“The Precarious Trilogy of Black Liberation during Slavery”

            Last night, I went to the talk about the new film about Nate Turner’s rebellion, Birth of Nation. This film caused quite a bit of stir as it has been progressing through its theatrical run. Fox Studios purchased it for an astonishing 17 million dollars. This is astonishing for two particular reasons. The first is the fact it’s a film with a majority black cast and an independent film about a slave revolt in the American South. Two things that, despite its tendency of liberal-mindedness, tries to avoid like the plague. Some of this controversy is intentional. The name, Birth of a Nation, harkens back to the infamous G.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, which applauds the actions of the KKK during Reconstruction and vilifies African Americans as rapacious sub-humans. Nate Parker, the director, attempts to salvage this name and coopt it for the purpose of Black Liberation by taking what was the greatest public depiction of White Supremacy and subverting it.

            Whether or not the film succeeds at this lofty goal is hard to say, but the film does set an interesting continuation of a thematic pattern that has been occurring. In the last, 4 years there have been 3 high profile films all taking place during the height of slavery in the U.S. and all express a transgressive if not a revolutionary view of the time period.

            The first film and possibly the most radical in the trilogy antebellum blackness is the Quentin Tarantino-directed Django Unchained. Django Unchained, although fiction, it expresses a blatant depiction of blackness fighting the powers that be and centuries of racial stereotypes. The lead character starts as a slave and becomes a cowboy—the archetypical image of freedom in the American mythos—and then precedes to leave a blood trail of all the white people that sought to enslave him. The film also seeks to break the metaphorical chains of the degrading racial stereotypes that are rooted from this time period: the mammy, the tragic mulatto, the Uncle Tom, and the Mandingo.

            The next film of this rebellious trilogy is the famous 12 Years a Slave by Steve McQueen, which seeks to remove all allure and mystic from the antebellum days and instead reveals the harsh cruel reality of daily, normalized terror. The scene of Solomon’s lynching, in particular, highlights this macabre normalness. He hangs off the branch of tree struggling to maintain his breath and composure all the while children play in the background, other slaves do their work, and one person stops to give him water. Life essentially returns to normal while a person suffers right in front of everyone. The film, while not historically accurate in every situation, sets the feeling of the time and reveals the horrific blotches of blood and suffering that sustained the regal allure of the antebellum South.

            The most recent and the previously mentioned film, Birth of a Nation, follows these films in a similar note of trying to establish a revolutionary image of a time during slavery by focusing on the character Nate Turner. Since Nate Turner’s demise, history illustrated him as this boogeyman type of character by the white aristocracy in the south and this heroic figure by the black community. This current depiction seeks to establish him firmly as this figure that fought white supremacy but also illustrates a moral hero who respects the innocent. In the film, he kills only those that actively suppressed, ravaged, or harmed slaves. In other words, he killed those that the audience would condone in killing. Yet in actuality, Nate Turner’s real life endeavor was much less differing and sought to eliminate all those who benefited or will benefit from the system of racial subjugation. In other words, white women and children faced the knife just the same as their husbands and fathers. All the same, this film seeks to create heroes for African Americans from a time of subjugation.  

            There is a revolutionary character to these films that truly resonate with the contemporary movement for Black Rights. They all seek to reorient perception of the history of slavery in the United States from one of distance mired by a tragic tendency to forget and when remembered overwhelmed with a deceptive nostalgia. The mission of these great films instead invades the history with fiction and interpretation and implant heroes of mythical stature and fortitude to fight the system of the past at its worst. 

The Normandy School District in Missouri: Separate and Unequal

While driving home for Fall Break, I listened to a podcast from "This American Life" that focused on segregated schools in and around St. Louis, Missouri. Narrated by Nikole Hannah-Jones, an African American woman who has researched issues revolving around school segregation for the past ten years, the episode highlighted the unequal access to quality education that the mostly black students in the Normandy School District (which borders Ferguson, MO, where Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer) have received for the last two decades. Concentrating on a few stories from affected students, the narrator told a powerful story, one that was thought-provoking and illuminating.

The Normandy School district offered an education so horrible that it lost its state accreditation. Because they lost this status, they were forced to cover the costs for students to attend other nearby schools in the early 2010s (that is, until the State of Missouri interfered within a year and found a loophole for the district to regain accreditation), which essentially forced integration. Ultimately, one of the students whose story was uplifted -- Mah'ria -- was able to find a way to attend a different school, a school that was 85% white. She first took advantage of the bussing program and then found another way to commute. Mah'ria made new friends, earned good grades, and starred on the volleyball team. This is great for her. But, as the narrator alludes, she still did not really have access to an equal education -- all because of her skin color and her economic status.

Mah'ria and others were forced to wake up at 5 a.m. in order to catch the bus to school. They had to go to a neighboring county in order to receive a quality education. White students, on the other hand, often lived within walking distance of a top-notch, publicly funded school. Even though Mah'ria was eventually given access to a good education, she still had to make immense sacrifices in order to receive this right. This is in no way equal, and the needs of black citizens were not -- are not -- being met to the same extent and quality that those of white citizens are.

I'm glad that Mah'ria was able to find a way to get a better education. Despite her success, something must be done to improve access to quality education for black children. The narrator's answer was to further integrate more schools, to take steps to mix black and white children. But even if this is done -- and studies have proved that it is effective in raising test scores of black children because it ensures that they are receiving the same level of education as their white peers -- it is likely that the black students will be the ones bussed to new locations in order to integrate, creating another burden on these children. I honestly don't know what the answer is, but we must do something as a society to increase education equality.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with

Is Stop and Frisk in Memphis a possibility?

According to a local news station the police department in Memphis could be debating the "stop and frisk" method.  Stop and frisk is when police officers stop a pedestrian, question the pedestrian, and then frisk the pedestrian for illegal weapons and other contraband.  Typically, the frisk part is only supposed to happen when the police officer has a suspicion that the pedestrian might have contraband, or the pedestrian is suspected of involvement in a crime or a potential crime.  “Stop and Frisk” is largely an ineffective device.  WMCTV reports that a weapon was found in only one out of every 3,000 stops.  Furthermore, the technique is largely used to harass African American and Hispanic individuals.  The news station reported that out of 4.4 million individuals stopped, from 2004 to 2012, eighty percent of them were either African American or Hispanic.  This has been the reality for citizens in New York for the past few decades.  In recent years, the procedure was cut back due to the amount of legal suits that were filed.

So far, the idea of Stop and Frisk becoming a reality in the Bluff City appears to only be a rumor.  No one knows where the rumor began, but many media outlets picked up the story.  The rumor likely began when Ray Kelley, the individual that implemented the “stop and frisk” techniques in New York City, became the consultant for the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission.  Paired with the new consultant for the MSCC and the recent presidential debate discussion of the phenomenon, people’s minds have been wondering if it could become a norm in Memphis.  Although stop and frisk seems to be a rumor now, there is confirmation that the new Memphis Police Director Mike Rallings is looking to reduce the crime rate in Memphis.  Whatever actions Rallings takes, he will be carefully watched in the public eye.  When asked about drastic actions, one Memphian said, “The gap that we already got between the community and the police, it's going to make it even bigger” As for Ray Kelly, Mike Matthews of Local Memphis 24 reports, “[his] consulting firm will be in Memphis through the fall and then the group will make its recommendations to the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission.”

Whatever the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission chooses to do will spark some opinions within the Memphis community.  

I can say if stop and frisk does become a reality, I do not think Memphis citizens will accept it peacefully.

http://www.localmemphis.com/news/local-news/stop-talking-about-stop-and-frisk-some-community-leaders-say

http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/33273548/memphians-divided-on-the-use-of-stop-and-frisk

History Unheard

Throughout the entire first half of this semester we have so often talked about the history that ha not been recognized or heard because of white washing. We have touched on the white narrative and how that has become the narrative we all grew up learning about our country. We have had outside speakers come in and educate us on the narrative that has been ignored and the people who have been left out but I often wonder what we are doing now to fix this and are children in schools still learning the exact same things we learned ten and twenty years ago.

In examining how we have learned about the Civil Rights Movement, I had not learned about Ida B. Wells, Diane Nash, or the many cases where black people sued schools for not accepting them because of the color of their skin. What I do remember learning about was John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Lyndon B. Johnson. All men and all considered the front-runners of this movement. It is important, however, to recognize those who came before them and those who came after especially at this point in our history where we are again questioning race. The Black Lives Matter movement has taken such a prominent role in our questions about race and how race plays an integral role in society. I wonder how children in middle and high school are being taught about this movement or even if they are being taught this movement. For so many of them, this is a modern day iteration of the Civil Rights Movement but I think too often educators are ignoring it.

While learning our history is important, learning it in a correct fashion is perhaps more important. I have begun to more deeply understand the intersectionality that was at play long before the ways we have began to understand it now. Ida B. Wells was certainly an example of intersectionality- her gender, class, and race all played an integral part in how she understood herself and what she believed in. She did not write anti-lynching laws simply for her race but she understood that as a woman, it was important for her to share her voice with the world. She had a talent that she could not ignore and put that on display for the country. Civil Rights is indeed more than just race and a few key players and I hope to become a part of a society that educates and understands that.

Tomi Loren: Satan or simply uninformed?

Since the end of the academic year last year, there have been videos populating Facebook about presidential candidates and debates. This heavily clogs up any social media I have ventured on in the past few months and unfortunately, I choose to indulge them. I’ll watch videos, both swaying towards republicans and democrats as I think knowing what each party and candidate thinks is important in making an informed decision in the 2016 election.

However, I have so unfortunately come across a despicable woman named Tomi Loren who has a talk show called “Final Thoughts.” These clips are no more than ten minutes of a small, blonde, white woman yelling about how Trump is the candidate we should all believe in, how black people are racist, how political correctness is lame, and so much more. In an effort to understand how she came to think these thoughts, I did research as to where she went to school, her major, and anything I could think of to understand how she has become such a popular video to watch.

At this point I have probably watched five or six of her rant filled videos which addressed the time that Jesse Williams spoke at the BET awards to when Trump’s hot microphone spoke of his “locker room talk.” I am so disturbed by how she chooses to critique those who speak out against white people, the police, and Donald Trump but even more so I am disturbed by how many people agree with her.

I thought that I was surely uninformed in high school, looking back on things that I had once believed, but this woman is a college graduate who does not have beliefs that differ from mine but beliefs I deem truly dangerous for the progress of American society. She talks down to her viewers by stating what she thinks to be obvious and makes people feel like the only beliefs to be true are hers.

I beg the question that can we really just say that she is uninformed? Is the only reason she speaks so many falsities because she does not do her research or perhaps she only gets her information from Trump. I’m not exactly sure which but I can only imagine how much of the United States is also as highly uninformed as she is. I cannot imagine that somewhere in some household lies an entire family of Tomi Loren fans who practice what she preaches and share her beliefs.  

Dread Scott Lecture and Lunch

When Dread Scott visited Rhodes, I was able to both attend his lecture and the intimate lunch gathering he held the next day with a handful of students. Scott gave a powerful lecture to around 600 people about his life as an activist and artist, although not mutually exclusive, at a time when black life and its position in American society has come seriously into question. What was so refreshing about Scott is that he has been protesting our systems and structures of racism since his time at the Art Institute of Chicago. He has not waiting until the appropriate time of the Black Lives Matter movement to make his thoughts known to the American public on the plagues of racism that face our country. What surprised me so much was how candid he was with students about his beliefs in Communism and the negative ways Capitalism has affected our country.

Suring the lunch specifically, he talked about his association with the communist party and how he sees these beliefs as what should come next for the United States. He believes that a revolution is in order for our country to become what it says it is founded on despite the fact that it was founded on stolen land with stolen people to develop it.

Scott as an artist also was very opinionated on the ways in which art should be created, reflected upon, and sold. He spoke about how art is how he makes his living but how our Capitalist system is broken. A question was asked how he sell his art and believe that our economic system is not one some people can thrive on while others can’t. This point was particularly interesting for someone who identifies as a political activist and yet must somehow sustain himself.

I think as Rhodes students we need more speakers like Scott to help us question our liberal home we so easily situate ourselves in patting ourselves on the back for being progressive and accepting while so many of our country’s systems are broken. We often have authors whose opinions fit within the structure and beliefs of our college but we do not often have as many outspoken speakers who ask our students to think beyond the realm of possibility for the future of the country. This is valuable for students who need to hear perspectives other than those who identify with a certain mainstream political party.

"Justice is blind but the law is not."

Toward the beginning of the semester, we all went to go watch a performance called Iola’s Southern Fields. It was a powerful performance overall, however there is one line in particular that sticks out to me, even weeks later.

When discussing the lynching of one of her friends, Ida B. Wells proclaims that  “Justice is blind but the law is not.” When I first heard this line, it confused me. I could not figure out how the law and justice could be separated from one another. I had assumed that they always went hand in hand with one another. Upon further thought and investigation, I realized that at times they do coexist with one another successfully. Theoretically speaking, both should coexist and balance with one another on every occasion. However, there are many instances in which they do not because of a flawed justice system and institutional racism.

The dictionary definition of justice includes “righteousness, equitableness, or moral righteousness… the moral principal determining just conduct… the administering of just punishment or reward.” In this statement, justice is said to be blind in the fact that it is assumed that all will receive equitable amounts of justice for their wrongdoings. It is assumed that the authorities will administer just punishment or reward for mistakes or successes. If justice is truly blind then every person will receive the same amount for the same crime or success. However, in light of recent events it is obvious that this is not the case. It has become obvious that not all people are equal under the protection and sanctions of the law. Another interpretation of justice being blind is that not that it gives each person just amounts of punishment, but also that it is blind in that it ignores the rights of some. This means that at times, justice is absent, or blind, from some punishment. Justice ignores the people and is blind to the situation by remaining uninvolved.

Law on the other hand, has an opposite interpretation, in my opinion. Law is not blind in the fact that it sees the differences in people and acts accordingly. The law is not blind because it has to see in order to carry out its purpose. At times, this seeing helps to provide justice to those who deserve it. But at the same time there are other implications to the law not being blind. At times, the law sees details of people, such as their race, and this then affects how they are treated and how their justice is served. One example of this can be seen through the Jim Crow south and the lynching of African American men. In the eyes of the law, if an African American man were to force himself upon a white woman, he would be lynched. However, forcing himself upon a white woman also included whistling, looking, or speaking incorrectly. In these instances, the law was not blind and saw each man for their race. Their race became a determining factor in the interpretation of the law and this in turn affected their justice.

This statement forced me to think about what it means to receive justice from the law. It displayed that even though they might not always work hand in hand; they are both important concepts to understand and be able to apply.

Blog Post #2

Over the summer, I began reading a book called Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen. The premise of the book is that the author collected about eighteen different American history textbooks and analyzed each one for historical accuracy. He went through each book and began to take note of the differences and similarities of each and compiled them. He then began debunking common American history myths and misconceptions. For example, there is an entire chapter on Christopher Columbus. Rather than present him as this hero-like figure that discovered the new world, Loewen portrays him as a man who conquered lands and killed a considerable number of Native Americans. He goes through crucial points in American history that textbook companies usually put a positive spin on and debunks in the best way that he possibly can.

            Also in this book, Loewen discusses some of the reasons and ways that textbook companies select the information that they are going to include. Some do it to promote a particular feeling, usually one of national pride. For example, some of conquests taken by the United States are portrayed favorably even if many people were killed or if it was unsuccessful. Even if it is a rather bleak event in American History, writers, publishers, and editors attempt to portray a positive version of the United States to its citizens as well as to other countries.

            Another factor that must be considered when thinking about how textbook companies choose which information to include, is the idea of creating a cohesive, streamlined, version of history. At times, officials of textbook companies choose to create a more condensed, streamline narrative to make it easier for the general public to remember. It takes away parts that complicate the narrative or get it off track. In order to keep the history simple, some parts have to be left out.

            This reminds me of the master narrative discussed in the first few classes of Civil Rights in Memphis. The master narrative of the Civil Rights movement makes it appear as though there are only one to two major leaders and causes. It streamlines the movement to the point that it is simplistic and unrealistic. It takes out of consideration the complexities, inner workings and disagreements between sections of the movement. It simplifies the movement to the point that it is no longer effectively taught in some schools. Children and adults do not understand how intricate and expansive the Civil Rights movement was and is because of this master narrative.

"I'm [not] a gene believer"

In another one of my history classes, we began our class discussion by watching a compilation of Trump speeches that are all related to his discussion of genes and their affect on human performance. In a multitude of speeches he states that he is a “gene believer” and also claims to “have great genes and all that stuff.” He repeats that he thinks there are genes that allow some humans to possess more favorable qualities than others. In the opinion of Trump, these innate qualities then make some humans better than others from birth.

In my Race/Class/Gender/Sexuality class with Dr. Casey, we had a discussion on concept of scientific racism as it was discussed in The White Architects of Black Education. It was a discussion surrounding the concept of scientific racism and how scientific data would be skewed in an effort to make it appear as though African Americans were less intelligent, less successful, etc. than whites. People were more inclined to believe this information as scientists and academics were providing statistical and scientific data to support their claims. People are much more likely to not question information that they perceive as having come from a test, data collection, research, etc. It appeared to be more official; therefore people were much less likely to question it and accept it as fact. In reality, almost the entirety of this type of data was falsified, meaning that the public was being misinformed for an extended period of time.

In my mind, these are two examples of institutional racism throughout time. Even though these are two different examples, they both relate to each other in a few ways. They both have to do with the idea of an entire population of people, specifically African Americans, being born “lesser” than another group. Both are assigning personality and physical characteristics with genes that cannot be necessarily confirmed nor denied whether this is accurate. It utilizes these studies and findings to their advantage in order to make their group appear to be superior to others on the basis of science and fact.

This is one form of racism that can be seen throughout the depths of time. Even in the current time there are examples of institutional racism that can be seen. It is an example of how at times we can feel so detached from the problems of racism that are thought to be in the past. However, in reality, they are just as prevalent and talked about today, people just do not know that they are doing it.

So if these problems of institutional racism are still in play, a few questions come to light. Why do we feel the need to place people below us? Does it have more to do with our insecurities and us than it does with the entire white capitalist society?