Abel Meeropol & Langston Hughes:Strange Dream

Lately in class, we have been reading/ analyzing Harlem Renaissance poetry (esp. Langston Hughes' "Harlem" and listening to protest music (esp. Marion Anderson's "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" of the 1930's...this led to my strange dream of last night!

Langston Hughes
1902-1967

Abel Meeropol
1903-1986

In my dream (no kidding!), Abel Meeropol and Langston Hughes were sitting together at Cafe Society (a night club) in Greenwich Village and doing "freestyle poetry" together...I have put Hughes' verses in bold print:


What happens to a dream deferred?

Southern trees bear strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root.

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Or fester like a sore - and then run?

Pastoral scene of the gallant south, the bulging eyes and the twisted mouth.

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh, then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Or crust and sugar over - like syrupy sweet?

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, for the rain to gather, for the wind to suck.

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop, here is a strange and bitter crop.

Or does it explode?



I woke up thinking...I wish Billie Holiday and Nina Simone would've been there to sing it as a duet!

Bloody Sunday:"WE"

Bloody Sunday-March 7, 1965

This past weekend marked the 50th anniversary/ commemoration of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama.  President Barack Obama delivered a stirring keynote address in front of thousands at the base of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. His 40 minute speech was part history lesson, a reminder of our dark past, a thank you to the grassroots leaders who led the fight, and an encouragement that we still have much work to do.

Here is an excerpt of one of the most often quoted (by the media) sections of his speech:


"...Selma shows us that America is not the project of any one person. Because the single most powerful word in our democracy is the word “We.”  We The People....We Shall Overcome...Yes We Can. It is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone. Oh, what a glorious task we are given, to continually try to improve this great nation of ours."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF9Quk0QhSE

I wonder if President Obama was also thinking of (or had he forgotten) April 9, 1939...when Marian Anderson began to sing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" on the steps of The Lincoln Memorial. She had been invited to sing in Washington by Howard University because of her international fame, but was denied to sing at Constitution Hall because she was Black. The Lincoln Memorial (talk about a symbolic slap in the face to racist America) was selected because it was an outdoor national monument and therefore not segregated.

When she got to the third line of the song, she made a revolutionary and startling change to the lyrics...instead of "of thee I sing" she sang "to thee we sing."  Many years after the concert, she explained why:

 "We cannot live alone...And the thing that made the moment possible for you and for me, has been brought about by many people whom we will never know."


A poignant reminder that those who often affect the most change never end up in the history books...thank you to all of those on Bloody Sunday who we never knew!

Satchel Paige:Words of Wisdom

1906-1982

Satchel Paige was one of the greatest players in the history of baseball...he was one of many who came before Jackie Robinson who truly helped pave the way for the integration of Major League Baseball.  Lately (because of spring training starting this week), I have been thinking of him, Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, "Cool Papa" Bell, "Bullet" Rogan, "Double Duty" Radcliffe and many other African-American athletes who inspired millions and proudly helped blaze a trail for the Civil Rights Movement during a time of intense racism and racial violence.

So much hurt...so much pain...so many insults...so degrading...Satchel (in spite of his 4th grade education) teaches us about the difficult lessons we learn from American History...so much pride, perseverance, love, etc.

In his words:

"It's not what you don't know that hurts you, 

it's what you know that just ain't so."

I hope you will search for the truth and "know your history" and discover that the stereotypes, images/ portrayals, and things people say about you "just ain't so."

The Invisible Man

If you have never read, analyzed, or allowed Ralph Ellison's book The Invisible Man to challenge your way of thinking...you should. In his 1952 classic "first-person" account, Ellison explores the complicated task of defining ones-self in a world that constantly forces its' values, expectations, stereotypes, oppressive power, and hatred on "him" and how it pressures him (and us) to play inauthentic roles as we go through life.

Yazidi Refugees...another invisible man?

His book evokes deep questions about history/ current events...and maybe even expresses history better (through fiction) than most historians, sociologists, journalists, etc.  

In that regard, here is one of my favorite passages:

"History records the patterns of men's lives, they say: Who slept with whom and with what results; who fought and won and who lived to lie about it afterwards. All things, it is said, are duly recorded - all things of importance, that is. But not quite, for actually it is only the known, the seen, the heard and only those events that the recorder regards as important that are put down, those lies his keepers keep their power by."

In a world where deflated footballs and "reality" T.V. take up massive amounts of "media space" while injustice, starvation, genocide, human atrocities, homelessness, racial profiling, police brutality, big brother surveillance, systematic oppression thrive and lives don't matter...it is not surprising that many of us just can't breathe!

An "invisible" challenge to us all...to focus on truth, justice, the humanity of others and...

the truly important things in life.

More Than Words

As we started a new semester on Tuesday, I shared an Aristotle quote with my students...

"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all."

His quote is a good reminder that "book/ head knowledge" is only a small piece of what a true education should be and that the events, people, concepts, etc. we study must be more than words on a piece of paper, white-washed heroes, or a copper statue called Liberty! 

I hope the words we study this semester lead to a development of critical questioning and a critical consciousness full of empathy, awareness, social responsibility, etc...and a willingness to analyze, critique, celebrate, etc. the past and present so we can positively create a future where "all men are created equal."

A former slave from Raleigh, North Carolina poignantly symbolizes the "heart knowledge" and "true education" that Aristotle calls us to:

"They say we don't know what the word 'constitution' means. But, if we don't know enough to know what the Constitution is, we know enough to know what justice is. I can see for myself down at my own courthouse where they've got a figure of a woman with a sword up there. I don't know what you call it: 'Justice'? Well, she's got a handkerchief over her eyes, and the sword is in one hand and a pair of scales in the other. When a white man and a Negro gets into the scales, don't I know the Negro is always mighty light. Don't we all see it? Ain't it so at your courthouse?"

  

La Raza

Jose Vasconcelos

In 1925 (during the "Age of Eugenics"), Jose Vasconcelos published a short essay entitled "La Raza Cosmica"...The Cosmic Race.  He was one of the most influential Mexican- "American" educators/ revolutionaries of the twentieth century. Vasconcelos felt that European-American eugenics-based "racial superiority/ categories" were arrogant, materialistic, repressive, lacking in scientific truth or religious spirituality, etc. and must be refuted. 

He warned that American "culture" must not be imitated, idealized, or celebrated.

His 1925 theory (also deeply racist and stereotyped) catalogs each race/ racial category and their positive traits. He suggested that the "New Master Race" would rise out of Spain/ Portugal and the Latin American mestizo because they possessed the virtuous attributes necessary to usher in a "universal era of humanity".

Although very racist in tone, I love his "final solution"...an optimistic future that combines all the "races" of the world without regard to skin color, ethnicity, nationality, etc.

Best summarized in the final paragraph of his essay:

"So many races that have come and others that will come...In this manner, a sensitive and ample heart will be taking shape within us; a heart that embraces and contains everything and is moved with sympathy, but, full of vigor, imposes new laws upon the world...we shall arrive at the creation of a new race fashioned out of the treasures of all the previous ones: The final race, the Cosmic Race."

Viva La Raza...Viva The Human Race...

Soon or another 100 years?

Minnesota Nice?

Minnesota "Home" for the Feeble-minded

In 1925, Minnesota became the 17th state to pass Eugenics legislation into law. These laws were intended to "protect the gene pool" and allowed Minnesota to perform forced sterilizations/ marriage restrictions on those considered/ labeled "feeble-minded", "unfit", "sexual delinquents", "immoral", "inebriants", "crippled", "dirty", "strange looking", "mentally defective", etc.

Over 2,000 documented sterilizations took place in Minnesota (between 1925-1975)...those most often targeted for sterilization were poor, sexually active, disabled, mentally ill and quite often undesirable women/ immigrants/ minorities...to rid society of negative genetic traits.

Dr. Charles F. Dight

 

 

The leader of the Minnesota Eugenics Movement was Charles Dight, a professor of medicine at Hamline University and the University of Minnesota...

He maintained that mental inferiority/ poor genetics could be easily spotted through two simple "analytical" tools...skull shape/ size and Jazz music. Dight argued that "great men" have larger foreheads/ frontal lobes, while "lower animals" have smaller foreheads...and that Jazz Music was the "devil's kind" of music. He stated that the mentally inferior enjoyed Jazz because it appealed to their "inborn animal nature."

Is it possible that Dr. Dight came up with these theories to distract people from his small forehead and his secret love of Jazz music?