racism Archives - Page 3 of 33 - Ramblin' with Roger

September rambling: perfect Yiddish word

Rebecca Jade interview, Middle Earth debate

An Ode to Oy — the Perfect Yiddish Word

And speaking of which: Rings of Power Cast Slams Racist Threats Against Performers: “Middle-Earth Is Not All White.” This hurts my head. Someone wrote, and I’ve misplaced the attribution, I’m afraid: “When did we stop being able to just sit down and enjoy something that’s been created? Just take all shows and movies as fan fiction of any book that they take it from and enjoy the creators’ stories.”

Sah Quah: More than twenty years after the American Civil War, an enslaved Alaskan walked into a Sitka courtroom and sued for his freedom

The Church Left on the Curb: A chance trash-day encounter reveals a 170-year institutional history

Bernard Shaw, CNN’s First Chief News Anchor, Dies at 82

Anne Garrels, the longtime foreign correspondent for NPR, dies at 71

Culcha

In Memorium Video from this year’s Emmys and going about a decade back

Jazz Pianist & NEA Jazz Master Ramsey Lewis Dies at His Chicago Home, September 12, at the age of 87

“Weird Al” Yankovic on the Long, Hard Road to Bring His Mock Biopic to the Big Screen

Ken Levine ends his blog, but his podcast will continue

At 100, Norman Lear Looks Back (And Ahead)

Whiz! Bang! Boom! Energetic Ads Hold Viewers’ Attention

Real Money, Fake Musicians: Inside a Million-Dollar Instagram Verification Scheme

Quentin Tarantino, Miramax Settle ‘Pulp Fiction’ NFT Legal Battle

Flin Flon: One Book’s Unlikely Survival

Has a computer ever passed the Turing test?

The Twisted Life of Clippy, Microsoft’s annoying paperclip. Its developers never imagined the virtual assistant would become a cultural icon.

Some good advice from John Green

Of Elbows and Tables

Best State Capitals to Live In – 2022 Edition. Albany, NY, is #9.

The Small Town In New York With More Historic Buildings Than Any Other

Can Something Be “Very Unique”? Modifying Absolute Adjectives

Now I Know: What About Bob (dot com)? and The Wisdom of Crowds of Sports Fans? and The Almost-War Over a Bear’s Missing Privates

Polly ticks

President and Mrs. Obama Become a Part of White House History with Reveal of Official Portraits, and Barack Obama just won the Emmy

How deranged anti-Obama conspiracy theories led America to Donald Trump

Fascist is a description, not an insult, and “Semi-Fascism”: The Shoe Fits

Judge Cannon’s Incredibly Flawed Trump Special Master Ruling

The faulty premise of the ‘2,000 mules’ trailer about voting by mail in the 2020 election

How Many Of ‘Her Emails’ Were Classified? Actually, Zero

Thomas, Barrett will further delegitimize SCOTUS when they fail to recuse on key cases

The Battle for Voters’ Imaginations over Abortion. Pete Buttigieg was correct.

When We Rose to Fight COVID, We Were Deliberately Turned Against Each Other

The Return of the Bitter Politics of Envy

UN Report Highlights Ongoing Racism in the US

Nebraska HS newspaper and journalism program shut down over student-written commentary on LGBTQ+ issues. The shutdown of the prize-winning student newspaper after 54 years occurred because an edition in June contained student-written commentary on LGBTQ+ issues, the origins of Pride Month, and the history of homophobia, material members of the local school board considered inappropriate.

Demographics

U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline

Most and Least Ethnically Diverse Cities in the U.S.

Demographic divide – the key differences in media and entertainment that continue to evolve between younger and older Americans.

New Data Reveal Inequality in Retirement Account Ownership

When and How Often People Marry Changes by Birth Cohort

MUSIC

Behind the Beats article about Rebecca Jade by the Smooth Jazz Network!

The In Crowd – the Ramsey Lewis Trio

The Comedians – Dmitry Kabalevsky. The second section, The Galop, is EXTREMELY familiar to me.

Wade In The Water – Ramsey Lewis

Jonchaies by Iannis Xenakis

Coverville 1412: The Clash Cover Story III and 1413: The Squeeze Cover Story III

Conductor Seiji Ozawa leads the Vienna Philharmonic in Strauss’s overture to Die Fledermaus

Hang On Sloopy – Ramsey Lewis Trio. I still have the Hang On Ramsey album on vinyl

If You Could Read My Mind – Gordon Lightfoot

How To Be An Antiracist

book review, of a sort

Recently, I did what was billed as a book review of How To Be An Antiracist (2019) by Ibram X. Kendi. I’m not sure it was a review as much as a reflection of how much I related to it.

That said, if I were to suggest a review, the pull quote by James Forman, Jr., author of Locking Up Our Own and son of a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee leader in the 1960s, would suffice. “Ibram Kendi uses his own life journey to show why becoming an antiracist is as essential as it is difficult. Equal parts memoir, history, and social commentary, this book is honest, brave, and most of all liberating.”

It is particularly honest when it comes to Kendi himself. The first section of the book is My Racist Introduction. He still has “nightmares” about a speech he gave at a competition on MLK Day 2000 at Stonewall Jackson High in Manassas, VA. “A racist culture had handed me the ammunition to shoot Black people to shoot myself… Internalized racism is the real Black on Black crime.”

Check out this page of terms by Kendi. Note the assimilationist ideas that try to “fix” people. This is an attitude for which Pope Francis went to Canada to apologize to the First Nations people. The church had said their language, their garb, and even their hair was “wrong.” Compare this with the segregationist ideas that “suggest that a racial group is permanently inferior.”

You might be surprised by the number of times people have told me, “Race is just a social construct.” Yes, I know, but it “doesn’t lessen its force.” Kendi cites Carl Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae (1735). His role in the origins of scientific racism was huge.

Microaggression

Like me, Kendi is not a fan of one trendy term. As he notes, “microaggression is used because, in a ‘post-racial’ era, this term replaces ‘racism’ which went out of fashion. Racism has become the R-word like the N-word is used for the word it replaced.”

I’ve written about the curse of Canaan. Kendi explains English travel writer George Best’s role in this myth. “Proof did not matter when biological racial difference could be created by misreading the Bible.”

“Assimilationists believe the post-racial myth that talking about race constitutes racism.” I’ve heard similar talk from segregationists who fear the evil Critical Race Theory will harm innocent children. The former group “fails to realize that if we stop using categories, then we will not be able to identify racist policies.” This is why I, as a Census enumerator in 1990 and 2020, as well as a librarian, continue to support the racial categories, especially since they’ve allowed for more than one selection since 1997.

The issue of colorism is an odd history. While some enslavers believed a body was better the Whiter it is, others felt “Dark people more perfect than the so-called human mule, or mulatto. I wrote about racial categories.

What got Malcolm X killed was the idea that Kendi states, that Black people can be racist toward White people. I was always bothered by the talk from the Nation of Islam about the “White devils.” “To be antiracist is… knowing there are antiracist Whites and racist non-Whites.”

“When Dinesh D’Souza writes, ‘the behavior of the African American underclass… flagrantly violates basic codes of responsibility, decency, and civility,’ he is deploying class racism.”

Space

Kendi opines, and I believe correctly about individualizing an error in White spaces but generalizing the error in the Black space instead of the individual. “How many times did I have a bad experience at a Black business and then walk away complaining not the individuals involved but Black businesses as a whole?”

Also, “whenever Black people voluntarily gather among themselves, integrationists… see spaces of White hate.” In the book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum (1997/2017), “One reason students from similar racial backgrounds may gather together is that “connecting with peers who are having a similar experience as your own serves as a buffer, as a protective force…”

Kendi: “I became a Black patriarch because my parents and the world around me did not strictly raise me to be a Black feminist.” Certainly, black women experience misogynoir.

At a Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library Literary Legends gala a few years ago, I talked to Barbara Smith, a co-founder of Combahee River Collective. I asked if she knew my mother’s first cousin, Frances Beal. Yes, indeed she did. Both are mentioned on page 187 of the book. “Frances Beal… audaciously proclaimed in 1968, ‘the black woman in America can justly be described a ‘slave of a slave.””

I could go on, but this will give you a feel for the book. It is very readable and quite relatable, as he explains his foibles while trying to be an antiracist.

The Race Card Project

Michele Norris

The Race Card Project began with a simple-sounding yet challenging premise.

“In 2010, journalist Michele Norris began inviting people to distill their thoughts on the word race to only six words. Printing 200 postcards and issuing a call to action, Norris and her team were unsure of what – if anything – would result. What took root was a groundswell. With just a small footprint, it was clear Norris created a vehicle for expression and voice for which it seemed many were longing.”

You are invited to make your own Race Card. “Race Cards can be thoughtful, funny, heartbreaking, brave, teeming with anger, and shimmering with hope. Some make you smile. Others might make you squirm. You just might wonder why some of the more prickly submissions deserve a place on this website’s Race Card Wall?

“Here’s the answer: The intention is to use these cards to get a peek at America’s honest views about Race, so I must try to honor those people who offer up candor, even if what they share is unsavory or unacceptable in some people’s eyes.”

“The Race Card Project received a prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in electronic communications for turning a pejorative phrase into a productive and far-reaching dialogue on a difficult topic. It began as a small experiment encouraging people to talk about race by sharing Six Word essays on their personal experiences or observations. The Six-Word Stories that poured into the mailbox and the online inbox became the basis for a series of reports on NPR’s morning edition, exploring identity, prejudice, pride, and equality.”

Allentown

I became aware of the site from this piece on CBS Mornings on July 8, 2022. A study finds a correlation between race demographic shifts and the January 6 Capitol riot. It discovered “that the uniting characteristic of people arrested for the January 6th Capitol riot was that they came from counties that saw a substantial decrease in the white population. Tony Dokoupil visits Allentown, Pennsylvania – a community that saw that decline – and talks to residents about how they feel about it.”

Allentown was over 95% non-Hispanic white in 1970. Now only 31% are in that demographic, with the plurality of the area Hispanic. The oldtimers often are nostalgic for the way things used to be. Of course, the people of Allentown in the 1880s likely said the same thing about the influx of Italians and other groups.

Check out the website and the video.

Doctrine of Discovery: papal bull

European Christian governments could lay title to non-European territory

**From https://www.redletterchristians.org/called-to-respond-dismantling-the-doctrine-of-discovery/**

The Anti-Racism Task Force at my church has been holding a series of online discussions. One involved the Doctrine of Discovery. I was vaguely aware of it. From the material:

The Doctrine “originally came from Papal bulls issued in the 1100s by popes, providing permission for Christian explorers to take land from non-believers and do with those people whatever they wanted. (e.g.Crusades, slavery, etc.)”

Daniel N. Paul created a First Nations history, worth reading in its entirety. He starts with a quote from Thomas Aquinas’ rationalization. “On the part of the Church, however, there is mercy which looks to the conversion of the wanderer… after [a couple of tries] that, if he is yet stubborn, the Church no longer hoping for his conversion, looks to the salvation of others, by excommunicating him and separating him from the Church, and furthermore delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death.”

The Gilder Lehrman website describes in detail “The Papal Bull ‘Inter Caetera,’ issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493… [It] played a central role in the Spanish conquest of the New World.” This follows a similar series of bulls by Pope Nicolas V a few decades earlier justifying the Portuguese slave trade.

The American version

The Wikipedia entry, also useful, notes: The doctrine… is a “concept of public international law expounded by the United States Supreme Court in a series of decisions, most notably Johnson v. M’Intosh in 1823. Chief Justice John Marshall explained and applied the way that colonial powers laid claim to lands belonging to foreign sovereign nations during the Age of Discovery. Under it, European Christian governments could lay title to non-European territory on the basis that the colonisers travelled and ‘discovered’ said territory.”

Look at the whole thing, which helps to explain the Monroe Doctrine and most especially Manifest Destiny. A legal debate found the Native Americans “to be in violation of international law through their resistance to Spanish exploration and missionary activities. By resisting Spanish incursions, Indians were, according to Vitoria, provoking war with the Spanish invaders, thus justifying Spanish conquest of Indian lands.”

I also highly recommend the links at the Upstander Project.

In a quick search, you’ll find a number of churches, governments, and other organizations repudiating the idea of the Doctrine of Discovery. These bodies recognize that the philosophy is not well known, and difficult to understand. But they recognize they’ve been advantaged, and that it still has an impact on modern-day dealings.

The Unitarians lowlight one of their own, Joseph Story. He was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court at the time of the Johnson v. M’Intosh decision. The United Church of Christ addresses “Why it still Matters Today.” A group of Anabaptists noted: “Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery can seem overwhelming for a lot of people. Here you can find a few foundational components to help break it down.”

This is a big topic, far beyond what I can fairly address here. But I believe it is worth your while to investigate.

I’m going to miss Ken Screven

a fixture in his community

Damn. I’m going to miss Ken Screven. Ken, who reported for decades at WRGB/CBS6, the first African-American television reporter and news anchor in the Albany market, passed away on May 18 at the age of 71.

I first met Ken back in 1979 when he was covering an arts program at Hamilton Hill in Schenectady, but he doesn’t remember that. He did remember that he interviewed me in January 1985 when we were plugging a benefit concert called Rock for Raoul, in memory of Albany cartoonist/FantaCo employee/my friend Raoul Vezina.

For a number of years, we had this nodding acquaintance. I was going to church in Albany’s Center Square and he lived literally around the corner.

I watched him on the air with his booming voice and compassionate, intelligent presence covering a wide range of stories. One of his best was The Mystery Of Screven County. this was a 3-part series he made in 1996. “Ken spent a week with a producer and a cameraman in 1996…searching for the connection to his name…to a place called ‘Screven County, Georgia’. It was a journey that took him to New York City…Maryland…Savannah Georgia…and the low lands of South Carolina. It went on to win the award of ‘Best Documentary’ from the NYS Associated Press Broadcasters Assn.”

Ken was, as the Times Union’s Chris Churchill noted, “the most recognizable black person here in one of the nation’s whitest metropolitan areas.”

Retirement?

It was The End Of An Era when Ken retired from WRGB after 34 years. Retirement suited him. He was outspoken on Facebook and in his Times Union blog. Since I was also on the TU platform at the time, we ended up comparing notes about audience reactions.

While some, including me, loved what he wrote, others were upset. And part of it was that he acknowledged stuff he had to endure as a black man in the sometimes parochial Capital District. Sometimes, it’s not the big stuff, it’s the little irritants that get under one’s skin. “Gee, you don’t sound black on the radio.” He wrote about being the only black kid in his class, something I could relate to.

When he reviewed the documentary I Am Not Your Negro, he noted, “Even though [James] Baldwin died in 1987, and much of his words contained in the movie reach back 50 years, the issues Baldwin talks about are still with us, raw and festering in the minds of many of Trump nation… This is a significant spotlight on an America we thought no longer existed.” His disdain for Donald J. was unapologetic.

As he noted in The Conscience of the Newsroom for the New York State Broadcasters Association, he encountered “racism as he joined WRGB.” He insisted on “relating the humanity and heart behind the news.” Correctly, I believe, he felt “the art and craft of reporting are succumbing to the demands of the market-driven news cycle.”

Profiled

Ken was often profiled. For our PBS station WMHT, he was part of the
Breaking Stereotypes | Out in Albany series. “Ken Screven, a broadcasting trailblazer, talks about life as a gay black man. Originally from New York City, he started in broadcasting in 1973… ‘When I came here I said, ‘OK, this is your authentic life. The person that you’re supposed to be. And who you are.'”

For Spectrum News: Screven Remains Active, Despite On-Air Retirement (Feb. 18, 2019). Years after his retirement from WRGB-TV after 38 years of telling stories that touched everyone, reporter Ken Screven remains a fixture in his community, from his Albany Times Union blogs to his active social media following. This Black History Month, we take an in-depth look at the trails he blazed to become the first black on-air reporter in the Capital Region.”

Chuck Miller and I had an idea for some Times Union bloggers to get together. I jokingly suggested having it at Ken Screven’s place because Ken was having some mobility problems. Chuck actually pursued it, and it was so. Twice, actually, in early 2015 and late 2016.

Talking at FPC

It may be that the last two times I talked with Ken in person were at funerals at my church. In January 2019, it was after the funeral of Bob Lamar, the former pastor of the church. While we were talking, one of the choir members said he had a voice like a Stradivarius, which was true.

Almost exactly a year later, we talked after the service for our friend Keith Barber. It was at that reception where Ken took this selfie of us, though he didn’t send it to me until a year later, with the message, “Be well.”

In February of 2022, Ken was facing “mounting medical bills.” He went from hospital to rehabilitation a couple of times. His friends started a GoFundMe campaign and raised over $33,000, crushing the goal of $25,000. I contributed, of course. But should this be the way we do health in this country?

Ken was a 2009 Citizen Action Jim Perry Progressive Leadership Award recipient and the In Our Own Voices 2018 Community Advocate honoree. In 2020 he was honored by the Albany Damien Center with its Hero Award, for his commitment to educating and advocating for the community.

But more than that, he was my friend, who died too soon.