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April 29, 2001
Music
Lost and Looking 
His voice was already a hypnotically clean and thrilling instrument, endlessly changeable but exquisitely controlled, its tone grounded in Mississippi soul but made urbane, self-regarding, swinging, cool. Along with Brian Wilson's and Smokey Robinson's, Cooke's voice is one of the miracles of the pop age. Killing the Buddha
April 28, 2001
Music
"Americans Through Their Labor": Paul Robeson's Vision of Cultural and Economic Democracy "Paul Robeson broke no laws. His crime, to those who attacked him, was that he refused to denounce the Soviet Union as the major source of evil in the world and to sever ties to American communists he worked with in civil rights organizations, labor organizations, and campaigns to end European colonialism. The political and cultural leaders of the United States were so threatened by Robeson's political outlook and his utter lack of deference to the leaders of white America, that they decided to make an example of him that would redound through the ages." Dr. Mark D. Naison
Political Animal
15 Dead in Ohio: The Black and the Blue in Cincinnati "And yet, when whites riot (and don't even get me started on Woodstock '99 again), not only do we not call them 'terrorists,' cops rarely if ever shoot them with rubber bullets or spray them at point-blank range with mace." Znet
April 26, 2001
Music
Hip Hop War "Muhammad portrayed Simmons as someone who has exploited hip hop for the benefit of white fans, who he claims represent 70 percent of the rap consumer market. 'Whites have accepted Russell Simmons as the guru of urban black youth culture,' Muhammad sneered. 'He has sold them a bill of goods—that we are penny-chasing, champagne-drinking, gold-teeth-wearing, modern-day Sambos, pimps, and playas. This Russell Simmons, who would rather wrap me up in a Bob Dole jacket or a C. DeLores Tucker dress, is selling Mammy and Sambo culture to white America.'" Village Voice
Music
O.J. Confidential "In his recently self-published book, O.J. Is Guilty, but Not of Murder, Dear presents a case that O.J.'s troubled son, Jason, 24 at the time of the murders, should have been viewed as a prime suspect." Dallas Observer
April 24, 2001
Political Animal
The Myth of Racial Profiling "The ultimate question in the profiling controversy is whether the disproportionate involvement of blacks and Hispanics with law enforcement reflects police racism or the consequences of disproportionate minority crime. Anti-profiling activists hope to make police racism an all but irrebuttable presumption whenever enforcement statistics show high rates of minority stops and arrests. But not so fast." City Journal
Political Animal
Blinded by the right "Not only did Horowitz reject the article (which Gahr then placed with the American Spectator Web site), but then, a few days later, went so far as to ban Gahr permanently from writing for FrontPage after the writer was quoted in the Washington Post calling Weyrich 'a demented anti-Semite.' At that point, this embarrassing confrontation more or less ended." Salon
April 19, 2001
Political Animal
Child slaves caught in glittering traps "They caught him and summoned us all so we could see. They told the boy: 'If think you are such a good runner, you must have good feet.' Then they cut the soles of his feet with razors." National Post
Sports
The Sad Life of a Superstar: Darryl Strawberry's Odyssey of Self-Destruction "We imagined Darryl Strawberry, awaited his thrills, and then watched as his life unfolded in fast forward, as the young man who rippled with greatness became sick and confused and old. Late last month, he fled his court-ordered drug treatment program in Tampa and descended into a four-day crack-cocaine binge -- in motel rooms in Tampa and Orlando -- with a female friend and five armed men who he said robbed him of his jewelry." Free Registration Required. New York Times
April 15, 2001
Political Animal
The Fascist Origins of the SAT Test "The SAT was used to secure draft deferments during the Korean and Vietnam wars, ensuring the wars were fought by working class youth, especially black youth." Rich Gibson
Fnord
The High Court's Hidden Agenda "The Rehnquist Court has laid the doctrinal foundations to find the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional. Now that President George W. Bush has declared that he favors candidates for the Supreme Court who share the philosophy of its arch-conservatives, it is time to see where they are taking the Court." Law.com
April 10, 2001
Genealogy
Anonymous Louisiana Slaves Regain Identity "Now, however, the identities and backgrounds of Louisiana slaves are beginning to emerge from centuries of anonymity, infusing property once sold like livestock with names like Kit and Alick. Thanks to years of painstaking work by a 71-year-old historian who lives in a small house here surrounded by plantain trees, an enormous amount of information is coming to light about the captives who were brought to Louisiana in the 18th and 19th centuries."
Dr. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall has produced a searchable database available on CD-ROM of over 100,000 Louisiana slaves--the largest ever. [Free Registration Required] New York Times
April 9, 2001
Political Animal
It Takes A Village Healer "If you go into an average village in Togo looking for biomedical health care, you're likely to find an almost empty dispensary, staffed perhaps one or two days a week by a poorly trained community health worker. The same village might have three or four traditional healers within easy walking distance, each ensconced in an attractive compound with flags flying from the roof. And while the community health worker often has a social standing equivalent to that of a cashier at Dairy Queen, traditional healers are generally among the most powerful and respected members of village society." Lingua Franca
Political Animal
The Shame of San Francisco "At every grade level, in every subject, for every ethnic group, the improvements have been impressive, in some cases astonishing. While critics say the test score gains have been accomplished by replacing the school's troubled students with a less disadvantaged mix, Edison can also prove that the black and Latino students who attended the school before the company took it over have seen their test scores jump significantly, too." Salon
April 8, 2001
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Mother's Day
May 2001Essay, Fiction, Poetry
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Father's DayJune 2001Essay, Poetry, Fiction
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GenealogyJuly 2001Articles, Poetry, Essay, Fiction
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Brown Paper WrapperAugust 2001Fiction, Poetry, Essay, Opinion
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Spoken WordGuest Editor
April 5, 2001
Sports
Blacks at Center Stage in Debate on Headgear "A lot of times the black football player is given something but not what he needs," Green said. "What is wrong with a little discipline and direction, with rules? Some people imply that I get away with certain things with my players because I am black; it's just not the case. I ask what's right for them and for us, and that's enough." Free registration required. New York Times
Interview
Islam's Black Slaves For reasons that are not altogether clear or explicit, they came to be used increasingly by rulers as counselors, advisors and tutors and, eventually, to actually run the holy places of Mecca and Medina, where they were treated with enormous respect. Salon
April 4, 2001
Political Animal
The Genetic Archaeology of Race Within the next few years geneticists will find the specific genetic variants that determine skin color. In the United States, because of the black-white gap on average IQ scores, these variants will be statistically correlated with our most commonly used measure of intelligence. But the genetic variants affecting skin color have nothing to do with the functioning of the brain. They exert their effects entirely through the influence of culture—by sorting people according to the color of their skin. Atlantic Monthly
April 3, 2001
Political Animal
Soul Mates Wilkins says, "I have never seen another president---as a matter of fact, I have seen very few white people who are as at ease with black people as him. He genuinely likes black people, and blacks can sense that. And there is a part of him that seems genuinely interested in achieving equality in America." Washington Monthly
Political Animal
Baiting Whitey One thing you can say for David Horowitz: After almost 40 years of work as a political journalist, after a career in activism dating back to the civil rights struggle, after courting both Black Panther and Gopac tiger, after a miraculous conversion from the radical left to the woolly right, after writing books and columns beyond number, he is now capable of outwitting a bunch of college students. Suck.com
Genealogy
Separated No More Until 15 years ago, my uncle and his siblings had been lost from one another for 50 years. They might have remained that way had not a family friend, Mary Smith, gone back to Maryland's Eastern Shore for a funeral. Courier-Journal
Genealogy
Bank Records Breathe Life Into History of Freed Slaves "Doesn't know father or mother's names or brothers and sisters. Was stolen away from Africa, thinks when he was about 15 years old, " says the record for Thompson, who worked as a driver for a doctor and deposited his money in the bank's New York branch. API/Salon
April 2, 2001
Genealogy
Color Conscious, White Blind "So in the course of only a few short years, comments about the pathology of people of color generally, and African Americans in particular, have gone from the margins of political discourse to the center. Discussions of crime have become increasingly racialized and our dialogue on race has become increasingly criminalized, such that deviance is now seen by many as synonymous with melanin or black culture." LiP Magazine
April 1, 2001
Genealogy
Exploring the Depths of Racist Socialization "She could not remember how to feed herself, for God's sake. She could not go to the bathroom by herself. She could not recognize a glass of water for what it was. But she could recognize a nigger. America had seen to that--and no disease was going to strip her of that memory. Indeed, it would be one of the last words she would say, before she finally stopped talking at all." Z Magazine
Genealogy
Africans and Indians: Only in America "In a clock-work of military and legal reflexes, European authorities sought to eradicate Black Indian contacts and pit Red against Black. In l523 a Royal Order to Hernando Cortez banned Africans from Indian villages. "Division of the races is an indis-pensable [control] element" said a Spanish officer. "Between the races we cannot dig too deep a gulf," announced a French official." William Loren Katz
Political Animal
What We Must Overcome "But the CBC protest also speaks to the fact that the conversation about the true meaning of democracy is not happening yet, at least not at the highest levels of government. There is talk, of course, about fixing the mechanics of election balloting; but it is the rules themselves, and not just the vote-counting process, that are broken. This is all the more reason that the conversation, which needs to address issues of justice, not just compassion, also needs to rise up from communities as a citizens' movement." American Prospect
Fnord
Big, Bad Black Dealers and Junkie White Girls "For all of Requiem's visual appeal and Traffic's much more weighty overall impact, both movies manage to hang on to a stubborn and dangerously entrenched set of notions -- crass stereotypes, in point of fact -- about the lives of Euro-American female dope addicts and the African American male drug dealers who ostensibly await their sexual availability and servitude." Alternet.org
Fnord
House Bill Proposes Lifting Ban on Assassinations "The current bill, introduced by staunch Bush supporter and Clinton impeachment leader Barr, indicates that the Bush administration is seeking to add legitimacy to the move by implying that Congress and the American people support the action. This can only mean that there is quite likely a list of people the Bush Administration wants to start killing fairly quickly. The appointment of career covert operative and Annapolis graduate Richard Armitage as Deputy Secretary of State under Colin Powell only underscores the clear message that the Bush Administration is sending to the world." From the Wilderness
Confederacy
A new civil war over 'Gone With the Wind' "Although 'The Wind Done Gone' is not scheduled for publication until June 6, advance reviewer copies have been distributed by Houghton Mifflin, and promotional material from the publisher portrays the book as 'the story that's been missing' from the Mitchell book.? Chicago Tribune
Beef-a-Real
Who's Bamboozling Who? "I laughed and cheered when George Jefferson did his dance on The Jeffersons or told off 'whitey.' I waited eagerly while watching Sanford and Son to hear Fred tell Elizabeth he was coming to join her or to hear Aunt Esther call him a fish-eyed fool." drylongso.com
Beef-a-Real
The Sisters Were Soldiers Too "Parents still don’t understand the trauma, the ridicule we experienced sometimes from your own kin. My grandfather would call me a penguin in a minute." drylongso.com
Confederacy
Interpreting the Images of Slavery on the Confederacy's Money "Several scholars who contributed to the online project noted that Southern banks enshrined slavery in their monetary system to remind those who came in contact with their bills that the institution was the region's economic bedrock." [Registration Required] New York Times
Report on Life
Chel, You Up? "Nobody but Grandma could have prepared me for the life that I live each day in my two-room rustic cabin just outside of Panajachel, Guatemala." drylongso.com
Weblog
Deeper South "It's small wonder that Hollywood is rediscovering the South. Culturally speaking, the states below the Mason-Dixon line share a track record few parts of America can touch. Pick virtually any field--music, literature, spirituality, the culinary arts, architecture (think of Jefferson's Monticello or New Orleans' French Quarter)--and the impact of Southerners, black and white, is as pervasive as the scent of lemon verbena on a warm May night in Montgomery." Los Angeles Times
Sports
Game Face "Culture has become a surrogate for race. Any time the behavior of blacks can permit (white) people to vent their feelings against them, full advantage is taken of it," Sammons says. "This is just a way of marginalizing certain blacks, and people can justify it by saying that color doesn't have anything to do with it." SportsJones
Political Animal
Cover Story: Reports of Abuse “For example,” O’Donohue wrote, “a superior of a community of sisters in one country was approached by priests requesting that sisters would be made available to them for sexual favors. When the superior refused, the priests explained that they would otherwise be obliged to go to the village to find women, and might thus get AIDS.” National Catholic Reporter