The Case for Reparations And if thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing today. — Deuteronomy 15: 12–15 — John Locke, “Second Treatise” By our unpaid labor and suffering, we have earned the right to the soil, many times over and over, and now we are determined to have it. — Anonymous, 1861 I. Clyde Ross was born in 1923, the seventh of 13 children, near Clarksdale, Mississippi, the home of the blues. In the 1920s, Jim Crow Mississippi was, in all facets of society, a kleptocracy. This was hardly unusual.
From Brooklyn to Bo-Kaap - Rolling Stone South Africa Music Exchange, one of South Africa's premier music, film, and entertainment conferences, was held in Cape Town's City Hall this weekend. The three-day conference, which describes itself as "a catalyst between the artistically anchored worlds of entertainment, film, music, and academia," welcomed critically-acclaimed and commercially successful U.S. Hip Hop recording artist and actor Mos Def (a.k.a. Yasiin Bey). Can you give people in Cape Town a sense of what it was like growing up for you in New York City? I was born in Brooklyn, New York City. [When I was a teenager], New York City was a crazy place. What do you mean it was a different time? I didn't quite fit into the cultural status quo of that day, which is kinda like you know big gold chains and velour suits, and very big tough macho guys—and I wasn't, it just wasn't me. What are some of your earliest Hip Hop or artistic memories? And then, I heard "Planet Rock," by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force. I love its vitality. H.
How The Asians Did Not Become White | Race Files In a May 29, 2014 Washington Post editorial “How the Asians Became White,” UCLA law professor, Eugene Volokh, argues that the claim that “Silicon Valley remains a white man’s world” resulting from a recent report on racial diversity in employment at Google overlooks the fact that 30 percent of Google employees are Asians, and in a manner he thinks is manipulative. To quote Volokh, Google on Wednesday released statistics on the makeup of its work force, providing numbers that offer a stark glance at how Silicon Valley remains a white man’s world. But wait — just a few paragraphs down, the post notes that non-Hispanic whites are 61 percent of the Google work force, slightly below the national average. (That average, according to 2006-10 numbers, is 67 percent.) Google is thus less white than the typical American company.But there’s a sinister aspect to this as well. Good try, Eugene, but there are so many things wrong with this that I can hardly think where to begin.
Voices from the Days of Slavery - Faces and Voices from the Presentation (American Memory from the Library of Congress) Approximately four million Americans enslaved in the United States were freed at the conclusion of the American Civil War. The stories of a few thousand have been passed on to future generations through word of mouth, diaries, letters, records, or written transcripts of interviews. Only twenty-six audio-recorded interviews of ex-slaves have been found. This collection captures the stories of former slaves in their own words and voices. Little biographical information about them is available. Apart from their voices, photographs have been found only for the seven individuals below. Fountain Hughes, Age 101 "You wasn't no more than a dog to some of them in them days. Read or listen to the rest of the narrative... Fountain Hughes, circa 1952. Top George Johnson, Age Unknown "I got my name from President Jeff Davis. Read or listen to the rest of the narrative... George Johnson, circa 1935. Uncle Bob Ledbetter, Age 72 or 73 Read or listen to the rest of the narrative... Isom Moseley, Age 88
Angela Davis & Toni Morrison / How do we become whole ... after traumas that threaten to splinter our souls?: On literacy, libraries, & liberation » onlineJournal | The Liberator Magazine “Write it down, girl. Tell everyone how much it hurts. Sharing will make it easier to bear.” -Terri L. Jewell How do we become whole -- again, or perhaps for the first time -- after experiencing traumas that threaten to splinter our souls? The road to recovery is meandering. The connective tissue here is the idea that each of us is, in varying degrees, caged by the wreckage of our past, and sometimes, our present. LIVE from the NYPL: Angela Davis and Toni Morrison: Literacy, Libraries, and Liberation Toni Morrison: We’re just talking, ooh. Angela Davis: We’re talking about [Frederick] Douglass, libraries -- Toni Morrison: Literacy -- Angela Davis: Literacy and liberation. Toni Morrison: Yes, absolutely. And my documentation for this, Angela. Angela Davis: I actually wanted to begin on that theme by talking a bit about the inaccessibility of libraries, and I’m thinking about my own childhood, when I saw this incredible building in Birmingham, Alabama, made out of Indiana limestone.
Study: Stereotypes Drive Perceptions Of Race : Code Switch Copyright © 2014 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required. Governments, schools and companies all keep track of your race. The stats they collect are used to track the proportion of blacks and whites who graduate from school, for example. SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve. INSKEEP: What's the problem? VEDANTAM: Well, there's an assumption that's built into all those tracking systems that you mentioned, Steve, and that assumption is that a person's race is fixed. INSKEEP: Mm-hmm. VEDANTAM: I spoke with Aliya Saperstein. INSKEEP: Longitudinal, meaning that they're tracking people over a very long period of time. VEDANTAM: Exactly. ALIYA SAPERSTEIN: What our research challenges is the idea that the race of an individual is fixed. INSKEEP: Are we talking here about mixed-race people who might have a strong genetic reason to be multiple races? VEDANTAM: Now, that's a possibility, Steve. INSKEEP: Right. VEDANTAM: Yes, it is.
Judith Butler. A Politics of the Street EGS can still offer graduate applicants the opportunity to be begin their MA or Ph.D. studies with us this August 2014. Ours is one of the strongest transdisciplinary programs you will encounter anywhere. We are fortunate to have attracted high quality faculty and students for 16 years. Among the exceptional professors with whom you can study in our August session are: Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Judith Butler, Mike Figgis, Werner Hamacher, Michael Hardt and Toni Negri, Graham Harman, Sylvere Lotringer, Catherine Malabou, Jacques Ranciere, Larry Rickels, Avital Ronell. These are the thinkers and artists whose visions have influenced your own creative works. US citizens and legal residents are eligible for student loans, but the deadline is fast approaching: June 30 - Please read our Financial Aid Manual and use the proper 2013 - 2014 loan application form. For students paying all tuition and accommodation costs with private funds, the deadline for applying to EGS is August 1, 2014.
A South African’s guide to when it’s okay to call Nelson Mandela ‘Madiba’ By Max Fisher December 9, 2013 (Gareth Davies/Getty Images) For many years, South Africans have affectionately referred to Nelson Mandela by his traditional Xhosa clan name, "Madiba." It's a term of endearment, respect and familiarity. Naturally, since Mandela's passing on Thursday, people around the world have started using "Madiba" as well. It's surely meant as a show of love and admiration for the great man and his achievements. After I joked on Facebook that white Americans often refer to Mandela as "Madiba" because of their close links to traditional Xhosa culture, reader Jaclyn Schiff and her husband responded by trying to sincerely answer the question: When is it appropriate for someone to use "Madiba"? Schiff and her husband, the journalist Menachem Wecker, put together this list of 15 criteria; they suggest that someone should meet at least one of these before deploying Mandela's nickname. 1. It's a good list. 1. 2. 3.
Brotherhood, Pictures And Life With Cerebral Palsy : The Picture Show Chris Capozziello is a photojournalist. His twin brother, Nick, has cerebral palsy. They share their story in conversation with The Picture Show: Chris Capozziello was born first. "Things seemed fine, but they were not fine," says Chris. Nick had cerebral palsy. The rest of the story unfolds slowly over time. Thirteen years ago, Chris started documenting his brother's life. In graduate school, Chris started showing the pictures to friends, who encouraged him to share them with a wider audience. The black-and-white images are an unflinching look at hardship, pain and guilt. Last year, Chris took Nick on a road trip through the American West. "The pictures aren't worth money, [but] they are priceless," says Nick. Chris recently moved to a house a few miles from his parents' home in Connecticut so he can be near Nick as much as possible.
The Other Side of Immigration | a film by Roy Germano, Ph.D. Home Is Where the Hatred Is A family in its one-room flat in Chicago, date unknown. (AP) In "The Case for Reparations," I tried to move the lens away from the enslaved and focus on their descendants. On some vague level, I understood this to be true. I thought of Jackson's book years later when I picked up Isabel Wilkerson;s The Warmth of Other Suns. Chicago is one of three cities that feature prominently in Warmth. Conot's book has been forgotten, and I don't really know why. I decided to focus on Chicago after reading Arnold Hirsch's essential, if dense, Making the Second Ghetto. The "Making" part is important and here is when the core of my reparations argument began to form (emphasis added): Ghetto-building does not make for an edifying tale. As an aside, in each of these books, I thought I saw the dim outline of an argument for reparations. Having decided to focus on Chicago I went to Beryl Satter's history of contract lending in the city, Family Properties. 1.) 2.) 3.) 4.) 5.) 6.) 7.) 8.)
John Oliver Uses Puppets To Explain Prison System Is 'A Lot Racist' (VIDEO) On Sunday John Oliver tackled the "fundamentally broken" U.S. prison system in an extended segment on his HBO show "Last Week, Tonight." “We have more prisoners at the moment than China," Oliver said. "We don’t have more anything than China other than, of course, debt to China." Oliver explained that the prison population in America has expanded eight-fold since 1970. "The only other thing that has grown at that rate, since the seventies, is varieties of Cheerios. He noted that about half the people in prison are there for drug charges, and that minorities go to jail at a higher rate for drug charges. “Our drug laws are a little draconian, and a lot racist," he said. Oliver then referenced the "Sesame Street" puppet whose dad is incarcerated. "We now need adorable singing puppets to explain prison to children in the same way they explain the number seven or what the moon is," he lamented. Watch the video:
How Obama’s ‘Acting White’ Blunder Erased Indigenous Concerns Lost amidst President Obama’s recent, controversial and unfortunate statement on young Black men “acting white” was the question posed by Vance Home Gun of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Home Gun asked, “How is the United States Government helping American Indian people revitalize their language and culture?” Obama acknowledged that it was a “great question” and, even mentioned the young Native people on the Rez whom he saw texting and taking selfies on their cell phones (implied here is that he seemed surprised that Native Americans use modern technology, too). Obama then moved into outdated discourses of Indigenous Peoples being relics of the past, incapable of living in the present: “You can’t just live in the past. You also have to look to the future…. There has to be an adaptation to what is increasingly a world culture.” President Obama didn’t suggest to indigenous youth to challenge the notion of “acting white” like he did for Black youth. Kyle T. Kyle T.
Ta-Nehisi Coates and the boundaries of legitimate debate At the Sixth and I synagogue in Washington on Thursday night, people were reselling tickets out on the street as if a playoff game was taking place inside, rather than a talk by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a national correspondent for the Atlantic. The subject of the event was Coates’s recent cover story for the magazine, “The Case for Reparations,” which has broken traffic records and vanished from newsstands. (The Atlantic) While the piece is popular, the turnout for Coates and the reception he received in the sanctuary reflected something larger than the enthusiasm for a single article. “The Case for Reparations” managed to revive and reframe a major policy debate about race in the United States. At Sixth and I, Coates recalled what the standards were when he was in college. The campaign to eradicate respectability politics is not yet complete. “It was policy that got us redlining,” Coates argued. “The most common response I get from white people is ‘I had no idea.