Category Archives: protest

August 29, 2013 · 1:52 am

Martin Luther King improvising

I heard a nice tribute to Martin Luther King Junior and his speech at the March on Washington on the radio this morning.  Another version of this showed up in my RSS feed thanks to the fantastic “Daily Feminist Cheat Sheet” on Feministing.

Apparently, the essential chorus of “I have a dream” was a semi-improvisation for King.  It was a response to Mahalia Jackson.

As King neared the end, he came to a sentence that wasn’t quite right. He had planned to introduce his conclusion with a call to “go back to our communities as members of the international association for the advancement of creative dissatisfaction.” He skipped that, read a few more lines, and then improvised: “Go back to Mississippi; go back to Alabama; go back to South Carolina; go back to Georgia; go back to Louisiana; go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.”

Nearby, off to one side, Mahalia Jackson shouted: “Tell them about the dream, Martin!” King looked out over the crowd. As he later explained in an interview, “all of a sudden this thing came to me that I have used — I’d used many times before, that thing about ‘I have a dream’ — and I just felt that I wanted to use it here.” He said, “I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.” And he was off, delivering some of the most beloved lines in American history, a speech that he never intended to give and that some of the other civil rights leaders believed no one but the marchers would ever remember.

via Mahalia Jackson, and King’s Improvisation – NYTimes.com.

Don’t sleep on the impact of the solid gospel choices of Mahalia Jackson in motivating a political crowd.  Remember that music is key for every liberation movement I can think of.

She sang two spirituals, “I Been ’Buked and I Been Scorned” and “How I Got Over.” King was seated nearby, clapping his hands on his knees and calling out to her as she sang. Roger Mudd, covering the event for CBS News, said after the first song: “Mahalia Jackson. And all the speeches in the world couldn’t have brought the response that just came from the hymns she sang. Miss Mahalia Jackson.”

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I hope you have some remaining monthly New York Times tokens!  Or else you won’t be able to follow the link I’ve recommended to read the whole article.  Pretty short-sighted New York Times.  #newyorktimeshatesfreeinformation

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June 30, 2013 · 4:50 am

Direct action to organize jailed immigrants

Marco Saavedra being arrested. Photo by Steve Pavey from the American Prospect.

Please read this article by Michael May on young activists who are getting arrested in order to organize immigrants in detention facilities.

The success of the campaign made the three activists wonder: Could they replicate it on a grand scale by getting themselves detained on purpose? Inside immigration detention facilities, they would surely find dozens, if not hundreds, of low-priority detainees like de los Santos whom they could help. At the same time, they could publicize the fact that it wasn’t just criminals who were being deported, as the Obama administration kept insisting. “We realized we could be more effective if we just went straight to the source,” Abdollahi says. Doing so would flip the script on immigration agents; the activists would be taking advantage of their undocumented status and thus could be detained and deported. Deportation was unlikely, because they were Dreamers without serious criminal records. Even so, this would make the risk they’d taken in Charlotte look like nothing. But Saavedra, Abdollahi, and Martinez had been growing more fearless, and more radical, since they’d met.

via Los Infiltradores.

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June 13, 2013 · 8:36 pm

Accountability: Anonymous hacking Steubenville

Adrian Chen has a provocative essay on a hacker/Anonymous member who was instrumental in articulating the digital actions to challenge rape culture in Steubenville Ohio.

Chen not only describes the mistakes made by Lostutter and Anonymous hackers, but also outlines the cultural impact of this kind of hacktivism.  Here Chen describes the impact of the video released of the football player enthusiastically cheering on the rapes.

The video wasn’t forensic evidence of a crime, but of the attitude that could allow something like the rape to happen over and over again. When people talk about how Anonymous “exposed” Steubenville, they can’t mean the facts of this case, which were utterly botched by KnightSec and its allies. What they mean is that Anonymous exposed how sexual assault is a bigger issue than bad people doing bad things. That it is enabled and even celebrated by a culture that tells young men it’s OK to laugh off a horrific rape as harmless late-night debauchery, to be instagrammed and tweeted about, then expects the rest of us to feel bad for the perpetrators when they’re punished. That’s the valuable lesson of this video, and KYAnonymous alone had uncovered it.

via “Weaponize the Media”: An Anonymous Rapper’s War on Steubenville.

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May 13, 2013 · 9:05 pm

Digital direct action: accountability for rape

From the Mother Jones article.

Josh Harkinson has written an excellent essay on the digital direct action involved in the documentation of the Steubenville rapes and a Canadian instance of sexual assault and cyber-bullying which resulted in death of Rehtaeh Parsons. 

I didn’t know that Anonymous had helped to document the evidence about the Steubenville Ohio assault (much of it drawn from social media).

About two weeks later, the Anonymous subgroup KnightSec hacked RollRedRoll.com. The hackers posted the incriminating tweets, Saltsman’s Instagram photo, and the names of 11 bystanders. “This is a warning shot,” said a video communiqué featuring a computer-generated voice and the group’s trademark Guy Fawkes figure. The video (watch below) warned that KnightSec would release the phone numbers and Social Security numbers of the entire football team unless “all accused parties come forward by New Year’s Day and issue a public apology to the girl and her family.”

via Exclusive: Meet the Woman Who Kicked Off Anonymous’ Anti-Rape Operations | Mother Jones.

One result of the increased focus was the visibility of community support for the rapists.   In some ways the hacking made community accountability in Steubenville possible.  And after the evidence had been released, Anonymous hosted at least nine protests to force police action against the perpetrators. After one significant video was released the numbers swelled to what might be described as critical mass and in front of thousands of angry protesters, the women of Steubenville spoke about other rapes.

And vent they did. For four hours, there was a catharsis of personal pain and grief that nobody in the small town could have imagined. Women who had been raped stood in front of the crowd, clad in Guy Fawkes masks, to share their stories. Some of them unmasked at the end of their testimonies as they burst into tears. Rapes at parties, date rapes, rapes by friends and relatives—their pent-up secrets came pouring out. “It turned into this women’s liberation movement, in a way,” MC recalls. “And it just changed everything. There was nothing anybody could do against us at that point because it was so real and so true.”

via Exclusive: Meet the Woman Who Kicked Off Anonymous’ Anti-Rape Operations | Mother Jones.

The audio clips are available on the Mother Jones site.

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February 22, 2013 · 11:18 pm

Ella Baker!

Pascal Robert reviews a new biography of Ella Baker (Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement by Barbara Ransby) and I’m convinced to go pick up the book.  It seems fascinating to think about the inquiry into Baker’s challenges to the dominant communication and organizing styles of the civil rights leaders of her day.   It seems valuable to explore and educate about the model of  charismatic masculine oratory — the singular male leader inspiring the crowds.

What made Baker’s method of organizing both effective and revolutionary is that it completely dismissed the traditional paradigm of leadership that had plagued the black community from its earliest history in North America, stemming mostly from the black church: Charismatic masculine leadership based on oratory and exhibitionism. Baker believed in empowering the most common person, whether a sharecropper, teenager, or illiterate vagrant with skills to make demands on the political establishment. Baker believed that people did not need fancy leaders with degrees and pedigree to tell them what was best for them. She believed in giving people the power to choose their direction and make demands, and put pressure on institutions without depending on big shots with fancy suits. In her book, Professor Ransby notes:

“At every opportunity [Ella] Baker reiterated the radical idea that educated elites were not the natural leaders of Black people. Critically reflecting on her work with the NAACP, she observed, “The Leadership was all from the professional class, basically. I think these are the factors that have kept it [the NAACP] from moving to a more militant position.”

via NewBlackMan (in Exile): Ella Baker and the Limits of Charismatic Masculinity.

Thanks to Mark Anthony Neal’s New Black Man (in Exile) for the story and link.

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January 28, 2013 · 9:48 pm

Reading disasters through museums:They’re burning the stuff we haven’t stolen yet!

The new crisis in Mali reminds me of the Taliban destroying priceless Buddhist statues.  In case you didn’t see it, extremists in Mali burned an archive of historical records and old manuscripts.

Seydou Traoré, who has worked at the Ahmed Baba Institute since 2003, and fled shortly before the rebels arrived, said only a fraction of the manuscripts had been digitised. “They cover geography, history and religion. We had one in Turkish. We don’t know what it said.”

He said the manuscripts were important because they exploded the myth that “black Africa” had only an oral history. “You just need to look at the manuscripts to realise how wrong this is.”

Some of the most fascinating scrolls included an ancient history of west Africa, the Tarikh al-Soudan, letters of recommendation for the intrepid 19th-century German explorer Heinrich Barth, and a text dealing with erectile dysfunction.

via Timbuktu mayor: Mali rebels torched library of historic manuscripts | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Of course the loss of history is tragic.  And we shouldn’t burn books.  But beyond this is the preference to simplify another culture and place through colonial loss — in essence we should be enraged that human history is being destroyed.  In my opinion this hinges on a universal humanist version of history — one where all the stories of the world are foundations for the great story of the west.

Although destructive and thoughtless, it seems as though the west is more concerned about the ideas of people of the region that were recorded four hundred years ago than those expressions of anger in 2013.  This temporary colonial perspective would probably elicit awkward old school colonialist answers to global problems.

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January 19, 2013 · 11:19 pm

Documentary on the Ghetto Brothers

Nice documentary on the formidable culture changers the Ghetto Brothers.  Filmmaker Andreas Vingaard has seven wonderful short films up on his page dedicated to New York City community activists and hip hop pioneers.  I appreciate the editing and the focus on the subjects telling their own stories.

And don’t sleep on the interview with Joseph Mpa who is a black panther organizer who becomes the manager of the Cold Crush Brothers.

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July 20, 2012 · 4:09 pm

I know rappers steal mics

Friday morning.  What a lovely series of rap video treats in my RSS feed.  First up Joell Ortiz, one of the finest with a fantastic a capella.

Stalley and Curren$y with “Hammer and vogues.”  I don’t love the silly sexist chorus on this tune, but the rest is pretty legitimate.

Fridays belong to Killa Kyleon.  I’m feeling the black T and Raiders cap (a nod of respect for this NWA instro).  Waiting patiently for T.R.I.L.L. from Killa K.

There is something wonderful about enjoying rap music these days.  For every tune that covers the predictable territory (guns, sex, drugs), there is another song that references Jason Seigel, teenage mutant ninja turtles, and is essentially about self-doubt.  If you don’t know Gerald Walker, now you know.

Thanks to you heard that new for almost all these videos.

And of course, the news that Brother Ali went to jail to help #occupy a soon-to-be-repossessed home.

Props go out to Minneapolis artist Brother Ali for getting himself arrested a couple of weeks ago. No Ali wasn’t doing the Chris brown/ Drake number and tossing bottles in a club. He got arrested for standing up and helping Occupy a House that was scheduled to be foreclosed on by greedy bankers. That’s who we need to be tossing bottles at. bankers who have made record profits and yet still insist on fraudulently foreclosing on homes.

In this recent case, the Cruz family in Minneapolis attempted to make a payment online, which the bank refused. This triggered the bank to impose a two month fine, which the family couldn’t pay which then led to foreclosing proceedings. Such tactic are not unusual and in this particular case, lots of folks came out to help the family keep their home. One of them was Brother Ali who wound up being charged with trespassing when he refused to walk away and let the bankers keep the house.

via Davey D Top 21 & Music Notes: Good bye Ms Melodie.. Brother Ali Gets Arrested ..Miller vs Finesse « Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner-(The Blog).

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March 21, 2012 · 4:27 am

Jasiri X: Trayvon

Check out the colors of change campaign for Trayvon.

There is an interesting campaign to mail a package of skittles the police chief who chose not to arrest Zimmerman.  I’m thinking about mailing some skittles to US Attorney General Eric Holder.

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March 15, 2012 · 4:28 pm

Cultural assimilation vs. Marketing: the Nike Black and Tan edition

Thanks to kicksonfire for the image.

Nike’s new shoe, the Black and Tan, has been released presumably to take advantage of St. Patrick’s day drinking/marketing opportunities.  Whoops.  Turns out that the Black and Tan is a sour brand in Ireland because of the hated military/police group which murdered and terrorized civilians during the early twenties.

The Black and Tans were a colonial army recruited from England ostensibly to police the people of Ireland.  The lack of oversight and genuine racism in the face of a guerrilla uprising led to a terrible disdain for civilians.  The roughshod police force (their name is a reference to the haphazard uniforms of the unit) was almost 7-10,000 strong and recruited from former World War I veterans.

In retaliation for attacks on police forces, the Black and Tans attacked civilians, burned homes and businesses and in one case refused an entire village food.  Consider the documentary The Burning of Cork.

The Nike marketing error is evidence of the smooth appropriation transforming actual Irish history into a bizarre tourist narrative emphasizing drinking, leprechauns, and Irish-affiliated brands.  These tourist realities corrode against the actual history of Sinn Fein, Home Rule, and the bodily struggles associated with Irish Nationalism.

The assumption of Nike, that their party, party, party language was the universal meaning points to a kind of linguistic arrogance. NPR’s Melissa Block and Robert Siegel interviewed Brian Boyd of the Irish Times on the Nike apology.

BLOCK: Now, Nike has released a statement saying: We apologize, no offense was intended. At the same time, Nike says the sneaker has been, quote, unofficially named by some as the Black and Tan.

SIEGEL: That said, if you look inside the shoe – as we have done with online photos – you see an image of a pint of beer with two colors, black and tan.

BLOCK: Brian Boyd of The Irish Times has reported on some outrage over the shoe. But really, he says, it’s not about a shoe. It’s about a holiday.

BOYD: It’s how the Americans view Saint Patrick’s Day and view Irish culture and history. And it’s the very fact that some people are saying that these are beer-themed sneakers, that the only way to celebrate a national holiday of a country with a very rich culture and a very rich history and literature, et cetera, is to pour massive amounts of alcohol down your body.

It’s how the American treat St. Patrick’s Day. So we’re using this story to say, look, it’s the silly Americans, stupid Americans, look what they’re doing again. They’ve got it all wrong.

via Nike Kicks Up Controversy With ‘Black And Tan’ Shoes : NPR.

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