|
A Call for
Letters for
Sequel to
Go, Tell
Michelle
By
Peggy
Brooks-Bertram
and
Barbara Ann Seals Nevergold
6 December 2010
Go, Tell Michelle
African American Women’s Response
to the 2010 Mid-Term Elections
(working title)
Dear Sisters:
Much has happened in the last 24
months! Two years ago this month, we celebrated the historic vote for
Barack Obama as this country’s First African American President and we
were especially thrilled for First Lady Michelle Obama. Overwhelmed with
excitement, we asked African American women on November 8, 2008, to
submit letters and poems that expressed their esteem, regard and support
of Michelle Obama as she embarked on an uncertain journey as this
country’s first African American First Lady. The response was
overwhelming.
These letters were compiled into
the book
Go, Tell Michelle, which received rave reviews
and a major book award.
Go, Tell Michelle has been used as a classroom
text, a model for college women’s self-awareness discussion groups and
adapted into a play,
Go, Tell Michelle: Letters to the First Lady. It is the only
book of the 2008 Elections that provided a platform for the voices of a
diverse group of African and African American women to have their say
about this historic event in American political/social history. In
short, the messages sent to Mrs. Obama spoke not only for the writer but
for our sisters around the world.
While the first two years of Mrs.
Obama’s tenure as First Lady have presented successes, the challenges
also remain, some of which we anticipated and some we did not. During
this period, Mrs. Obama has faced unprecedented personal attacks
including references to her as a chimpanzee, criticism of her choice of
fashion as well as other disparaging comparisons and comments.
Furthermore, the outcome of the Mid-Term Election is equally historic
and raises a number of new, troubling issues. Many center around the
resurgence of the Republican Party, the rise of the Tea Party and the
so-called “Grizzly Mommas” all of which signal renewed and intensified
attacks on the First Lady.
Given the foregoing, we think that this is the time
to revisit,
Go, Tell Michelle and for African American women to once more go on
record in support of the First Lady. We are actively working on a sequel
to volume one. The timing could not be more perfect as these letters
will also provide Birthday wishes celebrating the 47th birthday of the
first African American First Lady. Once again, we are asking African and
African American women around the world to raise their voices and send
their messages to Mrs. Obama. We cannot afford to be silent in these
tumultuous times. Send your letter to:
pbertram@gmail.com and
bnevergold@gmail.com
We also request that you respond to a related
Survey.
Whether you decide to write a letter or not, please take some time to
respond to the
Survey
and return it to us. We are asking for your response by January 17,
2011. We think these letters will be a fitting birthday present for the
47th Birthday of the First Lady of the United States. Please join us on
this momentous occasion.
Please feel free to share this “Call” with others.
Best,
Barbara Peggy
Peggy
Brooks-Bertram, Dr.P.H., Ph.D.
Co-Editor, "Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women
Write to the New First Lady"
716-829-6047, 716-697-8386
Fax: 716-829-3912
Barbara Ann Seals Nevergold
Co-editor, "Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women
Write to the New First Lady"
716-829-6047 (o)
716-913-1228 (c)
New Deadline for
Sequel Go, Tell
Michele 1 March
2011
* *
* * *
 |
ChickenBones Best Book of 2009
|
 |
* * *
* *
* * * * *
 |
Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.— WashingtonPost
|
* *
* * *
|
The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance
Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity—and What We Can Do About It
By Les Leopold
How could the best and brightest (and most highly paid) in finance crash the global economy and then get us to bail them out as well? What caused this mess in the first place? Housing? Greed? Dumb politicians? What can Main Street do about it? In The Looting of America, Leopold debunks the prevailing media myths that blame low-income home buyers who got in over their heads, people who ran up too much credit-card debt, and government interference with free markets. Instead, readers will discover how Wall Street undermined itself and the rest of the economy by playing and losing at a highly lucrative and dangerous game of fantasy finance. He also asks some tough questions: Why did Americans let the gap between workers' wages and executive compensation grow so large? Why did we fail to realize that the excess money in those executives' pockets was fueling casino-style investment schemes? Why did we buy the notion that too-good-to-be-true financial products that no one could even understand would somehow form the backbone of America's new, postindustrial economy? How do we make sure we never give our wages away to gamblers again? And what can we do to get our money back? In this page-turning narrative (no background in finance required) Leopold tells the story of how we fell victim to Wall Street's exotic financial products. Readers learn how even school districts were taken in by "innovative" products like collateralized debt obligations, better known as CDOs, and how they sucked trillions of dollars from the global economy when they failed. They'll also learn what average Americans can do to ensure that fantasy finance never rules our economy again. The Economy |
 |
* * * * *
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)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
* *
* * *
The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
* * * * *
* *
* * *
ChickenBones Store
(Books, DVDs, Music, and more)
posted 13 November 2010
|
