It's Still Black History Month

Is it blasphemous for me to say that I'm not really a fan of the bangs? Oh and somehow I don't ever see Nancy even in her wild days doing this.

Henrietta Lacks

My father’s father died in his 60’s from cancer. My father died in his 60’s from cancer. Neither one of them smoked, I do. I wonder, what the chances are of me reaching to my 70’s? Probably not that great; but then I long ago figured that I wasn’t going to live forever. I mean who does? No one I know of for certain unless of course you think about Henrietta Lacks.

Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks, an African American, was born in 1920 as Loretta Pleasant in Roanoke Virginia. As a child she would grow up under her grandfather’s roof and marry her first cousin and then move to Maryland in her 20's

At the end of 1950 after the birth of her fifth child, she discovered unusual lumps in her groin accompanied by profuse and abnormal bleeding.  She was referred to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore where they found that she had cervical cancer. During treatment, part of Mrs. Lacks’ cervix that contained both good and cancerous cells was removed without her knowledge and sent to Dr. George Otto Gey.  However, by the end of 1951 no medical treatments had worked for Henrietta and she died only to be buried in an unmarked grave in the family cemetery in Lackstown.

Dr. Gey soon found that unlike other human cells which usually subdivide and die after few days, Mrs. Lacks’ cells could not only survive indefinitely, but they would grow. Gey was able to isolate a specific cell from the tumor which he called HeLa, after Henrietta Lacks. This cell line was then mass produced and was sent to doctors around the world for successful research in areas such as cancer, polio, AIDS, radiation poisoning, gene mapping and many other medical projects too numerous to mention.

Of course many people have made a name for themselves using the HeLa cell and no doubt many people have been saved because of it. But many people have made millions for themselves producing or using the cell while members of Henrietta’s family remained poor and in the dark about their mother’s or relative’s contribution to medical science. An error perhaps, or just benign neglect on the part of those who thought little about the source of where their material came from and more about fame and or fortune that would head their way? I don’t know.

I didn’t really know what was right or wrong when I saw "Immortal" an episode of Law & Order based on this a few years ago when I thought something like this couldn’t possibly happen in real life. I know even less now what to think now that I know that it was true. All I do know that is if her surviving children can take some solace in knowing that their loss has provided so much relief and comfort in the lives of others, including perhaps my own when I reach my 60’s, then it may have been worth it all.

This has been my meager little attempt to recognize Henrietta Lacks in this year’s Black History Month.

My how times have changed

Hattie McDaniel

You know I'm probably one of the few black men not born before 1939 who actually like's Hattie McDaniel's performance as Mammy in the movie Gone With The Wind. Ms. McDaniel showed a strength, integrity and loyalty in a role that was probably very unreal for people who had lived that role in real life. But her truth shines through and maybe that was the reason why she received the award for best supporting actress in a movie, I don't know. What I do know is that I'm always very happy to remember her and see her act even if it is once every 10 or 12 years.

Octavia Spencer

I suppose that I will have the same feeling when watching Octaivia Spencer in her Academy Award performance in The Help. I don't really know because I haven't seen it yet. I mean there's only so many times that I can accept excellence being recognized in black women when they play maids.

Sure someone will bring up Whoopi or Halle or God forbid Mo'Nique, but somehow that just gives me the feeling of everything being circular and that black women are back where they started and it makes me feel a little disturbed.

But it's Black History Month and you get what you can get when you can get it and this is what they they will be writing about in the years to come, so my hat's off to Octavia Spencer and all the others that will follow her. Congratulations!

It's Where I Live

I have a flickr account. I have the free one and not the pro one which costs whatever it costs because I don’t really take that many pictures that need to be published and even fewer of them that I want to pay for. Recently I added a few pictures that I had taken at home to that account and tried to add them to the map program they have there. When I clicked the approximate location of where I assumed the house to be and the town Snow Hill NJ came up and I thought ,“Where the fuck is Snow Hill?” Well let me tell you.

I live in the Borough of Lawnside in New Jersey, which means that we are less than 4 square miles in size with a population of less than 5000 people. Actually I think we have about 2500 people with a mayor and 6 councilmen and 5 policemen of which 2 are part-timers. We had a police captain but he was put away for conspiracy and auto insurance fraud and I’m not sure if he was ever replaced. But we probably don’t need a police captain since apart from the murder last year at the Wayne Bryant Community Center when a teenager was shot and the petty drug sales that people do at the Exxon gas station; it’s a pretty quiet neighborhood.

Mark Bryant has been the mayor for at least the last 20 years and maybe longer than that. He lives in Cherry Hill but his girlfriend had a house here so I guess that keeps him qualified to be mayor. For a time I thought that Lawnside would have had to go Arab style, revolt and throw him out but this is South Jersey, we don't do that here. The mayor's brother, former state senator Wayne Bryant does have a house here. The house was worth between $7 and $10 million during the good times when everyone else’s homes cost about $150,000. But Wayne hasn’t been around much since his conviction on corruption and fraud charges. He is staying elsewhere for the next few years, benefit of the state.

Peter Mott House

Anyway, Lawnside was incorporated in 1926 making it the first independently self-governing African American community north of the Mason-Dixon Line. It was formed by the merger of 2 areas of land bought by abolitionists and freed slaves in the in the early 19th century known as Free Haven and Snow Hill. In fact Peter Mott, an African American farmer from Maryland, built his house in the 1840’s in Snow Hill. It’s about 3 blocks from where I live and was used as a stop on the Underground Railroad to help runaway slaves on their way north and freedom.

So that’s where Snow Hill is. It's not just a forgotten spot on a Google map, it’s where I live.

Of Thee I Sing

Marion Anderson

Speaking of Black history Month, when Luther Vandross died a bunch of us at work looked at the pictures of all those who attended the funeral or memorial service.

Of course all the usual suspects were there, the ones with names that you never forget: Quincy, Michael, Diana et al, at least I guess they were there because in actuality I did forget who did show up except for one big and fat woman who seemed stressed in all the wrong places with strange clothing that no one could recognize. Arnessia, a co-worker asked me who I thought it was. I said, “Next” as in the most obvious person next to die. It was about 5 minutes later when someone said that the unknown lady was Aretha.

Looking back I think I might have been a little callous in my assessments.

Aretha Franklin, who knew then that she would be invited to the Inauguration of the 1st black President of the United States or there would even be a 1st black President of the United States. Who knew then that more people would talk about her hat rather than the historical significance of her singing, “My country tis of thee,” on the steps of the Capitol. The same song that Martin Luther King had quoted from over 40 years earlier further down the Mall on the steps of The Lincoln Memorial, “Sweet land of liberty.” The same song that Marion Anderson had sung, but without the Anderson changes, at the Lincoln Memorial 70 years before after being invited by Mrs. Roosevelt to sing there when she had been refused permission to sing at Constitution Hall because of her race, “of thee I sing.” Who knew that she would become part of a historic moment that had come full circle?

As almost everyone knows, Aretha has been ill recently but I saw a tribute to her a few weekends ago on the Grammy Awards ceremony and I thought she looked good. Although getting sick is one hell of a way to lose weight. How many of those Grammys does she have anyway? I guess when you are recognized as the Queen of Soul all the facts and the figures, which one can find elsewhere, don’t really matter as long as she can express our sadnesses and still bring joy and peace and redemption to her listeners.

I hope things turn out well for her and us. I really do.

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin Tribute (Live at Grammy Awards 2011)
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The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Cover of the US release of the first I, Claudius DVD.

Damn it. I don’t know how I’m going to work this into Black History Month, but here goes. The revolution will not be televised.

Speaking of TV, one of my all time favorite television shows was and maybe always will be is I Claudius. Now you can have your HBO’s Rome or Gladiator or anything else you want, but they don’t really compare to Claudius. This show was true genius.

It's the story of a twitching, stuttering crippled idiot of a boy who kept records of his family where everyone was expected to succeed in life except him. It tells the story of The Divine Augustus and his wife the Lady Livia and how Claudius was able to endure everything from childhood to maturity, from deception and intrigue to an adulteress wife Messalina and become the fourth Roman Emperor.

I think there maybe only 6 or 8 episodes in the entire series and it was done by the BBC in the mid 70’s, which means of course there was no money put into it and sometimes it shows. But being based on a story by Robert Graves written in the 30’s, what it lacks in production values is more than compensated for by good storytelling and acting done by performers who, if they are still alive, carry a few Sirs or Dames in front of their names now.I won’t tell you about who conspired or killed or slept with whom to get the man or woman or position that they wanted or needed, but I will say that for every move portrayed in the show, if there was no back up by the Praetorian Guard or the army, then it was doomed to failure. The military was always in charge and this is what I learned about Mediterranean politics.

It’s kind of like in ’52 when Col. Nasser overthrew the Muhammad Ali dynasty and deposed King Farouk in Egypt. He had the military behind him to back him up and become the second President of country. Anwar Sadat, who although may have been just a junior officer under Nasser, rose to become Vice-President and then President when Nasser died in 1970. When Sadat was assassinated 11 years later he was succeeded by his Vice-President Hosni Mubarak who was a also the former Air Chief Marshall in the Egyptian air force. Now the military is directly in charge of Egypt’s state of affairs since the resignation of Mr. Mubarak and the military will determine the process of democratization for the country during the next few months. The revolution will not be televised.

MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images)

I’m not talking about the kabuki street theatre that we all have seen being played out in the public squares and the streets of Cairo. I’m not talking about the chants and the slogans shouted by the crowds as they mull about calling this one a crook and that one a despot or a terrorist. I’m not talking about the well place placards written for the benefit of France 24, or Sky News, or CNN where people are rioting one day and the ladies are sweeping the streets the next.

I’m talking about the real movers and shakers behind the palace or barrack walls, the ones with the stars on their epaulets and the braids on their chests. The ones who have been in charge since before Cleopatra and Akhenaten before her will decide will decide what will happen in the future and they won’t show you how it’s to be done because the revolution will not be televised.

Black History Month Revisited

Let me tell you about one moment in Black history.

I saw Temple Grandin the other day on HBO and just like the old days when they used to have the movie and disease of the week I have found something else that is wrong with me, I am autistic. There were just so many things in the movie that I could relate to. The ability to think in pictures rather than words, my confusion when I’m faced by noise and lots of visual stimulation that I’m not used to, my aversion to being touched by strangers unless I have that lonely night agenda thing going which we won’t go into here, all point to autism but without the genius thing.

I should make an appointment with my doctor for tests, but he would probably laugh at me again. Bitch! I hate HMO doctors.



What does any of this have to do with Black History Month? Nothing, but speaking of doctors and HBO I'm reminded of that other cable movie Something the Lord Made with Mos Def when he played the heart surgery pioneer Vivien Thomas. Even though Thomas had never attended medical school as a lab technician for the Johns Hopkins surgeon Dr. Alfred Blaylock had developed a surgical technique for improving the circulation of blood for patients with Blue Baby Syndrome. This was one of the names given to children, whose blood bypassed the lungs leaving them oxygen deprived with a blue pallor and was often fatal.

Thomas developed a technique where he was able to attach arteries from the heart to the lungs and therefore increase the amount oxygen and hence the lifespan of the child. But more than this, he developed a suture style where the scar tissue would be able to expand and grow as the patient and as he or her organs did. I bring this up only because I may have benefitted by his procedures.

When I was 14 days old, it was discovered that I was unable to digest any food because of a blockage somewhere in my digestive tract. In the old days, say Leonidas and the Spartans, they would have just thrown me out the back one night and let the wolves have at me, but instead I was operated on leaving a horizontal scar on my abdomen 2 stitches long. I know that because you can still see the marks where the needle entered the skin.

As I’ve grown, that 2 stitch scar has grown with me and is now about 4 inches long and I really have no problem with it unless someone points it out to me or I sneeze really energetically. You see when I sneeze, I contract my abs and if it’s really stressful the muscle will bulge below the scar and feel as if I’m being ripped apart about the midsection. Anyway, I don’t know how true it is but I think I may owe Vivien Thomas, among others, my life.

And that has been one moment in Black history.

My Black History Month

I have heard said that the world has been developed on the shoulders and back of the black man. I don't know how true that is, but I had to justify using this picture to the right... Moving on.

I read on Facebook from one of my friends, and I use the term loosely since other than we play games together I have no idea who she is, but she said in one of her posts that it was Black History Month and she was surprised that there didn't seem to be an awareness of it. There were no special events or promotions going on to celebrate or educate  people of what had happened before or what was going on. I wanted to reply to her post that there is so much going on around her that there was so much going on around her that she would have to do is stand up, open her eyes and see.

From the earthquake and its aftermath in the first black and second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere to the first black President of the United States, black history was going on and being developed all around her and still she didn't get that these were the culminations of what had happened before and may happen again and perhaps much more important than a TV show or a dance. Anyway, I probably don't have the skills to inform you and show you the events that have helped shape the world into what it is in any meaningful way. Instead I will just show you what has helped developed me for good or bad.

When I was young, around 4 or 5, my mother would sing the following song to me. Maybe it explains who I am, maybe it doesn't. I don't know, I just remember it now and again.

Benjamin Banneker

In honor of Black History Month.

In Philadelphia there are these series of historic markers that list where a famous institution had been or where someone well known had lived. This post is about one of those markers and who it is dedicated to. It was actually written a few years ago when I took a class for Web Development.

Since I had to create a web site, I chose to do one one on historic markers listing famous African Americans. One of the pages on that website was this. As in most classes you learn how to cheat a little bit without getting caught and I'm not really sure how much of it I actually wrote and how much is just a cut and paste job that I did, but here it is.

The Banneker Institute was named after Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806), he was probably the best-known African American in the early years following Independence. He was an astronomer, farmer, mathematician, and surveyor. In 1791, after being recommended by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Banneker was an assistant to Major Andrew Ellicott, the surveyor appointed by President George Washington to lay out the boundaries of the District of Columbia.

Banneker was born near Baltimore a son of a slave and an indentured servant. His grandmother, an Englishwoman, taught him to read and write. For several winters he would attend a small school open to blacks and whites. He developed an interest in mathematics and science. He pursued his mathematical studies after he became a farmer and taught himself astronomy. From 1791 to 1796, Banneker made all the astronomical and tide calculations and weather predictions for a yearly almanac.

Banneker sent Jefferson a copy of his first almanac. With it he sent a letter calling for the abolition of slavery and a liberal attitude toward blacks. Banneker' s skills impressed Jefferson. Jefferson sent a copy of the almanac to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris as evidence of the talent of blacks. Opponents of slavery in the United States and England also used the almanacs as evidence of the abilities of black people. The publishers of Banneker's almanacs printed contributions by prominent Americans in addition to his material. In the 1793 almanac, for example, the surgeon and statesman Benjamin Rush proposed the appointment of a U.S. secretary of peace.

The Banneker Institute is located at 409 S. 11th St, Philadelphia.

Black History Month

It's Black History Month once more and with the celebrations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday and the inauguration of Barack Obama as the first African-American President of the Unites States of America last month, it's going to be hard for me to find or write about something that will be of equal relevance and or stature.

So for now, until I am able to think of something worthy of your attention on this great occasion I will, with your permission show a brief video on a cause that is of great concern to many black women around the world. I hope that after seeing this, if you can find it in your hearts, you will contribute as generously to the cause as much as you can.

Thank you.

Black History Month Redux

I have always read books. I like to read books. I would like to say all types of books, but that wouldn’t be true. I don’t do non-fiction well unless it’s a history, and even then it would depend on what kind of mood I’m in for me to read it. I like novels. Give me a good fiction that tries to explore the “human condition” (cliché) and I will be wrapped up for days if not weeks trying to get to the end. Then I’ll spend even more time trying to decipher how the story relates to my own life. Right now I’m in the middle of Anna Karenina, Oprah’s book club version and even though I know how it’s going to end, I’ve seen at least 4 movie versions of the story, I’m still enthralled. I should have that same feeling for poetry, but I don’t.

That’s the reason why I have never seen Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam. I don’t think I could get into it. In fact the only poem that I remember from high school is Macavity the Mystery Cat by TS Elliot, and that’s only the first 2 lines. Poetry for me has always been an arduous task of reading between phrases and trying to find meaning when I would be so much happier if someone were to just slap my face and say, “Hey this is what I want you to know.” But no one ever did that to me, except for Essex.

I have been thinking about Essex Hemphill for the last couple of weeks. I’m not sure why, maybe because of Black History Month or maybe not, but Essex was a poet. He was also an editor and an activist. I met him at a barbeque party for Marlon Riggs and himself in West Philly. I think the party was to celebrate the release of Marlon’s film Tongues Untied, I’m not sure. I was just there for the free booze and red meat; I was young.

I had read and skipped over some of Essex’s poetry in the book In the Life, so I knew he was, but I didn’t really have much to say to him. Nevertheless we did talk for a little bit, about what I don’t know.

I remember that he had this way of asking a question that made you know that he really wanted know what your answer would be. He had a way of looking at you and you could tell he was analyzing you. He would look into you as far as you could let him and maybe even a little further without being obtrusive. He had the ability to take your thoughts without you being aware of it happening and then place them back where they belonged before you knew they were missing.

I knew Essex for about 2 years and he would do this to me again and again. I only saw him 4 or 5 times but each time was so intense that I would have to have a cigarette after talking to him. It was almost as if we’d had sex and I had walked away panting, trying to catch my breath. Then Essex died.

I went to the memorial service they held at the Quaker Friends Meeting House for him. I didn’t really think that I would miss him. We weren’t great friends, but I did.

I still do.

So I found this poem written by Essex and I’m working on trying to understand it. I hope the family doesn’t sue me.

Conditions XXI

You judge a womanby the length of her skirt,

by the way she walks,

talks, looks, and acts;

by the color of her skin you judge

and will call her "bitch!"

"Black bitch!"

if she doesn't answer your:

"Hey baby, whatcha gonna say

to a man."

You judge a woman

by the job she holds,

by the number of children she's had,

by the number of digits on her check;

by the many men she may have lain with

and wonder what jive murphy

you'll run on her this time.

You tell a woman

every poetic love line

you can think of,

then like the desperate needle

of a strung out junkie

you plunge into her veins,

travel wild through her blood,

confuse her mind, make her hate

and be cold to the men to come,

destroying the thread of calm

she held.

You judge a woman

by what she can do for you alone

but there's no need

for slaves to have slaves.

You judge a woman

by impressions you think you've made.

Ask and she gives,

take without asking,

beat on her and she'll obey,

throw her name up and down the streets

like some loose whistle --

knowing her neighbors will talk.

Her friends will chew her name.

Her family's blood will run loose

like a broken creek.

And when you're gone,

a woman is left

healing her wounds alone.

But we so called men,

we so called brothers

wonder why it's so hard

to love our women

when we're about loving them

the way america

loves us.

"Conditions XXI" © 1986,1996, 2002 by Essex Hemphill

It's Black History Month, Strike up the Band!

Let the word go forth, it’s Black History Month! There, I have said it.

Now I’m not going to talk about somebody doing street designs in DC, or someone else inventing traffic signals that you ignore and then have to show up later in court for. I can’t even tell you about how I marched with Martin in the fifties and sixties, unless of course you use that Mitt Romney way of looking at things. I don’t know much about those things so I will mention something about support.

In the mid nineties, I was given the predicament of making a choice. The Honorable Minister Farrakhan was organizing a rally in Washington, the Million Man March that he hoped would bring together black men. This was to be an act of mass confession or atonement by brothers in order to see where they had come from and to develop a more positive direction in which they would go.

I had seen Farrakhan before and whereas I had believed he was a very interesting speaker and much of what he said appealed to me, I didn’t hold much significance in what I considered would be a million man group hug. I didn’t want to go. But Bernadette however, did.

Bernadette was a girl that worked with me and as she stated, if she couldn’t get a man there, she would not be able to get a man anywhere. Hence, after many days of hemming and hawing, swinging and swaying, I thought to myself that if she could go for whatever reasons she could find, it would be wrong for me not to go and the March fail because of my indifference. I would feel bad if the whole thing fell short and people looked at me pointed and said, “because of you.”

Consequently on Saturday with my boyfriend, not Bernadette, I headed for DC for the Monday meeting, after assuring my boss that I would show up for work on Monday. Some sacrifices would have to be made, otherwise the whole effort on my part, would be meaningless. I showed up at the march at around noon Monday after calling out sick at 5am from the club. I met a few people, but I saw was reintroduced to even more people who I had not seen in a while and had lost contact with. I listened to many of the speeches from the various speakers all the way to the end and I came away with the idea that it was the responsibility black men to stop the violence, look after their families and honor their women. I had done my part for the cause and I left satisfied.

After all this time, I’m not really sure if anything really positive came out of the whole thing. There seems to be even more black on black crime now than there was then. I don’t know anything about the black family other than my own and I can’t tell you much about that, the case is coming up soon. But as far as honoring women, I have never in my life seen so many women called bitches and ho’s and treated with so much disrespect on TV and in real life.

So now, there is a junior senator from Illinois asking for support from me as well as others and as usual I am wishing and washing away like it’s nobody’s business but my own. But I don’t know if I should support people or issues just because we’re both black. It seems to limit my choice or even my thought processes if I do. But there is something to be said about climbing on the bandwagon or joining the herd. There is a safety in numbers that will be hard to find when you are out there on your own. What to do? What to do?