Source:It’s long been known that Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis were making plans to record together the year before Hendrix’s death in 1970, but it turns out they were hoping that Paul McCartney would join them on bass. Hendrix, Davis and jazz drummer Tony Williams sent a telegram on Oct. 21, 1969, to the Beatles’ Apple Records, hoping to get McCartney in for a session.
Whoa.
TW food, classism, ableism
Someone put this ridiculous “art installation” outside the dining hall at my college. It is a sculpture of a sheep with a mirror for eyes lying dead with the phrase “YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT” written on it in red paint. This is potentially extremely triggering to some people, and extremely classist and ableist as it assumes everyone is capable of procuring nutritious vegan/vegetarian food for themselves, so I fixed it with a sign of my own.
Source: thepeoplesrecordThe troubling viral trend of the “hilarious” Black poor person
May 7, 2013Charles Ramsey, the man who helped rescue three Cleveland women presumed dead after going missing a decade ago, has become an instant Internet meme. It’s hardly surprising—the interviews he gave yesterday provide plenty of fodder for a viral video, including memorable soundbites (“I was eatin’ my McDonald’s”) and lots of enthusiastic gestures. But as Miles Klee and Connor Simpson have noted, Ramsey’s heroism is quickly being overshadowed by the public’s desire to laugh at and autotune his story, and that’s a shame. Ramsey has become the latest in a fairly recent trend of “hilarious” black neighbors, unwitting Internet celebrities whose appeal seems rooted in a “colorful” style that is always immediately recognizable as poor or working-class.
Before Ramsey, there was Antoine Dodson, who saved his younger sister from an intruder, only to wind up famous for his flamboyant recounting of the story to a reporter. Since Dodson’s rise to fame, there have been others: Sweet Brown, a woman who barely escaped her apartment complex during a fire last year, and Michelle Clarke, who couldn’t fathom the hailstorm that rained down in her hometown of Houston, and in turn became “the next Sweet Brown.”
Granted, the buzzworthy tactic of reporters interviewing the most loquacious witnesses to a crime or other event is nothing new, and YouTube has countless examples of people of all ethnicities saying ridiculous things. One woman, for instance, saw fit to casually mention her breasts while discussing a local accident, while another man described a car crash with theatrical flair. Earlier this year, a “hatchet-wielding hitchhiker” named Kai matched Dodson’s fame with his astonishing account of rescuing a woman from a racist attacker. But none of those people have been subjected to quite the same level of derisive memeification as Brown, Clark, and now, perhaps, Ramsey—the inescapable echoes of “Hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wife!” and “Kabooyaw,” the tens of millions of YouTube hits and cameos in other viral videos, even commercials.
It’s difficult to watch these videos and not sense that their popularity has something to do with a persistent, if unconscious, desire to see black people perform. Even before the genuinely heroic Ramsey came along, some viewers had expressed concern that the laughter directed at people like Sweet Brown plays into the most basic stereotyping of blacks as simple-minded ramblers living in the “ghetto,” socially out of step with the rest of educated America. Black or white, seeing Clark and Dodson merely as funny instances of random poor people talking nonsense is disrespectful at best. And shushing away the question of race seems like wishful thinking.
Ramsey is particularly striking in this regard, since, for a moment at least, he put the issue of race front and center himself. Describing the rescue of Amanda Berry and her fellow captives, he says, “I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway!”
The candid statement seems to catch the reporter off guard; he ends the interview shortly afterward. And it’s notable that among the many memorable things Ramsey said on camera, this one has gotten less meme-attention than most. Those who are simply having fun with the footage of Ramsey might pause for a second to actually listen to the man. He clearly knows a thing or two about the way racism prevents us from seeing each other as people.
Now that you know this is a thing, please stop sharing these memes. Poor Black people speaking candidly about various serious incidents isn’t a hilarious joke.
hey man I haven’t heard anything from Beethoven in a while is he on hiatus or something
beethoven hasnt heard anything in a while either
Oh because he’s dead
(via hiddlesbatcher)
Source: slydigger
Source: thepeoplesrecordRegarding “Jonathan Lash’s” false flag (pun intended) e-mail
May 7, 2013On April 26th, the Hampshire College community received an email from its president, former president of the World Resources Institute Jonathan Lash, that announced his decision to flip the campus American flag upside-down and lower it to half mast. The email articulated that this action was meant as “a two-fold statement: … a reclamation of mourning, and … an act of resistance against the symbolic violence of the American flag.” He went on to make powerful assertions about the coercive ways in which the state mobilizes the flag in order to create a culture in which the state violence of the police and military is condoned, in which mourning over events such as the Boston bombing and 9/11 are channeled into a racist and bloodthirsty patriotism, and in which dissent and alternative reactions to tragedy are repressed and silenced.
Throughout the day, the email spread rapidly over social media and through word of mouth. Dozens of people thanked President Lash for his words of solidarity with those oppressed by state violence. Others marveled that such a statement would come from an administration with a “decades-long streak of complacence with neoliberalism”. A friend of mine who is of Arab descent was thrilled at the statement and sent President Lash a personal letter of thanks saying that she was “more proud than ever to be at Hampshire”.
Halfway through the day, this same friend received a response from the president. It said that he had not written the email. This was accompanied by a campus-wide response that read, “This afternoon someone falsely sent out a message under my name regarding the flag. It was not written by me. Hampshire welcomes discussion and dissent, but not by misrepresentation.” Apparently, student(s) had written the original statement and hacked his account to send it under his name.
The majority of the criticism of the action accused the students responsible for assuming that all in the community shared their sentiments. A subsequent email from the campus IT director asserted that the action had “blatantly trampled the community’s right to debate and arrive at a common position”.
Such a forum for administration-approved “discussion and dissent” was created a few weeks earlier when students facilitated an open dialogue about the campus flag. Numerous international students, some of whose home countries have long histories of colonialist oppression at the hands of U.S. imperialism, expressed outrage and personal discomfort over the flag’s presence on campus. In this discussion, the administration promised to at least partially acknowledge these concerns by putting up an earth flag on earth day and leaving it up permanently. The earth flag flew for one day and was removed.
The argument that all differing opinions concerning the American flag are valid and must be given institutional weight completely misunderstands mechanisms of oppression and destroys the prospect of solidarity. It is the responsibility of the institution and all those who benefit from U.S colonialism (via white privilege, class privilege, settler status…etc) to support those oppressed by this legacy of violence. The personal patriotism of some individuals should not obscure the real violence committed on the world and members of our community under the symbol of the flag.
Those arguing in favor of the American flag have significant power over those opposed. They have the power of the state, the power of a long history of colonial genocide, and the power of the continued legacy of white supremacy. They also have the power of the administration which continues flying the flag without the consent of the community. Advocating for a “common position” in this regard would inevitably involve compromise on the part of the oppressed. This is not solidarity. This is the perpetuation of racist and colonialist dominance and oppression in the tradition of liberal “democracy”.
Sending the email was a powerful act of resistance used to expose the oppressive nature of institutional power at Hampshire. The students responsible rejected the channels of resistance established for them by the administration and claimed the authority of the president in order to subvert that very authority. By releasing a statement that spoke forcefully and directly against state violence, the students exposed the administration for being complicit with that violence by espousing an empty rhetoric of commitment to some vague notion of “diversity” and “social justice”. The email challenged the administration and the campus to transcend the tradition of mere lip-service (http://www.hampshire.edu/shared_files/INSIDE_Spring_2013_5.2.1.pdf) and work instead toward a tradition of true solidarity with those oppressed by the state.
President Lash failed this challenge. His response did not engage with the argument of the forged email whatsoever, and the American flag continues to proudly fly over the center of Hampshire’s campus.
Source: isomorphismesPopulation distribution of the United States in units of Canadas.
This is basically the whole point of maps.
Source: artandsciencejournal.comKasia Jackowska
Kasia Jackowska’s Drawing Mathematics series whimsically illustrates various mathematical concepts as part of a project done for a brochure published by the University of Warsaw. Simple and sweet, these drawings add creativity to convention, using principles and formulas as her inspiration, and stylized animals as her muses. Can you recognize all the concepts?
See many more drawings and paintings by Jackowska at her website here.
- Erin Saunders
The artist has a Tumblr, too.
Source: thepeoplesrecordAn open letter from Assata Shakur – posted May 3, 2013
May 6, 2013My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color. I am an ex-political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984.
I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program. Because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it “greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.
In 1978, my case was one of many cases bought before the United Nations Organization in a petition filed by the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, exposing the existence of political prisoners in the United States, their political persecution, and the cruel and inhuman treatment they receive in US prisons. According to the report:
The FBI and the New York Police Department in particular, charged and accused Assata Shakur of participating in attacks on law enforcement personnel and widely circulated such charges and accusations among police agencies and units. The FBI and the NYPD further charged her as being a leader of the Black Liberation Army which the government and its respective agencies described as an organization engaged in the shooting of police officers. This description of the Black Liberation Army and the accusation of Assata Shakur’s relationship to it was widely circulated by government agents among police agencies and units. As a result of these activities by the government, Ms. Shakur became a hunted person; posters in police precincts and banks described her as being involved in serious criminal activities; she was highlighted on the FBI’s most wanted list; and to police at all levels she became a ‘shoot-to-kill’ target.’
I was falsely accused in six different “criminal cases” and in all six of these cases I was eventually acquitted or the charges were dismissed. The fact that I was acquitted or that the charges were dismissed, did not mean that I received justice in the courts, that was certainly not the case. It only meant that the “evidence” presented against me was so flimsy and false that my innocence became evident. This political persecution was part and parcel of the government’s policy of eliminating political opponents by charging them with crimes and arresting them with no regard to the factual basis of such charges.
On May 2, 1973 I, along with Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, supposedly for a “faulty tail light.” Sundiata Acoli got out of the car to determine why we were stopped. Zayd and I remained in the car. State trooper Harper then came to the car, opened the door and began to question us. Because we were black, and riding in a car with Vermont license plates, he claimed he became “suspicious.” He then drew his gun, pointed it at us, and told us to put our hands up in the air, in front of us, where he could see them. I complied and in a split second, there was a sound that came from outside the car, there was a sudden movement, and I was shot once with my arms held up in the air, and then once again from the back. Zayd Malik Shakur was later killed, trooper Werner Foerster was killed, and even though trooper Harper admitted that he shot and killed Zayd Malik Shakur, under the New Jersey felony murder law, I was charged with killing both Zayd Malik Shakur, who was my closest friend and comrade, and charged in the death of trooper Forester. Never in my life have I felt such grief. Zayd had vowed to protect me, and to help me to get to a safe place, and it was clear that he had lost his life, trying to protect both me and Sundiata. Although he was also unarmed, and the gun that killed trooper Foerster was found under Zayd’s leg, Sundiata Acoli, who was captured later, was also charged with both deaths. Neither Sundiata Acoli nor I ever received a fair trial We were both convicted in the news media way before our trials. No news media was ever permitted to interview us, although the New Jersey police and the FBI fed stories to the press on a daily basis. In 1977, I was convicted by an all- white jury and sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison. In 1979, fearing that I would be murdered in prison, and knowing that I would never receive any justice, I was liberated from prison, aided by committed comrades who understood the depths of the injustices in my case, and who were also extremely fearful for my life.
The U.S. Senate’s 1976 Church Commission report on intelligence operations inside the USA, revealed that “The FBI has attempted covertly to influence the public’s perception of persons and organizations by disseminating derogatory information to the press, either anonymously or through “friendly” news contacts.” This same policy is evidently still very much in effect today.
On December 24, 1997, The New Jersey State called a press conference to announce that New Jersey State Police had written a letter to Pope John Paul II asking him to intervene on their behalf and to aid in having me extradited back to New Jersey prisons. The New Jersey State Police refused to make their letter public. Knowing that they had probably totally distort the facts, and attempted to get the Pope to do the devils work in the name of religion, I decided to write the Pope to inform him about the reality of’ “justice” for black people in the State of New Jersey and in the United States. (See attached Letter to the Pope).
In January of 1998, during the pope’s visit to Cuba, I agreed to do an interview with NBC journalist Ralph Penza around my letter to the Pope, about my experiences in New Jersey court system, and about the changes I saw in the United States and it’s treatment of Black people in the last 25 years. I agreed to do this interview because I saw this secret letter to the Pope as a vicious, vulgar, publicity maneuver on the part of the New Jersey State Police, and as a cynical attempt to manipulate Pope John Paul II. I have lived in Cuba for many years, and was completely out of touch with the sensationalist, dishonest, nature of the establishment media today. It is worse today than it was 30 years ago. After years of being victimized by the “establishment” media it was naive of me to hope that I might finally get the opportunity to tell “my side of the story.” Instead of an interview with me, what took place was a “staged media event” in three parts, full of distortions, inaccuracies and outright lies. NBC purposely misrepresented the facts. Not only did NBC spend thousands of dollars promoting this “exclusive interview series” on NBC, they also spent a great deal of money advertising this “exclusive interview” on black radio stations and also placed notices in local newspapers.
Like most poor and oppressed people in the United States, I do not have a voice. Black people, poor people in the U.S. have no real freedom of speech, no real freedom of expression and very little freedom of the press. The black press and the progressive media has historically played an essential role in the struggle for social justice. We need to continue and to expand that tradition. We need to create media outlets that help to educate our people and our children, and not annihilate their minds. I am only one woman. I own no TV stations, or Radio Stations or Newspapers. But I feel that people need to be educated as to what is going on, and to understand the connection between the news media and the instruments of repression in Amerika. All I have is my voice, my spirit and the will to tell the truth. But I sincerely ask, those of you in the Black media, those of you in the progressive media, those of you who believe in truth freedom, To publish this statement and to let people know what is happening. We have no voice, so you must be the voice of the voiceless.
Free all Political Prisoners, I send you Love and Revolutionary Greetings From Cuba, One of the Largest, Most Resistant and Most Courageous Palenques (Maroon Camps) That has ever existed on the Face of this Planet.
