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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Inside the struggle to train a mostly white, unpaid tour guide corps to talk about race. Slate: Museums Have a Docent Problem
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Palace Shaw was standing in one of the galleries in Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art when she heard something that rattled her. It was the summer of 2017, and the show on display was Nari Ward: Sun Splashed, a large retrospective of the Jamaican American artist’s work. Shaw, who had recently graduated from college, was working as a “visitor assistant”—which meant, she says, being a “mediator between the art and the visitor, but also kind of a policing role where I was enforcing museum policy.” She spent long days on her feet watching visitors stream in and out of galleries.
That June day, one of the museum’s volunteer guides was leading a tour of four school-age girls. Three of the girls were Black, says Shaw, and one was South Asian. The girls were asking the guide questions about the art, which included collages, large-scale installations, works made from found objects, and photographs, many of which dealt with racism, identity, and history. “What’s Black Power?” one of the girls inquired. The guide, an older white woman, was clearly struggling to give answers. At one point, Shaw says, she compared Afro-textured hair to different kinds of animal fur. “She knew what she was saying wasn’t quite right. But she didn’t really know how.”
It wasn’t the first time Shaw, who is Black, had witnessed a guide saying something racist, unwittingly or not. So she decided to speak to her supervisor. The response she got, she says, was along the lines of “I hear you, and we can do more training, but there isn’t that much we can do, because it’s a volunteer position.”
Installation view of Nari Ward: Sun Splashed at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art in 2017.
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A new book by Peniel Joseph, a historian at the University of Texas, is the latest addition to this genre. It’s called The Sword and the Shield, and it’s a dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. A lot of books have been written on both of these men, but Joseph’s book is different in that it’s much more about the dynamic between Malcolm and Martin than it is about their individual stories.
And that complicated dynamic is worth revisiting in light of the social unrest after the killing of George Floyd. So I spoke with Joseph for Future Perfect’s limited-series podcast, The Way Through, which is all about exploring the world’s greatest philosophical and spiritual traditions for guidance during these difficult times.
This is a conversation about how these two figures defined and shaped the struggle for racial justice in America. In that sense, it’s very much a conversation about the present told through the prism of the past.
But this is also an exploration of the political philosophies of Malcolm X and MLK and why they’re not nearly as antithetical as we’re made to believe. In the end, as Joseph explains, Malcolm and Martin speak to the eternal tension between reform and revolution, idealism and pragmatism. But their story also shows that the choice between these approaches isn’t always so clear — and sometimes isn’t really a choice at all.
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History In the making as kamala harris is nominated for the Democratic party’s Vice Presidential ticket
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Biden’s senior campaign advisor Karine Jean-Pierre became the first Black chief of staff to a vice presidential nominee; she’s also a lesbian with immigrant roots. Color Lines: Yet Another Black Woman Makes History With Biden's Campaign
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Former Vice President and current Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden followed up last week’s historic announcement of Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as his running mate—the first Black woman to sit on a presidential ticket—by also announcing that senior campaign advisor Karine Jean-Pierre would be Harris’ chief of staff, making Jean-Pierre the first Black person to serve as chief of staff to a vice-presidential candidate, LGBTQ Nation recently reports.
A groundbreaker in her own right, Jean-Pierre is a Black lesbian with Haitian roots. And she and Biden go back to 2011 at least, when she served as the deputy director of battleground states for President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, according to her bio. In tweeting her announcement last week, Jean-Pierre called herself “ambitious”—surely as a preemptive response to the campaign’s naysayers—and that she was ready to get to work.
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This is why democrats can’t stop pressing on the defunding of the post office. Thousands of voters in Georgia may not be able to vote due to undeliverable absentee ballots. The Grio: Georgia voters at risk of being declared ‘inactive’ to vote
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County officials notified voters in July that their absentee ballots weren’t able to be delivered, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday. Some of the people may have moved from where they originally requested a form in the spring or the address listed was incorrect.
Consequently, they may now be deemed inactive for the presidential election. Voters now have 30 days to respond and maintain their active status on the rolls. An official number was not given by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger but Gwinnett County alone sent over 20,000 notices last month.
The sheer number of voters who may be deemed inactive has left the Democratic Party of Georgia accusing Raffensperger’s office of illegal activity and that federal law is being comprised.
In April, he authorized the decision to send absentee ballots to all the eligible 6.9 million voters in the state. He reasoned it would give voters more options because of the pandemic.
The recent inactive status of voters has sparked criticisms of the Republican official’s actions. There was even the suggestion that the subsequent results may be illegal as The National Voter Registration Act mandates that any measure to cancel voter registrations has to be done within a three-month period.
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Scores of Brazilian women have taken to the streets to protect a 10-year-old child who was being persecuted by religious extremists for trying to legally undergo an abortion after being raped, allegedly by her uncle.
The girl, from São Mateus, a small town in the south-eastern state of Espírito Santo, was admitted to hospital on 7 August complaining of abdominal pain and doctors confirmed she was pregnant.
The child told police she had been abused by her uncle since age six and had stayed silent out of fear. The 33-year-old man is reportedly on the run.
Brazil’s highly restrictive abortion laws – largely written in 1940 – permit terminations in cases of rape, when the mother’s life is at risk and when the birth defect anencephaly is detected.
A man cycles in front of a graffiti of pregnancy on an overpass in Recife, Brazil, 4 February 2016. The graffiti translates as: ‘We all have a right to live’.
Photograph: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
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The United Nations has joined global condemnation of the military takeover in Mali, which saw President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta forced to resign. BBC: Mali coup: UN joins global condemnation of military takeover
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The UN's Security Council echoed similar calls by regional bodies for the immediate release of all government officials and the restoration of constitutional order.
The soldiers said they acted to prevent the country falling into further chaos.
They say they will set up a civilian government and hold new elections.
Mali, a vast country stretching into the Sahara Desert, is among the poorest in the world and has experienced several military takeovers. It is currently battling to contain a wave of jihadist attacks and ethnic violence.
Mr Keïta won a second term in elections in 2018, but since June has faced huge street protests over corruption, the mismanagement of the economy and disputed legislative elections.
There has also been anger among troops about pay and the conflict with jihadists.
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In MISSISSIPPI 52% OF THE STUDENTS WHO WILL STAY AT HOME FOR AT LEAST THE FIRST 2 MONTHS OF THE SCHOOL YEAR ARE BLACK, EVEN THOUGH BLACK CHILDREN ACCOUNT FOR ONLY 1/3 OF THE DISTRICT’S ENROLLMENT. OZY: WHY BLACK FAMILIES ARE OPTING FOR REMOTE LEARNING
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Yolanda Logan, the parent engagement coordinator for the Oxford School District in Mississippi, spent two weeks in July making home visits — some announced, some cold calls — to check in on the students educators had been most worried about when schools shut down in the spring. Some had test scores at the bottom at their class. Some belonged to families who had been struggling to make ends meet before the pandemic struck and devastated the economy.
Logan asked the students, and the adults in their lives, how they were holding up and what support they needed. She tried to gauge their comfort level with the district’s plan to reopen buildings this fall and address any concerns. Ready to answer questions about nuts-and-bolts issues, she had a checklist of important dates like registration deadlines and the first day of school at the ready. But as she went door to door, she met an unexpected wave of opposition.
Many Black and Latino families told her they were uncomfortable with sending their children back. When she was off the clock and brought up the issue with fellow parishioners of one the city’s most prominent Black churches, she received the same response: They wouldn’t budge, she said. “You [could] hear the intensity in their voices, hear their forcefulness.”
Oxford is one of many districts offering parents a choice of either in-person or remote learning for their children as coronavirus cases continue to surge across the country. In Oxford, one of the state’s most diverse districts, parents are making their choices along distinctly racial lines.
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There is debate on exactly the date Africans were brought to what is now known as the United States prior to 1619. However, many scholars and Black history educators refer to 1619 as agreed upon date of the first arrival of human beings brought across an ocean in bondage arrived here. This reference comes from documented evidence from John Rolfe, a colonizer and slaveowner, who wrote about arriving in present-day Hampton, Virginia, with African slaves on his ship.
The African slaves were believed to be captured from present-day Angola. These enslaved people were captured during the war between Portugal and the kingdom of Ndongo and brought abroad the slave ship, San Juan Batista. John Rolfe and other colonizers bombarded San Juan Batista on its route to present-day Veracruz, Mexico, and took over 20 African slaves with them to their own slave ship.
Once Rolfe’s ship arrived in present-day Virginia, the enslaved Africans were exchanged for food and kept in Jamestown, the first English land occupation on Turtle Island (currently known as the United States). Remember, this was before the Mayflower.
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![TITLE: [Martin Luther King and Malcolm X waiting for press conference]..CALL NUMBER: USN&WR COLL - Job no. 11695, frame 27 <item> [P&P]..REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USZ6-1847 (b&w film copy neg.).No known retrictions on publication...MEDIUM: 1 photographic print...CREATED/PUBLISHED: [1964 March 26]..CREATOR:..Trikosko, Marion S., photographer...NOTES:..U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection...SUBJECTS:..King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968--Public appearances..X, Malcolm, 1925-1965--Public appearances...FORMAT:..Photographic prints 1960-1970...REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA..DIGITAL ID: (b&w film copy neg.) cph 3d01847 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3d01847..CARD #: 92522562](https://images.dailykos.com/images/326689/large/Reverend-Martin-Luther-King-Malcolm-X-CR-AAM.jpg?1478994391 "TITLE: [Martin Luther King and Malcolm X waiting for press conference]..CALL NUMBER: USN&WR COLL - Job no. 11695, frame 27 <item> [P&P]..REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USZ6-1847 (b&w film copy neg.).No known retrictions on publication...MEDIUM: 1 photographic print...CREATED/PUBLISHED: [1964 March 26]..CREATOR:..Trikosko, Marion S., photographer...NOTES:..U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection...SUBJECTS:..King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968--Public appearances..X, Malcolm, 1925-1965--Public appearances...FORMAT:..Photographic prints 1960-1970...REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA..DIGITAL ID: (b&w film copy neg.) cph 3d01847 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3d01847..CARD #: 92522562")
