Angela Davis: Part 1

This is part 1 of a maybe two-part post about Angela Davis's autobiography. These are just my first impressions. I have more thoughts but gotta pull it all together.

She is amazing. AAAAAH-MAAAAAAAZING.

Her second language is French. While still an undergrad, she began to have an interest in philosophy and since she was an English (or French, I think) major, she began to just read these philosophers to gain knowledge but not for coursework. Certain French philosophers intrigued her most and she pored over these texts (she was still not as fluent a speaker or talker of French to just trudge through these ideas in their original French) and others, deciphering the big ideas. I thought that was such a feat! Then she studied abroad on numerous occasions, traveling through Europe.

When she came back to the states the civil rights movement was well underway and she immersed herself in it. Very intelligent woman. She was involved with the political education programs of groups like the Black Panther Party and the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee--I always forget what that stands for). At one point, she was working on a case involving the Soledad Brothers, teaching at UCLA--and fighting to not lose her job teaching at UCLA, because she was a Communist by that time-- giving guest lectures around the country, teaching in the political education program of Che-Lemumba (a Communist organization of primarily blacks from what I can gather). She just had her hands everywhere and she was actually making a difference. I talked to my mom and pop and asked if they thought she was radical at the time. They said no, everybody was behind Angela Davis and they knew she was making history.

Though others at the time may have suffered just like her or even more, I think her story is so important and so powerful. She was an intellectual but realize how elitism infiltrates any college graduates mind. And for the most part her writing is matter of fact. This is no eloquent autobiography by any means. But I get, through her, that if you put your mind to something, if you use everything in you to fight not to be brainwashed and drive to become stronger, realizing that the struggle of the oppressed is not a black or white thing and that it affects all levels of society--your life can make a difference and you can touch other people and make them see that the ceiling over them is actually higher than they thought.

There's one thing, though, I just don't get. I don't understand her infatuation with communism or socialism as the way to end the problems of black people in America. She thought this was the end all be all of the struggle. And wouldn't a system like this still be in the hands of men, and therefore, sure not to prosper in the utopian sense she anticipates? I've had discussions before, I think, about socialism and communism, but I know I don't fully understand either of them. But I think Davis sort of romanticizes the concepts. At one time, she goes to Cuba during or just after the revolution. And she romanticizes Fidel Castro and the revolution (again, another issue I have little knowledge about). On this particular anniversary of the beginning of the revolution, everyone is going to the fields to cut sugarcane instead of throwing a big parade. So Davis and her friends join them for a week, doing their part cutting cane in the serious heat. After one work day, Davis comments to a new Cuban friend of hers, an older man, that the way he cuts cane is almost artful. And he tells her sternly that there is nothing beautiful about cutting cane this way, that he and people like him are making this sacrifice so that equipment could be purchased (by the country) so their children would not have to do this. So their children would not have to work hard. And if this was the pretense that he was toiling under, has that proved to be untrue? Are the children of Cuba (who would now be adults) still toiling in this manner, or more generally, suffering in ways this man had envisioned them avoiding?

Also, A.D. has a way of sticking just about everything to The Man--every responsibility, that is--and saying nothing of personal responsibility. At least that seems to be her focus much of the time. Sometimes she talks about empowering the people with knowledge of injustices and how they can speak out. But what about empowering them out of the situations they get in (stealing, etc.) in the first place? I guess I can't complain if this is just her focus. Maybe you get the people fired up with knowledge and then they see that they have to be mindful of themselves as you are educating them.

Many of the cases featured in the book (cases of police injustice, that is) are similar strands of what happened in Jena, La., recently. I'm not exaggerating here. The book talks about black men going to prison for robbery and getting a sentence for 1 year to life in prison. What gives? It's enough to make you angry and one-sided in your judgment, but as I said earlier, she's an intellectual, so I expect more from her reasoning sometimes. I'm just on the fence (about the sticking-it-to-the-white-man deal), b/c A.D. was living in quite a different time--to read in this book the brazenness of the police! The sad thing is, I know the police still behave this way (invading people's personal space and neighborhoods as if it were martial law, harassing young brothers b/c they're black with cornrows). I just don't see it now b/c I live in mixed neighborhoods.

I'm sorry if I babbled on. I wanted to share this, thought maybe I could get some feedback on socialism, Cuba, etc.

Katt Williams and CNN

My take on the Katt Wms. situation. The link to the interview is

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0710/31/se.01.html

Now, I don’t watch this show. CNN primetime for the most part is a joke. And don’t get me started on signing on to do a show so a white guy can tell you what you “need to do as an African American…” (Can anybody say “Bill O’Reilly”?)

I do not think nooses are a joke. In the words of Dr. Seuss’s Sam-I-Am: “I do not like them in a house. / I do not like them with a mouse. / I do not like them here or there. / I do not like them anywhere.” People have been racist for years, saying the N-word against blacks for years, and it hasn’t stopped because any entertainer (or three white kids in Jena, La.) ever tried to take the sting out of the noose or the N-word. It has never stopped. And for the record, Katt William said he wasn’t joking when he paraded down the BET red carpet with a noose adorning his pink pimp suit.

The action? Katt Williams says he doesn’t “explain it”; he’s a comedian. I have to ask, then, why did he agree to appear on a (supposed) news station where pundits (supposedly) discuss and explain the issues?

On why he did it: “Because I thought that the races were lost because everywhere they put those nooses, it wasn't the black neighborhood.” What about the incident at Columbia? A noose was put on a highly acclaimed black professor’s office door. The black Boston high school principal who received a noose in the mail? And, of course, there’s Jena, where three nooses were hung on the school tree for all black students to see. Is sending the noose to one black person not enough? Note to noosehangers: To let Katt Williams know you are not “lost” and that you mean business, please hang your nooses in a “black neighborhood.” Don’t just target one black person. That’s weak.

“So the concern is that maybe I've offended myself?” Katt Williams seems to think just because you are black you cannot do anything to offend another African American (or the collective “Us”). Um--O.J. Simpson, Condoleezza Rice, Ray Nagin, the rapper Luke, Snoop Dogg, and on and on. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, I can say each of these has offended me in some way. And guess what? They’re all black? :-0

I digress.

“I am an "N" word. There are colored people. There are African-Americans. These people don't like the "N" word.” [And later] “I'm African-American already.” [He’s schitzoid? ‘Cause to me, an N-word and an African American (or black or American or whatever) are not the same thing.]

Sorry, y’all. I grew up in a household in which the N-word was not allowed—AT ALL. And it was never in my conscience to say it. So, admittedly, I cannot understand the term being used in an endearing way. Also admittedly, I have laughed at a Richard Pryor or Chris Rock joke mentioning the word. And I have relatives who use it. But I don’t let my friends refer to me that way. That ain’t me. And the people I know who use the word would not go on a white man’s show and call themselves that. You can call that Katt Williams’s courage and “being real”—I call it stupidity. So I cannot relate to Katt Williams breaking it down (the wearing of the noose) to say, “Oh, you’re looking for a n***** to hang. I’m over hear. I AM THE N*****. (Appropriate shucking and jiving inserted here.)”

I don’t think Katt Williams is the epitome of evil because he wore the noose. (I do think, however, that not all of “our people” need to be on CNN, especially in a media that doesn’t see black people as having a myriad of opinions—you’re either with Katt Williams or Al Sharpton in their eyes.) I do think it was stupid to do so, even though he has the right to do so. I can’t imagine the statement he was making, even if it was “if you’re looking for somebody to hang, look for me and I’ll whip your…” Because, really, even with that message, where does it take us? Where is the next step after that? There was a joke online that a guy walked down the BET red carpet with his johnson out to make a statement about wearing a condom.

Probably a joke, but the point I’m trying to make is Where is the line? You got to have a line. And if you blur the line (yes, sometimes rules are meant to be broken), then everything becomes relative. Yes, nine times out of ten it’s a futile effort to educate someone who is using their energy to hang nooses, but when you hang one yourself—around your own neck (literally and figuratively)—and really don’t have a goal in mind for what you want to achieve by doing so (and I can’t imagine what that goal would be), you just become the clichéd part of the problem.