All children start off as 'gifted' and at risk! What diminishes these gifts are the lack of inspired teachers; classrooms that impose restrictions on who they are and what they learn; and parents who leave their children's potential and destiny to all of the above."
Michelle Brown-Stafford Parental Involvement Coach
Michelle Brown-Stafford is the African American woman whose son Stephen Stafford Jr entered university when he was 11 years old. Brown-Stafford and her husband Stephen Stafford Sr made the decision to withdraw their two children from the public school system and home school them. Brown-Stafford made the sacrifice with the support of her husband to leave her job and become the educator of her children. The family lived on the one income of Stafford senior, an electrical engineer to ensure that their children received the best possible education at home with mom as teacher. Today their 19 year old daughter Martinique Stafford who entered university at 17 is a member of Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society and their 15 year old son will graduate next year with a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in psychology (major) and computer science (minor) and then he is off to medical school (at a mere 16 years old!).
Brown-Stafford and her husband decided that home schooling was best for their children after losing confidence in the education system. This is not possible for all parents who may only have one income to begin with or need both parents’ incomes just to survive. Brown-Stafford has advice for parents who by necessity must have their children educated in the public school system. She urges parents to work with child’s teacher to identify if the child is an auditory, a visual or a kinesthetic learner. Kinesthetic learners learn best by moving their bodies, activating their large or small muscles as they learn. These are the "hands-on learners" or the "doers" who actually concentrate better and learn more easily when movement is involved. Some kinesthetic learners are mistakenly labelled “hyperactive.” It is very unfortunate that some educators who do not have the training or the dedication needed to work with children do more harm than good when working with kinesthetic learners. This is especially true when the kinesthetic learner is an African American or African Canadian male child. In a June 2010 interview published in the St Petersburg Times when explaining that Stephen was homeschooled more than his older sister Brown-Stafford is quoted: "We had to keep track of Stephen because he is an African-American male, and we didn't want to lose him and we didn't want him to become a statistic."
The Stafford family and other African Americans are not alone in their disenchantment with the education system. In 2006 British educator Ken Robinson spoke about the lack of diversity in the education system which leads to the misdiagnosing of some children who are kinesthetic learners and the stifling of their creativity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY.
Parents also have a role to play in the education of their children. Some of the activities in which parents can engage with their children include taking them to the library to borrow books (to read with and to them) and educational DVDs and encouraging them to play educational games. You can choose to turn off the television or limit the time spent watching television shows that are not educational. Have regular chats with your child's teacher about his or her progress and address any concerns before it becomes a big deal. Document any concerns you may have and questions that are not answered satisfactorily must be addressed in writing. When attending formal meetings have an advocate or support person to take notes. Volunteer at your child's school whether on a regular basis or for special occasions, attend Parent Council meetings as often as you can and run for office on the Council if you have the time to commit. You and your child need to know the names of any one who works with your child including the principal, vice principal, class room assistant and volunteers, office administrative assistant and caretaker.
We pay taxes to fund, among other things, education and health care so we should expect that the education our children receive is appropriate to their learning style. We should expect and demand that the education system works for us, to educate our children effectively. If the system does not serve us appropriately then we need to hold the politicians and educators accountable. Make this an election issue.
Michelle Brown-Stafford hosts a website at http://www.gifted-spirit.com/ where she shares the knowledge she has gained from successfully homeschooling her two children. She encourages parents to be involved in their children's education. Her advice and the knowledge she willingly shares is invaluable because both of her children have done well under her tutelage. Her son Stephen Stafford Jr. will graduate from Morehouse, the alma mater of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who entered Morehouse (one of the USAs 105 Historically Black Colleges and Universities HBCUs) as a 15 year old in 1944. On Sunday, August 28, the 48th anniversary of the March on Washington and his famous I Have A Dream speech King will be honoured when a monument is dedicated with a larger than life size sculpture of King. The memorial honouring King which includes the 9-metre-tall sculpture of King emerging from a 137-metre-long granite wall inscribed with 14 quotations from his speeches sits on the National Mall between memorials honouring Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. The monument is a fitting tribute to a man who dedicated his life to a worthy cause and lost his life in that struggle.
It is almost the end of the summer vacation and time spent away from formal education. What have you and your children been reading during the two month summer break? The summer is not over until after Word on the Street on Sunday September 25, 2011 at Queen's Park, from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm http://www.thewordonthestreet.ca/wots/toronto. It has been an amazing summer with glorious weather and many opportunities to visit festivals galore and learn about Toronto. Unfortunately there has not been much to learn about our history in this fast disappearing International Year of People of African Descent http://www.un.org/en/events/iypad2011/. However, not to despair we have the opportunity to educate the teachers in the schools our children attend when schools re-open on September 6. You still have about 10 days to either borrow books from the Toronto Public Library (TPL) about the history of Africans from the continent and the Diaspora or visit the bookstores and buy some books. Practice the 4th Kwanzaa principle Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) by buying your books from Accents on Eglinton, A Different Booklist, Nile Valley Books and any other bookstores whose owners support our community.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
SEPTEMBER 15, 1963 BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
The year I turned ten
I missed school to march with other children
For a seat at whites-only lunch counters
Like a junior choir, we chanted "We Shall Overcome."
Then, police loosed snarling dogs and fire hoses on us,
And buses carted us, nine hundred strong, to jail.
Excerpt from the poem Birmingham 1963 by Carole Boston Weatherford published 2007
On September 15, 1963 white American Christian terrorists bombed an African American Christian church, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham , Alabama . The bomb blast tore through the church basement killing four African children. The four African American girls whose bodies were shattered in that act of terrorism were Addie Mae Collins (1949-1963) Denise McNair (1951-1963) Carol Robertson (1949-1963) and Cynthia Wesley (1949-1963.) An estimated 22 other African Americans members of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church were injured in the bomb blast. It was Sunday morning and according to reports published at the time: At about 10:22 a.m., twenty-six children were walking into the basement assembly room to prepare for the sermon entitled “The Love That Forgives,” when the bomb exploded. This act of terrorism is considered one of the worst of the 20th century targeted at African Americans during the Civil Rights struggle. There were countless (many never made public) incidents of terrorism against African Americans including the massacre of African Americans in Tulsa , Oklahoma in 1921 (Black Wall Street) and Rosewood, Florida in 1923. Many were labeled “Race Riots” when in fact, in dreadful acts of terrorism, white people lynched African Americans, destroyed their businesses, churches, homes and schools in jealous rages that in spite of the oppression they suffered there were African American individuals and communities that managed to carve out contemporary successful existences.
When the terrorists are white Christians the religion of the perpetrators is ignored but every act of terrorism against African Americans has been carried out by white Christians. In some cases they are not recognized as acts of terrorism or the perpetrators identified as terrorists. However in the case of the September 15, 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham , Alabama even former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that incident and the bombing of African American businesses, churches and homes were acts of terrorism. Rice was an 8 year old living in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 at the time of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing and in her 2010 published book Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family writes of the several incidents of bombing in Birmingham, Alabama: As terrorists still do today, bombers exploded the first device in hopes a crowd would gather. They detonated the second bomb filled with shrapnel and nails – in order to injure as many innocent onlookers as possible.
September 15, 1963 was not the first bombing incident or act of terrorism by white Christians to which African Americans were subjected that year. In her 2007 published book Birmingham 1963 Carole Boston Weatherford explains: In the 1960s, Birmingham , Alabama was one of the most racially divided cities in the United States . While Civil Rights protesters pressed for equality and integration, the staunchest racists resorted to violence to resist change. Racists had set so many bombs in Birmingham ’s black neighborhoods that the city was nicknamed “Bombingham.”
White Christian Americans were desperate to keep African Americans in a place of second class citizenship in the country which was built on the blood, sweat and tears of enslaved Africans. So desperate that on Good Friday, April 12, 1963 Dr Martin Luther King and approximately 80 other African Americans were arrested for taking part in a peaceful protest. Dr. King wrote his famous Letter from a Birmingham jail while he was incarcerated in reply to a group of white religious leaders (7 pastors and 1 rabbi) who exhorted Dr King and all African Americans to continue to wait for their Human Rights and Civil Rights to be recognized by white Americans. The mass arrests on Good Friday led to the Children’s Crusade on May 2, 1963 where over 1,000 children (many as young as 6) gathered at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church before marching to downtown Birmingham. They were all arrested and hauled off to jail in police cars and school buses. On May 3, more African American children gathered and as they left the church Commissioner of Public Safety Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor directed the local police and fire departments to use massive force to stop them. The world saw the evil of white supremacy when images of African American children being blasted by high-pressure fire hoses, clubbed by police officers and attacked by police dogs appeared on television and in newspapers internationally http://www.crmvet.org/images/imgbham.htm. The scene was repeated on May 4 and on May 6 almost 2,500 youth were arrested. By then the children were being held at the state fairgrounds because the jails were full. On May 10 after 8 days of unrest an agreement was reached with the City of Birmingham to desegregate drinking fountains, lunch counters and restrooms within 90 days and to release those in jail on bond or their own recognizance. However that was an agreement with City officials, the good Christian white people of Birmingham refused to treat African Americans as their equal and the terrorist activities against African Americans continued.
For African American families and communities there was the added trauma of being forced to live beside these terrorists. In the case of the murder of the four children on September 15, 1963, the terrorists continued to live in Birmingham , Alabama and were not brought to justice until the 21st century. Since 1963 an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had identified four white Christians as the terrorists responsible for the bombing of the African American church and the murder of the four girls. Robert Chambliss, Herman Cash, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry continued to live in Birmingham , Alabama where the African American community was forced to deal with the fact that these terrorists walked among them daily as free men. In September 1963 a witness had identified Robert Chambliss as the man who placed the bomb at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. He was arrested and charged with murder and possessing a box of 122 sticks of dynamite without a permit. On October 8, 1963 Chambliss was found not guilty of murder and received a hundred-dollar fine and a six-month jail sentence for possession of dynamite. It was not until the 1970s that the case against Chambliss was reopened. The then recently elected attorney general of Alabama requested the original FBI files on the case and discovered that evidence against Chambliss that might have led to a conviction had not been used in the original trial. In November, 1977 Chambliss was tried once again for the September 15, 1963 bombing, was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. By the time the FBI got around to pursuing action against the other terrorists on 18 May 2000, only two were still alive. Cash was dead (1994) but Blanton and Cherry were arrested, tried and convicted (Blanton 2001 and Cherry 2002.) Cherry’s trial was delayed because he was deemed mentally incompetent. However according to This Day in Civil Rights History published 2009 “The evidence against him, including testimony from his own granddaughter, painted a picture of an unrepentant former Klansman who was a close associate of Chambliss and Blanton and was linked to the bombing.”
Why did it take almost four decades for these white Christian terrorists who devastated the African American community of Birmingham , Alabama on September 15, 1963 to be brought to justice? After all we have seen how quickly the American government can move against suspected terrorists in other countries peopled by racialized people who are not Christian.
I missed school to march with other children
For a seat at whites-only lunch counters
Like a junior choir, we chanted "We Shall Overcome."
Then, police loosed snarling dogs and fire hoses on us,
And buses carted us, nine hundred strong, to jail.
Excerpt from the poem Birmingham 1963 by Carole Boston Weatherford published 2007
On September 15, 1963 white American Christian terrorists bombed an African American Christian church, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham , Alabama . The bomb blast tore through the church basement killing four African children. The four African American girls whose bodies were shattered in that act of terrorism were Addie Mae Collins (1949-1963) Denise McNair (1951-1963) Carol Robertson (1949-1963) and Cynthia Wesley (1949-1963.) An estimated 22 other African Americans members of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church were injured in the bomb blast. It was Sunday morning and according to reports published at the time: At about 10:22 a.m., twenty-six children were walking into the basement assembly room to prepare for the sermon entitled “The Love That Forgives,” when the bomb exploded. This act of terrorism is considered one of the worst of the 20th century targeted at African Americans during the Civil Rights struggle. There were countless (many never made public) incidents of terrorism against African Americans including the massacre of African Americans in Tulsa , Oklahoma in 1921 (Black Wall Street) and Rosewood, Florida in 1923. Many were labeled “Race Riots” when in fact, in dreadful acts of terrorism, white people lynched African Americans, destroyed their businesses, churches, homes and schools in jealous rages that in spite of the oppression they suffered there were African American individuals and communities that managed to carve out contemporary successful existences.
When the terrorists are white Christians the religion of the perpetrators is ignored but every act of terrorism against African Americans has been carried out by white Christians. In some cases they are not recognized as acts of terrorism or the perpetrators identified as terrorists. However in the case of the September 15, 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham , Alabama even former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that incident and the bombing of African American businesses, churches and homes were acts of terrorism. Rice was an 8 year old living in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 at the time of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing and in her 2010 published book Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family writes of the several incidents of bombing in Birmingham, Alabama: As terrorists still do today, bombers exploded the first device in hopes a crowd would gather. They detonated the second bomb filled with shrapnel and nails – in order to injure as many innocent onlookers as possible.
September 15, 1963 was not the first bombing incident or act of terrorism by white Christians to which African Americans were subjected that year. In her 2007 published book Birmingham 1963 Carole Boston Weatherford explains: In the 1960s, Birmingham , Alabama was one of the most racially divided cities in the United States . While Civil Rights protesters pressed for equality and integration, the staunchest racists resorted to violence to resist change. Racists had set so many bombs in Birmingham ’s black neighborhoods that the city was nicknamed “Bombingham.”
White Christian Americans were desperate to keep African Americans in a place of second class citizenship in the country which was built on the blood, sweat and tears of enslaved Africans. So desperate that on Good Friday, April 12, 1963 Dr Martin Luther King and approximately 80 other African Americans were arrested for taking part in a peaceful protest. Dr. King wrote his famous Letter from a Birmingham jail while he was incarcerated in reply to a group of white religious leaders (7 pastors and 1 rabbi) who exhorted Dr King and all African Americans to continue to wait for their Human Rights and Civil Rights to be recognized by white Americans. The mass arrests on Good Friday led to the Children’s Crusade on May 2, 1963 where over 1,000 children (many as young as 6) gathered at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church before marching to downtown Birmingham. They were all arrested and hauled off to jail in police cars and school buses. On May 3, more African American children gathered and as they left the church Commissioner of Public Safety Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor directed the local police and fire departments to use massive force to stop them. The world saw the evil of white supremacy when images of African American children being blasted by high-pressure fire hoses, clubbed by police officers and attacked by police dogs appeared on television and in newspapers internationally http://www.crmvet.org/images/imgbham.htm. The scene was repeated on May 4 and on May 6 almost 2,500 youth were arrested. By then the children were being held at the state fairgrounds because the jails were full. On May 10 after 8 days of unrest an agreement was reached with the City of Birmingham to desegregate drinking fountains, lunch counters and restrooms within 90 days and to release those in jail on bond or their own recognizance. However that was an agreement with City officials, the good Christian white people of Birmingham refused to treat African Americans as their equal and the terrorist activities against African Americans continued.
For African American families and communities there was the added trauma of being forced to live beside these terrorists. In the case of the murder of the four children on September 15, 1963, the terrorists continued to live in Birmingham , Alabama and were not brought to justice until the 21st century. Since 1963 an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had identified four white Christians as the terrorists responsible for the bombing of the African American church and the murder of the four girls. Robert Chambliss, Herman Cash, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry continued to live in Birmingham , Alabama where the African American community was forced to deal with the fact that these terrorists walked among them daily as free men. In September 1963 a witness had identified Robert Chambliss as the man who placed the bomb at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. He was arrested and charged with murder and possessing a box of 122 sticks of dynamite without a permit. On October 8, 1963 Chambliss was found not guilty of murder and received a hundred-dollar fine and a six-month jail sentence for possession of dynamite. It was not until the 1970s that the case against Chambliss was reopened. The then recently elected attorney general of Alabama requested the original FBI files on the case and discovered that evidence against Chambliss that might have led to a conviction had not been used in the original trial. In November, 1977 Chambliss was tried once again for the September 15, 1963 bombing, was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. By the time the FBI got around to pursuing action against the other terrorists on 18 May 2000, only two were still alive. Cash was dead (1994) but Blanton and Cherry were arrested, tried and convicted (Blanton 2001 and Cherry 2002.) Cherry’s trial was delayed because he was deemed mentally incompetent. However according to This Day in Civil Rights History published 2009 “The evidence against him, including testimony from his own granddaughter, painted a picture of an unrepentant former Klansman who was a close associate of Chambliss and Blanton and was linked to the bombing.”
Why did it take almost four decades for these white Christian terrorists who devastated the African American community of Birmingham , Alabama on September 15, 1963 to be brought to justice? After all we have seen how quickly the American government can move against suspected terrorists in other countries peopled by racialized people who are not Christian.
MIGRANT WORKERS IN CANADA
When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong.
Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.
Solidarity Forever
Solidarity Forever
Solidarity Forever
For the union makes us strong.
Excerpt from Solidarity Forever written for the International Workers of The World (IWW) in 1915 by Ralph Chaplin.
The Labour Day weekend has come and gone and what a weekend it was! The 1st Monday in September has been celebrated as Labour Day in Canada for more than 100 years. The weather on Monday, September 5, was a bit cooler than we have been experiencing during this summer but at least it was not 3.3 °C as The Weather Network shows was the record low in 1938. The annual Labour Day Parade in Toronto included thousands of workers who are members of several trade unions walking from University Avenue and Queen Street West to Exhibition Place. Not everyone walked; some marched to the sounds of bagpipes while others danced to the sound of popular music and some of us did wine and dingolay to the irresistible sounds of calypso and soca from Afropan Steel band and the Surefire Band which accompanied the Steelworkers group. As usual especially since there is a Provincial election just one month from now, the politicians were out in full force.
It was a completely different scene the day before, on Sunday, September 4 when a group of migrant workers and allies gathered at the British Methodist Episcopal Church on Geneva St. in St. Catharines , Ontario on the first stop of a "solidarity caravan." It was the same story at the various stops made by the "solidarity caravan" there was not a politician in sight. The migrant workers who come from several countries including Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, the Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago and Thailand to work on farms in southwestern Ontario rallied in Niagara this weekend to bring attention to some of the problems which they encounter as workers who are denied many of the rights other workers in Canada take for granted. These migrant workers could not join the workers at the Labour Day parade on Monday because they had to work. Because Ontario 's labour law does not allow agriculture workers to form unions these workers continually face the threat of being deported if they refuse unsafe work. Sometimes their jobs include operating machinery which they have not been trained to do safely and handling chemicals also without the necessary training. Thousands of migrant workers come to Canada to fill labour shortages through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker (SAWP) and Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP)
The Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) began in 1966 in partnership with Jamaica . Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados became part of the program in 1967. Mexico joined in 1974 and later members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS.) The program is run by Human Resources and Social Development Canada and Service Canada.
Politicians of all stripes know that migrant workers are ill treated yet this does not seem to concern them. It is left mostly up to a group of dedicated volunteers like Chris Ramsaroop, Tzazna Miranda and others of Justice for Migrant Workers (J4MW) to advocate for this group of racialized, vulnerable and exploited workers. On Friday, October 27, 2006 Ramsaroop spoke to the Federal government’s Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities about the conditions under which migrant workers live and work on the farms in Ontario. As part of a very detailed presentation about the lived reality of the migrant workers for whom he has advocated fearlessly and tirelessly for several years, Ramsaroop said: “Many of these workers work 12 to 15 hours a day without overtime pay or any type of holiday pay. They use dangerous chemicals and pesticides with no safety equipment or protection and training. They live in substandard housing, which I have pictures of, with leaking sewage and inadequate washrooms. They have an inability to access most employment insurance benefits despite their contributions. They face various barriers to accessing adequate housing services. And they're prohibited from forming collective bargaining and joining unions. For actually taking a stand for anything they believe in, they could be sent home. As such, many workers are reluctant to stand up for their rights, since employers find it easier to send workers home at their own expense instead of dealing with their serious concerns. The lack of an appeal mechanism in the seasonal agricultural worker program forces many workers to remain silent out of fear of being expelled from the program.” In spite of this information none of the political parties seem to have an interest in attending to the dreadful human rights abuses the migrant workers suffer.
With a provincial election a month from now, Ramsaroop has embarked on the second year of raising awareness (building on last year’s Pilgrimage to Freedom) in the communities where the migrant workers toil in Ontario . Making a connection with the descendants of enslaved Africans in the communities and educating migrant workers about the history of the Underground Railroad and educating the communities about the suffering of the migrant workers has led to the "solidarity caravan." The British Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Catharines was the first stop. As the workers spoke about their working and living conditions, they also learned about the struggles of Harriet Tubman whose image is prominent at the church (built by African Canadians in 1855) as she worshipped there when she lived in St Catherines. The caravan made stops in Virgil, Niagara on the Lake and Niagara Falls to expose the differences that exist in the lives of the migrant workers who live in poverty, housed in places little more than hovels as they harvest the grapes that make the “wine country” successful and enrich the owners of the vineyards who live in mansions. In Niagara on the Lake, the migrant workers and allies distributed flyers and the Ontario produce which they (migrant workers) plant and harvest. Many people were willing to take the flyers and listen but soon the law was called to encourage the caravan to leave the area. At the Niagara Falls area the caravan visited the Nathaniel Dett Memorial Chapel a church built by the African Canadian community in 1836 where they learned some more about the history of African Canadians. Ms Wilma Morrison an African Canadian history activist and advocate hosted the group at the Nathaniel Dett Memorial Chapel and provided in depth education about the history of African Canadians in the area.
There will be caravans on September 25 and October 2, visiting other stops on the Underground Railway. According to literature from J4MW: The towns that we will be visiting, as part of the Underground Railroad, promised a land of freedom, hope and opportunities, but are now hubs of agricultural activity that are highly dependent on exploitative temporary migration programs for labour. The caravan will highlight the current labour laws, the restrictions of migrant worker programs, the profits of the agricultural industry and how Canadian society profits from the indentureship of migrant labour. While the community prepares to celebrate its annual wine festival and rejoices in the astronomical profits that have been achieved through the sacrifices of the migrant community, this tour is to celebrate workers' contributions, demand changes to our laws to reflect their realities and to expose the hidden realities of temporary foreign worker programs across Canada.
Even though migrant workers are prevented from unionizing they deserve support from unionized workers because they are part of the family. An injury to one is an injury to all! Solidarity Forever!
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong.
Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.
Solidarity Forever
Solidarity Forever
Solidarity Forever
For the union makes us strong.
Excerpt from Solidarity Forever written for the International Workers of The World (IWW) in 1915 by Ralph Chaplin.
The Labour Day weekend has come and gone and what a weekend it was! The 1st Monday in September has been celebrated as Labour Day in Canada for more than 100 years. The weather on Monday, September 5, was a bit cooler than we have been experiencing during this summer but at least it was not 3.3 °C as The Weather Network shows was the record low in 1938. The annual Labour Day Parade in Toronto included thousands of workers who are members of several trade unions walking from University Avenue and Queen Street West to Exhibition Place. Not everyone walked; some marched to the sounds of bagpipes while others danced to the sound of popular music and some of us did wine and dingolay to the irresistible sounds of calypso and soca from Afropan Steel band and the Surefire Band which accompanied the Steelworkers group. As usual especially since there is a Provincial election just one month from now, the politicians were out in full force.
It was a completely different scene the day before, on Sunday, September 4 when a group of migrant workers and allies gathered at the British Methodist Episcopal Church on Geneva St. in St. Catharines , Ontario on the first stop of a "solidarity caravan." It was the same story at the various stops made by the "solidarity caravan" there was not a politician in sight. The migrant workers who come from several countries including Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, the Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago and Thailand to work on farms in southwestern Ontario rallied in Niagara this weekend to bring attention to some of the problems which they encounter as workers who are denied many of the rights other workers in Canada take for granted. These migrant workers could not join the workers at the Labour Day parade on Monday because they had to work. Because Ontario 's labour law does not allow agriculture workers to form unions these workers continually face the threat of being deported if they refuse unsafe work. Sometimes their jobs include operating machinery which they have not been trained to do safely and handling chemicals also without the necessary training. Thousands of migrant workers come to Canada to fill labour shortages through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker (SAWP) and Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP)
The Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) began in 1966 in partnership with Jamaica . Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados became part of the program in 1967. Mexico joined in 1974 and later members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS.) The program is run by Human Resources and Social Development Canada and Service Canada.
Politicians of all stripes know that migrant workers are ill treated yet this does not seem to concern them. It is left mostly up to a group of dedicated volunteers like Chris Ramsaroop, Tzazna Miranda and others of Justice for Migrant Workers (J4MW) to advocate for this group of racialized, vulnerable and exploited workers. On Friday, October 27, 2006 Ramsaroop spoke to the Federal government’s Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities about the conditions under which migrant workers live and work on the farms in Ontario. As part of a very detailed presentation about the lived reality of the migrant workers for whom he has advocated fearlessly and tirelessly for several years, Ramsaroop said: “Many of these workers work 12 to 15 hours a day without overtime pay or any type of holiday pay. They use dangerous chemicals and pesticides with no safety equipment or protection and training. They live in substandard housing, which I have pictures of, with leaking sewage and inadequate washrooms. They have an inability to access most employment insurance benefits despite their contributions. They face various barriers to accessing adequate housing services. And they're prohibited from forming collective bargaining and joining unions. For actually taking a stand for anything they believe in, they could be sent home. As such, many workers are reluctant to stand up for their rights, since employers find it easier to send workers home at their own expense instead of dealing with their serious concerns. The lack of an appeal mechanism in the seasonal agricultural worker program forces many workers to remain silent out of fear of being expelled from the program.” In spite of this information none of the political parties seem to have an interest in attending to the dreadful human rights abuses the migrant workers suffer.
With a provincial election a month from now, Ramsaroop has embarked on the second year of raising awareness (building on last year’s Pilgrimage to Freedom) in the communities where the migrant workers toil in Ontario . Making a connection with the descendants of enslaved Africans in the communities and educating migrant workers about the history of the Underground Railroad and educating the communities about the suffering of the migrant workers has led to the "solidarity caravan." The British Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Catharines was the first stop. As the workers spoke about their working and living conditions, they also learned about the struggles of Harriet Tubman whose image is prominent at the church (built by African Canadians in 1855) as she worshipped there when she lived in St Catherines. The caravan made stops in Virgil, Niagara on the Lake and Niagara Falls to expose the differences that exist in the lives of the migrant workers who live in poverty, housed in places little more than hovels as they harvest the grapes that make the “wine country” successful and enrich the owners of the vineyards who live in mansions. In Niagara on the Lake, the migrant workers and allies distributed flyers and the Ontario produce which they (migrant workers) plant and harvest. Many people were willing to take the flyers and listen but soon the law was called to encourage the caravan to leave the area. At the Niagara Falls area the caravan visited the Nathaniel Dett Memorial Chapel a church built by the African Canadian community in 1836 where they learned some more about the history of African Canadians. Ms Wilma Morrison an African Canadian history activist and advocate hosted the group at the Nathaniel Dett Memorial Chapel and provided in depth education about the history of African Canadians in the area.
There will be caravans on September 25 and October 2, visiting other stops on the Underground Railway. According to literature from J4MW: The towns that we will be visiting, as part of the Underground Railroad, promised a land of freedom, hope and opportunities, but are now hubs of agricultural activity that are highly dependent on exploitative temporary migration programs for labour. The caravan will highlight the current labour laws, the restrictions of migrant worker programs, the profits of the agricultural industry and how Canadian society profits from the indentureship of migrant labour. While the community prepares to celebrate its annual wine festival and rejoices in the astronomical profits that have been achieved through the sacrifices of the migrant community, this tour is to celebrate workers' contributions, demand changes to our laws to reflect their realities and to expose the hidden realities of temporary foreign worker programs across Canada.
Even though migrant workers are prevented from unionizing they deserve support from unionized workers because they are part of the family. An injury to one is an injury to all! Solidarity Forever!
FROM RECY TAYLOR TO NAFISSATOU DIALLO
Nafissatou Diallo will not get the opportunity to confront Dominique Strauss-Kahn former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief and billionaire in a court of law and officially tell the story of the traumatic sexual attack she suffered. This, in the 21st century, when some African women sexually brutalized by white men in the 19th and 20th century had that opportunity even if the men were never found guilty. At least there are court records where researchers from later generations could glean information and write books about that reality. The District Attorney of New York County in his infinite wisdom has decided not to bring the case to trial. African women have been the victims of white men’s brutality since these men made their appearance on the African continent seeking free labour. This happened whether the white men were British, German, French, Portuguese, Spanish or any other European tribe.
The Jezebel myth was eventually created to rationalize these often brutal attacks. Enslaved African females (including children) were portrayed as corrupters of good Christian white men. In his 1859 published book The Roving Editor, or Talks With Slaves in Southern States abolitionist James Redpath wrote: “I am a white man and I know that mulatto women almost always refuse to cohabit with the blacks; are often averse to a sexual connection with persons of their own shade; but are gratified by the criminal advances of Saxons.” An amazing piece of self delusion coming from an abolitionist but at least he recognized that the sexual advances were criminal. The evidence does not bear out what this white abolitionist wrote because there are stories of enslaved African women resisting those criminal advances even though they knew they were endangering their lives and the lives of their loved ones.
In the book Celia A Slave: A True Story published in 1999 (author Melton Alonzo McLaurin used information from Celia’s trial) the 19 year old enslaved woman is hanged after she is found guilty of killing her owner who had raped her on a regular basis for the five years he owned her. The fact that she was defending herself from a brutal beating and eventual rape for the umpteenth time (all this while she was pregnant with the owner’s third child) was not considered. Her lawyer put forward a case for self defence but Celia was property and her owner by law could do whatever he wanted with her including killing her if he had a mind to do so and she legally had no right to resist. This was no surprise in 1855 Missouri or most states in the USA. That may not have been the law in some of the Northern states but as can be deduced from the words of Redpath even those whites who thought that the enslavement of Africans was illegal also thought that enslaved African women welcomed the criminal sexual advances of white men. Given this mindset it is hardly surprising that the rape of African women continued even after the abolition of slavery. African American professor Deborah Gray White notes in Ar'n't I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South (published 1999):From emancipation through more than two-thirds of the twentieth century, no Southern white male was convicted of raping or attempting to rape a black woman. Yet the crime was widespread.
Case in point is the brutal gang rape on September 3, 1944 of then 24 year old Recy Taylor, married mother of a two year old daughter. Taylor left church accompanied by two other church members (60 year old woman and her 18 year old son) when they were confronted by a group of 7 white men who kidnapped Taylor. The men drove out of town where they raped then blindfolded Taylor and after threatening to kill her if she told anyone about the rape, abandoned her on the highway next morning leaving her barely alive to walk home or die trying. She made her way home where her father, her husband and friends had been searching for her throughout the night. Unlike previous cases where the rape of African American women by white men had been “hushed up” this case did not die a “natural” death. Rosa Parks, then a 32 year old activist with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) took up the cause and ensured that there was widespread publicity to force the authorities to arrest the rapists.
Meanwhile the Taylor family was under siege. Death threats and an attempt on their lives when their home was fire bombed forced Taylor and her husband to move in with her father and six siblings. The threats continued and each night Taylor’s father would climb a tree in his backyard and as reported by Earl Conrad in an article entitled “Death Threat made against rape victim” published March 17, 1945: “Cradling a double-barreled shotgun and a sack of shells, he guarded the cabin until the sun broke on the horizon and then went inside to sleep.” The men who raped Taylor claimed that she was a prostitute and even offered her husband $600.00 as compensation. Marvin White the lawyer representing the accused asked Willie Taylor, "N***er- ain't $600 enough for raping your wife?" Not surprisingly the grand jury returned no indictments and there was no trial. The Taylors were forced to move away from their family and community, settling in Florida where 91 year old Recy Taylor received the news in March 2011 that the Alabama House unanimously passed a resolution to express its 'deepest sympathies and solemn regrets.' Taylor ’s 74 year old brother who was a child of nine years old at the time said he still vividly remembers his father desperately searching for his daughter on the night of the rape. 'He came back by the house about three times, and each time, his shirt was wringing with sweat. Nobody slept that night.'
Recy Taylor’s story is the first in Danielle L McGuire’s 2010 published book At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance -- a New History of the Civil Rights Movement From Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power and Joan Little’s story is the last. On September 7, 1974 Little was arrested for 1st degree murder in the killing of 62 year old Clarence Alligood, a white prison guard at Beaufort County Jail in Washington, North Carolina. The guard’s body had been found in the cell where the 21 year old Little had been incarcerated for two months. He was naked from the waist down. His yellow and white plaid shirt was caked with blood and a thin line of semen stretched down his leg. His right hand loosely held an ice pick and his left arm, dangling toward the floor clutched his pants. Little was declared an armed and dangerous outlaw with police ordered to shoot her on sight. With service dogs and high-powered rifles the police went door to door in the African American community of Washington, North Carolina. After hiding out for one week Little surrendered. At the trial the prosecution claimed that Little seduced Alligood and murdered him to enable her escape. Little testified that Alligood had forced her at the point of an ice pick to perform oral sex before she seized the ice pick, stabbed him repeatedly and escaped. Little was supported by many activists including feminist organizations: http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2002/davis.asp and was acquitted.
Since Diallo’s accusation against Straus-Kahn some white newspapers have hounded the woman, preventing her from returning to work. Her past should have no bearing on whether or not she has the right to face her attacker in a court of law. She has been accused of being a prostitute and her life scrutinized as if she was the perpetrator instead of the victim. With the unfortunate decision to dismiss, the District Attorney seems to be sending a message to racialized women who suffer sexual violence at the hands of rich white men that they have to live perfect lives if they want to see justice done.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
THE HELP: a novel written by Kathryn Stockett
Aided by the unscrupulous adventurers who operated the Freedmen's Bureau and urged on by a fervor of Northern hatred almost religious in its fanaticism, the former field hands found themselves suddenly elevated to the seats of the mighty. There they conducted themselves as creatures of small intelligence might naturally be expected to do. Like monkeys or small children turned loose among treasured objects whose value is beyond their comprehension, they ran wild--either from perverse pleasure in destruction or simply because of their ignorance.
Description of African Americans in Margaret Mitchell’s popular 1936 published novel Gone With the Wind
In 1936 Margaret Mitchell published Gone With the Wind a white fantasy of the American Civil War and Reconstruction era complete with white supremacist portrayal of enslaved Africans and her vision of who they were after emancipation. These fantasy “darkies” had no lives, dreams or aspirations outside of serving their enslavers. Her view of slavery portrayed the enslaved Africans as being content, happy childlike creatures who were devastated when the South lost the war and wanted to remain living with their “owners” in slave like condition. The “bad negroes” were the ones who could not wait to leave the plantations, who took off to fight for their freedom, who tried to become politically engaged during Reconstruction. In Gone With the Wind the Ku Klux Klan are the “good guys” the saviours of the day, putting the “uppity negroes” in their place with dreadfully violent acts. The contempt and disdain in which she held African Americans comes through loud and strong when she wrote about the Africans who had recently been freed from slavery: They were, as a class, childlike in mentality, easily led and from long habit accustomed to taking orders. The former slaves were now the lords of creation and, with the aid of the Yankees, the lowest and most ignorant ones were on top. The better class of them, scorning freedom, were suffering as severely as their white masters. Thousands of house servants, the highest caste in the slave population, remained with their white folks, doing manual labor which had been beneath them in the old days. Many loyal field hands also refused to avail themselves of the new freedom.
In spite of the white supremacist language of the book peopled with one dimensional stereotypical portrayal of African Americans it is considered the most beloved Civil War novel. Mitchell was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for Gone With the Wind. By the time the story was made into an equally popular movie released in 1939, more than 1.5 million copies had been sold. In spite of their popularity with white Americans the book and movie caused some distress in the African American community. Letters of protest were written by African American individuals and organizations including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League. The demands and suggestions of African Americans were largely ignored by Hollywood and the rest is history.
Fast forward to the 21st century, more than 60 years after the release of Gone With the Wind and another wildly popular book written by a white woman (Kathryn Stockett) and made into a movie is causing anxious moments and dissatisfaction in the African American community. The book The Help published in 2009 (the movie released in 2011) tells the story of a group of white women and the African American women who work in their homes. According to Stockett her reason for writing the book is in memoriam of the African American woman who was her “family maid.” In the 1 ½ pages where Stockett reminisces about the woman who cooked, cleaned and raised two generations of her family she writes “Our family maid, Demetrie, used to say picking cotton in Mississippi in the dead of summer is about the worst pastime there is, if you don't count picking okra, another prickly, low-growing thing. Demetrie came to cook and clean for my family when she was twenty-eight. My father was fourteen, my uncle seven. Demetrie was stout and dark skinned and, by then, married to a mean, abusive drinker named Plunk. There were several years when I thought she was immensely lucky to have us. A secure job in a nice house cleaning up after white Christian people. But also because Demetrie had no babies of her own and we felt like we were filling a void in her life. I'm pretty sure I can say that no one in my family ever asked Demetrie what it felt like to be black in Mississippi working for our white family. It never occurred to us to ask. It was everyday life. It wasn't something people felt compelled to examine. I have wished, for many years, that I'd been old enough and thoughtful enough to ask Demetrie that question. She died when I was sixteen. I've spent years imagining what her answer would be. And that is why I wrote this book.”
Stockett would have been shocked out of her complacency by the answer Demetrie would have given her because it is obvious from the stereotypical characters of African American “maids” that people The Help that the author is clueless. The African American “maid” characters are contrived and caricatured especially their speech where the author struggles with the African American Vernacular (Ebonics.) If Stockett really wanted to write authentically about the lived reality of African American women working in the homes of white families during the 1960s then she would have read some books written by African American women telling their stories. Books including This Little Light of Mine, Memoirs of a freedom fighter, Coming of Age in Mississippi and From the Mississippi Delta are the stories of African American women who lived what Stockett has tried to write about.
African American women do not need their history rewritten to glorify white women with a fictitious young white writer charging in on her white steed to rescue a few hapless "maids" who idolise and rear the children of their “white families” as they silently suffer the abuse dished out from a handful of "bad egg" type employers. It borders on delusional for Stockett to retell the story with the mythical mammy peeping out from every corner of the book. Mammy came out of the imagination of white southerners determined to convince themselves that the enslaved African woman enjoyed her enslaved condition and loved her white tormentors and their children more than she loved herself. The mammy myth of the jolly, obese dark skin asexual woman was in contrast to the jezebel myth of the temptress enslaved African woman which was used to justify the rape of even enslaved female children. Stockett’s mammies are no threat to the white families who overwork and mistreat them until the young university educated white woman descends to the rescue. This in the 1960s when African Americans throughout the USA were sitting in, standing up and protesting. (Recommended reading From the Mississippi Delta by Ida Mae Holland published 1997)
The history of that period is well documented with African American sheroes like Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Ida Mae Holland, Winson Hudson, Daisy Bates and countless others who suffered physical, mental and sexual abuse, emotional trauma and spirit injury but continued to fight the good fight. When those women and young girls were brutalized and traumatised by their employers (male and female) support came from their community, not from white women. The images that tell the stories of the role that white women played during that time including their resistance to 6 year old Ruby Bridges’ integration of William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana and 15 year old Elizabeth Eckford’s integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas as a member of the Little Rock Nine are available in books and on the Internet including: (http://meme527.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/elizabeth-eckford/, http://www.rubybridges.com/pictures.htm and http://www.xavierherald.com/news/ruby-bridges-endured-racial-epithets-hatred-1.2111235)
Of course if Stockett had followed the example of some white women who have taken the time to research and write books like Soul Sister: The Journal of a White Woman Who Turned Herself Black and Went to Live and Work in Harlem and Mississippi (by Grace Halsell published 1969) and At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance -- a New History of the Civil Rights Movement From Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (by Danielle L. McGuire published 2010) her book would not have been as wildly popular as it is (279 copies at the Toronto Public Library and a “hold” list of 1,693) and most likely would not have been made into a movie.
In the book At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance -- a New History of the Civil Rights Movement From Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power some of the stories unknown outside of the African American community have been included. The author scoured the archives of African American newspapers, old court records and she also interviewed some of the African Americans who lived through the trauma, horror and terrorism visited upon them by white Americans. The book is not for the faint of heart. In the book The Help the author writes about one of the “maids” giving away her girl child because the child looked white. It would be hilarious if it was not so sad that this white woman does not realise that African American women and their communities did not abandon their children because they looked white (many of them the result of rape by white men.) To add insult to injury the author writes that this white looking child who returned to cause her mother much distress and her eventual demise was the biological child of the African American woman and her African American husband. If the author was going for authenticity that child would most likely have been sired by the white husband, father, uncle, grandfather, son or cousin of the African American woman’s employer. This reality is well documented. When white skin children were part of African American communities it was because there was a white man somewhere in the gene pool. It reminded me of the story of the white women during slavery who tried to convince themselves and everyone within hearing that the light skin children of the enslaved women on their plantations obtained their skin colour because they lived so closely with the plantation’s whites. Of course they knew very well what their male relatives were up to but “there are none so blind as those who will not see.”
The African American community has suffered this kind of indignity for generations where white people have told their stories whether it was dressing up and performing in blackface, making movies like Pinky and Imitation of Life or writing books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The Wind Done Gone written by Alice Randall published in April 2002 was an attempt to tell the story of the African Americans who were caricatured in Gone With the Wind. Hopefully it will not take 66 years for someone to tell the stories of the African American women in The Help.
Description of African Americans in Margaret Mitchell’s popular 1936 published novel Gone With the Wind
In 1936 Margaret Mitchell published Gone With the Wind a white fantasy of the American Civil War and Reconstruction era complete with white supremacist portrayal of enslaved Africans and her vision of who they were after emancipation. These fantasy “darkies” had no lives, dreams or aspirations outside of serving their enslavers. Her view of slavery portrayed the enslaved Africans as being content, happy childlike creatures who were devastated when the South lost the war and wanted to remain living with their “owners” in slave like condition. The “bad negroes” were the ones who could not wait to leave the plantations, who took off to fight for their freedom, who tried to become politically engaged during Reconstruction. In Gone With the Wind the Ku Klux Klan are the “good guys” the saviours of the day, putting the “uppity negroes” in their place with dreadfully violent acts. The contempt and disdain in which she held African Americans comes through loud and strong when she wrote about the Africans who had recently been freed from slavery: They were, as a class, childlike in mentality, easily led and from long habit accustomed to taking orders. The former slaves were now the lords of creation and, with the aid of the Yankees, the lowest and most ignorant ones were on top. The better class of them, scorning freedom, were suffering as severely as their white masters. Thousands of house servants, the highest caste in the slave population, remained with their white folks, doing manual labor which had been beneath them in the old days. Many loyal field hands also refused to avail themselves of the new freedom.
In spite of the white supremacist language of the book peopled with one dimensional stereotypical portrayal of African Americans it is considered the most beloved Civil War novel. Mitchell was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for Gone With the Wind. By the time the story was made into an equally popular movie released in 1939, more than 1.5 million copies had been sold. In spite of their popularity with white Americans the book and movie caused some distress in the African American community. Letters of protest were written by African American individuals and organizations including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League. The demands and suggestions of African Americans were largely ignored by Hollywood and the rest is history.
Fast forward to the 21st century, more than 60 years after the release of Gone With the Wind and another wildly popular book written by a white woman (Kathryn Stockett) and made into a movie is causing anxious moments and dissatisfaction in the African American community. The book The Help published in 2009 (the movie released in 2011) tells the story of a group of white women and the African American women who work in their homes. According to Stockett her reason for writing the book is in memoriam of the African American woman who was her “family maid.” In the 1 ½ pages where Stockett reminisces about the woman who cooked, cleaned and raised two generations of her family she writes “Our family maid, Demetrie, used to say picking cotton in Mississippi in the dead of summer is about the worst pastime there is, if you don't count picking okra, another prickly, low-growing thing. Demetrie came to cook and clean for my family when she was twenty-eight. My father was fourteen, my uncle seven. Demetrie was stout and dark skinned and, by then, married to a mean, abusive drinker named Plunk. There were several years when I thought she was immensely lucky to have us. A secure job in a nice house cleaning up after white Christian people. But also because Demetrie had no babies of her own and we felt like we were filling a void in her life. I'm pretty sure I can say that no one in my family ever asked Demetrie what it felt like to be black in Mississippi working for our white family. It never occurred to us to ask. It was everyday life. It wasn't something people felt compelled to examine. I have wished, for many years, that I'd been old enough and thoughtful enough to ask Demetrie that question. She died when I was sixteen. I've spent years imagining what her answer would be. And that is why I wrote this book.”
Stockett would have been shocked out of her complacency by the answer Demetrie would have given her because it is obvious from the stereotypical characters of African American “maids” that people The Help that the author is clueless. The African American “maid” characters are contrived and caricatured especially their speech where the author struggles with the African American Vernacular (Ebonics.) If Stockett really wanted to write authentically about the lived reality of African American women working in the homes of white families during the 1960s then she would have read some books written by African American women telling their stories. Books including This Little Light of Mine, Memoirs of a freedom fighter, Coming of Age in Mississippi and From the Mississippi Delta are the stories of African American women who lived what Stockett has tried to write about.
African American women do not need their history rewritten to glorify white women with a fictitious young white writer charging in on her white steed to rescue a few hapless "maids" who idolise and rear the children of their “white families” as they silently suffer the abuse dished out from a handful of "bad egg" type employers. It borders on delusional for Stockett to retell the story with the mythical mammy peeping out from every corner of the book. Mammy came out of the imagination of white southerners determined to convince themselves that the enslaved African woman enjoyed her enslaved condition and loved her white tormentors and their children more than she loved herself. The mammy myth of the jolly, obese dark skin asexual woman was in contrast to the jezebel myth of the temptress enslaved African woman which was used to justify the rape of even enslaved female children. Stockett’s mammies are no threat to the white families who overwork and mistreat them until the young university educated white woman descends to the rescue. This in the 1960s when African Americans throughout the USA were sitting in, standing up and protesting. (Recommended reading From the Mississippi Delta by Ida Mae Holland published 1997)
The history of that period is well documented with African American sheroes like Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Ida Mae Holland, Winson Hudson, Daisy Bates and countless others who suffered physical, mental and sexual abuse, emotional trauma and spirit injury but continued to fight the good fight. When those women and young girls were brutalized and traumatised by their employers (male and female) support came from their community, not from white women. The images that tell the stories of the role that white women played during that time including their resistance to 6 year old Ruby Bridges’ integration of William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana and 15 year old Elizabeth Eckford’s integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas as a member of the Little Rock Nine are available in books and on the Internet including: (http://meme527.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/elizabeth-eckford/, http://www.rubybridges.com/pictures.htm and http://www.xavierherald.com/news/ruby-bridges-endured-racial-epithets-hatred-1.2111235)
Of course if Stockett had followed the example of some white women who have taken the time to research and write books like Soul Sister: The Journal of a White Woman Who Turned Herself Black and Went to Live and Work in Harlem and Mississippi (by Grace Halsell published 1969) and At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance -- a New History of the Civil Rights Movement From Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (by Danielle L. McGuire published 2010) her book would not have been as wildly popular as it is (279 copies at the Toronto Public Library and a “hold” list of 1,693) and most likely would not have been made into a movie.
In the book At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance -- a New History of the Civil Rights Movement From Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power some of the stories unknown outside of the African American community have been included. The author scoured the archives of African American newspapers, old court records and she also interviewed some of the African Americans who lived through the trauma, horror and terrorism visited upon them by white Americans. The book is not for the faint of heart. In the book The Help the author writes about one of the “maids” giving away her girl child because the child looked white. It would be hilarious if it was not so sad that this white woman does not realise that African American women and their communities did not abandon their children because they looked white (many of them the result of rape by white men.) To add insult to injury the author writes that this white looking child who returned to cause her mother much distress and her eventual demise was the biological child of the African American woman and her African American husband. If the author was going for authenticity that child would most likely have been sired by the white husband, father, uncle, grandfather, son or cousin of the African American woman’s employer. This reality is well documented. When white skin children were part of African American communities it was because there was a white man somewhere in the gene pool. It reminded me of the story of the white women during slavery who tried to convince themselves and everyone within hearing that the light skin children of the enslaved women on their plantations obtained their skin colour because they lived so closely with the plantation’s whites. Of course they knew very well what their male relatives were up to but “there are none so blind as those who will not see.”
The African American community has suffered this kind of indignity for generations where white people have told their stories whether it was dressing up and performing in blackface, making movies like Pinky and Imitation of Life or writing books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The Wind Done Gone written by Alice Randall published in April 2002 was an attempt to tell the story of the African Americans who were caricatured in Gone With the Wind. Hopefully it will not take 66 years for someone to tell the stories of the African American women in The Help.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
DAY O! BANANA BOAT SONG
Day-o, day-ay-ay-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Work all night on a drink of rum
Stack banana till de morning come
Come, Mister tally man, tally me banana
Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
A beautiful bunch of ripe banana
Hide the deadly black tarantula
Day, me say day-ay-ay-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Excerpt from the Banana Boat Song
The Banana Boat Song also popularly known as Day O tells the story of workers in the Caribbean who harvested bananas for a living. These obviously exploited workers are lamenting the fact they have worked throughout the night with nothing to eat and only a drink of rum. It is back-breaking work stacking large bunches of bananas and to make matters worse they will not be paid until the “tallyman” has “tallied” how many bunches of bananas they have stacked. There is also the danger of being stung and possibly killed by deadly tarantulas. The Banana Boat Song is in the tradition of the well known work songs and field hollers used by enslaved Africans and later on by African Americans forced into chain gangs as they struggled to find ways to alleviate the backbreaking, tedious work they were forced to perform. The Banana Boat Song sometimes described as a Jamaican folk song was first recorded as "Day De Light" in 1952 by Trinidadian Edric Connor and his group The Carribbeans (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfgmc1_edric-connor-day-dah-light-1954_music ). Over the years other versions by various performers have been recorded including the 1954 version Day Dah Light by Jamaica’s cultural icon the Honourable Louise (Miss Lou) Bennett Coverly (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km6QbVAnezE) However the most well known version of the Banana Boat Song was recorded in 1956 by Harry Belafonte on a Long Playing (LP) album Calypso and was so popular that it became the first LP album to sell a million copies. Belafonte born March 1 in New York City (Harlem) is the child of Caribbean immigrants. He spent 8 years from age 5 to 13 (1932-1940) living in Aboukir Village, St Ann, Jamaica before returning to New York City where he eventually became an actor and singer. Belafonte returned to Aboukir in 1980 to film the television special “Harry Belafonte: Back to Roots.” Belafonte is also a well known social justice activist who advocated for the Civil Rights of African Americans while working with Dr Martin Luther King Jr and other activists. He grew up in the days of segregation when African American entertainers traveling in the US South were forced to sleep in their vehicles if they could not find an African American owned hotel or motel.
The experiences of today’s generation of entertainers are different and this was brought home to me when I heard what I initially thought was a new version of Day O. This is not the Banana Boat Song. The chorus of the song contains the refrain Day-o, me say day-o, Daylight come but that is where any similarity with the Banana Boat Song ends. While the lyrics of the Banana Boat Song speaks to the history of exploited workers in the Caribbean, the lyrics of this new song that makes use of the refrain Day O, contains nothing about history. This is a song about partying, getting out of control drunk and even hinting at arson. An excerpt from the song is:
Check that out, what they playin', That's my song, that's my song.
Where my drinks? I've been waiting much too long,
And this girl in my lap, passing out, she's a blonde
The last thing on my mind is goin' home...
From the window, To the wall
This club is jumpin' Til tomorrow
Is it daylight? Or is it night time?
1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 4
We gon' tear the club until til, til-til-til-til...
Day-o, me say day-o,
Daylight come and we don't wanna go home.
Yeah so, we losin' control,
Turn the lights low 'cause we about to get blown.
Let the club shut down, We won't go, oh, oh, oh!
Burn it down, To the flo, oh, oh, oh!
Day-o, me say day-o,
Daylight come and we don't wanna go home.
The song is becoming increasingly popular and the 21 year old African American singer is probably very talented since he attended Dillard Center for the Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York. He is an actor, dancer and singer-songwriter who studied ballet, opera and theatre. Born in Miami, Florida he is a child of Caribbean immigrants like Belafonte who popularised the Banana Boat Song more than 50 years and a few generations ago. Unlike Belafonte and many African American entertainers of his time who felt the need to positively represent their people it seems the younger generation do not think they have the same responsibility. This seemingly talented young African American man may not feel that he has a responsibility to preserve the history of the Banana Boat Song and that it is appropriate to use the refrain Day O in a song that if not encouraging and promoting, then at least glorifying drunken and anti-social behaviour.
Do African American artists have a responsibility to represent their culture in a positive manner? Or is it that in this often touted “post racial” society they think that “we have overcome” and that is no longer necessary? Is this the freedom for which freedom fighters including Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Dr Martin Luther King Jr and the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey sacrificed their lives? There are quite a few examples of this kind of behaviour and mind set including a very popular entertainer encouraging the bleaching of our beautiful ebony skin. Garvey (August 17, 1887 – June 10, 1940) who said “Up you mighty race you can accomplish what you will” would most likely be shocked and disappointed to see that some people seem to include the addendum “and when you have accomplished disrespect and disregard your culture, people and history.”
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Work all night on a drink of rum
Stack banana till de morning come
Come, Mister tally man, tally me banana
Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
A beautiful bunch of ripe banana
Hide the deadly black tarantula
Day, me say day-ay-ay-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Excerpt from the Banana Boat Song
The Banana Boat Song also popularly known as Day O tells the story of workers in the Caribbean who harvested bananas for a living. These obviously exploited workers are lamenting the fact they have worked throughout the night with nothing to eat and only a drink of rum. It is back-breaking work stacking large bunches of bananas and to make matters worse they will not be paid until the “tallyman” has “tallied” how many bunches of bananas they have stacked. There is also the danger of being stung and possibly killed by deadly tarantulas. The Banana Boat Song is in the tradition of the well known work songs and field hollers used by enslaved Africans and later on by African Americans forced into chain gangs as they struggled to find ways to alleviate the backbreaking, tedious work they were forced to perform. The Banana Boat Song sometimes described as a Jamaican folk song was first recorded as "Day De Light" in 1952 by Trinidadian Edric Connor and his group The Carribbeans (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfgmc1_edric-connor-day-dah-light-1954_music ). Over the years other versions by various performers have been recorded including the 1954 version Day Dah Light by Jamaica’s cultural icon the Honourable Louise (Miss Lou) Bennett Coverly (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km6QbVAnezE) However the most well known version of the Banana Boat Song was recorded in 1956 by Harry Belafonte on a Long Playing (LP) album Calypso and was so popular that it became the first LP album to sell a million copies. Belafonte born March 1 in New York City (Harlem) is the child of Caribbean immigrants. He spent 8 years from age 5 to 13 (1932-1940) living in Aboukir Village, St Ann, Jamaica before returning to New York City where he eventually became an actor and singer. Belafonte returned to Aboukir in 1980 to film the television special “Harry Belafonte: Back to Roots.” Belafonte is also a well known social justice activist who advocated for the Civil Rights of African Americans while working with Dr Martin Luther King Jr and other activists. He grew up in the days of segregation when African American entertainers traveling in the US South were forced to sleep in their vehicles if they could not find an African American owned hotel or motel.
The experiences of today’s generation of entertainers are different and this was brought home to me when I heard what I initially thought was a new version of Day O. This is not the Banana Boat Song. The chorus of the song contains the refrain Day-o, me say day-o, Daylight come but that is where any similarity with the Banana Boat Song ends. While the lyrics of the Banana Boat Song speaks to the history of exploited workers in the Caribbean, the lyrics of this new song that makes use of the refrain Day O, contains nothing about history. This is a song about partying, getting out of control drunk and even hinting at arson. An excerpt from the song is:
Check that out, what they playin', That's my song, that's my song.
Where my drinks? I've been waiting much too long,
And this girl in my lap, passing out, she's a blonde
The last thing on my mind is goin' home...
From the window, To the wall
This club is jumpin' Til tomorrow
Is it daylight? Or is it night time?
1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 4
We gon' tear the club until til, til-til-til-til...
Day-o, me say day-o,
Daylight come and we don't wanna go home.
Yeah so, we losin' control,
Turn the lights low 'cause we about to get blown.
Let the club shut down, We won't go, oh, oh, oh!
Burn it down, To the flo, oh, oh, oh!
Day-o, me say day-o,
Daylight come and we don't wanna go home.
The song is becoming increasingly popular and the 21 year old African American singer is probably very talented since he attended Dillard Center for the Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York. He is an actor, dancer and singer-songwriter who studied ballet, opera and theatre. Born in Miami, Florida he is a child of Caribbean immigrants like Belafonte who popularised the Banana Boat Song more than 50 years and a few generations ago. Unlike Belafonte and many African American entertainers of his time who felt the need to positively represent their people it seems the younger generation do not think they have the same responsibility. This seemingly talented young African American man may not feel that he has a responsibility to preserve the history of the Banana Boat Song and that it is appropriate to use the refrain Day O in a song that if not encouraging and promoting, then at least glorifying drunken and anti-social behaviour.
Do African American artists have a responsibility to represent their culture in a positive manner? Or is it that in this often touted “post racial” society they think that “we have overcome” and that is no longer necessary? Is this the freedom for which freedom fighters including Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Dr Martin Luther King Jr and the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey sacrificed their lives? There are quite a few examples of this kind of behaviour and mind set including a very popular entertainer encouraging the bleaching of our beautiful ebony skin. Garvey (August 17, 1887 – June 10, 1940) who said “Up you mighty race you can accomplish what you will” would most likely be shocked and disappointed to see that some people seem to include the addendum “and when you have accomplished disrespect and disregard your culture, people and history.”
Monday, August 1, 2011
EMANCIPATION DAY AUGUST MONDAY 2011
On Monday, August 1st Torontonians will celebrate Simcoe Day in honour of John Graves Simcoe, Ontario’s first Lieutenant Governor. When Simcoe was appointed to the position Ontario was known as Upper Canada and Africans were held in slavery throughout this country. Slavery in Canada and throughout the British Empire was abolished on August 1st 1834 but lasted in a different form (apprenticeship) in British Guiana (Guyana) and the British occupied Caribbean Islands (enslaved Africans in Antigua were not subjected to an apprenticeship period) until August 1st, 1838. As quiet as it is kept enslaved Africans fought for their freedom and it was not granted through the benevolence and kind heartedness of white abolitionists. Some of the African abolitionists whose names are not widely known include Jamaican Robert Wedderburn, Nigerian Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa), Ghanaian Ottabah Guoano and Ignatius Sancho (supposedly born on a British slave ship off the coast of Guinea.) Simcoe’s claim to fame in the abolition movement occurred in 1793 when he attempted to abolish slavery in Upper Canada. He was not successful in his attempt because many of his peers including William Jarvis, Peter Russell, Alexander Grant, James Baby, Richard Cartwright and Robert Hamilton were slave holders.
Simcoe was galvanized into action when on March 14, 1793 an enslaved African woman Chloe Cooley resisted mightily as she was beaten, tied up, thrown into a boat and rowed across the Niagara River and sold in America. Chloe Cooley did not go quietly, she resisted with everything she had. Here was a woman who although she was a slave in Canada was being sold away from everyone she knew. Life as she knew it was at an end so she had nothing to lose. She screamed and fought her enslaver William Vrooman and two other white men as she was being brutalized, bound and thrown into the boat and rowed across the river from Upper Canada to America. Chloe Cooley’s plight was documented when Peter Martin, a free African man who had witnessed the outrage, made an official report to Simcoe and the Executive Council of Upper Canada at a meeting on March 21, 1793. On July 9, 1793 An Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude was passed in the House of Assembly of Upper Canada. Although Chloe Cooley was not saved from slavery, her resistance was the catalyst that led to the first piece of anti-slavery legislation in Canada which even though it did not free any enslaved African immediately it at least gave them hope that their descendants would one day be free.
Even though life did not change for those enslaved Africans living in Upper Canada (Ontario) the passing of the Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude meant that any enslaved African who escaped slavery in the US and made their way to Ontario was a free person. Naturally as the word spread enslaved Africans fled the US to freedom in Ontario and a community of free Africans lived in Ontario alongside their enslaved brethren and sistren which made for some strange relationships. An example was the Pompadour family where Mr. Pompadour was a free man while his wife Peggy and their children were owned by Peter Russell and his sister Elizabeth. According to the law in every country where Africans were enslaved, regardless of the origin of the enslavers including British, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese etc., the children of enslaved African women shared the mother’s enslaved status even if the father was the white slave holder. In the case of the Pompadour family, Peter Russell placed an advertisement in a York (Toronto) publication dated February 10, 1806 to sell his property Peggy, 40 years old ($150.00) and her son Jupiter 15 years old ($200.00) the wife and son of a free African man, Mr. Pompadour. Peter Russell was the member of the Ontario Legislature appointed to replace Simcoe when he left Ontario in 1796. As a member of the Family Compact and of the Executive and Legislative Councils of Ontario Russell was a power to be reckoned with in the province so it is not surprising that Simcoe’s attempt to abolish slavery in Ontario in 1793 was a failure.
The enslaved Africans who fled to Ontario seeking freedom after the passage of the 1793 Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude were not the first group of enslaved Africans to cross the border in search of freedom from slavery. The movement had gone in both directions even before 1793. In 1777 when Vermont abolished slavery, enslaved Africans fled Canada to freedom in Vermont. Following the American Revolution enslaved Africans who fought on the side of the British retreated to British North America (Canada) as members of the United Empire Loyalists. White members of the United Empire Loyalists brought enslaved Africans with them as their property so there were free and enslaved Africans in Canada. The well known story of the Underground Railroad which features Canada as a safe haven for enslaved Africans has another side; that of enslaved Africans in Canada who were not freed until August 1, 1834. The entire story needs to be told because there are people whose names decorate streets and buildings regardless of their role in the brutality and misery that was chattel slavery. Jarvis Street and Jarvis Collegiate both bear the name of a slave holder while there are no streets or buildings named in honour of African Canadians who contributed to the development of this city. Where is the Lucie and Thornton Blackburn (owners of Toronto’s first taxi cab business in 1836) building, street or square? Where is the William Peyton Hubbard (first African Canadian elected to public office in Toronto in 1894) building, street or square? It is a shame that in 2011 the International Year for People of African Descent there is hardly any recognition of the contributions Africans have made and even as we recognize August 1st as a holiday most Canadians do not know that the unpaid coerced labour of enslaved Africans contributed to the development of this country.
Simcoe was galvanized into action when on March 14, 1793 an enslaved African woman Chloe Cooley resisted mightily as she was beaten, tied up, thrown into a boat and rowed across the Niagara River and sold in America. Chloe Cooley did not go quietly, she resisted with everything she had. Here was a woman who although she was a slave in Canada was being sold away from everyone she knew. Life as she knew it was at an end so she had nothing to lose. She screamed and fought her enslaver William Vrooman and two other white men as she was being brutalized, bound and thrown into the boat and rowed across the river from Upper Canada to America. Chloe Cooley’s plight was documented when Peter Martin, a free African man who had witnessed the outrage, made an official report to Simcoe and the Executive Council of Upper Canada at a meeting on March 21, 1793. On July 9, 1793 An Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude was passed in the House of Assembly of Upper Canada. Although Chloe Cooley was not saved from slavery, her resistance was the catalyst that led to the first piece of anti-slavery legislation in Canada which even though it did not free any enslaved African immediately it at least gave them hope that their descendants would one day be free.
Even though life did not change for those enslaved Africans living in Upper Canada (Ontario) the passing of the Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude meant that any enslaved African who escaped slavery in the US and made their way to Ontario was a free person. Naturally as the word spread enslaved Africans fled the US to freedom in Ontario and a community of free Africans lived in Ontario alongside their enslaved brethren and sistren which made for some strange relationships. An example was the Pompadour family where Mr. Pompadour was a free man while his wife Peggy and their children were owned by Peter Russell and his sister Elizabeth. According to the law in every country where Africans were enslaved, regardless of the origin of the enslavers including British, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese etc., the children of enslaved African women shared the mother’s enslaved status even if the father was the white slave holder. In the case of the Pompadour family, Peter Russell placed an advertisement in a York (Toronto) publication dated February 10, 1806 to sell his property Peggy, 40 years old ($150.00) and her son Jupiter 15 years old ($200.00) the wife and son of a free African man, Mr. Pompadour. Peter Russell was the member of the Ontario Legislature appointed to replace Simcoe when he left Ontario in 1796. As a member of the Family Compact and of the Executive and Legislative Councils of Ontario Russell was a power to be reckoned with in the province so it is not surprising that Simcoe’s attempt to abolish slavery in Ontario in 1793 was a failure.
The enslaved Africans who fled to Ontario seeking freedom after the passage of the 1793 Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude were not the first group of enslaved Africans to cross the border in search of freedom from slavery. The movement had gone in both directions even before 1793. In 1777 when Vermont abolished slavery, enslaved Africans fled Canada to freedom in Vermont. Following the American Revolution enslaved Africans who fought on the side of the British retreated to British North America (Canada) as members of the United Empire Loyalists. White members of the United Empire Loyalists brought enslaved Africans with them as their property so there were free and enslaved Africans in Canada. The well known story of the Underground Railroad which features Canada as a safe haven for enslaved Africans has another side; that of enslaved Africans in Canada who were not freed until August 1, 1834. The entire story needs to be told because there are people whose names decorate streets and buildings regardless of their role in the brutality and misery that was chattel slavery. Jarvis Street and Jarvis Collegiate both bear the name of a slave holder while there are no streets or buildings named in honour of African Canadians who contributed to the development of this city. Where is the Lucie and Thornton Blackburn (owners of Toronto’s first taxi cab business in 1836) building, street or square? Where is the William Peyton Hubbard (first African Canadian elected to public office in Toronto in 1894) building, street or square? It is a shame that in 2011 the International Year for People of African Descent there is hardly any recognition of the contributions Africans have made and even as we recognize August 1st as a holiday most Canadians do not know that the unpaid coerced labour of enslaved Africans contributed to the development of this country.
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