Kind of Blue
Kind of Blue's JournalToni Morrison: The Pieces I Am - Official Trailer
"Navigating a white male world was not threatening. It wasn't even interesting. I was more interesting than they were and I wasn't afraid to show it"The Good Ol' Days "because I don't think anybody thought he would be as bad as he is"
No one in this group needs further explanation nor the need to watch the following videos, save for the fact of whitewashing the past and our present for the sake of white innocence that renders the basic questioning of white privilege and systemic racism unworthy of reflection.
These are from October 2016
If you havent seen the Netflix documentary 13th, you should. Its about more than just mass incarceration: director Ava DuVernay (Selma) makes a powerful comparison between Americas prison system and slavery, while offering one of the most succinct and clear explanations of why Black Lives Matter and the current election matters. In one of the most powerful sequences, DuVernay puts the spotlight squarely on Donald Trump.
The Republican nominee for president has come under fire for one thing or another since he first began his campaign, but one of the larger issues is his hostile words, which often times incite his supporters to violence. To address the larger repercussions of this kind of political and cultural environment, 13th cuts between footage from these aggressive Trump rallies with archival footage from the Civil Rights era. http://collider.com/13th-clip-donald-trump-netflix/#poster
Ava DuVernay ('The 13th') at NYFF 54: Why Donald Trump needed to be included
As DuVernay said in her latest tweet today, "He told you who he was when he ran for President. This is no surprise now."
How to Respond to Interview questions, Deliver a Slight, and Still Come Off Graceful
Case Study 1: Simply ignore itIn a new episode of The Economist asks podcast released on Friday, host Anne McElvoy asked Wintour if she valued the fact that Trump wore several British-inspired outfits during her husband President Donald Trumps state visit to the United Kingdom in June.
Wintour sidestepped the question and made it all about Obama:
I think first lady Michelle Obama really was so incredible in every decision she made about fashion. She supported young American designers. She supported designers, indeed, from all over the world. She was the best ambassador that this country could possibly have in many ways, obviously, way beyond fashion.
But shes not the first lady now, McElvoy responded. So what about the one that youve got now?
To me, she (Obama) is the example that I admire, Wintour replied.
More: https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/anna-wintour-melania-trump-michelle-obama-110502797.html
Case Study 2: Just turn the page
https://twitter.com/KiaSpeaks/status/1153789262032068609
Case Study 3: Confront the Affront
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1153779208289751041
"Fear is Your Enemy. Be Free or Die."
Cynthia Erivo stars as, troublemaking badass real super hero, Harriet Tubman in the biopic, which tells the extraordinary tale of Tubman's escape...Leslie Odom Jr., Janelle Monáe, Joe Alwyn, Jennifer Nettles and Clarke Peters also star in the biopic of the abolitionist who led scores of slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/harriet-trailer-cynthia-erivo-stars-as-harriet-tubman-biopic-1226348
Women continue to contribute in record numbers heading into 2020
Democratic presidential candidates have raised $41 million from women so far this presidential cycle while the Republicans have raised $12 million, based on an OpenSecrets analysis examining publicly available data from contributions for candidates who have raised more than $100,000 reported to the Federal Election Commission.
The second-quarter fundraising figures indicate that women, who are neither a monolithic voting base nor donor base, are spreading their money widely among the 2020 presidential candidates. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Harris, former Rep. Beto ORourke, Warren and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro reached gender parity in the percentage of women in their overall donor base at 55 percent, 52 percent, 51 percent, 50 percent, and 50 percent respectively. Williamson has overwhelming support from women with more than 71 percent of her donors, a first for a presidential candidate.
Of all the presidential candidates during the second quarter, President Donald Trump has the highest number of women donors at 13,537. Currently, 36 percent of all his contributions come from women. Trailing Trump in second-quarter total donors are Sanders at 9,701 women and Warren at 8,123 women.
However, it appears that many networks of prominent donors, including powerful women, are staying out of the presidential fundraising race for now, giving money to groups and causes outside the primary. With a field of two dozen contenders at this early stage, many voters are still reluctant to give support and reluctant to give support to a woman.
Looking at the total fundraising so far this cycle, Democratic women are receiving 52 percent ($17.5 million) of their contributions from men and 48 percent ( $15.9 million) of the contributions from women. Democratic men are receiving 64 percent ($43.7 million) of the contributions from men and 36 percent ($25 million) of the contributions from women.
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/07/women-donors-q2-2019/
To paraphrase Maya Wiley, "Then I don't know what we're fighting for."
In what I think is a powerful discussion on Chris Haye's All In the other night, Harry Seigel, senior editor of The Daily Beast, Zelinda Maxwell and Maya Wiley spoke to a lot of what I think are your concerns, TexasTowelie. And I don't mean concerns in a sarcastic way at all. But please have a listen to Zerlinda Maxwell and Maya Wiley's responses to his fears about dealing with racism now. They speak for me and I think for a lot of people who are not afraid anymore. The panel discussion, imho, is excellent. But my focus here starts at about 11:37 to about 19:20. I think at the end, unless I'm terribly mistaken, Siegel could only summarize the situation but had no good response, again imho, to the case Maxwell and Wiley make.
I did the best I could with the transcript following this video.
Hayes: What's the right way to characterize a crowd that-- overwhelming a white crowd, not exclusively but overwhelmingly a white crowd chanting "Send Her Back," about a black woman who is a U.S. congressman and U.S. citizen?
Seigel: Racist, xenophobic, cruel, un-American. The question is what the rest of us are going to do about this as these animal spirits, if you like, have been unleashed. Look, Trump won a very weird-- had a very weird path to victory. In a lot of ways he did not win the popular vote and he's aiming for that same path again. Except now he has a tremendous war chest and the power of the incumbency that the further excites all of these people who, if they thought these ways weren't chanting for the most part, were quiet about it. I think it's going to take a tremendous political force and the next year and change to hopefully get us back to that sort of moment. But people are not ashamed of shameful behavior right now, they're chanting it.
Hayes: Yeah, I mean it's-- I also think it's-- well, there's two things here. I think he's radicalizing people. I mean it's happening in real time like we're watching it happen. it shows up in the public opinion polling data. The antecedents were there. we know they were there. It's not like Donald Trump invented racism and even his tactics if you read "Nixonland," Rick Perlstein's great book about Nixon, like it's just kind of a dumb, more vulgar version of Nixon. It's not that-- it's not something like--
Wiley: Well, actually he broke Nixon's playbook because remember, Nixon was the Southern Strategy done right. And the Southern Strategy done right was we will code it. We will not be explicit. In fact, we think explicit racism is the third rail. We won't touch it because we'll be electrocuted. What we will do is veil it so that it's acceptable. And what Trump has really done is said if we pair economic populism with racism, overt explicit, we think we win and that's what we have to say no, you don't.
Hayes: But he's also making-- I think he's making people worse. He is making-- like there's an idea that there's a sort of question of like is he just unleashing what people want to do anyway or is he-- and I think he keeps setting a bar for people and leading them towards things that--
Maxwell: I mean the saddest thing is when you have this conversation, I'm sure all of us have this week in particular with white people who are like, well, you know, the economy is doing great. You know,, they don't want to jump into this conversation about racism. But when are we gonna have it? Because black people are being shot by the police, nobody is getting in trouble. Eric Garner was just-- that case just-- the Justice Department just decided they're not going to pursue it. And that's just a reminder to people of color in this country that our lives are not as valuable as everyone else's. And I'm tired of being reminded of that. I'm tire of being reminded by the president of that every single day from his tweets and from his words. And so, I think this is a come-to-Jesus moment for the country. Are we gonna deal with racism or not?
Seigel: I am worried that if we deal with racism that we are gonna end up with more Donald Trump. I think that's absolutely right that these aren't things you can just put off or be patient or let's just wait until a few more people get shot. But Hillary Clinton ran a campaign where she was bringing up mothers who've lost their children. She went as far in that direction as any mainstream Democrat at that point and Trump was American carnage and there was a response to that. And I don't know where the--
Wiley: But thats not why she--
Maxwell: We won the popular vote so the ting that I think about all the time is that when people say, "This is why Trump won," every single reason listed is correct on that front. But, again, he won by such a slim margin with so many weird factors in this election that I don't know that we can then predict out that, you know, the racism is working for him as if we're not an emerging majority of people of color in this country.
Wiley: What are we trying to win? I think fundamentally we're trying to win democracy. And so where I get concerned is both these points, which is to say we have to recognize we're talking about all of us but that can't exclude people of color. And I don't think that was Hillary Clinton's mistake. I think I was to --
Maxwell: We could have went further.
Wiley: We could have gone further. Remember that Wisconsin was fundamentally about voter suppression and trying to bar black people from the ballot and Latinos and others. We're seeing that now in the citizenship fight, the Muslim ban. Everything we're being told is about who is America and I think it isn't working and that's part of what we saw in the in the 20--
Hayes: 2018.
Wiley: 2018 midterms and we shouldn't forget the call to our better angels. And if we don't my concern is I'm not sure what we're fighting for.
Haaland: As A Native American, I'd Never Tell Anyone To Leave This Country
At about 2:35
Williams: Congresswoman, as the daughter of a Native American, in a way that makes you the most American member of Congress. But precisely the way our system is supposed to work youre supposed to be no more American than Congresswoman Omar in this country.
Rep. Haaland: And thats correct, Brian. And one quick quick thing, Native Americans werent actually citizens of this country until 1924 and so by an act of Congress. So look, yes, Im indigenous to this country. I'm a 35th generation New Mexican. My ancestors migrated to this area of New Mexico in the late 1200s. However I was raised by my Pueblo mother to respect everyone, to welcome everyone into our home. This is a country, the United States of America that we share with everyone. And I certainly would never take it upon myself to tell someone that they needed to leave. Thats not up to me and its not up to the president.
No, you consider my judgment on this matter superior
because this sub-thread about Biden doing the racist bone thing is not at all about what black leaders think. Plus, don't you know we are not a monolith? There was a lot of fun with racist bone last month when he said it as well recovered etymology of this phrase. So if you think my judgement is superior it's because facts are superior, not me.
A little history.
When it comes to this now ubiquitous defense, all roads appear to lead back to Ronald Reagans years in the Oval Office. Though there are piecemeal and disjointed references to the racist bone apologia dating back as early as the mid-20th century, its usage was neither frequent nor systemic until Reagans first term. Based on a Google Ngram search, the documented frequency of the racist bone defense grew most quickly between 1981 and 1986 and almost always applied to Reagan or someone in his administration.
Republicans felt compelled to offer this defense because Reagan and his administration confronted regular accusations of racism based on their efforts to eliminate civil rights laws and their opposition to new ones. They framed their opposition to civil rights laws as part of their commitment to an exclusively colorblind approach to the law, wrapping themselves in the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s supposed dream of a country in which individuals are judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Reagan quoted Kings alleged colorblind dream so often that, near the end of his first term, Diane Camper of the New York Times deemed the rhetorical move The Reagan Race Phonograph.
The political conditions that bring such unthinking shibboleths into being are worth historicizing. Tracing the genealogy of the racist bone defense helps to shed light on how the Reagan administration and its allies helped to normalize a discourse that suggests ending racism is a matter of individual benevolence and magnanimity, a discourse that makes it harder to grapple with the damaging legacies of centuries of slavery, segregation and racism.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/04/11/not-racist-bone-his-body-origins-default-defense-against-racism/?utm_term=.3ff478e1e104
A little fun that I prefer
Recent advances in prejudice technology have finally given scientists the ability to identify the racism bone, revealing that many of the previously accepted self-diagnoses may not be medically sound. Epidemiologists are now scrambling to come up with a vaccine for bone bigotry, but until the FDA approves the antidote, The Root would like to provide our readers with this summary of everything we know so far about racism bone disease.
https://www.theroot.com/racist-bone-disease-the-diagnosis-treatment-and-cau-1835826335
An interesting quote popped up when I was wondering last month where on Earth did this absolution come from. A 1967 Jet magazine report about Boston's battle to keep schools segregated cited a Louise Day Hicks, Boston politician and staunch opponent of school desegregation. Mrs Hicks and her supporters "insist there ain't a racist bone in her ample Irish body." It's just a coincidence that she included the song Bye Bye Blackbird in her mayoral campaign.
https://books.google.com/books?id=YrgDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA42&dq="racist%20bone"&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjohaHu07rjAhXnYt8KHbipDSsQ6AEIMDAC#v=onepage&q="racist%20bone"&f=false
Yes, definitely one of the reasons.
Besides religion this article covers: "Social, political, and economic inequality due to feudalism; Fragile food supply and famine; Poor health and the spread of infectious diseases; Uncertain economy; Overpopulation; Dangerous standards of living in urban and rural areas; Child victimization; Intolerance; Warfare; An idealistic image of the New World.
Our story begins in 15th and early 16th century Europe - with an undertanding of the English who eventually decide to immigrate to the New World."
http://gorhistory.com/hist110/expl.html
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