The only decent part of all the weekend Trump-related information barrage was seeing Rep. Steve Scalise recovering from being shot on a ball field last summer walking across the stage using hand crutches. Other than that, Dear Mother of God, what must the world think? The tell-all inside look at the Trump White House in the new book “Fire and Fury” by Michael Wolff, the dysfunction on display in and around the Oval Office has been too widely discussed to add more here.
However, fear not. Black women saved the nation the presence of accused pedophile Roy Moore in the Senate, and now they’ve gone and threatened to haul out the big gun, Oprah Winfrey, and the political establishment is looking either giddy or scared. After all, if a Donald Trump, why not an Oprah Winfrey, since as it’s turns out, it’s the core of the person that matters. Opponents and political professionals will try to pigeonhole her as “another celebrity candidate”, which is laughable because that’s what they crave to be as they stand in the halls of Congress for half an hour waiting for camera time on CNN or MSNBC. And they also know that the actual work of running the government is a skill that can be learned, but there is no degree for charisma, and that’s why they will attack it, because it’s the only angle they’ll have.
The toxic charisma of Donald Trump has given us a great gift, because it breaks the current mold and leads the way to the qualities needed of a president in the 21st century. And the reason Oprah springs so easily to mind is because she is the embodiment of the citizen-politician the Founding Fathers envisioned as someone who would leave their lives in the financial elite, use their skills performing a public service for the nation and then return to their former life. Public office was not meant for a political class to claim and use for their personal ambitions rather than the country’s.
Ideals are often honored more in word than in practice, and the career politicians among the Founding Fathers, thought a citizen-politician, someone undoubtedly much like themselves, to be a good idea. It would have been a great surprise to them to see that two of the citizen-politicians making the sacrifice for the nation would be a Black man who was a college professor, community organizer and first-term state senator, and now, some 242 years later, an astonishing Black woman who’s a self-made billionaire running her own media empire, but there it is.
There is a lot of condescending talk from the political class about workers having to adapt to today’s world. This is true for their work as well, because the highest level of the game today is fought on digital platforms, and their analog skills are outdated like the silent movies.
Onstage at the presidential debates, it is inevitable that viewers will sense they are looking at Oprah Winfrey presiding over what would amount to a grouping of talented cabinet candidates and future advisors.
Of course, these are the fantasies of a hopeless romantic, and right now, the identity of the Republican candidate is really in the hands of special counsel Robert Mueller, who has indicated he’d like to interview the president, meaning his investigation will wrap up and findings released before 2020.
If Trump himself is cleared of any wrongdoing, then he’ll be the Republican candidate. But if the special counsel has bad news for the president and if the Democrats don’t take their eye off the ball and win a landslide in this year’s midterms, then we will have impeachment and removal from office firmly on the table, making the eventual Republican opponent unknown at this time.
Whoever the Republicans field, after four years of conservative policies lacking all empathy for people or the environment, the citizenry will be won over by someone else from outside the political class, but this time someone whose life story and philanthropy are in tune with the priorities of their own lives. Oprah has demonstrated up close and personal, that she is the kind of person to be trusted with children, and as a citizen-politician, she would be trusted to take the helm and set the ship of state back on course to make lives better.
(Featured Image updated with appropriate credit to artist Kervin Andre)
International retail giant H & M drew public ire over ad showing a black child wearing a green H&M hoodie with the text “coolest monkey in the jungle” printed on it.
Such popular artists as, Sean Combs, Weeknd, Questlove and G-Eazy lashed out in response.
Combs has reportedly offered the model a million-dollar contract to appear in his Sean John clothing line.
G-Eazy ran the adjacent positive conception with the following comment:
Over the past months I was genuinely excited about launching my upcoming line
and collaboration with @HM… Unfortunately, after seeing the disturbing image yesterday, my excitement over our global campaign quickly evaporated, and I’ve decided at this time our partnership needs to end.
Whether an oblivious oversight or not, it’s truly sad and disturbing that in 2018, something so racially and culturally insensitive could pass by the eyes of so many (stylist,
photographer, creative and marketing teams) and be deemed acceptable.
I can’t allow for my name and brand to be associated with a company that could let this happen.
I hope that this situation will serve as the wakeup call that H&M and other companies need to get on track and become racially and culturally aware, as well as more diverse at every level.
When I was in the 8’s* at the Little Red Schoolhouse, a very progressive private school in “the city”, we had projects for Black History Month. I was part of a team of two. Our project was Sojourner Truth. After school, my teammate and I would go to her house and work on our “project”. One day her father was listening to us discuss how best to present our material and he said: “Why Black History Month? Why don’t they have a White History Month?” Neither his daughter nor I knew what to say. It seemed quite reasonable. Why should Blacks have a whole month to themselves? I was a grown-up before I realized….because whites have all twelve months and we are excluded from eleven of them.
Julian Bond
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we didn’t need a Black History Month? If Black history was part of the traditional American curriculum and if African history were as much a part of it as European history?
Slavery built this country. Asians built this country. Women built this country. Jews built this country. Gay people built this country. Native Americans ARE this country.
How often are they included in the history books? If it weren’t for Howard Zinn, we would all be led to believe that heroic, white men were the only “founders of this nation”.
Not to mention Jesus Christ. Talk about exclusion. For most of my life Jesus Christ is portrayed as a wussy-looking white man with long, often golden, locks. His skin is always what Crayola crayons used to call “flesh”-colored, and his hair always long and straight.
Even in “Jesus Christ Superstar”, where they acknowledge that Judas is a man of color and of the same ilk as Jesus, the parts are played by two different races. Judas is Black and Jesus is white, yet both are Hebrews.
There are very few descriptions of what Jesus looked like in the Bible. The few that there are makes it clear that he was a man of color.
In Revelation 1:14, 15 – His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters;
Now, of the three races, only one of them, that I know of, has woolly hair, mine. How can there be any doubt that the man was one of African descent? Many people who are so afraid that Jesus could actually be a Black man, have said that since the description says that the wool hair was white as snow that it could be that of a halo over his head. Okay, that seems illogical, but even if it were true, why this second reverence to woolly hair in Daniel?
Daniel 7:9 – I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment [was] white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne [was like] the fiery flame, [and] his wheels [as] burning fire.
So, now, let’s talk about skin. Crayola does have a brass color and it is definitely a far deeper hue than their “flesh” color.
Once again, those who claim that Jesus looked like a fey Italian and couldn’t possibly have even one drop of Black blood in him, have trouble when the brass; i.e., brown skin tone, comes up again in Ezekiel.
Ezekiel 40:3 – And he brought me thither, and, behold, [there was] a man, whose appearance [was] like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate.
Why is it that the very thought of Jesus being a man of color, a man with African origins, makes people frightened? Why is it that including African-American heroes in history books makes history writers so fearful that they exclude them altogether?
When I taught American History at Brooklyn’s Wingate High School, the history book, which was the text for the school, had one paragraph on slavery from the viewpoint of the slave and it said that the slaves were happy with their lot because they had a free place to live and three meals a day. That is not an exact quote, but almost. It did not mention Salem Poor, Peter Salem, James Armistead Lafayette and their heroic activities during the Revolutionary War despite the fact that George Washington did not want Blacks to be in the military. It did not mention William A. Jackson, Robert Smalls, Miles James, Andre Callioux or James Stanley Gardner and how they participated in the Civil War.
If you never heard of these guys, it’s not your fault. They are totally excluded from the traditional American History curriculum.
Soldiers from Dog Company of the 761st Tank Battalion check equipment before leaving England for combat in France in the fall of 1944. The 761st Tank Battalion was the first African-American tank battalion to go into battle.
There were one million Black soldiers in the segregated Army of WWII. They had to listen to General Patton routinely refer to them as “niggers” and keep on fighting for this country which was supposedly so democratic.
It was the all-Black, 800-man, 761st that liberated the Buchenwald and Dachau Nazi-run Jewish death camps. That feat is not recorded in your history books because it was not recorded by the Army, an oversight, I am sure.
If you want to know who any of those people mentioned above are, you have to Google them yourself. The number of Black people excluded from history is so long that it will take you more than a month to become familiar with them.
My aunt Rachel West (Dorothy West’s mother) claimed everybody she liked was Black from Beethoven to Dinah Shore. She did this because there were so many Black people excluded from history or “whitened” by historians that it seemed logical to assume that if she liked ‘em, they were one of hers. Legitimate African-American historians spend hours trying to prove that George Washington was partially Black or J. Edgar Hoover. We don’t need those luminaries on our side of the ledger, we have celebrities far more brilliant than they; the trouble is, our celebrities are not celebrated.
What is it that European-based historians fear so much that they often fudge Black lineage? History writers would rather paint a portrait of Thomas Jefferson as a homosexual than having Congress with a Black child. One might think that historians don’t want to paint a portrait of a redheaded child abuser (after all, Sally Hemmings was only 14 years old), but the real answer is they just don’t want to acknowledge all those generations of Black Jeffersons which followed.
What is the big fear? What is the advantage of keeping us out? What do you gain by institutionalized racism? What do you get when you repeat over and over that we are a “less intelligent” and “violent” people?
Julian Bond said it best when he said:
“Violence is Black children going to school for 12 years and receiving 6 years’ worth of education.”
This is not the ranting of a man with a chip on his shoulder, this is a fact.
This is an intelligent, educated and really funny man who said that “Harvard is the Morehouse of the East”.
He had a way of telling people that Black people were not “just as good as”, that we were superior in a panoply of ways which never even occurred to them.
Could that be what traditional historians fear? That we are superior?
It is easy to forget how resilient and brilliant we have had to be and still are. If others had been dealt our hand, they probably wouldn’t have made it.
It can be scary to say that Black lives are superior, and one can easily take a lot of flak for just saying it aloud, but Julian had a way of saying it that made sense and as a result, made people feel comfortable. If European historians don’t feel comfortable, they can totally erase your entire lineage.
Black lives don’t just matter, they are essential, they are strong, they are intelligent and…superior. Only Julian had the finesse to put those thoughts into words that people could swallow.
When my fellow classmate, Jean Carey, married Max Bond and her name changed to Jean Carey Bond, it never crossed my mind that her husband was Julian Bond’s cousin. To be married to Max was spectacular enough; to have Julian in the same family was an extravaganza too rich for me to take in. To this day, each time I see Jean, I stammer and sputter as if she were a rock star (which she is).
Julian was my hero because he understood the economics of poverty (for all), he understood root causes and, not to mention, he was easy on the eye.
It will take me a while to get over his passing on. Let’s hope others like Van Jones will replace him.
As Jenny Laing Cooper, the white British historian said: “(African-American Black people that is) ARE better because they have come upright through all the shit they have put up with over the years – and still brilliant in too many ways to tell.”
Spiritually, slavery was worse for white people than it was for Blacks. It gave white people a callus, unfeeling attitude towards their fellow man which has lasted for many generations, and for some, to this very day. Spiritually, slavery gave Blacks the necessity of hope and empathy which has enabled them to adjust and survive. The ability to make adjustments is the very definition of intelligence. So, let’s have a Black History year. Let’s include the accomplishments of Black people in all of our historical writings all year long.
* The 8’s is equivalent to 3rd grade in public school…It is the class for 8-year-olds.
In one way, I was surprised that Sam Pinn was at my book-signing in Brooklyn at the Restoration Center in September, but in another way, I shouldn’t have been. It took me several minutes to recognize him since I hadn’t seen him in years. Then came his melodious voice– “I am Sam Pinn.” And then a flood of memories we shared over the years, mainly my reporting on his phenomenal political and cultural leadership.
Photographer George Johnson caught our moment of reminiscence and it was posted on Facebook and consequently provided me with all the information needed to begin and complete his obituary.
It was from the ever-alert Bernice Green, the publisher of this paper, that I learned of Pinn’s passing. And I was immediately propelled back to the days when I first began discovering what a vital asset he was in our struggle for freedom, justice and self-determination.
Community Keepers: Photo of Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality Chairman Sam Pinn, far right with, from left, Al Vann, Jitu Weusi and Herbert Daughtry – founders of the National Black United Front. (corenyc.org)
Years before I started as a journalist in New York City, Pinn was already well-along in his activist career, particularly his unwavering commitment to civil rights as the chair of the Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The Rev. Herb Daughtry, in his book No Monopoly on Suffering, recalled a moment in the summer of 1977 when he and Pinn, Albert Vann and Jitu Weusi began forging a movement in response to police brutality, most notably the killing of Randolph Evans. “Vann was an assemblyman in the 56th AD, and Weusi was founder and leader of The East, a cultural and educational organization….” Daughtry wrote. “Pinn later became a professor at Ramapo College in New Jersey.”
Daughtry commented further on Pinn’s reflective and keen analytical mind, which were some of the reasons he would chair the Randolph Evans Crises Fund Board of Directors. A year later, when the Black United Front (BUF) was formed, Pinn would be among the key members as he would be when the National Black United Front was created in 1980. During this same period, Pinn founded the Fort Greene Senior Citizens Center while teaching his courses at Ramapo College.
Among the encomiums on social media for Pinn was this one from Vann. “A son of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Sam contributed mightily to our survival, development and pride. Our collective hearts go out to his wife Doris, their sons and other family members and loved ones. We thank the Creator for Sam’s long and fruitful life, and significant contributions he made to our ‘rise’.”
Steve Cromity recounted Pinn’s unstinting dedication to the perpetuation of Black music, especially his founding of Jazz 966, which was launched in 1990. “At the site of 966 Fulton St.,” Cromity posted online, “There is also a Day Care Center and Senior Center, both having tremendous utilization. Sam was what I call ‘A Nation Builder’.”
Similar tributes were posted by Gary Williams, Rachel Brumfield, Eric Frazier and Baba Wesley Gray.
“He walked the way he talked, a true defender of our Kulture,” posted Menes de Griot, “A man of integrity, and 966 will never be the same.”
Fred Logan, a writer and activist in Pittsburgh, expressed fond memories of Pinn and his generosity in an e-mail. “I remember well staying at his home in 1981 when I went to a NBUF conference with Sanjulo, Naisha and Famamisha from Pittsburgh,” Logan wrote.
That same warmth and camaraderie is what I experienced at the book-signing and after he purchased a book and signed it for him, he insisted that I pose with him for a photograph. It was an honor to stand next to someone who I had admired so many years from a distance. During our brief moment together, Sam reminded that it had been some years since I had visited the Senior Citizens Center, and I agreed. But before I could complete another sentence, I was besieged by a group of admirers wanting their books signed. In his customary and dignified way, Sam slipped away allowing me to bathe in the recognition that was part of his remarkable life.
I am sure there will be endless praise for him as the day arrives for his homegoing, and I have no doubt that he will join that illustrious band of comrades and ancestors, including a few from Brooklyn, such as Jitu Weusi, Sonny Carson and Robert Taylor, Viola Plummer’s son.
Sam Pinn, presente!
Plans for a memorial service will be announced in the future.
Our brother, Sam Pinn, has joined the Ancestors. A son of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Sam contributed mightily to our survival, development and pride. Our collective hearts go out to his wife, Doris, their sons, and other family members and loved ones. We thank the Creator for Sam’s long and fruitful life, and the significant contributions he made to our “rise.”
It is of course humbling to realize that even the giants among us must make their earthly transition. The Pinn family are people of Faith. The can take comfort in Sam’s spiritual landing.
As we pray for strength and understanding to Sam’s family, we thank God for his consequential existence. Farewell my friend, comrade, colleague and neighbor. Al Vann
Sam Pinn and Wynton Marsalis
SAM PINN was a huge contributor to African-American life in Brooklyn, has gone to be with the ancestors yesterday. His founding of Jazz 966 was only part of the many contributions he made to the community. At the site of 966 Fulton St., there is also a Day Care Center and Senior Center, both having tremendous utilization. Sam was what I call “A Nation Builder.” Much more will be said about him in coming days. But, I know years ago he was head of Brooklyn CORE, and he had been an educator and I believe he held a doctorate. I also believe some street or building will be named after him in the future, perhaps 966 will change its name. I’ll miss Sam. May he RIP as he was “a good and faithful servant.” Steve Cromity
Sam Pinn with Herb Boyd
With a heavy heart I learned that Sam Pinn has passed away. Sam was a strong community activist and an ardent proponent for the growth and preservation of Jazz and culture in our community. He was an educator who was conscious and who taught by word and more importantly by his actions. He was the innovator of Jazz at 966 which has been successful for over a quarter century! He was a family man who knew the value of love and support. He was a friend that left a legacy that will impact the shape of Brooklyn history and the evolution Jazz for years to come. May he Rest in Peace! Gary Williams
