#family anti-racism book club

[bookandcover]

This month’s read for my family’s Anti-Racism Book Club, Lot, is a compelling, well-crafted portrait of place, family, and the immigrant experience. Somewhere between novel and short story collection, these chapters shift point of view, blending the larger narrative of protagonist Nicolás with other stories from his neighborhood. While the perspectives vary, similar themes unite the work, particularly discussion of queer identity and the intersectional experience of young, gay, men of color. The author’s narrative tone and style is confident, visceral, and stark at every turn, while still exhibiting transcendent moments of love, beauty, and hope against a dark canvas of poverty, infidelity, drug addiction, and violence. The writing uses untranslated Spanish—a literary move I appreciate, as it makes insiders and outsiders of the readers themselves. You know when you are or are not the ideal audience. You know if this book is both for you and deeply not for you as a reader. 

The interwoven narratives and the shifting of points of view was, at times, confusing. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Nicolás’s narrative was spaced out every other story, and we were often cued in to his narrative through the mention of his family members: Jan, Javi, and his Black mother and Jamaican father. One section of Nicolás’s story is told from Jan’s point of view, capturing another angle on the same family. I read the entirety of Chris’s story (with older sister Nikki, and cousin Gloria) thinking that this was the same narrative point of view, and later on I had to look back and sort this out. While this was confusing, it had an interesting effect of blending characters and experiences. Nicolás’s narrative was also out of order and circled throughout his memories. The threading together of all these experiences meant that the book as a whole felt less like a portrait of a family or a plot arc for a single protagonist—all though I felt the presence of these elements—than a portrait of the concept of “shared ground” (ground is shared, literary, in this Houston neighborhood, but also figuratively in the common threads in the experiences of these characters.) 

Nicolás’s plot arc does end with hope (a lot more hope than is contained in some of the other narratives). His name is not revealed until the final story, which focuses on his blossoming love with Miguel, and the possibility that he might be able to trust again, to open his heart to another person after lifelong experiences of broken trust with his family members. At the same time, this is not some kind of heroic “make it out” story, which is also a tension that appears in other characters narratives: TeDarus and his buddy Mix drop out of community college; Avery takes young teen Raúl under his wing, but then stops showing up for their drug distribution route; Poke moves in with Emil, but is unable to save his friend Rod from the streets. Don’t make the mistake, this book seems to be saying, of assuming we’re telling the heroic story, the one where someone is an exception and not the rule, the one were miracles happen, the one where people overcome and escape their very natures. The terrible power of circumstances, of utter lack of resources, of no perceived alternatives is clear: “there’s the world you live in, and then there are constellations around it, and you’ll never know you’re missing them if you don’t even know to look up.” Yet, these stories—the familiar, the everyday, the common, the shared—are just as worthy of being told as the miraculous exceptions. This is an important project of the book as a whole. 

Despite the fatalistic nature of life in this neighborhood—where it might feel like everyone, eventually, is pulled into drugs, just scrapping by financially, normalizing violence and abuse—there is real and tangible life and hope in these stories. One of my favorite stories was Bayou, in which two young men discover an injured, earth-bound chupacabra. Sprung from the pages of Latin American folklore, the chupacabra, in such a realistic book, is surely a suggestion of these kids’ imaginations, an unusually large dog playing tricks on their minds. But then, at the end of story, the chupacabra is very real; its brethren run to collect it, and the two young men stand in shocked awe of their presence. They weren’t able to share their discovery with either the local news or an ex-girlfriend (those who they want most to impress), but these witnessed the fantastical. I loved this twist, which put me in mind of the transcendence of the mongoose in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The gritty realism of the hurt chupacabra that the boys collect made me think of Gabriel García Márquez’s brilliant short story A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings. 

Change is also a threatening and driving force in this book. As much as the theme of “being stuck” pervades these pages, so does the forward march of time and the process of change that is out of the narrators’ control. The gentrification of this neighborhood seeps into the book as Nicolás ages. In a cringey moment, a whiteboy (always written like this) date tells him he’s “living in history.” The impact of hurricanes—Harvey, Rita—is cataloged, showing how the damage to this impoverished area spells the end of a way of life—of a once vibrant cultural community—that was hanging on by only a thread to stability. Nicolás struggles with being the one who remains, at his family home and in the neighborhood, as the demographics change: “and when I was gone, that’d be it—that would be the end of our story.” There is a fatalistic sense of the passage of time, as powerful as the fatalistic sense that Nicolás and Miguel both experience that they will never leave, that they can’t even choose this option, even when they—logistically—could. 

In addition to Bayou, my favorite of the stories was Waugh, the story about Poke, Rod, and their ring of young male prostitutes. While this story, on the surface, was one of the most grim, one that revealed the dark underbelly of the neighborhood and a level of desperation to which Nicolás never fell, it was also poignant and devastating. Poke’s middle-aged lover Emil is a figure with a lot of hope; he doesn’t pressure Poke to be something he’s not and he consistently treats the boy like a human being. Their story ends with real hope for their bond—although also with the possibility that things will fall apart and Poke will be right back where he started. The strongest cause for hope is Emil’s backstory, which reveals the stakes for him in showing care to Poke. Emil’s story about his family fleeing their country (that doesn’t exist anymore), and watching his dad and uncle shot on the side of the road, while his mother took the wheel and took her children to safety will continue to weigh on me. You feel, in the narration of this story, that Emil understands abuse and violence and loss in a different way than the “johns” Poke works for. Yet, Poke is unable to find Rod—his friend, his fellow prostitute who has fallen sick—at the end of story. While perhaps Poke “made it out,” Rod doesn’t, and perhaps Rod’s choice to not join Poke at Emil’s house will be part of Poke’s successful escape. We’re left to wonder this, while Rod certainly believed that he could not impinge on Emil’s kindness and Poke’s delicate position with him. 

Another moment of deep tragedy is Avery seeing his son strung out on drugs at the end of Avery and Raúl’s story, South Congress. Avery, an older drug dealer, takes the young undocumented teen Raúl under his wing. Avery seems to have real hop, in spite of his circumstances. He asks Raúl about his plans for the future. A lot of Avery’s hope rests on his estranged son, who has been raised by the boy’s mother. Avery expresses conviction that his son could “get out,” proud he was a college kid, with a different kind of future. Then, they see him: on the street, completely drugged out of his mind. Furious, Avery beats him, and then he disappears from his and Raúl’s drug circuit. A later mention of a Raúl working at the restaurant where Nicolás and Miguel work made me hope that Raúl’s fortunes slightly improved, but this—like so much in these stories—is no guarantee. 

These stories embody and express complex nuances, insisting on both change and stasis, agency and entrapment, hope and failure. One such nuanced relationship is that between protagonist Nicolás and his older brother Javi. When Javi dies halfway through the book, I found this to be so sad. It’s made clear that Nicolás doesn’t want to sell the restaurant because he doesn’t want anything to change, because if nothing changes maybe his brother will somehow, miraculously, return. At the same time, despite Nicolás’s love for and dependency on his brother, Javi is incredibly abusive and deeply unaccepting of Nicolás. But Nicolás still loves him. I felt Javi’s death through Nicolás, felt the tragedy of the loss despite rationally understanding the terribleness of Javi’s as a brother. This showed how much narrative proximity to Nicolás’s character is developed throughout the book, even as the broader portrait of the neighborhood is painted. 

Appropriately, Nicolás reflects in the final story on the essential nature of the self, and how we each are what we have to live with: “You bring yourself wherever you go. You are the one thing you can never run out on.” As a character who has tried desperately to avoid looking at certain aspects of his life, his decisions, and his emotions, this self-realization is poignant and is what left me with the most hope at the end of the book. No one is exempt from facing themselves, just like no one is exempt from certain risks, whether these be drug addiction, familial death and loss, or mental illness. While there is a disproportionate number of hardships facing those low socio-economic and non-white racial backgrounds, there is also the fundamental nature and experience of being human, which includes tragedy. As I read this book, I thought: some people get lost so far in themselves that they can’t figure out the way back out. And this could happen to anyone. At the end of the book, we see Nicolás symbolically and literally at the edge of the sea and land, trying to do exactly this—find his way back out of himself, so that he can open himself up to love again. 

[5chatzi]

Okay I'm going to send you some partly-solicited recs for queer literature and classics because I have a decent amount of exposure to both~~

My qualifications include a degree in English and now being halfway towards my MLIS lol this is what I was made for

For queer lit, sometimes it depends heavily on your own orientation, like bi people want to read books with bi representation, etc. But those preferences notwithstanding, here are some generally quality titles:

Zenovia July by Lisa Bunker: A trans girl solves a cyber crime. Mystery, YA, contemporary setting, trans rep

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune: a gay man who lives a boring government-worker life travels to an island in order to monitor the family of magical children who live there. Fantasy, found family, adult fiction (it has some kid's book vibes but does contain mild sexual content and mild swearing), gay representation.

Ace by Angela Chen -- nonfiction, part memoir exploration of what it means to be asexual, for the author personally and for society generally.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo -- a Chinese-American girl in 1950s San Francisco comes to terms with being a lesbian. Historical fiction, adult fiction (or might be YA?? There is what I'd call mild sexual content), lesbian representation, AAPI representation

Jeanette Winterson is a queer author whose work I generally like!(don't have specific title recs though) (I have read The Passion, and she has a couple biographies shelved in the queer library in which I volunteer. The Passion is not very explicitly queer from my memory but it is very good regardless.

For classics, here are titles that I personally Actually Enjoyed Reading and found relatively accessible:

To Kill a Mockingbird (and I also like the film-- I should have added that to my answer to your ask)

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf is my absolute favourite classic novel, but I won't pretend it's for everyone, or that it's especially accessible. It's written in a heavily Modernist style that involves a quite lyrical, non-linear plot. But the prose is breathtakingly gorgeous and it has a really moving anti-war message.

Also, Orlando by Woolf as well, and this one is also queer! Features a genderqueer/trans/otherwise gendernonconforming character.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins is very long, but it's a mystery, and I found it engaging. The section narrated by the character Marianne is the best, and I headcanon her as asexual or possibly a lesbian.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker is what I would call poignant, and it's fairly short. Be warned that it contains some SA content, racism, and AAVE dialect that could be hard to understand.

Macbeth or Twelfth Night or King Lear are my favourite Shakespeare works to recommend. But with Shakespeare, it's better if you can see a film or live performance, since just reading the script can be difficult to follow.

Little Women!!! God, I love Little Women. Honestly not sure how that wasn't the first one I thought of.

Oh thanks so much for the thorough response!

I’ll admit most of these are wildly outside my normal genre, but I’m always willing to try new things.

I have read Macbeth in school but it’s been ages and I am pretty sure I’ve read Little Women but I can’t remember it would have been a long time ago. Oh and To Kill a Mockingbird. I think everyone has read that in school but don’t think I’ve read it since.

I’m gonna write them down and check them out and see how it goes. I pretty much exclusively read non fiction so should be interesting 😅

[queeringdiedreiausrufezeichen]

Die Drei Ausrufezeichen Social Media AU

but it’s just them having Tumblr blogs, cause they would! (Might eventually add other social media platforms.)

-

Kim:

Main blog:

thecodesofcrimenovels

Blog title: Solving crimes and the mysteries of coding

Kim - Eng/Ger/Thai - She/Her - coding, writing, crime novels primarily

Die drei Fragezeichen side blog:

justusjonasesautism

Blog title: PB&J my beloveds

Kim - Eng/Ger/Thai - she/her - Die drei Fragezeichen side Blog, my main blog is: thecodesofcrimenovels

Franzi:

Franzi has one blog and one blog only.

thatqueermayhem

Blog title: I survived my ‘Not like other girls’ phase and figured out I’m not a girl at all

Franzi - Eng/Ger - She/He - D3F and Vorstadtwache mainly, occasionally Tatort though I haven’t really gotten into it yet, Queer stuff, Trans stuff, German stuff, just what ever - Trans af, your conservative family members worst nightmare - PB&J warrior first, Human second

Marie:

Main blog:

flowercourtprincess

Blog title: Aesthetics and T Girl Swag!

Marie - Eng/Ger/Fr - she/her, sie/ihr, elle

Die drei Fragezeichen side blog:

rockybeachesqueeryouthcentre

Blog title: Rocky Beach’s Queer Youth Centre

The three investigators/Die drei Fragezeichen Side Blog, Mainly fan art with occasional separate headcanon posts (all my headcanons are integrated into my art anyway haha), main blog is called: flowercourtprincess

Some posts they would make:

thecodesofcrimenovels

Had a writing workshop today and it was great! We had sort of free range to decide what exactly we wanted to do. The premise was to choose a novel of our liking, analyse the writing style and then imitate said style in a completely different genre. So we had some people using the flowery description heavy language of a fantasy novel to describe a mundane day in the real world. Or the creepy dispense of a horror novel used to describe a fluffy movie night between two friends. (The friends were watching a rom-com so it wasn’t like they could somehow match the vibes to the movie.) It was great!

#writing #my posts

Not to be a cliché Trans Girl, but gosh I love coding so much. It’s so much fun.

#coding #my posts

[D3A’s group chat right after Franzi sees that post.

F: Is your Coding club girlfriend finally back?

K: I have no idea what you are talking about and she is not my girlfriend.

F: Not yet. Which is why you should finally ask her out on a date. Or Marie should. You two are so badly crushing on that girl and neither of you have yet to actually make a move. If you take any longer I’ll do it for you.]

justusjonasesautism

Justus Jonas is half Thai! Cause I project onto him.

#Asian American Justus Jonas is actually so canon thank you very much #like what do you mean he isn’t canonly half Thai? #he clearly is #like have you not paid attention? #I will go down with this headcanon! #justus jonas #die drei fragezeichen #d3f #the three investigators

| #Asian American Justus Jonas is actually so canon thank you very much #<- previous tag #yesss #fight me #spreading the Asian American Justus Jonas agenda #justus jonas #d3f

| #Asian American Justus Jonas is actually so canon thank you very much #<- previous tag #yes! Exactly! Also -> #spreading the Asian American Justus Jonas agenda #funnily enough I’m working on an art piece of him right now #and this is fuelling my inspiration #I’m debating making him Blasian because I just want to #because I do like the headcanon that Justus is Black #but I don’t know yet #justus jonas #headcanon tag #reblog

The urge to write a whole ass essay on the racist stereotypes in the old books and the continued anti indigenous racism even in the newer ones, is so intense right now.

#racism in Die drei Fragezeichen #die drei fragezeichen #d3f #the three investigators

| #Do it!

The wish to listen to the early cases and the wish to not hear racist slurs and racism filled stories, currently fighting each other. Like please why can’t I just to listen to “Die drei Fragezeichen und das Gespensterschloss” without needing to mentally prepare myself for a bunch of racist stereotypes including the Z-word (the German version of the G-slur). Seriously…

#racism in Die drei Fragezeichen #die drei fragezeichen #d3f #the three investigators

| #yes it’s exhausting sometimes #also yes unusual reblog I know #not art #reblog

thatqueermayhem

See the reason I relate to Bob Andrews is because he is a trans fem surrounded by trans mascs while I’m a trans masc surrounded by trans fems. We mirror each other.

#he is literally so trans fem ahhh! #trans fem bob andrews #nonbinary bob andrews #bob andrews #d3f

| #I love trans fem Bob Andrews so much as a concept! #trans fem bob andrews #nonbinary bob andrews #bob andrews #die drei fragezeichen #d3f #the three investigators #reblog

| #and we love you very dearly! #trans fem bob andrews #nonbinary bob andrews #bob andrews #headcanon tag #reblog

Kelly Madigan my beloved!

#that’s it #that’s the whole post #kelly madigan #d3f

| #so true! #I love you Kelly Madigan #you are the best #kelly madigan #die drei fragezeichen #d3f #the three investigators #reblog

| #not something I typically reblog onto here but also yes! 100% #gosh I love the girls so much! They are awesome #kelly madigan my beloved #kelly madigan #not art #reblog

Kommisar Brockmeier is queer. Helmut Grevenbroich told me himself.

#I said what I said #kommisar brockmeier #vorstadtwache #helmut grevenbroich

Would y’all believe me if I said I saw Helmut Grevenbroich kissing a man?

#helmut grevenbroich #true story #I’m gonna tag this as #queer stuff #because I can

[Helmut Grevenbroich was in fact asked if he was okay with the post, before Franzi posted that.]

flowercourtprincess

Todays question is if I’m actually lesbian, AroAce or any of the mspec labels? Stay tuned for the answer. Yes, I’ve been listening to “fall in love with a girl” by Cavetown ft. Beabadoobee. Why are you asking? Blame thatqueermayhem for playing “worm food” on a loop.

#no matter what I’m queer af #if you have a problem with that kindly f^ off #just queer things #my posts #queer #aroace #lesbian #mspec #bi #pan #poly #omni

| Sometimes you gotta be a stereotypical trans masc, what can I say? 🤷 It’s not like y’all aren’t enjoying the songs.

#queer stuff #trans stuff #I love my girlfriends and I also love listening to Cavetown yes these two are related

Being trans is actually so great! Who ever told you otherwise was a big fat liar. Being trans is freaking awesome.

#trans is beautiful #just trans things #trans #transgender #transsexual #my posts #even though there are probably a decent amount of similar posts already floating around on here #I don’t care #you can never say it enough

| #This! #gosh I love being trans so much #reblog #trans things #trans #transgender

| #yes #queer stuff #trans stuff

The romantic tension of being taken care of by your friends after being hurt.

[private conversation after Kim and Franzi see that post.

Franzi: You get hurt and that’s your first instinct? Posting a vague post on Tumblr?

Marie: *shrugs*

Kim: Well, it’s vague enough to just seem like random thought with no real life implications.

Franzi: Seriously??? … What ever.

Marie: I mean people are reblogging it and agreeing.

Franzi: *looking at the post and reblogs* They are assigning characters and ships to it…

Marie: Well obviously.

Franzi:… I don’t even know how to argue with that.

Kim: Franzi. It’s not that serious. You are just stressed right now.

Franzi: Well we are in the freaking hospital after all!

Marie: Wanna hold my hand to feel less worried?

Franzi:… yes.

Marie: *looking at Kim* You too?

Kim: *nods and the three end up holding hands to calm themselves down*

(It’s mainly Franzi that needs calming down, but the others also appreciate it.)]

rockybeachesqueeryouthcentre

Jeffrey Palmer wears blond faux locs. (Cause I want faux locs right now, but I don’t have the time for an appointment and I just got braids done.) He would totally wear goddess locs, cause he doesn’t give a damn about “gender rules” and that’s all I’ll say.

#I’m working on a Portrait drawing of him right now and just head to share that headcanon really quick #jeffrey palmer #die drei fragezeichen #the three investigators #d3f #headcanon tag #my headcanons

| #uhh I can’t wait for the drawing! #and you are sooo right! #jeffrey palmer #d3f

| #jeffrey palmer #die drei fragezeichen #d3f #the three investigators #reblog

Unusual post for me but it needs to be said. I feel like the authors of “The three investigators” tend to fall into the “we were trying to be misogynistic but ended up accidentally writing something with queer energy” category quite a lot. An audio drama example: Switching out Kelly for Jeffrey in “Die drei Fragezeichen Das Geisterschiff“. Now you made it unintentionally queer, cause you so desperately didn’t want to include Peter’s canon girlfriend. Anyway thatqueermayhem and justusjonasesautism just had to listen to me rant about the misogyny in these books.

#not art #the way Kelly gets treated by the authors hurts sometimes #Kelly is such a darling and I love her #die drei fragezeichen #the three investigators #d3f #kelly madigan #rant sort of? #my posts

| #reblog #jeffrey palmer #kelly madigan #Die drei Fragezeichen Das Geisterschiff #die drei fragezeichen #d3f #the three investigators

| #yep #and Kelly always gets the short end of the stick #I love you Jeffrey #but Kelly deserves better #jeffrey palmer #kelly madigan #d3f

If I see one more post of someone claiming “The three investigators” doesn’t have misogyny/sexism, I’m gonna scream. Y’all can’t be serious, when these stories are littered with misogyny/sexism. Like I get it. You don’t want to admit that there are flaws in these stories you probably liked since you were a child, but for the love of it, stop it! They literally wrote out female characters, cause the audience supposedly disliked them. And you are claiming this series doesn’t have misogyny??? Well when there are barely any female characters chances to see misogynistic characterisations are rarer. (Psst they still exist. Like it’s not that the few female characters don’t fall into sexist stereotypes sometimes. And just because you don’t notice them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.)

#not art #rant #die drei fragezeichen #the three investigators #d3f #my posts

| #nothing to add here! #die drei fragezeichen #d3f #the three investigators #reblog

-

I was debating cutting the part of Kim mentioning the anti indigenous racism, cause D3A also has (at least) two instances of the I-word being used, but I decided against it, cause it’s something I think she would post. And I personally would like to believe that all the characters (also the characters from the D3F universe) would stop using it if they were made aware of the fact that it is a racial slur.

The only times I’ve seen people claiming D3F doesn’t have misogyny was when they where putting down D3A as so much worse. Arguing that D3F supposedly didn’t have misogyny while D3A had.

Slightly of topic, but I really do want to draw Jeffrey with goddess locs now. Ahh! He would look so pretty with them.

Is this shamelessy plugging some of my personal D3F headcanons? Yes. I don’t care.

Listen if I was immersed in the Miss Marple books, I would have also added posts about that. I am how ever not at all immersed with the stories. (I wish I could do Franzi’s love for the character justice.)

(Planning on drawing this in the future. Don’t know when yet. I don’t know how to do these fake screenshots of social media accounts.)

[ramrodd]

How in 2023 does one cope with and mend the alarming rise in hate, bullying and harassment across all social media platforms over the last 10 years?

COMMENTARY:

Well, first of all, it started in 1960 will William F. Buckley.

It is useful to recognize where the haters and demagogues in the MAGA coalition came from.

Speaking as a hard-wired Eisenhower Republican, the migration of the white nationalists and Pro-Life Evangelicals from the New Deal Southern Democrats to the GOP began with the George Wallace campaign as the Massive Resistance white supremacists outraged by the Civil Rights bills LBJ signed and the response against the anti-war campus radicals defined the culture wars of the 60s. Wallace won 13% of the vote in 1968 and animated Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”, which was based on Huey Long’s formula of constantly beating the “nigger, nigger, nigger” drum of Woodrow Wilson’s Presbyterian Jim Crow racism.

By 1980, what has become the Tea Party/MAGA coalition of the Trump electorate had shifted to the GOP from the Democrats, but before this migration was completed, the spawn of William F. Buckley’s campus marketing campaign for the White Nationalism of John Birch Society were fully represented in the Nixon White House by the Plumbers. who were ideologically tied to the National Socialist populism of George Lincoln Rockwell and the anti-Communist opportunism of Joe McCarthy and the John Birch Society sympathies of Country Club Republicans such as the membership of Mike Pence’s family country club growing up in Indiana.

Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Presidential Campaign was the seminal event in the emergence of this Nazification trend of the GOP. And, in the 70s, Newt Gingrich launched his political campaign for the Speakers Chair by adopting the political strategy of the liberal anti-war movement based on Trotsky’s formula for sedition, subversion and sabotage leading to the sort of violent revolution that occurred at Chicago in 1968 as the political strategy for GOPAC, which has resulted in the January 6 Rebellion.

So, if you are a woke Biden voters, all those elements have been working against your desire to vote for, and expect, the delivery of the federal mandate proposed by the US Constitution. Going back to William F. Buckley’s anti-Eisenhower manifesto in 1960, the Fascist elements of the GOP have been actively committed to dismantling the capacity of the federal government to effectively respond to national emergencies like these Maui wild fires and to withdraw from the collective defensive arrangements of the Atlantic Charter that won WWII and has largely prevented a general industrial war like WWII. Before January 6, Donald Trump’s unilateral surrender to the Taliban in Afghanistan could be seen as a cynical reelection strategy, but, since then, it has become obvious it was part of his larger strategy to overthrow the US Constitution and declare himself the John Birch Society Dictator for Life.

The haters and fearmongers of the Proud Boys and the Pro-Life Fascism of the Total Depravity Gospel of Evangelicals have been revealed as merely spear carriers and extras in the mob scene for the prevention of the peaceful transfer of power that Mike Pence constitutionally averted.

If you are a woke Biden voter, the combination of these Fellow Travelers and Fascist activists are trying to convince you that losers are woke and Trump in inevitable. Most of these people cannot think for themselves and enjoy being pulled around by their metaphoric peckers by the Trump clown carnival and getting over on the libs.

Don’t try to fix the haters: it’s like trying to convince a horse to calculate re=entry trajectories. Vote woke and keep all the books in all the libraries.

[libelula202]

(Disclaimer: I am a goy)

In the book The Help (which the movie starring Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis is based on) Viola’s character is a black maid in Jackson Mississippi in the 60s.

There is a scene where she is accompanying her current (not wealthy) white employer to the local “whites only” country club.

Then she helps the little girl of the family into her swimsuit:

I put Baby Girl’s yellow bikini on. “You got to keep you top on, now. They don’t let no nekkid babies swim at the country club.” Nor Negroes nor Jews. I used to work for the Goldmans. The Jackson Jews got to swim at the Colonial Country Club, the Negroes, in May’s Lake.

(Obviously the focus of the book is on the racism in Jackson and how it effects these women’s lives.)

It always stood out to me (a non Jew) that the author, Kathryn Stockett, went out of her way to point out that Jews were not welcomed at this country club. In fact, they had to have their own separate facilities.

In a book about the civil rights movement and racism, the one time the Jewish folk of Jackson are mentioned, it’s to point out they are held separate from the “nice white” families in Jackson.

Ostracized.

And this is a (relatively-2009) recent book. I know it’s about the 60s, but it was the first time I personally was presented with a modern-ish version of antisemitism.

Also, the editor (Mrs. Stein) they are trying to get to publish their book is Jewish. Several references are made, including when the white main character, Miss Phelan, offers up a Merry Christmas to Mrs. Stein, and she responds “We call it Hanukkah, but thank you, Miss Phelan”.

To me, it seems like the author is trying to make a point that there are all kinds of segregation. That anti-black is not the only kind to exist, even though it’s the focus of the book. Because every time the editor is brought up, Ms Phelan doesn’t know how to talk to her. She is just so awkward it gives me second hand embarrassment. There’s the double take at her name-clearly Jewish, the winter holiday debacle, and having to ask what Yiddish phrases mean. Others I’m sure I’m missing, it’s a loooong book.

(I hope it’s ok for me to add this. If it makes anyone uncomfortable for a goy to chime in let me know and I’ll delete. I just wanted to highlight another piece of media that acknowledged this type of antisemitism and ostracization)

@sephardigf put these tags on on a reblog of a post I reblogged, and it inspired me to make a post about this topic.

Goyim who assume that Jews are "white" and "oppressors" and have always lived the good life in America are truly laughable. Jews have never been treated as white. We were even victims of segregation. And if you notice all the new "No Zionists Allowed" signs on American businesses these days, we still are segregation's victims.

In the 1950s, the ADL looked into segregation of Jews by businesses in the US, and what they found was depressing to say the least. So many businesses, in all fifty states, had policies of discrimination and ostracization against Jews. Many places were designated "Gentiles Only". Jews started compiling travel guides to help each other know where was safe to visit. These guides later inspired African Americans to do the same. And Jews definitely saw ourselves in the struggles of African Americans for rights. Jews helped organize the NAACP and marched right alongside African Americans in their demonstrations demanding civil rights.

Don't you dare tell me Jews are "white" or "oppressors". We know all about oppression, from the perspective of the oppressed.

And this was the case no matter what kind of Jew you were. The goyim didn't distinguish between Ashkenazim or Sephardim. We were (and still are) just Jews to them. And we were "other".

Anyone who has the chutzpah to say that Jews are oppressors and "white colonizers" is a schmuck, no doubt about it.

You can ignore the realities of Jewish oppression all you want. But ignoring reality won't make it go away.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[beardedmrbean]

A public elementary school in Washington, D.C., gave children as young as 4 a lesson on "anti-racism" that asked them to identify racist members of their family.

According to a Nov. 30 letter from Janney Elementary School Principal Danielle Singh, students in Pre-K through 3rd grade participated in an "Anti-Racism Fight Club" presentation by speaker Doyin Richards.

CALIFORNIA, NEW YORK, ILLINOIS USED COVID-19 RELIEF FUNDS TO PUSH CRT IN SCHOOLS

"As part of this work, each student has a fist book to help continue the dialogue at school and home," Singh’s letter stated, linking to Richards’ presentation. "We recognize that any time we engage topics such as race and equity, we may experience a variety of emotions. This is a normal part of the learning and growing process. As a school community we want to continue the dialogue with our students and understand this is just the beginning."

Richards’ "Anti-Racism Fight Club Fistbook for Kids" explains that "white people are a part of a society that benefits them in almost every instance," and that "it’s as if white people walk around with an invisible force field because they hold all of the power in America."

"If you are a white person, white privilege is something you were born with and it simply means that your life is not more difficult due to the color of your skin," the "Fistbook for Kids" explains. "Put differently, it’s not your fault for having white privilege, but it is your fault if you choose to ignore it."

The "Fistbook for Kids" says anti-racism "isn’t a spectator sport" but requires "being loud, uncomfortable, confrontational and visible to ensure change is made." 

A series of questions in the book asks children, "Where do you see racism in yourself? This requires true soul-searching. Be real with yourself, don’t feel guilt/shame and own it. It’s the first step in becoming an anti-racist."

Under a section titled, "How to deal with racism from loved ones," the book teaches children that "just because someone is older than you doesn’t mean that they’re right all of the time."

"If someone doesn’t believe that people should be treated equally based on the color of their skin, then they are the problem. Parents need to stop making excuses for that behavior if they truly believe in anti-racism," the book says. "Who in your family has racist beliefs? Do you think you can change their ways? What is your strategy for dealing with them?"

After the presentation, the school sent parents a resource link directing them to Richards’ original "Anti-Racism Fight Club Fistbook" for adults, which declares that "racism is as American as apple pie and baseball."

"As we sit here today, it is still woven into the fabric of our homes, communities, schools, government, economic system, healthcare, and so much more. As a matter of fact, it would be difficult to find one facet of our society where racism does not exist," the book states. "White supremacy isn’t the shark, it’s the ocean."

The original "Fistbook" also claims that "if the police don’t murder citizens without penalty, then the riots/looting don’t happen," and that "your feelings about Colin Kaepernick serve as a great barometer of how you would feel about Dr. King" during the Civil Rights Movement. 

"If you hate Kaepernick now, you’d hate Dr. King if he was alive today," it argues. "And do you know what’s funny? In 50 years from now, white people will probably talk glowingly of Kaepernick as they are with Dr. King now. Stop using his quotes to benefit your racism."

DC Public Schools told Fox News Digital in a statement that the original "Fistbook" was not shared with students. 

"DC Public Schools provides joyful and rigorous academic experiences for our students and is committed to advancing educational equity," the district said. "In December, a resource link with this content was shared in a parent newsletter at one of our schools. It is not part of our DCPS curriculum and was not shared with students," the district said, referring to Richards’ guide for adults.

Commenters claiming to be parents at Janney Elementary complained about the Nov. 30 presentation and the "Fistbook for Kids" on the "DC Urban Moms and Dads" online forum.

"Anyone else’s Kindergarten kid freaked out by an anti-racism assembly today? My kid needed to sleep with a light on and the door open tonight," one person posted anonymously. "Anyone know what specifically was talked about? My kid couldn’t relay much except that she was scared."

The district declined to answer Fox News Digital’s inquiry about the "Fistbook for Kids" and whether the Nov. 30 presentation for students ages 4-9 was mandatory.

_________________________________

home school your kids

[literateleah]

book club now in session!

greetings everyone!! i’m super psyched to announce that our first book club read is going to be “picture us in the light” by kelly loy gilbert! this book is some of my favorite prose i have ever read, and it paints a picture of humanity in a very tangible way that feels familiar. it is categorized as YA fiction due to it centering around the life and family of a teenage boy, but i believe it will be appropriate and refreshing to all ages. 

the official synopsis reads, “Danny has been an artist for as long as he can remember and it seems his path is set, with a scholarship to RISD and his family's blessing to pursue the career he's always dreamed of. Still, contemplating a future without his best friend, Harry Wong, by his side makes Danny feel a panic he can barely put into words. Harry and Danny's lives are deeply intertwined and as they approach the one-year anniversary of a tragedy that shook their friend group to its core, Danny can't stop asking himself if Harry is truly in love with his girlfriend, Regina Chan. When Danny digs deeper into his parents' past, he uncovers a secret that disturbs the foundations of his family history and the carefully constructed facade his parents have maintained begins to crumble. With everything he loves in danger of being stripped away, Danny must face the ghosts of the past in order to build a future that belongs to him.” i truly don’t know how to continue describing this (without spoilers lol), because the desc doesn’t even scratch the surface, trust me ;)

 without giving away any spoilers, i want to be sensitive of any content or trigger warnings which may affect you as follows: mention of teen suicide, implied kidnapping (in a brief prose sequence), one car accident intentionally caused (no death or serious injuries result), brief descriptions of anti asian-american racism (directed to and described by an asian american protag), description of a gun shown (not fired) in self defense, brief description of deportation of undocumented immigrants (that doesn’t occur). i believe this is a comprehensive list, but if anything else comes up that i missed please don’t hesitate to let me know. if any of the following is too heavy or distressing for you, you can of course stop reading or tap out at any time. i want you all to take care while reading, so we can all enjoy the stories we’ll be discussing!

i’ll do check ins every couple of days, and if y’all ever want to chime in with thoughts/reactions/fave passages (spoiler tagged of course) feel free to do so! the spoiler ban will be lifted after the 20th of the month, which is plenty of time to read the allotted 28 chapters + prologue if you do one or two a day! after the 20th, i’ll share some follow up and discussion q’s that we can approach as a group, and you all will get to share your final thoughts after the book has marinated for a while. as always, happy reading :))))) 

the 3pub link: https://1lib.us/book/4780687/bc2f5b 

[tcm]

“It’s still hard:” Asian Americans Paving the Way in Hollywood By Jessica Pickens

The 2018 film CRAZY RICH ASIANS was a success in many areas. Based on the best-selling novel by Kevin Kwan, the film became the highest-grossing romantic comedy in 10 years. An August 2018 article in Time Magazine noted that the film would “change Hollywood.” CRAZY RICH ASIANS was the first film since THE JOY LUCK CLUB (’93) to have an all-Asian American cast or an Asian American lead role. Nearly 60 years before, the all Asian American cast of FLOWER DRUM SONG (‘61) also hoped they were changing the way Asians were cast in Hollywood.

Since the silent era of films, Asian American actors have struggled to find quality roles and respect in Hollywood. Some, actors like Sessue Hayakawa and Anna May Wong, were frequently cast as vamps or villains — which in return put them in poor favor with Japanese and Chinese communities of their time. Miscegenation laws kept Asian American actors from having a romantic leading role with a white actor. In turn, Asians lost roles to white actors in yellowface, from Austrian actress Luise Rainer in THE GOOD EARTH (’37) to English actor Alec Guinness in A MAJORITY OF ONE (’61).

These actors helped fight and pave the way for the success of CRAZY RICH ASIANS:

Sessue Hayakawa

Today, actor Sessue Hayakawa is best recognized for his roles in THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (’57) and as the pirate in Walt Disney’s SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON (’60). But from 1915 to the early 1920s, Japan-born Hayakawa was one of the top silver screen idols of the silent era in the United States and Europe. He was as famous and recognizable as Charlie Chaplin or Douglas Fairbanks, according to his biographer Daisuke Miyao in the book Sessue Hayakawa: Silent Cinema and Transnational Stardom.

Fame followed Hayakawa after playing the lead in Cecil B. DeMille’s THE CHEAT (’15), in which he gives a financial loan to a wealthy woman (Fannie Ward). When she tries to back out of their bargain, he won’t take money as payment, but sexual favors. His character also brands Ward to signify that he owns her. THE CHEAT brought Hayakawa success, but it also brought typecasting. His resulting characters were usually dangerous, forbidden lovers or sexy villains. Hayakawa was criticized by the Japanese-American community for his roles. The Los Angeles-based Japanese American newspaper Rafu Shimpo said THE CHEAT “distorted the truth of Japanese people” depicting them as dangerously evil and would cause anti-Japanese movements.

Hayakawa eventually grew tired of the stereotypical roles he was cast in. In 1922, Hayakawa went to Europe where he performed in England and France. He stayed in Europe until after World War II and returned to Hollywood in 1949. Hayakawa was recognized for his role in THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI with an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

Anna May Wong 

She was rejected by China because she was “too American” and rejected in Hollywood because she was “too Chinese.” But Chinese American actress Anna May Wong achieved international fame by the mid-1920s, though she struggled with being stereotyped. Often cast as a vamp, sexual figure, slave or prostitute, the Chinese government said she played roles that demeaned China, and Graham Russell Hodges’ Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend recalls how the Chinese media and government resented “having their womanhood so represented.”

When Wong campaigned for roles that could potentially change her image, like O-Lan in THE GOOD EARTH, she lost out to a white actor playing yellowface. In fact, the Chinese government worked against Wong being cast in THE GOOD EARTH. Hodges states how General Tu, MGM’s Chinese government advisor, told MGM that her reputation was bad in China and whenever she appeared in a film, newspapers printed that “Anna May loses face in China again.”

When white actor Paul Muni was cast as the male lead of THE GOOD EARTH, Wong knew she had missed her opportunity because of miscegenation laws. Wong supported China during World War II through the Red Cross, USO and China Relief efforts. She also wrote articles in China’s support and created a cookbook of traditional Chinese dishes. On the first anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks, she was sworn in as an air raid warden, according to Hodge’s book.

In 1943, the First Lady of the Republic of China, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, visited Hollywood. She gave a speech at the Hollywood Bowl and a luncheon was held. Madame Chiang Kai-shek was flanked by actresses like Marlene Dietrich and Loretta Young, but noticeably not Wong. Madame Chiang had specifically requested for Wong to be excluded from the events. Anna May Wong continued to act sporadically and died just before she was to co-star in the all Asian American cast of THE FLOWER DRUM SONG.

Keye Luke 

Chinese actor Keye Luke started in films in the 1930s, usually playing a mild-mannered, polite and intelligent young adult Asian male. Often, Luke played young physicians, like in THE PAINTED VEIL (’34), MAD LOVE (’35) and the Dr. Kildare and Dr. Gillespie film series. Luke became best known for his role in the 1930s as Lee Chan, the No. 1 son of detective Charlie Chan, who was played by white actor Warner Oland. The film series has since been criticized for perpetuating Asian stereotypes and having a white actor in the lead role, but Luke defended the films.

“How can they be criticized when the character was a hero,” Luke said in a 1986 Los Angeles Times interview. “People respected him. Police departments consulted with him and called on him to help them.” However, despite this, Luke and other Asians faced racism in Hollywood. Luke said in the 1930s that Los Angeles was “segregated, but not formally.” He was only hired when they needed a “Chinaman.”

“One never saw blacks on Wilshire Boulevard. Parts of the city I avoided–all white areas like Beverly Hills. Even after working with somebody like a big Caucasian actor, I’d be ignored if we met on the street. Asians were invisible, you see. We knew our place: One step back. That’s why the Charlie Chan films were so important. They deflated a lot of the current racial myths. But even the Chan films had rules. Charlie never touched a white woman except as a handshake. I’d never have a white girlfriend, not that I wanted one in pictures,” Luke said in an interview published in Conversations with Classic Film Stars: Interviews from Hollywood's Golden Era by James Bawden and Ron Miller.

After World War II, Luke found roles were harder to find, and many of his roles were uncredited. By the 1960s, more Asian actors were on the screen. In his interview with Miller, Luke joked that before the 1960s he and Korean actor Philip Ahn “divided the work.”

Philip Ahn 

Philip Ahn was a Korean American actor who only played a Korean character once on film. In Hye Seung Chung’s Hollywood Asian: Philip Ahn and the Politics of Cross-Ethnic Performance, he details how before World War II, Ahn was promoted as a Chinese actor and often nicknamed the “Oriental Clark Gable.” During World War II, however, Hollywood shifted its publicity and focused on Ahn’s Korean ancestry. The publicity articles discussed Ahn’s father, Ahn Changho, who was an activist against the Japanese government. Ahn was also promoted as “the man we love to hate” and the “leering yellow monster.”

During the war, Ahn was frequently cast as a Japanese soldier in the 1940s, something he later said that he didn’t mind, as he felt he was contributing to his late father's legacy. Despite these characters not reflecting Ahn’s personality, Chung recalls how Ahn received hate mail from audiences who confused his onscreen characters for real life. In the 1953 Korean War film BATTLE CIRCUS, Ahn and his brother Ralph both played North Korean prisoners. Ahn said while he played many nationalities, this was the only time he played a Korean character, according to his 1978 The New York Times obituary.

Miyoshi Umeki

Japan-born Miyoshi Umeki was the first Asian to win an Academy Award for a performance. Umeki won Best Supporting Actress for her first Hollywood film, SAYONARA (’57). Though Umeki was the first Asian to win an Academy Award, this “first” isn’t often discussed. Despite the accolade, Umeki was still stereotyped in Hollywood. Her characters were generally demure, humble, delicate and subservient. Umeki’s characters spoke in broken English with a sweet smile.

Her son Michael Hood later asked her why she agreed to play these characters. “Her answer was very simple: ‘I didn’t like doing it, but when someone pays you to do a job, you do the job, and you do your best,’” Hood said in a 2018 Entertainment Weekly  article. Umeki later threw away her Academy Award statue, according to Hood. As of 2020, Umeki is the only Asian female to win an Academy Award. 

Nancy Kwan 

Hong Kong-born actress Nancy Kwan burst on to the film scene in 1960. She was cast as the lead in THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG (’60) alongside one of Hollywood’s top actors, William Holden. Kwan was then cast in the all -Asian American cast of the Rodgers and Hammerstein film version of FLOWER DRUM SONG. With a strong start in films, a successful Hollywood career seemed likely for Kwan, but the roles weren’t there. William Holden told her, “You can do a big film and be very successful but in order to sustain a career, you have to have roles written for you,” Kwan shared in a 2018 NBC interview. Kwan was more successful than her predecessors, however, as Asians were starting to be cast rather than white actors in yellowface. Kwan was also cast in roles where she had white romantic leading men, like HONEYMOON HOTEL (’64) and THE WILD AFFAIR (’65). But Hollywood still didn’t know what to do with Kwan. She was cast in “exotic” roles like in the Walt Disney film LT. ROBIN CRUSOE, U.S.N. (’66) as an island girl. Kwan was offered a role in the film THE JOY LUCK CLUB, but she revealed in a 2018 interview at the TCM Classic Film Festival that she declined it because of a line criticizing SUZIE WONG. While she mentioned in a 1990 Los Angeles Times interview that “There are now many, many Asian actresses — but not many roles,” 18 years later she noted that the film industry had changed, but not enough. “There are more leading roles and not just small roles, but it’s still hard.”

[bookandcover]

The latest read for our family’s Anti-Racism Book Club, and a book that was highly recommended by several friends, The Three Mothers is an eye-opening labor of love. In exploring and centering the lives and stories of Louise Little, Alberta King, and Berdis Baldwin, this book strives to remember these women in the context of their three influential families and to show the dramatic, international impact these woman had throughout their lives. Both through the ways in which they raised, nurtured, and taught their children, and in their direct activism work, these women have shaped the course of American history. 

This book is a powerful refocusing of our lens onto three lives that have been little documented and under-celebrated. It is also engaging and a page-turner. These women lived such extraordinary lives—at times tragically sad, at times transcendently joyful—that they leap off the page. As someone who often struggles to make it through nonfiction, I sprinted through this book, riveted on every page, in awe of these women and their narratives. From the love Berdis maintained while interacting with her mentally-ill and abusive husband to Louise’s traumatic loss of her husband to deliberate and racist murder ruled as suicide, I was moved and horrified in turn to learn what these women had gone through. They were able to live and love in spite of so many hardships, undiminished by them. 

The contrasts and comparisons among these women are artfully drawn. As author Anna Malailka Tubbs emphasizes, together the show a much more complex portrait of Black motherhood than they would alone. They experienced different socio-economic backgrounds, different frameworks of familial support, different environments and communities. They respond differently to the perils of their world, to decisions about marriages and careers, to trials of loss and change. Within these differences, they are empowered. They are active agents who shape their lives and their families, even when systems stand against them. The historical context this book provided was also illuminating. The time period examples of Black life during Jim Crow and segregation, the Great Migration, the impacts of the Great Depression and two World Wars, really helped me to see the forces of the time that shaped these women’s lives. The book did a wonderful job balancing awareness of the racism and sexism these women faced every single day, while centering these women as empowered individuals able to shape their futures and the futures of their children. This seemed, to me, like a difficult narrative balance to strike in crafting a book like this and it was powerfully done. 

I felt this book breaking down some of my assumptions and biases as I read. Over the past few years, I have been increasingly attuned to narratives that are silenced—because of race, because of gender—but I could feel myself needing to deconstruct assumptions around motherhood and “traditional female roles” as I read. I do think I hold a set of “less than” assumptions about the pathway of being a wife/mother. I do think I have frowned upon women who give up their career to be a wife/mother primarily (despite, or perhaps because of, having seen my own mother do this.) I have frowned upon these women—not in terms of their choice—but out of some frustration at seeing brilliant women choose a life pathway that does not put their intellectual impacts in the public eye. I think I needed to tackle these assumptions in reading this book, appreciating in new ways how my long-held perspective is, too, a kind of silencing. Simply because wives/mothers’ contributions are not visible in the way I expect or hope for (and my expectations/hopes for “worth” and “impact” are absolutely those defined by the patriarchy) I was quicker to dismiss them. After reading this book, I have a new appreciation for the ways in which choosing motherhood is an inherently feminist act, one that does not bow to the demands of the patriarchy in terms of what “worth” and “impact” look like. I needed to examine myself as I read. 

Beyond the strong anti-racism and anti-sexism work of the project of this book, beyond the thoughtful themes connecting and the history contextualizing these women, this book was a rewarding read on the level of my knowledge of these women’s stories. I could not believe that some of this information was new to me (Alberta King was assassinated?? Martin Luther King Jr’s brother A.D. also died under mysterious circumstances??) I was shocked that this was information I had never heard before about the King family, and I shared it with my dad, both of us exclaiming in confusion about how essential this information seemed to the narrative of MLK’s life, context, and battle for racial equality. Even in telling the stories of MLK’s life (let alone the life of Alberta King herself), we have received such a fragmented picture, a picture that highlights certain details and completely erases other essential events. These specific examples about the lives of the King family—two of many such examples about the lives of all three families—struck me as I read this book with a heavy appreciation of my blindness, born of deliberate erasure and prioritizing particular narratives in the education I have received. I want to work to counteract this. It takes a lot of work because the narratives and assumptions we hold are so strongly engrained. 

[96thdayofrage]

How lawmakers block progress and maintain oppressive policies

Many lawmakers, especially in the South, fought to maintain the nation’s founding principles of white supremacy.

In Alabama’s Dallas County, more than half the population was Black in 1961 but fewer than one in 100 Black citizens were registered to vote due to daunting poll taxes and other measures meant to disenfranchise Black voters. 

Across the South, registrars could selectively ask Black voters to read part of the Constitution, then decide whether the text had been read to their liking, said Carol Anderson, an African American studies professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

As such, they had enormous power to block people from voting, Anderson said.

A modest civil rights act passed in 1957 had enabled the Justice Department to sue states for voting rights violations but put the onus on people whose rights had been violated, requiring them to challenge systems designed to keep them down, Anderson said. By 1963, a federal report examining 100 counties in eight Southern states found that Blacks remained substantially underrepresented at the polls.

Selma, the seat of Dallas County, became an important battleground as tensions escalated. A local judge stifled demonstrations by declaring public gatherings of more than two people illegal, drawing a visit from Martin Luther King Jr. and thrusting Selma into the national spotlight.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Southern legislators repeatedly derailed civil rights-related proposals while chairing key committees, said David Bateman, an associate professor of government at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. 

“Their control over these committees allowed them to gate-keep the agenda,” Bateman said.

Images of officers attacking voting rights activists – including then 25-year-old activist John Lewis – on a Selma bridge with clubs and tear gas in March 1965 helped sway public support. Days after the so-called “Bloody Sunday” incident, President Lyndon Johnson pressed lawmakers to pass broad voting rights legislation. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned literacy tests and other discriminatory practices while requiring federal approval of proposed voting-eligibility standards before states could implement them.

Today, Bateman said, as increasing voting restrictions continue to disproportionately affect people of color, “there’s every reason to believe voter disenfranchisement campaigns will persist.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 reversed a key part of the landmark Voting Rights Act, allowing states to alter voting rules before obtaining federal consent. This summer, the court issued a ruling that disqualifies votes cast in the wrong precinct and only allows family members or caregivers to turn in another person’s ballot.

At least 18 states have enacted laws making voting harder this year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. In Montana, legislators abolished Election Day registration. Florida curtailed after-hours drop boxes.

Georgia shortened absentee ballot request periods, criminalized providing food and water to queued-up voters and made opening polls optional on Sundays, traditionally a day when the Black vote spikes as congregants vote after church. 

“We still have not dealt with anti-Blackness in this society,” said Anderson, of Emory University. “We’re really looking at the same pattern, the same rhymes.”

In September, Democrats introduced an elections and voting rights bill that would expand early voting options, identification requirements and access to mail-in ballots while allowing Election Day registration.

Police have long upheld racist laws, often with violence

As Blacks demanded equality during the civil rights movement, they faced hostility not just from fellow civilians but from those entrusted to protect and to serve.

In 1961, Freedom Rides occurred throughout the South as activists challenged Southern non-compliance with a Supreme Court decision ruling that declared segregated bus travel unconstitutional. The campaign met with often ugly resistance: In Birmingham, riders were attacked by a Ku Klux Klan mob, reportedly with baseball bats, iron pipes and bicycle chains.

Within the mob was an FBI informant who told the agency of the impending attack, but the agency did nothing, reluctant to expose its mole. Two decades later, a U.S. District Court judge excoriated the FBI for its inaction.

“The FBI was passively complicit,” said Diane McWhorter, author of “Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution.”

The attack occurred with the blessing of Alabama public safety commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, who told Klan leaders that police would wait 15 minutes before stepping in.

Paul Butler, a law professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., said he sees the links between the police violence of Birmingham and “Bloody Sunday” and the tanks, tear gas and rubber bullets employed at today’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

“We have John Lewis and others marching on that bridge protesting police brutality, and they get attacked and beat up by police,” said Butler, author of the book “Chokehold; Policing Black Men.” “And last summer, throughout the country there were marches on police brutality – and at these marches, police attacked the people protesting police brutality. The parallels are clear.”

People of color continue to be disproportionately affected by fatal police shootings, with significantly higher death rates than whites over the previous five years, researchers at Yale University in Connecticut and the University of Pennsylvania reported last year. “So it’s unclear whether change is actually occurring,” Butler said.

Critics note the police presence and brutality faced by Black Lives Matter protesters during the unrest following Floyd’s murder – the open-source database Bellingcat found more than 1,000 incidents of police violence – in contrast with the relatively unprepared force that was unable to stop hordes of mostly white Donald Trump supporters from breaching perimeter fencing and entering the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

“There has never been a time when policing of public speech hasn’t been racially biased,” said Justin Hansford, executive director of Howard University’s Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center in Washington, D.C. “With the civil rights-era protests, most people understood that they were standing up for core American principles as opposed to Jan. 6, where they were trying to stop people’s votes from being counted.”

A USA TODAY analysis of arrests linked to the insurrection found that 43 of 324 people arrested were either first responders or military veterans; at least four current and three former police officers now face federal charges.

Education leaders have maneuvered to keep segregation, hide racist history

Education leaders have also at times sought to stall progress.

Two years after the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision ruling segregated schools unconstitutional, Virginia Rep. Howard Smith took the floor to address his colleagues.

There, he introduced a document signed by 82 representatives and 19 senators, all from former Confederate states. The so-called Southern Manifesto called for resisting desegregation and blasted the Brown decision as an abuse of judicial power violating states’ rights.

The gesture demonstrated how deep resistance to desegregation ran in the South. The next year, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus summoned the National Guard to prevent nine Black students from entering Little Rock’s Central High, in defiance of a federal order.

“After the ruling comes down, you have massive resistance in the South,” said Sonya Ramsey, an associate history professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “You have school boards saying they’re not going to do it. You have government officials saying they’re not going to do it. That’s a system.”

Resistance came in many forms, she said, from committees formed to study the matter in perpetuity to policies that allowed whites, but not Blacks, to transfer schools. 

Some institutional leaders did make positive strides, Ramsey noted, even if for economic reasons. While many Southern cities resisted desegregation efforts, officials in Charlotte, North Carolina, eager to promote the area as a progressive business climate, constructed a districtwide busing plan designed to have schools reflect the community with the help of Black and white families and local leaders.

But institutional ills continue, Ramsey and others say – in charter schools now struggling with diversity, in faulty school funding formulas and in ongoing debates about what students should be taught about slavery and racism. Bills limiting how educators can teach about racism have been introduced this year in at least 28 states.

A 2018 Southern Poverty Law Center study of educational standards in 15 states found none addressed slavery’s justification in white-supremacist ideology nor its integral part in the economy; furthermore, the report noted, a separate survey found just 8% of high school seniors identified slavery as the Civil War’s cause.

“It’s fear of the unknown and of disruption,” said Donnor, of William & Mary. “And seeing that the status quo is no longer acceptable. One of the major parallels is in the hostility of the pushback. If you peel back the layers, you can see the similarities.”

News media shapes how Americans view race

The news media has throughout the nation’s history helped Americans understand racial issues – for better or worse. 

In 1962, after James Meredith tested federal law to become the first Black student admitted to the formerly all-white University of Mississippi, the station manager of Jackson’s WLBT decried the decision on-air, saying states should make their own admission decisions.

Station officials strongly supported segregation, rebuffing calls for opposing views, avoiding civil rights coverage and notoriously blaming technical problems for interruption of a 1955 “Today Show” interview of attorney Thurgood Marshall. Ultimately, after repeated complaints to the Federal Communications Commission and a crucial federal court decision affirming public input in FCC hearings, the station lost its license.

“These are the stories we weren’t taught in journalism school,” said Joseph Torres, co-author of “News For All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media.” “They (civil rights groups) were saying, it’s a public airwave, and it’s not being fair to the Black community.”

Black media stepped up to offer different perspectives of mainstream narratives or provide coverage that wasn’t otherwise there. When 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in 1955 by two men who would ultimately be acquitted by an all-white jury, Jet magazine published a photo of Till’s mutilated body that helped kickstart the civil rights movement.

While some white-owned media such as Mississippi’s Delta Democrat Times and Lexington Advertiser condemned segregation and violence, others such as Jackson’s Clarion-Ledger held to the status quo. Gannett, the parent company of USA TODAY, purchased the newspaper in 1982.

“Had the Clarion-Ledger taken a leadership position denouncing atrocities going on in front of their faces, the state would be farther along in terms of getting past some of the pain,” said Mississippi Public Broadcasting executive editor Ronnie Agnew, who served as the newspaper’s executive editor until 2011.

In 1968, the landmark Kerner Commission, appointed to investigate the unrest that had exploded in national riots, faulted the media in addition to longstanding racism and economic inequalities. “The press has too long basked in a white world looking out of it, if at all, with white men's eyes and white perspective," the commission’s final report read.

“They made it absolutely clear that the white press had done a terrible job of covering civil rights,” said Craig Flournoy, a journalism professor at the University of Minnesota who has critiqued the Los Angeles Times’ “incendiary” coverage of the 1965 Watts riots, for which the newspaper won a Pulitzer.

Flournoy said the Times relied heavily on white police and white elected officials for material. In one particularly egregious example, he said the newspaper, having no Black reporters on staff, sent a young Black advertising staffer into Watts to dictate dispatches by payphone, but his notes were repurposed into sensational stories that exaggerated the supposed Black threat.

[nanowrimo]

With you in solidarity.

Hi writers,

The past many days have seen extraordinary protests across the United States and around the world in support of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, David McAtee, and so many more unarmed Black Americans who are killed by police officers, without immediate and meaningful justice.

We've sent a couple of messages that have included anti-racist books and reading lists and suggested organizations that could use your donations right now. We'll include a few more links below.

We've gotten some questions from writers in our community who ask why we're getting involved here, even in our small way.

We're involved because we love and care about Black people.

We're involved because we want to help remove all obstacles to writing creatively, meaningfully, and joyfully. Time, money, and energy are obstacles for all writers that we talk about all the time, and white supremacy, racism, and bigotry make these obstacles loom even larger.

We're involved because we feel a responsibility to challenge our own assumptions and learn more about white supremacy culture and anti-Blackness in the United States, past and present, so that we can avoid further contributing to those legacies.

Our mission statement includes the goal to create a better, more creative world. Thank you for bringing all of your imagination, perseverance, and empathy as we work together to try to do that. We love you very much.

—The NaNoWriMo Staff

Resources

If you're able, you could donate to the Black Visions Collective, or the Louisville Community Bail Fund. Reclaim the Block, a Minneapolis-based community organization, is maintaining a list of organizations in Minneapolis you may want to support here. Autostraddle also has a list of bail funds by state, or you can make a donation to be split across 70+ bail funds here.

A group of authors, including many who have participated in or partnered with NaNoWriMo over the years, is holding a virtual #KidLit Rally for Black Lives on Thursday, June 4, at 7 PM ET. The rally will be led by Jason Reynolds, Kwame Alexander, and Jacqueline Woodson.

The End of Policing is a book about the history of modern policing, how it currently functions, and potential alternatives to help create safe and just communities. It's being offered for free as an ebook by Verso Books.

Here's a list of books you can buy to learn more about racism. If you buy here, Bookshop will donate additional funds to the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund, the Minnesota Freedom Fund, and the family of George Floyd.

One of our Wrimos, Rachel Werner, reached out to share that she's offering a class this June called "Reading—and Writing—Diverse KidLit & YA" if you're interested.

We've loved working with many writing-related organizations led and staffed by Black people and other people of color. Check out We Need Diverse Books, POC in Publishing, and Writing With Color.

If you're a parent, here's are some suggestions and books to start conversations with your children around race and protest. Here's another great list of children's books from EmbraceRace. The Brown Bookshelf has also kicked off their summer reading initiative, Generations Book Club.

[acelucky]

I’m going to be on a little bit of a hiatus from Tumblr for a few days, I’m just exhausted mentally and physically. I’ve been ill, had very little sleep, helped my dad move house amongst other things.

The other thing is related to the football, I’ll keep this brief (I was going to write a much longer post but don’t have the energy). Here’s the thing, I am so excited and anxious about the game tonight! Whether England win or lose I’m proud of the team and the amount of joy/hope it’s brought the nation (especially kids) during this difficult time with the pandemic and everything else, has been incredible and a beautiful thing to witness.

Walking along the streets where I live there’s loads of flags, bunting etc. as well as loads of flags and football shirts coloured in by children, children’s messages of hope and love for football. I think that’s why some of the anti England football posts are getting to me and setting my anxiety off.

Generally speaking I find anti-English/anti-British posts/memes/jokes hilarious and I’m British. I reblog quite a few, I know how to take a joke, how to recognise context, take things with a pinch of salt and to go ‘fuck, I’m British and I hate us too’. Especially as a comedian you have to learn how to laugh at yourself and not get upset about everything or take it personally. 

However, the football posts (some of them) have really triggered my anxiety - on the train home from a comedy gig on Wednesday I started hyper-ventilating after England’s win and seeing some of the posts on here. I just felt so sad and panicky. This is the first time I’ve experienced this with those kinds of posts on tumblr/social media - again, usually I laugh/join in and reblog.

I know it sounds so silly, I’m 32 years old for god’s sake but it’s just affected me so much. I know why. I’m a massive football fan and more importantly a massive Portsmouth Football Club fan, I had a season ticket for years, I’ve been to Wembley with my dad numerous times and travelled to various grounds.

Football meant the world to me as a child/teenager when I was bullied mercilessly in school, when my mother died, when I was exposed to pretty serious mental health conditions etc. It was football at the weekend with my dad and brother that gave me hope, the footballers who made me smile and made me believe things would get better. I’ve even started to write a book on my love of Portsmouth FC/football in general.

It was being a fan of football that meant the boys in my year didn’t bully me and stood up for me. I won a trophy at a Easter Portsmouth FC football training thing for kids, I was the only girl there and it gave me so much confidence and made me believe.

Portsmouth FC did and do so much for the community, for charity etc. And that’s the thing, football is about community, it’s about coming together and being British it’s important to remember that football is (or at least was and still tries to cling to these roots) a sport of the working classes and accessible for all. 

During my gap year to New Zealand my dad made me pack my Pompey shirt so I had a piece of home with me - I also took my shirt to NZ when I was 14 and my photo of me inside bag end is in the shirt! Through wearing the shirt I met Pompey fans in NZ, USA & Oz, I made friends, football was like a universal language!

I remember crying when I was younger at world cups/euros when England lost, just as children will cry tonight regardless of who wins. But the child in me is so excited for tonight and I won’t apologise for that.

All of the above being said, I am so fucking cross at the England fans who are using the football as an excuse to act like hooligans, especially during a Pandemic when all restrictions haven’t been lifted. Of course there’s a long history in England (well Britain in general) of football and violence/gangs/hooligans, but that’s a story for another day,

I hate that some idiot fans boo the other nationalities national anthems. I hate that the English always drink too much and smash things up, get violent - they are an absolute embarrassment. I hate the fact that some England fans use football to mask their racism. It fucks me off so much as, as usual it’s the small percentage who ruin it for the rest of us, it’s these absolute cunts who make all England fans look bad - and again the most upsetting thing here is that a lot of the good fans are children, families etc. 

As always the players, sports commentators, ex players etc. have asked fans not to boo, asked them to be respectful and so on...and as always some won’t listen. I just hope it isn’t too embarrassing and that no one gets hurt etc. But judging by all the singing I’ve been hearing so far today and car horns (nothing wrong with either of those) and the embarrassing scenes outside of Wembley with people trying to storm the stadium without tickets...a chance would be a fine thing. 

But sat at home with my cat and husband, I’m so excited for the game, whether England win or lose I’ll enjoy it. If Italy win i’ll be so happy for them too. I’m taking a hiatus because I know whatever the score, Tumblr is probably going to become a bit of a cesspit of insufferable gloating or insufferable hatred. My mental health needs a break from all this noise and nonsense. Posts have just been setting off my anxiety too frequently and leaving me feel scared, inadequate, like I don’t belong, useless and experiencing self-loathing. So for a few days I choose to enjoy peace and just being with people IRL. 

Love, football chants and peace x

P.S. Yes I put It’s coming home in the tags, no I won’t apologise, it’s an absolute banger of a tune and associated with family, friends and a lot of happy/silly memories. 

[dramionediscussion]

I honestly believe that antis don’t know what dramione is actually about, and believe we just ship a bully with his victim–and refuse to deviate from their reasoning.

But dramione is NOT about that, because literally NO ONE in the dramione fandom (except a few bad apples) would ship a childhood bully draco with hermione. We understand that yes, doing that would make it toxic/abusive. 

draco’s racism was taught to him, just like the weasley children were taught that muggles and wizards and muggleborns were equal. the first eleven years of his life, he grew up with lucius malfoy as a role model–one of the chief blood supremacists. we know that canonically draco worshipped his dad. he learnt that muggleborns were scum of the earth. why would he question that? when we’re kids, we don’t question what our parents teach us–we just assume they’re right and that’s how the world works.

the same concept applies to his classism. the first thing he said to ron was “red hair. hand-me-down robes. you must be a weasley.” now, keep in mind that this is the first time draco is meeting ron. how is an eleven-year-old who’s never met the other child before, know exactly who the child is, and how the child would look?

again, the parents. lucius malfoy worked with arthur weasley in the ministry. he would obviously go home and complain about the “blood traitor and his poverty” to narcissa, and draco would probably overhear, and assume that that’s how you treat the weasleys, because they’re “bad people” in his father’s book, and by extension, his. 

the second book: at the start, lucius puts draco down because his marks were lower than hermione’s. draco is obviously put off, but he understands why–he’s a pureblood. he’s a malfoy. he’s supposed to be doing better than the muggleborns, because according to his father, they don’t deserve to attend hogwarts. later, he calls hermione a mudblood–again, where would he learn that type of language? definitely not the internet, because that didn’t exist. that takes us to his parents. 

now, the question probably is why wouldn’t draco see other non-racist people in school and change? because he didn’t hang out with other houses. slytherins are very isolated, and usually pitted against the rest of the school. draco’s friends, children of death eaters, were probably raised in the same way he was. if his parents taught him pureblood supremacy, and his friends’ parents taught them the same thing, why would he think to question it? 

draco malfoy was taught right from wrong, but those values just happened to be the opposite of what everyone else, like the weasleys, was taught. but just as the weasleys went in knowing that draco was wrong for believing in them, draco went in knowing that the weasleys were wrong for believing in theirs. 

in the third book, I think the whole buckbeak incident was realistic. if a child provokes a dog, and the dog bites it, the dog is the one that’s put down no matter what the child did. I’m not saying it’s “right”–I definitely thin draco 100% deserved to be punched by hermione–but it’s how the world currently works–maybe it will change later but for now, it’s reality. 

and as for the slytherins’ hatred towards hagrid–I’d say it was justified, because hagrid himself was no sweetheart to them. don’t get me wrong–I love hagrid, but he didn’t like the slytherins–you can see this when he talks about them in the first book. again, the books are from harry’s pov, so even if hagrid didn’t like the slytherins and said something about them, it would be biased. but yes, the slytherins often took it too far. 

the fourth book–draco’s bullying wasn’t even that bad. he actually warned hermione to get away at the world cup, in his own twisted way. he accidentally hit her with a curse meant for harry. he made “potter stinks” badges–juvenile things. 

now for the fifth. let me get this absolutely straight: I hate umbridge. I hate the inquistorial squad. I hate that the slytherins joined them. 

but we have to go back to slytherin inequality for this. the slytherins are booed at quidditch matches. the whole school, including most of the teachers and their headmaster, are against them. in fact, I could say that the only teacher that favoured the house was snape, and have canonical evidence. it’s basically the slytherins vs the rest of the school. 

now, comes along a lady that actually seems to favour slytherins. for the first time, they’re made to feel important. she wants to form a little group to catch their worst enemy in an illegal act. who would say no? 

but again–the golden trio was no less. they purposely excluded the slytherins from the DA. forget malfoy and his cronies. not EVERY slytherin would be devoted to umbridge/malfoy. but the trio didn’t invite ANY of them–and not all their parents were death eaters. 

now, put yourself in their place. imagine your school formed a club excluding your house. why would you protect them, instead of catching them? they had no reason to protect the DA, so they didn’t. 

in the sixth book–I think at this point, draco’s grown out of his blood prejudice and realised that it isn’t a game. his father, probably the person he expects the most to protect him is in azkaban. voldemort has his mum, and will kill her if he doesn’t murder the wizarding world’s most powerful wizard. but why did he continue his discrimination? 

do you really think that draco malfoy, bully and blood supremacist for five years, suddenly stopped bullying muggleborns, that word wouldn’t reach his house? his friends/housemates would tell their death eater parents, and somehow, it would reach his father, or worse–voldemort, who would just find it an excuse to kill his mum. 

but admittedly, he didn’t bully the trio that much that year, and I think he called hermione a mudbblood only once–at the top of the astronomy tower, when he was trying to kill dumbledore. 

also dumbledore KNEW that draco malfoy had been ordered to murder him. he knew who had been making those attempts the entire year. and then five minutes before the death eaters got them, he offered protection. draco was expected to make a life-changing, life-threatening decision in five minutes? when he didn’t even know whether he could trust the order? for all he knew, they could hold his family hostage to draw voldemort out. 

but even then, he began to lower his wand, but it was too late. 

IMHO, I think draco only referred to her as “mudblood granger” at that time as a last-ditch attempt to constrain to his father’s beliefs–which would be VERY advantageous to him at that point, because then he would be able to find a reason to murder dumbledore. but we all know he wasn’t able to do it. 

in the seventh book, he refuses to identify harry, even though it’s obvious he recognises him and his family could gain EVERYTHING–but that’s a flimsy redemption arc at best. he stands by while hermione’s being tortured, yes, but that’s because it’s bellatrix lestrange–probably the most feared death eater of all time. would you do anything? I think not. 

draco malfoy was brought up in a different way, having different beliefs ingrained into him. do you actually blame a child for doing what his father said, when the child should have been old enough to make his own choices? do you still blame that child for having been exposed to only one sort of right their whole lives, and having a biased opinion because they were never taught to see from a different perspective? and do you still blame that boy, despite everything he’s faced, that he never went through with it? 

people who say “draco had a choice and he made the wrong one” are just wrong. what kinda choice would they make if a genocidal maniac was sitting at their dinner table, holding their mum hostage, until they killed the president of their country? 

 to me, I think draco and ron were both very insecure people, though for different reasons, and just had different ways of showing it. ron cut people off when he thought they were going to succeed without him, and draco made comments about the other person’s insecurities, probably to make himself feel better. ron was insecure about harry’s fame, but since he was harry’s best friend, he just had to put up with it (until the 4th book). draco had no such obligations. 

and to say that draco malfoy isn’t redeemable, is saying that people who mess up when they’re kids, will remain that way for the rest of their lives. it’s sending a message to all young people out there telling them the consequences of making a mistake–no one will like them. 

I’m not “excusing” draco’s racism. he was a piece of shit, plain and simple. but I’d say 98% of that is because of the way he was brought up. 

also isn’t it the whole point that we want people to wake up and realise their mistakes? half of america would have LOVED for donald trump to get up one day and realise that he’s a racist misogynist. ofc it wouldn’t change the past, but it would change the future.

now, onto the dramione argument. 

first off, saying that hermione wouldn’t forgive draco for the past is going against every aspect of her character. she had a soft spot for kreacher, the house-elf that grew up in a racist household and was therefore racist and called her and ron “mudblood” and “blood traitor” (quite similar to draco, actually). she understood where he was coming from, and why he was the way he is, and ultimately didn’t care. after that, how can you say that she wouldn’t forgive draco for having beliefs and values ingrained into him from when he was a child? 

second, who is the real enemy in HP? yes, you could say voldemort, but it’s more about what he represents, which is prejudice. having draco, a former blood supremacist and the son and nephew of death eaters, getting together with hermione, a muggleborn girl, would show that he’s thrown his beliefs out of the window. it’s his character growth and how he matures through the war and its aftermath. 

putting draco and hermione together as kids without any change to their characters is toxic and abusive, no doubt about it. but that’s not what dramione is about.

even in hogwarts fics like isolation, what the room requires, and clean, the authors make sure that he repents. they make sure to explicitly write his character arc, and to show that he is no longer a bully or blood supremacist. 

hermione is NOT draco’s redemption, since canonically he shows signs of awakening, if not actual repentence. she’s the conclusion of his redemption. it’s officially showing the world and society that he is no longer a blood purist. 

dramione isn’t about crazy fans thinking it’s adorable for a bully and a victim to fall for each other.

dramione is about change. and if you believe that people can’t change, that’s on you.

———-

Edit:

I agree with most of the points you’ve made except for the second paragraph. The majority of Dramione fans do indeed ship Hermione with redeemed Draco, but there’s nothing wrong with reading fics in which their relationship is toxic (I do that every once in a while) because neither Hermione nor Draco is a real person and you can put them in all types of circumstances. They’re both fictional characters and thus can’t be hurt.

- AgnMag

[wizardysseus]

@wizardjail said: talk about ur current wip... and also perhaps some greatest hits discourse from the terrible YA book club

my current wip is spinnerman. the star of the show is picket, who lives in a fairy tale kingdom with her father, a woodcutter anarchist. when he gets a little too woke in front of the queen, picket has to make a deal with a mysterious being called shadowspinner to save his life. adventures ensue. they kind of fall in love and they’re both mad about it.

writing it has been slow because, you know, grad school. but it’s a lot of fun in concept and i think once we start reading bad ya fae romances over break i will be more motivated

as for past exploits of the terrible ya book club.....

perhaps protagonists should have interests and desires that drive the plot forward

“did sarah j maas.... just get bored of her love interest? halfway through her own book?”

political marriages are important actually, and future kings should be having them

if kings aren’t going to marry for political advantage then they at least need to fall in love with woke peasants who will call them on their shit

why are we still stuck on monarchies in ya fantasy, anyway

maybe if you make your dumbledore expy literally the only anti-racism voice in your book - literal real-world racism, not just fantasy racism - that character shouldn’t be the villain, and when you kill him off, it shouldn’t be the happy ending that the old wizard families go back to business as usual. JUST A THOUGHT!

taking rape out of myths where it was there and adding rape into myths where it wasn’t are both bad

[aion-rsa]

The United States vs. Billie Holiday: The Federal Bureau of Narcotics Was Formed to Kill Jazz

https://ift.tt/3smcRhE

This article contains The United States vs. Billie Holiday spoilers. 

Federal drug enforcement was created for the express purpose of persecuting Billie Holiday. Director Lee Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday focuses a cinematic microscope on the events, but a much larger picture is visible just outside the lens. Holiday’s best friend and one-time manager Maely Dufty told mourners at the funeral that Billie was murdered by a conspiracy orchestrated by the narcotics police, according to Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari. The book also said Harry Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, was a particularly virulent racist who hounded “Lady Day” throughout the 1940s and drove her to her death in the 1950s.

This is corroborated in Billie, a 2020 BBC documentary directed by James Erskine, and Alexander Cockburn’s book Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press, which also claims Anslinger hated jazz music, which he believed brought the white race down to the level of African descendants through the corrupting influence of jungle rhythms. He also believed marijuana was the devil’s weed and transformed the post-Prohibition fight against alcohol into a war on drugs. The first line of battle was against the musicians who partook.

“Marijuana is taken by… musicians,” Anslinger testified to Congress prior to the vote on the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. “And I’m not speaking about good musicians, but the jazz type.” The LaGuardia Committee, appointed in 1939 by one of the Act’s strongest opponents, New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, ultimately refuted every point made in the effective drug czar’s testimony. Based on the findings, “the Treasury Department told Anslinger he was wasting his time,” according to Chasing the Scream. The opportunistic department head “scaled down his focus until it settled like a laser on one single target.”

Federal authorization of selective enforcement should come as no surprise. Just this month, HBO Max released Judas and the Black Messiah about how the FBI and local law enforcement targeted the Black Panthers and put a bullet in the back of the head of Fred Hampton after he was apparently drugged by the informant. In MLK/FBI (2020), director Sam Pollard used newly declassified files to fill in the gaps on the story of the U.S. government’s surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King, Jr. Days ago, The Washington Post reported the daughters of assassinated civil rights leader Malcolm X requested his murder investigation be reopened in light of a deathbed letter from officer Raymond A. Wood, alleging New York police and the FBI conspired in his killing.

During the closing credits of The United States vs. Billie Holiday we read that Holiday, played passionately by Andra Day in the film, was similarly arrested on her deathbed. She was in the hospital suffering from cirrhosis of the liver when she was cuffed to her bed. They don’t mention police had been stationed outside her door barring family, fans, and well-wishers from offering the singer comfort as she lay dying. They also don’t mention that police removed gifts people brought to the room, as well as flowers, radio, record player, chocolates, and any magazines. When she died at age 44, it was found that Holiday had 15 $50 bills strapped to her leg, the remainder of her money after years of top selling records. Billie intended to give it to the nurses to thank them for looking after her.

As The United States vs. Billie Holiday points out, the feds had been watching Holiday since club owner Barney Josephson encouraged her to sing “Strange Fruit” at the integrated Cafe Society in Greenwich Village in 1939. Waiters would stop all service during the performance of the song. The room would be dark, and it would never be followed by an encore.

The lyric came from a three-stanza poem, “Bitter Fruit,” about a lynching. It was written by Lewis Allan, the pseudonym of New York schoolteacher and songwriter named Abel Meeropol, a costumer at the club. Meeropol set the words to music, and the song was first performed by singer Laura Duncan at Madison Square Garden.

Holiday and her accompanist Sonny White adapted Allan’s melody and chord structure, and released the song on Milt Gabler’s independent label Commodore Records in 1939. The legendary John Hammond, who discovered Holiday in 1933 while she was singing in a Harlem nightclub called Monette’s, refused to release it on Columbia Records, where Billie was signed. 

The song “marked a watershed,” according to David Margolick’s 2000 book Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights. Influential jazz writer Leonard Feather called the song “the first significant protest in words and music, the first significant cry against racism.”

Holiday experienced the brutally enforced racial segregation of the Jim Crow laws during her trips south with her bands, according to Billie Holiday, the 1990 book by Bud Kliment. She was also demeaned at the Lincoln Hotel in New York City in October 1938 when management demanded she walk through the kitchen and use the service elevator to get on the stage. Holiday also caught flak for being considered too light skinned to sing with one band, and was on at least one occasion forced to wear special makeup to darken her complexion.

Holiday was 18 years old when she recorded her first commercial session with Benny Goodman’s group at Columbia Records, but knew firsthand that an integrated band would be more threatening than an all-Black group. According to most biographies, Holiday began using hard drugs in the early ’40s under the influence of her first husband, Jimmy Monroe, brother of the owner of Monroe’s Uptown House in Harlem.

Anslinger, the first commissioner for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, was an extreme racist, even by the standards of the time, according to Chasing the Scream. He claimed narcotics made black people forget their place in the fabric of American society, and jazz musicians created “Satanic” music under pot’s influence.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday doesn’t shy away from the drug czar’s blatant racism, but Garrett Hedlund’s Harry J. Anslinger doesn’t capture the full depths of the disgust the man felt and put into practice through his selective enforcement. Hedlund is able to mouth some of the epithets his character threw at ethnic targets, but most of the actual quotes on record are so offensive there is no need to subject any audience to them today. The film barely even mentions the strange and forbidden fruit imbibed in slow-burning paper that Anslinger obsessed over almost as much as Holiday’s song.

Read more

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Commissioner Anslinger came to power during the “Reefer Madness” era, and shaped much of the anti-marijuana paranoia of the period, according to Alexander Cockburn’s Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press. His first major campaign was to criminalize hemp, rebranding it as “marijuana” in an attempt “to associate it with Mexican laborers.” He claimed the drug “can arouse in blacks and Hispanics a state of menacing fury or homicidal attack.”

Anslinger promoted racist fictions and singled out groups he personally disliked as special targets. He said the lives of the jazzmen “reek of filth,” and the genre itself was proof that marijuana drives people insane. On drug raids, he advised his agents to “shoot first.” Anslinger persecuted many black musicians, including Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington. When Louis Armstrong was arrested for possession, Anslinger orchestrated a nationwide media smear campaign.

The Federal Bureau of Narcotics’ “race panic” tactics had a double standard. Anslinger only had a “friendly chat” with Judy Garland over her heroin addiction, suggesting she take longer vacations between films. He wrote to MGM, reporting he observed no evidence of a drug problem.

Anslinger ordered Holiday to cease performing “Strange Fruit” almost immediately after word got out about the performances. When she refused, he sent agent Jimmy Fletcher to frame the singer.  Anslinger hated hiring Black agents, according to both Whiteout and Chasing the Scream, but white officers stood out on these investigations. He did insist no Black man in his Bureau could ever be a boss to white men, and pigeonholed officers like Fletcher to street agents.

Donald Clark and Julia Blackburn studied the only remaining interview with Jimmy Fletcher for their biography Billie Holiday: Wishing on The Moon. That interview has since been lost by the archives handling it. According to their book when Fletcher first saw Billie at the raid on her brother-in-law’s Philadelphia apartment in May 1947, “She was drinking enough booze to stun a horse and hoovering up vast quantities of cocaine.”

Fletcher’s partner sent for a policewoman to conduct a body search. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll strip,” Billie said before stripping and marking her territory in a provocative show of non-violent defiance by urinating on the floor (another action Daniels’ movie glosses over). Holiday was arrested and put on trial for possession of narcotics.

According to Hettie Jones’ book Big Star Fallin’ Mama: Five Women in Black Music, Holiday “Signed away her right to a lawyer and no one advised her to do otherwise.” She thought she would be sent to a hospital to kick the drugs and get well. “It was called ‘The United States of America versus Billie Holiday,’” she recalled in Lady Sings the Blues, the 1956 memoir she co-wrote with William Dufty, “and that’s just the way it felt.” Holiday was sentenced to a year and a day in a West Virginia prison. When her autobiography was published, Holiday tracked Fletcher down and sent him a signed copy.

When Holiday was released in 1948, the federal government refused to renew her cabaret performer’s license, which was mandatory for performing in any club serving alcohol. Under Anslinger’s recommended edict, Holiday was restricted “on the grounds that listening to her might harm the morals of the public,” according to the book Lady Sings the Blues.

The jazz culture had its own code. Musicians not only wouldn’t rat out other musicians, they would chip in to bail out any player who got popped. When it appeared Fletcher, who shadowed Holiday for years, became protective of Holiday, Anslinger got Holiday’s abusive husband and manager Louis McKay to snitch.

Two years after Holiday’s first conviction, Anslinger recruited Colonel George White, a former San Francisco journalist who applied to join the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The personality test given to all applicants determined White was a sadist, and he quickly rose through the bureau’s ranks. He gained bureau acclaim as the first and only white man to infiltrate a Chinese drug gang.

White had a history of planting drugs on women and abused his powers in many ways. According to Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, after White retired from the Bureau, he bragged, “Where else [but in the Bureau of Narcotics] could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?” He “may well have been high when he busted Billie for getting high,” according to Chasing the Scream.

White arrested Holiday, without a warrant, at the Mark Twain Hotel in San Francisco in 1949. Billie insisted she had been clean for over a year, and said the dope was planted in her room by White. Bureau agents said they found her works in the room and the stash in a wastepaper basket next to a side room. They never entered the kit into evidence. According to Ken Vail’s book Lady Day’s Diary, Holiday immediately offered to go into a clinic, saying they could monitor her for withdrawal symptoms and that would prove she was being framed. Holiday checked herself into the clinic, paying $1,000 for the stay and she “didn’t so much as shiver.”  She was not convicted by jury at trial.

Afterward White attended one of Holiday’s shows at the Café Society Uptown and requested his favorite songs. After the show was over, the federal cop told Billie’s manager “I did not think much of Ms. Holiday’s performance.”

In 1959, Billie collapsed while at the apartment of a young musician named Frankie Freedom. After waiting on a stretcher for an hour and a half, Manhattan’s Knickerbocker Hospital turned her away, saying she was a drug addict. Recognized by one of the ambulance drivers, Holiday was admitted in a public ward of New York City’s Metropolitan Hospital. She lit a cigarette as soon as they took her off oxygen.

In spite of being told her liver was failing and cancerous, and her heart and lungs were compromised, Holiday did not want to stay at the hospital. “They’re going to kill me. They’re going to kill me in there. Don’t let them,” she told Maely Dufty.

Billie went into heroin withdrawal, alone. When Holiday responded to methadone treatment, Anslinger’s men prevented hospital staff from administering any further methadone, even though it had been officially prescribed by her doctor. Drug cops claimed to find a tinfoil envelope containing under an eighth of an ounce of heroin. It was found hanging on a nail on the wall, six feet from Billie’s bed where the frail and restrained artist could not have reached it.

The cops handcuffed her to the bed, stationed two policemen at the door and told Holiday they’d take her to prison if she didn’t drop dime on her dealer. When Maely Dufty informed the police it was against the law to arrest a patient in critical care, the cops had Holiday taken off the list.

Outside the hospital, protesters gathered on the streets holding up signs reading “Let Lady Live.” The demonstrations were led by the Rev. Eugene Callender. The Harlem pastor, who built a clinic for heroin addicts in his church, requested the singer be allowed to be treated there.

Holiday didn’t blame the cops. She said the drug war forced police to treat people like criminals when they were actually ill.

“Imagine if the government chased sick people with diabetes, put a tax on insulin and drove it into the black market, told doctors they couldn’t treat them, then sent them to jail,” she wrote in Lady Sings the Blues. “If we did that, everyone would know we were crazy. Yet we do practically the same thing every day in the week to sick people hooked on drugs.”

Holiday’s social commentary didn’t end with “Strange Fruit.” She wrote and sang about racial equality in the song “God Bless the Child,” her voice captured the pains of domestic violence. Most of Holiday’s contemporaries were too scared of being hassled by the feds to perform “Strange Fruit.” Billie Holiday refused to stop. She was killed for it. But never silenced.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday is streaming on Hulu now.

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The post The United States vs. Billie Holiday: The Federal Bureau of Narcotics Was Formed to Kill Jazz appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[zemenipearls]

August 2020 Books

January || February || March || April || May || June || July

34. The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

(review pending)

35. The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty

★ ★ ★ ★ ★  

(review pending)

36. Ties that Tether by Jane Igharo

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review! 2.5/5 stars, rounded up to 3. This is a cute, quick read. It is not the most spectacular book, and it is filled with a LOT of tropes for romance. Overbearing family, tortured past from the male love interest, a lot of attention to wardrobe, etc. This book has somewhat of an issue with fetishizing an interracial relationship with a white man, and similarly with the way that it talks about her bff Christina, who is mixed. That's always really difficult for me to get over, especially as a person coming from a multiracial ancestry who knows all too well that having black relatives does not cute white people of their racism and antiblackness. The writing is not the strongest even for a romance novel which sucks because I am always craving more romance books with black women at the center of them. All that being said, I was able to devour the entire thing in one sitting! It was clearly enough to keep me going and for that, I thank Igharo. 

37. Smash It! by Simone Francine

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review! And honestly, I don't know why I keep getting my hopes up over booktuber YA Lit. I have yet to be impressed with one and while I hoped this would be different, it's clearly not the case. Liv as a protagonist is hard to root for. Like many other reviewers noted, her Year of Yes (as Miss Shonda would call it) results in her being a dick to all her friends and the people around it. This is very much an older-YA self-insert book and while I enjoyed how relatable the language of the characters were (definitely sounded like a black girl from Florida), the 2.5 went down to a 2 after some really gross insensitive comments and microaggressions. The Israel/Palestinean relationship comment seemed really out of place (holy war? really?), and was then followed by some pretty gross anti-Hawaiian comments. See, I myself and black and kanaka maoli, or native Hawaiian. I really hope that by some miracle these get edited before the publishing date, but my hopes are not high. The allegory to Othello was rather sloppily shoehorned in at the end. I was excited for this #ownvoices 2020 debut but sadly, there are many others that you will be better off reading at this time.

38. The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

I wish the clubs were open right now, because then I’d be crying in it.