NEWSFLASH TO THOSE DIMWITS WHO THINK GLOBAL WARMING IS A FAIRY TALE!!!!!! Washington D.C.'s getting slammed by record snowfall right now, which means we have to suffer through a flurry of Al Gore jokes and Republicans snorting about how this proves global warming is all fake. And uh...no...Al Gore is not hybernating! It's worth noting the U.S. Global Change Research Program actually predicted stronger winter storms for the Northeast. So...what a bunch of ignorant hotheads. It IS happening, and every one of you fools who sticks your head in the sand should be strapped to a fence in your skivvies and forced to endure every last one of these nor'easter snowstorms back to back. The whole point is that weather phenomena, should current trends continue, will generally be more extreme--worse storms, worse droughts. The science has been there for quite a while, for those willing to get their heads out of their arses long enough to read without their thumb-sucking intellectual blinders and bigotries getting in the way. I agree with what my former professor posted in his blog...these people are nothing more than "fucking morons"!
In my last post, I failed to include the book by Elizabeth Jacoway....Turn Away Thy Son: Little Rock, the Crisis That Shocked the Nation. My reading of Jacoway's book inspired me to travel to Little Rock to tour Central High School. In her book, she argues that, although power and politics played their usual roles in the crisis, a white fear of miscegenation was the most important factor of the integration crisis. The fact that Jacoway is personally connected to some of the key players of the Little Rock crisis makes her account even more interesting. Her uncle, Virgil Blossom, was the school superindendent. Also, because Jacoway was a Little Rock student during the integration crisis, she is able to present a story from an insider's point of view. In my Civil Rights Movement graduate class, we had the unique opportunity of emailing Jacoway some of our questions. One of my former classmates asked, "Did your closeness to the events and subjects of the book pose any difficulties in the writing process?" In an age where most people family loyalty is the most important value, I was rather curious how Jacoway would answer this question. I loved her answer: "The Blossom daughters (her Uncle Virgil's daughters), my second cousins, feel that I have betrayed them and soiled their father's legacy, and of course this is disturbing to me...But after you turn sixty you begin to realize that your time is limited, and that you'd better decide what is important in life and what you have to give. I prize family above all else, but one of the key values in my family is the pursuit of truth. I believe I have held true to that value." Jacoway had tried to abandon this project years before, but the project would not let her do it. Her reason: "...because I am committed to the notion that we cannot correct the errors of the past unless we know what they are. We cannot heal unless we name the disease."
The next lesson...The Black Panther Party. Most people have negative perceptions of the Black Panthers. I have heard them dubbed as the "Klan With A Tan." 'Course, this remark came from someone who sees nothing wrong with the Confederate Flag. Before taking my Civil Rights Movement class, I didn't know what to think about the Black Panthers. To be sure, I thought they were a violent and rascist group. For my class, I read Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America by Peniel E. Joseph. Joseph places three characters at the center of the black power movement: Malcolm X, a black Muslim leader who believed that racial justice for blacks should be achieved by "any means necessary," Stokely Carmichael, who coined the term "black power" and condoned the use of violence to achieve revolution and independence, and the Black Panther Party, an organization of militant black civil rights activists founded in Oakland, California by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. The black power philosophy appealed to many African Americans who were disillusioned by the continued racism in America. Blacks still earned lower wages than whites, black neighborhoods experienced higher crime rates, and racial discrimination was business as usual. Understandably, young blacks wanted social change and they wanted it now. They felt MLK's methods were not good enough...fast enough.
In case you are interested in reading Joseph's book, below is a picture of the cover.
NEWSBREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment