The Starving Writer Contest Guidelines

We are excited to announce the Starving Writer quarterly contest is now accepting entries. We want your work. We want to give all writers the opportunity to win some money, get published and receive constructive feedback on their work. So submit away. Our judges are hungry for manuscripts to read.

Entry Fee - $20. includes one year subscription to the Starving Writer Review and critique of entry.

Categories - Adult fiction, non-fiction, juvenile fiction.

Prizes - First $100  Publication to first place winner in each category. Certificate to all winners.

Word count: 3000 maximum.

Please submit two copies of manuscript, double-spaced, word count in upper right corner.

Include cover letter with name, address, phone number, e-mail, manuscript title, word count, and category.

Send SASE for return of critique and list of winners.

Judging is double-blind with third judge as a tie breaker.

Deadline November 20, 2010

Make Checks Payable to: The Starving Writer

Send Entries to:
           The Starving Writer
           4230 SE King Rd #99
           Milwaukie, OR 97222

We adhere to the Contest Code of Ethics.

Contest Winners

Quarter 2 2010 Deadline May 15th

Six Shades of Gray by Jaime Liddick
Walk On by Helen Peppe
Late to Poetry’s Table by Sharon Wood Wortman
Olympic Champion Charlie Green’s Long Run to Faith by Robert B. Robeson
Welcome to Canada by John Graham – Pole
The Burp Bowl by Deborah “Bam” Schildkraut
Transformed! From the Inside Out by Jane Goldenberg

Split This Rock Announces its Fourth Annual Adult Poetry Contest

Benefits Split This Rock Poetry Festival - Washington, DC

$1,000 awarded for poems of provocation and witness

Jan Beatty, Judge

Submission Guidelines:

Send up to 3 unpublished poems, no more than 6 pages total, in any style, in the spirit of Split This Rock (see below).

Postmark Deadline: November 1, 2010

Include one cover page containing your name, address, phone number, email, and the titles of your poems. This is the only part of the submission that should contain your name. Enclose a check or money order for $25 (made out to "Split This Rock") to:

Split This Rock Poetry Contest
1112 16th Street NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036

The reading fee of $25 supports Split This Rock Poetry Festival. Simultaneous submissions OK, but please notify us immediately if the poem is accepted elsewhere. For more information, info@splitthisrock.org.

Prizes:

• First place receives $500; second and third place receive $250 each.
• Winners receive free 2012 festival registration.
• The 1st-place winner will be invited to read the winning poem at Split This Rock Poetry Festival, 2012.
• Winning poems will be published here, at SplitThisRock.org.

Details:

Submissions should be in the spirit of Split This Rock: socially engaged poems, poems that reach beyond the self to connect with the larger community or world, poems of provocation and witness.

This theme can be interpreted broadly and may include — but is not limited to — work addressing politics, economics, government, war,leadership; issues of identity (gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, disability, body image, immigration, heritage, etc.); community, civic engagement, education, activism; and poems about history, Americana, cultural icons.

2010 winning poems

2009 winning poems

2008 winning poems

Split This Rock subscribes to the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Contest Code of Ethics.

Contest Judge Bio: Jan Beatty

Jan Beatty's new book, Red Sugar, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in Spring, 2008. Other books include Boneshaker and Mad River, winner of the 1994 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. Beatty's poetry has appeared in Quarterly West, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, and Court Green, and in anthologies published by Oxford University Press, University of Illinois Press, and University of Iowa Press. Awards include the $15,000 Creative Achievement Award in Literature from the Heinz Foundation, the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and two fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. For the past thirteen years, she has hosted and produced "Prosody," a public radio show on NPR-affiliate WYEP-FM featuring the work of national writers. Beatty directs the creative writing program at Carlow University, where she runs the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops and teaches in the MFA program.

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THE WORLD & ME Youth Poetry Contest

Sponsored by Split This Rock and Sol Y Soul
We will post details on the 2011 youth poetry contest in late 2010/early 2011

Each year, Split This Rock seeks young people's poems on the theme,“The World & Me.”

• What about your neighborhood/city/country/planet makes you happy and proud?
• What makes you sad? If you were in charge, what would you change?
• Are there issues you care deeply about?
• Situations in the news or in your neighborhood that make you mad? Or glad?

Eligible Writers: Poets must live in or attend school in DC and qualify for either of the following contest groups:

• Ages 12 and under
• High school students ages 13 and up

For more information, contact info@splitthisrock.org or 202-787-5210.

Dayo F. Gore, Jeanne Theoharis, Komozi Woodard, eds. Want to Start a Revolution?: Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle. New York: New York University Press, 2009. ix + 353 pp. $79.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8147-8313-9; $25.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8147-8314-6.

Reviewed by Antonio Lopez (University of Texas, El Paso)
Published on H-1960s (September, 2010)
Commissioned by Ian M. Rocksborough-Smith

Radical Black Women, Leadership, and the Struggle for Liberation

In the last two decades, a growing field of movement scholarship has complicated conventional representations of Black Power in the United States. Historians have produced biographies of civil rights leaders, social histories of postwar civil rights organizations, intellectual histories of black liberation thought, and new studies of the Black Panther Party that undermine the artificial structures traditionally used to frame and demarcate civil rights activism and Black Power resistance.[1] Building upon the memoirs of Panther members and political prisoners, and new examinations of urban politics, recent historiography has provided students with a deeper appreciation of the oppression faced by black people in the United States, the politicization of black communities, and the freedom dreams of activists.[2]  

Despite the growing interest in the politics of black radicalism, the editors of Want to Start a Revolution?: Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle explain that the vital contributions and radical political perspectives of black women remain largely overlooked. In the introduction to this compilation of essays, the editors Dayo Gore, Jeanne Theoharis, and Komozi Woodard state: “Although, a new generation of scholars has greatly expanded our knowledge of black radicalism and the black freedom struggle, they have left intact a 'leading man' master narrative that misses crucial dimensions of the postwar freedom struggle and minimizes the contributions of women. Such histories have neglected crucial dimensions of the postwar black radical tradition that held black women’s self-emancipation as pivotal to black liberation” (p. 2). 

“Second-wave feminism” and other analytical frameworks commonly used to examine radical feminist activism also obscure the intersectional understanding of power that many black women brought into the movement circles and organizations they worked in. The consequence, the editors explain, is that the scope of black radicalism continues to be limited, models of male leadership remain intact, and black women are overlooked as figures of revolutionary resistance.  

Aiming to correct the blind-spots in movement historiography, Want to Start a Revolution? is comprised of fourteen new essays that center on leading female activists who made major contributions to freedom struggles of the postwar era. The first half of the anthology recovers the life histories and political careers of Esther Cooper Jackson, Juanita and Lillie Jackson, Vicki Garvin, Shirley Graham Du Bois, and Rosa Parks. Contributing authors reveal that these women challenged notions of female decency through their political activities. They were students of radical theory, accomplished writers and editors, cultural producers, skilled organizers and charismatic speakers. As movement care-takers they were community builders, and masters at creating activist networks. Providing rich details about their early lives and the longevity of their political careers, each essay demonstrates that black women were central figures, tireless workers, and outspoken voices in popular front, civil rights, pan-African, and black nationalist movements. In the cases of Garvin and Shirley Graham Du Bois, their lifelong anti-imperialist political commitments eventually took them to Algeria, Ghana, China, and other Third World countries, where they became recognizable figures of Third World revolution.

Gender politics and the efforts of black women to create a space for intersectional struggle during the late 1960s and 1970s are the subjects of the chapters that follow. Each essay reveals the ability of radical black women to reconcile the seemingly antagonistic contradictions of nationalist and feminist movements through their intersectional understanding of oppression. Black feminist thought is revisited in a close reading of Toni Cade Bambara’s classic anthology The Black Woman (1970), and an analysis of the political career of radical lawyer Florynce Kennedy. Chapters about Assata Shakur and the Oakland Community School highlight the gender politics of the Black Panther Party and the visionary leadership qualities that Panther women often demonstrated. The leading role of women in the Black Arts movement in Atlanta, the national welfare rights movement, and radical electoral politics are also examined in this volume. Finally, essays on the lives and solidarity work of Denise Oliver and Yuri Kuchiyama complicate the notions that revolutionary organizations were racially exclusive and opposed to coalitions.  

For the most part, authors creatively mix archival research, interviews, published writings, and the reflections of movement comrades to reveal the experiences and political perspectives of women. Joy James’s essay on Assata Shakur, and Margo Natalie Crawford’s piece on the The Black Woman are also noteworthy for integrating a literary analysis and exploring the questions of hybridity, representation, and essentialism. As is the case in all collections, some contributors to Want to Start a Revolution? are more effective than others in conveying the radical political commitments of the women they study. Certain essays, for example, would have benefited from greater attention to the voices of the activists, and their reflections on the meaning of their work, rather than simply identifying individual accomplishments and explaining their theoretical significance. This reviewer also wonders why the critical intervention of writing women into postwar black liberation history was not brought into conversation with important scholarship that also critiques the erasure of Third World women activists as related to the ongoing cultural politics of gender and colonialism.[3] Finally, the strong focus on East Coast communities and organizations in many of the essays limits a comparative analysis of radicalism, women activists, and gender politics. 

These minor shortcomings aside, Want to Start a Revolution? successfully meets its three goals of expanding the boundaries of black radicalism, shedding light on the labor women performed to sustain radical movements, and exploring the gender politics of black women activists (pp. 3-4). Collectively, the essays will provide activists, students, and academic specialists with powerful insights into post-World War II black freedom struggles, the de-colonial imaginary in black feminist thought, and the lives of women who joined and guided movements to transform an oppressive society. This collection will also be useful to teachers aiming to introduce students to the politics of historical memory, and the recent distortions of civil rights discourse. We owe a debt of gratitude to the editors and contributors to this collection for reminding us that in the postwar struggle for revolutionary change, as now, women of color hold up more than half the sky.

Notes

[1]. Notable biographies include Timothy Tyson, Radio Free Dixie (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999); Michael Eric Dyson, I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Junior (New York: Touchstone Press, 2000); and Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). Exemplary social histories that rethink civil rights activism are Charles Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Martha Biondi, To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003); Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard, eds., Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside the South (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003); and Thomas Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Knopf, 2008). Intellectual histories include Nikhil Pal Singh, Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004); and Robin D. G Kelley, Freedom Dreams (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002). New perspectives on the Black Panther Party are found in Charles Jones, ed., The Black Panther Party Reconsidered (New York: Black Classic Press, 1998); Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas, eds., Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party: A New Look at the Panthers and Their Legacy (New York: Routledge, 2001); Jama Lazerow and Yohuru Williams, eds., In Search of the Black Panther Party: New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006); Jane Rhodes, Framing the Panther: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon (New York: New Press, 2006); and Jama Lazerow and Yohuru Williams, eds., Liberated Territory, Untold Local Perspectives on the Black Panther Party (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008).   

[2]. There are numerous memoirs written by former Panthers, political prisoners, and POWs. Notable ones include Eldridge Cleaver, Soul On Ice (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1968); Bobby Seale, Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton (New York: Random House, 1970); Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1973); Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1987); Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story (New York: Anchor Books, 1992); David Hilliard and Lewis Cole, This Side of Glory: The Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of the Black Panther Party (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1993); Mumia Abu Jamal, We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party (Cambridge: South End Press, 2008); Safiya Bukhari, The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison, and Fighting For Those Left Behind (New York: Feminist Press, 2010); and James Yaki Sayles, Meditations on Franz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth: New Afrikan Revolutionary Writings (Chicago: Spear and Shield Publications, 2010). Exemplary studies of urban politics that center on black freedom struggles include Robert Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003); Biondi, To Stand and Fight; and Paul L. Street, Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: A Living Black Chicago History (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).     

[3]. I am thinking here of M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Mohanty, Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures (New York: Routledge, 1997); Emma Perez, The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999); Chela Sandoval, Methodology of the Oppressed (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000); and Andrea Smith, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide (Cambridge, South End Press, 2005).

If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the list discussion logs at: http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl.

Citation: Antonio Lopez. Review of Gore, Dayo F.; Theoharis, Jeanne; Woodard, Komozi, eds., Want to Start a Revolution?: Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle. H-1960s, H-Net Reviews. September, 2010.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31097

7 Stages Theater

 

1105 Euclid Ave NE

Atlanta, GA                                     

 

More Info	Network of Ensemble Theaters presents: Micro-Fest: Atlanta, October 8 - 10, 2010 at 7 Stages in Atlanta, Georgia. One festival, three cities. From October 2010 through January 2011, the Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET) will premier its highly anticipated Micro-Fest: USA in Atlanta, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. NET is a national coalition of ensembles that exists to propel ensemble theater practice to the forefront of American culture and society.

 

Atlanta hosts the first event, October 8-10, 2010 at 7 Stages Theater, with activities in and around the Little 5 Points community. Designed to build a national conversation in the ensemble theatre field, this two and half-day “Micro-Fest” will combine a town-hall meeting, main stage performances, catalyst conversations and master classes to provoke a deeper dialogue around the intersection of race, culture and aesthetics. Presented in partnership with Alternate ROOTS, Micro-Fest: Atlanta will serve both national and local audiences while highlighting the works of four different theater companies.

View the full festival schedule

The Performances

• YEAH, I SAID IT! By the Youth Ensemble of Atlanta (YEA). Set in urban Atlanta, a group of inner city youth are confronted by “visitors of a different sort” as they invade Metro Atlanta’s Transit System—MARTA! Filled with humor, heart-pounding music and wickedly funky choreography Yeah, I Said It! brings the secret issues of society to the forefront. Friday, October 8th @ 7pm.

• Peaches by Progress Theater. Inspired in part by Nina Simone’s classic song, “Four Women,” PEACHES tackles head-on the stereotyping of African American female identity from slavery times to the present. Saturday, October 9th @ 6pm

• The SHOW! by Out of Hand Theater’s late-night, Ten-in-One freak show, an ever changing exhibit of human oddities, riffing on classic carnival sideshow commodification of anomaly. For MicroFest Atlanta, Out of Hand lays down all new material in this special edition, The Race SHOW! Nothing is off limits. You decide how far we go. Saturday October 9 @ 9pm.

• NE 2nd Ave by Teo Castellanos. A jitney (small Caribbean bus) becomes a metaphor for a journey that takes the audience through the bumpy streets of Miami. Bringing voice to marginalized urban populations, this one-man show explores the underlying issues of racism and social injustice, while acknowledging the differences and ultimately discovering the common threads that bind us together. This is a co-production NET and Atlanta’s Dance Canvas. Sunday, October 10th @ 2pm.

In addition to mainstage performances, local and regional ensembles and theatre makers such Susan Booth, Del Hamilton, Dad’s Garage, Fresh Air Collective, ArtSpot Productions (New Orleans), Carpetbag Theatre (Knoxsville), Mondo Bizzaro (New Orleans), and M.U.G.A.B.E.E. (Jackson) will be leading workshops and participating in Town Hall conversations.

View the full festival schedule

Ticket details:

Tickets are $75 for a weekend pass: Includes access to 4 shows, 1 late-night cabaret, workshops, opening reception, and town hall dialogues. $30 for all-access day passes. Rush tickets to shows will be available 30 minutes prior to start time.

Curator: Charmaine Minniefield

__________________________________

Atlanta Microfest Schedule

 

Race, Culture and Aesthetics October 8-10, 2010 – Full Schedule

* These events will be streamed live on the web. Check back soon for website details and how to watch the Micro-fest from afar!

Back to the Atlanta Microfest home

FRIDAY OCTOBER 8

4 pm – Town Hall (part one) at Horizon Theater*
Part participatory installation – part performance – part dialogue artists from M.U.G.A.B.E.E., Carpetbag Theater, Alternate ROOTS, Progress Theatre, Out of Hand, and d-Projects will set the stage for a weekend of conversations and performance about Race, Culture and Aesthetics.

5:30 – Opening Reception at 7Stages
Lite dinner and cocktails provided

7pm – Youth Ensemble of Atlanta presents Yeah, I Said It at 7Stages
Set in urban Atlanta, a group of inner city youth are confronted by “visitors of a different sort” as they invade Metro Atlanta’s Transit System—MARTA! Filled with humor, heart-pounding music and wickedly funky choreography, Yeah, I Said It! brings the secret issues of society to the forefront.

10:30pm – Dad’s Garage and E Period (aka Chris “Cocktails” Cornell) at Dad’s Garage
This evening hosted by Chris Cocktails and Kevin Gillese will feature: spoken word, improv comedy, and true stories from the hearts and minds of your goodly hosts. Interactive, insightful and possibly insane, this night will bring together disparate elements of the performing community into one room at Dad’s Garage Theatre.

SATURDAY OCTOBER 9

9 am – Youth Ensemble of Atlanta Performance Response
Two local theatre makers will offer their response to Yeah, I Said It. Facilitated by Alternate ROOTS.

10am – 1pm – ArtSpot Productions: Songs of My Father Little 5 Points Community Center
Kathy Randels and Rebecca Mwase will lead a workshop that explores the stylistic differences between singing in black and white communities of faith, specifically the Baptist tradition. Through structured and improvisational group singing, participants will explore methods of building community and ensemble generation of vocal scores. Through story circles participants will discuss assumptions about faith, spiritual practice, and race – and how these experiences apply to creating solo and group performance. No musical or religious experience is necessary. www.artspotproductions.org

10am – 1pm – Out of Hand: Creating New Work Little 5 Points Community Center
Whether you’re a seasoned professional or a secret admirer, Out of Hand will help you get unstuck, take risks and collaborate with other artists by making new work very fast in teams. Discover ways to communicate with your body, respond to impulses, and move with others, unlocking new sources of inspiration. Workshop participants will get to play a part in The Race Show that night! www.outofhandtheater.com

10am – 1pm – Youth Collision: Youth Creates and Youth Ensemble of Atlanta Collide!*
The Youth Ensemble of Atlanta and 7Stages Youth Creates will be in the room together for the first time sharing their methods and creating material about the theme of the festival. Participants are invited to observe this collision of different aesthetics! Workshop is 2 parts: Saturday and Sunday morning 10-1pm.

2-4:30pm – Town Hall (part 2) featuring Elizabeth Omilami, Del Hamilton, Michael Simanga*
This Town Hall meeting is an opportunity to come together and understand how these issues are playing out in our arts ecology, to talk with some of the veteran theatre makers of our community, to create some strategies and relationships to continue our good work and make even better work.
In the first part of this meeting we will talk with our well-respected panelists and listen to them discuss their experiences dealing with the issues of race and culture in their work. In the second half the group will discuss one Atlanta specific issue around race, culture and aesthetics in the arts community: its origin, its current state and strategies for resolution.

6pm- Progress Theatre presents PEACHES 7Stages
Inspired in part by Nina Simone’s classic song, “Four Women,” PEACHES tackles head-on the stereotyping of African American female identity from slavery times to the present. Alluding to both academic and popular discourse on race in America, Progress Theatre fuses elements of music, essay, traditional and non-traditional theater into a piece presenting a rich, complicated picture of Black female experiences in contemporary America. www.progresstheatre.com

9pm – Out of Hand Presents The RACE Show! 7Stages
The SHOW! is based on the ‘Ten-in-One’ freak show, an ever changing exhibit of human oddities, riffing on classic carnival sideshow. For Micro-Fest Atlanta, Out of Hand lays down all new material in this special edition, The Race SHOW! Nothing is off limits. You decide how far we go. www.outofhandtheater.com

SUNDAY OCTOBER 10

9 am – Out of Hand Performance Response
Two local theatre makers will offer their response to The SHOW! Facilitated by Alternate ROOTS.
9am – Progress Theatre Performance Response
Two local theatre makers will offer their response to PEACHES. Facilitated by Alternate ROOTS.

10am-1pm
Kamal Sinclair: Theater at Theory: Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome Little 5 Points Community Center
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome is a play based on the research and theory of sociologist/psychologist Dr. Joy DeGruy, written and directed by Kamal Sinclair and co-directed by Obie Award-winner Robbie McCauley in 2001. The content deconstructs victim-perpetrator dynamics and opens new channels of communication between Black and White Americans, as a means of healing the wounds of multi-generational trauma caused by the legacy of slavery and institutionalize racism. The aim of the playwright was to take Dr. DeGruy’s sociological/psychological theory, associated true stories and historical images and actualize them through the aesthetics of performance and the conventions of theatre, so they become visceral and dynamic for audiences (who often labeled the play “healing theatre”) the goal was to expand awareness of some critically debilitating social ills for both Black and White Americans and promote individual/collective healing from our divisive history. Participants in this workshop will play parts in a reading of the script; share their perspectives on the relevancy and irrelevancy of this work a decade after its inception; discuss strategies for using the aesthetics of performance to make sociological theory live on stage; and discuss the effectiveness of theatre as a healing mechanism when integrated with the healing sciences.

10-1pm HIP-HOP AND HISTORY : Quic Rojas – Zulu Funk Lordz 7Stages
This 3 hour class will take participants through a work out in hip-hop as well as provide a historical context for the roots of the movement. Be prepared to sweat.

2pm – D-Projects present NE 2ND AVE 7Stages*
This one-man play conveys, with poignancy and humor, the profoundly rich and textured mix of Miami, in which distinct cultures emerge and cross-pollinate. NE 2nd Avenue brings voice to Miami’s marginalized urban populations, exploring underlying issues of racism and social injustice, acknowledging the differences among us and ultimately discovering the common threads that bind us together. www.teocastellanos.com

4pm – Closing Celebration*
What will be Atlanta’s Call to Action? This closing celebration will highlight activities from the weekend and feature some provocative challenges that Atlanta would like to make to the national theatre field.

Posted by: ivetteromero | October 3, 2010

Previously Unpublished Documents Brought to Light in Documentary “Che, un hombre nuevo”

In a tape recording you can hear the voice of Ernesto “Che” Guevara saying, “And now for you, Aleida, what is most deeply mine and the deepest part of both of us,” and the poems of Martínez Villena, César Vallejo, and Pablo Neruda, manifesting a very different tone from the that of his political speeches. With the aim to take the viewer “on a voyage through the memories, thought, and poetry of the famed guerrilla fighter, Argentine filmmaker Tristán Bauer exposes intimate and unpublished details like this in his new documentary Che, un hombre nuevo [Che, a new man]. The Cuban government also contributed 20 unpublished photographs for this film.

The poetic reading mentioned above was Guevara’s farewell to his wife, Aleida March, after giving up his leadership of the Communist Party, his ministerial post, and his rank as Commander, right before his departure for Africa. In an interview to with Argentina’s Revista Veintitrés, the director said that this is one of the most emotional moments of the film.

Winner in the Best Documentary category at the 2010 Festival of World Film in Montreal, Canada, in September, the film premieres today (October 3) in Rosario, Argentina, where Che was born, and travels to the rest of the country on October 7, as part of the commemorations of the 43 year anniversary of the assassination of Che Guevara in Bolivia. On this same date, the film will premiere in Cuban theaters. Starting on October 29, the fill will screen in Spain, which teamed up with Cuba to produce the film.

About his motivation to undertake this audiovisual project, Bauer explained that at first the idea was to embark on a fictional feature film; but one day, walking along Havana’s Malecón (sea wall), Che’s nephew, Taco Guevara, told him that this was a mistake, that it was better to make a documentary with all those unknown materials of Che. “Because according to him, Che would be upset by all this stuff about the heroic guerrilla that somehow, added to the Korda photo, had masked his deepest thoughts and capacity for constant analysis beyond his concrete action.”

The filmmaker explains his fascination at “seeing how such action, which in his short life, was coupled with a thought transformed into word. Because Che is a model of a man. While I believe that all men should have the same possibilities, not all men are equal, and there are some that [seem to be] touched by a magic wand. He was a being, as Silvio Rodríguez would say, from another galaxy. And, nevertheless, he was a human being, with all black holes that men may have. [He was] a man who left an indelible mark.”

Almost two hours long, this documentary, written by Bauer and Carolina Scaglione, shows for the first time on screen a more intimate documentation than ever before by Che’s wife Aleida March and their children. Thus, all the writings, recordings, and literary narratives, present a more human dimension of Ernesto Guevara. To reconstruct the man behind the legend, it took the filmmaker 12 years to follow leads in Bolivia, Cuba, the territories of the former Czechoslovakia, and the United States. “Rather than a flat documentary research, it was the work of an archaeologist, because with the passing of time, we were discovering clues that led us to others, small pieces that were helping us discover the character.”

For full article (in Spanish), see http://alocubano.nireblog.com/post/2010/10/02/documentos-ineditos-a-la-luz-en-el-documental-che-un-hombre-nuevo#more

Photo from http://www.caras.com.br/imagens/73886/em/noticias/12458/foto-de-aleida-march-e-che-guevara

Between Black and White: Latino/as In the US

Sunday, October 3, 2010

 

-=[ Black and White and Spic and Span ]=-

-Naaaahhh... You ain't no Porta Reecan.

-I keep telling you: The boy is a Black man with an accent.

--  Wille Perdomo (for Piri Thomas), Nigger-Reecan Blues

 

[Editor's Note: I've been lazy and as the Latino contingent of this blog, I've been remiss in my duties, what with this being "His-Panic Heritage Month" and all... Anyway, this is in response to some here calling Rick Sanchez "white." Just letting you muthafuckas know, first gringo (black or white) calls me white, gets a visit from the Nuyorican Hit Squad! LOL!!]

Growing up, I had a friend who we nicknamed, “Shadow.” Shadow was a Golden Gloves champion, a  Puerto Rican whose dark skin earned him the moniker. He was dark, but not as black as another childhood friend we used to call “Blue.” LOL. Blue was an African American, a cocolo as Puerto Ricans used to sometimes refer to African Americans (yes, it was a pejorative).

The thing with Shadow was that, though he was dark-skinned, he had a sister who was very light-skinned -- light-skinned as in “white” not “Creole,” or “high yellow.” In fact, they looked as if they came from different families. I have blue eyes and I am light-skinned. I was often mistaken for being white. Shadow and I used to hang out and we would watch each other’s backs because the rough and tumble ghettos of New York City where we were raised, we identified as Puerto Ricans.

Blacks and whites used to get very confused around Puerto Ricans because we would refuse to identify as either black or white. I am not white, in the sense that I identify with whiteness as it is defined in the U.S. Shadow didn’t identify as black as it is defined in the US. Before anything, we were were first Boricuas -- Puerto Ricans.

These issues caused many problems for Puerto Ricans. At home, we were treated equally: there was no “white Puerto Rican” vs. a “black Puerto Rican,” we were brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles. Our mothers didn't say, “My white Puerto Rican son, Eddie,” or “My black Puerto Rican niece, Nydia.” We were Puerto Ricans.

We were familia, communidad, and skin color wasn’t a determining factor for accessing love or whatever benefits our families could provide. The same, however, wasn’t true when we were exposed to the social institutions in the USA. At school, we were often separated though my cousin at home was just as smart as I was. Though I don’t identify as a white, I learned quickly that I was given preferential treatment because of my Eurocentric features. We all learned this early on in our lives. In some cases, it served to makes us cling more closely together, in other instances it was a source of much pain and grief -- of identity crisis.

We were pressured by our peers and authority figures to identify according to the dominant racial paradigm. Coming up, the worst insult you could pay me was to call me white. Not because I had anything against whites, but because by identifying me solely by the color of my skin, you were attempting to rob me of my autonomy, my choice to define myself, and to maintain my cultural heritage.

It was the same for the darker-skinned Puerto Ricans, they also would come under a lot of pressure to identify as black. So, if there was some sort of conflict, and Shadow chose to stick with me (and I with him) we were ostracized for being “sellouts” or “nigger lovers.” Truth be told, most of the time, we didn’t really give a fuck, but it bothered all of us at some deeper level. Or perhaps we were all experiencing what some sociologists call  perceptual dissonance. Whatever the case, it wasn't until many of us read Piri Thomas' semi-biographical account of growing up Puerto Rican in New York,  Down These Mean Streets, that we found an outlet to discuss and internalize these issues.

I still hear complaints from my African American brothers and sisters, who become frustrated when Puerto Ricans and other Caribbean Latino/as (as well "blacks" from the "Islands") insist they are not black. For African Americans, this insistence on cultural identification amounts to a denial of their blackness, and to a degree, it is, but I don’t think that perspective misses the full story. When Shadow (who would eventually identify as an African American) used to say he wasn’t black, he wasn’t denying his blackness, he was attempting to assert his own identity, his culture, his Latinidad, his Puerto Ricanness. It’s the same with me when I correct people about my assumed “whiteness.” We were saying we were Puerto Rican. we asserting our cultural heritage, which is more than skin color, or just speaking Spanish (and not all Puerto Ricans and other Latino/as speak Spanish).

To be sure, there is racism in the Caribbean; to say otherwise is, in my estimation, a racist statement. However, how Puerto Ricans and other Latino/a define, talk about, and conceptualize race is very different from the way it is discussed in the United States. I believe Latino/as have something to offer to the profoundly dysfunctional racial dialog (or lack thereof) in the U.S.

Let me start with a rather controversial issue. In the 2000 census, the residents of the island of Puerto Rico (effectively a colony of the USA), claimed itself to be 81% percent white. This is in stark contrast to Mainland Puerto Ricans in the United States, where only 46% identified as white. This finding caused a shitload of controversy with people from all over the ideological map making claims ranging from Puerto Ricans' denial of their African heritage, to countless other assumptions. What also wasn't lost was the fact that Puerto Rico was whiter than the U.S., where 75% identified as white. LOL! I think we need to contextualize these numbers properly.

Culture and context, my friends, is everything.

First, let’s take note that there is a racial ambivalence in Puerto Rico that doesn’t exist in America. In Puerto Rico, racial identification is less important than cultural identification. In the U.S., the opposite is true: racial identification largely, determines cultural identification. Therefore, as I have demonstrated earlier, when asked the all-too divisive question, “What are you?” Puerto Ricans of all colors and ancestry usually answer, “Puerto Rican.” In contrast, most New Yorkers will likely answer, black or white (or maybe even Jewish or “of Italian descent”). I am not saying that Puerto Ricans feel no racial identification, but rather that cultural identification is more important.

Another important factor is that Puerto Ricans’ perceptions of race are based more on phenotypic and social definitions of what is a person than on genotypic knowledge about an individual. Put simply, physical and social appearance is used to classify instead of biological classification. In the U.S.,  the legal definition of white meant that the biological offspring of a mixed race union would be considered black (i.e., the “one drop” rule) regardless of their physical (phenotypic) appearance. In that way, the children of a white master and a black slave would still be considered slaves.

Historically in Puerto Rico, a white appearing offspring of an interracial couple would be considered white. On the other hand, an obviously dark-skinned person may not be considered as black, especially if there are other mitigating factors, class being an important example.

Another aspect of racial classification for Puerto Ricans is that racial categories are based on a combination of color, class, facial features, and the texture of hair. This is quite different to the mostly color-based, white, black, yellow, and brown classifications of the U.S. This makes for a fuller spectrum of racial perspectives for Puerto Ricans. For us, there are blanco/as , the equivalent of U.S. whites; indio/as are the equivalent to the U.S. conception of East Indians (dark-skinned and straight-haired); moreno/as are dark-skinned with a variety of features -- black and Caucasian; negro/as are black as conceptualized in the U.S (as a side note, this latter term is also used as a term of endearment, equivalent to the English “honey” or “sweetie” and has no racial connotation). Finally, there is the term I have used previously, trigueño/a, which can be applied to what is considered brunettes in the U.S. or to negro/as who have high social status. For me, trigueño/a is like a racial catch-all term. It can be applied to both white-looking and black-looking Puerto Ricans.

I will finish this already too-long post by emphasizing the importance of the contrast between a multiracial, multiethnic society versus a homogeneous society. While in the U.S., racial/ ethnic minorities have been segregated, the same doesn’t hold true for Puerto Rico. In this way, blacks in Puerto Rico were not a distinguishable ethnic group. This is not to say that blacks are evenly distributed throughout the social structure. Race and class still intersect, but they intersect in ways vastly different from the way they intersect in the U.S. But in terms of housing, institutional treatment, political rights, government policy, and cultural identification, black, white, and tan Puerto Ricans are not different. In addition, Puerto Ricans of any skin color do not perceive race as an issue in the same way it is perceived on the mainland. In contrast to mainland Puerto Ricans, who identified deeply with black power politics, Island Puerto Ricans have a much more ambivalent racial attitude..

In a very real sense, Latino/as in general, and Puerto Ricans in particular, have approximated the largely unrealized ideal of the Melting Pot. One manifestation of Puerto Ricans’ racial perspectives is that there isn’t the same taboo on racial intermarriage that exists in the U.S. Puerto Ricans have intermarried and continue to intermarry at a higher rate than other U.S. groups. In addition, the emphasis on strong extended family ties makes the world of most Puerto Rican children one that is inhabited by people of many different colors and these colors are not associated with a racial hierarchy. This intermingled rainbow of colors taken for granted by Puerto Ricans is foreign to most children as well as adults) in the U.S.

I leave it here for now...

Love,

Eddie

 

Evidence Refutes BP's and Fed's Deceptions

Monday 04 October 2010

by: Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld, t r u t h o u t | Report

(Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

In August, Truthout conducted soil and water sampling in Pass Christian Harbor, Mississippi; on Grand Isle, Louisiana; and around barrier islands off the coast of Louisiana, in order to test for the presence of oil from BP's Macondo Well.

Laboratory test results from the samples taken in these areas show extremely high concentrations of oil in both the soil and water.

These results contradict consistent claims made by the federal government and BP since early August that much of the Gulf of Mexico is now free of oil and safe for fishing and recreational use.

The samples taken were tested in a private laboratory via gas chromatography.

The environmental analyst who worked with this writer did so on condition of anonymity and performed a micro extraction that tests for total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH). The lower reporting limit the analyst is able to detect from a solid sample is 50 parts per million (ppm).

Pass Christian, Mississippi

Oiled mooring rope and oil sheen on water's surface inside Christian Harbor, Mississippi, August 13, 2010. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

A water sample from inside Pass Christian Harbor, Mississippi, taken on August 13, contained 611 ppm of TPH. Seawater that is free of oil would test at zero ppm of TPH.

Grand Isle, Louisiana

Grand Isle beach, Grand Isle, Louisiana, August 16, 2010. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

A soil sample containing tar balls from the beach on Grand Isle, Louisiana, taken on August 16, contained 39,364 ppm of TPH.

Casse-Tete Island, Louisiana

A water sample taken on August 16 from a pool of water on Casse-Tete Isle contained 57 ppm of TPH. The GPS coordinates for this and the following samples are 2907.603N, 9020.395 W.

Several soil samples were tested from an oil-covered beach on the island.

Sampling team on oil-soaked beach, Casse-Tete Isle, Louisiana, August, 16, 2010. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

A sample of soil taken from this area contained 40,099 ppm of TPH. Much of the marsh grass was stained black and brown with oil.

Oiled sand and marsh grass, Casse-Tete Isle, Louisiana, August, 16, 2010. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

A sample of marsh grass in this area of Casse-Tete Isle contained 144,700 ppm of TPH.

West Timbalier Isle, Louisiana

Oil sheen-covered tidal pool and fiddler crabs, West Timbalier Isle, Louisiana, August 16, 2010. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

A water sample taken from a tide pool on West Timbalier Isle on August 16 contained 11 ppm of TPH. The GPS coordinates for this and the following samples are 2903.389N, 927.033W.

Disturbingly, despite these results and a continuance of fish kills along the Louisiana coast, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has recently partnered up with BP to send personnel into middle schools in Louisiana in order to convince school children that Gulf seafood is safe.

Meanwhile, several recent massive fish kills continue to occur in other areas of Louisiana.

Oil-soaked lagoon, West Timbalier Isle, Louisiana, August 16, 2010. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

A water sample taken from an inland lagoon on West Timbalier Isle contained 521 ppm of TPH.

Sampling was also conducted on beach areas of West Timbalier Isle on the same day.

Fist-sized tar ball, West Timbalier Isle, Louisiana, August 16, 2010. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

Charter fisherman Craig Matherne with tar mat, West Timbalier Isle, Louisiana, August 16, 2010. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

A soil sample containing tar balls contained 40,834 ppm of TPH.

A soil sample taken near a layer of tar on the beach of West Timbalier Isle contained 60,068 ppm of TPH.

A soil sample taken from another inland lagoon on West Timbalier Isle contained 4,506 ppm of TPH.

Oiled soil within inland lagoon, West Timbalier Isle, Louisiana, August 16, 2010. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

Open Water in Gulf of Mexico

After leaving the area, Truthout came across a large area out in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately five miles from shore, where emulsified white foam covered the surface.

Emulsified foam and oil in open water between Timbalier Isle and Port Fourchon, Louisiana, August 16, 2010. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

Fishermen and other journalists across the Gulf have reported to Truthout that this phenomenon is what is left after dispersants have been used to sink surface oil.

A water sample from surface of this area contained 11ppm of TPH. It was taken from an open water area between Timbalier Isle and Port Fourchon at 3:00 PM, on August 16 and the GPS coordinates for the sample are 2902.871N, 9017.421W.

Jonathan Henderson with the Gulf Restoration Network taking water samples in emulsified foam area between Timbalier Isle and Port Fourchon, Louisiana, August 16, 2010. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

The US Coast Guard claims that no dispersants have been used since mid-July.

Jonathan Henderson, with the nonprofit environmental group Gulf Restoration Network, was on board to witness the sampling, as well as to conduct his own sampling and document what he found.

The hydrocarbon tests conducted on the samples taken by this writer only represent a tiny part of the Gulf compared to the massive area that has been affected by BP's oil catastrophe. A comprehensive sampling regime across the Gulf, taken regularly over the years ahead, is clearly required in order to implement appropriate cleanup responses and take public safety precautions.

Losing Friends

I guess this is just the begining and even though its about my relationship in particular, it can really be applied throughout life. If somebody will judge you before you even open your mouth then they are not worth you presence in the first place. They are loosing out and that is not your concern. Just keep being the wonderful person that you are. At the end of the day ignorant people limit themselves, while you soar higher than imaginations do.

Video: Xavier Naidoo and Cassandra Steen - " Wann" (Germany)

 

The old news is that in February this year Xavier Naidoo and Cassandra Steen won the ECHO awards 2010. The ECHO is a German music award granted every year by the Deutsche Phono-Akademie. Naidoo won in the category Best Male artist national rock/pop and Steen in the category Best Female Artist National Rock/Pop.

The good news is that I found a great video where Xavier Naidoo and Cassandra Steen performed the song " Wann" ("When") on MTV Unplugged.

Xavier Kurt Naidoo is a German singer and songwriter who's parents are from South Africa and Sri Lanka. Cassandra is also a German singer, but she is born to an African American father and a German mother. Naidoo is also co-founder of the German Anti-racism group Brothers Keepers. And Cassandra Steen and Ne-Yo sung the official song of the movie The Princess and the Frog" Never knew I needed".