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December 27, 2002
Political Animal
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain 
"One of the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once, 'I want to be a poet--not a Negro poet,' meaning, I believe, 'I want to write like a white poet'; meaning subconsciously, 'I would like to be a white poet'; meaning behind that, 'I would like to be white.' And I was sorry the young man said that, for no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself. And I doubted then that, with his desire to run away spiritually from his race, this boy would ever be a great poet. But this is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America--this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible." The Nation
Music
Stakes Is High "Indeed, as the central marker of urban youth of color style and authenticity, rap music has become the key to the niching of youth culture. The 'hip-hop lifestyle' is now available for purchase in every suburban mall. 'Political rap' has been repackaged by record companies as merely 'conscious,' retooled for a smaller niche as an alternative. Instead of drinking Alizé, you drink Sprite. Instead of Versace, you wear Ecko. Instead of Jay-Z, you listen to the Roots. Teen rap, party rap, gangsta rap, political rap--tags that were once a mere music critic's game--are literally serious business." The Nation
December 23, 2002
Music
Crossed Paths in Africa "What gnaws at Leslie Fair-Gray, seated in her New York apartment, surrounded by legal documents related to the crash -- is this: If only Dijkerman had looked closer through the darkness, had tried to speak to the two injured inside the van, he or the U.S. Embassy employees who arrived later might have realized that her husband and son were not Kenyans -- but Americans. Americans with black skin." The Washington Post manages to make the African American family unsympathetic by playing on African American and African relations. Washington Post
Beef-a-Real
Hickory Congressman Uses Paint Job to Whitewash Racially Charged Comments "U.S. Rep. Cass Ballenger, anticipating fallout from a newspaper interview in which he said he had 'segregationist feelings' after conflicts with a black colleague, decided to have his yard's black lawn jockey painted white Friday." The whole article is absurd, but this paragraph made me laugh out loud, "The congressman calls the statue 'Rochester,' after the black valet in the old Jack Benny show." and "No message is intended by the lawn jockey, he said, and it's simply an antique." The "ornament's" name says it all. Ballenger's former colleague was Rep. Cynthia McKinney. Hickory Daily Record
Political Animal
Dixiecrats Triumphant "According to Friedman, President Wilson said as much to those appalled blacks who protested his actions. He told one protesting black delegation that 'segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen.' When the startled journalist William Monroe Trotter objected, Wilson essentially threw him out of the White House. 'Your manner offends me,' Wilson told him. Blacks all over the country complained about Wilson, but the president was unmoved. 'If the colored people made a mistake in voting for me,' he told The New York Times in 1914, 'they ought to correct it.'" Reason.com
December 17, 2002
Political Animal
The New Poll Tax "I was involved in a voting-rights lawsuit tried last summer in South Carolina over at-large elections in Charleston County. A parade of witnesses in the case testified about the Ballot Security Group organized in the county by Republicans, which for two decades targeted black Democratic voters. Truet Nettles, a former state magistrate judge and a member of the county election commission throughout the 1980s and 1990s, explained how the group operated to deny blacks assistance at the polls: 'In the African-American precincts, the poll managers who were ... nominated ... by the Republican Party would give the third degree to [African Americans who sought assistance in voting.] "Why do you need assistance?" [they would say.] "Can't you read and write? And didn't you just sign in? And you know how to spell your name, why can't you just vote by yourself?"' As a result of 'all this hoopla,' said Nettles, 'some of the voters said, "Oh, never mind," and they just turned around and walked out the door.'" The Prospect
December 9, 2002
Political Animal
Miscegenation and Racism: The Afro-Mexican in Colonial Mexico "Most students of Mexican history would be surprised to know that an extensive Black population, which will be referred to as Afro-Mexican, existed during the colonial period. However, Afro-Mexicans, both slave and free at one time outnumbered the current domination Mestizo population and the Whites. Mexico had an extensive Black population, which eventually assimilated into the dominant majority Mestizo population by the eighteenth century. This paper will concentrate on the factors that caused the decline of the Afro-Mexican population in Mexico during the colonial period, from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century. It will not focus of the Afro-Mexican population, slave or free, but only explain their disappearance. Although the Afro-Mexicans were an extensive dominant population during the colonial period, by the eighteenth century, they became a negligible population that the Indians, Whites and Mestizos supplanted. What accounted form their demographic decline in colonial society. The prevalent mestijaze ethos and pernicious racism caused the Afro-Mexican gradual population decline in colonial Mexican society." The Marcus Garvey BBS
December 8, 2002
Fnord
War Dames "Since the Gulf victory in 1991, a series of largely unnoticed policy changes have opened new opportunities for women to fight alongside, and even to lead, front-line troops. The Navy and Air Force, with some fanfare, allowed women into the cockpits of fighters and bombers. But less well known is how vastly the Army has expanded the role of women in ground-combat operations. Today, women command combat military police companies, fly Apache helicopters, work as tactical intelligence analysts, and even serve in certain artillery units--jobs that would have been unthinkable for them a decade ago. In any war in Iraq, these changes could put thousands of women in the midst of battle, far more than at any time in American history.
This new role for female U.S. troops is the product of three different forces. One is congressional pressure to integrate the military by gender as it previously had been integrated by race. Another is the ongoing enlistment shortage; the military remains reluctant to admit women yet is unable to recruit enough competent men to staff an all-volunteer Army. But the most important reason has been pressure from women within the Army who need combat experience to advance their careers, nearly all of them in the officer corps. And yet this experiment has been conducted largely below the threshold of public awareness.
The wisdom of this integration is sure to be tested in any sizable ground war with Iraq. If female soldiers perform poorly, they could put their comrades' lives at risk, strengthen the hand of conservatives who oppose women serving as soldiers, and provoke a backlash from the American public. But if, in the heat of battle, women fight bravely and effectively, it could spark a different sort of debate among the military and the public at large over why regulations and military culture still conspire to keep women from many prime assignments in the nation's service.
When the Mother Jones No Child Unrecruited article was posted, I asked why women's names were being collected when men's names were readily accessible through numerous avenues. This Washington Monthly piece seems to provide more evidence that one purpose of the "No Child Left Behind Act" was to quietly institute a military draft for women. While I am not opposed to women in combat or them even being drafted, I do have a problem with such a decision being made without public disclosure and debate. I am sure that many folk do not know the extent to which women could participate in combat in Iraq and elsewhere. In my discussions elsewhere, I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer to my question of how you effectively recruit 15 year olds. Washington Monthly
December 7, 2002
Contribute
DIRTYWOOD ARTS: Writers, Artists and Musicians in Atlanta, GA SUBMISSION DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 1, 2003
Melissa Prunty Kemp, Guest Editor
People all over the country, but especially African Americans, have been moving back to the south for more than two decades. No other city can boast the population growth of Atlanta, a mecca in the southeast. In recent years, the arts in Atlanta have exploded and the city has become a haven for writers, artists and musicians from every genre imaginable. The "souls of black folk" are erupting all over town with rhythm, blues, jazz, hip hop, spoken word, poetry, fiction and all forms of visual arts.
This issue will feature the flavor and style of arts and entertainment in Atlanta, a trend-setting city in the south. We are particularly looking to demonstrate what makes Atlanta arts and entertainment unique to this part of the country. They call Atlanta, "Dirty South," and it's most famous street -- Peachtree Street -- has been renamed "Dirtywoods". What is this "dirty" quality that has become such a popular part of Atlanta's nomenclature?
Drylongso: Extraordinary Thought For Ordinary People invites submissions from all quarters, but in particular from artists in all media living and practicing their art in the Atlanta metro area. drylongso.com
December 5, 2002
Beef-a-Real
'Shocked And Horrified' Black Pitt Professor Finds Noose On Lecture Room Desk "'A noose on the desk of an African-American professor is a moment of just supreme American ugliness that we wish would go away,' he said." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
December 3, 2002
Beef-a-Real
Specter of a Mississippi Murder "But in 1955, when Emmett Till traveled south from Chicago to visit relatives, Mississippi was still gripped by Jim Crow. The town of Money was smack in the middle of cotton-picking country, where blacks still worked on white plantations. It was not the kind of place where a black boy could sass a white woman and get away with it, though it has never been precisely clear just what the Chicago youth did or said to Carolyn Bryant, the white woman he encountered at a grocery store." Washington Post
Political Animal
Why Are Black Students Lagging? "'Black kids don't get validation and are seen as trespassing when they exceed academic expectations,' Professor Fordham said, echoing her initial research. 'The kids turn on it, they sacrifice their spots in gifted and talented classes to belong to a group where they feel good.'" New York Times