Thursday, October 26, 2006

Word of the Day

rapport \ra-POR; ruh-\, noun:
A relation, especially one characterized by sympathetic understanding, emotional affinity, or mutual trust.

He established a tremendous rapport with younger patients and routinely skipped classes and missed tests to take children to the circus or for rides in his convertible, often stopping for ice cream at Frank Monaco's drugstore on the South Side.-- James T. Fisher, Dr. America

Scott and Shackleton could not have been temperamentally more dissimilar and had virtually no rapport.-- Caroline Alexander, The Endurance

Today in Black History


October 26

Mahalia Jackson, gospel singer, born 1911 - 1972
Background
Mahalia Jackson (October 26, 1911January 27, 1972) was an American gospel singer, widely regarded as the best in the history of the genre.
Well known songs
Trouble of the World
Silent Night
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Amazing Grace
Take My Hand, Precious Lord
Remember Me
Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho
Holding My Saviour's Hands
Roll Jordan, Roll
The Upper Room
We Shall Overcome
I'm on My Way to Canaan

Jesus: A Black Man

This article is from ABC News. It is about the new release of a film "Color of the Cross" where Jesus Christ is depicted as a black man. I am especially looking forward to this movie. I found it most interesting to read the statements they have received about the movie, especially the one saying that black people are the only race that do not worship a God in their own image. At the end of the article it is said by the director that having multiple images of Jesus out there spreads the message that color doesn’t matter. Well I believe it does. Jesus was not fair haired and blue eyed. In the Bible, it says his hair was like wool. It is important to depict him correctly.. it is a ploy to make us all worship a man that looks like the ones running the country. Don’t fall into the trap, think for yourself. Its not about separating the races its about empowering them and making them equal, truly. We have been dragged in the dirt for so long we were even given the religion of Christianity by the slave owners. The Arian image of Jesus goes back that far. Like I said it does matter the race because the truth deserves to be told, and reconfirmed.

Here is the article below

Oct. 25, 2006 — It's a familiar image for millions of Christians: Jesus, with a crown of thorns, hanging from the cross.
What color is he?
In a controversial new film opening Friday, he is black.
"Color of the Cross" tells a traditional story, focusing on the last 48 hours of Christ's life as told in the Gospels. In this version, though, race contributes to his persecution.
It is the first representation in the history of American cinema of Jesus as a black man.
"It's very important because [the film] is going to provide an image of Jesus for African-Americans that is no longer under the control of whites," said Stephenson Humphries-Brooks, an associate professor of religious studies at New York's Hamilton College and author of "Cinematic Savior: Hollywood's Making of the American Christ."
What Jesus looked like has long been debated by theologians around the world.
Different cultures have imagined him in different ways, says Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University.
In Japan, Jesus looks Japanese. In Africa, he is black. But in America, he is almost always white, like the fair-haired savior painted by Leonardo da Vinci in "The Last Supper" in 1495.
Film to Open in Black Neighborhoods
While some black churches have images of a black Jesus behind the altar and others have said that Christ was black, Prothero says "none of those arguments or images have filtered much into the mainstream."
Filmmaker Jean Claude LaMarre set out to change that with "Color of the Cross." LaMarre, who plays Jesus, wrote, directed and financed the film. It will open in 30 theaters in predominantly black neighborhoods.
"Black people in this country are the only race of people who worship a god outside their own image," says LaMarre, 38, adding that showing Christ as a black man is "the most poignant way to deal with the issue of race in this country because it goes to the heart of how we look at the world."
It also provides a positive image of blacks, something that's been scant in the U.S., says the Rev. Cecil "Chip" Murray, longtime leader of L.A.'s First African Methodist Episcopal Church and a producer of the film.
"It could be revolutionary because, for four centuries in our nation, blacks have been at the lowest end of the stratum," he says. "I think it will traumatize the United States more than it will foreign nations who, to some extent, don't have a centuries-old concept of equating black with negativity."
Humphries-Brooks agrees. Other countries are likely to view the film "in a more detached manner," he says, "because of the way (they) see our race-relations problem."
Why does race matter in the story of Christ?
"Jesus isn't in the hands of historians," Prothero says. "What we have now is our own debate and, in that debate, race has to be a factor because race is a big predicament in American life."
Film is a powerful place to have the discussion, says Humphries-Brooks, who calls the medium "one of the last places that is quasi-public for the formation of values in America."
"Artistic and aesthetic views are as important in developing religious values as the words we speak. Everybody goes to the movies. Not everybody goes to the same church."
Filmmaker LaMarre thinks the film can only have a positive effect. "The message is that color, a colored Jesus Christ, doesn't matter," he says. "That's why the movie is important. When you have one prevailing image out there, it suggests color does matter."


from ABC News

Wear your badge proudly

"The Black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness""
- Marcus Garvey

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Word of the Day

crabwise \KRAB-wyz\,
adjective:
1. Sideways.
2. In a cautiously indirect manner.

Grass tells this story in awkward fashion, coming at it crabwise indeed, with hesitations, shifts of direction, and out of sequence, allowing his narrator to display his own confusion, uncertainty, resentment of a history that has deformed his own life.-- Allan Massie, review of Crabwalk, by Gunter Grass, The Scotsman, April 5, 2003

Atwood moves crabwise through such questions as the place of moral or ideological content in art, the conflict between artistic purity and commercial necessity, and the nature of the relationship between writer, text and reader.-- Christopher Tayler, review of Negotiating with the Dead, by Margaret Atwood, Sunday Telegraph, March 10, 2002

Is it possible?

Obama Won’t Rule Out White House Run

*U.S. Senator Barack Obama graces the cover of Time this week to tout his new book, “The Audacity of Hope.” In the pages of the magazine, he was asked if he would consider a run for president once the November's midterm legislative elections have ended. The 45-year-old Illinois lawmaker has said no to this question many times before. But on this occasion, he left a crack in the door of a possible White House run. "When the election is over and my book tour is done, I will think about how I can be most useful to the country and how I can reconcile that with being a good dad and a good husband," he is quoted as saying by Time. "I haven't completely decided or unraveled that puzzle yet," said Obama, the only African-American currently serving in the US Senate.http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur29195.cfm

My thoughts Exactly

"I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me".
-- Muhammad Ali (born 1942), The Greatest' (1975)

Today in Black History


October 25

Benjamin O Davis Sr became the first Black general in US Army, 1940
Background
Gen. Benjamin Oliver Davis, Sr. (July 1, 1877November 26, 1970) was an American general and the father of Benjamin O. Davis Jr. He was the first African-American general in the U.S. Army.
Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., was born in Washington, D.C., on July 1, 1877. His biographer Marvin Fletcher (author of America's First Black General, Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., 1880-1970) has presented evidence of his birth records indicating that he was born in May 1880 and later lied about his age so that he could enlist in the army without the permission of his parents. It is the earlier date that appears on his grave at Arlington National Cemetery, however.) He was a student at Howard University when—as a result of the start of the War with Spain—he entered the military service on July 13, 1898 as a temporary first lieutenant of the 8th United States Volunteer Infantry. He was mustered out on March 6, 1899, and on June 18, 1899, he enlisted as a private in Troop I, U.S. 9th Cavalry Regiment (one of the original Buffalo Soldier regiments), of the Regular Army. He then served as corporal and squadron sergeant major, and on February 2, 1901, he was commissioned a second lieutenant of Cavalry in the Regular Army.

The Rise of Black Consciousness

Steve Biko and the South African Students' Organization

With the ANC and the PAC banned and African political activity officially limited to government-appointed bodies in the homelands, young people sought alternative means to express their political aspirations. In the early 1960s, African university students looked to the multiracial National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) to represent their concerns, but, as this organization adopted an increasingly conservative stance after Vorster's crackdown, they decided to form their own movement. Led by Steve Biko, an African medical student at the University of Natal, a group of black students established the South African Students' Organization (SASO) in 1969 with Biko as president. Biko, strongly influenced by the writings of Lembede and by the Black Power movement in the United States, argued that Africans had to run their own organizations; they could not rely on white liberals because such people would always ally in the last resort with other whites rather than with blacks. He argued that blacks often oppressed themselves by accepting the second-class status accorded them by the apartheid system, and he stressed that they had to liberate themselves mentally as well as physically. He rejected, however, the use of violence adopted by the ANC and the PAC in the early 1960s and emphasized that only nonviolent methods should be used in the struggle against apartheid.

Biko's message had an immediate appeal; SASO expanded enormously, and its members established black self-help projects, including workshops and medical clinics, in many parts of South Africa. In 1972 the Black Peoples' Convention (BPC) was set up to a ct as a political umbrella organization for the adherents of black consciousness. Although the government had at first welcomed the development of black consciousness because the philosophy fit in with the racial separation inherent in apartheid, it sough t to restrict the activities of Biko and his organizations when these took a more overtly political turn. In 1972, SASO organized strikes on university campuses resulting in the arrest of more than 600 students. Rallies held by SASO and the BPC in 1974 to celebrate the overthrow of Portuguese colonialism in Angola and Mozambique resulted in the banning of Biko and other black consciousness leaders and their arraignment on charges of fomenting terrorism.
from Allrefer.com

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Word of the Day

solicitous \suh-LIS-uh-tuhs\, adjective:
1. Manifesting or expressing care or concern.
2. Full of anxiety or concern; apprehensive.
3. Extremely careful; meticulous.
4. Full of desire; eager.

He does not appear to have suffered from homesickness, although the suspicion that this might have been due to the unsatisfactory nature of his 'home' life seems belied by the tone and content of his letters; he makes frequent and solicitous inquiries after not only Mabel and his mother but also his father.-- Matthew Sturgis, Aubrey Beardsley: A Biography

She was often solicitous of her daughter's feelings and intense reactions, trying to shield her from emotional trauma.-- Adrienne Fried Block, Amy Beach

My thoughts exactly

I have a great belief in the future of my people and my country.
--Marian Anderson, 1960

The Basis of Black Power

The myth that the Negro is somehow incapable of liberating himself, is lazy, etc., came out of the American experience. In the books that children read, whites are always "good" (good symbols are white), blacks are "evil" or seen as savages in movies, their language is referred to as a "dialect," and black people in this country are supposedly descended from savages.
Any white person who comes into the movement has the concepts in his mind about black people, if only subconsciously. He cannot escape them because the whole society has geared his subconscious in that direction.
Miss America coming from Mississippi has a chance to represent all of America, but a black person from either Mississippi or New York will never represent America. Thus the white people coming into the movement cannot relate to the black experience, cannot relate to the word "black," cannot relate to the "nitty gritty," cannot relate to the experience that brought such a word into existence, cannot relate to chitterlings, hog's head cheese, pig feet, ham hocks, and cannot relate to slavery, because these things are not a part of their experience. They also cannot relate to the black religious experience, nor to the black church, unless, of course, this church has taken on white manifestations.
from Marxist History: USA: Black Panther Party: (SNCC)

"Black Is Beautiful"

So when you use the phrase you know where it came from. Stokely in in the middle of the photo, admist a demostration near the US capital protesting the House of Representatives' action of denying Rep Adam Powell, Jr his seat, 1967.


On 17th June, 1966, Stokely Carmichael, the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), spoke at a rally in Greenwood, Mississippi, and argued for Black Power. Carmichael defined this as "a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, and to build a sense of community". Carmichael also advocated that African Americans should form and lead their own organizations and urged a complete rejection of the values of American society. Some civil rights groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), rejected Carmichael's ideas and accused him of black racism. Stokely Carmichael also adopted the slogan of "Black is Beautiful" and advocated a mood of black pride and a rejection of white values of style and appearance. This included adopting Afro hairstyles and African forms of dress. When Carmichael denounced United States involvement in the Vietnam War, his passport was confiscated and held for ten months. When his passport was returned, he moved with his wife, Miriam Makeba, to Guinea, West Africa, where he wrote the book, Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism (1971).

Monday, October 23, 2006

Word of the Day

felicitous \fuh-LIS-uh-tuhs\,
adjective:
1. Suitably applied or expressed; appropriate; apt.
2. Happy; delightful; marked by good fortune.

We do this sort of thing most weekends anyway, said a lean rebel with gunpowder smudges on his face and the felicitous name of Troy Cool.-- Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic

I always have a pad of paper and a pencil within reach, to catch on the wing this turn of phrase which strikes me as felicitous, that idea which I hope to be able to examine more closely in the light of day.-- Roger Martin du Gard, Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort (translated by Timothy Crouse)

Great African American


Richard Allen (14 February 1760 - 26 March 1831) was an African American pastor and the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Born as a slave of colonial jurist Benjamin Chew at Germantown, Pennsylvania (now a part of Philadelphia) in 1760, his family was soon sold to a Stockley Sturgis, whose plantation was near Dover, Delaware.

Converted early, he joined the Methodist Society at an early age, and began evangelizing and attending services so regularly that he attracted criticism from local slave owners. In response to this opposition Richard and his brothers redoubled their efforts for Stokely, whom Richard described as "unconverted...but... what the world called a good master". This hard and pious work lead Stokley to encourage preaching amongst his slaves, and soon he was convinced that slavery was wrong, and therefore offered his slaves an opportunity to buy their freedom.

Inspiration

Today I see more clearly than yesterday that back of the problem of race and color, lies a greater problem which both obscures and implements it: and that is the fact that so many civilized persons are willing to live in comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance and disease of the majority of their fellowmen; that to maintain this privilege men have waged war until today war tends to become universal and continuous, and the excuse for this war continues largely to be color and race.
-W.E.B. DuBois

Sunday, October 22, 2006

News Brief

WASHINGTON - Hate crimes in the United States dropped last year by 6 percent, the FBI reported Monday, although violence against people based on their race accounted more than half of the reported incidents. Police nationwide reported 7,163 hate crime incidents in 2005, targeting victims based on their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and disabilities. That was down from 2004, when the FBI reported 7,649 incidents.The vast majority of hate crimes in both years were motivated by race, according the reports, which detailed the data based on so-called "single-bias" incidents. That means the crime was motivated by only one kind of bias against the victim, according to the FBI.Race-based criminal activity accounted for 54.7 percent of hate crimes last year, up slightly from 52.9 percent in 2004, the FBI found. Another 17 percent of hate crimes in 2005 targeted victims for their religious beliefs, and 14.2 percent for their sexual orientation.Victims were assaulted in more than half — 50.7 percent — of the hate crime cases against people. Six people were murdered and another three were raped in reported hate crimes last year. The rest of the victims, or 48.9 percent, were intimidated, the report shows. The FBI also looked at hate crime incidents that targeted property, with 81.3 percent of cases resulting in damage, destruction or vandalism.Sixty percent of the known offenders in 2005 were white, and 20 percent were black, the report showed.The data was collected from police agencies across the country, representing city, county, state, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies.___The FBI's Hate Crime Statistics 2005 report can be found at: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2005/index.html