes. As she was speaking of how Americans need to become used to interracial couples, I began examining who I was as a Black man and how it coincided with who she was as a White woman. My internal processing shifted from two humans who enjoyed each other’s company, to two humans who were of a different race. Examining myself as a Black man, moreover a Black man in America was vastly different than what I examined at Elmhurst College. At Elmhurst, I examined my Blackness from the context of overcoming struggles. During dinner, I examined my Blackness from not only overcoming struggles, but also being who God created me to be as an African man in America. There
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THE MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE
“During dinner, I examined my Blackness from not only overcoming struggles, but also being who God created me to be as an African man in America.” were clear differences between the White young lady and me— differences that extended far beyond the hue of our skin. It was at that moment when I internally declared that she and I could not continue the relationship. When she witnessed the look on my face, she knew something was different. She kept pressing me to tell her what was on my mind, and I finally did. As insensitive as it is, I said to her, We can no longer date. She asked if it was because of the White people staring at us. I responded that White people staring at Black people is nothing new, but that was not the reason. The reason was because she did not complement who I was as a Black man. Complement is defined as, A thing that completes or brings to perfection (noun); add to (something) in a way that enhances or improves it; make perfect (verb).1 1
The argument can be made that the young lady could have complemented me, irrespective of race. However, when I looked at who I was, what I would become, and the deep-seated desires I had for one day serving as the father to my own Black family, I was convinced that God created a tailor made Black woman just for me, and she would complement and complete the work God had begun in my life. As a result, I moved on and waited for Black love. Black love is a powerful love. This does not negate the love of interracial couples, because great contributors to society have come from interracial marriages or relationships. Our President, Barack Obama, is the product of an interracial relationship, and I would not dare suggest that the joining together of his mother and father proved to be a mistake. For me, however, there is something extra special when Black people are engaged in committed, intimate relationships. A few years ago, I took my wife and children to Table 52, a restaurant owned and operated by Chef Art Smith, to celebrate my wife’s birthday. When we were leaving, the host, a “sistah,” stopped us to say how happy she was to see a Black family in the restaurant, and how great we looked. Our children did not understand why the host was enamored with our family, and it gave my wife and me the opportunity to explain about the Black family and Black love. I recall watching The Cosby Show as a child and being proud to see a strong, successful Black man, and he was strengthened by his strong,
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successful Black woman, and they were both kept alive by their strong Black children. The image of a strong Black family, who was unashamed to show Black love, was invigorating for the Black community, and enlightening for others outside of our community. Today, our images of strong Black love are hard pressed to find. As an avid viewer of Scandal, I struggle with Olivia Pope’s role as the mistress of the White man in charge, even though the successful Black Senator, who she dated at one time, wants to give her the world. It is the image it sends to the world. I also struggle with many of our entertainers who have not, and some declared will not date or marry Black women. I will say that some of those Black men are doing Black women a favor by not dating them. You will catch what I mean later. Nonetheless, when Black people have committed themselves to one another, it is powerful. Black love is powerful because of the passion and energy that emanates from it. Black love is powerful because it produces, if applicable, Black children, wherefore Black people continue to create a nation in these United States. Black love is powerful because a Black man who is conscious of who he is as an African in America, knows that a Black king can only rise to his best self when he has a Black queen. In having assurance of what God was calling me to be, I knew I needed a strong Black queen to complement me, and together we would complete the process of building a strong Black nation on this side of heaven. I am grateful to God for Black love.
Merriam-Webster Online www.merriam-webster.com
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MARJORIE CLARK
GLOBAL NOTES
Bottom 47
HAITI: A TELLING STORY Haiti is an actuation and a metaphor of that which is plaguing and possible.
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GLOBAL NOTES
Why is it important for us to know Haiti’s history? Why is it important that we dig deeper? Why is it important for us not to forget? Why is Haiti’s history marred with such vitriolic myths and echoed sarcastic laughter? So much so, that parasitic fables repeated frequently enough become accepted truth. After all, we do know enough about Haiti, right? Is it easier to digest ignorant sound bites and talking points about a country that from its inception was without a world to coexist? The world would not recognize her because of the color of her nation’s skin. “Like the other nations born of anti-colonial revolutions, such as the United States in the late eighteenth century and the Latin American republics in the early nineteenth, Haiti struggled to gain allies and respect in a world still largely controlled by European empires. But, Haiti also had an additional burden… No other country had faced such hostility, such resistance, even outright doubt about its very capacity to exist. The racist ideas that saturated the Western world at the time, coupled with rage and fear that many slaveholders felt regarding black revolutionaries, raised the stakes immeasurably high for Haiti’s early leaders. Many of those watching them were ready and eager to see Haiti fail.” pg. 53 Dubois. France, Great Britain, Spain and the United States would legislate policies that promoted Haiti’s failure to launch. “But, while the British government happily let their merchants trade with Haiti, they refused to recognize Haiti’s
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independence, or even to dignify Haiti’s representatives with the formalities extended to other diplomats. Like officials in the United States, British functionaries worked hard to prevent Haitians from actually spending time in British territory. Britain had abolished the slave trade in 1807, but they maintained slavery itself in their colonies for three decades after Haitian independence; and to deal on equal terms with Haiti, they assumed, would send a message to their own population that an antislavery revolt was acceptable.” pg. 71 Dubois. What do we know about Haiti? We know that despite winning their independence, Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. We also know that Haiti has perhaps unprecedentedly seen its share of suffering. Conceivably, Haiti can be likened to Jerusalem’s cry during the Holocaust or a breathing page out of the Bible’s Lamentations “All our enemies have spoken out against us…for we are trapped, devastated, and ruined” Lamentations 3:46-48. We have read that God is punishing Haiti because of her voodoo worship. However, even more devastating is the widespread ideology that it was absurd to think that a band of Africans, slaves, and Creoles could unite to actually win their independence and prosper as a sovereign nation capable of competing on a global scale. Blacks can’t do that, right? Many would perpetuate systems in order for us to believe this is true. Since 1804, the world has set out to prove that very end.
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GLOBAL NOTES
“More than a decade after the defeat of French forces, many exiled planters from Saint-Domingue (Haiti) still hoped to reverse what had happened and persistently lobbied for a new mission to reconquer the former colony.” Countries have desired to marginalize the potential of people of color, to regulate them, to rewrite history so history would agree with their agenda. Politically, the rewriting of history would at the very least undermine our selfconfidence. Economically, the rewriting of our history would ensure generations of relatively compliant constituents with which to build towns, cities, and countries. An unending supply of free to low cost labor was the driver. Today, little has changed. Forces still believe in the draconian myth that groups must be subjugated for progress. “More than a decade after the defeat of French forces, many exiled planters from Saint-Domingue (Haiti) still hoped to reverse what had happened and persistently lobbied for a new mission to reconquer the former colony. A number of them held powerful positions in the French government, and their pressure led France to officially insist that it still had a
claim over Haiti. Other European nations, in turn, refused to extend recognition to Haiti until the former colonial power did so. Indeed, when Britain and France were negotiating an end to their conflict at the Congress of Vienna, the French signed an additional secret agreement with Britain specifically regarding Haiti. The British promised that they would not interfere if the French attacked their former colony; in return, France formally accepted Britain’s right to trade with Haiti.” pg. 76 Dubois. “It was an astounding gesture— What right, after all, did France have to determine whether anyone traded with Haiti?—but it summed up the prevailing attitude at the time. Haiti’s declaration of independence was regarded by a surprising number of Frenchmen as just a temporary setback. Some of the former planters laid out detailed military plans for taking back the colony, arguing that the disaster….was a fluke. Others focused on asking for increased
financial restitution. The exiled planters had received some state assistance since they had fled SaintDomingue during the revolution, but they wanted more. They demanded to be paid back for all the property the revolution had taken from them, including the most precious property of all: the human beings, once enslaved, who had now become citizens of Haiti.” pg. 76 Dubois. Later, Haiti was forced to pay what amounts to three billion dollars in today’s currency back to France for indemnity to compensate slaveholders for their losses. Haiti, heavy in debt, just couldn’t gain its economic footing. But that didn’t stop Haiti from inspiring other colonized nations to fight for their autonomy. For a moment, Haiti was the beacon of freedom for people of color in Caribbean and Latin America. Many leaders traveled to Haiti for advice on how to gain their independence. Many don’t know that African and creole (slaves that were born in
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Haiti were called “creoles” after the language they spoke) slaves were subject to some of the most horrific conditions. The French believed it was cheaper to import more slaves than to invest in the basic welfare of the slaves that were already in Haiti or Saint-Domingue, as it was known prior to later being renamed Haiti. Thus, there was very little given in the way of compassion to Haitian slaves. Ironically, it would be the practice of rapid slave turnover that would lead to the eventual independence of Haiti. The French colonists didn’t know their lust for more slaves to farm their sugar plantations would be their undoing. Unbeknown to them, by the late eighth century many of the slaves landing on SaintDomingue were prisoners of war that Africans had sold to slave traders. These prisoners of war were skilled in war tactics and strategies, but most importantly were skilled in guns and munitions. They were also people with education and perspective. The collaboration between the new arrivals and the indigenous slaves proved to be dynamic, and in 1794, a major revolt ensued so much so that it reverberated all the way back to France and caused France to emancipate all slaves. Years later, Napoleon (France’s General) would try to renege only to be defeated for good. Haiti was strategic in its location, as well as it was rich in resources. Haiti’s soil was excellent for the production of sugar, coffee, and other commodities. By the
mid-18th century Haiti was producing 40% of the sugar exported to Europe as well as 60% of the coffee that Europeans drank. It was during this period that launched much of Haiti’s deforestation and soil depletion. Haiti was known for its rare woods, and much is lost forever. We see that if we truly believe we must know our collective histories in order to nurture our broader power and confidence, then we must recognize that perhaps every nation of color has had a role to play in our collective histories. Equally relevant is the understanding that it is virtually impossible to build without accurate context. How can we extrapolate greatness from our past if it’s convoluted in myth? Why would we want to be like our fathers if they are historically anemic? Yes, I am my brother’s keeper and I see my brother strong in history and destiny. The historical epicenter of the modern bottom 47 could arguably be the world’s unabashed resistance to accept the Republic of Haiti when it won its independence. This sets in motion paradigms that haunt even today. At stake was the future not just of Haiti, but the implications of perceived “progress resistant cultural influences” (Brooks, New York Times) would overshadow the entire Black race for hundreds of years.
Much has plagued Haiti, yes, and much has plagued people of color; yet, there is an indomitable force that compels us to possibility, possibility etched in resilience that is the hidden treasure of our collective histories. Laurent D. (2012). Haiti: The Aftershocks of History. New York: Metropolitan Books.
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SOUND ADVICE
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF INVESTMENT THEORY Melody L. Ferguson
Many investment principles used to develop investment portfolios derive from one investment theory — the capital asset pricing model. What exactly is this theory, and how does it apply to your investments? The capital asset pricing model was developed over 50 years ago by Harry Markowitz, who won a Nobel Prize for his work. His theory centers on the concept that adding an asset to a portfolio that is not highly correlated with other assets in the portfolio can reduce the portfolio’s variation risk. Before his theory, it
was common practice to look for undervalued assets to add to a portfolio. His approach evaluated how a particular asset would impact the portfolio’s risk and return. Whether it makes sense to add that investment to the portfolio depends as much on how the asset’s return will vary with returns of other portfolio assets as on its own return prospects. This theory provides the underlying rationale for asset allocation. The key is that the returns of different assets do not behave in
the same manner during different economic times, so adding different assets can reduce the volatility in that portfolio. While the return of a diversified portfolio may be lower than that of investing solely in the best performing asset that is typically viewed as an acceptable tradeoff for the reduced risk. Many people have also realized that it is difficult to identify the best performing asset in any given year, so a diversified portfolio provides more consistent returns.
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SOUND ADVICE .
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Some of the investment implications drawn from this theory include:
A properly diversified portfolio will combine assets that do not have highly correlated returns. Thus, when one asset is declining, other portfolio assets may be increasing or not decreasing as much.
Rather than focusing on each investment’s risk, investors should consider their portfolio’s overall risk.
Including a small percentage of a volatile investment may not increase a portfolio’s overall risk, provided that investment’s returns do not vary closely with other assets’ returns in the portfolio.
When small portions of stocks are added to an all bond portfolio, risk initially decreases, even though stocks are more volatile than bonds. Thus, an all bond portfolio is not the lowest risk portfolio.
Investors should consider how varying percentages of different asset classes will affect their portfolio’s risk and return before deciding on an asset allocation.
Managing Your Portfolio
Consider this investment process to incorporate this theory: Determine your risk return preferences.You should assess the potential downside as well as upside for various investments to get a feel for how much risk you can tolerate.
Decide on an asset allocation mix. Your asset allocation strategy represents your persona decisions about how much of your portfolio should be allocated to various investment categories. After considering your risk tolerance, time horizon for investing, and return needs, you can form a target asset allocation mix. Within broad investment categories, make allocation decisions for each category. Not only will each individual’s allocation strategy differ, but your strategy will vary over time.
Select individual investments. Investigate a wide range of options, but make sure you understand the basics of each, examining the types of risk they are subject to as well as their historical rates of return. Your selections should fit in with your overall asset allocation.
Rebalance periodically. Over time, your asset allocation will stray from your desired allocation, due to varying rates of return on your investments. Please call if you’d like to discuss your investment portfolio in more detail.
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BLACKWARDS: UNASHAMEDLY BLACK! KIM DULANEY
Unashamedly Black is the topic. Hmm… Bear with me. I am an academician so I have to think about how to think about things. As a professor of English, recognizing and respecting the fact that words have power, I should start with definition. Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary defines shame as 1: a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety; 2: a condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute… something to be regretted. This same reference source defines un as a prefix that means not, or opposite of. For the purpose of this article, Black
is defined as descending from indigenous or early Pre-colonial Africa. As an African American Studies scholar and professor, I should emphasize context, and support an African-centered perspective with African-centered sources created by people of African descent, deemed reliable, respectable, or at least tolerable by “experts” in the field, or closely related fields. I should also look for spaces where deconstruction and reconstruction of basic understanding might be possible or warranted.
I should begin with the basics by stating everything is an argument – a statement or representation of some type of belief or understanding. Then, I should explain why the existence of the phrase unashamedly Black is warranted, and why the notion of being unashamedly Black must be explained or defended. This should lead me into properly contextualizing the erroneously constructed idea and stereotypical ideals of Blackness, as have been fashioned and perpetuated in America and popularized throughout much of the world.
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“In reaching back as far as historic records can trace, I would have to start with Africans living on the continent of Africa in civilized, glorious, and fully human first societies.” I should then attempt to dispel the well promoted Blackness myths and mis-characterizations by moving back to the story of Africans, before the recreated story; in academia we call it consulting a primary source. It is the story told by those who lived it – those whose story it is. In reaching back as far as historic records can trace, I would have to start with Africans living on the continent of Africa in civilized, glorious, and fully human first societies. I should write how Africa, especially KEMET(KMT/ancient Egypt), was considered the cradle of knowledge and higher education, and it served as a model to be studied and copied by future great societies and thinkers. Then, to make a long story short, I should snatch Africans out of Africa and pull them through American redefinition in accordance with capitalistic aims and completely selfish and narcissistic white male American institutional structurings; in other words I should talk about how things were set up to benefit white male landowners, to make them more money and thus give them more power. I should probably locate those hierarchical and oppressive structurings in American
slavery (where they are most readily identifiable), then trace them through Reconstruction, Migration, Civil Rights, Black Power, and Post ‘60s eras, straight into The New Jim Crow and the fallacious narrative of post racial existence… and I should probably cite sources. Hold on. I am also a Chicago-born, urbanraised proud specimen of the south side, raised in an area of what the young folks now call the “wild hunneds.” If I was standing on the front porch of the bungalow house I grew up in, on Eggleston, first block on the “right” side of the tracks, folks wouldn’t have the patience to listen to my well memorized diatribe, justifying Black folks’ relevance or right to like themselves. My cousin, in his limited schoolbook, yet expansive creative expressive vocabulary, with his meager recollections of who said what, when and why the world had better believe it, would surely interrupt me just when I thought I was really saying something. He’d probably quote Marcus Garvey with his own interpretive twist and say, “Like Garvey said, ‘We ain’t ashamed of the Race to which we belong and we are sure God made
black skin and nappy hair because he wanted to create himself in that way!’ Ain’t nobody got to prove nuthin’ to nobody.” Then, he would probably stand at the base of the bottom step and slowly pace to the other side, raising his voice as he thought more deeply about the subject, taking full command of the makeshift classroom, “Instead of unashamedly Black, how about happy as hell to be Black, or like James Brown said, ‘Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m proud!’” Then he would throw his hand against wind and like a gavel locking in a verdict he would probably drop a line like “All that talkin’ sounds like whining to me… grown folks walkin’ roun’ whining ‘bout they should have the right to like Black, make me wonder what the Baby gon’ do? While y’all reading y’all books and try’n prove sum’n – whinin’ and hoping folks won’t mind you being yo’self, what the damn baby gon’ do?!” Yep. My cousins and the folks I grew up with wouldn’t need academia’s proof; they wouldn’t respect it, wouldn’t want it. I imagine the many quotes and affirmations, all translated to the tongue of south side Chicago, few taken from books canonized in
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universities, tossed in a fully attended front porch conversation, all coming from historic African American appointed spokespeople and sources: Malcolm X, Jay-Z, Minster Farrakhan, Larry Hoover, Jeff Fort, The Wire, plus the locals, which would undoubtedly include a Sonny, a Buddy, and a Bae’bruh, and
frog, the lion, the snake, the wind, the flower, the bee, the sun, the river... all adding to universal/ communal knowledge, all eliminating the need for begging and burdens of proof. It is an elementary exercise and a fool’s game - proof. In light of all I have been told and taught, and all the various lived
mighty force and affirmed me, my gifts and my dreams…everything that has held me through the trials and tribulations of human existence, and padded me with cultural confidence in a space dominated by forces that need me to be less than I was born to be…everything that celebrates the essence of my
“The holistic culture that implores various ways of knowing and lends itself to the lessons learned in nature and living... all adding to universal/communal knowledge, all eliminating the need for begging and burdens of proof.” the stories and legends of bad Black men and women like Harriet Tubman and her gun, and Ida B. Wells and Nat Turner, and other buttkickin’ folks would provide all the justification one could need. Then by the end of the conversation all things Black and seemingly pure would be affirmed. This is the culture I grew up in, the High Context culture discussed, and broadly overlooked, in academia by Edward Hall. The holistic culture that implores various ways of knowing and lends itself to the lessons learned in nature and living, from the old and young, the tree, the
experiences and extreme realities that influence my understanding, I will speak from the place where I am most absolute. In the tradition of my first generation-out-of-slavery, landowning, no-formal-education great-grandfather, I offer this brief non-intellectual, anti-institutional, bit of commonsense wisdom. I am a Black woman. Everything that has nurtured me, shaped me for the good of myself, my family, my community, and my world, loved and supported me unconditionally, without regard for gain or other exploit… everything that has fortified me, and erected me as a
existence and me… all that anchors beauty and power and substance and purpose FOR ME…begins and extends itself out of unequivocal Blackness. There is no shame in my game. No apologies. No caution or pause. No regrets, confusion, or attempted alterations. I know Black. I love Black. I proudly represent God’s Blackness in this beautifully diverse, multicolored earthly space. I happen to be Blackly favored… and because I know this for sure, all is well! God is good!
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NATASHA ROBINSON
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...ABOUT SELF-LOVE
“Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all.”- Michael Masser January 1. It’s time to read my horoscope and I especially make sure to read my love forecast for the New Year. I celebrate my singleness and independence until about February when I plan international travel to avoid the nausea that accompanies my reaction to Valentine’s Day. I check the travel box for “1” as I finalize my arrangements. I grumble under my breath about the extra expense of traveling without a companion. I enjoy my trip, but only for a while, for in traveling solo, I have to be particular about where I go. I return home and peruse my pictures, realizing I am in very few. It’s hard
to take pictures of myself by myself and it is embarrassing to repeatedly ask someone to stop and take a picture of me, feigning a smile and fighting back tears because, once again, it’s just me. March comes and my sportsenthusiast self kicks in. I’m surrounded by men, but none of them my own, as we watch countless hours of March Madness, rooting for our favorite teams in college basketball and stomping in frustration as we watch our basketball brackets get destroyed by teams we thought would not win. April through September is my “trauma” season, for it brings many special events, many of which I
bring my party of one. I rejoice for my loved ones as I attend bridal showers, weddings, baby showers, engagement parties, anniversaries, housewarmings, baptisms, and christenings. I cringe as I mark on invitations that the “plus 1” option does not apply to me as I have no significant other to accompany me. I get a break in October. Fall is my favorite season and I don’t have to do anything special this month. But oh damn, I forgot about Sweetest Day! Who decided to subject me to yet another over-thetop 24-hour period for more couples to publicize who they are with and what they plan to do? November provides some relief and I get to
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hang around my family who loves me unconditionally and have no planned interrogation about my marital or parental status. December comes and loneliness is exponentially increased. Although Jesus is the reason for the season, why do I feel as if Jesus’ presence isn’t enough? Christmas provides me with no “boo” to snuggle up with and roast chestnuts on the open fire. On New Year’s Eve, I promise the next year will be different. With no one to pledge my love to at the beginning of a new year, I log back onto my computer and anxiously await my January love horoscope. For many years, this was my pattern that I willingly engaged myself in and I brought with it all the self-pity I could muster. If I could take all of my diaries and journals from years past and synthesize them into one concise continuum of events in my adult life, it would read as I wrote it above. Very few people actually knew how I was feeling. I was too embarrassed and ashamed. I was thrilled for all the blessings God brought to my loved ones. Yet, at the same time, I pondered, when will it be my turn? Will I have a bridal or baby registry? Why couldn’t I find love? What was it about me that was so repulsive that no one wanted to be with me? Where is my “the one”? Why is he taking so long to find me? Does he even exist? What is it about me that’s so unlovable? Why hasn’t anyone picked me? Is there something about me that needs to change? Am I too ______________? Am I not enough ________________? Something has got to be wrong with me! (Does any of this sound familiar in your own life?) The concept of self-love eluded me. How can I love myself, my Self, in the midst of this reality? The
mornings provide distraction as I engage in the work of the day. The nights come, but comfort and intimacy do not, for in my house, it’s just me. I rearrange my pillows to keep me company and take the place of the strong arms that I desire to hold me as I sleep. I hold back tears as I watch countless advertisements preach that singleness is for losers and only the unloved are alone. I’ve tried to become what I think would bring me love. Dressed in the illfitted expectations of what I thought men would want, I soon discovered this too brought much heartache and very little peace. What self-love could I display? There was no true self to love. With time, Divine intervention, sleepless nights, buckets of tears, good conversation, some empty wine bottles, reflection and introspection, I’ve discovered what I believe love means and what love looks like. I cannot say I have all the answers. However, I’m sounding on about self-love and what I do know is that as a single, unmarried, childless, 39 year old African American woman, I am love, I am worthy, and I am enough! I had to release what I thought I should be to embrace who I am and am becoming. I realized that love is an action, not a destination. Love is an existence, a lifestyle, not merely an emotion or a label. One cannot really “find love.” One has to become love. I wake up every morning, thanking God for love and for the opportunity to be love in my life and in the lives of others. The loneliness still comes, the questions about my future remain, but the one thing that has increased is my peace of mind as I express love to my self
on a daily basis. My love relationship consists of treating myself well. My love relationship is providing myself with holistic care that supports the mind, body, and soul. My love relationship is speaking words of affirmation and supplementing my love words with loving actions. My love relationship is enjoying my own company, as well as the company of others. My love relationship carries no envy of others and their blessings. I comfort my heart and speak to my soul, reminding myself everything is in divine order. I love in abundance and not from a place of lack. I realize love has no limits and I am to enjoy every expression of love life provides. My love relationship with myself is intentional and not accidental. This month, I am encouraging you to take an inventory of your first love interest: yourself! How loving are you to YOU? What do you do to show yourself love on a daily basis? What is love and what is love to you? These and other introspective questions will help you to assess where you are in your love life with yourself. It will also affirm who you already are: a loved creation of the Creator. Take some time and love on you! Learning to love yourself is the greatest gift you can give, not just to others, but also to yourself!
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DR. SUSAN K. SMITH
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40Years Later-Justice A Candid Observation
I breathed a sigh of relief, revealing a breath I had unknowingly been holding, as I read that outgoing North Carolina Gov. Beverly Purdue, gave a full pardon to the “Wilmington 10.” But, I also felt a familiar tinge of anger and bitterness. Justice often comes slowly, especially when it comes to cases or situations involving Black people. In her pardon, Gov. Perdue said, “These convictions were tainted by naked racism and represent an ugly stain on North Carolina’s criminal justice system that cannot be allowed to stand any longer. Justice demands that this stain finally be removed.” www.inamerica.blogs.cnn.com The Wilmington 10 became nationally known in 1972, when nine Black men and one white woman were accused and convicted of conspiracy and arson in the firebombing of a white-owned store in a Black neighborhood. Among the 10 convicted persons was Ben Chavis, who at age 24 at the time of the incident, was the oldest of the group. Chavis was sentenced to 34 years in prison, and was imprisoned from 1972 to 1979. In 1978, the sentences were reduced for all of the Wilmington 10, and two years later, North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt overturned their convictions. Among the reasons cited was misconduct by the prosecutor of the case. Gov. Perdue said, in her comments about why she granted the pardon, that information given to her had revealed there had been much injustice served in the case. In an article on CNN, the author wrote, “Perdue said that among the key evidence that led her to grant pardons of innocence were recently discovered notes from the prosecutor who picked the jury. The notes showed the prosecutor preferred white jurors who might be members of the Ku Klux Klan and one Black juror was described as an “Uncle Tom type.” The author continued, “Perdue also pointed to the federal court’s ruling that the prosecutor knew his star witness lied on the witness stand. That witness and other witnesses recanted a few years after the trial.” www.inamerica.blogs.cnn.com
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All along, the 10 people had protested that they were innocent, but to no avail. The case received international attention and condemnation. When the United States criticized Russia for having political prisoners in the 1970s, that country commented that the United States had little ground for its criticism, citing the political prisoners in America known as the Wilmington 10. That it took 40 years for this pardon to be granted is one issue, but a larger issue is that this type of injustice, so often meted out to African Americans and other persons of color, is and has been so much a part of the American justice system. Michelle Alexander lays out the scope of the injustice experienced by African Americans in her landmark book, The New Jim Crow, pointing out how the “war on crime”
adversely and disproportionately affected African Americans, but even before that, it was clear America had a justice system that was anything but just for them. In the book Slavery by Another Name, author Douglas A. Blackmon brilliantly lays out how the convict leasing system was based on and depended upon, injustice as concerned mostly people of color. One could be arrested for just about anything and through an unsophisticated, yet highly successful, system of cooperation between the justice system and farmers and businessmen who needed cheap labor in order to realize huge profits. Blackmon describes how that system essentially criminalized Black people, mostly men, and kept them enslaved to those farmers and corporations for years, and nobody
said anything about it, though what was being practiced was peonage, which was illegal. Thus, the roots of injustice toward Black people are deep, watered and nurtured by, none else than, the “justice system” itself. It became easier and easier to label Black people as “criminals” as they were frequently arrested for the slightest “offense,” something that could be as minor as being stopped on the way to looking for a job because they had no money. The things Black people were arrested and sentenced to a life of slavery to farms and corporations garnered no questions or outrage from an apathetic country being led to believe these troublesome Black people were, in fact, bad and deserving of getting “justice” so society would be safer. It was a manipulated image that took hold.
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So it is not surprising, when Chavis and the others who comprised the Wilmington 10 were arrested that the prosecutor did whatever he had to do in order to get them convicted. The justice system supported injustice toward Blacks. The Wilmington 10 reportedly had two trials; the first one ended in a mistrial when the prosecutor, Jay Stroud, said he was sick. In that trial, the jury was made up of 10 Blacks and 2 whites. In the second trial,
imprisonment, and cruel punishment before the Wilmington Ten had our unjust convictions overturned, names cleared,” Chavis said in an article which appears on his website (www.drbenjaminchavis.com). He said the arrests and convictions were the result of “federal officials (who) conspired together to unjustly frame, arrest, try, imprison, and repress members of the Wilmington Ten who were actively protesting the
and beliefs about Black people, still accounts for many arrests today. Prisons are overflowing with young Black men many of whom, in the final analysis, were arrested for minor drug possession charges. Their presence in our prisons is making someone wealthy. Prisonsfor-profit are cropping up more and more. Institutionalized slavery still exists. So, I am glad for the pardon of Chavis and the others. Because of
which resulted in the conviction of the defendants, the jury was made up of 10 whites and two Blacks. Chavis, who was once a member of the United Church of Christ, never stopped working for justice. From the beginning, he and the others knew they had been wrongly accused and wrongly convicted; bigger than that, he knew the injustice had been allowed to take place because of the racial tensions in North Carolina and in the United States. “Although we were totally innocent of the charges, it took almost a decade of court appeals, state-witnesses recanting, federal reinvestigations, years of unjust
institutionalized racial discrimination and hostilities surrounding the forced, courtordered desegregation of the public school system in New Hanover County and Wilmington, North Carolina from 1968-1971.” It is good that Gov. Perdue issued the pardon, but it begs the question of how many other unjustly accused and convicted people of color, most often African American, are sitting in prisons today. Some whites may be surprised and shocked such a travesty of justice occurred “back then,” but here is what is sobering: this type of injustice is still happening. Racism, resulting in bigoted attitudes toward
the pardon, those of the group who remain alive will get some monetary remuneration, and that is a good thing. They will get some money for each year they were incarcerated. I am glad about that. But I am sad, too, because the more things change, the more they remain the same … A candid observation … candidobservation.wordpress.com Reprinted with permission from the author.
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When I agreed to write an article regarding the rampant reality of violence our community currently faces nationwide, it didn’t dawn on me until later that the article would appear in the February issue. Given this month’s designation as Black History Month, my mind immediately raced to thoughts of our non-violent ancestor, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. My thoughts about Dr. King were less about his position on nonviolence and more about one of many rarely shared quotes that, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson would say, are “buried beneath the rubble of feel good rhetoric that distorts Dr. King’s memory.” The quote I thought of is from a sermon Dr. King preached a year before his assassination. He said, “When I say question the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.” This quote, made by the iconic
leader, usually celebrated this month for a dream, introduced us to the collectively debilitating affect of what has been referred to as the “giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism” in America. Further, this quote is what led brilliantly creative minds to more effectively coin these triplets “the demonic ménage a trois of capitalism, racism and militarism,” making it much easier for all to understand the suggestive and sordid affect this collective threesome has had. As we consider the rampant reality of violence our community currently faces across the nation, I want to bring attention to an additionally demonic ménage a trois. This threesome of media, movies/ music and misguided history have joined together to indelibly etch into the souls-and psyches of all Americans the idea that violence against people of color is par for the course, subliminally suggesting that Black life has little value. A cursory look at the media coverage of current events of the last
couple of years will show young Black man after young Black man murdered because an officer of the law or a self-deputized neighborhood watch captain feels he “made an aggressive move” or “looked suspicious in his hoodie.” Young people of color are regularly being murdered! And while it seems most people have become anesthetized to the killing, there truly is a rampant reality of violence our community is faced with across the nation. However, if we’re honest, it’s not solely white officers killing our young people. Over the last few years, more Black people have been murdered due to Black on Black crime in my hometown of Chicago, Illinois, than all other major cities combined. And the common denominator is a system of oppression that has so devalued a group of people, who endure particularly poor education, subpar housing, health care and employment, if any at all, creating the kind of toxic and contaminated
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VIOLENCE: The Value
of Black Life, Buried Under a Layered Legacy of Lies REV. DERRICK RICE
environment no human being should ever be allowed to experience. And the system is so layered that they hate themselves enough to murder one another as a way of life, accepting abnormal behavior as the norm. Our community’s internal growth opportunities aside, we’ve undeniably witnessed the media seem to routinely ignore the flat-out assassinations of countless people of color much less, the racial implications of their murders. Truth be told, a portion of our ability to see ourselves as having lives of value, is psychologically stripped away every time the media leads the nation to give justifiable voice with much volume to horrifically heinous and egregiously evil killings such as the recent ones in Newtown, NJ, and Aurora, Colorado, while they simultaneously participate in the sickening silence when it comes to Chicago’s nearly 750 murders marking the highest murder rate of the country last year and nearly 80% of those people murdered were people of color.
Why hasn’t the country been encouraged to collectively mourn the loss of life of over 700 people in Chicago or hundreds in Detroit, St. Louis, or Philadelphia? Why don’t many of us know the names of: Emmett Till, Tramaine Miller, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Ariston Waiters, James Anderson, Sean Bell, Aaron Campbell, Armadou Diallo, Corey Ward, or Steven Washington? (Google their names if you don’t.) For some reason, people of color who experience violence are rarely covered in main stream media and the subsequent message is unmistakably sent to citizens nationwide… Black life has little to no value. Unfortunately, the movies and music we enjoy aren’t much different. For instance, the undeniable history of white supremacy that dramatically devalues Black life was on clear display as the depths of dehumanization that took place during the greatest holocaust in
American history unfolded in the movie Django. Controversy of the movie aside, we were constantly reminded of the issues of violence and the value of Black life when: • 2 Mandingo fighters, black men, fought until one’s death as a form of entertainment for the white slave owner. • When the stronger Black man ‘won,’ the white master tells him to take a mallet and kill him. • When a runaway is fed to the dogs. There were countless reminders of the lack of value of Black life in this movie about slavery. However, the clearest reminder for me is the fact that of the Golden Globe nominations Django has received: best picture, best supporting actor (DiCaprio), best director (Tarantino) and best screenplay, no Black person
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was nominated for a movie about slavery! Life really does imitate art. Life imitates art in the form of movies and music. Most agree our community is under attack by a culture of gangsterism. Entertainment moguls and corporate marketeers have systematically unleashed on our televisions, iPods, iPads, tablets, and smart phones, the illusion that being a violent gangster is an acceptable lifestyle. The value of Black life has been buried under a layered legacy of lies. Entertainers perpetuate the lie. Misguided history perpetuates the lie and the shortlived luxury associated with gangsterism further perpetuates the lie. Most young people know who Rick Ross is, what he wears, drinks, and drives and most of all they know his lyrics. Young people are trying to emulate rappers. Rappers are trying to emulate gangsters and many gangsters who’ve landed in jail or prison are trying get back to the life of freedom young people enjoy. Look at it… Ross in his song BMF says: I think I'm Big Meech, Larry Hoover, Whipping work, hallelujah, One nation under God Real n*&&^s getting money from the … start.
Big Meech, in case you don’t know, is the 39-year old co-founder of the Black Mafia Family. BMF made over $270 million over about an eight year period. Now he’s serving a 30 year sentence in prison. But, before he went to prison he wrote a letter to his judge pleading for bond because he wanted to go home. Check out the letter here: http://www.clatl.com Larry Hoover is the cofounder of the Black Gangster Disciples, now serving two life sentences. Hoover has a child that’s never seen him as a free man. He spends 23 hours every day in confinement and that’s how he’ll die. Yet, Rick Ross lifts him up saying that’s the kind of gangster he is. But, rumor has it that when the real GD’s threatened Rick Ross, he cancelled his most recent concert tour. Young people trying to emulate rappers, rappers trying to emulate gangsters and many gangsters in jail are trying get back to the life of freedom young people enjoy. The value of Black life has been buried under a layered legacy of lies. Dr. King ended the sermon that introduced us to the reality that led to the coinage of the term “the demonic menage a trois of capitalism, racism and militarism,” with this paraphrased close: “One night, a juror came to Jesus wanting to be saved. Jesus didn’t tell him all
the things he shouldn’t do. He didn’t tell Nicodemus to stop lying. He didn’t say, ‘Stop cheating or committing adultery or drinking liquor if you are doing that excessively.’ He said something altogether different, because Jesus realized if a man will lie, he’ll steal. And if he’ll steal, he’ll kill. So instead of getting bogged down on one thing, Jesus said, ‘Nicodemus, you must be born again.’ In other words, ‘Your whole structure must be changed.’” Much like Dr. King was saying then, family, I’m saying now, our whole structure has to change! We have to tell our own story to mute the made up message of the media. We’ve seen movies about American gangsters willing to engage in violence but we’ve seen too few on African American heroes. Our kids know Rick Ross’ lyrics. But, they rarely quote Common’s. They know more about Big Meech and Hoover than Douglas and Garvey. Our kids know more about Foxy Brown, Gangster Boo, and Heather B than Ella Baker, Fannie Lou, and Ida B. Our whole structure has to change! When we excavate the value of Black Life, we’ll at least have a shot at addressing the issue of violence facing our community. @RevDRice
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BLOW THE TRUMPET IN ZION: A DECADE IN THE WILDERNESS CELEBRATING SAMUEL DEWITT PROCTOR CONFERENCE, INC. WALTRINA MIDDLETON
PHENOMENAL LIVING
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It is a colossal achievement to be a decade long voice in the wilderness when in the words of the late Rev. Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor, “Our culture is ruthless…It is lacking in compassion.” His words, sixteen years since his passing, still echo true today as our nation and world face the unimaginable slaughtering of innocent girls and boys —some by bullets from manned guns and others by unmanned drones. Perhaps the drastic imagery of youth dying may be off putting for some, but it is an undeniable truth that must be spoken.
be a voice for those impacted by HIV/ AIDS and an unjust criminal justice system; to unceasingly advocate for labor justice and the right to health care; to defend the rights of participation in a democracy, most recently the right to vote; to incubate and partner with emergent organizations; and, to mentor next generation leadership.” Carruthers has served as the General Secretary throughout the ten years of SDPC’s existence. She is one of the three founding members of the Conference. The other two founding
the Caribbean and the Middle East, building bridges between congregations and communities, developing education resources and building a Diasporic army of faith leaders and civic activists who share in SDPC’s unwavering commitment to global justice, strengthening churches, transforming communities and empowering leaders “with vision, by faith and through action.” SDPC is a pillar on God’s holy mountain and for the past decade, the organization has been “blowing the trumpet in Zion and sounding the alarm” through prophetic witness.
“Write the vision and make it plain,” says Dr. Iva Carruthers, General Secretary of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Inc., quoting Habakkuk 2:2. This has been a charge of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference (SDPC) since its conception a decade ago when the non-profit organization began its journey of prophetic witness, honoring the memory of Dr. Proctor and committed to a ministry of service, advocacy, and justice. What SDPC achieved in a decade is possibly greater than what some Ministries achieve in a lifetime. In Dr. Carruthers’ words: “Our journey has allowed us to witness on behalf of those confronting genocide in Darfur, to support the needs of the lost Boys of Sudan in the United States; to engage in reconstructive justice in New Orleans and Haiti; to serve those and
members, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., and Rev. Dr. Frederick D. Haynes III, continue to serve SDPC as members of the Board of Trustees. Haynes presently serves as the board’s chairman. All three are legendary while remaining remarkably humble and unwavering in their grassroots advocacy on behalf of “those victims of continued marginalization, dehumanization, racism, sexism, classism and capitalism in the world,” says Haynes. “We have been blessed to be able to fulfill our mission by working with our ministry partners around this nation and globe.” SDPC has made its presence known from the White House to the halls of Congress and the House of Lords. The ubiquitous organization has trekked its way across five continents,
Carruthers, Haynes, and Wright will immediately point to the solid network of volunteers, staff and conference groupies who attend every single SDPC event—even amidst an unforeseen Chicago blizzard -- as a source of their strength and endurance. In addition to Chicago, the destination conference has been held along Florida’s coastline, Atlanta’s skyline, and deep in the Bayou of New Orleans following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. When many folks and organizations were staying away from the Gulf Coast region, SDPC hosted its fourth (In the Wake of Katrina: Lest We Forget…Call to Renewal) and fifth (Re-Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Mobilization for Prophetic Social Justice Ministry) annual conferences in New Orleans, rolled up its sleeves and became one with the workers, the churches, the
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“Blowing the trumpet in Zion and sounding the alarm.” members and the citizens who began the long and ongoing task of trying to rebuild and restore the Crescent City against incredible odds. In 2006, following SDPC’s third annual conference in Jacksonville, FL, the staff of SDPC, alongside faith leaders across the nation and with the citizens of the Gulf, hosted its National Katrina Justice Commission Hearings in three cities—Washington, D.C., New Orleans, and Houston. Those hearings shed light on the unspoken injustices and atrocities that citizens of the Gulf endured during and post the storms. SDPC was among the first to speak to the breach beyond the broken levees in New Orleans— the breach of trust amongst the many displaced and forgotten citizens who were labeled as refugees by their own nation. That same year of the hearings, SDPC hosted national worship services to remember those who perished and those who survived the storms while also publishing the findings of the Commission hearings, The Breach— Bearing Witness: Report on the National Katrina Justice Commission. SDPC has not abandoned its commitment in the Gulf and her
presence is still felt in New Orleans today. In fact, the Katrina Justice Commission Hearings set the foundation for future hearings that would “blow the trumpet and sound the alarms” around the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic, mass incarceration, gun violence, youth education, worker justice, voter protection and race, racism, and religion. It would be an impossible task to name the entire lot of ongoing commissions, initiatives and roundtables hosted and facilitated by SDPC and its national and world partners. Haynes says the organization is blessed by the support and partnership of “like-minded” people who are “committed to a world that evidences human compassion for all the people.” The Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference is a rich sustenance of hope in a world where deep compassion is hungered for and where Christ’s model of love can be forgotten. “Given all the biblical scholarship at hand and all of the analysis of the historical Jesus,” the late Dr. Proctor once said, “…one is not likely to be confused about what a society would look like that followed the Jesus paradigm.” SDPC honors the
legacy of the historical Jesus and she honors all who share in the struggle for justice and liberation as her official logo, the Unnamed Haitian Maroon so boldly symbolizes. The unnamed maroon holds a conch shell in one hand, like the ram’s horn, used to call the biblical assembly together and sound the alarm. In the other hand, a sword is held, like the Word of God, to proclaim the righteousness of the people’s struggle on which all hope lies. SDPC honors its rich legacy of patriots who preach the gospel of peace through their respective ministries and works in its annual Beautiful Are Their Feet award and publication which has featured the ministries of The Honorable Maxine Waters, Rev. Dr. James M. Lawson, Jr., Bishop Barbara Lewis King, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Dr. Dorothy Height, Dr. Wangari Maathai, Dr. James Cone and Dr. Gardner C. Taylor. This year, Dr. Iva Carruthers will be a recipient of the award. Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., was a 2007 recipient of the honor. In 2008, SDPC further vested in its future with the distribution of three
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PHENOMENAL LIVING fellowships committed to supporting students upholding the pillars of social ministry and activism: Dr. James H. Cone Systematic Theology Fellowship, the William “Bill” Lucy Social Justice and Globalization Fellowship, and the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. Fellowship in Preaching and Pastoral Ministry. There is an expression that says,“The cry of the victim is the voice of God.” And when you hear that cry, the people must respond. Go to the village. Go to the church. And if support cannot be found in the church, take it to the streets.” The Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference has taken it to the streets and to the saints, to the classroom and to the church, to the pulpit and to the press and is making indelible impressions throughout the world, impacting the lives of people beyond the decade it has now achieved. In SDPC’s 2005 publication, Blow the Trumpet in Zion, Dr. Wright wrote about what he called one of Dr. Proctor’s best “sermonic stories” about the magnetic pull on a compass that was buried beneath the “soil and the muck and the mire of life’s tragic, unfortunate,
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and ugly experiences.” Wright wrote, quoting Proctor, “No matter how deep the burial, how dark the imprisonment, or how long the imprisonment…a Godcreated pull would cause the needle on the compass to point toward that which God created.” Wright affectionately shared, “Sam Proctor was like that North Pole pull in my life.” With ten years of service in the wilderness and in the muck and mire of life’s tragic, unfortunate, and ugly experiences—facing the New Jim Crow; combating racism; mourning the loss of innocent children gunned down in the streets and in schools; witnessing natural disasters; standing in solidarity with global sisters and brothers suffering from impoverishment, HIV/AIDS, hunger and war -- the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference continues to point toward that which God created. If ever there was a need for a prophetic voice in a seemingly desolate world, SDPC is that voice pointing toward Jesus’ radical love and indiscriminate commitment to all of the people.
WHO IS REV. DR. SAMUEL DEWITT PROCTOR? The late Rev. Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor, a scholar, pastor, prophetic preacher and spiritual father of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Inc., was Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University and President of Virginia Union University and North Carolina A&T State University. He held administrative positions with the Peace Corps in Nigeria and Washington, D.C., and the National Council of Churches. He was pastor-in-residence for the Institute of Child Advocacy with the Children’s Defense Fund/Haley Farm. He was awarded honorary doctorate degrees from more than fifty colleges and universities. Dr. Proctor was a prolific writer and preacher. The former pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem died at the age of 75 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa as a result of a heart attack he
suffered just before he was to facilitate a lecture at Cornell College of Mount Vernon, Iowa. His New York Times obituary by Eric Pace states, “In 1972, he succeeded the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the former Congressman, as pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, perhaps the most influential Black institution in New York, at 138th Street and Lenox Avenue. Dr. Proctor held that post until 1989, when he was succeeded by the Rev. Calvin O. Butts. “Born and raised in Norfolk, Va., Dr. Proctor studied at Virginia Union University in Richmond, the University of Pennsylvania, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Yale Divinity School, and received a doctorate in theology in 1950 from Boston University. He was ordained in 1943 and went on to hold various posts in education…”
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2003
SAMUEL DEWITT PROCTOR CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS SDPC, Inc. is incorporated.
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7th Annual Conference, St. Pete Beach, FL
2010
Retail Workers Justice 2010 & 2011
2004
SDPC’s Voter Protection National
Convenes “Organizing for Justice”
Education & Advocacy Outreach 8th Annual Conference, Chicago, IL
2005
2nd Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA
Bread for the World Millennium Development Goals in Africa Partnership
Publication of Blow the Trumpet in Zion: Global Vision and Action for the 21st Century Black Church (Augsburg Press)
Lott Carey Foreign Mission: Justice Restoration in Haiti Partnership
1st Annual Legislative Days, Washington, D.C.
2006
2007
National Katrina Justice
SDPC’s The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Study Guide in partnership with The New Jim Crow’s author Michelle Alexander, Esq.
4th Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA
Youth Forum on Mass Incarceration with Judge Mathis
3rd Annual Conference, Jacksonville, FL
Founding of New Orleans Clergy for Restorative Justice
SDPC Sponsored Hearing around Mass Incarceration
SDPC Youth Partnership in Interfaith Alliance Leadership Education
9th Annual Conference, Chicago, IL
National Jena 6 Campaign “Enough is Enough”
SDPC sponsored youth participation at the United Nations 2012 Plumb Line Holy Land Tour
5th Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA
Young Adult participation in Prophetic Voices from Palestine & Israel Conference
Launch of three SDPC Fellowship Programs for social ministry and activism
2009
Participated in “Turning the Tide Together” Conference addressing Global HIV/AIDS epidemic
6th Annual Conference, St. Petersburg Beach, FL SDPC Hospice Covenant SDPC Develops Emergency Preparedness Curriculum Restoration Storehouse in New Orleans
2012
General Secretary of SDPC, Dr. Iva Carruthers, invited speaker at World Congress of Religions
Clergy Consultation with Harry Belafonte on Cradle to Prison Pipeline and Profiteering,
2008
2011
Learn More About SDPC, Inc. Visit www.sdpconference.info
10th Anniversary of Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Inc., Dallas, TX
2013
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SOUND ADVICE
February is Black History Month and it also shares National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, February 7th. As an African American woman living with HIV/AIDS it’s bittersweet. I'm happy African Americans are coming together across the country to bring awareness to HIV/AIDS, but sad that no matter how hard we work, the number of HIV cases continue to rise in the African American community. The Center For Disease Control reports that African Americans are 44% of all new cases of HIV in the United States and nearly half of all cases of HIV. It seems to me, the more things change for the better around HIV/AIDS, the worst it gets in the African American community.
Thirty-two years into this pandemic there is so much good news around HIV/AIDS. Treatment has advanced tremendously from that mono therapy of AZT I started taking in 1990. AZT was a lone solider and it worked mediocre at best. The life expectancy was three years when I made a transition to AIDS. The truth is, I should have died according to medical science and according to how sick I was in the early ‘90s, just like the majority of people infected with HIV for over 13-15 years. But God had a plan for my life beyond what the medical community and I could see. Today, however, a person diagnosed early with HIV, and who starts treatment and care early can live well over 30-50 years.
Today, testing for HIV is a swab in the mouth, with test results in 20 minutes. There are African American socially conscious condom companies like B Condoms, promoting prevention and responsible sex, sold in Whole Foods. There are more African American organizations tackling HIV/AIDS than ever and even large numbers of Black churches are doing their part. Yet the numbers of cases continue to rise. So what is the freaking problem? I don't have all the answers, just some insights into this complicated issue. I believe stigma is in part responsible for this vicious cycle. There is an enormous amount of stigma and shame surrounding HIV/ AIDS. For sure, this problem did not start in the Black community, it
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RAE LEWIS-THORNTON
Tea with Rae
NATIONAL BLACK HIV/AIDS AWARENESS MONTH started in American society as a whole. I remember those days of fear, when nurses refused to touch people who were dying of AIDS, funeral directors refused to bury, pastors refused to perform funerals and mothers and fathers left their dying child to die alone. Those early days of HIV/AIDS set the barometer for the current atmosphere around HIV/AIDS. I remember in the ‘90s, Jeanne White, the mother of the pre-teen AIDS activist, Ryan White, told me a rumor was going around in her small town. It was being said Ryan, who was a hemophiliac, contracted HIV because she was a nasty homemaker, and not because of the contaminated blood products he received during treatment for his illness. You would think in 2013 we would be beyond
this kind of false information and rumor mill, but we are not. A PBS special recently highlighted HIV in the South where the numbers are skyrocketing among African Americans and so is stigma. My mouth dropped when they explained how a refrigerator of a deceased person with AIDS was thrown away for fear of “catching” HIV. I couldn't make this up if I tried and I have countless stories that are just as ridiculous as this. The stigma around HIV has created an enormous amount of shame for people living with HIV/ AIDS and their families and it has been embedded in American culture. In the 21st century, it's become politically incorrect to talk negatively about HIV and people living with HIV openly, but the
whispers float in our society just like the air we breathe. I can understand at one level the Black community saying, "Not Me!" I mean who wants to admit that HIV is rampant in their community. Shoot, I kept my infection a secret for seven years because I was afraid that people would judge me. Still today, I get nasty tweets about my dating and sex life, but I tackle it head on. Stigma helps drive this disease underground in many ways. First, people are afraid to get tested for fear they will be judged. Still today, many private doctors will ask a patient when an HIV test is requested, "Why do you think you need an HIV test?" and by doing so, their behavior has been called into question. While other doctors have gone as far as to say, "You don't need
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SOUND ADVICE a test, you're in a monogamous relationship," or “You're married." When, in fact, everyone, including the doctor, needs an HIV test. Now, the other option for testing is in an HIV Clinic or the Department of Public Health and many people are afraid of being "spotted" in one of these “AIDS places.” Let’s take this issue as our base line fear of getting tested for HIV because of being judged. The Center for Disease Control reports that 38% of newly infected people are infected
I have another friend, who stopped being my friend, because others kept asking how she and I become friends. Yet another friend, a physician nonetheless, wouldn't take her medication regularly, because she didn't want her colleagues to “catch” her. She is no longer living, I’m sad to say, because 100% compliance with your antiviral is the entire ball game. Connect both of these issues, testing and treatment, and you can see how knowing your HIV
pills a day and a size 4 that I decided to come clean. I was dying and I thought I at least needed to tell the people who loved me so they could be prepared for my death. Coming from a dysfunctional family, I chose to tell my mentor first. I remember standing in the kitchen of the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., dreading that moment of disclosure. I said, “Reverend,” as I call him. “I need to talk to you. It’s important.” He paused, made a joke and I
“Stigma helps drive this disease underground in many ways. First, people are afraid to get tested for fear they will be judged.” by people who did not know they were infected. It stands to reason, if more people knew their HIV status, we would decease the rate of new infections. By the way, a new person becomes infected with HIV in the United States every 10 minutes. Testing is important to the reduction of new HIV cases. That is the bottom line. Let’s take it a step further. New data shows if an infected person is on an HIV antiviral regimen and their viral load is undetectable, the chances of infecting their partner is minimal, between 2-3%. Many people who know their HIV status are afraid of being seen in the AIDS clinic so they do not keep their appointments and some forgo treatment altogether, rather than be seen in a clinic or being seen taking medication. I can't make this stuff up. I have a friend who was in the parking lot of an HIV/AIDS Clinic, scooted down in the seat of her car and called me, rather than go in. I had to talk her in because she spotted someone she knew in the lot.
status is key to reduction of new cases, as well as, longevity with HIV/AIDS. One cannot be treated for a medical condition that has not been diagnosed. Another issue closely related to proper treatment and testing is disclosure. People with HIV live in fear of disclosure. I know that feeling because I lived it. The first seven years of my diagnoses I told only five people of my HIV status, other than my previous partners and any new partners. For sure, that was a well-kept secret, because no one was going to admit to dating someone with HIV. Many people infected with HIV live in fear of rejection and becoming gossip fodder. Questions loom large, if they know my HIV status, will people treat me differently; will they still love me; will they be ashamed of me; will they judge me? I held my secret so close to my heart, that the burden of the secret was killing me quicker than the disease. It wasn’t until I was on 12
laughed it off and began. “I have AIDS,” I blurted out. He stopped in his tracks, paused, looked at me and asked, “You mean you have HIV?” In his mind, as many others, AIDS was a death sentence. He said in retrospect that he could not fathom that I was telling him I was dying. “No I have AIDS,” I repeated, and then I started rambling. He stopped me cold turkey. “Stop!” He demanded, then took a deep breath in and exhaled. “I loved you before AIDS, I love you with AIDS!” OMG! A sigh of relief came over me. We then prayed and went into the dining room and told his wife, Jacqueline, who had become my everything (mother, mentor, friend, teacher), together. On the other hand, I told my mother who raised me two weeks before my Essence Magazine cover story hit the newsstand. She didn’t disappoint me and was true to who she was, and she never became a
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part of my support system. She never even made a comment on my activism before she died. Like many living with HIV/AIDS, I know acceptance and I know rejection. In 2013, rejection is still very real. I received an email a few months back, a forty something woman explaining how her mother will drive her to the AIDS Clinic, but won’t come in. Then yet another email from a middle-aged woman who lives in fear and secret of her family knowing, which has caused isolation. There are many family members who instead of providing support, just simply gossip. Then there are other family members who never discuss it. HIV is the pink elephant in the room. If HIV is not a welcomed topic in one’s family, it isolates the infected person, which leads to depression, and depression leads to noncompliance of one’s treatment. When people are depressed they have no will or desire to take medication or make doctor appointments and for that matter disclose their HIV status to future partners for fear of rejection. The thought runs rampant, if I'm being
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If we don't own it, we can do nothing about it. Taking ownership fuels personal responsibility and challenges stigma. Have a conversation with your partner about condom use and testing. If you care enough about each other to lay in bed together, then you should care enough to go get tested together and honestly use condoms without judgments about what he/she may or may not be doing behind your back. Just understand that in the “because 100% 21st century, you need to compliance with be as prepared as you can be. your antiviral is the When we take ownership we challenge stigma. entire ball game.” Sisters and brothers should go get tested together. Taking ownership is having that conversation within the rejected, overtly family. If you have an infected or covertly, in my own family member call them, have that family, why would I believe anyone conversation about how you can else wants me? honestly support them. People with I hope you get the point. It's a HIV/AIDS need more than prayer. tangled web we weave with stigma Take ownership, have educational and rejection and it helps to fuel new programs in our churches, ask your cases of HIV, as well as early death, pastor. What harm could it do? He or in the Black community. African she may surprise you. All of our Americans have a higher death rate organizations should be talking about than our white counter parts. While HIV/AIDS on a regular basis. The some of it is lack of medical care, more we talk, the more we put another part is because we are stigma to shame. As we celebrate diagnosed late. It is a fact that Black History Month and what we African Americans are typically have accomplished, we must also diagnosed with AIDS, not HIV, reflect on what must be done. Black which means by the time we folks have never been as quiet as we discover our HIV status we are have around the issue of HIV/AIDS. already sick. We have tackled the things that I believe we can change this with affect our community head on and personal responsibility that starts must do so NOW! We cannot allow with you and trickles down to the the history of stigma in this country community. One that says HIV/ fuel how we address this issue. To do AIDS is a medical condition and not so is condemning a generation of knowing my HIV status is not taking people to death. We are better and the best care of myself. At some greater than HIV/AIDS. I Am My point, we have to take ownership of Brother’s/Sister’s Keeper! Change this disease. The African Proverb, will only come because we decide to "He who conceals his disease cannot make it so! expect to be cured," is true. www.nationalblackaidsday.org
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REBIRTH: TRUMPET NEWSMAGAZINE, INC.
LAUNCHES AND THE LEGACY CONTINUES
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GLOBAL NOTES
ICON WHO LINKS US TO ALL WHO SUFFER ALLAN BOESAK
GLOBAL NOTES UNPRETENTIOUS: Nelson Mandela’s modest retirement home in the Eastern Cape village of Qunu, where his family were exiled to when Madiba was still a boy. Picture: Gallo Images Madiba’s recent illness, the rabid speculations it triggered around the world, the tumultuous politics of the ANC’s election politics and the uncertainties facing us in the future have prompted me to think again on the legacy of this man who is still in our midst as we
the country of one’s love and in a world in which justice and peace have found a home. Mandela turns his mind not to the grandiloquent speeches of those the world considers great. He turns to the simple dreams of those whom the world does not regard; those of unimpressive proportions who have no strength or permission to speak, but whose wounds speak for them. In doing this he reminds us that the shape of a just world lies in the fulfilment of the hopes of the poor
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My humanity and my human wellbeing is caught up in your humanity. I cannot be what I want to be until you are what you need to be. The fulfilment of my dreams is measured by the contentment of your lives. So he dreams, even though his dream might affront those who so fervently claim his name in the creation of a “new South Africa.” Because that’s what dreams of hope and justice are: an affront to an unjust status quo. As he grows old, he does not
“My humanity and my human wellbeing is caught up in your humanity.” enter the closing days of this year. Mandela’s words in the citation above are as good a point as any to meditate upon this man and his meaning for us. As Nelson Mandela sits in the village of his boyhood, Qunu in the Eastern Cape, growing old as its ancient hills, he dreams dreams for his country, his continent, and the world. As with the biblical Joseph at the end of his life, those dreams are neither reminiscences nor grudges, they are hopes for South Africa, the African continent and for the world. Mandela hopes for and dreams of freedom, and for him freedom is not a grandiose idea or a magnificent ideal. It is the simple needs of God’s little people to live in peace in their own homes, not to go hungry, to have dignity. It is their dreams of having dignity, worth, hopes, security, peace and belonging. Dreams to be at home, surely, but to be at home in
and powerless, the silenced and the downtrodden, not the elites whose wealth has flourished beyond their wildest dreams even as they trample upon the dreams of the poor. Mandela might be the revered “father of the nation,” the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa. He might have seen the dawn after the long night of oppression, and he has indeed seen power wrested from the hands of the apartheid oppressor. But with clarity of mind and integrity of heart he knows his people are not yet free from hunger, fear and the indignity of an unfulfilled life. Nearly at the end of his life, he sees his nation and the world through the eyes of those whose suffering has still not ended. As he sits in Qunu, he really does not want for anything. He too has been given far beyond his wildest dreams. But he looks at the world not from his place of secured glory, but as a hopefilled captive of ubuntu.
look back in self-satisfaction. He does not wallow in or claim merit for his suffering those 27 years he spent needlessly in prison. He does not bemoan the fact that his eyes have grown weak because of the dust of the stones he was forced to break on Robben Island. He does not cuddle the grudges he may rightfully hold: the countless humiliations that come with imprisonment; that he missed his family, that he regrets the swift passage of the unforgiving years that made him an old man when he finally regained his freedom. He does not curse apartheid’s cruel rulers who forced him into a choice for violence when all peaceful efforts were crushed, or vent his anger at the white judges who condemned him as a terrorist when he fought for the freedom of his people. He knows that the masses who love him have suffered with him and
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“The words, ‘as we are,’ are a reminder that it is the people’s hopes that matter, that will bring hope to our politics.” on his behalf every step of that long walk to freedom. He does not begrudge nor regret the fact that he offered white South Africans forgiveness even if it now looks as if they did not all deserve it. He does not retract his magnanimity in the face of their unrepentant intractability. He does not rage against those in his own circles who abuse his name and his legacy for personal and political gain. His love remains constant for all his people. Mandela does not indulge in reminiscences: how the world saw in him an icon of the struggles of all freedom-loving people; how they once made him into a demigod who
could do no wrong; how he was admired as the greatest statesman of our times. He knows it is now time for greater, purer things. As he grows ancient as Qunu’s hills, he does not narrow his look toward his birthplace or his country or his own people, as old people are allowed to do. There is a wideness in his gaze that takes in all the world as he hopes for freedom from fear, from hunger, from indignity for all God’s children in all of God’s world. Despite the disappointments and bewilderments that any long life brings, he does not give up on politics, but hopes that the politics of justice may become the hope of not just the people but the guiding light of those who hold power entrusted to them by the poor. He hopes for “a cadre of leaders” who will work for freedom, security and justice, and he speaks of these in simple, human terms: freedom, refugees, hunger, and dignity. And as he speaks he remembers in the only way that is authentic: “As we were… The words, “as we were,” are a reminder it is the people’s hopes that matter, that will bring hope to our politics. Mandela knows inasmuch as it is possible to speak of a South African miracle, that miracle did not fall out of thin air, nor was it the calculated outcome of those highlypraised secret negotiations. It was, in a real sense, the fruit of struggle and suffering, of faith and sacrifice. “As we were” plants Mandela firmly in the tradition of centuries of struggle, in the midst of a people who knew, in the most tragic circumstances, and understood Sol Plaatje: “The one thing that stands between us and despair is the fact that Heaven has not yet deserted us.” He speaks from the heart of a people who understood with Albert
Luthuli, struggle was never easy, the road to freedom is always via the Cross. People who believed with Steve Biko, we struggle for justice because we need to bestow on Africa and the world the greatest of all gifts: a human face. “As we were” reminds us the Freedom Charter, whose spirit guides our Constitution, was born of the pain of suffering as well of the joy of faith. “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.” Those were not words of empty optimism or shallow bravado. Spoken in 1955, in the face of a regime determined to subdue, subject and suppress, they were words of defiant hope in the midst of death, denying hatred, vengeance, hopelessness and despair any place in our country or in our hearts. “As we were” recalls the millions who believed our struggle for justice should not just be for ourselves but a “blessing for humankind,” as Robert Sobukwe believed. It recalls those who stood up in the defiance campaigns of the 1950s; those who died in the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 and in the streets of confrontation since; Steve Biko and the bright young minds who helped shape our philosophy of Black Consciousness in the 1970s and helped us to stand tall and proud. The words recall the brave youth of Soweto who marched in 1976, inspired a whole new generation across the country and forever changed the shape of the struggle. They recall the unstoppable, nonracial masses who formed the United Democratic Front and stormed the gates of apartheid’s citadels in the 1980s. With the words, “as we were,” Mandela places himself and the people of South Africa in the midst
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Photo by David Turnley
of the global community - wherever there is injustice, pain, struggle, and wherever people still seek hope and find her in their stride toward freedom. So is this the answer to the question: how do we protect our politicians against the corruption of the empire once they sit in the seat of power, so they seem to understand their call to justice only when they leave office, as we have seen over and over again? Perhaps it is possible, if we insist when we trust them with our votes and our lives, vest them with our power, they in turn trust us with helping them to keep their promises and their hopes, their vision and their legitimacy. If President Obama can return to the people and call on them for help in his struggle against Republicans for a fairer tax system, why can’t he call on them for help on the greater, more fundamental issues: to end war, to eradicate poverty, to create justice? Our politicians who believe in the politics of hope and justice Mandela’s “cadre of leadership” - if their first instincts would be to trust and respond to the people who vested them with power, instead of seeking the false safety of the empire who they think must keep them in
power, the nature of our politics may change. Would that not be a different kind of participatory democracy? It is the hopeful people who will keep them true to what they believe, and it is only the people who can give meaning to the phrase, “we are in this together.” Perhaps then too we would understand better former President Thabo Mbeki’s wise words about the difficulties facing Africa. “The challenge we face cannot reside merely in the recognition and acknowledgement of what is wrong. Principally it consists in answering the question correctly: What must be done to ensure that the right thing is done?” So, instead of mindlessly deifying Mandela, as the world has so consistently done, thereby making his acts of magnanimity and justice unattainable and his words of hope meaningless for “ordinary” human beings, the world might simply try to learn from the life of this man who now refers to himself as “ancient as the hills of Qunu” that old hatreds do not pass of their own volition. They have to be challenged and overcome by the power of love and the resilience of reconciliation. The lines of tribe will not dissolve on their own: they have to
be overcome by our belief in and work for our common humanity. In turn, that common humanity will only reveal itself in the undoing of injustice and the doing of justice, the embrace of our diversity in dignity and respect and our common concern for the wellbeing of the Earth. A new era of peace will be not be ushered in on the wings of historical inevitabilities, but through the hard work for the ending of war, aggression, terror and the idolatrous worship of violence as the solution to all our problems. It is work we shall do together, and not give up “until justice and peace embrace.” Perhaps as well we shall do well to remember in all this work we shall not look for approval from the powerful or even for admiration from the powerless, but humbly accept what we are doing is for the humanisation of the world. And that, after all, is why we are here. Allan Boesak is a theologian, a former anti-apartheid activist and founder member of the UDF. Reprinted with permission from the author.
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A DARKER SHADE OF PINK
I AM BEAUTIFUL BECAUSE I SAY SO! ERIKA BRACEY
PHENOMENAL LIVING
“I am beautiful because I say so.” My beauty defining moment happened when I was given permission to love myself freely. Freely in every since of the word. A love that exists outside of the parameters of a society that oftentimes objectifies women and our bodies which aides in the decline of our selfesteem and mentally enslaves our abilities to define our personal beauty. I freed myself on December 24, 2010. I was at a family gathering and we were having a gift exchange. My aunt gave me a dress that I wouldn't be caught dead in. She jokingly asked me to try it on and I obliged. I peeled off my sweater and slipped the dress over my head. It was a size eight and I was a zero so you can imagine how I was looking. The neck of the dress draped my shoulder like I was wearing a shawl and the chiffon bottom gripped the floor. Really! Who wears chiffon anymore! All I needed was my mother’s size 10 heels to wear on my size eight feet and you wouldn’t be able to tell me nothing. I twirled down the steps then gestured my cousin to make my introduction, “Please put your hands together for the always fashionable, Ms .Erika Bracey!” There was an astounding roar from the living room. That was my cue I ripped the runway and boy was I ready. I’ve been practicing my catwalk since I was eight years old and I think I finally got it right! I entered the room strutting hard, serious. I was so in the moment, I didn’t realize until a millisecond later the laughter and applause had completely stopped. Everyone's face was frozen. Eyes criss-crossed the room and there was utter silence. Discombobulated, I kept it moving,
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completed my half turn and hurried to take the dress off, but just before I began pulling it over my head I glanced in the mirror and staring back at me was an ugly black burn covering my entire left breast. That was the first time my family saw the effects of radiation from my breast cancer, but I...was living with it daily. At that moment, I had to redefine what beauty meant to me. It meant accepting things I can't change and being passionate when it comes to loving myself in spite of others’ views. That burn was a badge of honor that made me reflect on what I did to deserve it. I gave too much of myself away and made do with what was left. For the next year and a half, I peeled away layers of resentment, abandonment, and anger that put dark circles under my eyes and a wall around my heart. Everyone's burdens I chose to carry for years; I called them all up and kindly gave them back. I had abandonment issues over the past eight years because the last memory I had of my fiancée was him turning his head when I leaned in to kiss him before he went into surgery for Reno Cell Carcinoma (kidney cancer). Then he died. I thought I didn't do enough, but I now understand he knew he was going to die and didn't want to say goodbye. To be honest, I didn’t either. That burden lifted. Today, I look in the mirror and feel the most beautiful I have ever felt. I love my wide nose. I am confident! I feel sexy and I love slipping on my 5-inch stilettos and strutting down the street, in the hallway, in the bathroom you name it! I say what I want to say, wear what I like to wear, do what I want to do, and dance no matter who's watching. I am divinely beautiful, because I say so!
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DR. BRENDA TAYLOR
SOUND ADVICE
Ask the Dentist
National Children’s Dental Health Month
February is National Children's Dental Health Month (NCDHM). I am excited to share information that can encourage and educate everyone on the importance of early intervention as it pertains to good oral habits. NCDHM is recognized and sponsored by the American Dental Association (ADA) across the country. The American Dental Association is the leading voice of organized dentistry. Its mission is is to heighten awareness and bring greater emphasis to the importance of oral health. All year long, the ADA offers free online support and resources that can be used for teaching and promoting the benefits of good oral health to children, adults, educators and caregivers.
The ADA advocates on behalf of dental professionals in local, state, and national government as it pertains to public policy and laws that directly and indirectly affect how dental professionals are able to practice, and the programs that affect the availability and access to dental care. Their are numerous current reports on the access to dental care in the United States. Statistically:
• One of out of every four children suffer from tooth decay (Caries). • Greater than 47 million people live without access to affordable dental care. • Approximately 17 million children from low-income families received no dental care in 2009.
SOUND ADVICE
Caries is the most common chronic disease of childhood affecting 60% of children ages five to 17. It is more commonly diagnosed than Asthma. People from minority groups are grossly underserved and grossly underrepresented by their peers in the dental profession, yet minorities present with the greatest need. American Indian and Alaska natives have the highest rate of dental disease. The need is seven times greater in minority groups versus white Americans. Children below the poverty line are two times more likely to suffer from toothaches and the pain is greater and more widespread in children with special needs.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires insurers to offer dental care to children, and the Healthy People Report, issued every decade, listed Oral Health Indicators in the report for the first time in the year 2010. While some focus and attention has been given, there are still huge disparities that need to be addressed. Currently, every state individually regulates the level of dental health care in their individual Medicaid Programs. Fortunately, most programs are inclusive of children. There are several agencies worth mentioning that work toward providing dental care to children. Local and state dental society agencies in conjunction with America's Dentists Care
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Foundation (Mercy of Mission Programs) and the ADA Give A Kid A Smile Program, collectively provide dental care to 4.5 million children nationwide. The 2013 campaign theme for NCDHM is "GET A GOLD MEDAL SMILE." Visit the American Dental Association website, www.ada.org, for detailed information and activities for the 2013 NCDHM. As citizens, we must be diligent in encouraging our legislators to promote dental health and maintain dental programs. As advocates, promote healthy lifestyles in your family and community. Wishing you all great health!
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FOOD FOR THE HEART, BODY, AND SOUL
African Americans are at a greater risk than any other race to suffer from heart disease; mainly due to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, and poor diet and nutrition. Our family’s recipes passed down throughout multiple generations can be a part of the blame. Although, many of us refuse to alter our great-grandmother’s famous “soul food” methods, our lifestyles do not agree with many of the ingredients. The increased amounts of salts, sugars, fats, and carbs fail to correlate with our late night eating, super sized portions, and lack of proper exercise. Instead of completely eliminating some of the foods you have grown to love, prepare them in a healthier way. Add more fruits and vegetables to your meals. Your chances of having a stroke or heart disease can lower by increasing the amount of vegetables and fruits you eat. On average, a person consuming 2,000 calories a day, should be eating between 2 ½ - 6 ½ cups of fruits and veggies per day. Vegetables have high levels of vitamins A and C. Fresh vegetables are sometimes gathered before they are fully ripe and shipped in temperatures that cause them to lose their essential minerals. There has been a lot of debate between the quality of frozen and canned vegetables. In actuality, frozen vegetables are picked ripe and then go through a process to seal in their original vitamins and nutrients. They also last longer than fresh vegetables. Canned veggies can also lose some of their vitamins in heat during the canning process. When the process is done correctly, canned vegetables can be extremely beneficial by containing essential nutrients, having a long level of
storage life, and containing no preservatives. Canned and frozen vegetables can hold high levels of sodium. Sodium has the ability of helping foods last longer. A person should only consume about 2,300 mg of sodium a day. Instead, most people are having between 4,000 and 6,000 mg of sodium a day. Continuous intake of extreme levels of sodium can lead to high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, and strokes. Review labels before purchasing. Canned veggies are sold with “no salt” options and frozen vegetable packages should not list anything besides vegetables. Rinsing your pre-packaged vegetables can help remove any extra amounts of sodium. Certain foods are known for directly targeting the strength of the heart. Salmon can reduce blood pressure and clotting. Two servings per week can reduce death by heart attack by 1/3. Olive oil reduces the risk of developing heart disease. Try using virgin versions of olive oil instead of using butter. Legumes are filled with calcium and fiber. By eating more, such as black and kidney beans, you can control diabetes levels. Increasing the amount of vegetables you eat helps your heart, but spinach provides such things as potassium and fiber for a healthier cardiovascular system. Introducing these ingredients into your diet and meals can dramatically enhance your heart and health. For those who don’t want to completely eliminate some of their favorite soul food meals from their diets, try this meal plan containing savory southern favorites without the guilty aftermath.
PHENOMENAL LIVING
OVEN FRIED CHICKEN Pam Butter Flavored Non-Fat, Nonstick Cooking Spray 1/3 cup whole wheat flour 1/2 tsp Kosher salt 1/2 tsp granulated onion powder 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper 1/4 tsp black pepper 3oz buttermilk 1/2 cup cornflake crumbs, crushed firmly 1 pound uncooked boneless, skinless breasts
LOW-FAT MACARONI AND CHEESE 12oz high fiber elbow macaroni 2 tbsp light butter 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour 2 cups 2% milk 1 cup low fat Carnation evaporated milk
3) Combine flour, salt, pepper, onion powder, and cayenne pepper in a medium size bowl 4) Place buttermilk and cornflake crumbs in 2 separate shallow bowls 5) Roll pieces in flour and coat each side evenly
2 capsful of vinegar 6 oz light turkey meat (I choose to use turkey tails.) 2 bunches separated collard greens 1/2 large chopped onion 1 tsp pepper 2 cups water 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1) In a medium saucepan, melt butter 2) Add flour and cook over low heat and stir with whisk
1) Soak the bunches of collard greens in the vinegar and cold water 2) Repeat process until there is no longer any dirt in the water
7) Place chicken pieces in baking dish
3) Add dry mustard and pepper, cook and continue to stir 5) Add milk and cream and continue stirring 6) Raise heat to medium until boil and the mixture is smooth and thick 7) Once thick, slowly add cheese until melted 8) Add cooked macaroni to baking dish
8) Spray chicken lightly with cooking spray 9) Bake for about 25-30 minutes; until tender and no longer pink
9) Pour cheese mixture over macaroni 10) Bake at about 375°F for about 15-20 mins. or until bubbly and lightly brown on top
* This recipe contains 7g of fat, compared to the normal 20g found in deep fried chicken * containing the same ingredients.
*1 cup of this dish contains 267 calories, compared to one cup of Patti LaBelle’s famous “Over the Rainbow Mac n Cheese”
6) Dip chicken in buttermilk and then in cornflake crumbs
COLLARD GREENS
1 tbsp dry mustard 8oz Sargento 2% reduced fat mild cheddar cheese, cubed 1 tbsp pepper to season
* If you prefer to use wings, drumsticks, or thighs, remove skin. 1) Set oven to 365°F 2) Lightly coat baking dish with cooking spray
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2 tsp seasoning to taste (such as garlic powder or Mrs. Dash)
3) Place water and turkey meat in pot 4) Add onion and seasonings and bring to a boil 5) Reduce heat to low and simmer covered for 30 minutes 6) Add collards to pot 7) Simmer covered for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally 8) Add vegetable oil and simmer covered for 30 minutes
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JERI WRIGHT
SOUND ADVICE
Socially Responsible with Black Love: Use b condoms
While editing Rae’s article submitted for this month’s issue of Trumpet Newsmagazine (TM), I learned about a Black-owned condom company. I was so excited, I immediately researched the company, and became elated to learn of Jason Panda, an African American man, in his early 30s, who lives to b socially responsible. Jason is a history maker, as b Condoms is the first and only condom company owned by an African American. Talking to Jason about how the concept originated, made my heart happy, as I listened to him explain his mother was the one who suggested he birth the company. In a discussion she and Jason were having, he was explaining to her the
“success” he’d achieved as a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Morehouse College, and as a corporate attorney with a top New York law firm left something missing. He could feel the pull to do more for the community, more in connection to his purpose in life. As a result of his mother, who remains very active in the community, discussing “the disproportionate effect HIV/AIDS has on communities of color, she realized a new approach was needed,” explained Jason. He continued, “This approach involved a fully-engaged condom distributor working hand-in-hand with grassroots organizations, changing the trajectory of HIV/AIDS and all
sexually transmitted infections.” As a result of that discussion, and his passion for being a change agent in the African American community and communities of color, b condoms began, and has quickly grown using that concept as its mission. “b condoms partners with organizations who work to create change on the ground. We also reinvest a substantial portion of our profits into organizations that fight HIV/AIDS rates in the most at-risk communities,” Jason shares as he addresses the concept, mission, vision, and reason for the company. He continues, “We’re proud of the fact that we’re more than just a condom company. We are a
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movement. We chose the name ‘b’ to express you can ‘b’ anything. You can ‘b’ responsible, you can ‘b’ protected, and we can ‘b’ the change. Our motto is ‘b cool. b safe. b yourself.’” b condom, although a for-profit company, is a “socially responsible and culturally relevant condom company that measures our success by the role we play in decreasing the number of new cases of HIV in the communities we serve, as opposed to profit margins” Jason added. When asked how b condoms landed in Whole Foods, Jason enthusiastically explained that because he insisted on the best quality for the product, he “traveled extensively to find the right manufacturer. The manufacturer had to use the highest quality latex. There were certain standards required in the selection process of
the manufacturer.” Finding the manufacturer meant finding one who used health-conscious materials and techniques to craft the product. Because Whole Foods represents the best quality foods, including organic and vegan foods, this was a perfect match. In June of 2012, Whole Foods Markets began a partnership with b condoms, donating a box of condoms to a local non-profit for every box of condoms sold, in honor of the 2012 National HIV/AIDS Testing Day. b condoms is looking for more retail outlets to partner with in providing access to education, testing and prevention campaigns. If you own or know of someone who owns a retail outlet, or if are in a position of decision-making authority in a retail outlet, b condoms is looking for you. Partner with b condoms and join the
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movement. b helpful in spreading the word and getting everyone you know to b supportive. For more information on partnering with and/ or purchasing b condoms, register on their website, www.bcondoms.com. Having joined the movement, we look forward to more from Jason Panda and b condoms. It is our sincere prayer you start today: b supportive. b proud of the history makers, use b condoms, not just during Black History Month, but every day. b condoms where luxury meets social responsibility. b educated, nurtured, and empowered during this month Trumpet celebrates Black Passion: Black History and Black Love!
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MORE FROM THE MAN WHO SUED PRESIDENT OBAMA AND WON: CHRIS HEDGES PART 2
GLOBAL NOTES
You received your MDiv at Harvard University. Knowing all who attend seminary and divinity school are not necessarily called to preach, your life preaches one of the greatest sermons. What is the Gospel to you? Chris Hedges: Well, the Gospel, you know, it's a pretty straightforward document, and I would really say that it's broken into two strains. One is a deep distrust of temporal power, and secondly, an overriding concern with the position of the oppressed, that is, with all the other vagaries of Paul and everything else. I mean that is the Gospel for me. And, there is a kind of truth there, a human truth that is extremely important. And, I'm not a biblical literalist. How can you be when you read antiSemitic statements in the Gospel of John? And yet, I think it remains an extremely important work in terms of informing how I orient my own life. It is a book that was written by a class of people who at that time were under tremendous repression, but I think that's also true for the Hebrew Bible. And so there was a kind of consciousness about power, oppressive power and how it works, that makes that book extremely important to those who are oppressed and those who care about lifting up the oppressed. One of my professors, Dr. Dave Frenchak, said something the other day about seminaries. Paraphrasing, he said, if they do not teach the praxis of theology as opposed to the orthodoxy of theology, seminaries would die. What is your take on the
approach of seminary, in terms of teaching theology? Chris Hedges: Harvard Divinity School is a pretty dead seminary, because it doesn't teach the praxis of theology. What it teaches is exegesis, so we were all sitting around with different colored flares eviscerating the Word of God. It was a theoretical exercise, and while many of the people mouthed the right words, they liked the poor, but they didn't like the felon poor. They sat around Cambridge, Massachusetts (and remember I was commuting in from the projects), talking about empowering people they never met and they never were going to meet. And, that for me was a window into the hypocrisy of the white liberal crash that liked to paint themselves in moral colors, within the confines of these privileged ghettos like Cambridge, and yet had no actual understanding of what it meant to be oppressed, what it meant to live in oppressive communities. Indeed, of course, what they did was romanticize the ghetto, and so, yeah, I would agree that the problem with divinity schools is that they don't walk the walk. They talk a good game -- I'm talking about liberal divinity schools -- but I think they retreat into this boutique activism of before. Which is, they get caught up in identity politics and gender politics, all of which I support, but they use that really as a way to avoid confronting what for me is the core concern of the Gospel, and that's social injustice. In your narrative of the Occupy Movement (see Part 1, January 2013 issue), how does that come down to
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Black America at the ground level? How do they build a bridge? How does that bridge-building begin? How does that look? For people like myself who live in Black America, and we're so disconnected from that reality of the truth. How do you see that happening? Chris Hedges: Well, unfortunately, we're going in the other direction. We have a corrosion of systems of information as well as education. That's what charter schools are about. It's about teaching people what to think for vocation, not teaching people how to think, which is a whole different phenomenon. I mean the media's been utterly corporatized. The news has been reduced to trivia gossip, celebrity meltdowns. It's insane and so we've gone in the other direction. You are never going to understand as a white American, the Black experience in this country from the mainstream systems of information including what's taught in public schools. And, again, that creates a kind of fragmentation within the society because you have the dominant class unable to understand the reality of those who are oppressed within their midst, and so when people out of communities of oppression speak, they speak in words that are totally unintelligible to the powerly. In your latest book, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, there's a Scripture you reference on Hosea. Can you expound on that? Chris Hedges: They sowed the wind and they reaped the whirlwind. (Hosea 8:7a) That in essence by investing your energy in folly, you
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create forces of disaster, whether it's environmental or whether it’s social that come back to haunt you, and that really is what the book is about. That we turned our back on our neighbor in biblical terms whether that was Native Americans, or that was African Americans, whether that was Latinos, whether that was undocumented farm workers, whoever, and, what we permitted these (in essence) corporate forces to do to the oppressed and the marginal within our society are now being done to us. And that's what always happens. We are now being harvested (to use a business term), in the same way these communities were harvested by corporate forces who have no loyalty to the nation's state, and are reconfiguring the country into a form of neofeudalism, a world of an anagogic system of masters and sirs. And this is, the reality of power, is something that the oppressed are deeply cognizant of. But the mainstream society, because of these electronic hallucinations and lies, in essence, have been disempowered or they have been, let's say, illusioned or mesmerized by very effective forms of propaganda as they were stripped of power. Now what our neighbor went through is what we're going through. Well, it sounds like we're moving closer and closer to a one-party system, if not in theory. Can you make a distinction between the two, if there is any? Chris Hedges: Well, there are two parties, but they both serve corporate power. There are differences between those parties, and yet, they will not challenge corporate power,
and let's say also imperial power. So, you know, the difference between the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration for a financier on Wall Street or for an oppressed Palestinian in Gaza, there is not the slightest change, and that's a kind of indication of where the engines of power lie. The corporate state, because these corporate forces essentially have carried out a kind of coup d'ĂŠtat in slow motion, even though they engage in public and flagrant criminal activity and fraud, let's look at sub-prime mortgages, we have the paper trail to prove it. Nobody goes to jail. I mean the only person who goes to jail is Bernie Madoff and that's because he steals from rich people, but nobody else goes to jail. I mean Goldman-Sachs; the whole hierarchy of GoldmanSachs should be in prison. Instead they are at zero-percent interest, virtually, money from the Federal Reserve and then these corporations lend back to us at 15- or 30% interest. If this isn't capitalism, I don't know what it is. That's the system we've created, and Obama is as hostage to that system as Bush or any other President. There's no question that as a figure, Obama is a far more appealing figure than Romney, and yet on the fundamental issues that make a difference in people's lives, we're not gonna see any change. I mean, the inability to respond rationally, to create a massive jobs program especially targeted at people under the age of twenty-five, to declare a moratorium on foreclosures and bank repossessions, to forgive student debt, to create a rational healthcare system that's not run by corporations.
I mean capitalists should not be allowed anywhere near healthcare. It's insane what we've done. We live in a country where it's legally permissible for corporations to hold sick children hostage while their parents bankrupt themselves trying to save their sons or daughters. And Obama is as guilty of that as his predecessor. And that's because in the end the personal narratives of these candidates do not in any fundamental way affect the centers of power which are on Wall Street, which are not in Washington. For us who are at the ground level of organizing, right in the heart of Black America.com, what would you give us in terms of strategy? How do we begin? Organizing is a very difficult task. Chris Hedges: It's also difficult when -- and, I -- let's go back to the third chapter of my book on Camden, it's really hard to organize in a community that has suffered that kind of trauma for that long. Because, you know, Black, white, it doesn't matter, when you traumatize human beings, year-after-year, decade-after-decade and that's of course a conscious policy on the part of power, you diminish their capacity to respond because the very struggle to survive consumes so much emotional and physical energy. And, any time you become arrested in any way, you can get thrown into the Prison Industrial Complex for years and years and years. And I think that, I just don't want to romanticize what cities like Camden are like. I don’t think that movements of resistance are necessarily going to
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arise out of these sacrifice zones like Camden; or even Pine Ridge, South Dakota, where you have an 80% alcoholism rate; or the coal fields of Southern West Virginia, where you have these poor whites in communities popping fistfuls of Oxycontin, or they call it “Hillbilly Heroin.” Because, in essence, we as a wider society have neglected them for so long, and the suffering that many of them have endured has been so extreme that they are not surprisingly, very broken. So, I think that the great anarchist, Balkunin, used to talk about déclassé intellectuals. Those who were prepared to enter the mainstream society as a culture breaks down and found no place for them becoming, you an important force in building revolutionary movements. And I think that's true. I think that much of the leadership is going to come out of people who had a certain kind of economic stability, but they're going to have to develop the consciousness of what oppression is and what the oppressed suffer. And they're going to have to direct their energies away from what the wider culture is telling them, which is about making money or building small, little professional monuments to themselves, and use that energy and talent to link up with those within oppressed communities to begin to organize and fight back. But I don't think that we're going to have that happen if we sit around and wait for the oppressed. I think there has to be a kind of alliance and you can see that with King. King had certain limitations. The most important one being that he was very careful not to tell white people the truth about white people, in the way Malcolm did, but King
came out of the upper middle class. I remember reading him saying until his 20s, his life was wrapped up like a big Christmas present for him. I think King becomes an example of those who have the stability and emotional structures, and possibilities given to them, not using those possibilities to advance their own career, but taking the good fortune and the privilege they've had and marrying that or carrying that into oppressed environments, and building a kind of alliance. And I think if we can begin to do that, because so many people in this country are suffering (I mean half the country virtually lives in poverty.), we can begin to build a movement. Such great insights! I guess it will be difficult for oppressed people to not see the people in the middle class, so-called middle class, as allies.
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"In the end, it’s not about us and I and thou. It's about the other," and I think that if those of us who were more fortunate began to realize that biblical message and begin to devote our lives to the tremendous suffering that's being devisited on the poor, and the working class in this country, then we have the possibility of building a movement. But we won't build it if those of us who live in positions of relative privilege remain passive. It will require all of us. Well, Brother Chris Hedges, I thank you. I call you brother because I feel a sense of connection with you in the heart. I thank God for your journey. I thank God for your insights. It comes with a tremendous price. There's a redemptive power in suffering and you exhibit that!
Chris Hedges: The middle class betrayed them. I mean you have the -- what you did is you created a multi-cultural lead. So for the upper third of African Americans -- so that's probably not true anymore because since 2008, the people in the middle class who've been hit the hardest have been people of color, not surprisingly. But you, you had the possibility for that small percentage to integrate economically into the power structure and there was a pull on them to turn their backs on where they came from, and I think that's true for everybody. I mean, that's what white people have been doing for a very long time. And I think, again, it goes back to that biblical message. What are we here for? What is a life of meaning? Why do we exist? As Martin Buber says,
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SOUND ADVICE
HEART ATTACK
NATIONAL HEART MONTH TERRY MASON, M.D.
When I was Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public health, the American Heart Association was concerned about the number of people trained to perform CPR. CPR stands for Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation. This is an activity where one pushes on the chest and breathes into the mouth of the person who is unconscious and not breathing. They provided a series of small dummies upon which to practice CPR. I was taken by their generous gift of over 1000 units. We trained 1000 employees on cardiopulmonary resuscitation in approximately one hour at one of our all employee meetings. As you continue to read you will understand why I was enthusiastic to teach all of my employees this technique. I'd like to share some statistics from the Heart Association. They publish a CPR and sudden cardiac arrest fact sheet. There are some interesting issues raised. Did you know there were over 300,000 out of hospital sudden cardiac arrests every year? The out of hospital part means these were arrests that happened in places other than the hospital. Most importantly, 88% of those occur at home. This means that there may be someone else present when a person has a cardiac arrest. “What is a sudden cardiac arrest? It means that the heart has stopped or the heart rate has become rapid and or
chaotic. It is usually caused when the blood supply to a part of the heart muscle, especially blood that feeds the left side of the heart, is suddenly blocked.� A plaque breaking off and blocking the artery usually is the culprit. The blocked artery can no longer feed blood vital to keeping the heart beating. When the heart no longer beats or pumps, blood is no longer flowing in the body. If it is not restored soon, the person will die. This is why pumping on the chest (CPR) can help to circulate the blood and helps keep the person alive. Given that over 80% of cardiac arrests occur at home, CPR is likely to save a child, a spouse, a parent, or friend. They also indicate in their fact sheet that African Americans are almost twice as likely to experience cardiac arrest at home, work, or in another public location than Caucasians. Moreover, African American survival rates are twice as poor as Caucasians. That means African Americans are probably more than twice as likely to die from a cardiac arrest. There are many issues packed in this statement that will provide an opportunity for another discussion. Recently there have been some changes in the CPR guidelines. What has changed is what is called bystander CPR. The full CPR requires that the person not only pump the person's
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chest, but also administer mouth-tomouth resuscitation or breathing. The new guidelines allow for chest compression alone. There is a great video that you can watch called hands only CPR instructional video. The reason I encourage you and your friends and family to watch this video is because there is data that indicates if you do you will be more likely to perform bystander compression only CPR. What is also an interesting finding in a publication titled, Bystander CPR? Depends on the Neighborhood, by Cole Petrochko, Staff Writer, Medpage Today, and reviewed by Dr. Zalman S. Agus and Dorothy Caputo MA, BSN, RN, from the Pearlman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The article pointed out persons suffering an out of hospital cardiac arrest were half as likely to receive bystander initiated CPR in a lowincome Black neighborhood than in a high income white neighborhood. According to the information they reviewed, patients in neighborhoods where the median household income was under $40,000, a greater than
80% Black population, had a 51% reduced likelihood of receiving bystander CPR if a person had a cardiac arrest. This was done after looking at over 14,000 patients who experienced cardiac arrest. The record also indicated if a bystander, defined as any person not part of the 911-response team, was present. There were other characteristics they reported that did increase the likelihood of getting bystander assistance. If the arrest was witnessed, in other words, if somebody actually saw the person go down, that person was approximately twice more likely to get bystander CPR than if they didn't. They also noted that Blacks and Hispanics were approximately 30% less likely than whites to receive bystander initiated CPR. This is a study that was supported by the CDC, the Emergency Medicine Foundation, the American Heart Association, an independent scientist award from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and the CARES collaboration.
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What this information says to me is, as African Americans, we need to learn how to properly perform bystander CPR. The life we would save could be one of our own family members or friends since most of these heart attacks happen at home. We should teach every person in the house, who is old enough to provide this service, how to do it. The video from the American Heart Association can be found by going to www.heart.org. There you will find the instructions to properly perform this technique. One of the keys is to be certain if you do witness an arrest you check to see if they’re breathing. If not, use your cell phone or someone's phone to call for help before you begin the CPR. The life you save may be your own mother, brother, father, sister, grandmother, grandfather, or your best friend. Think about it. The primary source for this article was the New England Journal of Medicine 2012; 367:1607 – 1615; DOI: 10. 1056/NEJMO a 1110700.
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THE ARTS
BOOK CORNER
Healing The Wounds of Colorism DR. COLLEEN BIRCHETT
This Black History Month, our “Book Corner” column focuses on using children’s books to help our children love themselves in spite of “mixed messages” they might get from their environments. That is, most African American grandparents and great-grandparents would say the world in which they grew up and the world in which young African Americans are now coming of age are completely different. Most would mention changes brought about through the Civil Rights Movement, along with the Black Power, Black is Beautiful, and Black Arts movements of the 1960s and ‘70s. They might mention Black representatives now at every level of government, and Blacks in professions where they were barely, if ever, present before. They might even mention the availability of scholarships and the presence of African American millionaires on television, on the radio, in film, and in all aspects of popular culture. Probably the list would go on and on. Few would overlook the election of President Barak Obama, the first African American President of the United States. Some might even argue this means we are now in a virtually post-racial society. On the other hand, these same grandparents, might find it hard to believe such changes are only superficial. They might be even more surprised to discover researchers saying some of the most resistant centers against change, are within African American families themselves. They might be startled to find far too many grandparents,
great-grandparents, and some parents are the very ones who are blocking the change. In fact, researchers are pointing to the deadly tradition of “colorism” – a tradition that, since slavery, is still being passed down from one generation to another.1 It is this deadly tradition now being considered to have as much of a negative impact on Black children’s achievements as racism and poverty. Ethnographers, sociologists, psychologists and scholars from various disciplines have used critical race theory, to define “colorism” as a system, similar to, but slightly different from racism, in that it assigns people within “races” different values based on gradations in skin color.2 This happens from outside and from within the “races.” These differences in color, have roots in sexual activity, usually raping, of women of African heritage on plantations. In the United States, it occurred mostly on Southern plantations. However, other “race mixing” occurred in Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and throughout Asia. These “third races” were labeled “Mullato” (and other labels based on the amount of African blood and various languages).3 During slavery, the lighter complexioned Blacks generally were assigned domestic work within the plantation houses, while darker people of African descent did the work in the fields. All of this created unnatural class divisions between all Africans being held in bondage.
Tragically, as the now famous “Willie Lynch Letter”4 suggests, over centuries of such manipulation from outside, far too many Africans became victims of internalized racism, and this poisonous partnership with racism has been passed down through the generations through many families. One of the most dramatic evidences of this was shown in the short 2005 documentary called, “A Girl Like Me.”5 In it, producer, Kiri Davis, replicated a study first done by
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THE ARTS psychologists Drs. Kenneth and Maimie Clark, in 1939. In the documentary, as in the Clark study, the children were asked to select between black and white dolls those that were the prettiest, nicest, and with whom they preferred to play. In this latter study, 15 out of the 21 Black children reacted most favorably to the white doll, and most negatively to the black doll. The results were very similar to the ones gotten by Drs. Kenneth and Maimie Clark, 65 years earlier. 6 Few grandparents or greatgrandparents would be able to deny that the influences of colorism, paired with racism, are still felt in communities of color. However, research over the past decade has shown a significant number of students are still being negatively impacted by it within their own families and by popular culture. Studies are now showing a correlation between low selfesteem in adolescent African American girls and at-risk behaviors such as substance abuse, and the acquisition of sexually transmitted diseases.7 Researcher Grace Marguerite Williams describes situations within African American families where darker complexioned children feel denigrated and as though they barely exist, as aunts and grandparents “gush” over lighter complexioned siblings and cousins while ignoring them. Even currently, some darker complexioned girls recall being called names and forced to submit to rituals to lighten their skin. These victims of colorism have reacted against this favoritism by splitting families along color lines, with darker members saying the lighter members are not authentically black. Williams also describes parents and grandparents still exerting pressure on young adults to select marriage partners with lighter complexions. Men of all hues are still being told to “marry up” in order to produce lighter complexioned babies. Some darker children are told, due to this, their prospects for marriage are slim, and they must achieve more academically to compensate for it.8 These conflicts have persisted over generations and have spread throughout extended families. Moreover, Linda Burton recently headed a team of researchers who, after examining research on Black families over the first decade of
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the 21st century, say that differences of skin tone within the Black community are still positively correlated with differences in education, income, marital potential and marital happiness.9 This naturally raises the question as to how parents, teachers, grandparents, and church leaders can counter the effects of and stop this trend. One strategy might be to use books for children and young adults. One of the most positive developments brought on by the “Black is Beautiful,” “Black Arts” and Africancentered movements in the late 20th century has been the steadily growing body of children’s books presenting positive images of young Black people of various hues. Some address issues of colorism and racism head on. Children. Cheryl Willis Hudson’s Bright Eyes, Brown Skin, shows a cute little medium brown African American boy getting into mischief, while becoming endeared to the reader along the way.10 Natasha Anastasia Tarpley’s I Love My Hair, features a little girl having her hair combed by her mother. The mother teaches her about her hair’s connection to Africa and illustrates ways women around the world style Black hair.11 Jabari Asim and Leuyen Pham’s Whose Toes are Those? has a cute little boy playing with the reader, wiggling his toes and bending his knees, against a background of beautiful art and poetry.12 In Peekaboo Morning, Rachel Isadora features an African child who, at the top of the morning, is playing “peekaboo” with her mother, grandparents, aunts, friends and with the reader.13 Asim Jabari’s Girl of Mine similarly shows its main character enjoying playtime with her father and mother. 14 In Shades of People, Shelley Rotner and Sheila M. Kelly show the diversity of skin colors both in and outside of the Black community, with sections that deal with diversity of skin colors within families. 15 Sandra Pinkney’s Shades of Black is now available as both a picture book and a board book for preschool through seven years of age. A wide range of Black complexions are celebrated through poetry and beautiful art work. 16 Teenagers. Mireille Liong-a-Kong’s Going Natural: How to Fall in Love with Nappy Hair focuses on caring for and
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THE ARTS
styling Black hair, without resorting to weaves, or unnatural straightening methods. Women of various hues serve as the models. 17 Alfred Fornay’s Born Beautiful: the African American Teenagers’ Complete Beauty Guide shows models of various hues illustrating how to care for various skin types, with color charts for selecting makeup and guidelines for beauty products to avoid. 18 Stephanie Perry Moore’s Morgan Love Series casts Black teenaged girls of various hues in 1
various roles, but focuses primarily on building faith in God while dealing with issues such as body image, colorism, racism, and natural adolescent challenges. 19 Stephanie Perry Moore’s series of five books carries readers through childhood and adolescence, while dealing with body image and other conflicts Black children face. Adults. Classic novels and memoirs such as Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, 20 Nella Larsen’s Passing, 21 Shirlee Taylor Haizlip’s The Sweeter the Juice: A Family
http://gmwilliams.hubpages.com/hub/Colorism-In-Families
2
Burke, M, “Colorism” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edited by W. Darity, Jr., (Detroit: Gale Publishers, 2005), Volume II, 17-18.
3
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=233850
4
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/Perspectives_1/ Willie_Lynch_letter_The_Making_of_a_Slave.shtml
5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAOZhuRb_Q8
6
http://www.nndb.com/people/883/000115538/
7
Wingood, Gina, Ralph DiClemente, Jay Bernhardt, and Kathy Harrington, et, al, “A Prospective Study of Exposure to Rap Music Videos and African American Female Adolescent Health” American Journal of Public Health, v. 93, Issue 3, 437, Washington, March, 2003; Chen, M.J., “Music, Substance Use and Aggression” Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 67, No. 3, 373-381, May, 2006; Cole, Johnetta, “Sex, Violence, Disrespect: What Hip Hop Has Done to Black Women”, Ebony, vol. 62, no. 5, March, 2007, 93-95.
8
http://gmwilliams.hubpages.com/hub/Colorism-In-Families
Memoir in Black and White22 deal with color symbolism and its political and economic impacts on Black families. More recent scholarly studies deal directly with the effects of colorism, including: Evelyn Glenn’s Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters, 23 M.L. Hunter’s Race, Gender and Politics of Skin Tone, 24 Cederick Herring’s Skin Deep: How Race and Complexion Matter in the ‘Color Blind’ Era, 25 and Annette Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life. 26
15
http://www.amazon.com/Shades-People-Shelley-Rotner/dp/0823423050/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357417072&sr=1-1&keywords=Shades+of+People 16
http://www.amazon.com/Shades-Black-Celebration-Our-Children/dp/0439148928/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357417628&sr=1-1&keywords=Shades+of+Black 17
http://www.amazon.com/Going-Natural-Fall-Love-Nappy-Hair/dp/0976096102/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357417180&sr=1-1&keywords=Going+Natural%3A+How 18
http://www.amazon.com/Born-Beautiful-American-Teenagers-Complete/dp/0471402753/ ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357417298&sr=1-1&keywords=Born+Beautiful%3A+the 19
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nbsb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&fieldkeywords=Morgan+Love+Series 20
http://www.amazon.com/Bluest-Eye-Vintage-International/dp/0307278441/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357417797&sr=1-1&keywords=the+Bluest+Eye 21
http://www.amazon.com/Passing-Nella-Larsen/dp/1466399589/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357417874&sr=1-1&keywords=Passing
9
Burton, Linda et. Al, “Critical Race Theories, Colorism and the Decade’s Research on Families of Color” Journal of Marriage and Family, v. 72, no. 3, June, 2010, 440-459.
22
http://www.amazon.com/Sweeter-Juice-Family-Memoir-Black/dp/0671899333/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357418066&sr=1-1&keywords=Sweeter+the+Juice
10
http://www.amazon.com/Bright-Eyes-Brown-Skin-Feeling/dp/0940975238/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357416358&sr=1-1&keywords=Bright+Eyes%2C+Brown+Skin
23
http://www.amazon.com/Shades-Difference-Skin-Color-Matters/dp/0804759995/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357418285&sr=1-1&keywords=Shades+of+Difference
11
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Hair-Natasha-Anastasia-Tarpley/dp/0316523755/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357416539&sr=1-1&keywords=I+Love+My+Hair 12
http://www.amazon.com/Whose-Toes-Those-Sally-Symes/dp/0763662747/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357416733&sr=1-1&keywords=Whose+Toes+Are+Those%3F
24
http://www.amazon.com/Race-Gender-Politics-Skin-Tone/dp/0415946085/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357418382&sr=1-1&keywords=Race%2C+Gender+and+Politics+of +Skin+Tone 25
13
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_n_feature_browse-b_mrr_1?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck %3APeekaboo+Morning%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin %3A2656020011&bbn=283155&keywords=Peekaboo +Morning&ie=UTF8&qid=1357416869&rnid=618072011 14
http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Mine-Jabari-Asim/dp/0316735787/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357416973&sr=1-1&keywords=Girl+of+Mine
http://www.amazon.com/Skin-Deep-Complexion-Matter-Color-Blind/dp/1929011261/ ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357418476&sr=1-1&keywords=Skin+Deep%3A+How 26
http://www.amazon.com/Unequal-Childhoods-Class-Race-Family/dp/0520271424/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357418564&sr=1-1&keywords=Unequal+Childhoods
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REAR VIEW
THE IDOL SMASHER http://www.truthdig.com | Posted on Dec. 30, 2012
CHRIS HEDGES
Reprinted with permission from the author.
Ishmael Reed has spent the last five decades smashing idols—idols of race, idols of capitalism, celebrity idols and the idols of national virtue and greatness. His essays, novels, poems, plays, songs and cartoons routinely shatter the delusions and myths of a nation stubbornly unwilling to confront its past or understand its present. He rips open a history that saw white Europeans exterminate one race and enslave another to create the nation’s prosperity, a past that includes the violent plundering of nations around the globe—Cuba, the Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan among them—to show us who we have become. He names the corrosive disease of empire. He excoriates what Alexis de Tocqueville called our “perpetual practice of self-applause.” He battles back against the sophisticated forms of propaganda—especially from Hollywood—that perpetuate patriotic fantasies and pander to the dark streams of paranoia, racism and fear that run like electric currents through white society.
Illustration by Mr. Fish
Reed’s righteous fury is a heartening antidote to the squeamishness of liberals and the lunacy of the right wing. He says the editors of The New York Times and most other major media outlets “sound like they get their instructions from Julius Streicher [the Nazi propagandist] when it comes to blacks.” He calls the HBO series “The Wire” “a Neo-Nazi portrait of black people” and dismisses the movie “Precious” as a film that “makes D.W. Griffith look like a progressive.” “Lazy, no-good black people, who are welfare cheats, sitting around eating chicken, and having sex with their children, right out of the Lee Atwater-Paul Ryan playbook,” he said of the portrayals in “Precious” when I reached him by phone at his home in Oakland, Calif. “The wonderful novelist Diane Johnson was right when she said that ‘largely white’ audiences are thrilled by images of black people as dysfunctional. This has become a billion-dollar market which led critics to assert that Black
Bogeyman movies sell better than sex, according to the critic C. Liegh McInnis. You even have a critic at The Root website, a post-racial ‘Talented Tenth’ hangout for ‘exceptional blacks,’ praising Quentin Tarantino’s latest sick exercise into racial porn, called ‘Django Unchained,’ ” which I critique at the Wall Street Journal site Speakeasy. This movie is being praised by the same critics who loved ‘The Color Purple’ and ‘Precious,’ probably because it revives Stanley Elkins’ discredited ‘Sambo Thesis.’ ” Reed has no time for Black Bloc anarchists, whom he calls “alienated, spoiled middle-class white kids from the suburbs” as well as “vandals and thugs.” He calls the Oscar presentation “a white supremacist pageant.” He detests the Clintons, who he reminds us sold out the poor and the working class. Hillary, he says, makes “Eva Peron seem benign.” He predicts more tragedies like the recent Connecticut massacre, noting that many white Americans stockpile assault rifles
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because they are terrified of black people and that mass shootings in the United States almost always are carried out by estranged white men. “ ‘The Turner Diaries,’ the book that inspired Timothy McVeigh to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma, and assaults by gunmen including one against the North Valley Jewish Community Center [in Granada Hills, Calif.,] in 1999, are very explicit,” he said not long after we were on a panel together at the Miami Book Festival. “The [novel] tells whites they need guns because if they give up their assault weapons blacks will kidnap white women and Jewish men will be their pimps. This fantasy, however absurd, at least addresses the deepest, unspoken fears of whites. The white power structure looks around at what is happening. It sees we are going down. It is terrified of an uprising by a coalition of whites, blacks, AsianAmericans and Hispanics that elected Obama—even though Obama with his pretty, multicultural face and elegant style and his spouse, who is more militant than he and who for that reason has been silenced, serve the empire. The only problem is that white crazies like [Michele] Bachmann and the others are so blinded by white supremacy that they won’t go along with the script. She [Rep. Bachmann] said that Obama was costing the taxpayers $250 million per day on his trip to India, a lie, when Obama’s taking over 100 CEOs along with him brought back billions in contracts.” “The other part of the white public, the underclass and working class, has proven that they will go to any lengths to uphold white supremacy,” he said. “Even when they had no fight in the Civil War, owning no slave assets like the planters, they caused the deaths of
640,000 Americans in order to uphold white supremacy. Then, as now, parts of the white working class, who are anti-union and get drunk on the cheap moonshine of racism, are willing to exercise selfextinction in order to uphold white supremacy.” “One part of the slavery deal was the patriarchal planter’s ownership of black women’s wombs,” he went on. “Now they [the powerful] are mandating this demand of all women. Yet, white women favored Romney by 14 points. They’re intimidated I think by their husbands, brothers, fathers and employers, which is why they scapegoat the [black] brothers for worldwide misogyny.” “When Eve Ensler cited the Congo, Haiti and New Orleans as where all of the cruelty to women [was], I figured that she was excusing white men because she has some kind of financial relationship with them,” he said. “One report from SUNY Buffalo has it that 90 percent of middle-class white women who were interviewed report being battered or witnessing their mothers, daughters and sisters being battered. Nicholas Kristof, who is on a world tour for the purpose of blaming black and brown men for cruelty to women, probably missed this report. So the white power structure, at least the Northeastern part, hopes having a black man as president will save the empire, just as the Germans, who were considered the underclass by the Romans, continued the Roman Empire until the 1800s, according to some historians. But they can’t sell this to the majority of white women, who voted for Romney, the kind of dated ‘50s face and style that alienates the rest of the world, instead of a president who is actually charming to those who hate the
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United States. The president, whom I have both admired and criticized, is good for business. His face is more welcomed in many parts of the world than the usual white Yalie or Harvard person who hasn’t a clue about what’s happening on the global streets—the kind of people who constantly get us into international trouble and even wars because they can’t read the values of other cultures … while Obama can go to places and tell Muslims, ‘Well, you know, I have Muslims in my family.’ ” “The reason that I supported Obama for re-election is because of the vitriol, bordering on the psychotic, aimed at him and his family,” Reed said. “Also, because he faced not only opposition from the neo-Confederate caucus in Congress, but from a tea party that was created by [Rupert] Murdoch and [Roger] Ailes and from CNN, which made a business alliance with the Tea Party Express, led formerly by Mark Williams, who was fired over his so-called colored people letter. He wrote: Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop! Williams went on to say blacks don’t want taxes cut because “how will we Colored People ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn?”
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“On the basis of my study of Yoruba, I was able to read a poem before an audience of Nigerian writers.” Reed said: “That they [CNN leaders] would make an alliance with this scum explains how blacks are depicted on CNN usually during the time when they have black anchors. I feel sorry for these people. It’s because of CNN and Hollywood that when I visited Palestinian schools in Jerusalem in October I was asked why all black people are on drugs. And he [former Tea Party
Express Chairman Williams] was replaced by a woman named Amy Kremer, who said to a CNN interviewer that ‘I just don’t believe that he [Obama] loves America the way we do.’ CNN’s bonding with this outfit explains the way it portrays blacks. The network has Soledad O’Brien scolding black men for not showing up at their daughters’ birthday parties, or blacks making excuses for not being successful, or it does a 24-hour show about blacks committing dumb street crimes, or black athletes doing DUIs, while the audience, described by [former CNN anchor] Rick Sanchez as ‘angry white men,’ are shown doing altruistic deeds. They ignore the widespread pathologies afflicting white women. They’re always shown helping people with their homework or adopting kids from Africa.” “I hold up a mirror to our hypocrisy,” Reed said. “This is a tradition among writers that goes back to Nathaniel Hawthorne, who exposed the hypocrisy of the Puritans. In Haitian mythology there is a figure named Ghede. In West Africa he is called Iku. His role is to show each man his devil. He wears a top hat and smokes a cigar. That’s what I do. I show each man, woman, or institution their devils.” “Satire is among many of the weapons available to me,” he said. “But when I took on the powerful white middle- and upper-class feminist movement, lampooning such extreme notions that Emmett Till was just as guilty as his murderers and that if, as Anita Hill says, ‘the woman should always be believed,’ what about Eva Braun?, I was left for literary roadkill, boycotted and censored. This was the best thing to happen to me because I decided that, unlike black male writers of the ‘40s and ‘50s—
black writers of the 19th century were probably more independent since they self-published and were even more aggressive than the current crop, they even took on the country’s presidents, which could get you killed in those days—I would become a global cultural figure and never again be judged by the whims of a market dependent upon coddling whichever specialinterest group is demanding that black writers exclusively render positive portraits of their constituency.” Reed plays jazz piano. He has performed at Yoshi’s San Francisco and at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in Manhattan as part of a series produced by Rome Neal, who has directed all of Reed’s plays. He has a CD out, “For All We Know,” and the band Conjure has been performing Reed’s poetry and songs since 1983, most recently at the Sardinia Jazz Festival. “My study of Japanese led to the creation of my novel “Japanese by Spring,” which got a lukewarm reception here but was praised by Japanese critics and even got me a trip to Japan in 1995,” Reed said. “The same book enticed professors at Beijing Normal University to invite me to China, from where my partner, the choreographer and author Carla Blank, whose most recent project was a collaboration with Robert Wilson, just returned. When I read from a song I wrote, at the Blue Note in Tokyo before it was sung, I couldn’t get past the first two lines in Japanese before I was interrupted with applause. The same thing happened in Nigeria. On the basis of my study of Yoruba, I was able to read a poem before an audience of Nigerian writers. People began to sing and give me gifts. That’s the way to reach citizens around the world. Learn their
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cultures. Communicating this way is superior to the old Eurocentric way of bombing those who are different from us.” Reed defies easy labels. “I don’t join movements,” he said at one point in the interview. He is deeply critical of black power movements that glorify violence, including the Black Panthers, but, he said, after “watching the Oakland police for a few decades I can understand what they [the Panthers] were up against, originally. They were organized to oppose police brutality, which in those days meant cops who were recruited from the South and who had a proven track record of handling niggers; the same reason that Southern officers were chosen to command black troops in Italy during World War II. When the Panthers turned to electoral politics, they elected a mayor, congresspeople, and filled local positions with blacks. The Panthers, unfortunately, were caught in a lovers’ quarrel between the white left and right. The right [and] the FBI destroyed the Panthers by using informants, including one who supplied them with weapons. The white left used them as proxies in a war against the establishment, their mothers and fathers. Some of them married movie stars or became wellpaid gurus or made millions by being race baiters like David Horowitz. The white left was treated differently from the black left, just as the Black Bloc is treated differently from black kids.” “The Bloc’s latest rampage through Oakland resulted in no arrests,” he said of one of the Black Bloc protests that occurred in that city in 2012. “When I interviewed Mark Rudd of the Weather Underground, he described his experience underground as ‘cozy.’ He was supported by rich
progressives and though he participated in an armed robbery, a jail break and other crimes, when he surrendered the prosecutor testified on his behalf! He didn’t serve a day in jail, while some members of the Black Panthers still languish in prison.” Reed attacks and explicates the institutional racism that keeps the poor trapped in internal colonies such as Oakland, but he has also mounted protracted campaigns to get the police to shut down crack houses and bring a semblance of safety to city streets. He confesses to being “very law and order” when it comes to criminal activity in inner-city neighborhoods. He calls the drug dealers, gang leaders and pimps in Oakland and other inner cities “neighborhood fascists.” But he ultimately blames “white pathology” for creating the violence and disorder. He points out that not only do most of the guns in Oakland and other cities come from the suburbs, but so do the customers for the drugs and prostitutes. The vast majority of the absentee landlords who rent properties to criminal enterprises in Oakland are, he notes, white or Asian-American. Nearly all live outside the city. He said that the news and entertainment industry, while ignoring the crimes of the big banks and corporations, focuses instead on blacks in the inner city whom he describes as “the underpaid mules in urban vice.” He cites “The Wire” and what he calls “the pro-NYPD series ‘NYC 22.’ ” [Neither of the TV shows are in production now.] “Indians of subcontinent ancestry run the hotels where the lucrative prostitution business takes place, and immigrant Muslims run the liquor stores, the front of which are outdoor offices for gangs, and the Chinese
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and Mexicans deliver the drugs to our neighborhood,” he said. “I’ve lived in Oakland for over 30 years,” he said. “I have seen a steady stream of whites coming to the city for vice. The police and the white power structure look the other way. They are tacitly involved. Also unnoticed by the Yale and Harvard graduates who have made a good living writing columns about black failure is the sorry record of the police in solving ‘urban’ homicides. In Oakland, it’s below 40 percent. Eighty-five percent of the police force in Oakland are white and from the suburbs and probably view black-on-black homicide as a form of sunocide—my term for fraternal extermination—as a form of population control. They permit these urban centers of vice to operate. But don’t expect to read about this in The New York Times or see it on CNN, this huge contribution of the white power structure to black pathology. Black people, when they do appear in the media, are usually dressed in orange jump suits while whites are shown doing altruistic deeds. We often get these racist stereotypes handed to us by colored mind doubles. And these colored mind doubles, like Barack Obama or [Henry Louis] Gates, never mention the white complicity in sustaining the black underclass, especially when they give their ‘tough love’ talks. The Talented Tenth, which includes the president, have made gains by distancing themselves from the less fortunate blacks.” Reed said that in researching his novel “Reckless Eyeballing” it became shockingly clear that Nazi stereotypes of Jews paralleled U.S. stereotypes of American blacks. “Jewish men were portrayed in the Nazi press as sexual predators,” he said. “They raped Aryan women.
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REAR VIEW
“Critics object to my drawing a parallel between the treatment of black men in the United States and [Jews] in Nazi Germany,” They were sexual deviants. They were violent. They engaged in criminal behavior. They were a force for vice, contamination and corruption. They could not be trusted. They were disloyal. Even Jewish schoolchildren were a problem because they supposedly disrupted classrooms. Now look at how Jewish writers like Philip Roth, Saul Bellow depict black men as flashers. I have a cartoon in which the Nazis depicted Jewish males as exposing themselves. David Mamet’s ‘Edmond,’ about black sexual predators, and which kind of endorses vigilante action against them, is consistent with the portrayals of Jewish men by the Nazi media. David Simon, Steven Spielberg, Richard Price and David Mamet in his play ‘Race’ have profited from refereeing the conflict between black men and women.” “Spielberg’s treatment of the character Mr. in ‘The Color Purple’ even drew protest from author Alice Walker,” Reed said. “But where is the Jewish ‘Color Purple’? I read a
Jewish feminist magazine called Lilith where Jewish feminists complain that the abuse of Jewish women by Jewish men has been greeted with silence. When I visited Jerusalem for the first time, I found that the misogyny among Jewish men was rampant. While there, Israeli women picketed the Knesset over the issue. In the Jewish magazine Tablet, Jewish women criticized Jewish producers for assigning roles to Gentile women that were meant for them. So if Steven Spielberg took off from producing profitable Black Bogeyman pictures to produce a Jewish ‘Color Purple,’ one of those blond Rhine maidens who appear in Woody Allen’s films will probably get the leading role.” “Critics object to my drawing a parallel between the treatment of black men in the United States and [Jews] in Nazi Germany,” he went on. “The parallel never occurred to me until I attended a lecture sponsored by the San Francisco Holocaust Museum. In a pamphlet
they said that the treatment of Jewish men in Nazi Germany was similar to that accorded blacks in the United States. I went out and found examples, [including those I cite from] the outtakes of a film called ‘Boogie Man, The Lee Atwater Story,’ 2008, which can be ordered from Netflix.” Reed despairs of the decline of the black press, especially black newspapers, which once gave blacks a sense of their own identity. “During the black power movement the Panthers and the Nation of Islam and figures like Muhammad Ali would only talk to black journalists, so these white publications hired them,” he noted. “But once these black journalists eventually went to work for white publications they had no power and no voice. According to Richard Prince’s ‘Journal-isms,’ these reporters, correspondents and commentators are being fired en masse, even at NPR. Those remaining have to apologize when they get out of line.”
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REAR VIEW He sees the assault on ethnic studies, especially African American studies, as another way to ensure that blacks do not know their own history or the abuses and atrocities carried out by whites during slavery, Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era, as well as in contemporary society. Without an understanding of how white power works, he says, blacks who are trapped and
and black slaves were interchangeable.” “This is a white movement,” Reed said of Occupy. “They are exclusive. They don’t concentrate on central issues that affect African Americans. San Francisco poet laureate Alejandro Murguia says that they have the same attitude toward Hispanics. In Oakland they [Occupy members] were mostly middle-class
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live? And what about the spectacle of a mostly white group booing Oakland’s mayor, an AsianAmerican, off the stage? I wonder how that played around the world? They get American television in Beijing.” Meanwhile, Reed is hard at work shattering yet another idol.
“He sees the assault on ethnic studies, especially African American studies, as another way to ensure that blacks do not know their own history or the abuses and atrocities carried out by whites during slavery, Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era, as well as in contemporary society.” ultimately disenfranchised, especially in our massive prison complex, cannot connect the dots. Reed believes something has to be done soon to fight against the rapid reconfiguration of the United States into a corporate, feudal state. But he is not sure the Occupy movement is the answer. He wants something more politically defined. He suggests “a challenge of the Republican Party from the left as it has been challenged by the Murdoch/Ailes billionaire-backed tea party, which uses the same kind of chumps who got their asses blown off and were sacrificed by the planter 1 percent for the cause of white supremacy. Toward the end [of the Civil War], these pathetic soldiers who didn’t own slaves found out what Jefferson Davis and his friends thought of them when they advocated that they fight side by side with black slaves. To the planter elite, these sad white men
kids from out of town; at least 75 percent were not from here. They didn’t have any control over the Black Bloc anarchists, or these socalled anarchists. These Black Bloc kids, all dressed in black, which was the only thing black about them, went around smashing windows, trashing City Hall and destroying private property. They trashed Obama’s campaign headquarters. We are a poor city. And now because of them we have to find millions of dollars to pay for their damage. Our police, which is an occupation force, take every opportunity to do overtime. They get paid well. And now we have to pay it. Why didn’t these Black Bloc kids go smash the neighborhoods where the 1 percent live? Why didn’t they march on La Jolla, one of the wealthiest zones in the United States? Every other car in La Jolla is a BMW or a Mercedes. Mitt Romney has a home there. Why didn’t they go to Hillsborough or Palm Springs where rich people
“I’ve spent the last 10 years working on a big book on Muhammad Ali,” he says. He pauses. “This is probably the most balanced portrait of the champion yet written,” he said. Reed’s latest books are “Going Too Far,” “Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media” and “Juice!” More information can be found at IshmaelReed.org. A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman. © 2012 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved.
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