Dear British Guardian: Thank You!
by Chitown Kev
Having completed two diaries in the past 24 hours in addition to going into the office earlier today, I was sorely tempted to hang a "Gone Fishing" sign here on The Porch.
I was tempted.
But...I decided against it and decided to go trolling over at The Guardian and found this story on the appalling conditions at the
Baltimore City Detention Center.
Appalling sanitation, vermin, dirt and mold combined with a lack of basic medical care in Baltimore’s only jail possibly caused at least seven deaths in the last two years and continues to put thousands of detainees, mostly African American, at risk of serious danger, a class action alleges.
Lawyers acting for the 2,500 people held by the State of Maryland in Baltimore City Detention Center (BCDC) say they have uncovered a shocking litany of problems with the jail that subjects detainees and prisoners to “serious harm, including death”. They describe the jail, one of the oldest custodial institutions in the country that was built in its current form before the civil war, as a “dank and dangerous place, where detainees are confined in dirty cells infested with vermin. The showers are full of drain flies, black mold, and filth”.
I only skimmed through that story's narrative of the utterly inhumane conditions at the BCDC and I'll allow you to do the same. I do have a question, though.
Why in the he!! is a British news organization absolutely embarrassing the American news media on a number of topics and specifically the topic of racism in the American criminal justice system?
Prior to the Guardian's online presence, I occasionally read week-old issues at various newsstands; if I had the money, I even bought a particularly interesting issue. In fact, I always rather appreciated knowing that The Guardian (unlike the claims of American news organizations) was unashamed of its' political tilt (to the left, in the Guardian's case) and was yet able to produce factually correct news stories of depth and weight.
And while I have been aware of the Guardian's online presence for years, I only surfed over there once or twice a week and I have never failed to be impressed.
But The Guardian's recent coverage and exposes of the racism endemic in the American criminal justice system has, in large part, made the Guardian a must-read for anyone interested in the topic.
And that just not right. For a host of reasons that I won't bother to list right now.
But I would like to say thank you to The Guardian for the work that you do.
And now I'm going to get my fishing pole!
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The Smithsonian will announce Tuesday that the wreckage of a vessel that sank in 1794 has been found, the first time a slaving ship that went down with slaves aboard has been recovered. New York Times: Grim History Traced in Sunken Slave Ship Found Off South Africa
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On Dec. 3, 1794, a Portuguese slave ship left Mozambique, on the east coast of Africa, for what was to be a 7,000-mile voyage to Maranhão, Brazil, and the sugar plantations that awaited its cargo of black men and women.
Shackled in the ship’s hold were between 400 and 500 slaves, pressed flesh to flesh with their backs on the floor. With the exception of daily breaks to exercise, the slaves were to spend the bulk of the estimated four-month journey from the Indian Ocean across the vast South Atlantic in the dark of the hold.
In the end, their journey lasted only 24 days. Buffeted by strong winds, the ship, the São José Paquete Africa, rounded the treacherous Cape of Good Hope and came apart violently on two reefs not far from Cape Town and only 100 yards from shore, but in deep, turbulent water. The Portuguese captain, crew and half of the slaves survived. An estimated 212 slaves did not, and perished in the sea.
On Tuesday, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture, along with the Iziko Museums of South Africa, the Slave Wrecks Project, and other partners, will announce in Cape Town that the remnants of the São José have been found, right where the ship went down, in full view of Lion’s Head Mountain. It is the first time, researchers involved in the project say, that the wreckage of a slaving ship that went down with slaves aboard has been recovered.
The story of the São José, like the slave trade itself, spanned continents and oceans, from fishing villages in Africa to sheikhdoms where powerful chiefs plotted with European traders to traffic in human beings to work on plantations in the New World. Fittingly, the discovery of the São José also encompassed continents and oceans. Divers from the United States joined divers in South Africa, while museum curators in Africa, Europe and the Americas pored through old ship manifests looking for clues.
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The New Republic: The White Protestant Roots of American Racism
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The Apotheosis of Washington,” painted in 1865 by Constantino Brumidi, is a fresco of the first president of the United States ascending to the heavens. The goddesses of Victory and Liberty, along with 13 maidens who represent America’s original colonies, flank George Washington; here, he’s elevated to the status of a god (and it’s worth noting that “apotheosis” actually means “deification”). In the 150 years since Brumidi’s last brushstroke, the painting’s characters have borne silent witness to the machinations of the U.S. Congress from the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building. When the fresco was completed, four million black people called the United States home but were only that year able to enjoy even the most limited experience of citizenship when the Civil War ended and the Emancipation Proclamation began the process of ending slavery. Of course, Brumidi’s fresco only features white faces.
His painting illustrates the complexities of a nation inextricably informed by the religious ethics of its founders and those who continue to wield power today: Religious white men, ascending to fame on the strength of their ideals. Even those founding fathers—who identified primarily as deists—shared views that aligned with Christian theologies. American society is heavily informed by this religious foundation, specifically in terms of racial injustice, even as religious identification declines.
A recent poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute on police brutality showed that between December 2014 and April 2015 the percentage of white Americans who believed that police killings of black Americans were part of a broader pattern jumped from 35 percent to 43 percent. White evangelical Protestants, on the other hand, see the recent homicides as isolated incidents—62 percent of them said that police treat blacks and whites equally. This isn’t an accident of demographics; it springs from the religious framework that undergirds American societal values. To deny the ongoing influence of Protestant ethics is to be willfully ignorant.
The “Protestant work ethic” is a term coined by sociologist Max Weber, whose seminal work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, delineated how links made by theologians between religion, work, and capital laid the groundwork for capitalism. Calvinist theology holds that only an elect few are predestined for salvation from birth, while the rest are damned. The anxiety this produced compelled people to look for hints or signs that they were members of the elect; they believed that material success was among the most notable indicators of God’s favor. Doing the hard work of creating God’s kingdom on Earth through a secular vocation was considered a pathway to God’s grace. The opposite also held true: Just as material success indicated God’s grace, poverty was a sign that you’d been denied God’s grace. In this context, slaves could be both blamed for their own plight and have the legitimacy of their labor erased.
“When the Protestant work ethic was being developed here, many people who were in the country weren’t even considered people and that continues to inform how we think about work,” said Jennifer Harvey, a professor of religion at Drake University whose research includes the intersection of morality in the context of white supremacy. “It cannot see certain kinds of work and labor as real and therefore virtuous,” she continued. It’s easy to be outraged when something as tangible as a video of a man being executed by police surfaces, but more insidious forms of racism still permeate our views of what does and does not constitute valid work—even among those who don’t subscribe to Protestant ethics.
The Apotheosis of Washington
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More and more African-American kids are going beyond basketball and football and instead taking up outlier sports like swimming, gymnastics, skateboarding and even lacrosse. The Root: Basketball, Out; Lacrosse, In?
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Are the outliers “in?”
History was made in March when African-American swimmers finished first, second and third in a single event in the women’s Division I NCAA championship.
African-American. Swimmers.
For a long time, when it came to African Americans and sports, it was a safe bet to follow the money. The trail ended at what it cost to play. Or what one could get paid for playing.
That’s one reason black and brown faces are so prominent in football and basketball. Besides being the most popular traditionally, these sports offer the most full-ride scholarships in college and the quickest road to riches in the pros.
But outliers are on the come-up, found in “action sports” such as motocross, skateboarding and Rollerblading; country club sports such as golf and tennis; and Olympic sports including speed skating (Shani Davis) and gymnastics (Gabby Douglas).
Don’t be surprised as another contender enters into view like a thoroughbred charging from behind to close ground on the leaders. This newest contender for black athletes was created by Native Americans and is considered this continent’s oldest sport: lacrosse.
According to a survey by governing body US Lacrosse, 99 colleges added varsity programs between 2013 and 2014. Participants in lacrosse nationally have tripled to more than 770,000 over the past 14 years, and 55 percent of players are under age 15. What’s more, the sport is moving past its traditional base on the East Coast: The University of Denver last weekend became the first school west of the Appalachians to win the Division I men’s title.
Myles Jones #15 of the Duke Blue Devils looks to pass against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish during the second half of the 2014 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship at M&T Bank Stadium on May 26, 2014 in Baltimore, Maryland.
ROB CARR/GETTY IMAGES
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Prompted by gentrification in Pittsburgh, Joy Katz and Cynthia Croot gave 100 artists $10 each – then tracked where the bills were spent across the US. The Guardian: One Large: art project gives black-owned business a boost – $10 at a time.
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When artist and poet Joy Katz learned that Ace Hotel was opening in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh, a historically black neighborhood, she wondered whether developers of the trendy chain were employing black designers and craftspeople on their team. “I was familiar with their design aesthetic, which I find to be very white,” Katz said, “and I brought this up.” To the Ace’s credit, they contacted Katz and asked if she knew of black cabinetmakers, woodworkers and other tradespeople and designers. Katz, who used to be a designer, was confident she could “just ask around and locate black contractors”, so she volunteered to help.
But it wasn’t that easy.
The fact that her search was not simple – “in fact, it was pretty much impossible,” she recalled – was the impetus behind “One Large”, an immersive, interactive art project Katz conceptualized along with Cynthia Croot, a theater director and activist. “I became interested in why I couldn’t find black contractors,” she said, “and at the same time, I was reading Maggie Anderson’s book, Our Black Year, a riveting story about how one family bought only from black-owned businesses for a whole year. It’s a dark, often despairing book.”
Katz and Croot could identify with the despair. “There’s a system of economic inequality affecting the whole country, and we could see it happening around us in our city,” Katz said. Katz and Croot noted that in their own Pittsburgh neighborhoods, young people of color have few examples of successful business owners who look like them. “Black consumers spend a trillion dollars a year,” the artistic duo said, “yet almost all money spent by black Americans leaves black communities within hours, flowing mainly to white business owners who do not live in or reinvest in those communities.” The phenomenon even has a name: leakage. Perhaps they couldn’t block that outgoing flow of cash, but Katz and Croot wanted, at least, to understand more about its movements and to draw other people into a conversation about money, race, and community.
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Voices and Soul
by Justice Putnam
Black Kos Poetry Editor
Two quotes by Malcolm X resonated with me during my early childhood in Oregon and resonate still.
"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock, my brothers and sisters, Plymouth Rock landed on us!"
and
"I have no mercy or compassion for a society that crushes people, and then penalizes them for not being able to stand up under the weight."
Many things have been written and speculated about the Rap Artist, Tupak Shakur. He was certainly a child and man of his times and he died far too early. His social commentary and poetry of the human condition, particularly, the condition of black men and women, is certainly informed by the two quotes I cited. His poetry addresses the plain facts of what it is to live under a dual system of Due Process and Equal Protection. It might be argued that the
"apartheid" Jim Crow laws were overturned in the public and private arenas, but Shakur saw how that Jim Crow mentality is alive and well in the most cherished of our
"Ideals." Because when millions of black men and women are incarcerated and war criminals walk free, one would think that...
Liberty Needs Glasses
Liberty Needs Glasses
excuse me but lady liberty needs glasses
and so does mrs justice by her side
both the broads r blind as bats
stumbling thru the system
justice bumped into mutulu and
trippin on geronimo pratt
but stepped right over oliver
and his crooked partner ronnie
justice stubbed her big toe on mandela
and liberty was misquoted by the indians
slavery was a learning phase
forgotten with out a verdict
while justice is on a rampage
4 endangered surviving black males
i mean really if anyone really valued life
and cared about the masses
theyd take em both 2 pen optical
and get 2 pair of glasses
-- Tupak Shakur
"Liberty Needs Glasses"
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