Books by Arthur Flowers
De Mojo Blues
/ Another Good Loving Blues
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Cleveland Lee's Beale Street Band
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Magical
Negro: The Root
Where’s the Afrospiritual Practitioners
"effective instruments of
empowerment" By Arthur Flowers
looking back its
hard to remember my first knowledge of the conqueror
what i always knew about was the root
the root was big in my family, but i dont know that it
was necessarily
connected to the conqueror as entity
it wasnt until i started my own hoodoo studies that i
came across the
conqueror himself
and that i think was thru zora neale hurston riff
and later jackie torrence
zoraneale & jackie riffed him as a returning cultural
hero
and that riff has stuck with me
what i need to do is ask my northcarolina folk
who are the hoodoo branch what they know
about the conqueror as entity, perhaps they
passed it on when i was too young to catch it
as happened with much of the family hoodoo knowledge
i knew of them but like much of the rest of the family
my baptist upbringing more tolerated them than listened
to them
when i was a youngster i just didnt get it
and most of the oldschool ones have died off now
wasnt until i decided to walk the path myself that i had
to dredge up old knowledge, and shame to say
highjohn as entity wasnt part of that
the root always been there though
rickydoc
September 13, 2005
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* * Where’s the Afrospiritual Practitioners
i went by the narc site to see what they were saying on katrina
i was real underimpressed, both by what they had to say
basically that god is mad at us
and at the site in general http://www.narcworld.com
ran across an article abou their last conference that sent me
there
http://www.sfbayview.com/082405/narcprepares082405.shtml
i thought 250 dollars was excessive but then folk know i got
issues
with atrs preoccupation with the dollars
dont get me wrong i know folk got to make a living but there
is a difference between payment for services rendered and
being a moneychanger in the temple,
i dont claim thats what
they are but i do believe thats an issue for atr reform
along with issues like potential for abuse in the godparent
system and
so on and so forth, but let me not go there
i dont claim these are endemic in atr but these are some of the
reform issues that atr is going to have to address in its effort
to manifest as a mainstream religion
i went through the rest of their site to see what else they were
offering
and it was real slack, i mean absolutely nothing of value
except that god is mad at us
and if their site is the public face of what they are and what
they about
they got a long way to before they are ready for primetime
i know some of you kinda believe in them and have testified
so i assume they are more primetime than their site indicates
but i didnt see anything on their site that gave me
confidence that they are ready to be competitive
with the christians and muslims or anybody else
for that matter
i assume that they are more than their website shows
but having a functional website is like fundamental in this day
and age
and they not covering their fundamentals
all it did was ask for money
and talk about how katrina was cause
god is mad at us - thats tired, thats really tired
with the understanding that new orleans is
one of the afrospiritual centers of the americas
i would expect a lot more from some organization
that wants to represent afrospiritual practitioners
most hoodoos are not that excited
about being 'accredited'
if they want my money/support
'i need a little less moneychanging
and a lot more wisdom
rickydoc
September 13, 2005
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effective instruments of empowerment
i am moved by the response of the black
community to the challenge of katrina. i am impressed with
the armies of volunteers that have emerged fully armored from
the ground. i am impressed by the adhoc networks that have
sprung out of thin air. i have noted the adhoc network
forged by miriam willis of memphis from resources forged from
years of struggle.
i have noted how rudy of chickenbones was
able to transform his informal network of intellectual
dialogues into an effective clearinghouse of timely and enabling
information, an instrument that was not possible before the
advent of the net. i have noted how black america web has
positioned itself and listserv groups like vivaarts out in
california
have suddenly manifested as effective
instruments of empowerment in a manner never before possible.
what were casual networks have been transformed by adversity
into instruments. melvin gibbs of the hoodoo way called it
a testing and so far i judge black america to have met the test.
i salute you.
i have also noted the lack of timely
response by mainstream black organizations, the naacp and the
national urban league have been tardy, as have alternative
leadership like the nation of islam and the black radical
congress. ah but the people, by god the people have done
me proud, based on what i know to be happening in memphis, i
assume to be
happening in the other sanctuary cities and
the Black Net(work) has become a force to be reckoned with. for
all the tragedy this has been, the africanamerican community has
pulled together in response and shown itself to be an effective
force in our first true challenge of the 21st century. i
am proud to be part of this moment
in struggle
rickydoc flowers
September 2005
posted September 14, 2005
Arthur
Flowers, a Memphis native, is the author of two novels,
De Mojo Blues and Another Good Loving Blues (Ballantine Books), and a children's story,
Cleveland Lee's Beale Street Band. He is a
Vietnam veteran, blues singer, co-founder of the New Renaissance
Writer's Guild. In addition, he is the webmaster of Rootsblog:
A Cyberhoodoo Webspace and a performance artist whose presentation, Delta Oracle: A Griot
Speaks in Tongues, keeps him busy and Professor of MFA Fiction at Syracuse University.
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Michelle Alexander: US Prisons, The New Jim Crow
/
Judge Mathis Weighs in on the execution of Troy Davis
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
By
Michelle
Alexander
The
mass incarceration of people of color through the War on
Drugs is a big part of the reason that a black child
born today is less likely to be raised by both parents
than a black child born during slavery. The absence of
black fathers from families across America is not simply
a function of laziness, immaturity, or too much time
watching Sports Center. Hundreds of thousands of black
men have disappeared into prisons and jails, locked away
for drug crimes that are largely ignored when committed
by whites. Most people seem to
imagine that the drug war—which has swept millions of
poor people of color behind bars—has been aimed at
rooting out drug kingpins or violent drug offenders.
Nothing could be further from the truth. This war has
been focused overwhelmingly on low-level drug offenses,
like marijuana possession—the very crimes that happen
with equal frequency in middle class white communities.
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The Persistence of the Color Line
Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency
By Randall Kennedy
Among the best things about
The Persistence of the Color Line
is watching Mr. Kennedy hash through the
positions about Mr. Obama staked out by
black commentators on the left and
right, from Stanley Crouch and Cornel
West to Juan Williams and Tavis Smiley.
He can be pointed. Noting the way Mr.
Smiley consistently “voiced skepticism
regarding whether blacks should back
Obama” . . .
The
finest chapter in
The Persistence of the Color Line
is so resonant, and so personal, it
could nearly be the basis for a book of
its own. That chapter is titled
“Reverend Wright and My Father:
Reflections on Blacks and Patriotism.”
Recalling some of the criticisms of
America’s past made by Mr. Obama’s
former pastor, Mr. Kennedy writes with
feeling about his own father, who put
each of his three of his children
through Princeton but who “never forgave
American society for its racist
mistreatment of him and those whom he
most loved.” His father distrusted
the police, who had frequently called
him “boy,” and rejected patriotism. Mr.
Kennedy’s father “relished Muhammad
Ali’s quip that the Vietcong had never
called him ‘nigger.’ ” The author places
his father, and Mr. Wright, in
sympathetic historical light. |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update 25
November 2011
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