The Big Isms

Oh, and that isn’t all. This self-absorbed, egomaniacal, arrogant, bag of Cheetos vomit even toyed with the idea of giving himself the Medal of Freedom.
At 417 pages, A Very Stable Genius explores Trump’s disastrous first three years in office and includes such hits as “What the fuck am I doing?” and “When can I meet Putin?” Even the title of the book is a narcissistic noodle from Trump’s own mouth, as he literally called himself a very stable genius. According to the Post, which received an early copy of the book that’s scheduled to be released TODAY, Trump has no clue what the fuck he’s doing, and much like a child who’s been promised to meet the driver of the Oscar Mayer hotdog car, early on, Trump pushed through meetings and normal presidential stuff so that he could get to the good part: Boo loving with Russian president Vladimir Putin—or as Trump calls him, “Zaddy.”
Source: New Book Sheds Light on Trump's Dark Mind

++comment on The Root:
The excerpt from this book tha…

Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner has filed a federal lawsuit through the Ku Klux Klan Act, alleging a civil rights conspiracy at the hands of a lengthy list of entities: the City of St. Louis, the St. Louis Police Officers Association (SLPOA), the police union’s spokesman Jeffrey Roorda, retired police officer Charles Lane, Special Prosecutor Gerard Carmody, and his children and employees Patrick Carmody and Ryann Carmody.
Gardner alleges that her attempts to address St. Louis’ long history of racial inequality and prejudice in the criminal justice system have been met with a “broad campaign of collusive conduct” to get her out of office before she can implement her progressive agenda. This allegedly includes the “unprecedented appointment of a white, ethically-conflicted special prosecutor to investigate the activities of Gardner’s office and a patently overbroad and unconstitutional ransacking of the office’s electronic files.”
Source: Gardner files federal suit via Ku Klux Klan Act…

The History of The Idea of Race… and Why It Matterswww.understandingrace.org/resources/pdf/disease/smedley.pdf Race originated as a folk idea and ideology about human differences; it was a social invention, not a product of science. Historians have documented when, and to a great extent, how race as an ideology came into our culture and our consciousness. This is the story that I will briefly tell here. ** Is Race Just An Invention? - The Odyssey Onlinehttps://www.theodysseyonline.com/is-race-just-an-invention Could it be that the biggest problem in our country is completely made up? What a lot of people are not aware of is that "race" is an invention, not an actual concept. "Race" actually started off as a folk idea; the true meaning of the word in our society deals with social realities. ** TheInventionofthe White Race - Theodore W. Allen - Google ...https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Invention_of_the_White_Race.html?id=G4elgqb-MjwC TheInventionofthe White Race…

“The value in White Fragility lies in its methodical, irrefutable exposure of racism in thought and action, and its call for humility and vigilance.”
—The New Yorker

“[T]houghtful, instructive, and comprehensive . . . This slim book is impressive in its scope and complexity; DiAngelo provides a powerful lens for examining, and practical tools for grappling with, racism today.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“White Fragility is a book everyone should be exposed to. With any luck, most who are will be inspired to search themselves and interrupt their contributions to racism.”
—Shelf Awareness, Starred Review

“A valuable guide . . . While especially helpful for those new to the critical analysis of whiteness, this work also offers a useful refresher to anyone committed to the ongoing process of self-assessment and anti-oppression work.”
—Library Journal

“A penetrating new book.”
—Pacific Standard

“A vital, necessary, and beautiful book, a bracing call to white folk every…

We talk with Dr. Elizabeth McRae, author of Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy, about what her research tells us about contemporary school segregation -- and the hope her work gives for it’s dismantling.

LISTEN: Ep 11 - White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy | Integrated Schools

What A Line Deleted From the Declaration of Independence Teaches Us About Thomas Jeffersonby M. Andrew HolowchakCongress deleted the line to avoid tackling issue of slavery.  In his first draft of Declaration of Independence, Jefferson listed a “long train of abuses & usurpations,” at the hand of King George III.
 His hypocrisy aside, Jefferson is to be lauded for articulating his anti-slavery views in his draft of the document, even if the paragraph was axed.

Cécile Fromont talks about the circulation of African visual, material, and religious culture in the context of the Slave Trade within the early modern Atlantic world.  Professor Fromont’s writing and teaching focus on the visual, material, and religious culture of Africa and Latin America with a special emphasis on the early modern period and on the Portuguese-speaking Atlantic World. Her first book, The Art of Conversion: Christian Visual Culture in the Kingdom of Kongo won a number of awards. Her essays on African and Latin American art have appeared in Colonial Latin American Review, African Arts, RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, as well as various edited volumes and exhibition catalogues.  Learn more about Cécile Fromont.

The radical black newspaper that declared 'none are free unless all are free’
Kerri Greenidge, 3 January 2020, The Guardian



In 1901, William Monroe Trotter founded the Guardian newspaper in Boston. At that time, the more famous Guardian – the one you’re now reading – was published in Manchester, and Trotter had never traveled further than Chillicothe, Ohio. By the time he died in 1934, however, Trotter and the Boston Guardian had a similar effect on transnational black radical politics as the Manchester Guardian had on British liberalism.

Trotter’s vow that the Guardian “hold a mirror up to nature” invoked a black radical tradition rooted in 18th century transatlantic slave rebellion and the militant abolition of African diasporic communities throughout the Americas. The Manchester Guardian, in contrast, supported progressive racial reform of America’s so-called “negro problem” even as it adhered to a liberal tradition that diluted the radical “colored world democracy” t…

The New York Times‘ 1619 Project made waves this year, and it seems to resonated with a great deal of people. Recently a group of historians wrote a letter to the Times to refute some of the historical accuracy, and the letter, as well as the newspaper’s response, are worth your time to read. The newspaper’s response begins:Since The 1619 Project was published in August, we have received a great deal of feedback from readers, many of them educators, academics and historians. A majority have reacted positively to the project, but there have also been criticisms. Some I would describe as constructive, noting episodes we might have overlooked; others have treated the work more harshly. We are happy to accept all of this input, as it helps us continue to think deeply about the subject of slavery and its legacy. The letter from Professors Bynum, McPherson, Oakes, Wilentz and Wood differs from the previous critiques we have received in that it contains the first major request f…

Reblogged from AGR Daily News: Not Just Tulsa: Five Other Race Massacres That Devastated Black America | News | BET Despite some people claiming America was “great” for Black people seven years after the Civil War, Black men and women were being massacred in plain sight. One of the most horrific incidents -- at least, that we know of -- was April of 1873 in Colfax, Louisiana. Read more… 159 more words There were far more than five "race wars" against Blacks in the US. In addition to killing thousands of African Americans, they also leveled thriving Black communities (homes and businesses) to the ground: https://www.salon.com/2015/05/01/white_americas_racial_amnesia_the_sobering_truth_about_our_countrys_race_riots_partner/ Not Just Tulsa: Five Other Race Massacres That Devastated Black America | News | BETby stuartbramhall

'We loved each other': America’s first racially integrated all-girl swing band
Megan Mayhew Bergman, Monday 16, December 2019, The Guardian



Rosalind Cron is a vibrant 95-year-old in red lipstick. She stands 4ft 8in tall, and is the keeper of a beautiful, under-told story about America’s first racially integrated, all-girl swing band, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. She is one of two surviving Sweethearts in their 90s, and a lucid, bright storyteller.

She greeted me on an early December afternoon in her assisted living facility outside of Los Angeles, where she had made room for a piano and memorabilia.

The International Sweethearts broke attendance records at places such as Washington DC’s Howard Theatre, Harlem’s Apollo Theater, Cincinnati’s Cotton Club and the Riviera in St Louis. They played in the same venues as Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie, were considered some of the most talented musicians of their day and toured France and Germany as a USO act i…

$500 reward for Mariah, offered by H. F. Wade in The Daily Picayune. 1837. pic.twitter.com/YBnpdxGQus — Freedom On The Move (@fotmproject) January 29, 2018
On June 22, 1850, nine men and women, including TWO families, were imprisoned in Assumption Parish, Louisiana. The entire group had apparently escaped from the plantation. pic.twitter.com/xjvOk7oFob — Freedom On The Move (@fotmproject) December 2, 2019
Twitter account for http://freedomonthemove.org, a crowdsourced, comprehensive database that will eventually include all North American runaway slave ads.

'The Slaves Dread New Year's Day the Worst': The Grim History of January 1
Olivia B. Waxman, December 27, 2019, Time



Americans are likely to think of New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day as a time to celebrate the fresh start that a new year represents, but there is also a troubling side to the holiday’s history. In the years before the Civil War, the first day of the new year was often a heartbreaking one for enslaved people in the United States.

In the African-American community, New Year’s Day used to be widely known as “Hiring Day” — or “Heartbreak Day,” as the African-American abolitionist journalist William Cooper Nell described it — because enslaved people spent New Year’s Eve waiting, wondering if their owners were going to rent them out to someone else, thus potentially splitting up their families. The renting out of slave labor was a relatively common practice in the antebellum South, and a profitable practice for white slave owners and hirers.

“‘Hiring D…