Tale of Two Wronged Women and Their Husband Victimizers!!



Janay Rice

Hillary Clinton

 

 

Ray Rice, no excuses!!! You brutally punched your then-fiancée and now wife, Janay. Although we don’t know all the facts, we’ve seen the tape and it is horrific. Your wife has forgiven you, but the public (and the NFL) has not.

On the anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, women’s rights activists have made Ray Rice the poster child for domestic violence. Rice has been eviscerated in the media and the Baltimore Ravens fired him from his job…

 

FIRED FROM HIS JOB!!!!!

 

I recall two other women who were publicly humiliated and abused.  While the women involved defended their abuser, many called for the abuser’s job.  Those women were Monica Lewinsky and Hillary Clinton…the abuser President Bill Clinton!!!

Ultimately, the public and women’s rights activists determined that President Clinton’s personal behavior should not cost him his job.  After all, “if Hillary can forgive him, what business is it of mine?”

Domestic issues are very, very complicated, and Ray Rice may deserve everything that has befallen him. But, the difference in treatment between Bill Clinton and Ray Rice are noteworthy.  (Not to mention, the respective differences in the fates of Janay Rice and Hillary Clinton. While Janay faces the slings and arrows of unwelcome, judgemental commentary, Hillary faces becoming the second white woman President of the United States...the first being Eleanor Roosevelt.)

I get it…we have a videotape of Rice viciously striking Janay, and we don’t have video footage of Clinton’s exploitation of Lewinsky.

However, it is worth noting that the NFL is disproportionately comprised of Black males.  The Presidency has been disproportionately comprised of White males. A large portion of Black NFL players come from violent, disadvantaged backgrounds. Most presidents come from coddled, advantaged backgrounds.  NFL players are our modern-day gladiators...playing America's most violent game. Presidents are our modern-day aristocrats...playing America's most powerful game. Former Presidents get $500,000 for a 1-hour speech...Former NFL players get diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries.

I get it…there are no excuses for hitting anyone who doesn’t pose a threat to you (man or woman). At the risk of sounding patriarchal and patronizing to women, I was taught to be a gentleman and cherish womanhood as the “gentler sex.”

But, sometimes I can’t help but wonder if “White” collar crime and “Black” collar crime are treated somewhat differently.

The public debate will continue and rightly so. I wish Ray and Janay the best if they are tying to heal their relationship. But, violence against women is UNACCEPTABLE!!

Can’t wait to hear from Hillary Clinton on this very important subject.

 

Expose that "Dirty Laundry," Kelly!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhMZOk8gJXw

 

 

Until we rendezvous...

 

Peace!!

Valerie June...Incomparable!!!



 

Country...Blues...Reggae...Hip-Hop....DOPE!!!!

 

                             

                              I can't get enough of this talented artist.

                                                            Rather than describe her,

                                                                                I'd rather listen to her!!

 

But, along with John Forte, I have just one request:

 

Valerie, "Give me Water".....Please!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaIORi2ovNc

 

 



 

 

Until we rendezvous...

 

Peace!!

Afro-Punk!!! "The Other Black Experience"

 



The Afro-Punk Festival is the ultimate celebration of freedom. Held in Brooklyn, the goal of the fest was to create a space for Black people needing to express their life experiences through Punk, Rock, and Alternative music. It now attracts Blacks world-wide and embraces Folk, Soul/R&B, Blues, Jazz, and Hip-Hop.  But, make no mistake, narrow definitions and small-mindedness is strictly prohibited.

Most impressive to me, Afro-Punk has become the introductory stage for many cutting-edge musical acts like Memphis' young "Bluesician," Valerie June and Nashville's sensual songstress, Kandace Springs.  For music and culture enthusiasts, this is a "gotta be there" event. 

This year, the two-day fest will be held on August 23-24th. See ya in Brooklyn!!

 

Sing Kandace!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxbO9aRw6i8

 

 

Until we rendezvous...

 

Peace!!

Robin Williams...Remembered!!

The Brilliant and Beloved Robin Williams

 

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

 

 

So begins the Robert Herrick poem, To the Virgins: To Make Much of Time. So also began my fascination with the great Robin Williams as he played Professor Keating in the classic movie Dead Poets Society.

 

The movie is a "coming of age" piece in which an elite but awkward group of students attending a stodgy prep school meet their new English Professor who encougages them to "seize the day"... to walk to the beat of a differnet drummer....to dare to be an individual...to defy tradition and convention. With the opening lines of this poem, Keating (Williams) begins to transform the lives of his students and greatly inspire me as well.

 

 

Seizing! Daring! Defying! Walking Differently! Williams did all those things...and that is why we loved him!!  Yes. Zany, frenetic comedic flourishes may have been his hallmark. But, if the eyes are windows to the soul, Williams' eyes spoke to his incomparable humanity, his profound vulnerablity, his dance with despair, his trysts with tragedy, his walk with joy through a world of sadness. As Mary J. Blige sang, "If you could look in my eyes and see what I've seen."

 

 

For better or worse, most of us will never experience the manic flights of his comedic genius or  suffer the depths of his depressive despair.  So, judge not! Who among us know with certainty how we might handle addiction, fame and fortune (and all its trappings), or a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease?

 

 

SUICIDE!!

 

 

Few have been personally spared by this parodoxical act of final resolution. A dear friend of mine chose this as a final act. Still, suicide remains for me "a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." And, perhaps there is no key. Maybe the herculean feat of balancing Triumph and Tragedy while performing for an adoring crowd finally got the best of Robin. Or, was it the lonely expanse of time away from the crowd that beckoned the "reaper" to Williams' abode?

 

So, is this the dissonant, inharmonius end? Is it really all that surprising? Robin Williams was always Daring...Defying...Walking Differently...Seizing the Day..and, that is why we loved him!!

 

In the end, is it  really inharmonius? Or, is it just dissonant...hard to deal with? In music theory, it's dissonance that gives music its beauty and movement....without dissonance, music becomes lifeless, hopeless and static.  Williams' life was anything but lifeless, hopeless, and static. Perhaps, it ended on the most harmonious of notes....and, as such, Williams "seized" his final day.

 

 

Robin Williams was a comedic genius, but above all he was a great humanitarian. I will always remember him as he was in this heartrending scene from the movie Good Will Hunting:

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w0Fq2UH-pQ

 

 

 

Until we rendezvous...

 

Peace!!



Is this FERGUSON or is this Birmingham....2014 or 1964????

Kwame Toure aka Stokely Carmichael

Once upon a time in America, there lived a young Black man who embodied the best of W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington...Martin Luther King and Malcolm X...Barack Obama and Cornel West. He graduated from Bronx High School of Science in 1960 with varied academic scholarship offers from prestigious "white" universities. That notwithstanding, he chose to attend Howard University studying Sarte, Camus, and Santayana while graduating "with honors" and a degree in Philosophy.  He was a firebrand founding member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC or "snick"), and became the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.

Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Toure) addressed the ambiguously complex and murky spaces existing between violence and non-violence..."Black power" and Black acquiessence...mainstream acceptance and radical militancy...justice and peace.

 

He was a brilliant scholar and a charismatic grassroots activist.  Carmichael is no longer here to lend his hand in the struggle, but his wise words linger presciently in the aftermath of Michael Brown's apparent execution at the hands of a Missouri police officer, and the brutal police response to mostly Black citizens exercising their constitutional right to free speech and to peaceably assemble.

From the grave, Stokely speaks to Ferguson, Missouri:

 

"We were aware of the fact that death walks hand in hand with struggle." 

"I also know that while I am black I am a human being, and therefore I have the right to go into any public place."

 "There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience."

 

"The secret of life is to have no fear; it's the only way to function."

 

"We had no more courage than Harriet Tubman or Marcus Garvey had in their times. We just had a more vulnerable enemy."

 

Has the rabid right-wing, militarized law-and-order philosophy ushered in by Richard Nixon and George Wallace, perfected by Ronald Reagan and Lee Atwater, and fondly embraced by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, once again rendered the "enemy" vulnerable?  We'll see.

 

Until then, I'm with the family of Michael Brown, the city of Ferguson, and The Roots channeling our forefathers, singing "Can't Turn Me Around."

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta6UmkqzZA0

 

 

Until we rendezvous...

 

Put Your Hands Up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

"I Can`t Write Left-Handed"

Today, President Obama launched a series of military missions in Iraq aimed at providing humanitarian aid to thousands threatened with genocide in that broken country. A country broken, I might add, by ill-advised neo-con inspired American intervention. This humanitarian effort may also lead to more malicious, although limited, military action to stem the tide of an ISIS led rampage in the country.

This glimmer of international benevolence is occurring while Putin’s Russia turns up the volume on its aggression in the Ukraine, Hamas and Netanyahu pumps up the usual Israeli/Palestinian strife in Gaza, war-like gang violence rages in Central America sending thousands of children fleeing into the arms of US Border Patrol Agents, and the Ebola virus silently stampedes through West Africa like General Sherman through Georgia.

All this…after spending over a decade fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan!!  The President’s foreign policy plate is full, to say the least. I trust his judgment and I buy his philosophy of exercising “smart power” and only fighting "smart wars." But I, like Bill Withers, will remember even the "smart wars" (in which there is death and destruction) like I remember ALL wars…”as one big drag!”

There seems to be a common thread  running through all wars…the death, of course...but also the pain and suffering it inflicts upon the innocents who fight and survive them…not to mention the horrors endured by those who are simply in the way.

It reminds me of a profoundly thought-provoking song written by Bill Withers in the 70s toward the end of the Vietnam War.  He told the story of a soldier he met who, returning from the war, had lost the use of one arm.  The soldier poignantly stated that he was doing okay, “getting shot at didn’t bother him, it was getting shot that shook him up.” That song was entitled, “I Can’t Write Left-Handed,” and it should serve as a reminder to young and old that war is not a video game…and that American soldiers bleed just like enemy soldiers do.

John Legend and The Roots smashed a remake of the Withers classic, and I’m sure Withers is proud.  Check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqQBpd31SxM

 

May wisdom reside with our President...courage with our soldiers...and may tranquility eventually descend upon our world.

 

Until we rendezvous...

Peace!!

Jose James...EveryLittleThing!!!

London-based expat, Jose James, is on “fiya” and taking center stage alongside a wave of jazz-influenced, hip-hop, rock, neo-soul/R&B infused artists like fellow expat Aloe Blacc, Emily King, Robert Glasper and Janell Monae. The Minneapolis-born crooner, and son of a Panamanian jazz saxophonist, grew up sampling the smorgasbord of delights blanketing the musical menu of his youth…from Prince and Ice Cube to Nirvana and Radiohead. 

James soon left the “twin cities” to study at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in NYC, to become a finalist in the Thelonius  Monk International Jazz Vocalist Competition, and tour with legendary jazz pianist, and Coltrane protégé, McCoy Tyner while honing his eclectically sensual musical style.

His previous albums (“The Dreamer”; “Black Magic”; “No Beginning, No End”) brilliantly capture his roots in jazz, soul, R&B, and Hip-Hop. James’ latest offering, “While We Were Sleeping”, stretches the limits of creativity, blurs the lines of categorization and dips deeply into his apprenticeship in the East London club scene giving a head-nod to his rock/electronica sensibilities. His spot-on remake of the conscious hip-hop classic “Park Bench People” by Freestyle Fellowship will slay most and leave others unconscious. James' original, “It’s All Over Your Body” is sensual soul personified, and “Every Little Thing” mixes the funky vibe of a fly-ass 1970s pimp with the gritty intensity of a British punk rocker.  

But, it’s really James' mid-concert dedication to soul singer/songwriter Bill Withers that confirmed once again that swagger is earned not learned, caught not bought, and in really short supply.  Check this out as he covers some of Withers' classics:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zAHs6wrz64

 

Now that's real talk!

 

Until we rendezvous...

Peace!!