Voices & Soul
by Black Kos Editor, Justice Putnam
The poetry of witness is a powerful force. It not only can describe events, it also can give voice back to those people and things that have been rendered voiceless. At least, it’s pretty to think so. I once had much more Romantic notions about the active participant poet and the duties expected than I allow myself currently. I remember back to that distant, late Honduran afternoon after a long day drilling school water wells for UNICEF and coming upon the gutted remains of Honduran peasants desiccated next to red bougainvillea, as green hummingbirds darted and stopped at delicate petals and darted away again. The brutal beauty and nauseating gore of the moment gave me a clarity I had not expected. I had no power to put words in the mouths of the dead. And it was paternalistic to think I should.
On an aid mission during the Kosovo war, with my French actress ex, we were blocks from a mortar attack that blasted the remains of the last hospital in Sarajevo, spilling stone and beds and bodies onto the street. What voice could I give but my own? I sullenly realized I was the active participant first person white savior on a mission of Self, maybe even using God as an excuse. The Punk in me was appalled and the epiphany was so profound, even the nature of poetics collapsed outside my window.
A true Japanese Haiku is not only relegated in form to the familiar 5 syllable, 7 syllable, 5 syllable three-line morsel, but is also confined to only observations of nature, devoid of a human participant, yet in its subtle and quiet voice, a true haiku conveys a human emotion without showing the human.
At some point I decided if I was to be a poet, I could only describe what I saw, what I heard, what I smelled and tasted. I could only relay the quality of light and the lay of the landscape. I might render the tumult of the sea and the boulevard in a watercolor wash on the printed page, but I would describe boldly what lifted my soul, and what broke my heart. Only then would it be poetry, only then could I hope to approach lifting the voice of the voiceless. At least, it’s pretty to think so.
WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck them-selves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.
- Carolyn Forché
"The Colonel"
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The NAACP, the nation's oldest civil rights organization, is kicking off a series of town halls this week in an effort to mobilize Black voters around the country more than a year ahead of the 2026 midterms.
"It may still seem far away, but the 2026 midterm elections will determine whether our democracy still holds on or whether the people surrender their power to a king," NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement to CBS News. "So, from our perspective, as the NAACP, it's clear: we've got to start organizing early."
Johnson called this "an urgent moment," referring to President Trump's rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion policies and immigration raids, as well as the swath of budget cuts slashing Medicaid and food assistance programs as "attacks on democracy." The town halls will focus on the administration's policies and their impact on the African-African community.
"We've got to strengthen community, recruit volunteers, inform each other about Donald Trump's oppressive policies, and map out local strategies that will ensure everybody gets out to vote," Johnson said. "Our neighbors are being illegally kidnapped by ICE, Trump's budget is taking away our healthcare and access to food stamps, and our civil rights are being stripped away at every turn—all while costs, from housing to groceries, continue to rise, and the billionaire class get richer."
The first event will be held Tuesday in New Jersey and will feature Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Rep. LaMonica McIver and other local leaders. In May, the Justice Department filed felony charges against McIver for allegedly assaulting a federal law enforcement officer during a clash earlier this month between protesters and police outside of a Newark ICE detention center. She pleaded not guilty. Baraka was charged with one count of misdemeanor trespassing at the same protest, but the charge was later dropped.
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Henrico County and state and federal partners are seeking public input on the New Market Heights Trail, a proposed $16 million project that would highlight the area's history and help the county achieve its conservation goals.
Local officials introduced the plan, which would create a paved walking path connecting Deep Bottom Park on the James River to New Market Road, at a meeting last week.
The 3.2-mile trail would feature signage that highlights the area’s Civil War-era history — including markers commemorating the journey of Union soldiers who broke through Confederate defenses at the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm and New Market Heights in September 1864.
The Union forces in that battle included three brigades of the US Colored Troops, a military outfit made entirely of Black soldiers — 14 of whom earned Medals of Honor for their actions.
Chuck Laudner — a consultant with the American Battlefield Trust, one of the organizations partnering with Henrico on the project — stressed the importance of honoring the historic battle site.
“This place, as much as any, this land communicates what real courage is,” Laudner said at the meeting. “That's why we're here to honor them by highlighting and protecting this battlefield ground — to protect the very place where that legacy was forged.”
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To earn his freedom, 15-year-old Cayden Gillespie had to complete three school assignments a day. But school had gone virtual for Cayden and other incarcerated young people in Florida. And sometimes, he didn’t understand it.
One day last summer, he kept failing an online pre-algebra test. There were too many words to read. He didn’t know how to find the value of x. And there were no math teachers to show him.
“I couldn’t figure it out, and it kept failing me,” Cayden says. He asked the adult supervising the classroom for help. “She didn’t understand either.”
No matter the offense, states must educate students in juvenile detention. It’s a complicated challenge, no doubt — and success stories are scarce.
Struggling to educate its more than 1,000 students in long-term confinement, Florida embarked last year on a risky experiment. Despite strong evidence that online learning failed many students during the pandemic, Florida juvenile justice leaders adopted the approach for 10- to 21-year-olds sentenced to residential commitment centers for offenses including theft, assault and drug abuse.
The Florida Virtual School is one of the nation’s largest and oldest online school systems. Adopting it in Florida’s residential commitment facilities would bring more rigorous, uniform standards and tailored classes, officials argued. And students could continue in the online school, the theory went, once they leave detention, since incarcerated youth often struggle to reintegrate into their local public schools.
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South African is starting a “national dialogue” Friday that is meant to bring all sectors of society together to discuss the country’s most pressing issues and find solutions.
The talks, initiated by President Cyril Ramaphosa after calls from civil society, are expected to include most political parties, civic groups and members of the public.
Concerns have been raised over a possible $40 million cost, while there are also questions about whether the dialogue will result in significant changes.
South Africa faces many problems more than 30 years after the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule, including high levels of poverty and inequality, crime, corruption and an unemployment rate of more than 30% — one of the world’s worst.
The country is no stranger to national talks, including the multiparty negotiations for a peaceful end to apartheid in the early 1990s.
Here’s what to know about the national dialogue, which begins with a two-day convention in the capital, Pretoria.
Since its first democratic election in 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected as the country’s first Black president, South Africa made progress in de-escalating racial tensions, improving the economy and providing access to millions of its poor Black majority.
However, there are concerns that the country has digressed over the last decade and calls for a soul-searching exercise grew louder after the long-governing African National Congress, or ANC, party lost its majority in the 2024 election, forcing South Africa to form a coalition government.
Ramaphosa announced the dialogue in June.
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Political and religious figures in Malian city of Timbuktu have welcomed the return of ancient manuscripts that were removed to the capital, Bamako, more than a decade ago to prevent them from falling into the hands of militants linked to al-Qaida.
According to a UN expert mission, jihadists destroyed more than 4,000 manuscripts and as many as nine mausoleums after occupying the desert city in 2012. Workers at the state-run Ahmed Baba Institute used rice sacks to smuggle the remaining documents out of the city a number of ways, including by donkey cart and motorcycle.
Mali’s military junta began returning manuscripts on Monday, citing the threat posed to them by humidity in Bamako. Officials said the first tranche involved a shipment of more than 200 crates weighing about 5.5 tones.
“We now have a responsibility to protect, digitise, study and promote these treasures so that they continue to enlighten Mali, Africa and the world,” the country’s higher education minister, Bouréma Kansaye, said at a return ceremony.
Local political and religious figures who have been clamouring for the return of the manuscripts hailed the move. The documents “reflect our civilisation and spiritual and intellectual heritage” said Timbuktu’s deputy mayor, Diahara Touré.
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France has acknowledged its role in decades of violent repression of independence movements in Cameroon, the latest stage in a slow process of reckoning with its brutal colonial past.
In a letter to the Cameroonian president, Paul Biya, dated 30 July, Emmanuel Macron said it was “up to me today to assume the role and responsibility of France in these events”.
The letter, which was disclosed on Tuesday, conveyed the findings of a joint Franco-Cameroonian commission that investigated the colonial-era repression of independence movements from 1945 to 1971.
It also took into account crimes committed by the French-allied post-independence government of Ahmadou Ahidjo in Cameroon. Biya served as prime minister under Ahidjo from 1975 to 1982.
For years, France had refused to confront the ghosts of its colonial empire that stretched from Algeria in northern Africa to Benin in the west. But in recent times a new guard of historians and activists, many from former colonies, have categorised official French narratives that barely mentioned the violence of colonial exploits in the 20th century as polished fiction.
This has coincided with a sustained wave of anti-French sentiment in Francophone Africa that has partly spurred coups against governments in the region deemed to be puppets of Paris.
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The NFL can be put on trial over civil claims that Brian Flores and other Black coaches face discrimination, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday, rejecting the league’s attempt to force Flores into arbitration with Commissioner Roger Goodell as the arbitrator.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upheld Judge Valerie Caproni’s ruling that Flores can proceed with claims against the league and three teams: the Denver Broncos, the New York Giants and the Houston Texans.
In a decision written by Circuit Judge Jose A. Cabranes, the appeals court said the NFL’s arbitration rules forcing Flores to submit his claims to arbitration before Goodell do not have the protection of the Federal Arbitration Act because it “provides for arbitration in name only.”
The 2nd Circuit said the NFL constitution’s arbitration provision “contractually provides for no independent arbitral forum, no bilateral dispute resolution, and no procedure.”
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