Dr. King’s Day: Holidays Kept by Ourselves In Silence and Apart January 18, 2010

The multi-generational saga of slavery and racism in America is something that will touch us all. There is a beginning but never an end. Wounds are never fully closed. Scars are remembered and passed on. A rhetorical memory of stories, poetry and song are crystallized within our heritage, constantly reminding even those of us who never experienced such atrocities of firsthand trauma. Sandwiched between are visual cues frozen in iconography, people that make up the collective black experience…No, let me correct myself…The collective American Experience.

Nov. 2, 1983 President Ronald Reagan signs the bill making Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday while Coretta Scott King watches. Also pictured are Vice President George H. W. Bush; Sen. Charles McCurdy Mathias (R-MD) Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS); Rep. Jack Kemp (R-NY) and Rep. Katie Hall (D-IN)

While working in New York City at a university, MLK Day was a paid holiday but we remained open. As employees it was our choice to work opting for “comp time” or take the holiday. I was the only African American employee on our staff.  I was also the only employee  on our staff that chose to take Martin Luther King Day as a holiday. This annoyed me.  Did I only care because I was black? Did the others not care because they were Caucasian?  To be fair, several of my colleagues were not American. But what about the ones who were American?

I felt that the MLK holiday had a lack of legitimization when the university remained open and employees felt compelled to work in order to serve the students.  My perception was that the day was a free day for blacks. Anyone else could do as they pleased.  The haphazard ceremonies and spattering of closings did nothing to create a the vision of reality that Mrs. King wanted for her slain husband’s holiday.

Image from the Miami Herald

This was not the first time I was confronted with MLK Day angst. Earlier during my college days, I guilt-riddened my white friend into attending a Martin Luther King celebration on campus. The information that it was being hosted by the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity made her more reluctant to attend.  The “Alphas” were known for their step shows and raucous conversation at the student union.

Frankly, they scared many of the white students.

Most of the Alphas were straight A, model college citizens but the step shows were foreign to this small Texas agricultural community.  My friend grew ambivalent as we approached the commemorative MLK posters and audience of African American students salted with a few whites for a dash of diversity.  She did not speak but I knew she was angry at me for making her go. Why wouldn’t she be?  It was just 30 minutes ago that I accused her of being unsympathetic towards my heritage because she would not attend.

“How can you be my friend and not care?” I asked.

“How could you care Afrocity?” she asked. ” You never do anything black ever! Why today just because some stupid holiday says you have to care about him?”

“Do it for me,” I plead. “Have I ever asked you to do anything for my blackness? I am black you know.”

“No Afrocity!!!! Shocker. That went right over my head like a 747…Gee I did not know.”

I shook my head and propped my butt on her dorm bed. “You don’t care about blacks but I bet you would go to a Cinco De Mayo cookout for that Mexican that gave you pubic lice. “

If looks could kill my friend would have had me in the county morgue in one second.  I sat there kicking my legs against her K-mart mauve comforter as I gazed at the Wayne’s World movie poster on the cinder block wall.  Bitch, she didn’t know that Bohemian Rhapsody was an old song by Queen until I told her. She thought it was made special for the movie. Hmph.   I recalled our previous disputes over whether or not to walk to McDonald’s at 2am after we drank too much; or if she would ask a boy if he liked me. This was the first time we argued about race.  I wondered if we would come back from this.

She grabbed her backpack. “Fine you brat, but it had better not last more than one hour…I can’t believe you are asking me to do this on my night off from work when I have so much shit to do.”

“Yay!!! I hugged her.” Afrocity the manipulative bitch wins again.   I ran to the mirror so I could check my make-up.

She rolled her eyes at me and looked down at her purple sweatpants “I’m sure as hell not changing either.”

“I don’t care,” I said putting on my new J. Crew pea camel pea coat.

“I know why you want to do this Afrocity…”

She did not have to say anything. We both knew the reason but to be a bitch she felt the need to make it clear to my own ears “You are going to prove that you are black because they call you a sellout so you think that by putting on this charade-”

“That is not true,” I interrupted.  She looked at me hard. “Okay, maybe one quarter true, ” I admitted sheepishly.  “But I need you there because they say my white friends don’t care about my being black.”

“I don’t care!” she yelled.

I hushed her as we entered the auditorium.

An organ was playing “We Shall Overcome”.

“This is so gay,” she whispered in a sarcastic tone.

“SHHHH. I will buy you some Everclear on Friday when I get paid.”

“You owe me more than cheap ass Everclear, you better get me some Absolute and I don’t mean those mini bottles neither.”

We took our programs from the Alpha ushers who were dressed in black and white.  I snickered because they looked like 1960′s civil rights workers.   As the auditorium lights dimmed, my friend’s demeanor calmed.  She was in it for the long haul–all two and a half hours of it.

From THE ONION

After the tribute, the lights came on. She was distant towards me, walking out of the auditorium before I could get my coat and gloves together.  I caught up to her outside.  She was walking briskly and I could barely keep up. The temperature had dropped to 40 degrees which was an icebox for Texas.  Me being Afrocity, I had to ask some dumb question about what we had just witnessed.

“Did you like it?” I asked.

Before she could answer, a guy named Chris approached us from the student center.  Chris was a dick. He asked where we had been and my friend said “The MLK thing” .

Chris started laughing loudly and mock singing “We Shall Overcome”.  My friend laughed. Too much laughter.

Perhaps I had succeeded in my own terms by getting her to attend the MLK tribute with me but now I felt all the dumber for it.  How could she make fun of it after seeing what we just saw?  My voice told me to go back to the dorms alone.  I knew if I pressed, she would stay behind with the dickhead racist just to annoy me. She knew I hated him.

“I am cold,” I said.

“So go back to the dorm,” she replied curtly.

“Ok, I will do that.”  I walked away listening to them laughing behind me.  They are laughing at me and I just know she was whining to him about how awful it was that she had to attend the black folks night.

There was a double estrangement at that moment.  All of the cautionary tales of having only white friends swelled in my head.  My tactless strategy failed. She and I would never come back from this day.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

September 11th- An Elephant Never Forgets September 11, 2009

"Busy September " From Hope n' Change Cartoons by Stilton Jarlsberg 2009

I thought I would be able to wake up and write something brilliant today. I was wrong.
Instead, I am held captive by silence and fear. I lived in New York City on September 11, 2001. The days are far but  memories are still too close. Morning soy milk and purring cats greeted me at the kitchen counter along with the retrospective images of planes, falling corpses and clouds of dust. My mind screen imprinted forever.

I did not live through slavery or the Civil War

I did not live through the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

I did not live through the Holocaust.

I did not live through the Kennedy assassination.

I did not live through the Vietnam War.

The fears, images and stories surrounding those events belong to my mother, my grandmother, my brother.They were borrowed into my American experience.

The memories and images of 9-11 belong to me. I experienced the pain and numbing disbelief first hand.

Not us, I thought. Nothing bad ever happens to us. Not America, God always protects us.  Look at my words now. They seem naive and almost ancient.

I hear Reverend Wright, in the background:

“America’s chickens have come home to roost…”

I see Bill Ayers standing on an American flag “we should have done more”

The “truthers” can’t handle the truth.

This is a day of collective remembrance for all who were touched by that day, if you were not, I do not want to hear about what George W. Bush did or did not do. Quiet your thoughts about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is America’s day to memorialize an event that changed our lives forever.

God Bless you all. God Bless the United States of America.

Autographed Letter Signed,

Afrocity.

Sunday Soliloquy: Keeping it “Post-Racial” and In The Closet June 28, 2009

Composers and Collaborators, Duke Ellington (left) and Bill Strayhorn

The study of the African American collective consciousness can be one of great complexity. To say there is a collective assumes that we are all bounded by race exclusive of the black individual. No matter who we are or what we do as African Americans, we are all going to die black.

As I observe the goings ons surrounding  pop singer Michael Jackson’s death, I find  great dissimilarities between the verbal reflections of his Caucasian associates verses those of his African American associates.

Michael Jackson died of cardiac arrest, most likely due to the overuse of prescription drugs. There is not much controversy in that. So why all of the hoopla? Because there is much controversy in the way Michael Jackson live his life which was very let say ‘un-black’.

Historically, the African American community has not been very welcoming to gays and lesbians. Nor have they been very open or honest about mental illness within the community. The idea was that homosexuality and mental illness was something only white people experienced. Let me just pause here to say that I am in no way correlating homosexuality with mental illness, I am simply bring up two subjects that are taboo within the African American community.

When a black celebrity is gay, everything is usually done to erase the societal memory of that. Recently, when I visited the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History, there was an exhibit on African American composer Duke Ellington and his collaborator Billy Strayhorn also an African American and openly gay. Strayhorn composed “Take the A Train”  but he was also friends with Martin Luther King Jr. and did much to advance civil rights. While I can understand that the Smithsonian exhibit was about music, there was nothing mentioned about Strayhorn’s sexuality which was an paramount part of his music and associations.

There is also Bayard Rustin, a gay civil rights activist that was gay. I have mentioned Mr. Rustin in previous posts. Rustin was a close adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. and organized the epic “March on Washington”. Do you hear much about Bayard Rustin?

Much of black leadership has come from the religious wings.  The black church has been viewed as the cornerstone of the black community. This can be traced back to the days of slavery.  Look at the leaders in the black community today. Michael Jackson is dead. Who shows up to the home of his family? Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson. A black person is wrongfully accused of something or murdered  by the police who shows up to defend them Rev. Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. Some innocent political cartoonist draws something about President Barack Obama that is perceived as racist (whether it really is or not) who leads the calls for the publication to fire the cartoonist? Rev. Al Sharpton.

Racial profiling, youth violence, and media racism can all be colored as political issues. So where does religion come into this? Why do we need these “reverends” to come out for us? They do a lot more than praying. They speak for African Americans as a race. This disturbs me because I feel that my views are often not in alignment with theirs. Incidentally as a little anecdotal side note, when GOP chairman Michael Steele or former Secretary of State Condi Rice  were referred to as “uncle toms” by blacks and whites alike, you never heard so much as a peep out of the reverends. Black gays, conservatives, and the mental unstable are kept in the closet.  The National Organization for Women (NOW) also keeps its mouth shut when conservative women such as Gov. Sarah Palin get mauled by the media. In both cases it is an awful but unfortunate double standard.

With Barack Obama in office, many of the religious reactionary and conservative African American voices are now empowered. We are seeing this with the passage of Prop. 8 in California and we are also seeing this with regards to the shaping of Black collective memory. Reverend Jeremiah Wright is being called upon for public appearances more than ever. Rev. Wright’s well known “God Damn America” speech hardly makes him one that should be consulted as a speaker on the black community.

I am by no means condemning the black church.

While I do not attend Sunday services, I consider myself to be “spiritual” . I pray and I read the Bible. I am just not a believer in organized religion. I am a proponent of the separation of church and state, which means separation of church and politics.The black church in my opinion has overstepped these boundaries.

Having a forum for black dialogue is important especially in the public arena. But there is more than one avenue we can take in order to achieve that. At the oresent moment, there is no balance. Something bad happens to a person of color, the media calls upon Rev. Al Sharpton to speak for all blacks.  Sharpton will not defend a black conservative or gay, so where is the diversity in that?

During the election, it was clear that Rev. Jesse Jackson did not care for Barack Obama but he backed him anyway. Where is the freedom of choice in that? Jackson felt pressured to support Obama because they are both of color. I encountered quite a few African Americans that did not agree with Barack Obama. Hell, they did not even like Obama but they voted for him anyway.  Colin Powell turned his back on the Republican Party and his long time friend Senator John McCain to support Barack Obama. Why would Powell do this when Obama has little respect for the military or the policies he instituted under the Bush administration.

When you throw legacy and collective memory into this, you are left with this sort of myth making on the part of our so called African America leaders.  A famous black person dies and you see this rush to create some weird white washed revisionist black history. Oh, no Martin Luther King never cheated on  Coretta. Writer Richard Write loved black women. Josephine Baker was not a lesbian and Langston Hughes was not gay. Michael Jackson was not “off the wall”.

I am bringing this all up specifically because the recent approach by the African American community on Michael Jackson’s legacy is to erase the fact that man while talented and an American icon, demonstrated behavior that was incredibly bizarre.

What I am hearing from the AA side is “Oh, Michael was not taking drugs…let’s remember his accolades.”

So that is what we are saying now about Michael Jackson

Is it just me or do anyone else recalled that most of the parodies an fodder made of Michael Jackson during his life came from African Americans  like Eddie Murphy or African American shows like In Living Color…

WARNING THESE CLIPS CONTAIN EXPLICIT LANGUAGE AND CONTENT

So now Michael is suddenly normal again and in the closet?

Welcome to the Black Image Makeover Awards. I loved Michael Jackson the way he was and I will remember him for his talent as well as his faults. Perhaps if the African American community intervened more in his life and been helpers rather than turning their backs and making light of his personal situations, he would still be alive today. Now the leeches  or ” friends” will come out claiming to know him for a lifetime even though all they did was share airspace with him for two seconds.

The press called upon Barack Obama to “say a few words” about Michael Jackson. WTF? Why? Would you have asked George Bush to say a few words about Michael Jackson? Didn’t I once see “W” do the moonwalk? You are only asking Obama to say something because Michael Jackson is black like Obama.  On FOX News, Geraldo Rivera repeatedly emphasized how “post-racial”  Michael Jackson was. WTF? Post-Racial?

Yes MJ was so post-racial that he dramatically altered his skin color and Barack Obama is so post-racial that the media feels he should comment on the death of a performer just because they are both of color.

Suddenly now Michael Jackson in death, is an honorary black person again.

In closing here is the video to my favorite Michael Jackson song and video  “In The Closet”

The Black Image Makeover Awards

Hog Butchers of the World Unite and Take Over June 27, 2009

Riots During 1968 Democratic Convention in Grant Park Chicago

There is no question that the riots in Chicago at the 1968 Democratic convention have made a vital and widespread contribution to the understanding of protest in America as well as the examination of political thought in our nation’s “second city”. The legacy of the 1968 riots and the trials of the Chicago 8 take on a special significance when one realizes that the very same park -Grant Park- the site of such political unrest, was also the very same park in which Barack Obama, the first African American President of the Unites States celebrated his election night.

South Side Chicago Home during 1968 Riots

Thanks to a wealth of photo archives, particularly documented and memorable are the events of those dog days of August 1968. I was not yet born but my mother remembers being caught in the midst of the crowd. My 14 year old brother was somewhere lost in the hysteria and he needed to be found before ‘he got himself killed by the pigs”.   The “pigs” were the Chicago Police, enemy of hippies, freedom to protest, and the enemy of the black man.  I grew up afraid of policemen thanks to brainwashing by my family and watching Serpico and The French Connection too many times. Police hated blacks and I should not go to them for help.

Suspicion of Chicago law enforcement was not confined to my family, everyone was fearful of the “swine flu”.  It seems that today, 2009 it is still difficult for the citizens of Chicago to forget the role of the Chicago Police in silencing freedom:

Chicago Tribune

By Lauren R. Harrison

Protesters greet 1968 police reunion

June26, 2009

More than 70 people gathered on the Near West Side Friday night at a protest a reunion of Chicago police officers who served during demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Organized by Chicago Copwatch, an activist organization that tries to document police misconduct, the peaceful demonstration lasted about an hour at the corner of West Washington Boulevard and North Bishop Street.

Police held protesters behind four blue barricades, and about 30 officers on foot and on bikes patrolled the area, located near the Fraternal Order of Police headquarters.

“No justice, no peace! No riot police!” protesters shouted, some in megaphones, others beating drums in sync. The protesters held signs saying “same stick, different Daley” and “Fight racism! Stop police brutality.”

A few months after the disturbances in 1968, a federally commissioned report found that demonstrators had provoked officers by cursing at them and throwing “rocks, sticks, bathroom tiles and even human feces.” But the report said officers reacted with “unrestrained and indiscriminate” violence in what amounted to a “police riot.”

Among the protesters was Darby Tillis, 66, of Chicago, who once was on Death Row in Illinois but later was acquitted of murder charges in 1987 after being tried five times.

Tillis said he recalled seeing the 1968 rioting on television. He said he came out tonight “because I fight police brutality, because I’ve been beaten by police.”

William Jaconetti, 66, a former Melrose Park police chief who also spent 38 years as a Chicago police officer, said he was a fresh face as an officer during the riots.

“It was a time in our city when Chicago police had to take a stand. And we did,” Jaconetti said, adding that rioters were violent toward police, some damaging cars nearby. “If you want to change things … don’t take over our streets.”

During tonight’s protest, hundreds of bicyclists from Critical Mass, a bicyclist activist organization, traveled east along Washington, some showing support for the protesters by chanting with them. Others said they were not involved in the protest and were just out for a bike ride.

Following the demonstration near the FOP lodge, protesters walked several blocks in the middle of the streets, sometimes spanning four lanes, walking through red lights and bringing traffic to a screeching halt behind them.

About four police officers on bicycles followed the crowd. One yelled, “Sidewalk guys, sidewalk … you don’t want to get locked up.”

“We pay for them with our taxes,” shouted one male demonstrator. “We own the streets!”

Police cars tried at least twice to block protesters off, but they changed directions. Demonstrators continued to chant anti-police slogans along the way.

Police News Affairs Michael Fitzpatrick said no arrests were made and the crowd dispersed around 9:45 p.m.

As you can see, breaking away from the traditional view of the policemen as foe proves to be difficult. Personally, I have relaxed my views on this somewhat. The 1960′s were tumultuous times and many of those men in blue were simply doing the jobs they were instructed to do by Mayor Daley. I am not sure, I would have protested against this reunion but I do find it ironic that the very people who fought to keep the 1968 protesters from gathering are themselves over 40 years later…gathering. In assuming a critical attitude against the reunion based upon my indirect and secondary photographic archive/Life Magazine memory, any protest on my part would be disingenuous if not naive.

I try not to fight battles for wounds that occurred before my time. The fact that the 1968 policemen are having a reunion at all offers some proof that they were just as affected by this event as the protesters. Collective trauma can take many different forms. Current historiography suggests that in the aftermath of war, the oppressor can suffer from psychological trauma just as much as the victims.  I think the movie The Reader illustrates a fine example of such an occurrence.  Chicago Copwatch would have been more effective by opening a dialogue of healing. How about asking the policemen how they felt during the riots.  Now in 2009 are there any signs of contrition?

In order to analyze any historical event, I feel that one must simultaneously extend a space to every viewpoint.  Something can be understood from all who were involved.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

Low Flying Planes, Subway Trains and Automobiles April 28, 2009

Our memories do not lie dormant forever. Whether happy times, sad times, or simply unpleasant details, our collection of events will always be with us. Waiting to be triggered by sights, sounds, and smells.

I have always been fascinated by trains, especially subway cars. Commuting suits my need to people watch. It was the safest place I could be, high above the buildings in Chicago. I would get as close to the conductor as I could and take every stop, every curve with him.. I wanted to be him. Things changed for me one day, There was a terrible accident involving two Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) “L” trains. Feb. 4, 1977, during the evening rush hour one elevated train plowed into the rear of another at the corner of Lake Street and Wabash Avenue, 11 passengers died and another 180 were injured. It was the worst subway accident in Chicago history. Photos of the “L” cars dangling from the tracks persisted in my memory for months. Mother could not get me near another “L” and if I did occasionally take one, it had to be underground. No elevated trains “Not in the air” I would say.

She worried that I would never see my favorite places again. The Museum of Science and Industry was a pain to get to by bus. By 1979, I had not been to the museum for two years. Their was an elevated train track near my school. The Douglass “B” train as it was called then (Now the Blue Line). I would only walk under the tracks if a train was not coming. If a train passed, mom and I would stand stationary a kazillion feel back until it passed. Unexpectedly as we were walking under the tracks one afternoon, my hand in hers, Mom stopped.

1977 Chicago "L" train Crash

“Why are we stopping?” I asked.

“I think I dropped something,” she answered looking at the ground.

She would not let go of my hand. All I could think of was that a train would be coming over our head soon. Not letting go of my hand didn’t help. I couldn’t run. Sure enough a train came and she would not release my hand.

“Stand still. Nothing is going to happen” .

And it did not.

“See” she said raising her eyebrows, “It did not fall. That was something that happens only once.”

That weekend I went to the Museum Of Science and Industry. We took the train. I rode with my eyes closed most of the way but I got there safely, went to see the Fairy Castle and the Circus exhibit. I came home too. No “L” crash.

Lesson learned: face your fears.

Years later I lived in New York City during 9/11. It was an event that I later developed panic disorder from. I would take the subway to work always running late, never prepared with a book. I needed to pass the time away. I did this by looking up at the advertisements making words out of the words they contained. Other times I would just sit thinking of nothing. Outside the train was endless black tunnel. I turn my face towards the window to see me looking back at me in the glass. Then the train slows down.

What’s wrong? I smell smoke. Or do I? Do I have my Xanax? Oh Shit, I left it on the night table..Be calm Afrocity. I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE. My knees start to shake.

This is different from the Chicago “L” trauma. In New York, my fear had company. Everyone looked nervous. Despite our collective perseverance since the horrible events of 11 September 2001, we were still paralyzed and bound by collective fear.

There is no doubt that we each have our own mental archive of imagery, sounds, triggers that function in different ways but that trauma is indeed collective.

It does not matter if that collective trauma involves the Holocaust; the after effects of slavery, the Vietnam War, an exodus from Cuba, the riots of 1969, apartheid. No matter what it is still there and is that groups to own. The Obama administration has the propensity to forget that we remember. We will never forget.

At the heart of yesterday’s ill conceived low flying aerial photo op in New York City serves as a reminder of our collective tragedy and the troubling ignorance and disrespect for historical fact that persists within the ranks of Obama’s White House. The perceived external threats in our current “post 9/11 era” include Iran, Al Qaeda, China, Hamas. Comparatively, according to the genius of Janet Napolitano, United States Secretary of Homeland Security, America’s perceived internal threats include, former military personnel, and anyone with a faded McCain/Palin bumper sticker on their car.

Who is surprised that they forgot that we NEVER FORGET?

Town Hall.com

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Recriminations fly after NYC jet flyover photo op

By ULA ILNYTZKY and SARA KUGLER

It was supposed to be a photo op that captured images of an Air Force One plane with a majestic Statue of Liberty in the background. Instead, it turned into a public relations nightmare that led to recriminations from the president and mayor and prompted thousands other to ask, “What were they thinking?”

Just before the workday began on Monday, an airliner and supersonic fighter jet zoomed past the lower Manhattan skyline. Within minutes, startled financial workers streamed out of their offices, fearing a nightmarish replay of Sept. 11.

For a half-hour, the Boeing 747 and F-16 jet circled the Statue of Liberty and the Financial District near the World Trade Center site. Offices evacuated. Dispatchers were inundated with calls. Witnesses thought the planes were flying dangerously low.

But the flyover was nothing but a photo op, apparently one of a series of flights to get pictures of the plane in front of national landmarks.

Yes indeed. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

How does one get over 9/11? You don’t. There are times when my day gets off to a leisurely start. I wake up slowly. I drink my tomato juice, turn on Fox and Friends, feed the cats, humming a tune from The Smiths or Steely Dan. Everything is bright and normal. This lasts until I glance at the digital clock on my microwave and it says 9:11. Damn! I stop whatever I am doing and a ritual follows. I get down on my knees and pray for the victims, their families, and continued peace in America. At 9:12, I start my day again.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY