Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

31Days: Witnessing

Here we are March 2, and so not thirty-one straight days--but I am determined to have 31 Black History Month posts!

To close out my BHM feature, I want to give the floor over to my respected elder, Nikki Giovanni. She enacts exactly what I have spoken of before here during my 31Days feature, that of "bearing witness" to history. She is a couple years younger than my own parents and parents-in-law: As such, she represents the generation I need to attend to if I am to grow into and up to elderhood.

In a recent Booknotes feature, Nikki Giovanni (and Professor Giovanni, from Virginia Tech) spoke on a range of topics and experiences--some that I have covered here over the last month and a half or so. It's worth the 59 minutes out of your life to watch the video broadcast, but alternately the entire transcript is available.

Enjoy!

31Days: Chocolate-Coated Oscars?

I can't believe it: Here I am trying to write about Black History and I miss a historic night for African Americans and the Academy Awards show. In my defense, I was working--hard--on school-related stuff. I thought I could finish and still catch the last 30 or so minutes of the broadcast, but I guess it was a pretty quick show (relatively speaking) this year.

Oh well.

I have enjoyed reading coverage of the evening's festivities. Below I share some of these pieces with you:

(1) NPR story, "Will Oscar Nominations Help Blacks in Hollywood?"

(2) AlterNet story about the different perspectives on the movie, "Ray"

(3) Target Market News story on the ratings side of Chris Rock & Company's 2005 Oscar gig

(4) Salon article about Oscar night

31Days: High-tech Fruit and Strange Lynchings

Today I am wondering: What's in a song? What's in a phrase?

I. Some Background

The summer before I left home for college I raided my parents' music collection, choosing dozens of albums (yes, albums: black vinyl, 12 inches, 33-and-a-third rotations per minute: LPs) that I wanted to "borrow" and take to Boston with me on my great adventure in adulthood.

One of those albums I chose from that raided collection was by Billie Holiday. One of the songs on that album from that raided collection was "Strange Fruit."

That song is something I could not ignore. At the time, I was not too enamored of Lady Day's voice: It seemed a little scratchy to me, and wispy...without the force, range and rhythm of female jazz vocalists like Ella and Sarah and Dinah and others who I was getting into at the time. (It didn't help, I guess, that my image of Billie Holliday and what her voice must have sounded like was colored by my having first seen and heard her in the guise of Diana Ross in "Lady Sings the Blues.")

But that song, "Strange Fruit," I had to listen to.

Since that time I have come to appreciate Billie Holiday. And I have continued to be fascinated by that song. I have recordings of it by at least three different artists. And a recent search of the song on iTunes revealed more than a dozen different versions, by a very strange and ecclectic mix of artists. There is even a group, The Strange Fruit Project, hailing from Waco, Texas.

In addition, I am glad to see that there is a scholarly interest in the song as well as the phenomenon "Strange Fruit" so eerily bore witness to: the widespread lynching campaigns of African American men, women, and children in this country. (See resources below.)

II. But, What Does (Can) It Mean?

I have to admit, I am not sure what all these artists intend when they invoke these images:

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

What is it about these words that makes the song relevant for an artist--of any background--living today? What does the history of the lynching of Black Americans mean to a 50-something White European rocker, or a 20-something Black American rapper?

Is it even about "lynching" at all?

III. Lynching as Metaphor

Whatever you think of Clarence Thomas, his was--hands-down--the most brilliant use of lynching as a metaphor ever. In one swoop he galvanized a deep memory in African Americans and scared off White Americans who saw themselves as exactly opposite of those Whites of days gone by who were the perpetrators of lynchings with ropes, guns, fire, and tree branches.

Hard to believe that almost 15 years have passed since Thomas's confirmation hearings. A little memory-refresher from the 10/11/91 hearing session (Note the words I emphasize in bold):

Mr. Chairman, I am a victim of this process and my name has been harmed, my integrity has been harmed, my character has been harmed, my family has been harmed, my friends have been harmed. There is nothing this committee, this body or this country can do to give me my good name back, nothing.

I will not provide the rope for my own lynching or for further humiliation. I am not going to engage in discussions, nor will I submit to roving questions of what goes on in the most intimate parts of my private live or the sanctity of my bedroom. These are the most intimate parts of my privacy, and they will remain just that, private.

In that evening's hearing session he evoked this metaphor again in his now (in)famous and classic "high-tech lynching" statement:

There was an FBI investigation. This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It is a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, as far as I am concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity-blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that, unless you kow-tow to an old order, this is what will happen to you, you will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree.

One book specifically takes on the idea of the use of "lynching" in metaphorical contexts, "Legacies of Lynching: Racial Violence and Memory" by Jonathan Markovitz

...Examines the evolution of lynching as a symbol of racial hatred and a metaphor for race relations in popular culture, art, literature, and political speech. Markovitz credits the efforts of the antilynching movement with helping to ensure that lynching would be understood not as a method of punishment for black rapists but as a terrorist practice that provided stark evidence of the brutality of Southern racism and as America’s most vivid symbol of racial oppression. Cinematic representations of lynching, from "Birth of a Nation" to "Do the Right Thing," he contends, further transform the ways that American audiences remember and understand lynching, as have disturbing recent cases in which alleged or actual acts of racial violence reconfigured stereotypes of black criminality. Markovitz's original and brilliant reinterpretations of the media spectacles surrounding Bernhard Goetz, Susan Smith, and Tawana Brawley provide subtle and compelling examples of the continuing stakes of political battles waged over imagery of race and gender nearly a century ago. Markovitz further reveals how lynching imagery has been politicized in contemporary society with the example of Clarence Thomas, who condemned the Senate's investigation into allegations of sexual harassment during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings as a “high-tech lynching.”

If you do a little window shopping in the blogosphere and other media you'll find Thomas's "high tech lynching" metaphor/accusation invoked all over in all sorts of situations, by both those on the political left and those on the political right. In no case are any of these uses about actual people being burned, their genitals cut from their bodies, their necks broken from being snapped by a rope looped over a tree branch. In these cases, like that of Justice Thomas, the appeal is to the perception that "mobs" of media folks or government officials or university professors or other elite others in positions of power are using sophisticated tools and tactics to unfairly attack the ideas and integrity of some "victim."

Whatever you may think of the individual cases, is this deployment of "lynching" as a means of description an appropriate use of history? Not: "effective" use--approriate...

I am all for the use of metaphor in rhetoric. But in most of these cases this particular use of lynching as metaphor sickens me. Comparing a "good name" or a well-paying job to skin, genitals and a beating heart is definitely a case of evaluating apples in terms of oranges.

Very strange fruit, indeed.

******

Other Resources:
This PBS site and this California Newsreel site about the film on the history and background of "Strange Fruit"

"Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights" by David Margolick; this aalbc.com review of the book

"Southern Horrors and Other Writings; The Anti-Lynching Campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892-1900" by Jacqueline Jones Royster

"Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America"
by James Allen and others

"At the Hands of Persons Unknown : The Lynching of Black America" by Philip Dray

And this book, providing a Minnesota connection and proof that lynchings were not just a "Southern" phenomenon: "The Lynchings in Duluth" by Michael W. Fedo

31Days: Wrapping Up

Can tomorrow really be the last day of February? Where did the time go?

In this post, let me clear out most of my drafts by passing on some miscellaneous topics and links. I had intended to write a full entry on each; Black History doesn't stop just cause February does, though, so I still possibly will write at greater length about these topics later in the year. I still have two posts that I plan to get out tomorrow, so stay tuned.

I want to thank everyone who dropped into my blog during my experiment in (almost) daily blogging. I hope that something I shared made you think, or taught you something you did not know before. I know I certainly learned a lot.

If you dropped in hoping to catch my enlightening musings on the graduate school experience, that will return as a topic here at this blog shortly.

1. Listing of extensive coverage over many years from the Chronicle of Higher education about AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: http://chronicle.com/indepth/affirm/

2. I wrote before about the archives of the interviews used in the documentary series "Eyes on the Prize"--That archive is housed at Washington University libraries in St. Louis: http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/filmandmedia/hampton/index.html Complete, unedited, transcripts are available for many of the interviews.

3. You can view the webcast from this year's Conference of U.S. Mayors at http://www.broadcasturban.net/index.htm I have frequently said during these posts how "complex" different issues are or how they have multiple roots--The issues that D.C. mayor Anthony Williams and others discuss as facing our modern cities are examples of this complexity, multiplied tenfold.

(Added bonus: You can also listen to one of the best Black radio stations in the country from this site, WBLS in New York!)

4. Amerstam News article on activities commemorating the life of Malcolm X: http://www.amsterdamnews.org/News/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=54102&sID=4

5. Web site for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture: http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html

31Days: Citizen of the Blogosphere, Part 2

Posting here during the middle of my Black History Month blogathon, I reflected about using this blogging medium to reflect on my own history and place in African American history, while grounding all this firmly in my consideration of "place." Today, now that my formal BHM posting session is almost over (note, I say formal because for me BHM is all year long), I have further reflections about the nature of blogging and "citizenry":

Yesterday's post on the adoption of African American children was a little different from my previous BHM posts, in part because it touched on a very "now" controversial issue. As such, I realize: With that post I was not merely brainstorming, informing, resource-sharing, or reflecting. Instead, something I said (or could have said, but chose not to...or did originally say, but edited out...or might have been able to say, had I been more articulate...) may have the potential to move people to action.

This is not a role I chose for this forum. My primary purpose in writing this blog remains the same: It is a way for me to do what I have always done--personal and academic journaling--in a new platform. But I have to realize that now more people than just my Mom and a few friends drop by this blog from time to time. Thus, a "call to action" is one of the things that some folks might take away from their time having my site rendered on their web browser.

This realization entails for me some considerations, considerations of "blog citizenship" that go beyond common courtesies regarding linking and responding to comments and trying to spell words correctly and being as factual as possible. I do not have all the answers about exactly what these further considerations are. (Though, I guess I could start with something akin to "First, do no harm.") I only know that the possibilities for influencing action--however mildly--are present with this forum. And with that potential for influence comes some ethical standards for "blogging practice."

Beyond "considerations" and "standards" is something else: "duties." In this post writer and blogger Christopher Rabb is emphatic about the responsibility to blog in order to better society:

"We must blog while Black. It is not a fad or a luxury; it is our civic responsibility to do so. ...Where the success of all previous grassroots movements has been measured by feet on the ground, the power and effectiveness of blog ac­tivism for Black folk and other dis­possessed communities will be measured by hands on the keyboard."

How fascinating to think that 20 years from now one Black History story will tell of a mass movement sparked by the blog. How wonderful to think that the next changewaves of graduate education, like those currently flowing through journalism and politics, will arrive through the blogosphere.

How typical for me to have stumbled right smack dab in the middle of it all.

31Days: Black Children without Borders

Knowing that I am a grad student on a big adoption project, folks are still asking me what I think about the 60 Minutes segment about African American children being adopted by White families outside the USA. I try to refrain from giving my reaction--Not that I am avoiding giving one; More like, I find it difficult to distill in a 45 second sound bite all the complexities I see as being involved in this new twist on international adoption and transracial adoption.

In this blog forum, I guess my answer would be to invite folks to read what I have written before about merging adoption theory/research with adoption practice/policy. For example, here I wondered: "Is it possible to design multifaceted, but linked and integrated policy to address reproductive health, unplanned pregnancy, and educational disparities?" In other words, one answer to the question about whether or not White Americans (or White Canadians, or anyone else who is not Black) should be "allowed" to adopt Black children is to stop and rewind the question a little farther back. One such question might be: "Should African American families be 'allowed' to get into situations in which the termination of parental rights and removal of a child from a family and community is seen by the State as an option?"

Even this is too simple a question. And it falls into an area where I am lacking in research expertise. And I realize that the question is not relevant to all Black individuals, couples and families faced with the prospect of having a child "adopted out" of their households--either by choice or by mandate. But I do think that, like most policy issues, this one has roots that go deep--much deeper than the question of "where do Black children belong".

Those roots cannot be ignored.

Nor can the historical roots.

There is a world (and several generations) of difference between the situation of loving parents, who happen to be a European American, welcoming a Black child into their home, and the situation of Black enslaved children being removed at will from their families and sold to White masters.

Let me say again, just so there is no mistake:

There is a world (and several generations) of difference between the situation of loving parents, who happen to be a European American, welcoming a Black child into their home, and the situation of Black enslaved children being removed at will from their families and sold to White masters.

Having said that, I admit that no matter how much I am able to acknowledge this fact on a cognitive level, I am unable to totally shake a vaguely troubling gut-level image overlap of the two situations. I am going to guess that I am not the only person to feel this way. Whatever policy we develop about African American children, their birth families, prospective foster and adoptive parents, and the role of the State, we must take into account that the prospect of such a shift in residence and relationships involved in transracial adoption may send a taut tendon vibrating in many.

In the adoption practice world, there exists a strong child welfare mandate--and understandably so. As such, the tale of Black children eventually coming to be seen as "adoptable" by White parents is usually told as a fairy tale of colorblind love and justice winning over evil.

In this fairy tale, the "evil" is often in the ogre-guise of the National Association of Black Social Workers. In the early 70s, the NABSW took a position in response to the developing practice at the time by mainstream social service agencies of placing Black children with White families. I have read many articles in which this position is mentioned; Rarely have I seen it portrayed in its full complexity. And often, the NABSW is painted as a reactionary bunch, illogically standing in the way of Black children and the love, stability, and support they need.

This characterization is unfortunate, for it keeps us from having the conversations we need to be having about private and common good (and "goods"), social class, educational and other disparities, substance abuse, incarceration, and so much more. It keeps us from addressing the historical symbol of hope that children have likely represented to every single group of humans on this planet.

Where do Black children belong? There will continue to be heated debates about the issue of any children crossing borders--"borders" of all kinds. What we've just got to recognize is that each child casts a long shadow--We recognize that shadow when we sing that "children are our future"; We don't do such a good job of recognizing how far into the past that shadow also reaches.

*****

Two of the organizations with missions involving finding homes for African American children:

One Church One Child : http://www.ococil.org/

African American Adoption Agency: http://www.afadopt.org/

Two articles available on-line that provide a much better analysis of the current situation than I have here:

"Meeting the Challenges of Contemporary Foster Care" available at http://www.futureofchildren.org/usr_doc/5-stukes.pdf

"KIINSHIIP CARE POSIITIION PAPER" (National Association of Black Social Workers National Kinship Care Task Force) available at http://www.nabsw.org/Resources/position-papers/kinship.pdf

31Days: Tired of BHM?

If so, you're not alone.

See "Prominent black speakers tire of February spotlight, want inclusion all year instead"

And more: "Commentary: Scholars’ Black History Month Boycott Highlights Hunger for Year-Round Exploration, Officially or Not"

...On the other hand: "Black History Month’s Most Important Lesson," Newsday, 25 February 2003

My final opinion: Let's get the 365 first, before ending the 28. (Afterall, we no longer celebrate Negro History Week now that we have a month.) And if you're tired, weary of the invites and requests, then do stay home and let someone else's voice take over. (There are stories enough for a full month; Make your requesters dig deeper, search harder...force them to go with someone they may not be as comfortable with.) And if you are resentful about being ignored the rest of the year, not being asked to talk from March 1st to January 31st--Then raise your voice and talk, shout, during those 330-plus days anyway.

31Days: What I learned from...

...my February 10 issue of Black Issues in Higher Education:

1) Ruth Simmons is truly a remarkable person. See Brown University's web site of The University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice: http://www.brown.edu/Research/Slavery_Justice/

2) J P Morgan Chase and Company formally admitted--and apologized for--its predecessor banks' links to slavery. See this official company statement: http://www2.bankone.com/presents/home/.
(Somewhat related, I was directed to this site of the California Department of Insurance a couple of years ago: http://www.insurance.ca.gov/SEIR/main.htm.)

3) The National Museum of African American History and Culture is ever closer to becoming a reality. See this Smithsonian site, http://www.si.edu/nmaahc/default.htm, where you can even give input on the four sites under consideration. (I'm voting for the Arts and Industries Building--right on the Mall.)

4) The Education Trust has a new interactive web tool, College Results (http://www.collegeresults.org/), that enables users to compare college and university graduation rates broken down by demographic factors. I tried it out with several institutions, including my curent one...A potentially very useful tool.

5) Much more, too much to detail here. Every time I get my renewal form for BIHE I consider dropping it--Nothing against the publication itself, but I often feel as if I need to prune the vast amount of information that comes into my home on a monthly basis. It's times like this, though, that make me glad I keep re-subscribing.

What Dr. King Had in Mind

...Black Barbie and Dora the Explora sitting down together at the table of sisterhood...Winnie the Pooh and Care Bear joining hands with the Cat in the Hat and Tigger...all the children's toys--gophers and wolves, big bears and small bears, Disney characters and PBS Television characters singing in the words of the old Romper Room classic:

The more we get together
Together
Together
The more we get together
The happier we'll be

(This entry was originally posted January 7, 2005. See this entry for my original follow-up post.)

OK, so now I'm recycling entries. But I owed a post from the other day. Plus, I had to have an excuse to tell a few "cute kid" stories about my daughters and King.

1) One of my girls was talking on the phone to one of her grandmothers. She mentioned that we were right in the middle of reading a book about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Her grandmother asked if she knew who that was. She said, "Yes, he was our president." Thinking this cute, her grandmother laughed and repeated "Oh, he was the president." To which my daughter in all seriousness corrected, "No, he was our president!"

2) Still under the impression that King was a former president of our country (at least for some of us), both girls were in a heated discussion the other day about which denomination of US money he was on. (Note that there is a real life effort to get Dr. King on some money. See: http://www.putkingonthe20.com/.)

3) We have a ritual that goes along with our nightly family meals: holding hands around the table and saying "Bon appetit" along with saying any other special greeting relevant to the day--e.g., "Happy Valentine's Day" "Happy Birthday, Daddy." Last night one of the girls noted that Dr. King's birthday had passed but we had failed to say happy birthday to him at dinner that evening. So last night, after wishing each other a good meal, we wished Dr. King a very happy belated birthday.

31Days: Unbowed, Unbought

If you've explored this blog a little bit you know who I am voting for in the next presidential election. (See here, for example.) That (hoped/prayed for) campaign will have grounding in a historical presidential campaign by an African American. I'm not talking Jesse. (And there also have been others.)

I'm talking about Shirley Chisholm.

Just a quick entry today. (And I know I owe one from yesterday.) But please take time to browse the Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbowed site: http://www.chisholm72.net/

This excerpt from the synopsis of the documentary is so relevant today, as I reflect on the meaning (and relevance) of "Black History Month" and as I wonder about the future of democracy in this country:

CHISHOLM ’72 explores the question of whether she succeeded or failed. While she did not win the nomination, the “Chisholm for President” campaign inspired countless grass roots people to get politically active such as Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) who at the time was a student and single-mother on public assistance. Is that success enough? How do we evaluate her contribution to American history and politics? What does it mean to participate in American democracy? And, the question many people ask today: Why bother to participate at all? The lessons from Chisholm’s campaign address these questions and allow us to reflect on the current state of voter participation and presidential politics in light of Election 2000 and looking ahead to Campaign 2004.

31Days: Gumbo

As drafts of this entry were sitting around my blog entries list, I wondered: "What is this entry about? What is its point?" Is it about making a personal, family connection to Black History? Is it about African Americans and our place in the history of organized religion? Our place in the American Catholic church? Is it about Lousiana and Blacks? Louisiana and Catholicism? Louisina and race? (Some) Blacks' denial of race?

In the interest of not spending any more time than necessary on a simple blog post, I'm gonna call it a day and say "The point of this blog is...all of the above. And more." Hence, the title: "Gumbo." Defined on this site, gumbo is a word derived from various Bantu dialects in southern and central Africa. It's a soup-like dish with hundreds of variations, most famously a Louisiana specialty. It is spicy. It is a bunch of ingredients mixed up together. Its making is a long day-long affair, not to be undertaken by the microwave set.

Gumbo is what I think of when I think of my late maternal grandmother, Rhona Lacy--who, in her day, threw famous gumbo dinner parties--and when I think of her native Louisiana.

To me, Louisiana is the closest thing we've got in this country to having a separate country-within-a-country. Forget about Texas being a nation onto itself. Or California. Louisiana is the true American nation-state. It has an extremely complex history--including a complex racial/ethnic history.

A huge part of Louisiana history and culture is its Catholicism. And my family history is very tied up in that. My grandmother Rhona's mother had a female first cousin, and this first cousin had a son, Harold Perry. I grew up hearing stories of this distant cousin. At the time I was more interested in (and somewhat concerned about) the fact that this maternal relative had the same last name as my paternal side of the family than I was interested in his place in history.

But here, I will rectify that childhood lapse of interest--just in time to observe the anniversary of my late grandmother's birth.

And along the way, just a taste of the complicated gumbo that is race and religion and skin tone and freedom and slavery and history...

According to the Diocese of Louisiana site : "Beginning in 1966 with the appointment of Bishop Harold R. Perry as auxiliary bishop of New Orleans, the diocese was honored with the selection of several native sons to be bishops. Bishop Perry, a native of Sacred Heart Parish, Lake Charles, was the first 20th century black bishop appointed in the U.S." There is a boys' middle school named after my distant cousin, the Bishop Perry Middle School (http://www.bpms.org/).

I don't know what it is about the men on my maternal grandmother's side of the family and the priesthood: I have two other famous Father-cousins (who are also brothers to each other): the Rev. Verlin LeDoux, U. S. Air Force Chaplain, and the Rev. Jerome LeDoux, a national columnist and evangelist. The latter Father LeDoux delivered the eulogy at my grandmother's funeral, and he is the only one of the Father-cousins I have met. (See this site for more.)

Interestingly, the LeDoux family traces their history way-way back. I should make clear: The White LeDoux family traces their history way-way back. As I was exploring the 'Net, I found this from one LeDoux descendent:

"I ran across a historical article in the Lake Charles American Press regarding Louis Verlin LeDoux. He was to be ordained as a priest at the Sacred Heart Church in Lake Charles according to the article that was originally printed Dec 23, 1952. According to the article he was/is black. This article stirred my memory from childhood.

Our particular clan is considered white and I don't know anyone living in our family that can remember anything more about this black family line or where they trace their roots. So, I am curious as to whether anyone has any knowledge of this or if this line still continues or do they consider themselves Creole/Black/French, etc..."

Eventually a LeDoux of color contacted these other LeDoux. They had several exchanges of electronic correspondence, but I don't know if the two sides ever met up in person.

Likely another distant relative, and yet another Father-cousin, is Bishop Curtis Guillory. (My grandmother's maiden name was Guillory.) On this site I read of his meeting with Pope John Paul II--and here's a photo:
And here I learned that "in the run-up to the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Bishop Curtis Guillory of Texas becomes the first Catholic prelate to carry the Olympic torch."

There is much more on the Creole culture of Louisiana at this site: http://www.frenchcreoles.com/. There, Guillory is listed as one of the common surnames of free people of color in the state. I felt a little guilty about seeing this: My grandmother used to always insist that her ancestors were not slaves--at least not in this country...that two brother-forebears escaped from bondage in the Carribean on a stolen boat and set up shop as free men in Louisiana... I always dismissed this story as an example of a complicated (and, unfortunately, common) denial of painful history and rejection of African past. But now, well, who knows? Maybe it is true. --And yet, any "truth" of my grandmother's origins does not erase those complicated feelings--feelings all tied up with skin tone, hair texture, and facial features...

On that same site is info on other famous Creoles, including Creoles of color--although that distinction "of color" is not so clear cut in LA, more so, even, than in the rest of the nation. Included in this list are Fats Domino, Jelly Roll Morton, Jean Baptiste Du Sable, Greg and Bryant Gumbel.

Also included is a major name in Black American History, Homer Plessy:

"A light-skinned Creole, Homer Plessy was arrested and jailed in 1892 for sitting in a Louisiana railroad car designated for white people only. Plessy had violated the 1890 state law that called for racially segregated facilities. Plessy went to court, claiming the law violated the 13th and 14th amendments, but Judge Ferguson found him guilty anyhow.

By 1896 the case had gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, who also found Plessy guilty by an 8-1 majority. The resulting doctrine of 'separate but equal' institutionalized segregation in the United States until overturned in 1954 by the case of Brown v. Board of Education."

A previous draft of this post ended there. And that seemed strange. However, I think it's as good enough of a place to end things. Knowing what I know--both from personal experience, from contemporary observations, and from some knowledge of history--I wonder about who Mr. Plessy really was. And by this, I do not mean to ask was he "more" "black" or "white." I mean to say: Who was he fighting for in this legal case? What did he hope to gain? Who did he think would gain with him? Who did he want to gain with him?

But also: Who do we see when we retell the story of this case every year during February? (And, do the visions differ depending on the "we.") What is this really a story of?

I'm sure the answers, if we dared to explore them in depth, would be a complex, spicy gumbo. No matter how complex, though, there's probably some simple key, some basic core--something like what my grandmother used to say in explanation of her gumbo-cooking proces: "It's all in the roux..."

31Days: Indiana Black Expo

...Speaking of place, my BHM entry today takes us back to the state of Indiana. One of Indiana's great institutional treasures is the Indiana Black Expo (http://www.indianablackexpo.com/).

IBE was, when I was growing up, the highlight of the African American community calendar every year. I never missed it, often going several times over the course of the multi-day event. Often I'd go to help man a display booth of one of my family members or friends. Several times I went to see my mother or one of her friends perform there. One summer I helped out with Purdue's recruiting booth at Expo...

Today, the Expo is not just one summer event, but a vast network of events, community outreach efforts, educational and scholarship opportunities, and advocacy initiatives--all year round. IBE also now has chapters across the state.

Additionally, IBE also now has under its banner the annual Circle City Classic, described as "the premiere black collegiate football game in the nation." Of course, as many folks go for the halftime show featuring the marching bands as go for the football game! I remember when my husband and I first told relatives that we were getting married in October. The first reaction we got from several people was "Oooo, I hope you haven't planned it for Circle City Classic weekend"! (We didn't.)

Most importantly for today's post is that the Indiana Black Expo has been and continues to be a keeper and purveyor of the African American history of the state's Black communities. The way that the IBE has grown is impressive, especially given the state's political climate during all of IBE's history (Indiana--though...complex, politically--is bright red with a pocket of blue near the IN-Chicago border), as well as the state's relatively small Black population (e.g., when people talk of "Chocolate Cities" in the US, no city in Indiana is generally mentioned).

I don't know what exactly the folks affiliated with Indiana Black Expo, Inc have been able to do to be so successful, but it is defintely a model that people in other cities--cities much more "progressive" and "chocolate"--should learn from.

More on IBE:
Indianapolis Star feature

The late president of IBE, Rev Charles Williams' book, That Black Men Might Live: My Fight Against Prostate Cancer (Amazon link ; B&N link)

Circle City Classic site

31Days: Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes, and Freckled Faced Freaks

I often tell people that my first remembered experience of discrimination was as a subject in an exercise when I was in the third grade. That usually takes people by surprise, seeing as how I am visibly an African American type person. Surely, people think, I did not need an experiment to experience first hand the sting of prejudice and discrimination.

But it is true.

When I was in the third grade, I attended a school--Morton Elementary--in a college town. Students from Purdue were always coming over to our school to use us pupils for some hands-on learning of one type or another. We were used to visitors from the University. We were used to the games. They were good for a change of pace, getting us out of class and our usual routine for a bit.

On this day, my teacher asked for volunteers. It may come as a surprise to those of you who know me, but back then I was always the first student to raise my hand to answer a question, to volunteer to take a note to the office--that kind of thing. So, along with some other kids who also volunteered, I left the room and went to another area of the school with the college kids.

Once separated from the rest of the class, we volunteers were decorated with black eyeliner pencils, given "freckles" all over our cheeks and noses. I remember vividly: At this point we were still having fun, laughing, giggling.

But soon after, that laughter would turn to anger, tears, fear.

Once we were reunited with the rest of the class, we thought we would continue on with the day as usual. It seemed that way, anyway. Miss Foster, our teacher, began our regularly scheduled lesson. At first, the difference was barely noticible. One of us volunteers would raise our hand to answer Miss Foster's question, but we would not be called on. Or we would be called on, but our correct answer would be discounted--often only to be praised when the same answer was given by one of the kids who had stayed behind in the classroom, one of the kids without the eyeliner-pencil drawn "freckles."

But soon the difference was apparent. The non-freckled kids were given a special treat; we were given nothing. The non-freckled kids--many who were our friends--best friends, even--started to ignore us, refusing to play with us. Eventually, they began calling us the name: "freckled-faced freaks."

Outside on the playground at recess, none of us FFFs were invited to join in any reindeer games. I remember vividly: We freaks were huddled together off to the side. Some of us had, by this time, wiped off the apparently-offending freckles. But it didn't matter. We were treated the same: by our friends, by our beloved Miss Foster. I remember some of us making plans right then and there to just leave the school--take off and walk home, never come back.

...Well, eventually, all us kids were "debriefed." We were told we had just participated in yet another "game" and the rest of the school day was back to normal.

I still have in my possession a yellowed three-page document with a staple in the upper left hand corner. The print on these pages is faded purplelish typewriter font, familiar to folks of my age as copied from a "mimeograph" machine. (Ahhhh, remember that smell of freshly mimeo-ed sheets?....) On the first page are quotes from kids in the class, entitled "HOW I FELT AS A FRECKLED-FACED FREAK."

My quote is first. Uncharacteristically, I was brief: "I felt like kicking everyone. I felt left out. I felt like not coming to school anymore." Beth was a little more expansive: "I felt that it is not fun to be picked on and that I would not like to be a freckled-faced freak again. I felt like screaming at Miss Foster saying 'Miss Foster, you're the meanest teacher I ever had in my whole life.' I felt she was being unfair giving everybody a cookie except the freckled face freaks..."

Other (former) FFFs expressed similar feelings: feeling left out, "sad, mad, and lonely," embarrassed, "humiliated to bits," mixed-up.

More instructive, I think, are the comments on the next page from the non-FFFs entitled "HOW I FELT ABOUT THE FRECKLED-FACED FREAKS." Nancy "felt like a big shot...like a big, big star" and she "did not care about them being left out." Kathy said the freckled faced freaks "looked ugly." She continued "I did not like the looks of them. I thought it was fun to pick on them. I'm glad it was not me." Derrek, the only other Black kid in the class, said "I thought it was funny, but I hope they will not do it again!" A couple kids were more compassionate, saying they were sad, sorry for the FFFs, and were relieved that "it was a gag." Others felt guilty, like Crystal who said "I felt mad at myself. I felt sorry because I did something that I knew was wrong."

You may recognize this as a replication of the famous "Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes" exercise from the late 60's. A Frontline site explains:

On the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in April 1968, Jane Elliott's third graders from the small, all-white town of Riceville, Iowa, came to class confused and upset. They recently had made King their "Hero of the Month," and they couldn't understand why someone would kill him. So Elliott decided to teach her class a daring lesson in the meaning of discrimination. She wanted to show her pupils what discrimination feels like, and what it can do to people.

Elliott divided her class by eye color -- those with blue eyes and those with brown. On the first day, the blue-eyed children were told they were smarter, nicer, neater, and better than those with brown eyes. Throughout the day, Elliott praised them and allowed them privileges such as a taking a longer recess and being first in the lunch line. In contrast, the brown-eyed children had to wear collars around their necks and their behavior and performance were criticized and ridiculed by Elliott. On the second day, the roles were reversed and the blue-eyed children were made to feel inferior while the brown eyes were designated the dominant group...

(Watch the entire program: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/etc/view.html)

What to think of such simulations trying to get people to experience a walk in someone else's pair for a spell? What to say about efforts to get people to understand--on a gut level as well as a cognitive level--complex experiences like racism and racial discrimination? If you've explored this blog a little, you know that I, myself, attempted a similar exercise--What do you think of my effort?

This is something I think about a lot. As a former teacher of little kids, as a (hopefully) future teacher of college students, as a researcher. As an African American woman who frequently travels in circles lacking in African Americans. And, as someone who, over 32 years ago (!!!) in Miss Foster's 3rd grade classroom in room 202 of Morton Elementary, was a participant in such a simulation. Remember, my memory of this experience is as my first direct confrontation of discrimiation--not as an encounter with academic research. The experience and the feelings and the hurt were real, despite the FFF exercise being just "a gag."

Anyway. No answers today. Just reflections.

(I wonder what Derrek, Donna, Rini, Crystal, Miss Foster, and the rest are doing today...)

31Days: Adventures of Blacks in Physics

No Black History Month feature would be complete without a foray into the world of science. I was directed to this site of the National Society of Black Physicists--and now it's my pleasure to pass it along to you. (I learned of this site only the other day, from aalbc-dot-com/thumpers-corner-dot-com. Thanks, all!)

I guess it's fitting that I include this post this year, as I've seen stuff on campus explaining that 2005 is the "World Year of Physics." I hadn't planned to do anything to mark this...well, besides just continuing to have mass and exist in space/time and stuff--but thanks to the 'Net, now I can!

An excerpt from the NSBP's "Einstein and Race" section:

(Note: This involves one of the questions I answered incorrectly on the Black History Month quiz I mentioned here. Bolding emphasis below is mine in reference to this item.)

Einstein at Lincoln University

During the last twenty years of his life, Einstein almost never spoke at universities. He considered the honorary-degree ceremonies to which he was frequently invited to be "ostentatious." Moreover, the abdominal aneurysm that would eventually take his life caused him increasing pain and made it difficult to travel. Given the constant stream of university invitations, he found it easiest to adopt a just-say-no rule. In May 1946, he broke that rule to speak at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Both the year and the choice of school are significant.

In accepting the invitation, Einstein clearly intended to send a message to a wider audience. But the media then — like the media since then — had different news priorities. While almost all of Einstein’s public speeches and interviews were widely covered by the major media, in this case, most of the press treated the address by the world’s most famous scientist at the world’s oldest black university as a non-event.

The members of NSBP (along with National Society of Hispanic Physicists) are even holding their annual meeting this week in Colorado Springs--My blogging timing just could not have been better! I hope it will be a great and productive meeting. Keep up the great work, folks!

(Also see this Sigma Xi page for great links to sites dealing with diversity in science and engineering.)

31Days: Morning Stretch

Today's Special:
Two Blog Entries for the Price of One: $7.99 while supplies last!
(You can read now and pay me back later.)
Second serving below.

American Slavery is hard to wrap your mind around. For me, reflection on this topic is not enough. The concept does not exist in any real way in most people's being. Intellectually, sure. But the knowledge and the idea of slavery does not translate to anything that goes deeper than skin for most people, myself included.

I do not have the skills to remedy this. I know that. There is a vast sea of information on the web about slavery. In draft form, this entry contained some of those resources. But instead of linking to them here, I think I'll try something different. I want to try a little "social math" that I spoke of in a previous entry. Or maybe it's more like "embodied math." I don't know. But I'm gonna try it.

There will be nothing to link to in this entry. Maybe a little later I'll repeat it, adding links and resources like a good blogger should. But for now, take a chance with me and actually do the physical activity that I am asking of you here. After you're finished, if you would like to help me out with my math or my anatomy lesson or my history (I could certainly use such help), then drop me a comment or email and I'll make the necessary corrections. If you'd like to perfect my little activity, add more markers, etc. I'd welcome that too.

If you'd just like to comment to tell me to just stop whining and get over it, well, that'd hurt my feelings, but I'd get over that. (Your comment and my hurt feelings, not U.S. slavery.)

Just, do this. For me. For kicks. Out of curiousity. OK?

OK. Spread your arms and hands out to either side of you, parallel to the ground, as in a nice early morning streatch. Ready?

Start with the tip of your middle finger on your left hand: This is 1619, more than 400 years ago, when the first Africans were brought to what would later become the United States of America as slaves. (Some prefer/think more historically accurate the term "indentured servants.")

Wiggle your fingers on your left hand--your pinkie...ring, middle, and index fingers and your thunb, flex your wrist a few times, bend your arm at your left elbow, and start up your left bicep. Slavery (and it is, very definitely, now slavery) is going on all this time, now well entrenched in the "new world."

Now do a little windmill motion with your outstretched left arm. That good stretch you feel in your shoulder area is right around 1776, the birth of our nation.

Keep your arms spread out. Keep travelling across. Now you're at your mid back, your spine, and it's about 1828. The new nation is not yet 100 years old, but it is prospering. Slavery is in full force. America has yet to go to war with itself. Keep stretching.

You've crossed over and you're on your right shoulder now. It's 1861 and the American Civil War has officially begun. Just a tick farther on your right shoulder and it's 1865 and all Blacks are officially freed.

Keep your arms spread out. Travel down your right arm to your right elbow. It's about 1924. Jim Crow is in full effect. Just a tick earlier before your elbow was the destruction of a Black town in Tulsa and the defeat of an anti-lynching bill in the U.S. Senate.

Your arms may be tired, but I'm almost done.

At your right forearm it's about 1954, and in the nation Brown vs. the Board of Education is decided, with the goal of ending school segregation "with all deliberate speed." A little further down your mid forearm on your way to your right wrist, in the same general itch-spot, is my birthday in 1964, the assassination of Malcolm X the following year, and of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. three years after that.

Keep your arms spread out. Your right wrist now. That's about 1978. This year marks the case of Regents of the Univerisyt of California vs. Bakke, and "reverse discrimination" is determined to be against the law of the land.

Take a quick break for a minute from your stretch and crack the knuckles of your right hand. Now get your arms back outstretched. Here, just before your fingers, is about 1991 and the nation witnesses the police-led beating of an African American man and the riots the following year as the accused police officers are acquitted.

Almost done. Keep stretching.

Finally you're at the tip of your right pinkie. That's today, 2005. I'm posting this blog entry and you're reading it. And your stretch is done.

--Well, not quite. If you just stretch a little further, from the end of your right pinkie to the end of your right middle finger, you're at 2028. That date is important because its the estimate given by the nation's Supreme Court for when racial considerations in college admissions will no longer be needed in this country. We've got to get started today and work like the dickens to meet that goal. But it'll be worth it and it should be possible if we just put our back into it. The hard--and long--march to complete racial justice will then be achieved. Glory glory.

And all in less than half the length of a middle finger.

31Days: An Army of Many

Today's Special:
Two Blog Entries for the Price of One: $7.99 while supplies last!
(You can read now and pay me back later.)
First serving below.

Yeah the Superbowl was fun, I guess. I liked the office working monkees and the tomato-sauce-bloody cat. My daughters won--in absentia--one of the betting pools at my father's annual Superbowl party back in Indy. ($10--woo-hoo!)

But for me, the highlight of the Superbowl came at the very beginning, as some members of the Tuskegee Airmen were introduced and walked out onto the field.

I know it's not politically correct for a liberal such as myself to say so, but the military has a special place in my heart. I was born in an Army hospital--Beaumont Army Medical Center, Ft. Bliss, El Paso, Texas!--and spent five years of my adult life as an Army spouse. I was an Army civilian employee in Bamberg, Germany directing the family child care program and generally advocating for child and family services on base. I have friends who are still active duty--as well as family members. And depending on the day and my mood, I may argue with you that the military has done more to lift Americans out of poverty, educate low income and working class young people, and foster racial integration than has higher education.

Like I am with most complex issues, I am of two minds about the subject, though.

For example. I am well aware of the scars left on the Black community--and the country in general--by the Vietnam war. (I've mentioned in a previous post how compelling Martin Luther King's speech against the war is, even today.) It pains me to see television shots of soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq and see so many young African Americans--many more than I ever see in any one place on my college campus. I worry that many have bought a certain promise, a promise that many previous generations of Blacks have purchased--a promise of opportunity and advancement in exchange for serving their country in battle. But a promise that comes with some serious fine print...

But--the Tuskegee Airmen.

I do, despite my ambiguous feelings about military Black History, take great delight in hearing the stories of the Tuskegee Airmen. These stories, however, are in danger of dying out as the men who lived them pass away. Hopefully, however we may feel about current, past, and future wars we will find it in our hearts to not let that happen.

Tuskegee veterans embark on mission to record stories
By Rachel Uranga , Staff Writer

More than six decades ago, Lowell Steward dodged enemy fire in the skies above Europe risking his life for a country that refused to treat him as an equal. Steward's heroism and that of the more than 1,000 of his fellow African-American fighter pilots World War II fliers known as the Tuskegee Airmen helped break the military's color barrier while fighting to liberate Europe from the Nazis.

With the airmen aging and their ranks dwindling rapidly, those who remain worry that the stories of their accomplishments will die with them...

(Read full story here.)

More on the Tuskegee Airmen:

National Museum of the United States Airforce page

National Park Service Tuskegee Airmen national historic site info

Great site from Tuskegee University about the Airmen

And finally, only because this is from one of my Indiana homesteads of Gary-East Chicago, read about this program at the airport:

CALLING ALL KIDS
TAKE YOUR FIRST PLANE RIDE ABSOLUTELY FREE!

Reservations:
Tuskegee Airmen Young Eagles Program Hotline:
Chicago (312) 409-5621
Gary, Indiana (888) 235-9824

Supplement: "The government goes for the regular people first"

I found a reference for the Cosby Show scene I mentioned yesterday on this site.

It's actually from the very first episode of the series. Excerpt from the episode:

Cliff: "How do you expect to get into college with grades like these?"
Theo: "I'm not going to college."
Cliff: "Damn right!"
Theo: "No problem!"

(Life according to Monopoly Money)
Cliff: "So how much does you expect to make a week for 'regular people'?"
Theo: "$250"
Cliff (pointing to the bed): "Sit down. I will give you $300 a week. $1200 a month." (Cliff hands the money to Theo)
Theo: "I'll take it!"
Cliff: "And I will take $350 for taxes."
Theo: "Whoa!"
Cliff: "Oh, yeah. See, the government goes for the regular people first. So, how much does that leave you with?"
Theo: "$850."
Cliff: "Okay, now you'll need an apartment because you are NOT living here. Now an apartment in Manhattan will run you at least $400 a month."
Theo: "I'll live in New Jersey." (Theo takes back $200)
Cliff: "Now you'll need a car." (Cliff takes $300)
Theo: "I'll drive a motorbike." (Theo takes back $100)
Cliff: "You're gonna need a helmet." (Cliff takes $50) "Now figure $100 a month for clothes and shoes."
Theo: "Figure $200. I wanna look GOOD."
Cliff: "So, how much does that leave you with?"
Theo: "$200. So, no problem."
Cliff: "There IS a problem! You haven't EATEN yet!" (Cliff takes $100)
Theo: "I can get by on bologna and cereal." (Theo takes back his $100) "So I've got everything under control PLUS $200 left for the month."
Cliff: "You plan to have a girlfriend?"
Theo: "For sure."
(Cliff takes the remaining $200)
Cliff (pointing at Theo's empty hand): "Regular people."

Classic!

31Days: Twice as Good

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."

I wonder. When W. E. B. Du Bois published these words in Souls of Black Folk in 1903, I wonder if he anticipated that they'd be some of the most frequently quoted words of any African American scholar.

I feel as if I have always known this quote--I have no memory of ever hearing it for the first time, although there must, of course, have been a first time. I think, maybe, it's because this is such a pervasive message given to many middle class African American children by the people responsible for instilling a sense of pride and purpose--so that by the time I read it or heard it for the first time attributed to Du Bois, I just thought "Yeah, duh."

Those people in my life, those keepers, those nurturers--they always seemed to deliver the message--

No, actually I'm gonna stop there and reframe.

I have always interpreted a certain message from those people in my life. I don't think anyone ever told me directly (although I have heard anecdotal reports from friends who do remember receiving the explicit message.) The message, for me, is one neverending and neverbeginning stream. In this stream flows certain Black history and family stories: W. E. B. was the first African American to earn a PhD from Harvard he studied abroad and was the best and brightest wherever he went Martin King went off to college as a teenager and was reading while still in the womb (flowflowflow...) your grandmother's mother's second cousin was the first African American Catholic bishop Marian Anderson was the best opera singer in the world and was in demand all over Europe and sang for kings and queens (flowflowflow...)

This message involves "being the best"--But unlike other messages of being the best, in this version you must be the best while also being two things at once. And, ergo, if you have to be the best while also being two things at once, then you must be twice as good as someone trying to be the best while only being one thing.

Traditionally, celebrating Black History Month means celebrating stories full of this message--"the first," "the best," "the brightest," "the only"... Some people I've spoken with have started to wonder if this is a good thing, if it wouldn't be more cause for celebration when it's OK for Black people to be "average." Honestly, I'm starting to wonder the same thing.

I'll leave my reflections there for now. For today's links, I offer the following:

(1) W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research, Harvard http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~du_bois/

(2) W.E.B. Du Bois Collective Research Institute http://www.dubois.gse.upenn.edu/

Established in 1998 at the University of Pennsylvania, the W.E.B. Du Bois Collective Research Institute is a multidisciplinary academic enterprise. Its members represent the twelve schools of the University of Pennsylvania and continue the tradition of "engaged scholarship" in the pursuit of urban issues and themes raised by W.E.B. Du Bois in his landmark study, "The Philadelphia Negro." The Institute serves as a vehicle for dialog and collaborative interdisciplinary research.

(3) The Two Nations of Black America
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/etc/gates.html

Explore the whole site. Especially instructive are the archived comments on the discussion board. Henry Louis Gates begins his essay: "Six black men, each intellectually superior in their own way, graduate from Yale College in the Class of 1966. Each had managed, through some luck and a lot of pluck, to penetrate the iron-clad barriers that have kept the number of blacks matriculating at Yale to a fixed number for the past several decades. When I entered Yale in 1968, ninety six black men and women entered with me, the largest group of Afro-Americans ever to arrive on Yale's Old Campus at one time."

(4) I don't have a link for this, but catch in reruns one of my favorite episodes of The Bill Cosby Show. (Move along if you've Googled "Cosby" and are looking for a scandal discussion, move along.) It's the one where Theo says he doesn't need to go to college because he just wants to be "regular folks." Then Cosby uses Monopoly money to show him how difficult it will be to be "just regular folks." One of the best scenes in TV history, if you ask me. And part of this message I've been talking about.

(5) Check out this interview of one African American super achiever, Patricia Williams on yet another Black (superduper) high achiever Secretary of State, Rice. Excerpt:

"Now, I don't know Rice as a person -- she has been very effective at keeping her life private. But the myth of Condoleezza Rice's life is so akin to what so many of us at a certain age survived, lived, how we constructed ourselves, how we wanted to appear to the public, how we watched the borders of who we were. We were the same kind of achievers. When I hear about the lessons she went to, I think of all the Saturday lessons I went to --swimming, piano. We had to be really well scrubbed. The message you got from your parents was that you might be the first black person a white person had ever seen; you had this whole burden of race on your shoulders. She evokes that feeling in me more than any other public figure."

(6) Finally, one African American woman, a 1994 Brown University grad, has found a solution to the hard labor of working and living the double shift. If you're not already familiar, explore the site linked to in the previous sentence first before you read about it here and here and listen here:

31Days: Census Minority Reports

Another quick BHM post...

"Facts on the Black or African American Population"
http://www.census.gov/pubinfo/www/NEWafamML1.html

A cool feature of the Census site is their "Profile America" Black History Month radio feature stories. I heard this one on KMOJ this morning:

Profile America for this 8th day of Black History Month. One area of black history that is largely undocumented is the field of fashion. One prime example is Ann Lowe. She learned to sew at an early age from her mother, who ran a small dressmaking shop in New York. Ann became so well known for her dresses, she eventually made more than 2000 of them for New York society. Her most famous creation was the wedding dress for future first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. That dress took 50 yards of silk taffeta and more than two months to make. Ann Lowe’s dresses can still be seen in museums in Washington, D.C., and New York. Today, African-Americans make up the largest percentage of women-owned minority businesses at 38 percent. This special edition of Profile America for Black History Month is brought to you as a public service by the U.S. Census Bureau.

31Days: Congressional Black Caucus Foundation

(Sorry for the brief entry today, but I have a lotta work to get caught up on.)

A wonderful resource. But on a sad note, I took the BHM quiz on the site and got 8 out of 10 correct. So much to learn...so little time...

"The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc. (CBCF) was established in 1976 as a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy, research and educational institute. As envisioned by its founders, the CBCF's mission is to serve as the non-partisan policy oriented catalyst that educates future leaders and promotes collaboration among legislators, business leaders, minority-focused organizational leaders, and organized labor to effect positive and sustainable change in the African American community. To that end, the CBCF has worked to broaden and elevate the influence of African Americans in the political, legislative and public policy arenas. In aiding today's policymakers, the CBCF sponsors issue forums and leadership seminars to stimulate dialogue and educate African Americans in the fundamentals of legislative and public policy development. These forums bring together people of diverse perspectives to explore and formulate solutions to critical domestic and foreign policy issues confronting the Black community."

31Days: My (Black Cultural) Center of Gravity

I owe a BHM post for yesterday. I invite you to take a virtual tour of the Black Cultural Center at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.

In a sense, I grew up in the BCC. Long before the Center moved into its wonderful new building it was housed in a simple house on campus. My father was a grad student at Purdue; My mother taught music in one of the public elementary schools in town. From 1st grade through 4th grade the BCC was a source of wonder to me. The art on the walls in the lounge. The tools and farm equipment that African American slaves and sharecroppers used to use on display in the basement. The comfortable, home-like atmosphere every time I stomped up the front steps and walked through the front door.

When I returned to Purdue--this time as a graduate student myself--the first place I visited was the BCC. It was like a pilgrimage. As a masters student I spent many many hours studying in the BCC library, meeting upstairs as part of the Haraka Writers--one of the BCC's four performing arts ensembles, participating in poetry slams in the basement, or just hanging out in the lounge--surrounded by the same magical art that intrigued me so much as a child.

When I heard the news of Ossie Davis's death, I immediately thought of the time I met his wife and life partner, Ruby Dee. I was in charge of writing and delivering her introduction during her BCC-sponsored appearance at Purdue. As an award for my duties (as if I needed an award for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to introduce Ms. Dee), I attended lunch with her--along with a bunch of BCC and university dignitaries. I got the sense during that lunch that she was just as honored and pleased to be part of a BCC event as members of the BCC were in having her.

And no wonder.

How great must it have been for artists and civil rights workers of her era to see this institution--born of struggle and protest--still thriving in the middle of the Indiana cornfields? I never looked at the photographs on the walls of the BCC library, pictures of all the greats who had appeared at Purdue thanks to the BCC...all the greats who had also made pilgrimages to the BCC---I never looked at these pictures the same way again.

Last summer I visted the BCC again--this time in its new home. Brand spanking new, but still that same familiar home-like feeling. Still the cultural center of the Purdue universe. Still the intellectual center of my gravity.

It's nice to see that even in evolution and change, some things stay the same.

31Days: Kidz on the Tube

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
The Globetrotters' guest appearances on Scooby Doo.
The animated Jackson 5, with Michael's pet snake.
Buckwheat on reruns of Little Rascals/Our Gang.
(From the knees down) the Mammy character on Tom and Jerry.

Memory's not what it used to be, but I'm thinking that's about it for me--as a child in the mid 60s to mid 70s--in terms of African American characters and shows in children's programming.

Black History Month involves bearing witness to Black history (not just "celebrating" or "observing" or "acknowledging"...). Thus, I am confronted with the notion of, not only me bearing witness to history (as I have experienced it as an African American woman living in a certain period of time), but of my children bearing witness, now, to the history that's being made in their midst.

My own kids, born in the year 2K, have a much brighter history to look forward to in terms of seeing their own images on TV than I did. All jokes and serious laments aside: "bad Black TV," "modern day minstrel shows," "I wish TV would go back to just ignoring us" (comment overheard at a beauty salon), TV's UPN standing for "U picka n****" (comment from comedian Paul Mooney), etc. Acknowledged. But I'm going to put them aside: I'll take the bad if it means that the quantity is such that a lotta good manages to slip through.

And there are many very good kids' programs on television, all week long. Many of this good programming is excellent in its depiction of African American children, adults, and culture. I know many reading this are not currently experiencing the joys of parenting young children. But rest assured, the following programs are worth watching even if you do not have children in your home. So. Some of my (oh, and of course my daughters') favorites--and candidates for future proud "This Moment in Children's Programming Black History" features:

1) The Proud Family--Disney Channel/ABC Kids

I've gotta admit that what first drew me to this show was the actress who does the voice of main character Penny Proud's best friend, Dijonay. As soon as I heard the voice I recognized it as belonging to the same woman who played the character Charmaign from the latter seasons of The Cosby Show and on the spin-off, A Different World. Her signature line "Oooo, Lay-ance, you so sen-si-tiiive" is just one of those lines you can't help saying, repeating, using in other contexts. Never caught on, though, like "DY-NO-MITE" or "Whatchutalkin 'bout, Willis." (But that's another discussion for another day...)

Anyway. Back to The Proud Family.

This is a cartoon really aimed at a bit older set. The humor is sometimes on the...slapstick side. And there are not often many overtly educational qualities about the show. And I could do without the traditional cartoon father-as-doofus portrayals. And while some of the portrayals of Black folks and life are on point and very well done, others are on the uncomfortable side of stereotypical. (A mixed bag that is understandable, I guess, coming from writer/producer Ralph Farquhar--the same talent behind such questionable Black TV as The Parkers as well as great, sensitive Black TV like Moesha. )

So, why am I starting my must-see list with this show? First, my 4-year-olds love it. Plus, I am intrigued with the expansive African American talent involved in this program at all levels of production: Voice talent, writers, producers, animators, music. I figure all these African American animation and other entertainment industry folks have as much right as anyone else to be gainfully (and consistently) employed, to experiment with their creativity, to make some blunders, and in the process to also create some great work.

Postscript: I've never seen this episode, but I'm going to set my pvr and hope I catch it.

2) Stanley, Playhouse Disney

Lotsa stuff I love about this little guy's show. The theme sung by The BaHa Men. The fact that Stanley's mom works outside the home while his dad works at home. All the information about animals--almost every episode teaching me something I did not know before about the animal kingdom. The magical wonderful and most excellent "Great Big Book of Everything" (ohhhh, if only there were a graduate student GBBofE...) And most of all, 2/3 of Stanley's (human) best friends in the neighborhood, African American sisters Mimi and Marci.

Unlike many animated Black characters, Mimi and Marci are very well drawn--they look neither like stereotypes of Black people nor colored-in White people. And unlike many female animated characters, these girls actually do things, actively participate in the action--and they have ideas, they make substantive comments, they help solve problems, they have actual personalities, they in one episode introduced Stanley to Kwanzaa.

Of course, my twin daughters love that these little brown girls are also twins.

3) The Backyardigans, Nick Jr.

Another blogger says it all:
"The show to watch is The Backyardigans. How much do I love this show? I am tempted to watch it when the kids aren't around. I sing the songs as I do the dishes. There are only nine episodes so far and I have all nine on our TiVo. I force people just visiting our house to watch some of this show. I love this show."

What I really love about this show is that it's a great example of a "stealth" African American portrayal on an animated TV program. You see, the characters on this program--Uniqua, Pablo, Tyrone, Tasha, and Austin--are all crayola-colored non-human animal creatures. But don't be fooled--these are kids of color. I have no "proof" of this. But here are my points for persuasion: Check out the names of the characters, for one. Two, Janice Burgess, The Backyardigans creator and one of its producers, is an African American woman; In one interview she said what many artists say, that "all the characters are kind of like me." Three, my favorite character, Uniqua, is an undefined creature who is purplish with pinkish polka dots; Now, I don't know if Ms. Burgess is anything like me...I don't know if, like me, she has heard a non-Black person say (usually as a prelude to saying something incredibly racist), "...Now, I don't care if someone is Black, White, or pink with purple spots..."--but if she has, like me, heard that--WOW, what a great joke making Uniqua exactly that!!!

The next best thing I love about this show is the dance numbers. Yes. You heard me--dance numbers. According to one animation authority: "Each of The Backyardigans animated dance steps are choreographed by a former director of the Alvin Ailey Dance School's children's program and performed by real dancers, whose movements are then recreated in animation."

How's that for unique!

Nick Jr in general is just packed with wonderful children's programming. Their "My World" animated short stories are a good example. If you link to nothing else from this entry, link here and view the video of "No Mirrors in My Nana's House." Music by Sweet Honey in the Rock. Book by Ysaye Barnwell. Beautiful illustrations of a beautiful little brown girl and her beautiful adoring Nana. What's there not to love.

Another Nick Jr. must see is Little Bill
From the imaginatioin of Bill Cosby. Strong, loving, multi-generational African American family--including a non-doofus Dad! Voices of Phylicia Rashad and Ruby Dee. And a slammin' jazz soundtrack. (Note: Janice Burgess is co-executive producer of Little Bill.)

4) Sesame Street, PBS

I only mention Sesame Street briefly because most people probably are already familiar with it--Heck, many probably grew up on it. If you haven't seen it in a while, it continues to be one of the best children's shows on TV with some of the best depictions of diversity. It's gone through some changes--some good, some I have issues with. But still: One of the very best.

You may not know that there is a whole--I'd go so far as to call it--international human rights organization connected with this program, the Sesame Workshop. Check it out.

And one more thing. Elmo. Another example, in my opinion, of stealth African American protrayal. You can argue with me again, if you like. But I say the red monster is Black. (You may already be aware that Kevin Clash, Elmo's voice and motion, is African American.)

5) Gullah Gullah Island, (formerly) Nickelodeon (See http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-3197/)

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell this excellent show portraying a little known facet of the Black American experience is no more. My kids loved the re-runs that we caught for a few months a while back (I think on the Noggin network). Fortunately, though, real-life partners and parents on the show, Ron and Natalie Daise' are keeping the African American Gullah culture of North and South Carolina alive. (See this SC tourist site.) The show also lives on in several books and videos.

6) Teletubbies, PBS

I have to discuss this at length because I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't.

Actually, my kids have long since become bored with Teletubbies. But when they were infants and toddlers--man, this show had an amazing calming hypnotic (and somewhat creepy) effect on them. Regarding one character, the green Dipsy, the only one with a brownish face. I could read all sorts of things into his character--for instance that he is the most hyper of the four or that of the four his is the only antenna (those shapes on the tops of their heads) that sticks straight up in a perhaps/maybe/likely/kinda/obviously phallic manner or that his special possession is a large animal-skinned pimp hat... (From the official Meet the Teletubbies page: "Dipsy loves to dance, make cool moves and fancy steps.... Being super-cool doesn't stop Dipsy loving big hugs.")

I wouldn't be the first person to read things into one of the 'Tubbies characters, as everyone by now is probably aware.

So, I mention the Teletubbies to make one last Black History Month point: Although there has been improvement in children's TV depictions of Black people and culture, there is a long way to go--both in depictions of African Americans and in depictions of other diverse groups. And, well, the Teletubbies is symbolic of this issue.

Admit it, all you parents who are or have been regular viewers: Tinky Winky very definitely crosses traditional gender boundaries in his behaviors and likes. Two examples. All the Teletubbies have a special toy, or object they are associated with. Tinky Winky's is a red purse (though the narrator calls it a "bag"). In what used to be my kids' favorite episode, a pink ballet tutu magically appears one day in Teletubbieland. All the Teletubbies get a turn with the tutu. Well, guess who wants to keep the tutu, who doesn't want to share the tutu when his turn is over. Yep.

For me, though, Tinky Winky's gender exploration is not cause for concern: It is cause for rejoicing. I remember a kid I had in my class when I taught preschool who was obsessed with Cinderella and always wanted to dress up as Cinderella in the dramatic play area and who came back from Disney World with a beautiful delicate Cinderella porcelain figurine that he chose all by himself with the money his parents had given him to buy whatever toy in all the theme park that he wanted--Wouldn't his time in my class have been easier, more accepting, if his classmates had been exposed to lovable, purple-with-the-triangle-antenna Tinky Winky?

All this hand-wringing over "homosexual influences" in children's programming continues, intensified, today. Sponge-Bob Square Pants. And most recently, this.

Anyway.

All children deserve to see themselves, their families and their lives depicted in shows aimed at them. All children. And all children deserve to see images, families, cultures that are not like their own. I'm happy that my own children will be able to grow up and look back on the television they watched as kids and (I hope) remember with fondness that they saw themselves reflected there. And I'm happy that my daughters' future college mate or co-worker, someone who is at this moment growing up someplace around no Black people, will look at my girls and first see Mimi, Marci, Uniqua, Little Bill's sister April, or Penny Proud.

And not the Mammy from Tom and Jerry. ("Taw-MUSSSS!!!!! You better sho-nuff be gettin that MAWSE...")

31Days: BHM Theme Ignorance, Remedied

My own ignorance about Black History Month themes has been remedied. This, thanks to my February 2005 edition of the Black Cultural Center newsletter from my alma mater, Purdue University. (More about the BCC in a future post.) The theme, apparently since 2003, is set by The Association for the Study of African American Life and History: http://www.asalh.com/

From the web site:
The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), founded on September 9, 1915, by Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson and five others, in Chicago, Illinois, and incorporated October 3, 1915, under the laws of the District of Columbia, is a non-profit, tax-exempt professional organization. Dr. Woodson, a Harvard trained scholar and international educator, was the son of former slaves. Woodson, like W.E.B. DuBois, realized early the important role of the African American (then "Negro") in the history of the United States and world and committed his life to research on the African American past and to the dissemination of knowledge about the African American in the new world.

Next year's (2006) theme is Fraternal, Social and Civic Organizations--100th Anniversary of