People are suffering so hard these days that the lure to "get in and get over" is almost overwhelming. Then, again, that's nothing new. In fact, it's the American way, especially if you expect to be successful in business, politics, or academia. In anything really.
Often young folks' first chance to move up is also their invitation to become a gatekeeper, to suit up as a power thug who thinks it's her/
his job to oppress others already fingered as outsiders. The one who gets to step up becomes The Anointed.
Often for people of color or others who have been historically subjugated (e.g., poor people, women and girls, folks with disabilities, Southerners), an outsider is anybody else who looks like them or sticks out for the same reason they do. We all breathe the same smog of racism and oppression. Why wouldn't it clog the oppressed the same way it clogs up the folks positioned as dominant?
In any event, the rule for The Anointed--the one who is supremely clogged--is simple: "If I can't keep out others like me, I can damn sure keep em down."
Beyond that, The Anointed understands that s/he is to toe the line, shut up, and go with the flow.
The LEGACY CREW are not those people. Instead, they are the next generation of fighters who think for themselves, speak up, and daily kick racism, war, poverty and other injustices in the ass.
Folks rolling in theLEGACY CREW are not afraid to share the power or the love. They are creating the world I want to grow old in.
I'll update these postings as often as I can. But there's only one of me, so...
In the meantime, if you know someone who should be spotlighted here to inspire, challenge, or provoke us, Holla!
In her poetic manifesto, Ashley Wilkerson answered Roberto Rodriguez's question even before he asked when, on 23 November 2006 (NYC), she wrote:
Speaking of insanity, have you heard the most recent story of how the NYPD continuously terrorizes our people? 50 shots. 3 unarmed Black men. 1 DEAD on his wedding day. 23 was his age.
I am deeply saddened and beyond pissed off. We are all asking questions that we know will never truly get answered.
Other than that, life has been real good to me. People love me and I love people. 24 is my special year.
Inspired by the madness.
anyPD
Ashley Wilkerson (c) 2006
50 Bullets
biting into the backs of Blacks who are blackened by
god for a great reason.
Are the chosen ones always cursed?
I cursed
when I heard the death bells ringing
again.
And I'm searching for letters
and words
to soothe the pebble in my heart and give motivation
to the stone in my hand.
We are human....
II.
"If It's a Police Beating, I'd Rather Trust My Eyes"Roberto Rodriguez (c) 2006
(Madison, Wisconsin, Nov. 29, 2006) The young man is already down, but the blows to William Cardenas' face from a Los Angeles police officer keep coming. The video is disturbing.
And the flashbacks return. Alicia Sotero, 1996. Rodney King, 1991. And then my mind returns to 1979 and the streets of East Los Angeles. There, a young
Mexican man is being pummeled mercilessly. My first instincts are to flee, but the beating by the 10 to 12 deputies is so vicious that I can't. I take
photographs instead and then, shortly, the batons turn on me.
After a barrage of blows, I lay on the cold street in a pool of blood, from a cracked skull, handcuffed and charged with attempting to kill four police
officers with a deadly weapon a camera. In the end, I win not one but two trials, but justice is slow as they take seven years.
In the end, there is no end. The memories do go away, but they return every time a new videotaped beating surfaces. I recall the riot sticks, the death
threats and the dozens of subsequent arrests. But most of all, what I remember is that for years, nobody pays any attention to me.
More than a generation has passed and the trauma I live with is not strictly about my stirred memories but about why young people (usually of color)
continue to be brutalized on U.S. streets. Only on the rare occasion that a videotape surfaces does even the word "justice" enter the conversation.
Normally, young victims are beaten, arrested and do time. Many plea-bargain their way out of prison, which forfeits their date in court. This is
considered a victory. Most remain anonymous and traumatized for life, without justice.
What society is left with separate from false imprisonments is lots of untreated trauma, resentment and pent-up anger on the streets ... with lots
of hidden costs, including youngsters who are prone to violence, homicide, suicide and domestic violence. And this is due not strictly to the beatings.
It is in the knowledge that the life of a person of color often matters little on the streets and in the courtroom. Our nation's leaders are reluctant to say this. But that's the truth and root of the problem.
This is not a new phenomenon. In 2006, society is still carrying on the infamous Bartolomo de las Casas/Juan Gines de Sepulveda religious debates of
the late early 1500s: Are they human? That's what Europeans asked about indigenous peoples upon arrival to this continent. And yes, in a subliminal way, that same question is still being asked with similar results.
The victims are primarily red-brown-black (similar to the U.S. prison population) and there is always a presumption of guilt.
In this case, the police admit that the blows are disturbing, but we are informed that Cardenas is a gang member ... therefore, the public is being
primed to believe that he must be guilty or at least got what he deserved this before the investigation.
No one deserves to be beaten. Beating someone senseless is always illegal especially if the force is unrelated to a lawful arrest.
But even when we witness a brutal beating, we are told not to believe our eyes. That may explain why it is rare that the victim of police brutality ever sees justice. (Once in a great while family members of dead victims are compensated.)
In the recent video, we are told that we are not seeing the whole incident. That's what we were told about King and Sotero. Yet, to this day, I still
believe my eyes. I trust them. What I don't trust are public officials who justify horrific beatings and the media that have conditioned the public to find it acceptable.
This situation is virtually a pandemic, but how is the public to know in an era when human rights are meaningless and when the media are preoccupied
with fluff? At the root of all this is perhaps what UCLA professor Otto Santa Ana has noted in "Brown Tide Rising" that in this society, human rights seemingly correspond only to human beings.
Nothing short of congressional hearings are necessary to finally put an end to this travesty. But what will it take to settle the 500-year-plus debate?
Roberto Rodriguez, who is finishing his Ph.D. in communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the author of "Justice: A Question of
Race." E-mail: XColumn@gmail.com. Reprinted with permission.
III.
Rodriguez’s essay sent me digging for two poems on blood and her humanity written by a deep-thinking 16-year old schoolgirl poet, who gave them to me 1 May 1992 (Atlanta, GA), but who even now wishes to remain anonymous.
Proving what? That some Americans have lived under seige all their lives...and still do.
A Dot
I am still alone
Although they say I’m not
I live right in the middle
Among the other dots.
The view right from the center
On who got this and that
While those along the outline
Recite they are the best.
Yet I am still confused
And I don’t know why
How can we praise one other dot
When we’re all shaped alike?
We’re all of one nature
Though some say they’re not
You might be white
You might be black
But still you are a dot.
The Blood
The blood was shed
The blood still flows
The blood won’t stop
The blood must go.
The blood is red
And it will blind your sight
Although we know
The blood’s not right.
The blood will comfort
Our pain inside
So the blood will flow
Until we say
The blood can stop
But just for today.
Editor's note: Wilkerson is a performance artist, a documentary videographer, a political activist, a working woman juggling a job and casting calls. She's also a phenomenal thinker and writer. These samples of her work prove my point.
Ashley Wilkerson, B.A., 2006, Eugene Lang CollegeThe New School for Liberal Arts, New York, NY(and before all of that, a graduate of the Booker T. Washington School for the Performing and Visual Arts ("Arts Magnet"), Dallas, Texas)
Portfolio Entry 2by Ashley Wilkerson
Trapped inside a black hole
Night-dreaming about escaping the madness that is present at birth
Blackened by fire and God
Dope Boys are beautifully pathetic
Fine and hopeless
Brilliant and tired
Crying with bullets
F U C K I N G lives
away
because their living is fucked
crackers
white
crack
white
shirts
white
white
right
right?
—Inspired by Gerald, my boyfriend’s best-friend who shot himself in the head on last Thursday, inside a dope house where they both hustled. Young, Black, Broke and dead before twenty-one.
~ ~ ~
Yesterday on a Brooklyn bound A-train, I interrupted a conversation between two very special young men. One was decorated in chocolate skin with gentle brown eyes and a few rotten teeth. The other, caramel with an exuberant smile. They were conversing about recent troubles.
At sixteen, one had recently been in shackles. I later found out that he had committed robbery at school and was sent to jail. I asked him why and he had no words. His eyes told the story. I told him the story of Malcolm X and my own brother and how we have to “stop giving white men our power!” They listened earnestly as I spouted curses and I-love-you words of encouragement. They looked surprised.
My jeans were skin tight and I wore a midriff-tied shirt with a fitted jacket. If my looks inspired those listeners to listen, then my heart made them believe.
For about twelve minutes we discussed out loud white people and the privilege of whiteness. We were far from what bell hooks described as being “the Other who is subjugated, who is sub-human, lacks the ability to comprehend, to understand the working of the powerful” (
Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination, p. 41).
Together the young men and I made assessments about our impoverished communities and how they came to be and why. We contrasted liquor stores that are permanent fixtures on just about every block in our neighborhoods. I told them it was a conspiracy, but they countered it by saying that there were "tons of bars in white neighborhoods, too.” I didn’t think about it at the time, but that statement was enough to make this point: In whiteness there is always comfort.
In a white bar you have the luxury of sitting, sulking, and drinking your problems away. It is no coincidence that there are no chairs for depressed Black folk inside liquor stores-and loitering is a crime which results in the loss of more money and possible jail time.
So everyday, in every low-income, Black neighborhood, people are carrying their misery in bottles and all over their bodies, to their places of residence.
Fires, in every sense, are inevitable.
~ ~ ~
What is this thing called Whiteness? Not until my first year in college when I was assigned to read James Baldwin’s essay "On Being 'White'…And Other Lies,” in a class taught by a fierce, Black woman named Gale Jackson, did I ever really question it.
I have, for the most part, always objected to white supremacy, and even though I was raised by a lot of people who were filled with contradictions, one thing was not questioned: I was Black and special because I was Black.
In "Dialogue with a White Friend," W.E.B. Du Bois challenges his fictitious friend by maintaining that “the black race excels in beauty, goodness, and adaptability, and is well abreast in genius.” (p.30). He went on to ask, “Now can there be any question but that as colors, bronze, mahogany, coffee, and gold are far lovelier than pink, gray, and marble?…In faces, I hate straight features; needles and razors may be sharp—but beautiful, never.”
I was taught this same thing, but by women like my grandmother who lightly coated her face with Noxzema to give her smoky, deeply tanned skin, a brighter appearance. White women were ugly. Their hair long and beautiful, their skin the opposite of darkness, but they have lice and are much too pale.
~ ~ ~
An example of whiteness is a girl I remember battling in high school. She was a known racist to those who looked like her, and made the mistake of vocalizing her disgust for Blacks in front of one of my admirers. I remember vividly the dullness of her eyes as I confronted her contemptuously about what she was. She stared blankly for a minute, almost in shock that I could see her for who she really was. I had finally become the Subject that bell hooks described in her essay, and it was obvious that the white girl was not prepared to be seen unclothed. In her whiteness she denied every single word.
Apparently my color, which she was said "reminded [her] of shit”, was still much too strong because in a split second she dashed out of my sight and never walked my way again.
That’s a pity because if we had stayed in touch, I could have given her this message from Baldwin on a birthday or even a Hanukah card:
The price of the ticket…was to become “white”. No one was white before he/she came to America. It took generations, and a vast amount of coercion, before this became a white country…America became white---the people who, as they claim, “settled the country” became white--- because of the necessity of denying the Black presence, and justifying the Black subjugation…no community can be established on so genocidal a lie.
Love, Ashley
~ ~ ~
Essentially, whiteness is like carbon monoxide. You can’t smell or see it, but the effects are deadly for all people regardless of “race.”
Whiteness is and it aint. It was a fat, white man unapologetically squeezing into the tiniest space between me and another Black woman on the train the other day.
It is this intrusive force that sucks the blood and the color out of colorful people. It inspires those same people to hate what makes them so beautiful.
Whiteness is in the way, like an irremovable lump in the road. It is why I purposefully clutch my bags whenever I enter an elevator filled with white men.
Whiteness makes me scream for those darkened by God for a good reason, but who will never know or believe this.
Whiteness is why my head is throbbing and the reason I am finding it hard to write this paper. I am naming the problem, but the problem has named me, and I am trying to figure out where to go from here.
(Prepared for Prof. Jane Lazarre's "Reading for Writers," Portfolio Entry 2, November 10, 2004 (Eugene Lang College, The New School)
On voter apathy, activism, and hope
(NYC, Nov 11, 2004) I wish it was all really that easy.
People are disappointed and should be allowed to be so. I don't think the fire is gone. I do feel numb, but it is not permanent.
E___ made some solid points, but I think she should come down from her colorless sky and name the truth.
The truth is, there can be no change unless we start with ourselves and are allowed to be human. Black people in general cannot agree to disagree with one another, so how are we going to be in real solidarity with others? Maybe I'm taking it a bit too far. I registered voters who had absolutely nothing going for them BUT their hope and it was good. I had hope and it was good.
I know that it doesn't stop there, but I also know how a person can get stuck and feel even more apathetic...
Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 08:57:06 -0800 (PST)
From: Ashley Wilkerson
To: Bernestine Singley, et al.
Re: Snr work
Peace and love y'all.
I am officially a college graduate! It has been a long journey, but I finally made it! : )
My degree is in Cultural Studies and Media--more C.S. less on the media. Nevertheless, I embarked on a serious journey to make a film about Third Coast Hip Hop and the intra-racial color references that are so prevalent within the music coming out of Texas.
Through countless hours of working on Final Cut Pro (note: I've only taken 1 filmmaking class) and several Oscar-worthy emotional breakdowns...I made it through.
I birthed a 20-minute jewel. Her name is "Colour Me Bad: Third Coast Hip Hop."
I can't wait for y'all to meet her.
PS. Please read the ENTIRE review.
P.S.S I am looking for another apt. Please let me know if you know someone who is looking for a very clean roommate.
(The Review)
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 15:13:47 -0500
From: Ken Wark (Ashley's professor)
To: Ashley Wilkerson
Subject: snr work
Hey,
Here's my offical report on yr senior work. No grade yet, as we have to wait on the second reader. But let me also say: way to go Ashley! I am so proud of you! I really think it was worth it in the end. You have
a real talent for getting the best out of your interviewees. They trust you and they open up to you. I learned a lot from your project. All the best with life after Lang, and do let me know if you decide to stay in NYC, go back to texas, go west, etc., etc.
Editor's note: Like all decisions, a national policy, especially one based on lies and distortions, often has its harshest impact on the folks furthest removed from the decision makers. Where war is involved, a young person's decision to serve in the military affects everyone who loves and cares about him or her. This contribution from Eric Meek is introduced by his aunt, visual artist and writer Vicki Meek. From them we get a glimpse into how one Marine’s decision reverberates across generations.
~ ~ ~
Vicki Meek: This is from my nephew Eric Meek. He enlisted in the Marines straight out of high school, an act that in its own way was a measure of courage given the family he was born into. That’s because after his experience battling both racism and bigotry during his time in the army during WWII, my father (Eric’s grandfather) vowed no son of his would ever serve in the armed forces. Up until Eric enlisted, no male member of my family did. So Eric had to buck some pretty hard line relatives (his parents included!) to make this decision. For him to speak this way means he has matured considerably since his young years as a Marine cadet... Please pass it on. Vick
~ ~ ~
A Marine Speaks of Warby Eric Meek
"So, I hate that now when we speak out against the war we're considered traitors, America-Haters, etc. I love this shit hole country more than most people. These people that say these things couldn't have made it through some of the crap I had to go through to be called a Marine."
As an ex-Marine, I think there's a need for us to get and keep our
voices out there regarding this damn war. I hope everyone can indulge me for a moment.
I was so gung-ho when I was in the Marines. I felt brotherhood like
never before and I was surrounded by people who I think felt the same.
One thing I don't believe people realize is that although we were all
willing, ready, and wanted to die for our country it was for a country
that doesn't really exist anymore. We felt like we joined the Marines for our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and friends. We would've laid down our lives for them, for you. We still would. We still do. There wasn't and still isn't any question about that.
So, I hate that now when we speak out against the war we're considered traitors, America-Haters, etc. I love this shit hole country more than most people. These people that say these things couldn't have made it through some of the crap I had to go through to be called a Marine. I wish they were right beside me when I was running miles with full gear,
bad-back, crying out for Ben-Gay, or when I was in another country,
getting drunk with friends who were all missing home and crying over our families and friends.
Maybe they should've been there when I faced some of my greatest fears. The gas chamber. Rappelling. Throwing a live grenade. Sweltering in the heat trying to hit a target 500 yards away. (One sharpshooter & two expert badges I earned!)
I wish they were there when people stood outside our bases chanting, "Yankee, go home!" and we were just a bunch of scared kids in a foreign country wondering what we did to make them hate us. I don’t wonder anymore. I know now.
I just so wish the people who are calling us names now had been there then. I doubt they would've called us “unpatriotic” to our faces.
I remember Jason Levine, Big Oz, Mitchell, the Doc (who died in a car wreck), Staff Sergeant Griggs, Master Gunny (Gunnery Sergeant), Olsen, that damn racist NCO I hit, the guy who recognized me from Ithaca, a Mike Tyson look-alike Sergeant, and so many others who wouldn't want to die for this president. This damn president who keeps sending kids to die for nothing.
2,273 soldiers dead.* Jeez, that ain’t just some number. Those are people's children. It makes me sick. Two thouand is a lot and it's gonna keep going up.
Wake up people! It's gone way too far already.
Please pass this along. If there's anything I want people to know, it's that there are patriotic people out here that aren't for this war.
Peace.
Eric
*The reported death toll of American soldiers back in February 2006. See the next article for syndicated columnist Les Payne’s take on the 600,000 Iraqis killed so far.
Share your comments
with visitors to this website or
contact Eric Meek directly.
Pulitzer Prize winning syndicated columnist for Newsday; contributing essayist to When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories.
"Bush's Rube Ruse Just Won't Cut It"(Excerpt)
This "Ozark Ike" shtick by our 43rd president has run its course. This wayward scion of one of the ranking ruling-class families has made a career of getting himself underestimated, then collecting on his family name big-time. Every job coming his way unduly, from Air National Guard lieutenant to owner of the baseball Texas Rangers, has been squandered. Now, this middle-aged Prodigal Son, who "wasted his substance in riotous living," has been empowered to oversee the ship of state, its treasure, honor and the future of its young.
...
Some 655,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, have died as a result of the U.S. invasion, according to a new study published in The Lancet, a medical journal. Against an Iraqi population of 26 million, this war death toll would be equivalent to some 7.6 million war dead in the United States with its population of nearly 300 million.
Suzanne Malveaux of CNN gave President Bush a chance to square these painstakingly computed figures by reputable public health specialists with the 30,000 figure he gave in a December speech. "That figure is 20 times [higher than] the figure you cited," she said. "Do you care to amend or update your figure, and do you consider this a credible report?"
The president unsophisticated with words turned Einstein with numbers. "I stand by my [30,000] figure," Bush replied. "A lot of innocent people have lost their life - 600,000, or whatever they guessed at, is just - it's not credible."
Read the rest of this article here.
(c) 2006 Newsday, Inc.In the early 1960s, then President John F. Kennedy challenged Americans to, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
In August 2005, U. S. Army veteran Denise Moore already knew what she had done for her country. A resident of New Orleans, Louisiana when Hurricane Katrina struck, Moore, through her cousin, Lisa Moore, shares a wrenching saga of exactly how her government paid back its soldier.
When Moore chose to stay in New Orleans to protect her family, they ended up trapped in horror.
"They were there for 2 days, with no water, no food. No shelter. Denise, her mother (63 years old), her niece (21 years old), and 2-year-old grandniece. When they arrived, there were already thousands of people there.
"They were told that buses were coming. Police drove by, windows rolled up, thumbs up signs. National guard trucks rolled by, completely empty, soldiers with guns cocked and aimed at them. Nobody stopped to drop off water.
"A helicopter dropped a load of water, but all the bottles exploded on impact due to the height of the helicopter.
"The first day (Wednesday) 4 people died next to her. The second day (Thursday) 6 people died next to her.
"Denise told me the people around her all thought they had been sent there to die."
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