xixax cultural awareness thread.

Started by NEON MERCURY, April 18, 2004, 09:12:42 PM

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

pete

Quote from: 72teeth
niggers
and im hispanic

oh, that makes it all cool!
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

Pubrick

Quote from: 72teethand im hispanic if anyone is offended and fills they need to rip on me with a joke
i think pete just filled his need.

the first few pages of this thread are really good, and informative.. things i learned:
Quote from: godardianAh, Portland.

Performance artist/filmmaker Miranda July
godardian was SO ahead of his time! he prolly knows what's cool next year and doesn't want to share :yabbse-angry:

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman
Quote from: kelvinRobert Schuman.
I'm having a Ben Kingsley moment.
^this is banner material right here.

and a shocking revelation:
Quote from: CinephileAnd now for the people I'm not proud of:

...

And finally...


Peter Jennings

all these quotes are from page 3, a year ago. so don't any of u newbs be getting any dumb ideas, ya hear?
under the paving stones.

polkablues

Whatever happened to Godardian?  That little Morrisey fan was all right.
My house, my rules, my coffee

hedwig

Quote from: polkabluesWhatever happened to Godardian?  That little Morrisey fan was all right.

yeah. i read his blog sometimes. it's pretty interesting and well-written.

cron

i will add Luís Barragán, the first (and the only mexican) architect to win the pritzker prize:










context, context, context.

hedwig

Florida.

Proud enough of these:

Sidney Poitier


Jim Morrison


Faye Dunaway


Eric Garcia -- who wrote this:

ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ

"As a matter of fact I only work with the feeling of something magical, something seemingly significant. And to keep it magical I don't want to know the story involved, I just want the hypnotic effect of it somehow seeming significant without knowing why." - Len Lye

Reinhold

this is an article from a communist newspaper. the writing isn't great but this article has more of the facts in one place than most of the other stuff i've seen.

http://www.rwor.org/a/096/jena-six-en.html

Jim Crow Injustice in Jena, Louisiana
by Alice Woodward

The story of the Jena Six began on September 1, 2006 -- a hot late summer day, in the southern town of Jena, Louisiana. Bryant Purvis, a Black high school student, asked permission to sit beneath the shade tree known as the "white tree," in front of the town's high school. It was unspoken law that this shady area was for whites only during school breaks. The vice principal said nothing was stopping anyone. So Black students sat underneath the tree, challenging the established authority of segregation and racism.

The next day, hanging from the tree, were three ropes, in school colors, each tied to make a noose. The events set in motion by those nooses led to a schoolyard fight. And that fight led to the conviction, on June 28, 2007, of a Black student at Jena High School for charges that can bring up to 22 years in prison. Mychal Bell, a 16-year-old sophomore football star at the time he was arrested, was convicted by an all-white jury, without a single witness being called on his behalf. The remaining five Black students still face serious charges stemming from the fight, their lawyers and parents estimate they will go to trial this fall.

While this particular story begins in September of last year, the background story goes way back. In a previous article in Revolution, I used the "white tree" of Jena as a metaphor for all the racism, and systematic oppression of Black people, which dates back to the founding of this country. Right now, that is what is being enforced with the persecution of these young Black men.

* * *

The town of Jena, like rural and urban areas throughout this country, is a segregated place. In an article called, "Racism Goes on Trial Again in America's Deep South," the British newspaper The Observer (Sunday, May 20, 2007) described: "Jena's major industry is growing and marketing junk pine. Walk down the usually deserted main street and you will not find many Black employees. [Caseptla] Bailey, 56, is a former air force officer and holder of a business management degree. 'I couldn't even get a job in Jena as a bank teller,' she said. 'Look at the banks and the best white-collar jobs and you'll see only white and red necks in those collars.'" The local barber is still a white-only business, they have never cut the hair of a Black person.

I spoke with Mychal Bell's father, Marcus Jones, by phone, and he gave me a picture of how this breaks down in the Jena schools: "Young white kids, most of them don't have contact with Black people until they get to high school. They got a school, their junior high here, what they call Fellowship, and another school called Nebo—a little neighborhood that is part of Jena—they got an elementary school—a junior high school, or a middle school—one or the other. Those schools are being funded by government funds, but no Black kids go there.

"They don't have contact, any interaction with Black kids until they get to high school. When white kids leave their school, and get to high school here, this is their first time ever playing ball with Black kids, being in classroom with Black kids, talking to Black kids, if they even talk to them, which I doubt."

I mentioned to Marcus Jones that I had recently seen the movie Remember the Titans (about the integration of a school and its football team in 1971 in Virginia), and that the situation he was describing reminded me of scenes in the beginning of that movie. He kind of laughed, and said, "Some of that Titan's stuff is not too far from this."

Protesting the Noose Incident

In response to the noose incident, several Black students, among them star players on the football team, spontaneously staged a sit-in and protest, under the tree. The principal reacted by bringing in the white district attorney, Reed Walters, and 10 local police officers to an all-school assembly. Marcus Jones described the assembly:

"At any activity done in the auditorium—anything—Blacks sit on one side, whites on the other side, okay? The DA tells the principal to call the students in the auditorium. They get in there. The DA tells the Black students, he's looking directly at the Black students—remember, whites on one side, Blacks on the other side—he's looking directly at the Black students. He told them to keep their mouths shut about the boys hanging their nooses up. If he hears anything else about it, he can make their lives go away with the stroke of his pen."


DA Walters concluded that the students should "work it out on their own." Police officers roamed the halls of the school that week, and tensions simmered throughout the fall semester.

In November, as football season came to a close, the main school building was mysteriously burned down. In the wake of this, tensions erupted in a weekend of whites lashing out to enforce white supremacy in Jena.

On a Friday night, Robert Bailey, a 17-year-old Black student and football player, was invited to a dance at the "Fair Barn," a hall considered to be "white." When he walked in, without warning he was punched in the face, knocked on the ground and attacked by a group of white youth. Only one of the white youth was arrested—he was ultimately given probation and asked to apologize.

The night after that, a 22-year-old white man, along with two friends, pulled a gun on Bailey and two of his friends at a local gas station. The Black youths wrestled the gun from him to prevent him from using it. They were arrested and charged with theft, and the white man went free. The following Monday students returned to school. It was then that a fight broke out that sent one white student to the hospital. He was treated, released, and seen at a social event that evening. In contrast to how the authorities handled the assault on Robert Bailey by white students – where one white student got probation and apologized – for this incident, six Black students face serious criminal charges and decades in jail.

Marcus Jones told me what happened: "The next day, when they get back to school, the Barker boy called one of them a 'nigger.' We have a statement from a white kid, saying that he was right there when he called him 'nigger boy' or something like that. They charged them with second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree attempted murder. Alright, the boy was knocked unconscious. But by the time they called for the medic to get there, he was walking. They took him to the hospital. He don't stay in there probably no more than an hour, tops. They released him, parents come to the hospital to get him, everything, took like a whole hour. Later on that evening, they held the ring ceremony, you know where they get their rings—he comes up there all fine and dandy. He had a little black eye, little bruise on his lip, you know, but he wasn't nowhere close to no death. He laughed and talked with everyone up there, and everything."

Justin Barker was allegedly knocked down, punched, and kicked by a number of Black students. In December of 2006 six Black students—Robert Bailey Junior, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Mychal Bell, and a still unidentified minor, allegedly the attackers of Justin Barker—were arrested, charged with attempted second degree manslaughter, and expelled from school.

The outrageously high bail ranged from $70,000-$138,000, leaving most of them stuck in jail for months. Mychal was 16 years old at the time he was arrested, the judge removed him from the juvenile facilities and brought him to the Jena Parish jail to charge him as an adult.

A Jim Crow Trial

What kind of trial did Mychal Bell get in the town of Jena, Louisiana?

Without any explanation, both of Mychal Bell's parents were put on the "witness list" and therefore were not allowed into the courtroom. They were never called to testify, but they were not allowed to go into the trial. In this way those in charge of this courtroom prevented Mychal Bell's parents from attending the trial of their own son.

Mychal was judged by an all-white jury, in a courtroom run by a white judge. Whites sat with Justin Barker and his white lawyer on one side. Blacks sat with defendant Mychal Bell, who was represented by a court-appointed attorney.

The prosecutor called 16 witnesses, mostly white students. The court-appointed defense attorney called none. Barker's attorney argued that Bell's tennis shoes on his feet were a "dangerous weapon."

The trial was so outrageous that when a Louisiana TV station polled viewers, 62% said that Mychal Bell was not getting a fair trial.

Mychal Bell was convicted of two felonies: aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery. Mychal faces up to 22 years in prison for a schoolyard fight. Compare this to the white students who attacked Robert Bailey at the Fair Barn and have been allowed to go free with barely a slap on the wrist.

The threat of a similar so-called trial hangs over the heads of the other accused Black students.

Marcus Jones said, "Now remember, who created this atmosphere of this Black and white stuff? The DA done that. 'Cause when he let those boys get away with hanging those nooses, and when they had the fight with the Barker boy, he was telling them, 'Listen, you niggers, don't put your hands on nobody white. If you do, I'm gonna show you. I'll put charges on those boys.' And lately he was saying, 'It's alright for those whites to do what they want to do, because I ain't going to do nothing to them.' Black kids see he didn't do nothing to them about the noose incident, you know? So he's the one that created all this racial tension here, you see. He let one race slide. But you're going to try to enforce the law on another race."

In an interview from an upcoming documentary that aired on Democracy Now (7/10/07), Marcus Jones showed for the camera the stack of college scholarship offers his son Mychal had received to play football at many different schools. Marcus Jones commented solemnly, "One of the best lessons that my son could learn, that's one of the best lessons, to know what it is to be Black now, ya know, if this don't teach him what it is to be Black now, I don't know what will. He's 17 now, he's got a lot of life ahead of him. The day he sets foot out of jail, I'm going to tell him again, you know what it is to be Black now, here it is."

Free the Jena Six!

In scenes from the documentary aired on Democracy Now, Caseptla Bailey, the mother of Robert Bailey, who also awaits his trial remarked, "They want to take these kids, my son as well as all these other children, lock them up and throw away the key, that's a tradition, for Black males, so they want to keep that tradition going because they want to keep institutionalized slavery alive and well."

In the face of this heart wrenching and outrageous reality, a battle is being fought to defend the Jena Six. Family, friends, and supporters of the young men are protesting and struggling. The Black community in Jena and people from across Louisiana and Texas have come together to support the Jena 6 and fight the injustice of their trials. People have put their lives on hold, and churches have opened their doors.

Marcus Jones told me, "I'm still in need of a lawyer for my son and one more of the kids. So we opened up a defense account for trying to get some good legal representation. Because my son was really just sold out by the court-appointed lawyer. Oh man, that's so devastating. So now we're just trying to generate some money to get good legal representation."

All those who oppose racism, all those who watched in horror or themselves lived through the reality of Hurricane Katrina, all those who joined the debate around the Imus incident in opposition to racism and oppression, and those who have watched with horror as the clock was turned back 50 years by a Supreme Court ruling, undermining and doing away with what little rights were given by Brown v. Board of Education should join in demanding the charges be dropped against all of the Jena 6, and that Mychal Bell's conviction be reversed!
Quote from: Pas Rap on April 23, 2010, 07:29:06 AM
Obviously what you are doing right now is called (in my upcoming book of psychology at least) validation. I think it's a normal thing to do. People will reply, say anything, and then you're gonna do what you were subconsciently thinking of doing all along.

matt35mm

I had not heard of that incident before, so it was an interesting read.  However, if that's the article with the most facts in one place, then that is sad, as it is obviously not interested in any side but one, and is not interested in delving any further into the matter than just demonstrating general outrage.  This is clearly not even half of the real story, and yet the writer urges us to demand that all of the charges be dropped, which is just as bad as what that all-white jury supposedly did.

I figure that's what you mean by the writing not being great.

But the situation itself is an interesting one in this day and age, and for a lot more reasons than just white people not liking black people and treating them differently (which is not that interesting).  The particular chemistry that arouses such a situation given the assumable media response is really the more curious matter.  Did these White Devils not realize that this would, of course, end up as national news?

Reel

Okay, I think I'm comfortable enough here to let you creeps know where I'm from. Not like you care, but I kind of have an ulterior motive for posting in this thread. So I'll stick to Neon's original rules, which was a really good idea! what was it, ten years ago? And then I'll get to that other thing.

I live in Syracuse, New York.

I'm proud of:

Tom Cruise


Bobcat Goldthwait


Rod Serling


They were all born here ( no one stays for long )

The first projected film in America was shown here:

"America's very first display of a projected
film image was arguably in Syracuse. Eugene Lauste ran a 12-minute
movie on March 28, 1896, in the Everson Building, 110 S. Salina St., 26
days before Thomas Edison's first such demonstration as the concluding
act of a vaudeville show in New York City on April 23."

I read it in a book. Look it up. (scroll down) Believe it or not.

Stuff that bugs Me:



all we're known for is our dumb basketball team




snow




Onondaga lake is the most polluted in the U.S.


Honorable mentions:


Rory Cochrane



Dylan Baker



Richard Gere



and lastly, the real reason I came here was to show you this




and ask...WTF Sweden? I need to get some perspective on this, there's got to SOME kind of explanation. I wanna know.






Robyn

That's just how we swedes eat cakes. It's a tradition.

Robyn

I am from Sunsvall, Sweden.

We have:



And the man on the right in this video:



Yes, all of our news anchors are this drunk on TV.

72teeth

That cake is a great prank pulled on a buncha white socialites by a black artist, it's grusome and ugly and they all happily ate it up... kudos Makode Aj Linde

http://www.vice.com/read/holy-shit-that-cake-is-racist?utm_source=vicefb

Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

72teeth

Geez! And speaking of Racist Cakes, the top of this page makes me look like a total Racistcake! Thanks Pete!

Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

Reel

^ Haha

Well, thanks for sort of clearing that up. Fuckin' Swedes... I still have room in my heart for you.