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The disaffection, the demoralization, and the gap between one person and another only on the basis of the color of their skin, begins there and accelerates – accelerates throughout a whole lifetime – to the present when you realize you’re thirty and are having a terrible time managing to trust your countrymen. By the time you are thirty, you have been through a certain kind of mill. And the most serious effect of the mill you’ve been through is, again, not the catalog of disaster, the policemen, the taxi drivers, the waiters, the landlady, the landlord, the banks, the insurance companies, the millions of details, twenty four hours of every day, which spell out to you that you are a worthless human being. It is not that. It’s by that time that you’ve begun to see it happening, in your daughter or your son, or your niece or your nephew.

You are thirty by now and nothing you have done has helped to escape the trap. But what is worse than that, is that nothing you have done, and as far as you can tell, nothing you can do, will save your son or your daughter from meeting the same disaster and not impossibly coming to the same end...

I was told at the age of six that it was NOT whether I was going to college but WHERE I was going to college. By the time I was 28 I was a single parent with two children, working 40 hours a week, living in a remade garage with a raised platform for my bed under which my two children slept. After paying for childcare, I had barely enough for the $50 dollar rental and food. If it were not for the kindness of others we would have gone without food.

I sold everything we had and went back to college to finish the last required year to complete my degree.

I was able to get welfare which paid for my child care and food stamps. I scabbed cleaning houses to make ends meet. Welfare still existed at that point. I asked them if I could get money to assist with this last year. My caseworker told me that, not only could they help me, but the fact that I would be getting a college degree would make a great statistic. Such a deal. The reality is that I was white and programmed to go to college. It saved my ass.

Clearly this was not the case for people of color ever. This is not the case for people of color now. There is only the school-to-prison-pipeline now for parents to look forward to fear. Through this pipeline the prison industrial system has been streamlined to harvest workers primarily young black men to provide almost-free labor for corporate America.

Is it surprising that black people are enraged?

There is no longer any time to wait, for incrementalism, for politicians to do small fixes. The system must change from the ground up. Now. The Antarctic is literally sliding into the ocean at faster and faster rates making all if this moot.

I can so relate to the anger in these protests.

[video: https://youtu.be/sb9_qGOa9Go]h/t Raggedy Ann

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I hope this woman's voice reaches a huge audience. This is why people need their own media. The corporate media deserves nothing but absolute and complete contempt. The power of media is immense and they have misused that power in a horrible way. We should have been hearing voices like this woman's loudly and clearly for the past 40 years. If any entity could be labeled as treasonous it would be corporate media. Their contribution to the ruin of our society's better possibilities is huge and unforgivable.

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magiamma's picture

@randtntx
Well, I read this early and had to get out to do stuff in the garden before it gets hot.

So, on your suggestion, I sent it out to a whole bunch of people. I totally agree. I hope many people watch Kimberly Jones.

Her monopoly analogy is so right on. The msm just needs to go away. All of it. I am so done just being nice. fuckthisshit.

Thanks so much for your comment. Hope tx is not too hot. Take good care and have a good one.

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wendy davis's picture

said it right; thank you both. my mind is careening with images and pain right now, so i'll need to simmer down a bit on order be able to comment further.

rec'd ++++, magiamma.

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magiamma's picture

@wendy davis

You so rock. Thanks for all the hard work you do. Really appreciate it.

Take good care and have a good one.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

Thanks for re-posting that video - I think it is so powerful because of the truth it conveys.

Reading your essay reminded me of my own life - only as a Hispanic woman. I was lucky because I had a dad who thought his daughters needed an education and ability to earn their own way. Not many Hispanic fathers were on that page. Anyway, I had other ideas and dropped out of college, married, had kids, and found myself a single parent with few prospects for providing a decent life for my children. Back to college I went on the Pell Grant (it paid the whole thing including books back then), got a waitressing job, and put myself through school. If not for food stamps and welfare child care support, I wouldn't have made it, but they wanted people like us to make it back then. What a horrible, different world we live in today where deprivation is king.

Things are changing, though. It's time. The masses are awakening - thank you virus for bringing about awareness by focusing our attention AWAY from living outside ourselves and thinking we, too, can be the next Warren Buffet. Reality is sinking in and change will come. I breathe a sigh of relief and watch with wonder that the universe is pulling it off.

Have a beautiful, changeable day, everyone! Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

magiamma's picture

@Raggedy Ann
Your posts always make me smile so big. May the change happen now for all those in need.

Thanks for posting this video. I am sending it out to folks I know.

Take good care and have a good one.

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lotlizard's picture

https://www.1843magazine.com/dispatches/vietnams-ghosts-are-hungry-for-i...

Not so different, perhaps, from our custom of burning real cars and buildings as an offering to those who have gone before, the dead unjustly killed and oppressed.

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magiamma's picture

@lotlizard
SurFuckingReal. The pics in that article are fabulous. Lost souls roaming the ethers must be appeased. If it's not the oligarchs it's them all. Go figure.

Take good care and have a good one.

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@lotlizard and cars"

I had hoped for better, but if I were dead under those circumstances, I too might come back from the afterlife each August seeking revenge by haunting the living world.

A people who understand so much about how the real world and the afterlife work together- France and America never stood a chance against the spirit world in Vietnam.

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lotlizard's picture

@leveymg  
Very thorough.

And what does a ghost read while surfing the fake web on their fake smartphone? Fake news, of course. We the living go through all the trouble of paying for a real router to provide real WiFi to a real smartphone and aside from a few carefully chosen websites, still get fed mostly fake news.

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enhydra lutris's picture

That's at least the second time I've seen the first one and probably the third for the second and they're both still great. your connecting narrative, however, makes them even more compelling. Thanks again.

The sitting fascist will kick off his formal campaign on Juneteenth, in Tulsa. This could very well be something cataclysmic. It cannot be an accident; he may or may not be a completely ignorant lout, but surely not all of his advisers and consultants are. This is intentional in-your-face provocation conjoined with rallying the racist neo-fascist core.

Thanks again for the great column.

Be well and have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

ggersh's picture

@enhydra lutris instigator.

The sitting fascist will kick off his formal campaign on Juneteenth, in Tulsa. This could very well be something cataclysmic. It cannot be an accident; he may or may not be a completely ignorant lout, but surely not all of his advisers and consultants are. This is intentional in-your-face provocation conjoined with rallying the racist neo-fascist core.

Now as far as ignorant there is no doubt

https://independentaustralia.net/life/art-display/cartoons-mark-david-ma...

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

magiamma's picture

@ggersh
That's a fine cartoon. I love the depiction of the lips. Perfect. lol Lol

Take good care and have a good one.

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magiamma's picture

@enhydra lutris
I am so pissed. Enough already. Time to change. No more incrementalism. Fucking Juneteenth and in Tulsa no less. Thanks for your comment.

Take good care and have a good one.

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lotlizard's picture

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enhydra lutris's picture

@lotlizard
I've had a few issues with da wiki before, and seen some cogent critiques of its editorial policies, but this one is really good and thorough. Thanks again.

be well and have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Granma's picture

That making decisions or judgements about people based on the color of their skin is the height of ignorance and stupidity. One might as well try to guess personality based on shoe size. That is a poor comparison, but I have never found an equal comparison in terms of ridiculousness and stupidity.
I seldom watch videos but will try to see these 2 later today.

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magiamma's picture

@Granma
Delighted that you can watch videos now. I have a hard time watching all that I would like to. There are so many here that are important.

The way the 'system' is set up, it makes it hard to really disengage from color. Hopefully this wave will change that. It has to change.

Take good care and have a good one.

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wendy davis's picture

first, thanks as well to Raggedy Ann for giving you the heads-up on the kimberly jones clip. as to the burniing of black wall street (and i’d remembered it, the buildings were fire-bombed from the air, but this history doesn’t record that:

99 years ago, one of America’s worst acts of racial violence took place in Tulsa
It was covered up for decades’
, Emily Stewart vox.com, May 31, 2020

May 31 and June 1 mark the 99th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, when a white mob descended on an affluent black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Greenwood District, which was known as “Black Wall Street,” was decimated in a matter of days. Roughly 1,200 homes were burned, 35 blocks burned, and an estimated 300 black people killed.

that massacre and the massacre in rosewood were partially sparked by emmett till sorts of accusers, and those ‘protected’, not ‘arrested’ were as today.

one comment under the kimberly jones video was this:

“The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.” Frederick Douglas

others reminded ms. jones that there are also false flags (infiltrators and agents provocateurs afoot), and simple opportunistic looters, or so i remember. the first (?) man arrested for the burrning of precinct 3 in minneapolis fits the former designation, designation, imo

on one of my recent threads cassiodorus had quipped that Wall Street didn’t seem to might the looting’ (Mr. Market continues to up up up!)

since then i keep hearing these line from jefferson airplane’s ‘Lather’:

Sergeant Dow Jones 27 years old...commanding his very own tank

...as a metaphor for militarized police and the Rise of the Warrior Cop, as well as police as the enforcers for the white capitalist class. Plus, as emblematic of the truth that ending the draft was a fucking brilliant move, in that now for the lower classes, including people of color, the USian military acts as the Jobs Program from Hell. and no, including ‘free college tuition' hasn’t worked out for most as far as i’ve read. the bonuses for re-enlistment offer some serious cash incentives.

it’s always good to hear from black voices who have skin in the game, unlike the comprador congressional black caucus and and fellow congress critters.

i’m struggling to find the right words for this, but our black/azteca son has always been a member of ‘the suspect class’, as in: ‘busted for driving while black’ and shopping while black’. but it’s gotten creepier since the george floyd protests began. although he lives in the far NW corner of colorado, police are everywhere, and watch him like a hawk.

in a phone call he'd told me that two mornings ago he was biking his usual ten miles on the bike path, and a cop car came by partially on the bicycle path, swung the passenger side door open, causing him to have to swerve and crash into a cyclone fence. if i could take the causes of his fears of injury or death because of his black skin, i sure would even give my life for it. (i’m old and in the way, and ready to go, so that’s not much of an offer, though.) try as i might, as a white woman, i have no idea what it really feels like for him and other people of color. (indigenous are the second highest victims of police killings and political imprisonments.)

but thank you, magiamma, for your empathy for, and solidarity with...black pain and rage.

on later edit
: i'd meant to add that blacks die at disproportionately higher rates of covid-19 than whites.

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magiamma's picture

@wendy davis

here is the correct link for the Tulsa riot

https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/5/31/21276084/tulsa-race-massacre-bl...

wow...

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@magiamma

the correct link. i usually check, dagnabbit... i'll change it, but bingling for images of the tulsa race riots bring hella horrors. fancy the timng: 99 years and 2 weeks ago...

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magiamma's picture

@wendy davis
that's an understatement

Tulsa.jpg

They burned it to the ground

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wendy davis's picture

@magiamma

aren't; they? as well as how it mirrors today so closely: as in: 'who gets protected, who gets arrested...or murdered?'.

which is exactly why seal's sam cooke cover is my prayer, not only in amerika, but around the globe:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK7L5eIfd0o]

(his face has been ravaged by a weird form of lupus.)

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@wendy davis of Tulsa Oklahoma was able to cover up the burning of 1,200 homes, 35 blocks burned, and 300 people killed. That sounds worse than any looting I've heard of and look how much media coverage the looting of a Target gets.

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travelerxxx's picture

@randtntx

It wasn't just Tulsa that covered it up. Best I can tell, the whole country hid it. I never learned about this event until I was in my late 30s ...pushing 67 now. And I was born and raised not far north of Tulsa. I only learned of Rosewood about ten years ago.

If I had to place a bet on it, I would wager that 80% of all Americans, other than Black Americans, have never once heard that Tulsa ever happened. In fact, you wouldn't have to push me too hard to get me to go to over 90%. If you did tell all Americans about it, I'd also bet that a large number would deny it occured.

Even with most non-Black Americans ignorant of what happened in Tulsa, the fact that all Black Americans are quite aware is not lost on the racist Trump campaign. They are fully aware of the significance of the date and place. In other words, what Trump is doing is a bit F*** Y** to Black Americans. I guarantee they didn't miss the connection.

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@travelerxxx tonight, but you made me do it.
It's horrific. I'm still amazed that this violent destruction of a whole community, and the murder of 300 black Americans by their white neighbors and/or other thugs, was so completely covered up.
What you say about the campaign kickoff or whatever is taking place, at that place on that date is both chilling and suspicious. How many triggers are people going to wave and why.

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wendy davis's picture

@randtntx

read the vox link; here's another at History.com, shorter, but a few different facts and angles.

dunno how it went so far down the memory hole, and i can't even remember when i was made aware of it, to say the truth. but certainly far later than travelerxxx.

'Black Wall Street Burning', Feb. 2020 (Documentary on Tulsa's Black Wall Street in the works from LeBron James and Maverick Carter's SpringHill Entertainment, june 9, 2020, the oklahoman.com

The unjust tragedy was covered up for decades and omitted from history books even in Oklahoma. As the event's 2021 centennial approaches, however, several film and television projects are telling the story, which is still timely in the midst of national protests about racial injustice following the May 25 death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd while in police custody.

brandy mcdonnell links to a few of them.

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magiamma's picture

@wendy davis

Want to drop this here too

Ava DuVernay: 'The black body is being used for profit and politics

The film begins offering a number of the troubling statistics about race and incarceration in the US that have virtually become common knowledge in the past five years or so. The US is home to 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners. One in three young black men in the US today can expect to serve time in prison during their life. The prison population has grown exponentially since the 1980s-era war on drugs began in earnest, ballooning from a few hundred thousand to over two million today, with black people heinously overrepresented among them

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wendy davis's picture

@magiamma

the lines; are they from her netflix film '13th', as in the 13th amendment? (full feature; the trailer, 4 years earlier?)

corey booker? van jones?

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@wendy davis I will look at them all.

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wendy davis's picture

@randtntx

i wasn't familiar with ava duVernay, but as it turns out she's a director of great repute; for her direction in 'Selma', iirc, she'd been nominated for a golden globe (which award's name always kills me seeing the revealing fashion gowns of the red carpet...).

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Lookout's picture

I think it was C S King that said "the color isn't black or white, it's green." We need a jobs program with a decent SALARY for all. (As well as M4A)
The story of American poverty, as told by one Alabama county (10 min)

The UN Special Rapporteur for Extreme Poverty paid a visit to the U.S. last year, drawing worldwide attention to his findings. NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Simon Ostrovsky followed in his footsteps to report from Lowndes County, Alabama.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytd06hadrsM&t=32s]
Surprise, surprise Lowndes county is largely black. I've seen this my whole life. So have others, but most are willfully blind.

Perhaps change is in the air, and things may be better after this shit show. At least I find the protests hopeful. As you suggest it may all be moot considering the looming climate disaster.

Guy thinks we only have a decade remaining due to a massive methane release. His ability to accept this fate and still live a meaningful life is interesting. (10 min)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Jcqds7Ypc]

Thanks for the OT and have a good one.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

wendy davis's picture

@Lookout

if that might be so, after your having reported that the cppm have reached 417, irrc. but that's part of the theory, isn't it? the methane calthrates (if that's the term) from the melting permafrost and the methane bubbling up from the artcic seabed itself.

looks like it's 9 minutes; even i can manage that. ; )

what we've done to this once big blue-and-green ball of a planet is mind-bending. (the oceans and rivers, as well, of course, plus the sinking and poisoned aquifers.)

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lotlizard's picture

@wendy davis  
https://handytipsdeathworld.blogspot.com/

The piece first appeared in the Whole Earth Review and seems to be the original source for what has evolved into the phrase, in shortened form, “random acts of kindness.”

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

of 'random acts of kindness'. she said it right, although i was baffled by her term 'over-power', but if i read it again i might twig to her meaning.

if i had to choose one line, it would be:

Be in radical alignment with particular forms of aliveness being smashed.

i keep trying to imagine that many of her suggestions will be key to surviving the coming depression, too. as in: how we can help one another while we create more bounty (or even buy crucial survival items while we're able). it may indeed become 'a gift (and barter) economy' for the plebians soon. another step might be: Eat the Rich. ; )

thank you, lotlizard.

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lotlizard's picture

@wendy davis  
of, both collectively and individually, seeking and exercising power over other humans, non-human creatures, and natural phenomena with whom we share existence on Earth / on the material plane.

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

and i'll need to read it several more times to see if it sinks in. (my heads in another place, a very dark one, as snoopy dog had the sense to bring this to me new diary; i was tooblown away to bring it in my 'further related news' portion.

'Black man found HANGED near city hall in California in alleged ‘suicide,’ but protesters suspect LYNCHING & demand full probe, 13 Jun, 2020, RT.com

she brought a few extra tweets that demonstrate that the police are...lying.

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magiamma's picture

@Lookout
Excellent point. Race and class do feed each other. Except if you are winning at the monopoly game you have a lot more leverage. No? And if you are a racist then the deck is stacked. Thanks for the video.

I really really really hope that Guy McPherson is wrong. Either way it's all about be here now, love the ones your with, fuck this shit. (lol).

Take good care and have a good one.

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wendy davis's picture

@Lookout

disproportionate black covid-19 deaths, do as well.

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Lookout's picture

@wendy davis

what a puzzle.

https://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcseriesblog/2018/05/15/vitamin-d-parad...

The darker the skin the less it produces Vitamin D. Probably why we became white as we migrated north...the need for D.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

wendy davis's picture

@Lookout @Lookout

people talk about vitamin D, and while i didn't grasp your article well, i'd thought D3 is said to be more efficacious; that's what we take.

but as to this:

Probably why we became white as we migrated north...the need for D.

...i'm a bit hesitant to answer, as (with a very limited scientific mind) i've been trying to put together a post on 'race as a social, not a scientific/biological term', and a lot of what i'm finding is beyond my ken to fair-use paraphrase. but the early 'scientists' of the 'black brains are 33% smaller than white brains' stuff is kinda fun (in a sick sort of way) to read again.

but in a way, some of it's still going on w/ covid 19. so...for now, i'm agnostic.

on morning edit: i'd meant to note that the color green is obviously key to vitamin D deficiency in black govid-19 deaths, whether due to no sunshine in lockdown and no bucks for vitamin D, no sunshine in jail and or prison (high rates of cases and deaths), or employed in 'essential services'.

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Granma's picture

Comments are more powerful than Baldwin's. Just my take.
My internet provider upgrade their network yesterday. I get a much stronger signal. I am able to load and see videos. It has stopped abruptly dumping me offline (so far). Wow! It was worth losing service completely for a while to get these results.

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magiamma's picture

@Granma

She is speaking powerfully from the present and with years more of oppression than Baldwin. The monopoly analogy was right on. This is exactly what has happened.

I was moved by the way Baldwin spoke, with the movement of his eyes and hands, with his pauses - and all in front of a mainly white audience. Remarkable.

I hope the Kimberly Jones video goes viral.

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mimi's picture

@Granma
powerful, because she wasn't pressured in a debate format with one of the biggest arrogant conservatives a...holes like Buckley. In those times few people didn't let loose their anger feelings freely. I just try to imagine what Baldwin would have said, if he had lived today and had the tools of internet publishing and talk on blogs.

I feel Kimberly Jones huge speech was magnificent, truthful and courageous. To the point hitting all the nails.

Great woman. She is so strong. I have never heard from her yet. Thanks for posting that video. Thanks to Raggedy Ann and Magiamma.

Oh I listen again to her while writing this. Her anger is so truthful, honest and raw. Wow. You go, lady.

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studentofearth's picture

The words James Baldwin spoke early in the full speech described a worldwide problem and not restricted to simply race in America. We see this over and over again in our domestic and foreign policies.
(video 16:53-18:10)
[video:https://youtu.be/oFeoS41xe7w?t=1013]

Transcript (my bold)

I, have to speak as one of the people who’ve been most attacked by what we now must here call the Western or European system of reality. What white people in the world, what we call white supremacy – I hate to say it here – comes from Europe. It’s how it got to America. Beneath then, whatever one’s reaction to this proposition is, has to be the question of whether or not civilizations can be considered, as such, equal, or whether one’s civilization has the right to overtake and subjugate, and, in fact, to destroy another. Now, what happens when that happens. Leaving aside all the physical facts that one can quote. Leaving aside, rape or murder. Leaving aside the bloody catalog of oppression, which we are in one way too familiar with already, what this does to the subjugated, the most private, the most serious thing this does to the subjugated, is to destroy his sense of reality.

The millennia of bloody wars in Europe were primarily family feuds between different close family members and cousins. Each trying to get a larger piece of the game board of Europe and the wealth extracted from the people living on the lands. The rivalry spilled over into the rest of the world, formalized with the Treaty of Tordesillas.

Ruling class in the colonized world believe they are the rightful heirs of this tradition. Most common tactic is to divide and conquer. We have seen it over and over again taking a complex issue into a binary choice French vs British, British vs American, Indians vs Settlers, South vs North, Democrat vs Republican, Urban vs Rural, Sanders vs Biden. Once enough of the "agitators" of the non-ruling class population has made a choice the remainders are crushed. Then a new binary choice appears.

The economic class wars have created a larger pool of those seeing a hopeless future and the long cycles of oppression. We need to stay with this long enough to unmask all the puppet masters. Change will only last a few years, same problem will come back quickly if we don't alter the core of the cycle and change our automatic expression of unspoken beliefs.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

@studentofearth

tracing the strings via financial support
allows a pretty clear path to those
gaming the system to only their own advantage

perhaps the masks are slipping down

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studentofearth's picture

@QMS and their puppets (financial and political wizards) should show a path to the puppet masters. Most likely longstanding institutions to have lost and regained control so many times in history and widespread geographical areas.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

magiamma's picture

@studentofearth

James Baldwin's whole speech is riveting.

Divide and conquer is a purposeful strategy of the oligarchs. I think that if there was ever any chance to change things, it is now. The consequences are way too grave if we do not.

‘Make Us All Safe. Go Back to Your Bunker’ Seattle Mayor Tells Trump
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-go-back-to-you...

Free Food, Free Speech and Free of Police: Inside Seattle’s ‘Autonomous Zone’
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/us/seattle-autonomous-zone.html

In a neighborhood that is the heart of the city’s art and culture — threatened these days as rising tech wealth brings in gentrification — protesters seized the moment. They reversed the barricades to shield the liberated streets and laid claim to several city blocks, now known as the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.”

“This space is now property of the Seattle people,” read a banner on the front entrance of the now-empty police station. The entire area was now a homeland for racial justice — and, depending on the protester one talked to, perhaps something more.

What has emerged is an experiment in life without the police — part street festival, part commune. Hundreds have gathered to hear speeches, poetry and music. On Tuesday night, dozens of people sat in the middle of an intersection to watch “13th,” the Ava DuVernay film about the criminal justice system’s impact on African-Americans. On Wednesday, children made chalk drawings in the middle of the street.

One block had a designated smoking area. Another had a medic station. At the “No Cop Co-op,” people could pick up a free LaCroix sparkling water or a snack. No currency was accepted, but across the street, in a nod to capitalism, a bustling stand was selling $6 hot dogs. It was dealing in U.S. dollars.

And then there is the school-to-prison pipeline...

https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-content/uploads/Dismantling_the_School_to_Pr...

Thanks for the links. Take good care and have a good one.

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mimi's picture

@studentofearth
the colonialism and the need for decolonization, as far as I remember him. He lived and spoke in the times of Frantz Fanon. At least that's the way I learned about both of them in the late sixties.

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magiamma's picture

@mimi
I can see how he and Baldwin were walking on the same path.

The Wretched of the Earth (French: Les Damnés de la Terre) is a 1961 book by the psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, in which the author provides a psychiatric and psychologic analysis of the dehumanizing effects of colonization upon the individual and the nation, and discusses the broader social, cultural, and political implications inherent to establishing a social movement for the decolonization of a person and of a people.

Through critiques of nationalism and of imperialism, Fanon presents a discussion of personal and societal mental health, a discussion of how the use of language (vocabulary) is applied to the establishment of imperialist identities, such as colonizer and colonized, to teach and psychologically mold the native and the colonist into their respective roles as slave and master and a discussion of the role of the intellectual in a revolution. Fanon proposes that revolutionaries should seek the help of the lumpenproletariat to provide the force required to effect the expulsion of the colonists. In traditional Marxist theory, the lumpenproletariat are the lowest, most degraded stratum of the proletariat—especially criminals, vagrants and the unemployed—people who lack the class consciousness to participate in the anti-colonial revolution.

Fanon applies the term lumpenproletariat to the colonial subjects who are not involved in industrial production, especially the peasantry, because, unlike the urban proletariat (the working class), the lumpenproletariat have sufficient intellectual independence from the dominant ideology of the colonial ruling class, readily to grasp that they can revolt against the colonial status quo and so decolonize their nation. One of the essays included in The Wretched of the Earth is "On National Culture", in which Fanon highlights the necessity for each generation to discover its mission and to fight for it.

Take good care and have a good one.

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Anja Geitz's picture

Thank you Magi for including Kimberly Jones powerful testimony. Ms. Jones words reminded me how little most of us know of this country’s history. And while I cannot step into her shoes to fully understand the pain and anger she is expressing, I can empathize as a fellow human being how pain and anger feels.

I’d also like to thank you and RA for sharing your stories as well. Like you and RA, my Mother also struggled with making a living after my Father left her with two small children to raise. Unfortunately, for my Mother, the idea of going to college must have been something impossible to imagine. In fact, it’d be fair to say that having been born in Germany during the war and growing up in country with very little economic security, the message she received as a young girl coming of age was not that of empowerment. Neither was growing up in a home with a raging alcoholic. Since her death, I’ve tried to imagine what that must’ve been like for her as a little girl to live a life where there was no sense of security inside her home, or outside her home. There was a time, as a teenager myself, when I saw what was fear in my Mother as merely being unambitious. I simply did not have the capacity to comprehend the cumulative effect her childhood had on her. I wish I had. I would’ve been much kinder to her while she was alive.

An eye opening a Open Thread this morning to be sure.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

magiamma's picture

@Anja Geitz
Thanks so much!

Take good care and have a good one.

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

a lengthy comment, and, didn't save it to Note Pad. (which I should start doing, since, lately, I've noticed that sometimes, comments sorta float off, and, I have to try to resubmit them--may be because I'm on a loaner laptop with different settings)

Anyhoo, thank you for posting Baldwin's remarks. Once I finish some bill and business-related tasks, I'll be back to watch both videos. In a nutshell, I'm with you--no time for 'incrementalism.' I'm skeptical of the DP Leadership's capacity to step up, but, hopefully, this time they'll come through (for a change).

BTW, was gobsmacked by the scheduling of the MAGA Rally on Juneteenth. Many moons ago, lived in SW OK. At that time, Tulsi was considered the most progressive city in the state. May be wrong, but suspect that city officials will either cancel, or insist on rescheduling, the rally. Hope so.

Hope COVID hasn't resurged in your neck-of-the-woods.

Take good care; be safe.

Mollie

“Revolution is not a one time event.”
~~Audre Lorde

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.”
~~Will Rogers, Actor & Social Commentator

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

magiamma's picture

@Unabashed Liberal
Baldwin is a powerful speaker. I watched it several times and was riveted each time. He was debating William F Buckley. Can't even imagine.

You know, I have taken to 'selecting all' of my comment and then copying it before I hit save just in case the post 'goes away'. Then it's saved in the buffer. Then when you can try again, do a paste and voila there is your post. Should work for you.

I hope they cancel it. Absolutely.

Take good care and have a good one.

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Dawn's Meta's picture

Kimberly's video is even better the second time. I learned more. Thinking about posting on my FB timeline right after the one I posted from Trevor Noah. But it has...language.

I think everyone should hear and watch this lady. She has it right.

I cried. This just shouldn't be.

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

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magiamma's picture

@Dawn's Meta
It really should go viral. I hope it does. It's time to move beyond 'language'. There are times when there are no other ways to say things. Her language is so very justifiable. Of course, if people take offense to the language then they will not hear the message. So, not an easy call. Here I don't worry.

Thanks. Take good care and have a good one.

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Dawn's Meta's picture

@magiamma

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

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magiamma's picture

dupe

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smiley7's picture

thank you for moving this conversation.

May the tide keep on rising.

Be well and safe.

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magiamma's picture

@smiley7
Backatcha. Hope you are faring well with the onslaught of paperwork. May the force be with you.

Take good care and have a restful rest of the day.

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There is so much going on that I appreciate you and everyone here highlighting relevant and good information.
I will be reading the links on the Tulsa and the Rosewood murders over the next several days. I did not know about either incident.
I am so fed up with the corporate media, they have family and friends so bamboozled that I can't even talk to them. It's a testament to the power of propaganda (and large screen TVs?).

The heat is on in Texas and I do what you do, garden in the morning and then in the evening. It's good to be outside when I can. Hope your garden is coming along well.
Take good care of yourself.

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wendy davis's picture

popular resistance newsletter:

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wendy davis's picture

such a grand gesture!!!

Trump moves his Tulsa rally from Juneteenth to June 20 'out of respect'
this morning, msn.com

"Many of my African American friends and supporters have reached out to suggest that we consider changing the date out of respect for this Holiday, and in observance of this important occasion and all that it represents," Trump tweeted Friday night. "I have therefore decided to move our rally to Saturday, June 20th, in order to honor their requests."

Juneteenth is a day commemorating the end of slavery. For many black Americans, it is celebrated as an Independence Day.

Prior to Trump's announcement, former Vice President Joe Biden joined a chorus of people criticizing the president's rally, though he mistakenly said the wrong location.

“What in God's name is this guy doing? And now did you hear what he just did? He's having a rally on Juneteenth in...Arizona," Biden said at teletown hall on Friday afternoon hosted by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "And guess what, all the people coming to his rally have to sign a -- they have to sign a piece of paper saying, if they get COVID in this, they will not sue the campaign. I mean c’mon man, what the hell is going on?

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travelerxxx's picture

@wendy davis

Good thing I didn't place a bet on Trump changing that date in Tulsa from Juneteenth to something else. I'd have lost big time.

Not that this is lost on the Trump campaign strategists, but moving the date seems tacit acknowledgement by them that Black Americans, in general, consider Trump loathsome. I mean, no great surprise there, but for Trump to basically admit it is not what I expected. The usual Trump behavior is to thumb his nose at something like this.

Perhaps he doesn't like that bunker all that much after all...

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