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rootsbag 0918: rest for the weary

SATURDAY

mississippi freak show

ex preacher edgar ray killen, ex head of local kkk, who
planned the killing of schwerner chaney and goodman
will be featured at a mississippi state fair booth
sponsored by local white power group

the jury deadlocked in 1967 on a 11 to 1 vote
(the one holdout saying she couldnt convict a preacher)
killen is being hailed by local bigots for his efforts
against 'the negro revolution' in the united states

the new south
smell kinda like old one
dont it

im working on this post ima call
questions id like to ask african american leadership
its going to be real funny

let me give you a couple of advance samples:

skip, when you gon get serious man, whats the use of legbas gift if you don’t know how to use it - is you a gatekeeper or aint you

kweisi, does the naacp have a clue yet

minister farrakhan: who do you support in the sudan – the arabs or the blackfolk

cynthia mckinney: showtime sister, get your act together – is you ready for primetime or aint you

colin: aint you tired of being the inhouse nigger

condeleeza: girl i aint got nothing to say to you – i dont think you savable

well, maybe they aint funny just yet but ima try to make them deep/funny
ima try to make them deep too

ima do a whole string of them
and send it out as my next newsletter
ima try to make this one funny enuf
that folk email it around to each other

i hope i piss somebody off
make them get their act together

THURSDAY

give me strength

david walker: are you walking w/ me
gullah jack; are you working w/me
ancestral line of the delta clan flowers: are you blessing me,

and baba john o killens; the great griot master of brooklyn:
if im looking good babajohn, give me strength

slackers of the world unite

talking about slack - slack aint the word
its about time kerry threw down
hes finally calling bush out
every time bush tells one of his lies
instead of going along with the program and
trying to be bush lite

you cant help but wonder where
he would be in the polls if he had been doing
this all along

been so busy trying to play it safe

he is a waffler but so is bush
and we have to get over our hesitation
on kerry, this election is too important
to indulge in our usual liberal dithering

i saw michael moore the other day
on what he called his slackers uprising tour
he kinda like his movie, pure heart and no discipline

anyway he say wait till kerry gets in before we
start our ritual progressive bloodletting

soon as he president we jack him up
hold his feet to the progressive fire

but first we got to get him in
we got to stop this rightwing revolution
in its tracks

i was with a crowd of students the other day
and word that nader had pulled out and
thrown his support behind kerry
swept thru them like wildfire

i immediately dismissed it myself
nader is a lost soul
but it was so sad to see how absolutely desperate
they were to believe he had redeemed himself

personally i dont think its really nader
i think its an evil clone planted by karl rove
some years ago just for this moment

i have not found any takers for this theory
but thats what ima believe till somebody
comes up w/a better explanation

meanwhile i sent off for an absentee ballot
i need to free myself up to do some
get out the vote work on november 2nd

newyork is probably a lock
i will volunteer in a swingstate:
penn maybe is close enuf to drive over on nov 2
something, whatever, i dont know, got to do something

last election was my first time being
part of a get out the vote operation on election day
this year im taking it up a notch

can you imagine another 4 years of bush
without the constraint of re election hanging over him
can you imagine

all you folk who been sitting these elections out
remind yourself that 500 and something votes
in florida is what got bush in the whitehouse
(with a little help from the supreme court but
we wont go there)

all of you purists who swear it doesnt make a difference
who is in power should consider the possibility that karmically speaking
a certain percentage of the dead, both us and iraqis, can be laid
at your slacking door

dont that send shivers down your spine

TUESDAY

pray for haiti

tropical storm jeanne
kills some 700 haitians
and some 1000s more missing

poor haiti
tribulation just rains upon her

god must have a mighty mission
in mind for haiti

a tempering like no other

please pray for haiti

and perhaps oneday some program to re seed haiti's forest
perhaps one tree at a time - or is that too much of a dream

must our prayers suffice

MONDAY

rest for the weary

hey everybody
feeling a little weary this weekend

got so much to do and dont really feel like posting
but if I dont post regular i lose readership
so I know i got to post regular and eventually i will
have me some regular readership

i like watching those numbers go up up up
i dont like down down down
i like up up up

but sometimes i get tired of the effort i put into this thing
when i got so much to do, im always behind

and today im just tired, I just want to lay down and
just lay there for a couple of days
w/o guilt

i think the theme of this weeks rootsbag gon be
rest for the weary

talking about my novel
and also that weariness we artists and activists get sometime
that weariness all gods children get sometime

i got so many projects and initiatives up in the air
and they all critical, i cant afford to let not one of them drop
not one

and bushs teflon strength I think thats getting me down too
god i think he is so dangerous to the world and our future and the thought
of another 4 years of bushs fundamentalist/imperialist agenda scare me to death

and i want to just cry out to the american people:
cant you see what hes doing to us

what hes doing to the world

and seeing nader get on the ballot in florida didn’t help either
florida of all places - how could he do this to us

and then the un rephrased their threat on the sudan
from we will impose sanctions on the sudan
to we will consider imposing sanctions on the sudan
and meanwhile as many as 10000 a month dying in darfur

and my sister still holding on by the skin of her chinny chin chin and
basically keeping my mother alive by what appears to be sheer will

and my novel just wont move into closure no matter how hard i work on it
schoolhouse got me humping
and pretty much all my little organizing efforts seem to be floundering but then they always do
and sometimes you feel like you just wasting your life/time
and im just tired and im tired of not getting no props for what I do

guess ima spend this week talking myself back into a groove
i know i been blessed in life, im just tired

was talking to a young activist on campus, kris kranen
young organizer that renew your faith in the young generation
make you think the struggle is in good hands
but she was talking about being woreout too, sound like an old vet

got that whatever you do its never enuf blues

and then i think about my novel and how i so want it to be
rest for the weary

how it started off as no rest for the weary
and metamorphed one day into
rest for the weary

how I want it to renew and regenerate, refresh and revitalize
im talking redemption, resurrection and everything nice
im talking about rest for the weary

i want this book to heal the sick and make the lame whole
i want this book to mend faith and nurture dreams
i want it to be a calling to a greater destiny
i want it to be a mighty spell
i want it to be a vision

and how I spec rest for us true believers
boils down to getting your work done

i get my work done and im satisfied
i will roll w/the lifepunches and sing the blues when i must
and when its time i will die well not happy
but with a certain satisfaction, a certain acceptance:

here lies rickydoc flowers. he did what he could. he kept the faith
he done the work

and on that note i gotta go,
gotta get some manuscript done tonight,
gotta go gotta go gotta go

i just cant get with reparations, god knows ive tried

i been catching flak cause i said
in an earlier post that reparations
was absolute foolishness

perhaps that was a little harsh
let me attempt a more nuanced presentation
of my position on reparations

first off let me say that i believe
we can disagree on a given strategy
without putting our value as organizers
into question

there are many roads to timbuktu
is my standard position when it comes
to the wide array of strategies befitting
an activist people

then let me say that i believe
empowerment should be the goal of our
strategies as we move into the 21st century

empowerment can be any of many aspects of empowerment
cultural, economic, political empowerment
spiritual, personal, community empowerment
whatever moves you as an organizer

but the bottomline is that we must be empowered as a people

i furthermore believe that for cultural organizers
you have to think in terms of generations

your empowerment strategies should be designed
to shape our future generations into the people
you think we should be

the longer your vision, the more generations you influence
the more powerful your game

as cultural organizers
the longest most comprehensive game wins

im talking longgame: cultural custodians shall we say

it is because of this that my organizing efforts of late
have been focused on our indigenous spiritual tradition

if we can incorporate a sense of responsibility for the
destiny of the blackrace (and all humanity) into the hoodoo tradition
it would be an ever evolving guiding influence unto eternity

it is the longest most potentially influential game i can think of

then i look at reparations and judge it as an empowerment strategy

first off what kind of people does it train us to be
we are putting all our energies into (okay i wont say begging)
we are putting all our energies in trying to convince the whitefolk
to give us something

i wont go into all the definitions of that something
cause it doesnt matter to me

whatever your definition of that something is
it is totally oriented toward getting something from the whitefolk
thats gon 'save' us

which no matter how you parse it, translates into whitefolk saving us
it is totally dependent on what the whitefolk do or dont do

in the 60s we struggled hard not to have our struggle dependent on
what whitefolk do or dont do, that was the big victory of the 60s
focusing our energies on ourselves and not being dependent on what whitefolk
not waiting on whitefolk to give us something thats gon save us

now i see these slogans - you owe us - you hurt us, now make us whole
this is us still orienting our struggle toward whitefolk - you owe us

"you" being the operative word here
please please mr whitefolk, please make us whole

how did we get back to this
what a revolting state of developments this is

now i dont mind this as part of an array of strategies
but for it to be our primary strategy for the 21st century
thats a travesty

whatever happened to self determination
whatever happened to kujichagulia

hey if yall want to spend your lives convincing whitefolk of whatever thats cool with me
but dont expect me to put any of my little limited organizing energy into it

my understanding is that we should be using our limited resources
shaping ourselves into an empowered people

not begging, excuse me, convincing whitefolk that they owe us
i dont give a damn if they do

my primary concern is internal, not external
my concern is forging a strong people
capable of finessing all challenges

so then i look at the strategy itself
what is it designed to do exactly
lets say that it is an effective strategy and
whitefolk give us whatever it is that we are asking for

first off
i dont really see any substantial difference between this and say welfare payments
or affirmative action for that matter
which has been a more effective strategy than getting some 'entitlement' check
and its already old news, a rearguard strategy

we got to get ahead of the strategic curve,
come up w/something new and fresh that aint been seen before
instead we lag behind it

fighting tomorrows battles w/yesterdays strategies

and will it change blackfolk in some way to get paid by whitefolk
no it wont
no more than getting one of bushs tax refunds

they will still be in charge

but hey you have heard all these arguments before
and i assume you have dismissed them

the one thing that the reparations movement has done is that it
has motivated blackfolk to become involved in the struggle
who had either not been involved before or had lost the faith

amazing what the possibility of a handout will do

but if we are going to invest all the energy that we are investing in
convincing whitefolk to give us something, whatever it is

consider that same energy, that same passion, invested in empowering our communities
in shaping our generations

in some strategy that trains us as a people to work hard and depend only on ourselves
for our essential needs, a strategy that trains us to be a powerful people

the slow and steady work of community organizing and personal empowerment
dont get a lot of mediaplay but thats still were the money is
thats where the power is

for me good game works the spirit and i dont see the spiritual value
of this reparations initiative in terms of shaping our generations

if anything i consider its value to be a negative one
call it what you like, i call it begging

and what it trains us to be is good beggars
and that aint what i see for our generations
i see a strong and powerful people,
a great and grand and wondrous people
aint got to beg nobody for nothing

instead, god help us
weve raised begging to a high art and deemed it revolutionary

i been a soldier in the struggle for almost 40 years now
you name it and ive tried to organize it

far as im concerned
that gives me the right to have my opinion
and the right to say what i feel

i think folk so desperate to re vitalize the movement
they willing to jump on any bandwagon that come down the street
whether it work or not

i spend day and night trying to figure out how to revitalize the movement
and reparations just dont pass the empowerment test for me

it is not a longgame strategy
it has no program beyond getting whatever it is asking for
and i wont waste any of my little limited time or energy pandering to it

but as i have said repeatedly i abide by the understanding
that there are many roads to timbuktu

so i dont ask that other activists agree w/me
and neither will i be intimidated into supporting what i consider
weak game

i hate blackfolk being weak
running weak game and

blundering blindly about on
the board of destiny

i hate it

rootsbag09/12: of culture heroes and spirit catchers

WEDNESDAY

my god why hast thou forsaken us

according to the latest report from the
united nations world health organization
up to 10000 darfurians are dying
every month from disease and violence

10000 a month, thats obscene

the comeback geezer

"help is on the way, brothers and sisters!
he's back, folks. marion barry. he is back."

announcement from campaign van during marion barrys latest incarnation
on the dc city council in yesterdays election

thats my homeboy you know, memphis do or die
i know he done wrong
but he done a lot of good too and i love him anyway
apparently so does ward 8

the lord is not through with him yet
and i dont care what yall say

pressing issues

thought about the reports calling the sudan the
worlds leading human rights emergency

thought about the state of the blackworld
wondered what are the 10 most pressing issues facing black america
far as im concerned (ie i wont try to defend my choices)

not in any particular order, just as they came to me
some particular to blackfolk, some we share w/the rest of the world

1) africa & islam:(genocide in sudan, slavery in mauritania, etc, etc)
2) aids (in africa and around the world)
3) the growing conflict between islam and the west/israel
4) african development and empowerment
5) blackworld development and empowerment
6) multiculturalism and the question of racial identity
7) tossing out bush and reversing the rightwing resurgence in america
8) influence of global poverty on adults & children (in particular the street children of the world)
9) the quest for global peace and prosperity
10) equitable health, education and welfare policies (in the us and the world)
11) defending the environment in the age of bush
12) revitalizing the movement (this one gets a top priority for me)
13) personal and community empowerment in the face of corporate and institutional abuse
14) the rise of fundamentalism in the world and in the united states (my next big post)

i know i know
i said 10

TUESDAY

mark fiore animation

america remembers
check it out, its good for you
make you want to laugh but you
cant quite get a chuckle up
just a little too real

way down south in the land of dixie

there is no reason why the republicans should
have a electoral lockup on the south
not with all the blackfolk we got down home

we need to tighten up the blackbelt south
come november 2004

need to send zell miller back to georgia

MONDAY

collateral damage: hearts and minds

the american occupation
seems to have taken a page from
the israeli warbook and if not actually
targeting civilians
not particularly concerned about killing them

these bombing attacks seem to be
more frustrated revenge than tactical

as this becomes more and more an airwar campaign
of bombing residential areas
more and more of the daily bodycount
are dead civilians, w/emphasis on women and children

winning hearts and minds are we

ive said it before ima say it again:

this is not a just war
and god is not on our side

play on players

check out this quote from foreign minister
mustafa osman ismail of the sudan

"as long as elections are going on, and as long as both parties are competing for the votes of the african-americans you should not expect a neutral or fair position to the situation in darfur"

well i wouldnt exactly call it competing for our votes

but at least the sudanese know where we stand
and acknowledging that we bringing some heat on them

play on players
im proud of you
keep coming on strong

the brothers and sisters of darfur
depending on you

they need to know they
are not alone

SUNDAY

spirit catcher

refresh the spirit and
journey into the photography of
chester higgens jr

exploring his online photography museum
is as much an exploration of the web as art
as it is the camera

as does all of his work
it feeds the spirit caught up in it

he say:

”my new website is a virtual museum, created to reach out to curators, teachers and students. made up of 200 pages, 1,500 photographs, 6 films and numerous reviews, it is a biography of my personal work

my sections on connections, ancient hebrews, belief, youth and footsteps under portfolio, and elders under books, illustrate my visual approach and style

as a photographer, my mission is to confront stereotypes and redefine the visual document as it relates to people on the margins of society. there are many ways to approach change. i document potential — what it means to be decent, dignified and virtuous — rather than negation"

i say you got to see it to believe it
got to follow the link to feel it

culture heroes and the oral tradition

as you probably know by now
i have an interest in cultural heroes
who what where and how

so im surfing culture heroes the other day
and ran across this piece on souleymane kante
this brother singlehandedly developed a written language
for the mande speakers of west africa
in their attempt to resist intellectual domination

its a fascinating story and
exploration of oral/written literature

bushwhacked

okay okay, i confess
im one of the nervous ones
i fear we might lose this election

the administration has gotten the hang
of saying what the american people want to hear

they are pastmasters of the okeydoke:
watch what i say, not what i do

media has been complicit in this orwellian doublespeak
the 'healthy forest iniative" butchers our forests
the "clean sky iniative" butchers our air
the "help america vote act" should be labeled "help america vote republican"
the medicare prescription drugs act was a boon to the industry, not seniors
and so forth and so on

media parrots the positive spin of official statements on iraq w/a straight face
and in its perennial search for objectivity has refused to forthrightly say
what we all know to be the truth:

that babybush has fumbled terror, the economy, afghanistan and iraq
that we, our children and our grandchildren, will be paying
the butchers bill

everybody giving kerry advice
well this is my advice
quit fiddling around the bush
call him out and don’t back up
for nobody

this week
the 1000th soldier died in vietnam excuse me iraq
medicare premiums were raised 17%
the automatic weapons ban allowed to expire
no telling what environmental regulations gutted

and bush is over kerry 53% to 37%

they tell me kerry fights best under pressure
well if this aint pressure explain to me again
what pressure is

you got to throw down man
you get ambushed you dont run away
turn your boat back into the fray

if your country ever needed you
it needs you now

bottletrees and bottleshrubs

got my bottletree out in the backyard
well okay, its actually more like a bottleshrub
had to work with what i got

but still when the sun hits it just right
its beautiful

its so pretty

and i do believe there is more
harmony in the home
my baby woke up this morning w/love
on her mind

what i want now is a good wind to come along
i want to hear it sing

the 2004 election and suppression of the black vote

when i was growing up in the delta
blackfolk werent allowed to vote

whitefolk had all kinds of tricks to deny blackfolk the vote
including polltaxes, economic pressures, literacy tests, physical violence
and all manner of apartheid skullduggery

then back in the 60s we decided we weren’t
going to take it anymore

we mobilized, we fought and we won, and we paid for our vote
in the blood of folk like schwerner, chaney and goodman
medgar and martin and the 4 martyrs of birmingham

we paid for our vote with the courage of folk like fannie lou and bob moses
and all the unsung heros who braved eviction, dogs and hoses
baton swinging deputies and armed nightriders

so that blackfolk could finally vote as fully enfranchised citizens
so blackfolk could defend themselves politically

but these 21st century republicans act like its still pre civilrights apartheid and
trying to suppress the black vote w/neither shame nor finesse

as many as 4 to 6 million folk were disenfranchised in the 2000 election
in florida the civilrights commission found blacks 10 times more likely than whites
to be disenfranchised

the media kept suggesting this was because of voter ignorance
poor dumb blackfolk just couldnt figure it out
but in many if not most cases it was found to be the result of
deliberate policies on the part of the florida election authorities

this deliberate disenfranchisement of the black vote is not limited to florida:

louisiana 2002 - fliers told black voters they could vote 3 days after election day

maryland 2002 - fliers in black baltimore gave voters the wrong date for election day and told them to be sure to pay parking tickets, overdue rent and outstanding warrants.

kentucky 2002 - official gop recruitment flier asked for volunteers to defend against the 'fraudulent activities' of the naacp and "the black militant division of the afl-cio"

pennsylvania 2003 - men w/clipboards and cars w/official appearing decals sent to black neighborhoods asking potential voters for identification

south dakota 2004 - native american voters sent to wrong polling place and incorrectly told couldnt vote w/o photo id

texas 2004 - district attorney challenged the right of students at a historically black college to register to vote

the same grubby forces of evil are gearing up for the pivotal 2004 election

michigan - republican state rep told the detroit free press that the gop will have "a tough time" if "we do not suppress the detroit vote." ie the black vote

kentucky - the jefferson county gop plans to send poll watchers to black precincts to challenge voters' eligibility

nationwide - an array of republican financed ‘black organizations’ have been running ads attempting to discourage blackfolk from voting

recent events suggest the banana republicans of florida are up to their old tricks
including a biased felons list, intimidating elderly black voters, and the refusal to supply paper trails for their new computerbased voter programs

this new shift to computer based voting has given gop operatives new opportunities to cook the books through manipulation of software and the lack of a paper trail to check the veracity of voting numbers

we really have to be on top of demanding accountability in these new systems

the banana republicans of florida are once again instructive
in florida's broward county the machines in white precincts worked fine,
the ones in black precincts did not and again black votes were ‘lost’

california recently decertified the widely used computer systems of diebold corp, whose ceo, an active george bush booster, refuses to give calif access to the computer program code or supply a paper trail for accountability

internal memos keep surfacing about all manner of illegal gop strategies specifically designed
to suppress the black vote

though they can no longer use overt tactics like poll taxes and literacy tests, todays tactics of disenfranchisment are just as effective:

individual voters challenged by armed private guards, law officers and fake poll monitors

intimidating signs posted at minority polling places warning of penalties for voter fraud

poll workers tampering with records and 'helping' voters fill out ballots

flyers and radio ads containing false information about voting procedures and threatening various penalties

having learned from al gores exerience with florida and the supreme court
the kerry campaign has started an election response team to challenge the kind of bogus election day tricks that resulted in the questionable election of 2000

furthermore a coalition of civilrights organizations including the naacp, the mexican american defense fund, the national council of la raza, the afl-cio, the league of women voters and the american civil liberties union have joined with people for the american way in an effort called the election protection program designed to address these concerns through voter education and a voter assistance hotline (1 866 our vote) to provide legal advice and assistance to voters feeling in any way disenfranchised

but the onus is on us the individual voter to do all we can to protect our votes

ensure your own and join somebodys get out the vote operation for november
if necessary start your own

rev al called it right at the democratic convention
we paid for the right to vote in the blood of our children
and in the courage of our elders

our vote is not for sale
nor should we allow it to be stolen or bartered away

the ancestors who paid for our vote in blood and courage
demand no less

the thousands of blackvotes suppressed in florida
could have made a difference in who was in charge when the towers fell

instead we have been cursed w/a makebelieve president during
one of the most challenging moments in world history

your vote counts