December 2014 - Page 5 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Black with a capital B?

Between 1850 and 1920, the United States census classified those of African descent as black, negro, mulatto, quadroon or octoroon — depending on the visual assessment of the census taker.

Abraham Joshua Heschel walks with Martin Luther King Jr. on civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Courtesy of the American Jewish Archives

Arthur the AmeriNZ sent me an article about the new Speaker of the Nevada state assembly, Ira Hansen, and notes: “This guy obviously endorses the current Republican meme about how the relationship of blacks and the Democratic Party is akin to that of master and slave. I’d love to see your take on that, um, interesting propaganda point.”

Specifically: “[Hansen] wrote that African-Americans are insufficiently grateful for being given their freedom: ‘The lack of gratitude and the deliberate ignoring of white history in relation to eliminating slavery is a disgrace that Negro leaders should own up to.'”

And from this story: “The relationship of Negroes and Democrats is truly a master-slave relationship, with the benevolent master knowing what’s best for his simple-minded darkies.”

Lessee, what do I think? (Roger works mightily to rein in his sarcasm…)

1. I do recall the national Republican Party in the past few years giving at least lip service to the idea that the party needs to be more inclusive. To that end, Hansen is a big FAIL.

2. We’ve been “celebrating” the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War for over three years in this country, and the (very imperfect) narrative that Lincoln freed the slaves, the war was fought to free the slaves, has been front and center. What the heck is he talking about?

2a. Virtually all progress toward freedoms for black people in the United States has involved white people, from the slave owner who freed their “property” upon death to the abolitionists of the 19th century, to the activists before World War II, to the Freedom Riders in the 1960s, some of whom died for the cause. Truman desegregating the armed forces. Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights and Voting Acts, which have been undercut in recent years. Hansen’s argument is a fiction, of course.

3. I could buy the idea that the Republican party stood for “freedom” if so many of their votes and policies haven’t been to disempower the poor and middle class and restrict choices (except when it comes to guns).

4. Goodness knows that the Democratic party in the United States is corporatist and that President Obama is likewise. But maybe a smidgen less than the Republicans, which is why blacks still tend to vote Democratic.

But I really zeroed in on Hansen’s use of the word Negro, which apparently he often fails to capitalize. I happened upon this recent New York Times article about the racial designation.

Between 1850 and 1920, the United States census classified those of African descent as black, negro, mulatto, quadroon or octoroon — depending on the visual assessment of the census taker. By 1930, the Census Bureau offered just one of these categories: negro…

(I LOVE that 1890 census. Seriously.)

In the mid-1920s, W. E. B. Du Bois began a letter-writing campaign, demanding that book publishers, newspaper editors and magazines capitalize the N in Negro when referring to Black people.

While initially resistant, many mainstream publications accepted the request, “including The Atlantic Monthly and, eventually, The New York Times.”

The article is pushing for the B in Black to be capitalized, as it is a designation of the race. I know this argument rather well, having written a paper for a college sociology class in New Paltz c. 1974; the paper was “corrected” for not capitalizing black, er, Black. This is one of those issues where I just don’t much care one way or another. I get the point, I suppose, but with substantial issues of racism that still exist, it just doesn’t resonate much with me.

An older article describes whether black should be used as a noun or adjective. Given my long-stated disdain for “African-American” as narrow and inaccurate, I’m not much bothered by the noun use.

MOVIE REVIEW: Birdman

Birdman is “a backstage drama, an absurdist comedy, a quasi-autobiographical revelation.”

Way back on Thanksgiving weekend, I saw Birdman, or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance at the Spectrum in Albany. I really admired what they were trying to do, this black comedy about an actor named Riggan (Michael Keaton) who had become rich and famous for playing a comic book superhero, the title reference.

Now he wants to write, produce, direct and star in a play on Broadway. However, he finds himself in conflict with some of the other actors, a nasty Broadway critic, and mostly, with himself.

The scene where Riggan is walking through Times Square nearly naked (seen in part in the trailer) is quite funny, as is the superhero action sequence (likewise teased in the trailer). This is great work by Michael Keaton, who, of course, played Batman in the movies then walked away from the role.

I think the movie says some important things about celebrity, trying to be true to one’s artistic vision, and how difficult the acting profession can be on family life. The actors are all fine, including Andrea Riseborough, Naomi Watts and especially Edward Norton as his fellow thespians; Zach Galifianakis as the guy trying to keep the production together; Lindsay Duncan as the steely critic; Amy Ryan as Riggan’s ex-wife; and Emma Stone as his very moody daughter.

Eric Melin wrote, correctly, in Scene-Stealers.com: “It’s a lot of things-a backstage drama, an absurdist comedy, a quasi-autobiographical revelation, a self-aware jab at blockbusters, a wannabe social-media age satire, and a piece of technically superior magical realism-but one thing it isn’t, is subtle.”

It has reviewed really well – 94% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, last I checked. Yet as I walked out of the theater, I saw someone I knew, who had seen the same showing of the film. He asked if I liked the film, and I said, “I’m still working on that.” He replied, “I didn’t like it.”

A couple of weeks later, I STILL don’t know that I liked it as much as admired it. Perhaps the too-positive buzz raised my expectations too high. Maybe the quirky direction of Alejandro González Iñárritu, who also co-wrote the screenplay was at times too distracting. Or maybe, just maybe, I just wasn’t in the mood for that particular movie at that particular time; it happens.

V is for Virginia

Virginia was the 10th state to enter the Union.

I’ve long had this odd fascination with the state of Virginia. Partly it’s because it’s part of the old Confederacy, but the northernmost part. The distance from Richmond, the Confederate capital during the US Civil War, to Washington, DC is only 110 miles. General Robert E. Lee of Virginia seemed the reluctant warrior.

Several northwest counties broke away from Virginia during the Civil War to create the state of West Virginia, which entered the Union in 1863.

Four of the first five US Presidents, all save John Adams of Massachusetts, were from Virginia, and eight altogether, which gave it the nickname “Mother of Presidents”.

Here’s some trivia information stuck inside my head. In order for the new Constitution to be accepted, nine of the 13 states had to ratify it, and it was so. But the holdouts were massively important to the vitality of the nation; finally, they came around, and that’s why I remember Virginia was the 10th state, New York, the 11th, and North Carolina, the 12th. Rhode Island made lucky 13.

In 1607, the first permanent New World English colony was established in 1607 at Jamestown. I was reminded by a question on the TV quiz show JEOPARDY! that the colonists resorted to cannibalism during the brutal winter of 1609.

I have vacationed in Virginia at least twice. Once, with my girlfriend at the time back in the early 1980s, I went to Virginia Beach. We went to see her brother, whose name, as I recall, was Roger. The other time was in 2008 when my family visited Yorktown and Colonial Williamsburg.

Every time I take the train to Charlotte, NC, of course, I travel through Virginia. I think I spend more time in that state than any other during the trip.

The most frequent reference to Virginia in this blog has to be the case of Loving v. Virginia, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the bans by Virginia (and other states) on interracial marriages were unconstitutional.

Since 1969, the motto for the state has been “Virginia is for Lovers”.

Read about Virginia from Wikipedia and the official government site.

ABC Wednesday, Round 15

John Lennon: #9 Dream

This is the anniversary of John Lennon’s death, which I always remember. Obviously, he was taken by the number nine. He was born on the 9th of October (1940), as was his son Sean (1975).

Reportedly, The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein first saw them perform on the 9th of December, 1961. “Beatles experts might dispute the actual date, but John Lennon recalled November 9, 1966 as the date when he first met Yoko Ono.”

He even died on the 9th, in British time. The owner of FantaCo, Tom Skulan, reminded me that, after I got the word – on Monday Night Football, no less – I called him, and others, with the sad news.

He included the number 9 in many of his songs, such as Revolution #9. LISTEN to #9 Dream from his 1974 album Walls and Bridges. The single coincidentally peaked at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 US charts.
***
Who Was the Walrus? Analyzing the Strangest Beatles Song, which you can LISTEN to.

The perfect victim, just the right symbol

Why is it that white men wave real guns around crowded areas in America and are taken into custody alive, yet Tamir Rice, a 12-year old carrying a toy gun in an open carry state, is dead?

Right around December 1, when everyone was rightfully talking about the anniversary of Rosa Parks’ 1955 refusal to cede her seat in a Birmingham bus, one of the Twitter pals of Arthur Tweeted, “Do some research on Claudette Colvin, sidelined as she didn’t have the right ‘look’ of a true heroine”. Arthur wanted my thoughts on that, maybe on March 2, 2015, which is the 60th anniversary of Colvin’s arrest — the first arrest for resisting bus segregation.

As it turns out, I DID write about Claudette Colvin, almost five years ago, and I don’t have much more to say.

Arthur added:

Seems to me this raises issues of expediency — deliberately choosing the best “face” to put on an issue (something I know LGBT activists have done, too), and also how quaint such outdated social mores seem to us now. But it seems to me it also raises issues of elevating sidelined pioneers in struggles for justice because we don’t look down on people like that nowadays.

I think it still happens, all the time. And it has to do, among other things, with young black men getting shot by police, or in Trayvon Martin’s case in Florida, by a wannabe cop. So the narrative becomes whether any of these victims is the “right” one to galvanize a nation seemingly willing to allow for the idea that each of the shootings was justified.

Thus, in Florida, Trayvon Martin is turned into a “thug” who may have smoked pot. Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO is a “thug,” who stole some tobacco product before he was killed.

How about Eric Garner in New York City? He was allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes on a Staten Island sidewalk, but the police action that led to his death was ON VIDEO. The fact that the grand jury, in this case, failed to indict Daniel Pantaleo, shortly after Darren Wilson was not indicted by the grand jury in Missouri, seems to be the tipping point, with demonstrations all around the country.

It is the perception that the PROCESS is broken. Read the New York Times editorial. Well, unless you’re Pat Robertson, who believes police brutality against blacks is a thing of the past. Or the more pervasive view of CONTINUING to parse every case to find some fault of the victim.

Former Republic National Committee head Michael Steele complained about a lack of indictment in the Garner case. Even former President George W. Bush found the decision “hard to understand.”

Why is it that white men wave real guns around crowded areas in America and are taken into custody alive, yet Tamir Rice, a 12-year old carrying a toy gun in an open-carry state, is dead? In part, I think it’s the fact that both the police and the general (white) public actually view black kids as older and less innocent than white kids. Thus the suggestion that the 12-year-old boy in Cleveland killed by police might have been 20. (But shooting a 20-year-old unarmed black man would not have been OK either.)

These cases seem to be piling up recently, with the shooting death by police of 34-year-old Rumain Brisbon in Phoenix, AZ, a black man armed only with a bottle of Oxycotin pain medicine. Then there’s 22-year-old Darrien Hunt, who was shot in the back six times by Utah cops. He had a cosplay sword; no charges were filed. Read this article about the decline of police deaths, even as civilian deaths from police actions have increased.

I am actually excited that the demonstrations are taking place in locations NOT involved in these shootings. What makes me guardedly hopeful about the future is a large number of young white demonstrators; it’s not just a “black issue” anymore.

I recently posted on my Facebook Ezekiel 13:10 New International Version
Because they lead my people astray, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash.”
Make of that what you will.

Finally, from Arthur:

Seems to me that change usually happens because of the people who are NOT the smug, self-satisfied folks who try and dictate who is and who is not an “appropriate” symbol for a change movement. I seem to remember this one guy who was born in a stable and grew up to hang out with prostitutes, tax collectors, and all sorts of marginalised people, a guy who lost his temper and wrecked a market, disrupting businesses, before eventually being executed under questionable circumstances by the government. That’s one thuggish guy people don’t seem to mind as a symbol, even if they choose to ignore many parts of the story.