Evolution and Expressions of Racism – BLS1003Gaunt

Justice On Trial Movie: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal will be shown in NYC again on Fri Nov 12 at 8pm at The Solidarity Center, 55 17th Street, 5th Floor. Please attend!! Matt, Jennifer, Kamylle and Kashma can tell you if its worth seeing. I HIGHLY recommend it. Learn about the injustices of our justice system and why you need to support him getting a retrial. The decision to finally execute him may happen on Nov 12 in Philadelphia. There is an important trial date for his supporters.

If you cannot see the film, at the very least Google “Mumia Abu-Jamal” and make yourself familiar with what is an international movement of scholars, activists and students for Mumia.

“People who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are. That man who is forced each day to snatch his manhood, his identity, out of the fire of human cruelty that rages to destroy it knows, if he survives his effort, and even if he does not survive it, something about himself and human life that no school on earth – and, indeed, no church – can teach. He achieves his own authority, and that is unshakable. […] It demands great spiritual resistance not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate.” (98-99)

James Baldwin passed away from this earth on November 30, 1987, 23 years ago. This would be a great launch date for our ebook. We will use Scribd.com as I have in the past with another student ebook SPEAK!

We return to our readings next week, the week of Nov 8th. Start reading James Baldwin’s book THE FIRE NEXT TIME if you did not as I requested earlier this term. Discussion starts on Thu Nov 11.

Be sure you have purchased it this weekend OR if you have an iPhone, iPod, Android, or Blackberry download the audiobook of, THE FIRE NEXT TIME on iTunes.

If you have never submitted a draft to me, do this NOW! So I can give you feedback by Tue.

After witnessing the Without Sanctuary photos and postcards, I was left with a sorrowful feeling. In the African-American tradition, that’s a time for either the blues (to stomp away the blues) or a spiritual. Bernice Johnson Reagon came up in the Albany Singing Movement in Georgia among students just like you who led the Civil Rights Protests. Spirituals became songs of protest and Bernice still uses them as a form of intervention in the human spirit.

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Take a look and continue the conversation about any of the videos we watched today 7 Sep 2010 in class including the Tim Wise video, the animated video on the History of the USA by Michael Moore and the creators of South Park, or the Charlie Chan piece we heard from NPR’s Morning Edition (7 Sep 2010).