Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use
Vol. 11 Issue 19…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…May 11, 2008
Venue for an Artist
We didn't mean to kill them
By B. Michael
Israel says it doesn't mean to
kill Palestinian children, yet they keep on dying. We really didn't mean to do
it. Again we didn't mean to do it. We have never meant to do it. Yet as usual,
even though we didn't mean it - we hit them. We hit them 1,000 times already
without meaning to do it. We have killed a total of 1,000 Palestinian children
since the 2nd Intifada broke out Sept. 29, 2000. A thousand!
We already have a special procedure for cases where a Palestinian child dies as
a result of a misfired missile, a misaimed shell, an unfocused helicopter, or a
distracted sniper. At first, we deny a child even died. Later we argue that his
own people killed him. Later we issue explanations and excuses and scenarios
that only become dumber with the passage of time. Then comes the turn of the
"investigating officer" (it will never be an investigating judge, a
scrutinizing observer, or an inquisitive civilian. It's always an officer) who
proceeds to issue some nonsense that clears us of any wrongdoing. Ultimately,
we declare that evil Arabs are at fault, because they take cover among
civilians.
Yet if the regular "it was a mistake" claim has already become
completely ridiculous - because how many times can one say "we didn't mean
it" without making those words empty and hollow and cold - the argument
regarding taking cover among civilians is truly infuriating with its chutzpa.
A state whose military high command and the office of its defense minister are
located at the heart of a crowded city, and which sends civilians, including
their women and children, to "expand the boundaries of the country"
and whose bridgehead for occupation and takeover regularly hides behind babies
and pregnant women, and which refers to its own armed soldiers who died in
battle or were captured as "boys" - such state needs a very high
level of nerve in order to blame others for hiding behind civilians and
children.
And for those who wish to clear what is left of their conscience with the
number of Israeli children killed by the Palestinians, here is a little
information: Since the start of 2004, the Palestinians killed 11 Israeli
children. We, during the same period of time, killed 452 Palestinian children.
How can we even compare? After
all, they mean to do it, while we don't. (Maybe it would be better if we start
meaning to do it? Many children will be spared that way.)
About Me: Read more of B. Michael's work at www.ynetnews.com.
Cobras!
Over the last month, things have
really gone well for the George Washington Carver Cobras of Memphis, Tennessee.
The boys’ baseball team won the 2A City Championship and the lady Cobras
won the 2A city championship in softball. Then, to top that, on Friday, May 2,
2008, the Memphis Education Association named Carver, High School of the Year.
This award recognized the many years of struggle by Principal Michele S. Mason
and her staff of teachers and counselors, who have relentlessly endeavored to
raise standards and instill a diligent work ethic in students at Carver.
Winning the baseball title for Coach Terry Watts and the softball title for
Coach Greg Lewis brought honor and pride to those who love Carver. However,
winning the High School of the Year award made it a "Super Bowl" year
for Carver's alumni. We appreciate and acknowledge a job well done by the
principal, staff, teachers and coaches. Above all, we give kudos to Carver's
students, because it was they who met the challenge of learning! Kudos!
Otis Redding (1941- 1967)
Otis Ray Redding, Jr. was born
September 9, 1941 in Dawson, Georgia. His family moved to Macon, Georgia when
he was five. Otis found expression for his love of music by singing in the
choir at the Vineville Baptist Church. Also, he was in his high school band,
and became a local celebrity after winning the local Sunday night talent show
15 weeks in a row.
Otis dropped out of high school to help his financially strapped parents
support their six- children. He met his wife Zelma Atwood in 1959 and married
her in August 1961. He became the vocalist for the Upsetters, a local band that
had been Macon's native son, Little Richard's back up group. Performing with
The Upsetters, Otis landed his first recording session in July 1960. Only
eighteen, Otis joined Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers, as their driver later
that year. Jenkins' band traveled to Memphis in October 1962 for a recording
session at a new studio- Stax Records. Jenkins' session ended early, so Otis
cut two of his own songs, "These Arms of Mine" and "Hey Hey Baby,"
during the time left.
Fortuitously, the rest is history, because Otis signed with Stax imprint, Volt
Records after the session. That serendipitous session began a series of thirty
recording sessions which extended from June 1963 until November 1967. Otis
Redding records exemplified the power of the South's "deep soul" --
hoarse, gritty vocals and brassy arrangements filled with emotions whether
jumping party tunes or heart aching ballads. He was also the most consistent
exponent of the Stax "Memphis sound," and he helped to modernize and
merge R&B with soul. Redding more than anyone at the time, captured the
music that arose out of the black experience in America by synthesizing gospel
and R&B into "a kind of funky testimonial pleading."
Initially performing on the "chitlin' circuit," a string of theaters
and clubs, such as The Apollo in New York, The Howard in Washington, D.C. and
The Regal in Chicago, as well as, down South Club Paradise in Memphis, Club 77
in New Orleans and the Magnolia Ballroom in Atlanta, Otis barnstormed the
country doing one-nighters. Touring live with fellow Stax artists like Sam
& Dave, Carla Thomas and Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Otis garnered a string
of hits including "Mr. Pitiful," "I Can't Turn You Loose," "Try
a Little Tenderness," "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," and
"Respect."
Redding wrote most of his songs, but Steve Cropper of Booker T. & the
M.G.'s and singer Jerry Butler, who co-wrote, "I've Been Loving You Too
Long" assisted at times. And, then there was "Tramp," an upbeat
duet with Carla Thomas which became Otis' first crossover hit. With his growing
popularity, Otis began playing rock and pop venues, such as The Whisky-A-Go-Go
in Los Angeles.
Performing on the No. 1 rated British television music show "Ready Steady
Go! Redding and the Stax/Volt Revue (including Booker T. & The MGs and The
Mar-Keys), "gave Europeans a glimpse of his dynamic talent. Enjoying
standing ovations night after night in cities like London, Paris and Stockholm,
Otis was named "No. 1 Male Vocalist" in a British poll. From there it
was on to the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, where he performed before
30,000 screaming fans, while stealing the show from the likes of Simon &
Garfunkel, The Byrds, The Who and Jimi Hendrix. A few weeks later, while playing
The Fillmore West in San Francisco and living on a houseboat in Sausalito, the
inspiration for "Dock of the Bay" hit Otis.
Beyond the honors, accolades and awards posthumously presented -- induction
into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1994), Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
(1999), "Shake," "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay," and
"Try a Little Tenderness" listed among "The 500 Songs that
Shaped Rock and Roll," ranked "No. 21 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest
Artists of All Time" and a wall of fame in Stax Soulsville USA Museum - it
was the wonderful music that Otis Redding created which still reverberates in
the hearts and minds of his adoring fans that matters most. Although attaining
the status of global superstar, retaining his common touch while he lived is
what endeared him to those who were left to moan him. While the world was
blessed with his presence for just twenty-six short years -- he died in a plane
crash on December 10, 1967, Otis Redding's legacy will remain the standard of
excellence for what it means to be a true "Soul Man." (Sources: http://afgen.com http://en.wikipedia.org www.otisredding.com/main.php4
Redding's Family Visits Stax Soulsvile USA!
By John Burl Smith
On Saturday and Sunday, May
17-18, 2008, Memphis will become ground zero for those who loved "Soul Man
# 1" Otis Redding. The Soulsville Foundation will present a history making
event when the family of Otis Redding will be the special guests for two very
exciting evenings. The Foundation will honor Mrs. Zelma Redding, Otis Redding's
widow, and their three children, Otis III, Dexter and Karla Redding-Andrews.
This appearance is another in a series of efforts that recognize Otis' genius.
Beginning with Earns Award for Otis Redding Exhibition at the Georgia Music
Hall of Fame (2-6-08), the Otis Blue Collectors Edition Reviewed (4-14-2008)
and OTIS BLUE: OTIS REDDING SINGS SOUL, a two-disc Deluxe Set released
(4-22-08), by his family through "The Big O" Youth Educational Dream
Foundation" are keeping his legacy alive.
The family will be special guests on Saturday, May 17th at the Stax
Music Academy SNAP!, the school's spring concert at the University of Memphis'
Michael D. Rose Theater. Otis III and Dexter will perform with the students.
Stax Music Academy ensembles -- Stax Music Academy Rhythm Section, Street
Corner Harmonies, Premier Percussionists, and the Soulsville Swing Band--will
be featured during the concert, as well as the Soulsville Symphony Orchestra.
Also, there will be a special guest performance by internationally acclaimed
saxophonist Kirk Whalum, the academy's Artist in Residence. The concert begins
at 7 p.m. and the admission is just $5!
On Sunday, May 18th, the entire Redding family will talk with guests
for a "Conversations with the Reddings." A panel discussion/Q&A
will include others who knew Otis Redding. Ben Cauley, the only surviving
member of the Bar-Kay band on board the plane the night of the tragic crash
which took Redding's life, will be a panelist. The discussion will be held in
the Stax Museum's Studio A, where Otis recorded many of his hits. The
conversation will center on Otis Redding, the loving father and husband, not
just Otis Redding the phenomenal entertainer. "Conversations with the
Reddings" will take place at 5 - 7 p.m. A $10 general admission charge
will support the Stax Museum.
The STAX Museum's special exhibit in Studio A, "OTIS REDDING: FROM MACON
TO MEMPHIS - AN EXHIBIT FROM THE PRIVATE COLLECTION OF ZELMA REDDING" has
been extended until MAY 31st. For more information, on the May Otis
Redding events and exhibit, please call 901-946-2535, email: tim.sampson@soulsvillefoundation.org
or visit www.staxmuseum.com.
Swastika, Nooses and the Star of
David
By John Burl Smith
Symbols are some of the most
powerful instruments of control. Their influence resides in their power over
the subconscious mind. They exert a subtle influence on one's thoughts and
behavior without obvious commands. A symbol's impact can be introduced at a
point in the past and although that symbol loses its authority at some point,
it can continue to exercise control over thought and behavior. A classic
example is the swastika and the Star of David.
Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933, promising change and
improvements for the German people. A Jew, Hitler was supported by many Jews,
especially the wealthy merchant and industrial classes that saw themselves
moving up socially and politically, if Hitler was elected Chancellor.
Simultaneously, they excused Hitler's rhetoric. They justified his statements
as a clever ruse to placate conservatives and the radical fringe that would
unite against him if he spoke his mind. They believed, once in office, he would
show his true colors and vindicate their trust.
They were right. Once in power, Hitler's true colors turned out to be black and
gold. His black swastikas became the symbol of authority and the gold Star of
David became the Jews badge of shame. Nazi storm troopers wearing black
swastikas armbands herded everyone across Europe wearing a gold Star of David
into railroad cars and off to concentration camps by the millions. Although
they started with the poor and powerless, eventually swastikas put gold stars
on the wealthy merchants and industrialists too. No Jew was safe from the
Holocaust, poor and wealthy alike were herded into gas chambers. It didn't
matter whether they supported Hitler or not, his color was black and their
color was gold.
Similarly, a color line was drawn in America with slavery. Black Africans were
made slaves in perpetuity and white Europeans became slave masters in 1776 when
the Founding Fathers signed the Constitution creating the United States of
America (USA). Synonymous with gold stars placed on Jews by swastikas, black
skin, designated by the 3/5 Compromise, became a badge of shame in the USA. The
black Holocaust came not as gas chambers but as lynch men's nooses, once
Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew Union troops from the South in 1878.
A black face denied the bearer "any rights a white man was bound to
respect." A white man could take a black man's property, wife and life
with impunity and no court or jury would condemn his actions. Black faces
became slave descendants' Star of David as the shadow of the noose fell like a
swastika across the USA. No black face was safe from the lynch mob and the
lynch man's noose became the symbol of lawless terror in America.
When a hangman's noose was found on a tree in Jena Louisiana in 2007, the
symbol struck the same terror in the hearts of black people that a swastika
strikes in Jews. Even though Jews no longer wear the gold Star of David, they
still tremble when they see a swastika panted on some wall. Once the young
white boys responsible for hanging the noose were identified, they claimed it
was a joke. They were excused. Had they hung a swastika from that tree, it
would not have been seen as a joke.
Today, adult white men that used the terror of a noose during the time when
whites lynched blacks are displaying them and claiming it is a prank. The
picture of Ohio state troopers dressed as KKK, another symbol of terror, was
displayed on You-Tube. They were excused as jokesters. Last week, it was
disclosed that a noose was found hanging at the Secret Service training facility
near Washington DC. Symbols of terror and death do not lose their power over
its victims, neither do those who use them to terrorize turn into jesters.
Swastikas and the Star of David still mean the same thing in Germany; they are
symbols associated with terror.
However, in the USA, whites pretend, the noose, a symbol of terror, has become
a joke for those who used them to murder blacks. Ironically, to accommodate
this new perspective, blacks are expected to consider nooses a laughing matter
when they find them hanging in their lockers, in their desk drawer, or some
place else in the work environment.
Give me a break! Nooses today mean the same thing they did one hundred years
ago, and whites use them for the same purpose- to intimidate blacks. That was
the reason for creating the symbol in the first place. Psychologically, the use
of nooses is a stimulus/response mechanism, like Pavlov's dog. The idea was not
to keep hanging blacks in public forever. It was to imprint the idea in the
minds of blacks so deeply that when blacks saw a noose a hundred years later,
they would tremble in fear. The psychology behind Willie Lynch is neither an
urban legend nor a joke. It is the bogeyman from our past that lives on in our
minds, much like the swastika and the gold Star of David.
Intuit's Vibe
Noose
Tyler Howat
The small community,
Nearly all alike, often
Unable to recognize their
Diverse parts,
rocked.
Rapped sharply on the nose,
Eyes pried open, mind
Awakened, as the image
Remains, burned.
The ropes swing loosely,
Yet heavy with history,
With hate, and with
Ignorance, bloody.
Our minds, now, are on
Trial, our words subject
To scrutiny. The freedom
We love, challenged.
Everything changes when sensitivity
Outweighs liberty of thought.
Equality, abandoned and marginalized
When oppression still remains.
Apes on Tape
By Dot
In the news, white Philadelphia
police are caught on tape beating three black shooting suspects during a
traffic stop, Secret Service e-mails contain racist jokes and remarks and a
noose is found at the Secret Service training facility in Beltsville, Maryland,
just outside the nation's capital. Already, the conduct of the officers in the
beating is being excused -- one of their own was recently killed in the line of
duty. The Secret Service, which provides security for the president and other
high ranking officials, is being sued by black agents that claim the agency
unfairly denied them promotions. The lawsuit was filed in 2000, and the agency
has been dragging its foot in providing court-ordered documents; the racist
e-mails were part of the information finally disclosed in satisfying the court
order.
With all the talk of how much the US has changed, given the viable candidacy of
a black man for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, these
incidences, as well as the recent exoneration of the police involved in the
murder of Sean Bell, suggest something else is going on in America. A six-year
psychological study conducted by researchers at Stanford, Pennsylvania State
University and the University of California at Berkley found that many
Americans subconsciously associate blacks with apes. Given this sub-human view
of blacks, there is a high degree of acceptance of violence against them. A classic
example of this acceptance and the corresponding lack of any public outcry is
the brutal police murder of an unarmed Sean Bell, who died in a hail of fifty
(50) bullets; the police involved in the shooting were cleared of any
wrongdoing. US history is littered with such victims. Now, we understand the
public silence.
Published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and posted on the
web at www.scientificblogging.com, the
study, "Not Yet Human: Implicit Knowledge, Historical Dehumanization and
Contemporary Consequences," by Phillip Atiba Goff, Jennifer Eberhardt and
Matthew C. Jackson offers a glimpse into the history of US scientific racism,
which more closely associated blacks with the chimpanzee than man in the
evolution of Homo sapiens. Of course, the endpoint of human evolution, the
civilized person, is always depicted as the white man.
According to Eberhardt, co-author of the study and associate professor of
psychology at Stanford, "Despite widespread opposition to racism, bias
remains with us. African Americans are still dehumanized; we're still
associated with apes in this country. That association can lead people to
endorse the beating of black suspects by police officers, and I think it has
lots of other consequences that we have yet to uncover."
For Eberhardt, two stories of race exist in America. "One is about the
disappearance of bias--that it's no longer with us. But the other is about the
transformation of bias. It's not the egregious bias anymore, but it's modern
bias, subtle bias. With both of these stories, there is an understanding that
society has moved beyond the historic battles centered around race. We want to
argue, with this work, that there is one old race battle that we're still
fighting. That is the battle for blacks to be recognized as fully human."
Until that day, blacks will continue to be discriminated against in the
workplace, beaten and murdered by police with impunity, while the larger
society remain silent and/or pretend there is no bias, even when the
inappropriate behavior is caught on tape. In those situations, who are the
apes?
Disgruntled says: This
year Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary as a nation; the
Palestinian people will commemorate the same number of years for quite
different reasons. While US politicians paint the Jewish state in positive
terms and excuse its actions, Israel has committed crimes for which other
nations have been harshly criticized and punished. For instance, it has nuclear
weapons and weapons of mass destruction. No one in the West objects, even
though Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NNPT). It claims to be a democracy, but only Jews enjoy all rights of
citizenship. Israel is an aggressor, engages in targeted assassinations,
illegal occupation, collective punishment and displacement of Palestinians and
other crimes against humanity. Currently, Israel is in violation of numerous UN
Security Council Resolutions. However, no western power or any other nation is
talking about enforcing compliance or threatening military intervention to aid
the Palestinians. In fact, the US is bending over backwards to provide the
aggressor more military assistance. Some have even advocated obliterating Iran,
its adversary in the region, should Israel be attacked. Amazing! Hypocrisy
knows no bounds when it comes to US support for the nation symbolized by the
Star of David!
Disgruntled
wants to know: Just like his daddy before him, an oil and gas man born
to wealth and privilege, who did not know the national average cost of a loaf
of bread when American families were struggling with the cost of putting food
on the table, George W. Bush is out of touch today in a similar fashion. Not
having to concern himself with such mundane matters as choosing between food
and fuel, Bush makes foolish noises about the state of the economy, rather than
advocating policies that reduce the burden on poor and working class American
families, such as investments in "green jobs" that will reduce
unemployment, help the environment and reduce US dependency on foreign fossil
fuel. Sometimes, I get the impression that he is relishing the surge in oil
prices, as though it means more money in his pockets, as it probably does. For
the likes of him - the wealthy elite among us - their sentiment seems to
suggest, damn the American people, "let them eat cake!" However, if
they can afford neither milk nor flour, how in the world do they make cake?
Disgruntled feels: Conspiratorial! The Internet is abuzz with information on a possible US military attack inside Iran to destroy a supposed militia training camp. Iran, which recently stopped trading oil in dollars and is encouraging other oil producers to switch out of the devalued currency, is persona non grata, just as Iraq when Saddam Hussein demanded euros instead of dollars in the UN oil-for-food program. Of course, the US government and mainstream media pretend oil and the dollar have nothing to do with US animosity towards Iran; it is all about Iranian nuclear ambition and its interference in the US-led Iraqi occupation. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee before he recanted, in a rare moment of candor acknowledged the US Middle East involvement, especially militarily, is all about oil, its chief national security interest in the region. In addition to the implied threats, the US is building up its firepower in the Persian Gulf. There is plenty of evidence to suggest the US is itching to engage Iran, so the Internet denizens and others are not merely conspiratorial; they are connecting dots.