A Need to Respond

A Need to Respond

Face Me: Father's Day Confrontation with Reality

When running low on patience and blood pressure medication, it is not a good idea to let another human being influence you to the point of confrontation, but there is something about ego and arrogance that drives us to do insane things in the name of sanity. I mean, who in their right mind would let someone speak to them in a disrespectful tone and not respond, right?

While I would love to write about the good old-fashioned cussing I gave to the ex-husband, why go there on this blog, right? I could just tell the truth and shame the devil... or myself.

I have been unemployed from full-time work for over a year. All the bills are late, I fear waking up one morning and the car is repossessed. I peak out of the window overtime I hear a neighbor drive up and get out of their car. The eviction notice came and even though I have a plan in place to get money, the plan involves my 47 year old body doing the work that my 20 something mindset

 thinks I can handle.

Off to the Temp Agency. I filled out the application. The next day I go back in. "Give me whatever you have that can put money in my hand quickly to get some bills paid." I find myself picking up heavy boxes from a conveyor belt in -20 degree temperatures at an ice cream factory, for $9.00 + an hour. 

I work with some decent men. Six Black men, one Latino man, and me. I suit up. I say little. They are nice and teamwork is real because I am short and sometimes I have to use my shot put throwing arm to sling the boxes up on the crates. I can't see the patterns the boxes go into when they are stacked that high, so the brothers help me. 

I share this because I can see the conversations about class swirl around me like buzzards circling a dead carcass. The ex-husband became nice all of sudden and bragged about paying the cable bill because I couldn't afford to pay it so our daughter could watch TV. If I were still working at the university, he would have NEVER done that. He misinterpreted our daughter's excitement for belittlement of me when she yelled through the phone, "Mommy works at the ice cream factory, she makes ice cream." What a cool thing for her to have talks with me about how ice cream gets to the store for her to go in to purchase it, right?

Well, the ex-husband chastised her for making fun of Mommy having to work at a factory instead of at the university. I chimed in and said, "Wait, wait, she is excited that I work there. what are you saying?"  It was then that I realized I was not imagining the tone in his voice. He was happy that I had --in his mind-- fallen down, failed.  He was gloating and happy that I am struggling. And he has not offered to help with one dime of rent to keep stability in our child's life  --- never mind the 5 to 7 times he "fell" and lived with us until he "got back on his feet".

So, he got what he did not expect. Money or no money, job or no job, I am still Jethro and Helen's child. The essence of who I am is not defined by poverty or wealth. I drove to his home and asked a simple question: "Do you want to say to my face what you said to me over the phone before you hung   up in my face?"  Folk started looking for the exit. He asked me to talk outside. Now all his neighbors know our business -- mostly his.

I choose peace and serenity, but don't disrespect me, because if you do, you disrespect my Ancestors and some of them will rise in me and handle situations on a level that I don't even understand most times. 

The lesson for me is to continue to face difficult situations and handle difficult people the best way I know how. The reality is that some people who have been close to you, hate you for wanting to be the best you can be. They see your set-backs as failures and they are happy for you to fail --even when the hard times that get visited upon you by default is visited upon their own flesh and blood.

Jolivette Anderson "The Poet Warrior"

(c) June 21, 2015

JA 'the poet warrior': DEFINITION: 'African American'

JA 'the poet warrior': DEFINITION: 'African American':      I developed this definition, 3 years ago, to help teach students I interacted with at Purdue University how one term carries with it a ...

DEFINITION: 'African American'

     I developed this definition, 3 years ago, to help teach students I interacted with at Purdue University how one term carries with it a history of cultural, political, and even spiritual implications. 
     The use and understanding of the term must be accompanied by other terms --used overtime-- to categorize the racial group in the United States that is made up of African people. 
     The trauma that brought us to this nation-space lives in us, but we have refused to value it properly. We have refused to make who we have been constructed to become -- to date -- a major part of our generational ties to children and community. We abandoned our own stories - the majority of us have done this. Now, it seems, the only thing that unifies us is our collective anger and outrage when what we should be the proprietors of -- our image, our experiences, our Black lives --is claimed by those we did not invite to the 'racial identity development for Black folks' party. 
     Funny thing, we should have been having those parties for real. If we had, all the "cultural appropriation" in the world would not disturb our peace the way it has over the past week.

I presented this definition at the Association of Black Cultural Centers Annual Conference at Purdue University, October 2012.

African American: An Inclusive Definition of a Racial Group in the United States

By Jolivette Anderson-Douoning

© October 17, 2012

African American

1. A person born or living in the United States who is descended from regions of the African continent where the people have dark hue or pigment in their skin that give them a definitive color.  A person previously identified as ‘Black’, ‘Negro’ or ‘Colored’ who has relatives that were either enslaved persons (Slaves) or Free Blacks (Free Persons of Color) in the United States or its founding colonies.  A person who can be connected through family history and/or Bloodline to a person- known or unknown- who entered the United States as property or  - whose skin was dark enough for them to be classified as potential property, if they could not prove their status as a ‘free person of color’. A person born in the United States to parents with dark skin. A person that can – based on appearance alone-- be viewed as a shade of the colors black or brown. A person that has historically received dehumanizing treatment because of the color of their skin. A person that may have a family lineage in the U.S. that dates back to the early 1600 or before. A person whose identity has followed a trajectory that included the following identifiers:  
1. African
2. Captive
3. Slave (Enslaved Person)
4. Free Person of Color (Free Black)
5. Colored
6. Negro
7. Afro American
8. Black
9. African American
2. A person of African Descent born in the United States to bi-racial parents where one parent is White and the other is of African descent born outside of the U.S. and has been generationally immersed in the customs and culture of their native land. A person whose identity has been categorized as:
1. Mixed
2. Bi-Racial
3. Mulatto (Quadroon, Octoroon, etc. based on percentages of African blood)

This person will also have been identified as: 

1. Colored 
2. Negro 
3. Afro-American 
4. Black and 
5. African American (negating exclusively their White parentage but would never be identified exclusively as a White person, negating their African parentage)

This person will also have a ‘bi-cultural’ heritage but may not practice it due to living in American culture.

3.  A person of Black African descent born outside of the United States who has immigrated to the United States. A person residing in the U.S. as a Permanent Resident (African in America = African American) or who has become a naturalized citizen. A person who is connected to his/her ethnic (tribal) identity by name, by family relationships, and by cultural practice whether in their native land or in the United States. A person who lives in the U.S and may be a citizen but identifies him/herself primarily as either:

1. African
2. West (other region) African
3. Immigrant
4. Citizen of Country of Birth (ex: Nigerian, Ivorian, Ghanaian, etc.)
5. American (note: not African American)

The above definition was put together to assist those who don’t know the history of African Americans in the United States. It is meant to foster a greater understanding of how diverse one term (African American) can be when applied to all people with dark skin living in the United States. It is written to take into account the ‘treatment’ people received due to the color of their skin. It is designed also to acknowledge a host of tensions that exist between African American peoples with specific focus paid to those who have generational memory of Jim Crow and Slavery. It is my opinion that we who descend from the institution of Slavery and Jim Crow are viewed as complainers, victims, or people who play the victim instead of a people who struggle with the remnants of the treatment received by our ancestors who were forced to interact with their children and each other in a way that rewired the individual brain of men and women as well as the family structure. This rewiring also caused the acceptance of behaviors that became so commonplace that it is now identified as ‘cultural’ or ‘Black Culture’. It is a manufactured ‘difference’ made by Black people to survive harsh treatment, hostile environments and the constant indignity of being labeled as ‘inferior’ or ‘subhuman’ under a white supremacy system.

JA 'the poet warrior': Color, Character, and Rachel Dolezal: A Tale of Fl...

JA 'the poet warrior': Color, Character, and Rachel Dolezal: A Tale of Fl...: Color, Character, and Rachel Dolezal: A Tale of Fluid Identities by Jolivette Anderson-Douoning aka Jolivette ‘the poet warrior June 12...

Color, Character, and Rachel Dolezal: A Tale of Fluid Identities

Color, Character, and Rachel Dolezal: A Tale of Fluid Identities

by Jolivette Anderson-Douoning aka Jolivette ‘the poet warrior

June 12, 2015

I was taught in my early age that it was “okay to respect white people but never trust white people”. As I recall, there was always a sense of anxiety or urgency in my parents home, when White people were discussed. If a White person drove down Ledbetter Street while we were playing dodgeball or kickball, we would all stop, look, wait to see where they were going, and then continue with our gameplay. If they kept driving we knew they were lost.  If they slowed down to look at addresses, we knew they were looking for Mr. Raye who owned his own marine shop and fixed motors on fishing boats. He was pretty much the only person we knew in our neighborhood who interacted with white people at his home. Any other white person was deemed suspect and potentially dangerous. By the way, they did not have names. My grandmother referred to them in my presence by race and gender i.e. “the white lady”.

I provide this background of my upbringing in an all Black neighborhood in Shreveport so you will know that I -like millions of other Black people- have struggled to be the good and decent people our parents raised us to be, but the experiences I discuss above happened in the 1970s, before Reganomics gutted and destroyed Black neighborhoods. The services to parks, community centers, and after-school programs that provided the extra support needed to have healthier Black families and to maintain healthy Black communities were removed and replaced with ‘domestic weapons of mass destruction’ like guns and drugs. The neighborhood changed and it made our parents change so we had to change. We had to see the world very differently as individuals and as members of a racial group that was on a decline as it relates to values — to be clear, we knew right from wrong, but circumstance made many of us choose wrong. 

There have been a few white people who have challenged me to think beyond my parents fears of “respect don’t trust”. I remember most of their names: Tammy, Todd, Susie, Dale, Wendy, Carol, and Rachel. Tammy and Todd entered Hollywood Elementary School in my 2nd and 3rd grade classes. Tammy’s nose would bleed often and Todd ate boogers quite often. I thought they were weird by nature of what they did and because their skin was very pale. Susie, Dale and Wendy were from Linwood Jr. High. Susie totally embraced being Black, so much so that I got really tired of her hanging with all the Black girls, talking like us, acting like us, and trying to be us — and I told her just that. I was mean to her, she was mean to me, but no fist-a-cuffs ensued. Dale was my first ‘white boy crush’. Wendy was the girl who liked him and got in good with me because he thought I was cool but did not know I liked him… blah, blah, blah.

As an adult, Carol embraced me when I moved to Indiana and helped bring me back from a traumatic experience, and has recently found out that her great grandfather was a Black man, a photographer from the Harlem Renaissance. With the introduction of Google, I searched my name several years back. I found that a performance I had done in Jackson, Mississippi for Smith Robertson Museum was mentioned next to a piece of art titled Afrika. I knew immediately that it was Rachel, yes Sister Rachel Dolezal. 

The museum curator, Turry Flucker, invited me to meet Rachel to discuss the opening night of an exhibit showcasing her art. He had to prep me for this meeting, and he did. If he had not prepared me, it might have gotten awkward, even ugly. I might have gone back to the Susie incident in Jr. High School, and Turry would have lost points with me. He was Black, southern, and intuitive enough to know that my personal mission to “uplift Black people or die trying” did not include white people at that time or in that stage my “racial identity development.” I admit that Rachel confused the hell out of me. 

She was quiet, intense, respectful, and an extremely talented visual artist. She showed slides of her work and explained her method and approach to creating fine art. All of her subject matter was about Black people. Then something she said struck my heart so hard, so deep, I was challenged, if not forced, to open myself up to change. This young girl with blond hair and blue eyes said, “I remember being very young and saying [to an adult] they are so beautiful, Black people are so beautiful to me…”.  It was one of those spiritual moments of connection. She was honest about having white skin and loving Black people. You can see that love in her visual art just as people see it in my brutal honesty about race in my poetry, my arts activism, and my academic work. 

At a recent conference at Purdue, a professor used the phrase ‘blue-eyed soul’ that has been used to describe artists like Teena Marie and other whites who were genuine in their love and appreciation of Black culture to the point of making folks question their racial make-up. To sound Black, to look Black, to be Black are all infinitives, grammatically speaking, but the infinite must be viewed through a cultural lens when speaking of Black people and our specific history in America. I recall Minister Louis Farrakhan speaking of his relationship with the white Catholic minister, Rev. Flagle saying, “Color [of skin] would not matter if it had not been made an issue.” 

So, for all of my supposed militancy. For all of my friends and family who have no idea what I do as a Race Educator, and who think that I hate white people just for being white — her is my official ‘No, that is NOT who I am, that is NOT what I do.' My love and allegiance is forever and always with Black people, African people of the Diaspora, but I am not closed-minded enough, ignorant enough, or arrogant and egotistical enough to NOT build relationships with white people with a shared interests toward making a better world, when I have the access and the energy to do so. My Ancestors will not be pleased with me knowing I have been given these gifts of communication and made a choice to not use them to make a better way for Black folks -- just because I refuse to work with a person who has white skin.   

Rachel Dolezal has been one of my life teachers and an inspiration to me along the way. As she struggles with the fluidity of her identity that comes from real life experiences; 1) seeing the beauty of Black people from a very early age and seeing herself in her thoughts, dreams, and childhood drawings as a beautiful Black person, 2) discovering her talents and expressing that beauty and love through stunning fine art pieces, 3) being in a relationship with a Black man that produced a beautiful son, 4) legally raising her little brother who is now a young Black man, and 5) knowing up close and personal — by the access her white skin gives her — how brutal and vicious the systems of racial injustice are. The treatment of and the brutalities against Black bodies that are carried out institutionally are rooted in the social structures of white neighborhoods and networks. These are the rules, the social policies that turn into governmental policies, and they function the way they do because many white people do NOT want too many Black folks in “their space”. What is spoken around the dinner tables gets acted out in court rooms, schools, and  yes, swimming pools too. 

I am saddened Sister Rachel is going through this firestorm of media attention. It can’t be easy on her and her children. Just as her art work challenged me to see her and all white people differently, I do believe her social justice work in her local community, and how she chooses to identify herself based on what has happened in her life has the power to change us all. 

How we look at individuals and racial identity must be discussed with audiences of all backgrounds. Rachel’s choices have been put on a world stage. She will feel compassion from some and experience diatribes from others. She has to decide what really matters and continue to raise her children as a mother who is raising two Black young men, a mother who happens to have white skin.  Her color and her character are being questioned, and I see her current struggle as a challenge to me and folks in my circles to continue to define and redefine -- in academe and community activist ciphers-- what it means to be Black and what it means to be a human being.

__________________________________________________________

Jolivette Anderson-Douoning (Jolivette the poet warrior) is a PhD student in American Studies / Curriculum & Instruction at Purdue University. Her research work is titled The Antonio Zamora Years, The Creation of Black Cultural Centers as Safe Spaces to Teach, Learn and Talk Race: From Hidden Curriculum to Public Pedagogy when Culture Migrates from Black Communities to White Campuses.  She is creator of the D. Ciphers Migration Curriculum and a one-woman theatre piece titled Race Me, Face Me, Living in the Shadows of the Lynching Tree ~ A Poetry Reading, Performance, and Public Pedagogy~. She can be reached at DrJolly2015@gmail.com 

Bi-Racial Children Do Learn to Dislike - even hate - Black people, I mean haven't we all been taught to do that?

WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE

Dear White Parents raising bi-racial children, 

Bi-racial children can and do use racially offensive language with the intent to hurt Black children who are NOT bi-racial. 

We, as a nation of thinking, active, race conscious beings, must understand that just because one parent is Black, it does not mean that the children have not picked up on the strategies used to demean and destroy Black people in U.S. society, and --when they feel they can get away with it-- they will use the word "nigger" against little Black children. 

Bi-racial children can / may / will separate themselves from their Africaness, their Blackness, and embrace all / some things White to try to demonstrate that they are in some way, some how, 'better than' little Black children. This can happen because they are closer to some aspect of what it means to be 'White in America' based on their heritage, one parent being White. It seems they have a 'choice' to either get with 'this' or get with 'that', you can choose to be 'White', you can choose to be 'Black'.

When bi-racial children call Black children "nigger", they have decided that they are 'White' in that moment because history has demonstrated the power of that word to harm Black bodies when it is used by White people. 

I am not mad at the children, everyone has either done that or have struggled with 'being White' at some point or another in this country, no matter their skin color-- because being 'white' seems to make life so much easier -- everything seems to be designed with White people in mind --to make their lives easier.

Perhaps this is a version of the "New Black" being played out. The space in which children who are bi-racial must navigate to find comfort and peace in being both Black and White in the United States. Whatever we want to call it, new, old, ancient, ethereal, it found its way into my space, via my Stepson #3. I had to protect and counsel my stepson and 5 other African children who really don't know what it means when someone calls you a "nigger" because their Black experience is Nigerian American and Ivorian American. They are bi-cultural. 

I am Louisiana American so I had to step up to the plate to teach the history of the word "nigger", lynching, Emmet Till, inferiority, white supremacy, African Enslavement, American slavery, and the overall bad treatment against African people all over the world. The reasons for the horrific treatment received by Black people from White people historically is because we are believed to be less than human, due to the color of our skin and our place of ancestral origin -- Africa!

This is NOT 'pick on Bi-racial children day'. Here is what happened:

A young girl, about 10 years old, called my stepson a "nigger" today while we were visiting friends at their apartment complex, they were on the basketball court. My stepson lives in another city and is here visiting his father and his sister (my daughter). 

He responded by calling the little girl a "bitch" and by telling her to "go suck a dick". He wanted to hit her, but knew it was "wrong to hit a girl". He is 11 years old. He is an African child, a Black child. The young girl, he claimed, was "a white girl".

Upon further investigation, I found that the young girl is actually, bi-racial. Her mother is White, her father is Black. I know this because I went to the child's apartment and asked to speak to her mother.

I explained to her what my stepson said and she seemed shocked. She sincerely felt and believed that her child would never have called my stepson a "nigger" because she is bi-racial, "her father is Black and we don't use that language in our home" she said.

I called my stepson into the conversation, she went into her apartment and brought her daughter outside into the conversation. Long story short, the girl blamed her little brother, then she confessed that it was 'all of them' that called my stepson a "nigger".

After acknowledging that "nigger" and "bitch" and "suck a dick" are not the way we 'should' address each other when hard feelings arise for what ever reasons, each child apologized for their offensive language toward each other -- the racial and gender slurs-- and I thanked the mother for engaging in an adult conversation to help the young people navigate racism and verbal gender abuse in 2015.

Funny thing, my stepson admitted that if he had known the little girl was bi-racial, that she was Black, he would not have snapped. He would have allowed her and her little brother to call him a "nigger" and squashed it on the playground instead of running to get Mama Jolivette.

I made each of them develop a response to being called a 'nigger' regardless of the color, race, ethnicity of the person who may call them that word in the future. I did not tell them to NOT use the word (that would make me a hypocrite). I gave them definitions, situations, examples of context the word has been and can be used. 

This unexpected social studies lesson ended with my explaining, the little light we all have inside. Then my daughter sang 'A Change is Gonna Come' by Sam Cooke. I explained the connection of the song to the Black struggle for Civil Rights and spoke the lyrics as a poem. They got quiet for a few seconds and eventually went back to playing video games, eating snacks, and taking about who they like and don't like.

As "educated" as I am, I am still having a hard time with how all this shit went down.

Jolivette Anderson 'the poet warrior'

A song ain't a song until it is sung

I watch, with eager eyes, as my daughter watches me. I don't tread lightly because I am brutally honest and to make drastic changes to protect her feelings would be dishonest.

Lately, my child has shown me who she is growing into being. A warrior is in our midst. Her heart is tender yet fierce. Her love is unconditional and everlasting but if you piss her off, she will love you and give you the big payback at the same time. No crime goes unpunished with this one.

No one ancestor returned, a whole gang of them came back and are surrounding her daily. She's not here for bullshit, and I see that. I also see that she is so worried about making me happy that she holds back her power. She keeps asking me about dying. I keep saying we all die but we all return in some form to continue the work that must be done.

She tries to protect me while I try to protect her. She holds back her power until I give her permission to be fire, water, wind, and storm ... taking no prisoners for those who step wrong, including me and her father.

"I am tired of you and my mom arguing, so either 1. talk to each other or 2. don't talk to each other or 3. get back together and give me a little sister" and click she hangs the phone up while her dad is shocked, laughing and trying to figure out a come back for that one.  I am laughing on the inside but I don't let her see it. She is funny, but she is serious and it is hard on a strong Black woman out here.

Mama Afeni Shakur once said to me "I see you. You are a strong young Sister, and it will get harder before it gets any easier."  Now, watch me raise this young girl into woman warrior.

She is my song, still in composition, and once it is done you will hear the strength and love of our ancestors ringing in your ears.

She is Nadja and she is my song.

The Heroic Slave of 1853 versus the Superbowl of 2015 
by Jolivette Anderson 'the poet warrior'

The real title of the post is: 
The Slave Ship 'Creole' and the 49th Superbowl: That Running Back, That Quarterback, and That Coach who cracked that whip aimed at Black Agency, but missed, and he ended up ripping off the flesh of  Converging White Interest -- when it was on its way to satisfy itself using a Black man's labor --to benefit the white imagination-- that is really white supremacy in drag and in love with capitalism-- even when it refuses to come out of the closet --even when everybody knows it is designed and used to screw the masses up the butt whether they like it up the butt or not. (sex reference intentional but not meant to offend, so just chill the fuck out)

"we refuse to be, what they want us to be
we are who we are, that's the way it's going to be" -- Bob Marley

My question is and always has been, "Who the fuck is 'they'?

Oddly enough, I found that 'they' is a thing and not a people. 'They' is a practice that must always have White over Black when dealing in human interaction. I believe we act on this practice of white supremacy 'consciously' and 'sub-consciously', the subconscious also being called the 'unconscious'.

'They' were at the Superbowl. 'They' were acting on old United States customs and practices. 'They' would prefer to see images of things as close to the way they 'use to be' as possible. 

The Slave Ship 'Creole' was on its way from Richmond, VA to New Orleans when the 135 enslaved persons on board. They were to be sold. 

Of the 135 who were enslaved, 19 created a mutiny - a revolt - on board the ship. Four primary figures played key roles in the revolt. 

Enter into this modern day comparisons to Madison Washington, Ben Blacksmith, William Loyd Garrison and the Anti-Slavery Movement and its White Abolitionist, Non-Violence, Interest Convergence, Image Control and Capitalism.

MADISON W ASHINGTON;
THE SELECTION AND CANONIZATION OF A HERO
The roots of'The Heroic Slave' are historical. Madison Washington was one of the leaders of a slave revolt in 1841 aboard the Creole, a brig engaged in the internal slave trade. The key source of information about the revolt and Madison Washington's role in it is the December 1841 deposition sworn by the Creole's company in New Orleans and published with minor changes and omissions in several places including the Liberator, Douglass's most likely source.^ The Creole was sailing between Richmond and New Orleans with 135 slaves when, on the evening of November 7, 1841, nineteen slaves mutinied and took control of the ship. 

The Seattle Seahawks Franchise is the modern day slave ship 'Creole', for the purposes of this comparative analysis.

Madison Washington helped to ensure that the victory was achieved with as little bloodshed as possible; the captain was badly wounded, and one passenger, a slave trader, was killed. The officers' lives were spared on the understanding that the ship would be taken to a British port in the Bahamas; on November 9, the Creole arrived in Nassau. All but the nineteen slaves directly involved in the mutiny were invited to disembark as free men and women. Madison Washing- ton and his fellow mutineers were held for a time but were re- leased without charges being filed against them. Efforts to have them extradited failed.

The discovery of Madison Washington's presence in the section of the hold reserved for the female slaves apparently started the mutiny. Washington fought off two men trying to hold him and allegedly leaped to the deck, shouting: 'We have commenced and must go through, rush boys, rush aft we have got them now.' Then, calling to the slaves below, be reportedly said: 'Come up every damned one of you, if you don't and lend a hand I will kill you all and throw you overboard.'^ 

The Seahawks Quarterback is our modern day Madison Washington, for the purposes of this comparative analysis.

Despite this description of Washington's threatening language in the formal 'Protest' that was lodged by the first mate and ship's company, it is also apparent that Washington exercised a restraining hand on the slaves who might otherwise have killed those in their power. The 'Protest,' however, also makes it clear that the mutiny was not led by a single individual, but by four men working together: Washington, Ben Blacksmith, Elijah J. Morris, and D. Ruffin.

Although Washington was not, then, the incontestable leader of the revolt, there are subtle hints in the record as to the importance of his role. He intervened twice to ensure that the others did not kill individuals then at their mercy, negotiated the new destination with the second mate, arranged food for those slaves who had not participated in the mutiny, and ordered that all guns be destroyed before the ship reached Nassau. The 'Protest' account gives Washington a less prominent part in the action that secured the brig for the mutineers, though, than either Blacksmith or Morris.

Indeed, Blacksmith's role in the mutiny was prominent enough to prompt another fictional depiction of the Creole revolt to portray him, and not Madison Washington, as the leader. 

That Seahawks Running Back is our modern day Ben Blacksmith, for the purposes of this comparative analysis.

Like 'The Heroic Slave,' Wolftden: An Authentic Account of Things There and Thereunto Pertaining as They Are and Have Been, is based on the account of the Creole revolt contained in the New Orleans 'Protest.' This is made clear in both the text and the appended notes of Wolftden' That work does not give the Creole revolt a central role in the plot but describes those events instead in a short interlude sketching the fate of Black- smith, a liberated slave of Harry Boynton. Within this short digression. Blacksmith quits his job in a foundry in the North and returns to Virginia to rescue his wife. He is captured and sold, and, along with his wife and child, is put aboard the Creole, headed for slavery in Louisiana. 

In Wolfsden, Ben Blacksmith is 'the Vulcan of the plantation, a fellow of herculean strength and dauntless courage,' echoing the description of Madison Washington, with arms 'like polished iron,' in 'The Heroic Slave.'^ However, in Wolßden, it is 'the controlling energy of the master spirit Ben [Blacksmith], communi- cating itself like the electric current to the sympathizing hearts about him,' that sustains the revolt.** While Blacksmith breaks free from his fetters with superhuman strength, Madison Washington, 'a man of milder mood and less feared by the captors, [who] had just been unfettered that he might perform some laborious service for his masters, . . . now [sprang] to the side of Ben, and shouted "Liberty!""'

It is easy to see how the 'Protest' could be used as a source for the different versions of events contained in 'The Heroic Slave' and Wolfsden. Both are built from meager character sketches provided there. Both also note a central irony bebind the 'Protest,' which was a document designed to shield the officers of the Creole from claims of negligence or mismanagement. The self-serving 'Protest' inadvertently reveals the restraint, heroism, and foresight of the mutineers that were quickly recognized within an antislavery movement well schooled in using Southern testimony to condemn slavery.'^ 

But why, one must ask, was it Madison Washington, and not Blacksmith, as portrayed in Wolfiden, or Morris, the man who fired a pistol at the start of the mutiny, who emerged, by consensus within the antislavery movement, as the hero? 


The Seahawks Coach is the White Abolitionist of the 1850s, who has power to set the stage and the tone for how Slaves should deport themselves in their quest for liberty (freedom). A leading White abolitionist of that time was William Loyd Garrison who believed that violence should never be used by anyone, not even those enslaved (slavery being an act of violence itself on the body, mind and spirit) and the Abolitionist Movement used this and other strategies to end slavery, including the celebration of former slaves who demonstrated the respectability associated with non-violence.

One answer is suggested by the movement's discomfort with the use of violence. In its Declaration of Sentiments, the American And-Slavery Society had announced that its principles forbade 'the doing of evil that good may come, and lead us to reject, and entreat the oppressed to reject, the use of all carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage, relying solely on those which are spiritual.'^' 

Indeed, the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Societ)' felt compelled to issue a disclaimer in the wake of a reso- lution passed at a meeting of the Liberty Party on December 29, 1841, which 'Resolved, That the slaves of the brig Creole, who rose and took possession of said vessel, thereby regaining their natural rights and liberty, acted in accordance with the principles of our Declaration of Independence, and the late decision of the Supreme Court; and have proved themselves in their whole con-
duct worthy of their freedom; and we trust that their noble exam- ple will be imitated by all ifi similar circumstances' Expressing concern that such views might be confused with those of the American Anti-Slavery Society, the society's executive committee repudiated this invitation, making reference to Article 3 of its constitution, which states, in part, 'this Society will never, in any way, countenance the oppressed in vindicating their rights by resorting to physical force.'''*

Despite the absoluteness of such a pronouncement, one senses a certain equivocation at times. One instance is evident in the concluding remarks of a work entitled 'The Hero Mutineers,' which places an expressed admiration for those involved in the Creole revolt against a more general denunciation of the use of violent resistance to end slavery:

There are only two grand reasons which render it the duty of men, in any circumstances, to submit to the enforcement of such an ignominious claim on themselves and their offspring. One is the hope of obtaining deliverance hy patient waiting, and the other is the impossibility of obtaining it by insurrection. These two reasons rest over the condition of our Southem slaves at large, and sustain the true abolition doctrine of doing nothing to eficotirage, but every thing to discourage imurrcction.But these reasons in the case of the Creole slaves had vanished. Before them, there was a splendid prospect, by valorous resistance, of immediate and perpetual liberty. Again we repeat it, the restrain ing reasons had vanished, and both law and gospel justified their rising.'^

This is NOT about what happened DURING the game. This is about what the Coach wanted to happen AFTER the game. The need of Whiteness to control Blackness to the benefit of Whiteness. It just so happens that the plan - whether the coach is conscious of the plan or not - did not work because the Seahawks lost the game. This is not to say the coach is a racist. This is to say that we all perform racial acts against Blackness and Black identities all the time, personally and professionally, and this has been the nature of race relations dating back to the 1840s as documented by the happenings in U.S. Racial History outlined in this post, in the writings of Frederick Douglass and the scholarly article by Cynthia S. Hamilton that interrogates the novella written by Douglass called 'The Heroic Slave'

Given this conclusion, it is not surprising that 'The Hero Mutineers' contains a description of the revolt that emphasizes the restraint of the mutineers rather than the violence of the uprising. In this account, it is the mutineer's 'symbolic' renunciation of further violence that resonates most deeply for the author. 'But nothing in the whole affair appears so sublimely affecting as their conduct on arriving at Nassau,' the author notes. 'They divested themselves of all their arms, even casting them into the sea, and came before the British authorities defenseless^confiding in the justice of their cause, and in the protection of free and righteous institutions against the claims of their oppressors! Noblemen! ^^

Within this context of equivocal support for violent resistance, one can see the logic behind the selection of Washington as the hero of the moment in preference to either Blacksmith or Morris. It seems likely that Madison Washington's name, 'a name unfit for a slave, but finely expressive for a hero,' helped with his selection as well. 

'The Hero Mutineers' calls Washington 'the master spirit' behind the revolt, applauding his 'commanding attitude and daring orders, when he stood a freeman on the slaver's deck, and his perfect preparation for the grand alternative of liberty or death, which stood before him.' 'The Hero Mutineers' sees Washington's actions as 'splendid exemplifications of the true heroic' Washington is not credited with heroic deeds of conquest; it is, instead, 'his generous leniency towards his prisoners, his oppressors' that is noted and praised.'^ '

The Hero Mutineers' is an important document in the selection and canonization of Madison Washington; it set the tone and terms for the way the Creole revolt would be treated, especially within the Garrisonian antislavery movement. But although Madison Washington emerged there both as the hero of the revolt and as the ideological 'master spirit' and moral exemplar of the incident for the antislavery cause, his leading role in the revolt allowed others to see him as a symbol of violent resistance rather than of restraint and reconciliation.

I would like to respond to the previous paragraph, but life is calling me and I must respond. Perhaps, the contradiction of the last line to my argument will feed into a deeper discussion on Black diversity and the 'kinds of Black folk' in the United States.

Peace,
Jolivette

Sources:

Hamilton, Cynthia S. Models of Agency: Frederick Douglass and 'The Heroic Slave. American Antiquarian Society, 2005 pp 87-136
  

To Be A MOMENTUM MAKER and to be STOPPED from making change
by Jolivette Anderson 'the poet warrior'

I was nominated to be a Momentum Maker. I was notified, interviewed, photographer took my picture to go on the website with a story and then I WAS NOTIFIED I WAS NOT GOING TO BE RECOGNIZED FOR THE WORK I WAS DOING AT THE PURDUE BCC.  The reason, oh the person that notified you made a mistake. I had told the Provost, I had told my mother and mailed her a copy of the interview questions I had answered because she did not have internet so she would not be able to see it online.

I remember telling her about my troubles at Purdue. I had been hiding it from her as to not have her worry about me and my daughter. My mother said to me,"Don't you worry about them people, Jolivette. They don't want you there. You know how to talk to all kinds of people and you doing a good job and peoples get jealous of people like you cause they can't do what you do. First of all, you Jethro and Helen's child, and then you done went and got your degrees from the Black folks at Grambling and now you got one of their degrees up there with big time Purdue. Now you trying to get a doctorate. Shit, you doing good, them folks get jealous. Don't worry, you gonna be alright and Nadja gonna be alright. Shit, me a Jeff done worked and we got this land and these houses down here. You can always come down here and get you a job and help your people dow her. Hell, Black folks is everywhere."

My mother had NEVER lifted me up like that. She had always been proud of us but there was something in her voice. She must have heard the pain in my voice. I was hurting and she knew it and she was pissed off that someone was messing with her baby.

I have my mother's heart and her fire. I love that about myself but I have struggled with it because I always thought she could be harsh, hard, even rude to people with the way she talked. In retrospect, I see she needed to control her life, the things around her, and she taught that to me and my sister. We have had to unlearn some of that in our older years, but for the most part, Mama was right. Treat people like they treat you! Don't let people speak down to you, no matter who they are. If they ain't right, feed them with a long handled spoon or stay away from them altogether. If they dump shit on you, take it off and give it back to them. All these lessons, but she was also ill. I can't prove it, but I think something hurt her so bad that she lost a part of herself. Her being around young people kept her alive after Daddy died. I can't believe how fast she got to Indiana after Nadja was born. She called as said, 'I'm coming, I got to see that baby, that's my REAL grandbaby, something I KNOW is my blood.'

I love the people that made me.

Here are the interview questions and my responses for being a PURUE MOMENTUM MAKER whose momentum was stopped by the powers that be.

Anderson-Douoning, Jolivette – Momentum Maker Questions and Responses

How did you become the Cultural Liaison and Program Specialist for the Black Cultural Center?

• My original title was Facility and Program Supervisor when I was first hired in January 2005. I had relocated from Mississippi and was working in social services and job placement when the previous person in this position, Mrs. Donna Hall, retired.  Once I became familiar with the position I was asked by my supervisor, Renee Thomas, to enhance the work previously done. With that in mind, I found a way to use my background in theater and performance to provide interactive educational experiences for high school students who tour the facility to learn about Black culture. Interactions with college students became more lecture based and eventually conversations took place that positioned me as a person students could feel comfortable talking to about Race.

What are your professional responsibilities?

1. Provide oversight for student staff to work on the BCC Historical and Digital Archive Project which is a collaborative effort between University Libraries, University Archives and the Purdue Black Cultural Center.  The project began when I saw a need for the historical binders held at the BCC that document the history of the center since 1969 to be digitized and preserved for future generations. After taking a class on Digital Archives and the Humanities, I found the confidence to lay the foundation for the work to begin.  It is an ongoing project with many more years of work to be done.
2. I develop content (curriculum) and implement that content using a teaching method (pedagogy) -- conducive for teaching in public spaces-- for the Race and Cultural Education Lecture Tours at the Black Cultural Center.  I have been trained by elders from SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) in how I approach teaching the culture of African Americans in the U.S.. The people who trained me were trained by Ella Baker, Dr. Martin Luther King and many others who advocated for their citizens’ rights. I feel it is a part of who I am as a human being to do ‘culture work’. This is important, urgent work because Purdue students deserve to know more about African Americans than what has been taught K-12 grade. 

How do the BCC’s operations fit into the University at large?

The BCC operations are designed to meet the needs of the students, historically and primarily African American students. It is important for the BCC to be a source of encouragement for student success from entering the university to graduating from the university. It does this by being the hub for Black students to gather, meet, study, participate in the performance and academic ensembles, and build lasting friendships with other Black students. However, ALL students are welcome at the BCC and students that frequent the BCC build relationships with students from all over Indiana and the world. 

The BCC operation is the practicum or what is taught theoretically in the classroom.  We support the academic side of the student experience but in a more open, public space than the classroom.  

The BCC operation fits into the ‘global initiative’ of the university strategic plan. We provide a model for how to interact with individuals and the public to educate everyone. We do this with the classes I teach, with our extensive art collection, our programming and our Arts Education done through the work of the performance ensembles. Many people want to know about African Americans because they have heard about the Civil Rights movement and not because of the negative representations often seen through popular cultural images.

In what other ways are you involved in the community?

I have served on committees for the Jazz and Blues Fest, volunteered at the Hanna Community Center, served on a committee for local Underground Railroad history and I am the parent of a highly active and community involved 1^st grader at Cumberland Elementary School.

Why did this job first interest you?

I wanted to work in an arts and culture environment. The BCC was a perfect fit.

What else does your job involve?

1. I also manage the daily activities in the Black Cultural Center where I try to create and maintain a welcoming, caring environment for ALL people to experience and to learn about Black culture but most importantly, to learn about themselves. 

2. I liaise with the campus community and the greater Lafayette/West Lafayette community.  I sometimes have the opportunity to work on national projects and one day, hopefully an international project that will serve to create an ongoing conversation and discourse on Africans in the Diaspora. 

What's your favorite part of the job?

Figuring out the needs of students and faculty, formulating ideas to communicate with students, sharing those ideas and how they connect to the present time and to their lives and then listening to students respond to or try to make sense of what was shared with them. In other words, TEACHING.

What's the most rewarding aspect of your job?

Working with students and providing an open ear, an educational moment or witnessing their excitement when they passed an exam or accomplished something they did not think they could.

How do you act as a mentor to current students?

I mentor students by being a window for them to see themselves in the ‘cultural work’ that acknowledges and edifies African American life in the U.S., no matter the students’ race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, national origin. I assist them in developing their cultural competency about Black culture.  (this is but one way)

How has your personal background shaped the way you approach your job?

I am a descendant of ‘enslaved’ and ‘free’ Blacks. I am the daughter of college educated parents who were the first generation out of the rural farming and sharecropping into living and working in cities and urban areas. My grandmothers were domestic workers. My grandfathers were land owners and skilled laborers. All of them knew they were human and they carried themselves as human beings do, even when they were not treated as such. Their lives have shaped me first and foremost, in ALL that I do. I must give voice to the history of our [African American] families, our day to day existence, so others can begin to grasp a greater understanding of who we are and why we had to challenge the United States to live up to its ideals by doing away with the institutions of Chattel Slavery and Jim Crow segregation.  This IS black culture! One could say that my personal background IS my work, so I approach it with all the love and care I want and deserve for myself.

How do you work to promote leadership in a global and diverse society?

I feel it is part of my responsibility to teach and because I teach in a Public Space and not the classroom, I have more freedom to create a more relaxed energy so that students are relaxed and comfortable enough to ask questions they may have never asked an African American for fear of being embarrassed or misunderstood.  I share a part of who I am --as an African American woman from the South-- and some of the stories of my family to provide context to the legal history and culture of America and how African Americans had to navigate their actions and identity because of that history. In doing so, I encourage students of all backgrounds and experiences to take a leadership role in telling their stories, and most importantly, to take a leadership role in spreading diversity across campus and around the world by sharing what they learn about others with their personal and professional networks. In many ways, the laws of this land created Black culture as we know it today.

What other projects have you tackled here at Purdue?

Currently, my work as a PhD student in American Studies and Education Curriculum and Instruction, I have proposed that Purdue consider offering an online course on U.S. Race and Racism in the Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) format.  With assistance from the Office of the Provost, I am recruiting Purdue faculty to work on this project.    

Who Is God? (a poem for Helen Anderson, my mama)

By Jolivette Anderson ‘the poet warrior’

©March 2013 

(written to be performed live at the ‘March in March’ commemorating the 100 year anniversary of the March on Washington in 1913 by Women demanding the right to vote)

NOTE: words in quotations are from poems by Maya Angelou (Our Grandmothers) and Ntozake Shange (for colored girls /who’ve considered suicide/ when the rainbow/is enuf)

Esu Elegba

Walks the hallways of Purdue 

He takes my petition to my mothers  -- who

Take my prayers to Olo du ma re – who

Comes back to Purdue

Jumps into my mortal shell – and

Pushes me to tell

Each and every one of you that

GOD, yes, GOD, is a WOMAN too.

GOD is the great Mother, Ye ma ya  -- who

Dwells in the oceans and seas

Swelling our bellies with the 

Promise of future Divinities

GOD is Mama Oshun  -- a –

Warrior woman who would die – or – 

Be killed for what she believes in – JUSTICE. 

EQUALITY.

All the while, 

with sword in hand

with sweet honey 

--- dripping from her lips

To lure the unsuspecting, Ignorance

To entice the ever patronizing tone  --- that ---

Deemed me to be

LESS THAN and somehow 

OUTSIDE OF the

DEFINITION OF --- GOD.

With Her sweetness

She goes in for the kill

GOD is mi ori

Mama O ya

The Great Force of Nature

That is the wind

She makes her way to me as the hurricane --- who --- 

Destroys ignorance and inequality

Yes, GOD is a WOMAN just like me

God was…

A little Black girl

Her hands dark as coal 

Her strength made quiet 

Because of the time she was born into --- in ---  

1920, in the back woods of Louisiana

GOD cleaned homes --- and---

Nursed the children of White people --- who---

Were kind and 

Well intentioned – on --- 

Paved roads to racism  --- but ---

This was nothing new

It was what her Mother --- and ---

Her Mother before her knew

Racism smiles at us – often ---

While it kills our souls --- and ---

Leaves vestiges of generational trauma

--- I AM THE TRAUMA OF MY BLACK MAMAS ---

Excluded from participation

To march on this nation

GOD, oh GOD, 

GOD is a BLACK WOMAN 

Who used her notion of the American Dream

To achieve her goal of ---being---

College Educated 

Having 5 children (with my daddy!)  --- BOTH ---

Being present to raise them

GOD, taught school to Black Children --- who ---

Never had the same opportunities --- but ---

She loved them to a better understanding

Of being Black

By behaving --- with ---

Kindness --- mixed with---

A pinch of CRAZY – and ---

A Heart and Head filled with dignity

YES! God is a Black woman

GOD is the WOMAN who made me

GOD is the WOMEN who made me

And here I stand, microphone in hand

Screaming to Black female deities

!DO NOT BECOME SO TIPSY WITH THE PATRIARCHIAL POWERS YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN THAT YOU CANNOT SEE – THE GOD IN ME!

How DARE you or ANYONE “dare deny me GOD

I WILL GO ALONE AND STAND AS 10,000” STRONG

Wrapped in Black ness

Black History

Black Culture

Black Thought

Honoring the BLACK WOMEN ---who ---

Fought for us to be here today  --- but ---

My dear Ladies, my Sisters in struggle

I am but 

ONE VOICE

ONE WAY OF SEEING

While my reflection is of

Goldleana Harris & Addie McCain

Helen & Rosie Mosley

Jamesetta & Ruthie Mae Anderson

I am also

Ella Baker & Fannie Lou Hamer

Sojourner Truth & Mary McCleod Bethune

I am the 20 young ladies of the Delta Sigma Theatas

The ONLY Black Women’s Organization to march in 1913

--- At the back of the line ---

But, --- who---

do you see, my sisters --- who ---

do you see, 

when you look into the mirror of 

NOW and the mirror of 

WOMENS’ history

I see

Self love --- and ---

Dignity 

I see a 

!BIG BLACK WOMAN!

You must go forth, in your mission STRONG  --- and ---

“find GOD … 

in your SELF --- and ---

Love   ---  HER --- FIERCELY

Find GOD in YOURSELF and Love HER –fiercely.”