ChickenBones: A Journal

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  We need to be more . . . willing to learn from each other, and adopt a spirit of collaboration.

We need to tabulate those listservs, websites, blogs, whether black,

white, Asian or, Hispanic, that we are able to work with and use in our efforts.

 

 

Rootsblog -- Katrina Commentary: The Players & Complexities of  The Game

 

Katrina & Kalamu

Creating Community in Cyberspace

"web sites have been and will continue to be vital" (Miriam)

 

To: K. Brisbane  

We have a coworker who is from Gulfport/Biloxi and has just come back from trying to help his parents see what they had left (they had evacuated to his house up here in North Mississippi).  He said the churches were the only ones down there helping (the people from our church who went down had someone originally from down there and they took back roads to keep from being stopped by the authorities - sneaked in, you might say).  He said they had not seen any FEMA people til more than a week after, and that the Red Cross just showed up last Sunday.  He said they were passing out ice and MREs, but the churches were the ones providing help all along.

It's what I'm hearing from my cousin down there, but I don't hear from her much because she's staying at someone else's house in Mobile, AL while she and her husband go back and forth to Pascagoula trying to work on their house that had 4.5 feet of water in it during the storm.

I assume you've read the stories about people trying to walk out of N.O. being turned back by armed deputies?  if not, go to some of these:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9324538/
http://blogs.sohh.com/katrina/archives/2005/09/why_the_hurricane_survivors_co.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article311784.ece

These deputies and their chief need to go to jail. Now. 

--Waurene Roberson

 

*   *   *   *   *

Free in Tobago 

How do we let people know what is really going on down there?  I thought of passing on emails coming from folk there or who are getting info from family members down there.  Read Waurene's account [above]

K. Brisbane

*   *   *   *   *

Rudy

It's so heartening to know (1) that people are responding so well to the crisis (2) that the folk are rising, phoenix-like from the ashes (or, rather, the wading in the water), and (3) that musicians, artists, and writers are using their talents to focus attention on the issues.  You, Kalamu, and others are deep in that water. Miriam

Rudy and Arthur (Rootsblog), you and others like you who have web sites have been and will continue to be vital in the effort of distributing information and raising awareness. Miriam 

*   *   *   *   *

Web sites have been and will continue to be vital Miriam

During the evacuation drama, if you recall several of us set up a kind of clearinghouseJoyce King, Herbert Rogers, Arthur Flowers and otherswe all made use of our email address books in passing along and filtering information and finding out the health of people we knew and how they could be assisted. So we all discovered that this toolemail systemwas not just for personal and business uses, but also a means of responding to community needs and acting as a community.

Most of these individuals we only know through cyberspace. Most of us have never touched flesh. Then, there were also academic listservs and more commercial websites, as well as bloggers who all came together in relating Katrina information, and relating to each other. This whole episode in the coming together of these diverse groups and individuals needs some reflection and thought on this special phenomenon.

One thing I learned is that I had to better organize information I was receiving for there was a ton of it. Of course, I had a couple of people who asked to be taken off my list. But they were a tiny few. To manage the material I started using folders and sub-folders. I also have an email system that can hold 2000mb of information and here I also use folders and I have a security system that assures me. I have also started using more links on ChickenBones: A Journal (www.nathanielturner.com), which is also a way of organizing information, that is, where websites and blogs are. I also had to make decisions on what to publish and what to link, what will have lasting value.

One of the peculiar things about ChickenBones in relation to other websites is that we have always behaved in a dynamic manner, unlike the behavior of "journals" and "magazines" with weekly, monthly routines. If information is sent us, it might be up an hour later. One well-known black journal was on vacation during most of the Katrina coverage. So with its  flexibility and dynamism and collaborative spirit ChickenBones was probably able to play a greater role than some other independent black websites.

Of course, our non-commercial, non-institutional character kept us at a distance from "media objectivity" and "Katrina donation" efforts as was the case with the more commercial and institution connected websites. Of course, I think that cultural consciousness and social  and personal commitment played a role, also, in these matters. Of course, there were black organizations with websites who did nothing in regard to the Katrina efforts. Yet some of them worry about where they appear in google.

As I have stated Kalamu ya Salaam  is my model for black commitment in cyberspace. He has hosted the listserv e-drum 365 days for seven years. No charge. He used his new website Breath of Life (www.kalamu.com/bol), another of his non-commercial efforts, significantly and strategically, with programmed music to soothe our anguished souls and inspire our efforts. And he has been planning another site to deal with video and sound and New Orleans cultural life. He has been theorizing for years on the use of the internet by writers, artists, and other cultural workers. So he is the central example for me and others should pay attention to the genius of the man “Digital Technology & Telling Our Story.” I have been observing his work since 1999.

I think we all need to become more conscious of the tools and the potential of the tools we have in our possession. We need to be more conscious and aware of each other, and patient and tolerant with each other, and willing to learn from each other, and adopt a spirit of collaboration. We need to tabulate those listservs, websites, blogs, whether black white, Asian or, Hispanic, that we are able to work with and use in our efforts.

The Katrina experience should be viewed as a wake-up call for blacks in cyberspace. The internet can be used for more than just selling our wares and other business enticements, tea room talk, and institutional transmission of institutional information. I'm an infant, four years in cyberspace, I know I'm still learning, reflecting, figuring how I can make best use of our efforts and make it relevant to black and progressive struggle across the globe.

We know that it's possible to make the internet a much fuller experience. As TV surpassed radio, the internet can have the same kind of impact. We are far away from a text-based internet, we got images and sound now (which can be experienced in combination), and Kalamu is working on his own website of image and sound together. With Windows we can listen to Breath of Life while at the same time browse ChickenBones. Or listen to Bob Marley while we read an article on ChickenBones. Or listen to Big Chief Monk Boudreaux  on the Tipitina's website.

And there is internet radio, which I doubt played any significant role at all during this crisis, because people still ain't hip to it. Times-Picayune discovered it had more influence online than with its paper copy. People are learning that there is no conflict between paper publishing and internet publishing. Academics are also discovering this fact. Because they publish an article on ChickenBones that does not stop that same article being published in paper.

So all of us got to regear our thoughts with regard to the vitality and necessity of creating community in cyberspace.

As ever and always, Rudy

*   *   *   *   *

Rudy,

Today was Mother's Day (when I go to spend time with my mother), so I'm just now getting around to my messages.

If you're an infant, then I'm still in the womb, but it has just been amazing to me what you guysyou, Kalamu, Arthur, and others in the network like Herbert and Sandraare doing.  I'm not a techie at all, so this whole experience has been a real revelation to me.  Although Herbert had told me about ChickenBones, I really had not accessed it or known about Kalamu's or Arthur's work.

In your essay, you have made a very cogent and insightful assessment of the significance of the technological tools that are availableand are yet to comein communicating ideas.  In fact, I'm going to send your statement to people I know who are hooked in and on the new stuff, and I'll print up a copy for one of my radical /progressive/activist friends who criticizes use of the technology without understanding its tremendous impact.

Thank you for all that you're doing and thinking and communicating.

Peace, Miriam  

*   *   *   *   *

From Canada

I fully agree Rudolph. I have sent on your emails to my friends and family across the United States, Canada, Mexico and Guyana and they in turn have sent your e-mails on to their contacts. We have a powerful tool of communication at our disposal and in time we will with effort and continued planning be able to use it to its fullest potential. Keep up the good work. 

Claire Carew  

*   *   *   *   *

I thought that many of you with whom I've been communicating in the past two weeks would be interested in reading this assessment of the significance of technology with respect to the Katrina disaster:  in helping to locate people; getting help to them in the form of jobs and information, spreading the real truth; negating the lies from the government and, in some cases, the media; and developing a discourse around such issues as racism, displacement, reconstruction, and the environment. 

Like me, you all probably felt like stations on the Underground Railroad, with messages, questions, appeals, and published articles, coming in right and left, and I thank you for all your work, which bore tangible results.  An African American lawyer in Tobago has sized up all the charitable organizations to find out which onesother than the Red Cross & Salvation Armyare really helping on the grassroots letter.  Another organized her friends, bought supplies, and mailed them to Louisiana. 

One person has been spirit-led to start a purple ribbon crosses campaign, which is catching on like wildfire.  Many have written powerful poems and essays about the tragedy, while others are capturing the voices of the displaced.  A friend who cares about the Cuban people keeps us abreast of their concern and offers of help.  Another made posters for the demonstration last week and brought along several of her colleagues.  Several searched web sites looking for those who hadn't been heard from, and many have helped find temporary or permanent positions for the evacuees. 

The main thing is that we're working together, many of us for the first time, to reach out to those in need.  Miriam  

*   *   *   *   *

Miriam and Claire, peace and blessings,

thanks for your kind words and efforts. I took the liberty and posted your comments here on ChickenBones. Note also that Kalamu is on the case with Breath of Life. There's a rap tune already out with Kanye West's comments about George Bush.

It is indeed astounding how far many of us are in back of the curve with respect to the uses of digital technology. We have many high schools and teachers who neither have computers and computer labs and technical staff to maintain them, to teach the various uses that they can be put to. We have teachers and professors who boast that they do not use email. It's a shameful affair. And, of course, these adults do not trust our students with the technology because we are afraid of our children--what they might discover about us and what they might say about us. So we place great restrictions on their use.

So many of our children are poor and thus have little access to the technology and its educational value. And, of course, the public libraries are no longer teaching institutions, and so they are of little help to those students who drop out, and they are many.  Of course, there are some who are indeed making use of digital technology. Kalamu has been involved in teaching digital technology to high school students--writing scripts and making film. His teaching program is all written out. I've seen some of that work and it is excellent.

But, of course, it is not just tech knowledge to which I refer. It is technical knowledge and right purpose and attitude, as can be understood in Kalamu's WORDS: A Neo-Griot Manifesto. It is not just technical knowledge, but an informed approach that will make the difference. We telling our own story, from our own unique sensibility, that's the thing we got to get to. And from the recent fiasco in New Orleans we know how important that is. 

Corporate media produced important material with their cameras, but their reports and analyses were off the mark. Our email systems, blogs, and websites changed how the story was shaped and we discovered quite quickly that other people from Europe, Asia, and Africa were not looking on our suffering with the same insensitivity as many of our fellow countrymen.

So our educators and our schools got to get hip to what century we in and begin to behave accordingly. Your words and sentiments, I believe, will go a long way in altering these regressive attitudes. As you know, it is still a chore to teach black history in public schools, for fear of offending a minority of white students. Cable TV and NPR and PBS will not do the work for us, for here too the messages are usually shaped by those who are not us, for us, and often fear us. Academics at colleges and universities have the technology. But there are only a few that are making full use of it for their professors or for their students or for the general community. Again, shameless.

But cyberspace is much more democratic, cheaper and thus accessible for those who don't have corporate or foundation backing. Thus there are many more opportunities and  greater possibilities of shaping our world as we need it to be shaped and when we need it shaped. These efforts depend on individual initiative, commitment, and enduring consciousness. What Kalamu, Ethelbert, Arthur Flowers, and I do today is only pioneering work. We are still at the early stages. We still learning the technology and the technology is improving and we still learning how to work it and work with each other.

But I am hopeful and expect great things to happen. As ever and always, Rudy

posted 18 September 2005

 

 

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Related files: Conversations with Miriam  / Do New Orleans Folk Have a Choice?  / Sitting ducks at the superdome (Claire Carew)