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Last week, I attended an event held at Red
Emma's Bookstore in downtown Baltimore. ChickenBones editors
Amin Sharif and Rudy Lewis were in attendance as well. The event
highlighted Chesa Boudin, Yale graduate, Rhodes Scholar, and
co-editor of the collection, Letters
from Young Activists
(LFYA). Boudin was joined by fellow LFYA contributors Tiffany
King, a Delaware-based teacher and activist, and Najah Farley
Samad, Boudin's Yale classmate.
Boudin took the stage first. Boudin himself
is the result of rather contentious circumstances: he is the
white, middle-class, Ivy League educated son of parents
imprisoned for committing a politically motivated robbery along
with members of the Black Liberation Army. As a result of this
political act, three men were killed, and while Boudin's mother
has been released from prison on parole, his father will more
than likely die in prison.
Of the three young activists present, Boudin
was the most impressive, perhaps nurtured by his time spent on
the road promoting Letters
from Young Activists
, as well as his newest book, The Venezuelan Revolution: 100
Questions and 100 Answers. By this I mean he was the most
articulate and commanding of the three. The event didn't allow
for much revelation in regards to his vision as a young
activist, though, like so much of the young Left, he admitted to
being excited about Venezuela and the democratic revolutions
occurring throughout Latin America. As it were, Venezuela gives
him much hope for the future of the U.S.
Of course, our friend Amin Sharif provided
sparks, engaging Boudin in a bit of back and forth. In response
to Boudin's assertion that the world is indeed more violent and
inequitable than it was in the years of Civil Rights, Black
Power, and White Radicalism, Amin responded that, while it is
true that the preceding generation of activists made missteps
along the way, the same could be said many years from now in
regards to the present group of young activists. Boudin, like
me, only hopes that this is not to be the case.
While the conversations often devolved into
rather immature social criticisms, there were plenty of
captivating dialogues, especially on the topics of white
privilege and using the internet as an organizing tool. Indeed,
white privilege touched a nerve with all those in attendance,
and provided some of the more memorable moments of the night.
It was interesting to hear the insights of
such a diverse group, a more diverse group than I had
anticipated for such a small event. However, there seemed to be
little recognition of the organizational and disseminating
powers of the internet. Rudy and Amin attempted to push the
conversation on this, but as it were, it didn't get as far as it
could have gone. Of course, it was only a two-hour event.
Most disappointing, though, is that I left
away without a real sense of where young activists should direct
their energies, or what sort of program the activists themselves
were following. I think it was Boudin who opined that young
activists were left directionless. I walked away feeling this
way. A lot of sound rhetoric and arguments, but nothing
material. No real political thinking.
But again, this was only a two hour
"event." But one can be pleased by the diversity of
those present, which, as one of those in attendance noted, was
"beautiful." In the least, it gave me hope. We need to
have more talks like this, more forums. The youthful among us
are concerned citizens, and, it seems, we can communicate and
act in an intergenerational manner.
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Rodney D. Foxworth, Jr.
Associate Editor, LiP magazine
www.lipmagazine.org
cultural journalist & freelance writer
Ronald E. McNair Scholar
Ph.: (410) 978-0045
rdfoxworth@gmail.com
"I sit with Shakespeare, and he winces not. Across the color
line I move arm and arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men
and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out of the caves
of evening that swing between strong-limbed Earth and the
tracery of stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul
I will, and they came all graciously with no scorn nor
condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the veil."—W.E.B. Du Bois
posted 1
March 2006
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The Warmth of Other Suns
The Epic Story of America's Great
Migration
By Isabel Wilkerson
Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a
sharecropper's wife, left Mississippi
for Milwaukee in 1937, after her cousin
was falsely accused of stealing a white
man's turkeys and was almost beaten to
death. In 1945, George Swanson Starling,
a citrus picker, fled Florida for Harlem
after learning of the grove owners'
plans to give him a "necktie party" (a
lynching). Robert Joseph Pershing Foster
made his trek from Louisiana to
California in 1953, embittered by "the
absurdity that he was doing surgery for
the United States Army and couldn't
operate in his own home town." Anchored
to these three stories is Pulitzer
Prize–winning journalist Wilkerson's
magnificent, extensively researched
study of the "great migration," the
exodus of six million black Southerners
out of the terror of Jim Crow to an
"uncertain existence" in the North and
Midwest. Wilkerson deftly incorporates
sociological and historical studies into
the novelistic narratives of Gladney,
Starling, and Pershing settling in new
lands, building anew, and often finding
that they have not left racism behind.
The drama, poignancy, and romance of a
classic immigrant saga pervade this
book, hold the reader in its grasp, and
resonate long after the reading is done.
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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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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
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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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ChickenBones Store
(Books, DVDs, Music)
update 27 February
2012
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