By Sikivu Hutchinson
As soon as Arizona’s fascist anti-immigrant SB1070 legislation passed, black civil rights leaders from Jesse Jackson to California Assembly member Karen Bass roundly condemned it. The toxic national climate couldn’t be more primed for this law. In recent months, the high octane atmosphere of jingoistic racism, xenophobia and Manifest Destiny posturing amongst white zealots and the legislators who shill for them has become standard order. Now that the nation is in an uproar over SB1070, civil rights coalitions have begun trying to mobilize African American opposition to the Bill by linking black social justice activism with the immigrant rights movement.
However, when it comes to immigration rights and reform, there is a pronounced disconnect between black leadership and average black folk. In the L.A. African American Conservative Examiner respondents expressed support for SB1070. One believed that if similar laws were enacted in California it would be a deterrent to attacks on African Americans by Mexican immigrants. On the liberal to moderate The Grio website some black posters sounded off about bearing the brunt of racial discrimination, yet saw little connection between their experiences and an authoritarian crackdown on Arizonans of color under the legislation. Living elbow to elbow with Latinos in the same socioeconomically depressed communities, black anxiety over interracial violence and social/demographic usurpation by Latinos in the low wage job sector has intensified. In cities where black and Latino day laborers compete for construction and home improvement jobs, white hiring preferences for Latinos have ignited controversy over racist stereotypes about lazy blacks versus hardworking Mexicans. In Los Angeles communities where predominantly black neighborhood schools have become majority Latino, social and classroom segregation between the two groups is a hard reality. The prevalence of Latino anti-black prejudice, ranging from “pigmentocracy” bias to caricaturing blacks as backward and “ghetto,” is a recurring complaint among some African American youth. Further, the perception that Latino organizations don’t support African American activism around such issues as racial profiling and police brutality has long fueled mainstream black wariness of black/Latino coalition building.
It is little wonder then that during last month’s Washington D.C. immigration reform protests there was a notable dearth of black participation. According to the online magazine The Root, immigrants of African descent purportedly don’t participate in immigrant rights activism because of class differences with Latin American immigrants. African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants who come to the U.S. legally on H1-B or student visas may perceive immigration reform as a “Latino phenomenon.” Seeking professional careers, many don’t identify with the socioeconomic desperation that motivates undocumented Latin American workers and families to come to the U.S.
Homegrown black support for or ambivalence about the Arizona law is symptomatic of a deep vein of frustration, anger, cultural resentment and xenophobia. Study after study indicates that African Americans are the most residentially segregated, suffer the greatest discrimination in job application and employment and are amongst the biggest recipients of predatory mortgage loans. Fifty-six years after Brown v. Board there is greater social isolation between African Americans and whites in comparison to other racial groups. And white backlash to Obama’s election continues to illustrate the intractability of post-Jim Crow racism.
Because of the legacies of slavery and racial apartheid, the word “nigger” is still the universal signifier for dehumanization and otherness. For this reason, black liberation resistance has always been based on the struggle for recognition of both African American humanity and the basic right to citizenship. So there has always been a visceral yearning amongst black folk to wake up one morning and not be the ultimate other. A yearning to truly be considered a “native” son or daughter in a global empire based on forced African American immigration.
For many working class African Americans who see the gains of the civil rights era smoldering in the ashes of staggering unemployment, incarceration and high school drop-out rates, the plight of recently arrived undocumented immigrants does not register as a cause for solidarity. Ignorant of the bloody history of European imperial conquest of the Southwest, African Americans selectively lap up the white nationalist “taking back our country” swill at their peril. Creating a pure police state to "protect" (white) citizens from government coddled illegals and welfare leeches is part of the same old divide and conquer dynamic that allows the way white elites profit from illegal immigrant labor and low wage black labor to go unexamined.
Recently, a white Alabama Republican gubernatorial candidate called for the state’s driver license exam to be given in English because, "If you want to live here, (you need to) learn it." This nativist attempt to secure the borders of the new Confederacy is a harbinger of public policy that hearkens back to the literacy tests, poll taxes and other disfranchising regimes of Jim Crow. Word to ambivalent black folk—the narrative of nationhood, when spun by white supremacists, will never include you, no matter how Anglo your sur (read, slave) name or how “un-inflected” your English is. In the lynch mob mentality of some law enforcement, SB1070’s mandate for investigation with “reasonable suspicion” will always mean you.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Harry Brown: A Man with a Mission!
Daniel Barber
Starring: Michael Caine (born 1933) Veteran Actor of Note.
and Emily Mortimer, Charlie Creed-Miles.
Plot Vigilante justice: London City streets clean up.......... for the moment!
Michael Caine's stellar performance is the high point of the film, Harry Brown. The low point is everything else. This is a film that humbles us all by its omission of the names, identity, history of those Harry Brown(Michael Caine) chooses to murder in cold blood because they are interfering in the enjoyment of his less than idyllic life style.
His vigilante solution to the social problems of the London youth who are unemployed permanently due to lack of jobs and poor education and the strength of the English caste system(although they don't call it that) reduces us all to infinitesimal specks in this densely populated, colossally huge World.
It is frightening to think that any major film company would spend over 100 million dollars to put on the screen a film of this dubious quality and anticipate a profit. I know this vigilante type behavior has been sanctioned with the bombing of Iraq and Pakistan and Afghanistan and the Drone plans but there is still something grotesque in the shooting in cold blood without due process and hopefully there always will be.
This display of random killing without personal provocation earns my award for "shame on you" films that should never have been made.
Warning: This film might incite dangerous/unacceptable/anti-social behavior in those Under 21 and those particularly prone to mimicry
Starring: Michael Caine (born 1933) Veteran Actor of Note.
and Emily Mortimer, Charlie Creed-Miles.
Michael Caine's stellar performance is the high point of the film, Harry Brown. The low point is everything else. This is a film that humbles us all by its omission of the names, identity, history of those Harry Brown(Michael Caine) chooses to murder in cold blood because they are interfering in the enjoyment of his less than idyllic life style.
His vigilante solution to the social problems of the London youth who are unemployed permanently due to lack of jobs and poor education and the strength of the English caste system(although they don't call it that) reduces us all to infinitesimal specks in this densely populated, colossally huge World.
It is frightening to think that any major film company would spend over 100 million dollars to put on the screen a film of this dubious quality and anticipate a profit. I know this vigilante type behavior has been sanctioned with the bombing of Iraq and Pakistan and Afghanistan and the Drone plans but there is still something grotesque in the shooting in cold blood without due process and hopefully there always will be.
This display of random killing without personal provocation earns my award for "shame on you" films that should never have been made.
Warning: This film might incite dangerous/unacceptable/anti-social behavior in those Under 21 and those particularly prone to mimicry
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Debunking the Myth of a Colorblind France
By Sounia Johnson
In the early 1930’s many African American artists fled to Paris in order to escape racial inequalities and the constant oppression and dehumanization they experienced in the United States. “ Liberty, Fraternity and Equality,” a motto celebrating freedom that traces its roots in the French Revolution, attracted many African American expatriates such as James Baldwin and Josephine Baker, who found acceptance in what they perceived as a generous France -- liberal, receptive and a champion of social equality and civil rights.
Unexpectedly, a different reality was observed by world renowned American essayist James Baldwin. Baldwin witnessed the deep hatred toward and unequal treatment of French North Africans. Baldwin pledged his support of Algerians (referring to them as Paris’s niggers) while vehemently opposing the way the white French would treat minorities, thereby debunking the notion of colorblind liberal France.
It is thus not surprising that the widely held belief of a romanticized France does not hold any credibility for the many disenfranchised North Africans whose voices are consistently marginalized. The recent 2005 riots in France’s most underprivileged cities have been the result of ongoing racial and ethnic tensions. These tensions have highlighted the profound disconnect between the French Republic and overwhelmingly disenfranchised French Muslim youth, who are frustrated with being constantly marginalized as radical Muslim thugs, and not being given equal treatment as their white French counterparts.
Circumscribed access to education for the French-Magrehbi youth who mostly reside in insalubrious conditions housed in HLMs (Habitations De Loyer Modéré), commonly referred to as subsidized low-rent housing located in heavily Pan-African suburbs, is reflective of an unprecedented ghettoization not found anywhere else in Europe. These developments mirror housing projects found in American’s most underserved urban areas. The high unemployment rate— which in turns leads to juvenile delinquency amongst a frustrated urban youth— has led many young Muslims to fall prey to religious radicalism, with all the negative political implications this entails for France and the war against terrorism.
The problems are endless but are rooted in the fact that the French-Maghrebi youth cannot find sustainable employment due to lack of formal education and immeasurable social ills that have plagued and paralyzed young French North Africans into a dark abyss with no hope in sight...CONTINUED http://blackfemlens.blogspot.
Sounia Johnson is a French Algerian Los Angeles based correspondent for the North African Journal. Her perspectives on racism in France, as well as issues related to French-North African relations in Europe and French-Algerian life stand peerless. Follow this clever, adroit young writer.
In the early 1930’s many African American artists fled to Paris in order to escape racial inequalities and the constant oppression and dehumanization they experienced in the United States. “ Liberty, Fraternity and Equality,” a motto celebrating freedom that traces its roots in the French Revolution, attracted many African American expatriates such as James Baldwin and Josephine Baker, who found acceptance in what they perceived as a generous France -- liberal, receptive and a champion of social equality and civil rights.
Unexpectedly, a different reality was observed by world renowned American essayist James Baldwin. Baldwin witnessed the deep hatred toward and unequal treatment of French North Africans. Baldwin pledged his support of Algerians (referring to them as Paris’s niggers) while vehemently opposing the way the white French would treat minorities, thereby debunking the notion of colorblind liberal France.
It is thus not surprising that the widely held belief of a romanticized France does not hold any credibility for the many disenfranchised North Africans whose voices are consistently marginalized. The recent 2005 riots in France’s most underprivileged cities have been the result of ongoing racial and ethnic tensions. These tensions have highlighted the profound disconnect between the French Republic and overwhelmingly disenfranchised French Muslim youth, who are frustrated with being constantly marginalized as radical Muslim thugs, and not being given equal treatment as their white French counterparts.
Circumscribed access to education for the French-Magrehbi youth who mostly reside in insalubrious conditions housed in HLMs (Habitations De Loyer Modéré), commonly referred to as subsidized low-rent housing located in heavily Pan-African suburbs, is reflective of an unprecedented ghettoization not found anywhere else in Europe. These developments mirror housing projects found in American’s most underserved urban areas. The high unemployment rate— which in turns leads to juvenile delinquency amongst a frustrated urban youth— has led many young Muslims to fall prey to religious radicalism, with all the negative political implications this entails for France and the war against terrorism.
The problems are endless but are rooted in the fact that the French-Maghrebi youth cannot find sustainable employment due to lack of formal education and immeasurable social ills that have plagued and paralyzed young French North Africans into a dark abyss with no hope in sight...CONTINUED http://blackfemlens.blogspot.
Sounia Johnson is a French Algerian Los Angeles based correspondent for the North African Journal. Her perspectives on racism in France, as well as issues related to French-North African relations in Europe and French-Algerian life stand peerless. Follow this clever, adroit young writer.
Rage: Sally Potter Does it Again!
"SALLY POTTER’S “RAGE” NOMINATED FOR BEST DRAMA
IN THE 14th ANNUAL WEBBY AWARDS "
This is wonderful news. Rage is a film with little action but there is something so riveting about the performance of several characters talking into the screen, telling their story, one actor at a time.
The technique is similar to Louis Malle's My Dinner With Andre
and the result is as memorable.
It was a rainy day at the library when I sat down to watch this film I thought I would see some at the library and the rest at home but that didn't happen. I sat in that uncomfortable wooden chair from beginning to end and later when I reviewed the film with a wealth of accolades I was told by a seasoned reviewer, Jeffrey Lions that he didn't like it. Not enough action.
Well, it was enough action for me and for the Webby Awards. And hopefully it will be enough action for you as well.
The star-studded line-up of actors includes Jude Law, Judi Dench, Dianne Wiest, John Leguizamo, Simon Abkarian and Steve Buscemi,
See it on DVD or watch for it in theaters. It might enjoy a return showing
Linda Zises
WBAI RAdio
Criticalwomen.net
Repost of original review
Rage Sally Potter DVD
RAGESally Potter Director/Writer (Orlando, 1992)
A young blogger at a New York fashion house shoots behind-the-scenes interviews on his cell-phone. In viewing the footage the audience is confronted with the process of marketing products, the brutal rise to the top in a sucessful company, and the use of perfumes to hide us from ourselves.
Commentary:
From the moment the film started I knew it was written by a woman because I identified with the method of writing, the typing, going back and forth to correct what was put up on the screen. This process drew me into the film and its theme of public versus private; of being famous and being invisible was a profound message. This is such a woman's issue, wanting to be seen, to be sexy and attractive while simultaneously wanting to be Invisible, to be "safe".
I loved the peeling of the onion layers approach to the plot, the change in the characters to reveal not the "I" but the "me" as they confront a moment of trauma, of inevitable reality with the death of one of their own.
I felt drawn to the story, the frightening look at fashion, at manipulation of words to promote a scent. A scent, a perfume for children! Is there nothing sacred, nothing pure, nothing of worth left now that the Internet captures the moment formerly private and sends it out into the Universe of the unknown.
I am not a script writer nor a film director but if I were I would want to have created this film.
Rage: As a film it works. As a live drama on Broadway it will also be tauted as great.
Linda Zises
WBAI Women's Collective
AGORA: The Rise of Christiantity While Rome Burns: and Women?
I don't remember when last religious furor by the holier than thou rise of Christianity was brought to the screen in a more powerful, convincing scene after scene to capture the horrific times of the end of the Roman Empire.
Alejandro Amenabar directs a powerful cast in a timely rendition of the collapse of the Roman Empire. Agora stars Rachel Whisz, Max Minghella and Oscar Isaac.
In a familiar view of what might happen again, this time in our own midst we are given an intimate rich view of the little known philosopher/scientist Hypatia whose legendary discoveries took 1200 years for the rest of human kind to embrace as Truth.
This unusual and compelling rendition of a subject we might not have known as it is put forth by Aejandro Amernabar is punctuated by the extraordinarily powerful acting that Rachel Weisz brings to the screen.
The final moments of Hypatia's life were so beautifully executed that this moment alone makes the film, Agora worth seeing.
Alejandro Amenabar directs a powerful cast in a timely rendition of the collapse of the Roman Empire. Agora stars Rachel Whisz, Max Minghella and Oscar Isaac.
In a familiar view of what might happen again, this time in our own midst we are given an intimate rich view of the little known philosopher/scientist Hypatia whose legendary discoveries took 1200 years for the rest of human kind to embrace as Truth.
This unusual and compelling rendition of a subject we might not have known as it is put forth by Aejandro Amernabar is punctuated by the extraordinarily powerful acting that Rachel Weisz brings to the screen.
The final moments of Hypatia's life were so beautifully executed that this moment alone makes the film, Agora worth seeing.
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