Saturday, June 18, 2005

Baby Mamas are not new anywhere in the Americas

Everybody's talking about Fantasia's song, Baby Mama. Some are dissing and some are supporting. I've said it before and continue to say: Throughout the Americas if we people of African descent did not have families headed by Black women, we would have no families at all. Unfortunately that would be welcome news in some quarters. Relate to this: The first time I heard the term "baby mother" was in Kingston, Jamaica in 1977 - not in the US in 2005. Jamaicans would say "give the baby mama a seat [on the bus]." Jamaica, West Indies, is not the only part of the African Diaspora that practices this form of gender civility. And almost no one - today that is - is encouraging Black or other very young women to have children. But through most of the history of the US and the Americas since 1492 the opposite has been true. Men such as Thomas Jefferson, deceased South Carolina US senator Strom Thurmond, and tens of thousands of others created baby mothers. What has happened to the rare white guy who's tried to raise his voice in dissent? In the late 1950s, in an "infamous" (read: inspired and with guts) yet not widely enough known speech on the floor of the state legislature in Baton Rouge, Earl Long, then-governor of Louisiana, put his white male state legislature colleagues on notice that they needed to "leave nigra women alone [meaning Black American women]." I believe I recall those were some of his exact words. Thus Earl Long - of the legendary Louisiana political family and governor of that Deep South state - entered Gender History for trying very publicly to discuss and discourage white men's exploitation of Black women. Not only were some of those women 'baby mothers', some probably were mothers to babies fathered by those same men. The day after Gov. Long's "Leave nigra women alone" speech he was carted away to a Texas sanitorium (formerly called "insane asylum"). That chapter of US oratorical history is documented, including a morning-after article in the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate newspaper (May 1958 or 59). Black women and girls were and in many places still are *objectified for sex and work, and *objectified for early and repeated reproduction of the labour force of enslaved human beings. Today a young Black, adult woman named Fantasia has asserted herself and chosen to give herself and her sisters internationally a public hug. Her song, Baby Mama, embraces the generations and centuries of work, sacrifice, sexual abuse and forced silence so many of our Black Mothers have endured, so while some may disagree, don't try to shut us up now. There is no shortage of gender hate in this world, and in the Americas - north, south, central and Caribbean - tens of millions of adolescent and older Black females have been and are Baby Mothers. Celia - who was enslaved and executed in Missouri was a baby mother. She was enslaved from birth, purchased for sex at 14 years old by a white Missouri farmer named Robert Newsom, held isolated and a virtual prisoner on his farm, made pregnant at least 3 times, young mother of 2 small babies, Celia was hanged at 19 for killing Robert Newsom when he wouldn't stop raping her. In his book Celia: A Slave, historian Melton McLaurin points out that no one seems to know what became of Celia's children nor the outcome of her third pregnancy. Read the full version of this @ Marian's Blog

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Republican Family Values

Porn star Mary Carey following the Republican fundraising dinner 2 nights hence attended by Bush and friends:

"I think they can drink just as much [as porn stars]. There were some really drunk guys by the end of the night. I was getting propositions to have threesomes with wives or mistresses. I was offered money from oil tycoons! I mean, it‘s pretty exciting. I didn‘t take any money and I didn‘t do any threesomes, but it was pretty—I was just surprised. I thought everyone would be stuck up and no one was going to like me. And everyone loved me and got drunk and took pictures with me. So I want to keep going to Republican events. I‘m a fully converted Republican now."

Texas oilmen offering to pay porn stars to have threesomes with thier mistresses. This is why Democrats can't win in the red states. We are just out of touch with America's values.

Monday, June 06, 2005

Modern-day slavery in Jacksonville, Florida USA

Some of my ancestors were enslaved in east and middle Tennessee and the western NC mountains (and many other places), so I can't stand hearing organisations (mostly based in London and New York) go on and on about modern-day slavery in some foreign country. For such groups it's more important to disconnect "modern-day" abuses from where and what real enslavement - imposed by racial laws and custom - has been. The same organisations hire zero Black Americans - the world's population who created the best known, most effective campaign for rights of the formerly enslaved. But who cares about that?? Those organisations have zilch interest or expertise in enslavement realities and legacies with which we live and die here in the Americas - whether Mexico (Vicente 'not even the Blacks' Fox referred to us just the other day), Haiti, Brasil, and on and on , including the USA. Now today CNN's reporting on a private "farm labor camp" in Florida where homeless Black Americans are lured, trapped, forced to work, then held in debt.

Let me know when "Antislavery International" - or whatever the name is - finally does something, cause the same exact kind of exploitation was reported almost 2 years ago in a 3-part Miami Herald series by journalist Ronnie Greene in Aug-Sept 2003:

Florida farmhands reap a harvest of poverty, pain and exploitation, by Ronnie Greene, Miami Herald, Aug 2003

And almost 50 years ago Tennessee Ernie Ford sang Merle Travis's song, SIXTEEN TONS . Merle Travis was from Ebeneezer, Kentucky.


Some people say a man is made out of mud
A poor man's made out of muscle and blood
Muscle and blood, skin and bones...
A mind that's weak and a back that's strong
_________________

Chorus

You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

__________________
I was born one mornin' and the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal and
the straw boss said, 'well bless my soul!'
.....you loaded...

(Chorus)
__________________
I was born one mornin' it was drizzlin' rain
fightin' and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in a cane-brake by an old mama lion
can't no high-toned woman make me walk no line

(Chorus)
__________________
If you see me comin', better step aside
A lot of men didn't, a lot of men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't get you, then the left one will

(Chorus)
__________________
You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

'Sixteen Tons' ~ Elvis Presley Music

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Sierra Club doc on Appalachian land and folks, 3 pt story

We hear Sierra Club has done a 3 part tv special on the people and land of Appalachia. They've included a region far bigger than the southern Appalachia area of TN, NC and GA. I sure hope they haven't discounted or left out we Black Appalachian folk. Check info on the series here:
The Appalachians - Sierra Club

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Appalachian Community Fund, in Knoxville

I'd like to know more about the ACF, which says it's based in Knoxville. Knoxville's in southern Appalachia. So why does ACF's website talk about being in central Appalachia? Is my geography screwed, or what? Appalachian Community Fund Main Page