Voices and Soul
by
Justice Putnam
Black Kos Poetry Editor
Oral histories are held in some academic circles, as an integral part of enquiry, an essential tool in understanding a more “truer” history of the times studied, not just the history of the aristocratic champions who wrote the history for posterity to ponder, but also the recollections of the mundane tasks, the recollections of the fears, concerns and hopes of the so-called commoner.
In studying the written and oral record, one thing is clear, Myth arises and can be manipulated by misinterpreted experience and powerful epoch-spanning superstition. The tooth cavity was believed over the millennia to be caused by worms boring through the enamel to the dentin. Whole myths arose from that belief, roving bands of balladeers sang toothless odes to a worm that never existed, but filled the nightmares of generations. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, it is said, but a little knowledge might also merely expose the banal. There was a time in America when very few saw a piece of ivory, except for maybe a scrimshaw above the door of the local pub. If held in hand, over time the oils of the skin will darken the piece, exposing cracks and fissures that look surprisingly like grains of wood. If viewed from afar, the piece looks more like wood, than of bone.
And so Myths arise and toothless balladeers croon toothless odes of a misunderstood experience informed by epoch-spanning superstitions.
But it is still possible for the Historian to bore through the edifices of decaying structures to find the “truth” within, and with that knowledge of cause, might effect a better future, which is truly the function of both History and Myth, when you chew it over a little.
When George Washington became president in
1789 he had only one tooth in his head, a single
premolar poking up from his gums. His dent-
ures were fashioned from lead, gold wire springs,
brass screws, the teeth of humans and cows, ele-
phant ivory, and hippopotamus bone. It is a myth
that he had false teeth made of wood. A mis-
perception put forth by those misled by the hair-
line fractures that ivory and bone possess. Just as
cherry wine will stain cloth with a rust-hued vein,
Washington’s fondness for dark wine blemished
his teeth. The fractures eventually darkening, un-
til resembling the grain in a piece of wood.
The darkening of fractures is rather curious.
The makeup of the flesh, the constitution of
origin, the trackers of bloodlines thrown off
the trail. It is difficult to determine what discolor-
ations have tunneled their way through the body.
Spider veins climbing the back of my legs like a
winding river mapping the trauma. An unspoken
collective of ephemeral bits and bytes, suffering
most eloquently preserved in the mouth. The skin
of one’s teeth decides many a fate. A black woman’s
incisor settling down inside a white man’s maw.
Overall, a quizzical look, an off-color joke about
progress, the very blood a trick of the eye, an ocean
blue on the outside of the skin, a blushing
red if viewed just beneath the sheath.
•
A tooth is made up of the crown and the root,
all the King’s Men destined to revolt. There are
many ways to worm your way inside, many open-
ings in the body of an animal. Some orifices gated
with white entryways. A wooden portcullis, a pick-
et fence, a laced corset secured tightly by a maid,
a pointed geode just waiting to be pulled, the cavern
wall glittering in the dark. Sharp crystals ornament
the cave’s jawbone. Cave canem, quite naturally speak-
ing. A hooded hole a place for some to hide or go
seek. A toothless whistle the signal for the slave
hunting bloodhounds, with canines fanged like
water moccasins. The swamp mud gushing like
the suppertime mush sloshing between the gums
of a Confederate soldier. The terror of limbs at
odds with the self. In World War I, trench foot
meant frequent amputations, the blade sliding
like floss between each toe. Some diseases attack
the foot or mouth, gums left inflamed in the
cross fire. A grieving mother wears dog tags
around her neck. Her son’s baby shoes and teeth
cast in bronze. The pulp at the center is how the
tooth receives nourishment, how it transmits
signals to the brain. The forgetting makes the
present tense possible. Memory is the gravity
of the mind. All the icebergs have started to
melt, milky objects left hanging by a
string, the doorknobs means to an end.
•
The keyboard’s toothy smile splayed wide,
the flatlined cursor blinks impatiently on the
screen, my fingers struggle to tap into word
processing. I monitor all of the track changes.
Even the computer is a slave to death. Its in-
nards already bygone, its body obsolete upon
year of purchase. I am a librarian, swimming the
digital divide, my predecessor’s paddles —
a mass of floppy disks in an office closet.
They pile up like the teeth of slaves waiting
for sale. An affluent businessman at the door,
his hands panning the saliva for white gold.
His fingers parting the cavity, pursed lips cooing,
I need something of yours to call my own. The desire
to chew and smile at will. My grandmother lost
her mind before her teeth, lost the memories be-
fore the enamel gave way to rot. My face has my
mother’s abacus features. We are, in fact, diphyo-
dont. In one lifetime we develop two sets of teeth.
The missing space filled with air, a hollow exile
before the native tongue. I pray my unborn child
will have a gap. What the French call “dents du
bonheur” or lucky teeth. The womb’s peephole is
rather impressionable. I will fasten the buttons of
time. I will take the baby’s body in my own,
whisper a plea in its discriminating ear:
Try to keep your wits about you, my love.
Memory is about the future, not the past.
— Alison C. Rollins
”Word of Mouth”
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Ever since she was a little girl, Fatou Diouf has been braiding hair. And for almost two decades, Fatou has turned that tradition into a vocation by working professionally as a licensed natural hair stylist in Tennessee.
“I never did any other job but hair braiding my whole life,” she said. “I cannot recall a time when I did not know how.”
But in recent years, Tennessee has forced Fatou to pay a staggering $16,000 in fines, simply because she employed workers who did not have a government license to braid hair. Nor is she alone. After examining meeting minutesand disciplinary actions for the Tennessee Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners, the Institute for Justice has identified nearly $100,000 in fines levied against dozens of braiders and more than 30 different natural hair shops and salons since 2009. All of those violations were for unlicensed braiding; none were triggered by any health or sanitation violation.
Typically, the Board will issue a $1,000 “civil penalty” for every instance of “performing natural hair care services for clients without a license” it encounters. In addition to fining braiders who work out of their homes or unlicensed salons, the Board has targeted licensed shops, like Fatou’s.
For Fatou, those heavy fines have been “very stressful.” Under a payment plan for her most recent violations, she has had to pay over $830 a month to the state, a burdensome expense she’s struggled to cover, on top of providing for her two children, dealing with her divorce, and sending remittances to support her family back in Senegal.
Driven by those first-hand experiences, Fatou has become of the most outspoken voices for reform. Together with the Institute for Justice and the Beacon Center, Fatou has testified in favor of a bill that would eliminate the state’s license for natural hair stylists—and the Board’s basis for fining braiders. “We can create more employment if this bill passes,” she said.
With a rich heritage dating back thousands of years, natural hair styles—which shun the use of any potentially harsh chemicals—have grown increasingly popular in many African American and immigrant communities. Today, braiders are free to work without a license in almost half the country.
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Eight years ago, as Safiya Umoja Noble was entertaining her nieces, she had a horrible revelation. Noble, now a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communications, googled the phrase “Black girls” looking for useful ideas. She instead found a page full of pornography.
Disturbed that the world’s most popular search engine could create such a distorted view of Black women and girls, Noble spent the next several years tracing the consequences of algorithmic learning for marginalized people. The result is her new book, “Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism,” which contests the largely unchallenged assumption that Google treats every group equally.
She argues that imbalances in the material world contribute to similar injustices online. For example, she notes that the neo-Nazi group Stormfront controlled the domain “martinlutherking.org” for years and was able to spread misinformation from near the top of the Google search pile.
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For the 2020 census, the U.S. Census Bureau is changing how it will ask black people to designate their race. Under the check box for "Black or African American," the bureau is adding a new space on the census questionnaire for participants to write in their non-Hispanic origins, according to a recent memo from the head of the 2020 census. "African American," "Jamaican" and "Nigerian" are listed as examples of origins on a questionnaire the bureau is testing for 2020.
The change means many black people in the U.S. may have to take a closer look at their family trees to answer what can be a thorny question: Where are you really from? While many black immigrants can cite ties to a specific country, that question is difficult, if not impossible, for many U.S.-born African-Americans to answer.
The bureau has not responded to NPR's questions about why it is making this change to both the "Black" category and the "White" category," which will also include a new write-in area for origins.
But researchers at the bureau have said they have been trying to respond to requests for "more detailed, disaggregated data for our diverse American experiences as German, Mexican, Korean, Jamaican, and myriad other identities." (The bureau was considering an overhaul to all racial categories that would have added check boxes for the largest ethnic groups and a write-in area for smaller groups. But it would require the Trump administration's approval of an Obama-era proposal to change the federal standards on race and ethnicity data, which census experts say the White House's Office of Management and Budget is not likely to move forward.)
For Niat Amare, the write-in area will allow her to be more specific about her black identity.
"I'm African. I identify as black. But I don't see myself as an African-American," says Amare, who was born in Ethiopia and now lives in New York City. "We can't just be black as African-Americans. We are black from Africa. We are black from the Caribbean. We're black from everywhere."
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Pittsburgh’s mayor Bill Peduto announced on Wednesday that the city will be replacing the statue of controversial songwriter, Stephen Foster, with a statue that honors black women.
The mayor’s Task Force on Women in Public Art is asking Pittsburgh residents nominate an African-American woman through voting or via suggestion during community meetings, The Pittsburgh-Tribune Review reports.
“I look forward to the community’s input to see how we can remember and commemorate African-American women and all their contributions in the city of Pittsburgh,” Peduto said in a statement.
The statue had been a lightning rod for controversy because it featured Foster sitting above a man, who’s been described as a slave.
Foster was known as the “father of American music” and inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He wrote the classic songs “Oh! Susanna,” and “Hard Times Come Again No More.”
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When Kenny Leon’s production of Children of a Lesser God opens on Broadway next month, fans of the original production from 40 years ago will definitely notice a few changes. But according to the Tony Award-winning director, the changes in the racial and political messages will hopefully bring more people into the theater.
Leon’s Broadway-directing career already consists of two popular revivals. You may remember Viola Davis and Denzel Washington taking home Tony Awards for Fences, as well as Leon’s own Tony Award for directing Washington and LaTanya Richardson Jackson in 2014’s A Raisin in the Sun. But what separates the Children of a Lesser God revival from the others is that the play wasn’t race specific.
“When I was first approached to do it, as African-American directors, sometimes you don’t get offered work that’s not race specific. I knew it started out as a play, and then William Hurt did it as a movie. I thought it was good because they were looking at me for what I could bring to the table,” Leon said in an interview with The Root.
Children of a Lesser God, written by Mark Medoff, tells the story of a romance between deaf former student Sarah Norman and her teacher James Leeds. The 1980 Broadway production garnered two Tony Awards, one for best actor and the other for best play. The play was then adapted for film, starring Marlee Matlin and William Hurt, in 1986. Matlin became the first (and currently only) deaf woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
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The charges against the former South African leader were the latest chapter in a long-running corruption case that tarnished the country’s governing African National Congress for years. The New York Times: Jacob Zuma to Be Prosecuted on Corruption Charges
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In a severe legal blow to Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s former president, national prosecutors announced on Friday that they would reinstate corruption charges against him in a case related to a multibillion-dollar arms deal in the late 1990s.
Shaun Abrahams, South Africa’s chief prosecutor, said there were “reasonable prospects of a successful prosecution” of Mr. Zuma.
The announcement was the latest — though not likely the final — chapter in a long-running corruption case that nearly derailed Mr. Zuma’s bid for the presidency and tarnished the image of South Africa’s governing African National Congress. The deal under scrutiny laid the seeds of a culture of graft that has flourished in recent years.
A skilled tactician, Mr. Zuma rose to the presidency despite the shadow cast by the arms deal — a multibillion dollar purchase to modernize South Africa’s military after apartheid — and other legal problems, including a trial on rape charges. He portrayed himself as a victim and tapped into his deep support among poor South Africans to become president in 2009.
But last month, Mr. Zuma, now 75, was ousted from office after losing a power struggle to his successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, who seized on the public’s growing disillusionment with the endemic corruption during the Zuma years.
“The arms deal was the most graphic loss of innocence of post-apartheid South Africa and it presaged the corruption we are seeing today,” said David Lewis, the executive director of Corruption Watch, a nonprofit organization based in Johannesburg. “This is the first time we are seeing accountability in the arms deal.”
Mr. Lewis called the prosecutor’s decision “significant,” and added: “The biggest cause of corruption is the impunity of the powerful, so this does send the message that, as long as it may take, somebody at the highest level can be held accountable.”
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