Birtherism is toxic. So is trying to tell us who is or isn’t black.
Commentary by Black Kos Editor, Denise Oliver-Velez
There are very few people, who pay even a cursory bit of attention to black history, who don’t recognize the man pictured above; Frederick Douglass, famed abolitionist, suffragist, author, editor, and diplomat. Celebrations of black history, and African American achievement never fail to include him — and rightly so.
Were Douglass alive today, and running for President, I wonder if he would have been attacked as “not really black,” or “not black enough” given he was the son of a black enslaved mother, and a white father?
He saw very clearly from whence many of us came — in ancestry, and how that came about.
Douglass wrote, in My Bondage and My Freedom
Chapter 3: Parentage
...if the lineal descendants of Ham are only to be enslaved, according to the scriptures, slavery in this country will soon become an unscriptural institution; for thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who—like myself—owe their existence to white fathers, and, most frequently, to their masters, and master's sons. The slave-woman is at the mercy of the fathers, sons or brothers of her master. The thoughtful know the rest.
Over many decades, we have seen socially constructed ‘race;’ the ethnic and cultural identity we call ‘African-Americans’, ‘black people’, ‘the black community’, ‘black culture’, ‘African-American culture’ — wielded as a righteous political tool to garner votes, and combat racism and white supremacy. In the reverse, we now see efforts to de-legitimize black, or African-American candidates for office.
The most glaring examples, were of course, the major attempts to dismiss the candidacy (and Presidency) of Barack Hussein Obama. Not only was his “blackness” questioned and undermined, since he was born from the womb of a white mother, his African-American-ness was as well, since his father was a Kenyan; though Barack, born in Hawaii is African-American.
I found a collection of archived tweets from one Donald J. Trump, notorious racist and current squatter in the oval office, using the search word “Birtherism’. Frankly, I had forgotten how much anti-Obama bile he managed to spew on Twitter in just a short period of time. I won’t sicken you by posting them here, but I suggest you go take a look.
I posit that Douglass would have been the target of even worse vituperation, since his second wife, late in his life, was white.
The creation of “race” and its concomitant racial hierarchy served as a tool to justify and rationalize permanent chattel slavery and to legitimize the slave trade. Here in the United States it was in the fledgling nation’s interest, to keep as many men (women couldn’t vote) as possible from voting and full citizenship. Being classified as black, or of black ancestry under the rules of hypodescent (aka the one drop rule) kept many people enslaved and disenfranchised even if freed. The only escape from racial subjugation for a few who could do it was to “pass” as white and leave blackness and family behind. Few black folks, no matter their skin color, did so.
Now that we have eliminated Jim Crow (though not segregation) and more and more black people are fighting their way through the doors of political power, even with gerrymandering and voter suppression as obstacles, I sit here wondering if we aren’t also facing another enemy — one that will weaken our struggle and solidarity. The uptick in both right wing and purportedly ‘black’ campaigns to purify our community of ‘imposters, anyone who has a parent from *gasp* the West Indies, or the African continent, or Cuba, or Puerto Rico, whether born here or not, ain’t African-American. Those who may have a non-black parent, ‘ain’t really black.’ Yet more chum thrown into these troubled waters is the uptick in ‘had an ancestor who owned slaves’ meme.
Um. Let’s go back and read Douglass. FYI — a whole lot of us did. That’s us — made in the USA.
We are unique — a hybrid that remains oppressed. We have created art and music and culture that are the results of a forced marriage. Out of horror, we have crafted beauty.
What set me to thinkin’ about all this, was the twitter attacks on Kamala Harris by some idjit Republican elected official in New Hampshire.
Here was some pushback from Bakari Sellers about the reporting:
Let’s get this straight. Kamala Harris is both black, and African-American.
She was born in Oakland California. The fact that her mom was Tamil, and she is also South Asian-American doesn’t change that. The fact that her black Jamaican father is descended from slaves and a white slave owner — shrug (this is the Russian trollbot ADOS hyped theme being pushed on youtube, facebook, and twitter)
Michelle Obama is descended from a slave owner. So am I. So are many of us.
Go back and read Douglass — again.
No coincidence that Donald J Racist is stepping up his photo op moments with those r-wing black Vichys willing to grovel and scrape. Like his recent HBCU performance. We will always have black folks, like Candace Owens, and Kanye who live to grift and gain white approval. Thankfully — their numbers are small.
My real problem is with those folks who call themselves leftists or progressive or black activists who are mouthing the same shit. The hypocrisy burns. ‘Cause I see folk embracing big afroed Colin Kaepernick (whose momma is white and who was adopted and raised by a white family). Folks who sit around playing reggae and smokin’ weed, lovin’ the sound of Bob Marley, who is representin’ Jamaican blackness, and whose daddy was white. Those who salute founders of the black arts movement, like playwright August Wilson, whose daddy was a German immigrant.
I could spend hours making lists of black folks whose family trees have white and immigrant branches, who still ‘be black.’ Not gonna do that. Just google.
I just want this crap to stop.
I’ll leave you with this poem I stumbled across in a comments section on the internet. By E. Joyce Moore
Who is Black?
Black is not the colour of my skin
But a culture from within.
The features set upon my face
can vary and not leave a trace
of no straight line
to lineage
that you can find
to label me
See
I am your worst nightmare.
Undeterred by your efforts
to shape me
into your stereotypes
in spite of the media hype
you don’t get me
or tell me who I am
and frankly I don’t give a…
second thought
to your prolific view
based on the misology
you embrace
through
a very deliberate ignorance
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The attempt by the University of Missouri’s athletic department to contribute to the NCAA’s inclusion week backfired so hard that it was forced to delete its tweet and apologize.
According to the Riverfront Times’ report on Wednesday, the now-deleted tweet from Mizzou Athletics featured four student athletes with words that were intended to celebrate how they are “more than a student athlete.”
The tweet was met with backlash when it became apparent that there were glaring differences in the messages that accompanied white and black student athletes.
While the two photos featuring white women contain career-driven statements such as “I am a future doctor” and “I am a future corporate financer,” the other two photos with black student athletes state more of the obvious and fail to mention their career paths: “I am an African American woman” and “I am a brother.”
The Riverfront Times also noted that a photo of a black “Ticket Office Assistant,” according to Mizzou’s website, only shows the statement: “I value equality.”
Hours after the tweet was posted, Mizzou Athletics deleted it and issued an apology Wednesday night in response to the uproar over its tone-deafness.
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Indeed, the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown nearly 400 years ago, but Jai Jamison, a Richmond filmmaker, is hoping to update the narrative for movies set in the state of Virginia. The Grio: ‘Slave Cry’: Filmmaker tackles Black actor roles in movies set in Virginia
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The main role that Black actors are given in the state of Virginia is that of a slave, according to a filmmaker who hopes to both shine light on and update the narrative.
Indeed, the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown nearly 400 years ago, setting the stage for slavery in the U.S., but Jai Jamison, a Richmond filmmaker, is hoping to change the narrative for films set in the state of Virginia.
He points to film and TV projects shot in Virginia, including Harriet, Turn and Mercy Street as examples that the roles need to broaden for Black actors in the state. He said he wrote the short film, Slave Cry, to address the issue. The 13-minute film debuted Saturday at the Virginia Film Festival, according to The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“The only roles for black actors are as slaves,” Jamison told the newspaper. “I worked on Turn for five months. I’d see these amazing actors come into town to play these rote roles that were full of trauma. Virginia is my home, but we’re so much more than this.”
Jamison’s film derives its name from a term his sister, Courtney, uses. She stars in Slave Cry and has struggled to find roles in Richmond, outside of what she terms “slave cry” roles.
“That real ugly cry, with sobs and snot…that 12 Years a Slave cry, Courtney’s character explains in the film, according to The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Jamison said while he was writing the film, Courtney was applying to theater programs and ultimately earned an acceptance from the Yale School of Drama.
“I wanted to create a role for my sister that was meaty and nuanced,” Jamison told the newspaper. “While also wanting to write about Richmond, my home town, as it is now. There is so much culture here and young people and stories that don’t have anything to do with history. There are so many stories and different sides about Richmond to tell,” Jamison said.
In the movie, Courtney dons a slave costume as an historical interpreter side gig and stands in front of the town’s Robert E. Lee statue. Courtney also stops by the Maggie Walker statue, which allows the viewer to see her dreaming of a better life as an actress.
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British actress Naomie Harris, who co-stars in the new police thriller “Black and Blue,” is well-aware of what it means to contend with racism as a Black woman, and she said as much in a recent interview with NPR.
“Sadly, the American experience is not exclusive to America,” said Harris in the story, which was published on Wednesday (October 23). “We have the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK, and we have a breakdown of relations between the police and the Black community within the UK as well, and many unexplained deaths of Black people—perfectly healthy Black men in particular—that have been arrested and then ended up dead in police custody. All the issues you have in America—I think they’re much more extreme here [in the U.S.], but we have them in the UK as well for sure.”
In the film, Harris’ character Alicia West is a police officer who works in a Black community in New Orleans, but who is also trained to think blue before ever thinking about being Black. Then the boys in blue turn on her. When West seeks help from someone in the neighborhood, played by Tyrese Gibson, the police turn on him, too. Harris said that beat in the script really struck a chord with her.
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Tyler Perry Studios will host the November 20 Democratic presidential debate, CBS46 first reported.
Situated on what was once the Fort McPherson Army base — where southern soldiers who defiantly fought to keep black people enslaved during the Civil War were trained and housed — the 330-acre lot will be the place to be next month when presidential hopefuls Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, and Tom Seyer have their next showdown.
Other Atlanta sites reportedly considered for the fifth Democratic presidential debate were North of Buckhead and the Gateway Center Arena.
But according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the city’s mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms played a hand in having it at Perry’s studios — which ironically has a replica of The White House on its grounds.
On Saturday night, former Georgia governor candidate Stacey Abrams confirmed on Twitter that the $250 million studio will be the official site for the debate.
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In october 2017 Faustin Archange Touadéra was in a difficult spot. The president of the Central African Republic (car), one of the world’s poorest and most fragile countries, was struggling to quell a dozen or so militias that threatened his regime. A year earlier France had withdrawn troops from its former colony. An arms embargo meant that the government of car could not equip its own soldiers. Short of options, Mr Touadéra did what desperate African leaders sometimes do: he turned to President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
The impact was swift. Within weeks a mining and a security company linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, Mr Putin’s crony, were reportedly registered in Bangui, the capital. That December Russia successfully lobbied for the arms embargo to be lifted. Soon after, it dispatched weapons and mercenaries to shore up Mr Touadéra’s regime, as well as a former gru (military intelligence) operative to act as the president’s security adviser. A few months later Lobaye Invest, the mining company, won concessions to look for gold and diamonds. When three Russian journalists tried to investigate their country’s shady operations in car they turned up dead in July 2018.
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Ebony salutes trailblazing former U.S. Rep. John Conyers, who served in Congress for more than 50 years by reposting this headline recounting the Detroit Riot of 1967. Ebony: [IN MY LIFETIME] Rep. John Conyers on Why the 1967 Detroit Riot Happened (This tribute isn’t to minimize the #METOO allegations against him)
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July 23, 1967 was a hot summer day that remains etched in my memory as the start of one of Detroit’s darkest periods. Over the course of the next five days, those of us who lived in the Motor City were stunned by how paralyzed the community would become and the unimaginable destruction that was to follow.
The 1967 Detroit riot—also known as the 12th Street Riot—was a civil disturbance that began in response to claims of police brutality during the raid and arrest of over 80 patrons at an unlicensed speakeasy. The bar was located in Virginia Park, an African-American neighborhood and one of the city’s oldest and most impoverished areas.
That night, nearly 100 Detroiters gathered to celebrate the return of two African- American service members from Vietnam. Shortly after the Detroit police vice squad raided the bar, word spread of use of excessive force against the African- American patrons as they were being arrested. Large crowds of community residents started growing at the intersection of 12th and Clairmount Streets in protest.
Violence, looting and ruin ensued as crowds grew larger and stronger. This urban revolt would not end anytime soon. The riot, whose effects can still be seen physically and felt psychologically in Detroit today, came as a surprise to no one. Instances of police brutality, the oppressive and unbreakable cycle of poverty, poor education and housing options could not be tolerated indefinitely without either some hope for change, or unfortunately, an eruption of frustration.
That year, I was in the midst of my second Congressional term. In response to the growing riot, I took to the streets in hopes of directing the people’s rage into more proactive actions. I grabbed a bullhorn and jumped on top of a car in the heart of the crowd and began urging my friends, neighbors and constituents to stop the destruction and violence, arguing that we cannot achieve anything through violence. But they were far too enraged to hear my words, frustration had built-up over decades to levels that were impossible to stop. Protestors were throwing rocks, bricks and bottles. The police on site at the time could not guarantee my safety and asked that I return home.
The riot resulted in the deaths of many and massive destruction of large swaths of the city. President Johnson even called me to verify if the violent reports were accurate. It is considered one of the bloodiest non-military uprisings in modern American history. Forty-three people lost their lives, 500 people were injured and over 7,000 people were arrested.
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Looking at any map of a rapidly-gentrifying city, Miami, Atlanta or Washington, D.C., and you’re looking at a map of property loss. In Brooklyn’s historically black neighborhoods, some of that property loss is outright theft. New York Times: Deed Theft in Brooklyn
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Brooklyn accounts for nearly half of New York City’s 3,000 deed fraud complaints since 2014—despite accounting for about a third of the city’s total housing units. Many of the targets are longtime black residents, who are deceived or coerced into signing over ownership of their properties for ludicrously low sums.
That’s what happened to Broadies Byas’ gorgeous Victorian townhouse. First constructed in 1856, her father purchased the home in 1957 for $7,500. The house is currently worth $1.2 million; unbeknownst to her, Byas had given it away for just $120,000.
In Byas’ case, and in many more situations like hers, scammers will get homeowners to sign documents they believe is financial assistance to help pay back property taxes, sewage charges, or other administrative fines. Those documents turn out to be property deeds, the Times writes.
The men described themselves as foreclosure specialists who helped property owners with loan modifications or promised that they would be able to transfer their properties to trusted relatives to avoid losing their homes.
Homeowners were encouraged to sign documents that were later used as proof they had agreed to sell their homes to Launch Development, prosecutors said.
The company also deceived banks into approving the sale of homes by providing falsified documents, including paperwork edited or completed after homeowners had signed them.
The crime has become increasingly common in Brooklyn, one of the most rapidly gentrifying areas in the country. Majority-black neighborhoods like Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights are “hotbeds” for deed theft, the Times reports; black residents in Prospect Heights, Brownsville, and East New York have also been targeted.
Not only is the crime relatively easy to pull off, but it can also be difficult to catch.
Some homeowners may not even know that their deeds have been stolen, the authorities say. Documents proving the sale of a property are recorded by the city registrar’s office, but not necessarily checked to ensure that they are legitimate. Owners might continue paying the mortgage for a property they no longer own.
...
Recovering a home whose deed has been illegally transferred can be difficult unless there is clear proof of wrongdoing, like a forged signature. In one case, the authorities arrested a man accused of committing fraud because the signature on a deed came from someone who had been dead for years.
It is also challenging to determine whether the person had entered a bad, but not necessarily fraudulent, financial deal. “It’s often a very hard line to straddle,” said Noelle Eberts, a lawyer at the New York Legal Assistance Group who represents Ms. Byas.
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Voices and Soul
by
Justice Putnam, Black Kos Poetry Editor
When someone purports that Women hold up half the Sky, I tell them they are wrong. From my keen observations, Women hold up all the Sky and if they didn’t, the heavens would crash, the birds would fall and the stars would only glimmer ever so lightly in a ever so colorless void.
The seas would cease and the rivers would gasp a last whisper and the lakes would reveal lost cities only slightly older than the recently lost nebula on the other side of the universe.
If Women didn’t hold up all the Sky, a man might capture it in a jar and starve it. A man might charge a dollar a minute to watch the last flutter of the Sky’s angel wings. A man might laugh at all he has done, just as he has done before and will do again unless someone, anyone, puts a stop to it.
You used to say, “June?
Honey when you come down here you
supposed to stay with me. Where
else?”
Meanin home
against the beer the shotguns and the
point of view of whitemen don’
never see Black anybodies without
some violent itch start up.
The ones who
said, “No Nigga’s Votin in This Town . . .
lessen it be feet first to the booth”
Then jailed you
beat you brutal
bloody/battered/beat
you blue beyond the feeling
of the terrible
And failed to stop you.
Only God could but He
wouldn’t stop
you
fortress from self-
pity
Humble as a woman anywhere
I remember finding you inside the laundromat
in Ruleville
lion spine relaxed/hell
what’s the point to courage
when you washin clothes?
But that took courage
just to sit there/target
to the killers lookin
for your singin face
perspirey through the rinse
and spin
and later
you stood mighty in the door on James Street
loud callin:
“BULLETS OR NO BULLETS!
THE FOOD IS COOKED
AN’ GETTIN COLD!”
We ate
A family tremulous but fortified
by turnips/okra/handpicked
like the lilies
filled to the very living
full
one solid gospel
(sanctified)
one gospel
(peace)
one full Black lily
luminescent
in a homemade field
of love
-- June Jordan
"1977: Poem for Mrs Fannie Lou Hamer"
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WELCOME TO THE TUESDAY’S PORCH
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.