WHAT I'VE LEARNED by Aja Monet

Aja Monet does the kind of poetry that people who don't get poetry...actually get.  Worth listening to more than once.

Race
Class
Gender
Self-Love
Interdependence

She covers it all. 

Aja Monet

Poet, Feminist, Activist

I know cloud formations

that raindrops don't fall in a teardrop shape

they originally fall in the shape of a flat oval

I don't remember where I read that

...

how to be broken and put together again

I know my arms are long

and my hands remind me of vines

I know laughter

sometimes sounds like bubble wrap

and it's my favorite part of unpacking boxes

When I smile I quint my eyes

i know men with deep diaphram laughter

and lady bugs aren't really ladies..

I know they like to follow me into subway cars

on days when I need to be reminded of magic

I know spider webs sparkle like diamonds after rainshowers

I know yestedfay is the day before tomororw

and tomrrow is an illusion where I imagine...

LISTEN TO THE REST 

          OF 

"WHAT I'VE LEARNED"

BLACKCHICKROCKED.BLOGSPOT.COM

HOW TO RACE BAIT, A MICRO DOCUMENTARY

This video describes social construction. It starts at the linking of black skin to slavery in the United States and moves through to incarceration.


Moving through the first pages of Howard Zinn's "People's History Of The United States" to Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow" to current events this micro-documentary covers slavery; indentured servants; Jim Crow; police brutality; the true level of poverty in the U.S. at fifty percent; current events (Sandra Bland, Samuel DuBose) and how most of this feeds the Prison Industrial Complex which already has too many of us in its teeth.

There isn't a lot that's new in the first 5 minutes, but it's concise and well presented. And the three tiered structure used as a framework, though hardly all inclusive racially speaking, makes the divide and conquer being used by the rich, from 1600s to now, very clear.



As for the last five minutes:

Half the country being low-income or below the poverty line will have me doing a  little research. I had no idea.

I knew that 50% of Black Americans graduate high school. But I didn't know that only 75% of white Americans graduate high school.

For me, this is yet another reminder that it always pays to seek out the white statistic when you keep hearing a negative black statistic over and over again. The first time I learned this was when I found out Black on Black Crime and White on White Crime which both stay at or above 85% every single year.  You wouldn't know that by how often "Black on Black" crime is mentioned by Black Americans much less the main stream news media. But this fact is easily found by looking at FBI UCR Data available online.  


Give this video 2 minutes before you decide if you want to hear the whole thing.  It covers a lot of ground in a short time.

CROSSING: A film by Gina Atwater

"CROSSING"was submitted to Shadow and Act 

for BlackLivesMatter Short Films Contest

The story takes place in a rural Georgia town in 1965 and examines the perspective of a black teenage boy, bristling under the rules of segregation.
Seems like a good film for older children.
Preview Here

LINK TO THE FULL FILM HERE:  https://vimeo.com/70381677