August 28 is just one of those dates

the next MLK

Emmett Till
Emmett Till

August 28 is a momentous date in US history. I was thinking about a question someone asked me earlier his year. It was whether someone – Bryan Stevenson, specifically, but it doesn’t matter – was the “new Martin Luther King, Jr.”

A couple of minutes later, I realized it was the wrong question. King gave the “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, DC on this date in 1963. While he may have been a singularly gifted orator, HE wasn’t the Civil Rights Movement. There were a quarter of a million people at that demonstration alone. They all struggled to create racial justice back at home.

Millions have fought the fight since before the founding of the United States and still do so today. Most of them have names we don’t know. Some we’re familiar with because of the abuse they suffered. John Lewis, who was the youngest speaker on this date in 1963 in Washington, is recognized because he survived violence on several occasions, notably in Selma on March 7, 1965.

Others we know, probably better because they were killed. The deaths of Medgar Evers (1963) and James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner (1964) are seared in my memory. But so are the murders of Rev. James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo, both in March 1965 in Alabama. Malcolm X’s 1965 death is being reinvestigated in 2020.

NMAAHC

Emmett Till was murdered on August 28, 1955, in Mississippi. I’ve mentioned him more than once here. He might have been just another black kid killed by bigotry. But his mom had the courage to let his beaten corpse be shown to the world. My daughter went to the National Museum for African American History and Culture in February 2020 with a bunch of church folk. One of her friends was stunned by the inhumanity of his death.

Obviously, we haven’t achieved that “post-racial” nirvana some people – not I – predicted after Barack Obama was elected President in 2008. BTW, he accepted the Democratic nomination on August 28 of that year. But it’s not going to be an Obama or a King or the mother of Emmett Till who will change the world. It’ll just have to be all of us.

 

Why a duck (as opposed to other fowl)

It’s all too much

Smilin Ed 1Back in June, my friend Mary, not to be confused with my other friend Mary, asked me about the derivation of the duck. This is both easy in the micro sense and unclear in the macro.

In my FantaCo days, we published this comic book called Smilin’ Ed. Ed was a rat. I mean literally, FantaCo’s rascally rodent mascot. The character was drawn by the late Raoul Vezina. The stories were by Tom Skulan and Raoul. Invariably, he put us FantaCo folk in the stories. I was a duck.

Why was I a duck? I’m not sure. It may that I used to do a decent imitation of Donald Duck, only less comprehensible. BTW, I can still do that. Why? Why wouldn’t I?

Then again, I’ve always had affection for fowl since I first heard Henhouse Five Plus Two cluck In The Mood. I knew then that almost any music could be done in chicken.

I’m a duck in the Smilin’ Ed story in the X-Men Chronicles, and in a huge birthday card that Raoul drew of me reading the New York Times. He did this particular drawing for a friend of mine. When I got my own URL, I decided to use the drawing.

Which reminds me

I’ve been, in my purported free time, working on a Wikipedia page for Raoul. It’s not that I have too little information but too much. His friends, including one who has recently died, have sent me at least 100 emails. They contain tidbits of info about Raoul, including a bunch of items I didn’t know. He did a few album covers. Music was as much a passion of his as art. He often combined the two.

For instance, he had started, but never completed, a comic book about the legendary Albany band Blotto of I Want To Be A Lifeguard fame. I’m hoping that when my family goes back to school, whenever that might be, I’ll get back to it.

Lydster: the summer job, finally

quarantine

Last year, my daughter had a summer job through the city of Albany’s Summer Youth Employment Program. It was her first actual job. She had taxes and Social Security taken out of her paycheck.

This summer, there was a pandemic that shut down the program. It’s not so much the money as it was something organized for her to do. Yes, she did some protesting and created some art. In fact, she combined the two by making a number of signs for the protests. She tackled some yardwork and power washed the front porch. But it’s better when she has a regular schedule.

She helped with a group of six to eight-year-olds in a program that my church contributes to. I’m of the opinion that friends and acquaintances of ours somehow created the position for her. It was only for two weeks, so she didn’t get too burned out by that.

It’s better than having her watch television all day. She watches some crime shows I actively hate.

why is this summer different from all others?

Of course, one of the elements that are different this summer is that we didn’t go on the extended family vacation. We had gone to a timeshare in Massachusetts, usually, for the past decade. COVID certainly affected that, to some degree. One of my daughter’s cousins is off to college and hasn’t even been home. Of course, the family dynamic has changed in no small way with the death of my FIL this spring.

And the three of us haven’t even gone on a nuclear family vacation. If we were to do so, it’d almost have to be in New York. The state has travel advisory. So if we were to travel to one of those 30-odd states, we’d have to follow a 14-day quarantine. so the longest trip we have taken is to see my MIL, 75 minutes away, and in New York State.

Obviously, we did not add to my daughter’s – or my – list of new states visited this summer. Maybe next year, if all goes well, we’ll travel to Minnesota for a family reunion.

Book: So you want to talk about race

We have to talk about it because we’ve harmed people

so you want to talk about raceA friend of mine asked if I had read So you want to talk about race, the 2018 book by Ijeoma Oluo. I said it was on my list. The truth is that it was in the house, but in a flurry of tidying up, it got misplaced.

Now it’s found. And I read the 240-page paperback in three or four hours over two days. The story was compelling because she put a lot of herself, a “black, queer woman” with a white single mom, on the pages.

“It’s about race if a person of color thinks about race.” I related to that. At the same time, she notes that “almost nothing is completely about race.” And that explaining systemic racism is not always easy.

In the chapter about talking about race incorrectly, the primary subject was her own mom. “Why can’t I be talking about… anything but this.” Conversely, Ms. Oluo tells about her OWN failure to check her privilege. She explains intersectionality better than most people I’ve read.

Her chapter on affirmative action was not academic but personal, with her family finding the need to sneak into a vacant apartment in order to take showers. A school game tagged her brother as “homeless,” when in fact the family had literally experienced this.

Lock ’em up

The school-to-prison pipeline the author talked about is quite insidious. I recently saw a story on the news about an eight-year-old mixed-race kid with special needs. He was arrested for felony assault for hitting his teacher in December 2018. He couldn’t be handcuffed because the boy’s wrists were too skinny. The child is STILL traumatized by this experience.

The particular pain of the author, at age 11, and her brother being subjected to the N-word in what they perceived to a safe setting was particularly awful. She explains an almost comical example of cultural appropriation at a dining establishment. I’ve never understood why any white person would ask a black person if they could touch their hair. Yet it’s a common phenomenon.

I’ve never liked the word “microaggression.” It seems to trivialize the pain of being, for instance, the fat black kid afraid of eating pizza, even though she hadn’t eaten all day. I myself hear the one about my proper use of English. Also, generally, “you aren’t like other black people,” as though that was supposed to be a compliment; n.b., it is not.

Ijeoma Oluo’s then eight-year-old son didn’t want to sing the national anthem or say the pledge of allegiance at school. He wanted to duck a school assembly to avoid it; it did get worked out. I’ve had my own issues with those symbols, albeit slightly later in life. He also realized he ought not to play with toy guns like his white friends did because he didn’t want to end up dead like the 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland.

Importantly, in “But what if I hate Al Sharpton,” he addressed a lot of myths. About Martin Luther King and what he really stood for. About Malcolm X. (The late folk singer Phil Ochs also addressed this in Love Me, I’m a Liberal.)

The book ends with a call for action, including Vote local, Bear witness to bigotry, Boycott bigoted businesses, and Supporting businesses owned by people of color.

Yes, Ijeoma Oluo may tell you a few things you already knew if you’ve read other books on racism. But because she puts herself in the story, So you want to talk about race got me to turn the pages. And watch this video. Listening to her speak explains why people who listen to her audiobook enjoy it so much.

Kamala Harris, 12th woman to vie for VP

LaDonna Harris

Kamala HarrisReading the latest NatGeo, I came across a surprising title. “At least 11 women have vied for U.S. vice president. Here’s what happened to them.” Wow. And the subhead: “Kamala Harris isn’t the first Black woman to run for vice president—or the first Asian-American.” Tell us more!

Marietta Stow – National Equal Rights Party (1884)
Running with Belva Lockwood, a lawyer. “Lockwood caught Stow’s attention when she pointed out that, while women couldn’t vote, ‘there is no law against their being voted for…'” The two women campaigned seriously and, out of some 10 million votes, won almost 5,000—cast by men.”

Lena Springs – Democrat (1924)
Nominated at the convention. “Springs received several votes but the slot on the ticket went to Charles Bryan, the governor of Nebraska.”

Charlotta Bass – Progressive (1952)
The first black woman candidate was “a crusading newspaper publisher in California. She joined Vincent Hallinan as his running mate. They won 140,000 votes.”

Frances ‘Sissy’ Farenthold – Democrat (1972)
She was “a serious contender at the convention but lost the nomination to Missouri senator Thomas Eagleton.”

Toni Nathan – Libertarian (1972)
The first female vice-presidential candidate to receive an electoral vote. A “Republican elector who couldn’t stomach Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s running mate, picked Nathan instead.”

Here’s where I started

LaDonna Harris – Citizens Party (1980)
“Harris, an activist and member of the Comanche nation, became the first Native American woman vice-presidential candidate… In the 1970s, she’d been a force for indigenous affairs in Washington as the wife of Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris. She and presidential candidate Barry Commoner ran on an environmental platform and won less than one percent of the popular vote.”

A couple of observations. I voted for Fred Harris in the 1976 Democratic primary. And in 1980, I voted for Commoner and LaDonna Harris in the general election.

Angela Davis – Communist Party (1980, 1984)
“A Black activist and philosophy professor in California who’d been on the FBI’s most-wanted list… She and presidential candidate Gus Hall garnered less than one percent of the vote.”

Geraldine Ferraro – Democrat (1984)
The “first vice presidential nominee on a major party ticket when Walter Mondale named her as his running mate. The congresswoman from Queens shook up the race…” They won “only Minnesota, his home state, and the District of Columbia.” Naturally, I voted for them.

Emma Wong Mar – Peace and Freedom Party (1984)
The “daughter of Chinese immigrants, a longtime anti-war and pro-labor activist from California, became the first Asian-American woman to run for vice president when she joined Sonia Johnson on the ticket…”

Twice, even

Winona LaDuke – Green Party (1996, 2000)
An “economist and Native American activist in Minnesota, joined Ralph Nader on the ticket in 1996 and 2000.” They received 2.7 percent of the popular vote in 2000, or 2.9 million votes—the most garnered by any third-party woman candidate for vice-president to date.”

Yes, I voted for them in both years. Note that Democrats Bill Clinton and Al Gore, respectively, easily won New York State.

Sarah Palin – Republican (2008)
When John McCain selected her as his running mate, she, “who was in her first [and only] term as Alaska’s governor, became the second female vice-presidential candidate for a major party and the first for Republicans. McCain and Palin received nearly 60 million votes, more than any other ticket with a woman as a vice-presidential candidate.”

Which brings us to…

As my blogger buddy Chuck Miller noted when Kamala Harris was first selected by Joe Biden, And the attacks began in four… three… two…. For reasons involving someone else’s reading assignment, I have a particular disdain for the dreadful Dinesh D’Souza. His suggestion that she’s not black because there’s a prominent slaveholder in her Jamaican father’s ancestry is beyond absurd. As I’ve noted, my own fourth great-grandfather was a slaveholder.

Yup, the Same Old Pathologies in attacking Kamala’s family tree. The same birther lies from the Tweeter-in-chief, with his inplausible deniability.

And his son-in-law’s non-clarification is in the same mode. “Kushner, who is both a White House and a campaign aide…” – does that bother anyone? He “pointed out that the President said ‘he had no idea whether that’s right or wrong’ — a technique Trump often uses when he’s trying to shirk responsibility for spreading disinformation.”

In 2020

One can challenge Kamala Harris on her record. She wasn’t my pick for President. But she will get my vote for Vice-President in November! I have voted five times for a woman in that role. You know the old saying, “the fifth time’s the charm”?

Some levity. McSweeney’s: I Don’t Hate Black or Woman Candidates, but Kamala Harris is Running for Vice President and My Head Just Exploded. Borowitz: Harris tells him She Cannot Send Him Birth Certificate Without Postal Service. And, of course, Randy Rainbow.

Ramblin' with Roger
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