So, one day you look down and see your feet in shoes you don't recognize. Maybe you like them, maybe you don't. This is where life begins. Welcome to WSATA, where the Goddess returns.
This story reminds me of Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw's movie, Love Story, but this story is true and the people are African-American.
I discovered this true love story through a friend who shared it on Facebook via Clutch Magazine. LaKeasha Monique Rutledge-Draft and NFL free agent Chris Draft, the couple in a very moving weding video, were married on November 27, 2011, and one month later, December 27, Keasha died from lung cancer. ... As you can see in the wedding video produced by KRJ Productions, members of the bridal party wheeled the bride down the aisle, but she stood, walked, and took her vows sitting next to the groom. Later in the video you'll see her walk arm-in-arm with Chris down the aisle while a friend holds her oxygen tank. She also dances with her husband standing right behind her at the reception, and you can see the medical tube coming from her nose and circling around her cheeks.
Keasha was born in South Carolina and worked as a ... Read more at WritingJunkie.net.
When a car accident in your city makes national news, you know it had to be horrific. WWL-TV, other local stations, and CNN reported on the I-10 accident that happened early this morning near the Michoud exit of I-10 in New Orleans East. At least 40 vehicles, including 18-wheeler trucks, collided; two people were killed and 59 injured, say sources. The pictures look like an invisible fist reached down and twisted cars into scrap metal. In the picture above, you'll see cars contorted under a tractor trailer.
Considering how often I have had to travel this stretch of highway, the accident's unnerved me a bit. But I'm not surprised because the fog in the mornings here is sometimes so bad that you can't see a few feet in front of you, and having driven through the marsh fire smoke before, I know it alone can make seeing down the road impossible. In addition, I have observed drivers speeding through both as they would drive on a clear day.
One witness to today's crash told WWL that he couldn't even see the hood of his car in front of him, and others said it was like the cars in front of them vanished. Tow truck drivers are saying that they've never seen an accident as bad this one. The only blessing I can think of is that it could have been worse; this crash could have happened on the Twin Span over Lake Pontchartrain, which is part of the I-10 and not too far from the Michoud exit.
Officials are not yet sure what caused the accident, but the general consensus is that morning fog and the marsh fire contributed to the pile-up.
First, congratulations to Drew Brees who broke Dan Marino's record of 5084 passing yards in a season yesterday during a game in which the New Orleans Saints clobbered the Atlanta Falcons. As I said on Twitter, "That record couldn't have been broken by a finer person."
The Associated Press and other news sources report that the pleasant memories of Christmas 2012 have been marred for residents of Grapevine, Texas. For the first time in more than 18 months, someone committed murder in the small town. A man dressed in a Santa suit shot to death six people ages 18 to 60 on Christmas morning while the family opened presents, and then the gunman killed himself, bringing the total to seven--four women, three men.
My first thought today when I heard about yesterday's massacre was that it was a copy cat because I remembered writing about the "Santa Claus Massacre" of 2008 in California. That tragedy had a death toll of 10. I also recalled that on December 24 someone appeared in my blog statistics looking up the California crime, and I thought then that it was strange for someone to look up so grisly a crime the day before Christmas, especially since the crime happened three years ago. I checked that stats report again tonight, but could not tell the location of the visitor because the person used a wireless, Verizon connection. More than likely it was a coincidence, but seeing that the person searched the day before these Texas murders leaves a chill.
The shooter in the California Santa Massacre also dressed in a Santa suit. He and his wife were going through divorce. As I wrote back then, "He shot an 8-year-old girl in the face first when she opened the door happy to see Santa. So far in the Texas case, such horrific details have not emerged. Some of the victims were visiting from out-of-town and as of noon today, the Grapevine police still had to notify next of kin.
MSNBC reports that there is no known motive in the Texas shooting; however, the AP story says the man and his family had lost a house in foreclosure and was estranged from the women in the house. The AP also says that the family was murdered while opening Christmas gifts.
The song is on his Emancipation CD, which he recorded after his Warner Bros. contract expired. Listening to this song before Christmas 2011, I was struck by how its lyrics remain relevant today, so I created a little video. You can watch it by clicking this link or the Prince picture above. The video should start automatically. If your volume's already up on your computer or smart device, you may need to adjust it.
Here is a clip from NBC's A Sing-Off Christmas featuring Committed and Howard University's a cappella group Afro-Blue. It's not a traditional Christmas song, but its lyrics certainly hit the spot this Christmas when so many Americans are struggling financially.
In 2012, a documentary based on Douglas A. Blackmon's Pulitzer-Prize-winning book, Slavery By Another Name, will premier on PBS. The book documents the systematic re-enslavement of many African-Americans in prisons in the American South from the Civil War to World War II. Blackmon, a white journalist, calls this form of slavery "neoslavery" and says that slavery technically did not end until 1942, according to a 2009 article by Aberjhani written after Blackmon won the Pulitzer.
From Blackmon's website:
[The book] challenges one of our country’s most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery ended with Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. The documentary recounts how in the years following the Civil War, insidious new forms of forced labor emerged in the American South, keeping hundreds of thousands of African Americans in bondage, trapping them in a brutal system that would persist until the onset of World War II.
What do people wear to the Zulu Ball in New Orleans? That is a common question that I see coming through my traffic tracker as we near the Mardi Gras season, and so, I edited some video I had of the Zulu Ball 2011 to scenes that would let people get an idea of how some of the participants dress. The Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club also known as the Zulu Krewe requires formal attire for the ball.
I have been told by a reliable source that the entertainment at the Zulu Ball 2012 (February 17) will include Mary J. Blige and R. Kelly. However, even reliable sources can be wrong or the entertainment can change. One year a snow storm kept En Vogue away and Mistikal, who happened to be at the ball, performed in their place. (Update January 21: Now I'm hearing not Mary J. Blige and R. Kelly but Charlie Wilson instead.)
The second video shows more people dancing in gowns and tuxedos at the Zulu Ball 2010. They are doing the second line, which is the parade you see in the background of the first video.
Updated December 30: As for buying tickets to the Zulu Coronation Ball, here is the answer I posted in the comments section:
Hi, Coy. I suggest you contact the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club at this link, contact Zulu for information about how to get an invitation or a ticket. Or maybe someone at the Zulu Memorabilia Store can help.
Here is video of Oprah's interview with Prince in 1996 when he released "Emancipation" after he was completely free of his Warner Bros. contract. This is vintage Prince. The man is ever evolving. (See more recent interview on Lopez Tonight)
I'd say watch it while you can because I doubt Oprah gave permission for this video to be posted online; so, it may disappear. However, I'd gladly buy the whole episode on iTunes or at Amazon if she decided to sell it by itself.
If the video doesn't work, I've also posted clips at WritingJunkie.net.
In the beginning, Oprah gives an overview of Prince's life and career, and then he comes out and performs "Do Me Baby" and "If I Were Ur Girlfriend," to keep the fans happy. Later, Oprah shows scenes from her interview and her visit with him at his house, where it seems that she can't help saying to him, "Oh, you're pretty," and asks him, "What should I call you?" He says, "Prince."
She also interviews him with his wife of that time, Mayte Garcia, and they talk about having children.
Oprah asks Prince about his music's focus on sex (which it doesn't do so much these days). He says that sex is a part of life. He also says that there are two people inside him, and he's not sure what the gender (sex) of the other person is. Oprah also ask him how he feels about people's assumption that he's gay. He says, "Whatever floats your boat."
Oprah continues to probe Prince's assertion that he has two personalities, something he says he discovered about himself in therapy, and he jokes with her saying, "This is turning into a Sybil interview." He recalls being ridiculed as a child for his small size, and he suspects that being bullied led him to create the other personality when he was about five years old. From an early age, he used music to escape, he says, teaching himself how to play the piano, and he remembers the first song he played was the theme to the Batman television show.
Prince eventually talks with Oprah about his split with Warner Bros. and why he wrote the word slave on his face. He did not mean to offend anyone by calling himself a slave nor to associate himself with any particular group of slaves. By the end of the show, he performs "Sleep Around."
I did not intend to mention the Dartmouth Aires again, but as I said in my post about NBC's The Sing-Off finale, I'm catching up with what I missed via OnDemand. Anyway, the Aires's performance of R. Kelley's "Ignition Remix" on Episode 9 had me howling with laughter. As judge Shawn Stockman said, "there were so many uncomfortable moments ..." in the performance, and yet it was fun. Ben Folds told the group that he would like to see them do R. Kelly's whole "Trapped in the Closet" series.
Seeing them made the second time I've heard R. Kelly's name in a week, which is very unusual. He was hot after I was married and having babies, so I didn't pay that much attention to him, and only became aware of him with "I Believe I Can Fly" and then his scandal hit the news. Nevertheless, I may be seeing the man live in February 2012 at the Zulu Ball because I let my cousin talk me into going to that Mardis Gras ball again.
This will make the third year in a row that I'm going. Last time, I went for the O'Jays and Frankie Beverly and Maze, but she nudged me this time with Mary J. Blige. When she told me that R. Kelly would perform, I shook my head and said, "Wait. You mean golden-shower man? I don't know if I want to see him," and was ready to say "No," and that's when she played the Mary J. Blige card. My daughter told me she wanted to go, too, mainly to see the people in their gowns and tuxedos, and that sealed it for me. But I probably won't buy a ticket until I get more assurance that Mary J. Blige will be there.
I am on break and catching up via OnDemand TV the shows that I like but missed during the semester. I enjoyed this performance on NBC's finale of The Sing-Off: Ben Folds singing his song "Not the Same" with the Dartmouth Aires and the audience. (I need to contemplate that song's meaning.) Although Michael Odokara-Okigbo of the Aires did not show his chops during "Not the Same," I expect to see him show up on Broadway and television in the future. He was clearly the star of that group over the course of the season, which was especially obvious in the group's performance of a Queen medley during the middle of the season.
I missed the episode in which Howard University's Afro-Blue was voted off. I hope to see some of the students from that group pop up in the entertainment industry again, especially Christie Dashiell.
I also enjoyed the girls from all the groups singing Aretha Franklin's version of "Natural Woman" (Carole King wrote the song). The performance video's posted below. Most of the young women are from the all-female a cappella group Delilah.
Pretty much, I enjoyed the whole show, in which Smokey Robinson also appeared and sang with Afro-Blue. The three finalists were Urban Method, the Dartmouth Aires, and Pentatonix. I won't tell you who won, but you can look it up online, or watch the finale at NBC's site here, and take the hint that the $200,000 grand prize will be divided by five. I liked all three finalists, and I think the right group won out of the three groups left.
Bear with me here, readers. Consider Ratigan's rant and the advice that he gave to President Barack Obama during an August show, and then consider Obama's December 6th "Teddy Roosevelt speech."
I haven't had much time to watch TV this semester or pay attention to politics. I avoid politics in particular lately because I don't want to get sucked into the insanity of responding to crazy, frequently racist people. For instance, I wouldn't want to be drawn into explaining to a Rush Limbaugh supporter why his calling Michelle Obama "uppity" is in historical context a racist remark. Who needs the headache? But sometimes, I will look up and talk politics a bit. For example, I had to say something about the Herman Cain fiasco.
And today I feel compelled to talk about a clip I saw on Facebook posted by poet Taalam Acey. The clip shows MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan blowing up during his Mega Panel on his own show in August. Taalam posted the YouTube video, but I've posted the official clip from MSNBC. (I also have the YouTube clip at the end of this post in case the MSNBC one doesn't work sometimes.)
Ratigan sounds like he means what he says. He's passionate, so passionate that at some moments it looks like he's going to have a stroke during his rant about a "bought Congress" and its failure to act and find solutions for the United States economy, but I've gotten to the point where I'm cynical about ranting pundits. I wonder how much of the passion we see sometimes is real and how much is motivated by a desire for ratings. Still, if this guy is acting here, then he should skip politics and move on to Hollywood. He seems sincere.
I agree with a lot of what he says, but his overuse of the word extraction and the steam coming out of his ears makes me question some of his rhetoric. What does he mean when he says, "... the United States of America is being extracted"? He continues:
It’s being extracted through banking, it’s being extracted through trade, and it’s being extracted through taxation, and there’s not a single politician that has stepped forward ... to deal with this"
His inclusion of taxation throws me off. Does he mean that America is being extracted through taxes because eventually tax dollars must be used to pay China for our debt? Does he mean that due to political corruption many of our tax dollars go to silly earmarks and pork barrel projects? Is he anti-taxes or did he misspeak and means instead that America is being extracted by game playing over taxation? And what does he think the word extraction means in these instances?
In any case, after his diatribe and his blaming the whole system, Ratigan still declares that Obama, only one man, can fix this monstrous mess. He thinks that if Obama would simply go to the American people and shout like Ratigan does himself in this video, I guess, that people will wake up and get behind a system overhaul. Here's what Ratigan said in August that Obama should do:
I would like him to go to the people of the United States of America and say, “People of the United States of America, your Congress is bought, your Congress is incapable of making legislation on healthcare, banking, trade, or taxes because if they do it, they will lose their political funding and they won’t do it. But I’m the President of the United States, and I won’t have a country that is run by a bought Congress. So I’m not going to work with a bought Congress and try to be Mr. Big Guy, ‘I’m working with a bought Congress’, I’m going to abandon the bought Congress like Teddy Roosevelt did, and I’m going to go to the people of the United States and I’m going to say, ‘You’ve got a bought Congress,” and until we get rid of the bought Congress, which is Jimmy Williams constant point, which is get the money out of politics, and until a President says that’s the problem and says he’s going to fix it, there is no policy that I can possibly see no matter how brilliant your idea may be or your idea or my idea or her idea or your idea at home, is that idea will not happen as long as there’s a capacity to basically fire a politician who disagrees with me by taking funding away from him. Is that a fair assessment?
When Ratigan says Jimmy Williams, he's speaking of a guy on his panel who says, "Money in politics is the root of all political evil. It is corruption at its worst. And until we step up and kick that out of the park, it’s going to be the same system all the way."
Ratigan responds to Williams, "And only the President can do that." But Williams disagrees, "No, no, no, Congress has to do it, too. Congress has to do it, too."
Anyway, I zeroed in on Ratigan's mention of Roosevelt because of analysis I've heard of Obama's December 6h speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. Pundits and political analysts are calling it his "Teddy Roosevelt speech," and so, watching Ratigan, I wondered if Obama's advisers had also seen the rant and decided, "Hmm. Let's take another look at Roosevelt's speeches."
As I said at the outset, I have not been paying close attention to politics lately, but I do recall hearing about Obama's Kansas speech as I prepared for bed Tuesday night. I think I heard someone on CNN's Anderson Cooper show saying that with Obama's emphasis on economic fairness during the speech, he was invoking Teddy Roosevelt's 1910 speech that was also delivered in Osawatomie.
Here is video of the president.
Looking up commentary on the speech today, I found the Roosevelt theme mentioned in multiple articles. Here are some links:
NPR's New Republic, "Are We Misreading Obama's Speech" — The ghost of Theodore Roosevelt palpably presided over President Obama's speech yesterday afternoon in Osawatomie, Kansas. Indeed, in the week leading up to the president's Osawatomie address, the White House made clear that the President was deliberately courting analogies with Roosevelt. TR, after all, had traveled to the very same town nearly 100 years earlier to give his famous "New Nationalism" address, calling for the federal government to ensure that the prerogatives of private property did not trump the rights of the commonwealth.
Forbes, "Obama, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Politics of 'Fairness'"—The president traveled to Osawatomie, Kansas, to give a speech that is similar in tone and content to Republican Teddy Roosevelt’s 1910 “New Nationalism” speech delivered in the same town, and considered by many to be his most left-leaning address—that is, Roosevelt’s, but it’s probably just as true of Obama.
John Avalon @ CNN, "Why Obama is listening to Teddy Roosevelt for 2012"-- Confession: I'm a Teddy Roosevelt nerd. And apparently President Obama is as well. ... The town of Osawatomie, Kansas, was chosen as the location of a major speech Tuesday framing the 2012 election as a "a make-or-break moment for the middle class," what the president described as "the defining issue of our time."
CNN, "Obama channels Roosevelt's 'New Nationalism'"—More than a century after Teddy Roosevelt's famous "New Nationalism" address, President Barack Obama sounded similar themes Tuesday in the same town in the Republican heartland of Kansas, delivering a populist speech that called for extending the payroll tax cut set to expire at the end of the year.
Opinion @Fox News, "Obama's Hypocritical, Incoherent, and Unpresidential Economic Speech"—Hypocritical, incoherent, and unpresidential. Other than that it was a good speech. ... Tuesday, President Obama traveled to Osawatomie, Kansas, the same small town in Kansas where, in 1910, Teddy Roosevelt delivered one of his most famous speeches calling for a “new nationalism.”
The Dylan Ratigan Show, "This is No Time for Political Pro Wrestling – We Need 30 Million Jobs!"—Yesterday, President Obama today tried his best to invoke Teddy Roosevelt as he defended the largest bank bailout in history, all while he attempting to invoke income inequality as political rhetoric heading into election year. ... Right in line with the “pro wrestling” screenplay, Republicans spent the day slamming the Democrats’ so-called compromise attempts on the payroll tax extension.
As you may gather from listening to the president's speech or from reading the official transcript at WhiteHouse.gov, his words are not the indictment that Ratigan hoped for in August (The president doesn't declare that our Congress has been bought and is corrupt), but the speech definitely sounds Teddy-Roosevelt-inspired.
Thinking about Ratigan's wish that Obama would indict Congress, I considered at the White House website the ticking clock at the top of the webpage. It lays any failure to renew tax breaks for the middle class soundly at Congress's feet.
The caption beside the clock says in all caps, "IF CONGRESS DOESN'T ACT, MIDDLE CLASS TAXES INCREASE IN [CLOCK COUNTS DAYS, HOURS, MINUTES, SECONDS]." Click the picture for larger image.
If you visit WhiteHouse.gov now, you can also click a link that takes you to a calculator that lets you figure how much more you will pay in taxes if "Congress doesn't act." When you get to that page, there's a September 8, 2011 quote from the president saying, "If we refuse to act, middle class families will get hit with a tax increase at the worst possible time." It's from his American Jobs Act speech to Congress.
The clock imagery is aimed at Republicans, mostly. As a CBS news article explains, Obama is pressuring Republicans "to extend the Social Security payroll tax cut holiday, which is set to expire at the end of the year if no action is taken." The tendency of presidents to blame a Congress controlled by the opposition for economic disaster is not new, however, nor is it a tendency that began with Roosevelt.
In his Kansas speech, Obama emphasized fairness and decried that some of the USA's wealthier citizens pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than poor people. Billionaire Warren Buffett has discussed this inequality as well, saying that he's willing to pay more in taxes. So, Obama is not saying anything extremely radical. Nevertheless, will anyone listen to the president? If history provides an answer, then Obama may be on shaky ground. Ken Walsh at USA Today writes that invoking Teddy Roosevelt may be a "bad omen" for the Obama presidency. Teddy "[lost] his bid to return to the White House in 1912" after his call for economic fairness.
Walsh sees that history as a lesson for Obama, but I see it as a lesson for us. Yes, Teddy Roosevelt lost the election in 1912 after calling for fairness (TR didn't run in 2008). Walsh says he lost in 1912 "amid charges that he was a demagogue who favored a vast over-reach in federal power." Well, that sounds familiar, doesn't it? Those kinds of charges ring daily against President Obama, usually followed by the accusation that he's a socialist who wants to redistribute the wealth. But need I remind us that because America did not listen to Roosevelt, it continued its love affair with the greedy and its denial that stark economic inequality spells trouble (French Revolution, anyone)? Less than 20 years after the electorate rejected Roosevelt and his message, the United States of America entered the Great Depression.
Do we have even that many years before our plunge this time?
I must invoke a name now as well, that of philosopher George Santayana who said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." And then I must also consider a variation on that theme with a quote from poet Kwadwo Opoku-Agyemang, "History does not repeat itself. / It merely quotes us / when we have not been wise enough."
In case the MSNBC video doesn't work, here's the YouTube video of Ratigan's rant.
I would not have missed this Prince appearance and interview in April if I watched Lopez Tonight. *Sigh.* But thank, God, for the Internet.
Lopez and Prince talk about not swearing--replacing cuss words with the word artichoke. They also discuss Prince's low-cost concert tickets, auctioning off one of Prince's guitars, his being a vegetarian (Is that why he looks so good?), and his fashion sense, sort of. Prince doesn't own a sweatsuit.
Prince says that the Internet has hurt artists. They don't get paid what they used to because people don't pay for what they can get for free. (I say the same thing about writers.)
He also says that he kept his vinyl records. (I still have mine, too.)
Lopez wonders if Prince ever forgets his own lyrics. The star says sometimes he does. Then he talks with Lopez about having other artists cover his music: "I don't mind fans singing the songs," says Prince, "My problem is when the industry covers the music. See covering music means that your version doesn't exist anymore. A lot of times people think I'm doing Sinead O'Connor's song and Chaka Khan's song, when in fact I wrote those songs (speaking of "Nothing Compares to You" and "I Fee For You")." He moves from there into industry tech talk about compulsory license law that "allows artists through the record company to take your music at will without your permission. And that doesn't exist in any other art form be it books, movies." Prince smiles at the audience and says, "There's only one version of Law and Order."
O.K., your Purple Highness. You educated me there. He says he doesn't mind when his friends cover his records though, so I think that means he gave Alicia Keys thumbs up on "How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore?" She hardly changed a thing.
He reminds listeners that several versions of "Kiss" and "Purple Rain" exist. I know how he must feel. I think I was watching last year's finale of American Idol when I heard the opening guitar riff for "Kiss," and got excited thinking that Prince was about to appear as a surprise guest, but out walks Tom Jones. Nothing against Tom Jones, but I'll take Prince over him any day.
Then Lopez takes it back to the humor and says Prince should get credit for texting language because he started using numbers and letters for words way back in the day with "I Would Die 4 U."
When I took my family out to breakfast Saturday morning, my son, who should not have been surfing the Net during family time, chuckled loudly while looking at something on his Droid phone. He then showed me the picture of a black man holding up and looking at a bag of Negro, some kind of snack food. I laughed pretty hard, and my daughter laughed as well.
The bag clearly had foreign words on it, but none of us recognized the language. We figured the word "Negro" in big letters had nothing to do with black people and supposed that the product's name was one of those lost-in-translation situations in which the word negro means simply the color black. Still, when we returned home, I looked up the candy anyway and found out its origin.
Negro is a hard candy made from the byproducts of sour candy. Reportedly, it's named not for people of African descent but after its creator, P. Negro, an Italian confectioner. The candy is popular in Hungary, and according to the Hungarian food website, Chew.hu, "Negro ("NAY-GROW")" developed the candy in the 1920s. Decades later a Hungarian company produced it:
First produced by the precursors of today's Dreher beer company, in 1980, the Győr Biscuit and Wafer Factory (Győri Keksz- és Ostyagyár) began production the Negro. More recently, Győri Keksz was bought by France's Danone group, and now has the sole right to produce and market the famed "chimneysweeper of the throat." The Negro comes in several flavors, and while the recipes are a closely-held secret, the popular original variety contains mint and anis.
Apparently the candy also goes by the name Negrók in Hungary and has the reputation for confusing police breathalzyer tests, says Chew.
House of Names, a company that sells family crest products, says the following about the Italian surname Negro:
The recorded variations of Negro include Negri, Negro, Nigri, Nigris, Nigra, Negris, Negrelli, Negrotto, Negrello, Negroni and many more. [Read more at HouseofNames.com.]
Surfing the web, I found that the website Bad Record Covers also discusses this confection. It delves into an old controversy about the candy, and using a 2004 newspaper clip about a black girl who received the candy in her Halloween candy bag, the writer says:
The clipping above is from one of my favorite news stories ever. It was reported in a local paper around 2003. The pictured girl was trick-or-treating and a Yugoslav refugee gave her some Negro candy. The girl interpreted this as a racial insult and went crying all the way home.
I can’t say that I know more about the incident than was reported. It’s hard to believe that the non-English speaking immigrant was trying exercise racial hostility. The man was simply trying to conform to the odd American custom of trick-or-treating the best way he could. He probably thought that the local kids would enjoy some imported (yet foul) tasting candy.
The website also has a much clearer picture of a bag of Negro.
The word Negro, uppercase and proper noun, or negro, lowercase and adjective, the color black: What's in a word, indeed! In this story of a man's name turned into a name brand, we find a mixture of sweet and sour, of amusing and bitter--the inevitable result of clashing cultures thick with extractions based on personal and ethnic history and extrapolation informed by a people's denigration. We hope one day such misunderstandings will resolve themselves until they become rare, but like Condoleezza Rice who declared recently that race will remain with us, we, too, may conclude that the difficult matter of this social construct--especially blackness--and the tedious challenges that come with difference will never vanish in the U.S.A.
It's like we can never truly overcome.
Globalization: the world is getting smaller; soon we will be nose to nose. As we scatter and squish ourselves into one place or another foreign to us, we stumble over odd artifacts--objects that seem strange to us, those who have previously known only our small corner of the globe, but objects that are nothing unusual or offensive to those who have known intimately their own nooks on Earth.
It's like we know nothing.
Each day our world becomes in more ways than we care to realize a postmodern society and we weave through it as disoriented subjects, undone peoples of postmodernity who have slipped unawares over a line. We stand, we find, in what feels like someone else's land but it is our own world exploded where we must learn to bob and weave through its cumbersome fragments, longing to grab and cling to any chunk of debris that may stabilize long us.
It's like we are all becoming Brathwaite's Arrivants and must stitch from these pieces "something torn and new" but we pray better.
Or as the Black Eyed Peas say:"
It's the abstract! ... Change your history, categories, different people in the same territories
This story reminds me of Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw's movie, Love Story, but this story is true and the people are African-American.
