The Backlash Begins

An excerpt from Rolling Stone - (bold is mine)

What Colin Kaepernick's National Anthem Protest Tells Us About America
When black athletes choose to point their aggression towards larger, systematic inequalities, there's always backlash  By Morgan Jerkins

While black men only make up six percent of the American population, they comprise a staggering seventy percent of NFL rosters. However, their power is mainly found on the field, since there are currently no African-Americans who are a majority owner of any team and no African-American CEOs or Presidents. The majority of NFL players are black, while the NFL fan base is 83 percent white and 64 percent male. These are people who pay staggering amounts of money to watch black men who have their bodies battered on the field. As long as they run and tackle, keep their helmets on, and their mouths shut, then they are acceptable to the white mainstream public. However, when black athletes choose to point their aggression not towards each other but to larger, systematic inequalities, that's when the backlash begins.

White 49ers fans posted videos burning Kaepernick's jersey and actor Chris Meloni took to Twitter to criticize Kaepernick’s method of political protest, because, as the Law & Order: SVU star saw it, the quarterback was disrespecting the American flag (Meloni later deleted the tweet). People swarmed social media, calling Kaepernick a disgrace, that he was a privileged rich athlete, that he was equally arrogant and ignorant to the sacrifices of American soldiers. And it all had a familiar ring to it.

This outcry is reminiscent of Muhammad Ali's political activism when he refused to enlist in the Vietnam War in 1967. David Susskind, an American television host, said, "I find nothing amusing or interesting or tolerable about this man. He's a disgrace to his country, his race, and what he laughingly describes as his profession." The man that today we call "The Greatest" was ridiculed all across the country and media. "My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America," he said. "And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. … Shoot them for what?" What Kaepernick and Ali as black athletes unleash through their political activism is a rupture in what is expected of them and how their allegiance to this country has never been rightfully earned.

Toni Morrison once said, "In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate." Kaepernick's protest, just as Ali's refusal to participate in the Vietnam War, tapped into an entrenched, historical fear of race in this country, that blackness is by default anti-American.

http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/colin-kaepernicks-national-anthem-protest-w436704?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=daily&utm_campaign=082916_12

Standing Up By Sitting Down

An excerpt from the Intercept - H/T Ben

Colin Kaepernick Is Righter Than You Know: The National Anthem Is a Celebration of Slavery  By Jon Schwarz

BEFORE A PRESEASON GAME on Friday, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” When he explained why, he only spoke about the present: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. … There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Twitter then went predictably nuts, with at least one 49ers fan burning Kaepernick’s jersey.

Almost no one seems to be aware that even if the U.S. were a perfect country today, it would be bizarre to expect African-American players to stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Why? Because it literally celebrates the murder of African-Americans.

Few people know this because we only ever sing the first verse. But read the end of the third verse and you’ll see why “The Star-Spangled Banner” is not just a musical atrocity, it’s an intellectual and moral one, too:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

~~~~~~~~~~

So when Key penned “No refuge could save the hireling and slave / From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,” he was taking great satisfaction in the death of slaves who’d freed themselves. His perspective may have been affected by the fact he owned several slaves himself.

~~~~~~~~~~

https://theintercept.com/2016/08/28/colin-kaepernick-is-righter-than-you-know-the-national-anthem-is-a-celebration-of-slavery/

Applying for Housing

Barbra Streisand with Jamie Foxx - Climb Ev'ry Mountain

The "natural" label on your food is baloney

Salary Needed

From the Huffington Post -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/income-to-buy-home_us_57bca543e4b03d51368b32d0?section=

Blistering Critique

From the Root -

Mr. Church: Just Another Film About a Black Man Being a White Woman’s Servant
This country has a fetish for black male subservience that translates into beloved, subservient characters on-screen.   BY: KIRSTEN WEST SAVALI




And just like The Help—in which the white woman, who is firmly centered even as the black person drives the story, ends up writing a book and profiting from the labor of black people—in Mr. Church, the white woman is dependent, emotionally and financially, upon that black labor for her survival.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with black people being cooks, chauffeurs, doormen and maids. Black people are experts at finding a way or making one. And this is not about respectability politics and needing to see ourselves fully assimilated into a white supremacist capitalist power structure that forces people to value themselves by how many zeros are on their paychecks.


This is about liberal white fantasies of saving black people from themselves even as white people are served and saved by those very same black people. It is also in keeping with the constant barrage of imagery that reinforces the power dynamic that black people are a perpetual servant class with conditional access to society. Rule No. 1: Appear as nonthreatening as possible. This is what springs from the minds of white creatives far too often—the idea of black men as invisible men used for protection, under no assumptions or expectations of equity.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/08/eddie-murphy-mr-church/

Welcome to the 4th Grade - Dwayne Reed

Rap Redemption?

An excerpt from the New Republic -

Hip-Hop Hymnals
Why are rappers like Kanye West, Chance the Rapper, and Kendrick Lamar finding religion?
BY FRANK GUAN

Often imitated, West now has actual disciples. Chance’s own mixtape, Coloring Book, is a match for Pablo in its holy righteousness; meanwhile the West Coast virtuoso Kendrick Lamar, who includes West among his myriad influences, explores sin and redemption on his recent albums. Listen to these three together and a striking trend emerges: Some of the most prominent and critically acclaimed artists in rap are finding religion. At first glance, this could be mistaken for a conservative shift, a retreat into otherworldly rectitude within an art form known for its realism and insolence. But these artists are also at the forefront of the ongoing revival of explicitly political hip hop—and in the context of Black Lives Matter, the religious themes in West, Chance, and Lamar take on a radical edge.

https://newrepublic.com/article/135723/hip-hop-hymnals?utm_source=New+Republic&utm_campaign=61279f778f-Daily_Newsletter_8_26_168_26_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c4ad0aba7e-61279f778f-59581889

Ben's Work

http://www.theicct.org/blogs/staff/big-win-win-on-big-trucks

Quote

From the Atlantic -

“Oh shit, I might’ve started a church.” 

—what Jodi Houge, a Lutheran pastor, said when people began attending her weekly services in a coffee shop

Why you shouldn’t drive slowly in the left lane

Floyd Norman: An Animated Life (2016)

Today's Best Quote

Excerpts from the AP -

Naked Donald Trump statues pop up in cities across the US

Life-size naked statues of the Republican presidential nominee greeted passers-by in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Cleveland on Thursday. They are the brainchild of an activist collective called INDECLINE, which has spoken out against Trump before.

~~~~~~~~~~

A statue in New York's Union Square quickly drew the attention of people, many of whom posed for photographs with it, before it was removed by the city's parks department.

"NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small," parks spokesman Sam Biederman joked.

Great Lesson

That parents need to learn, although some are not happy about it.

http://www.newser.com/story/229853/parents-are-fuming-over-schools-tough-love-policy.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=usatoday&utm_campaign=syn

Which is More Damaging?

An excerpt from the Huffington Post -

White Male Privilege Is Why We Laugh At Lochte And Vilify Douglas
Pay close attention to the words being used to describe them.  By Emma Gray

Gymnast Gabby Douglas “disrespected” her entire country by not putting her hand on her heart and smiling enough during the Olympics. Swimmer Ryan Lochte is a “kid” who deserves “a break” for allegedly destroying property and lying about a traumatic robbery.

If you were wondering what white, male privilege looks like, this is it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ryan-lochte-gabby-douglas-and-white-male-privilege-in-action_us_57b5e76de4b034dc73262f93?section=&

Donate Your Body

An excerpt from  the AP -

Body donations on the rise at US medical schools

By COLLIN BINKLEY

Many U.S. medical schools are seeing a surge in the number of people leaving their bodies to science, a trend attributed to rising funeral costs and growing acceptance of a practice long seen by some as ghoulish.

The increase has been a boon to medical students and researchers, who dissect cadavers in anatomy class or use them to practice surgical techniques or test new devices and procedures.

"Not too long ago, it was taboo. Now we have thousands of registered donors," said Mark Zavoyna, operations manager for Georgetown University's body donation program.

The University of Minnesota said it received more than 550 cadavers last year, up from 170 in 2002. The University at Buffalo got almost 600 last year, a doubling over the past decade. Others that reported increases include Duke University, the University of Arizona and state agencies in Maryland and Virginia. ScienceCare, a national tissue bank, now receives 5,000 cadavers a year, twice as many as in 2010.

http://bigstory.ap.org/f99bacafa4a04086bbe99de029aa710f

http://www.biogift.org/body-donation-process.php

Hidden Figures | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX

Got a Pest Problem? Call the Quack Squad

Why It Matters

An excerpt from the Washington Post -

The significance of Simone Manuel’s swim is clear if you know Jim Crow

There is a reason why 70 percent of black teenagers, like those who died in Shreveport, and 60 percent of Hispanic teenagers can’t swim.

But it isn’t due to some genetic disorder, as some actually believe. It is because of abject irrational racism and Jim Crow and its vestiges.

It is rooted in complete ignorance that somehow the melanin from our skin could wash off, contaminate the water and infect any whites nearby. It is anchored to this country’s historical racial sexual hysteria, an unfounded fear of placing less-clad white women in too-close and contained proximity with black men considered innately lascivious, particularly when it comes to white women.

It can be heard in the scream of the segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina in 1948: “I want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there’s not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theatres into our swimming pools into our homes and into our churches.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/the-significance-of-simone-manuels-swim-is-clear-if-you-know-jim-crowe/2016/08/12/870e3bb6-60ad-11e6-af8e-54aa2e849447_story.html?wpisrc=nl_most-draw7&wpmm=1