#A LOT OF THEM LARGELY IN THE PREDOMINATELY BLACK SOUTH!!!!!

[transwolvie]

So I work as a tutor, so my job is always putting out magazines about education, usually the Chronicle of Higher Education and a few others.

Right now there's a piece on the table that's absolutely heart breaking in a lot of ways, because it's about finally offering AP African American Studies in school, and there's so many beautiful stories from the black students connecting to and learning about their history.....in an article that is focused on the loopholes that teachers need to wrestle with in order to teach AP African American Studies at all within states that have legally restricted discussions about race.

[gatheringbones]

["Ara Jones: "It's a Changeable Thing"

Forty-year-old Ara Jones grew up in the South, the daughter of a manual laborer and a domestic worker. Ara described her life as being shaped equally by her lesbianism and her blackness. She identifies as a lesbian but has long been conscious of the fact that her own desires do not conform neatly with binary sexual categories, homosexual and heterosexual. She says she thinks of her lesbianism as "a changeable thing."

As a teenager, Ara experienced herself as fairly bisexual, though she would not have given it that name at the time. While she was sexually involved with boys, her primary commitments were with other girls.

I was never boy crazy. I had two boyfriends. It was nice, but it was not like my relationships with girls. It was sexual more than emotional. Sexually, it was fine. I think what I did a lot was.... really separate sex and relationships— it was totally separate. Some people are very vulnerable when they're sexual; for me it was the opposite. I was less vulnerable when I was sexual with someone than when I was talking with them. I think I felt more confident about my body than with who I was.

At twenty-five she entered college and became involved with student organizations, African American and others. By this time, the period of most vocal and visible antiwar and feminist activity had already subsided, leaving behind an institutional infrastructure of lesbian/gay and feminist organizations, publications, and a more accepting climate for minorities of all sorts on her college campus.

Ara became involved with a white woman she met, who was an out lesbian. They fell "madly in love." In the context of this relationship, she began to think of herself as a lesbian. She never particularly identified with the lesbian community, however. This was in large part because it was predominately white. "I definitely would say that I am a feminist, and a lesbian, but not a lesbian feminist necessarily. Lesbian feminism is too strict for me, and always has been. It's never felt quite right, not quite my experience, not quite comfortable." But once she and her lover broke up, a year later, Ara was forced to reassess her sexual self-definition. "I remember when she left, I felt like, okay, but what am I now? Where do I go? I felt much more connected to her than to a lesbian community. But then I didn't really feel all that connected to the black community by this time either." She continued to date men occasionally, eventually marrying a man whom she met through a friend. After two years, they decided to divorce. She described having "better" sex with men than with women. But with women, she said, she felt a "depth of emotion" that she "couldn't feel with men." She adopted a definition of lesbianism as passionate friendship: "a relationship in which two women's strongest emotions and affections are directed toward each other." Becoming involved with men was "sexually possible but emotionally not." She elaborated, "Sometimes I was more aware of having sexual feelings for men than other times, but I always felt that I was a lesbian as well. In another world, it would be a lot easier. You would just go from relationship to relationship, and male and female sexuality would just sort of be.... insignifiant. But not in this world." The contradictions between these "multiple identities" may have been particularly salient for an African American woman with working-class roots, who was circulating in a largely middle-class world.

After moving to San Francisco in the early 1980s, Ara became a social worker for a county health office. She fell in love with a woman, eight years her senior, whom she met through a mutual friend. When asked whether lesbianism is a choice, Ara replied, "Yes," adding, "but I'm not straight." Ana feels that her lesbianism is a choice insofar as she could choose to deny what she "really" felt. She could choose to be with men if she wanted to fit in, but she has made a choice that fitting in is less important than being "who she is."

Who I am is changeable. I could have lived my life as a straight person, if Sara hadn't come along. But she did, so here I am. I don't know if I'm a born lesbian, but I sure as hell know this is right for me. I love women. Maybe I'll change. Maybe I won't. So is it a choice? I don't know. Part of it is, part of it isn't.

She is not a lesbian like other women are lesbians, insofar as she was not "born" one, she says. Yet she sees herself as more sexually attracted to women than many of those who call themselves lesbians, particularly many who came out in the context of feminism. Indeed, she was involved with "one of those women" at one point and was sexually dissatisfied. For her girlfriend, she said, lesbianism was about bonding with other women. "It was about making a domestic relationship, making a life together where neither person dominated the other. It was about having a more equal relationship at home where one could be comfortable and not feel squashed by the other person." For Ara as well, lesbianism was about these things, but also about passionate sexuality and intimacy.

As we saw earlier, Barb described her personal identity as lesbian as preceding her affiliation with lesbianism as a social category, while Margaret said the opposite: her affiliation with the group preceded her consolidation of a sense of "deep" identity. For Ara, separating out the "personal" and "social" components of lesbian identification and isolating which "came first" is impossible. She talks about her lesbianism in terms of elements that were chosen and elements that were not, and she remains conscious of the disjunction between "doing" and "being," between engaging in homosexual acts and claiming a homosexual identity: "There are many women like me: women who could have gone either way, depending upon what kind of situation they found themselves in. I probably could've been straight and lived a happy enough life, but women always came first— beginning with my mama. So I became a lesbian. I thought of myself as that even though I didn't usually use the word."

Ara's lesbianism is a choice insofar as acting upon her desires and claiming a lesbian identity are chosen, since originally she experienced her desires as being at least partly fluid and changing. But at the same time, she recognizes that her adoption of a social identity as a lesbian "organized" these desires, diminishing her earlier bisexual inclinations. While embracing a lesbian identity, Ara views it partly as a strategic act, rather than as a direct expression of who she "really is."]

arlene stein, from sex and sensibility: stories of a lesbian generation, university of california, 1997

[woman-loving]

Lesbian Socialising in 1940s-50s Sydney

Selection from Unnamed Desires: A Sydney Lesbian History, Rebecca Jennings, 2015.

Much of the international literature in the history of lesbian social practices has prioritised commercial spaces such as bars and nightclubs, suggesting that these venues represented the international standard of lesbian socialising in this period. Focusing primarily on large British and American cities, historians have charted the emergence of developed commercial lesbian subcultures after the Second World War.[4] However, the lesbian social scene in Sydney in the immediate postwar decades differs significantly from the subcultural patterns described in these accounts and complicates the accepted picture in a number of interesting ways. Available oral history evidence suggests that lesbians only appeared on Sydney’s camp social scene--as the early lesbian and gay bar culture was known--in significant numbers in the early 1960s, when they began frequenting bars and cabaret clubs alongside camp men. Prior to this, much of the evidence points to a unique lesbian scene in Sydney, centred on private networks meeting at house parties and later in social groups. The predominance of private rather than public patterns of socialising in the immediate postwar decades had a lasting impact on the development of lesbian social practices and subcultural identities throughout the period being explored. Individual women’s use of both public and private space was shaped in a variety of ways by behavioural norms defined in these private social spheres. Moreover, given that, as Elizabeth Kennedy and Madeline Davis claim, ‘community is key to the development of twentieth-century lesbian identity and consciousness’, these spatial practices also had a significant impact on notions of lesbian identity in the city.[5] [...]

Lesbian socialising in the 1940s and 1950s Evidence of a lesbian commercial bar scene in Sydney piror to the 1960s is scarce and seems to point to a limited lesbian presence within a larger, predominantly male, camp scene. A small number of camp men recall occasional pre-1960 encounters with lesbians on the commercial camp scene. Dennis, who frequented the camp male venue Rainard’s Restaurant on King Street in the CBD in 1950s, believed that the two women owners were lesbians. He recalled:

“Rainards was another place we used to go, too, and that was run by, looking back now, two gay women. It was down in, appropriately, in the Queens Club, downstairs. And there was a Hungarian countess that was on hard times with a black cat playing the piano.”[6]

Another narrator suggested that the attendants to the drag queens at the grand artists’ balls of the 1950s were lesbians in drag. Some lesbians also mingled with the bohemian underworld of Kings Cross in the 195s, socialising in cafes and hotels with artists, camp men and Eastern European migrants. In 1955, the sensationalist tabloid newspaper, the Truth, claimed:

“Police told Truth this week that dozens of mannishly-dressed lesbian couples can be seen in Darlinghurst Rd., King’s Cross, every afternoon and night. They live as married couples--’husband’ and ‘wife’ and practise their disgusting perversions in secret. Something, however, they break out. Recently there was a fierce brawl in the lounge of a fashionable King’s Cross hotel. Two female perverts fought bitterly over the favors of a third woman.”[7]

Such descriptions suggest that a small number of ‘mannish’ or tough lesbians, some of whom where known to the police for minor offences such as brawling, vagrancy and indecent language, enjoyed a presence on the bohemian and camp male scene in the 1950s. However, oral history interviews with women who were attracted to other women in this period demonstrate that many women were not aware of the existence of commercial camp venues in the 1940s and 1950s and did not frequent them. [...]

Research into lesbian bars and commercial venues outside Australia has shown that lesbian bar scenes had become established in many American and British cities by the 1940s. [...] However, these large metropolitan centres may not be representative of a broader international trend--lesbian social practices in smaller cities and non-urban areas undoubtedly differed significantly from this model. While London and New York both had populations in excess of eight million in 1948, Australia’s two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, recorded populations of 1,484,004 and 1,226,409 respectively (in 1947).[11] Lucy Chesser’s work on Melbourne subcultures in the 1960s suggests that these population differences had a significant impact on the nature of lesbian socialising in Australia and that a lesbian commercial scene was only beginning to develop in Melbourne in the late 1960s. [...] Prior to this, Chesser claims, the only venues available to lesbians were a coffee shop in the city centre, which operated in various locations in the 1950s and 1960s, and a small number of predominantly male, heterosexual hotels (public houses), in which lesbians were tolerated on Saturday afternoons.[13] This pattern reflected that in Sydney, where a lesbian presence was rarely noted on the camp scene in the 1950s or earlier and women only began to join a mixed camp bar culture in significant numbers in the 1960s.

While the emergence of a commercial scene in the UK and US in the decades after the war in part reflected the growing social acceptability of public drinking for women, postwar Sydney was notable for its restrictive female public drinking culture and this also impacted on the nature of the lesbian scene in the city. Licensing laws in place in New South Wales from the First World War until 1957 enforced six o’clock closing of public bars, and these had a significant impact on gendered conventions of public drinking. Legislation explicitly prohibited women from drinking in public bars, confining them to separate saloon bars or ‘ladies’ lounges’. As the restrictive licensing hours began to have an influence on drinking habits, publicans increasingly adapted the layout of their premises to accommodate the large numbers of men who frequented bars for high-intensity drinking between five and six in the evening. The ‘six o’clock swill’, as it became known, required long bars and large areas of standing room to enable crowds of male patrons to fit into the bar and order drinks quickly. In this postwar drinking culture, saloon bars were increasingly sidelined and the practice of drinking in hotels became a highly masculinised pursuit.[14] While lounge or saloon bars continued to accept women patrons in some hotels in the 1940s and 1950s, cultural assumptions about hotels as masculine spaces rendered hotel lounges largely unacceptable for the majority of women and those who did frequent them were regarded as ‘rough’ and unfeminine. It was not until the reform of licensing laws in 1957 that the prohibition on women drinking in public bars was lifted and hotels began to be designed to accommodate mixed drinking in pub lounges. In the meantime, however, the cultural coding of hotels as masculine spaces had become firmly embedded in social norms and women found themselves unwelcome in bars for decades after the legislative change.[15]

Lesbian socialising in Sydney was therefore primarily located in alternative sites in this period, reflecting broader gendered leisure practices in postwar Australia. Same-sex attracted women forged private friendship networks centred on sports clubs, work in occupations such as the army, and artistic circles based around theatres and musicians, and in this period it was these patterns of socialising which dominated the lesbian social scene in Sydney.[16] Beverley and Georgina, who met in the years after the Second World War, recalled a diverse social life in the 1940s and 1950s. The couple met at a picnic organised by a mutual friend and, after building a network of about eight or nine lesbian friends, socialised at picnics, tennis clubs and each other’s houses. The women would also go on holiday together, staying in motels or renting an old shack on the Central Coast. In addition to this circle, they were part of a mixed camp social scene. Georgina recalled that they socialised ‘with the boys as well, the boys were all in, we knew a lot of the boys, a lot of them. We used to go to their parties and everything else, because we were always very friendly with the boys.’[17] Other sources also suggest that house parties provided an important and long-standing alternative to the bar scene for lesbians in the immediate postwar period. In his semi-autobiographical novel At the Cross, Jon Rose describes a camp party at Potts Point in Sydney’s eastern suburbs during the Second World War, at which lesbian painters and actresses mixed with drag queens and camp window-dressers.[18] Large-scale house parties on long weekends such as the Queen’s Birthday weekend were an aspect of the male camp scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s and it is clear that some lesbians attended these.[19]

The importance of friendship networks and the difficulties for women in socialising in a public bar scene suggest that house parties and outdoor activities may have been central to the lesbian social scene in Sydney in the immediate postwar decades. This tendency to socialise in small networks of friends, rather than as members of a larger lesbian community, shaped the models of identity developing in Sydney. Small private friendship circles tended not to evolve rigid rules of image and behaviour to which newcomers were expected to conform. Instead, women who socialised with circles of lesbian friends in this period typically describe themselves as ‘discreet’ and conforming to wider societal norms. Margaret, who went out to restaurants with her girlfriend in the late 1950s, described their appearance as ‘nice, well-dressed secretaries’ and herself as ‘like some respectable housewife’, while Rae, who worked in the city, recalled that she and her friends socialised in dresses, hats and gloves.[20] Coral also remembered that, in the late 1950s, she and her girlfriend: ‘Didn’t wear trousers or anything like that, of course, dressed very, very nicely’ at the mixed house parties they attended.[21] There was limited interaction between different friendship circles in this period, when it was often extremely difficult to locate other lesbians, and there was therefore little opportunity for the development of a larger, collective lesbian identity or subculture.

[frostbitepandaaaaa]

Hiya! Are we closer to getting the conclusion of your pacific rim remix? This is by no means a ‘hurry up and post’ ask - I first hope you are well during these unprecedented times. Just wanted to know if we’ll be able to see/read the conclusion for Dany/Jon. Take care!

yes. you are closer. i am trying, anon, but it has been incredibly hard during these times. 

race issues are something that i am especially sensitive to. so, while the coronavirus, quarantine, my house flooding, and unemployment has given me its own set of difficulties, they have been difficulties i’ve felt able to overcome a bit more easily... knowing that a lot of other people were facing the same adversity at the same time. that, and i had my own defense and coping mechanisms in place to deal with such things as economic anxiety and isolation. those are all things i’ve had to deal with before, though on an admittedly much smaller scale. one of those coping mechanisms is writing.

i’ve also had to adjust with the prospect of going back to work, but that’s something that i don’t really want go into. it’s not important.

but with recent events... that is something that i’ve never had to deal with. i’ve never had to deal with racial strife or profiling. i’ve never had to worry about a loved one getting shot because they had a gram of weed on them, or a counterfeit bill or whatever else. back in 2015, after Eric Garner and everything else, i was in school and just too damn busy and, honestly, too scared to take a stand. 

i was raised in a very racist household. i regularly heard my mother refer to people of color as ‘negroes’. i regularly heard racist jokes and witnessed microagressions against black people in my every day life in white suburbia. there was a brief time in my life when i thought that this was okay. that this was funny, or even harmless, but, luckily for me, it did not take long at all for me to realize how very harmful that behavior and way of thinking is.

i was raised in white suburbia, but my heart is with Atlanta. Atlanta is the reason i am the person i am today, is the reason i turned away from my racist, backward upbringing, and for that, i owe this city my life and soul.

living in a city that is predominately black, a city that served as the epicenter of the Civil Rights movement, a city that is, largely, built upon the creativity, ingenuity, and innovation of the black community... as a white person from the racist white suburbs of the Deep South that surround it... i can’t stand idly by. i will march along side my brothers and sisters until this shit changes. 

writing this has me in tears. i did not mean for this to turn into some sort of essay... but i guess i really just had to put to page everything i’ve been feeling the past week/s. i am busy, yes. i am on the streets most every night i can be, yes. i am also tentatively returning to work, yes. but, i know that i can’t throw everything i love away for the sake of this movement. i must return to the creative things that make me happy. that fuel me. i will always return to them, so that i may have the will and energy to fight another day. 

i wrote a good hunk tonight, anon, as a way to recharge myself after days of fighting, but as to when i’ll be finished, i just don’t know. 

i love you so much for checking in, and i understand you and all my readers’ frustrations, but... sorry. 

i hope you all take a stand in the coming days if you haven’t already. if you can’t march, donate. if you can’t donate, advocate. if you can’t advocate (for fear of reprisal, etc), play this video in the background. the advertisement money benefits black-owned businesses/the black lives matter movement. there are always ways to help. 

stay safe out there, my loves, and i will be back with y’all soon.

[letterstomycountry]

On Cruelty

It’s been awhile since I last posted around these parts.  Awhile ago I swore off posting about politics on facebook (you know how that goes), which has reduced my social media stress substantially.  But occasionally, I still see something that grinds my gears enough that I feel like I need write about it somewhere.  

I guess this is a sign that the afore-mentioned compulsion has finally hit it’s fever pitch and, consequently, like a refrain from an old Marshal Mathers single, I’m back to sing the tune.

We are living in strange times.  White Nationalism, an ever-present but (until recently) largely marginal cultural phenomenon in the modern era, is on the rise.  While the stain of White Supremacy has always been with us in a cultural sense, White Nationalism--as a political force--has been largely confined to the fringes of society in the past few decades.  

We can see its manifestations bubbling up in milder forms as bigots scream at brown-skinned people in public, presumably because they believe they can intuit a person’s nationality or legal immigration status simply by the color of their skin.   We also see it in its more catastrophic forms like mass shootings fueled by hatred of immigrants, where American citizens are also liable to be shot and killed.

White Nationalism and White Supremacy are inter-linked but separate ideas.  White Nationalism is a conscious socio-political ideology.  White Supremacy, however, is a cultural force that permeates our collective decision-making and choices.  It is a presumptive sense of subjective “normalcy” that blinds us to our own discriminatory behavior.   It is the reason why Police officers are more likely use force against Black citizens, and why employers are more likely to hire a similarly-educated White job applicant than a Black job applicant.  We can charitably assume that police and employers are not consciously deciding to treat Black people differently.  But the data shows that they often do.  That’s because White Supremacy is a disease of cognitive dissonance.  We often don’t realize we’re treating others differently in the moment, but upon reflection and self-analysis, the same becomes clear.

To put it bluntly: White Supremacy is what happens when you live in a world where the majority of your peers are White, and stereotypes about minorities are culturally ubiquitous.  It is what happens when your interactions with others are gilded with assumptions drawn from the family you were raised in, the media you consumed your whole life, and your own limited personal experiences.  These are the shadows on Plato’s cave that we use to construct our reality.

White Supremacy can blind us to the humanity of others.  Offenses that we might feel the desire to treat with compassion when committed by one group suddenly become intolerable transgressions when committed by another group.  The concept of “legality,” which we often loosely apply to our own actions, becomes a justification for the most exquisite cruelty when applied to other human beings.

Which brings me to this headline:

There are, generally, two types of reactions to this headline:

The viewer feels a sympathy for the suffering visited on these children and a sense of confusion and outrage.

The viewer feels not an ounce of sympathy for the children or, if they do, they dismiss it by suggesting that the parents are responsible for their children’s plight by living as undocumented immigrants and raising children in America.

You can browse my immigration tag for a fairly thorough discussion of why I feel being undocumented is not a crime at all in any meaningful ethical sense (while you’re at it, I recommend you take a gander at Economist Bryan Caplan’s academic article, which notes that there is a consensus among the majority of economists that open borders would literally double world GDP).

But let’s be clear: what happened here is that Trump’s ICE performed a raid that swept up a bunch of undocumented immigrants and left a lot of young kids without parents.  We’re talking elementary-school aged kids in many cases.  Many of these families have been here for years.  And aside from their immigration status, the parents have minded their own business and have clean records:

..[T]hose children and families who spoke to 12 News impacted by each raid stressed their parents and friends are good people.

“I need my dad and mommy,” Gregorio told 12 News. “My dad didn’t do anything, he’s not a criminal.”

“Their mom’s been here for 15 years and she has no record,” Christina Peralta told us. “A lot of people here have no record they’ve been here for 10-12 years.”

There is no good policy reason for this.  There is no good ethical reason for this. 

The fact that “it’s the law” is not a response here.  I know it’s the law.  I am suggesting that the law is wrong.  

Furthermore, even if it is the law, the Executive branch has a lot of discretion with how it enforces the law.  As former Supreme Court Justice Jackson explained, the decision to prosecute is a policy choice, not a stiff obligation:

If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. It is in this realm—in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views, or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself.

In other words, the decision to harshly enforce immigration laws is a policy choice.  It is a policy choice the same way that it is a policy choice when a police officer decides to let you off with a warning rather than give you a ticket.

Let me say this loud and clear: being undocumented in of itself should not be a crime.  The reason is simple: nobody is responsible for where they are born.  In many cases, undocumented immigrants are born to places with extreme poverty and violence in their native countries.  Conversely, you committed no heroic or respectable act to be born in America.  Your parents had sex on American soil and now you’re here.  That’s it.  Your entitlement to the rights and privileges of American citizenship is an accident of the birth you had no control over.

Now imagine being born into a place with endemic violence and little economic opportunity.  Your family lives at constant risk of violence and starvation.  The conditions are so bad that you would travel 1,500 miles knowing that you could be turned down at the border or that your children could die in the journey.  And yet, it is still a more preferable risk than staying where you are.  Imagine you lived in similarly desperate conditions.  Would you do that for your family?

Of course you would.

Make no mistake: this is how desperate these people are.  And our government is turning them away.  

It makes little sense to say that the parents are responsible for this from an ethical standpoint.  In most cases, immigrants from Mexico and Central America are coming here to flee poverty and violence in their home countries.  So by all accounts, as parents, they are doing the right thing by trying to get to America to save their kids from a terrible fate.  I am fairly certain most people would do the same if faced with similar circumstances.

Even when considered from the perspective of a person who wants to “Make America Great Again,” deporting undocumented immigrants still makes little sense.  These are people who are thankful for America and desperate to live and work in it.  Aren’t these the type of people you would want here?  

And if not, what’s the reason?  

Seriously.  I wish people who view headlines like this without a hint of sympathy would think really hard about why they don’t want Mexican/South American immigrants here.  Because that’s largely who we’re talking about here.  

Because in my mind, I can only think of one reason.

Title image source 

[cazort]

Also, these figures ignore that slavery was concentrated in particular regions of states, namely, the warmer, lower-elevation regions that were suitable for growing crops like cotton, and was generally absent from Appalachia, not because it was illegal, it was still legal in the southern parts of Appalachia, but because the white people in this region were generally too poor to own slaves so few of them did, and when they did, they owned fewer.

Appalachia and other mountainous regions like the Ozarks cover much of Arkansas, and parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia, and nearly all of West Virginia. And on top of this, the flatter parts of Kentucky and Tennessee still didn’t have much plantation labor like in the deep south. So for example in West Virginia in 1860, the census reported 3,605 slaveholders in West Virginia, contrasting with 393,975 in Mississippi. That’s over 100 times as many people owning slaves in Mississippi (a state where nearly the entire state had the plantation-labor model) as West Virginia (where nearly the entire state was Appalachia.)

This map showing the portion of black population by county gives you a good idea of the areas where slavery was historically concentrated:

(Ignore the big dots in the north and west because these reflect urban areas where free blacks later moved. Focus on the big connected swath of areas in the coastal plain of the southeast and the Mississippi delta; that’s where slavery was a dominant institution.)

This addition is important because:

(a) in the plantation-based areas, the portion of white people belonging to households owning slaves was even higher. So like that 49% figure in Mississippi was still broken down regionally, almost no one had slaves in the northeast corner of the state, but much more than 49% had it in the heart of the state.

(b) in southern Appalachia and other poorer areas like Tennessee and Kentucky, even though slavery was legal, the portion of white people belonging to households owning slaves was very low.

This is relevant when discussing which white populations historically benefitted from slavery. Slavery predominately benefitted the white people in certain regions of the south but there were also significant regions where the majority of the white population did not benefit from slavery at all.

The whole concept of “whiteness” as a racial identity and the culture of white identity pitted against black people, exists in large part to manipulate the poor whites in the southern states into supporting regressive policies that benefit the people whose wealth was derived from slavery. These policies go back a long way, but only became incorporated into the Republican party (which was historically more progressive on racial issues, and was instrumental in ending slavery and advancing desegregation and breaking down racist policies in the south) more recently, with the whole “southern strategy”.

The sad irony of this whole thing is that nowadays, much left-wing ideology and discussion has been polluted with this non-constructive “us-vs-them” between white people and people of other races, often overlooking the historical roots of these things.

I feel the need to say this because I hear the whole “whites benefit from racism” trope repeated over and over again, and points like what the OP made here, even if truthful, are sometime used to justify that narrative. And...it’s still true that only some whites benefitted from racism, and that racism is actually used as a tool to manipulate poorer whites in the south, who are concentrated in certain regions, mostly Appalachia, into directing their political energy against blacks and urban liberals instead of working for more progressive economic policies that would improve both their own conditions and those of black people, a group that, economically and socio-politically, shares more in common with them due to both being disadvantaged and disenfranchised, with lower wealth and lower incomes as well as less influence in key power circles.

The real truth is “certain whites benefit from racism” and I think a lot is gained by asking the tough questions of exactly who those white people are. And the answer you usually come to is usually something like “the southern whites who have the money”.

"Only 1% of white people in the US had slaves" is a great example of using a fact for misinformation. That is true, but extremely manipulative bc it cuts out really important details about the statistic.

1) It includes the more populous Northern states that did not allow slavery.

2) It ignores the fact that family units were much larger and only the family patriarch tended to actually own the slaves for the family, meaning there were significantly more slave-holders than slave-OWNERS. So you need to measure by household.

So, using the exact same data (the 1860 census) you can determine that about 25% of households in the south had slaves. In Mississippi alone 49% of households had slaves. South Carolina is 46%. The 1% figure I've believed in the past is propaganda to undersell the role of the general white population in slavery and to undersell just how much everyday southern whites benefitted from slavery.

And I haven't even mentioned that slave owners often rented out their slaves...

[mypictures3504-blog]

t was only 60 years ago that this would have been an unheard of sight in the south. By custom rather than by law, black folks were best off if they weren't caught eating vanilla ice cream in public in the Jim Crow South, except – the narrative always stipulates – on the Fourth of July. I heard it from my father growing up myself, and the memory of that all-but-unspoken rule seems to be unique to the generation born between World War I and World War II. But if Maya Angelou hadn't said it in her classic autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | IndieBound, I doubt anybody would believe it today. People in Stamps used to say that the whites in our town were so prejudiced that a Negro couldn't buy vanilla ice cream. Except on July Fourth. Other days he had to be satisfied with chocolate. Vanilla ice cream – flavored with a Nahuatl spice indigenous to Mexico, the cultivation of which was improved by an enslaved black man named Edmund Albius on the colonized Réunion island in the Indian Ocean, now predominately grown on the largest island of the African continent, Madagascar, and served wrapped in the conical invention of a Middle Eastern immigrant – was the symbol of the American dream. That its pure, white sweetness was then routinely denied to the grandchildren of the enslaved was a dream deferred indeed. What makes the vanilla ice cream story less folk memory and more truth is that the terror and shame of living in the purgatory between the Civil War and civil rights movement was often communicated in ways that reinforced to children what the rules of that life were, and what was in store for them if they broke them. My father, for instance, first learned the rules when he first visited South Carolina with my grandfather in the 1940s. In our family's home county of Lancaster, Daddy asked the general store owner if he could buy some candy and ice cream, referring to the white man as "Sir". The store owner promptly grabbed my father by the collar, and yelled at him in the presence of my grandfather. Then he informed the elder man, "You'd better teach this little nigger to say 'Yassuh', boy! 'Sir' ain't good enough!" My grandfather grabbed his son and sped off. The late poet Audre Lorde had a similar narrative to Angelou's in her own autobiography, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. She visited Washington DC with her family as a child, around Independence Day, and her parents wanted to treat her to vanilla ice cream at a soda shop. They were rebuffed by the waitress and refused service. She expressed disappointment at her family and sisters for not decrying the act as anything but "anti-American". She summed up the event: The waitress was white, the counter was white, and the ice cream I never ate in Washington DC that summer I left childhood was white, and the white heat and white pavement and white pavement and white stone monuments of my first Washington summer made me sick to my stomach for the rest of the trip. Why were black people allowed vanilla ice cream, but on the Fourth of July? Why then? After all, in 1852 Frederick Douglass railed against the idea of celebrating Americans' independence when blacks did not have their full, God-given freedom. "What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?", asked Douglass of his audience when invited to speak in commemoration of the day. I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. Was that somehow the purpose of allowing the denied ice cream cone? Was it a pacifier? Was it a message to us that, as long as we obeyed the rules, we could still be occasionally rewarded with just enough to keep us patriotic and loyal? But perhaps it is pointless to ask for more than context. The period during which African Americans were not allowed to eat vanilla ice cream tells us a lot about where this memory is located in time: a period of great progress driven by black Americans themselves. It was a time when our forefathers fought for this country and when our foremothers organized marches to protest lynching; when the mass migration from south to north took place; and when labor organizations became vehicles for early pressure for civil rights. The nadir of black life in America – the period from the born at end of Reconstruction through the full entrenchment of Jim Crow – was firmly on its way out. That period of time also represented a closing of the gates of immigration from Europe, the slow rise of the United States as a world power, and the increasing unification of the idea and principles of "whiteness". In 1910, for instance, "white" did not mean Italian, Jewish, Greek, Polish or any of a variety of other ethnicities we now unequivocally associate with privilege. It was, instead, still a term largely reserved for the "old Americans" – those of northwestern European stock. But that changed – at least for some of the Europeans who wound up on America's shores. In the south in particular, new ethnic whites quickly did all they could to assimilate and then affirm their whiteness – to not do so was death, as demonstrated by the lynchings of Sicilians in Louisiana and the lynching of Leo Frank, who was Jewish, in Georgia in the pre-war decades. Little things took on outsized meanings, and each was another way to differentiate between those who "belonged", and those who were barely tolerated. Perhaps the memory of being denied vanilla ice cream is not a literal memory for most: maybe it is just commentary. There is fantastic power in this fascinating memory of Jim Crow life because it calls our attention to the deeper psychological consequences of legalized racism in American life. The racism of the time period was not just about dignity and self-esteem – it was embodied and mythologized in physical terms. So in a way, the denial of vanilla (and all its symbolic promise) was not so bad after all: indeed satisfaction, with "chocolate" is now emblematic of people of color being supported by and being self sufficient in their own communities. Without this exact satisfaction in our sense of beauty, worth, mind and purpose – without having learned to live without vanilla – we never would have fought to change the world.

[assemblyoftheway]

SOUTH AMERICA ISRAELITES

AFRO-GUYANA

Afro-Guyanese people are inhabitants of Guyana who are of Sub-Saharan African descent, generally descended from slaves brought to the Guianas to work on sugar plantations. In 1621 the Dutch West India Company acquired a charter to colonize and monopolize trade in the Americas and in Africa where they established a chain of slave trading and collection forts along the western African coast to supply slave labor for the Americas. The first of many hundreds of shiploads of enslaved Africans began arriving in Guyana in 1640 to work on the Dutch slave labor plantations. Slave labor was used to build the remarkable system of large drainage canals, dikes and sluices that form a protective barrier between the Atlantic Ocean and the low-lying coastline where most of the population still lives. One of the largest segments of Guyana's population are the descendants of those freed slaves who stayed in the colony after 1833. They make up about three-tenths of the population. Guyana is the only English-speaking country of South America, it was also never a Spanish or Portuguese colony, but instead Dutch and then British. Emancipation Day in Guyana comes every August 1st and commemorates the abolition of slavery in Guyana in 1834. Guyana shares Emancipation Day with other Caribbean nations that were formerly British colonies. There is currently a Hebrew culture center in Guyana called ‘The Prophetic Priesthood at Jerusalem,’ that keeps the laws of The Highest. Also, the territory now known as Guyana was first inhabited by indigenous groups such as the Carib (Galibi or Kalinago), Arawak (Taino), Warrau, Wayana and Akawai. Before the captive’s slaves were brought to Guyana.

AFRO-BRAZILIAN

From the late 1500s to the 1860s, Brazil was consistently the largest destination for African slaves in the Americas. In that period, approximately 4 million enslaved Africans were imported to Brazil. Thousands of African slaves were brought to work in the gold mines. They were landed in Rio de Janeiro and sent to other regions. By the late 18th century, Rio de Janeiro was an "African city": most of its inhabitants were slaves. No other place in the world had as many slaves since the end of the Roman Empire. In 1808 the Portuguese Royal Family, fleeing from Napoleon, took charge in Rio de Janeiro. Some 15,000 Portuguese nobles moved to Brazil. The region changed a lot, becoming more European. The coast, in the past the place where millions of African slaves arrived (mostly from modern-day Angola, Ghana, Nigeria and Benin) to work in sugar-cane plantations, is where nowadays there is a predominance of Mulattoes, those of African and European ancestry. However, Salvador, Bahia is considered the largest African city outside of Africa, with over 80% of its inhabitants being African-Brazilians. It has been estimated by Darcy Ribeiro, a Brazilian anthropologist, author and politician that,12 million Africans were captured to be brought to Brazil, even though the majority of them died before becoming slaves in the country, only 45% of the Africans captured in Africa, to become slaves in Brazil, survived. Brazilian slavery included a diverse range of labor roles. For example, gold mining in Brazil began to grow around 1690 in interior regions of Brazil, such as modern-day region of Minas Gerais. Slaves in Brazil also worked on sugar plantations, such as those found in the first capital of Brazil—Salvador, Bahia. Other products of slave labor in Brazil during that era in Brazilian history included tobacco, textiles, and cachaça, which were often vital items traded in exchange for slaves on the African continent.

AFRO-URUGUAYANS

The majority of 190,000 Afro-Uruguayans are in Montevideo. The port of Buenos Aires served as the exclusive entry point for enslaved Africans in the Río de la Plata region. Slaves entering the port of Buenos Aires were then regularly shipped inland to Córdoba and the northwestern provinces of Salta and Tucumán in Argentina, across the Andes Mountains to Chile (see Afro-Chileans) and to the mines of Potosí in Alto Perú. Most African slaves worked as domestic servants or day laborers. Slavery was abolished gradually between 1842 and 1852. Economically they remain among the poorest sectors of Uruguayan society: most are non-qualified workers employed in the construction industry, domestic service, or cleaning and porter services. There is high unemployment among young Afro-Uruguayans. English is spoken in this country, but mostly for business, and then 99% of the population of Uruguay speaks Spanish.

AFRO-PERUVIANS

The first slaves arrived with the conquistadors (Spaniards) in 1521. In 1529 and 1537, Francisco Pizarro was granted permits to import 363 slaves to colonial Peru. The "New laws" of 1548 and the influence of the denunciation of the abuses against Native Americans by Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, slaves gradually replaced natives at the Encomienda’s. Over the course of the slave trade, approximately 95,000 slaves were brought into Peru, with the last group arriving in 1850.

Slave owners in Peru developed preferences to have slaves from specific areas of Africa (believed to have certain characteristics); they wanted to have slaves of one area who could communicate with each other. They believed slaves from Guinea, from the Senegal River down to the Slave Coast, were easier to manage and had marketable skills. They already knew how to plant and cultivate rice, train horses, and herd cattle on horseback. The slave owners also preferred slaves from the area stretching from Nigeria to eastern Ghana. The slave owners' third choice was for slaves from Congo, Mantenga, Cambado, Misanga, Mozambique, Madagascar, Terranova (who were probably bought in Porto-Novo, Benin), Mina and Angola. Two types of black slaves were forced to travel to Peru. Those born in Africa were commonly referred to as negros bozales ("untamed blacks"), which was also used in a derogatory sense. These slaves were shipped from west or southwest Africa or transported from the Spanish Indies or other Spanish colonies. Afro-Peruvians previously acculturated to Spanish culture and the ones who spoke Spanish were called negros ladinos (Latinized Negros) “Ladino” was a racist term used in the Iberia Peninsula. The Iberian Peninsula is Portugal and Spain, sound familiar? Well, if it does that’s because that is where black Jews (Yahudim) were expelled from and taking to the west coast of Africa only to be brought to the Americas and the Islands of the sea. Which would mean the slaves that were taking to Peru are descendants of these slaves, which would mean, they are the TRUE Jew/Yahudim.

In 1835, President Felipe Santiago Salaverry signed a decree again legalizing the deportation of slaves through the other Latin American countries. Thus, two years after his death, will be removed from the constitution the principle of "emancipating soil" according to which a slave entering Peru is, de facto, made free. In 1854, General José de San Martín outlaws slave trade in Peru. In 1856, President Ramón Castilla y Marquezado declared slavery abolished. Afro-Peruvian music has its roots in the communities of black slaves brought to work in the mines along the Peruvian coast. Today, Afro-Peruvians (also known as Afro descent Peruvians) reside mainly on the central and south coast, with the majority of the population in the provinces of Lima, Callao, Nazca, Chincha, Ica and Cañete. Many Afro-Peruvians live on the northern coast in Lambayeque and Piura. The greatest concentration of Afro-Peruvians and mestizos of Afro descent is in the Callao, an area that has historically received many of the Afro-Peruvians from the north and southern coast.

AFRO-ECUADORIAN

Slave ships first arrived in Ecuadorian ports in 1526, and slaves worked on plantations and in gold mines. Afro-Ecuadorians make up most of the balance of the percentage and include mulattos (mixed European and sub-Saharan African) and zambos (mixed indigenous and sub-Saharan African). Afro-Ecuadorians are an ethnic group in Ecuador who are descendants of black African slaves brought by the Spanish during their conquest of Ecuador from the Incas. They make up from 3% to 5% of Ecuador's population. The Afro-Ecuadorian culture is found primarily in the country's northwest coastal region. Africans form a majority (70%) in the province of Esmeraldas and also have an important concentration in the Valle del Chota in the Imbabura Province. They can be also found in important numbers in Quito and Guayaquil. Today, Afro-Ecuadorians have the highest unemployment level and are among the poorest of Ecuadorian social groups. Also, there is evidence that this group still faces regional inequalities and racial discrimination, particularly in urban areas.

AFRO-CHILEANS Afro-Chileans are descended from the Sub-Saharan part of Africa, who were brought to the New World by religious orders and Spaniards. Slavery bloomed from 1580 to 1660, the import of slaves into Chile was a response to a long-term population decline among indigenous peoples. Black slaves were often used as housekeepers, agriculture, gold mining, and construction projects. Mortality was high, due to harsh working environment. and other posts of confidence. It is believed some of them might have come from Peru from the Antilles or towns in Africa, specifically from the Bantu regions some also were considered as descendants of Enslaved Africans brought from Africa to Present day Peru, Cuba, Brazil, then later brought to Chile. Afro-Chileans are mainly located in Arica y Parinacota in northern Chile. They are not recognized by Chilean government as an ethnic group.

[ayumii]

New Orleans

from InterViews X, Ayumi Rahn, 2018

Because 

your shoes are on your feet and your feet are on the street and this street is Bourbon Street. 

overheard

The past is never dead. It‘s not even past.

William Faulkner

We open the blinds slightly and look outside, about shoulder height. Outside there is a car parked. A man staggers around the hood, he stops in front of the driver‘s door standing with his back towards us. He gets out his dick and supporting himself on the car top with his left arm he pees at the closed driver‘s door in front of him. He puts his dick back in, gets out his car key, unlocks the car door and drops down into the driver‘s seat. The door wide open, his feet still on the street, he dozes off, already far away in another place, his mouth hangs open, utterly stoned.

In the room, the air-conditioning is running as is a large fan on the ceiling, at least one meter in diameter for sure. Intuitively one imagines that here, every room, every smallest compartment, is provided with at least one of them. Here, south, hot and humid, so different that you doubt that this here belongs to the USA, to the United States, to the same United States to which New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Albuquerque belong. To which Donald Trump as well as Barack and Michelle Obama also belong. And the Mississippi River, that name always seemed to me as if it could have easily emerged from a fairy tale. Is there really such a thing as the Mississippi River? Does there exist such a thing? If someone would tell me, that in fact the Mississippi River has been created like the tale of Sleeping Beauty, for the sole purpose of telling a story. A kind of informative story, in this case a story of extraordinary dimensions, I wouldn‘t doubt it. The Mississippi River doesn‘t exist, it’s just a word, a made-up word. A confirmation that you don’t know anything, and you don’t understand either, because you never could get close enough or will you ever and for certain you will never be able to comprehend it all. It’s just so. While here, oversized fans are rotating.

They are rotating in the dark and noisy bars at Bourbon Street, full of music. Parallel to Bourbon Street, just a few blocks away, there lies the Moon Walk, the promenade along the Mississippi River. New Orleans. New Aaaw-lens, is a port city and Bourbon Street might be a kind of „Große Freiheit“ (the „Great Freedom“, a street in Hamburg) it seemed to me, although the scale is different. Drunks, tourists, party mood. Out of nothing, some tourists chat to us in German: In such and such bar, they serve the best Irish Coffee, and they are about to go there now. And, sure thing, the couple said, they also did a Plantation Tour. It‘s all part of the package. And after all they are already here for some days, and now they know their way around. Bourbon Street. Mississippi River. Moon Walk.

The Moon Walk. There, on Mardi Gras, carnival Tuesday, they spread the ashes of the deceased mixed with glitter into the river. While the ashes vanish in the water immediately, you can still see the glitter floating on the surface for a while. A new birth of sorts. In the middle of June, we are sitting on the stairs, looking at the water of the Mississippi River at our feet. A few hundred meters further along a steamboat is piping a swaying, husky melody with its full boiler, while the tourists stand in line waiting for the evening cruise. Broad stairs are leading down to the river, which sloshes against them with slow waves. So very sluggish seeming more like an ocean then a river. But wait, over there, don‘t you see? Is that a body sloshing back and forth and against the debris at the riverside? So very slow, almost with pleasure and without any refusal, back and forth with the waves, like only a lifeless body can slosh. A relatively large dead body, splish, splash, is it a dead seal? But how in the world did a seal get here?

Visiting a swamp is a main attraction. New Orleans had to be constructed, that was certain from the start. There was no way around it. At the mouth of such a big river, at the entrance of such a big country, there has to be a big city, an important city, let‘s say a metropolis. A fact, for sure. In the case of New Orleans, there was no doubt. First of all, wetlands had to be turned into land. You do what you can. The swamps must be drained, then a city can be built upon it. Yet still, giant pumping systems are continuously pumping water out of the swamps, on which the city stands. Otherwise, the city would turn into swamp, it would suck up water like a sponge. What an achievement. Marshland works as a natural defense to hurricanes. As they sweep through the swamps, they lose power. No swamp, no defense.

2005 The lower of Lower Ninth Ward, a district of New Orleans, is the same lower like in Lower Manhattan in contrast to Upper Manhattan. It has often been misinterpreted, that the Lower Ninth Ward is located lower beneath sea level than the rest of the city. In fact, it is just describing the area south of the Ninth Ward. The Lower Ninth Ward is within the area that had been most worst affected by the devastations due to Hurricane Katrina. But why? To protect from various risks- such as the missing swamp defense and the dangerous proximity to the Mississippi Gulf Outlet, the MRGO, which was built as a shortcut for the shipping industry. But working like a large funnel it leads storms directly into the city. To protect the city from several risks levees were constructed. Amsterdam, located below sea level like New Orleans, is protected from flooding by a levee. But what is the use of a levee, if it is built on mud. Against multiple and subsequent engineering failures none of it helps in the end. 2005 because of hurricane Katrina, the levees breach at several points. Instead of 17 meters as is required the levee was barely anchored to the ground. It is washed out and washed away. In 2005 between 1100 and 1800 people died in New Orleans because of Katrina. To this date there is still disagreement as to number of deaths.

There was a lot going wrong in 2005, not to say everything. About 20.000 people took refuge from the storm in the Super Dome and waited for help in inhuman conditions. Help didn’t come. They waited for about a week. Finally, coaches arrived, in which they were being sat, driving them anywhere. Specifically meaning: the people on the bus have no idea where the bus is going. Baton Rouge, Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, New York City? The residents of New Orleans, citizens of the United States, are being dispersed throughout the entire country as fugitives, families are torn apart.

And how can you come back home again after it all? When? And what kind of home? Is the house still standing? The insurances refuse to pay. The worst damages are not storm damages but damages caused by flooding. And these are not covered by the hurricane insurances. Soon it is under discussion to just tear down the most affected neighborhoods- in which predominately a black population live. Perhaps turn it back into marshland? What about a health resort? A city park, to promote the health of the city people? And again, the misunderstanding: „The Lower Ninth Ward is just so low, lower than the rest of the city. It is only reasonable to not build it up again. The residents would do better elsewhere after all.” In the chaos that lasted for years, different, mainly white stakeholders see their chance to gain influence in impeding the return of the people that are dispersed throughout the country as fugitives. Houses are torn down. Even those without essential damage. Following thesis is put forward: „Maybe the storm was an act of God, so that the city of New Orleans could rise from the ashes but only white.” Tenants of social housing in the city center are being locked out by their residential districts. The so-called Public Housing Projects were torn down by private real estate companies. More than 99 percent of the affected residents are African Americans, among them primarily single mothers, disabled and elderly people.

The bridge to Gretna. As the city lay in ruins, covered by water, immediately after the storm, a group of people wandered through the destroyed streets looking for shelter, for help and probably for drinking water too. The heat was almost 40° centigrade. Now and then they encountered overwhelmed police officers. Now and then they encountered other helpless people who join the group. Finding a way out together, out of the destroyed city, looking for help. Finally, they were told, they should cross the river. “On the other side of the Mississippi River, there in Gretna, coaches are waiting to bring you to safety.” The group, already in their hundreds, included elderly people, people in wheelchairs and children among them. In the heat, they trudged over the asphalt of the huge four lane bridge, the Crescent City Connection. From a distance, they could see police officers standing on the other side of the bridge. Obviously, they were expecting them. As they came within earshot, they heard the armed policemen shout: “Stay where you are, don’t get any closer, or we’ll shoot.” The people in the group thought they had misheard and came closer. “Where are the busses that will get us to safety? Is there any drinking water? Some of us just cannot take it any longer.” “Turn back, or we shoot”, the Gretna police shouted towards the helpless New Orleans citizens. Gretna, by the Mississippi River, on the opposite side from New Orleans. Then they started firing into the air. The group turned back. “We really thought now they’re going to shoot us.” “We were acting for the safety of the city of Gretna. We couldn’t just let anyone come into our town”, said the police department afterwards. The threat was a group of people escaping a destroyed city. Up to 95% black people. “We‘re not having black people coming into our neighborhood”, that at least is what Larry Bradshaw from the group of the fleeing people understood.

We are doing a swamp tour. Here a swamp is called bayou. A small boat, six people, a silent engine, perhaps we’ll even see a crocodile. It’s swarming with alligators here. The meeting point is at a truck stop on the Pearl River. There huge trucks are parking one next to another, ten, maybe fifteen. Each truck easily the size of one and a half European trucks. A heat of nearly 40° centigrade and nearly 100 percent air humidity. How are you supposed to breath? Is it sweat or air moisture? Everything is soaked. While in every room at least one disproportionate fan is rotating, the whole row of parked trucks keep their engines running. What? Why? What a terrible noise, and what about the environment? The drivers are resting inside, without air conditioning it would be unbearable. In the bayou, the water level is low. You can read different water levels at the trunks of the mangroves. In New Orleans plastic beads are hanging from all lampposts and trees in all colors. Mardi Gras Beads. Here, Spanish Moss is hanging from the branches. In photos it looks damp, like a kind of moss, but it is not, it is rather dry, like a kind of lichen. Garlands. There is a lot of noise in the bayou: chirping, rustling, whistling. It’s going to rain. The hurricane season had started at the beginning of June. Here and there, around the next river bend, we see little huts on stilts. Some are even floating and will rise with the water, others are likely to sink soon, built for one season, just until the next storm comes up or the water rises. Who lives here? What would it be like to spent the night here? What kind of sounds could you hear at night? The huts are about caravan-size. Tiny houses. Most of them have a small porch with a rocking chair. Maybe they watch too much TV, one wonders. Probably not, but one does wonder. At the next river bend, there is a sandbank. Toys are lying scattered in the sand. Really? I thought it was swarming with alligators? And yet children are playing in the sand by the water?On the water which stands motionless in the bayou, a surface like mercury, an infinite number of flies are sitting. Whole nations of tiny flies, sitting on the water surface with their flyweight. The surface doesn’t move at all________________________________ As we are coming closer tiny waves are formed, rolling towards the flies. Now suddenly, they are panicking and start fleeing jumping over each other. In a velocity, so that the panic seems more like an elaborate choreography, which is set in motion by our boat.

As soon as we are back in the car, it starts raining. First it rains, then it pours. Water is whipping over the windscreen like waves. The wiper works in full swing, but just as well one could use it to paddle through the bayou. Not much good. We can also turn it off. We are driving on Interstate 10, which is leading over bridges and lakes and swamps. Quite impressive. But we can’t see anything because of the rain. If we would drive on Interstate 10 to the end, we would arrive in Los Angeles. Water is whipping across the windshield. The street is flooded. Like the END OF THE WORLD. Then the rain stops.The Mississippi River Road runs directly along the Mississippi River, which one does not see, because it is hidden behind a tall wall of grass. Here is where some time ago the richest residents of the United States lived. A map shows it in the Land Registry: Strip to strip to strip. Plantation to plantation sugar cane was cultivated here. The harvest and processing of the sugar cane is very painful, because the leaves are rigid and sharp as razor blades.

The German immigrant Ambroise Heidel founded the Whitney Plantation in 1721. Its name comes from a later owner who ran the plantation after the time of slavery. Today’s owner, John Cummings, a New Orleans lawyer, created the open-air museum and memorial place, the so-called Whitney Plantation Historic District. In a small Baptist church built by free slaves after the civil war we are watching a short introductory film. All around us are dozens of life-size bronze figures of children, girls and boys, in dresses and overalls. These 40 sculptures by the sculptor Woodrow Nash portray the children of the Whitney Plantation, witnesses of the past. Our admission tickets depict one of these sculptures each. One of the children and his name. We learn they are survivors. All sculptures are portraits, each of it made according to original pictures.The survivors are getting a chance to speak about the time when they were other people’s property. Each sculpture is a portrait of a human being with their own name and their own story. On my ticket, I read the name “Henry Reed”. On the back a quotation tells about his life at the plantation. The child on the front is about 7 years old. At the time, Henry Reed was interviewed he was 86. He has survived.  On a “Wall of Honor” the names of 2200 children are engraved, children that died at the Whitney and the bordering communities. On average a grown man would survive 7 years of plantation labor. Women usually lived longer. Women were more expensive, more valuable than healthy, strong men, which were used up for slave labor. From women, they could breed new working power. Two human beings were locked up in a cage, until the woman was pregnant. Cages, metal blocks, in which the heat must have been unbearable. Unborn life, valuable property. New life, more capital. The container-sized cages were manufactured in Philadelphia. The whole country was involved, not only the South. In the South is where the nasty business happened, inhuman and murderous, the rest of the country would be turning their backs to it. But here is where most of the millionaires lived.

Before the time of slavery, the US was a subordinate trade partner of the major European powers. After the time of slavery, it became an economic superpower. At the Whitney Plantation Historic District there are black marble memorials with engraved names in commemoration of the victims. One name after another. Names of the people that lived here as slaves. Bodies, which served only to accumulate their owner’s capital. More valuable or less valuable, according to health, sex, working power, fertility and the ability to give birth. One marble block is left blank intentionally. It is for those that remained nameless. A large blank surface. Somewhere on the estate the gong still hangs that marked the beginning and the end of the daily slave labor. A brass plate with a heavy hammer. We get invited to ring it to remember the victims, those who died and those who survived. It sounds heavy and resonates for a while. Even though we had expected unsettling things keeping our composure feels kind of tough. Again, it starts raining. Our guide Ali intently says, that retelling is important. We can all see how deeply he cares, and that he is right. It is not over yet. The half has never been told. He says loudly: Slavery and oppression are not past, it is not over yet. In the USA, more citizens are in jail as in any other country in the world. 25 % of those imprisoned worldwide are in an US penitentiary. Out of 100.000 white US-citizens there are 478 prison inmates, out of the same amount of black US-citizens there are 3.023. Out of more than 35.000 museums in the USA the Whitney Plantation Historic District is the only one dedicated exclusively to the history of the enslaved plantation inhabitants.

The Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve is located south of New Orleans. On wooden planks one can walk right through the wetlands and explore it. We see swarms of dragon flies, giant locusts and two alligators. Later, we chat with a Ranger. He tells us about an alligator den which is being guarded by an alligator mother somewhere around here. Don’t get too close! The Ranger is a little man with an uncanny resemblance to Steve Buscemi. Maybe because we are from Germany he suddenly starts talking: His ancestors came from Europe. His ancestors settled in the north of the USA. His ancestors didn’t cast out native Americans neither did they murder them, yet they benefited from the fact that others did. When the ships brought tons of cotton from the plantations up the Mississippi River to the north of the country passengers could travel on empty ships back southwards almost for free. So, his ancestors moved on. He says: “My ancestors never traded in slaves neither did they keep slaves, but, again, they benefited from the fact that others did.” From what have we benefitted?

Finally, we want to visit another plantation. I say: the way that they are processing the past of course is American. But they do process it and from the perspective of the victims and of those who survived, that is a good thing. I had no idea and have learned a lot. At TripAdvisor, the Laura Plantation is highly recommended. Five stars, best plantation ever: Immerse yourself in the history. Visitors enter the Laura Plantation through the gift shop. Obviously, the marketing is working. Shower gel, cookies, bottle openers, towels, all kinds of souvenirs, most of them with an image of Laura on it. Laura, youngest member of the plantation owner dynasty, she soon left the plantation to live in a big city, an emancipated woman. At some point, she wrote down her memories of the plantation. That all was not well with it, sure thing. We are a large group, US-Americans from all over the country looking forward to seeing a real plantation. Southern states’ glory, North and South. At least one selfie in front of the mighty oaks that are quite a bit younger than the plantation itself, but never mind: The manor house is a splendor. Our guide is squeezing her PET bottle in her back pocket and introduces herself as Katie: “You know whenever you have a question...“. Her eyes wide open she tells stories of life in the plantation: “Sometimes, when a slave did something wrong they would just, shoot him. And nobody would be accused of murder because: a slave’s life was not worth much.” In the basement, we are seeing life-sized cardboard stand-ups of the plantation owners. It had been the largest plantation so far. The Master and his wife lived like king and queen. Of course, there was a lot of work, with such a giant plantation– “Hey Katie! Is this furniture in the original state?” No, of course not, we just collected it somewhere, who cares. But hey, we planted banana trees: They are thriving in our hot and humid Louisiana climate. “Come on and check it out! Now, let’s have a look at the kitchen, the cooking barn. Here the slaves prepared all their delicious dishes they brought to us from their old homeland, Africa. Jambalaya, Gumbo– watch out: Each paving stone on which we’re standing, each and every brick you’re seeing, the slaves made with their own hands. Brick by brick. From the MUD, that they carried here from the shores of the MISSISSIPPI RIVER…” I mean... whaat? They love the Laura Plantation on TripAdvisor: If you ever wanted to see a major sugar cane plantation, you go there. Gone with the Wind. We are waiting until the whole group has entered the kitchen barn and then we run across the plantation, take the back door out, and breath a sigh of relief to be back in our car.

The series NOLA (New Orleans) is shown in this issue. Ten pieces, watercolor on paper, first the back, then the front. It is all beads, water, water like mercury, flies on the water surface, the bayou, huts mounted on stilts, with porches and rocking chairs, Mardi Gras Beads, mud, mold, Spanish Moss, fans, trucks with their engines running, heat, swamps and wetlands, a levee built on silt, heavy rain, storms, destroyed houses, demolished housing blocks, the Mississippi River, and the millionaires who lived along its shores.

Ayumi Rahn, 2018

InterViews X New Orleans

[natasha--margaret]

Art Analysis

cogc

task: Complete the assessment on printmaking processes

1. Identify which process of printmaking you see yourself working towards and using your own words, describe this genre. Identify the key characteristics of this process.

The process of printmaking that I see myself working towards the most is linocut. I haven’t been able to try much of the different techniques so I will be basing this off of the different processes that I have tried as well as from what I have found out from researching, and i have decided that linocut is the process that I see myself working towards. I like this technique as it is very easy to do and you can do any type of design easily, you can also get any level of intensity you want when doing this technique. Linocut also gives bold designs and clean prints. My genre of art is dark, horror and alternative styles. As my personal style is dark and alternative, I like to use this as the genre for my artwork. Usually when doing things such as drawings or paintings, I like to do detailed graphic pieces that have a lot of dark colours and tone/depth. When it comes to linocut, my genre changes a little. When doing linocut I still like to do alternative/dark designs but I try to make them a little more simple but still with the dark graphic ideas. Linocut is a printmaking technique where the artist cuts into a linoleum sheet with a blade to create their design. After the design is cut into the lino sheet, the artist then uses an ink roller to roll printing ink over the lino. The inked lino is then placed on a material and pressure is put over it to help print the design onto the material, this is usually done by using a press. Linocut is very similar to woodcut but due to the different variables of wood and lino, linocut can leave different effects and styles when printing. Lino prints can be created in masses due to the ease of reusing the lino sheet. The sheet used for linocut was created in 1860 by Frederick Walton in order to find a cheaper alternative material. The technique of linocutting was created in the 20th century although was frowned upon by artists due to its ease and lack of needing technical skills. German expressionists such as Erich Heckel and Gabriele Munter are thought of some of the first to come up with using lino for art purposes. Linocut was being used for black&white prints in 1912 in the UK, and russian artists started using it for prints by around 1913. Coloured linocuts were inspired by Claude Flight’s work and was taught in Grosvenor School of Modern Art from 1926-30. Picasso was famous for using linocut and made his first linocut in 1939-60′s, he is also thought of as the artist who started the “reduction linocut” idea - which is where a lino design/sheet is used multiple times in the one piece. Namibian John Ndevasia Muafangejo and Henri Matisse are also famous for their lino prints.

2.  Choose 3 pivotal printmakers and their artworks to analyse and evaluate within your chosen genre.

Artist 1 - Ramon Rodrigues

Ramon Rodrigues is a graphic artist and printmaker born in 1982 in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina. He has various degrees in design and also has a studying background of drawing, illustration, anatomy, engraving and printmaking. Rodrigues specialises in dark gothic styled prints, which relate a lot to the same genre and style that I do in my work. From first glance, I can tell that Rodrigues specialises in black and white, there are some prints with colour but most of his work is black and white. This helps add to the horror and gothic genre of his work and works well with the designs of his prints. Another thing I noticed is the scale of his pieces, some are small little prints and others are very large, it’s very impressive to me how he manages to keep such detail and depth in his pieces no matter the scale. The main thing that I noticed when researching his work is just how detailed it is. Rodrigues’ work is filled with lots of tone and depth, all of his pieces have multiple layers of shading and all have little pieces of detail which help bring the piece together. The amount of depth and detail of his work is what really intrigued me and made me amazed at how good his work is. The amount of detail, depth and tone in his pieces make them look almost like a photo/realistic or that they were paintings (and not prints). These are three of my favourite pieces due to how diverse they are yet still all hold the great amounts of detail/depth/tone in them. Pieces like “Os Sete” are filled with objects in the background yet is still as impressive as something like “A Bruxa” which has less subject matter. All have different compositions, subject matter, layers etc yet are all as impressive as the other.

Artist 2 - Mazatl

Gráfica Mazatl is a printmaker based in Mexico City. His work centres around fighting for social, enviromental and political justice and works with groups related to these. The work that he makes is inspired by the work that humans do to “shake off the noose around our necks”. Mazatl creates pieces of printmaking, linocuts, woodcuts and also does murals. Mazatl is also a street/graffiti artist and is very into the punk scene. A lot of his work is also based from and inspired from his culture/heritage. Some of his interests include: anarchism, indigenous resistance and social movements. Although Mazatl’s work isnt as dark and gothic as some of the others on this list, I still think it’s dark and very impressive. The first thing I noticed in his work is the contrast between how much of each colour is used. His work, like the ones below, is predominately centred and filled mostly with one colour with smaller parts of another in it.  For example: white with black detail or black with white detail. Another thing I noticed largely when researching his work is the amount of detail and little marks that he uses in his work. Usually, printmaking pieces have a lot of blank space, yet in Mazatl’s work the entire thing is filled with little detail and little lines/engravings. At first look it is clear that his work is filled with detail but the impressive thing is that the longer you look, the more detail and depth you notice, which leaves the viewer interested for longer. I really enjoy all the little and impressive detail/depth used as well as the messages and subject matter that he puts into his work. I also enjoy how a lot of them have the same subject matter which makes the pieces look like a continuing story.

Artist 3 - Slippery Jack

Richard Wells, aka Slippery Jack is a printmaker who specialises in horror and macabre style work. Wells also does work for TV shows, album covers and book illustrations. His work includes things like Doctor who, Dracula (TV) and Green Lung (band), and work for authors such as Arthur Machen and M.R. James. A lot of his work involves traditional mediums such as linocut and drypoint etching. The thing that drew me into his work is the similar subject matter that we have in common, a lot of the work i do is similar to his work and the concepts he does. Although Wells still has the alternative horror genre in his work, some of his work is very modernised looking compared to other artists I’ve listed (e.g. second photo). The thing that drew me into his work is just how much detail and layering there is. Just like Mazatl, you can tell wells’ work is detailed from first observation, but the more you look - the more detail you see. It also impresses me how much depth Wells’ has in his work and how you can tell there’s a foreground, midground  and background. My favourite photo of his work is the middle image, this is because each is different yet theyre all as impressive as each other. The right hand photo has so much detail, from the book writing to the book stand. I really enjoy the subject matter and composition of the top middle one as it looks simple but is filled with detail in the animals. The left hand one is one of my favourite due to the creepiness of it, as well as all of the detail and little lines that were used to create it. I think the bottom middle is my favourite as there is so much tone and depth used in it, that you wouldnt think it is a print. The wings, face and outfit are all filled with depth and tone that it looks like it is done by pen or paint or pencil and although it’s simple it is still very creepy and effective. Even though Wells’ work all have the same macabre style, each one is completely different to the others. Wells’ is definitely an artist who is good at his perception in his work (tone, depth, dimension etc).

References: website: https://www.drawcutinkpress.com/south-american-linocut-artists/ publisher: draw cut ink press date: 2020

website: https://www.drawcutinkpress.com/top-linocut-artists-to-follow/ publisher: draw cut ink press date: 2016

website: https://www.ramon-rodrigues.com/sobre-about publisher: ramon rodrigues date: n/a

website: http://www.graficamazatl.com/about publisher: grafica mazatl date: n/a

website: https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/street-art/the-work-of-grafica-mazatl/ publisher: juxtapoz date: n/a

website: https://justseeds.org/artist/mazatl/ publisher: justseeds date: n/a

website: https://vampiresquid.co.uk/artist-richard-wells-on-folk-horror-tv-work-and-his-upcoming-book/ publisher: vampiresquid date: n/a

website: https://www.britannica.com/technology/linocut Uploader: Britannica Date: 2019

website: https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/an-introduction-to-lino-printing-2578530 Uploader: The Spruce Crafts Date: 2019

[esoanem]

I saw black panther

(spoiler-free, at least nothing not deducible from trailers, all quotes are by memory so may not be entirely accurate)

I loved it. I stand by pretty much all my criticisms but think it is, overall, outweighed by the good. In particular, the cinematography was fantastic and the film did a great job of avoiding just looking and feeling like any other marvel movie. I also absolutely loved Shuri and really hope we get to see more of her in the future and the treatment of Nakia as a love interest was fantastic.

The film presents a criticism not only of colonialism but also of certain forms of black nationalism and pan-Africanism but some of those criticisms are a little weaker than ideal because in a few instances the film accidentally falls into the very patterns it is trying to criticise.

The central conflict is based around T’Chala deciding what direction he wants to take the country in and there are three main influences: T’Chaka (who represents Wakanda’s traditional isolationism), Nakia (who is in favour of providing aid to other, particularly black, people), Killmonger (who wants to arm oppressed, particularly black, people with Wakandan weapons and install Wakanda as the primary world power). The two white characters: Klaue (Andy Serkis) and Ross (Martin Freeman) also pretty clearly represent the two main modes white people have had for treating Africa; Klaue is the old-school explicitly racist colonial Boer who repeatedly calls the people of Wakanda “savages” despite having seen their culture first hand, whilst Ross (at least initially) represents the more modern paternalistic neocolonialism which claims to care and gives aid with one hand but exploits all the resources it can with the other and both are treated as bad although Ross is given the opportunity to change his ways and come round to T’Challa’s pov.

Killmonger pretty clearly expresses some black nationalist and pan-African opinions, wanting to aggressively arm black people to correct the injustices his brothers from the same continent have suffered. Thing is, at one point when talking about his scarification (each scar is one kill), he boasts about how he “killed his brothers here [in Africa]” so his calls for solidarity come across kinda hypocritical and so the film’s rejection of that flavour of black nationalism and pan-Africanism is kinda weak.

There was an important anti-pan-Africanist (at least, against Killmonger’s form of pan-Africanism) statement partway through that I think was important: Killmonger said to T’Challa that he had a duty to help black people worldwide because “they’re all from the same continent” to which T’Challa responds that “[he isn’t] the king of those people, [he is] king of Wakanda”. This is one of the points where Killmonger is most sympathetic, because here he mostly agrees with Nakia but again his position rings kinda false because of his celebration of killing black people in his past.

As stated previously, the criticism of colonialism and pan-Africanism is also weakened by the fact that the way they constructed Wakanda (as a nation) falls into a lot of Imperial modes of thought about Africa. They’ve moved Wakanda from the red area to the blue area (so it now pretty much entirely covers all of Rwanda and Burundi but extends further South, about halfway down lake Tanganyika) which mitigates soooome of the issues (this now being a largely Bantu-speaking area, albeit a very different branch from Xhosa) but, fundamentally, they are still plucking unrelated peoples from across the entirety of what is literally the most diverse continent and dumping them verbatim into a single country (and treating all as native to that country) without any real consideration to the realism (which this film is being praised for).

Anyway, on the topic of taking broadly disconnected peoples, putting them together and treating them all as native, the costume designer had already talked about filipino influence in the costume design for the Dora Milaje (although other, particularly Maasai, influences are bigger) which already caused some side-eye from me and others but, well, there’s the Jabari tribe (whose name appears to come from the Swahili word for “almighty ruler” which in turn comes from Arabic). This is the isolationist, anti-technology tribe who worship a Gorilla cult rather than the predominant Panther cult of Bast (yup, the worshipping Egyptian gods aspect of comic-Wakanda’s still there). Anyway, the Gorilla god they worship is apparently Hanuman. That’s right, the Hindu deity and monkey king of the Ramayana. This isn’t even a thing from the comics where, as far as I can tell, the god’s simply described either as the White Gorilla or as Ghekre (who they tie into some traditional West African religion). But yeah, bringing in Asian deities as well as the many different African cultures shows that Wakanda is not just microcosmic of Africa as a whole (which already has some issues) but that the creators have instead just thrown a bunch of unrelated “primitive”, “exotic”, and foreign cultures into a basket together.

Overall, I really enjoyed the film and am convinced the filmmakers absolutely had the best of intentions, there are just a bunch of individual things that should have been caught and fixed before it reached cinemas, as well as a few other issues that suggest the creators either didn’t think quite as deeply about the themes as they should, or that they weren’t given enough creative control to act on it. As I’ve said all along, we absolutely should celebrate this film for the many things it does right, and it’s tremendous success in difficult circumstances, we just need to be careful with the way we celebrate it so that we don’t accidentally celebrate the problems.

[johnboothus]

Whiskey Makers Explore the Weird World of Alt Oak Species

There are some 500 species of oak trees around the globe, but in the world of whiskey, just one is predominant: the American white oak, Quercus alba. Used in bourbon and Tennessee whiskey, both of which require the use of new charred oak barrels, American white oak often enjoys a second life overseas, with millions of gently used barrels from Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, Jack Daniel’s and other distilleries in the U.S. subsequently heading off to Scotland, Ireland, and other whiskey-making regions where they are put to a second (or third, or further) use.

But in recent years, a number of distillers have started using unusual, often local, species of oak to age their whiskeys, in a quest to give their spirits a more specific sense of place.

In Washington, Westland Distillery’s Garryana whiskey is partially aged in casks made from a local species, Quercus garryana, known as Garry oak. According to Westland’s master distiller Matt Hofmann, Washington State’s only native oak species offers a particular — and particularly strong — set of flavors, especially when compared to its ubiquitous cousin, Quercus alba.

Credit: Westland Distillery

“American white oak is everywhere, and the flavor profile from that oak is caramel, vanilla, coconut, baking spices,” Hofmann says. “Generally speaking, with Garry oak, the easiest way to describe it is like all of those flavor notes, but darker. So instead of caramel, it’s molasses. Instead of generic baking spices, it’s heavy clove.”

Not only does Garry oak bring more holiday spice to Westland’s Garryana, but it adds an unusual note that is more often associated with Missouri, Hofmann says, thanks to the presence of the smoky compounds called phenolics, which whiskey most often gets from peat-smoked malt.

“Garry oak has the most phenolics of any oak that I’ve ever seen, by quite some margin,” Hofmann says. “So you get like a savory smokiness, like a Kansas City-style barbecue sauce, if that makes sense to you. It’s just this really very flavorful, very dark, savory sort of oak that’s dramatically different from Quercus alba.”

“One of the tasting notes that was actually in here when we wrote the tasting notes was ‘burnt ends.’ Like barbecue burnt ends,” Hofmann continues. “Savory, but in a really good way.”

Credit: Mackmyra

In Sweden, Mackmyra’s Svensk Ek (“Swedish Oak”) whiskey includes spirits that were aged in barrels made from the European oak Quercus robur, which was harvested in southern Sweden and made into barrels in the town of Varalöv. For Mackmyra’s master blender, Angela D’Orazio, the characteristics offered by European oak differ substantially from those of American oak barrels.

“Generally, if you describe them, they are like a cigar box,” D’Orazio says. “They are like an oriental perfume. So you have a lot of exotic wood notes, sandalwood, cedar wood, peppery notes. You have tobacco leaf notes. You have ginger notes, cardamom, cinnamon. This oak has less sweet, vanilla tones and more rougher spices than the American oak.”

That classic American white oak is still an essential member of D’Orazio’s toolbox, however. Her goal? To use the two oaks, as well as former sherry casks and other barrels, to create a harmonious blend. In the end, roughly 10 percent of the Swedish-oak-aged spirit turned out to be the right proportion for Svensk Ek whiskey.

“The new American oak cask also has a beautiful influence that I wouldn’t like to be without,” D’Orazio says. “And the oloroso casks, spice casks as well. I wanted it to be like an orchestra playing together, like [the] Swedish oak being there, but not being the solo.”

Even a single oak species can have great variations in terms of the flavors it adds, depending on where it is grown, according to Brendan McCarron, head of maturing whiskey stocks at Glenmorangie in Tain, Scotland.

“With robur, European oak, in France versus in Spain, what you find is French oak is quite high in tannins, so you get lots of spice,” McCarron says. “But as you go from the north of France into the south of Spain, the tannin levels go up and up and up and up. It’s the same species, but it does change. We just recently worked with Hungarian oak, and Hungarian oak is Quercus robur, but it performs very differently because of where it’s grown, because of the climate, than it does in France.”

While especially visible among smaller, craft producers, unusual oak species are also used at large distilleries, often to create special releases. Glenmorangie has worked with a number of oddball oaks in recent years, McCarron says, including Garry oak, as well as the swamp white oak, Quercus bicolor, and the bur oak, Quercus macrocarpa. In 2017, Glenmorangie’s sister distillery Ardbeg released Kelpie, a whiskey that had been partially aged in an unspecified oak sourced from the Black Sea region.

Credit: The Rare Malt

At the moment, one of the most prized oaks for whiskey is Japan’s mizunara oak, Quercus crispula, known for being sweet and spicy with distinct sandalwood and incense aromas. Mizunara is said to be responsible for the house character of Japan’s beloved Chichibu whiskey, and has been used to finish limited editions of Chivas Regal, Bowmore, and other brands.

While there might be some 500 species of oak to choose from, there won’t be 500 differently oaked versions of Glenmorangie or Ardbeg for collectors to chase down. Many oak species are either extremely limited or extremely slow-growing. Mizunara is said to take 200 years — that is, two full centuries — before it can be made into a cask. And even if a certain species of oak can be made into a cask, there might not be anyone to do that in the region where that oak is found.

“It does come with its challenges,” McCarron says. “You’re literally walking into forests where there’s no sawmill or cooperage and trying to find someone in that country who’ll turn that wood into casks for you. That’s why these tend to be one-offs as opposed to permanently available products — because there’s no supply chain.”

Credit: Westland Distillery

Though working with new and unusual oaks might be part of whiskey’s future, it’s also a major component of human history. In “Oak: The Frame of Civilization,” author and arborist William Bryant Logan writes about the “basic sympathy” between oaks and humans, which could almost define the role of Quercus in the production of some of the world’s greatest spirits.

“And wherever we have gone, oaks have become central to our daily lives,” Logan writes. “We invented a whole way of living out of their fruit and their wood, and by that token, they too invented us.

The article Whiskey Makers Explore the Weird World of Alt Oak Species appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/whiskey-makers-alt-oak-species/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/whiskey-makers-explore-the-weird-world-of-alt-oak-species

[peckhampeculiar]

Made to measure

George Dyer is known far and wide for his immaculate bespoke suits, which have graced the likes of Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone and Paul Weller. We met him at his Walworth Road shop

Words: Garth Cartwright; Photo: Lima Charlie

Jamaica born and Peckham raised, George Dyer is a south-east London legend and one of the few bespoke tailors still sewing. His fame comes from his skill in shaping beautiful suits.

When I enter Threadneedleman, his small tailoring shop just up from East Street Market on the Walworth Road, I note an array of autographed photos: it appears Bob Hoskins, Paul Weller, Suggs, David Haye, Ray Winstone and Martin Freeman are all satisfied customers.

“I’m happy to make a suit for anyone, male or female,” says George. “But a bespoke suit is not cheap. If I make one for you, you won’t have much change from a grand. But if you cross the river and go to the City or Savile Row you’re looking at three grand. So I’m still good value.”

The beauty of a bespoke suit, of course, is that it’s entirely unique. “The customer comes to the tailor and requests specifics on their suits; the tailor is making the garment on behalf of the customer’s needs,” George says.

“You have a standard cut of a two-button jacket with a two-and-a-half inch lapel, but my customer could request a four-button jacket and a five-inch lapel. The customer could also want various other modifications.

“They might request an inverted pleat in the back of the jacket rather than a spike. The bespoke tailor works on behalf of the customer, compared with a made-to-measure tailor who takes your measurements and offers you, say, five different designs.”

George was born in St Elizabeth, Jamaica. His parents left for London when he was a toddler and he followed aged four.  

“I arrived and, by this time, my father had already got himself on the property ladder, with a three storey house with a basement and a 100 foot garden on Lyndhurst Grove. This was around 1962-3,” he recalls.

“We occupied the middle of the house. There were tenants in the basement and at the top of the house. My dad was in the building trade so did quite a few adjustments.

“I went to Lyndhurst Primary School and after that I went to Peckham Manor. I became friends with Trix Worrell there, who went on to write Desmond’s. And I was a pupil when Johnny Nash and Bob Marley came and played a free, acoustic concert in 1972.

“Being Jamaicans we knew of Bob even before we knew of Johnny Nash, but Bob wasn’t famous here yet. We all gathered around them, they were very friendly, and Bob looked into my eyes and said, ‘Me know-a’, which means ‘I understand’ as, like me, he was a lighter skin black man.

“Peckham was a different place than what it is now. There wasn’t the mindset of it being a no-go area – none of that postcode lottery thing going on among the youth. Us kids didn’t have any fear of going to particular areas.

“In primary school a West Indian or a black face wasn’t as predominant as it is now. I had friends of all nationalities. It wasn’t a segregated place. We morphed into the society and spoke like Cockneys too. And some of the white guys would emulate our West Indian sayings. It was more inclusive.

“Us kids who were growing up, we didn’t take too much notice of prejudice as we had white friends – but there were some black guys who made a thing of it.

“In secondary school, when the West Indians got a bit more into the society and people got upset that their parents weren’t being treated with respect, well, things got a bit more militant. Not me, I realised that you had to bite the bullet and get a trade.”

After leaving school, George initially worked at Tesco as a shelf stacker, but liked the idea of being a tailor.

“I got a job at a tailor on Fleet Street, Dombey & Son, one of 38 shops. The owners of the chain were two brothers, Jerry and Sam Roseman. Jerry had two sons, Leslie and Andrew, so a few of the other shops were called Leslie Andrew.

“About three months into me being there Mr Jerry came along and said, ‘Young man, I’ve had good reports on you – would you like to learn more at London College of Fashion?’ So that was the beginning of my apprenticeship.

“After 18 months I was ready to go to other shops in the chain – they sent me to shops where the West Indian trade was. It’s logical. The first shop they sent me to was Brixton and I worked all over.

“Their Leslie Andrew shop in Peckham was opposite the huge Jones & Higgins department store on Rye Lane. I was working there with Jimmy Nash, an Italian Cockney. He’d started in Peckham with [tailor] Sidney Fox and when Mr Drake, who was running Sidney Fox, died, Jimmy took over, hiring me to run the floor.

“Sidney Fox was on the first floor above where Boots is [on Rye Lane]. I went straight into running that shop – opening up, making sure customers got their orders taken. We had names like Henry Cooper. At that time Rye Lane was known as the Golden Mile.

“We then took over a menswear shop on Bournemouth Road. I served there for 12 years but then Jimmy wanted to move into the City – he thought everyone wore suits so it was easy work. I’d started in Fleet Street, knew the mindset and didn’t like it.

“The bloke who owned this shop [on Walworth Road] wanted to retire so I took it on. I’m the fourth tailor here. Suits have been made here for at least a century. It gives me a sense of its history.

“I started at one of the worst times [for the economy] and it took me three years before I was given my first bespoke suit. I had to rely on my skills to do shortening trousers, altering jackets etcetera.

“It was a hard few years, but I knew that if I could do it for those companies I could do it for me. I had that leap of faith. People knew I was good and the people who supplied fabric to Jimmy were willing to supply me. I have had good times but the good don’t outweigh the bad. Thing is, failure is not in my vocabulary.”

Just a few doors along from George’s tailors is a large Sports Direct. Does he despair at the popularity of cheap casual wear and the poor working conditions that are often associated with it?

“Well, let’s go back to the very beginning. It must have been 35 years ago. I’m in the trade and working for a senior man and he asks me, ‘Why on earth have you got into trade? It’s finished!’ What he meant was he’d seen a lot of trade in his day and it had dwindled.

“The advent of jeans and people being more casual-minded meant they didn’t embrace the suits as they once did. So, to answer your question, the trade has been affected a long time before the likes of Sports Direct came along.”

George has been a Listed Londoner on Robert Elms’ BBC London radio show, painted by the artist Ed Gray and, being a master of the mod suit, profiled in various publications. He’s one of the last of the old school bespoke tailors and is proud of it.

“I still don’t regard the off-the-peg suit as a suit, as I learnt the craft of making the bespoke suit. It’s the craft – that’s what constitutes a good suit.

“The majority of heads of state from around the world, whatever their national garment is, they will come to London and get a Savile Row suit. They recognise it as the height of tailoring.

“The type of tailoring the Savile Row tailors do is the sort of work I do. There is a certain amount of traditional work that goes into the suit and the Savile Row tailors and I are trying to keep that alive.”

Being a south-east London fixture might not have made George wealthy, but he’s proud of his roots and loves the community he serves.

“A customer once said to me, ‘Who’s the latest celebrity you’re making a suit for?’ and I said, ‘You are’. All my customers are celebrities. Whoever likes what I do and the services I provide, it’s for them.”

[architectnews]

Mosman White House, Sydney

Mosman White House in Sydney, NSW Luxury Villa, Australian Residence, Architecture Photos

Mosman White House in Sydney

16 Nov 2020

Mosman White House

Design: Mathieson Architects

Location: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Mosman White House is located on the slopes of Mosman above Chinaman’s Beach, this three level house overlooks Sydney Harbour’s North Head and the Pacific Ocean beyond.

Set on a steeply sloping site, the house is largely concealed from the street and is carefully designed around the sculptural form of a large Angophora tree.

The principal living spaces open to generous covered terraces and the views beyond. Blackened steel brise soleil are set within deep openings in expanses of white. Smaller apertures provide framed vignettes of the surrounding garden.

Plastered walls, terrazzo floors, silk rugs and Carrara marble, all in shades of white, capture light and shadow. Strong accents of black create moments of contrast. An internal stair is deliberately darkened to counterpoint the lightness of the house and to refocus the senses to the framed external harbour views.

A basalt lined swimming pool is set within a private oasis of green.

Engaged to Develop this Home We began the journey of working with our clients at the beginning of 2016. The clients’ son had initially found the site (the day before auction) and encouraged his parents to buy the property. He was also familiar with our studio and the clients approached us after the family had seen one of our other projects in Mosman. Like many of our projects we approached the design in a wholistic manner and encompassed the architecture, interiors and furniture, including custom designed joinery and soft furnishings.

How long did the project take? The project spanned three years from initial engagement until the client move in. The prolonged duration of the project was due to the difficult nature of the site, obtaining planning approval through a complicated council process, and meticulous on-site construction.

The Brief Our clients came to us with a detailed brief to draw out the challenging site’s utmost potential for maximising views across the harbour while accommodating spacious light-filled family home.

The key objectives of the brief included: – Maximised visual access to the harbour views while retaining a high level of privacy. – Spacious interior environments that capture the movement of light throughout the day. – A serene refuge to escape from the city. – Open kitchen (with a view) to cook and entertain within and concealed butler’s pantry. – 4 bedrooms/en-suites. – Private garden and pool. – Gym/Wellness room – Environments for privacy and entertainment

What sort of mood did you want to create? Light, calm, and quiet with moments of darker contrast.

And how did you marry this with ensuring each space was functional? Ordered planning, generous proportions and natural light ensure each space is designed to be functional and beautiful.

How important was incorporating natural light and what did you do to enhance or soften it? Natural light is evident throughout the house and used to emphasise proportion and distil a sense of calmness. The exception is the internal stair which is deliberately darkened. This counterpoint to lightness throughout prompts a heighten experience moving between the spaces and refocuses the visual connection to the framed external views.

Can you briefly describe the colour palette and the decision behind it? The colour palette throughout the house is largely shades of white to capture light and shadow, with accents of black to create moments of contrast and definition of space.

What were your first impressions of the property? The property was unusual for this area of Sydney as it was vacant with no prior built structures on the land. From the initial site visit, it became immediately clear the site had an inherent potential for creating a special family home.

Could you describe the location and view? The elevated site faces east with beautiful views over the harbour towards the heads and the ocean beyond. The outlook takes in the bay of Chinamans Beach below, across to Manly, and around to Middle Harbour and Clontarf.

Were there any significant challenges, and if so, how does the design remedy them? The steep nature of the site and existing Angophora tree presented significant challenges but also an opportunity for crafting a design response that is undoubtedly site-specific. The design outcome responds to the site through located specific internal environments across three levels. Social spaces to the top and ground floor with private spaces positioned within the middle layers of the residence. The floor plan of the house is notched around the existing tree with large windows to allow light to flood inside and framed views of the private garden below.

Could you briefly explain how you collaborated with other creatives on this project? We worked closely with Will Dangar on the garden design. The landscape focused particularly on the angophora tree, the lawn and swimming pool.

How did you create a sense of flow throughout? From the moment you enter, the internal planning focuses the eye towards a framed view across the harbour, a spatial theme continued throughout the residence. The Internal spaces are anchored around a central volume containing the vertical circulation which included a lift and stair.

What approach did you take when selecting materials? To create a calm atmosphere a concise and restrained material palette of predominately durable natural materials was selected, which is a common theme of design thinking for the studio. White terrazzo floors, dark stained oak, pale plastered walls, Carrara marble, white and dark stained sandblasted oak are used inside and out.

The simple forms of the fixtures and fittings in brushed metal and concealed fittings complement the selected materials.

How have you connected the interiors to the outdoors? balcony spaces. Smaller apertures throughout frame the vignettes of the garden and environment beyond. Detailing of the windows to visually conceal frames and the use of slim window profiles enables an uninterrupted connection to the surrounding environment.

Did anything stand out to you as very special? Anything filled with unique potential?

The challenging nature of the site, due to it steeply falling away from street level towards the harbour was seen as an opportunity to create layers of living zones and visually conceal the majority of the residence from street view. An existing mature Angophora tree located in the upper part of the site was retained becoming a part of the site-specific design challenge.

Specific details:

Living Room Terrazzo floors Hand knotted artsilk rug Custom designed/made Sofa Custom designed/made Coffee table Christian Liaigre Mandarin Chairs Custom designed/made Daybed Kevin Reilly Lamps

Dining Room Terrazzo floor Custom designed/made Dining Table (bronze coloured frame, Pietra Grey marble top) Molteni Chelsea Dining Chair Custom design/made credenza (dark stained oak and limewashed elm timber)

Kitchen The kitchen space is defined as a white volume with a central elongated island bench formed by a black steel frame and honed granite benchtop. Joinery below the bench is finished in limewashed elmwood to introduce a soft contrast to the graphic language.

Balconies The balconies to the front facade extend the spatial area of the living rooms and master bedroom and strengthen the connection to the surrounding landscape. A fireplace with a black granite hearth is provided for cooler evenings, while an insect screen lowers against the balustrades to provide a comfortable environment for year-round use.

Circulation The central circulation volume acts as a darker and visually restrained counterpoint within the residence. The dark stained oak stair is softly lit from a single recessed trough of light to one side to reset the senses.

Master Bedroom Hand knotted artsilk carpet Custom designed/made bedhead and bedside tables from white-washed wire brushed American Ash Viabizzuno Roy bedside lamps White-washed wire brushed American Ash robes

Master Ensuite Terrazzo floor Slab Carrara marble walls White-washed wire brushed American Ash vanity with custom carrara marble twin basins Suspended twin mirrors with wire brushed oak frames Brushed stainless steel fixtures and fittings Kaldewei bath

Powder room Terrazzo floor Suspended Carrara marble vanity and custom basin Brushed stainless steel tapware Suspended mirror with black stained oak frame

How would you describe the architectural and interior style? The architecture, interiors, and furniture were designed through the lens of modernist principles, establishing a timeless and light-filled residence. Light, proportion, materiality, and subtle details are utilized throughout the residence to create a sense of understated luxury.

There’s lots of clean, open white space. What was the reason behind this? The ordered spaces throughout this family home are designed as internal envelopes to capture the subtlety of changing light and evoke a sense of calm. To achieve this atmosphere a minimal material palette is used throughout. Accents of dark stained timber and bespoke joinery elements allow for moments of contrast. Luxury in architecture is created through simplicity and clean spaces to enjoy uninterrupted views of the landscape.

Mosman White House – Building Information

Architects & Interior Architects: Mathieson Architects

Engineering Consultancy: Partridge

Completion date: 2020 Building levels: 3

Photographer: Romello Pereira

Mosman White House images / information received 161120

Taronga Institute of Science and Learning

Location: Mosman, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Architecture in Sydney

Contemporary New South Wales Buildings

Sydney Architecture News

Sydney Houses

The Brass House, Newcastle, New South Wales Architects: anthrosite photo : Jon Reid Contemporary House in Newcastle, NSW

NSW Properties

Sovereign Houses, Sylvania Architects: Tony Owen Partners photo : John Gollings Sovereign Houses in Sylvania

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[maiassensibleblog]

On the importance of black Hermione

There is a moment in every person of colours (POC) life where they realise that they are “other”. It might come young, when they ask their parents why the only people their colour on TV are playing the villains. Perhaps it’s when the first white person says they’re “pretty for a black girl”. It might be much later when their white friend gets a job that they’re equally qualified for and they do not. But it will happen.

Canonically, it doesn’t matter what colour Hermione is. Her being isn’t a statement about white supremacy like pure bloods; her name doesn’t evoke any immediate thoughts about her race. She’s a regular British kid.

Any off-the-bat “oh, black Hermione?” responses by white people could’ve been taken as a quick shock and it’s something that for the most part people have either learnt to live with or celebrate. The fact that there was initial shock is a by-product of the institutionalised racism we see in every industry and therefore also the entertainment industry. In this case, this means a systematic bias toward favourable/ plentiful representation of white people while representations of POC are limited/non-existent/negative (eg. Black people as predators, South-East Asians as geeks ect. ect. ect.).

I did not have a problem with the initial “OMG!” reaction. I had it too! This is a system where nobody expects a role to be changed from white to POC (but the other way is seen often (whitewashing)).

As a brown person, I quickly switched to celebration. Hermione represents something I’d never seen a woman of colour (WOC) portraying in a form of media I was so attached to; smart, loving, powerful and imperfect in a very human way. Black Hermione is showing children of colour (not just limited to girls) that they can be Hermione and everything she’s achieved in her life. It’s showing them that they can pursue theatre as a viable career option and that the industry might have a place for them. True progress will come with equal representation and it’s taking brave people to be the first.

If you continue to struggle with the idea that Hermione can be black, I challenge you to firstly consider the consequences of you voicing that publically. The consequence of these opinions is telling these people that they do not have a place in a mainstream, accurate representation of a modern women.

But mostly, I challenge you to consider why you hold these views. Your image of Hermione may have been a white girl your entire life. My image of Hermione was somebody who looked a lot like me before the films were cast: a skinny, brown girl. I grew to love Emma Watsons’ Hermione. She did something amazing for clever girls. But your mental image of Hermione is no more valid than mine. If you feel the right to complain about black Hermione it is because of your white privilege and a lack of understanding about how this applies to our lives. This is an uncomfortable thing to think about but incredibly important to be aware of all the same.

White privilege is having “nude” described as your skin colour, feeling safer, not threatened, when you see lots of police, being able to find affordable jeans that fit both your thighs and hips, being able to walk around new towns without being stared at, never being assumed to be a cleaner/nanny in your work environment (not that there us anything wrong with either of these roles but when you’ve got a PhD in biology and you’re leading a meeting, it’s not a fun thing to happen. Actually, that fact that we see a high proportion of POC in these roles in an example of white privilege). It is never having to fight for fundamental rights for your race, being able to trace your heritage back for thousands of years because your ancestors weren’t dehumanised and sold as slaves and having role models everywhere; from school, to university, to the workplace. White privilege is everywhere. It is the reason that being colour-blind isn’t good enough.

Asking white people to challenge their privilege is not about pointing fingers and calling people a racist, it is about asking them to challenge deep-set, unconscious views they hold about societal structure. It’s asking people to feel uncomfortable otherwise nothing will change. Institutionalised racism is so deep set and often very subtle to the point that those who benefit from it don’t even realise that it’s there. It isn’t an individual white persons fault, but if you choose not to come to terms with the fact that you benefit from it, this is when you do become part of the problem. There are numerous studies in the social sciences field that show that social mobility is good for all of us and it is a very human emotion to feel that nobody deserves to have less of a chance in life due to their race.

There are moments where I wish more people had the opportunity to see Noma or Rakie’s performances, to prove that they really are the best people to bring adult Hermione to life. But they shouldn’t need to. They’ve proven that to the casting directors, who are professionals. Therefore we should safely assume that they were the best people they saw. The only reason for such a large backlash is that they’re black. Personal issues with how this loved character is portrayed were bound to appear no matter her race, but from hate this widespread, we can see that a lot of people have a race issue.

We’ll never know whether it was a conscious decision to audition a WOC for the role or whether it was something that came up during the casting process. However it is now recognised that Hermione is a POC role. I often see comments suggesting that black Hermione is taking the role away from white women, similar to positive discrimination in any workplace. I hope that I have offered sufficient evidence that black Hermione is a good thing for everyone and particularly for WOC, a marginalised community. Most people are happy to pay taxes in a bracket proportional to their wages, so that everyone is able to benefit from public services and this is another form of positive discrimination: it is lifting people up for the good of equality.

Once you realise that POC are discriminated against so often in casting by the majority of roles (particularly the lead roles) being specifically for white actors, often without legitimate reason, and see the sheer scale of whitewashing it becomes clear that the positive discrimination argument isn’t really an argument at all. It isn’t valid to suggest that “the best actor should be cast regardless of colour” because the best actors may the best because of practice, as with any industry, but there are less opportunities for POC to practice and the roles offered are often stereotypical based on race. Ultimately, it comes down to realising that white privilege exists, and the shifting of life long reasoning, which favours white people without any conscious malicious meaning.

The conversation about Hermione being portrayed as a different POC is an interesting one. If the cannon descriptions we have of her physical appearance are that she has “frizzy hair” and she goes on holiday and her skin gets “very dark”, there is so much wiggle room. I think that Cursed Child has a race problem, as does the entire Potterverse. This I know because I can point out the token Asian in the new cast photos and know that he plays a character that has a very stereotypical fate. There is no excuse for the white predominance in the ensemble and that is something that needs to be looked at. There was something so magical about seeing WOC Myrtle last cast and Polly Chapman this year, but they’re first covers, so not every audience get the see this. Bending our ingrained ideas about race is incredibly powerful and challenges us all.

So what about an East or South Asian Hermione? I think the race of Hermione now holds a special weight. I don’t have any answers about what would happen if the Grangers were a different shade of brown. I would certainly celebrate it. And I think it must be done. But it must be done in a way that doesn’t reduce the importance of Hermione being black and what that has done for people of black heritage. It’s something that I want other POC to experience but I don’t want the fact that Hermione could be black to ever be taken away. In real life and fiction, black people are hardly ever considered clever or leaders. Can you imagine ever being able to elect a black, female Prime Minister? It’s mind boggling and feels decades of progress away. But in our fantasy world, that is depicted with grace. This is why I would argue that black Hermione should be celebrated by everyone, not just tolerated.

The casting of black Hermione has created a conversation in the mainstream that has shown us the power of fiction. These conversations have been so important and so productive in many cases. It is about time but it has been the right time. It is vital that we continue to challenge each other’s views on race in order to push positive changes towards true equality.

(Thank you to Susy for reading over this for me, giving super useful feedback and filling in any gaps)

[tysonxalg213]

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