Only Connect
A Black Kos Commentary by Chitown Kev
‘’I was born in New York but have lived only in pockets of it. In Paris, I lived in all parts of the city— on the Right Bank and the Left, among the bourgeoisie and among les misérables, and knew all kinds of people from pimps and prostitutes in Pigaille to Egyptian bankers in Neuilly. This may sound extremely unprincipled or even obscurely immoral: I found it healthy. I love to talk to people, all kinds of people, and almost everyone, as I hope we still know, loves a man who loves to listen.’’
James Baldwin, ‘’The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American’’
A score and some years ago, I lived in a flophouse in the South Loop. The place was, frankly, a haven for a lot of heavy drug users and I was one of those heavy drug users. I had a ‘’running buddy’’ at the time, a black gay man, a heavy drug user, like myself. We not only hustled together; we looked out for each other’s backs with regard to possible verbal and even physical threats.
I would describe the “vibe” of the flophouse as being homophobic but not virulently so. W. and I had earned some measure of respect among the other tenants for our hustling abilities. A few of the men in the building were also infrequent sex partners; generally, W. and I minded our business and did our thing and, for the most part, we were left alone. So when one of the residents attacked the both of us, saying something to the effect that we were filthy homosexuals that should be wiped from the face of the earth, not only did we defend ourselves against the attack but we also had a few defenders in the building that talked to the guy making the extremely homophobic remarks. Those other men helped to defuse an obviously tense situation.
A few weeks later, on a fall Sunday, the very same man who made the extremely homophobic remarks invited me to his cubbyhole, his home, to watch some football.
I was mildly surprised. I say ‘’mildly” simply because an invitation of this type was not a first for me; I have loved watching football since I was a kid and, then and now, I have retained an obscene amount of knowledge about the game and various statistics such that even in a group of (presumably) heterosexual men, I can pretty much ‘’hold court’’ in terms of discussing of the game. The flophouse had a TV room where I more or less "held court” most Saturdays and Sundays. At the time, W. dismissed it as me simply wanting to hold attention of ‘’the straight boys’’ in order to cruise for sex partners...which was the furthest thing from my mind.
I was surprised, on this occasion, at the identity person issuing the invitation; I had not forgiven or forgotten those homophobic remarks. But, to my mind, the invitation had nothing to do with me being a homosexual it had to do with me watching a football game and, in part, doing my ‘’holding court’’ thing.
With a considerable amount of trepidation, I accepted the invitation.
My friend and ‘’running buddy,’’ W., was, quite naturally, absolutely livid.
‘’Bitch, how can you sit down with this man who thinks that homosexuals should be wiped off of the face of the earth,?’’ W. said as he grabbed me by the collar.
A few of The Flophouse Peacemakers had to come into our cubbyhole (I don’t remember whether it was my cubbyhole or W.’s) and separate us from beating each other’s brains out...W. and I didn’t speak to one another for about two weeks...and we never spoke to one another about the entirety of this incident.
On Invitation Sunday, I went to the guy’s cubbyhole, as I said I would do; still somewhat suspiciously, prepared for anything to jump off. A couple of the Flophouse Peacemakers dropped by, I assume, to check on the situation and to enjoy some football. There was no sexual energy; just an old-fashioned Sunday football doubleheader. The guy had even hooked something up on his hot plate.
Neither me or my running buddy ever heard any homophobic comments from the man again, even though I did observe the guy raise his eyebrows at us in a few of our queenier moments; I understood what was still under the surface.
In originally planning to write this essay, which was—and is—about the controversy surrounding Women’s March national co-chair Tamika Mallory and her appearence at a Saviour’s Day speech given by the notoriously anti-Semitic and homophobic leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, I intended to outline the overall complexity of the issue from Minister Farrakhan’s overt bigotry (which has never changed or even toned down over the course of decades) to the good works of the Nation of Islam to the utter sense of alienation that I felt at being one of the few black men in my office that did not attend the Million Man March in 1994.
The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer and Ms. Mallory herself covered much of that territory quite thoroughly and well and I have very little to add to those reports as it would be repititous.
There was something more...elemental that was eating at me about the controversy, though, and Ms. Mallory kinda sorta hints at it
I didn’t expect my presence at Saviour’s Day to lead anyone to question my beliefs, especially considering that I have been going to this event regularly for over 30 years. I first went with my parents when I was just a little girl, and would begin attending on my own after my son’s father was murdered nearly 17 years ago. In that most difficult period of my life, it was the women of the Nation of Islam who supported me and I have always held them close to my heart for that reason.
In the incident that I outlined above, I was acually doing something that I normally do, that I was accustomed to doing, and was taken aback by the backlash at me doing so.
The flophouse incident wasn’t the first instance that such a backlash happened; I remember inviting a white classmate to Mom’s house to play Atari and I remember vividly the backlash that I received both from family members and from other classmates simply for doing something that seemed to come naturally to me (after all, everyone knew that I had white friends...I always did, that inviting them home into our space was a bridge too far for some family members, I guess).
It’s one of the reasons, I suppose, that the particular James Baldwin quote at the head of this essay appealed to me from the moment that I read it.
It wasn’t simply that the Baldwin quote described the type of person that I wanted to be; it described the person that I already was.
It meant a helluva lot to me that, far from being ‘’extremely unprincipled or even obscurely immoral,’’ that I was quite healthy and that, therefore, I could feel free to make whatever connections I wanted or that The Univeerse thrusted me into.
True enough, I understand the politics as to why this might not the best connection for Ms. Mallory to have at this time...then again, in spite of the fact that my ‘’running buddy’’ and I resumed our friendship, I never apologized for accepting that invitation.
After all, it would have been tantamount to apologizing for being myself.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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A black woman who refused to leave the whites-only section of a Canadian movie theatre in 1946 – nearly a decade before Rosa Parks’s act of defiance – has been honoured on the country’s newest $10 bill.
Civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond was selected from the more than 26,000 submissions that rolled in after the Bank of Canada announced plans to put a Canadian woman on the country’s regularly circulating currency for the first time.
Born in 1914, Desmond rose to prominence as an entrepreneur, selling her own line of hair and skin products at a time when few local beauty schools accepted black students.
After being forced to travel to Montreal, Atlantic City and New York for training, she returned to Halifax and opened a beauty school aimed at offering black people a local option for training.
The incident that would propel her into Canada’s history books took place in 1946 after her car broke down in New Glasgow, some 100 miles north-east of Halifax, while on a business trip.
Looking to kill time while her car was being repaired, she stopped by a local movie theatre. It was a segregated space – floor seats were for white people while black people were relegated to the balcony.
Desmond, who was shortsighted, tried to buy a floor seat but was refused. So she bought a ticket for the balcony, where tax on the seats was one-cent cheaper, and sat in the floor area anyway.
She remained there until police arrived. Desmond was dragged out of the theatre and arrested, ultimately spending 12 hours in jail.
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Mired in poverty not long ago, the West African nation’s economic growth is on track to outpace India’s. But with an oil driven expansion, experts worry about the so-called resource curse. New York Time: What’s the World’s Fastest-Growing Economy? Ghana Contends for the Crown
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As recently as the 1980s, the West African nation of Ghana was in crisis, crippled by hunger after a series of military coups. But it has held peaceful elections since 1992, and its economic outlook turned considerably brighter about a decade ago, with the discovery of major offshore oil deposits.
Now, as oil prices rise again and the country’s oil production rapidly expands, Ghana is on track to make a remarkable claim for a country mired in poverty not long ago: It is likely to have one of the world’s fastest-growing economies this year, according to the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Brookings Institution.
Its projected growth in 2018, between 8.3 and 8.9 percent, might outpace even India, with its booming tech sector, and Ethiopia, which over the last decade has been one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies thanks to expanding agricultural production and coffee exports.
And oil is not the only resource helping to drive Ghana’s economy. Cocoa is Ghana’s other natural bounty, and producers are piggybacking on the oil boom.
Edmund Poku, the managing director of Niche Cocoa, said his processing factory in Tema, an industrial suburb of the capital, Accra, already has contracts to sell all of the powder, butter and chocolate bars it plans to make in 2018.
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The announcement of snap elections in Antigua and Barbuda has exacerbated controversy over moves to abolish a centuries-old system of communal land ownership on Barbuda, which was devastated by Hurricane Irma.
Voters in the twin-island nation will head to the polls on 21 March, a year before general elections are constitutionally due.
The prime minister, Gaston Browne, says the government wants to provide stability for investors – and protect half a billion dollars’ worth of developments currently under construction in the tourism-dependent nation.
But critics say the government is trying to solidify plans for a “land grab”, amid fears that wealthy investors stand to benefit from Barbudans’ displacement.
One of the most prominent projects is a $250m mega resort called Paradise Found, being built by movie star Robert De Niro and Australian billionaire James Packer.
Browne announced the election date on 24 February – five days after the government lost a high court attempt to reject a case brought by two Barbudans protesting against legislation brought in to facilitate the 391-acre scheme in 2015.
Applicants Mackenzie Frank and Trevor Walker will now get the chance to legally challenge the legislation which they say sets a precedent for major developments to get the green light without the consensus of the people.
They claim the act is unconstitutional because all land on Barbuda is owned in common under a 19th-century practice, which was codified into law in 2007. Since emancipation from slavery in 1834, Barbudans have governed their land communally, without private ownership. Barbuda’s quirky system has long included public town hall-style meetings to gauge consensus.
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They're a law that are enforced disproportionately against black Americans, sometimes with fatal results. The New Republic: The Case Against Jaywalking Laws
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It was four o’clock in the morning in Asheville, North Carolina, when a 33-year-old black man named Johnnie Jermaine Rush jaywalked for the fourth time. The streets were quiet, but for a police cruiser carrying two frustrated officers. “He just did it again,” one of them can be heard telling his partner in body cam footage recently released by The Citizen-Times. “And again. He’s not learning, right after you just told him. He’s going to be so annoyed with you.”
When the officers pulled over and confronted Rush again, he sound exasperated indeed. “All I’m trying to do is go home, man,” he said.
“You just committed four crimes in a row,” officer Verino Ruggiero replied. “Just because you don’t agree it’s a crime doesn’t mean it’s not a crime.”
“You’ve got nothing better to do than mess with me as I’m trying to get home? I’m tired, man. I just got off of work.”
Ruggiero told Rush he could either arrest him or write him a ticket. “It doesn’t matter to me, man” Rush said. “Just do what you’ve got to do besides keep harassing me.” When they asked Rush to put his hands behind his back, he moved away from them and then started jogging.
During a brief chase, Hickman told Rush “you’re going to get fucked up hardcore.” Rush was then tasered and taken to the ground. At least one of the officers appears to put his body weight on Rush as they tried to pull his hands behind his back for handcuffs. “I can’t breathe,” Rush said, while Hickman punched him in the head multiple times.
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Nearly 50 years after a group of black Wyoming football players were kicked off the team for even contemplating a protest, a new documentary gives their courage an overdue spotlight. The Guardian: Wyoming's Black 14 matter more than ever in post-Kaepernick America
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Before there was Colin Kaepernick, there were the Black 14.
It was the fall of 1969 and black athletes across American sports were becoming more visible than ever in acts of overt political protest. A year earlier, Tommie Smith and John Carlos had raised fists at the Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City to protest racial oppression and the conditions of poverty and disinvestment in black communities. Two years earlier, Muhammad Ali had met with a delegation of mostly Cleveland-based black athletes to discuss his ongoing activism as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam war.
And in the high plains of Wyoming, another athlete protest – a subtle gesture intended to shine a light on an injustice in their own backyard – was shut down before it could even get off the ground. Fourteen black members of the WyomingCowboys football team had the idea to wear black armbands to protest the racism they had encountered the last time they faced their upcoming opponent, the Cougars of Brigham Young University.
“We wanted to wear armbands to say your ... beliefs have no place on the gridiron, that was it,” said Guillermo “Willie” Hysaw, one of the would-be demonstrators.
So they showed up to the clubhouse with black armbands over their street clothes to let their coach Lloyd Eaton, who was white, know what they were thinking, hoping they’d have a conversation. They were mistaken.
“It was a monologue, not a dialogue,” Hysaw said. “We never got to ask the question and we never got the state what we wanted.” The coach ‘fired’ all 14 players, triggering an uproar that consumed the rest of the football season and much of everything else in the tiny college town of Laramie, Wyoming.
It’s that drama that filmmaker Darius Monroe has captured in a new documentary short: Black 14, which can be streamed now on the web platform Topic.com.
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