COVID While Black, naturally

Not everybody can work from home

covid while blackTo add to the pantheon of Driving While Black, Shopping While Black, and the general Existing While Black, is COVID While Black.

ITEM: Black people have faced racial discrimination on Zoom meetings through Zoombombing. K’Andre Miller was making an appearance to talk to New York Rangers fans when he was subject to a vile racist outburst. The hacker posted the N-word hundreds of times during the online chat. A virtual meeting with black University of Texas students was cut short by racist ‘Zoom bombing’.

A friend of mine has posted about his personal experience of being targeted with the N-word and the F-word. while in a Zoom meeting. The hacker even called him by name because his name was under his picture. He was the only black person in that session. It appears that Zoom has fixed the problem with added steps of security passwords. Still, it was quite disturbing.

Who IS that masked man?

ITEM: You know how we’re all supposed to wear those face coverings to help stem the tide of the virus. But, in particular, black men fear homemade coronavirus masks could exacerbate racial profiling. “The CDC’s guidance on wearing masks outside comes with an added burden for minorities. ‘If you’re a person of color, you can’t just wear a mask.’”

I’ll admit to feeling a tad nervous wearing them myself, as though someone thought I might steal the toilet paper. I may be wrong, but I swear I’ve felt the negative reaction myself. And my masks are really nifty items, made from my daughter’s scarves.

Related, there are stores that have banned the use of masks, which makes no public safety sense.

ITEM: African-Americans may be especially vulnerable to COVID-19. Why IS that?

  1. African-Americans are more likely to be exposed to COVID-19. Not everybody can work from home. Black and Hispanic workers are much less likely to be able to telework.

  2. African-Americans have a higher incidence of underlying health conditions. And yet…

  3. African-Americans have less access to medical care. “Inequities in access to health care, including inadequate health insurance, discrimination fears, and distance from clinics and hospitals, make it harder for many African-Americans to access the sort of preventive care that keeps chronic diseases in check.”

Paul Robeson, Negro singer

“Golden Age”?

Paul Robeson
Alston drawing from the National Archives
On page 13 of the Binghamton (NY) Press from Wednesday, May 5, 1926 is this headline: BASS-BARITONE TO SING SPIRITUALS. But it’s the subhead that caught my attention. “Paul Robeson, Negro, Will Be Hear In Concert Friday Night.”

He was to appear at Binghamton Central High School, my alma mater. The article extensively quotes the March 3 New Republic. “A sort of sublimation of what the negro may be in the Golden Age hangs about him and imparts to his appearances an atmosphere of affection and delight that is seldom felt in an American audience.”

This is hardly the first I’ve read about the “Negro” X recently. The “Negro girl,” the “Negro pastor” show up in articles about Raymond Cone and my grandmother, Agatha Walker, e.g. It is a reflection of a time when being white was normative. Anyone not described as a “Negro” or whatever they called Native Americans (likely Indians) and Asians (Oriental?) were assumed to be white.

But what the heck was the New Republic alluding to in terms of the “Golden Age”? Is it a reference to the Harlem Renaissance? Or perhaps the Golden Age of Black Business, when “leading black capitalists . . . reflected their success within a black economy, which developed in response to the nation’s rise of two worlds of race.”

Red Summer

This in spite of the white-on-black violence of 1919’s Red Summer, which most people, a century later never heard about. Black WWI Vets Fought Back Against Racist Mobs. So “Golden age”… hmmm.

Incidentally, I was not looking for the Paul Robeson article. It sits just above a piece I was interested in. “A.M.E. Church Seeking $2,000 for Parsonage.” It described the three-day bazaar to be held to raise funds for the dwelling of one Rev. Raymond Cone. “Mayor Clarence J. Cook will the opening address.”

I have learned a great deal this past year about cultural norms by reading old newspapers. The listing of almost every church service, wedding and funeral, with the name of the preacher and often performers of special music. It would be as easy to fall down the rabbit hole on Newspapers.com as it would to overdo on Instagram or Facebook.

April rambling: marvelous, melancholy

Tributes to Fountains of Wayne and Bill Withers

book facade
for National Library Week

Click here to fill out the 2020 census online today! This way, census workers won’t have to come to your door. The Census Bureau advises completing the census now even if you haven’t received your 12-digit census ID by mail. Here’s a reminder.

Eight marvelous and melancholy things I’ve learned about creativity.

Garbage Language: Why Do Corporations Speak the Way They Do?.

Grover reads The Monster at the End of This Book (2020).

What Is Color Psychology?

A new search engine:https://www.privado.com/ (they don’t store searches or IPs!)

The difference between baking powder and baking soda thanks to Alton Brown.

How some cities ‘flattened the curve’ during the 1918 flu pandemic.

Notes From The Pandemic. A Diary of Struggling for Survival and Sanity in the Season of the Witch. I have contributed a few links to this effort.

The Week: What Caught Our Eye, including news that the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy were officially considered essential workers.

Little Tips for Better Video Chat (For Teachers…and Everybody Else).

MASH and the coronavirus.

The 12 most annoying co-workers you face on Zoom.

How Frasier Would Shelter in Place During the Coronavirus.

Some Good News with John Krasinski Ep. 2 – Zoom Surprise at 8:25.

Quarantine calls with Joe Buck.

“So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.” – Aldous Huxley

Study identifies a psychological factor linked to Trump supporters’ vindictiveness.

John Oliver takes a look at One America News, or OAN, a far-right news network being embraced by him at his coronavirus press events.

Now I Know

Why Does It Feel So Weird To Walk on a Stopped Escalator? and Putting a Happy Face On Trash and Badminton’s Sinister Secret and The Problem With Invisible Stone Boogers and Why Mario Has a Mustache and Keggy.

MUSIC

Movie: Sound City, America’s greatest unsung recording studio.

Movie: The Wrecking Crew, which I wrote about here.

Thank you, Adam Schlesinger. Stacy’s Mom – Fountains of Wayne.

Bill Withers, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Ain’t No Sunshine; Grandma’s Hands; Use Me; Lean on Me.

Coverville: 1304: Tributes to Fountains of Wayne & Bill Withers and 1303: Eric Clapton Cover Story.

Stay Away – Randy Newman.

Sing About It (The Wood Brothers) – Seizoenen koor Amsterdam.

Jubilie – Mary Chapin Carpenter (Songs From Home Episode 5).

Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd Cover) – MonaLisa Twins.

A suite from Catch Me If You Can – John Williams’s score.

Hard to Be the Bard – Christian Borle from Something Rotten.

Yellow River Concerto, themes composed by Xian Xinghai.

K-Chuck Radio: The Hits of Apryll Aileen.

Symphony No. 2 in D Major of Beethoven.

Music for The Creatures of Prometheus of Beethoven.

Coronavirus Blues – Middleburgh Minstrel (it’s all about the TP).

Post Secret purloin: surprise, shock

plenty of time

surpriseThe final part of the PostSecret purloin.

What is the last thing you changed your mind about?

I was going to say the failure of ethanol, but I have another one. The use of they as a singular pronoun. For the longest time, the Sting song title, If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free bugged me. Now it does not. Now it makes so much sense. This, BTW, did not keep me from buying the 12″ single of the track.

What things helped you get through a difficult time in your life?

Ya gotta have Friends.

Over the course of your life what trip or place was most special? Why?

Running out of gas in Speculator, NY with my dad. I thought he’d be mad, because I was supposed to be the navigator, but he was surprisingly cool about it.

What would you like to re-experience again because you did not appreciate it enough the first time?

I’m hard-pressed to think of anything. To every thing, there is a season…

Can you tell me something about yourself that I don’t know that you think would surprise, shock or delight me?

Surprise? Shock? Probably, but all in good time, my pretties, all in good time. Delight? I’m always fascinated that there are stories I tell my daughter that delight her. I’m not sure why they do. One is the bathroom mirror story, which I should tell at length sometime.

How to be lazy

What habits served you the most through life?

I like to work ahead, not waiting for the last minute. That most assuredly applies to writing this blog. There’s been maybe twice since 2008 that I got up and wrote something that was published that day. Writing ahead allows me to be tired or sick or just lazy.

It’s true: if I have something due in a month, I’m most likely to do it in the first week. This doesn’t always work when you’re dependent on other people. “We have plenty of time,” they say, until we don’t.

What is the best mistake you have made, and why?

Probably moving into my grandmother’s house in the cold of early 1975. If I could survive THAT, I could survive anything.

What do you hope my siblings and I have learned from you?

From my father, I learned from my father is that you don’t have to be book smart to be successful. What I learned from my mother is patience – OK, I’m working on it – and kindness.

How are you doing right now? Is there anything on your mind right now that you’d like to talk about?

I could spend forever doing genealogy. It’s something, I realize, I do in part for my sister and my daughter. My wife’s family, the Olins, can trace their back to the late 1600s. Thanks to the new relatives I’ve discovered only in the last six months, I can go back to the 15th century. That’s about 300 years further back than I was ever able to go on the extant bloodlines I’d known about for decades.

Movie: Call of the Wild (2020)

computer-generated dog

Call of the WildI’ve never read Jack London’s Call of the Wild. As far as I can remember, I’ve not seen any movie or television adaptations.

What drew me to the nearby Madison Theatre a few days before everything went into lockdown were two things: Harrison Ford’s presence and the $5 ticket price all day on Tuesdays.

An overly large pooch, a St. Bernard/Scotch Collie mix, seemed to have the run of a California home. Then he was dognapped and shipped north to Alaska.

He was purchased as part of a sled dog team operated by Perrault (Omar Sy) and Françoise (Cara Gee). Eventually, he crosses paths, for the third time, with John Thornton (Ford). Thornton protects Buck against the cruel Hal (Dan Stevens), who had stolen and beaten Buck.

Thornton and Buck go on an expedition further north practically to the Arctic Circle. In this environment, the once pampered Buck gets in touch with his primitive roots when interacting with a pack of wolves. The story was OK.

NOt a real dog

I was more curious whether I would buy the computer-generated dog in Call of the Wild as real. The answer is, “Sometimes.” The technique was less effective in the early narrative. Or maybe the storyline was just too goofy. But in his relationship with Perrault and Françoise, and later with Thornton, “he” usually resonated as a dog more believably.

I credit the fact that those performers were interacting with actor/stuntman Terry Notary, who modeled all of Buck’s actions. Those actors all expressed admiration for Notary’s work, giving them someone credible and emotive to perform with, rather than a blue screen.

There was a small audience for the 1 p.m. show. I ordered a burger, slightly overpriced but good.

It took SO long for the Madison Theatre to reopen. I hope it can withstand the current disruption. Good news is that it’s still selling food, pickup/delivery only. I’m inclined to order from them when I can.

Ramblin' with Roger
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