“A Missionary Position” is a multimedia solo stage piece written and performed by Ugandan American artist Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine. A Missionary Position is a piece in response to the rampant homophobia now gripping Uganda - but from the LGBTQI community’s perspective. Mwine plays the role of a Ugandan priest, a sex worker and an LGBT activist in his documentary-style solo show.
It’s great to hear how folks from within the Ugandan LGBT community (as well as allies) respond to the violence, laws and media portrayals of themselves - instead of always having to hear it from outliers. Take some time to watch the video - you won’t be disappointed.
Written, performed, directed and shot by Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine Direction and dramaturgy by Emily Hoffman Video Design by Carole Kim Lighting design by Tiffany Willams Production still photos by Steven Gunther Hair and make up by Wamuhu Waweru
*Trigger Warning: There are violent acts recounted in this video
Throughout the early part of the twentieth century, African-American activists fought to thwart the systemic scourge of lynching. Faced with a silent and complicit populace, particularly the media and political establishment, African Americans forced the nation to bare witness to the depravity of American racism. Between 1882 and 1968, close to 5,000 lynchings (73% of the victims were black) took place on American soil, and that is of course an estimate that does not account for the countless unknown souls who lost their lives at the hands of White supremacy. According to Richard Perloff, racial lynchings had become commonplace in part of because of the media's failures to bring the injustice into light. He quotes a white resident of Emelle Alabama, who questioned a reporter's inquiry into the killing of an African American: "A few White residents who had been on hand when the men were killed refused to talk about the events to reporters from The Tuscaloosa News. "What the hell are you newspaper men doing here?" asked a White man who had been part of the vigilante group. 'We're just killing a few negroes that we've waited too damn long about leaving for the buzzards. That's not news'" (Raper, 1933, p. 67). The silence from the mainstream media about blacks victims burned to death, hung, and dismembered, embodied the normalization of white supremacist violence.
Activists and Black journalists responded to American media that often downplayed the practice of white-on-black violence and/or named African Americans as deserving of torment and murder. According to Perloff, writing in The Journal of Black Studies, "It is next to impossible to locate a newspaper article that does not identify the victim as a Negro or that refrains from suggesting that the accused was guilty of the crime and therefore deserving of punishment. For example, The New Orleans Picayune described an African-American who was lynched in Hammond, Louisiana for robbery as a 'big, burly negro' and a 'Black wretch'".
Amid this silence and sanctioning of White-on-Black violence, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and others within the Black press not only documented each and every lynching, but in providing the graphic details, they challenged the very fabric of American racism. From displaying signs announcing "A Lynching Happened Today" to the publication of various pamphlets, activists worked to force America to come to grips with the contradiction between its purported creed and the ongoing violence perpetuated within its boundaries
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
The history of racist violence, of lynchings, of state violence, or a complicit media and systemic injustice, all of which define the era of Jim Crow, remain a reality despite our purportedly post-racial moment. A recent report from the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) entitled "Report on Extrajudicial Killings of 110 Black People" elucidates the contemporary struggle against lynchings. In the first six months of 2012, the police, security guards, and self appointed agents of "justice" have killed 110 African-American men, women, and children. Since its publication, there have been 10 additional killings in total, 2012, which means that in 2012, there has been 1 killing every 36 hours.
Many of these deaths are the consequences of stop and frisk policies, racial profiling, and a culture of White racist stereotyping of African Americans as criminals and suspects. According to Rosa Clemente, a member of Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and former vice-presidential candidate of the Green Party, "Nowhere is a Black woman or man safe from racial profiling, invasive policing, constant surveillance, and overriding suspicion." In the press release, she notes "all Black people - regardless of education, class, occupation, behavior or dress - are subject to the whims of the police in this epidemic of state initiated or condoned violence."
The study showed that 43% of those killed on these streets, prior to any legal proceedings, were stopped because of "suspicious behavior or appearance" or because of traffic violations. Another 10% were not involved in criminal behavior at all, with another 18% resulting from 9-1-1 calls, including several from family members seeking assistance with individuals suffering from mental illness, only to see them killed in the streets. With only 33% of those killed resulting from an actual investigation, we must begin to ask protecting and serving whom?
Among its victims are: Rekia Boyd, an innocent bystander shot and killed in Chicago; Dante Price, who was shot 22 times, while trying to pick up his children; and Travis Henderson, a "a suicidal man sitting in a church parking lot with a gun. When he got out of the car, he allegedly pointed the gun at an officer and was shot." An Orange County Sherriff killed Manuel Loggins, a former marine and father of two daughters, in front of his children. The "sheriff initially said he feared for his own safety and later revised his story to say he feared for the girls' safety." And there is Anton Barrett, "who was allegedly driving without headlights and running stop signs when a DUI Saturation Patrol signaled him to stop. According to the report, "he led the officers on a high speed chase, when his tires went flat, he fled on foot. One officer confronted him in a darkened alley and shot him multiple times, claiming he thought he saw him pull a 'metallic object' from his sweatshirt pocket. After Barrett was shot, he attempted to rise and a second officer tasered him. He was cuffed and died at hospital. Police admit they mistook wallet for gun." The history of state violence, of the consequences of systemic racism, a story often imagined as a concluded chapter in American history, remains a grave problem of the twenty-first century.
In the spirit of Ida B. Wells and other freedom fighters, this report continues the tradition of baring witness to the atrocities of state violence. Under a cloud of silence, denial, and denied accountability, the death toll rises. While the media, political "leaders," and citizens alike ignore and justify these killings by blaming the victims, MXGM and this report make clear that African Americans continue to live "without sanctuary" in America, demanding that we not only "bare witness" to these ongoing atrocities but join them "in demanding that the Obama administration implement a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice to stop these killings and other human rights violations being committed by the government."
A lynching happened today;
One happens every 36 hours;
Will another happen tomorrow?
As Ida B. Wells-Barnett powerfully reminds us, "The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."
This report was produced for the “No More Trayvon Martins Campaign”, demanding a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice. This is the 2nd Major report of the Campaign.
A human rights crisis confronts Black people in the United States. Since January 1, 2012, police and a much smaller number of security guards and self-appointed vigilantes have murdered at least 110 Black women and men. These killings are definitely not accidental or random acts of violence or the work of rogue cops. As we noted in our April 6th, 2012 “Trayvon Martin is All of US!”Report (see http://mxgm.org/trayvon-martin-is-all-of-us/), the use of deadly force against Black people is standard practice in the United States, and woven into to the very fabric of the society.
The corporate media have given very little attention to these extrajudicial killings. We call them “extrajudicial” because they happen without trial or any due process, against all international law and human rights conventions. Those few mainstream media outlets that mention the epidemic of killings have been are unwilling to acknowledge that the killings are systemic – meaning they are embedded in institutional racism and national oppression. On the contrary, nearly all of the mainstream media join in a chorus that sings the praises of the police and read from the same script that denounces the alleged “thuggery” of the deceased. Sadly, too many people believe the police version of events and the media’s “blame-the-victim” narratives that justify and support these extrajudicial killings.
However, we have studied each of the reports of these deaths — including false, implausible and inconsistent claims by police and witness reports that contradict police reports. From this study and many peoples’ experience, we must reject the corporate media’s rationalization for the horrible fact that in the first six months of this year, one Black person every 40 hours was executed. This wanton disregard for Black life resulted in the killing of 13 year-old children, fathers taking care of their kids, women driving the wrong cars, as well as people with mental health and drug problems.
This report documents how people of African descent remain “without sanctuary” throughout the United States. Nowhere is a Black woman or man safe from racial profiling, invasive policing, constant surveillance, and overriding suspicion. All Black people – regardless of education, class, occupation, behavior or dress – are subject to the whims of the police whose institutionalized racist policies and procedures require them to arbitrarily stop, frisk, arrest, brutalize and even execute Black people.
Invasive policing is only one aspect of the U.S. states comprehensive containment strategies to exploit Black people and to smother resistance. To contain the upsurge of the Black liberation movement of the 1960’s and 70’s and protect the system of white supremacy the institutional forces of racism have worked through governments at every level to destabilize the Black community via community divestment, massive employment discrimination, outsourcing, gentrification and other forms of economic dislocation. In addition, schools, housing, healthcare, other social services and transportation in Black communities have been denied equitable provision and distribution of public goods and resources.
The U.S. state maintains and reinforces these economic injustices with the militarized occupation of Black communities by the police and a web of racist legislation like the “war on drugs”, discriminatory polices like “three strikes” and “mandatory minimum” sentencing. The result is a social system that mandates the prison warehousing of millions of Black people and extrajudicial killings where the killers act with impunity and more often than not are rewarded and promoted for murder. The oppression and police occupation of Black communities parallels the brutalization, denial of human rights and killings being committed by the Israeli occupying forces in Palestine, and the persecution of Afrodescendants in Columbia and the Indigenous peoples of Brazil over the past several years. Nothing short of the structural integrity and survival of the Black community is at stake when we consider the historic record.
For those who doubted the framing of the “Trayvon Martin is All of Us!” Report, this 6th month update proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the institutionalized violence of white supremacy is not only alive and well, but is, in fact, intensifying. To complete the picture, we must take into account the extrajudicial killings and other repressive policies directed at other targeted peoples and communities such as Indigenous peoples, Latinos, Arabs, Muslims, and immigrants. These, in conjunction with the oppression of Black people, demonstrate that the U.S. government remains committed to maintaining the system of white supremacy created by the aggressive and illegal European settler-colonies that first established the national-state project.
This crisis can only be stopped through decisive action. First, the Black community must organize its own self-defense. Second, we must build a broad, mass movement capable of forcing the government to enact transformative legislation based on our demands. The fundamental transformative demand must be for a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice to eliminate institutional racism and advance the struggle for self-determination. The Black community itself will determine the specific contents of The Plan, drawing from the foundation of CERD (the Convention to Eliminate all forms of Racial Discrimination) and the DDPA (Durban Declaration and Programme of Action).
We call on everyone who believes that decisive action must be taken by Black and other oppressed peoples to confront and defeat national oppression and white supremacy to join us in developing an independent, mass movement for human rights that builds power in our communities and will have the capacity to force the Federal authorities to implement a comprehensive National Plan of Action for Racial Justice. You can join us immediately by helping us secure 1 million signatures to our petition (see http://mxgm.org/trayvon-martin-is-all-of-us/), organizing Copwatch and People’s Self-Defense campaigns, fighting for elected Police Control Boards, the demilitarization of our communities, and the reinvestment of the military and security budget into community reinvestment and social programs amongst other suggestions provided in our “Local Struggles” paper (see http://mxgm.org/no-more-trayvons-campaign/). We also encourage communities to organize their own grassroots crisis intervention, domestic violence prevention/control and mediation teams so families in crisis do not become so desperate for help that they compound their problems by calling 9-1-1 and inviting the police into their homes.
We also call all organizations and individuals who agree with the demand and framework for a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice to help us build the National Alliance for Racial Justice and Human Rights (NARJHR) as a structure that will help us develop and implement a comprehensive national plan that centers oppressed peoples’ right to self-determination and the full realization of our human rights.
For more information about the Report or any of these action proposals, contact Kali Akuno atkaliakuno@mxgm.org.
Highlights from the Report
110 Black People Executed without Trial by Police, Security Guards and Self-Appointed Law Enforcers between January 1 – June 30, 2012
These executions primarily destroy Black communities’ future and spirit by stealing the lives of our youth. Of the 110 lives taken:
13 or 12% were children under 18 years old.
20 or 18% were 18-21 years old, just entering adulthood.
45 or 41% were 22-31 years old.
17 or 15% were 32-41 years old.
9 or 8% were 42-51 years old.
4 or 4% were over 52 years.
2 or 2% were of undetermined age.
71 Per Cent of the Lives Lost Belonged to People from the Ages of 13 to 31.
These executions happen nationwide: from north to south; east to west; in rural towns and large metropolitan areas. Like in the years of lynching, there is no geographic sanctuary. Yet some cities—especially in the South– execute Black people without trial in numbers disproportionate to the size of their Black populations. Here are the cities with 2 or more executions.
States where Black People were killed by Police (January through June 2012)
US Cities - Extrajudicial Killings of Black People
Search:
U.S. City Name
Number Executed (Jan-June 2012)
Black Population (2010 Census)
Ratio of Deaths per Million Black People
New York City
9
2,228,145
4
Atlanta Metro (includes Clayton County)
9
399.505
23
Dallas
8
308,087
26
Chicago Metro (includes Calumet City & Dolton)
7
915,436
8
New Orleans
5
213,918
23
Jacksonville
4
252,421
16
Baltimore
4
403,998
10
Cleveland (includes Maple Heights)
3
227,451
13
Memphis
3
414,828
7
Tulsa
3
65,771
46
Saginaw
2
38,800
52
Miami
2
481,812
2
Birmingham
2
155,791
13
Dothan
2
21,286
94
Fayetteville
2
84,040
24
A significant proportion of the 110 were killed because they suffered from mental health problems or were intoxicated and behaved in ways the police allegedly could not control.
24 people or 22% might be alive today if community members trained and committed to humane crisis intervention and mental health treatment had been called rather than the police.
What is the relationship between “stop and frisk” policies and procedures and racial profiling and these deadly encounters? This report documents how these encounters were initiated. Encounters that began because the “suspect was engaged in suspicious behavior or looked suspicious or was driving suspiciously” show how often racial profiling leads to death.
43 (39%) of police accounts explicitly cite “suspicious behavior or appearance” or traffic violations (“driving while Black”) as the reason for their attempt to detain the person who they eventually killed.
20 (18%) deadly encounters began with calls to 9-1-1 to seek help in resolving “domestic disturbances”. These included family members seeing assistance in dealing with mentally troubled people.
11 (10%) people who had violated no law or had not been involved in any harmful behavior were killed.
That leaves only 36 people or 33% killed in the course of police investigating activity they define as “criminal”.
Most of the people executed were not armed.Here is the breakdown:
47 had no weapon at all at the time they were executed.
40 were alleged by police to have weapons (including a cane, toy gun and bb gun) but this allegation is disputed by witnesses or later investigation. Police are infamous for planting weapons or deciding that a cell phone, wallet or other harmless object is a gun.
21 were likely armed
Police and other executioners typically justify their murders by reporting that the “suspect” ran away, pointed a gun or crashed into them with a car and therefore they had to use deadly force to defend themselves.
In the first half of 2012, police alleged that 38 of the people they executed attempted to run away from them.
20 of the people who were murdered allegedly pointed guns at officers and/or attempted to crash into them. Reports often do not mention if the officers were wearing uniforms or if the “suspects had any way of knowing their assailants were not civilians.
Regardless of how these encounters begin, whether they involve activity that violates the laws of the state or the laws of basic human decency, no one should be sentenced to death without a trial.In most countries, even with a trial, capital punishment is considered barbaric. So the use of deadly force is always “excessive” (and extrajudicial by international human rights standards) except in certain circumstances.
15 cases in this report or less than 14%, if the facts reported are true, involve situations where the “suspect” shot and wounded and/or killed the police and/or others while the police were on the scene. Although it would have been preferable to stop them with non-lethal force, the use of lethal force in these circumstances can not be considered excessive. But in the remaining 95 cases, killings were extrajudicial, that is, they used lethal force with no legitimate justification and violated peoples’ basic human rights.
Cases of Extrajudicial Killings of Black People (January through June 2012)
On gender: In the first half of 2012, only 5 out of the 110 executed people were women. Two were accused “car thieves”, two were “innocent bystanders” and one was beaten and smothered by police because they could not calm her emotional agitation. Please note: the most glaring way that women’s oppression enters the picture is in the high number of deaths (18%) that result from mothers, wives, lovers or other family members who call the police because they are desperate for help with their troubled, often frightening, kids and partners. Grassroots community crisis intervention and mediation would lighten the burdens that single mothers and survivors of domestic violence carry and also build towards more community self-reliance. As one mother whose emotionally troubled son said, “calling the police to calm a mentally ill child is like calling an undertaker to deliver a baby.”
The “justice system” gives impunity to murderers. The names of a few of the 110 people on this death roll have become nationally-known rallying cries for justice: like Trayvon Martin and Remarley Graham. Their murders have sparked massive mobilizations, media commentary, calls for government intervention, lawsuits and endless legal wrangling. However, after the initial announcements in local news media, the lives of most of those who were executed are forgotten. The standard procedure in most jurisdictions is for police involved in fatal shootings to be given paid “desk-duty” while the department conducts an investigation of itself. The press applauds their fine records while it screams about the criminal records of the deceased. Almost all killer cops are routinely exonerated and quickly return to the street. Grieving families who invariably ask the modest question, “why did he have to die?” are ignored. If there is some demonstrated community outrage the case may be further investigated. The legal system almost never charges these executioners and even if they do, the killing continues. A number of families seek legal redress through the civil courts and seek financial restitution. After years of litigation a tiny minority may gain some solace from a financial payment. And the executions continue.
37% of the Black people who were executed in the first half of 2012 seem to have been totally forgotten. A careful internet search could not find their names after an initial flurry of news about their killings.
6 security guards and self-appointed law enforcers (including Trayvon Martin’s killer and the Tulsa murderers) have been charged.
3 killer cops have been charged: one for vehicular homicide-DUI, two for manslaughter (Remarley Graham’s killer and Christopher Brown’s killer).
That is, in 95 cases of extrajudicial killings, the legal system has only charged 9 people, less than 10%. The outcome of these charges is still pending.
A note on the research process:
The data for this report was collected by meticulously combing the internet during the last ten days of June 2012. In addition to searching on “police-involved shootings”, “police killings of Black people”, etc., we also went to the websites of the local press, blogs and police departments in the 100 cities and towns with the largest Black populations and followed wherever the links led. In the course of these searches, we found the names of an additional 14 people killed before March 31, who we hadn’t found during the research for the first quarterly report. Those names appear here. There is, as far as we know, no national database that tracks these killings. Wikipedia has posted a very incomplete list and also detailed the other databases available. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_... This report covers the deaths of 110 Black people: 54 from January thru March and 56 from April thru June, 2012. In other words, despite the huge mobilizations after the Remarley Graham and Trayvon Martin murders, the killing continued at an even faster pace. We do not believe the 110 deaths listed here are all the Black people killed by police and security guards. There are no doubt more—especially in places that do not have an active internet media presence. We found the names of an additional 15 people killed by police whose race we could not confirm. There were countless others who were in critical condition from police shootings, but the press never reported on whether they survived. With time, we estimate another 30 to 40 cases might emerge. For more information on any given case, you can type “shooting of name, date, place” in your search engine. For more information on this Report or to contribute updated information, please contact arlene_eisen@sbcglobal.net.
“The Report on Black People Executed without Trial by Police, Security Guards and Self-Appointed Law Enforcers January 1 – June 30, 2012”, was produced by Arlene Eisen and Kali Akuno for the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM). Special assistance was given by Ajamu Baraka.
MXGM understands that the collective institutions of white-supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism have been at the root of our people’s oppression. We also understand that without community control and without the power to determine our own lives, we will continue to fall victim to genocide. Email this author | See all writing on MXGM.org by MXGM
By 1909 Ida B. Wells was the most prominent anti-lynching campaigner in the United States. From the early 1890s she labored mostly alone in her effort to raise the nation’s awareness and indignation about these usually unpunished murders. In 1909, however, she gained a powerful ally in the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The follow speech was delivered by Wells on May 8, 1909 at the NAACP’s first annual conference held in Atlanta, Georgia.
The lynching record for a quarter of a century merits the thoughtful study of the American people. It presents three salient facts: First, lynching is color-line murder. Second, crimes against women is the excuse, not the cause. Third, it is a national crime and requires a national remedy. Proof that lynching follows the color line is to be found in the statistics which have been kept for the past twenty-five years. During the few years preceding this period and while frontier law existed, the executions showed a majority of white victims. Later, however, as law courts and authorized judiciary extended into the far West, lynch law rapidly abated, and its white victims became few and far between. Just as the lynch-law regime came to a close in the West, a new mob movement started in the South.
This was wholly political, its purpose being to suppress the colored vote by intimidation and murder. Thousands of assassins banded together under the name of Ku Klux Klans, “Midnight Raiders,” “Knights of the Golden Circle,” et cetera, et cetera, spread a reign of terror, by beating, shooting and killing colored in a few years, the purpose was accomplished, and the black vote was supressed. But mob murder continued. From 1882, in which year fifty-two were lynched, down to the present, lynching has been along the color line. Mob murder increased yearly until in 1892 more than two hundred victims were lynched and statistics show tht 3,284 men, women and children have been put to death in this quarter of a century. During the last ten years from 1899 to 1908 inclusive the number lynched was 959. Of this number 102 were white, while the colored victims numbered 857. No other nation, civilized or savage, burns its criminals; only under that Stars and Stripes is the human holocaust possible. Twenty-eight human beings burned at the stake, one of them a woman and two of them children, is the awful indictment against American civilization—the gruesome tribute which the nation pays to the color line.
Why is mob murder permitted by a Christian nation? What is the cause of this awful slaughter? This question is answered almost daily— always the same shameless falsehood that “Negroes are lynched to protect womanhood.” Standing before a Chautauqua assemblage, John Temple Graves, at once champion of lynching and apologist for lynchers, said: “The mob stands today as the most potential bulwark between the women of the South and such a carnival of crime as would infuriate the world and precipitate the annihilation of the Negro race.” This is the never-varying answer of lynchers and their apologists. All know that it is untrue. The cowardly lyncher revels in murder, then seeks to shield himself from public execration by claiming devotion to woman. But truth is mighty and the lynching record disc1oses the hypocrisy of the lyncher as well as his crime.
The Springfield, Illinois, mob rioted for two days, the militia of the entire state was called out, two men were lynched, hundreds of people driven from their homes, all because a white woman said a Negro assaulted her. A mad mob went to the jail, tried to lynch the victim of her charge and, not being able to find him, proceeded to pillage and burn the town and to lynch two innocent men. Later, after the police had found that the woman’s charge was false, she published a retraction, the indictment was dismissed and the intended victim discharged. But the lynched victims were dead. Hundreds were homeless and Illinois was disgraced.
As a final and complete refutation of the charge that lynching is occasioned by crimes against women, a partial record of lynchings is cited; 285 persons were lynched for causes as follows: Unknown cause, 92; no cause, 10; race prejudice, 49; miscegenation, 7; informing, 12; making threats, 11; keeping saloon, 3; practicing fraud, 5; practicing voodooism, 1; refusing evidence, 2; political causes, 5; disputing, 1; disobeying quarantine regulations, 2; slapping a child, 1; turning state’s evidence, 3; protecting a Negro, 1; to prevent giving evidence, 1; knowledge of larceny, 1; writing letter to white woman, 1; asking white woman to marry; 1; jilting girl, 1; having smallpox, 1; concealing criminal, 2; threatening political exposure, 1; self- defense, 6; cruelty; 1; insulting language to woman, 5; quarreling with white man, 2; colonizing Negroes, 1; throwing stones, 1; quarreling, 1; gambling, 1.
Is there a remedy, or will the nation confess that it cannot protect its protectors at home as well as abroad? Various remedies have been suggested to abolish the lynching infamy, but year after year, the butchery of men, women and children continues in spite of plea and protest. Education is suggested as a preventive, but it is as grave a crime to murder an ignorant man as it is a scholar. True, few educated men have been lynched, but the hue and cry once started stops at no bounds, as was clearly shown by the lynchings in Atlanta, and in Springfield, Illinois.
Agitation, though helpful, will not alone stop the crime. Year after year statistics are published, meetings are held, resolutions are adopted and yet lynchings go on. Public sentiment does measurably decrease the sway of mob law, but the irresponsible bloodthirsty criminals who swept through the streets of Springfield, beating an inoffensive law-abiding citizen to death in one part of the town, and in another torturing and shooting to death a man who for threescore years had made a reputation for honesty; integrity and sobriety, had raised a family and had accumulated property; were not deterred from their heinous crimes by either education or agitation.
The only certain remedy is an appeal to law. Lawbreakers must be made to know that human life is sacred and that every citizen of this country is first a citizen of the United States and secondly a citizen of the state in which he belongs. This nation must assert itself and protect its federal citizenship at home as well as abroad. The strong arm of the government must reach across state lines whenever unbridled lawlessness defies state laws and must give to the individual under the Stars and Stripes the same measure of protection it gives to him when he travels in foreign lands.
Federal protection of American citizenship is the remedy for lynching. Foreigners are rarely lynched in America. If, by mistake, one is lynched, the national government quickly pays the damages. The recent agitation in California against the Japanese compelled this nation to recognize that federal power must yet assert itself to protect the nation from the treason of sovereign states. Thousands of American citizens have been put to death and no President has yet raised his hand in effective protest, but a simple insult to a native of Japan was quite sufficient to stir the government at Washington to prevent the threatened wrong. If the government has power to protect a foreigner from insult, certainly it has power to save a citizen’s life.
The practical remedy has been more than once suggested in Congress. Senator Gallinger, of New Hampshire, in a resolution introduced in Congress called for an investigation “with the view of ascertaining whether there is a remedy for lynching which Congress may apply.” The Senate Committee has under consideration a bill drawn by A. E. Pillsbury, formerly Attorney General of Massachusetts, providing for federal prosecution of lynchers in cases where the state fails to protect citizens or foreigners. Both of these resolutions indicate that the attention of the nation has been called to this phase of the lynching question.
As a final word, it would be a beginning in the right direction if this conference can see its way clear to establish a bureau for the investigation and publication of the details of every lynching, so that the public could know that an influential body of citizens has made it a duty to give the widest publicity to the facts in each case; that it will make an effort to secure expressions of opinion all over the country against lynching for the sake of the country’s fair name; and lastly, but by no means least, to try to influence the daily papers of the country to refuse to become accessory to mobs either before or after the fact.
Several of the greatest riots and most brutal burnt offerings of the mobs have been suggested and incited by the daily papers of the offending community. If the newspaper which suggests lynching in its accounts of an alleged crime, could be held legally as well as morally responsible for reporting that “threats of lynching were heard”; or, “it is feared that if the guilty one is caught, he will be lynched”; or, “there were cries of ‘lynch him,’ and the only reason the threat was not carried out was because no leader appeared,” a long step toward a remedy will have been taken.
In a multitude of counsel there is wisdom. Upon the grave question presented by the slaughter of innocent men, women and children there should be an honest, courageous conference of patriotic, law-abiding citizens anxious to punish crime promptly, impartially and by due process of law, also to make life, liberty and property secure against mob rule.
Time was when lynching appeared to be sectional, but now it is national—a blight upon our nation, mocking our laws and disgracing our Christianity. “With malice toward none but with charity for all” let us undertake the work of making the “law of the land” effective and supreme upon every foot of American soil—a shield to the innocent; and to the guilty, punishment swift and sure.
Sources:
James Daley, ed., Great Speeches By African Americans (Mineola: New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2006), 98-101.
Manhattan native Kool Moe Dee became an underground rap pioneer in the 70s and later broke out as a star as part of the group Treacherous Three. He became even bigger as a solo act, scoring a monster hit with "I Go To Work" and becoming one of the architects of the New Jack Swing sound that dominated radio in the late 80s.
He is the subject of next week's episode of our favorite show, TV One's "Unsung," and we have a preview for you here. Be sure to check it out on TV One on Monday night, and then come back here on Tuesday when we'll have the full episode posted.
Kool Moe Dee: Yes, my latest single will be released this summer. I'm doing a show called "Behind the Rhyme," [it's] basically an "Inside the Actors Studio" for hip-hop. Until we start telling our own stories, it's rarely going to come out right. When it comes to hip-hop, nobody lived it like we did. They don't know what it's like to live in a drug-infested neighborhood and not get caught up in hustling and still be cool enough to navigate the streets. They don't know what it's like to walk that fine line. We're going to shoot the episodes ourselves. We're not waiting on Hollywood.
I also do a lot of relationship roundtable stuff. We have a collective unhappiness with relationships and that's because people are hooking up for superficial reasons. I tell my female friends, 'Don't date because of your biological clock. If he's not right for you, he won't be right just because you feel it's time.' To the fellas I have to school them: 'You're still focusing on getting some and you're not even focusing on who you're getting some from?'
Loop 21: What's the difference between recording now versus 30 years ago? Do you still have the same kind of hunger? Do you still have the same point to prove?
Kool Moe Dee: No, definitely not trying to prove the same points. It's just like a boxer. As they get older, you fight a different fight. At this stage, I have a lot more wisdom.
Loop 21: You've talked about your feud with LL Cool J for decades now. What's the real deal behind it?
Kool Moe Dee: They touched on the LL thing [in the "Unsung" episode] but they keep making it so superficial and topical. LL said he was the greatest rapper, but that's not why I got mad. On "Bigger and Deffer" [LL's 1987 album] he had a rhyme, 'I'm only 18 making more than your pops.' Basically he's talking about the hustlers that were the kingpins in the neighborhood. This is during the height of the crack era. My point is if you're going to say you're going to be the best, your content has to be more socially responsible. It wasn't an ego thing.
Loop 21: One great quote from the episode was when someone said, "If there was a Mount Rushmore of hip-hop, Kool Moe Dee would be on it." Assuming you agree, who would be the other three faces you'd put there?
Kool Moe Dee: Well, you'd have to have two Mount Rushmores — one for MCs and the other for DJs. If I had to name three others for the MC Mount Rushmore, it would be Melle Mel, Grandmaster Caz, and DJ Hollywood. For DJs, it would be Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grand Mixer DXT.
Loop 21: Who are you listening to these days? Who has your ear — hip-hop or otherwise?
Kool Moe Dee: I still love hip-hop. Lil Wayne is probably the hardest working, Enimem is the most skilled, I love Jay-Z's business acumen along with his MC swag. I love Kanye. Nas is still my overall favorite.
Submissions deadline for the fall issue is Aug 1, 2012. The theme is “Belief.” Please use our submissions manager.
BLACKBERRY: a magazine aims to be a premier literary magazine featuring black women writers and artists*. Its goal is to expose readers to the diversity of the black woman’s experience and strengthen the black female voice in both the mainstream and independent markets.
BLACKBERRY: a magazine is seeking all forms of poetry, short fiction, non-fiction, artwork and photography. However, we are not interested in science fiction, fantasy, or derivative fiction. We are open to spiritual pieces regardless of faith, sect or denomination.
We are interested in work that goes beneath the surface and touches the spirit. Your work should explore the universal truths of life while showing the diversity of our experiences.
With all submissions please send a 50 word bio with a website you would like promoted should we accept your work.
You may submit up to 3 poems not exceeding 1500 words. All other forms: no more than 2 pieces not exceeding 4000 words. Artwork must be 2-dimensional, in color or black-and-white, 300 dpi or higher. If applicable, include captions. All submissions should be inspired by the issue’s theme, usually a key word or phrase, that is open to interpretation by the artist.
Compensation is in the form of a contributor’s copy.
*While Blackberry’s main focus is on black female writers and artists, we will not automatically dismiss work based on ethnic, racial, or sexual identity. If the magazine and its themes speak to you, please submit!
In 2010, Pumzi, the first Kenyan science fiction movie, won the best short film award at the Cannes Independent Film Festival, and the South African co-production District 9 was nominated for multiple Oscars. In 2011, Nigerian-American Nnedi Okorafor became the first author of African extraction to win the World Fantasy Award, with Who Fears Death, and South African Lauren Beukes became the first person from Africa to win the Arthur C. Clarke Award, with Zoo City.
Recent journal issues (African Identities 7.2, Science Fiction Studies 102, Social Text 20.2), edited collections (Barr’s Afro-Future Females) and monographs (Lavender’s Race in American Science Fiction, Nama’s Black Space and Super Black) have been devoted to afrofuturism, African-American SF and African Americans in SF. In addition, there have been numerous publications on the relationships among SF, imperialism, colonialism, postcolonialism, globalization and Empire (cf. Science Fiction Studies 118, Hoagland/Sarwal’s Science Fiction, Imperialism and the Third World, Kerslake’s Science Fiction and Empire, Langer’s Postcolonialism and Science Fiction, Raja/Ellis/Nandi’s The Postnational Fantasy, Rieder’s Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction).
Yet F from Africa, and the Africa(s) in SF, remain relatively unexplored. In order to address this lacuna, the “Africa SF” issue of Para*Doxa is interested in essays that address:
1. Critical work on SF by Africans, including such novels as Mohammed Dib’s Who Remembers the Sea (1962), Sony Labou Tansi’s Life and a Half (1977), Kojo Laing’s Woman of the Aeroplanes (1988), Major Gentl and the Achimota Wars (1992) and Big Bishop Roko and the Altar Gangsters (2006), Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o's Wizard of the Crow (2006), Lauren Beukes’ Moxyland (2008) and Zoo City (2010), and Ahmed Khaled Towfik’s Utopia (2008), and such films as Sankofa (Gerima 1993), Les Saignantes (Bekolo 2005), Africa Paradis (Amoussou 2006), District 9 (Blomkamp 2009), Pumzi (Kahiu 2009), and Kajola (Akinmolayan 2010). Can such novels as Ousmane Sembene’s The Last of the Empire (1981) and Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s I Do Not Come to You By Chance (2009) be productively read as SF? Is there African SF produced in other media?
2. Critical work on Afrodiasporic authors, filmmakers, musicians and artists, especially as they address Africa, imperialism, colonialism, postcolonialism, globalization, Empire, and/or diaspora, such as Steven Barnes, Octavia Butler, Copperwire, Samuel R. Delany, Tananarive Due, Minister Faust, Andrea Hairston, Pauline Hopkins, Nalo Hopkinson, T. Shirby Hodge, Anthony Joseph, LaBelle, Nnedi Okorafor, Outkast, Parliament-Funkadelic, Charles Saunders, George S Schuyler, Nishi Shawl, Sun Ra, and John A. Williams.
3. Critical work on the representation of Africa in sf by non-African authors, such as JG Ballard, VF Calverton, George Alec Effinger, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Theodor Hertzka, Julian Huxley, AM Lightner, Ian MacDonald, Mike Resnick, Mack Reynolds, Jules Verne, as well as in comics (e.g., Marvel?s Black Panther, the British-authored Nigerian Powerman) and other media.
Prospective contributors may contact the guest editor with questions about a particular topic?s appropriateness. Double-spaced submissions should be between 6,000 and 10,000 words in length, not including “Works Cited,” and prepared in accordance with MLA style. Please forward manuscripts as MS Word attachments. Within the email itself include name, affiliation, 250-word abstract, and any other relevant information. Submissions should be directed to Para*Doxa’s guest editor, Mark Bould at mark.bould@gmail.com by March 1, 2013.
The second release in the Africanhiphop.com 15 Years Online series is another short documentary from the Redefinition: African Hip Hop project. Produced by along with ‘100% Galsen‘ (Senegal) and the ‘Redefinition’ film about African hip hop artists in the Netherlands, ‘My Hip Hop’ was premiered at the 2008 edition of Africa in the Picture and later screened at a couple of other film festivals in South Africa, USA and Europe.
The overall theme of this 16-minute chapter shot in Cape Town, South Africa is similar to what is discussed in Senegal and the Netherlands: hip hop and identity. What is ‘African’ hip hop, and does a hip hop artist have the responsibility to defend the consciousness in hip hop culture? Director Shanaz Adams (SABC, South Africa) talks to a couple of seasoned and upcoming artists in Cape Town, including female emcee Shameema (Godessa), pioneer Emile YX (Black Noise / African Hip Hop Indaba), dj Azuhl, graffiti artist Faith74 and Jimmy Flex.
‘My hip hop’ was produced by Shamiel Adams (one of the cats who inspired us to start Africanhiphop.com back in the days; his spoken word piece is heard in the intro) in association with Faculty of Hip Hop for Africanhiphop.com. Check it out in the Youtube player above, and make sure you also watch ‘100% Galsen‘ and ‘Redefinition: African Hip Hop’ (to be uploaded later this year).
Our favorite destination in the Netherlands in the coming week is the theatre as the Afrikaaps ‘hip hopera’ is touring different cities. The cast is made up of heavyweights in South African hip hop: Jitsvinger, Blaq Pearl, Bliksemstraal, Moenier Adams, Jethro Louw, Emile Jansen, Kyle Shepherd and Shane Cooper. If you have been following this site for a few years you will know some of their names – Emile is one of the originators of hip hop culture in SA, Jitsvinger is among the most respected Afrikaans language emcees, Blaq Pearl is a young female poet who is also the sister of the late & great emcee Devious, and so on.
Afrikaaps is a play (or indeed, hip hopera as it is being called) about the history of the Afrikaans language in South Africa. While many people abroad associate the language with the white population, Afrikaans in fact grew as a creole language to bridge between all the different inhabitants of Cape Town at the time: Khoi San people, European settlers and the slaves they imported. Nowadays a variety of Afrikaans (you could say: Afrikaaps) is widely spoken among their descendants, and the version you hear on the Cape Flats (former townships) is quite different from how the news anchor sounds.
The hip hopera combines music, poetry and rap with documentary video and interviews. To make the connection with a Dutch audience, director Catherine Henegan added Dutch rappers Def P and Akwasi to the cast. The key dialogues have been translated so nobody should feel lost while watching.
Tour dates 30 September, Theater aan het Spui, Den Haag 4 October, Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam (Rabozaal) 5 October, De Gouvernestraat, Rotterdam 6 October, Stadsschouwburg Utrecht 7 October, Toneelschuur, Haarlem 13 October, Bijlmerparktheater, Amsterdam 15 October LUX, Nijmegen
There’s a documentary about the creation of the play and the first performances in South Africa. The 52-minute film, also titled ‘Afrikaaps’, was directed by Cape Town born Dylan Valley. On 8 and 13 October the doccie will be shown as part of the Africa in the Picture film festival in Amsterdam and the Hague. On 8 October there’s an afterparty in MC (Amsterdam) in association with Africanhiphop.com where the Afrikaaps cast and invited emcees will perform spoken word pieces.
The Africanhiphop.com website was born on February 5, 1997 – exactly fifteen years ago today. Known back then as ‘Rumba-Kali home of Pan African Hip Hop’, the single page hosted by a free web space provider soon grew into a source of info for a wide range of people with an interest in African urban culture. After a few redesigns and a move to its own web space and domain, the website became the biggest online mag about contemporary African music.
In the past fifteen years a lot has happened, artists and like minded websites came and went, rappers were born and some died, even hip hop itself was declared dead every other year but just like this site, African hip hop culture is still going strong. Throughout 2012 we will be celebrating Fifteen Years Online by sharing some very special tracks, videos, archival footage and other projects with you.
First up in the Africanhiphop.com 15 Years Online series: the short documentary ’100% Galsen’, directed by Cheikh Sene, better known as the Senegalese rapper Keyti. The film was produced as part of the project ‘Redefinition: African hip hop’, a collabo between Africanhiphop.com, Optimiste Production (Dakar, Senegal, the guys behind the Senegal Hip Hop Awards) and the Faculty of Hip Hop (Cape Town, South Africa). Each partner produced a short film about their local hip hop scene and how artists define the ‘African’ in their hip hop.
’100% Galsen’ (Galsen is slang meaning ‘Senegalese’) is a unique film on various levels. Optimiste Production approached Keyti (real name: Cheikh Sene) to direct the film. And while the last ten years saw many documentaries made about hip hop in Senegal (and other parts of Africa) including the great ‘Democracy in Dakar‘, there were no films entirely made by a Senegalese team – every film production involved a director from abroad, usually Europe or the USA.
Keyti, being one of the pioneers of Senegalese hip hop who has been actively involved in the scene since the mid nineties as an emcee, activist and producer, had access to all the major players in the scene, and most of the interviews he did for the production were more like talks among close friends, creating a completely different dynamic from some of the ‘shoot and go’ style foreign doccies that we have seen in the past years. As you may know, Senegalese people have a way with words, and ’100% Galsen’ features a lot of talking heads, but the combined insights of everyone from Awadi and Duggy Tee (PBS) to Xuman, Gaston, Maxi Krezy, Fou Malade, Fatim, Daara J, radio presenter Coco Jean and many more gives a unique look into Senegalese hip hop as defined by the artists themselves.
Watch ’100% Galsen’ in the Youtube-player above (Wolof and French spoken but English subtitles included) and share the link to this article – the idea of the Fifteen Years Africanhiphop.com series is to spread the treasures from our archives and educate the world about the art that we have been promoting for so long.
Produced by Africanhiphop.com Executive producer: Optimiste Production / Safouane Pindra (Senegal) Director: Keyti (Cheikh Sene) See the film for full credits.
Loop 21: You've talked about your feud with LL Cool J for decades now. What's the real deal behind it?
Winning Essay
Second Place Winner
