Voices and Soul
by
Justice Putnam
Black Kos Poetry Editor
Khrushchev’s speech at the UN, back during the height of the Cold War, when he famously banged his shoe on the lectern, resonates in these perilous times. People then were either aghast and appalled, or humored by yet again, another Khrushchevian, dramatic masterpiece. Regardless, the world couldn't stop speaking about it, just as the world is now aghast at the Teutonic train wreck rolling rolling rolling across a landscape of Rural White animus from sea to shining sea.
What was less reported at the time was an off hand answer to an off hand question as Khrushchev moved about on his escorted tour of the US. He was asked how he was so sure that the Soviets would prevail over the West. I like to embellish his response as,
"When I come to grind the West under the iron heel of my iron boot, rest assured, the Capitalist will sell me the rope I hang him from first."
The part about the iron heel and iron boot is my own “poetic license,” but that last part is all Khrushchev, and though the Soviets have gone the way of the Velociraptor, Khrushchev's truism about the Capitalist cannot be refuted. How else to explain the oil blow outs in the Gulf of Mexico and gas pipeline explosions in Bay Area neighborhoods? How else to explain contaminated foodstuffs, acid rain, polluted aquifers and mountaintop removal? How else to explain children poisoned by lead, mercury and dioxins? How else to explain a society poisoned by hate and fear and some more hate to sell a brand, a product, a pathway to the Presidency? How else to explain the cadence of jackboots in a goosestep march on a crystal night in a horrific bend in Time? How else to explain the acrid stench of fascism rising from the very roots of our National existence, to the thermal skies above?
Under Corporate Skies
Dawn, you miserable slow-cooker
of goat meat, why do you park
yourself at my window to snooker
me into imagining the smoky night
will never come again? Sometimes
when you turn up so impeccably
disguised as a new day with wines
of forgetfulness, I respectfully
give in. Life clouds the very trail
life spins: a spidering website.
How long can we put truth in jail?
How long can politicians stab
biology and physics in the heart
and gut the world before there is
no world left? Where profit ignites,
where dividends burn up, lives go out.
-- Al Young
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sitting on the neon-lit stage, Dave McClure couldn’t contain himself. The 500 Startups founder and investor used his appearance at the Web Summit conference on Wednesday to loudly criticize his own industry for President-elect Donald Trump’s victory:
Technology has a role in that we provide communication platforms for the rest of the fucking country. It’s a propaganda medium and if people aren’t aware of the shit they’re being told; if they’re being told a story of fear; if they’re being told a story of other; if they’re not understanding that people are trying to use them to get to fucking office then, yes, assholes like Trump are going to take office and it’s our duty and our responsibility as entrepreneurs, as citizens of the fucking world, to make sure that shit does not happen.
He’s not the first to place the blame (or credit, depending on one’s view) for Trump’s unexpected win on digital platforms like Facebook, which allowed fake-news sites to proliferate and spread pro-Trump hoaxes such as, “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President.”
Facebook, where nearly half of Americans get their news, has borne the brunt of the ire, both for creating echo-chambers of partisan news and for failing to promote high-quality information over false drivel. But online extremism researchers say America’s misinformation problem is bigger than Facebook. They are also pointing fingers at sites like 4chan, Twitter and Reddit, online free-for-alls that lack Facebook’s relatively strict stance on hate-speech and have allowed racist communities to flourish in recent years. These forums have grown angrier and more multitudinous since Trump announced his candidacy, and while it’s not yet clear how much they contributed to the triumph of Trump, they certainly lined up behind him.
“When we talk about online radicalization we always talk about Muslims. But the radicalization of white men online is at astronomical levels,” the journalist Siyanda Mohutsiwa, who said she has been following the so-called “alt-right” forums on Reddit for years, wrote in a Twitter thread earlier this week. “These online groups found young white men at their most vulnerable & convinced them liberals were colluding to destroy white Western manhood.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The mistrial of former University of Cincinnati Police Officer Ray Tensing in the shooting death of Sam Dubose is the latest reminder that in the eyes of many, black lives don’t matter. On Saturday, Judge Megan Shanahan declared a mistrial after a jury of six white men, four white women and two black women failed to reach an agreement as to whether Tensing had been proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on the charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter.
As a former prosecutor, I’m simply at my wit’s end. I have pondered in this space what it will take to convict police for the criminal use of excessive force, and the reality is, we simply cannot beat race.
It doesn’t matter that there was a video.
It doesn’t matter that Dubose was unarmed.
It doesn’t even matter that on the day of the shooting, Tensing was wearing a T-shirt bearing the Confederate flag under his uniform.
Race is the factor that trumps all. (Lord, I hate what that means after last Tuesday.)
In an effort to think of practical steps for us to take to continue fighting the good fight, here are a few suggestions:So, what do we do? How many times do we have to relive this horror movie while becoming so familiar with the plot that the result is that we become more desensitized to its unjust ending? We cannot allow the continued killings in, and abuse of force against, communities of color by law enforcement to become normalized—especially while at the precipice of an era when over-policing threatens to become more of a thing under a self-described “law and order” president-elect.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was so lucky last week. Two days after the election, 2,300 hundred racial justice activists of all colors arrived in Atlanta at the Facing Race conference, which my organization Race Forward hosts. They were shaken, grieving, and scared. We held each other through the immediate aftermath of an election that most of us didn’t think could turn out as it did. That holding made it possible for us to see through our panic to the opportunities and the work ahead.
This election cycle revealed the depth of the backlash against the progress of all our social justice movements. I know that it feels shocking to many people, so soon after electing our first black president. It’s quite easy to rest complacently on the things we’ve already won. But social change isn’t a linear process in which the trajectory goes consistently up. There are sideways moves, and there are dips.
This is the lowest dip I’ve experienced in my 30 years of movement work. A huge portion of the nation elected to the White House a capitalist con man, an authoritarian white supremacist, and an accused sex offender, and he has begun to appoint a cabinet of people we have good reason to fear. There are real dangers ahead; some are already manifesting, as stories of kids being told by teachers and classmates that their families are going to all be jailed or deported break my heart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY’S PORCH