Raising Cain...

Jeff Biggers speaks on Coal Roots of Black History Month today at Harlem Arts Salon

As schools, communities and politicians across the country celebrate Black History Month in February, they will be remiss if their lessons don't include the coal fields of Fayette County, West Virginia. There, in the 1890s, a teenage African American followed his brothers into the coal mines, serving what Carter Woodson called his "six-year apprenticeship." In the evenings, the young Woodson would gather with other black coal miners, read the newspaper, and listen to their extraordinary stories of life underground, and their struggles during the Civil War and Reconstruction Era.

The daily history lessons among African Americans in Appalachia were not lost on Woodson. He later wrote that his "interest in penetrating the past of my people was deepened and intensified" during these sessions among coal miners in Fayette County.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Cathie's notes: Not sure how I missed this article written by Jeff Biggers a couple of days before Black History Month began, but better late than never, I guess. You can read the rest of the article here.

Jeff will be speaking at the Harlem Arts Salon this evening at 8 pm: Black Diamonds, Black Lives, and the Coal Roots of Black History Month. He'll be doing a book signing for his latest work, Reckoning at Eagle Creek. You can read an interview of Jeff about this talk and his book here.

Beyond Pale, Male and Stale -- In These Times

To reach out to and sustain relationships with so-called “minority users,” progressive media makers need to move beyond their core white audiences (pale), reach out to women and queer communities (male), and stop being so serious all the time (that is, wonkish, humorless, and stale).

These are not matters of political correctness—they are matters of political clout, democratic representation, and sustainability.

via www.inthesetimes.com

Great article by Jessica Clark and Tracy Van Slyke about "why 'legacy' progressive media must reinvent themselves to remain relevant." The article is an excerpt of Beyond the Echo Chamber: Reshaping Politics Through Networked Progressive Media (2010, New Press), written by a former executive editor and publisher of In These Times.

What If Sarah Palin Were Black? | | AlterNet

People of color have many a shared experience that comes from being racially marked in a White society. One of my favorite examples of this social reality is the moment when a crime is announced on the evening news and we collectively grimace with the thought, "I hope he or she isn't black/brown/yellow/or red." I must also imagine that in a post 9/11 world, my Arab-American brothers and sisters likewise have a similar moment where they hold their collective breath in dread upon the announcement of some act of terrorism (real or imagined, in any part of the world).

Question: Do white people lower their heads in collective shame when they listen to Sarah Palin? Is there a moment where white folks shake their heads in mass and say to themselves, "Lord, I wish she weren't white?"

via www.alternet.org

Cathie's notes: This article echoes thoughts and experiences of many people I've met since I began my anti-racist journey.

The author, Chauncey DeVega, is one of 3 people who contribute to the "We are respectable negroes" blog, which I explored after reading this article at AlterNet. The name of the blog is taken from Special Field Order No. 15 that was issued by General William T. Sherman on January 16, 1865. Section III of this order reads:

Whenever three respectable negroes, heads of families, shall desire to settle on land, and shall have selected for that purpose an island or a locality clearly defined, within the limits above designated, the Inspector of Settlements and Plantations will himself, or by such subordinate officer as he may appoint, give them a license to settle such island or district, and afford them such assistance as he can to enable them to establish a peaceable agricultural settlement. The three parties named will subdivide the land, under the supervision of the Inspector, among themselves and such others as may choose to settle near them, so that each family shall have a plot of not more than (40) forty acres of tillable ground, and when it borders on some water channel, with not more than 800 feet water front, in the possession of which land the military authorities will afford them protection, until such time as they can protect themselves, or until Congress shall regulate their title. The Quartermaster may, on the requisition of the Inspector of Settlements and Plantations, place at the disposal of the Inspector, one or more of the captured steamers, to ply between the settlements and one or more of the commercial points heretofore named in orders, to afford the settlers the opportunity to supply their necessary wants, and to sell the products of their land and labor.

Order No. 15 was an attempt to deal with thousands of freed slaves who had left plantations and followed Sherman's army in its march to the coast. Before issuing the order, Sherman had met with twenty African-American leaders who advised him that the best way to help blacks secure their freedom would be to give them land. In a very short time, some 400,000 acres of coastal land in Georgia and South Carolina were being settled by 40,000 former slaves. (Read more here.)

President Lincoln was assassinated about 3 months after Sherman issued Order No.15. His successor, Andrew Johnson, soon ordered most of the confiscated lands be returned to original owners. This more or less ended an early opportunity to reverse some elements of structural racism and advance racial equality for black citizens. (Read more about the failure of Reconstruction here.)

DeVega's article on Palin originally appeared at Open Salon. Sounds like Palin bugs DeVega at about the same intensity she bugs me. I enjoyed his perspective as well in other articles at both Open Salon and his blog.

Religious Practices on Trial in Arizona: The Problem With “Experts” | ReligionDispatches

Since the October 8 incident that resulted in the deaths of three people in a Ray-led “Warrior Sweat,” Sheriff’s deputies have interviewed hundreds of witnesses in the investigation leading to the indictments. Dozens of participants were treated at area hospitals after the sweat lodge, and by the end of that fatal day Kirby Brown and James Shore were dead. A third participant, Elizabeth Newman, died a week later at a hospital in Flagstaff, Arizona.

I am not a psychic or an attorney, but my experiences through the years with American Indian religious issues tell me this: even though James Ray will be sitting at the defense table, it will be our religious practices on trial in that courtroom. And it will be experts who will argue both sides of the case.

via www.religiondispatches.org

Cathie's notes: Great article by Johnny Flynn, a Citizen Band Potawatomie, teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University.

You can read an earlier article by Flynn on the Sedona tragedy here.

It Takes a Village to Raise a Racist | | AlterNet

"Overall, there's not a lot of evidence that, at least in the long term, kids get their prejudice from their parents," said Charles Stangor, who runs the Laboratory for the Study of Social Stereotyping and Prejudice at the University of Maryland. "I would call it more of a community effect than a parental effect. The community fosters tolerance or prejudice."

That community includes peers and other adults, such as teachers, coaches and clergy, said Frances Aboud, a psychology professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who studies the development of racial prejudice in children. "There are so many other influences in a child's life [besides parents], particularly once they start kindergarten."

via www.alternet.org

Cathie's notes: This is a long but interesting article by Sonia Scherr, writing for the Intelligence Report, a quarterly publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center(SPLC). The article includes interviews with 3 people whose fathers were involved in racial extremism.

SPLC also has a blog, Hatewatch, that you can read here.

Selma, Montgomery, Birmingham...Earth | CommonDreams.org

Our country, and the world, faces the duel crisis of a failed American economy and climate change that threatens life on this planet as we know it.

Poor people and people of color are feeling the adverse impacts of climate change first and worst, from rising energy prices, to increases in heat-related illnesses. Ultimately, however, the destruction resulting from our planet's rising temperature will not be discerning of national borders, a family's yearly income, or the hue of one's skin.

It is similar to what we are all experiencing in these difficult economic times. No matter the race of a worker, when the lights are turned off for the last time in the manufacturing plant, or in any business for that matter, suddenly we amazingly look alike.

via www.commondreams.org

Cathie's notes: The article continues at the link under the excerpt. This is important stuff.

Why Are Some Civil Rights Groups & Leaders On the Wrong Side of Net Neutrality? | | AlterNet

First, let’s be clear: the problem of the broadband digital divide is real. Already, getting a job, accessing services, managing one’s medical care—just to mention a few examples—are all facilitated online. Those who aren’t connected face a huge disadvantage in so many aspects of our society. Broadband access is a big problem — but that doesn’t mean it has anything to do with Net Neutrality.

Yet some in the civil rights community will tell you differently. They claim that if broadband providers can earn greater profits by charging content providers for access to the Internet “fast lane,” then they will lower prices to underserved areas. In other words, if Comcast — which already earns 80 percent profit margins on its broadband services — can increase its profits under a system without Net Neutrality, then they’ll all of a sudden invest in our communities. You don’t have to be a historian or economist to know that this type of trickle-down economics never works and has always failed communities of color.

via www.alternet.org

Cathie's notes: Thanks, James. I've wondered about this, too, especially since my rep in Congress, Lincoln Davis -- who seems to run way to the right of where I do on social and environmental justice issues -- responds to my requests that he stand up for net neutrality with the same argument.

Check out James Rucker's archive at Jack and Jill Politics here.

You can check out the Jack and Jill Politics home page from my Diverse Blogroll in the sidebar or here.

ISS - A monument to courage at the Greensboro five and dime

Refused service and abused by white customers, the students still kept coming back, joined by others, day after day. Their nonviolent act of courage was inspired by others before it and inspired others like it, bringing momentum to a movement that would transform America. Within two months, sit-ins were taking place in 54 cities in nine states. Within six months, the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro was desegregated.

Today that same building on Greensboro's Elm Street will host the grand opening of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, a 30,000-foot archive, museum and teaching center devoted to the international struggle for civil and human rights. The museum's opening is the culmination of an effort that began in 1993, when local Guilford County Commissioner Melvin "Skip" Alston and Greensboro City Councilman Earl Jones established the nonprofit Sit-In Movement Inc. to raise funds to keep the historic Woolworth, since closed, from being turned into a parking lot.

via www.southernstudies.org

Cathie's notes: you can read the rest of this great article at the link under the excerpt.

Tim Wise: On White Privilege (Clip)

via www.youtube.com

Tim Wise, author of White Like Me, is an anti-racist activist and lecturer who has written much on white privilege and structural racism.

The Necessary Notion of "Anti-racist Ally"

Last summer I had a path-shifting moment on my anti-racist journey when I found a link on my Facebook page to an event in Louisville, Kentucky, celebrating  the life of Anne McCarty Braden. Braden was a white southerner who was becoming a civil rights activist about the time I was starting first grade. I had never heard of her, so I launched an afternoon google-fest to find out more.

In 1954, Braden and her husband, Carl, bought a home in Louisville's suburbs, intending to sell it to a black couple. For this act, the state of Kentucky charged the Bradens with sedition. The state convicted and sentenced Carl, but Anne secured his early release through a speaking and fundraising campaign that would make any true organizer smile.

Somewhere in the list of hits from my search, I found a review of Refusing Racism: White Allies and the Struggle for Civil Rights by Cynthia Stokes Brown. As I read an excerpt about the notion of "white ally," I felt like my soul-molecules were jumping with joy -- a sure sign that this was an important idea for me to explore (and a good reason to order the book)!

A rich flow of thoughts and feelings began even before the book arrived. By the time I read the first few pages, it served mainly to validate my take on the importance of the white ally concept, and to introduce, in more detail, the lives of white people who had begun the anti-racist journey ahead of me.

At some point I want to blog in more depth about spaces my Braden-google opened up and how I see it as path-shifting. For now I'll try to summarize what I see as key insights, using my relationship to the work and path of Martin Luther King, Jr. as an example.

I have read a couple of Dr. King's books. A few years ago I spent several hours in Atlanta visiting his boyhood home, sitting in Ebenezer Baptist listening to his speeches, and exploring the MLK Center where I saw words and images that inspired, uplifted, nauseated and even terrified me. It amazed me that a man so young, in so short a time on Earth, discovered and spoke so much of a truth that is valid for all people. King's words and work inspire me in a universal way, much the same way as the lives of Gandhi or Mandela.

When I imagine what will be required day to day for me (a white woman born and raised in the American Midwest)to keep my feet moving on the anti-racist path through a holler in east Tennessee, the brightness of Dr. King's flashlight starts to fade. In my research of the white ally concept, the realities of my whiteness in a racist society anchored into new depths in my soul.

Why was I so relieved to find out about Anne Braden? How come I didn't find out about her until I was a senior citizen? Because the society I grew up in was (and is) no more keen on teaching its citizens about the Anne Braden's of America than it is about copping to the pervasive structural racism that King, the Bradens and hundreds of others devoted (or lost)their lives to expose and abolish.

As a white person with white privilege, the life experience I bring to my anti-racist journey is worlds apart from the experiences of people of color. To travel this path as a white person exposes me to hidden truths of history, and this truth admits to the soul the sharper, painful edges of anger, sadness, despair and guilt that historical secrets are meant to prevent. Some of Anne Braden's writing speaks to the pain that oppression imposes on the oppressors -- this helped me to symbolize my own and allowed me to finder higher ground. 

Here's what I'm thinking: if white folks on anti-racist journeys don't have access to the stories of white allies who came before them, we don't have role models for anything other than being an oppressor. Without positive images and possibilities, there is great danger of getting so stuck in negative energy that the work itself will be (consciously or unconsciously) sabotaged. What a deal that would be for a society that desires (consciously or unconsciously) to maintain white privilege!

P.S.: Happy Black History Month! More posts to come!