Our FLOTUS brings down the house at the DNC
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver-Velez
Yes — “our” First Lady.
Black folks lay a special claim to First Lady Michelle Obama. Sure, she is beloved by many people worldwide and across party lines here in the U.S. However she will always have a major place in the hearts of black Americans — not just because of her position as the first black woman to become a First Lady, alongside of her very special husband, our POTUS, Barack Obama — she is our heart because of who she is.
I tuned in to watch the DNC yesterday, from the beginning. I was elated to see so many women, and men of color representing Democrats, up on that podium. What a difference from the sterile, almost monochromatic RNC — the party of hate, racism, sexism and xenophobia.
I was not happy about the sporadic outbursts and boos from a certain segment of the “couthless” attending the DNC. I was keeping an eye on Black Twitter at the same time, and there were loud rumblings about how we were gonna erupt into a “take off your earrings” moment if those folks dared to diss Michelle.
It didn’t happen. Michelle Obama dropped the mic and brought the house down, to rounds and rounds of applause. As the cameras cut away from her speech from time to time to scan the onlookers, the smiles, tears and intense emotions displayed told the story.
In case you missed the intro before she took the stage — here it is.
And of course — her speech.
Full transcript
I’ve watched it several times already. There is so much to unpack I’m not prepared, yet, to even select my favorite lines, since I’m still savoring the entire presentation, from start to finish. Will have more to say later, perhaps by Sunday morning.
All I can say, atm, is thank you Michelle Obama.
We love you.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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It’s a speech that prompted many reactions, perhaps none more pointed than the one from the Black Lives Matter network, whose leaders say that the speech places him “alongside some of the worst fascists in history.”
“His doublespeak belies his true nature: a charlatan who will embolden racists and destroy communities of color.” Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, said in a statement emailed to Colorlines. “He is a disgrace. White people of conscience must forcefully reject this hatred immediately.”
The statement goes on to say:
Black people and our allies have unequivocally demanded a new path forward for safety in our communities, one that involves real accountability for police.
While our movement envisions a bright future where everyone is treated with dignity and respect, Trump is proposing a new, dark age where police have carte blanche authority to terrorize our communities….
The terrorist on our televisions tonight was Donald Trump. He pledged to fight for Americans, while threatening the vast majority of this country with imprisonment, deportation and a culture of abject fear.
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Chicago-based artist Shani Crowe’s photo exhibit “Braids” is a love letter to the beauty of black hairstyles.
The exhibit, which was on display at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts from April to July, included 10 black and white photographs of models adorning different braided hairstyles, all of which Crowe took and styled herself.
While black natural hair has a fraught history in the United States, often facing inordinate scrutiny or deemed outwardly political, Crowe’s photos aimed to showcase the beauty of braids. In a new HuffPost Rise video, she said she drew inspiration from various cultures when deciding on the hairstyles, one of which took 12 hours to complete.
“Some of them are inspired by gods and goddesses or presentations of divine people or divine beings,” she said. “Some of my inspiration is from Ethiopia, Eritrea, of course you have Ghana and Nigeria, [countries that] have very, very beautiful unique hairstyles.”
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Christopher DeLay was arrested on his job less than 24 hours after he posted the distressing video of Sterling’s death online, and was told he could not return to his work site after being jailed. The Root: Man Who Videotaped Alton Sterling’s Death Not Allowed Back to Work.
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The man who videotaped the chilling death of Alton Sterling has effectively been given the ax, and, according to his lawyer, it’s because he posted Alton Sterling’s death on social media. According to WSB-TV, Christopher LeDay was arrested less than 24 hours after he posted video of Alton Sterling being shot and killed by Baton Rouge police officers. Police came to his job at Dobbins Air Force Base in and put the cuffs on him for alleged assault and battery.
LeDay’s lawyer says that he was taken in on false charges.
“He never had a warrant for an assault,” lawyer Tiffany Simmons told the station. “My client has never had any criminal history.” She adds, “They never showed a warrant for an assault to my client, in fact my client was held in DeKalb County Jail for at least 26 hours and they never produced a warrant.”
Simons told WSB that when police could not produce a warrant, she was then told her client was being held for unresolved traffic tickets. After paying those tickets and trying to return to work, LeDay’s lawyer says he was turned away at the gate of the base for “security clearance issues.”
Yet, LeDay, who was just hired about six weeks ago, said his supervisor knew about the traffic tickets when he was hired.
“He should not be penalized or possibly retaliated against, he should not be embarrassed at his place of employment for doing what is right,” Simmons said.
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In Nigeria, if we’re diligent and careful, we may never see another child lose the use of their legs to polio.
Thirty years ago, millions of children went unvaccinated against a preventable disease that persisted and paralysed in nearly every country in the world. Since then, the number of unvaccinated children has dropped precipitously. While we still have work to do to ensure not even one child is missed, the biggest challengeNigeria has to contend with now is complacency.
On 24 July 2016, Nigeria reached two years without a case of wild polio. That is commendable. But if reaching this landmark has left many euphoric, totaleradication would be historic. If Nigeria and the rest of Africa can make it to July 2017 without a case of polio, we will be officially polio free. To do this, we have to consolidate the progress we have already made, and vigorously invest in our collective capacity to contain and wipe out the disease wherever it may linger.
To banish polio from Nigeria and the rest of the continent, we must vaccinate every child. To miss even one would be to leave the door open for wild polio virus to return, or to risk outbreaks of vaccine-derived polio virus, a very rare form of polio that can emerge in under-immunised populations.
In Nigeria and across Africa, national governments have been instrumental in supporting this last-mile effort. So too have local civil society leaders, religious and traditional chiefs. All have been backed by the incredible commitment of the continent’s health workers. It is through these networks that we are able to quickly, aggressively and effectively respond to the last vestiges of polio in some of the most remote corners of the world.
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Voices and Soul
by
Justice Putnam
Black Kos Poetry Editor
As the political process continues to the general election in November, when we will vote in a declaration of independence and civic duty, as an affirmation of our heritage as Americans, I cannot help but consider that part of our Heritage that is like the crisp autumn leaves of dried blood on our hands, a heritage passed down by the spilled blood of brothers and sisters past, of the blood of grandfathers and grandmothers weeping from a round house, the blood of elk and bison spilled on sands and in forests, blood of eagles on a snow-capped precipice and blood of mallards on a Cascade valley lake, the blood of our Heritage carried by blood-vein rivers across this vast blood red earth.
A heritage that preceded the landing at Plymouth Rock, even that of the landing of the Santa Maria. A heritage planted by a tribal people who also, nonetheless, in a vast and distant time, emigrated from the distant shores of another distant continent. Who, because of aeons of intimate connection with this landscape, believed that every thing is alive. So much so, that coastal tribes built their dugouts with hearts and lungs; because they believed the tree was still alive in the boat.
As we consider now those important votes we will cast in November, and then go about our daily routines, routines that takes us along the corridors of pavement or through the static of the air, let us consider those who are subjugated, marginalized and weakened. Let us consider those whose voice is unheard so that they may be heard, those who are unseen so that they may be seen. Let us consider the least among us, so that we are more than our own petty concerns and perceived slights, and yes, more than our own advantages that often blinds us to the painful uncertainty of our fellows.
If they would only just beat or shoot me, but they wanted soul substance, to harbor that like that, so I could never move from this place. So they reach crackled hands inside and hold it open for raking ...
We in a shit
rustle, the way
in ramble and camaraderie,
brown hand of whose mother
makes its smooth noise
over my mouth?
The burden of saying
some thing, a head-
nodding, and I want to be in-
side of your knowing. Who
laid their head
on the disappeared’s pillow?
One minute a person licks your ear,
the next, you cannot see your own white breath.
We gotta head
on over to the party way
out in Bushwick because we’re lost,
and our flesh is on fire. There’s
a man walking behind us. And growing.
This is what I tell him:
I am not a boy in anyone’s body.
I am not a black in a black body.
I will not kowtow inside your opposites.
How the world blisters you.
How hunger left you statued.
•
One falls past the lip of some black unknown, where time, they say, ends.
We got us a sugar-
mouth, a bit feeding,
walk in circles in circular rooms
built so precisely for our shapes,
hold the figure that is the body that is,
of course, me.
I stroke the feather that feeds me,
that lines my cage floor with minor luxuries,
I say “mama” in its wanting sugary mouth.
What is the difference between ash and coal,
between dark and darkened, between love
and addiction on Dekalb at 2 am, and I fall
drunk from a ruinous taxi, already ruined
from before before, the absent weight screams
into your breath, you are no good, no good ...
The space between I and It. Lolling.
The Ibibio man was not born in his cowboy hat.
Even his throat must ache like tired teeth.
•
Look what I am holding! Not desire, but infinite multiplicity, the mouth of existence.
To sing the blue song of longing, its webbed feet along jungle floor. What of our mechanical arm, our off-melody? Purpose in the gathering, I know, dear self. It rains and we think, God, or we think Universe. I say, portent across the wind. When wind is wrought, whole song fallen from its lip, some black unknown, where they say, time ends. What speech into hard God breath just as night park is godless? What of a silver cube in the mouth? This is our wandering.
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