A People's Library
By David H. Rothman
We need a national digital library that includes practical as well as scholarly material, and is easily accessible to everyone.
E-NOTES: WHEN THE NEWS IS NOT ENOUGH. THE BLOG OF E. ETHELBERT MILLER
Monday, February 28, 2011
THE PRICE OF TEA AND THE COLOR OF COFFEE
So 2,000 people gather in Phoenix and decide to take away your underwear and then your federal condom. How is this possible? How can a few people get together and convince us that gravity doesn't work anymore? I don't get it. 2,000 members of the Tea Party Patriots gathered for a national conference last Saturday and they decided to push their agenda all across America. Many of these folks are new to politics. They are always talking about taxes and the federal government. I take it that they all have jobs or have decided to run for public office in order to find one. When these folks talk about patriotism and the good old days, I keep seeing Dixie flags, slavery and segregation. Please don't tread on me? Who are they talking about? I look in the mirror at my coffee self.
So 2,000 people gather in Phoenix and decide to take away your underwear and then your federal condom. How is this possible? How can a few people get together and convince us that gravity doesn't work anymore? I don't get it. 2,000 members of the Tea Party Patriots gathered for a national conference last Saturday and they decided to push their agenda all across America. Many of these folks are new to politics. They are always talking about taxes and the federal government. I take it that they all have jobs or have decided to run for public office in order to find one. When these folks talk about patriotism and the good old days, I keep seeing Dixie flags, slavery and segregation. Please don't tread on me? Who are they talking about? I look in the mirror at my coffee self.
----------------------------------------
Weather Alert: Tornado watch issued for D.C. area
February 28, 2011 9:11:14 AM
----------------------------------------
The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for the D.C. area until 4 p.m. today.
The Capital Weather reports severe weather should spread over the area this afternoon and evening. Periods of thunderstorms are likely, some of which may be severe with torrential rain (flash flooding), damaging winds and hail.
These storms could impact the evening commute.
Weather Alert: Tornado watch issued for D.C. area
February 28, 2011 9:11:14 AM
----------------------------------------
The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for the D.C. area until 4 p.m. today.
The Capital Weather reports severe weather should spread over the area this afternoon and evening. Periods of thunderstorms are likely, some of which may be severe with torrential rain (flash flooding), damaging winds and hail.
These storms could impact the evening commute.
Tricycle Daily Dharma
Why the Zen Poet Speaks
Sitting zazen [meditation], you really become intimate with the limitations of language, of narrative, of thought itself. With every thought there’s a “Yes, but....” With every idea comes another idea. This is the labyrinth of thought. Ultimately, you realize that “truth” is not to be found in words. I think it’s from this realization, this awareness, that the Zen poet speaks.Seido Ray Ronci, "No Words"
Each week, host Krista Tippett looks at the common and larger themes of American life ... Civil rights veteran Vincent Harding has a long lens of wisdom on ...
Krista Tippett on Being: meaning, religion, ethics, and ideas on ..
THIS MUST BE THE START OF A LITERARY TEA PARTY. THE NEGRO IS ALWAYS TOUCHING HIMSELF TO SEE IF HE IS REAL. WHY DO PEOPLE WANT TO THROW US CURVE BALLS IN THE 21ST CENTURY?
E.
February 24, 2011
Does African-American Literature Exist?
Michael Morgenstern for The Chronicle
Michael Morgenstern for The Chronicle
By Kenneth W. Warren
I'd like to make a claim that runs counter to much of literary scholarship. Historically speaking, the collective enterprise we call African-American or black literature is of recent vintage—in fact, it's just a little more than a century old. Further, it has already come to an end. And the latter is a fact we should neither regret nor lament.
African-American literature was the literature of a distinct historical period, namely, the era of constitutionally sanctioned segregation known as Jim Crow. Punctuated by state constitutional amendments that disfranchised black Americans throughout much of the South, legitimated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896 with the infamous "separate but equal" ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, and stumbling into decline in the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s, Jim Crow and the fight against it gave rise to—and shaped—African-American literary practice as we have come to know it. Like it or not, African-American literature was a Jim Crow phenomenon, which is to say, speaking from the standpoint of a post-Jim Crow world, African-American literature is history. While one can (and students of American literature certainly should) write about African-American literature as an object of study, one can no longer write African-American literature, any more than one can currently write Elizabethan literature.
That this fact should occasion no lament is because the society that gave us what we know as African-American literature is a society that black Americans did not want then and certainly don't want now. In consolidating Jim Crow through violence, state statutes, and judicial decisions, Southern states foreclosed on many of the avenues of political and social participation that had opened up for Southern blacks during Reconstruction and had managed to survive various forms of opposition during the two decades after the 1877 Hayes-Tilden compromise effectively ended Radical Reconstruction. It was in response to the rising tide of disfranchisement and segregation that calls for black Americans to produce a distinct literature began to proliferate and to shape black literary practice.
In light of recent literary criticism, my assertion may seem wrongheaded. Much scholarship has sought to justify taking a longer view of African-American literature: Some work argues that what defines African-American literary texts is the way black authors, consciously or unconsciously, have reworked rhetorical practices, myths, folklore, and traditions deriving from the African continent. Others have defined African-American literature by its prolonged argument with slavery, seeing even contemporary black literature as indelibly marked by the ways that enslaved blacks coped with the brutalities of the Middle Passage. To be sure, before the Civil War, abolitionists had cited and encouraged black achievement in literature to refute charges of black inferiority. For the most part, however, they wanted to demonstrate that blacks could produce literature, not that they needed to produce a distinct literature.
By the end of the 19th century, though, that had changed. From an array of writers—including Frances E.W. Harper, Anna Julia Cooper, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Sutton E. Griggs—came exhortations to blacks to write a literature by and for themselves. Not only had literature been enlisted in the fight against Jim Crow as a way to challenge the enforcement and justification of segregation, but with so many black Americans effectively shut out from the political process, literature, and writers themselves, could play an outsized role in what became a seemingly endless round of trying to figure out just what it was that "the Negro" wanted. The question mattered because defenders of the white South were insisting they had created a society that conformed to the natural order of things, while critics of the region's sociopolitical order were trying to determine how far down the road of equality the nation would need to go to appease its aggrieved black citizens. Both sides solicited black voices for confirmation or denial.
When, in 1944, the University of North Carolina Press brought out an anthology under the title What the Negro Wants, featuring essays by 14 black authors and edited by the African-American historian Rayford W. Logan, the press's publisher, a white man named W.T. Couch, felt compelled to include an introduction telling the reader: "This book was written at the request of the Press. The idea back of the request was that the country, and particularly the South, ought to know what the Negro wants, and that statements from leading Negroes might throw some light on this important question." Among the 14 "leading Negroes" were four whose fame rested significantly on their literary productions: Du Bois, George S. Schuyler, Langston Hughes, and Sterling A. Brown.
Related Content
In sum, what produced African-American literature as we know it was that, in a Jim Crow society, black writers and their works could plausibly be perceived as voices for a largely silenced population.
As a consequence, literary work by black writers came to be discussed in terms of how well it served (or failed to serve) as an instrument in the fight against Jim Crow and in terms of what it showed about the development (or lack thereof) of black literature, the race as a whole, or the nation's progress in accepting African-Americans as full and equal citizens. Of course, not every black writer accepted or embraced those terms; some objected to the demands being placed on them as writers.
Many critics of black literature also cited such expectations as imposing a considerable liability on black literature. Writing in 1942 in the short-lived journal Negro Quarterly: A Review of Negro Life and Culture, edited by Angelo Herndon and Ralph Ellison, for example, the upstart young black critic Edward Bland lamented the lack of literary accomplishment among Harlem Renaissance authors in the 1920s: "One of the outstanding features of the Negro novels that appeared during the twenties was their literary incompetence." Attributing that alleged incompetence to the political burden imposed on black writers by the black middle class, Bland complained that for the black petit-bourgeois reader, "literature was a medium through which the black man could state his case to the world and exhibit those details of Negro life that would redound to the credit and goodwill of the race. Writing became a function of changing the world through what became explicit propaganda; and the primary consideration governing its subject matter and presentation was the welfare of the race."
Bland was far from alone in making that sort of criticism. Many Harlem Renaissance authors had themselves faulted their predecessors in similar terms. And many writers after Bland did so as well. The point here is not to agree or disagree with such withering assessments of black fiction. Rather, it is to recognize that the impulse to offer those assessments reveals how inextricably black literature and the social conditions imposed by Jim Crow were tied together. In every instance, the critique expressed a hope that black literature could shed the very qualities that had previously identified it as black literature. Sometimes the argument was that in doing so, it could finally become what it had striven to be at the outset—truly representative of black people and a true index of the creativity and capacity of the race. Others argued that after Jim Crow, black writers could be freed entirely from the burden of representing a race—writers would at last be free to be themselves.
Despite the differences in the answers they produced, both lines of argument were responses to the same questions. Just what would the status of black literature be when at last the walls of Jim Crow came tumbling down? Would the true contours of black difference finally shine forth? Or would racial difference and the need for a distinct literature prove to have been only a function of a system of imposed inequality?
While one might have expected those issues to have become salient during the late 1940s and early 1950s, as the modern civil-rights movement began to achieve the victories that signaled the coming end of constitutionally sanctioned segregation, the truth is otherwise. From the inception of black literature, at the beginning of the 20th century, Frances Harper, Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ellison were only some of the writers to pose the question explicitly. The tour de force response, and the literary work that truly, and paradoxically, sits at the center of African-American literature, is George S. Schuyler's controversial 1931 satiric novel on racial difference, Black No More: Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free, A.D. 1933-1940.
Schuyler conjured up a scientist, the ominously named Dr. Junius Crookman, who invents an effective and inexpensive method to make blacks indistinguishable in appearance from whites. Crookman markets his invention as the solution to the race problem, and in the brave new world of Schuyler's novel, blacks decide en masse to take advantage of the opportunity to be black no more, leaving virtually no visually black people remaining in the United States. Schuyler, a prickly, prideful individual, and an archconservative, pitched his satire as, in part, an indictment of black self-hatred and racial shame. But as it unfolds, Black No More becomes something different. For if race were more than skin deep, a new skin color would prove to be an insufficient disguise; some cultural dissembling would be in order for the trick to play out. As it turns out in Schuyler's story, however, if blacks can't be physically identified as different, then they simply aren't all that different. In the main, blacks in the novel become black no more not because they feel their culture is inferior to that of whites. They make the change because they are tired of being shut out of good jobs, good housing, and decent services solely on the basis of skin color.
Tellingly, it is the elites of both races who speak most fervently in the book on behalf of racial differences. Unable to be demagogues on the basis of skin color, white Southern politicians scramble desperately to reconstruct some basis of racial difference, probing into genealogies in hopes of determining once and for all who is black and who is white. But here they meet with disastrous results because they discover that most American whites turn out to be tarred somewhere on their family tree with the brush of black ancestry. Paralleling the distress of white segregationists is the plight of black leaders, whom Schuyler sends up in a series of scathing caricatures of figures like Marcus Garvey, James Weldon Johnson, Madam C.J. Walker, and Du Bois—caricatures that did not prevent Du Bois and Alain Locke, a key force in the Harlem Renaissance, from reviewing the book favorably. Despite the fact that he and his ilk were among the novel's targets, Du Bois, for one, felt strongly that the health of Negro literature depended on freeing black authors to write about the race in whatever manner they pleased, even if the results were unflattering. On that score, Black No More delivered marvelously.
But it is the novel's delineation of the class commitment to the race line that helps make apparent why it is proper to see African-American literature as having come to an end. Although Black No More is unsparing in its negative depiction of all civil-rights and protest organizations, Schuyler's plot device underscores Jim Crow's role in forging a link between the actions and writings of elite blacks and the nation's black population as a whole. The novel shows that, whether for good or for ill, the activities of the group whom Du Bois deemed the Talented Tenth could serve to represent all black Americans only in a world in which Jim Crow could be enforced. Because segregation rested informally on claims and beliefs about racial difference and inequality, it lent coherence to the notion of a collective race interest. That also meant that the publication of a work of literature or the success of a particular black individual could call attention to the falsity of racist beliefs and, through argument or demonstration, conceivably affect all blacks regardless of their class status.
The present moment is different. As rendered vividly in a work like Michael Thomas's 2007 novel, Man Gone Down, which was awarded the 2009 International Impac Dublin Literary Award, racism still stings. Tracing the four-day odyssey in post 9/11 New York City of an unnamed black protagonist and former English Ph.D. student with an ancestry as mixed as Du Bois's, it shows how discrimination remains a problem. It is, for example, infuriating for Thomas's protagonist that white patrons at trendy markets react with surprise upon encountering a black male shopping alongside them as if he belonged there. Yet, as Thomas notes, it is also clear that a society that takes in stride the appearance of blacks in upscale markets, neighborhoods, and schools, or a society that recognizes black literary achievement, can also be a society that tolerates a great deal of poverty and inequality. Again, in itself, that observation is nothing new. Langston Hughes, in his 1940 autobiography The Big Sea, mercilessly panned his Harlem Renaissance contemporaries for having believed "the race problem had at last been solved through Art plus Gladys Bentley," and that "the New Negro would lead a new life from then on in green pastures of tolerance created by Countee Cullen, Ethel Waters, Claude McKay, Duke Ellington, Bojangles, and Alain Locke." Hughes then continued, acerbically, if somewhat disingenuously, "I don't know what made any Negroes think that—except that they were mostly intellectuals doing the thinking. The ordinary Negroes hadn't heard of the Harlem Renaissance. And if they had, it hadn't raised their wages any."
Of course it hadn't, and at some level Hughes recognized the injustice of his criticism. The targets of his censure were not as naïve as he made them out to be. But he knew where the knife's edge was keenest. What made work by a select group of blacks African-American literature was the claim and belief that their work had something to do with the welfare of black Americans generally. Sever that connection, and works, however accomplished, would settle into the literary universe according to style, theme, genre, or whatever. Writing in the 1940s, Hughes knew that the connection hadn't been severed yet. American society was still a Jim Crow society, and writing by black Americans was African-American literature.
Under Jim Crow, by helping to draw attention to the wrongs of segregation, the literary artists who gave us African-American literature assisted in establishing a politics based on appealing to a white-power structure, putatively on behalf of the whole race, to proclaim (to quote Du Bois's most well-known text, The Souls of Black Folk) that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line." That politics was limited by being a politics of elite appeal rather than of direct action. In truth, that was because racial discrimination, enforced by violence and by statute, impeded most black Americans in the South from effectively being able to act politically on their own behalf.
At present, however, a literature insisting that the problem of the 21st century remains the problem of the color line paradoxically obscures the economic and political problems facing many black Americans, unless those problems can be attributed to racial discrimination. If the nation's black citizens are suffering largely for the same reasons its white citizens are suffering, then that is a problem about which such politics has nothing to say. In the world we inhabit, discrimination stands out most blatantly as the problem to be addressed when you've got a lot of life's other problems whittled down to a manageable size—which is why college professors being snubbed by cab drivers and accosted by police officers in their own homes, or wealthy celebrities being dissed by upscale retailers, have become iconic figures in demonstrating that race still matters.
A literature highlighting discrimination is a literature of that class stratum. And make no mistake, the late 20th and early 21st centuries have seen the publication of many very fine novels and poems by writers like Thomas, Colson Whitehead, Paul Beatty, Danzy Senna, Andrea Lee, and Carl Phillips, to name a few. By the criteria we use to determine matters of racial identity, all of these authors may indeed be African-American. The works they've written, however, are not.
Kenneth W. Warren is a professor of English at the University of Chicago. His most recent book, "What Was African American Literature?," was published last month by Harvard University Press.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Quote of the Day:
In fact, invisible is how we've been taught to think of ourselves since coal was first discovered here. When I was little, teachers would stand over my desk and tell me that I had to change my accent if I wanted to get ahead in the world. Never mind that I had nearly perfect grammar and spelling.
We were also told the success of the mines mattered above all else, that if we complained about the dust, noise and disrespect pumped out by the mine in our community, people would lose jobs.
The coal companies, the news media and even our own government have all been complicit in valuing Appalachian lives less than those of other Americans.
Otherwise, it might be harder for them to get that coal out as quickly and inexpensively as they do.
Those of us who protest mountaintop removal do it for the environment, but we're also fighting to prove we are not unwarranted burdens. Our water and air
are being poisoned but the most dangerous toxin is the message that people don't matter.
-Silas House (The Washington Post, February 20, 2011).
Co-author of SOMETHING'S RISING: APPALACHIANS FIGHTING MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL
In fact, invisible is how we've been taught to think of ourselves since coal was first discovered here. When I was little, teachers would stand over my desk and tell me that I had to change my accent if I wanted to get ahead in the world. Never mind that I had nearly perfect grammar and spelling.
We were also told the success of the mines mattered above all else, that if we complained about the dust, noise and disrespect pumped out by the mine in our community, people would lose jobs.
The coal companies, the news media and even our own government have all been complicit in valuing Appalachian lives less than those of other Americans.
Otherwise, it might be harder for them to get that coal out as quickly and inexpensively as they do.
Those of us who protest mountaintop removal do it for the environment, but we're also fighting to prove we are not unwarranted burdens. Our water and air
are being poisoned but the most dangerous toxin is the message that people don't matter.
-Silas House (The Washington Post, February 20, 2011).
Co-author of SOMETHING'S RISING: APPALACHIANS FIGHTING MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL
A few years ago, Brooke saw me at a cafe in Takoma Park, Maryland. I think I was reading Poet Lore submissions. I had a Poets & Writers bag. Brooke came by my table and the rest is history. We met several times over several months, having wonderful conversations about a manuscript that was trying to swim, struggling to find air. So happy to see this new book out - walking on land and slipping into the hands of readers.
 |
| GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE |
Walker, Christie, and more to come. Look for everyone to jump on the austerity bandwagon. They will propose ridiculous hard cuts to state programs and pensions. The media will see them as "tough guys" and will promote them as the answer to Obama who still "looks" weak at times. Is it a color thing? The poor O can't show any anger or emotion when it comes to the issues. Do you want him to appear out of control? Look for Christie to capture the American imagination. A big man in lean times. Yes, we might as well elect another Taft. Can anything besides poetry come out of New Jersey? Time for Chris Christie to cut and run.
OH SOMALIA, I DON'T BELIEVE YOU:
If you want to know how bad things are in the world. Just consider this news out of Somalia:
President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, said Friday that a government offensive was gaining ground after a week of fighting against militants who for years have confined his administration to a few blocks of the capital. "The fighting is going on an our troops are winning. Our operation will continue until we secure the country.
LOL. Let's do the math here. This guy for years has been confined to a few blocks. How long will it take to secure the country? 2000 years????
If you want to know how bad things are in the world. Just consider this news out of Somalia:
President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, said Friday that a government offensive was gaining ground after a week of fighting against militants who for years have confined his administration to a few blocks of the capital. "The fighting is going on an our troops are winning. Our operation will continue until we secure the country.
LOL. Let's do the math here. This guy for years has been confined to a few blocks. How long will it take to secure the country? 2000 years????
Good News:
Bob Herbert the last few weeks has been writing some of the best OP-ED essays for The New York Times. His topic has been poverty.
In today's paper he makes this accurate observation:
The predators at the top, billionaires and millionaires, are pitting ordinary workers against one another. So we're left with the bizarre situation of unionized workers with a pension being resented by nonunion workers without one.
Bob Herbert the last few weeks has been writing some of the best OP-ED essays for The New York Times. His topic has been poverty.
In today's paper he makes this accurate observation:
The predators at the top, billionaires and millionaires, are pitting ordinary workers against one another. So we're left with the bizarre situation of unionized workers with a pension being resented by nonunion workers without one.
1. Best Negro with a short haircut.
2. The very dark skinned woman with blond hair.
3. Best sound effects for the creative use of MF.
4. Best black leader in a supporting role.
5. Best dressed black public intellectual without a scholarly book.
6. Best recording by a black hip hop artist who can't sing or rap.
|
ASALH:
I'm just back from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History- 85th Annual Conference. I participated in the author/exhibitor session. I sat behind a table next to my friend Eurydice Stanley. I hadn't seen her in a number of years. She was looking lovely in her military attire; a major in the U.S. Army. The morning was filled with much laughter and conversations with Thomas Battle, Janet Sims -Woods, Lonnie Bunch, Sharon Minor King, Bernice Reagon and folks who I only remember by head shape, size and lips. I sold a couple of books (The 5th Inning) but more important I had a good time on a Saturday.
I'm just back from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History- 85th Annual Conference. I participated in the author/exhibitor session. I sat behind a table next to my friend Eurydice Stanley. I hadn't seen her in a number of years. She was looking lovely in her military attire; a major in the U.S. Army. The morning was filled with much laughter and conversations with Thomas Battle, Janet Sims -Woods, Lonnie Bunch, Sharon Minor King, Bernice Reagon and folks who I only remember by head shape, size and lips. I sold a couple of books (The 5th Inning) but more important I had a good time on a Saturday.
REPLACEMENT PLAYERS AND OTHER SLAVES
Too often we don't pay attention to some of our local elections. Too often we don't vote or maybe our neighbors don't vote. I know many poor people don't vote - they often feel outside the political process. Often is a word I want to use because if we're not careful we are going to see not 1, 2, but many Wisconsins. From out of nowhere will come Republican leaders with strange money backers and a friendly media. Watch how quickly the media will try to push Gov. Walker into the national arena. America loves a tough guy. Reagan returns. Everyone loves a rerun -it gives them a chance to win again. Many future American workers are going to be born losers if the political process does not bend towards justice. Nothing like a little violence to poison the well of activism. Somewhere I'm looking for a Right wing talk show host to demand that someone send in the camels and breakup this fragile thing we call democracy. Send in the replacement players. Bust the Unions. We've seen this before. Now what will we do about it? Without control of the media - it will be difficult to win the long term battle. The media loves only the "entertainment" associated with protest. Serious power changes often comes after an ugly fight. Watch out for the first stone thrower. Is the Civil War here?
Somebody hum Dixie for me. I feel like I'm gonna to be a slave again. Should I pray to Joe Hill or John Brown? Maybe I should just organize...
Too often we don't pay attention to some of our local elections. Too often we don't vote or maybe our neighbors don't vote. I know many poor people don't vote - they often feel outside the political process. Often is a word I want to use because if we're not careful we are going to see not 1, 2, but many Wisconsins. From out of nowhere will come Republican leaders with strange money backers and a friendly media. Watch how quickly the media will try to push Gov. Walker into the national arena. America loves a tough guy. Reagan returns. Everyone loves a rerun -it gives them a chance to win again. Many future American workers are going to be born losers if the political process does not bend towards justice. Nothing like a little violence to poison the well of activism. Somewhere I'm looking for a Right wing talk show host to demand that someone send in the camels and breakup this fragile thing we call democracy. Send in the replacement players. Bust the Unions. We've seen this before. Now what will we do about it? Without control of the media - it will be difficult to win the long term battle. The media loves only the "entertainment" associated with protest. Serious power changes often comes after an ugly fight. Watch out for the first stone thrower. Is the Civil War here?
Somebody hum Dixie for me. I feel like I'm gonna to be a slave again. Should I pray to Joe Hill or John Brown? Maybe I should just organize...
My friend Nancy recommended this film to me:
http://test.landmarktheatres.com/lmk/11609.html
Friday, February 25, 2011
IS LIBYA ON YOUR MIND?
Much of Libya's oil producing capacity and its port facilities are in the eastern part of the country, where
Qaddafi has lost control. Now who do you support if you're the US government?
Most Middle East oil production is controlled by national oil companies that operate as virtual state agencies. They coordinate security needs with the national militaries.
Much of Libya's oil producing capacity and its port facilities are in the eastern part of the country, where
Qaddafi has lost control. Now who do you support if you're the US government?
Most Middle East oil production is controlled by national oil companies that operate as virtual state agencies. They coordinate security needs with the national militaries.
VERY IMPORTANT:
GETTING THE WORD OUT OF WISCONSIN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOv6S4aACx8&feature=player_embedded#at=77
GETTING THE WORD OUT OF WISCONSIN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOv6S4aACx8&feature=player_embedded#at=77
Today was the best day of the week. Lunch with Terry Hong near Tenleytown. We talked about books and things. So much fun being in her presence. Terry gave me a copy of CAMERA OBTRUSA by Hara Kazuo.
A KAYA book: www.kaya.com
Here is a link to Terry's site:
http://bookdragon.si.edu/
A KAYA book: www.kaya.com
Here is a link to Terry's site:
http://bookdragon.si.edu/
This Weekend: Amiri Baraka Bohemian Caverns This Friday & Saturday, February 25th & 26th Get Tickets With influences on his work ranging from musical orishas such as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, and Sun Ra to the Cuban Revolution, Malcolm X and world revolutionary movements, Baraka is renowned as the founder of the Black Arts Movement in Harlem in the 1960s that became, though short-lived, the virtual blueprint for a new American theater aesthetics. He has been the subject of numerous documentary films including Mario Van Peeble's Poetic License for The Sundance Channel and St. Clair Bourne's In Motion: Amiri Baraka. He has also appeared in dozens of films including, most recently, M.K. Asante, Jr's award-winning documentary The Black Candle. His awards and honors include an Obie, the American Academy of Arts & Letters award, the James Weldon Johnson Medal for contributions to the arts, Rockefeller Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts grants, Professor Emeritus at the State university of New York at Stony Brook, and the Poet Laureate of New Jersey.  William Parker: Inside the music of Curtis Mayfield featuring Amiri Baraka Bohemian Caverns Saturday, February 26th Get Tickets As Steve Greenlee of the Boston Globe stated in July 2002, "William Parker has emerged as the most important leader of the current avant-garde scene in jazz." He is working in many of the more important groups in this genre, some of the most prestigious being his own, i.e. The Curtis Mayfield Project, Little Huey Creative Orchestra, In Order to Survive, William Parker's Quartet and other groups.Accompanied by Amiri Baraka and pianist Dave Burrell, William Parker celebrates the work of legendary Curtis Mayfield. The Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra DC's Exclusive Big Band.  Luscious, spit-and-polish ensemble playing. That the BCJO doesn't rehearse is beyond belief when it coalesces so gorgeously on pieces like "Ive Got A Crush On You," which had no solos but was driven by beautiful group work on the saxophones, or the clever and fun arrangement of "All of Me" with the whole band supporting quasi-boogie-blues solos by Simon. This is a band of musicians who know the music intimately, and more impressively know each other almost as well. Perhaps they have the near-telepathy that so many of the great bands have described amongst themselves.. ~Micheal J. WestEvery Monday 8p & 10p | doors @ 7p A "gem for the District" - Washington City Paper
| ||
---------------------------------------
Local Commuter Alert: Utility pole falls on Metro train in D.C.
February 25, 2011 3:44:30 PM
----------------------------------------
Outbound trains on the Red Line are holding due to a utility pole falling on a Metro train outside of New York Avenue Station.
Local Commuter Alert: Utility pole falls on Metro train in D.C.
February 25, 2011 3:44:30 PM
----------------------------------------
Outbound trains on the Red Line are holding due to a utility pole falling on a Metro train outside of New York Avenue Station.
| |||
    Uncover the history of your home at the DC Community Heritage Project House History Workshop | |||
| |||
THE LIGHT IS STILL LUCILLE:
Dear professor:
I am writing to you to let you know that we at the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia have a unique DVD that may interest you. Last September we hosted "73 Poems for 73 Years" which featured 73 poets and friends of Lucille Clifton who wished to honor her memory by reading 73 of her poems. The event was coordinated by our Executive Director, Joanne Gabbin, and poet Nikki Giovanni. This once in a lifetime event was recorded and we now have copies available with commemorative booklets for $20. They can be used as part of your class or added to a poetry or literary archive. Checks can be mailed to our center at the address in my footer, or they can be purchased online here:
https://quikpayasp.com/jmu/commerce_manager/payer.do?orderType=FFPoetry_73poems
For more information about our center, you can visit our website: http://www.jmu.edu/furiousflower/
Thank you for your consideration, and have a wonderful day.
I am writing to you to let you know that we at the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia have a unique DVD that may interest you. Last September we hosted "73 Poems for 73 Years" which featured 73 poets and friends of Lucille Clifton who wished to honor her memory by reading 73 of her poems. The event was coordinated by our Executive Director, Joanne Gabbin, and poet Nikki Giovanni. This once in a lifetime event was recorded and we now have copies available with commemorative booklets for $20. They can be used as part of your class or added to a poetry or literary archive. Checks can be mailed to our center at the address in my footer, or they can be purchased online here:
https://quikpayasp.com/jmu/commerce_manager/payer.do?orderType=FFPoetry_73poems
For more information about our center, you can visit our website: http://www.jmu.edu/furiousflower/
Thank you for your consideration, and have a wonderful day.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Kristi Lee
IT Specialist/Marketing Assistant
Furious Flower Poetry Center
1151 Driver Drive, MSC 3802
Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807
Fax: (540) 568-8888
Phone: (540) 568-5926
Kristi Lee
IT Specialist/Marketing Assistant
Furious Flower Poetry Center
1151 Driver Drive, MSC 3802
Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807
Fax: (540) 568-8888
Phone: (540) 568-5926
Thursday, February 24, 2011
WHAT'S THE CODE?
February 24, 2011
Dear Friend,
The power of the people takes our breath away. Can’t you feel it as you look at images from Tahrir Square and Madison, Wisconsin? In Madison as in Cairo, working people are marching on the stage of history.
Our own Medea Benjamin traveled to both Cairo and Wisconsin to stand with protestors, and has written a beautiful, inspiring report on her first-hand experience of people power. She reminds us solidarity is “a way we show our oneness with all of humanity; it is a way to reaffirm our own humanity.” And today, CODEPINK is being "sweet on worker's rights" with a gift of candy hearts to protesters at the capital during the lunch hour through Campus Candy Manager & CODEPINK Madison organizer, Natalia Hacerola.
This Saturday, we have an opportunity to show our solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin. Despite the incredible mobilization of tens of thousands of teachers, students, citizen, and workers, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is intent on slashing the benefits of state employees and taking away their collective bargaining rights.
Let's bring Cairo and Madison to our own state capitols. On February 26 at noon, people throughout the country will converge at state capitols to call upon our leaders to prioritize the people.
At least 40 state actions are already planned. Find actions near you here.
If there is not already an action planned in your state, we urge you to do what you can to help get one going. You can also check the website of US Uncut to find more actions.
The excuse being given for the assault on workers is the budget crises. These budget crises could be solved if we ended the wars and reclaimed money from the Pentagon for human needs. The war will cost an estimated $116 billion this year, nearly twice what House Republicans say they want to save through deep cuts in domestic programs.
Bring CODEPINK's message to your state capital: “No More War On the People--Bring Our War $$ Home”. Download our flyer, sign, and more here.
You can also send a message to your Congressperson today.
If ever there was a moment to be in the streets, the time is now.
In hope and solidarity,
Medea, Ali, Alli, Chelsea, Farida, Jean, Janet, Jodie, Kristen, Logan, Nancy, Natalia, Rae, Shaden, and Tighe
PS:
There are even more opportunities to stand with and for the people rising up against enormous odds. Look for local demos to stand in solidarity with the people of Libya, Bahrain, and Palestine or click here to contact the Libyan Mission and the Embassies of Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, and Jordan to vocalize your support for pro-democracy protesters in the Middle East!
Plus, you can find out about our actions to mark International Women’s Day here and sign up to join us in DC March 18-20 to mark the 8th anniversary of the Iraq Invasion, and to rally to support Bradley Manning
February 24, 2011
Dear Friend,
The power of the people takes our breath away. Can’t you feel it as you look at images from Tahrir Square and Madison, Wisconsin? In Madison as in Cairo, working people are marching on the stage of history.
Our own Medea Benjamin traveled to both Cairo and Wisconsin to stand with protestors, and has written a beautiful, inspiring report on her first-hand experience of people power. She reminds us solidarity is “a way we show our oneness with all of humanity; it is a way to reaffirm our own humanity.” And today, CODEPINK is being "sweet on worker's rights" with a gift of candy hearts to protesters at the capital during the lunch hour through Campus Candy Manager & CODEPINK Madison organizer, Natalia Hacerola.
This Saturday, we have an opportunity to show our solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin. Despite the incredible mobilization of tens of thousands of teachers, students, citizen, and workers, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is intent on slashing the benefits of state employees and taking away their collective bargaining rights.
Let's bring Cairo and Madison to our own state capitols. On February 26 at noon, people throughout the country will converge at state capitols to call upon our leaders to prioritize the people.
At least 40 state actions are already planned. Find actions near you here.
If there is not already an action planned in your state, we urge you to do what you can to help get one going. You can also check the website of US Uncut to find more actions.
The excuse being given for the assault on workers is the budget crises. These budget crises could be solved if we ended the wars and reclaimed money from the Pentagon for human needs. The war will cost an estimated $116 billion this year, nearly twice what House Republicans say they want to save through deep cuts in domestic programs.
Bring CODEPINK's message to your state capital: “No More War On the People--Bring Our War $$ Home”. Download our flyer, sign, and more here.
You can also send a message to your Congressperson today.
If ever there was a moment to be in the streets, the time is now.
In hope and solidarity,
Medea, Ali, Alli, Chelsea, Farida, Jean, Janet, Jodie, Kristen, Logan, Nancy, Natalia, Rae, Shaden, and Tighe
PS:
There are even more opportunities to stand with and for the people rising up against enormous odds. Look for local demos to stand in solidarity with the people of Libya, Bahrain, and Palestine or click here to contact the Libyan Mission and the Embassies of Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, and Jordan to vocalize your support for pro-democracy protesters in the Middle East!
Plus, you can find out about our actions to mark International Women’s Day here and sign up to join us in DC March 18-20 to mark the 8th anniversary of the Iraq Invasion, and to rally to support Bradley Manning
GADDAFI’S ‘AFRICAN MERCENARIES’: MYTH OR REALITY? Dibussi Tande Dibussi Tande discusses growing concern about ‘the worrying racist undertones of claims that Gaddafi is using “African mercenaries” to kill Libyan protesters.' http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/71178
I and I
Look for the media to begin focusing on Israel and Iran. The Arab nations and their movements for freedom will move to the background. Oil will emerge in time for an Oscar- and fuel prices will go up. Once again we will hear the same old comments about being dependent on foreign oil. Nigeria's importance will slip back into the news. Oh, and suddenly Hugo Chavez will pop-up. As the Arab nations move next door to Haiti (in terms of news coverage), our media will downplay any demonstrations that might develop around our own government closing and halting its operations. Will Americans turn ugly? As we know from looking at pictures coming out of New Zealand - earthquakes can happen anywhere. We just don't have to report them. Right? Whisper Wisconsin.
Look for the media to begin focusing on Israel and Iran. The Arab nations and their movements for freedom will move to the background. Oil will emerge in time for an Oscar- and fuel prices will go up. Once again we will hear the same old comments about being dependent on foreign oil. Nigeria's importance will slip back into the news. Oh, and suddenly Hugo Chavez will pop-up. As the Arab nations move next door to Haiti (in terms of news coverage), our media will downplay any demonstrations that might develop around our own government closing and halting its operations. Will Americans turn ugly? As we know from looking at pictures coming out of New Zealand - earthquakes can happen anywhere. We just don't have to report them. Right? Whisper Wisconsin.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Black Venus 2010: They Called Her "Hottentot" edited by Deborah Willis has been selected for the 2011 Susan Koppelman Award for the Best Edited Volume in Women's Studies published in 2010.
The award will be presented at the Popular Culture/American Culture Conference in San Antonio on Friday, April 22, 2011.
My essay "My Wife as Venus" is included in this book.
HUSTLE AND FLOW?
If the various movements in the Arab world fail it will be Obama's fault. Right? What???
I'm amazed at how we expect one "John Wayne" to fix everything. This is nothing but political, cultural and historical arrogance. People around the world are responsible for their own fate. That's why we have revolutions and various reform movements. Of course, it might come down to what we are more concerned with - the flow of oil or the flow of blood.
If the various movements in the Arab world fail it will be Obama's fault. Right? What???
I'm amazed at how we expect one "John Wayne" to fix everything. This is nothing but political, cultural and historical arrogance. People around the world are responsible for their own fate. That's why we have revolutions and various reform movements. Of course, it might come down to what we are more concerned with - the flow of oil or the flow of blood.
NYERE NEWS/Comments from my son:
The NBA is pure entertainment. If you want to see good basketball, I recommend March Madness. Otherwise, you can continue to be amazed by the forming of these so called "dynasties." Not one of the marquee players in these blockbuster deals have included a player who has a ring. Not Lebron, not Bosh, not Amare, not Boozier, not Melo. So what exactly is so prized about these "entertainers"? I think many people are missing the big picture. So, lets take it back to fundamental basketball 101: "talent alone does not win games". When Carmelo learns how to play defense then maybe I will get excited about watching a Knicks game.
The Knicks currently have the sixth seed in the east (28-26) without Melo. They are currently behind the Celtics, Heat, Bulls, Magic, and Hawks. The acquisition of Carmelo Anthony does not change my opinion that they cannot beat any of these teams in a playoff series. Lets face it, facts don't lie. Carmelo Anthony has gotten out of the first round once. He is not a proven winner. The pieces in New York look very similar to the pieces he had in Denver. Tell me Amare Stoudemire isn't a youthful version of Kenyon Martin?
My favorite part of the blockbuster deal was Melo saying he was glad all the speculation was over and he can just play basketball. Well welcome to New York. I'm sure my dad can tell you how they welcomed A-rod to the big apple with open arms. I leave you with this tidbit. The last time Melo won a ring he was at Syracuse. Ahh -The Madness!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
NEW WORK FROM CHARLES JOHNSON:
• Welcome to Wedgwood
Charles Johnson’s new neighbor had hardly settled in when all hell broke loose. A bad day ends with a lesson that things are not always what they seem.
The Program on Inequality and the Common Good
www.ips-dc.org/inequality
A project of the Institute for Policy Studies
Dear E. Ethelbert,
Towards justice,
Chuck Collins
and the Program on Inequality and Common Good staff
Please support our work by making an online contribution.
www.ips-dc.org/inequality
A project of the Institute for Policy Studies
Dear E. Ethelbert,
The protests in Wisconsin over workers’ rights and state budget cuts are sparking national action.
We believe this is a strategic moment to dramatically juxtapose the pain of local budget cuts with the scandal of corporate tax dodging. In England, the movement UK Uncut, has galvanized street protests, media investigations and legislative action. They have dramatized the scandal of billions lost thanks to overseas tax havens and corporate loopholes with the human face of federal and state budget cuts. This April 15th Tax Day, let’s make our national focus to stop corporate tax dodging. On Saturday, February 26th, US Uncut, and other groups are organizing a day of action. While states must close combined budget gaps of over $102 billion, U.S.-based corporate tax dodgers are costing us over $100 billion a year. “There’s a direct connection between corporate tax dodging and what’s happening in people’s lives,” said Carl Gibson one of the founders of US Uncut Mississippi. “If we close those loopholes, we wouldn’t have to be cutting back on firefighters, library hours and student loans.”
We’ve been working to help organize these U.S. actions, and are recruiting business and investor signers for our petition to end overseas tax havens abuse.>>Learn about US Uncut actions on February 26th at US Uncut or The Other 98.
>>Sign the petition. Visit Business and Investors Against Tax Havens to add your voice. (Investors include anyone who holds a savings account.)
>>Read Chuck Collins' article in Common Dreams about building mobilizations around corporate tax dodging... CLICK HERE.
We anticipate a number of additional actions leading up to April 15 and Tax Day –and we’ll keep you posted.Towards justice,
Chuck Collins
and the Program on Inequality and Common Good staff
Please support our work by making an online contribution.