From a Los Angeles Times story: "The place called Lumpkin's Jail was indeed a jail, but it was much more than that. It was a holding pen for human chattel.
"In Richmond's Shockoe Bottom river district, the notorious slave trader Robert Lumpkin ran the city's largest slave-holding facility in the 1840s and 1850s. Tens of thousands of blacks were held in the cramped brick building while they waited to be sold."
Earlier this month the Lumpkin Jail was excavated in Richmond, Virginia, and this week "black and white Richmond residents walked together across the rain-slicked cobblestones . . . that mark the outlines of the old slave jail." Upon his death Lumpkin left the jail to his widow, Mary Lumpkin, a black woman and former slave. She in turn "gave the property to a minister who established a school for freed slaves. Over the years, the school evolved into what is now Virginia Union University, a historically black college."
Thursday, December 18, 2008
"Adolf Hitler Campbell"
Heath and Deborah Campbell named their now three-year-old son Adolf Hitler Campbell. A ShopRite store refused the Campbells' order for a birthday cake with the child's name spelled out. Heath Campbell, invoking the name of President-elect Obama: "There's a new president and he says it's time for a change; well, then it's time for a change. They need to accept a name. A name's a name. The kid isn't going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did." A spokeswoman for ShopRite defended the store's refusal to provide the requested birthday cake, noting that past requests by the Campbells (including a request for a swasitika) had been denied.
The Campbells did find a store willing to provide the Hitler birthday cake: Wal-Mart.
The Campbells did find a store willing to provide the Hitler birthday cake: Wal-Mart.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Channel Flipping
Television broadcast of HEB Holiday Parade. Commentator/host says (I'm paraphrasing) "There's Santa with two Rockettes. I wonder what Mrs. Santa thinks about that?" Ah, the grown folks' spirit of Christmas.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Follow Up To December 3's "Sad Story" Posting
As noted in a December 3 posting, the workers' compensation insurer for the Dollar Tree discount chain had taken the position that the murder of 26-year-old Taneka Talley (an African American) by a killer allegedly motivated by Talley's race was not work related. Facing public anger over the insurer's stance, Dollar Tree has now announced that it has made an offer to pay the full benefit amount permitted by California law.
From "Stuff White People Like"
Read this "if you want to befriend a large number of white people at the same time . . ."
Words You Don't (I Didn't) Want To Hear
Saxby Chambliss of Georgia was reelected and will be returning to the United States Senate.
Judicial Appointments In Massachusetts
According to the December 5, 2008 edition of the Boston Globe, Massacushetts Goveronor Deval Patrick, who happens to be black, "picked two minority judges to fill 29 judicial vacancies since assuming office nearly two years ago, accumulating the worst record among recent Massachusetts governors."
Harris-Lacewell On The Election Of Obama
Princeton Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell, writing in The Nation:
In his prophetic turn-of-the-century treatise The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois reflected on the experience of being black in America as a constant awareness that others view one as a problem--to be observed, analyzed and solved. For black Americans our very self is the object of the slavery question, the miscegenation threat, the Jim Crow solution, the Negro problem, the black family crisis, the welfare dilemma, the crime concern or the nation's racial scar. It is difficult to live as the object of this amused contempt and pity.
When Barack Obama was elected as the first black president of the United States, African-Americans became the solution instead of the problem. For many black folks, Obama's victory has momentarily healed the double consciousness that is an ordinary part of our lives. To be a citizen in a democracy is to be not only ruled but also the ruler, to not only submit to law but to craft it, to not only die for your country but to live fully in it. In this moment, we are citizens.
We the people, who tilled the soil and cleared the forests and harvested the crops for no compensation. We the people, who endured the abortion of Reconstruction and carried the weight of Jim Crow. We the people, who swung from Southern trees and stood on the front lines of foreign wars. We the people, who taught our children to read even when the schools had no books. We the people, who worshiped a God of liberation even as we suffered oppression. We the people, who gave America back its highest ideals with our nonviolent struggle against injustice.
In his prophetic turn-of-the-century treatise The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois reflected on the experience of being black in America as a constant awareness that others view one as a problem--to be observed, analyzed and solved. For black Americans our very self is the object of the slavery question, the miscegenation threat, the Jim Crow solution, the Negro problem, the black family crisis, the welfare dilemma, the crime concern or the nation's racial scar. It is difficult to live as the object of this amused contempt and pity.
When Barack Obama was elected as the first black president of the United States, African-Americans became the solution instead of the problem. For many black folks, Obama's victory has momentarily healed the double consciousness that is an ordinary part of our lives. To be a citizen in a democracy is to be not only ruled but also the ruler, to not only submit to law but to craft it, to not only die for your country but to live fully in it. In this moment, we are citizens.
We the people, who tilled the soil and cleared the forests and harvested the crops for no compensation. We the people, who endured the abortion of Reconstruction and carried the weight of Jim Crow. We the people, who swung from Southern trees and stood on the front lines of foreign wars. We the people, who taught our children to read even when the schools had no books. We the people, who worshiped a God of liberation even as we suffered oppression. We the people, who gave America back its highest ideals with our nonviolent struggle against injustice.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
On Racial Disparities In The Criminal Justice System
From a Rick Casey Houston Chronicle article: In 2006 police raided an apartment and arrested an 18-year-old black man for selling cocaine, and "a white couple in their 30s who leased the apartment and made it available to the teenager in exchange for free crack for the wife." The husband had prior misdemeanor drug and weapons charges; the wife had previously been charged with theft, forgery, and prostitution. The judge presiding over the case gave the couple probation. The same judge sentenced the black teenager (whose record included unauthorized use of a vehicle and misdemeanor marijuana charges) to ten years in prison. According to prosecutors, the charges against the teenager were enhanced because an assault rifle and revolver were found in the apartment. (Those weapons belonged to the white man who leased the apartment.)
Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins' office, concerned about this racial disparity in sentencing, recently "withdrew the weapons charge, clearing the way for the judge to give" the teen "10 years' probation."
Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins' office, concerned about this racial disparity in sentencing, recently "withdrew the weapons charge, clearing the way for the judge to give" the teen "10 years' probation."
Gallup On Black Democrats' Views On Homosexual Relationships
According to Gallup, homosexual relationships are morally acceptable to 31% of black Democrats (compared to 61% of nonblack Democrats). Thirty percent of Republicans say such relationships are morally acceptable.
Sad Story
Consider this:"Taneka Talley was stabbed to death in March 2006 while she was working as a clerk at a Dollar Tree store in Fairfield [, California]. Her killer's only motive, prosecutors say, is that she was African American.
"That's also the reason the store workers' compensation insurer is denying $250,000 in death benefits to Talley's 11-year-old son.
"The boy's grandmother, the child's legal guardian, said Specialty Risk Services is taking the position that a racially motivated killing is personal, not work-related-even though the man charged with killing Talley had never met her before. The insurance company, Dollar Tree and their lawyers aren't talking publicly about the case but are defending their position before a state appeals board that hears workers' compensation disputes."
"That's also the reason the store workers' compensation insurer is denying $250,000 in death benefits to Talley's 11-year-old son.
"The boy's grandmother, the child's legal guardian, said Specialty Risk Services is taking the position that a racially motivated killing is personal, not work-related-even though the man charged with killing Talley had never met her before. The insurance company, Dollar Tree and their lawyers aren't talking publicly about the case but are defending their position before a state appeals board that hears workers' compensation disputes."
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