ChickenBones: A Journal

for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes

   

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Send contributions to: ChickenBones: A Journal /  13219 Kientz Road / Jarratt, VA 23867--  Rudy, I don't know if I've mentioned it recently but 'bones looks great.  There's not much out there to compete with it as a presenter of Black literary and philosophical thought. I'm constantly referring folk to it. Chuck (9/28/07)

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Bring the Troops Home:  "A time comes when silence is betrayal." A Time to Break Silence by Rev. Martin Luther King  4 April 1967

Martin Luther King, "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam" / MLK: Mountaintop Speech (on War)

Atlanta Constitution on Race Problem    Origin of Segregation     Intermarriage a No-No       Who Wants Integration      The Problem of Integration      The Racial Problem

Putting the Country First

An Editorial on Political Rhetoric

By Rudolph Lewis

The Cost of Lies -- America With Its Pants Down    The Dark Side of Obedience    Locked Up   A Lie Unravels the World  Lies Truth and Unwaged Housework

 

Reaganite Denounces Bush?

“The US is not a superpower. It is a bankrupt farce run by imbeciles."

By Wilson J. Moses  

Just Another Fine Gentleman    Obama and Bitterness   Republicans' Brilliant Cynical Coup

The Mindlessness is Total: Are You Ready for Nuclear War?—It is obvious that American foreign policy, with its goal of ringing Russia with US military bases, is leading directly to nuclear war.  Every American needs to realize this fact. The US government's insane hegemonic foreign policy is a direct threat to life on the planet. Russia has made no threats against America.  The post-Soviet Russian government has sought to cooperate with the US and Europe.  Russia has made it clear over and over that it is prepared to obey international law and treaties.  It is the Americans who have thrown international law and treaties into the trash can, not the Russians. In order to keep the billions of dollars in profits flowing to its contributors in the US military-security complex, the Bush Regime has rekindled the cold war.  As American living standards decline and the prospects for university graduates deteriorate, "our" leaders in Washington commit us to a hundred years of war. If you desire to be poor, oppressed, and eventually vaporized in a nuclear war, vote Republican.Paul Craig Roberts 

Amin Sharif Reviews: AfriClassical.com: Song of a New Race         Arturo Sandoval in Baltimore       Muddy Waters on PBS       Blue Note: A History of Modern Jazz   

 

Where is the French Obama?

Thoughts for Today

By Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

The Narrative Does Not End   “The End of the Black American Narrative”

 

Eighty Moods of Maya
& Other Photo-Poetic Moments from the Eugene B. Redmond Collection
Edited by Howard Rambsy II

Images and Homages: "Memwars"

The Assassination of Cool

A Commentary on an Ebony Magazine Article

By Amin Sharif

Technical foul on the old guy—it's interesting to see America's oldest presidential candidate out on the hustings transforming himself into a yahoo and a cracker. . . . And it's an amazing country where an Arizona multimillionaire can attack a Chicago South Sider as an elitist and hope to make it stick. . . . whereas the Arizonan is the son of an admiral and was ushered into Annapolis though an indifferent student, much like the Current Occupant, both of them men who are very lucky that their fathers were born before they were. The Chicagoan, who grew up without a father, wrote a book on his own, using a computer. The Arizonan hired people to write his for him. But because the Chicagoan can say what he thinks and make sense and the Arizonan cannot do that for more than thirty seconds at a time, the old guy is hoping to portray the skinny guy as arrogant. Good luck with that, sir. Meanwhile, the casual revelation last month that McCain has never figured out how to use a computer and has never sent e-mail or Googled is rather startling. Kansascity.com

Samuel Gompers    John Mitchell    John L. Lewis   Walter Reuther The Negro and Industrial Unionism  Labor Fights All Injustice 

Forward Is Where We Have to Go

"Obama’s best intention is that there is the making of a post racist coalition."

By Amiri Baraka

We need facts figures precision and skill. It is work and study that will change the world. The rest is clearly bullshit. Immau Amiri Baraka (1973)

New York Times Attempts to Define and Dictate Black Politics

By Glen Ford

Is Obama the End of Black Politics? Lord, No

By Mel Reeves

 Love One Another / The Ancestors Are Not Really Dead  /  Into His Arms  / On Learning of Walter Rodney's Death & Other Poems 

Pondering Minds

"We are a nation that . . . rewards the wealthy for being wealthy."

By Austin L. Sydnor, Jr.

 New Yorker Cover Depicts the Obamas as Terrorists (Williams) / William Greider on the Legalizing of Usury by Congress

Man dies after cop hits him with Taser 9 times—A police officer shocked a handcuffed Baron "Scooter" Pikes nine times with a Taser after arresting him on a cocaine charge. He stopped twitching after seven, according to a coroner's report. Soon afterward, Pikes was dead. Now the officer, since fired, could end up facing criminal charges in Pikes' January death after medical examiners ruled it a homicide. Dr. Randolph Williams, the Winn Parish coroner, told CNN the 21-year-old sawmill worker was jolted so many times by the 50,000-volt Taser that he might have been dead before the last two shocks were delivered. Williams ruled Pikes' death a homicide in June after extensive study. CNN

How Scores of Black Men Were Tortured Into Giving False Confessions by Chicago PoliceHow Scores of Black Men Were Tortured Into Giving False Confessions by Chicago Police—By 1999, it was "common knowledge," according to U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur, "that in the early to mid-1980s, (Jon Burge) and many officers working under him regularly engaged in the physical abuse and torture of prisoners to extract confessions. Both internal police accounts and numerous lawsuits and appeals brought by suspects alleging such abuse substantiate that those beatings and other means of torture occurred as an established practice, not just on an isolated basis." Alternet

African Underground: Democracy in Dakar is a groundbreaking documentary film about hip-hop youth and politics in Dakar Senegal. The film follows rappers, DJs, journalists, professors and people on the street at the time before during and after the controversial 2007 presidential election in Senegal and examines hip-hop's role on the political process. Originally shot as a seven part documentary mini-series released via the internet - the documentary bridges the gap between hip-hop activism, video journalism and documentary film and explores the role of youth and musical activism on the political process. http://nomadicwax.com/film/democracy-in-dakar/

Running While Black—So there he was this week speaking evenly, and with a touch of humor, to a nearly all-white audience in Missouri. His goal was to reassure his listeners, to let them know he’s not some kind of unpatriotic ogre. Mr. Obama told them: “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.” The audience seemed to appreciate his comments. Mr. Obama was well-received. But John McCain didn’t appreciate them. RACE CARD! RACE CARD! The McCain camp started bellowing, and it hasn’t stopped since. With great glee bursting through their feigned outrage, the campaign’s operatives and the candidate himself accused Senator Obama of introducing race into the campaign — playing the race card, as they put it, from the very bottom of the deck. Whatever you think about Barack Obama, he does not want the race issue to be front and center in this campaign. Every day that the campaign is about race is a good day for John McCain. So I guess we understand Mr. McCain’s motivation.

Nevertheless, it’s frustrating to watch John McCain calling out Barack Obama on race. Senator Obama has spoken more honestly and thoughtfully about race than any other politician in many years. Senator McCain is the head of a party that has viciously exploited race for political gain for decades. He’s obviously more than willing to continue that nauseating tradition. NYTimes

 

International Criminal Court Calls for the Arrest

Of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir for Genocide

The African World

 

 

Instruments of Imperial Domination

The Lynching of Robert Mugabe: Critique of Empire, History and Memory! (Part 4)

By Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh

  The Lynching of Robert Mugabe  (part 1)  Empires and Lynching (part 2)  Witnessing in Perilous Times (part 3)  The African World

The Courage and Character of Obama—"That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another. The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

"We know they have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed a Union of promise and prosperity. Here, at the base of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; in the Balkans, where our Atlantic alliance ended wars and brought savage war criminals to justice; and in South Africa, where the struggle of a courageous people defeated apartheid." Berlin Speech July 2008

I am because we are and since we are therefore I am (The Soho of South Africa ) / The society made up of brothers and sisters provides strength. (Igbo of Nigeria)

 

Nomination

By Mary E. Weems

 

Mary E. Weems Table   Say it Loud: Poems about James Brown   On Almost Meeting Alice Walker 

Nigerian Elections 2007  Chronicle of Shame and Deceit  By S. Okechukwu Mezu

The Challenge of the Changing Face of America—

• The highest rates of poverty are among children, especially children of color. The poverty rate for white children is 10 percent, while it is 28 percent for Latino children, 27 percent for Native-American children, and 33 percent for African-American children.

• African Americans, Latino Americans, and Native Americans are about three times as likely to live in poverty as are whites. While the poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites is 8 percent, the rate for African Americans is 24.1 percent, for Hispanics, 21.8 percent, and for Native Americans, 23.2 percent.

• The most extreme poverty in the United States is concentrated in specific geographical areas such as the urban cores of major cities and Native American reservations. These areas of concentrated poverty are the result of decades of policies that confined the impoverished to these economically isolated areas.

• Finally, we also noted the stark racial disparity in the distribution of wealth in the United States. White families not only have on average 10 times the net worth of families of color, but also between 1998 and 2001, their wealth grew by 20 percent, while the net worth of African American households actually declined during that same period. CatholicCharitiesUSA

BoL -- Music Commentary by Mtume & Kalamu Drums, Trains, / Boogie Down Productions  /  Earth, Wind & Fire  / Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln 

 WAR  / "Body and Soul"  / Nina Simone /  Bob Marley /  Alice Coltrane /  James Brown  / Staple Singers  /  Police Brutality and Rappers 

 

Henry Nicholas on Social Justice in America 

A Black Commentator Interview

 

Trouble don' set  like rain: Economic Crises in Jamaica  John Maxwell 

Why South Sudan Want Obama to Lose White House Bid (Mulumba)  / Obama and the Israeli Lobby   (Uri Avnery)

Rev. Jackson’s Not Down for the Count, Yet 

By Mel Reeves

"And while Austin and folks from her generation rush to condemn Jackson and call him a "Grandpa" who is "off his meds," they also owe him and others who fought  the good fight against racist discrimination a little bit of gratitude."

Red Beans and Ricely Yours -- Reviews

Saloy Files: Red Beans and Ricely Yours (2005) WE: A Poem  For Frank Fitch  For Daddy V  Mother with Me on Canal Street  A Life Won with Blood & Tears

Mona Lisa Saloy Winner of the PEN Oakland National Literary Award   Trouble in Paradise (Mona Lisa Saloy) /   Red Beans and Ricely Yours -- Reviews

 

Letter to Sister Cynthia McKinney

From Tilani Lybon Mabasa

Socialist Party of Azania

  Cynthia Mckinney Accepts Green Party Nomination‏  (video)  / Cynthia McKinney Deserves Your Support, Obama Does Not (Ford)

“The Supreme Court has surrendered. . . . It has destroyed the Civil Rights Bills, and converted the Republican Party into a party of money rather than a party of morals."  -- Frederick Douglass, 1894   

 

U.S.-Ethiopian Occupation of Somalia

Millions Displaced in "Worst Humanitarian Disaster"

By Glen Ford

The "War on Terror" and Africa's Worst Humanitarian Crisis  (Sadia Ali Aden)  The African World

 After Hours: A Collection of Erotic Writing by Black Men -- Simmons Review  After Hours Contributors  Love, Sex, and Erotica Table 

 

In-Dependence from Bondage

Claude McKay and Michael Manley

Defying the Ideological Clash and Policy Gaps in African Diaspora Relations

By Lloyd D. McCarthy

Global News:PoliticsLiterature & the Arts

 Why South Sudan Wants Obama to Lose White House Bid (Mulumba)  / Obama and the Israeli Lobby   (Uri Avnery)

Obama Victory Creates African Excitement  Obama Declares Victory  / An Obama Love Story / Meditation for Obama /   Obama 2008 Table

Jesse Helms, White Racist –What really sets Jesse Helms apart is that he is the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country -- a title that one hopes will now be permanently retired. A few editorials and columns came close to saying that. But the squeamishness of much of the press in characterizing Helms for what he is suggests an unwillingness to confront the reality of race in our national life. . . What is unique about Helms—and from my viewpoint, unforgivable -- is his willingness to pick at the scab of the great wound of American history, the legacy of slavery and segregation, and to inflame racial resentment against African Americans. Many of the accounts of Helms's retirement linked him with another prospective retiree, Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Both these Senate veterans switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party when the Democrats began pressing for civil rights legislation in the 1960s. But there is a great difference between them. Thurmond, who holds the record for the longest anti-civil rights filibuster, accepted change. For three decades he has treated African Americans and black institutions as respectfully as he treats all his other constituents. To the best of my knowledge, Helms has never done what the late George Wallace did well before his death -- recant and apologize for his use of racial issues. And that use was blatant. WashingtonPost

The New Paradigm for Financial Markets The Credit Crash of 2008 and What It Means -- Book Review by Kam Williams

The Land of Saints

Short Story by Onyeka Nwelue

How US Energy Policy Got Militarized—The association between "energy security" (as it's now termed) and "national security" was established long ago. President Franklin D. Roosevelt first forged this association way back in 1945, when he pledged to protect the Saudi Arabian royal family in return for privileged American access to Saudi oil. The relationship was given formal expression in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter told Congress that maintaining the uninterrupted flow of Persian Gulf oil was a "vital interest" of the United States, and attempts by hostile nations to cut that flow would be countered "by any means necessary, including military force." To implement this "doctrine," Carter ordered the creation of a Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, specifically earmarked for combat operations in the Persian Gulf area. President Ronald Reagan later turned that force into a full-scale regional combat organization, the U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM. Every president since Reagan has added to CENTCOM's responsibilities, endowing it with additional bases, fleets, air squadrons, and other assets. As the country has, more recently, come to rely on oil from the Caspian Sea basin and Africa, U.S. military capabilities are being beefed up in those areas as well. Alternet