Voices and Soul
by
Justice Putnam
Black Kos Poetry Editor
In the Dogon cosmology, the Andoumboulou are a failed, earlier form of Human Being, who live underground inhabiting holes in the Earth. The voice of the Andoumboulou is merely their breath, it is the music of the wind. Nathaniel Mackey takes this breath to the text, a reification of language to body, the ink on the page being as real as the skin that chatters for the Andoumboulou. He chronicles the journey of that voice, that music of the wind, as it courses over the land and time.
There is an explosion of stammers in the Andoumboulou's flawed world of abortive language. Though imperfect and flawed, meaning emerges in the errors. That meaning is beyond words. it is lost in human utterance, it is something to be determined as but a whisper from a human existence we can only speculate about, that we can only feel. A feeling like the wind on our cheeks, and grains of sand blown from our hands.
Song of the Andoumboulou: 55
Carnival morning they
were Greeks in Brazil,
Africans in Greek
disguise. Said of herself
she
was born in a house in
heaven. He said he was
born in the house next
door... They were in hell.
In Brazil they were
lovebait.
To abide by hearing was
what love was... To
love was to hear without
looking. Sound was the
beloved’s
mummy cloth... All to say,
said the exegete, love in
hell was a voice, to be spoken
to from behind, not be able
to turn and look... It
wasn’t Greece where they
were,
nor was it Benin... Carnival
morning in made-up hell, bodies
bathed in loquat light, would-be
song’s all the more would-be
title, “Sound and Cerement,”
voice
wound in bandages
raveling
lapse
Up all night, slept well
past noon. Awoke restless
having dreamt she awoke on
Lone Coast, wondering
afterwards what it came
to,
glimpsed interstice,
crevice,
crack... Saw her
dead mother and brother
pull up in a car, her brother
at the wheel not having driven
while alive, newly taught
by
death it appeared. A fancy car,
bigger
than any her mother had had while
alive, she too better off it
appeared... A wishful read, “it
appeared” notwithstanding, the
exegete impossibly benign. Dreamt
a dream
of dream’s end, anxious, unannounced,
Eronel’s nevermore namesake, Monk’s
anagrammatic Lenore... That the
dead return in luxury cars made
us
weep, pathetic its tin elegance,
pitiable,
sweet read misread,
would-be
sweet
-- Nathaniel Mackey
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The trial of ex-police officer Michael Slager, who fatally shot unarmed 50-year-old Walter Scott after pulling him over for a broken taillight on April 4, 2015, has ended with a hung jury, forcing the judge who presided over the case for the past month to declare a mistrial.
The outcome leaves prosecutors with the option of putting Slager on trial a second time, with a new jury, and hoping for a different result. According to a press release from the office of Ninth Judicial Circuit Solicitor Scarlett A. Wilson, they will take that bet, and are committed to trying Slager again.
A bystander with a cell phone camera caught Slager firing his gun at Scott eight times as Scott ran from him. The release of the videotape swiftly led to Slager being charged with murder. The fact that the seemingly open-and-shut case against Slager has, for now, ended in a mistrial provides new evidence that the criminal justice system is simply not set up to deliver justice to victims of police misconduct.
Slager’s non-conviction marks at least the third trial in recent memory in which a white police officer charged with killing an unarmed black civilian ended in a hung jury. One of the others took place last month in Cincinnati, Ohio, and centered on the death of Sam Dubose; the second, involving the death of Jonathan Ferrell, happened last year in Charlotte, North Carolina. Last December, in Baltimore, Maryland, the trial of one of the six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray ended in a mistrial as well.
The jurors tasked with reaching a verdict in the Walter Scott case had three options before them: find Slager guilty of murder, find him guilty of voluntary manslaughter, or acquit him of both. It’s not clear at this point how many of the 12 jurors voted to convict and how many voted to acquit, though an unusual letter written to the judge by one of the jurors on Friday suggested that he or she was the lone holdout arguing for acquittal. That letter prompted Judge Clifton Newman to float the possibility of a mistrial, but at the last second the jury foreman indicated that a unanimous verdict might still be possible if the jury was allowed to continue deliberating. Judge Newman encouraged them to do so, shortly before adjourning court for the weekend.
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Today, PBS unveiled a strong and quite robust winter/spring 2017 season lineup that includes a lot of original programming that you will be interested in (based on my initial skim of the schedule which I received this morning), including an INDEPENDENT LENS documentary titled “Birth of a Movement,” from producer-directors Susan Gray and Bestor Cram.
An investigation into how D.W. Griffith’s incendiary 1915 film “The Birth of a Nation” unleashed a battle still being waged today over race relations and representation, and the power and influence of Hollywood movie/tv-making. In brief, the documentary will follow African American newspaper editor and activist William M. Trotter who, after “Birth of a Nation’s” release, waged a battle against Griffith’s notoriously Ku Klux Klan-friendly blockbuster movie, launching what would become a nationwide movement that sought to denounce the work.
“Birth of a Movement” features the contributions of familiar names like Spike Lee, Reginald Hudlin, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and DJ Spooky (who created a new score and remix of the original Griffith film), as well as numerous clips from the technically groundbreaking but deeply racially problematic epic. The documentary promises to be a revelation for cinephiles, history buffs, and anyone interested in America’s tumultuous racial evolution.
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The Gambia’s autocratic president, Yahya Jammeh, who once claimed a “billion-year” mandate to rule, has conceded defeat after a shock election loss to a real-estate developer who once worked as a security guard in London.
Jammeh had kept the tiny west African country under an iron grip for more than two decades, and there were fears that the eccentric 51-year-old would use violence or fraud to maintain power.
Instead he became a rare dictator to accept defeat in a democratic election, agreeing to hand power to challenger Adama Barrow, a softly spoken businessman who previously had little public profile.
Barrow told the Guardian that Jammeh had called him to concede defeat with the words: “Congratulations. I’m the outgoing president; you’re the incoming president.”
The father of five used his lack of political baggage to woo voters desperate for change, claiming 45.5% of the vote to Jammeh’s 36.7%. If Jammeh sticks to his word, Barrow will become only the third Gambian head of state since the country’s independence in 1965.
In a televised statement, Jammeh said the vote had been “the most transparent election in the whole world,” adding that he would not contest the result.
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About a year and a half after brash sports pundit and ex-NBA legend Charles Barkley gave Morehouse College a $1 million donation to support the school’s new sports and journalism program, he announced this week that he was doing the same for two other HBCUs.
Barkley announced on Giving Tuesday that he is donating $1 million to Alabama A&M University in Huntsville, Ala., and $1 million to Clark-Atlanta University in Atlanta.
“We are delighted to receive this generous gift from Mr. Barkley,” said Clark Atlanta President Dr. Ronald A. Johnson. “This gift reflects Charles Barkley’s tremendous heart and his desire to make a significant, positive and lasting difference in the lives of others.”
“This is a transformational gift to the institution and a true measure of Mr. Barkley’s commitment to advancing educational opportunities,” said Alabama A&M president Andrew Hugine Jr. His pledge marks the largest individual gift to Alabama A&M in the university’s 141-year history.
Chuck, you may have stuffed your foot in your mouth plenty over the years, but it certainly has never prevented you from opening up your pockets. And for that you deserve a salute.
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When I first heard about a black Santa coming to the Mall of America, I thought back on all of the times I went to see Santa Claus as a child. Why was I being forced to sit on some old white man’s lap was beyond my comprehension. Hell, I didn’t even believe in Santa Claus, especially since we always shopped for our own Christmas gifts. But, apparently, some racist white people took issue with Larry Jefferson, a retired U.S. Army vet from Texas, portraying the good Ol’ St. Nick.
Shocker.
Actually, I wasn’t shocked. At all. Racist white people can’t even hide their racist true colors during what’s supposed to be a glorious time of the year. Imagine being a low-IQ racist and eventually finding out that St. Nicholas, the man off which Santa Claus is based, was a nonwhite man from Asia Minor, now modern-day Turkey?
Look at that photo? Does Santa look like some fat white man to you? These upset white people are hilarious though. But I can definitely relate.
Going to church was a big deal throughout my childhood. Remember that Michael Jackson song “Have You Seen My Childhood?” Well, you can find my lost childhood years in the church. Pentecostal, Baptist, Nondenominational. You name it. I’ve been it. Regardless of the denomination, and the fact that every congregation was at least 90 percent black, all of these churches had one thing in common: a big-ass picture of white Jesus on its walls.
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WELCOME TO THE TUESDAY’S PORCH