Sunday, January 31, 2016

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP: THE OLD AND NEW WHITESBORO SEAL


After that little debate we had over the south's beloved KKK flag being used as a state flag....






Exhibit A








... some people said that the city of Whitesboro should revisit the content of the city seal.

Again

Original Whitesboro SealChanged due to racial content
and other over-sensitivities
in 1963.



Modern Whitesboro SealAccording to Whitesboronians the white hands
have been moved from
the Native American's neck to the shoulders
No mention has been made of the skin color changes





INTERVIEW -  w/JESSICA WILLIAMS

Saturday, January 30, 2016

ACROSS THE REALM: SCI FI COMIC SERIES FOR CHILDREN OF COLOR

Feeling Rebloggy

LOVE LIFE OF AN ASIAN GUY PRESENTS: 


"ACROSS THE REALM"

"Created by Isobel Mitton, an award-winning, Black-Canadian writer, Across the Realm is an immersive sci-fi book series set 600 years into the future where two worlds and ideologies collide: The North, a racially segregated land where Black, Asians and Caucasians live apart, and The South, a society where people of all backgrounds live and love together."




Why LLAG is supporting this: This is POC EVERYTHING!!!

Isobel is a Black woman, the artists creating the artwork are POC, and the entire storyline centers around POC characters! You have Korean commanders, Black high priests, and strong, kick-ass female protagonists...."
~LLAG



READ MORE: https://www.facebook.com/theLLAG/posts/961845687240244?pnref=story 

Friday, January 29, 2016

THIS IS CALLED CREATIVITY



This is called creativity.
Posted by Zain Malik on Thursday, January 21, 2016

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

NATE PARKER GET 17.5 MILLION DOLLAR DISTRIBUTION DEAL AT SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL


Feeling Rebloggy
Congratulations to Nate Parker on receiving one of the largest deals in Sundance Film Festival history for his film, “The Birth of a Nation”! 



On [January 26, 2016], Parker’s “The Birth of a Nation”, a biopic about Nat Turner, an enslaved preacher who led one of the nation’s largest slave rebellions in 1831, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it received a standing ovation. Parker, who wrote, directed, produced, and stars in the film, was inspired by Nat Turner’s riveting story in college and refused to accept any other roles until he got the opportunity to bring the revolutionary to life.
  

Now, Parker has received a record breaking $17.5 million distribution deal from Fox Searchlight.




~From:  Because of Them We Can by Eunique Jones



Clearly, Parker's movie is not going to suffer the same fate that "Lila and Eve" did at the hands of MGM. It appears MGM bought "Lila and Eve" and never did a big release to the theaters, even though it did well at Sundance and was later well reviewed at places like Amazon. 

READ MORE ON NATE'S BIG WIN AT SUNDANCEhttps://www.facebook.com/becauseofthemwecan/photos/a.165962343453659.38563.164638963585997/942886955761190/?type=3&theater 

BESSIE COLEMAN



"I decided blacks should not have to experience the difficulties I had faced, so I decided to open a flying school and teach other black women to fly."

January 26th marks the birthdate of the first licensed black pilot, male or female, Bessie Coleman!

When pilots in this country would not teach her to fly, she went to France and got an international pilot's license on June 15, 1921.

James Banning became the first black man to get a federally issued pilot's license near the end of 1927. And since he had to build his own plane in order to get that pilot's license, he made a great head mechanic at Bessie Coleman's Aero Club.





Feeling Rebloggy

"After leaving college early, due to the lack of funds, Coleman moved from Texas to Chicago to pursue a career as a manicurist. However, it was her growing interest in aviation that led her to apply to aviation school, where she was denied admission several times in the states."


Determined to fly one day, Bessie went on to be admitted into a flight-training program in France. By the early 1920's, Coleman became the first Black woman to earn her pilot's license, as well as the first African American to earn an international pilot's license.

The Bessie Coleman Aero Club and the Bessie Aviators organization carried on Coleman’s legacy, which continues to inspire us all to make our dreams take flight.



~BECAUSE OF THEM WE CAN, 
EUNIQUE JONES

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

BLACK ALBINOS THREATEN RIOT WHEN...


THEY HEAR THAT
A WHITE MAN WILL PLAY
MICHAEL JACKSON


IN UPCOMING  9/11  ROAD FILM



PROTESTERS SCREAM
"WHAT ABOUT CASTING US!!!! 
THIS WAS OUR SHOT DAMN IT!!!
WHITE FOLKS ARE PREPPING FOR #OscarsSoWhite2017

NO BLACK CASTING - NO PEACE!!! 



Okay, I'm only lying in about half of the original statement.

Guess which half?




This is not a joke. Stop slapping your own face. You are not asleep. A white man is going to play Michael Jackson

Read Morehttp://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/jan/26/joseph-fiennes-michael-jackson-9-11-road-trip-sky-arts

Read Morehttp://www.imdb.com/news/ni59429323/


Read More
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michael-jackson-joseph-fiennes_us_56a7fb9ce4b0947efb65cd8e?


The movie is to be a television movie for Britain television viewers, I think.

But still....




And to think, I laughed my @$$ off when I saw the meme below last year. I'm looking at it in a whole new way now. A WHOLE NEW WAY.
I don't know whether to track the producers down so I can slap them or raise MJ from the dead so I can slap him for bleaching himself  --mentally deranged reaction to racism or not.

(Yeah, I said it. MJ was freaking crazy. White Supremacy drove him crazy. Everybody can't handle being black in the good ole U.S. of A. and he DIDN'T HANDLE IT WELL) 




MARYLAND MAY RESTORE VOTING RIGHTS TO EX-CONVICTS


Feeling Rebloggy

Last week, the Democrats’ leadership signaled that they would vote to [override the Maryland governor's veto. If successful,]  Maryland will join the 13 states, plus the District of Columbia, that allow all people with felony convictions who have left prison to vote in elections. 


Three states -- Kentucky, Iowa and Florida -- permanently revoke voting rights for all people convicted of a felony [another eight may revoke the right to vote permanently depending on certain criteria] while two states -- Maine and Vermont -- never strip felons of their voting rights.
Huff Post Black Voices




READ MORE



State By State Voting Laws
Interactive Version Of This Map At The Link
http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.additional-resource.php?resourceID=006025

Monday, January 25, 2016

Y'ALL QAEDA STILL LARGE AND IN CHARGE DESPITE LAW ENFORCEMENT EFFORTS

Feeling Rebloggy
Bundy tells the FBI the standoff will end when they leave peacefully, turn over all federal land


~Daily KOS



Read More: 

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/25/1474792/-Bundy-tells-the-FBI-the-standoff-will-end-when-they-leave-peacefully-turn-over-all-federal-land?detail=facebook

WHITE RACIAL APOLOGY #316,234,524,123 FOR ARIZONA STUDENTS FOR NI**ER PHOTO



The letter reads:
We want to let you know we share your outrage and disappointment over the actions of a handful of our students today. We want to make it crystal clear those actions are unacceptable and will not be tolerated at Desert Vista. Those actions do not represent who we are as a campus. We can assure you we will discipline these students in accordance with district policy and our student handbook. While we don’t discuss individual discipline, we can tell you that in addition, the obvious need for sensitivity training will be addressed.
Three of the teens reportedly lost scholarships and all were placed on suspension.
change.org petition has been created to request expulsion for the teens and to fire the principal.

http://newsone.com/3339125/arizona-teens-suspended-for-spelling-out-racial-slur-in-viral-photo/


I'm not really going for firing the principal thing, not unless I find out this photo made the cut for the yearbook --as supposedly intended.  I'm not sure that's true. But the year book is where joke senior class photos go, isn't it? If the principal failed to have the photos screened, then eat it. 


However, if this was "just" something this racist idiots put up on SnapChat which moved to Twitter etc, I'm fine with expulsion  Let their parents fight to get them back in so they can graduate late -- as in next year. Make em fight hard, spend big money, learn what the failure to teach themselves and their white children about their own ambient racism can cost.


http://fox40.com/2016/01/23/petition-demands-expulsion-of-6-arizona-students-wearing-t-shirt-spelling-out-the-n-word/

As for the "children" and parents that are "die hard" Dylann Roof type overt racists? I hope one of the black or brown parents sues them for mental anguish and take their houses.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

A LITTLE FYI ON FLINT

Planned Parenthood appears to have been on the ball as far as doing something about the Flint Water Crisis --long before the governor would ADMIT he was poisoning the residents. This ad from the same PLANNED PARENTHOOD the republicans are trying to de-fund is from October and November of last year.

I wonder if the filters are still available?


ON NATE PARKER'S BIRTH OF A NATION

Yeah. It's another slave movie. But the story of Nat Turner, the story of a slave revolt is a different sort of slave movie. Very different. This is not going to be anything like "12 Years A Slave." It was no small achievement to show that 12 Years A Slave showed 3 or 4 different types of white people treating black people like animals. "The good white slave master's" reputation was shown as the horror it really was and white women's full participation in slavery was shown as well. More than that "12 Years A Slave," just like Octavia Butler's book "Kindred," showed us just how helpless a black person of superior intelligence could be made by the system of slavery. Yet, same as always, the black people in 12 Years A Slave were helpless victims that manage to carry on courageously through slavery no matter how they badly they are beaten.
The Story of Nat Turner is not that story. But a white man named William Styron wrote a book called "Confessions of Nat Turner" tried to turn Nat Turner's rebellion into the same old story. As with "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the characterization of black people was so comfortable and familiar to white folks that Styron won a prize for that book, the Pulitzer Prize in Styron's case.

In Styron's "Confessions Of Nat Turner," Instead of envisioning these real black people as planning then taking part in a slave revolt daring and courageous like....mmm... I dunno..... like the white actors in "Black Hawk Down," "Sniper," .or any one of the last two or three movies about Iraq or Afghanistan or Benghazi where the white guys live, fight, and die for one another heroically.

Instead of the black men in Styron's book being shown as intelligent and courageous, AS THEY MUST HAVE BEEN to achieve what they achieved, they were portrayed as child like in their thinking, stumbling through then lucky or unlucky at spots, and ultimately pathetic. Nat Turner and those that followed him stumbled through their "rebellion" in that book. And I can't quite remember, but I don't remember the white people as being portrayed as getting what they deserved at any given point.
No. I am not tired of slave movies There are so many stories of slavery that have NOT been told. And, in my opinion, Harriett Tubman's story should have been told on a big screen with a big budget. Her story is much larger and more primary. And it's way past time to see black women do more than survive rape during slavery.

Still, I'm looking forward to Nat Turner's rebellion told from the standpoint of those not trying to defend themselves and their ancestors. And if this movie is done correctly-- and it should be if Nate Parker wrote the screenplay, produced and directed it-- you're going to see a black historical hero story. And I need more of those. 


One of the best things about this movie though? It's a little thing that's not a little thing. This movie has the same title as a racist movie put on in 1915 that's famous. I'm not sure if they still teach people about this movie in grade school, but they should. The 1915 version of "Birth Of A Nation" spread and solidified black stereotypes and empowered the Ku Klux Klan. In the Post-Reconstruction period, that movie was one of the deadliest things to happen to black people as a whole. It brought white people together mentally, as I understand it. It was instrumental is shoring up support for codifying Jim Crow.
Cast Of The Birth Of A Nation
Sundance Premiere January 25 2016
But now there's a 2016 "Birth Of A Nation" movie. Now, when people look up the movie "The Birth Of A Nation" online they're going to find Nat Turner's heroics instead of the KKK's. So this movie, if it does well, will help erase and/or de-legitimatize two ugly depictions of black people. It'll get rid of Styron's book as the Nat Turner image maker. Nate Parker's "Birth Of A Nation" is nearly the direct opposite of the 1915 racist version of a movie with the same name. I think this is one of the slave movie worth seeing. And for long as they are popular, let me say it again. Somebody please make a Harriett Tubman movie and I wanted see Octavia Butler's "Kindred" too -- A sci-fi slave movie. Why not get them both done while the iron is still hot? Read More on Nate Parker's struggle to get this movie made.  
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/birth-a-nation-slave-revolt-857177

Friday, January 22, 2016

PRESIDENT OBAMA SENDS 80 MILLION TO FLINT


Feeling Rebloggy
In a six-hour Wednesday visit to Detroit, the president pledged that “we will have the backs of Flint’s people.”

“It was encouraging to hear President Obama say that $80 million will be coming to Michigan to help local governments, like the City of Flint, improve their water systems,” Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said in a statement from Washington, D.C. “The residents of Flint could benefit greatly from that type of money. We are waiting to see how much of the $80 million will be allocated to the City of Flint and how much of it will go elsewhere, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

~ Detroit News 




The state of Michigan can decide how the money is spent, including how much of it will go to Flint and elsewhere. But Michigan does have to submit a plan for how it intends to use the money to the E.P.A. before it's spent 


Read More: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/01/21/stabenow-obama-gives-million-flint/79134306/

WHITE PRIVILEGE ROCKS BLACK JUDGE

feeling rebloggy  



   

http://blog.franchesca.net/post/137390970182/judge-gets-surprised-by-the-white-privilege

~Franchesca.net



Thursday, January 21, 2016

DANIEL HOLTZCLAW SENTENCED TO 263 YEARS FOR RAPE


Ex-Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw, 29, has been sentenced to 263 years in prison, the full amount recommended by a jury. Holtzclaw was convicted in December of 18 counts of rape, sexual battery, and assorted other crimes after 13 black women testified he’d used his badge to assault them, then intimidate them into silence.

read more

GIRLS WHO CODE GIVING 1 MILLION DOLLARS IN SCHOLARSHIPS TO UNDER PRIVILEGED


All girls should be able to learn how to code. And Girls Who Code, a national nonprofit, is doing its part to make that happen.




On Tuesday (January 19 2016), the company told CNNMoney that it will be giving away $1 million in scholarships to high school girls who want to take part in its summer programs.

While the coding and tech classes are free, CEO Reshma Saujani said the additional funds are an attempt to help bridge the opportunity gap.  "We found a lot of girls needed to have [some compensation] to replace their summer job or pay for transportation," said Saujani.



Read More:
http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/19/technology/girls-who-code-1-million-in-scholarships/index.html?sr=moneywired011916girlswhocode

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

ONCE A TIME HITLER WAS A FUNNY LOOKING, ANGRY, LITTLE, IDIOT EX-ART STUDENT

BUT THEN WORLD WAR II HAPPENED.

I was in a museum, the Newseum in Washington D.C. when it occurred to me that Hitler's rise to power is very much of the Tea Party's rise to overtly racist power. 
Nobody was taking Tea Party and their back to the bad old days for everybody except white folks, rhetoric seriously. Nobody was taking their overt racism seriously either. Then President Obama became president, with his black self All of a sudden a whole bunch more white people thought the overtly racist Tea Party made a lot of sense. And then the Tea Party started providing a huge fan base for Donald Trump. I'm not laughing at Donald Trump too hard or ignoring is ignorant @$$. Especially since, I'm pretty sure that's the mistake the Jews made in WWII Germany.
Trump is definitely not subtle enough to be Hitler. Then again, maybe Hitler wasn't subtle either, not even when he was just starting out. But Americans aren't desperate enough (as they might have been in 2008 or so) to respond like 1930s German's did. But somebody a little bit smarter than Trump could be coming up behind Trump, letting Trump warm up the white racist audience so he can step onto the national stage. No, I am not taking Trump's popularity lightly.  
White people feel their power slipping away. To traditional republicans dismay, the dog whistle has been thrown in the trash. So I don't think it's any accident that "Oscars So White Again" is happening in this same moment. I don't think it's conscious on white people's part. I think 2015's Damonsplaining incident makes that obvious. But I see a lot of ensemble cast television and movies without even a token black or brown person. I'm pretty sure that #OscarsSoWhiteAgain is a sign, it's the tip of the white backlash iceberg. And signs of white backlash means we better keep our eyes open politically speaking. The Republicans and Tea Party may be tripping over their own ___'s right now, but they won't always be. Donald Trump should be seen as a sign of things to come as white power in this country goes on the wane.
Feeling Rebloggy
Donald Trump may be a fool, but he is a fool with a platform, an audience, and a bankroll. He is dangerous because his ideology kills.
~Stacy Patton

Read More: 

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

SAM DuBOSE FAMILY PAID MILLIONS IN SETTLEMENT AFTER BODY CAM SHOWS MURDER

SAM DUBOSE (CENTER) AND FAMILY 

Remember Sam DuBose?

Sam DuBose was killed by a college cop during a routine traffic stop just off the University of Cincinnati's campus. DuBose did not have his driver's license. He'd explained this multiple times. The officer, 25 years old at the time, shot DuBose for no apparent reason when DuBose started his car again.


Original Post and Video Of Murder.
http://blackchickrocked.blogspot.com/2015/07/sam-dubose-officer-that-killed-him-for.html




Black Feminists/Womanists
Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza

WE SHOULD CONSIDER THIS A BLACK LIVES MATTER VICTORY 
BECAUSE
POLICE BODY CAMERAS ARE A RESULT OF BLACK LIVES MATTER EFFORTS. 






A number of police departments had body cameras or a budget for body cameras but weren't using them until Black Lives Matter nation-wide spotlighting activities forced the issue.

Trayvon Martin died in 2012.  George Zimmerman was found to be not guilty  of Martin's murder in 2013. Outraged over the verdict, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi gave birth to Black Lives Matter in 2013. 


Many Black Lives Matter protests later, Cincinnati was testing Body Cameras on it's police officers in 2014.

Officer Ray Tensing's murder of Sam DuBose was caught on Body Camera. And Ray Tensing was charged with murder due to the body camera video. He faces 15 years to life at this time.  The murder trial is due to begin soon.   


DuBose Family Settlement also includes free tuition at the school
Read More:  

http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2016/01/family-of-sam-dubose-and-university-of-cincinnati-come-to-million-dollar-settlement/

ARMED WHITE PROTESTERS VERSUS UNARMED BLACK PROTESTERS







Monday, January 18, 2016

If Martin Luther King Were Alive Today...


FILE THIS UNDER PROTEST DOES WORK: SCHOLASTIC PULLS HAPPY SLAVE BOOK


Scholastic Pulls A Birthday Cake for George Washington Amid Slavery Backlash


Read More:
http://time.com/4184444/scholastic-birthday-cake-george-washington-slavery/



* * * * *

ORIGINAL STORYhttp://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2016/01/scholastics-contribution-to.html

SCHOLASTIC'S CONTRIBUTION TO INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM PUBLISHED JUST IN TIME FOR MLK DAY





MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr FOR BLACK WOMEN

If you're looking for a hero lesson instead of a history lesson, this is not that post. I posted the hero lesson on Martin Luther King's actual birthday, January 15th.
Here's the link:  http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2016/01/martin-luther-king-jr-on-system-that.html

THIS POST 
is a more three dimensional history of Dr. Martin Luther King. This post is about MLK's legacy for black girls and black women.
QUOTES ON KING
“Doc thought of a wife as a support worker, not a partner,” says Garrow, whose [Pulitzer Prize winning] book details Coretta Scott King’s frustration with her husband’s insistence that she devote all her energy to her family." 

“I remember [ranking Southern Christian Leadership Conference member] Dorothy Cotton saying to me in 1979 or 1980 that if Martin had lived, he would have had an awful lot of growing up to do on gender issues.”
Read More: 
KING'S WORDS WHEN HE WAS  AN EBONY MAGAZINE ADVICE COLUMNIST
"To be fair, there are moments in which King shows gender enlightenment:  
To a mother of seven who wrote in complaining that her husband wouldn’t use birth control. King said, “It is a serious mistake to suppose that it is a religious act to allow nature to have its way in the sex life . . . women must be considered more than ‘breeding machines....
And after a stay-at-home mom lamented that her husband had never given her spending money, King all but called the situation immoral."


To me these "enlightened moments" signal that Martin Luther King was a decent human being with an ability to be fair and discerning with female human beings....sometimes.  
He informed an unmarried woman grappling with whether to have sex that “real men still respect purity and virginity” and instructed an abused wife to determine whether there was anything within her personality to justify such treatment
http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/08/26/305106/martin-luther-king-jr-s-advice-to-the-ladies/

 

Martin Luther King saw women as less than.  And he saw women in general and black women specifically as "less than" in much the same way that white people see black people as "less than." And this failure of his colored his judgment and changed his behaviors in critical areas of life. 

Some will say that King's sexist outlook on life, was "just the way things were back then" --in the very same tones that white people use when talking about their ancestor's deadly racism.  Some will say that his sexism had little impact. But the truth is King's sexism had outcomes in his marriage, the movement, the black community, and his legacy.

Martin's advice in Ebony, placing the responsibility for an affair on a wife's shoulders: "When a woman asked what to do about her husband's extramarital affair, King told her to think of what the other woman might have to offer that she did not. What faults of her own might make her husband look elsewhere? "Do you nag?" King asked her."

Martin is clearly expressing the idea here that boys will be boys if you're not enough of a woman to keep him. And some attitudes travel in packs. Boys will be boys also encompasses it's only natural for a man to have sex anyway he can have it if he's been away from home for a while. 

A lot of men and women believe this to be true. However, let us remember that it doesn't appear that Malcom X believed this. I won't say he never, ever cheated. How would I know? But 
I get the distinct impression from the way Malcom X reacted to finding out Elijah Muhammad was sleeping around on his wife that he did not betray Betty Shabazz, not in this particular way-- that he did not settle into the 'boys will be boys'  attitude that so many of the black male civil rights leaders did, according to Ralph Abernathy's King biography.   
  

Michael Dyson, about their roles in marriage: "King was in constant conflict with his wife about her role. She wanted to become much more involved in the movement; he wanted her to stay home and raise their children." Source: "I May Not Get There With You", by Michael Dyson, p. 195.    
http://marriage.about.com/od/politics/p/martincoretta.htm

If King had seen his own infidelity as a betrayal instead of "Well, I'm not perfect," if he had resisted seeing sleeping with other women as something that just naturally and unavoidably happens to married men when they are away from home a lot, he probably wouldn't have fought Coretta on her wanting to be with him on the road and involved in the movement.



How Martin and Coretta handled their marriage seems like a small and personal thing, but if Coretta had been with MLK in the 1950s and 1960s more often, she probably would have been able to blossom as a civil rights leader earlier, as a women's rights leader earlier while Martin was still alive. And if Ferdinand Barnett and Ida B Wells-Barnett could support each other and be activists together and separately while raising 4 children in the early 1900s, then Martin and Coretta could have done it in the 1950s and 1960s. 
"That's just the way it was back then"
doesn't hold water
for racists or sexists.
If King had the ability to be a visionary when it comes to race, then he could have used that same vision on gender equality. Ferdinand Barnett had enough vision to have a mutually supportive relationship with Ida B. Martin Luther King chose not to  have that vision. He chose.  And he chose badly. He chose in a narcissistic fashion that seems way too familiar, frankly. 

   If Martin and Coretta had been an actual team, how different a human being would Martin Luther King grown into by the time of his death?



 Some will say but "What about the children?"

 And I say "What about the children" as well.


 I say the children are better served when one parent does not betray the other one. I say that a balance can be struck between a woman being with her husband, being with her children, and each dealing with bouts of extreme loneliness. Grandparents could have been used more effectively....if importance was placed on fidelity from the beginning. I say it is better to not hear that your father cheated on your mother.


I say it is better to not hear your mother essentially say, 'I don't know what you're talking about....It didn't matter anyway. Our relationship was on a higher level than that' I'm sorry. But these sort of fictions, the truth coming out a little at a time, will tend to have an impact on an adult child's life.


And I'm certain that teens, if not children, having to hear that men like Martin Luther King betrayed their partners while adults minimize the impact of that betrayal has can have an effect on an entire community.  Can't it? How many people, nowadays, will tell you that stepping out on a wife is just "one of those things?"   

So I ask again: How different a human being would Martin Luther King  Jr. grown into by the time of his death if Coretta had been by his side as a partner?
As a result of Coretta's influence, how much better would the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) been for black women, as an organization, sans Martin Luther King's leadership in sexism?

     
How different would The March On Washington have been for black women sans his leadership in sexism?






Septima Clarke, Ella Baker, Dorothy Height, Pauli Murray, and Anna Arnold Hedgeman would all struggle with sexism within the Civil Rigthts Movement. Septima Clarke said the bulk of this unequal treatment for women was coming from Dr. King.

This disrespect for black women was revealed during the March On Washington when only one black woman was allowed to speak during the regular program--after Anna Arnold Hedgeman battled mightily for it to be otherwise. Daisy Bates, former President of Arkansas Chapter of NAACP, leader of the Little Rock Nine, who had an eight foot cross burned on her lawn was allowed to speak for a little more than 60  seconds.*   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UG7YCgkXTo




Rosa Parks and Gloria Richardson attempting to speak (rather than sitting mute)  on the day of the March resulted in them being put in cab and sent back to the local hotel. And they were in that cab during Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech. 
See William P Jones Book  The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights

Read More About The "Rampant Sexism At The March On Washington" 
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2013/08/the_rampant_sexism_at_the_march_on_washington.html


When you look at Martin Luther King from a black female perspective, it becomes clear that just like this Abraham Lincoln speech 
was really for white men only - 
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...

Abraham Lincoln 

This Martin Luther King speech 
was really for black men only - 
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.



But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free...

Martin Luther King has had a lasting impact on this country. As bad as race relations are now with the police murders, white racists were a lot more deadly prior to The Civil Rights Movement. White racists didn't need a badge to kill without impediment. Therefore, we should always be thankful for King's having been here for us. He's had a lasting and positive effect on us all.


But it also seems reasonable to suppose that Martin Luther King's failures have had a lasting effect as well. 



 Too many things in the black community get stuffed into the 'Well, he's not perfect' bag AND/OR 'We're just going to pretend that didn't happen' bag so we can seek to repeat hero-stories instead of histories. Our habit of doing one of these two things is evident in how the Bill Cosby rape allegations have been defended by too large a percentage of the black community. And please note that Bill's lack of loyalty to Camille, his betrayal of Camille was being ignored long before the rape allegations.  

Coretta seemed to excuse Martin in order to preserve his legacy, no doubt. She almost had to have done this for us just as much as she did it for him, herself, and her children's privacy. And his infidelities, no matter how numerous, are truly a private affair. Coretta is the one that should have graded him as A+, A- or B+ as a husband and father based on her own criteria. But Martin Luther King as a black husband setting an example for other black husbands? For that he gets an "F" --especially since the Ralph Abernathy biography suggests that Martin never created a chance to redeem himself with his wife. 

So black men and black women will have to look to men like Malcom X for a stand up guy. And that's okay with me. While I've come to the conclusion that I wouldn't have agreed with Malcom X at every stage of his development, he had the ability to grow and change.

 

  Malcom X changed from petty thief to leader. After his visit to Mecca, he changed his mind about white people's ability to be allies. He also changed his mind about putting a human being, Elijah Muhammad, on too high a pedestal.


In hindsight, I don't think I would have seen as much potential for change in Martin Luther King had I been around him in the 1960s. But if he had changed, if he had allowed Coretta to fully bloom while he was alive, if Coretta had been seen as the strong version of herself instead of his appendage while he was still alive, I wonder if the entire black community would be stronger, would be more firmly partnered between male and female.


If Coretta had been Martin's partner, more often by his side instead of always left home as "supporter"  while he was alive, maybe the black female created #BlackLivesMatter might not have needed #SayHerName" to draw attention to black women as if black women matter too. "Straight Outta Compton" might not have gone to movie theaters, touted as wonderful as if "bitches and hoes" sung to young black men over and over hasn't done a job on the minds of black men everywhere.


Still, the cloud Martin Luther King created via sexism had a silver lining. His ill treatment of black women at the March on Washington forced some of them into becoming founding members of (and join) the National Organization for Women. (Yes, white feminists were disappointing too. But not AS disappointing. Black women couldn't possibly have expected as much as they do from black men. That's never possible in my opinion)


 

If Martin had lived to be 80 or 90, the world would have changed around him. If he'd lived to get to be 80 or 90, maybe he'd have been a follower instead of a leader on the woman front. And maybe that's okay. 


I think it's okay that he was a very flawed man and a great leader, both. I think most of our leaders were. And I think we'd all know that if we could stop reacting to white opinion by substituting  hero lessons for history lessons every chance we get. 

  So many black leaders, artists, and writers have had failures that we refuse to learn anything about. And in refusing to know their shortcomings, we refuse to truly examine how these people came to be the people they were.  If we refuse to know who our heroes really were we cannot follow in their footsteps. We cannot follow angels and Gods. When we follow the false positive image of someone, what else can we do but let ourselves down....and then give up.


By creating false images of real heroes, we stop ourselves from learning where the stumbling blocks are down the road. I, for one, like learning from other people's mistakes. I don't have to experience every single stupidity that this life has to offer for myself. I really don't.


Besides, deciding to study a person's successes only is like trying to become a successful basketball player like Mike Jordan by only studying his highlight reels instead of learning about how many times he missed when he first started practicing his lay ups.


We, as black people, have to become more dedicated to searching for history lessons rather than hero lessons. I know I am not willing to settle for anything less at this point.

Are you?


I don't demand perfection in my heroes anymore. I'm an adult. But I do demand that the truth be told about their flaws and that we examine the ways in which those flaws caused damage. If the word "forgiveness" is a curse word to you, then this will be a problem.  I hope you work it out. 


In the mean time, please know that black girls should be reading their own history as written by black women who focus on the black female perspective. There's nothing like it for giving strengthening a girls self-worth.  And black boys probably need to read the same things even more. SEXISM IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT: A TEACHING GUIDE FROM TOLERANCE.ORG http://www.tolerance.org/article/sexism-civil-rights-movement-discussion-guide Point #1: Sexism in the Civil Rights Movement did not exist in a vacuum.
"The sexism that was present in the Civil Rights Movement was a continuation of oppressive mentality that existed in the larger U.S. culture, which was and is a white, male-dominated culture." --> A Correction: While the preceding statement is true enough, it is also true that sexism in Africa predates white people. And sexism survives, to this day, in African cultures that barely experienced any white colonialism. Black women do travel here from Africa. And they have mouths to tell the real story. Let's keep it real folks. 
Point #2: The leaders of the Civil Rights Movement never intended to end all forms of oppression in the U.S Point #3: The Civil Rights Movement has served as a model for other social justice movements. Point #4: Women contributed significantly to the Civil Rights Movement.
If the Montgomery Bus Boycott began what's known as "The Civil Rights Movement" and Martin Luther King became famous as a result of that boycott, then you should know that Black Women of the Women's Political Council of Montgomery, led by Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, conceived of, planned and executed that boycott.  Black men came along later and extended it after it was successful the first day.
Black women didn't just "help" They led
 Everybody, but especially black women need to read black history written by black women.
SUGGESTION 1 When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America
SUGGESTION  2 Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson
Point #5: Martin Luther King Jr. and other male Movement leaders remain heroes.
Point #6: By acknowledging the imperfections of the Civil Rights Movement's male leaders, we recognize not just their humanity, but [our own] as well.
"In his impressive volume, Soul of a Citizen, Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time, author and scholar Paul Loeb explores the ways in which everyday citizens excuse themselves from activist efforts.
He writes:  Chief among the obstacles … is a mistaken belief that anyone who takes a committed public stand, or at least an effective one, has to be a larger-than-life figure, someone with more time, energy, courage, vision or knowledge than a normal person could ever possess. This belief pervades our society, in part because the media tends not to represent heroism as the work of ordinary human beings, which it almost always ..."
NOT TRUE. 
--------------- *-Josephine Baker was allowed to speak prior to the regular program at The March On Washington. And, as I understand it, she is not on the handbill (that described the program) handed out that day. But please note, that black women who stayed in THIS country, fought, bled, led, and repsenting those that died for the cause were not allowed to speak. But a woman --regardless of various current definitions of "sexual freedom" --  whose place was understood as 'sex object' prior to her retirement and performed stereotypical black jezebel, supporting "animalistic" race images on stages for the white French was allowed to speak.