24: Sean Taylor

The death of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor was a tragic event. Taylor was one of the best safeties in the NFL, and one of the fiercest hitters in the games history. For those who have not heard the story, Taylor was shot in the bedroom of his Miami home in an attempted robbery, while his girlfriend and 18 month old daughter hid under the covers. He was only 24 years old. Taylor's death presents an opportunity to discuss the fact that the number one cause of death for Black men between the ages of 18 and 31 is gun violence. This topic deserves the proper respect and I will not write thoroughly on the topic until I can give the subject that respect. Until then read the column of Micheal Wilbon of the Washington Post. While I do not agree with Wilbon's decision to acknowledge Taylor's past, he brings an interesting prospective to the dialogue.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/27/AR2007112702680.html?nav%3Dhcmodule&sub=AR

In A Nut Shell: The Lions Season

I do have interest other than civil rights, and black culture. I have been a Detroit Lions fan for as long as I can remember and today's game versus the Giants represented the assumed potential and the actual reality of the team. In one game, you could see the every emotion a Lions fan has had in recent years.
Down 16-3 in the fourth quarter, Kitna throwing two interceptions, we had written the game off. We turned the channel. We left the stands. But then we glanced just to see...To see that the Lions had the ball with under eight minutes left. So we watched, hoping but believing that this drive would end up just like all the preceding drives. Then to our astonishment, they scored. Thirty-five yard snag to rookie Calvin Johnson. But we still didn't believe. The Giants had the ball late in the fourth, score 10-16. We watched, just to see if the defense could actually get a three and out. We didn't know what to do with ourselves when the defense did just that. So we leaned in a little closer to the television, went back to our seats, and hoped, still pessimistic about a fourth quarter comeback.
So here we are, the fourth quarter...not willing to let ourselves believe that this win could happen, and after a few completions Kitna goes deep to Shaun McDonald. Why Jon, why throw a lob to your shortest reciever? Now we feel vindicated, because knew that they couldn't come back. But we feel cheated because we thought they could do it in the first place. Less than two minutes left, surely the defense will give up a first down so that I can turn the channel, so that I can beat the traffic out of Ford Field. HA HA, they don't. Just to make us watch til the bitter end the defense comes through and gives Kit and the O the ball back.
So here we are, fourth quarter, less than two minutes left...still not believing, not allowing ourselves to believe. After a Backus false start we think to ourselves, "That's it, too big of a hole, not enough time." Then the unthinkable happens. Kitna throws a long completion to McDonald that gets the O into Giants territory. This is when we start to think...Maybe we can, maybe we can do this. Maybe we are a legitimate team. Maybe we are a playoff contender. Maybe Matt Millen has come through as an executive. In the fifteen minutes of the fourth quarter we have been through all the ups and downs of being a Lions fan. Right now we are up, way up. We're already thinking ahead to Thursday...because if we win this game we will have a chance to get a part of the division lead with another win against the Packers.
Here we are in Giants territory with under a minute left, down by six and we are believing. You could hear the entire state holding its breath, waiting to exhale in celebration. Our hearts are pounding, our eyes wired, and our minds wondering. Just as we are all struggling to find space on the Lions ban wagon, McDonald bobbles a pass that ends up being intercepted. So we sit on sofas gasped, and exit Ford Field with an itch of dissatisfaction, asking ourselves when this roller coaster will ever see us on top.

The Totality Of The Storm: A Critque of the Modern Day Civil Rights Narrative

Have you ever marveled at a storm? What is so invigorating about weather’s roar? For is it the site of screeching lightning, the blusterous sound of violent thunder, or the darkness cast by immense storm clouds? Perhaps the most stimulating aspect of a storm is the eerie pleasantness of the purple overcast that can engulf a stormy sky. To single out any one of these aspects that makes a storm amazing is to disrespect the other aspects. It is the totality of a storm that makes it truly amazing. Now let us compare the storm to the modern day narrative of the Civil Rights Movement. For if we examine the modern day narrative of the Civil Rights Movement as it is written in today’s elementary, middle, and high school text books, we will find that the Civil Rights Movement has been glanced over in an account of Dr. Martin Luther King’s life, or in a paragraph description of the Brown v. Board of Education victory. The modern narrative of the Civil Rights Movement respects only a few key figures, and fewer key events. While the novel of American history has been scripted with a vast amount of characters, events, ideologies and “isms” (such as Hamiltonianism and Jeffersonianism), the Civil Rights narrative has been confined to the short story of Black history, and warrants discussion only in the month of February (Sharpe 10/29/07). What Dr. Bruce Dierenfield and Dr. Clayborne Carson’s work does is give proper respect to the vastness of the Civil Rights Movement. Their work sheds the misconception of a monolithic movement and marvels at the totality of the storm.
In order to have the necessary conditions for a storm the proper elements must be in the proper place at the proper time. In more literal terms a storm needs opposing forces such as a warm front and a cold front to come together. The modern day narrative of the Civil Rights Movement does not respect all the elements of the movement. This narrative, which holds Dr. King at its peak, does not acknowledge the opposing elements that did not fall into Dr. King’s non-violent philosophy. Such opposition can be witnessed in Dr. King’s and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s migration to Chicago, to fight discrimination in the North. Having traveled to Chicago after the Los Angeles Watts riots of 1965, Dr. King tried to bring the exploitive nature of Northern discrimination to the forefront. Negotiating with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Dr. King attempted to establish fair housing and economic opportunities for the city’s African-American population. After coming to an “agreement” in the negotiations with Mayor Daley, as a show of good faith Dr. King called off a march into notoriously racist Cicero, Illinois. As Dr. Carson’s Eyes on the Prize explains not everyone agreed with Dr. King’s calling off of the march. Cicero, Illinois was the Northern version of the South’s Selma, Alabama and many people believed not marching would be to acquiesce to white authority. An excerpt from an interview with Chicago native Linda Bryant Hall documented in Eyes on the Prize describes the sentiment of many Chicago African-Americans.
When he called off the march, we were surprised; we were shocked. This is the march we looked forward to. The other marches were nice. But the one in Cicero had special meaning for us. The Cicero community has been a very hostile community to blacks for years, ever since I can remember (Carson 313).

Unlike the modern day narrative of the Civil Rights Movement, the Eyes on the Prize interview gives a perception opposing that of Dr. King’s. This is not the only circumstance in which there has been internal disagreement amongst participates of the Civil Rights Movement. Again, in order for the Civil Rights Movement to gain its proper respect, there needs to be a diversification of the public dialogue concerning the movement.
It is not the intent of this essay to discredit any of the accomplishments of Dr. King. Rather, it is my intent to show that the Civil Rights Movement had several key players, many key events, and contrasting perceptions on how to protest American hypocrisy. There are endless accounts of bravery that get lost in the modern day Civil Rights narrative including James Meredith’s enrollment into the hatred he encountered at the University of Mississippi (Dierenfield 69), CORE, SNCC, and other civil rights groups tireless efforts to get southern African-Americans to vote (Carson 180-186/ Dierenfield 85-120), and numerous others. All of these efforts were needed to get the point we find ourselves today. For without the public outcry of Emmett Till who was savagely beaten to death for whistling at a white woman, perhaps we would have even more Amadu Dialos, who was an unarmed man shot forty-one times by plain closes officers of the NYPD. Everything is interconnected but the modern day Civil Rights narrative does not respect this.
Part of the Civil Rights Movement that is almost never recognized is the brutality, insanity and backwardness of many southern whites. In countless excerpts Dr. Dierenfield’s work portrays the persona of southern whites with an unprecedented honesty. In documenting the Freedom Rides, Dr. Dierenfield notes the barbarity of whites adamant about maintaining the existence of segregation. The Freedom Rides which “…would test the compliance with a court decision [Morgan v. Virginia and Boynton v. Virginia] by sending an interracial group traveling through southern cities (Dierenfield 62)” were subjected to numerous accounts of violent resistance. The most violent resistance occurred while the trip ventured through Alabama. As the bus stopped in Anniston, Alabama a mob of about two hundred “…surrounded the bus, dented the sides, smashed the windows, and slashed the tires (62).” The modern day Civil Rights narrative does not admit this atrocious behavior. For if it did the narrative would have to admit that the this angry mob not only set fire to a bus with people on it, it would have to admit that the mob also sought to burn down the hospital in which these victims were seeking medical attention. Perhaps this part of the narrative is hidden because “[i]t is not natural for one to wish death upon other, no matter what the circumstances (Sharpe 10/22/07).” With many believing, in pre-Reconstruction, that slaves were too barbaric to be freed or to govern themselves, this atrocious behavior contradicts the notion that whites are superior intellects.
I don’t think we realize how vast the history of the Civil Rights Movement actually is. We may study how Thurgood Marshall won the monumental Brown v. Board of Education case, but we do not recognize that the Brown decision was built on precedents argued by Marshall’s mentor Charles Hamilton Houston. The Civil Rights narrative may recognize the non-violent ideology of Dr. King, but the narrative does not recognize more militant ideologies of Malcolm X and Stokley Carmichael. I bring up these issues in the modern day narrative of the Civil Rights Movement because the narrative implies that the Brown victory could exist without Charles Houston, or that Dr. King could exist without Malcolm X or Carmichael. This just simply isn’t true. The narrative of American history does not assume that America’s independence could be accomplished without Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, or George Washington. The American history narrative does not mention the Civil War without a discussion of the Emancipation Proclamation. The same respect needs to be given to the Civil Rights Movement by diversifying the discussion of it.
It is ironic that I am writing a paper about the narrowness of the modern day Civil Right narrative. For this essay does absolutely nothing to correct this ignorance in American history. I have mentioned just a few points that are neglected in the public dialogue but it should be recognized that there are countless others. It should also be recognized that while Dr. Dierenfield’s and Dr. Carson’s work diversifies the narrative of the Civil Rights Movement there are still stories untold. It is more than likely that there are men, women and children that were beaten and lynched whose stories have not been told, whose offenders have not and will not be brought to justice. It is more than likely that there was a brave man that stood up to the intimidation of the Ku Klux Klan whose testimony we will never hear. To give respect to the untold narrative of the Civil Rights Movement we need to recognize that the movement did not start when Rosa Park took a seat. To give respect to the untold narrative of the Civil Rights Movement we need to recognize that movement was not birthed nor did it die with the life of Dr. King. I pray that the work of Dr. Dierenfield and Dr. Carson prevent us from falling into the trap of American history that gives little acknowledgement to the totality of the Civil Rights Movement. I pray that we recognize that the storm that was the Civil Rights Movement had many elements. I pray that we recognize the totality of the storm.

Works Cited

Carson, Clayborne. “Interview with Linda Bryant Hall.” The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader. New York: Penguin Group. 1998

Dierenfield, Bruce J. The Civil Rights Movement. New York: Person Longman. 2004

When The Sun Comes Back

This morning I saw the sun rise.
This evening I saw the sun set,
Yet I bet when it comes back ill still be Black.
Nigga do you want to bet,
That when it comes back…
White Folks will tell me that racism is dead,
And if you know differently, you must be on crack.
“Why can’t we say nigger?”
BITCH CAUSE YOUR NOT BLACK
Not that I condone the word,
It just that it represents the fact that our ignorance is still intact.
You feel me? …No?
Damn
Well if Nelly can have a tip drills,
And Luda can have “pros,”
Then I guess
Imus was just jokin with those
“Nappy-headed hoes”……..
But when he wakes up
He’ll still be White
And I’ll still be Black
And it may not be tomorrow,
But one day when the sun comes back…
Imus will be making some dollars
And proposal 2 will have me screamin and hollerin
Damn, I bet when the sun come back
I’ll still be Black.

Just Add Water

Just Add Hot Water

You want to be a Nigga?
Ok, just add hot water.
Want to be an ignorant ass Nigga?
Add hot water and stir.
You want to be a Nigga that’s a dead-beat dad?
Just, remove cover and eat. Serves 1.
You want a lustrous career as cook at Mckie D’s?
Just place in microwave oven on high for 2 minutes.
You wanna be a Nigga that slangs rocks?
Get a small jar with about a 1/3 cup of water, and a least a gram of coke.
Add an equal amount of baking soda and stir.
Bring water to a boil, then gently stir as water cools.
Eventually a solid substance will form and fall to the bottom of the jar.
Lastly, add police, prison, or death to complete your recipe.
You want be Black Person?
Add 4 cups of flour, 2 eggs, 2 cups of milk, stick butter, a ¼ cup brown sugar, an education, a goal, a vision, determination, a teaspoon of lemon extract, and just a pinch of paprika into a large mixing bowl.
Stir until thoroughly mixed.
Grease a large pan with people that will push you, and not encourage complacence.
Add a tea spoon of yeast to ensure that your dough rises to the top.
Place in oven on 375 degrees, for your whole life.

To Be Free

If the life of freedom, equality, and prosperity were a race then African-Americans have been playing catch up since coming to this mighty and glorious nation. May it be noted that the terms are woven and intertwined amongst each other, freedom, equality, and prosperity. For what is one, without the accompaniment of the other? Can one have freedom without equality? Can one experience prosperity without the freedom to achieve it? Is one equal if he can only suffer in poverty, and never be comforted in the wealth of his peers? The Emancipation Proclamation, The Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution were promises to African-Americans to know the full meaning of these words. After being “freed” by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, slaves continued to be so because they were yet to be understood as equals, and could not experience prosperity.
It is important to understand the definition of equality as it used in the introduction. Among other aspects, equality for freed slaves in the mid and late 1800’s would require a rescinding the Jeffersonian ideology that clung to the race for so many years, more than an unshackling of chains. Equality for African-Americans would require more than equal protection of the laws, an Emancipation Proclamation or any other government provision. Equality would require a restoration of human dignity for African-American people, a truth that slaves were as human as there white masters. African-Americans could not be truly liberated without both a self and societal realization of this fact. Although Lincoln’s Emancipation proclamation freed slaves in southern states it did not acknowledge the truth of African-American’s humanity. It is one matter to grant freedom, it is an entirely different matter to declare that freedom is deserved.
For me, this acknowledgement of humanity is imperative for the true liberation of enslaved blacks. With this I do not intend to contradict Fredrick Douglas’s argument that society has already conceded this point. “But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued…On what branch of the subject do people of this country need light?” Rather, I am trying to say that there needed to be a more extensive attack on the Jeffersonian ideology. It is this mind set that opened the door for pre-eighteenth and nineteenth century slavery, twentieth century segregation, and twenty-first century discrimination. Without recognizing this major flaw in the American psyche the attack on the Declaration of Independence and other documents as racist is baseless. It must first be established that blacks are human beings, just as deserved of their freedom as white counterparts, before society can ever believe their rights are justified. For these reasons I cannot attack the text of the Declaration of Independence. The text itself is a beautiful example of political action. I reserve my criticisms for the writers and the hypocritical society behind the document that fail to recognize that blacks deserved the same promises. An average eighteenth century white American would not believe that blacks deserved the extension of the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. The hypocrisy of this argument must be attacked as Douglas did in 1852.
The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.
Douglas speaks of exposing the hypocrisy of the nation. The nation cannot see the hypocrisy in their sins until it is revealed that they are committing them.

It is the Jeffersonian ideology that crippled the attempt to extend democratic ideals to black Americans. Government could never protect the interest of blacks because they were not viewed as full citizens. An American citizen, as Presidential Reconstruction explains, was a person with white skin. It is with this thinking that a government can allow the Compromise of 1877, Black Codes, sharecropping and other atrocities that blatantly hindered the growth of democracy to African-Americans. The Emancipation Proclamation only legally tabooed the slave-master relationship, but it did not remove blacks from oppression. The Declaration of Independence declares that men have the unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The Emancipation Proclamation did not open African-Americans to these rights.
Now I have criticized Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation in class and will now expound upon these criticisms. One of my issues with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation is that it freed slaves only in those states that were in rebellion against the Union, and not the Union in its entirety. This is proclamation that can be enforced only through marshal law, and there is no freedom in martial law. To be free is nothing but to be free. What were the slaves free to do? Could a newly freed slave vote, buy land, or shop at the local grocery store? In addition to these criticisms I find that Lincoln’s call to African-Americans to “garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places…” to possibly be yet another slight to African-Americans. I question, is this a call for African-Americans to fight side by side with Northern soldiers or is it a call to hire help in cafeteria’s and kitchens of Northern forts? I cannot help but question Lincoln’s motives when I read his Second Inaugural Address, that the North “claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of [slavery]”. Is it wrong to find through this statement that the North’s original intent had nothing to do with the actual abolition of slavery? I struggle with Lincoln when I read the speech before his death, in his addressing Louisiana.
We encourage the hearts, and nerve the arms of the twelve thousand to adhere to their work, and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The colored man too, in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance, and energy, and daring, to the same end.
Is it wrong to interpret this statement as Lincoln urging both white and black Louisianans to fight for their interests? Are not the interest of the white Louisianan and black Louisianan conflicting interests? I cannot help but to question if Lincoln was a coward (which is too strong a word), or another American hypocrite. I come to this question because I am left with so many questions of Lincoln’s motives. Although I often criticize the incumbent president, I do not believe I could ever characterize him as a coward, or question his courage.
It is ironic that the hypocrisy of the nation, the broken promises, and the text of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution became logs in the fire that was the Civil Rights Movement. Most would argue that the Civil Rights Movement was a movement aimed at abolishing racial discrimination, but I contest that the Civil Rights Movement was a mirror showing the ugly reflection of America. I believe it is at this point where the humanity of African-Americans was realized, where the “conscience of the nation was roused.” The Civil Rights Movement needed American hypocrisy to survive. Without the text Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Gen. William Sherman’s promise this hypocrisy would not exist. Yes, it is ironic that these documents written by our forefathers, some of whom were slave owners, have been the lynchpin in African-American’s journey for “actual freedom”.
The question, “how did blacks internalize these broken promises?” is question that deserves an essay all to itself. It is a question that can be answered for blacks during the Reconstruction period, as it can be answered for blacks today. The effect of such hindrances has been deeply embedded into African-American culture. You can find t-shirts reading, “Still Waitin’ On My 40 Acres”, mocking Gen. Sherman’s promise, but the devastating effects of the degradation to blacks humanity can be witnessed beyond fashion. There is no doubt that sufficiently lower literacy rate, high incarceration rate, rampant poverty, poor education, etc in the black community can be somewhat attributed to the sufferings of ancestors. Blacks internalized these broken promises with not voting becoming a cultural norm. Blacks internalized these broken promises with high school dropouts becoming a cultural norm. Blacks internalized these broken promises many facets of black culture.
It seems as if the only solution, the only scenario where African-Americans could have experienced a “true liberation” and “actual freedom” after the Emancipation Proclamation is a scenario in which the Civil Rights Movement takes place in 1863. Granted this notion is silly because this chance is impossible. The black community hadn’t yet the tools needed for revolution, but it would take African-Americans to fight for the liberation of African-Americans. It was at this point, the period of the Civil Rights Movement, where African-Americans felt empowered, educated, and were organized enough to stand up to the United States Government. Not to insinuate that Lincoln should have been a Civil Rights activist, but a restructuring of the Emancipation Proclamation that lays the ground for African-Americans to acquire education and a means for supporting themselves may have resulted the bulk of the Civil Rights movement occurring a decade or two earlier.
To be free is nothing but to be free, if it is not accompanied by equality and the opportunity for prosperity. This is why the freedom given to slaves in 1863 was somewhat hollow. I am I hypocrite for this statement, to say freedom without these other facets is hollow? Would I’ve rather Lincoln not pass the Emancipation Proclamation? Certainly not. These questions are absurd. It could never be hypocritical to ask for freedom as it described in the Constitution, as it is described in the Declaration of Independence. It can never be hypocritical to want “actual freedom.”

All About Will B. Champion

Hello,

This is Will B. Champion. I decided i'd give this thing blogging thing a shot. What a great way to add to the public dialogue. I decided to start a blogg to organize my thoughts. I love to debate and I add interesting points, however I often loose my original point somewhere in my arguement. So i will attempt to use this blogg to make a point, and support it thoroughly with sufficient evidence. In doing this i hope to spark conversation and opposing and differentiating opinions. My ulimate goal is intellectual growth, but we'll see what happens.


Thanks


Will B. Champion