YG&B's Amended and Restated Senate Resolution

While we are passing toothless resolutions, I propose a new, Amended and Restated Senate Resolution:

I. We, the United States Senate, besides being sorry about ignoring lynching for the span of almost 5000 lives, are also sorry for the centuries of suspicion and imputed guilt piled upon people who had had the nerve to be born colored and/or poor. Such circumstances of unjustified suspicion may continue to occur, but we hereby resolve to be apologetic for them each and every time.

II. We apologize for a history of meanness and ill manners toward people who are not of Anglo-Saxon descent and who do not have Western European accents.

III. We apologize for never giving the poor and dispossessed the one thing they need that doesn’t cost a thing: the benefit of the doubt.

IV. We promise to try to enliven the concept of innocent until proven guilty in our system of criminal justice for all defendants, including the poor and non-celebrity coloreds. While we admit to having a national obsession with the gritty acting and good old-fashioned storytelling of shows such as NYPD Blue and Law & Order, we recognize that in a democracy, police officers and district attorneys must not treat all suspects with the contempt due an admitted child molester.

V. We understand that we live in a real country with unrealistically difficult ideals handed down by our forefathers and greatest thinkers, yet we also understand that our humble nation is at its best when it strives towards those ideals and at its worst when it slips into arrogant idleness.

Got anything to add? Post it in the Comments section.

Like Water for Chocolate: Senate Apologizes for Ignoring Lynching

You may have missed it with all the hoopla about Michael Jackson, but on the same day (June 13, 2005) the Senate passed a resolution apologizing and expressing regret for the moral failure of ignoring the almost 200 anti-lynching bills that were introduced to Congress during an eighty-year period. From 1880 to 1960 approximately 4,749 people (men, women and children) were lynched in the United States. Seventy five percent of those lynched were black.

Senators Mary Landrieu (LA-D) and George Allen (VA-R) sponsored the resolution. Landrieu and Allen claim they were moved to propose the chamber’s repentance after seeing photographs in the book Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America (published in 2000), edited by James Allen. Of course it rings hollow that these two Southerners, Landrieu (is at least 40 from the looks of things) and George Allen (born in 1952) were ignorant of lynching until they happened across a book published in the year 2000. For the sake of argument, however, I will grant that their first encounter with this national phenomenon we call “lynching” was in a coffee table picture book. When viewing the pictures, I hope what really tore their heartstrings were not the ghastly scenes of “strange fruit” twisting on the branches of a strong old tree, but rather the sight of the mob of whites, men, women and children, standing around the tree, taking pictures, posing, selling postcards of the event, laughing, taking relics of bits of skin, teeth, nails and bones and gesturing proudly at the camera, unashamed of murder.

This apology vexes me the way the Killen trial vexes me. Once again, we are falling headlong into atonement and the perpetrator model of discrimination. It is not heroic, healing or even moral to deliver mealy-mouthed regret about past bad acts when contemporaneously many of these same politicians are engaged in a heated battle to dismantle systems in our government that guard against just the type of mob rule that led to lynchings. If you have not been in a persistent vegetative state for the last few months, you have seen Senators push for the elimination of the few anti-majoritarian checks in our system: the filibuster and an independent judiciary. You have been witness to an alarming trend of politicians crying mightily for the professional lynching of judges who don’t do their bidding. Mob rule and the duplicitous silence of those who know better is no less reprehensible today than it was in the nineteenth century. Judges are not beholden to politicians, a small majority may not rule with an iron fist and the Constitution is difficult to amend because we want to encourage slow, deliberative, consensual problem-solving, not a gentleman’s mob rule. We have seen governments in which all the power is concentrated in one person or one party and we are generally disappointed with the results: they tend towards human rights abuses and we suggest “regime change” for their remediation. Let us therefore tread thoughtfully into the realm of absolute majority rule.

Generally, I appreciate an apology, especially a timely one that is heartfelt and means that the supplicant will change his ways. I simply don’t think the Senate resolution fulfills either requirement.

I suppose an apology, however, is better than no apology at all. Therefore, I, YG&B, on behalf of myself and other like-minded folks, accept your apology, U.S. Senate. We may be atoned, but we are not assuaged.

Thank you.

***I have tried my level best not to blast Condoleezza Rice for, in the wake of the apology, coming up with a me-too lynching story about her grandfather's experiences as she sits in an Administration that refuses to admit any mistakes with respect to the torture of suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan. The Administration has defined those prisoners in such a way that they do not have any rights or representation. They are dying in our custody. Do you see what I mean about absolute power?

Some additional links on lynching:

The Sun News

Lynching Statistics

It's Killen Time and We're All Guilty

A Catholic and two Jews go into Neshoba County, Mississippi. They are there to register voters and investigate church burnings. They are found under an earthen dam, all three have been shot; the Catholic was also badly beaten. The preacher who arranged their murder is convicted 41 years later for three counts of manslaughter. Dang it, I never can seem to get my Mississippi jokes to come out right.

Oh sure, calling it “Mississippi-stan” to mock its backwards reputation is funny, but Mississippi-stan is no punch line. I figure the only people laughing in Neshoba County today are the friends and family of Edgar Ray Killen (isn’t just plum-perfect that his name is pronounced like “killin’”? Isn’t it? Isn’t it?). Oh, they’ll be upset that he’s been convicted, but they know that once his appeals are finished, the ailing Killen will likely be interred before he is incarcerated. And as one learns in any elementary tax or finance course, it’s better to owe taxes at the end of the year or even to pay a small fine than it is to receive a refund because during the time that you had use of your money you were receiving an interest-free loan from the government. The way I see it, Killen has had a 41-year interest-free loan on life. Going to prison a few months before his death to repay society for the brutal murders that took place in 1964 is a gift.

The three young men were, of course, James Chaney (black, Catholic), Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner (both white and Jewish). They were in Mississippi as a part of Freedom Summer in 1964. On their way to investigate the burning of Mt. Zion Church, they were ambushed by the Ku Klux Klan and killed. A jury found Killen guilty of three counts of manslaughter last week for orchestrating the Klan attacks that led to the murders.

Shannon and I went to Mississippi during our civil rights road trip. The entire first day we trolled around the Jackson area, looking for a sign that would lead us to the civil rights attractions. Such signs were commonplace everywhere we’d been: Birmingham, Montgomery, Atlanta, etc. These cities offered up their civil rights movement history like gems – borne of years of hard, crushing pressure, but now beautiful when held up to the light. The small town of Selma, Alabama proudly boasts a sign at its entrance, “From Civil War to Civil Rights and Beyond.” There is even an intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and Jefferson Davis Ave in Selma – brilliant! So you can imagine our shock and consternation we hit Mississippi, whose deep delta soil holds the civil rights motherlode, and found nothing. Nothing!

Where was Medgar Evers’ highway? His plaza? Andy Young and Ralph Abernathy both have highways in Atlanta, shouldn’t Medgar get a park in Jackson? Could Amzie Moore get a statue? A mural in the ghetto? Something? Bob Moses? Anyone? Hello?

Deflated and confused, we headed to a Chili’s in Jackson for dinner. When our waitress, a black woman in her 20’s took our order, I hit upon an idea: she would know where to find Medgar’s home! Just as the white woman at the tourist agency in Little Rock, Arkansas, called an elderly black man out of the back to have him give me directions to Central High School because “Lord knows [she] didn’t know where it [was]”, this black woman would be able to lead us to all the civil rights hot spots. I shared my idea with Shannon. “Ha!” She responded, “I bet she won’t even know who Medgar Evers is.” Affronted, I replied that we were in Jackson. Of course she would know who Medgar Evers was. “You ask her,” Shannon challenged me. So I did. And the only thing more crushing than the young waitress’s blank look in response to my question was Shannon’s Cheshire I-told-you-so grin.

The waitress began to explain to us that she wasn’t from Jackson and Shannon, ever to be proven right cuts in, “Do you even know who Medgar Evers is?”

“No, ma’am.”

I looked down at the table to avoid Shannon’s twinkling eyes and that grin. I mumbled something like, “Medgar Evers was the NAACP field secretary for Mississippi. He was gunned down in his driveway somewhere here in Jackson for trying to register blacks to vote.”

“Oh.”

And she walked away. Shannon burst into laughter. I couldn’t understand how this young woman could be living in Jackson, Mississippi, sound like a native Mississippian and have no idea who Medgar Evers had been. I paid the bill with a credit card and wrote underneath my signature:

“Medgar Evers died so you could vote. :-)” (yes, I did draw a happy face on the bill)

Southern states with histories like Mississippi are pursuing trials like Killen’s, so-called “atonement trials”, to show the country and the rest of the world that they have evolved from their bloody pasts and are ready to be welcomed into civilized company. My problem with the idea of "atonement trials" in Mississippi or anywhere else is that the idea of such an atonement made possible by the jailing of one person or a few wrongdoers just feeds into the perpetrator model of discrimination. The perpetrator model of discrimination defines the wrong of discrimination as being committed one conscious act at a time by an easily identifiable evil-doer. Of course, the evil of a four hundred year history of discrimination is not about individuals; it is about entrenched economics, social interactions and wealth, what is sometimes called “institutional racism.”

It is utterly misguided for a nation with a racial history like that of the United States to try place blame on the "wrongdoers" and then declare itself clean. Such focus on individuals ignores the reach of history and abdicates everyone else who was a part of the system. If we really want to impart guilt, let me begin. I find the entire state of Mississippi guilty: the whites who were virulently racist and those who were silent sympathizers with the Movement but chose to remain silent to maintain familial relations or status in the community. Guilty, guilty, guilty. I find guilty every white person who ever ever ever inherited a piece of land. I especially find guilty wealthy Southern families who are still wealthy and enjoy social standing based on wealth gained during the antebellum period. I find guilty descendants of white immigrants in the north who could join unions, vote in political machines and eventually become accepted as "Americans" while my ancestors who have been here since the 1600s still run around being qualified as African-Americans when hain't a one of us e'er been to no Africa. I find the entire country guilty for not properly honoring the heroes who dragged this nation, kicking and screaming, to a more perfect realization of its stated goals. I also find black people guilty. I find our parent's generation guilty for spitting on the torch and dousing the flame that should have been passed on to my generation. I find them guilty for having children who don't know who Medgar Evers is. I find black people guilty for knowing that white people have no intention of teaching them black history in school and for them still not seeking it out on their own. Guilty, guilty, guilty. I find black people guilty for not taking advantage of all the opportunities, rights and privileges that people like Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner died so they could have. Atone that.

The Ying Yang Twins, or, The Sun Can Still Shine While It's Raining

A few Saturdays ago we experienced a phenomenal rainstorm here in New York City. From my apartment perch, I could see the sun going down over the Hudson while at the same time a rainstorm also approached from the west, drowning New Jersey. The effect was truly gorgeous. I had no idea that it could rain while the sun was still shining. Of course I have been witness to midday drizzles in the midst of an otherwise beautiful day, but this downpour was illuminated by the bright orange glow of sunset. I could hardly tear myself away from my window.

Like anyone else who grew up with a press ‘n’ curl, I am generally no fan of the rain. Still, the vision of a retiring sun fighting through a deluge inspired me to think about other metaphorical areas where it seems to be raining, but the sun’s struggle to peek through creates something new and magical. One of those areas is hip-hop. As Common said, “I used to love H.E.R.”, but the genre has gotten to be so violent and lurid that the love has turned into no more than a passing radio interest.

Essence Magazine has declared a “Take Back the Music” Campaign whose purpose is to draw attention to, and hopefully create some change in, the hip-hop industry that has been mercilessly degrading black women and glorifying the “gangsta” lifestyle. Essence, as a magazine dedicated to black women, is right to focus on the omnipresent violent and misogynistic lyrics aimed at the “b*tches” and “hos” whose sole purpose is to sexually pleasure their men and dance like strippers. Every popular video features half-naked women whose sole purpose is to shake their chests and behinds in the camera. Many times, you don’t even see the women’s faces. Songs revolve almost exclusively around money, loose women and violence. The male rappers vie to see who can look more menacing, who’s been in jail longer, and who has been shot more times than the next “artist” and the female singers/rappers compete for most-skin-shown-in-a-prime-time-video and who-can-give-the-best-head awards. Since Queen Latifah became a model/actress/jazz singer, there hasn’t been any voice in hip-hop to remind the gents that it’s “Ladies First.”

I have long felt abandoned by the musical form that I cherished as a child. Hip-hop was my generation’s language, our news, our laughter, our jokes and our fist. We were young, determined, on the cutting-edge and we were not going to back down. My alienation from hip-hop started as surprised shock, segued into a mature weariness and then finally morphed into an anger that someone had run off with something that was mine, that was special, that was revolutionary, and that the thief had left me with nothing but an empty gat, rusted spinners, a busted thong and some clear platform shoes with a broken heel. At least that is how I felt.

Yet, there is something electric about even the worst of our lyrical music. Just last Saturday I stood angrily in the club listening to Lil’ Jon & the East Side Boyz’s club banger, “Get Low.” I was upset because all of the club, men and women, were dancing, having a great time, and then there was me, holding up the wall. I took a vow a while back not to be one of the women in the club shaking her tailfeathers to songs that are nasty or degrading because dancing to a song is a bit like owning it and demonstrating to all and sundry that you agree with its import and lyrics. “Get Low” is a song with which I definitely cannot agree. The song (click here for the lyrics) references sweat rolling down a man’s genitalia, sperm shooting out of said genitalia and worst of all, women (“b*tches” is now synonymous with “women”) crawling. But hang it all, the song is catchy. It’s fun! In the privacy of the car on our civil rights road trip, Shannon and I would often break the silence with a spontaneous outcry: “From the windows. . . .to the wall (to the wall)!”

The meteorological phenomenon of a rain shower bathed in sunlight gave me a ray of hope for hip-hop, or at least a different perspective on it. Perhaps the sun can still shine while it's raining. Like all revolutionary movements that become mainstream, hip-hop has been co-opted by uninspiring commercial forces that hope only to consolidate cash—like a picture of Che Guevara on a $30 t-shirt. Much like communism, hip-hop gave a lot of people a lot of hope and made some people extremely rich while the rest of us "true believers" were bankrupted waiting for its promise to be fulfilled. It is pouring in hip-hop; something else will have to be our salvation. Yet, even some of the most offensive songs can embody the spirit of pure, unabashed fun so well that the most righteously outraged protester has to stop thinking and just “stomp and wiggle it.”

I applaud Essence’s work in its campaign, but I will admit that this proud fully-clothed black woman will be getting crunk to a chu’ch beat in the club tonight. Not because I love the rain, but because the sun is still shining.