racism Archives - Page 32 of 33 - Ramblin' with Roger

Getting All Post-Racial with MLK, Jr.

Everything I’ve read, all of his speeches I’ve devoured, suggests that MLK would still be in the fight for equal justice, not convinced that we’ve already gotten there.

Since the King holiday is coming up, I thought I’d mention that noise I’ve been reading about Martin Luther King, Jr. being a Republican. This involved posters over the past couple of years and his niece declaring it to be so. Frankly, I have not come across a totally credible source proving it one way or another.

The Republican party, of course, was the party of Lincoln, while the Democratic Party, particularly in the South, where King lived, was the party of George Wallace and other segregationists. So it is quite plausible that he was a member of the GOP, at least until the 1960 election of John Kennedy. Surely he voted for Democrat Lyndon Johnson over Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964, his public comments make clear.

But most of the conversations miss the greater point, which is, “Would Martin Luther King, Jr. be a Republican in the 21st Century?” Those who suggest that the answer would be “yes” generally zero in on one section of his March on Washington I Have A Dream speech in August 1963, the part that goes: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. The clear implication is that race-based remedies for past or current discrimination should be off the table.

But read the very end of the speech:

from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men, and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

So the real question becomes this: would MLK think Americans are equally free in these days? Or would he think the increasing economic disparity between the rich and the poor needed to be addressed? Would he fret over unequal access to food, shelter, health care? Would he weep over the resegregation of education?

Obviously, I don’t know for certain. But everything I’ve read, all of his speeches I’ve devoured, suggests that MLK would still be in the fight for equal justice, not convinced that we’ve already gotten there. A big issue in his latter days involved a disproportional number of black soldiers fighting and dying in a war he considered unjust. The garbage collectors fight that brought him to Memphis just before his death was as much about economic disparity as it was about race.

I’m a Census guy. Many people tell me they wish we’d stop measuring race. Why is it that the government still counts people in that way, other than the historic reasons? The government measures race and ethnicity in part to delineate equality or disparity in income, housing, and the like. Maybe we’ll stop counting race when we stop being unequal. I really do hope we get there someday.
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SamuraiFrog shares Glenn Beck taking back civil rights from MAD magazine.

Roger Answers Your Questions, Denise, Tom, Shooting Parrots, Jaquandor & dogs

I have no “traditional Christmas dinner menu”. Over the years, it’s been ham, chicken, turkey, duck, lamb, lasagna, probably roast beef, even Chinese takeout.

What a great bunch of responses to my request!

Ginger, Buddy and Shadow proving doggie wisdom from Pawprints in the Sands of Time ask the fundamental question:
Alright, here’s for your wish…Why do u want us to play this game of questions and answers this Christmas?

Because I learn so much, both about the person, er, entity, who is asking, and more, about myself as I think about things that might not have otherwise occurred to me. In other words, it’s an exercise in self-reflection.
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I “know” Denise Nesbitt – and “know” is such an interesting term for someone you have never actually met, but it’s accurate nevertheless – through her creation of ABC Wednesday. She also can be found at Mrs. Nesbitt’s Space.

OK, What did you buy your wife, mother, and daughter for Christmas Roger?

There was this Medieval Faire every year at the Cathedral of All Saints in Albany, NY for about 30 years. And while I was going out with Carol, I sometimes -thrice, she tells me – would buy her a hand knit wool sweater from this particular woman. Then the faire stopped for about eight years. I’d buy her a sweater from LL Bean, and once from this Irish shop across the river in Troy, but it just wasn’t the same. Then last year, the faire was backe…I mean, back! Unfortunately, this particular vendor couldn’t make it, as she had another commitment. Bummer. But this year, she was back, Carol hinted heavily what she wanted, we walked away, but later, I came back and bought. There was also this teddy bear that she lost, that was given to her by her late brother; I found not quite a replica, but close.

Lydia got a lot of things: books, clothes, an enhanced version of the old game Twister, with CDs rather than a spinner; the big thing was this expensive doll she wanted, complete with wardrobe. In fact, her mother and I had purchased SO many items, we held some back for her birthday, three months hence. At that same Faire I mentioned, there was a soap in the shape of a seashell that Santa discovered she wanted.

My mother has been difficult to shop for for years. If you ask her directly, she’ll either say, “Oh anything” or “You needn’t bother.” Unhelpful to be sure. But my sister tells me that she really likes these puzzle books. I ended going to the CVS Pharmacy, found a couple of those, plus a lap blanket and a bathrobe – it’s been COLD in North Carolina lately.
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Shooting Parrots, who provides “random thoughts in a random world”, asks:
What was the best ever Christmas present you received? And which was the worst?!
I think the best is the unexpected: my father helping me on my Sunday paper route on Christmas morning in 1966, or our first color TV in 1969, or the free tree my then significant other and I got on Christmas Eve 1991 from Sears, and took home on a city bus.
Worst?

Haven’t a clue. I mean, I groan when my wife gives me clothes, but it really isn’t a bad gift. Maybe it’s because I’ve mastered the art of regifting, long before I’d ever heard the term.
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Tom the Mayor I know from my time at FantaCo, though I actually met him when he worked at the Albany YMCA on Washington Avenue (RIP).
Do you ever feel any bigotry in your neighborhood in Albany? Do you think that Racial attitudes have changed since you first moved to Albany?

Interesting question. I always wonder how it would have been growing up in Albany. But I didn’t get here until I was 26 and already with the receding hairline. And some people know who I am here, a couple recognizing me from my Times Union blog just this week.

I’m not saying that my life in Albany has been incident-free. More than once, people have yelled racist comments, usually from moving vehicles. But that hasn’t happened in at least a decade.

I recall that in the early 1990s I got unsolicited lectures (at least twice) about the problems of miscegenation, not for the adults involved, but for “the children” that might arrive. So I’m curious how this will play out for my daughter, whether she’ll be subjected to that. It was really important for us that Lydia go to a diverse daycare, and she had friends who were black, white, and Asian. I have cautious hope that things are indeed better.
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Buffalo’s finest blogger, Jaquandor at Byzantium Shores asks:
1. You are ordered to design a new menu for your family’s Christmas dinner…with the one stipulation that you use none of the dishes that are currently featured in your traditional Christmas dinner. What’s the menu?

Here’s the problem: I have no “traditional Christmas dinner menu”. Over the years, it’s been ham, chicken, turkey, duck, lamb, lasagna, probably roast beef, even Chinese takeout. So I would have to go with hot dogs, hamburgers, fish filets, French fries, and grilled cheese sandwiches. What, no veggies? Again, it’s been all over the map, so it’s either a vegetable I’ve had, or do not like.

2. Are there any current “reality” shows that you would actually consider auditioning for?
If by stretching the definition to include game shows, “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire”, maybe. My antipathy for reality shows isn’t just with the game, it’s the editing to make the program more dramatic.

3. If you ran into Bill O’Reilly somewhere on the street on, say, December 19, would you tell him “Happy Holidays!” just to see him get angry? (I know I would!)
Yeah, except it’d be “Happy holidays, Bill,” so he knew I knew who he was.

4. Do you have high hopes, medium hopes, or not much hope at all for Governor-elect Cuomo?
Medium-low. I thought he ran a lousy campaign, he was not very forthcoming – his financials didn’t come out until weeks after the election – and I just don’t much trust him. The only reason he won is that he was running against a nutcase. I didn’t even vote for him. (No, I didn’t vote for Paladino, I voted for Howie Hawkins on the Green Party line, because it was evident that Cuomo was going to win anyway.)

Of course, to be fair, I’m not sure what ANYONE can do about this state and local government crisis. Did you see that 60 Minutes segment? ALL the states are in big fiscal trouble.

Well, next time out: Demeur, Anthony, Gordon, Scott, ChrisJ, and anyone else who wants to play.

Steve Bissette Tackles the Hate Movies

The late Gail Fisher, who is best know for playing Peggy Fair on the detective series Mannix, starred in The New Girl, and it also featured Edward Asner.

Not only is my good buddy Steve Bissette a great comic book artist, he is a cultural historian. First, he linked to a booklet created by Steve Canyon artist Milton Caniff on How to Spot Someone of Japanese Descent, but the terminology used was less appropriate.

Then he put together a series on posts on what he calls Hate Movies:

1. The horrific anti-Japanese propaganda “documentaries” during and after WW2, and well into the early 1960s

2. The 1960s exploitation movies that played upon racist fears of miscegenation, black-and-white sexual relations, and so on (from which I purloined the image to the left).
Discussion of movie titles such as I Passed for White and My Baby Is Black.

3. How to Deal with Racial Conflict Head-On & Fail at the Boxoffice, Whatever Your Race – the harder to summarize, confrontational race conflict dramas of the 1960s.
Features a six-minute clip of a pre-Star Trek William Shatner in the title role as The Intruder, plus a discussion of the film by Shatner and director Roger Corman. Also a discussion of actor Sidney Poitier and writer LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka.

3 APPENDIX. What Happened to The Intruder?
Mike Ripps’ versions of Bayou aka Poor White Trash (trailer) and Roger Corman’s The Intruder under the title Shame (the whole thing).

4. Turning Up the Heat: Bill, Juan, & Leroi, Then & Today Or, What Do You Call Angry Anti-Hate Hate Movies? Whatever You Call Them, Don’t Call Them Late for Supper!
LeRoi Jones’s Dutchman (1966), which will feature in the next eight segments. The Negro Handbook and the Negro Motorist Green Book; and is there anti-white xenophobia? Also featuring FOX News and the firing of Juan Williams from NPR.

The series was briefly interrupted as explained HERE.

5. Subversion on the Subway. LeRoi Jones/Amiri Imamu Baraka’s Dutchman and Jones’ wife Hettie Jones.

6. Lula’s Roots: Little Sisters, Passing Pinkies, Poor White Trash. Antecedents of Dutchman’s Lulu in such diverse fare as D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915), Fritz Lang and Thea Von Harbou’s Metropolis (1927), Elia Kazan’s Pinky (1949), Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959), Robert Mulligan’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night (1967).
I was most fascinated by “Lewis Freeman’s government-produced educational short film The New Girl (1959), produced for the President’s Committee on Government Contracts, created by Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower in August, 1953 and …chaired by none other than Vice-President Richard M. Nixon.” The late Gail Fisher, who is best know for playing more-than-just-a-secretary Peggy Fair on the detective series Mannix, starred, and it also featured Edward Asner. Steve linked to it, but I thought I would as well:
PART 1 and PART 2.

7. On a Downtown Train…Cashing Out Clay. More on Dutchman, plus Amiri Imamu poetry.

8. From Lula to Lulu: Making Manhattan in London – Underground, Overseas. Dutchman and the Beatles films link; Black Like Me; To Sir With Love; and an episode of The Outer Limits.

9. Bring Out Your Dead…”The Jones Boys”: Carrying Clay. Clay, the black male character in Dutchman, as he relates to the music of Charles Mingus, and the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Fred Hampton.

10. Going Continental: Continental Divides. The distribution of Dutchman by Walter Reade/Sterling, which also was responsible for Lord of the Flies, Black Like Me, Ghidrah, Night of the Living Dead, Dr. Who and the Daleks, and Slaves.

11. Dutchman: Contemporaries, Ripples & Shockwaves. Masculin, Féminin; The Brig; Marat/Sade; very early Brian DePalma films such as Hi, Mom!; Be Black; and Paradise Now, which Steve rightly suggests is an antecedent to to the Broadway musical Hair.

12. Uncle Toms, Watermelon Men, Sweet Sweetback & Mandingos. “Being a potpourri of images, quotes, and links that relate to, summarize and/or surround the essay installments I’ve posted to date…” Including the “blaxplotation” films of the early 1970s, such as Watermelon Man (1970). the brutal Fight For Your Life (1977), and the pivotal Melvin van Peebles work, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971).

EPILOGUE: White Trash, Blaxploitation, Hate Movies & Continental Blues. Or; Final Look at What I Was Talking About All Month
A summary, but mentions a Leadbelly movie I need to know more about.

It’s fair to say that there is a LOT of material here, and the blogposts are a first draft of a project Steve is working on. As he then noted, the postings “prompted deeper research into some venues, and I’m expanding and considerably revising a print version of this essay for publication later this year in one of my collected editions of my fanzine/magazine/online writings on genre films.” Also, at the end of each segment, he writes, “Please note: I do not condone or share the views expressed in the archival images presented in this serialized essay at Myrant. I share them here for historical, educational, and entertainment purposes only.”

R is for Redskins

I also puzzled over the Major League baseball team, the Cleveland Indians, less over the name, and more over what I consider the bizarre caricature of Chief Wahoo.

It’s football season in America – I mean, using the ball to the left, NOT the ball to the right.
When I was growing up, my father and I would watch, on our local CBS-TV affiliate, all the games of the New York Giants of the National Football League, who actually played in New York, not New Jersey, at the time. Their main rivals were, and are, the Philadelphia Eagles, the (hated) Dallas Cowboys, and the Washington Redskins. Even then, I found the nickname of the Washington team peculiar. Most teams were named for animals – Lions (Detroit NFL) and Tigers (Detroit baseball) and Bears (Chicago NFL), e.g. The ones that were named for people tended to be about geography (New York Yankees-baseball) or occupations (Pittsburgh’s baseball Pirates and NFL Steelers). “Redskins” seemed somehow unseemly, and this was long before I’d ever heard the pejorative term “politically correct.”

So, I was a little surprised to read here and elsewhere that the team’s owner had meant it as an honorific. This writer talks about the term’s historical usage, going back to the writings of American novelist James Fenimore Cooper, whose “use of redskin as a Native American in-group term was entirely authentic, reflecting both the accurate perception of the Indian self-image and the evolving respect among whites for the Indians’ distinct cultural perspective, whatever its prospects. The descent of this word into obloquy is a phenomenon of more recent times.”

Nevertheless, for some time, it has been the source of controversy, as American Indian Sports Team Mascots notes. In fact, only last year, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Washington Redskins can keep the team name. “Seven native Americans had sued to force the Washington Redskins to change the team name,” but the Court “let stand a ruling that their challenge came too late.” still, this article explains the issue well.

I also puzzled over the Major League baseball team, the Cleveland Indians, less over the name, and more over what I consider the bizarre caricature of Chief Wahoo. Here’s an article about the Indians’ mascot.

I suppose the Atlanta Braves baseball team name bugs me less than the incessant use of the tomahawk chop, more obnoxious when I heard it in Fulton County Stadium in 1995 than the video suggests.

And what of the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame? This does not seem to be an issue. Then again, everyone’s Irish in America, especially in March.

What thinkest thou?

ABC Wednesday – Round 7

M is for Mockingbird

A marathon reading to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee’s classic novel TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and raise funds for Literacy Volunteers of the Greater Capital Region will take place on Saturday, November 6, 2010 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Townsend Park Bakery LLC, 238 Washington Ave., Albany.

2010 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. If you are unfamiliar with this classic, which won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize, read here, and the affiliated links. But basically, it’s about a young white girl named Scout, a/k/a Jean Louise – the “tomboy” narrator of the tale – growing up in a U.S. Southern town in the 1930s with her older brother Jem, whose lawyer-father Atticus Finch ends up defending a black man accused of raping a white woman, and the repercutions the trial has on all involved, indeed on the whole town. The case was almost certainly inspired by the Scottsboro Boys trials of the 1930s in Alabama, where nine black teenagers allegedly gang-raped two white women, a crime that never actually occurred.

The story is probably best known through the popular 1962 movie adaptation starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, Brock Peters as the accused, Tom Robinson, and Mary Badham as Scout, Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The film also featured a young Robert Duvall, in his film debut, as the mysterious and misunderstood Boo Radley, a role some have compared to his part in the 2010 film Get Low.

The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but lost to the epic Lawrence of Arabia. It won three awards: Peck for Best Actor Award (his first Oscar win, fifth nomination); Horton Foote for Best Adapted Screenplay; and the team of Art Directors/Set Decorators. Hear one of the most famous speeches from the movie, as well as its musical theme from the Oscar-nominated score by Elmer Bernstein.

From Wikipedia: In 1995, the film was listed in the National Film Registry. It also ranks twenty-fifth on the American Film Institute’s 10th-anniversary list of the greatest American movies of all time, and #1 on AFI’s list of best courtroom films. In 2003, AFI named Atticus Finch the greatest movie hero of the 20th century.

Atticus Finch is considered not only one of America’s most beloved lawyers but also one of the greatest cinematic fathers.

Earlier this year, I got a chance to see a play adaptation of the story at Capital Rep in Albany. While not as strong as the movie – how could it be? – it was nonetheless enjoyable.

For the 50th anniversary, CBS Sunday Morning reported on the celebratory events taking place in Harper Lee’s hometown. Notably absent was the reclusive Ms. Lee herself, who never wrote another book because she felt it could never be as good as her first one.

An interesting dichotomy: To Kill A Mockingbird is taught all over the country – here’s a readers’ and teachers’ guide – but also one of the books most banned or challenged.

A marathon reading to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee’s classic novel TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD – To Kill A Saturday – and raise funds for Literacy Volunteers of the Greater Capital Region will take place on Saturday, November 6, 2010, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Townsend Park Bakery LLC, 238 Washington Ave., Albany, NY. Rumor has it that I will be one of the readers.
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And now for something completely different: Mockingbird – Carly Simon and James Taylor.

ABC Wednesday – Round 7