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The Good, The Bad, and The White Moderate

by Bionca Benard
written by Bionca Benard

Martin Luther King Jr. Day has just recently passed and it is my least favorite thing in the world to see white people post these pretty quotes: 

“Darkness can not drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” 

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

I hate all of these quotes, no matter how inspiring they all, no matter how thoughtful they may be. Think of these posts like the black squares everyone was posting during the summer of 2020. They gave us nothing and did nothing. But still, they reposted, with the hashtags on their blacked-out posts. So many in fact, that they began to drown out the actual informative posts that were telling protestors about resources and updates on the Black Lives Matter movement. The MLK Jr. quotes and the Black-Out Tuesday posts were like the participation trophies they give to the bench players. They did nothing, but here they are expecting something.

“Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”

Oh, brother…

The only quote I enjoyed to see from Dr. King was this one: “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice” (Brown). 

It seems even Dr. King recognized the white moderate will always be a hindrance than an ally to Black people in America. The understanding that actual allyship involves more than just posts and not saying the n-word around their Black friends can take white people a long way. (If they’re actually willing of course.) If you consider yourself white and moderate, consider the following: 

  1. Don’t be moderate: There is no neutrality in the face of racism. You are on one side or you’re not. You either stand against the hatred or watch it unfold from the safety of your privilege. You can not be a bystander to the vicious onslaught your Black peers face if you are indeed anti-racist. 

Think of neutrality in the terms of war to make it easier (that’s something white people know well). WWI saw the US take a neutral stance during the feuding years. Woodrow Wilson believed in following the strict foreign policy: no alliances with foreign countries. This was, you know, a good idea, but not actually easy to execute because of the US alliances with Britain and France. 

Where’s the neutrality? You’re still friends with racists even if you’re not doing the racist deeds. White moderates are choosing to live in a bubble of security at the expense of Black people’s lives. The white flag you raise is covered in blood… 

The good, the bad, and white moderate… As a white person, where do you actually want to stand?  

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Dating While Black

by Leilani Fu’Qua
written by Leilani Fu’Qua

As February reaches an end and we enter the spring quarter,  I’ve noticed that too many Black bruins struggle with cultivating healthy relationships. 

 Parental expectations, stereotypes pressuring black couples to have “that Jada and that Will love,” and influential traumas are all factors that contribute to the decline of hopeful, flourishing relationships. In response, I’ve compiled a list of general tips that may increase the probability of going beyond “the talking stage” with your next boo. 

How to Cultivate a Healthy Relationship within the Black Community

1. Know what you want. 

State your intentions with your significant other. I’ve heard my friends question their place with their “boo” too many times. I find that if both parties find themselves thinking, “What are we?” a discussion about how far you want the relationship to go is necessary.

2. Be willing to listen.

When I find myself repeating grievances or preferences without feeling that I am being listened to or validated, red flags immediately pop up. Listen to the wishes of others and be open to adjusting certain things. This does not mean compromising your core values or individuality to become something you are not.

3. Be respectful, trustworthy, and honest.

My parents used to tell me, “treat others the way you want to be treated.” I assure you, no one wants to be cheated on, humiliated, or lied to. Being truthful to yourself will benefit both parties. (And do not refer to women as “females” or “b*tches.)

4. Communicate!

If your past relationships, traumas (including race-based issues), or external circumstances are having an influence on your relationship, communicate with your partner in order to learn how to navigate those battles together (without hurting the other person).

Lastly, do not let the expectations of the media alter the way you love. It’s not all “Love and Basketball” (2000). Don’t let Twitter convince you that he’s cheating to make you a stronger woman, and do not worry about things you can’t fix. If you’re not getting reciprocated energy, take your talents elsewhere. Hopefully, these tips help you advance from buddy to boo this cuffing season. 

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Opinion

Candyman and Irresponsible Storytelling

by Melody Gulliver
written by Melody Gulliver

It seems like everyone has a “Candyman” story. When I was seven, I would sneak into my sister’s room after my parents fell asleep. We would watch all sorts of films and when we were too afraid to fall asleep, we would talk ourselves into oblivion. Horror films brought us together in a way other movies couldn’t. Maybe it was the thrill of childhood rebellion. Or, maybe it was the security of not being alone. As a child, Candyman was nothing more than a scary story that amplified a fear of bees and slashers. After watching it again nearly fifteen years later, my fondness for it has faded into unabashed discomfort. It is no longer a movie that evoked childhood thrill. I cannot separate the merit of the work from the irresponsibility of its storytelling. The characterization of Candyman as a grotesque, hostile, and threatening black man obsessed with a white woman perpetuates dangerous racial stereotypes. The consequence of this depiction fortifies the racial fears and constructs that people of color have worked so ardently to dismantle.

While the film incorporates a backstory that helps humanize Candyman’s rage, the complexity and emotional impact of his trauma is largely left unexplored. This is illustrated in the way Helen Lyle learns Candyman was murdered in a vicious hate act. The film makes no attempt to expand and emotionalize this atrocity through a visual depiction. Visual depiction increases credibility and urges audience members to confront uncomfortable truths, sympathize with the victim, and condemn the perpetrators. The effect of oral storytelling is that it reinforces a disconnect and inhibits villainous forces like racism from being properly acknowledged in the story’s context. Through this incident, the film failed to substantiate Candyman’s actions by underlining complex emotionality. Candyman’s apparent one-sidedness eroded the potential for audience sympathy and intensified racial fears. After Helen learns of Candyman’s trauma, she develops a thesis that invalidates the authenticity of Candyman for her anthropological dissertation. Helen’s consumption of Candyman’s narrative and subsequent skepticism emboldens the narrative’s racial inequalities. It appears the study of Candyman and Cabrini-Green, the poverty-stricken neighborhood he terrorizes, is merely a mechanism to her advance anthropological pursuits. It is not genuine concern, but rather, a curiosity that propels Helen’s work.

In addition to the white consumption of black tragedy for personal benefit, Candyman promotes a racial caricature reminiscent of D.W Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation.” Similar to Candyman, reception of Griffith’s 1915 film differed on two accounts: the artistic merit and its appallingly racist content. For some, Griffith’s bold cinematic choices revolutionized the motion picture industry and thus, warranted it a historic artifact despite its disturbingly racist narrative. Birth of a Nation relied on racist tropes including the hypersexualized and violent savagery of African American men to intensify social fears and validate racial anxiety. Specifically, it championed a notion that black men pose a dangerous threat to white women. Although Candyman isn’t as explicit as Birth of a Nation, it echoes similar sentiments. While Candyman was summoned by Helen’s naïve accord (i.e. she said his name five times), he terrorizes her for an elongated period because of her resemblance to his late lover. At one point, Candyman deliberately acknowledges this obsession, stating, “it was always you.” The film’s horror is contingent upon this irrational obsession. Candyman’s actions are guided in part because of his myth (i.e. “needs to shed innocent blood”) and his fascination with Helen. Worse than just irresponsible storytelling, Candyman augments racist tropes for commercial gain. For that reason, any creative value is compromised almost entirely.

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Opinion

The Problematic Politics of the Women’s March

by Melody Gulliver
written by Melody Gulliver

This past Saturday, January 20th, thousands of people and hundreds of cities participated in the 2018 Women’s March to rally against the Trump administration and its divisive politics. Feelings of resistance and solidarity were fortified through multitudes of signs, chants, organized treading, and riveting speeches.

For many, the march instilled feelings of hope and progress. But for others, the march preserved the same divisiveness it sought to dismantle.

Writer, S.T Holloway articulates this problematic incongruity in her Huffington Post op-ed, “Why This Black Girl Will Not Be Returning To The Women’s March.” In the article, Holloway recounts her discomfort with the lack of intersectionality at the 2017 Women’s March. She writes, “the reason I’m not going is because after having attended the march last year, I am well aware that the Women’s March is not for women like me.”

According to the Women’s March, its mission is to “harness the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change… [and to dismantle] systems of oppression through nonviolent resistance and building inclusive structures.”

Despite the Women’s March intent, its execution fails to provide adequate spaces and platforms for persons of color. The event speaks scarcely and vaguely about the complex experiences and biases endured by persons of color. It is dominated by heteronormative white women who at best, are not aware their pussy-power and “future is female” rhetoric is exclusionary. There is little strive to keep women of color in the conversation, and even less desire to have Black and Brown women lead the discussion.

So, who is the Women’s March for?

If it’s not for women of color, like Holloway, whose lives the current administration is so intent on displacing, diminishing, and deteriorating, then who?

If it’s not for Black transgender women like Mesha Caldwell who have been terrorized and brutally murdered without hope of political justice, then who?

If it’s not for women like Sandra Bland who have suffered unforgivable acts of police brutality, then who?

If it’s not for women like Recy Taylor who have fought bravely to have their stories of sexual abuse heard and validated, then who?

The march is marketed as a rally against the politics that concretize disparities in power including gender, race, and ability—both, physical and mental. With the march’s mission and magnitude, it had the potential to be revolutionary. And in some ways, it was. But any triumph is eclipsed by the self-serving white feminism by which it operates.

We need to do better.

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Is There Still a Need for Black History Month?

by Brian Griffith
written by Brian Griffith

Photo via Flickr

“Either you want to segregate or integrate,” said Stacey Dash expressing her feelings about Black issues in America today. Recently, the  infamous Ms. Dash has been receiving a lot of attention for her outspoken declaration that things like BET and other “Black only” award shows are no longer needed at this time. She even goes as far to say that Black History Month should not exist.

 

Her polarizing comments stem from the quote above. If we as a Black community are to be truly integrated into a white dominant media and society, we must abandon entities like BET and Black History Month, which keeps us from fully integrating into the society. With Black enterprises like these, they stop us from being able to partake in the larger, white media.

 

However, while I do see the point Ms. Dash is making, I think it is imperative to remember why these entities were created in the first place. The Black only industry markets were created to give Black people specifically, the ability to participate in media outlets without having to worry about not being casted due to the color of their skin. Also, awards shows, like BET, were created in order to commemorate excellent Black people who went largely unrecognized by the white dominated Academy Awards.

 

Black History Month was created  in order to honor innovative Black people of all time, who worked tirelessly to position us where we now stand in society. This is one of the many reasons why Black enterprises are a necessity to make sure our talent and ability does not go unrecognized. As far as I am concerned, these different enterprises will never truly go away like Dash is calling for.

 

There will always be a need for recognition of the Black community because the greater media and awards do not care for the more meticulous side of the Black experience or struggle. Thus, the month of February is just a enlarged version of the couple of times Black people are celebrated throughout the year. It is not wrong to say that if we have a month celebrating Black culture and its history, we may in fact, be isolating ourselves from others. Yet, it is wrong to say we are segregating ourselves from others because of these Black only events that give many young Black people someone to look up to and admire.

 

In addition to this, Black people everywhere are able to see people who look like them, typically, working for them, and trying to make a real difference in the community, unlike the majority of what media shows us. The media only shows Black people engrossed in violence and some type of negative activity, which ultimately degrades the Black community. However, Black History Month and enterprises like BET are around to show us and the rest of the world how great our community truly is. So, yes Stacey Dash, we, a Black community and people, need BET and Black History Month as a relief from the constant bombardment of negativity about the Black community given to us by the mainstream White media. Our history teaches and reminds the younger generation that they have many dynamic individuals to look up to.

 

What do you think? Is Black History Month still relevant?

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Producer of “Dear White People” Visits the Bunche Center

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This last Thursday, I was given the opportunity to attend an info session with up-and-coming director Justin Simien and the talented producer/writer Lena Waithe at the Ralph J. Bunche Library. I was fairly excited to meet the masterminds behind the highly anticipated film, “Dear White People,” to hear them speak about their motivations for creating the project, and what sort of messages they are trying to promote through their respective works.

Before they spoke, the audience was shown the initial concept trailer for “Dear White People.” This was the trailer that went viral last year, and allowed for Simien and company to raise $40,000 to fund the film through crowd-sourced donations. Next we were shown pilot clips from Lena Waithe’s original series, “Twenties”. The series follows the lives of three twenty-something-year-old African-American women attempting to traverse the real world after college. These clips were made possible through Queen Latifah’s production company, Flavor Unit, who offered to fund the pilots after being captivated by the script. Drawing influence from Lena Dunham’s HBO series “Girls,” Waithe hopes to tell “The honest Black hipster coming of age story,” which is story that has yet to be properly told on film or TV.

Both “Twenties” and “Dear White People” are important in that they attempt to give viewers an authentic and honest portrayal of contemporary African American youth, with diverse characters who do not all fit into the traditional mold of “blackness”.

DWP 2

Lena Waithe and Justin Simien

Waithe and Simien expressed the need for them to have some characters that portrayed their own experiences of being Black, in a predominately White middle class neighborhood, and how this influenced their upbringing. Both projects also address issues surrounding interracial relationships, homosexuality, and cultural appropriation in a way that manages to be witty, informing, and relatable for a millennial of all racial backgrounds.

But even so, Simian and Waithe still faced major difficulties getting their projects picked up by any major networks or studios, due to the belief that they would be unable of drawing in an audience. This is what motivated them to promote their projects themselves by releasing trailers and test pilots through the web, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive.

“Dear White People,” has premiered at Sundance Festival and managed to earn the Festival’s Special Jury Prize for Breakthrough Talent, and is slated for a major release later this year. While “Twenties,” creator Waithe has been in talks with a number of networks, particularly BET, about getting picked up.

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Mass Incarceration: Slavery By Another Name

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The Afrikan Student Union at UCLA currently exists to promote, protect and serve the social, educational, and political interests of people of Afrikan descent. On Tuesday, February 4th, ASU Administrative Staff introduced a resolution to UCLA’s Undergraduate Student Association Council (USAC) urging it, the UCLA Foundation, and the UC Regents to divest from corporations that have investments in the two major private prison companies, CCA and GEO Group.

As Black intellectuals and activists, it is important to recognize the context in which we are functioning. The UC has the largest endowment in the world. If we know, through public information on the UC Regents, that the UC is investing in corporations such as Wells Fargo, Vanguard Group, Blackrock Fund Advisors, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Invesco Finance LTD, and JP Morgan Chase, which contribute to the privatization of prisons and in turn, the enslavement of black, brown and other oppressed communities, it is our collective responsibility to challenge this reality.

Louisiana is the prison capital of the world, meaning it incarcerates more prisoners than any other state in America and any other country. The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola is one of the largest and most notorious maximum security prisons in the country, which works as an agricultural complex that utilizes cheap prisoner labor (wages range between four cents and 20 cents per hour) for traditional agriculture production and light industry. The penitentiary occupies 18,000 acres of land that was once a 19th century plantation–the Angola Plantation–named after the area in Africa that supplied most of the plantation’s slave labor. Thus, how can anyone say that the current imprisonment of our people is not eerily and disturbingly similar to the chattel slavery our ancestors endured?

More Black men are under correctional control today than were enslaved in 1850. Moreover, Black women are the fastest growing segment of the juvenile justice population and the criminal justice system. The question, we should be asking ourselves is: are Black people inherently criminal? For the aforementioned statistics to be justified that is what society would intend for us to believe.

However, as former Chair of the Black Panther Party, Elaine Brown asserts, it is important to be “ruthless in your analysis.” CCA and GEO have massive political lobbying power, which has set the stage for black and brown prisoners to become free laborers while incarcerated. In the 1990s, CCA and GEO Group successfully lobbied for mandatory minimums, three-strikes and drug laws, which have contributed to the incarceration of millions of black, brown, and other, oppressed communities. In fact, CCA and GEO worked with Congress to effectively lobby for the 1995 Prison Industry Act, which was promoted by ALEC, and turned prisoners into laborers. Moreover, one would realize through research that most black and brown prisoners are imprisoned due to non-violent drug offenses.

As Angela Davis, former UCLA Professor of Philosophy said, “Prisons do not disappear human beings. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.”

We are facing an endemic problem in this country, and that is the perpetual marginalization and criminalization of Black people. And, instead of addressing the root causes of these problems, the United States is allowing for generations of Black Americans to remain broken and disillusioned. Fortunately, the UCLA Undergraduate Student Association Council (USAC) voted unanimously in support of the resolution; however, work still needs to and will be done to achieve our goal, which is liberation of all Afrikan people.

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From Negro History Week to African Liberation Month

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“Who owns history? Not even the ones who made it.”

-Kumasi, Black August Organizing Committee

Norman Richmond, aka Jalali

Norman Richmond, aka Jalali

“Black History Month must be updated for the 21st century. February should be the month that we re-double our struggle against imperialism and white supremacy, and for reparations for slavery, the slave trade and colonialism.” This was the message that Gerald Horne, author of Black Revolutionary: William Patterson and the Globalization of the African American Freedom Struggle, an African American Communist and global activist for racial equality , left the audience with when he spoke at the beautiful Trane Studio in Toronto in February several years ago.

While we joined back then in celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Haitian revolution, We must also stand with the people of Zimbabwe against the West and their vicious attacks on President Robert Mugabe. The people of Zimbabwe should be allowed to resolve the contradictions among themselves. “Hands off Mugabe!” should become the cry of Africans at home and abroad, and of all progressive people.

Human rights attorney Ezili Dantò is dedicated to correcting the media lies and colonial narratives about Haiti. A writer, performance poet and lawyer, Dantò is founder of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, runs the Ezili Dantò website, listserve, eyewitness project, FreeHaitiMovement and the on-line journal, Haitian Perspectives. Dantò is attempting to keep the Haitian question alive in the 21st Century.

Roy Agyemang’s film Mugabe: Villain or Hero?, is being screened around the world. British-born of Ghanaian parents, filmmaker Agyemang was in Zimbabwe attempting to make a documentary on President Robert Mugabe at a time when all western media was banned. What was intended to be a three-month mission, turned into three life-changing years. Mugabe: Villain or Hero?,was a hit at the 2013 Pan African Film Festival.

Agyemang and his UK based Zimbabwean fixer, Garikayi, worked their way through the corridors of power, probing the cultural, economical and historical factors at the heart of the “Zimbabwean Crisis”. In their quest to interview Mugabe, Roy and Garikayi were mistaken for the British Secret Service. Roy narrates this personal epic journey; as they gain unprecedented access to Robert Mugabe, find themselves on Colonel Gaddafi’s private jet, and around a host of prominent African leaders. February is the perfect time to shine the light on the work on Danto and Agyemang.

During February – and every month –we should also call on boards of education in North America to put C.L.R. James’ classic book about the Haitian revolution, The Black Jacobins, in classrooms; demand that the U.S. government return Grenada’s archives, stolen during the 1983 U.S. invasion; that boards of education in North America teach in the public schools about the global African presence, and demand that reparations be paid to Africans at home and aboard for the enslavement and the colonization of the land and the people.

Because of African people’s colonization, enslavement and dislocation, our people suffer what Harold Cruse, the author of The Crisis of The Negro Intellectual, calls historical discontinuity. We as a people still allow others to define our reality. I am concerned how others are attempting to define the month of February for their own purposes. McDonald’s calls it Black History Month; Harbourfront Centre once referred to it as African Heritage Month, but they have gone back to Black History Month. A growing minority prefers the term African Liberation Month.

Richard B. Moore, the great Barbadian revolutionary and author of the book, The Name Negro: Its Origin and Evil Use, was clear on the issue of naming people and historical events. Moore always maintained that dogs and slaves are named by their masters; free people name themselves.

Where did the idea of Black History Month come from? Did it drop from the skies? No. Was it conceived in the lab of a mad African scientist? Wrong again. Personally, I’m tired of hearing uninformed people remark: “They give us the coldest and shortest month of the year to celebrate Black History Month.”

First of all, they didn’t give us anything. The great African American historian Carter G. Woodson, his organization – the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which was formed in 1915 – and the masses of African people in the United States and Canada forced the system to recognize the contribution of Africans to the world. Woodson’s organization came into existence only 30 years after the Berlin Conference, where European colonial powers carved up Africa like a Thanksgiving turkey.

“Why did Woodson pick February as the time to commemorate Africa’s many gifts to humanity?” Says John Henrik Clarke, in his book, Africans At the Crossroads: Notes For An African World Revolution. “Black History Week comes each year about the second Sunday in February, the objective being to select the week that will include both February 12, the birth of Abraham Lincoln, and February 14, the date Frederick Douglass calculated to have been his natal day. Sometimes the celebrations can include one day, in which case Douglass’ date gets preference.”

February never was meant to be the only month African people reflected on their past. Clarke states, “The aim is not to enter upon one week’s study of (B)lack people’s place in history. Rather, the celebration should represent the culmination of a systematic study of Black people throughout the year. Initially, the observance consisted of public exercises emphasizing the salient facts brought to light by researchers and publications of the association during the first 11 years of its existence. The observance was widely supported among (B)lack Americans in schools, churches and clubs. Gradually, the movement found support among other ethnic groups and institutions in America and abroad.”

We’ve come a long way since Woodson created Negro History Week in 1926. His classic book, The Mis-Education of the Negro (the inspiration for the title of singer Lauryn Hill’s “The Mis-Education of Lauryn Hill”), is a must read for anyone who wants to be on the right side of history. The time has come to update Woodson’s idea. As activist/scholar Abdul Akalimat, author of The African American Experience and Cyberspace, has pointed out, “Some of us have been promoting the notion that it was important to move from Negro to Black, from Week to Month, and now it is time to move from general notion of history to the specific theme of Black history which is liberation.”

The question is history for what? The answer is for liberation. Huge hamburger chains have appropriated images of the great kings and queens of Africa. President Barack Hussein Obama has been lukewarm about Black History Month and has actually nationalized Black Music Month by changing it to African American Music Appreciation Month. The Black Music Association, which was created by Kenny Gamble and Ed Wright was put together by Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley and the Wailers in attempt to make it an All-African affair.

African people, like all people, have a right to determine who their friends are and who their enemies are.

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