Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
The 50th anniversary of the police attack at Jackson State comes at a moment when America is struggling with a pandemic, the impacts of which have weighed heavily, and unjustly, on black bodies. Thanks to the insufficient and belated response of national and state leaders that has inflamed the pandemic, people of color are disproportionately represented among Covid-19 cases, and they bear the brunt of the government’s aggressive enforcement of quarantine rules.
Then came the video showing the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man out for a jog in Georgia. Although he was killed in February, only last week were the men shown on a video confronting Mr. Arbery arrested. As the survivors of the May 1970 attack at Jackson State and modern proponents of Black Lives Matter understand, justice remains elusive.
Through it all, we must be reminded that state-sanctioned violence aimed at the marginalized remains a systemic part of American life. That ever-present threat continues to prop up white supremacy in this country.
This spring, Jackson State’s Class of 2020 was supposed to graduate in a special ceremony: The Class of 1970 was prepared to walk across the stage for its 50th reunion and be handed their diplomas for the first time, while relatives of Phillip Gibbs and James Green were to accept honorary doctorates on their behalf. While the administration at Jackson State and our community hold out hope that we will be able to safely gather for these events at some unknown date, there is a real prospect that this modern catastrophe, 50 years later, will prevent us from doing so.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/opinion/Jackson-state-shooting-police.html
Comments
Can't access Ny times, but again, a mashup of too many things to make sense of. I found 1 available piece discussing Jackson State, but talked about blacks throwing stones at white motorists but blaming those whites. Idunno - I think the main reason we know Kent State is it was clear what they were protesting, plus Kent, Ohio closer to a national media hub, whereas th South largely a backwater. Don't see it much related to Arbery either, since he was neither protesting nor breaking the law, just jogging, and it was renegade "justice", not an official police/national guaslrd response. Though yes, there were black people involved.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 8:29am
When multiple sources made a direct connection between Arbery and Trayvon Martin, you could not see it. Your response here is not surprising. Thanks for taking time to comment.
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 8:47am
PP, the NYTimes op-ed is by Robert Luckett (@robbyjsu) is an associate professor of history and the director of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University. And he explains how the university was going to do a commemoration of this at graduation this year to draw more attention to it, including honorary doctorates for relatives of Gibbs an Green. To "start dialogue about ignored history: type of thing. So I read this op-ed as a substitute for being able to do it that way. Which is quite understandable.
One thing I find interesting is something I was expecting to happen soon but not with impetus coming from an academic. He says
"Free us from unfair quarantine" coming next? When it is the only "cure" humans have right now for this thing. "The man" caused it to be highly contagious? Trumpies don't want quarantine either. Argument makes no sense.Just a while ago it was "all the rich whypipple get to quarantine in their spacious country homes and we don't". Oh well.
by artappraiser on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 11:49am
I understand quarantine having a harsher effect on blacks, rescue monies going less to blacks, etc. When people like DeBlasio screw up pandemic response, it does on average hurt blacks more than whites in terms of death's and total life upheaval. And if 2 people 1 white 1 black outside have a mask half on, the cops are more likely to hassle the black guy - same with a ton of altercations. So where police are enforcing new rules with the public, blacks are more likely to get less tolerance.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 12:02pm
I see absurdity in that situation, though. Try the opposite, let's say government allowed all minority-owned businesses to open up first and lax enforcement of social distancing and mask wearing among people of color and tougher enforcement towards people with white skin. Wouldn't we be hearing then that the government was trying to kill off minorities?
Public health measures in an pandemic are anti-civil rights, they are totalitarian of necessity, civil rights are temporarily put on hold. This is why the Trumpie libertarians dislike them so much.Just saying that it was a no brainer that this was coming to this country, individual freedom is very much part of our core founding culture and the left and the right would be screaming about any public health initiatives.
by artappraiser on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 12:15pm
The absurdity is in the way you pose the situation. Black businesses were not asking for lax conditions. The armed thugs who helped businesses defy shutdown orders were white.
Black businesses were asking for funding support
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/30/perspectives/black-businesses-coronavirus/index.html
You make an insane argument
BTW, your description of me to PP was disgusting
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 1:07pm
I kind of agree with both sides here - blacks face more risks, there's some damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't attributes if you stay closed or open either way, in an ideal universe much more funding & support would be available especially for minorities at risk, but we live in a bizarre universe sadly.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 4:35pm
The sequence of events
Edit to add:
A similar view from the Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/jackson-state-shootings-fifty/
The connecting theme is that the black body is considered a threat.
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 9:10am
The author of the Nation article notes:
https://time.com/5836466/jackson-state-shooting-history/
I don't find it strange that connections are made between the events.
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 9:32am