MONDAY
worked hard this weekend, that always feels good, but the week got to be schoolhouse grind now
ima try to keep my 3 hour novelshift though, feeling mortal these days, feeling like its now or never
so many of my literary comrades are dead and gone - or no longer sharp - i just dont have time to waste
i will be 59 this year, i was in my 40s when i started this novel, its just incredible to me im still working on it
the redpen is when the novel becomes real, and i see it happening now, finally, but its like im in a race against time and im feeling the hot saliva of ravenous fate on the back of my neck, and every day i get a little more ruthless, a little more focused, showtime
ive become a big fan of ruthie foster lately, folk blues woman remind me of traci chapman, discovered her yesterday, i like her style, and she got a lot of those fighting against the odds songs i like - those i will not be defeated songs
interesting article in todays washpost about the stimulus plan that basically said is that americas consumer economy is no longer viable and has resulted in a consumer goods glut that americans can no longer sustain and that the criteria of successful intervention is can america come up with another growth engine to replace the retreating consumer base
i believe obama is trying to replace it with a green economy, we shall see
okay, latest on chris/rihanna - i am so out of the loop on some things, i didnt know chris brown from adam so i went on youtube to see what all the hoorah about and the boy got moves and i can see why
some folk feel betrayed cause its decent work and a good feel to it but all the while im listening im thinking woman beater and how hard i fight that my boys dont have that casual attitude towards women
that is so prevalent in much of our music and youth culture and i think he need to be penalized
so that the kids see that kind of thing is not good for the soul
just how much penalization depend on how sincere the celebrity counseling dance appear
we'll see if he really does learn from this
and rihanna, girlfriend need to walk away, dude dont get but one chance to beat on you
folk say her commercials in danger too but only if she appear to acquiesce in this tired scenario
me, the old hoodooman got to look at this in terms of cultural maintenance, extracting the weak, ennobling the good
men need to know there is a penalty for beating on a woman
woman need to know where the bottomline is - how to deal with a man, what to demand of a man
i cannot imagine being w/a woman i got to fuss and fight with, cannot imagine,
if dignity dont get it walk away
i liked chris browns work, i would have downloaded it, boy got some moves, but now he
in the michael jackson category, just a little too freaky for me,
everything he do say dance im judging it against knowledge that this is a woman beater
and a fool too to do it in the spotlight like that
if nothing else you would think he would realize the spotlight was on him and that was a no no
boy got issues, he need to be put in check
but i remember when bill withers got accused of woman beating and how much that hurt me cause bill withers
was my boy and i remember all the twisting and turning i did to justify still listening to bill withers
dont feel like brown a bobby brown category abuser, not yet at least, dont appear to be no r kelly quality sleezeball, least not yet
hopefully this a wakeup call for him (and his age cohort)
in hopes that he straighten up and fly right ima leave that boy in care of oshun
if that dont work ima assign somebody a little more ruthless on the case
rdoc
SUNDAY
this post is going to embarrass me, on a lot of levels, an article in todays commercial appeal about the young lions of the memphis civil rights movement, these were my earliest mentors in struggle
this article embarrasses me on a lot of levels, for one it only does the dudes, doesnt mention the lionesses like maxine smith and lauri sugarmon, who were just as active
and two it exposes me as one of the colored princes of memphis, for whom racial stewardhship has always been considered part of the family mission
i come out of the old committed wing of the southern black bourgie, back in the days of segregation when for better or worse the southern black achiever was considered a custodian of the race
that piece i did for oxford, they changed the title from:
on the nature of struggle in the age of obama and the geas of rickydoc to
raceman
when i see my old title it amuse me, damn near a parody of the clueless intellectual, off in my own world
i wasnt that comfortable with raceman, thought it was too stark, but it actually fit me
as a determined young radical my middleclass background embarrassed me, and politically my middle class ways and strategies still embarrass me
politically - lifestyle wise i appreciate my creature comforts
your basic bleeding heart tree hugger, i do what i can for folk who havent been as fortunate as i have
like obama i believe in spreading the wealth... man it look like im getting personal again
i had resolved to leave the personal alone, but this a very personal post here, decide to put it down whole because it spoke to the folk who trained me in the game when i was a little lad, the reporter kinda sexist cause it dont mention the women hardly at all
they mention maxine but not lauri and you cant speak to the turks of the memphis civil rights movement without giving maxine and lauri props - my mama was a soldier too, she dragged me and my sisters along
my father, dr flowers, was nobodys soldier, but as a family practitioner he was classic oldschool, with a distinct sense of responsibilty for the health of colored memphis, i like to think that i take after him, only ima spiritdoctor instead of a general practitioner
he took care of their bodies, i take care of their souls
im very proud of being from that world, i come from a long line of struggle and i liked seeing some of the old guard get some props
i like to think im more of a player than they were, going for more fundamental change in the game (whose tricking who) but hey im their legacy, im supposed to be a stronger player, i hope the ones come after me put me to shame
im gone, ive been working hard on that novel this weekend, im moving forward, step by step and inch by inch but im moving, using that whimsical character tech too, seem to have an affinity for it, its something ive been doing anyway only now im conscious of doing it, makes a difference, novel feels stronger as i move forward, at some point will have to go over what ive done and beef it too but for the moment, its all forward, ruthlessly driving forward, focus flowers focus, step by step and inch by inch, spent last two days focused and got maybe a page out of it but im satisfied, i will take anything, i will take a paragraph if i worked hard for it and thats what i got thats what i got
let me get out of here, i got so much work to do, and ive got to pay for those two days with some schoolhouse catch up starting today, later today, the day itself going to my novel, im feeling strong, im working hard, ima hang with this long as i can, i will pay whatever that cost
all my love
rdoc
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NAACP pioneers felt obligated to fight on
Legal activists returned to their hometown bringing vitality and determination to effect change
Hosea T. (H.T.) Lockard is 88 now, his mobility diminished to a careful but determined one-step-at-a-time move through his house with a walker.
Like his peers who pioneered the NAACP's legal activism, Lockard can peer back over the decades and appreciate the hard-won progress that is now so evident and taken for granted in February 2009, 100 years after the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
He knows that in a country in which African-American politicians ascend to places of power -- including President Barack Obama -- questions inevitably are raised about the need for organizations like the NAACP or commemorations like Black History Month.
But he hopes this centennial generates reflection and appreciation.
"I would hope the masses would look in retrospect and imagine what the conditions were then and then come forward in their minds with the gradual pace we have made changes and to look with relish on advancement thus far," says Lockard, a retired Criminal Court judge who was the first African-American member of the Tennessee governor's cabinet. "If we do nothing but educate and interpret the uneducated about the achievements, it would be a full-time job."
Before retirement from the bench and physical ailments like the
stroke that hit him years ago, Lockard brought a considerable vitality to the Memphis NAACP in its fight against local segregation and inequality.
He can recall vividly the sense of purpose he carried with him that Christmas Eve night in 1950 when, as a World War II veteran and LeMoyne College graduate from Ripley, Tenn., he returned to Memphis from St. Louis "down 51 Highway in a Pontiac I had bought with almost my last savings on four bad tires with no spare."
He had gone to law school in St. Louis and had wanted to stay -- conditions were much better for a black man five hours upriver -- but finally determined he would apply his ambition and legal training to the cause of making Memphis better.
When he visited the local branch of the NAACP, at the Abe Scharf YMCA at Linden and Lauderdale, Lockard found an older crowd discussing things like police brutality and segregation in public facilities.
"It was music to my ears," Lockard says now. "Good music, because that's what I wanted to get involved in and help bring about the change. So I kind of joined and I was accepted wholeheartedly in part because I was a young man -- only 31 -- and I showed the zest and zeal and vigor and vitality. I was ready to roll up my sleeves and go and ready to tackle anything needed to be tackled."
This was a few years before the movement in Memphis would come to include other now-colossal names of the local civil rights movement -- Benjamin Hooks, Jesse Turner, Maxine and Vasco Smith, Billy Kyles, Russell Sugarmon, A.W. Willis, among many others.
As Vasco Smith, a dentist and husband of Maxine (the longtime local director of the Memphis NAACP branch) once put it in the journal Southern Voices: "For a while, Lockard was pretty much the whole show. He did an outstanding job, and he probably laid the foundation for a lot of the things that happened later on."
He would be joined by so many others, and their efforts led to important victories, mostly won through the legal process, in areas like desegregation of the Memphis Street and Railway, public buildings and restaurants, and, of course, in education.
Like Lockard, those others chose to return to Memphis and enlist in the NAACP's cause because they felt a sense of obligation, despite knowing they could live other places where the obstacles were not so obvious nor the white citizens so malicious.
Hooks, a trailblazer as judge and Federal Communications Commission member, was the national director of the NAACP for 15 years and has received much attention lately, including a compelling Inauguration Day segment with Dan Rather.
Sugarmon, now 79 (born in the same year as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), graduated from Booker T. Washington High School at 15. After he finished his undergraduate degree at Rutgers, in New Jersey, he completed an application to Harvard Law School. Where it asked why he wanted to go to Harvard, the now-retired judge recalls writing, "Because I do not like my hometown."
Meaning, he wanted to do something about it, and using the law seemed like the best route. Though he could not afford Harvard, Sugarmon's education there was eventually provided by the University of Tennessee Law School, in an effort to avoid integration or lawsuits. And Sugarmon brought that training back to his hometown, joining Lockard, Hooks, the Smiths, A.W. Willis and a growing corps of bright and determined young African-American residents. Working for the NAACP and using the courts, they won desegregation of public transportation, of restaurants and public facilities, and started the long, frustrating path toward integrating public schools.
As Hooks likes to put it, the landmark Supreme Court ruling calling for school desegregation, Brown vs. the Board of Education, "has been successful on everything but education. It brought forth everything that came after. And all that was won on the backs of the NAACP."
Johnnie Turner, the director of the Memphis branch, which was founded in 1917, is hoping to use the centennial year to remind people of the NAACP's significance in blazing a path to progress -- and appeal to people to help the organization retain its relevance and prominence.
"People like Rev. Hooks and H.T. Lockard, these are the walking legends and the people who have lived all of the things we hope to transmit to our youth," Turner says. "We see these young black men and women now, sitting in board rooms, who say, 'I am sitting here because I am smart.' They need to recognize they stand on the shoulders of the lynched and the killed and the mutilated who suffered to get them where they are today."
Warner Dickerson, president of the local NAACP branch, says the centennial is a chance to remember those victories, but preaches continued vigilance in a country that has often lagged in its idealistic ambitions of freedom and equality for all of its people.
"Historically, America has said these things all along, but I am not prepared to become gullible and believe it is over," Dickerson says. "We are all proud of Barack. We have had historical moments. But I don't believe racism is over in America."
Hooks, pointing out the minuscule percentage of black members of corporate boards, says, "It doesn't take Einstein to know something is happening to that coin flip."
Lockard, Sugarmon and Hooks all take pains to point out that black residents of Memphis had it better than those in other places, and that in fact things like the political machine of E.H. "Boss" Crump, cynical though its motivations may have been, did see to it that Memphis' electorate included black voters.
Sugarmon to this day praises former police chief Claude Armour, a man he says was unapologetic about his racist views but unflinching in his duties to carry out the law when school desegregation began. Lockard will say, of his legal adversaries, "They were gentlemen of the very highest quality."
Yet, they all recall harrowing moments. Lockard remembers the nasty phone calls at all hours, and one particular evening when it seemed the police and fire departments were intent on harassing his household. Hooks talks about efforts in places like Brownsville, Tenn., where "when you went up there to talk about (civil rights), they'd run, they'd been whipped so much."
Sugarmon remembers a drive back from Somerville, Tenn., one night with Hooks and A.W. Willis, when they noticed the lights from traffic behind them growing stronger.
"A.W. said, 'Look at all those cars; it's like a funeral procession,'" Sugarmon says. "Benny Hooks says, 'Why the hell would you say something like that at a time like this?'"
Sugarmon says a bullet came through the window, fired from a car on the side of the road, but they escaped back to Memphis unharmed.
"Since nobody got hurt, I said, 'I am proud; we must be doing something right,'" Sugarmon says.
Now in the twilight of their lives, these legal veterans who fought for the NAACP find themselves being honored and admired by many of the very people and institutions they battled for so long. Maxine Smith, who never shied from controversy, says she often is stopped by people who apologize and ask her forgiveness for the hate they directed toward her.
"I just tell them, 'It's OK, I didn't know you hated me,'" Smith says.
Like her old neighborhood friends Hooks and Sugarmon, Smith says it feels nice to be appreciated.
Sugarmon says he mostly feels gratitude.
"The main thing I feel is lucky to be born at a place and in a time when something could be done," Sugarmon says. "Could you imagine living in a time when there is no threat, no challenge, you are just there, passing the time? I would hate that. When there is something worth attacking, something worth challenging and you can get to do that, that is a gift.
"To have a role that mattered, that's my reward."
Lockard says the hymn "Amazing Grace" captures his feelings best, because he believes those battles fought and won by the NAACP required what he calls "God's grace."
"With that mindset, all the negative stuff disappears," Lockard says. "Everything negative is taken away."
SATURDAY
did patrick chamoisiou (?) in my global narrative class thursday
excerpts from solibo maginficent and texaco and am reminded of why i love
that boys work so, that epic quality, that lyrical mastery, man im so jealous
noticed something new this time around, much of the success of his style
is in the whimsical quality of it, he builds whimsical characters that are still profound
i would really like to capture that in my own work, and i can see where i try but nowhere
near as successful, want to rewrite the whole manuscript but i know better, just push on rick
just keep in mind that i really want that whimsical quality
next week we are doing peter hoeg, i had only read the story we are doing, portrait of the avant garde, so i went out and bought up a bunch of his novels and damn if i aint jealous of him too, i hate forms courses
picked up a novel by thiongo while i was looking, wizard of the crows, he got that whimsical quality down too i see, in the epic format, which i also admire, and aspire to
im realizing that everybody ive chosen has some narrative lick i want to master
everybody in class supposed to be chosing a story so its one mine one theirs
so its not just my aesthetic vision represented, so i get some surprises too
i see already im going to have to be real disciplined about this else i will be lurching all over the place
reminds me of what aishah rahman told me back when i was a cub and i mentioned that i
wanted to be the best novelist that ever lived and she said no art, thats not what you want
you want to sing your song the best you can sing it, that way you can appreciate other folk
singing theirs - that little bit of advice has saved me a lot of grief over the years
im out,
rdoc
THURSDAY
score: one for obama: congrats on stimulus plan
under pressure obama showed some clutch
one against: the bailout plan sounds like more of the same
same tactics, same trust me rollout, doesnt sound that hot to me
got to come stronger than that barack, hopefully this initial run
worked the beginners kinks out of his policy machine
and hope he smells the republican coffee, they mean him no good
and will stab him in the back every chance they get
they dont want you to succeed my friend, hello
talk that bipartisanship but dont depend on it, dont bet on it brother
just go through the motions
ive decided to cut back on anxiety for him, cant go with all
the ups and downs, just assume it will all work out for him
continue to give him virtual strategic advice
zimbabwe opposition has signed onto government, we
will see how that works out, got my fingers crossed
but it looks bad from where i sit, seems the joint operations command, the JOC, 5 man committee composed of leadership of police, military, and intelligence arms is doing abductions of opposition figures
in bid to disrupt the 'unity government'
lot of digital ink on chrisbrown/rihanna fight, lot of chrisbrown fans saying maybe
she provoked him, i know i dont need to tell my readership this but there just
aint never no excuse for a man hitting on a woman, if she 'provoked'
him then he need to do follow the advice of the immortal oscar brown:
tip your hat and slowly walk away
the hat tip is important cause that mean you cool w/it
schoolhouse got me humping
im out
rdoc
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