For a view of lynching, click here
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Fannie Lou Hamer Walking Off the Plantation: Questioning and Transforming America
Fannie Lou Hamer was born 1917 October 6 in Mississippi in the midst of the racial madness and social mayhem called White supremacy in which walls of brutal separation were built in life and law to imprison and suppress a whole people, and in spite of this, she lifted herself up to look over and beyond those walls, imagining freedom and dared to begin the life-long and heavy task of tearing down those walls and working and struggling for freedom. And in this she has lifted up a light that lasts, left us timeless lessons and a name that endures as an eternal monument for the struggling and freedom-loving peoples of the world.
The lessons of her life are not exhausted in her audacious and uncompromising struggle and defiance at the Democratic National Convention in 1964, but rather expressed in the wholeness of her life, the ordinary and extraordinary, the simple and the complex. And so, although there are numerous lessons to learn from the sacred text of her life, I choose three overarching and essential ones, given added significance in the context of a current election that cries out for remembrance and recognition of the path paved by Black people in this historic struggle.
Mrs. Hamer comes into self-conscious being and begins her journey on the road to world recognition when she decides to walk away from the plantation that imprisoned her. She says, “In 1962 nobody knew I existed. . .and I hadn’t heard of them either. Then one day, the thirty-first of August, I walked off the plantation”. This is her first lesson then—that the will to be free must come from within and that to be free we must walk off the plantation, that is to say, away from the physical and psychological sites that imprison and oppress us. SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, had come to launch a campaign for voter registration and Mrs. Hamer had gone to a meeting to hear them speak of freedom. But no matter what they said or did, she had to embrace the idea and possibilities of freedom herself and commit herself to the awesome work and struggle to achieve it. And she had to make up her mind to stay steadfast on the way to freedom in spite of a rough and rocky road, full of signs and sites of casualties and costs of every kind, including the possibility of losing one’s life in the cause of freedom. Indeed, she said death is a daily threat and “I may be killed, but I’ll be standing up for God and my race until my time comes”. But she said, if she falls in battle, it will be “forward in the fight for freedom”.
Secondly, Mrs. Hamer taught us to question America in order to relieve it of its cherished illusions and reconceive and reconstruct it in the interest of a more expansive freedom and human flourishing. For her, this meant questioning the whole country, not just Mississippi, but the North and South, East and West of it. She said, “I question America”, in its claim to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, when people are threatened with death daily because they “want to live as decent human beings”, want to exercise the right to vote, dare to imagine themselves equal and believe freedom is the natural and undeniable right of everyone.
For her, ourselves, history and humanity, we also must constantly question America, question its involvement in wanton waste and war and the human wreckage left in their wake. We must question continuing inequities in wealth, power and status, the privatization of social wealth and the socialization of private debt and the violation of civil and human rights in the name of security defined in a context of manufactured fear. And we must question the peddling of a parasitic patriotism that sucks human sensitivity from its hosts and feeds on the false and deforming fears it creates.
But to question America is also to question ourselves and what society has made of us, how we relate to each other and the world, how so many of us are caught in the madness of a consumerist society, finding freedom in our capacity to buy, and assembling countless reasons why we are comfortable in oppression, don’t want to help the hungry and homeless, hate the Palestinians and the people whose countries we invade and whose oil, water and lives we claim as our own, and don’t do more for Darfur or feel a grossly twisted need to humiliate, starve and dominate a small Black country called Haiti. And we must ask why we think Barack is a funny name and not Baruch, Obama and not O’Reilly, Takisha and not Tabitha, Chang and Chun and not Chatterley and Cheney, Rain Cloud and not McCloud, Vilakazi and not Van Buren, and Srinivasa and not Schwarzenegger?
To walk away from the plantation, regardless of how comfortable and comforting and to constantly question ourselves and society, leads us to dare to transform ourselves, society and ultimately the world. And this means, Mrs. Hamer taught us, that “every step of the way you’ve got to fight” and that “people have got to get together and work together”. It is, she stated, in our interests, for “nobody’s free until everybody’s free”. And only by working and struggling together, can those who suffer—Africans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asians and Europeans—end their personal and collective suffering, “make this country what it has to be” and “live as decent human beings”.
This last lesson on transformative struggle teaches us that this current election and others must not be simply symbolic, but approached as vital areas of engagement and struggle for serious social change. Mrs. Hamer says about the significance of one election, “There was nothing symbolic about this election. I’m sick of symbolic things; we’re fighting for our lives”. Thus, for Obama’s election to be more than a useful symbol for a country unable to criticize and seriously change itself, it must be part and parcel of our struggle to save and expand lives. And if “we are fighting for our lives”, we must do as Mrs. Hamer, lift ourselves above the walls and ways of self and social imprisonment, walk away from the various plantations of social pain and consumer pleasure, constantly question ourselves and society, imagine a new world and in the process of self and social transformation, open the way for a new history and humanity to emerge”.
Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor of Black Studies, California State University-Long Beach, Chair of The Organization Us, Creator of Kwanzaa, and author of Kawaida and Questions of Life and Struggle, [www.MaulanaKarenga.org].
The lessons of her life are not exhausted in her audacious and uncompromising struggle and defiance at the Democratic National Convention in 1964, but rather expressed in the wholeness of her life, the ordinary and extraordinary, the simple and the complex. And so, although there are numerous lessons to learn from the sacred text of her life, I choose three overarching and essential ones, given added significance in the context of a current election that cries out for remembrance and recognition of the path paved by Black people in this historic struggle.
Mrs. Hamer comes into self-conscious being and begins her journey on the road to world recognition when she decides to walk away from the plantation that imprisoned her. She says, “In 1962 nobody knew I existed. . .and I hadn’t heard of them either. Then one day, the thirty-first of August, I walked off the plantation”. This is her first lesson then—that the will to be free must come from within and that to be free we must walk off the plantation, that is to say, away from the physical and psychological sites that imprison and oppress us. SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, had come to launch a campaign for voter registration and Mrs. Hamer had gone to a meeting to hear them speak of freedom. But no matter what they said or did, she had to embrace the idea and possibilities of freedom herself and commit herself to the awesome work and struggle to achieve it. And she had to make up her mind to stay steadfast on the way to freedom in spite of a rough and rocky road, full of signs and sites of casualties and costs of every kind, including the possibility of losing one’s life in the cause of freedom. Indeed, she said death is a daily threat and “I may be killed, but I’ll be standing up for God and my race until my time comes”. But she said, if she falls in battle, it will be “forward in the fight for freedom”.
Secondly, Mrs. Hamer taught us to question America in order to relieve it of its cherished illusions and reconceive and reconstruct it in the interest of a more expansive freedom and human flourishing. For her, this meant questioning the whole country, not just Mississippi, but the North and South, East and West of it. She said, “I question America”, in its claim to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, when people are threatened with death daily because they “want to live as decent human beings”, want to exercise the right to vote, dare to imagine themselves equal and believe freedom is the natural and undeniable right of everyone.
For her, ourselves, history and humanity, we also must constantly question America, question its involvement in wanton waste and war and the human wreckage left in their wake. We must question continuing inequities in wealth, power and status, the privatization of social wealth and the socialization of private debt and the violation of civil and human rights in the name of security defined in a context of manufactured fear. And we must question the peddling of a parasitic patriotism that sucks human sensitivity from its hosts and feeds on the false and deforming fears it creates.
But to question America is also to question ourselves and what society has made of us, how we relate to each other and the world, how so many of us are caught in the madness of a consumerist society, finding freedom in our capacity to buy, and assembling countless reasons why we are comfortable in oppression, don’t want to help the hungry and homeless, hate the Palestinians and the people whose countries we invade and whose oil, water and lives we claim as our own, and don’t do more for Darfur or feel a grossly twisted need to humiliate, starve and dominate a small Black country called Haiti. And we must ask why we think Barack is a funny name and not Baruch, Obama and not O’Reilly, Takisha and not Tabitha, Chang and Chun and not Chatterley and Cheney, Rain Cloud and not McCloud, Vilakazi and not Van Buren, and Srinivasa and not Schwarzenegger?
To walk away from the plantation, regardless of how comfortable and comforting and to constantly question ourselves and society, leads us to dare to transform ourselves, society and ultimately the world. And this means, Mrs. Hamer taught us, that “every step of the way you’ve got to fight” and that “people have got to get together and work together”. It is, she stated, in our interests, for “nobody’s free until everybody’s free”. And only by working and struggling together, can those who suffer—Africans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asians and Europeans—end their personal and collective suffering, “make this country what it has to be” and “live as decent human beings”.
This last lesson on transformative struggle teaches us that this current election and others must not be simply symbolic, but approached as vital areas of engagement and struggle for serious social change. Mrs. Hamer says about the significance of one election, “There was nothing symbolic about this election. I’m sick of symbolic things; we’re fighting for our lives”. Thus, for Obama’s election to be more than a useful symbol for a country unable to criticize and seriously change itself, it must be part and parcel of our struggle to save and expand lives. And if “we are fighting for our lives”, we must do as Mrs. Hamer, lift ourselves above the walls and ways of self and social imprisonment, walk away from the various plantations of social pain and consumer pleasure, constantly question ourselves and society, imagine a new world and in the process of self and social transformation, open the way for a new history and humanity to emerge”.
Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor of Black Studies, California State University-Long Beach, Chair of The Organization Us, Creator of Kwanzaa, and author of Kawaida and Questions of Life and Struggle, [www.MaulanaKarenga.org].
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Why This FAMU Freshman Chose an HBCU Over Harvard
When a boy enters first grade at the age of 4 and high school at the age of 12, it's a foregone conclusion that the child will end up at a Harvard or a Stanford or a Cornell. Right? Not if the boy is Ralph Jones Jr., a 16-year-old freshman at Florida A&M University who has received national attention in recent days for passing up opportunities at the 45 other schools that accepted him -- including the prestigious institutions listed above -- to attend the Tallahassee, Fla., HBCU.
Jones said that for him it wasn't about whether or not a school was an Ivy League -- he thought about location, scholarship offers, campus atmosphere and the institution's engineering program in making his decision. "Entering college at the age of 16," Jones told The Root, "I think that my motives behind choosing were a little bit different than other people's. One, I looked at distance from home. Florida A&M is about 300 miles away from my hometown of Atlanta, so that was something that was really important to me, whereas if I had gone somewhere that was considered an Ivy, that would have been a good 2,000."
Read more here
Monday, October 11, 2010
Eminem on 60 Minutes
Anderson Cooper interviewed Eminem on '60 Minutes' Sunday night, and the rapper talked about his rough upbringing, how he writes his rhymes and his near-fatal overdose.
Anderson also asked Eminem about being accused of being a misogynist and homophobe, and Eminem said he's been branded with these labels because he is white.
Read more here
Anderson also asked Eminem about being accused of being a misogynist and homophobe, and Eminem said he's been branded with these labels because he is white.
Read more here
Friday, October 8, 2010
Sermon on the Mall: Mocking Savior, Symbol and the People
Even with the religious trappings of prayer and professions of faith; confessional tears and talk of visits, voices and visions from heaven; and the gathering of the message-seeking, like-minded multitudes, the recent sermon on the Mall in Washington was clearly not what it seemed or sought to be. Indeed, it was in a real sense, a mockery of the Savior whose teachings and faith it claimed to foster; a mockery of the symbol of a movement whose message it claimed to mirror; and a mockery of the people who embrace the faith, mirrored the message and made the man-symbol and the movement possible.
Indeed, neither Jesus, the Christian Savior, nor Dr. Martin Luther King, the symbol of the civil rights movement, was truly and rightfully represented in their message or meaning for this country and the compelling issues of our time. Nor was rightful homage paid to the people, African Americans, who brought King into being, who shaped and shared his faith, gave meaning to his message and was the cause and core of the Movement that made him possible and great. Thus, in spite of trying to shake the image of the ramblin’, rantin’ radio host, hawking racist wares and wild views, and to assume a racially and religiously repentant posture, Glenn Beck did not succeed.
In spite of his appeals to “meditate on the life and teachings of Jesus,” it was a Jesus and Christianity redefined and different from the faith of King and of my father and mother. Indeed, the country was offered a Jesus without clear and consistent concern for social justice, a Lord without preference and priority for the least among us, and a Savior disassociated from his teachings on light and love for “all who are in the house,” and good works and will for and towards all in the world.
At this Mall and media-supported sermon, crafted to emulate or suggest the Sermon on the Mount, Dr. King would ask, where were the praise and presence of the meek and the merciful, the peacemakers and those that preach or even try to practice love or at least tolerance toward real or imagined enemies? Indeed, it was not a Christianity of the humble or peacemaker. It was a Crusader Christianity championed there with concerns for the warrior, not for the weak or the vulnerable; claims of guidance from God; deference to man-and-moose hunters and calls for more honor, respect and funds for warriors. And therefore, there were no questions or concerns about the promise and work of peace and the welfare of the people made poorer by war or other injustice.
The holding of the rally to coincide with the date of the historic Black Freedom Movement March on Washington was, in a real sense, a violation of the memory and history of King, the Movement, and the people who made both. The claim Beck makes on King and the Movement is neither religiously, rationally or morally sound. To embrace King’s legacy one must learn, understand and appreciate it, and ultimately live it. It is a legacy deeply rooted in the history and culture of his people and cannot be separated without disrespecting them and distorting truth. At the heart of King’s mission and meaning is racial and social justice, love and peace, and the righteous struggle to achieve these goals; not personal preparation for heaven isolated from the suffering, oppression and injustice in the world.
King criticizes America for bouncing bad checks and depriving Black people of “the riches of freedom and the security of justice.” He condemned racism, militarism and poverty in the midst of riches and war and its waste of human life and resources. And he advocated a love that embraces, even enemies, as brothers and sisters, and worthy of respect as sons and daughters of God. He would defend freedom of religion for both Beck, the Mormon, and also the Muslims and would not remain silent in the face of attacks on Muslims, their faith, and their sacred text. And he called a religion that claims to be concerned about the human soul and not with the social conditions that scar the soul, a “dry as dust” and “moribund” religion.
Lacking the internal capacity to create a moral foundation for his emerging movement, Beck has decided to appropriate ours to give his project a moral veneer he would otherwise not have. He has said “Black people don’t own King,” so he’s reclaiming him. However, he is not simply claiming King, but lifting him out of the context of his coming-into-being in order to deny Black people, both the man and their history. King belongs to and emerges out of Black history and culture, in the same way Moses does out of Jewish history and Confucius out of Chinese history, and his message, as all great messages, is both particular to his people and universal in its relevance for the world.
Likewise, our Movement is particular to us and yet it has relevance for the world. That is why it is a model and has meaning for oppressed, marginalized and struggling people everywhere. Beck also asserts strangely that he, company and kind, will “reclaim the civil rights movement” since, he says, “we were the people that did it in the first place.” This is racially arrogant, rationally absurd and intellectually untenable and dishonest. Again, Beck seeks a source of moral grounding he does not find of similar weight and worth in his own history, but he obviously finds it difficult to give due credit to Black people. And the presence of Blacks among “the multitudes” to endorse and entertain does not in any way disprove this.
Beck’s claim of our history, our struggle and social justice tradition comes easier when we, ourselves, cast them off like no-longer-needed clothes and he picks them up and uses them as a costume to give moral meaning to his message and movement. However, King was in no way uncertain or timid about expressing the unique and central role Black people played and must continue to play in the radical transformation of America. He affirmed that “(Black people) bring a special spiritual and moral contribution to American life – a contribution without which America could not survive.” And he asked us at the outset to struggle in such a way that “when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to say ‘there lived a great people, a Black people, who injected new meaning and dignity in the veins of civilization’ ”. Indeed, he said, “this is our challenge and our overwhelming responsibility” regardless of the difficulties, obstacles and absurdities we encounter along the way.
Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor of Africana Studies, California State University-Long Beach, Chair of The Organization Us, Creator of Kwanzaa, and author of Kawaida and Questions of Life and Struggle, www.MaulanaKarenga.org.
Indeed, neither Jesus, the Christian Savior, nor Dr. Martin Luther King, the symbol of the civil rights movement, was truly and rightfully represented in their message or meaning for this country and the compelling issues of our time. Nor was rightful homage paid to the people, African Americans, who brought King into being, who shaped and shared his faith, gave meaning to his message and was the cause and core of the Movement that made him possible and great. Thus, in spite of trying to shake the image of the ramblin’, rantin’ radio host, hawking racist wares and wild views, and to assume a racially and religiously repentant posture, Glenn Beck did not succeed.
In spite of his appeals to “meditate on the life and teachings of Jesus,” it was a Jesus and Christianity redefined and different from the faith of King and of my father and mother. Indeed, the country was offered a Jesus without clear and consistent concern for social justice, a Lord without preference and priority for the least among us, and a Savior disassociated from his teachings on light and love for “all who are in the house,” and good works and will for and towards all in the world.
At this Mall and media-supported sermon, crafted to emulate or suggest the Sermon on the Mount, Dr. King would ask, where were the praise and presence of the meek and the merciful, the peacemakers and those that preach or even try to practice love or at least tolerance toward real or imagined enemies? Indeed, it was not a Christianity of the humble or peacemaker. It was a Crusader Christianity championed there with concerns for the warrior, not for the weak or the vulnerable; claims of guidance from God; deference to man-and-moose hunters and calls for more honor, respect and funds for warriors. And therefore, there were no questions or concerns about the promise and work of peace and the welfare of the people made poorer by war or other injustice.
The holding of the rally to coincide with the date of the historic Black Freedom Movement March on Washington was, in a real sense, a violation of the memory and history of King, the Movement, and the people who made both. The claim Beck makes on King and the Movement is neither religiously, rationally or morally sound. To embrace King’s legacy one must learn, understand and appreciate it, and ultimately live it. It is a legacy deeply rooted in the history and culture of his people and cannot be separated without disrespecting them and distorting truth. At the heart of King’s mission and meaning is racial and social justice, love and peace, and the righteous struggle to achieve these goals; not personal preparation for heaven isolated from the suffering, oppression and injustice in the world.
King criticizes America for bouncing bad checks and depriving Black people of “the riches of freedom and the security of justice.” He condemned racism, militarism and poverty in the midst of riches and war and its waste of human life and resources. And he advocated a love that embraces, even enemies, as brothers and sisters, and worthy of respect as sons and daughters of God. He would defend freedom of religion for both Beck, the Mormon, and also the Muslims and would not remain silent in the face of attacks on Muslims, their faith, and their sacred text. And he called a religion that claims to be concerned about the human soul and not with the social conditions that scar the soul, a “dry as dust” and “moribund” religion.
Lacking the internal capacity to create a moral foundation for his emerging movement, Beck has decided to appropriate ours to give his project a moral veneer he would otherwise not have. He has said “Black people don’t own King,” so he’s reclaiming him. However, he is not simply claiming King, but lifting him out of the context of his coming-into-being in order to deny Black people, both the man and their history. King belongs to and emerges out of Black history and culture, in the same way Moses does out of Jewish history and Confucius out of Chinese history, and his message, as all great messages, is both particular to his people and universal in its relevance for the world.
Likewise, our Movement is particular to us and yet it has relevance for the world. That is why it is a model and has meaning for oppressed, marginalized and struggling people everywhere. Beck also asserts strangely that he, company and kind, will “reclaim the civil rights movement” since, he says, “we were the people that did it in the first place.” This is racially arrogant, rationally absurd and intellectually untenable and dishonest. Again, Beck seeks a source of moral grounding he does not find of similar weight and worth in his own history, but he obviously finds it difficult to give due credit to Black people. And the presence of Blacks among “the multitudes” to endorse and entertain does not in any way disprove this.
Beck’s claim of our history, our struggle and social justice tradition comes easier when we, ourselves, cast them off like no-longer-needed clothes and he picks them up and uses them as a costume to give moral meaning to his message and movement. However, King was in no way uncertain or timid about expressing the unique and central role Black people played and must continue to play in the radical transformation of America. He affirmed that “(Black people) bring a special spiritual and moral contribution to American life – a contribution without which America could not survive.” And he asked us at the outset to struggle in such a way that “when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to say ‘there lived a great people, a Black people, who injected new meaning and dignity in the veins of civilization’ ”. Indeed, he said, “this is our challenge and our overwhelming responsibility” regardless of the difficulties, obstacles and absurdities we encounter along the way.
Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor of Africana Studies, California State University-Long Beach, Chair of The Organization Us, Creator of Kwanzaa, and author of Kawaida and Questions of Life and Struggle, www.MaulanaKarenga.org.
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