by Justice Putnam, Black Kos Poetry Editor
Being the son of a professional Historian, having a degree in History myself, I am both, amazed and appalled, by the blatant historical revisions and ignorance that is on display by the MAGAs and their fellow travelers. From outright editing and distribution of Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists as a whole document, so as to support their dubious claims of the Founders being against the existence of a Wall between Church and State; to RW Media editing Biden’s public exchanges so his presidency is diminished and marginalized.
Surely, if one has to lie to support an argument, the argument must not be very sound. What if we "edit" the lie out these discourses? What do we get? How about an honest assessment of where we came from:
What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one's heroic ancestors. It's astounding to me, for example, that so many people really seem to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn't stay there any longer and had to go someplace else to make it. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts.
-- James Baldwin
"A Talk to Teachers," Oct. 16, 1963
It is true that a Dream arose out of the disaffection experienced by those hungry, and poor, and convicted. It is true that tragedies and dangerous compromises occurred to make that Dream of America a possibility. Just let us not lie about where it was we came from and how it is we came to be who we are; let us look honestly to where our present is and where our future could be; let us not lie to make the Dream true. It is said, Knowledge is Power, and that is a sad truism when taking account of the axiom's terrible permutations. Ignorance though, masking itself as Knowledge, is not real Power; but real Ruination.
The only real course to stem this ruination then, is to embrace Knowledge and not Ignorance, to arm our minds and soul and activism against those corporate armies of propaganda, against those mobs of malice and hate, who in either, ignorance or guile, or both, would go to any means necessary than...
Let America Be America Again
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
-- Langston Hughes
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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If merit is supposedly the measure for upward mobility in America, then how many coaches compiled more achievements than Gaither at FAMU, Eddie Robinson at Grambling, and John Merritt at Tennessee State? Gaither put together a career winning percentage of .844, Robinson set a major-college record with 408 victories, and 10 of Merritt’s 21 teams at TSU either went unbeaten or lost just once. Many of the players developed by these coaches excelled in the NFL and went into the pro football Hall of Fame—among them Charlie Joiner of Grambling and the San Diego Chargers, Richard Dent of TSU and the Chicago Bears, and Ken Riley of FAMU and the Cincinnati Bengals.
In one respect, like other Black institutions that paradoxically flourished amid segregation, HBCU football was its own proud, unapologetic, self-contained world. Yet the scorning of Black head coaches by the major football programs inevitably left a condescending stain. As John Merritt famously put it, HBCU football was played “behind God’s back.” Eddie Jackson, a longtime administrator at FAMU, said of Jake Gaither, “An invisible asterisk hung over his incredible career.”
In the culture of the American South, the secular religion of college football stood not as an incidental element of segregation but as one of its pillars. Until 2010, Mississippi’s team took a Confederate soldier, “Colonel Reb,” as its mascot, and the segregationist Governor Ross Barnett once delivered an anti–civil rights speech at halftime. Before being revised several years ago, the Alabama fight song included the verse, “You’re Dixie’s football pride, Crimson Tide.”
Yet even after schools like Alabama and Mississippi belatedly recruited Black student-athletes in order to compete against long-integrated powerhouses like USC, Ohio State, and Michigan State, colleges in the North and South alike passed over the gifted coaches in the HBCUs. Those men included not only head coaches but talented assistants like Joe Gilliam Sr. and Cat Coleman at TSU and Doug Porter at Grambling, who, absent their race, surely would have been on short lists for head-coaching openings.
It took until 1979 for any predominantly white school, in this case Wichita State, to hire a head coach from the HBCU ranks, Willie Jeffries Jr. of South Carolina State. Perversely, it was as likely that a Black head coach could rise to the presidential Cabinet as to a head-coaching job in an elite conference. Indeed, Rod Paige of Jackson State, who went on to a career in public education in Texas, became George W. Bush’s secretary of education.
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US executives drastically cut back on public discussions of workplace diversity last quarter, in the first earnings season since the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action sent a chill through corporate boardrooms.
Mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion on earnings calls and at conferences among Russell 3,000 Index companies fell by 54% from a year ago in the third quarter to the lowest since 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Since the court decision, Republican lawmakers and conservative groups have publicly warned US corporations that their diversity efforts could come under scrutiny, though some legal experts have said that workplace programs should be unaffected.
“If I were advising a client right now in this climate, I might say, ‘Maybe say less, rather than more,’” Esther Lander, an employment lawyer and partner at Akin Grump Strauss Hauer & Feld, said in an interview. “Carefully vet what you say so you don’t become a target.”g
The impact so far appears to be limited to rhetoric as firms are yet to pull back on diversity initiatives. They’re instead likely toning down or limiting public proclamations while they reevaluate programs and documentation surrounding them. Many companies responded similarly to anti-LGBTQ protests earlier this year.
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House Republicans have threatened to cut funding to national and global HIV/Aids programs, prompting Rep. Maxine Waters, a longtime Democrat from California, to condemn the move, saying it will have a detrimental impact Black communities.
Speaking at the Annual United States Conference on HIV/AIDS in Washington, D.C. last week, Waters called out Republicans for suggesting they would decline to reauthorize the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
The program has operated for two decades distributing HIV/AIDS medication and preventative care to millions of people around the globe, offering job training for those at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and providing assistance for youth who have become orphans as a result of the virus, the Associated Press reported.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 40 million people have died from HIV since the first reported case in 1981.
Since its inception in 2003 under Republican President George W. Bush, PEPFAR has saved 25 million lives globally, implemented efforts to get a better grip on HIV/AIDS in more than 50 countries and has prevented millions of people from contracting the virus, according to the Department of State.
Despite the progress made in tackling the disease both domestically and abroad, a handful of House Republicans are refusing to reauthorize PEPFAR, which has bipartisan support, because they believe nongovernmental organizations that receive funding through the program will use those resources to promote and provide abortion services.
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Africa’s young democrats often employ only black humour at the frequent sight on tv of uniformed men announcing that they have overthrown the government. Some find levity in discussing the sartorial dilemmas they must face (dress uniform or camouflage, beret or bare head?). Others mock state television stations for running interminable wildlife documentaries to avoid screening the unfolding chaos.
Jokers would once have had little to work with. In 2000 the African Union (au) set out a “no coup policy” based on the threat of swift suspension from African institutions, isolation and sanctions. Regional blocs like the Economic Community of West African States (ecowas) held a firm line, too. It seemed to work. In the 1990s Africa suffered 16 successful coups. In the 2000s that fell to eight, a figure that was repeated in the 2010s. Yet since the start of 2020 there have been nine successful coups, including one in Gabon on August 30th. What happened to deterrence?
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