Remembering Nina Simone, and Lorraine Hansberry in the time of COVID-19
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver Velez
My eyes filled with tears when I saw this photo of five year old Skylar Herbert, who is a victim of COVID-19. All of our condolences go out to her family.
I found myself humming “Young, Gifted and Black,” in my head — the tribute to our young people composed by Nina Simone, with lyrics by Weldon Irvine. Simone wrote the song in memory of her friend, playwright Lorraine Hansberry, author of “A Raisin in the Sun, who died of pancreatic cancer on January 12, 1965, at the age of 34. A play honoring Hansberry’s life and work, To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in her Own Words, written by her ex-husband Robert B. Nemiroff, ran from 1968 to 1969 off Broadway.
The title is taken from a speech given by Hansberry in May 1964 to winners of a United Negro Fund writing competition: “…though it be thrilling and marvelous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so, doubly dynamic, to be young, gifted and black!”
Today is the anniversary of Simone’s death at her home in Carry-le-Rout, Bouches-du-Rhone, France on April 21, 2003.
Both she and Hansberry celebrated life.
Black life. Civil rights. Justice.
As long as black people are dying at rates higher than any other racial group in the U.S. we still inhabit the dream that Hansberry referenced from Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem”. It is still deferred — drying up like a raisin in the sun.
I’d like to dream a different dream. Though I know I will never see it come to fruition, nothing will stop me from visions of a future world where black children will be celebrated — and I’m working toward that day.
Nina Simone's 'Lovely, Precious Dream' For Black Children
In an interview recorded at historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta, she said, "I remember getting a feeling in my body, and I said, 'That's it: to be young, gifted and black. That's all.' And sat down at the piano and made up a tune. It just flowed out of me."
Simone wrote the music, while the words came from her bandleader, Weldon Irvine. He reportedly sat writing the lyrics in his car, tying up a busy New York City intersection for 15 minutes as he scribbled on napkins and a matchbook cover. Simone had told him to keep it simple — write something that "will make black children all over the world feel good about themselves, forever."
To be young, gifted and black
Oh, what a lovely precious dream
To be young, gifted and black
Open your heart to what I mean
In the whole world you know
There are a million boys and girls
Who are young, gifted and black
And that's a fact!
Though her epic Mississippi Goddam is probably her best known song, today I needed to hear that song of hope for our future generations. At the end of the video at Morehouse, we see the faces of the young people in that audience in 1969, cheering and applauding with pride — I remind myself that they now are parents and grandparents, hopefully instilling that pride in their children and grandchildren.
In a troubled world, and in an America ripped apart by racism — more than ever before we need anthems to lift up our young folks, who now face a health pandemic, on top of an epidemic of white supremacy.
RIP = Rest in Power.
RIP Nina Simone. RIP Lorraine Hansberry. RIP Skylar Herbert and all those names we do not yet know.
May all those who make it through today’s challenges, help craft a better world, where black children will no longer need special songs to see their beauty and gifts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NEWS ROUND UP BY DOPPER0189, BLACK KOS MANAGING EDITOR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It has been clear for some time that the coronavirus pandemic is killing black and Latino Americans at disproportionately high rates, but new data from the last few days reveals just how devastating the Covid-19 crisis has been for people of color.
Starting in New York City, the American epicenter of the outbreak: Black New Yorkers are dying at twice the rate of their white peers; Latinos in the city are also succumbing to the virus at a much higher rate than white or Asian New Yorkers. The same trends can be seen in infection and hospitalization rates, too.
Mother Jones compiled data from all of the states that break out their coronavirus data by race and ethnicity. The same thing we’re seeing in New York City is happening across the country: Black and Latino Americans get infected with Covid-19 at alarmingly high rates and more are dying than we would expect based on their share of the population.
A few horrifying examples from the charts you can find in the link above:
- In Wisconsin, black people represent 6 percent of the population and nearly 40 percent of Covid-19 fatalities
- In Louisiana, black people make up 32 percent of the state’s population but almost 60 percent of fatalities
- In Kansas, 6 percent of the population is black and yet black people account for more than 30 percent of the Covid-19 deaths
The proportions can change depending on the state, but the trends are consistent anywhere you look: Compared to their share of the population, greater numbers of people of color die than their white neighbors in this pandemic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The story of the Ethiopian women soldiers who fought against Mussolini’s 1935 World War II invasion in author Maaza Mengiste’s novel “The Shadow King” will be adapted into a film and helmed by “Harriet” director Kasi Lemmons, Deadline reports.
“Maaza Mengiste’s mesmerizing novel takes my breath away,” Lemmons told Deadline. “The imagery is so rich and powerful and the characters so vividly drawn, it naturally lends itself to adaptation. I’m very honored to be a part of bringing this brilliant book to the screen and I’m thrilled to be working with everyone at Atlas.”
The Ethiopian-born Mengiste, who is a professor at Queens College, was a 2019 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction finalist for “The Shadow King” and a 2018 Fulbright scholar. Lemmons’ previous movie about another war hero, “Harriet,” received two Oscar and two Golden Globe awards nominations.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As a stream of racial slurs directed at the New York Rangers prospect K’Andre Miller popped up on fans’ screens during his online video chat with them this month, Alyx Farias was shocked yet not surprised.
Farias, 24, participated in the live Q. and A. session and captured a video of the slurs — which Miller, who is African-American, appeared to have seen. Then Farias posted her screen grab to Twitter, where it quickly went viral. To date, Farias’s video has been viewed over 300,000 times.
“You could see in the video that I posted, he sees it when he looks down,” she said of Miller, a defenseman who was picked in the first round of the 2018 draft.
The language on the chat was the first public act of racism connected to the N.H.L. since its December announcement of a “zero tolerance” policy for abusive behavior and of required diversity and inclusion training for all coaches and general managers.
Yet the league’s handling of the chat incident has come under fire from fans who say the N.H.L. and the Rangers should have been better prepared, given longstanding problems with racist language in hockey arenas, which is often directed at players and diverse groups of fans.
During the chat, an offscreen moderator asked Miller questions sent from listeners through a visible channel, but neither the moderator nor any other Rangers representative immediately addressed the racist comments, which came from hackers. The Rangers eventually disabled the chat feature that displayed fans’ questions, and the Q. and A. continued without further disruption. The team released a statement three hours after the video conference ended, after a furor arose online in part because of Farias’s screengrab.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Let’s talk about conspiracy theories.
As COVID-19 cripples the world, so spreads some pretty outlandish ideas about the virus—its origin, who’s it set out to target and its mode of transmission. These beliefs are unproven, caused by uncertainty and amplified on social media.
Conspiracy theories attempt to “explain an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators.” Scholars say (pdf) that conspiracy theories tend to have a long shelf life, though there is no concrete evidence to prove that they are true. You all might have heard of some fairly popular conspiracy theories from the past: Churches Fried Chicken is owned by the KKK; Tupac is still alive; AIDS was created and used as a form of genocide by the government; that levees were bombed during Hurricane Katrina; or that the assassinations of MLK and Malcolm X were meticulously plotted by the government and not the work of lone wolves.
While conspiracy theories are fake, conspiracies (i.e. COINTELPRO, the Tuskegee experiment), on the other hand, do exist.
In this episode of Unpack That, I spoke with Professor Patricia A. Turner, who is a senior dean and vice provost, as well as a folklorist of African American Studies at UCLA. Turner is also the author of, I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American Culture. She says that conspiracy theories have been prominent in the African-American community (and all communities) from the get-go.
I also chatted with Shayla C. Nunnally, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut and the author of Trust in Black America: Race, Discrimination, Politics. The professor has found that in the U.S., the black population has the largest amount of distrust (and increasingly among the Latinx population). Nunnally says that trust, or the lack thereof, depends upon how groups are treated in the larger society.
As long as we have largely unexplained phenomena—pandemics, assassinations, natural disasters—we can expect to have conspiracy theories. But how do we process it all? What ideas do we accept and reject?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The plan was to transform farming in southern Ethiopia. Twelve years ago Fri-El, an Italian conglomerate, signed a lease with the state government for 30,000 hectares of farmland in South Omo to make palm oil. But the palms needed more water than the copper-colored Omo river could supply and production was so disappointing that in 2011 its lease was cut by a third in size. Even a switch to cotton production did not help. Many bolls are left unpicked owing to labor shortages. A ginnery lies idle for want of electricity.
A decade ago rising food prices spurred investors to get land across Africa. In Ethiopia, where the government offered tax breaks, low rents and vast tracts of allegedly empty farmland, more was leased than almost anywhere else. One study calculated that around 1m hectares were allocated between 2005 and 2012; others suggested two or even three times that. The idea was that poor, remote places like South Omo, near Ethiopia’s south-western border, would become paragons of development. Mechanized cotton estates would feed Ethiopia’s burgeoning textile factories. Nomads would ditch their cattle for jobs as laborers on commercial farms.
Instead South Omo has become a cautionary tale. No cotton farm in the local area is operating anywhere near capacity, reckons Benedikt Kamski, who studies such matters for the Arnold-Bergstraesser Institute, a German think-tank. In 2018 less than 3% of the 90,000 hectares leased to investors in three of South Omo’s districts was being farmed, he found.
Many of the farms created in Ethiopia’s sparsely populated lowlands were simply too big, and those leasing them lacked the capital to develop them. Karuturi Global, an Indian firm, signed a deal for 100,000 hectares in 2010, only for it to be cancelled five years later. By that point less than 2% of its tract had been developed. In 2015, the last year for which estimated data are available, less than a fifth of the total land leased in Ethiopia by local and international companies was being farmed.
Some investors were incompetent. “We didn’t know what to do, we’re not farmers,” admits an estate manager in South Omo. Others were crooked. In the region of Gambella 335 out of 420 land deals were signed in just three years after 2008, according to a paper from 2016 by Fana Gebresenbet, an Ethiopian academic. Most involved individuals linked to the ruling party. Many such ventures may be what Mr Kamski calls “dummy farms”: idle assets acquired to get generous government loans.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cultural leaders in Haiti have described the gutting by fire of a celebrated 200-year-old church as an avoidable tragedy that highlights the fragility of the Caribbean nation’s patrimony – and the need to preserve its historical treasures.
The Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception church in the town of Milot is part of a Unesco world heritage site that includes the ruins of the Sans Souci palace and the Citadelle Laferrière, an imposing fort that looms over Haiti’s northern plains.
Fire tore through the church on Monday, causing its distinctive black wooden dome to collapse. The cause of the blaze has not been determined, but some saw it as indicative of the malaise of misrule that has long bedeviled the island – some of it locally rooted, and some imported by more powerful neighbors.
“[For years] we have been asking the state to ensure the protection of these colonial dwellings, which are important as monuments of slavery, yet nothing has been done,” said Laënnec Hurbon, a sociologist with the State University of Haiti.
“But the state spends its time buying luxurious cars for ministers, functionaries and parliamentarians. It is therefore not surprising that everything concerning the national heritage is abandoned.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WELCOME TO THE TUESDAY’S PORCH
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.