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The Toxic Silence

Not Just Another True-Crime Story
Originally uploaded by kleopatrjones

But still, I sometimes who was responsible for so many deaths. About five years ago, the cases were temporarily reopened. Below is an essay I wrote supporting further investigation.



The toxic silence

Child murders opened a wound that never healed; it's time to talk about it

By TAYARI JONES

Published on: 05/22/05

In 1988, I was a student at Spelman College earning extra money by tutoring Jemmie, a jug-eared fourth-grader. On Thursdays, I'd meet him at the bus stop and we would go and sort out the complexities of multiplication. One Thursday, I was a little late to the bus stop and Jemmie wasn't there.

My body registered that this was an emergency before my mind was able to process the information. I called his name, asking passersby whether they had seen a little black boy carrying a blue book bag with a green stripe. Then I doubled over, clutching my stomach, and vomited on the corner of Ashby and Fair.

With my heart splashing in my chest, I ran back to Spelman, calling for someone to help me find Jemmie. Most of my dorm-mates, busy with homework or nail polish, were not concerned that the little boy was just a few minutes late. "He's probably at Mrs. Winner's getting something to eat." But other friends put down their textbooks and unplugged their curling irons. "Call the police," they said.

It wasn't until we found Jemmie, safe and sound at Mrs. Winner's, that I realized that all of us who panicked shared a common terror: We had all grown up in Atlanta. We all knew that a little boy unaccounted for constituted an emergency. It was then that I knew that if I ever became a writer, I would write a novel about those of us who were children in Atlanta. I would put on paper this memory that we never spoke aloud but carried with us in our bones.

Fear, resentment, anger, guilt

The Atlanta child murders began just before I started fifth grade, when someone killed two African-American boys, Edward Hope Smith and Alfred Evans, and left their bodies in a vacant lot. The brutal end of their childhoods became the formative event of mine.

For almost two years, the "city too busy to hate" was held hostage by a toxic combination of fear, resentment, anger and guilt. This was true for all the city's residents, even those of us who were not quite 10 years old.

Three years ago, the summer of my 30th year, I published a novel, "Leaving Atlanta," a novel based on my experiences growing up in Atlanta during this terrible moment in the city's history. At book signings, I was often asked to speculate about the cause of the silence surrounding these murders. We are, after all, obsessed with serial killings. People are still talking about Jack The Ripper more than 100 years later.

But at the book signings, I knew what answer people were looking for: The world has forgotten these murders because the victims were black and mostly poor. And I believe that on many levels this simple explanation is sadly accurate. But it cannot explain away the silence in my own community, the hush in southwest Atlanta, the home of many of the murdered children, the area of the city where many of those whose lives were directly touched still reside. The question still eats at me.

Years marked by fear

During the two years that Atlanta was under siege, I was at a peculiar stage in my personal development, caught between childhood and adolescence. These years are significant for all kids, no matter where they grow up and under what circumstances. But in my life, they were marked indelibly by the fear of sudden disappearance and random murder, and the lessons I learned then haunt me still.

It's difficult to choose a starting point for describing the ways in which I was changed. I apologize before I start because I know whatever I write here will be incomplete, a mere outline.

Fifth grade was the year that boys and girls became aware of each other in a new way. Brave girls experimented with strawberry lip gloss and the boys brushed their hair until it waved. Picture us, a class of fifth-graders at Oglethorpe Elementary, a school southwest of downtown, in a sector of city that would become ground zero for the child murders. Try to imagine, if you can, how the lines between "boy" and "girl" changed for us that year, once it became clear that almost all of the children who would be killed would be male.

I have an older brother, three years my senior, who is named for Patrice Lumumba, my father's idol. My brother's picture hung in our basement den between portraits of Malcolm X and W.E.B. DuBois. As a young girl, I envied my brother his hero's name and his place on the wall. But when the murders began, being a boy meant something different. It meant that someone might want to kill you.

There was another layer of meaning for me, a little black girl, the sister of a black boy. On the one hand, I felt a rush of relief not to be a marked child — relief mixed with stinging guilt. On the other, there was an irrational sense of resentment. According to street wisdom, the boys were targeted because they posed some sort of threat to the white power structure. There were theories that their bodies were magical, containing a mysterious chemical, interferon, which could be harvested only upon their death and sold on the black market. The kids in my class were transfixed by these hypotheses and believed them all. I listened, too — female, invisible, safe.

I couldn't discuss these feelings with my parents. I didn't have the nerve, nor the language, despite the fact that my lexicon was constantly growing with the frightening terms Monica Kaufman pronounced each night on the evening news: asphyxia, decomposition, ligature. And there were other words learned at home, like lynching. During this time, my father spent a lot of time in the basement studying a tattered paperback called ''100 Years of Lynchings,'' a collection of newspaper accounts of mob murders of African-American men and women. He read that book so frequently that the binding disintegrated and he was forced to turn the pages in the same way that a person would flip through a deck of cards.

My capable, sensible mother was preoccupied with the safety of her own children, and of the other kids in our school. Another word, supervised, was often heard in our household. Hard-won party invitations had to be declined if my mother deemed there was not adequate supervision. She organized a Halloween carnival at Oglethorpe Elementary in 1980, raising money and urging her former Clark College students to donate prizes, so we kids, who were no longer allowed to trick or treat, could still have a good time.

I wonder whether this period was harder on my parents than on my brother and me. Lumumba and I were kids, finding comfort in talismans. We believed our old dog, Missy, could rise to the occasion, if necessary, becoming a ferocious attack-mutt. Once my father pointed out that the ornamental bars on our windows would prevent my abduction in my sleep, I was able to rest easily. But I doubt that he ever did.

Just before Wayne Williams was arrested, my father returned home from a simple errand about an hour late. He was shaken, clearly upset. My parents weren't the sort who would discuss important matters before the children, so we were sent away. But I hung back, where I could listen.

My father explained that he had become lost while finding his way home. He'd driven around on the back roads, looking for a familiar street sign. "What would have happened if the police had pulled me over? I'd been gone for almost an hour. I couldn't say where I had been. There was no one to vouch for me." I backed away from my secret eavesdropping space, having already heard more than was good for me.

A few days later, Wayne Williams was arrested after being found at the wrong place at the wrong time, unable to account for his whereabouts. Over the dinner table, I looked at my father's ashen face. In that moment, my father and I had exchanged places.

For so many months, my brother and I had sat mute in front of the television, understanding our vulnerability as black children as another victim's face was shown, another name announced. Now, I looked at my own father as he processed his vulnerability as a black man, and I learned what it was to experience vicarious agony.

As I write these words, I can understand those who would argue that reopening this case is "opening old wounds." But for many Atlantans, the memory of the child murders cannot be likened to an old wound, carefully sutured and healed.

For us, it is more like a bone poorly set — painful, crooked and gimpy. The events of 1979-81 so ravaged our community that we have been unable to speak of them in the years since. The arrest and conviction of Williams for the murders of two adults, and the subsequent closing of the children's cases, was neither balm nor tincture. Rather, it was just a plaster cast, ensuring that the fractured bones of our community would never properly mend.

Re-examining this case will cause great pain to Atlanta, the city of my birth, the place where my family still lives. I don't anticipate that this will be easy. Tempers will flare, as will old rivalries and grudges. But as we know, the only way to repair a bone badly set is to break it again, and then set it right.

Posted at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Mourning Aiyana Jones

The AP story is here, and here's a blog from a community member.

I was struck by this quote by the Assistant Chief of police: "This is any parent's worst nightmare. It also is any police officer's worst nightmare," Godbee said.

I understand the sentiment of the police's remark, but I hate the way he implied family's pain and the officer's pain are equal. The officer's worst nightmare is that his own family would be shot or burned.

I was also really struck by this photo of Aiyana Jones. (And let me add that I have a younger cousin with the name.) Look at her, surrounded by Disney Princesses, such a symbol of everything problematic about this culture-- the way we think of girls and the way black girls are made to think of themselves.

I don't have anything else to say. I want to help, but I don't know how. I don't know what this family needs that I can provide. None of the articles mentioned a fund to help the family. When I find word of a fund, I will contribute. But at the same time, I understand that my check ain't nothing but a piece of paper, and paper cannot ease the pain of the loss of a child.

Posted at 06:17 AM | Comments (3)
Category: Current Events

Goodbye Ms. Horne, Goodbye

The great Ms. Lena Horne has passed away at the age of 92. The NYT has done right by her, ending her obituary with this wonderful quote.

“My identity is very clear to me now. I am a black woman. I’m free. I no longer have to be a ‘credit.’ I don’t have to be a symbol to anybody; I don’t have to be a first to anybody. I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.”

Posted at 07:06 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

What Arizona Means To Rigoberto Gonzalez

Rigoberto Gonzalez
Originally uploaded by kleopatrjones

But in the end, it’s not even those things that anger me the most: it’s that out of fear, undocumented people will no longer seek out the police to report crimes, making them more vulnerable than they already are. It’s that it’s that much easier to victimize a population that has been labeled criminal, unwanted, and worthless.

Some might say that this is not about me, but about “illegal aliens.” I say to those people, I am the child of an “illegal alien,” and a place that would detain, demean and oppress my own mother is not a place for me.

Posted at 10:36 AM | Comments (3)
Category: Current Events

I'm Boycotting Arizona

As I announced a few months ago, I accepted an invitation to appear at the Pima Summer Writers Conference in Tucson, Arizona. However, I am cancelling that engagement in protest of SB1070, the anti-immigrant bill recently signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer. Below is the text of the letter I sent to the organizers of the Pima Conference explaining my decision to join the economic boycott of Arizona.

Dear Meg Files,
I regret to inform you that I will not be able to participate in the 2010 Pima Sumemr Writers Conference. Due to the passage of the Senate Bill 1070 which sanctions racial profiling and police harassment against brown people, I cannot return to the state of Arizona. Yesterday, I spoke with a dear friend who is an American citizen of Mexican descent who said that he would not feel safe in Arizona, although he (like me) used to call the state home.

Almost a decade ago, I supported the economic boycott of South Carolina in protest of the Confederate flag flown on the statehouse grounds. This offense, which spoke to one the darkest chapters in the history of our nation, was serious, but symbolic. The issues raised by SB1070, on the other hand, are not merely rhetorical or psychological. The newly-granted powers will allow the police to detain and harass anyone who looks like he could be an undocumented immigrant. Although some lawmakers suggest that a person's shoes will be a more significant indicator than that person's race, I find this difficult to believe.

That people should be legally required to show proof of citizenship is similar to the antebellum mandate that black people produce "free papers" proving themselves not to be slaves. It recalls the pass system under South Africa's Apartheid. Sadly, visiting Arizona for a conference or a vacation without fear has become an ostentatious display of privilege.

As much as I was looking forward to participating in the Pima Writers Conference, travelling to Arizona would be tantamount to endorsing these draconian policies.

There are those who would argue that this is just a "Mexican thing." Even if this were the case, I would still stand with the protesters. A "Mexican thing," is a human thing. Moreover, it would be naive to think that this gross exaggeration of police power would be aimed at only a single group. My sentiment is captured in James Baldwin's famous letter to Angela Davis: "If they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night."

I hope that you will understand and support my decision on this important matter. When the time comes that Arizona is a safe place for all who live and work within its borders, I hope that you will consider extending another invitation to participate in the Pima Writers Conference.

Sincerely,
Tayari Jones

Posted at 08:06 AM | Comments (44)
Category: Current Events

Walking in Memphis

This is a piece I wrote a few years ago about visiting the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was shot on this day in 1968.

I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, right downtown, just off Peachtree Street. You can't get more Atlanta than that.

As you can imagine, the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King is everywhere in my home town. After all, he grew up there. He's buried there.

There's another city in this country that cannot forget Dr. King: Memphis. Although we claim him as a native son of Atlanta, Memphis is where he died on April 4, 1968.

I had never thought much about the burden of Memphis until I was on my first book tour in 2002. I was headquartered in the legendary Peabody Hotel for an entire week. The Peabody is known for its lavish appointments and the ducks that swim in its opulent fountain. My ten days in the Peabody were uncomfortable. For one thing I was homesick and longed for the stripped-down accommodations of my little apartment and also, I was the only black person in the hotel that wasn't working there. I felt under intense scrutiny each day-- I imagine I was something of a oddity to the white people staying there the black people were counting on me to represent.

I was raised in a "movement" household, so you know I wouldn't have been in the Peabody with my nose in the air, treating the black employees like servants. Instead, I called everyone "ma'am" and "sir" and tried to need as little help as possible. I eventually got to know everyone on staff and soon people wanted to know where I was from. When I said, "Atlanta," everyone wanted to talk about Dr. King.

Up on the roof, where the famous Peabody ducks live in their "penthouse", I was sitting at a little table. The view wasn't spectacular or anything, I just wanted to be in a space where I could be myself, where I didn't have to sit up straight, cross my legs and the ankle, and be a good talented-tenther and make everyone proud. I was tired, lonely, and depressed over a crappy review in People Magazine. (The caption under my photo read: "Jones: a partial success.")

While I was sitting there wondering why I signed up for this life in the first place, the "duckmaster" lead the pampered birds up to their cages. After they were all squared away, he sat himself down at my table. He was wearing a red jacket with gold braid, but close up I could see that underneath was a regular janitor's uniform.

"Quackers," he said. "I've had about enough."
"I hear you," I said.
"You the one from Atlanta?"
"Yes sir," I said.
"I sure hate that Dr. King was killed in Memphis. I hate that it happened on our watch. He never should have come here. They set him up."
"Who?" I asked.
"THEM," he said and gestured at all we could see from the rooftop. "I sure hate it."
"Oh," I said, with that weird feeling you get when you understand what someone is saying, but not quite.
"You been to the Lorraine motel yet? I pass it on my way to work everyday. It's just up the street. It's a museum now. You should go on over there."
I was pretty tired and didn't feel like going anywhere. Sensing my hesitation, he added, "It's free."

Being an Atlanta girl, I have visited all the King memorial sites in my hometown. I visited the boyhood home with this small signs telling you that these were not "ML's" actual toys but toys like the ones he would have played with. When relatives came to town, they always wanted to visit the white marble crypt on Auburn Ave. I've seen all those things a million times, but I can't say that I FELT anything.

The museum at the Lorraine hotel wasn't free, but I paid the entry fee. At first it was like any only civil rights museum. If it had a brand name it would be "struggle-lite". There were no really disturbing images, just the segregated water fountain signs, etc. I was bored. Why had the duckmaster sent me here?

At the very end of the exhibit was rooms 306-307, where Dr. King had stayed in on the last day of his life. The curators took care to recreate the atmosphere. There was a coffee cup half-full, an unmade bed and other personal touches that made it seem like Dr. King, Andy Young, Jessee Jackson, et al had just been in here making plans. When I crossed the threshold of the room, I tripped a switch that caused Mahalia Jackson to sing "Amazing Grace." I felt it all over my body. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a careful breath before looking out onto the balcony.

We have all seen the famous photo of Dr. King's compatriots pointing in the direction from which the fatal shots rang out. At the Lorraine motel, saw the view as they must have seen it. I saw with my eyes what Dr. King must have seen in the last moment of his life. There was nothing so memorable in that view.

The parking lot has been recreated: three fin tail cars are parked at an angle, just like in the picture. I stared out until my vision blurred with tears maybe and fatigue. Behind me, I the voice of Mahalia Jackson poured out of invisible speakers. This was hallowed ground. I took a cautious step out onto the balcony.

I cannot remember leaving the museum or the walk back to the Peabody. Back at the hotel, I ran into the duckmaster; this time he was wearing the janitor's uniform.

"Did you go?" he said.
I nodded.
"It got to you?"
I nodded.
"Course it did," he said. "You from Atlanta. Just think how it feels for those of us who live here."

Posted at 07:32 AM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

Thanking Ai

This weekend,the poet Ai passed away. She is remembered here by another poet whose life she changed forever.

Thanking Ai

A Remembrance by Rigoberto González

I have a votive candle next to my bed. The only time I take a match to the wick is when I feel a particularly devastating poet loss. Just a few weeks ago, it held a flame in honor of Lucille Clifton. Just a few days ago, a flame for Ai.

It feels selfish to claim the poet Ai, but I have much to be grateful for: she was the one who selected my first book for the National Poetry Series back in 1998. This prize is a luck of the draw. A poet sends his manuscript to the contest hoping that it lands on the desk of the one of four judges who might be more sympathetic to his work. I was fortunate that Ai, who was also one of my inspirations, was drawn to the pages of a manuscript that opens with a piece titled “The Slaughterhouse.”

Not long after I was informed that I had won, I moved to NYC. And shortly after, I met a woman who worked at Norton, who gave me a picture of Ai sitting on a suitcase, a Native American blanket behind her. She’s embracing a pair of cow-skinned boots and holding up a pair of slippers with her other hand. As the Norton gal handed me the photo, she said, “Here’s your champion.”

Continue reading this entry

Posted at 04:38 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Farewell to "Mama Lucille"

Lucille Clifton 1936-2010
Originally uploaded by TeaKay_711

Posted at 07:45 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

My Mama's History Is Black History

Woolworth's Sit-in
Originally uploaded by cwsherman

Posted at 11:59 AM | Comments (5)
Category: Current Events

King After The March On Washingston

Dr. Vincent Harding remembers Dr. King.:

Perhaps if we follow King carefully enough, we will realize that the official statement of the March on Washington in 1963 said, “This is a march for jobs and freedom." Not for little children to hold each other’s hands, wonderful though that may be, but for their mothers and fathers to be able to work. If we keep going with King, we can more adequately take on the issues of our coming century.

For instance, we may understand how King went out from the sunlight of the Mall to retrace his steps back to Birmingham, Alabama. There, just three weeks later, he was forced to deal with the fact that white terrorist bombers had destroyed a church and the lives of four children.

If we keep going with King, we go into some very tough places. But anybody who is not ready for tough places, isn’t ready for the twenty-first century in America. So I was want to wonder out loud: what was on his mind when he went back to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and knew that that church had not been chosen accidentally; it has been bombed because it was the headquarters of the campaign that he and Shuttleworth had led in Birmingham, and those children were his responsibility. How do you deal with that?

I would like us to move with King in such a way that we take on the difficult questions that a woman or man has to deal with when trying to give leadership in transforming a society that usually does not want to be transformed.

--Dr. Vincent Harding, former King speechwriter and confidant.
(source)

Posted at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

On Giving to Haiti **UPDATED**

A couple of days ago, I posted the link to the txt message donation account for Yele, a charity associated with Wyclef Jean. I have since read a number of disturbing accounts that are casting doubt on the organization. Yele has not yet responded to the news reports, although it has been two days. I feel that I should post the reports here because I suggested that you give through the organization.

Congratulations to Sarah Schulman!

On Thursday Sarah Schulman-- friend of the blog!-- will be giving the 2009 Kessler Lecture. The title of the lecture, Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences-- is also the tile of her new book which will drop tomorrow.

The Kessler Award is given every year to a scholar/thinker/artist who has made a significant contribution to LGBTQ studies. Past winners have incuded Barbara Smith, Adrienne Rich, Samuel Delaney and other trailblazing minds.

If you are in NYC, I urge you to come out and hear the lecture. Homophobia within families may be the most destructive and personal manifestation of inequality. While I applaud activists for all their hard work influencing public policy, we must also keep in mind that change starts at home.

Posted at 07:38 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Interesting Developments

I'm not a Tyler Perry fan, but Shalema McGhee is. Shalema, who blogs at Truself, did some more digging on the For Colored Girls situation and found some interesting facts. Here's what she discovered:

The Rainbow is Not Enuf

Everyone is going crazy because Tyler Perry is going to write and direct the film adaptation of "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf." I'll admit to clutching my pearls along with everyone else. I'm late putting this post up because I really don't know what to say. I don't like Perry's work. I find Madea offensive. I also feel that his gender politics are a disaster. And he's corny.

"For Colored Girls..." is sacred ground for me. I remember that I was about ten years old and my mother went to see it. My mom wasn't a person to go out much; this is probably why I remember it. She said it was "powerful." I snuck and read the book but I didn't get it, but I remembered that it moved my un-moveable mother.

Later, as a student at Spelman College, I read the text and I got it, or I thought I got it. (I mean at 18, what did I know about "Someone Almost Walked Off Wid Alla My Stuff."? Still, Toussaint Jones stole my heart, only for Beau Willie Brown to stomp it at the end.) At 38, I more than understand the lives that Ntozage Shange was bad enough to commit to writing. (And let me tell you, alla my stuff has almost gotten away from me, more than once.)

As a writer, I understand, too, what Ntozake Shange went through to tell those truths. If you thought that backlash against The Color Purple was bad, imagine that times 50. Ntozake Shange was called all kinds of man-hater and accused of being a pawn of the white man in a diabolical plot to destroy the black race. As you can see from her beautiful novels, Ntozake Shange is a community-loving woman. To be accused of being its enemy was a crushing blow. (And when you think of the black women writers who have been accused of high treason-- Ntozake Shange, Gloria Naylor, Alice Walker, Gayl Jones, Michelle Wallace-- where are they now?)

While I was looking for more information on this Tyler Perry story, I found this interview with Nzingah Stewart, a young sister filmmaker. In 2007, she did a Q&A with Clutch:

Clutch: What projects are you currently working on?
Nzingha: Finishing up a video for Jill Scott and preparing to shoot my first feature film an adaptation of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide: When The Rainbow Is Enuf, starring Angela Bassett, Alicia Keys and Sanaa Lathan.

It seems that Hollywood is walking off wid alla our stuff.

(Photos: Orginal Broadway poster, Ntozake Shange, Tyler Perry, Nzingah Stewart, "Madea")

Posted at 08:27 AM | Comments (5)
Category: Current Events

What Do You Call a Black Man With a Ph.D.?

I believe I am the only fan of the Sam Jackson/Nick Cage movie, Amos and Andrew, that came out in 1993. The premise is this: Sam Jackson plays a black academic big-shot who is mistaken for a criminal after his neighbors see him moving in at night. "When you see a black man carrying stereo equipment, you know what it means..." So the police set up this big operation to arrest the Big Scary Black Man. When they see him on the cover of TIME magazine, they get the cockamamie scheme to make it right. Hijinks ensue. (Best part is when Sam Jackson hits the Sheriff over the head with a skillet, but I won't spoil it by tell you what he says while he does it.)

Well, life is imitating art over in Cambridge, Massachusetts-- minus the hijinks. Professor Henry Louis Gates of Haaarvard University has been arrested. He was mistaken for a criminal as he was trying to break into his own home. One of his neighbors got scared and called the police. The police showed up and there was a "Do You Know Who I Am?" moment. The good professor, one of TIME Magazine's 25 most influential Americans, was arrested for being "disorderly" and "tumultuous."

I am not lying.

Update: Here is the police report. Professor Gates apparently gave the police a run for their money.

Another Update: Professor Gates has released a statement. Although the police report makes the whole incident sound like an episode of COPS, Mr. Gates' version reads like the minutes for a NAACP board meeting.

Posted at 04:30 PM | Comments (3)
Category: Current Events

RIP, MJ

A more articulate response later. Here is me, Tyehimba & Nichelle remembering Michael Jackson the best way we know how.

Posted at 07:55 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

Find Craig Arnold.

When I first saw this, I hoped it was a gag. I still hope it's a prank and Craig is making of fool of me.

I have seen several mentions on the internet that poet, Craig Arnold, is missing in Japan. Here is a summary of the situation that I found on the blog dedicated to finding Craig.

Our dear friend and an exceptionally talented poet, Craig Arnold, whom some of you know, has gone missing on a small volcanic island in Japan while on a creative exchange fellowship. Craig, an experienced explorer of volcanoes, never returned to his inn after leaving alone to research the island's active volcano for the afternoon. The authorities are on the third day of searching for Craig, and are scouring the small island (of only 160 inhabitants) with dogs and helicopters. If he is not found by the end of the day, the authorities will call off the search. We can not let there be a lag in this search while finding Craig alive is still a real possibility.

I'll keep you posted.

Posted at 07:25 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

#amazonfail **updated

I am buried under the drama that is my income tax situation. However, I want you all to know about the disgraceful new policy at Amazon. Apparently, they are taking books with "adult" content out of the ranking systems which makes such books harder to find. "Adult" titles are some romances and anything that is slightly gay. (Let alone titles that are truly gay.) Among the books given the boot are Bastard Out of Carolina and Giovanni's Room. Books allowed to stay include Playboy's Nudes.

I've got to get back to these receipts, but

This is Not "Cool"

There is always a lot of chatter about whether political art is still art. Shelley E. at Read Red offers many posts on the subject earlier this year. As you can imagine, I completely believe that art can be political. I don't go so far as to say that all art should be political, although much of my favorite art is.

Since I have been on bed rest the last couple of days, I have even more time that usual to search the internet. I ran across the illustration on the left. I assumed that this artistic rendering of Rhianna's police photos were a piece of political art. I thought that this was somehow to make a point about domestic violence. Maybe the high-contrast colors are to bring attention to her disfigurement? However, the accompanying article quotes the artist as saying that he just thought the shapes of her bruises were cool. No political message intended.

I think ail the NyQuil has sort of fried my brain because I am having trouble expressing what I find so obscene about this work. Maybe I am just appalled by someone who could not see what is human about Rhianna and her suffering. Or maybe it's that I am disgusted by anyone who is not enraged by the prevalence of domestic violence. Or maybe my feelings are loftier. Maybe at the end of the day I am repelled by someone who goes out of his way to make art that doesn't matter.

Posted at 05:38 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

R.I.P. John Hope Franklin

If this blog had a flag, it would be at half-mast. John Hope Franklin has passed away at age 94. I am sure there will be many tributes in the morning and I will do a link round-up. Below, I am re-posting an entry I wrote a couple of years ago when my friend, Rocky, travelled 800 miles just to get of glimpse of the great man.

God bless you, Dr. Franklin. You did your work, now take your rest.

Posted at 02:37 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

To Sir, With Love

(This was originally posted on April 22, 2007)

Far be it from me to jugde anyone for being a groupie. From time to time, I put the fan in fanatic and I think it is a healthy way to express yourself. So when I call my friend, Raquel, a "hard-core groupie", please don't take it the wrong way.

Rocky came to DC yesterday, all the way from Bloomington Indiana. She invited me to a show. I could get the tickets from ticketmaster. (Y'all know I love myself a concert, so I agreed, still fuzzy on the details.) I hopped on line. "What am I searching for?" I asked her, all while clicking keys.

"John Hope Franklin," she sighed.
"The historian?"
"Yes," said Rocky. "I just love him."

Well, different strokes and all of that. Some people love the Brand New Heavies, other, more sensible people, like Rocky, have a thing for 92-year-old historians who have changed the world.

Although "An Evening With John Hope Franklin" didn't start until 7:30, we decided to leave the hotel at 6:00. After all, Rocky reasoned, it was general admission. We needed to score a good seat. I am glad we headed out so early because the lobby of the hotel was mobbed, police choppers were overhead, fancy-dressed men and women kissed each other on both cheeks. "What's happening?" I asked one of the million security guards-- one of the ones dressed like police. I didn't bother the men in black. One refused to say. Another said, "Sanjaya is coming!" The protesters out front, who wore orange jumpsuits said, "The white house correspondents dinner is tonight."

So there you have it. A Washington moment.

The historic Lincoln Theatre was quite a departure from the privileged zoo-scene at the hotel. A few people stood out front purchasing tickets from the cute and sort of flirty teenaged boy inside the ornate ticket booth. He needed me to verify my address. Smile. Verify my phone number, double smile.

Upon entering the theatre, I was struck by the scent of Afrocentrism-- patchouli and sandlewood. It took me back me college.

The evening with John Hope Franklin was strangely eclectic. The crowd was a bit on the sparse side-- about one hundred people in a theatre that seats about 700. The evening opened with a handsome radio personality wearing a gorgeous kufi and reading from the Koran. Then, Mr. Franklin was interviewed for about an hour. There was a break while martial arts students performed. Mr. Franklin returned to the stage and spoke some more. Then, the MC read a poem in opposition to the cervical cancer vaccine. There was a four minute intermission. Then, two sopranos sang songs made famous by Paul Robeson. Mr. Franklin received an award and the program was over.

Raquel said, "We have to rush the stage! I want him to sign my book."

We finally got the courage to go up to the stage although people on the loud speakers were telling everyone to get out. As we waited in line to shake his hand, Raquel, who holds a PhD from Harvard University told me why John Hope Franklin means so much to her.

"When I finished Harvard, everyone was saying I could write my own ticket, but as a black woman in computer science, I was still having to work so hard just to be considered for basic appointments. When I read John Hope Franklin's work and saw what he experienced at Harvard and how he put his education to use, it changed the way I saw things. John Hope Franklin gave value to my Harvard PhD."

When we finally got to the stage. He signed her book, and I took their picture together. She didn't tell him any long story. She kept it short and sweet.

"I love you, John Hope Franklin," she said.

photos, of course.

Posted at 02:36 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Toni Morrison Alert!

I heard this on twitter from @faraichideya: TONI MORRISON AND PAULA GIDDINGS WILL BE IN CONVERSATION AT NYU ON FRIDAY! Now, this is where it gets tricky. You have to send an email and then they email you back and let you know if there is space. If you haven't been given the okay, you can't go, so follow directions. More info on the event here.

Posted at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Broken Social Contracts

I just found this trailer to the film, Broken Social Contracts, which is a documentary about rape focusing on Spelman and Morehouse College. I am eager to see the film. I know that a lot of you are Pearl Cleage fans. She makes an appearance about halfway through. Other people in this clip include: Mark Anthony Neal, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Spelman Prof.,(Bilal) Mark King, Johnnetta B. Cole, and others.

Posted at 03:02 PM | Comments (4)
Category: Current Events

Change, Come Quick!

I orginally planned this entry to draw your attention to the magnificent poem, New Day, Kwame Dawes wrote in honor of the inaugration of Barack Obama. I still want to draw your attention to it-- for it is brilliant, and I mean brilliant as in genius but also brilliant as in light-filled-- and I still want to thank Mina J for sending me the link. I have loved, loved, loved all the love and beauty and celebration this week as we celebrate this historic milestone. (I was there in my evening gown popping a cork with the best of them.)

But... and there is always a But... We are going to have to chill with some of the boogie-oogie-oogie and start thinking about the change we want in the world. Yesterday, I was in a store and an older black man said to me, "Obama has done his job just by getting elected. That's all I need. To see him in the white house with his wife, and those pretty babies. That's all I need." All around him, people nodded in a agreement.

Well, that's not all I need and it's not all America needs.

I just read the most upsetting post on the blog of Alisa Valdes Rodriguez, the author of the "chica-lit" breakout book, best-selling The Dirty Girls Social Club. Alisa is very ill. She needs heart surgery that will cost about $200,000. And despite her success as an author, she is self-employed and without health insurance. She is considering moving to Cuba in order to get treatment.

As writers, we all dream of losing the day job and doing our writing full time. But can we ever do it as long as health insurance remains tied to employment? Even if you cuold make enough from your writing to pay your bills, you probably wouldn't make enough to take care of your health.

46 million Americans are without health insurance. This must be our top priority when we think about Change. I am not sure what we can do as individuals, but I am looking into it. When I find something out, I will post here. Meanwhile, go over to Alisa's blog and leave her some love in the comments.

Get well, Alisa. You are in our thoughts and our prayers.

Posted at 06:53 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

44

I won't say that it was fun. I got up around 5:30 am, dressed in layers and braved the cold. All my friends managed to score VIP tickets to the inauguration, so I braved the mall solo-- just one lone person among the millions. There were no signs and every cop sent me in a different direction. I know I walked three miles and in between I stood in lines that went nowhere. On the plus side, strangers were very kind, letting me join their groups and sharing hand-warmers and candy bars. One woman, seeing my numb-foot hobble, gave me a pair of nice wool socks. By 12:00, I had been out in the cold for five hours. Cell phones weren't working and I was so cold and dejected that I was in tears-- which promptly FROZE on my eyelashes.

Then, just as Barak Obama was taking his oath, I looked over and saw this sweet little boy asleep on his father's shoulders, completely content, confident and secure in the world.

Posted at 05:24 PM | Comments (3)
Category: Current Events

Inaugural Ballers!

Congratulations Natasha
Originally uploaded by kleopatrjones

Posted at 09:16 AM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

Dreams From My Father Inaugural Ball!

As promised, here is a Q&A with novelist, entrepreneur, PR professional-- Gretchen Cook Anderson, one of the organizers of the "Dreams From My Father" American Scholars Inaugural Ball. I know that a lot of people out there want to participate in the festivities in DC, but besides google mapping the route to DC, we don't have the first idea on how to get involved. So, with no further ado, here's Gretchen and what she has to say:

Tayari: Gretchen, for many people—myself included—all the inauguration stuff is uncharted territory. Can you quickly let everyone know what exactly IS an inaugural ball?

Gretchen: The short answer is that it's a party. The long answer is that the best balls, in my opinion, bring two worlds together. In the most basic sense, it is a gala to celebrate the new president and with Barack Obama, there is obviously a lot to celebrate. So there will be food, music, party clothes, swank amenities.

Tayari: Sounds like my kind of party.

Gretchen: But a ball should also bring attention to an important issue. For the “Dreams From My Fathers” ball, we are highlighting the achievements of African American intellectuals. We’re honoring Toni Morrison, Cornell West, and other black scholars. We’re also giving a portion of the proceeds to education advocacy groups.

Tayari: I think it’s important that these folks be honored on this historic occasion. When you think about it, they really paved the way.

Gretchen: We want to honor them, but we also want to make sure that they have a good time! Macy Gray will be the MC and we’re expecting LL Cool J, Alicia Keys, Chrisette Michele and others. There will be a DJ and also a house band.

Tayari: You know I am in favor of that. I believe in a good time, especially for a good cause.

Gretchen: Did you see that we are honoring Johnnetta B. Cole?

Tayari: I did see that. I love that there are people on the list from HBCUs, the Ivies, and lots of other places. It’s like the true diversity of black scholarship is on full display.

Gretchen: That’s really what we are going for. We wanted it to be as diverse as possible. The honorees are multi-generational, they hail from all over the country. We've got novelists and neurosurgeons on the list. But biggest thing is that is it going to be welcoming to everyone.

Tayari: What about people that want to attend? I know I was interested, but I didn’t know how to go about getting tickets to a ball. I thought I needed to know a congressman or something. And I had no idea that there would even *be* events like this!

Gretchen: There are still some tickets available. You can get them at our website. It’s filling up fast, but right now, there are some available spaces.

Tayari: Just don’t give away my seat!

Gretchen: You know I wouldn’t do that.

Posted at 07:04 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

Take The Champagne and Run!

For New Year's Eve I hung out with Jarita Davis who swooped through NYC on her way to Lisbon. (Is she fabulous? Indeed.) We were sure we could find some NYE's mischeif in New York. After all, it is New York and between we think we know everybody. Well, after receiving about a dozen text messages from folks indicating that we were welcome to join them in a marathon viewing of Heros, Season Six, we decided to head out on our own in search of an appropriate way to ring in the New Year.

Here's where it starts feeling like a metaphor: We went to LITM, my favorite Jersey City bar. There was a prix fixe menue-- $89-- but we figured begggars couldn't be choosers. But, actually, we could be choosers. Jarita asked if we could order off the regular menu. "Sure," said the waitress. So we did, cutting our bill by more than half-- and allowing us to eat what we really wanted. Namely the grilled duck and Jamaican bread budding. When it came time for the ball drop, we put on our 2009 silver sparkle spectacles and ordered champagne. We toasted, he hugged each other and a couple strangers. at 12:02, the waitress dropped by the table two more splits of bubbly. We didn't order it. We didn't pay for it. But we put it in our pocketbooks and headed for the door.

This is the way to start the new year. Ask for what you want and be open and free champagne will fall into your lap. You just have to have sense enough to take it and run.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! 2009 IS GOING TO BE OUR YEAR!

Posted at 01:54 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

RIP Eartha Kit 1927-2008

Posted at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Do NOT Ask if She is Qualified, Okay?

There's a piece in the NYT today about Elizabeth Alexander who will deliver a poem at the inauguration of Barak Obama.The article is meant to be positive-- there's a terrific photo of her and the quotes are all generous and Ms. Alexander gives perfect praise to the late great Gwendolyn Brooks. But still, I am so irritated that so much of the article-- and general discussion-- is about whether or not she deserves it. Elizabeth Alexander's credentials are impeccable. But still, she actually has to answer to whether or not she is qualiified. For me, the kicker is when Paul Muldoon, the poetry editor of the New Yorker, more of less vouches for her saying that she was chosen for "literary merit." Well, duh. Of course she was. Thank goodness Mr. Muldoon did the right thing, unlike some other people who write in the New Yorker, but the questioning itself breaks my heart.

Posted at 08:31 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Elizabeth Alexander: INAUGURAL POET

Oh Yeah!

Posted at 02:14 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Happy 80th Birthday, Prof. Chomsky!

Noam Chomsky Graffiti.
Originally uploaded by funkytreetown

Posted at 07:07 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Toni Morrison Reads Tomorrow Night!

Genius In Motion!
Originally uploaded by Angela Radulescu

I tell my students one of the most important things they need to know is when they are at their best, creatively. They need to ask themselves, What does the ideal room look like? Is there music? Is there silence? Is there chaos outside or is there serenity outside? What do I need in order to release my imagination?

Toni Morrison

Posted at 10:59 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

RIP Pinkie Gordon Lane

There's no link available yet, but I have heard it from a very reliable source-- namely, my Uncle Wilbert-- that poet Pinkie Gordon Lane has passed away at age 85. Those of us who are Spelman women knew of our sister from the class of 1949 before Nina Long recited her "Lyric: I am Looking At Music" in everybody's favorite movie, Love Jones. She was the first African=American Poet Laureate of the state of Louisiana.

Posted at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Hard Times in Publishing

The "Pink Slip"
Originally uploaded by kuddlyteddybear2004

World AIDS Day: Get Tested. I Did.

Yesterday was World AIDS day. I meant to post about it yesterday, but I couldn't figure exactly what I wanted to say. I thought about compiling some links like John did, or even a list of books about people with AIDS. Reggie did a great post highlighting Kwame Dawes's important work.

The thing about AIDS is that it's everyone's problem, but it affects every community different. If you change one little variable, the equation changes. But at the same time, the bottom line is constant. Everyone is at risk. Everyone must be careful. Everyone must get tested.

So find a testing site near you, and get tested. I did. Why? Because I needed to know, just like you need to know.

Continue reading this entry

Posted at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Patricia's Big Night!

I'm on my way to Amherst, MA to give a reading. If you're in the area, I'd love to see you there. Also, tonight is the National Book Awards ceremony. Patricia Smith (pictured here) is nominated for her knockout book of poetry, Blood Dazzler. Make sure you send her some positive vibes tihs evening. As I will probably be in the middle of my reading when winners are announced, I am going to be a little out of the loop. I would really appreciate it if someone would DM me on twitter as soon as you find out who won what.

Posted at 07:22 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Election Night in Accra

Yes We Can!

Posted at 05:49 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Some Election Thoughts

tayari, first grade
Originally uploaded by kleopatrjones

Posted at 08:51 AM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

Dave Eggers Wants to Change The World

Recently Dave Eggers have a talk about his community outreach program 826 Valencia. On a rainy day like today, I really appreciated this dose of optimisim. The video is part of an archive of talks given by community change-makers and is sponsored by TED (Technology, Education, and Design.) Each year, TED gives a $100,000 prize to help the recipients "change the world." I love that they use that unabashedly idealistic language.

I am going to take some time to go through the archives and I'll post the ones that seem right for the blog. (Uh, not to hate on a philanthropic organization, but a drive-by scan of the roster makes me think they could use a little effort to up the diversity situation.)

But, anyway, with no further ado, here's one of the 2008 winners, Dave Eggers.

Posted at 09:15 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Women Playwrights Demand Change

Playwrights Bill of Rights
Originally uploaded by playwright_bo

Posted at 07:42 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

A Liitle Bird Told Me..

Rocking Robin
Originally uploaded by grahambrown1965

Toni Morrison's Sound Serial
NPR's web site will offer a four-day series of pre-publication readings by Toni Morrison from her forthcoming novel A MERCY beginning October 27 as part of their Book Tour program. Additionally, NPR's Lynn Neary will discuss the book with Morrison in a webcast interview and All Things Considered's Michele Norris will have a broadcast interview with Morrison.

Posted at 01:15 PM | Comments (3)
Category: Current Events

The Untelling Giveaway for NIAW

You Are Not Alone
Originally uploaded by kleopatrjones

Posted at 12:56 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

The DAZZLING Ms. Smith!

Patricia Smith signing Blood Dazzler
Originally uploaded by kleopatrjones

Posted at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Amy Goodman Wins Right Livelihood Award

Amy Goodman
Originally uploaded by mcarlucci

Posted at 09:10 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Gone, But Not Forgotten

Komunyakaa at Rutgers-Newark

Yusef at Victor Jara Stadium, Santiago
Originally uploaded by rattapallax

Posted at 09:10 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

The Geniuses are Here

The 2008 MacArthur Awards have been announced. This $500,00 fellowship-- nicknamed the "Genius Award"-- is an out-of-the-blue award to the lucky winner. I tend to think that the award may be a little more out of the blue for some winners than others. Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, author of the magnificent Half of a Yellow Sun is a most deserving winner, but I doubt that she was stunned by the honor. Pleased, yes, but stunned, maybe not.

This year's list is pretty interesting. For one thing, there are at least two really handsome men on that list! (Is that shallow?) Also an award was given to an Urban Gardener and to a Rural Family Physician. I am delighted to see people who are doing important humanitarian work being rewarded in this way. I am sure they will pour most of the grant into their good works, but I hope they remember to hold a little back for their own pleasure.

Posted at 07:30 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Depends on What You Mean By "Generation"

Did you see the (latest) remembrance of David Foster Wallace in the NYT today? I have to admit that I am suffering from DFW fatigue. At first, I couldn't figure out what it was that was sticking in my craw. Well, for Joy Castro, the NYT article "The Best Mind of His Generation" was the last straw. And she's not being quiet about it.

I must say that the NYT article got to me a little bit, although the tributes have been pushing my buttons all week-- at not just because the DFW tributes eclipsed the death of Reginald Shepherd, just a couple of days earlier. The loss of Wallace has got everybody talking about genius and talking about genius makes folks want to talk about geniuses and it has become clear that, for many people, genius has a demographic designation and it doesn't really include women and writers of color. The A.O. Scott piece in the NYT was just the latest example.

But I won't go on. Just go see what Joy says.

Posted at 03:17 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

RIP, David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes

Posted at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Throw Flowers At Her Feet

Reading my horoscope made me wonder if Michelle Obama is a Saggitarius, too.

According to the Guinness website, the world record for opera singers receiving curtain calls is Luciano Pavarotti, who got 165 after his 1988 show at the Deutsche Opera in Berlin. If that mark is ever broken, it may soon be accomplished by a Sagittarian performer. That's because you people will be at the peak of your potential to garner acknowledgement, recognition, and rewards in your chosen field. Here's a secret about how you can take maximum advantage of that potential: Imagine that there is a higher, finer level of excellence that's beyond what you've understood as excellence up until now. Then figure out what you'd have to do to rise to that higher, finer level.

Non-Sags out there can get yours here.

Posted at 07:41 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Trouble The Water: Trailer

Posted at 07:51 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

For 60 Million, And More

Toni Morrison has dedicated a memorial to the men and women whose lives were damaged by slavery. The memorial is a simple one, an iron bench. This bench is the first in ten which will make up the "Bench By The Road" project.

One of her favorite sites for a bench would be in Oberlin, Ohio, a stop on the Underground Railroad near her hometown of Lorain, she said. While a number of museums dedicated to black history have sprung up around the country since 1989, as well as much new scholarship about black history Ms. Morrison said she liked the idea of an “unpretentious” bench for its simplicity and accessibility.

“Well, the bench is welcoming, open,” she said. “You can be illiterate and sit on the bench, you can be a wanderer or you can be on a search.”

The rest of the article here.
Thanks to my daddy for sending the link.

Posted at 12:10 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Support PEN's FISA Lawsiut

I've just received a message from Francine Prose, the president of PEN American Center:

This week, the ACLU is taking out a full-page ad in a major national newspaper expressing our disappointment over this abandonment of Constitutional principles. The ad will print the names of tens of thousands of Americans who believe in the Constitution and want Congress to hear us loud and clear: next time, stand up for our rights.

This is important.

Posted at 10:00 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Artists In The Workforce

Maybe you've aleady seen this, but the NEA has just released a comprehensive report on artists in the workplace. (Full 150-page report here, NYT highlights here.) I honestly don't know what to make of it. Here are some of the big points.

Love Jones

Posted at 02:14 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

H-A-P-P-Y -- E-N-D-I-N-G

So this made my day.

Posted at 10:30 AM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

Product Placement?

I am not even sure what to make of this. Well, that's not true. I know what I think about it. But then again, there are some writers I respect on this list. So good grief. Here's the deal:

Galleycat reported today that Lexus is paying writers to write short stories that make their cars look good. (Perhaps they should give back-pay to a lot of urban-lit authors that have that territory covered. And they could send a few checks to a few rappers I could name. And what about Chrissette Michele? "Be OK" is my jam.) But anyway, I was surprised to see a number of serious writers on the list. I actually know a couple of them, so maybe I could send an email and ask what gives? From where I am sitting, it reminds me of this article I blogged about back in 2005. Apparently the pharmaceutical companies were paying writers to create thrillers that would scare people from buying drugs from Canada. And Lexus is hiring writers to make thier product look good, look smart, look hip.

I was trying not to go there-- with the nation trying to heal and every thing-- but it seems that irony is already embedded in this post. The urban-lit writers and rappers (and lovely Chrissette)who already say such nice things about the Lexus brand don't get any love from the company. I couldn't help but take another look at the list of artists whose endorsement the company will pay for. They are from a whole other world entirely.

Posted at 08:04 PM | Comments (4)
Category: Current Events

Meet Ruth Dargan, Witness To History

The Root has posted video of Kyle Dargan interviewing his grandmother, Ruth Dargan. Ms. Dargan was a police detective during the infamous Newark Riots in 1968. (That's her on the right.)

In an essay that accompanies the interview, Kyle writes:

Periodically, I get a phone call from my grandmother that begins with her saying, "Listen to this," or simply with her reading aloud a vignette she'd just written about her life in Newark, N.J. Usually, I tell her the brief tales sound good and encourage her to keep writing. "I'm leaving all this stuff for you so you can write my story after I'm gone," she often tells me, in reply. I ponder her statement and then reply, as warm and loving as only a grandson could, "You ain't dead yet!"

I am so bummed that I can't embed the video so you can just watch it here. (You have to follow this link.)They talk about the death of MLK, Barak Obama, and the housing crisis. She read "The Audacity of Hope" in bookclub and wasn't all that impressed.

On a silly and superficial note, I had to smile at Kyle's appearance in this video. You can see he got all cleaned up to sit with his grandmother. His hair is cut and his facial hair is all orderly. And the argyle sweater. So sweet. (If you're in the mood for comparison, here's a snapshot of Kyle.)

OK. Back to business. This intergenerational sit-down is really interesting, and progressive. She is his grandmother, certainly, but she is not being interviewed as a "granny." This is no old lady rocking on the porch, hulling peas and rattling off memories. Ms. Ruth Dargan she not just a witness to history, she is also a player in the stories unfolding before our eyes.

Posted at 08:08 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Happy Birthday Spelman

127 years ago today, Harriet Giles and Sophia B. Packard founded The Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, later renamed Spelman College. Giles and Packard had only one hundred dollars to their names--- pocket change given to them by John D. Rockefeller. Reverend Quarles gave them space in the basement of Friendship Baptist Church and they gathered eleven students together and got to work.

(Image via flickr.)

Posted at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Let's Help The Dunbar Village Survivors!

The ebay auction is up! Go there now to bid on manuscript critiques by me, George Saunders, Nichelle Tramble,Sarah Schulman, Laila Lalami, Joy Castro, Martha Southgate, D. Nurkse, and Honoree Fanonne Jeffers! Carleen Brice is offering to critique your non-fiction book proposal. (Having sold three books this way, she knows how it's done!) There are books up for grabs-- a full set of George Saunders titles and a set of memoirs and a collection of debut novels. Natasha Trethewey is giving a signed hardcover of her Pulitzer Prize winning collection, Native Guard. Erika Dreyfus, the "Practicing Writer", has offered her three e-books on how to find paying markets for what you write! This is just in: Rachel Eliza Griffiths will take your photo if you live the NY area. (Trust me. You want her to take your photo.)

We got the good stuff.

If you'd like to contribute directly to the victims of the Dunbar Village tragedy here's the info.

Individuals who would like to donate money to the victims can go to any Wachovia Bank and donate to the St. Ann’s Victim’s Assistance Fund. Donations will go directly to the mother and her son.
St. Ann’s Catholic Church will accept donations. Checks can be made payable to the "Dunbar Village Victim Assistance Fund - St. Ann’s".
Donations can be mailed to: St. Ann’s Catholic Church, 310 N. Olive Avenue, West Palm Beach, FL 33401

On that note, I received the first contribution last night at KGB Bar. Alicia, a member of our blog community, slipped me some cash. "This is for Dunbar Village," she said.

Ashe.

Posted at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Community Service , Current Events

Dunbar Village Fund Raiser-- Update!

So many people have offered to help raise money for the mother and son who were attacked at Dunbar Village. Check out what we have collected, so far:

Dunbar Village Fund Raiser

Today I saw an article about the sister-bloggers who raised their voices against the NAACP's support of the Dunbar Village rape suspects. For those of you not following the case, here's a recap: The details are far too graphic to post here, but a woman and her son were raped and tortured in their home. The assault is the most brutal thing I have ever heard of. Well, the good Revered Al Sharpton of course went to Florida to show his support-- for the suspects. The sister-bloggers (and some brothers) went ballistic and mobilized their readers to turn the ships around. By the time they got through, Sharpton and the NAACP were claiming they never wanted the suspects released on bond (though these flyers tell a different story.)

I am horrified by this crime, but at the same time inspired and impressed by the sister-bloggers who stepped up to the plate. I started thinking, well what can I do? I'm just a novelist. Then I had this idea.

I am going to auction off a manuscript critique and the proceeds will go to the fund for the victims of the Dunbar Village Rape Case. Any other writers out there want to lend a hand? We can put all the offerings on ebay together. I am thinking manuscript critiques, maybe someone can have coffee with their favorite writer? If you're down, email me. We can make this happen.

Posted at 05:34 PM | Comments (5)
Category: Current Events

Packer on Obama and Black Exceptionalism

Z.Z. Packer makes so many good points in her brilliant essay, that I don't know which to quote! It's a long one, but worth printing out and forwarding all over the place. (You'll have to read the article yourself to see what Barak Obama has in common with Michael Jackson....) Meanwhile, here is a choice paragraph:

The horrible double standard is obvious. According to those of Ferraro's ilk: if you're a poor black man, or incarcerated, or jobless or homeless, you are where you are because of your own ineptitude and should take responsibility for your actions. However, if you've excelled at one of the top schools in the nation, then later on became a star attorney and later become a senator who inspires millions, then you're only there in spite of your ineptitude and you really shouldn't take responsibility for it. Talk about movin' on up.

More commentary to come, but I didn't want to wait to share this with you. Read the article and we'll meet back here tomorrow to talk!

(Thank you, JT, for forwarding the link!)

Posted at 08:26 AM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

Ben & Jerry's-- Anti-Southern?

Ben & Jerry's has named an ice-cream for Barack Obama-- this may the pinnacle of pop-culture liberalism. The ice-cream is called (drum roll please...)YES, PECAN!

As Ladylee would say, *crickets*.

See, where I come from we say p-e-c-a-n as "puh-CAHN". So I was saying aloud "Yes, Puh-CAHN?" Then, I looked around me, surrounded by northerners and got it. "Yes, Pee-CAN!", rhymes with "Yes, We Can!" Cute, I guess.

Granted, I am sensitive, but I felt a little left out of the joke.

Posted at 03:18 PM | Comments (6)
Category: Current Events

I Am Trying to Leave This Alone

Really, I am. But this LA Times piece on the Love and Consequences drama was really interesting.

Jones/Seltzer, who claimed to be half Native American and often lapses in the book into the inner-city black vernacular of "hoods," "homies" and "ima make sure," is part of a long tradition of white artists impersonating or borrowing the voices and experiences of racial minorities, experts said. ....
"I think some of the authors of these memoirs have pain and suffering they don't know how to name, so they attach them to something that's universally associated with suffering," like race.

The whole article is really interesting.

Posted at 08:35 AM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

Why? Oh, Why?

Yesterday, in the comments, Sarah asked why people like Margaret Jones just don't publish thier stories as novels. Why do they feel compelled to call it "memoir"? I don't know, but there are a couple interesting hypotheses out there in the blogosphere.

GalleyCat:

Maybe Jennifer Joseph of Manic D Press is right when she emails that this whole fake memoir trend points to a dysfunction at "New York commercial houses." As she analyzes the situation, "Bookselling is all about categories, and the Memoir category sells better than Fiction. Agents know this, Editors know this, Publishers know this. Authors learn this... Blame it on reality TV shows which give the illusion (though they're scripted) that 'true stories' are somehow more appealing than fiction." (That said, it should be conceded that Misha Defonseca's phony Holocaust survival story was published by an indie press.)

Yxta Maya Murray, who reviewed Love and Consequences for TruthDig (she loved it), has this to say:

The answer? Because we don’t value the novel anymore. The coin of the realm is Reality: blogging, biography, Web confessions, “The Real Housewives of New York City.” We have learned to so diminish the importance of the imagination that we no longer pay sufficient attention to the “ecstatic truths” (Werner Herzog’s much-repeated maxim) that may be gleaned from fiction. Thus we have created a market that demands “true crime” and “authentic” tales of woe, which are easily exploited by frauds.

Anybody else got a theory?

Posted at 07:27 AM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

There's A Sucker Born Every Minute

And apparently, they all go to work in publishing.

This has been a bad week for liars. First the holocaust survivor who said she was literally raised by wolves turns out to be just a regular, if depressed, person. Now, Margaret Seltzer, the author of Love and Consequences, the highly acclaimed "memoir" about her life as a half Native American/half White gang banger, has been been explosed as a fraud.

In the vividly told book, Ms. Seltzer wrote about her African-American foster brothers, Terrell and Taye, who joined the Bloods gang when they were 11 and 13. She chronicled her experiences making drug deliveries for gang leaders at age 13 and how she was given her first gun as a birthday present when she was 14. Ms. Seltzer told The Times last week, “One of the first things I did once I started making drug money was to buy a burial plot.”

It's like a satire of a satire. This is my favorite line in the whole NYT article: "Sarah McGrath, the editor at Riverhead who worked with Ms. Seltzer for three years on the book, said she was stunned to discover that the author had lied." Gotta love that understatement and comic timing.

But seriously, you may remember an article last summer that appered in TimeOut New York about matters of race in publishing. (My post on the subject here.) This was one of most important quotes from the article:

“Invariably,” says Craig, “a black-themed book will come up for consideration, and there won’t be anyone of color to put in an opinion, or there’ll be one, who shouldn’t bear the burden alone. So we all pretend we’re experts. Maybe I’m the only one who’s embarrassed by that.” The end result of such roundtables, one can only fear, could be that the only books depicting people of color that get published are those that do not challenge white assumptions.

I can't help but wonder if Ms. Seltzer's book with all it's far-fetched, tales-from-the-urban-jungle flair, would have passed the smell test were it read by a more diverse panel of editors.

Posted at 10:57 PM | Comments (4)
Category: Current Events

CONGRATULATIONS TRACY K!

Tracy K. Smith has won the first annual Essence Literary Award in the category of poetry! (Full list of winners, here.) Just think: we can say we knew her way back when she was the Karaoke Queen.

Posted at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Boondock's Revenge

So sorry about the slow down in posting. AWP is this week and we are really rippng and running at my job because we are a sponsoring institution. So, for those folks who sent me little nudges, I'm okay. Just busy. But here is something to tide you over until I start bombarding you with AWP snapshops.

Aaron McGruder, creator "Boondocks" has declared war on BET. Anyhoo, T.R.O.Y. sent me this link to a short film which BET has banned. While you're at it, go to AALBC. I love that McGruder is endorsed by Tavis Smiley, who is identified as "Host of BET Tonight". Right under that is a quote from Bob Johnson, founder of BET (and Obama hater), calling McGruder everything but a child of God.

Don't forget to watch the film! (It's only about 5 minutes.)

Posted at 09:43 AM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

D.C. Readers, You Can Stop Blaming Yourselves

There is an article in the Washington Post about the close of Karibu books. It wasn't because "black people don't read" or because of the Wal-Martization of America. The store is closing because the owners couldn't work out their differences. The whole sad story here.

Yes, it's a crying shame, but at the same time let's not come down to hard on Karibu owners, Simba and Yao. The real problem is that whole burden of selling books by and about black folks-- in "Chocolate City", no less-- was on the shoulders of these two brothers. That's a lot to carry around. Simba and Yao held it down for fifteen years; whatever went down in recent history can't change that.

Posted at 09:01 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

Another One Bites The Dust

I am jsut heartbroken to announce the closing of Karibu Books in Washington, DC and Maryland. This announcement took me by surprise although I have heard, as often as everyone, that Americans don't read anymore and big chains are snuffing out the little guys. Sigh.

The photo to the left is Brother Yao, poet and entreprenuer whose find-a-way, make-a-way mentality kept Karibu Books alive for 15 years.

This is just terrible news.

Posted at 11:54 AM | Comments (4)
Category: Current Events

HAPPY MLK DAY

I am on the road still, so I couldn't prepare a new post for King day, but you are welcome to revisit the essay I wrote last year called "Walking in Memphis." It's about visiting the Lorraine Hotel, the site of Dr. King's assassination.

At the very end of the exhibit was rooms 306-307, where Dr. King had stayed in on the last day of his life. The curators took care to recreate the atmosphere. There was a coffee cup half-full, an unmade bed and other personal touches that made it seem like Dr. King, Andy Young, Jessee Jackson, et al had just been in here making plans. When I crossed the threshold of the room, I tripped a switch that caused Mahalia Jackson to sing "Amazing Grace." I felt it all over my body. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a careful breath before looking out onto the balcony.

Posted at 07:26 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Rico and Kiri, The Pleasure is Ours

Tonight, I tagged along with Dahlia to a houseparty in Brooklyn. I didn't know the hosts, but who says you have to know the people to have a good time? We were there early enough that we were able to chat a little bit with the man-half of the host couple. "I know your name," he said. "Do you have a blog?" Well, it turns out that he was Rico Cullen who works with the Media that Matters Film Festival.

He wanted to thank this blog commumunity for all we did to get the word out to support Kiri Davis and her film, "A Girl Like Me." (He even remembered the date of my first post about it-- June 8, 2006!)

It's almost midnight and I am really sleepy, but I wanted everyone to know that our efforts were noticed and made a difference for Kiri and her project. Group hug, y'all.

Posted at 10:58 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Reality Check?

I was just reading an NYT article about Candance Bushnell, the author of the Sex and The City, the book on which the hugely popular TV show and movie are based. The article is about how her "friend" stole her idea for a second show. Interesting and dramatic. But what I am posting here is this shocking paragrah:

Ms. Bushnell did not exactly get rich from “Sex and the City.” The executive familiar with her business dealings said she had made “a little more than” $500,000 in royalties from the HBO run. She has yet to receive any syndication profits although she is due “something under a half-million dollars” more now that production has started on the film version, the executive said.

Don't get me wrong, I would happily welcome an extra $500,000 into my life. Happily. But I would have thought that Ms. Bushnell was a millionaire many times over after producing such a hit.

I guess this goes to show something, but I am not sure what.

Posted at 10:43 PM | Comments (3)
Category: Current Events

Alice Walker Gives Her Papers to Emory

Just before the holiday break, Alice Walker's papers arrived at Emory Univeristy. As I understand it, a writer's papers are anything of her life that she has saved. This can be highschool journals, scrap books, drafts of novels, snapshots-- whatever evidence she chooses to hand over.

There was a point in my own life when I used to save all sorts of stuff. (My father once told me that W.E.B. Dubois started saving his papers at 12. I was about ten at the time and figured that this was a good a time as any to get started.) I am not sure what happened to all those carefully preserved slips of paper. I can't remember throwing them away, but my parents have moved twice since then and I am pretty sure that no one wanted to save my pop-sickle stick collection for posterity.

But on to Alice Walker. She says that she chose Emory for its location in the south, its relationship with the Dalai Lama, and because of all the other wonderful authors who have chosen to deposit thier papers in its care. (Langston Hughes!)

Not that anyone is asking for my papers, but I would imagine that it is pretty tough to decide where to store them. My impulse would be to put them at my alma mater, Spelman College. Afterall, this is where I became a writer. But at the same time, I don't know if Spelman would have the resources of a place like Emory to store and care for the papers. Also, a person would want her papers to be in a place that is frequented by scholars.

Anyway, I will be certainly going to Emory to check out Alice Walker's archives when they are open to the public. I have always been fascinated by her life. (More on that in another post.)

Posted at 08:58 AM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

Good Hair Day!

You know, one of the most popular blog entries I have ever written was about the time I went as an adult to get a press and curl, as research for my new novel. When I check my sitemeter, there is always someone googling the subject and they visit the blog. Almost two thousand people have viewed the pics on flickr!

There is no denying that black women and their hair is a real hot-button topic. (Remember the Imus fiasco?!) Well, someone's got their finger on the buzzer again. Here is the recap as best I can give it:

An associate editor at Glamour said that unprocessed black hair is inappropriate for the workplace. Glamour them apologized for being so stupid and to show they were serious, they hosted a panel on the subject. (Wow, that's really going to make a difference!) So Janice went to the panel and gives a pretty amusing twitter report.

I, on the other hand, am celebrating my birthfest, and cannot be bothered to think too hard about oppressing depressing topics. Next week, I'll be back on the front lines. But for now, does anyone know a good spa in Jersey City? And related to the topic of this post: Ladies, if you go to a spa, you can usually substitute an extra 30 minutes of massage time for the hair part of your "luxe package." Just FYI for those of us with a gorgeous head of Glamour "don'ts".

Posted at 08:16 AM | Comments (5)
Category: Current Events

Book-Award-Season Making You Queasy?

Like many folks, I start getting a little green around the gills this time of year. (There is just far too much annointing going on!) As just a little bit of a balm, I encourage you to think about books that would qualify for the Ridenhour Book Prize given by The Nation Magazine. From what I can tell, it isn't open to fiction, but you have to love a prize that sets as it's criteria:

"books that defend the public interest, advance or promote social justice, or illuminate a more just vision of society."

(via Galleycat)

Posted at 08:56 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Let's Send Natasha Some Positive Vibes

Our very own Natasha Trethewey is at Harvard today to celebrate the inaugration of Drew Faust, the first woman president of that institution. Natasha will be introducing Toni Morrison at the event, for which she has composed a poem. The event will be webcast. It starts at 2pm, but I have been told that Natasha and Lady T will be on around four. (EST)

Posted at 10:22 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Bring on The Rainbows and Unicorns

Mary Collins is complaining about the required reading for her 14-year old daughter. Apparently, the topics on the reading list are too heavy and the little moppet is losing sleep over it.

I know that my own literary taste tends to lean toward the devastating. When I was a kid, I read Mildred Taylor's classic Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, which, to this day, remains one of my favorite titles. It's a hard book set in the 1950s. The family has to decide which is more important to them, preserving their plot of land or halting the lynching of a young boy. Should this be included on a 8th grade reading list, even though Mary Collins would probably pronounce it too "depressing?"

Forget the silly writing-teacher argument that good writers don't have to write about extreme events to write a good book. This is good advice to give to undergraduate writing students who can't resist ending all stories with a suicide, but when we are talking about accomplished writers, they can handle the more dramatic subject matter.

Collins is most disturbing when she gets into ideological territory:

The string of searing plot patterns has resulted in some very peculiar unintended consequences. Most of the students I spoke with from my daughter's middle school claimed that the readings made them feel inadequate because they never "experienced these horrible things."

"It becomes awkward," one student said, "because you're constantly made to feel spoiled or privileged."

I am having a hard time feeling sorry for people who feel "awkward" because their lives have been too easy. Yes, I can imagine that it must be worrisome to be made aware of your privilege as opposed to just exercising it without even thinking about it.

This, also, makes me wonder if Collins would advocate for different reading lists for kids who haven't had it as easy. Maybe only children in inner-cities should be assigned the rough stuff? Maybe only black kids should read Beloved since it won't make them feel guilty?

The more I think about this argument, the worse it gets.

(Thx, Ed, for the link. And check out how Acephalous breaks it down.)

Posted at 07:49 AM | Comments (4)
Category: Current Events

Women's Prison Book Project

I just received a request for donation for the Women's Prison Book Project. Here's what they are looking for:

Here is a list of book requests we've received frequently in recent weeks. We usually have a few of these books in stock, but we're going to need more in order to fulfill the requests we're getting. If you have any books in these categories, mail it to us or bring it to our drop box at Arise Bookstore. Our address is 2441 Lyndale Ave S, Mpls, MN 55405.

cookbooks

dream interpretation

contemporary African American fiction (especially Triple Crown publishers)

books by James Patterson

Christian topics

I know we have done quite a lot of talking on this blog about so-called "street literature" and Triple Crown books fall firmly in this category. I think that if you have any Triple Crown Books that you are not using and are in good shape, you should send them on. At the same time, I really urge you to send titles that you think would nurture the spirits of incarcerated women. I plan to send copies of my own books, but also books by Eisa Ulen, Sigrid Nunez, Monique Truong, Ravi Howard, and others.

Posted at 08:44 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Growing Up Is So Hard To Do!

The Brand New Heavies are playing NYC tonight and I won't be there! It's a school night and I am a responsible adult. Well, the truth is, I am not that responsible, but my friends are, so I don't have anyone to go with me!

BNH will be in concert with Macy Gray and word on the street is that The Heavies blew Macy Gray out of the water when they performed in Louisville.

Anyhoo, here is the flickr set from my adventures in groupie-dom.

Posted at 06:52 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

R.I.P. Madeleine L'Engle

At age 88, children's author Madeleine L'Engle has passed away. I had to read A Wrinkle in Time about five times before I really "got" it. In light of our conversation earlier in the week about Judy Blume and whether kids need to see thier own stories (apparently verbatim) in books, we really must give Madeleine L'Engle her props. Ms. L'Engle's books were not comfort food-- mashed potatoes for the mind. This was challenging reading, putting forth bold ideas.

I remember my fourth grade teacher, Miss Thomasina Gaither, reading aloud from A Wrinkle In Time. We had gotten to the part where the main characters discover that the little boy who wouldn't bounce the ball has been put in a cell. I didn't know the word non-conformity then, but I knew exactly what the scene was about. And unlike my experience with other kids' books, I didn't walk away with a lesson about being tolerant of difference-- I walked away angry and with the impulse to fight back!

(Oh, my outrage when Miss Gaither shut the book and said we would have to wait until Monday for the next chapter!)

If Judy Blume books are beloved because they are about "real" kids struggling with their need to fit it, then Madeleine L'Engle's books are about fantasy kids who represent how smart and brave if we could just find the strength to resist all that crap and be our authentic selves.

R.I.P. Madeleine L'Engle. This writer- this woman-- thanks you for your searing and beautiful work.

Posted at 07:24 AM | Comments (3)
Category: Current Events

Lest We Forget

Katrina Surge

Originally uploaded by petertauch

Race and Publishing... again

James Hannaham's recent article in TimeOut New York about race and publishing is the most interesting article on the subject that I have read to date. The piece starts with the fact that hardly anyone working in publishing is willing to talk about this matter on the record.

The article suggests that in addition to the racial issue, socio-economic class factors in heavily. After all, the salaries in publishing are so low, that you have to have money already to afford to work there. And then, there is the connections issue. Entry level jobs are usually filled by candidates who already know someone in the industry which perpetuates a culture of exclusion.

The next point was really shocking. It wasn't that I was shocked by the idea itself, as it had crossed my mind already, but I was shocked that it actually appeared in a mainstream publication:

Nevertheless, if the strings are generally pulled by whites, that creates a more complicated problem. “Invariably,” says Craig, “a black-themed book will come up for consideration, and there won’t be anyone of color to put in an opinion, or there’ll be one, who shouldn’t bear the burden alone. So we all pretend we’re experts. Maybe I’m the only one who’s embarrassed by that.” The end result of such roundtables, one can only fear, could be that the only books depicting people of color that get published are those that do not challenge white assumptions.

My only complaint with the article was on the matter of audiences for literature by people of color. Hannaham doesn't challenge the assumption that literature by people of color is to be read only by audiences of color. Take this quote from an industry official:

“There is a way to make money on books directed at people of color, [italics added] but you need to know how to publish them successfully. If someone has the energy and knowledge, they can do it. But you have to reinvent your machine.”

I can't help by wonder why it has failed to occur to the executives (or the author of the article) that the real way to make money off of books by writers of color is to figure out how sell them to everyone.

Or is that, (to quote another industry type), too "Pollyanna-ish"?

(via galleycat)

Posted at 07:42 PM | Comments (5)
Category: Current Events

Blogging Matters!

Well, there is more good news for Kiri Davis, our favorite teenaged filmmaker. She is now the first filmmaker ever to receive the Extraordinary Service Award from the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council! I know it looks like we are congratulating her every time we turn around, but I can't keep good news to myself.

The interesting thing is that our blog community has been cited for the way we worked to get the word out. I must say that this warms my little heart.

(thank you, lauren, for sending the link!)

Posted at 04:53 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

How Come Nobody Told Me

that Kiri Davis won the Cosmogirl Contest. I am sure that you all remember all the drama earlier in the summer-- Teenaged filmaker Kiri Davis's film about black folks and self-image was up for a big prize, then it was announced that people were cheating on the web-based contest... Well, she won the $10,000 award and other goodies. Hurrah.

Here's Kiri Davis's prize-winning film, "A Girl Like Me."

Posted at 02:57 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

The Abu Ghriab Project

Yesterday, Daniel Heyman invited us to his studio to view the prints in his series of portraits of people released from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Daniel traveled to the Middle East to sit in as Iraquis released from Abu Ghraib described their experiences to human rights lawyers.

As the detainees spoke, Daniel drew the portraits and wrote their testimonies alongside their likenesses. You will see from the images that the words are crammed in with the faces, the letters often traveling up the sides of the pages and even onto the speaker’s clothing. This is because Daniel drew and wrote in real time. As the translators converted the words to English, Daniel wrote them down.

Below is an excerpt from the text accompanying the portrait which is called Jasim Was In A Cage (you can see the image here):

Jasim was in a cage. A metal cage. He was not allowed to stand. He was hooded for ten days. When a father was forced to bury his son in a ½ meter deep hole. That they both dug. Then the son was forced to lie down in the hole. The soilders were laughing. The Prisoners were crying. The son stayed in the hole covered with dirt for one hour. The son and the father and Jasim thought the son would die.

The images you see here are made from copper plates. Here is a little explanation for folks not versed in the technique. Instead of writing on paper, Daniel etched the images onto copper plates using a diamond-point stylus. He wrote the testimony in the same way except he had to write backwards, as everything transferred from plates comes out mirrored. His tremendous investment of labor underscores his commitment to this cause.

During the Q&A, Daniel said that he would not sell these prints to any private collectors. Because these prints are for the world to see, he will only sell them to public collections. (One set has been placed with the New York Public Library.) He was also asked about the women in Abu Ghraib. Unfortunately, no woman would allow him in the room during her testimony, but he was able to draw a portrait of one woman and used the transcript of her testimony for her plate. This woman, like many of the subjects of this remarkable series, has since been murdered. (You can see her watercolor portrait here.)

When asked what this project has taught him about the war in Iraq, Daniel said, “What you learn, is that we don’t know anything about this war. You think you know, and then you learn that it is so much worse than you thought, and that you don’t even know the half it. No matter how much you see, how much you hear, there is always something worse.”

You can see the full collection at Daniel Heyman’s website.

An NPR interview with Daniel Heyman.

Libby Rosof reports about a recent exhibition of these pieces.

PoliticsTheoryPhotography has a nice write-up, too.

Posted at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Up Up and Away!

I am growing very fond, these days, of The Atlantic Monthly. I am even ready to forgive them for rejecting all of the stories I wrote as a graduate student. Clearly, their taste is improving. Exhibit A-- they had sense enough to award Dwayne Betts one of their summer internships. And. Now. This.

In the Summer Fiction Issue (which isn't out yet) there is a big article on MFA programs. Included in this spread is a piece on "up and coming" programs. RUTGERS-NEWARK was chosen among the top five. And we don't even open our doors until Fall.

I know a couple members of our blog community wil be starting with us in the fall. And if you thought about it last year, but didn't apply, we'll be accepting applications again in the late fall. We're trying to do something different with our program. The motto, "Real Lives, Real Stories", says it all.

Posted at 05:29 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Kiri Davis On Oprah!

Remember Kiri Davis whose film "A Girl Like Me" was featured on Cosmogirl a few months ago? Well, it seems she has much bigger fish to fry than whatever shadiness was (or wasn't) going on with that contest. 18-year-old Kiri was on Oprah today. I didn't see it, as I am in cardboard hell, trying to pack all my stuff to get out of town.

If someone did see it, I'd love a recap in the comments section. From the link above, it seems that it is a show about kids being ashamed of their looks.

(A quick aside... I worry a bit that the question of girl's self-esteem often comes down to whether they find themselves pretty or not. I mean, aren't their other measures of a self? Do we ask our sons whether they believe themselves to be beautiful? I am all in favor of reversing the trends that cause black girls to hate their dark skin and kinky hair. Like many sisters, I have an inner-Pecola that shows her sad face from time to time, so I am all for the balm. However, we must be careful not to swing so far in the direction that convinces our girls that all they need in life is to be pretty. OK. Off the soap box. I've got packing to do. Somebody tell me what they said on Oprah.)

And before I go, folks are blogging about it. I just have to pack. So here is the link to all the blog posts.

Posted at 05:48 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

Sister-Writers In The News

Oh, Just Whiten Up!

"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," the groundbreaking non fiction account of the displacement of Native Americans is being made into a movie. If you've read the book, be prepared for a significant change. According to the NYT article:

“Everyone felt very strongly that we needed a white character or a part-white, part-Indian character to carry a contemporary white audience through this project.”

So they added a new character. Not as a supporting part, but as the protagonist. He's "a man who was part Sioux, was educated at an Ivy League college and married a white woman." (The caveat-- this character is based on a real person.)

There is a part of me that wants to slap the filmmakers. (I'll admit, a BIG part of me.) And much of it comes from my own frustrastions as I observe similar bias in the consumption of American literature. And I guess I want to slap the filmmakers because it would take to long for me to go out and slap every small-minded viewer and reader for whom the statement is sadly accurate. If I did, I'd be too busy slapping to ever write another word.

(Thanks, Ed, for the link, atlhough it has singlehandedly ruined my day.)

Posted at 07:46 AM | Comments (11)
Category: Current Events

We've Got Friends in High Fun Places!

LeAnne Howe, a member of this blog community, is going to be on The Daily Show on Wednesday, May 2! LeAnne is a terrific writer; she does it all-- fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays, screen plays.

The folks from The Daily Show went down to The University of Mississippi where LeAnne is the Grisham Writer in Residence. LeAnne, a member of the Choctaw Nation, is giving her opinion on the Indian mascot at The University of Illinois.

I'll have to drink coffee to stay up late enough to watch. Meanwhile, here are a couple of snapshots LeAnne.

Posted at 08:51 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

ATLiens Unite!

I've just received word from a certain bold-genius that the Atlanta Writers Club is hosting a read-in at the Atlanta Journal Constitution to protest the abolition of the book section. If you are in Atlanta, I hope you will join in. Participation is pretty simple. You just show up and read.

WHAT: ATLANTA “Save the Book Review” READ-IN! Bring a book (or many books!)you love, and let’s create a critical mass of readers to put the pressure on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to reverse its terrible decision to “reorganize” its book review out of existence! They got rid of the book review editor, and without an official champion for books within the paper, the quality of books coverage is endangered! It will become disorganized and sporadic, if not simply perfunctory, until, worse, it’s no longer there. TIME: 10:00 AM until…you decide! DATE: THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2007 *rain or shine

If you go, take a picture with your camera phone and email it to me.

Posted at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Around The World in A Day

This weekend, folks who live in New York get to attend the Pen World Voices Book Festival. Novelist Martha Southgate is keeping a blog of the event. I'll warn you, the blog interface they're using over at Pen isn't the easiest to follow, but just keep clicking for her reports. It's the next best thing to being there.

Posted at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

When Does "Crazy" Become Deadly?

I wonder if teachers of creative writing get more than our share of students who seem a bit "off". In light of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, the issue of troubled students has been on my mind. As many people know, Nikki Giovanni threatened to resign if Cho Seung-Hui wasn't removed from her class. To many people, this should have been enough of a red-flag to have the student removed from school.

In my experience as a university professor, I have dealt with quite a few disturbing students. Each time, I have gone to the supervisor. The responses have ranged from "Oh, don't worry, a lot of people have had problems with him. It doesn't develop into anything." OR "Him? I've taught him before and he's a nice kid." It's as though past incidents mean he is harmless, as does a clean record.

Continue reading this entry

Posted at 07:00 AM | Comments (3)
Category: Current Events

Nikki Giovanni Puts It All In Context

Nikki Giovanni delivered the closing remarks at the memorial convocation at Virginia Tech on yesterday. She struck a perfect ballance between honoring the sadness particular to the Tech campus and linking it with the horrors around the world. So many people in the world are suffering; as she says, "no one deserves a tragedy."

Just yesterday, I was thinking of all the bombings happening in Iraq. How often do we hear "twelve killed", "twenty killed"... Maybe one thing we will learn from this tragedy at Virginia Tech is a greater degree of empathy for the suffering all over the globe. And once we have felt the sorrow and mulled its implications, maybe we will act.

I am posting the YouTube here, but there is a clearer video over at CNN.

(via crystal)

Posted at 08:15 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

News From Virginia Tech

Like the rest of the nation, I was horrified by the news of a massacre at Virginia Tech University. I was concerned on a personal level as I gave a reading at Tech a couple of years back and have maintained a friendship with a few of the professors there. I am very relieved to report to you that I spoke with Virginia Fowler this morning and she assured me that both she and poet Nikki Giovanni are safe and sound.

Posted at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Thanks for Voting for Kiri Davis, but...

It doesn't even matter. Cosmogirl has determined that there have been "one of more instances of tampering" with the on-line voting for the young filmaker contest. So, all of the votes are going to be thrown out. The editors, apparently, will just pick a winner.

I try not to be a paranoid conspiracy monger. I really do.

Posted at 06:57 AM | Comments (5)
Category: Current Events

Have You Voted for Kiri Davis Today?

I went to the site. It's perfectly legit to vote everyday. So VOTE for her.

Posted at 06:20 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Moving countdown: 53 days to go!

All the cool kids live in Jersey City.

Posted at 01:21 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Happy Birthday Spelman!

On this day, 126 years ago, Spelman College was born! Happy Founders Day, Ladies!

Posted at 09:31 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Let's Win it For Kiri Davis **updated

Remember the film, "A Girl Like Me" by a young film maker, Kiri Davis? In her film she asked her peers about thier feelings about skin color and at the end, she recreate the famous experiment in which she asked children which doll they preferred, the white one or the black one? Heartbreaking and serious stuff. And to think that the Kiri Davis is just a teenager.

Well, Cosmo Girl is sponsoring a contest for best youth-made film. Let's all trot over there and vote for Kiri Davis. You know she will put the $10,000 prize to good use.

**UPDATE: I went over there and voted. Kiri is really taking a beating. Let's try and get some votes for her. (This is not the appropriate venue for a lecture on the DIGITAL DIVIDE, but I have a feeling that we are seeing it right here.

(via Eisa)

Posted at 08:31 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Tina Ansa Starts a Publishing Company

I just got this press release and thought I would share it.

Continue reading this entry

Posted at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

New Letters on The Air

I had the most delightful experience this afternoon. Angela Elam interviewed me for New Letters on the Air, a terrific nationally syndicated radio program. (When the interview is up, I will link here, of course.) I have done quite a few radio interviews and I am sorry to say that your average radio interview consists of the host reading the press release and figuring out questions he can ask based on that. On a few occaisions, I've been forced to write the questions out so the interviewer can have something to say!

So, imaging how pleased I was to meet Angela who can for the interview with copies of both my books looking well-read. She asked such wonderful, though-provoking questions that I would have been content to talk to her all afternoon-- and maybe I would have if we didn't run out of tape. We talked about everything from the craft of writing to the politics of publishing. Angela is a sharp woman, I feel lucky to have been interviewed by her.

Posted at 12:37 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events , News

Honoring Fannie Lou Hamer

Many of us are on a single-name basis with our heroes. Remember those t-shirts from the 90's that read Martin, Malcolm, Mandela, ME. I think they were put out by Spike Lee. Anyway, I had one. I am ashamed to say that as a teenager, it never occurred to me to ask about the women in the civil rights movement. It is particularly disturbing in my case because I was reared in a household that was determined to give credit where it was due in terms of the struggles of black people all over the globe. (My older brother is named "Patrice Lumumba Jones"; you get the idea.)

The only woman I knew about when it came to Civil Rights was Rosa Parks and even her legacy had been twisted into a nice-girl version of resistance-- the tired seamstress who sat down because she was tired. Who knew of her other corageous and active protests? I was in college before I ever heard the name Fannie Lou Hamer-- thank heaven for Spelman. I can only think that for a person like me to have this disturbing absence in my understanding of the civil rights struggle, the rest of the nation (the world!) must share this historical amsesia.

This is why I am honored to announce the upcoming conference to honor the memory of Fannie Lou Hamer, which is organized by my father, Mack H. Jones. (Conference details are here.)

Scroll down for a little Q&A:

ME: Can you tell us a little bit about Fannie Lou Hamer and why she was important?
Mack Jones (AKA Daddy): In my view, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer was one of the most significant warriors in the modern civil rights movement. Through her courage and determination she played a critical role in ending American racial apartheid. When she defied her plantation bosses by insisting on her right to register to vote she gave strength and courage to other oppressed black folk to do the same. When she challenged the racist practices of the Mississippi Democratic Party at the 1964 National convention she exposed the hypocrisy of American democracy for the whole world to see and set in motion the chain of events that eventually led to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and to the end of state sanctioned racial segregation and discrimination in the United States.

And on another level, by rising up from her humble station as an oppressed Black woman sharecropper on a Mississippi plantation to become an internationally known and revered human rights leader, Mrs. Hamer demonstrated the debilitating costs of racial and gender oppression. Her life should be a source of emulation for all of us, especially our youth. We are holding this conference to burnish her legacy, to remind us all of her sterling contributions to the struggle for civil and human rights both nationally and internationally.

Me: What can people do to honor Mrs. Hamer?
Daddy: Even though there are scores of institutes, programs, awards, and other activities named for Mrs. Hamer, we do not yet have a fitting living memorial that acknowledges and sustains the work of Fannie Lou Hamer. We would love to see African American people, women's organizations, anyone who values progress and justice-- come together nationally and commit to building a national institution in her honor.

Perhaps we could build a first-rate secondary boarding school for girls from the rural south, a school that would educate and train young women as leaders who would continue in the spirit of Mrs. Hamer. Such an effort could be led by our churches, sororities and fraternities, professional associations, and the like.

Me: Sounds like plan.

Posted at 06:47 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

R.I.P. Molly Ivins

As they said on truthout.org, her enduring message is: "Raise More Hell."

Posted at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Update on the Atlanta Child Murders Case

Wayne Williams, the man held responsible for the murders, has finally won his demand for DNA testing. As I wrote for the AJC last year, I welcome this development.

But on another note, I ran into an old friend at a reading I did at Emory last year. During the Q&A he asked how I would feel if Wayne Williams was released. I went into my talk about the suspicious elements of the trail. He said, "But how would you FEEL?" I didn't really understand what he was reaching for, but after the talk he explained that the idea of Williams being released made him feel like a scared little kid all over again.

Whatver happens with the DNA testing, Atlanta, "The City Too Busy To Hurt", has a lot of emotional work to do. If not, we may become the city too busy to heal.

Thanks to my Spelman sister, Malaika, for telling me about the artile.

Posted at 12:33 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Look At Me, A Jersey Girl Already

The good people of my home-to-be emailed me asking if I thought Toni Morrison should be inducted into the NEW JERSEY HALL OF FAME. My first impulse was (in the reverse spirit of Whitney Houston) Hell to the yeah! But that was before I got a look at the ballot.

You'll have to check it out yourself, but here is my dilemma. The Great Ms. Morrison is nominated in the "general" category, but so is Harriet Tubman, the woman known as Moses. (This, of course, could be a non-issue if Ms. Tubman was listed under HISTORY, where she belongs.)

So this brings up today's thought: We all believe that literature is important. Our stories are who we are. They are our collective memory, our psyche. But how does the beauty and red-hot truth of Beloved compare to the work that Harriet Tubman did? Morrison wrote about slavery, but Tubman literally freed people from slavery. Harriet Tubman was black, female, and epileptic, yet she physically delivered hundreds of black folks from chattel slavery in the American south-- she did this work knowing that the penalty was death.

Harriet Tubman is getting my vote, even though she is in the wrong category. If she were listed in History where she belongs, I'd choose her over Einstein and Edison. (Freedom is more important than light bulbs or nuclear fission.) Let's all trot over there and cast our votes for Harriet Tubman. I am sure Toni Morrison will approve.

Posted at 07:25 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Novemeber 30

It's my birthday. 36. Can you believe it? I used to be so much younger...

Posted at 12:48 AM | Comments (11)
Category: Current Events

Updates in the ATL Child Murders Case

Although it's been almost 30 years, there are still new developments Atlanta Child Murders case. (This is the historical backdrop to my first novel, Leaving Atlanta.) Wayne Williams, the man held responsible for the murders, has requested DNA testing. Here is the article ; you'll also find a sidebar with lots of further reading and pictures.

Posted at 08:57 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

The Blogosphere Mourns Bebe Moore Campbell

**please be sure to read the moving comment that was posted this morning. TJ

Posted at 02:32 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

Spend A Month Writing by the Beach!

That's what I did last summer. And they are taking applications for this coming June! Click here for more info on the Gibraltar Point Artist Residency in Canada. (and before you ask, it's FREE to participate.) And here are the photos that I took when I was there in June!

Posted at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Bebe Moore Campbell, RIP

I've just received word of the passing of sister-writer, Bebe Moore Campbell. It wasn't even a year ago that we mourned the passing of Octavia Butler. As Sweet Honey in the Rock would say, "They are falling all around me."

How do you honor a writer's transition? You can do it by writing the hardest and truest story you can. Sister Bebe never took the easy route with her work. Her first novel, Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, took a look at the lynching of African-American men and with this work she did more than just preach to the choir. She opened her heart and her imagination to see how hate and violence diminish everyone it touches. Her last work, 72-Hour Hold, looked at the pain of mental illness. She pulled back the curtain on this condition that we don't like to talk about. She showed that mental illness and institutionalization affects us too, and it isn't like a movie.

Sister Bebe is gone, but not forgotten. Memorialize her today and tomorrow and your writing tables. Make the time to fortify our literary tradition. Tell your truth and tell it well. Witness in the memory of Bebe Moore Campbell. Be brave and be thorough. Employ your gorgeous gifts to celebrate our sister and her important work.

Posted at 02:20 PM | Comments (4)
Category: Current Events

Boo!

Posted at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Links and Such

Like everybody, I have been doing the holiday-boogie. So sorry for the posting slow down. I've seen some cool stuff on line and would like to share some links.

Posted at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

It's 10:17 pm, do you know where BNH is?

On stage, in Harlem. Without me. If you were at the Apollo tonight, send me a report.

Lord, I love The Brand New Heavies.

Posted at 09:20 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

James Nachtwey: Witness

I was not familiar with James Nachtwey's work until now. He bears witness to some of the greatest attrocities of our time. View his work and be changed.

Posted at 10:03 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Rhymes with BIGGER

There's an article in Editor and Publisher about whether we should continue using the phrase "The N-Word" when speaking about a certain racial epithet that refers to people of African descent and rhymes with BIGGER.

[T]he Washington Post's assistant managing editor for copy desks, Don Podesta, is urging writers there to use some other reference than "the N-word."

"We've used this euphemism in more than a dozen stories in the last month. It's trivializing and almost cutesy, as in 'Johnny said the f-word in school today, Mom,'" Podesta wrote in a memo to staffers last week.

So how should it be reported? Should the newspapers just write the word out in all it's infamy? Or should they say something like "a common racial slur." How can you say it, without saying it, and still let the newspaper readers know how bad the situation was?

(via ed)

Posted at 08:05 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

The Before Columbus Foundation

Since today is "Columbus Day," I thought I would take some time to talk about the American Book Awards, which are given by the Before Columbus Foundation. Folks who are not in the writing world, often confuse the American Book Award with the National Book Award, but let me tell you, there is a big difference.

Continue reading this entry

Posted at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Congratulations to Regina Carter!

The MacArthur foundation has announced this year's fellows list and I am delighted to see Regina Carter among them. She's a remarkable jazz violinist. The MacArthur website stresses her conservatory training but if you hear the lady play, you will see that she stresses her soul.

Check out this great NPR interview recorded when Regina Carter went to Italy to play in "The Cannon", Paganini's famous violin. It's a great story. The Italians were sort of freaked out that her jazz influences would somehow damage their nationally treasured violin. And then, Ms. Regina worked her magic. Even if you are not "into" string music, give Regina Carter a chance. Since she has won this wonderful half-a-million dollar prize, I am not urging you to buy her music because she needs the money. I am urging you to buy her music because you are in need of her gorgeous sounds-- whether you know it or not!

Let's hear it for the MacArthur Foundation. Job well done.

UPDATE: Putting my money where my mouth is, I will send an iTunes certificate for Regina Carter's album she recorded on Pagnini's violin to the first person to comment that she wants it!

Posted at 07:11 AM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

Just Call Me Paul Revere

The Heavies Are Coming! The Heavies are Coming!

BNH are coming back to DC on October 20. 930 Club. Midnight show. Oh baby.

I. Am. So. PSYCHED.

Posted at 07:22 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Revenge is Best When It is Complicated

Check this out:
A.N. Wilson, one of London'd mose visible literary figures, thought he had hit pay dirt when he discovered a sexy letter from John Beteman to Honor Tracy. Wilson printed the letter in full as part of his new biography of Betjeman. But.... Welll...

But as it turns out, the first letters of each sentence, except the first, spell out an insulting sentence that starts with Mr. Wilson's name and ends with a vulgarity (NYT)

The letters spell out "A.N. Wilson is a shit."

I had a little chuckle at this. No one knows who sent the forged letter to Wilson in the first place. If I were on the investigatory team, I would go immediately to the person who said, "Hey! I think this letter is a hoax! And if you look really closely it seems to be a coded INSULT!" I mean, who other than the guilty party would even look at it that closely?

thx CTD.

Posted at 07:03 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

We Still Wear The Mask, by Jelani Cobb

You all might remember my moking response to Ice Cube and other hip-hop stars' critque of Oprah Winfrey. Ice Cube, et al, accuse Ms. Winfrey of having a "problem" with hip-hop and demand that she invite them onto her show. Jelani Cobb, professor of history at Spelman College (my alma mater), intense culture-critic, and all-around righteous brother, has written a more serious and thought-provoking response. Meet Jelani, and read his essay.

These days, camouflage is the new black. Hip hop now operates on a single hope: that if the world mistakes kindness for weakness it can also be led to confuse meanness with strength.

Continue reading this entry

Posted at 03:59 PM | Comments (7)
Category: Current Events , Guest Bloggers

Oprah, I Have a Bone To Pick With You

Dear Oprah,
I read in the news last week that a few hip hops stars, like Ice Cube Ludacris and 50 Cent are angry with you because you don't seem to embrace hip hop on your show. Well, Oprah-- may I call you that? I've always wanted to hear myself say "Well, Oprah,"-- I have been thinking it over and it has occurred to me that you have never had ME on your show either! I know you think that Harpo is your company and it's is YOUR show, and YOUR magazine, your whole EMPIRE, your WORLD, even.. but I think I am going to have to agree with my fellow ATLien, Ludacris, that you sort of owe it to me to feature me and my art on your show. I mean, out and out here living and breathing, doing my art, writing my books and you have just failed to catapult me to fame and/or fortune. And what's up with that?

Now, before you go and take this the wrong way, just hear me out. I want to kiss and make up. Ice Cube has a really good idea. Why not have me on your show to discuss why you haven't ever had me on your show? We could read read my books, Leaving Atlanta and The Untelling, and have a discussion about the issues I have raised here. I think that is a reasonable compromise that works out for everyone.

Sincerely,
Tayari Jones

Posted at 06:39 AM | Comments (4)
Category: Current Events

A Tale of Two Brothers

I was listening to NPR the other day and I heard a report that I can only describe as haunting. I was moved by what I heard, that I wrote into NPR and they posted my comment on thier website and designated the story a "Driveway Moment." The story is the story of Troy and Tovan, two black boys, who were roommates in a Washington, DC group home. About ten years ago, they were interviewed and shared all their childhood dreams. Ten years later, things are different. Listen to this story. It will change you.

Posted at 07:01 PM | Comments (4)
Category: Current Events

Update on the Atlanta Child Murders Case

As many of you know, my first novel, LEAVING ATLANTA, is about growing up in Atlanta during the Atlanta Child Murders. From 1979-1981 at least thirty African American children were murdered in my hometown. Well, there is a bit of recent activity in the case.
The CNN article has a sort of neutral title: "Conviction Disputed in Atlanta Child Murders Case." The AJC breaks it down a little bit more: "Attorney: Info Witheld in Wayne Williams Case."

From the AJC:

An attorney for convicted murderer Wayne Williams said Friday that a child molester now serving time in a Georgia prison may be connected to as many as 20 of the 22 killings his client was blamed for when he was convicted in 1982.

Of course, none of this could have come to light if Police Chief Louis Graham hadn't reopened the cases last year. My thoughts here and here.

(thx, jurgen)

Posted at 06:50 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Katherine Dunham, RIP

an excerpt from the NYT obit.

How could anyone be stopped by the color of her skin after her invincibly lush sensuality and witty intelligence had seduced audiences on Broadway, in Hollywood films and in immensely popular dance shows that toured the world? And how could anyone cram black American dance into one or two conveniently narrow categories — or for that matter ignore the good strong roots that would one day grow green stems and leaves — with the vision of her company's lavishly theatrical African and Caribbean dance revues in mind?

Posted at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Octavia Butler Memorial Scholarship *FUND*

I am happy to announce that there is now a movement to endow a scholarship in the name of Octavia Butler, the brilliant writer who passed away a few weeks ago. Everyone is encouraged to donate to this cause which would give students of color the opportunity to attend the Clarion Writing Workshops where Ms. Butler got her start.

I have an idea for how we can all help to raise the money. Why not plan a weekend of fundraising benefits? I imagine that in several citites, on the very same weekend, readers come and read Ms. Butler's works aloud. A bookseller could vend the books and donate the profits to the fund. The oraganizer in each town would secure a space, invite some local notables (writers, actors, etc) to read, thus drawing a crowd, but also invite some regular folks who just loved Ms. Butler to come and read and remember. I thinking a small door charge, just $5 or something that most everyone can afford to pay, but the hat will be passed at the end, there will be the book sales and maybe the bar will donate too!

Posted at 07:45 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Black Power, Kinderegarten Style

Little Autum Ashante's poem, titled "White Nationalism Put U in Bondage", has gotten her in barred from the Westchester School District. She's seven, she's political, and she's a poet. (Perhaps she is the reincarnation of Philis Wheatley?) Here's an excerpt:

Black lands taken from your hands, by vampires with no remorse," the aspiring actress and poet wrote. "They took the gold, the wisdom and all the storytellers. They took the black women, with the black man weak. Made to watch as they changed the paradigm of our village.

Continue reading this entry

Posted at 10:45 AM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

March 8 is Blog Against Sexism Day

I'm doing it. Anybody else?

(via Ed)

Posted at 08:37 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

A Belated R.I.P.

Well lookie here, the NYT has finally seen fit to run an obit for Octavia Butler-- a mere five days after the fact. Classy.

Posted at 01:33 PM | Comments (7)
Category: Current Events

Remembering Octavia E. Butler

The blogosphere mourns.

1947-2006

Steven Barnes says goodbye to his old friend.
A lovely photo at Hatian Ecclectic.
Here, we find out that the middle initial E was for Estelle.
Cyborg Democracy remembers the woman who made sci fi political
On The Verge of Dating White Girls still has some love left over for Octavia.
Kynn gives us a great quote from the Great Woman.
Bee In The Honey gives thanks.
Eldritchhobbit quotes Butler's poetry
and
Ed Champion discovered Octavia Butler when he was just a little kid and he's never been the same.

update: a mere two days after the fact, the "mainstream" press remembers, too:
Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune. Somebody give me a holler when you hear from the NYT. And is it too much to want a little something from the black press?

Posted at 09:43 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

R.I.P. Octavia Butler

I got a email today saying that Octavia Butler had passed away. I emailed Ed Champion, who interviewed Ms. Butler on his excellent podcast. I was pretty much begging him to disprove it. At first he emailed back and said there was nothing on the wires about it, but I guess what we have to understand that just because our prophets die, the AP will not neccesarily stop the presses to spread the news. Champion kept digging and finally, he called the King County Medical Examiner where it was confirmed. Octavia Butler is dead and the world is the worse off for it.

About three months ago, I ran into Ms. Butler in the Chicago O'Hare airport. I was unsure if I should speak to her, as she was famous for being shy. But I approached her and told her how much I loved her work, how much it meant to me. I can't tell you how happy I am that a random encounter gave me the opportunity to pay my respects while she was still able to hear them.

Posted at 05:51 PM | Comments (5)
Category: Current Events

Forget The Homework-Eating Dog

Arizona Senate’s Committee on Higher Education has voted to let university and community-college students opt out of reading assignments that they find "offensive."

Okay, can you imagine the practical applications of this?

Me: "Excuse me Little Johnny.. Where is your homework?"
Johnny: "It offended me, so I didn't do it."
Me: Well, that's completely legal. Let me write a separate syllabus just for you. I wouldn't want you to accidently get exposed to anything new. Please forgive me!

Posted at 07:08 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Current Events

The Cult of Oprah?

Check out this article about Oprah. I will tell you that I was alienated right off the bat by the accompanying graphic. I know that the idea was to parody the movie poster from "Attack of the 50-Foot Woman", but when I see a black woman portrayed as a savage...

And this quote:

Letterman is by no means the first one to realize that the road to success — or forgiveness — entails planting a kiss somewhere on Oprah’s oft-fluctuating anatomy.

Umm.. can we talk about the woman's incredible power without making a reference to her WEIGHT??

I don't even watch her show, being TV-less and all. But I was utterly unconvinced by this article. I know The Oprah has a lot of power, but I didn't really see why I should be "afraid." But maybe it's because I don't find powerful (black) women frightening....

**UPDATE** the story has been REMOVED from the server.. It is also gone from AOL where I sound the link in the first place. I wonder if THE OPRAH put her legal folks on the case...

**UPDATED UPDATE** It's back up. Probably too much trafic. (Thx psiii)

Posted at 05:52 AM | Comments (5)
Category: Current Events

In Memory of Mrs. King

Mone'Sha sent me this link to Mrs. Coretta Scott King's lovely funeral program. It's in .pdf so if you have a good printer you can have a really nice copy.

When Rosa Parks passed away last year, my great-aunt Kathryn (also known as "Doll") sent me a copy of that program. I don't know where she got the original, but she spent a pretty penny at Kinko's making color copies, and these pennies were not easy to come by.

I keep it on my coffee table.

On another note: Did anybody record the funeral? I want to see or hear what Joseph Lowery said about Bush and the war. And if you didn't actually record it, I would be satisfied with just a summary. I did find this official story. But let me know what YOU say. Don't make me wait for the JET story. You know it will take them a good three weeks to get it together!

Posted at 08:29 AM | Comments (3)
Category: Current Events

Remembering Coretta Scott King

Mrs. Coretta Scoot King died last night at the age of 1978. The following is a remembrance of her:

Mrs. King rose from rural poverty in Heiberger, Ala., to become an international symbol of the civil rights revolution of the 1960s and a tireless advocate for a long litany of social and political issues ranging from women's rights to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa that followed in its wake.

She was studying music at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston in 1952 when she met a young graduate student in philosophy, who on their first date told her: "The four things that I look for in a wife are character, personality, intelligence and beauty. And you have them all." A year later she and Dr. King, then a young minister from a prominent Atlanta family, were married, beginning a remarkable partnership that ended with Dr. King's assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

Read the rest of the article here. It will show you a side of Mrs. King that you didn't know.

Posted at 03:51 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

August Wilson has passed away

The great playwright, August Wilson, has died at age sixty. Say a prayer, light a candle, wish him well on his journey.

Posted at 06:50 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Kanye, The T-Shirt

You just have to love the T-shirt/bumper sticker culture. AFTER you make your donation to hurricane relief, you can go to this site and order your "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People" T-shirt. Think of it as your dessert.

Posted at 02:43 PM | Comments (9)
Category: Current Events

The Compassion of Barbara Bush

Recent remarks by Barbara Bush really underscore the utter lack of compassion and sensitivity by the ruling political class in this country. I wish this was an urban legend, but it's not. Here is a link to the original document. It will make you angry. And it should show you that the suffering people should not count on too much help from Washington. It's going to be up to us to provide relief. I know a lot of folks got paid on the first. Give. Meanwhile, check out the former first lady's despicable remarks:

In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I’m hearing which is sort of
scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is
so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you
know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she
chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

Posted at 10:23 AM | Comments (3)
Category: Current Events

Kanye West Rips Bush

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I have no TV, so I am often the last person to find out what's happening in the pop culture world. So, I am just now finding out that Kanye West went off on the president during a benefit concert. To be more specific,

"George Bush doesn't care about black people" and said America is set up "to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible."

Continue reading this entry

Posted at 10:35 AM | Comments (21)
Category: Current Events

Make A Donation, I'll Send You A Book

I have an idea:
If you make a donation to help with Hurricane Katrina Relief, I'll send you a signed hardcover copy of one my books-- Leaving Atlanta or The Untelling.

If you donate through Network For Good, they will give you a nice email receipt that you can forward to me (and use for your taxes.) If you already have Leaving Atlanta and The Untelling, I'd be glad to sign the book for a friend and mail it directly to that person.

Continue reading this entry

Posted at 09:47 AM | Comments (5)
Category: Current Events