Ishmael Reed fights Real Change by Playing the Race Card

 

A couple of years ago, I was deeply moved by a speech given by Dr. Cornel West. He spoke of remembering a time when Black children could turn on the TV, and see someone willing to die for them out of a love so deeply profound that they could sense it through the TV. He listed Malcolm X, Martin King, Angela Davis, Huey P Newton, and Stokely Carmichaell as examples. Dr. West then said that today’s Black children have an intuitive understanding that no body loves them. Finally, He asked his audience, now, when Black children turn on the TV, can they see anybody willing to die for them?  Dr. West was only able to list one person in the last twenty years who he maybe thought qualified. It was Tupac. Personally, I would have also named Nelson Mandela (first) along with Tupac (second).


Any way I’ve been ruminating on the profound lack of courage among Black leaders to stand up and tell the truth about what’s going on in Black America today. I see it as a grave betrayal, especially considering when we have so many prominent Black “race” women and men. It reminds me of the brilliant but sad biography entitled “Ralph Ellison", by Arnold Rampersad. Ellison's single real claim to humanity was his brilliant but sole novel (that was also his only real major work) called “Invisible Man”. “Invisible Man” provided a literary flashlight to illuminate just a tiny bit of the darkness that causes so many talented Black people to get lost forever in the dark nightmarish under side of America . But after “Invisible Man” was published and Ellison became rich and famous, a surprising thing happened. Ellison not only ignored talented Black people in need of a boost up through America’s for “coloreds only” trap door, but sabotaged some of the most gifted Black writers from the next generation, including Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. In actuality, Ellison came to mirror his own loathsome character from "Invisible Man". Dr. Bledsoe, (ironically modeled after Booker T. Washington) the self-hating Black university president who (with out cause) kicked the novel’s protagonist out his all Black college. Then in a twist of Chekhov’s “tragicomic", Bledsoe pretended to be kind hearted enough to write the protagonist a recommendation for employment. Bledsoe sealed the letter in an envelope, ordered the protagonist not to open it, and had him deliver it to a rich white board member of the school who lived in New York. The protagonist then traveles across the country to present the envelope to the man he assumes will hire him in his large company. When the man says no the protagonist humbly asks why, and the board member, although shocked, hands him the letter to read. The letter actually besmirches the protagonist’s character and ends with “Keep this Nigga running”


Well, Ishmael Reed is no Ralph Ellison. But in his Op-Ed in last Sunday’s New York Times entitled "What Progressives Don't Understand about Obama", Reed's lack of truth telling in defense of the status-quo makes me think about Cornel West’s speech. I’m not going to get into all the specifics of Reed’s “opinions” which are illogical and shallow. But what's behind them are the Black elite circling the wagons around President Obama, who continues to use America’s economic resources to circle the wagons around the wealthy elite who ruined our economy and continue to do little to help suffering Americans, including Black children. I’m sure Oprah will be next to jump to the President’s defense.


What’s so tragic about Reed's P.R. piece is that he uses his progressive voice to marginalize and silence brave white progressives are being called racist for telling the truth. Reed state's that “these progressives refer to themselves as Mr. Obama's base, but all they see is themselves. They ignore polls showing steadfast support for the president among black and Latinos." I call foul. One again another member of the royal Black elite playing the race card when it suits their own personal narrow agenda. And of course Reed didn't mention the names of any polls because I don't think they exists c Latinos are pissed because they didn't get the immigration reform they demanded and I suspect a lot of Black people living pay check to pay check are also gravely demoralized by the lack of progress. They may not publicly castigate President Obama now, but I'm sure they're not happy with him. Reed is also trying to undermine the increasing number of progressive Black bloggers who supported the President in the past, but are now communicating about yet another betrayal from the man who promised change and accountability. Progressive Americans are finally waking up and trying to help President Obama be the transformative president that so many people expected but instead got a warmed over mélange of Clinton, Bush, and Reagan.


Reed continues his scurrilously- Fox News like -attacks against progressives who speak truth to power, by misleading whites liberals and Blacks folks into thinking that progressives want Obama to sport a black beret, sunglasses, and throw a black leather gloved first in the air on national TV.  What we have been saying over and over again, is that President Obama should use the elegant rhetoric that got him elected President, to honestly explain to America how the disparity between rich and power in our country is now equal to Great Depression era levels and how one percent of the population controls 40 percent of the wealth while the rich are demanding more! But I guess the best we can do is allow President Obama to waste away his Presidency by continuing to be the night watchmen of the plutocrats who sank The United State’s of America into the icy sea, while they speed off ( with all the money) aboard a luxurious yacht purchased from The United State’s Treasury.


I guess Mr. Reed isn’t angry about this because while he can’t afford a first class ticket, be can use his pen to insure himself a nice cozy berth in the bottom of the boat.


Spook Out!

Visualizing Slavery in Maps to Counter Southern Revisionist History and Lies

I love old maps.The first map above hangs on my kitchen wall and is entitled  "Napoleon's March"  Created by Charles Joseph Minard, (reproduced by Edward Tufte)  it portrays in detail the shocking deaths suffered by the French Army in Napoleon's 1812 campaign to invade Russia. Starting at the entry point on the Polish-Russian border, a the thick brown band demarcates the armies original size and strength. The band then shrinks ( due to battle,cold, disease, etc) as they march forward toward Moscow. Under these lines, is the retreat( depicted in a black thinning line ) of  Napoleon's army back to France in the bitterly cold winter, along with temperature and time frames.

The other  map is from a New York Times article written by Susan Sculten, entitled "Visualizing Slavery". Created in 1860 by the United States Coastal Survey Department, this amazing map details the slave population in all the Southern states in every county, using (for the first time) the technique called statistical cartography. "Each [state] not only displays its slave population numerically, but is shaded (the darker the shading, the higher the number of slaves) to visualize the concentration of slaves across the region, that "uniquely captured the complexity of the institution and struck a chord with a public hungry for information about the rebellion."

This makes a lot of since, as most Americas had no reliable access to current news cycles. Papers were expensive and a lot of people could not even read. So picture yourself a Northerner with no connection to slavery, wondering why so much blood was being spilled between not just American citizens- including African-Americans, but newly arrived immigrants from places like Ireland.

This map also intellectually destroyed the South's clarion call far from America's boarders to the European Power, that they rebelled because of "state's rights" first and foremost and secondarily, to protecting the  "way of life" for the whole American South.  Today the off spring of these confederates and confederate sympathizes argue the same revisionary history similar to those who deny the Nazi Holocaust.

Another historical misnomer, spread by many white liberals and African-Americans ( including myself years ago) is that slavery was the economic engine of the world, located operated in the United States. None of this  true. Slavery was more like pure grade A oil being wasted in a slowly deteriorating social engine that lubricated the way of life for a small wealthy leisure class of the southern population. They in turned trickled down economic corruption and limited growth in greater dosages on down the line, where white workers could not get decent paying jobs due to slave labor. In short, slavery was, over the long term economically inefficient.  Like a dope fiend with a crack rock, the first hit is nothing but euphoria, but leads to an increasingly downward spiral.

This map visually illustrates that states, such as South Carolina and Mississippi, who enslaved the majority of their population, were the first state that rebelled against the American Government. This map also demonstrates that the less slaves a southern state had, the more their citizens supported the United State's Government, which "reinforced President Abraham Lincoln’s belief that secession was animated by a minority and could be reversed if Southern Unionists were given sufficient time and support."

This map( and its message) spread like wild fire and was reprinted through out America as an indictment of the Confederate terrorist, and clearly helped President Lincoln make his case that freeing the slaves would win the war. In fact when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, this map was on his desk.

 Of course this map will not end revisionist history in America and maybe neither will time.

Unemployment Benefits about to End? Well, at Least the First Lady is Still First Class Styling!

Tonight, thousands of Americans are worried that their unemployment benefits are coming to an abrupt end because U.S. House Democrats finally refused to cave to the Republican Congressional hostage takers who continue to terrorize America on behalf of the wealthiest Americans. I don't use the word terrorize lightly, but isn't that what hostage takers (as labeled by Barack Obama) do?

Meanwhile, another part of America today is on displayed on the front page of today’s New York Times Style Section, An America who is able to appreciate the relationship between First Lady Michelle Obama, who as the article states “obviously loves clothes” and one of her favorite ( and one of the worlds most haute couture) clothing designers Azzedine Alaia, who resides in the Marais quarter of Paris and favors faded Chinese pajamas.

Americans losing their jobs and homes in record numbers while struggling to make it day to day, is about being stuck without options. But the First Lady, the article states is “not going to be stuck on one of two designers and quickly developed a rational for her ever changing wardrobe. The 50 different labels she wore in the [first year of Obama’s Presidency] reflected a democratic approach."


I don't want to give the impression that The First Lady is out of touch with the reality of average Americans because there is a touch of "every day people thrift store” to the First Lady in this article. Because generally Azzedine Alaia, makes his clients come to him in Paris, but the First Lady was able to be fitted for her custom made dresses and other "Alaia pieces at the ultra exclusive Ikram on Chicago’s Gold Coast.

Well, at least while Americans are tumbling into the economic abyss, they look, they want  see Hilary Clinton wearing off the rack Bill Blass, But Michelle Obama waving down, dressed as if America were back on top.  My sincere apology if this sounds like a rant, but I was expecting that in the Obama administration, like the Clinton Administration, what the first lady wears would not be so relevant, especially during these sad times for so many Americans.  During the worse winter of the 1970's energy crisis, President Carter demonstrated his humble Southern roots and solidarity with the average American by wearing a sweater in the white house.  Hello? 

Should President Obama go Medea or go Black? The Republicans, Hostage Taking Terrorist

Ahhhh Chicago where Journalist write columns that could easily be confused with the Onion.
Journalist Laura Washington, in the Chicago Suntimes, once again allowed provincial Midwest parochial attitudes to stand in the way of serious debate about President Obama, by opining that her African American middle class friends want Obama to “go black” [put his hands on his hips and let it rip]” Washington said.  "They want to see a little more “Medea” in the White House.”  Personally your Spook isn't familiar with Medea, but Washington filled in the details with “That’s Medea, Tyler Perry’s brassy, bossy, larger-than-life character who knows what she wants — and gets it. Medea does not play.” 



Well I looked up "Tyler Perry's Media"and was really appalled.  Is this what the debate comes down to in Chicago's African-American community,  Medea being a point of reference and discussion with regards to Obama's current economic policy?  And if he's gonna get angry, why can't he get angry like Malcom X or Angela Davis instead of a clownish drag queen? And what's up with Black people still watching TV shows like that in the first place? And then you have Black folks like Laura Washington who refuse to hold President Obama accountable. I'm trapped between a rock and a hard place.


Well, finally Obama gave a single body blow to the Republicans by calling them Hostage takers. But I think it's too little to late. And for the record, this time I theoretically agree with President Obama about negotiating and giving in to the Republican “hostage takers” in order to block thousands of Americans from being pushed over into the abyss of abject poverty.  But the problem is that President Obama is responsible for arming, aiding, and abetting the hostage takers who are nothing but terrorist to what’s left of the “American Dream”. 

It was President Obama who immediately and continually rewarded them even though they consistently prove to be unreliable, dishonest, and destructive partners at best.  And when President Obama was first elected, he enriched the war chest of these hostage taker's  by funding their corporate sponsors- Big Business- by allowing them to raid the American Treasury, via the corporate bailouts.  We know that this did little for job creation or direct lending to spur our broken economy forward. What it did do was to increase the wealth of the moneyed elite and these Republican Hostage Taking Terrorist. 

Sadly, President Obama has always praised the Reagan Presidency.  And it seems that this praise is not just about Reagan having been a good communicator.  President Obama, instead of using FDR and LBJ's approach of a bottom up economic rescue plan, continued George Bush’s Bank/Corporate Bail Out, which is distinctly Reaganesque in terms of his “trickle down theory", which continues to fail the American People.  Now, we have a two year continuation of the biggest tax windfall for the wealthiest Americans, and Big business who will continue to invests in their own wealth creation as opposed to invest back into the economy, while the poorest unemployed Americans get a few more crumbs for the next six months.

Congressman Charlie Rangel and The Rent is Too Damn High Party

"I'm with Jimmy, The Rent is Too Damn High"

The November election, saw a lot of passionate and very pissed off white people eject their white elected officials from office,  replacing them with white people who mirrored their own "fire on Fort Sumter" views. Yes friends and neighbors, I'm talking about the Tea Party again. And while I don't respect their views, I do highly respect their passion and grassroots organizing ability. And while the Tea Party Juggernaut stole the media's complete unrivaled attention, I followed the New York Gubernatorial campaign of Jimmy McMillan,( see video above) the African-American eccentric founder of New York's "The Rent's too Damn High Party," which had only one issue, that "The Rent is Too Damn High" for poor and working class people in New York.


This was the only "movement" that even attempted to mirror the Tea Party's grassroots populist voice. And Jimmy Mc Millan is a lot more intelligent than Sarah Palin, but got no traction in the Black community, as "we" continued to elect the same tired poverty pimping politicians, even the most mired in the filth of corruption. Sadly, once someone is elected in the Black community, we will not vote them out no matter how far they stray, no matter how out of touch, or corrupt they become.


Congressmen Charles Rangel (D-New York),is a case and point. For the last 40 years Rangel continues to represent one of the poorest African-American districts in America, which besides for naturally occurring gentrification, not much has changed with his efforts.  As you can see the only thing he really gives to his poor constituents is turkey's during ThanksGiving, which typical of the old school poverty pimping politicians.
Meanwhile Congressmen Rangel has gotten progressively richer, including owning a beach front villa in the Dominican Republic, which he paid no taxes on for the last twenty years, because he "forgot" to. But for most of his constituents that are not homeless, "The Rent is Too Damn High!"


Even more insulting, with respect to "The Rent's To Damn High Party", Rangel lives ensconced in this two large rent controlled apartments that he combined into one big house. So while the Black Community in New York deals with homelessness, families barely being able to pay rent," The Rent is Too Damn High" and foreclosures, Congressmen Rangel continues to pimp a housing program designed for poor and working class people for his own lavish living.


When Congressmen Rangel finally got caught, he fought back like a cranky old lion claiming that he was being singled out unfairly because of the color of his skin. Once again, its the most privileged of Black people who play the race card, not the real victims of racism who suffer in silence. Then "Victim" Congressmen Rangel, at his own Congressional Ethics Hearing controlled by his own Democratic Party, instead of defending himself he simply walked out of the hearing, later he said he was too poor to afford a lawyer.


Then, after the committee confirmed his guilt, Congressmen Rangel had the temerity to actually cry on the U.S. House floor asking his fellow congresswomen/men to spare him of it's second harshest punishment, a verbal reprimand delivered to the offender in the well of the full house of represenatives. I guess this practice dates back to a time when men fought duels because they actually cared about honor.
 At no time was Congressmen Rangel expecting to be expelled from Congress- which he deserves- because the average tax cheat gets arrested. This is the type of leadership that the still sleep walking Black Community is saddled with.


Finally, to add salt to the gun shot wounds, several highly qualified candidates ran against Congressmen Rangel, during the height of his investigation, yet he was reelected again overwhelming. Well, old Abe Lincoln said that "people get the type of government they deserve", and I strongly believe this. And until the Black community, becomes enough like the Tea Party to get ride of our free loading politicians, then we will continue to be at the bottom of the well, with no body to blame but out selves. I just hope that the U.S. District Attorney indict Congressmen Rangel on Tax Evasion Charges.

The Ghost of Berlin's Degenerate Art

 

Berlin, Germany.

Late one bitterly cold and dark afternoon, a construction worker, part of a crew digging a new subway station in the heart of Berlin, spotted a strange object tumble off his front loaders shovel. Jumping to the ground, he cleared off as much of the frozen caked earth as possible, to reveal a bust of a women. Later, as winter turned to spring and spring to summer, more objects were unearthed.  Researchers learned that the first sculpture- circa 1920's- was the work of a boldly brazen, but all most forgotten artist, Edwin Scharff. 

Into the fall and winter, excavators unearthed a further trove that included;  “Dancer” by Marg Moll, "Standing Girl" by Otto Baum, as well as long buried fragments that included 

both the ghostly head of Emy Roeder’s “Pregnant Woman” and another head by Otto Freundlich. 

These works were products of the German Weimar Cultural Era created by the devastation of World War I, as Victorian values and morals were cast aside by a new generation. Placing a premium on unrestrained artistic freedom, they created the greatest intellectual/artistic explosion in European history while living to explore their sexuality to the fullest, as in the famous and infamous dark underground cabarets. 

Also from this era, Hitler, rose out of the great Reichstag fires with the last of his soul dying, the failed art student and the closeted homosexual, giving way to a heartless monster who extinguished the last embers of his humanity by rounding up these art forms from Museums through out Germany. Then, building a fire of hatred around them by creating “Degenerate Art” shows that included "comedy" films ridiculing this art, before finally vanishing them forever into the cellars of his Reich Propaganda Ministerium,
right before he graduated on to exterminate vast segments of the German population.But, although it's not exactly known how, the above "sign posts" leading back to these nightmare years, escaped. 


Michael Kimmelman in his New York Times article,"Art's Survivors of Hitler's War" writes that archaeologists think the art came from a building( once located on the site)then owned by Erhard Oewerdieck, an escrow agent and tax attorney. Oewerdieck, risked his-and his families-life by helping Jews and persecuted artists escape Nazi Germany. The theory holds that an Allied air bombing raid collapsed Oewerdieck's building straight down into the earth. But how the art originally found its way into Oewerdieck's hands still, remains a mystery.