Category Archives: world history

Book Reviews: "Incognegro" and "Democracy With A Gun: America And The Policy Of Force"

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Two book reviews. The first is fiction, the second nonfiction.

Incognegro

The Horror Of Lynching (And The Power Of ‘Passing’), Through The Eyes Of The Black Press

Incognegro.
By Mat Johnson (Writer) and Warren Pleece (Illustrator).
New York: Vertigo/DC Comics.
136 pages. $19.99.
ISBN-10: 140121097X
ISBN-13: 978-1401210977

It’s become a cliché to say that both lynching and “passing” are parts of the African-American experience most Americans, including and perhaps especially African-Americans, would like to forget. However, the recent Black media rallying over the Jena 6 case—in which nooses were found under a tree under which Black teenagers were allowed to sit near a Louisiana high school—have brought up the ugly history of the former again. The latter—in which light-skinned African-Americans would, in effect, secretly cross enemy lines, disguising their true identities—has, interestingly enough, found new, “overground” currency in post-modern America, with famous light-skinned Blacks now being able to publicly claim their inter-racial “diversity,” in effect refusing to take a side in the classic divide.

Taking a side is what this graphic novel—a fictional tribute to NAACP leader Walter White’s real-life, death-defying lynching investigations almost a century ago—is all about. Harlemite Zane Pinchback’s secret identity is “Incognegro,” the muckraking investigative columnist for the best Black newspaper in town, The New Holland Herald (an obvious play on The New York Amsterdam News). He’s light-skinned enough to “pass,” so he can investigate lynchings close-up, literally risking his neck in the process. Although he wants to place his real byline into the Harlem Renaissance vortex swirling around him, he’s summoned back to wear the mask one more time to free his brother, who’s been framed for the murder of a white woman.

Johnson—winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, an increasingly major Black writer peer honor—beautifully alternates humor and horror, turning even a profanity-filled phrase as easily as blood flowed from the lynching trees. The colors, notably and powerfully, are absent; all is, appropriately, in black and white. Pleece’s simplicity in draftsmanship keeps the attention on the story and characters, not the pretty pictures. And since lynching is the subject, the pictures should be only so pretty. A powerful, passionate, funny adult work to be read and discussed by old and not-so-old, especially the teenagers who want to know what all that Jena fuss was about.

*****

democracy.jpg

To One Japanese Journalist, Gun Violence Is ‘In America’s DNA’

Democracy With A Gun: America And The Policy of Force.
By Fumio Matsuo. Translated by David Reese.
Berkeley, California: Stone Bridge Press.
296 pages. $26.
ISBN: 978-1-93330-46-4

Mary Matalin, the Republican strategist who has made her name and fortune by trimming both Bushes, asserted last Sunday (11/25) on NBC’s “Meet The Press” that gun culture was “mainstream culture” in the United States. “I’m from the (Dick) Cheney Way,” she said, referring to the vice president who will be forever known for his 2006 accidental shooting of a friend during a hunting trip. “If you come hunting for me, I’m going to shoot you.”

Matalin may or may not agree with veteran journalist Fumio Matsuo that America’s use of force is in its DNA, from the Revolutionary War through Columbine and into the United States’ occupation of Iraq. But it’s clear that Matsuo, a longtime American correspondent and former Washington Bureau Chief for the Kyodo News Service, creates a masterful outline of American political and legal history from the point of view of the gun. He traces the story of the Second Amendment, explaining how it could lead to the scorched-earth philosophy behind the World War II bombing he miraculously survived as a boy in Japan. He learns the latter by digging up the history of the bombing and profiling its generals. The work is completely thorough.

Any writing elegance, for the most part, might have gotten lost during translation, but Matsuo deftly walks through three centuries of America. He dispassionately teaches the American way of violence to other Japanese first (the book was originally published in Japan), then calling for better U.S.-Japan relations by asking for a real, public reconciliation based on the acknowledgement of both sides of the atomic fires of World War II. Fundamentally an optimist, he sees America’s racial diversity as its strength, but he also analyzes why he thinks that the neo-conservatives who got America mired in Iraq are the next coming of “The Best and the Brightest” White House intellectuals who got the nation sucked into Vietnam. Matsuo depends on the reader to draw his or her own conclusions—an increasingly rare attitude in political books these days. It’s an important view of America from someone who knows parts of it better than most natives.

When The Sky Isn't Blue

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See the above? Well, it isn’t torture—at least, not according to America’s elite mainstream media. Well, at least not yet. See, they haven’t made up their minds.

Whenever I think “Democracy Now!” sounds too strident, all I have to do is hear the MSM’s hand-wringing over the obvious to again be reminded why we need national, professional advocacy journalism based in the United States.

What?!? No More Kids' WB!?!?

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And then, in 2008, there was none. Damn. Money really does talk, and talk well, huh? DAMN! What happened to subsidizing your BRANDS? Oh, that’s right; the network is the CW now. Boy, am I naive! LOL! 🙂

Clearly, after 16 years of geek bliss, it’s finally time to leave the house on Saturday mornings. 🙂 I will always have great memories of the Great Animated Superhero Cartoon Commercial Television Era of 1992 (the year “Batman: TAS” premiered on Fox Kids on weekday afternoons) to 2008. “X-Men,” “Spider-Man: TAS,” “Phantom 2040” , “Gargolyes” and “Superman: TAS” followed on Fox Kids, Kids WB! or in weekdaily or weekend first-run syndication (not counting UPN Kids, ’cause it just showed repeats of the other network shows), all to great acclaim from fanboys (read: me 🙂 ).

And on and on, “Fantastic Four: TAS,” “Iron Man: TAS,” “Silver Surfer: TAS” (my all-time favorite) “The Avengers: TAS,” and more, as the ’90s turned into ’00s. Up through “The Batman” (a show I only tolerated until it began to take itself seriously, writing-wise, at the start of its fourth season) and “Legion of Super Heroes.”

With Fox Kids and Kids’ WB! gone, at 39 I really can’t make the audience investment anymore, following the remaining cartoons to cable or wherever. *SIGH* At least there are now a lot of (direct–to-) DVD animated films from which to choose.

Time to take those Saturday art classes—sculpture? painting?— I keep claiming I want. And perhaps I should start pulling out my “How-To-Write-A-Screenplay” books and my African myth anthologies……..

New Website About Katrina

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Got this from my friend and mentor Don Rojas as we observe the Katrina anniversary.

NEW WEBSITE CALLS FOR EQUITY AND INCLUSION IN THE GULF COAST

On the occasion of the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of communities in the Gulf Coast region, the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation (LDRF) in collaboration with many partners has launched a new Web site ( www.equityandinclusion.org ) to focus regional and national attention on the continuing plight of grassroots organizations working on behalf of those displaced and impacted by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas.

With Gulf Coast community news, blogs, podcasts, commentaries and calendars of events, the site aims to be a focal point on the Web for community organizations and coalitions to engage each other and collaborate in an ongoing campaign to adequately inform the nation and lift the public’s awareness.  

“Two years after Katrina, hundreds of thousands of poor and marginalized people are still shut out of the recovery and rebuilding of the region,” said Ashley Shelton, interim Chief Operating Officer at LDRF.

The site will also promote consistent advocacy at both the Federal and State levels and will demand of all the candidates who are seeking to be the next president of the United States to make an equitable, just and fair Gulf Coast recovery a top priority in their campaign planks.

As the Equity & Inclusion campaign site grows and expands, there are plans to publish Web content not only in English but in Spanish and Vietnamese as well, thus reflecting the three main languages spoken in the communities that were hardest hit by the storm.

The campaign’s Web site content will inform the general public about Gulf Coast realities with sound evidence, scientific data and credible research, all of which would come together to make the argument that the recovery, to date, has not been equitable, has not been balanced, has not been inclusive, has not been fair.

“The poor and the powerless have been left out of the recovery because racism and classism have been prevalent in the decision-making process”, said Don Rojas, creator of the E&I campaign’s site. “The job of this campaign is to expose these injustices and imbalances and to mobilize broad public pressure on the political leadership in Washington and also in the State capitols.”

Rojas added that close to a million people of good will from all across the United States and from as far away as Japan and Europe have traveled to Coastal communities over the last two years to volunteer selflessly their time, energy and money in the rebuilding process.

“We are all grateful and appreciative of their generosity. But when they return to their homes they go back to a reality of relative isolation, deprived of a steady flow of information about the ups and downs of Gulf Coast rebuilding. Their empathy for the plight of those in this region who are being shut out of the recovery process will wane and dissipate if we do not keep them engaged and informed, if we do not call on them to organize in their own communities and to pressure their Congressional representatives to deliver on their promises to make the Gulf Coast region whole again. This will be one of the main objectives of the campaign and the site.”

“And then, of course, there is the “Katrina Diaspora,” the tens of thousands of displaced Gulf Coast residents who are living across the 48 contiguous states of the US, most of whom want to return to their homes and communities and to a bright and secure future,” added Shelton.

“Their right to return is a basic human right, a basic constitutional right that this campaign must advocate for consistently and vigorously.  Like the volunteers, people in the Katrina Diaspora are also starving for up-to-date information and analysis on the recovery. They have an invaluable role to play in mobilizing public support and this campaign should place a high priority on reaching out to them and keeping them engaged,” she said.

The new site ( www.equityandinclusion.org ) is powered by PromoSuite Interactive.

Contact: Don Rojas

Tel: 443-834-9693 Email: donrojas30@gmail.com

A Writer's Purpose

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The following hit all the marks. 

I’m certain you know about Dr. Pipher’s public stand.

AMY GOODMAN: Mary Pipher, clinical psychologist and acclaimed author. I asked her to talk about her latest book, Writing to Change the World.

MARY PIPHER: You know, how Pete Seeger always said about music: it isn’t whether or not it’s good, it’s what it’s good for. And I didn’t come at writing as an academic or as a poet or a creative writer. I came at writing as a social activist, and I want every one of my books to have a very powerful effect in changing the culture. And so, I have spent a lot of time figuring out how to do it. And the way to do it is have a deeply personal voice, my own authentic voice that comes from deep within myself, and my writing and speaking voice are virtually identical. And then, the other way to do it is through stories, because you can’t argue with a story. You know, people can argue with you if you stand up and say what you believe or don’t believe, but if you tell them a story and tell them a story that opens their heart, they will change. So that’s what the book is about, is writing in a way that we can effect change.

And I talk about this idea that the point of my kind of writing is to empower the powerless, to give voice to people who have no voice, but also to educate readers in what I call the moral imagination. And that is the ability to understand the world from other people’s points of view. And that’s an extremely big problem in America right now, is people don’t have much moral imagination, so that when they talk about, say, “illegal aliens,” they don’t have a story, they don’t have a face, they don’t have a picture of a real person. They have almost no empathy with the person they’re talking about.

I remember when Sensenbrenner was talking about gaming the asylum system and how we had to go after those terrorists gaming the asylum system. At that point I had just happened to have been back to Bellevue in New York City to visit their unit for victims of torture. The people on that unit that were seeking asylum were Buddhist monks from Tibet. And I just thought, “Man, Sensenbrenner hasn’t been here. You know, he hasn’t been to Center for Victims of Torture in Minneapolis.”

And so, the job of the change writer, from my point of view, is to say I respect you as a reader, and I know if I tell you the truth, as I see it, having spent some time listening to people and asking them — you know, Simone Weil had that question, “What is your experience?”– asking people, “What is your experience?” which I did when I wrote Middle of Everywhere, my book on refugees. I spent three years asking people that. And it greatly enhanced my own moral imagination to listen to all those stories. You also have a good job for enhancing your moral imagination. But that’s the job of the writer: to help other people’s moral imagination grow, basically.