Hey...Yo, I’m a Midwesterner, Too…
Commentary by Chitown Kev
Because Daily Kos is, primarily, a political blog with the stated mission “to elect more and better Democrats” and ”fighting to make ours a stronger, more effective, more progressive Democratic Party,” there is an annoying, frustrating and yet understandable tendency (perhaps “reflex” is a more precise word) to reduce individuals or entire groups of people to simple voting blocs.
I get that.
In the context of this particular political blog, I understand it when a vote tally is taken and exit polls are shown, that whatever the results are seem to be explained in a very one-dimensional fashion (the “blacks are uniquely homophobic” garbage from the aftermath of the Prop 8 vote, all Texans are just hateful bigots or the white-working class vote defines what the Midwest is and what Midwestern people are, etc.) as if it defines the entire culture in question.
Yes, the politics of a particular group is informed by its’ culture milieu...and vice versa...but that’s not all...
So I was ecstatic that Democratic presidential contender Senator Kamala Harris spoke of the false choices that are often presented as to who can speak to and of the Midwest.
I was born in Detroit, Michigan 10 days before the 1967 race riots. I was raised in Detroit. From the ages of 18-23 I bounced around between Tallahassee, FL, NYC, and DC with brief stops back to Detroit.
I moved to Chicago in 1990 and (other than a year and half stint in Boston, MA) I’ve never left the area and don’t want to leave.
I can speak of and to the Midwest and what it means to be a “Midwesterner” as much or as well as anyone.
I’ve had this pet peeve about discussions of and about the Midwest for a very long time; truthfully, the pet peeve didn’t even arise out of anything related to black studies but arose out of my love of the work of David Foster Wallace (and I’d read a couple of previous essays about Wallace prior to his 2008 suicide that addressed the subject of the Midwest in relation to his work).
And even though I agreed with the substance of the argument...that in order to fully understand DFW, you had to understand the “Midwest,” there seemed to be a reluctance to identify African Americans with what it means to be of the “Midwest” (a reluctance that is very evident in Wallace’s work, to be honest).
That very same standard that applied to writers like Wallace also applied to writers like...Toni Morrison...and it”s not like Toni Morrison has ever kept her Midwestern background a secret.
Now, I lived in a little working-class town that had no black neighborhoods at all - one high school. We all played together. Everybody was either somebody from the South or an immigrant from East Europe or from Mexico. And there was one church, and there were four elementary schools. And we were all, pretty much until the end of the war, very, very poor. My neighbors were from - my mother's neighbors, who brought her stuffed cabbage, were from Czechoslovakia - what used to be called Czechoslovakia. So that I'm not at all a person who has been reared or raised in a community in which these racial lines were that pronounced. Occasionally, as children, we might figure out how to call somebody a name, and they would figure out how to call us. But it wasn't - it was so light. It was so fluffy. I didn't really have a strong awareness of segregation and the separation of races until I left Lorain, Ohio.
And it’s everywhere in four of Ms. Morrison’s first five novels.
And I could say that about any number of artists, politicians, and regular folk.
In the last ten years, I’ve noticed a number of critical interventions into traditional...and changing ways of viewing the Midwest like Vanessa Taylor’s Black & Midwestern: On the Mississippi and Sites of Memory
Yet, the work of Black Midwesterners is often attributed to other regions because, well, they’re Black. I even find myself replicating that narrative. I’ve read almost all of Toni Morrison’s novels, devouring them while I worked at a bookstore. I pictured every single novel set in the Deep South, reading into each character my grandfather’s thick Mississippi accent. But Morrison is from Lorain, Ohio. Many of her novels, such as Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Sula, are set in Ohio, drawing on the complexities of post-migration Black life and the struggles within new states to maintain old traditions while developing regional tangs of their own.
It’s no surprise that there’s a monolithic view of the Midwest, prioritizing white culture as its defining characteristic, nor is it a surprise that there is a monolithic view of Blackness which rejects the history of Black Midwesterners. Minnesota doesn’t get much love not only because it is in the Midwest, but in the upper Midwest, a landscape of arctic tundras, bastardized Canadian accents, and Lutherans. What’s most known about Minnesota is as follows: Fargo (which is actually in North Dakota, but okay), winter, the Mall of America, and Prince.
Remember, his Purple Badness never left the Midwest and it’s always been where he’s been most popular.
And the black cultures in the region are complex.
I remember when I first moved to Chicago, I was utterly mystified and rather aghast that people would couple eating fried fish with spaghetti...I had never known of people doing such a horrendous thing.
It was everywhere.
Eventually I tried and now I find the combination tasty but...it still feels a little foreign.
Thinking about it one day, I decided to look up the various migration patterns during The Great Migration.
Growing up, I knew very, very few people in my circles whose families migrated from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas; my family migrated primarily from Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas...with a few Floridians.
Those relatively slight differences that I was noticing in the way meals are prepared tell the story of that cultural richness of the Black Midwest.
Yeah, I do get a bit defensive about talk of “flyover country” because I recognize those in the Big 10 states as my people, of whatever race (and I don’t care whether they recognize me as such, that’s their business).
We drink pop, we go to the show (as opposed to the movies) and we love our football and our football rivalries and we hate our football rivals.
So if I do decide to get on the METRA train to South Bend, Indiana dressed in my Maize and Blue and my bloc M gear, I expect that people will look at me funny...and it would have nothing to do with the color of my skin.
And I wouldn’t change it or erase it for anything or anyone.
…
To close, here is an interview that Toni Morrison did with The New Yorkers Hilton Als about the relationship of her family with the South that they migrated from...t this day, I know people in both Detroit and Chicago that know of their family in the South but have vowed never to set foot there.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Once Upon a Time the world remembered the magic, power, and purpose of Black Women. In a mere 12 minute short film, Thistles And Thorns brings that wonderment of African Diaspora to the screen for our enjoyment and upliftment.
Directed by Kalie Acheson, written by David Vieux and Yazmin Monet Watkins, the short fairy-tale follows the adventures of a young woman named Assata (played by Watkins). Crowned with a luscious natural Afro, and armed with the love of her people, Assata must cross rugged terrains, and navigate through foreign landscapes while encountering a series of characters, some that help, and others that try to harm. She bravely moves through her quest to bring magic back to the Garden of Sisterhood.
Just shy of twelve minutes long, the short film still manages deep impact. The story appears as allegory for everyday Black Womanhood, the constant assault on our identity, the berating words from naysayers; the encouragement from our family and mighty Ancestors, and our duty to return to them with something worthy of sharing for our legacy. It’s a story that’s empowering for not only young girls, but for women, boys, and men, too. All can benefit from remembering the inherent beauty and truth of Black Womanhood. Watch this one with the whole family:
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What does success taste like? If you’re one of the countless chefs working in upscale kitchens across America, it may be recognition from the James Beard Foundation. Fondly known as the “Oscars of Food,” the preeminent culinary organization in the United States is celebrating its 29th annual awards gala tonight in Chicago. And while it’s fair to say that a James Beard nomination or win can be a game changer for any chef; for chefs of color, increasing recognition and advocacy from the esteemed organization have encouraged long overdue recognition that our flavors are the backbone of American cuisine.
“As things shift, I think it’s wonderful, because people of color have been cooking forever, and there are many people of color in every kitchen throughout all of America, It’s important that we’re recognized, because we are all part of America’s food culture,” says Chef Gregory Gourdet (Culinary Director of Departure restaurants in Portland, Ore., and Denver), a three-time James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: Northwest (including 2019) who works closely with the organization.
Gourdet was one of five James Beard-recognized chefs catering to a predominantly black and brown crowd of foodies at the third annual IDE (Iconoclast Dinner Experience Series) All-Star Culinary Bash on Saturday night, hosted in the gorgeous Viking showroom in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart with The Root as its media sponsor. As a Queens, N.Y.-born chef of Haitian heritage who currently specializes in Asian cuisines, Gourdet is all too familiar with the marginalization of certain cultures within haute cuisine and credits the Beard Foundation with helping to further that conversation.
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Police killings in the state of Rio de Janeiro have hit a record high, rising by 18% in the first three months of this year.
Official data reviewed by the Associated Press on Friday show police forces in Rio killed 434 people during clashes in those months, compared with 368 people in same period last year.
The number is the highest since record keeping began in 1998. The data was released on 17 April.
The rise comes under the watch of the Governor Wilson Witzel, a former marine and political ally of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. Witzel has promised a zero-tolerance policy against criminals, calling drug traffickers “narco-terrorists” and vowing to ease gun possession laws.
Earlier this year, he confirmed plans to implement shoot-to-kill policing tactics in the region.
The police communications department declined to comment about the latest statistics.
Since 2014, the number of victims in Brazilian police operations has risen sharply, despite a respite in 2016 when the country hosted the Olympic Games and implemented a security operation with military support.
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On the outskirts of this overcrowded township in South Africa’s Cape Winelands, Phumlani Zota, a 32-year-old pig farmer, sifted through piles of waste in a refuse dump beneath the Langeberg mountains, filling a burlap sack with scraps of food for his livestock. “There is not enough land here,” he told me.
Yet on all sides, the impoverished settlement was hemmed in by great tracts of white-owned farmland, neat rows of fruit trees and grapevines punctuated by ornate Cape Dutch architecture.
The disjuncture is jarring, but mirrored all over South Africa. During apartheid, Zolani was designated a “blacks only” area by the Group Areas Act, one of about two dozen federal policies that dramatically restricted black South Africans’ access to land and opportunity. Today, the township stands as contemporary evidence of the wholesale land dispossessions carried out by successive colonial regimes, from the 17th century until as recently as the 1980s.
According to a 2017 land audit by the South African government, 72 percent of the country’s arable land remains in the hands of whites, who account for fewer than 10 percent of the total population. Since the ruling African National Congress came to power in 1994, under the stewardship of Nelson Mandela, one of its central undertakings has been to relieve this disparity. But to date, the spotty efficacy of the ANC’s land-restitution efforts has seen barely a quarter of such land restored to black farmers, according to the farmers’ organization AgriSA.
Now, with general elections slated for May, the renewed promise of meaningful and long-overdue land reform is once again a key feature of the ANC’s political campaign. The country’s lack of progress on resolving the issue speaks not just to the varied issues facing South Africa—from poor economic growth to spiraling unemployment—but also to the broader difficulty of finding practical solutions to redress historical injustice. It is a challenge informed not only by domestic politics, but also by years of chaos in neighboring Zimbabwe, which has seen ill-fated attempts at land redistribution of its own.
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The mayor of Hoschton, a nearly all-white community 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, allegedly withheld a job candidate from consideration for city administrator because he was black, an AJC investigation has found.
According to documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and interviews with city officials, Mayor Theresa Kenerly told a member of the City Council she pulled the resume of Keith Henry from a packet of four finalists “because he is black, and the city isn’t ready for this.”
The AJC’s investigation into the controversy revealed not only a deeply flawed hiring process, but also hard racial attitudes inside Hoschton’s government. All of this occurs as the city of fewer than 2,000 people just outside Gwinnett County is poised for dramatic growth with the construction of thousands of new homes.
Initially, Kenerly would not answer questions about her reported comments, saying she could not publicly talk about matters that occurred in executive session even though the law does not forbid that. “I can’t say I said it or not said it,” she said.
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