Death of the Black Owned,

Independent, Bookstore

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Troy

 

One of the very first things I put on AALBC.com’s web site, back in 1999, was a list of independent, Black owned, bookstores: http://aalbc.com/writers/aabook.htm  This list was very difficult to maintain and over the years various individuals contributed to help keep it up to date.  My list, unfortunately, has not been updated since 2007.

Nkiru Books, a Brooklyn based insititution founded in 1977, closed in 2002 - Photo Credit: Marcia Wilson

 

The Good News First:

Recently, in a joint effort by, ABLE (The Alliance for Black Literature and Entertainment), Huria.org and AALBC.com, the out of date list of independent, Black owned, bookstore list was revived and updated into database driven directory with maps, social media, photos and more.  The new bookstore database was launched just today today and is available at Huria.org and here on AALBC.com (http://aalbc.it/blackbookstores).

Here is the Bad News:

When I looked over the results of our Bookstore research, my heart fell as I discovered more than 2 out of 3 stores that were in business just a few years ago are now closed.   I’ve shared the list of the closed bookstores below.  I have nothing more meaningful to add.  This list speaks for itself…

A & B Distributors – Brooklyn, NY
African & Islamic Books Plus – Cleveland, OH
African American Books and Publishing – Baltimore, MD
African American Gift Gallery – Knoxville, TN
African American Heritage Book – West Palm Beach, FL
African Artisans – Baldwin, NY
African Heritage Books & Gifts – San Francisco, CA
African House Institute of Learning – Jersey City, NJ
African Marketplace – Los Angeles, CA
Afro Books – Atlanta, GA
Afrocentric Book Store – Chicago, IL
Afrocentric Books & Cafe – St. Louis, MO
Alkebulan Books – Berkeley, CA
Amen-Ra’s Bookstore and Gallery – Tallahassee, FL
Arawak Books – Hyattsville, MD
Ascension Books – Columbia, MD
Asiatic the Soul of Black Folks – Toronto, ON
Atlantic Bookpost – Reston, VA
B.T.S. Unlimited Books – Detroit, MI
Baruti-Ba Books – Dayton, OH
Bishari Urban Books, Phoenix Crossing Shopping Center – , NC
Black Book Discounters – Houston, TX
Black By Popular Demand – Hyattsville, MD
Black Classics – Books & Gifts – Mobile, AL
Black Images Book Bazaar – Dallas, TX
Black Spring Books – Vallejo, CA
Black Swan Books & Coffee – Kohler, WI
Blacknificent Books & More – Raleigh, NC
Blackprint Heritage Gallery – New Haven, CT
Book House Cafe & Gifts – Benton Harbor, MI
Books In Color – North Highlands, CA
Books in the Black – Columbia, SC
Bright Lights Children’s Bookstore – Inglewood, CA
Brother’s Books – Seattle, WA
Carol’s Essentials Ethnic Gifts and Books – Seattle, WA
Celebrate – Peachtree City, GA
Crescent Office Store – East Orange, NJ
Cultural Bookstore  – Chicago, IL
Cultural Expression – Newport News, VA
D & J Book Distributors – Laurelton, NY
DARE Books & Educational Supplies – Brooklyn, NY
DeesBookNook Distributors – So. Richmond Hills, NY
Dorothea’s African-American Books and Gifts – Columbia, SC
Drum and Spear Books – Washington, DC
Dygnyti Books – Hamden, CT
Dynasty Bookstore, Eastland Mall – Charlotte, NC
EDEN Books – Hartford, CT
Education 2000+ Bookstore – Long Beach, CA
Education Central, Sunny Isle Shopping Plaza – St. Croix,
Ethnic Elegance – Jacksonville, FL
Exhale African American Books & Gifts – Sugar Land, TX
Faith To Faith Books  – Minneapolis, MN
Forewords Books & Gifts, Located in Originations Gallery – Ann Arbor, MI
Freedom Now Bookstore – Decatur, GA
Gene’s Books – King of Prussia, PA
Haneef’s Bookstore and Mosi Art Gallery – Wilmington, DE
Heritage Bookstore and More – Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Heritage House – Charlotte, NC
Imagine This! Books Etc. – Memphis, TN
IronWood Corner – Pasadena, CA
Jamaicaway Books & Gifts – Boston, MA
Karibu Books – Hyattsville, MD
Know Thyself, Bookstore and Cultural Development Center – Philadelphia, PA
Kongo Square Gallery – Los Angeles, CA
LaCeter’s Book Service – Southfield, MI
Liberation Bookstore – New York, NY
Ligorius Bookstore Inc. – Philadelphia, PA
Living Room Book & Pastry – Greensboro, NC
Lodestar Books – Birmingham, AL
Love Christian Book Store – Orlando, FL
Mahogany Books – Detroit, MI
Mahogany Books & Gifts – Fairfield, AL
Matais Books Cards & Art – Long Beach, CA
Mind & Soul Bookstore, Inc. – Trenton, NJ
Montsho BookFairs, Etc., Inc. – Orlando, FL
Mt. Zion Kid’s Village, Little Angels Children’s Bookstore – Jonesboro, GA
Nefertiti’s Books and Gifts  – Jacksonville, FL
Nimde Books – Louisville, KY
Nu World of Books – Beaumont, TX
Off The Shelf African American Books – Columbia, SC
One Force Books – Richmond, VA
Our Black Heritage – New York, NY
Out of Africa, Windsor Park Mall – San Antonio, TX
Paperback Connection – Oklahoma City, OK
Paradise Book Store – Peoria, AZ
Peek-A-Boo Books II, Wheaton Mall – Wheaton, MD
People’s Books & Gifts – Springfield, OH
Phenix Information Center – San Bernardino, CA
PowerHouse Books – Hopkins, SC
Rainbow Books & Blooms – Yorktown Heights, NY
Reading Room Bookstore  – Chicago, IL
Roots & Wings: A Cultural Bookplace  – Montgomery, AL
Sacred Thoughts Bookstore – Jersey City, NJ
Sensational Minds – Savannah, GA
Serengeti Plains  – Montclair, NJ
Shades of Sienna – Oakland, CA
Sidewalk University – Memphis, TN
Soul Source Bookstore – Atlanta, GA
Special Occasions – Winston-Salem, NC
Stouffville Book Connection Inc – Stouffville, ON
TDIR Books – Columbia, SC
Tenaj Books & Gift Gallery – Fort Pierce, FL
The Black Bookworm – Fort Worth, TX
The Black Library – Boston, MA
The Book House Café, LGBT Books – Oakland, CA
The Cultural Connection Bookstore  – Milwaukee, WI
The Heritage Center – Vicksburg, MS
The Know Bookstore – Durham, NC
The Living Word Bookstore – Chicago, IL
The Presence of Africans In the Bible Book Center – Minneapolis, MN
The Reading Room Bookstore – Atlanta, GA
The Roots Book Store, Inside of Tapers Hair Care – Baton Rouge, LA
Too-No Books Etc. – Moss Point, MS
Treasures of the Mind Bookstore – St. Louis, MO
Tricia’s Books N’ Things – Houston, TX
Truth Boutique & Bookstore, Eastland Mall #823 – Harper Woods, MI
Tunde Dada House of Africa – Orange, NJ
Tunde Dada House of Africa, Green Acres Mall – Valley Stream, NY
Two Friends Bookstore – Atlanta, GA
Uhuru Books – Minneapolis, MN
Under One Roof Afrikan American Bookstore – Killeen, TX
W&W African American Art, Specializing in Books & Gift Items, Etc. – Fayetteville, NC
X-pression Bookstore & Gallery – Indianapolis, IN
Yawa Books – Washington, DC
Yehudah Inc. – Teaneck, NJ
Zawadi Gift Shop – Brooklyn, NY

…Actually I do have something to add.  If you happen to reside in a community fortunate enough to have an independent bookstore, please support it.  These establishments are true community and cultural, treasures.   Sure eBooks and websites are great, but not everything can be replaced with machines and technology.

While we attempted to make this list as accurate as possible, mistakes do occur.  If there is a store posted here that is indeed open please lets of know so that we may remove it from this list and add it to our database of bookstores.  You may post the correction in the comments below or email me at troy@aalbc.com

Our database of bookstores can be made available to anyone interested in posting it on their website, with a single line of code.  Email me at troy@aalbc.com if you are interested.

Here is a related article: “Top Ten Reasons Why African American Bookstores Are Closing“ by Gwen Richardson

Angola pours oil money into

debt-ridden Portugal

 

Tables turn as Luanda buys up Lisbon's assets and former colonial families return to Portugal's 'el Dorado'

Monica Mark in Abidjan

• guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 November 2011 

Pedro Passos Coelho (right) visits Luanda to boost ties and forge business links with booming Angola. Photograph: Bruno Fonseca/EPA

Not so long ago, thousands of Angolans were fleeing for Portugal. Now the tables have turned. Angola's remarkable image makeover from a war-torn African backwater to rising global oil power has been capped by news that it will provide a much needed shot in the arm to its debt-ridden former colonial masters.

President Eduardo dos Santos said Angola was prepared to invest its burgeoning petrodollars in Portugal, which has been ordered to privatise struggling state-owned firms under a €80bn (£70bn) International Monetary Fund bailout.

"We're aware of the difficulties the Portuguese people have faced recently and in such difficult times we must use our trump cards," dos Santos said at a press conference with the visiting Portuguese prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, according to Angola's state news agency Angop.

Coelho Passos added: "This visit is of huge significance. It is a unique opportunity … to build a base for stronger and closer ties between the two countries, their citizens, their companies and states."

"Remember that we are looking to privatise [state utility company] Energias de Portugal and [national grid] REN," he told Angola's state broadcaster.

Other state-owned entities up for grabs include the national airline Tap and the Banco Português de Negócios. Banco BIC of Angola is set to buy the distressed bank for €40m – less than a fifth of its original market value. Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the long-serving president, is a part owner of BIC.

Given that the IMF forecasts economic growth of 11% next year, while Portugal's will shrink by 1.8%, analysts say Angola's financial aid to Portugal will grow. "Angola already has large investments in Portugal's private sector so they do view buying in it as an opportunity," said one economist in Luanda, the Angolan capital.

Meanwhile, the booming economy, fed by a 1.8m barrel-per-day oil industry, has prompted its Portuguese-speaking compatriots to flock south for business and work opportunities. The Portuguese foreign ministry said tens of thousands of citizens have set up shop in Angola over the last year.

"Angola was at one point the Portuguese El Dorado," a Luanda-based diplomat said, referring to the period of colonial rule that ended in 1975.

"A lot of Portuguese who were born here then went back to Portugal but their families are now coming back."

Some Angolans have criticised the growing financial ties between Lisbon and Luanda, amid worries of capital flight and Angola's own yawning poverty gap.

"Now is not the time to help out the Portuguese if we can't be sure the gap between the poor and rich doesn't close," a blogger on paginaglobal posted.

In 2008, two-thirds of Angolans lived on less than €1 a day, while only 25% of children are enrolled in primary school.

Luanda has been ranked the most expensive city in the world for expatriates for the second year running, ahead of Tokyo, according to Mercer consultants.

Angola's breakneck growth is also affording Luanda some regional clout, with the country vying with Nigeria to become Africa's top oil exporter. It joins other African countries such as Ghana and Nigeria as among the fastest-growing economies in the world.

State oil company Sonangol, which has been criticised in the past for a lack of transparency, runs operations in almost every sector of the economy. In 2001, BP was forced to back down on plans to publish its oil-related earnings from Angola after President Dos Santos threatened to kick the British oil major out of the country if did so.

In Mali, Art as Real

as Life Itself

Damon Winter/The New York Times

The Dogon masked dance called the tireli is a condensed version of a much longer and more elaborate performance urging the honored dead onward to the afterlife.

By HOLLAND COTTER

Published: April 16, 2012

 

 

BAMAKO, Mali — Political tumult in the last few weeks — a military coup, a Tuareg and Islamist takeover in the north — has all but eliminated tourism in this West African nation, which has long been a magnet for Western travelers in search of firsthand encounters with living art traditions.

But in calmer times the usual focus of such a quest is the landscape of cliffs and gorges in central Mali known as Dogon country. The classical tour includes two standard items: a Dogon masked dance performance and a view of a mural-size expanse of rock paintings, reputedly ancient, in the area.

Dances are arranged by appointment. You book one through a local hotel, pay upfront and hire a driver to ferry you out along cratered roads to a village. There, with the help of guides, you make your way up a cliffside to a shelflike clearing.

At a scheduled time two dozen or so young men, some on stilts, all with masks representing spirits and animals, silently emerge from behind high rocks. They circle the clearing at a measured pace, then, one after another, go into short, tightly choreographed solos danced to the driving rhythms of a drum orchestra.

Dust rises. The speed and intricacy of movement increases competitively as the musicians urge on the dancers. Then, in well under an hour, it’s over. The performers linger to pose for pictures and vanish as silently as they came.

Canned ethnography? For a Western art critic who tries to resist value-laden paradigms, like high versus low, traditional versus modern, and genuine versus fake, but who is still steeped in binary thinking, it was hard, on a recent visit, not to take the event as an artifact, a slice of globalist consumer art — at least at first. But Africa, once you start asking questions, tends to change how you see.

The dance, it turns out, is a radically condensed version of a funeral masquerade, a communal ritual intended to urge the reluctant dead into the afterlife, where they can assume useful roles as ancestors. A full-scale performance, honoring important elders, can go on for days. The one I saw under a hot winter sun was the CliffsNotes edition. But it was also an example of history in motion, cultural survival in progress.

The Dogon, a farming people said to have come to the region centuries ago to avoid conversion to Islam, have long since been claimed by that religion and by Christianity alike, and by the most seductive of faiths, secular materialism. And as the force of incursions has increased, age-old means of self-support have diminished. Climate shifts and the departure of young men to cities have made agriculture a constant and losing struggle.

In these circumstances tourism has been a godsend. The packaged dances have brought in cash and have given young men a reason to stay home. By packaging and selling their culture, the Dogon have been keeping it viable.

In the West we have a particular definition of authenticity and a mania for it as a standard for art, especially art that we envision as elemental, unmodern, unspoiled. We gauge genuineness in terms of age, rarity, uniqueness, history of use, motives for creation. But in Africa, as often as not, authentic is simply what works, socially and spiritually: for example, the way each Dogon tourist dance keeps a larger dance, and Dogon identity, alive.

Once this idea sank in, Africa blossomed for me, knocked me off balance and kept me that way.

Songho, a Dogon village and the other regulation tour stop, is famous for a cliff face covered with rock paintings that mark the site of a male circumcision camp. Although the village is now Muslim, Dogon initiation still takes place every three years, with boys coming from the surrounding countryside.

The paintings, done in black, white and brick-red pigment, are of floating shapes, some recognizable as humanlike figures, others looking uncannily like cartoon versions of recent communications hardware: televisions or computers or iPhones complete with small screens and keypads.

No one has yet cracked the symbolic codes here.

They may relate to local family histories or to elaborate Dogon oral epics of ethnic origin and destiny. What’s striking, though, and initially disconcerting is how vivid, even garish, the images are, despite a vaunted antiquity.

For this there’s an explanation. Every three years the wall is selectively repainted. Certain symbols are freshened up, while others are left to fade. And occasionally, it seems, new things are added. Although we tend to think of rock paintings as a time-mellowed medium, a lot of what’s here looks as bold as just-bombed graffiti tags.

But as with the masquerade, just because something doesn’t look old doesn’t mean it’s not. And anyway, I found myself thinking, “What’s the big deal about old art, of the kind locked up in Western museums?” Art, like life, is about growing and recharging, keeping on the move. Change is realness. Africa, present-minded and unsentimental, seems to keep saying this.

Or at least I kept hearing it, as I did on a visit to the ironworkers collective, the Coopérative des Forgerons, back in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Embedded deep in the city’s Great Market, the cooperative is an artisan village unto itself, a tangle of dirt lanes and alleys lined with lean-to sheds.

In each, one or two men stand or squat in front of an open forge and heat pieces of castoff metal — car body scraps, plumbing parts, strips of roof sheeting — to an orange glow before hammering them into new things: plows, hoes, cooking bowls, tools and machetes.

In West Africa blacksmiths have always been feared as magicians because of their freakish, godly ability to smelt iron from ore, and turn solid to liquid and liquid to solid again. At the same time, they are revered for their technological prowess. Without them and what they make, crops could not be cultivated, wars waged, homes protected, rituals performed.

In their ovenlike sheds, intent on their hazardous work, paying no mind to tourists angling for shots, they embody the much-told story of Africa as a culture of recycling. And on a continent where art can often be defined as things or actions employed as a means of managing power, they illustrate the force of African agency, of using power — call it art — to create new forms.

A few days later my thoughts turned back to Grand Market as I walked through the permanent textile display at the National Museum of Mali. There’s some fine old material here: fragments, kept under glass, of 12th-century weaving by pre-Dogon Tellem people who used caves, some near the cliff where I’d seen the masquerade, for burials.

But most fabrics in the gallery are of far more recent date, from the 1970s through the 1990s, and of types still for sale in the city today. As if to point up the gallery-to-street connection, lengths of various new cloths hang free in bannerlike rows from the gallery ceiling and are draped over barrel-like metal stands.

For anyone used to the sanctified, conservation-minded environment of Western museums, such casual flair delivers a jolt. I scanned the room, checked some dates, thought confused thoughts about art versus product and was prepared to make my stay short when one item caught me eye.

It was a cotton hand-weave with jazzy, Matisse-ish patterns worked out in gradations of indigo. Fabulous. Date: around 1982. And hadn’t I seen something very like it before? I had. The weave was virtually identical to that in the Tellem pieces nearby, and the indigo pattern closely resembled one I’d admired as it sat, half finished, on a Dogon-country loom.

If the museum’s strategy was to bring past, present and an encompassing concept of preciousness together, it worked. To see it working, and to be entranced by the sight, required for me an on-the-spot shift in perceptual habit.

Taste is habit, a form of learned behavior. And habit is what we rely on to make us feel at home and comfortable in the world. So judgment based primarily on taste, like most art criticism, is inherently conservative, predictable, fixed.

Africa is a habit breaker. It teaches that the ideal of unalterable tradition is an illusion, that change itself is a tradition, maybe the great modern one. It teaches that now is as authentic as then, and already is then. If, on an African visit, such thoughts kick in at all, chances are they’ll grow larger and realer. As you gradually — confusedly, delightedly — come to realize, the basic experience of being here is learning how much you don’t know.

Who Will Revere US?

(Black LGTBQ People,

Straight Women, and Girls)

(Part 3)

April 25, 2012

By Aishah Shahidah Simmons

This is Part 3 of a four part article. Immediately following is the introduction to the series, originally published April 23, 2012, for your convenience.  Part 1 can be read in its entirety here.  Part 2 can be read in its entirety here.

Introduction

The title of this four part article is a metaphorical nod to the legendary jazz singer, songwriter, actor, and activist Abbey Lincoln (also known as Aminata Moseka) whose essay, “Who Will Revere The Black Woman?” is featured in the ground-breaking anthology The Black Woman. Edited by Black feminist author, screenwriter, and visionary activist Toni Cade Bambara, this all-Black woman anthology focused on the issues most pertinent to Black women and our communities. Originally published in 1970 and reissued in 2005 with a forward by Dr. Eleanor W. Traylor, The Black Woman was the literary wo/manifestation of the impact of the intersection of the Civil Rights/Black Power movements and the second wave of the Women’s Rights movement on Black women’s lives. In short, Ms. Lincoln’s ageless essay is a demand for justice and protection for Black women. In her concluding paragraph she writes,

[…]Who will revere the Black woman? Who will keep our neighborhoods safe for Black innocent womanhood? Black womanhood is outraged and humiliated. Black womanhood cries for dignity and restitution and salvation. Black womanhood wants and needs protections, and keeping and holding. Who will assuage her indignation? Who will keep her precious and pure? Who will glorify and proclaim her beautiful image? To whom will she cry rape?

 

In her 1983 prophetic and timeless essay, “There Is No Hierarchy of Oppression,” self-defined Black feminist lesbian mother warrior poet Audre Lorde writes,

I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the front upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.[1]

I am struggling to find the right time to discuss inter and intra-racial gender-based violence in the midst of the justified outrage about the rampant and virulent racialized violence perpetrated against straight Black boys and men.  Even with this being Sexual Assault Awareness Month, now doesn’t feel like the best time to write about the gender-based and state-sanctioned violence perpetuated against Black straight women, girls, and LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) people both inside of and outside of our racial/cultural communities. I fear that sharing what’s on my heart and mind, might be construed as my taking away from the “real” issue at hand in most Black communities, which seems to be solely white supremacist and/or state-sanctioned racist violence against straight Black men and boys.

Audre Lorde’s writings remind me, however, that discussions on oppression within Black communities should never be taken up within an either/or frame.  The diverse herstories/histories and contemporary realities of Black straight women, girls, and LGBTQ people have consistently revealed that the issues that directly impact us often take a back seat, if they even make it into the metaphorical car on the freedom and liberation highway.

There is a collective understanding among many in multi-racial, radical progressive movements, that the white supremacist, patriarchal, heterosexist, imperial, and capitalist power structure is the root of all oppressions in the United States. While I believe that to be true, even in the company of other oppressed people, Black straight women and LGBTQ people are still under attack. Too often we are caught at the intersections of race, gender, and if we identify as LGBTQ, sexuality. In spite of our shared his/herstories of oppression, struggle, and perseverance against the odds, not enough Black people view sexism, patriarchy, misogyny, heterosexism and transphobia with the same kind of activist passion that we view racism, white supremacy, and state-sanctioned violence perpetuated against straight Black men and boys.

The reality is this: when Black straight men and boys are beaten, brutalized, and/or murdered as a result of state-sanctioned and/or white supremacist violence, it becomes (as well it should be) a national issue in the Black community and in a few, definitely not all, instances, the outrage moves beyond the Black community. Yet, when Black straight women, girls, and LGBTQ people are raped, sexually assaulted, beaten, brutalized, and/or murdered as a result of misogynist, patriarchal, state-sanctioned, and/or white supremacist violence, it is too often the victim’s individual issue.

There are so many egregious, known and unknown, cases of racial and gender-based violence perpetuated against all Black people, regardless of their gender, gender identity, and sexuality, that it is literally impossible to write about all of them. I want to highlight a selected few of the far too many, however, to ask Black/African-American/African descended people to consider our responses when any of us have been railroaded into the prison industrial complex, sexually or otherwise assaulted, or murdered. I want us, Black/African-American/African descended people, to consider our responses to issues that affect many as opposed to those issues affecting some of us based on our gender, gender identity, and/or sexuality.

***

Part 3

Chrishaun ‘CeCe’ McDonald

 

Chrishaun ‘CeCe’ McDonald, a 23-year old African-American transgender woman, with no criminal record, is presently incarcerated and charged with two counts of second-degree murder. In her article, “Jenna Talackova Can Compete, But the Fight Against Trans Injustice Rages On“ for the Huffington Post, actress and transgender advocate Laverne Cox, gives a recent recap of  Ms. McDonald’s case:

In June 5, 2011 CeCe and a group of her friends, all of whom were LGBT youth of color, were walking in South Minneapolis when a group of white adults began screaming racist and transphobic slurs like ‘niggers,’ ‘faggots’ and ‘chicks with dicks’ at the youth. According to reports CeCe stood up for herself and her friends, stating that they would not tolerate hate speech. Then one of the white adult women smashed her glass into CeCe’s face. The broken glass sliced all the way through CeCe’s cheek, lacerating a salivary gland. A fight ensued, resulting in the death of one of the attackers, Dean Schmitz. CeCe was the only person arrested. She was detained by the police for hours before questioning, and then she was placed in solitary confinement.

Not surprisingly, the white woman who attacked Ms. McDonald wasn’t prosecuted. Ms. McDonald’s case is a clear example of racist and transphobic violence. Presently incarcerated awaiting her trail, this young trans woman could be permanently railroaded into the prison industrial complex.  Up until very recently, Ms. McDonald was only receiving support from on-the-ground radical grassroots (not mainstream) feminists and queer people, many of whom are of color.

 

Some queer people are Black and some Black people are queer and more often than not, like most straight Black women and girls, we stand alone at the intersections of race, gender, gender identity, and sexuality.  In the 2011 released Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People In the United States, authors Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock give readers alarming commentary about the disproportionate rate that LGBTQ people, especially those of color, are incarcerated for “sexual deviance.” Similar to Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Mogul, Ritchie, and Whitlock delve into how crime is socially constructed. They show the historical origins of how race constitutes what is considered a crime, while also examining how notions about how gender plus race plus class plus sexuality all inform who is incarcerated and who is not.  This is most important to consider when we look at the (relatively speaking) minimal responses to the New Jersey 4 case, and all those cases involving Black LGBTQ people prior and following up to CeCe McDonald’s case.

 

In January 2012, Racialicious published Jessica Annabella’s “Why We Should Support CeCe McDonald.”  Ms. Annabella’s article really underscores many of the poignant points raised in Queer (In)Justice. She writes,

…CeCe’s story is a portrait of the United States Criminal Justice System. Her story is what is meant when we are told that transgender people, especially transgender women of color, experience disproportionate rates of police harassment, profiling, and abuse. She is living one of the stories rolled into statistics like: trans people are ten to fifteen times more likely to be incarcerated than cisgender (not transgender) people, or nearly half of African American transgender people have spent time in jail or prison. These statistics are the result of all of the ways that transgender people, especially transgender people of color, are denied access to the resources and opportunities that we need to live healthy lives free of violence, discrimination, and oppression. Transgender people consistently experience high levels of harassment in school, extreme levels of unemployment due to discrimination and lack of education, denial of competent medical care, inability to change identification documents, and disproportionate violence and harassment…

On the April 15, 2012 edition of the Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC, she featured a 20-minute ‘Being transgender in America’ segment. In speaking about another case in which a transgender person was savagely beaten, Harris- Perry said,

Simply because you are aware of one kind of inequality doesn’t mean that you empathize with others. It was in that moment that I decided I needed to be a better Cis ally to the work of trans communities.

During the segment, Harris-Perry and white transgender activist Kate Bornstein briefly discussed Ms. McDonald’s case. Tragically, Harris-Perry was the only one who drew parallel’s between Ms. McDonald and Trayvon Martin.  While an important intervention for mainstream cable television, the travesty about the ‘Being transgender in America’ segment is that all of Harris-Perry’s featured guests were white transgender people and their allies. Neither Kate Bornstein nor any of the featured guests offered any substantive critique or analysis on how the intersections of race and gender identity profoundly impact the lives of transgender people of color. Essentially, their all-white presence presented an incorrect perception that most transgender people are white; and they all experience structural violence in the same way. This is not true at all. There are many trans activists of color who could’ve contextualized the specifics of Ms. McDonald’s case from an intersectional framework. Additionally, they could’ve discussed the various ways in which transgender people  of color experience all forms of violence both outside and inside of their racial and cultural communities.

Most recently, on April 20, 2012,  the Advocate.com published Diane Anderson-Minshall’sessay, “Fighting For Her Life: Transgender Woman Charged With Murder.” Anderson-Minshall, shares some of the astounding statistics from the recently released nationwide survey of transgender and gender non-conforming people, which was conducted by The National Center for Transgender Equality and The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Anderson-Minshall writes:

…What they found is shocking but bears weight on the case against CeCe McDonald: 38% of African-American respondents experienced police harassment, 15% reported being physically assaulted by the police, and 7% reported being sexually assaulted by the police; 38% of African American MTF (male-to-female) respondents reported being sexually assaulted by either another inmate or a staff member in jail/prison; 41% of African-American respondents reported being imprisoned because of their race and gender identity alone; a whopping 47% reported having been in jail or prison for any reason…

Unfortunately and yet not surprisingly, there hasn’t been any expressed outrage on the part of Non-LGBTQ Black Civil Rights organizations and public intellectuals about Ms. McDonald’s case. Her case is most definitely another example of racism and transphobia in the criminal (in)justice system. Additionally the expressed outrage on the part of mainstream white LGBTQ organizations has been minimal, if at all.  In spite of this, there has been a multi-racial racial groundswell of local, state, and national grassroots organizing in support of Ms. McDonald’s case. In addition to the media coverage I cited, there are many bloggers who are focused on covering her case.  The Support CeCe McDonald webpage posted a press release announcing that on April 17,  2012:

…supporters of Chrishaun “CeCe” McDonald delivered a petition with over 12,000 signatures and a letter signed by 35 local, state, and national organizations directly to Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman’s office this afternoon, demanding that he drop the two second-degree murder charges levied against McDonald…

Coincidentally (or not), Attorney Freeman’s office recently declined to prosecute the white killer of Darrell Evanovich, an African-American man shot dead after an alleged robbery. Supporters of CeCe McDonald are asking people to contact Attorney Freeman’s office directly to encourage him to drop the charge against Ms. Mcdonald, especially since he set a precedent of refusing to prosecute the killer of Darrell Evanovich. The change.org-sponsored petition demanding Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman to drop the charges against Ms. McDonald is still receiving signatures.

The Support CeCe McDonald webpage has some of the most comprehensive up-to-date information about her case, including tangible ways individuals and organizations can support her. Ms. McDonald has a pretrial rescheduled for April 27, 2012 at 9:00 a.m. Her actual trial is scheduled for April 30, 2012. It is vital that we stay focused on CeCe McDonald receiving justice.

 

Trayvon Martin

 

You would have to almost be living under a rock, with no connection to the virtual world, and/or any form of media, to not know some (hopefully accurate) things about the vicious, racist (my words) murder of Trayvon Martin. He was an unarmed 17-year old African-American boy gunned down on February 26, 2012 by 28-year old George Zimmerman, a White Hispanic man.

It is a disgrace that it took 45-days before Zimmerman was finally apprehended and charged with second-degree murder.  It is shameful when we factor that chances are most probable that if Trayvon Martin gunned down George Zimmerman, he would’ve been charged and arrested immediately. After the murder, rather than test Zimmerman for alcohol or drugs, Trayvon Martin’s lifeless, murdered body was tested for drugs and alcohol. Even in death, this African-American boy was presumed guilty and treated inhumanely.  When his teenage body was held at the medical examiners office for three days, no official bothered to locate his parents, while his father was frantically looking for him. Apparently, based on Zimmerman’s violent actions and the Sanford police department’s refusal to apprehend Zimmerman, Travyon was guilty of being a teenage Black boy in a predominantly White exclusive community. Some have both referred to and justified Zimmerman murdering Trayvon Martin as an act of vigilante justice. What is vigilante justice in America? Murdering an unarmed Black boy who is in an almost all-exclusive White neighborhood/community without a “pass”? Is it 1912 or 2012? As Robert Jones, Jr., Black gay editor of the Son of Baldwin blog noted in March 2012:

According to America, Michael Vick’s crime was worse than George Zimmerman’s. Dog’s life > Black boy’s life.

 

There is no doubt in my mind that were it not for the leadership from leading African-American Civil/Human Rights individuals and organizations, Change.org and ColorOfChange sponsored petitions, local and national rallies and marches across the US, and the alternative and mainstream media keeping their steadfast attention on the fact that up until April 11, 2012 Zimmerman was still a free man, he’d still be a free.  This is one example of a valiant multi-layered campaign to get George Zimmerman charged with the crime of murdering Trayvon Martin. The struggle is far from over. In many ways, we’ve only just begun what will be a long and very possible, unsuccessful journey to ultimately get George Zimmerman convicted.  On April 23, 2012, Zimmerman, who was released on $150,000 bail and living in hiding until his trial, entered a written non-guilty plea. It is imperative that we keep our attention steadfast on this case.

 

There are clearly stark differences between CeCe McDonald and Trayvon Martin.  Trayvon Martin, a straight Black teenage boy was murdered; and CeCe McDonald, a young adult Black trans woman, was brutally attacked, and, in response to defending herself, is fighting for a life outside of the prison industrial complex.  The common denominator between both Martin and McDonald, however, is the vicious impact of white supremacist and state sanctioned violence on the lives of Black bodies.  I believe it is critical that our national Non-LGBTQ Black Civil Rights organizations and public intellectuals speak and act with the profound understanding that justice should not be fought solely on behalf of Black straight boys and men; but it should be fought for all members in our non-monolithic communities.

(to be continued…stay tuned for the concluding part of this four-part article tomorrow.)

Gil Noble and Jazz:

Passing Down the History

The death of journalist Gil Noble on April 5th was unfortunate as he left behind a legacy that is admirable by any standard. The seven time Emmy winner spent most of his life trying to tell the stories of the underrepresented. While his main focus was on social issues, not many knew that he was a big advocate of jazz music. Gil actually played piano for a while and did gigs with a trio he led around Harlem, citing Erroll Garner as an influence on his style. He also was a member of the Jazz Foundation of America and grew up with saxophonist Jackie McLean. But perhaps he made the largest impact through his daily TV show that offered an alternative look into our society.

Anthony Barboza/Getty Images

On many occasions Gil used the show “Like It Is” to highlight jazz, and because of the hour-long format was able to go in-depth on subjects. In his early years at WABC-TV he produced a documentary with Dizzy Gillespie named “Jazz-The American Art Form,” one of the first documentaries to air on the channel in prime-time. Having access to ABC’s archives allowed him to unearth a lot of rare material from early pioneers in the genre. Even though he mainly interviewed Dizzy for the documentary, in Gil’s autobiography “Black Is The Color Of My TV Tube” he recalled how Dizzy told him to not make it seem like Dizzy was the centerpiece of the doc and to state that all American music from jazz to rock has African origins. This happening in the late 60s with the fusion movement about to come into full swing, it affirmed what many musicians of the time were trying to get across to their fans and the public. Gil would also go on to produce a documentary on the life of Charlie Parker and highlight the careers of many others.

 

 

Some of the many guests that Gil interviewed and appeared on his show were like a who’s who of the jazz world. Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Nancy Wilson, Milt Jackson, Abbey Lincoln, Bobbi Humphrey and numerous others all sat down to talk with Gil Noble. These conversations would not only touch on the music these legends made, but how they grew up and what they experienced. There is a famous one he did with Sarah Vaughn in the 1970s in which she takes him on a walk through Newark and they encounter a group of kids in a schoolyard. When he asks them if they knew who Sarah was they all said no. Gil’s response? “No? That’s part of the problem, isn’t it?” Even during that time jazz was venturing to the fringes of American culture and was becoming unknown to the younger generations.

But Gil provided a solution by using his show to expose people to the music and history of the genre alongside shedding light on contemporary issues. As he had on many activists and political leaders, he would also champion the arts and its place in society. On one episode he might have Max Roach offer a history lesson and explain the relation jazz has to certain types of African music. On another show he would talk to Hip-Hop pioneer Afrika Bamabatta with emcee Talib Kweli, bridging a gap in their music. Or he would interview Lena Horne about her upbringing and at a later date sit down with Mos Def. This does not even include the numerous icons he interviewed like Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela. All of this came together on his show, allowing him to show how it was all connected as part of the social experience of black Americans. In doing this younger viewers were exposed to what came before them and how it was related to what they were doing, and older ones got to see what the newer generation was thinking about and going through.

 

 

The longevity of Like It Is though, which ran for 43 years, can be attributed to Gil’s commitment to his audience who in turn supported him. As he understood that television was the medium of the day he used this to engage people using the most effective communication tool of the time. He was critical of there not being enough specials or giving non-pop musicians time on television, and tried to counter this through his work. It should be noted that he had a large platform with ABC and because he was a pioneer he had the attention of many. But there might be a lesson in his loyalty to the community in which he served and finding the best way to reach them. He knew how important it was for black people to see the significance of the genre in connection to current music developments. Because of that his show became an entry point for many to learn about jazz when places like schools failed to do so. Gil took it upon himself to do a simple, but crucial task: he was passing down the history.

Words By Seve Chambers (Twitter: @SChambersBK)

| Music Video

 

Damian Marley

– ‘Set Up Shop’ 

 

April 20, 2012 

 

by Marvin Sparks 

 

 

Been waiting on this video for a while and it’s finally here. Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley unleashes fire with “Set Up Shop,” his street heater in the form of a dancehall anthem that’s already been setting reggae charts across Europe alight since its release late last year.

“Set Up Shop” is all about encouraging the youth from garrisons (ghetto areas) to make something for themselves (get it now — “set up shop”?). You know rappers telling us how much money they have is supposed to be inspiring; well, this is in an everyday equivalent for the youth in developing countries.

This video really should have dropped before “Affairs of the Heart,” but what’s done is done. This song is such a vibes. I don’t care — Damian Marley is one of the best in the world right now. You hear the control he has? You hear the lyrics with message? You hear delivery? Man. Jah blessed the Marleys.

Jr. Gong hasn’t decided if it’s from a forthcoming EP or LP, but “Set Up Shop” is available for purchase here for those in the UK and here for his US fans.

__________________________

M.U.G.A.B.E.E. - "I Know" 

The Backwaters Prize

The Backwaters Prize is an annual award, open to all poets working in the English language, given to the author of the best submitted manuscript of original poems.  The prize is $1,000 cash and publication of the winning manuscript. The press adheres strictly to the CLMP guidelines in administering the prize.

Submissions to the prize are accepted in the Spring and the award is announced in the Fall; please check the Submissions page for specific dates.

The $2800 Golden Baobab Prize

for Fiction Now Accepting Entries

(Africa-wide)

Deadline: 24 June 2012

Golden Baobab Prize, an African literary award whose goal is to inspire the creation of African stories that children and young adults the world over will love! Today, the prize is run by a passionate volunteer team from all over the world and is sponsored by the Global Fund for Children and the African Library Project. As we enter our third year, we’re hoping to enter into even more fruitful partnerships that will bring us closer to our goal: that of ensuring stellar African children’s stories are in bookstores all over the world in the years to come.

The Golden Baobab Prize invites entries of unpublished African-inspired stories written for an audience of ages 8-11 years or 12-15 years. This year ,the prize will award $1,000 to the best story in the junior category as well as the senior category and $800 to the most promising young writer (18 years and below).

ELIGIBILITY

• The author must be a citizen of an African state or a dual citizenship holder (a copy of a passport or comparable document will be required of winners).
• African citizens of all ages qualify to present submissions.
• There is no restriction on race or geographical location.
• Writers below the ages of 18 years will be automatically considered for the Rising Writer Prize.

TIMELINE

Closing date for submissions to The Golden Baobab 2012: Midnight GMT, Sunday, June 24, 2012. Winners Announced: First week of November, 2012.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Contestants and entries must comply with ALL of the following criteria. Works that do not conform to the rules will be disqualified.*

• Submitted stories should fall into either Category A (stories for readers aged 8-11 years) or Category B (stories for readers aged 12-15 years).
• Entry should be a work of fiction between 1,000 to 5,000 words. The category a story falls into may influence its length.
• There are no restrictions on themes but stories must be set in Africa or have a very evident African content.
• Stories should be in written in English and should not have been previously published elsewhere, in part or in full.
• Pseudonyms may not be used. Entries must be submitted under entrant's real name.
• Entrants may enter up to five stories.
• All entries must be the unaided work of the entrant.
• Previous entrants and winners of the Prize are eligible to enter in subsequent years.
• The title page of submissions should state the category and title of the story. All biographical information should be sent in the body of submission email.

ALL entries will be acknowledged with an email to the address from which the entry was sent.

The Golden Baobab Prize administration reserves the right to disqualify entries that do not conform to set rules. No correspondence will be entered into in this regard.

SUBMITTING YOUR STORY

Entries should be submitted as typed Microsoft word or PDF documents. There should be a title page with the following information:

• Title of Story:
• Category:
• Age of entrant:

The body of the email should include the following personal information:

• Name:
• Title of story:
• Age of entrant:
• Country of citizenship:
• Category:
• Email:
• Phone number (country code-area code- number):
• How I heard about the Golden Baobab Prize (just a sentence or two):

PRIZES

• Best Story written for ages 8-11 years $1000
• Best Story written for ages 12 -15 years $1000
• Promising writer below age 18 years: $800

Outstanding stories are connected with publishers all over the world.

FAQ

Q: What if I am not an African citizen but have lived in Africa for a long time?

You must be an African citizen to be considered for the Golden Baobab Prize because one of our goals is to encourage the next generation of African writers. All winning entrants will be asked to submit a photocopy of their state passport (or comparable document) to confirm their citizenship.

Q: What will the judges be looking out for?

The Golden Baobab Prize is looking for stories that will be loved by children and young adults all over the world. A winning story is one that immediately stands out and is imaginative, refreshing and well written.

Q: The GBP states that all "entries must be the unaided work of the entrant." Does this mean we cannot ask someone to check the grammar, punctuation or give us their opinion about the story?

The entrant must be the one who wrote the story fully. That is, you cannot submit a story written by someone else. But once your story is written you can by all means ask someone to read it and assist with edits.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For inquiries: email questions to info@goldenbaobab.org Use "Question" in the subject line

For submissions: submissions will be accepted as email attachments to submit@goldenbaobab.org

Website: http://www.goldenbaobab.org

 

via writersafrika.blogspot.com

RIDGE TO RIVER CONTEST

Enter your outdoor creative nonfiction essays or memoir excerpts of no more than 5,000 words for a chance to win. Photography and haiku are not eligible for this contest. Essays of an academic nature will not be considered. $15 for a single entry, $25 for two entries. $15 entry fee includes a copy of the Summer/Fall 2012 issue. All entries will be considered for publication.
DEADLINE: May 15th.
 
Submit your entry fee below and then submit here.

Number of entries

1 entry $15.00 USD 2 entries $25.00 USD