Unbossed
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Vol.
13 No. 35…Dedicated
to the Dialogue on Race…August 29, 2010
Intuit's
Vibe
Beautiful Black Child
By Yohannes Sharriff Smith
Beautiful black child
Fill the world with wonder.
Breathe life into exhausted hopes.
Your pure innocent nature,
Not yet hindered by the evil of this world,
Forever changes those you touch.
Help us to honor the love still living in slave
quarters.
The blood shed and pride fed to European
insecurities.
Whips struck lashes like lightening
Across a horizon of shackled African bodies
Field hands wounded and bleeding run north to
freedom.
Escaping the Klan,
Communing with Native People in swamp lands
Recaptured stretched necks
Suspended in midair from southern trees
Noose dangled strange fruit burned bare.
Blistered ebony backs frying in the
Crisp while picking cotton, crying a soulful moan,
As stalks pricked overworked fingertips
With impunity that master bastard raped
Our
All endured because babies can't go hungry.
Do not let fear rob you of your gift!
You are special!
Lead the way to the future for those who follow.
Defy the odd and let your light shine in defiance.
Your sheer brilliance blinding the faithless
And guiding the believers
An ever glowing tribute to your people
Beautiful black
The inhumane conditions you have endured
For thousands of generations transformed you.
Glory belongs to our ancestors' sacrifices.
Evolution is ours; we possess the will to survive.
Beautiful black butterfly
Rise as the sun with your dreams firmly in hand.
Boldly place them amongst the stars,
Ever burning spectacles for the world to gaze upon
Beautiful black people
Let our audacious ascension emulate the
It began as a few struggling drops.
As time passed its surging growth overcame obstacles
Defeating whatever lay in its path.
Refusing to allow the world to define it
Instead our existence defines the world.
We are an unstoppable force, shaping the universe.
All lips shall utter these words, Black is
Beautiful!
Beautiful black child, this is my pray for you!
Kenneth Bancroft Clark (1914-2005)
A racist system inevitably destroys and damages human beings; it
brutalizes and dehumanizes them, black and white alike.....Kenneth B. Clark
Kenneth
Bancroft Clark was born to Arthur Bancroft Clark and Miriam Hanson Clark in the
Clark transferred to
After
graduation, Clark attended
The
Clarks' interest in the damaging effects of racism and its impact on the self
perception of black children led to their groundbreaking investigation into the
psychological effects of racism on identity and self-esteem and resulted in the
development of their famous "doll tests" (1939-1940). They showed
black children four identical dolls, two black and two white. The children were
asked to identify the dolls racially, to indicate which dolls were best, which
were nice, which were bad, and with which they would prefer to play. The
Dr.
Clark conducted follow up tests in the
Dr.
Clark's tests in
Following the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John and Robert
Kennedy, Dr. Clark became pessimistic over the difficulty in achieving
integration in the North. He, as many blacks, grew wary with whites' prejudices
and doubtful that racial equality would ever be achieved. Though discouraged,
Dr. Clark remained a firm advocate of integrating American society. "I
confidently expected the segregation problem would be solved by 1960. That
shows how naive I was." Growing more and more pessimistic, he blamed
"neoconservative whites for betraying civil rights in the US; blacks who
thought they could succeed in isolation; politicians of both races who made
empty promises; and defeatists who came to think that integration and real
racial harmony were" too difficult to achieve."
Dr. Clark received many awards, honorary degrees and other accolades including
the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP (1961) and the Nicholas Murray Butler Silver
Medal awarded by
Dr
Kenneth Bancroft Clark died in
By John Burl Smith
On
August 12, 2010, CNN's AC360° aired the Doll
Study Revisited: Girl Calls Her Skin "Nasty," which
reexamined the famous "Doll Studies" (1939) conducted by Drs. Kenneth
and Mamie Clark. Although not expressed, there seemed to be doubt about the
validity of the
The
study was comprised of 133 children -- 65 early and 68 middle childhood
subjects. There were 75 African American and 58 white children of which 64 came
from 4 Northeastern and 69 from 4 Southeastern schools. The 8 schools were from
suburbs around
Following the original studies by the
Interviewed
for Eyes on the Prize
(11-3-85), Dr. Clark spoke candidly. The attempt on the part of my wife and me was to
try to understand how black children saw themselves -- whether they viewed
themselves as equal to others. In fact, what we were trying to do is see how
children develop a sense of their own being, their own person. Dr.
Clark analysis highlighted the essential fact underlying blacks' perilous
existence -- development of their self perception.
Although,
whites and blacks went through slavery in tandem, each perspective was very
different. Whites determined everything about slaves' lives and slaves were
forced to accept and adapt to any demand made upon them by whites. White skin
represented power, status, wealth, beauty and any other positive
characteristics imaginable. Simultaneously, a slave's skin color was a stigma,
a badge of servitude, a depository for attributing any characteristic whites
despised. A slave's blackness stood out as no other pigment, drawing to him or
her the dread and wretchedness of perpetual bondage.
Emancipation
did not free slaves of what was their badge of dishonor. A curse that slave
descendants spent their existence -- whitening and lightening -- trying to
remove. Black skin means one can be denied equal access to the bounties of US
citizenship - the right to vote, equal pay, employment, education, etc.-- even
though all justifications for such treatment have long since been proven false.
Moreover, slave descendants' skin color justifies the denial of "equal
protection" codified under the 14th Amendment to prevent
discrimination, disparate treatment and hostile environment -- unequal justice,
lynching, murder by police, school-to-prison pipeline, predatory lending, etc.
Dr.
Clark explained what the process of segregation did to children he studied. Oh, of course, I saw the warnings signs, even
before I knew there was going to be a case [Brown v Board of Education] against
segregation. My wife and I saw them as fairly indicative of the dehumanizing
effects of racism, of which segregation is the most concrete manifestation of
racism, no question about that. In fact, we saw that so clearly that we were
reluctant to publish the results, because the results of our studies were so
indicative of the dehumanizing, cruel impact of racism in our allegedly "democratic
society" and you know, these children were internalizing that. They saw
themselves in terms of the society's definition of them as inferior. That's not
a pretty thing to- and it was hard for us to pretend to be objective about it.
Dr. Clark's perceptive statement has been borne out by the CNN study. The
source of children's self perception is information from the society at-large.
Metaphorically, like an umbilical cord, society feeds the young images of how
it perceives them and they build up what is called "residual-self
identifying imagery" which serves as the basis of their personality. All
one needs to do in order to understand this process is to observe society's
message to realize that nothing has changed. A white skin still represents
power, status, wealth, beauty and any other positive characteristics
imaginable. Whereas, blackness is still a depository for everything negative -
ignorance, indolence, ribald, poverty, crime, lack of opportunity,
unemployment, degradation, homelessness, welfare, etc.-- attributable to people
in American society.
The
dehumanizing impact of racism on a child's psyche is profound. Look at
television, videos or movies; the desirability of being white is overwhelming.
Children see white people perform all the positive functions of society, while
they are inundated with negative roles blacks play in society. Unlike the
Letter to Ban
Ki-moon
By John Burl
Smith
The Honorable Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General of the
United Nations
Honorable Sir:
You
said of the Universal Periodic Review that it "has great potential to
promote and protect human rights in the darkest corners of the world." It
is in that regard this letter is addressed to you on behalf of the more than
forty million slave descendants residing in the United States of America (USA)
in order to present the accompanying petition to the United Nations General
Assembly. This petition is an appeal by slave descendants for help in dealing
with racism in
Specifically,
Mr. Dične recommended: a) Congress establish a bipartisan commission to
evaluate the progress and failures in the fight against racism and the ongoing
process of resegregation, particularly in housing and education, and to find
responses to check these trends; (b) The Government reassess existing
legislation on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related
intolerance in view of two main guidelines: addressing the overlapping nature of
poverty and race or ethnicity; and linking the fight against racism to the
construction of a democratic, egalitarian and interactive multiculturalism, in
order to strengthen inter-community relations; (c) The Government should
intensify its efforts to enforce federal civil rights laws; (d) The Government
clarify to law enforcement officials the obligation of equal treatment and, in
particular, the prohibition of racial profiling.
Special
Rapporteur Dične was very clear that "racism is alive and thriving in
Going
back to the first World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) held in Durban, South Africa in 2001,
slave descendants from around the world were vociferous in demanding that
racism be recognized as a crime against humanity. At that conference, the
However,
thanks to the valiant efforts of African, Asian, Pacific, Middle East and South
American nations, the
Now,
it is clear that the
The
United Nations, through UNESCO in 1950, published a declaration called The Race Question and drew
international attention to the desperate plight of black people living under a
murderous racist segregationist
If
the United Nations, which represents the international community, accepts the
Respectfully,
John Burl Smith
The Dialogue on Race
International Network (www.thedish.org)
US Report to UN
On
August 23, 2010, the US State Department submitted the Obama administration
report to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in advance of the
Although
these issues are important in the international arena, the
The
We are asking DISH readers to come to the website at www.thedish.org
and read our petition and to support this effort by emailing, writing and
calling the UN to register your opposition to the
Emails
should be sent to ecu@un.org or petitc@un.org. Letters addressed to the UN
Secretary-General should be sent to: The Honorable Ban Ki-moon;
Secretary-General of the United Nations;
Disgruntled
feels: Inferiority! I do not need a 'doll test' to gauge
black feelings of inferiority. Just take a cursory look at our behavior and
outward manifestations, which no longer say "black is beautiful."
There is little wonder that our children detest their exterior; the vast
majority of black adults show no pride in their natural beauty. Take for
example the issue of black hair. Black women are by far the worse of the lot
when it comes to destroying black locks. Dripping self-hate, they are enriching
those who sell human and fake hair and chemicals, including lye and dye, in a
desperate attempt to look more like white women, at least by the head. Black
men mostly shave themselves bald in their haste not to offend. Even those too
young to exhibit signs of male pattern baldness, the excuse most often cited
for self-shearing, are called upon to lop off their locks; it is what older
black males do best, show self-hate. More important, the young ones are told
they look clean without that nappy mess! This and other lies are fed to our
children by blacks and the larger society on a daily to reinforce a sense of
inferiority! No wonder our children prefer white dolls to black ones. Their
parents do too!
Disgruntled says:
This week former US Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod met with
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to discuss the possibility of her returning to the
federal agency in a different capacity. You will recall, selective excerpts
from one of Sherrod's speeches on racial healing were posted on the Internet by
a scoundrel, who wanted to point a finger at a "black racist." The
effort backfired but not before Sherrod was fired by the politically correct
Obama administration. Mr. Obama has apologized for the government's hasty action,
but the scoundrel that caused this brouhaha has not seen fit to apologize.
Sherrod is contemplating suing the devil. Understandably, Sherrod refused the
new position. In doing so, she called on the nation to engage in that long
overdue discussion of racism in
Disgruntled wants to know: The co-chair of President Obama's Debt Commission, former Senator
Alan Simpson, described Social Security as a "milk cow with 310 million
tits." Simpson has made it known that he opposes Social Security and would
love to dismantle the New Deal program. For some time, the program has been
viewed, mostly by Republicans and the ruling elite, as a problem child,
budget-wise, when in fact the program has run a surplus until recently. Had
those surpluses been invested in anything other than the general revenue and
used to fund unnecessary wars and other big business interests, the program
would be solvent for years to come. Republicans would love to never have to
repay Social Security for its used surpluses. However, dismantling Social
Security will mean fewer dollars flowing into the treasury, which will
exacerbate the deficit and national debt problem. Or, do you suppose
Republicans and the ruling elite expect workers to continue paying the Social
Security tax when there is no benefit?
Mailbox:
E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls
Email
www.truth-out.org California Assembly Votes to
Report on Human Rights to UN Committees...By Marjorie Cohn...On August 9, the
California Assembly took the historic step of becoming the first state to agree
to publicize the text of three ratified UN human rights treaties, and to submit
the required reports to the State Department for consideration by the UN treaty
committees. The State Assembly voted to pass ACR129, the Human Rights Reporting
legislation, by a vote of 52 to 11, with 16 abstentions. The legislation will
now move to the state Senate. The International Convention on Elimination of
all forms of Racial Discrimination requires the
Email
www.wbci.com Mississippi Middle School Segregates
Student Government Officers: Only Whites Can Run for President ...With the
election of President Barack Obama, the country heralded the coming of an age
in which an African-American could overcome significant historical prejudice to
ascend to the presidency. But while the country celebrates this collective step
forward, a Nettleton,