Kind of Blue
Kind of Blue's JournalThanks, BigmanPigman! Got 4 people going with me up here in North County tomorrow night.
Those 4 are contacting their friends right now who they think can make it.
In Hartford, Conn., at Wadsworth Atheneum "Afrocosmologies: American Reflections"
Black artists explore spirituality and culture... Alongside artists of the late-nineteenth century, contemporary artists define new ideas about spirituality, identity, and the environment in ways that move beyond traditional narratives of Black Christianity. In dialogue, these works acknowledge a continuing body of beliefsa cosmologythat incorporates the centrality of nature, ritual, and relationships between the human and the divine. Emerging from the rich religious and aesthetic traditions of West Africa and the Americas, these works present a dynamic cosmos of influences that shape Contemporary art." https://www.thewadsworth.org/afrocosmologies-american-reflections/"We are a collection that has its genesis in a deep appreciation of African American culture and are dedicated to acquiring works of art that speak to the resilient, creative, and persistent humanity within Black American culture," says Petrucci Family Foundation curator and artist Berrisford Boothe. "Within the African American community and now across America at large, conceptions of race, gender, and community that once seemed fixed are now in flux or at least open for discussion. What was once a binary system of black or white aesthetics, now involves globally transplanted voices of color that exist within, are elevated by, and add authentic cosmological dynamism to American cultural conversations." In this continuing conversation, there must be sensitivity, but also the recognition that America's history and its impact cannot be eluded.
http://www.artfixdaily.com/artwire/release/1946-afrocosmologies-american-reflections-at-the-wadsworth
Waiting
The painting Waiting was titled because it always seems like Black people are waiting for something. It always seems like were waiting for justice. It always seems like were waiting for equality in this country says artist Carl Joe Williams.
The Lamp
"The Lamp, Romare Bearden, 1984, commemorates the 30th anniversary of the landmark court decision Brown v. Board of Education, 1954, which declared segregated schools in the United States to be unconstitutional; the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund used the image on their poster marking the occasion."
Astrology in the Age of Uncertainty: Millennials who see no contradiction between using astrology
and believing in science are fuelling a resurgence of the practice.Backstory in this YouTube video of the huge article at The New Yorker
The first newspaper astrology column was commissioned in August, 1930, in the aftermath of the stock-market crash, for the British tabloid the Sunday Express. The occasion was Princess Margarets birth. What the Stars Foretell for the New Princess was so popularand such a terrific distractionthat the paper made it a regular feature. After the financial collapse in 2008, Gordon, who runs a popular online astrology school, received calls from Wall Street bankers. All of those structures that people had relied upon, 401(k)s and everything, started to fall apart, she said. Thats how a lot of people get into it. Theyre, like, Whats going on in my life? Nothing makes sense. Ten years later, more than retirement plans have fallen apart. I think the 2016 election changed everything, Colin Bedell, an astrologer whose online handle is Queer Cosmos, told me. People were just, like, we need to come to some spiritual school of thought. As Kelly put it, In the Obama years, people liked astrology. In the Trump years, people need it.
The market for astrology apps has changed dramatically in the past few years. In 2015, when Aliza Kelly was raising money for a short-lived astrology dating app called Align, she was mocked by prospective investors. (Literally, this one guy wrote, I usually wish people well, and in your case I dont, because youre defying science and the Enlightenment era, she told me.) Now venture capitalists, excited by a report from IBISWorld which found that Americans spend $2.2 billion annually on mystical services (including palmistry, tarot reading, etc.), are funnelling money into the area. Co-Star is backed by six million dollars. Since its launch, in 2017, it has been downloaded six million times. Eighty per cent of users are female, and their average age is twenty-four.
Its a commonplace to say that in uncertain times people crave certainty. But what astrology offers isnt certaintyits distance. Just as a person may find it easier to accept things about herself when she decides she was born that way, astrology makes it possible to see world events from a less reactive position. It posits that history is not a linear story of upward progress but instead moves in cycles, and that historical actorsthe ones running amok all around usare archetypes. Alarming, yes; villainous, perhaps; but familiar, legible.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/astrology-in-the-age-of-uncertainty?utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Magazine_Daily_102119&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bea04ca2ddf9c72dc8aca1f&cndid=24484742&esrc=&mbid=&utm_term=TNY_Daily
Raising Dion, for those with kids and/or are just big kids
Four years ago, writer Dennis Liu published the comic book Raising Dion, which told the story of a single black mother raising a son who begins to develop superpowers. A year later, Liu turned that comic book into a short film that caught the eye of Michael B. Jordan, himself a silver screen superhero in Fantastic Four (and eventual supervillain in Black Panther). Jordan acquired the rights to the short to develop into a Netflix series, which is finally hitting the streaming platform next month. This was written in September. I enjoyed binge-ing it last weekJordan produces and stars in Raising Dion as the father of the titular Dion, who disappears shortly before his son discovers his superpowers. https://www.slashfilm.com/raising-dion-trailer/
Liu's short of 4 years ago.
For many of us, Corn Pop's existence is not at issue. It's JB's exaggeration and characterization
of a black boy in '62, who can't defend himself, as a switch blade-wielding thug that is not confirmed.
His story to a group of young AA kids that JB in his pool-naming video assume they know how to rust up a blade, is not only appalling but is so fluid that it's a gift to his opponents and proponents. Members of the Romans, who JB played b-ball, by '72 had joined the black power movement. What a gang!
https://twitter.com/newsbysamuels/status/1173434573264474113
His Delaware pals remained lifelong AA coaches of Biden. But unfortunately AA, ad nauseam, are not a monolithic constituency from Delaware that speak for us nationwide.
For goodness sake, even the WaPo reporter who hung out with JB's pals for his balanced story says his mother, who grew up in the neighborhood, never heard of Pop Corn brandishing a blade. Nor did a blade ever come up during the reporter's interviews of JB's pals.
https://twitter.com/newsbysamuels/status/1173434576997376002
Sheesh, JB's story so exacerbates stereotypes that one can't tell the difference between Stymie of "Our Gang" and the notorious Frank Lucas So please don't expect an apology from JB's opponents. This storytelling is cemented and a component in our overall view of the man.
Oh, wow. Brenda Skyes, one of my role models.
I didn't know "Ozzie's Girls" is one of her earliest works. I remember my mom saying "beautiful and talented girl" around '75 and I paid attention to her. One season, no wonder I missed it. Watched an episode and surprised by how natural and not unusual a black girl in the mix was portrayed. And the anti-misogynistic, though paternalistic, Ozzie trying to protect the girls is surprising. Interesting plug for Social Security in this episode, too. I don't have to imagine a lot of Moral Majority/racist heads exploding.
Besides her influence on me, I don't know anyone of my generation not knowing of her marriage to Gil Scott Heron and his timeless "The Revolution Will Not be Televised...the revolution will be live."
I forget how early television did try and failed to accentuates non-othering in a world that' resists natural diversity.
Thanks for posting this, Hortensis. No matter how old it is, the message of the right to exist without harm persists.
What she did reminds me of Dr. King's "Letter From Birmingham Jail."
So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist.
I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still too few in quantity, but they are big in quality.
Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
https://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html
SSDD
N'eh, Kamala is reiterating overlooked research. The earliest I've seen are
from '96 in what's considered seminal works of Michele Foster, Jackie Irvine, and Vanessa Siddle-Walker, "Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South" and "Growing Up African American in Catholic Schools." As well as Johns Hopkins University and American University's "The Long-Run Impacts of Same-Race Teachers" and the National Bureau of Economic Research's paper by the same team titled "Teacher Expectations Matter."
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