Washington's Birthday - 2015

Today America celebrates President's Day to honor past presidents, but especially George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. New York only recognizes George Washington on his birthday of February 22, 1732 almost three hundred years ago. Gilbert Stuart painted the Father of the Nation as a white man as had countless other artists, however historically many English male colonists sired children with female Africans, because white women couldn't survive the climate or the summer fevers. Not all of the forefathers were white. They were only painted white. Was George Washington white?

The Virginian owned 123 slaves.

His views on slavery changed through the years.

"Here is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for this abolition of slavery but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by Legislative authority."

-GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1786

According to mountvernon.com Washington also explored ways to reduce the number of enslaved people at Mount Vernon without selling them. Most ideas involved renting or selling land to finance an emancipation. He was unable to execute any of these plans during his lifetime.

Were it not then, that I am principled against selling negroes, as you would do cattle in the market, I would not, in twelve months from this date, be possessed of one, as a slave.

-GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1794

Only the year before he had a slave woman whipped for refusing to work.

Her name was Charlotte.

There was no good in slavery.

No good in owning slaves.

Washington freed them all at his death in 1799.

Slavery remained the GM of the South until 1865 and thereafter with the Jim Crow laws subjected Africans to enslavement of another kid.

Father of a Nation.

No slave owner can claim that title.

Us against them.

The True Meaning of the Stars And Bars

The Stars and Bars of the Confederate nation was first raised over the South Carolina State House on April 11, 1961 to commemorate the centennial celebration of the War Between The States and a year later the state's all-white legislators enacted a law to continue flying the flag as a protest against the civil rights movement. Recently the rebel battle flag from the Citadel was transferred from atop the capitol dome to its present station as a compromise to indignant calls for its removal, however the flag was not lowered to half-mast after the recent mass killing of black church goers by a right-wing racist in Charleston.

Lowering the flag requires a super majority vote by the state's legislature, the CSA's flag had originally been banned after the all-black 55th Massachusetts regiment occupied the birthplace of secession in February 1965.

Many southerners had argued that the flag had been a monument to the fallen dead of the South, however its true meaning had been best surmised by William Tappan Thompson, a pro-slavery writer in 1863.

"As a people, we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race."

The Stars and Bars exist strictly as a symbol of institutional slavery and the continued repression of anyone who is not white.

ps William Tappan Thompson came from New York, which along with Rhode Island and Boston are the most racist regions of the Northeast.

On July 10, 2015 an honor guard from the South Carolina Highway patrol removed the Confederate battle flag from the Capitol grounds in Columbia, South Carolina, ending its 54-year presence according to the Detroit Free Press and the Stars and Bars remains out of view.

Hopefully forever, although the great-grandchildren of the Lost Cause still believe that in the return of slavery.

ps the 55th Massachusetts regiment's first acts upon entering Charleston were restoring order and putting out the fires set by looters.

Ever-Victorious.

Sojourner Truth State Park

Donald J Trump purchased 436-acres of wetlands in the 1990s for $2 million. He hoped to develop a golf course, telling then-Governor Pataki, ""I hope that these 436 acres of property will turn into one of the most beautiful parks anywhere in the world.”

Westchester and Putnam County rejected his plans and refused to allow him to develop a dog park. Trump donated the land to the state was granted a $100 million tax write-off from Pataki. The state closed the park in 2010, since Trump refused to pay its annual $2500 operating costs.

I oftern drive up the Taconic Parkway and flip the bird to the two signs for Donald J Trump State Park.

Since 2015 various groups have attempted to change the park's name and the most recent push is for a native New Yorker, Sojourner Truth, who had been born into slavery under Dutch masters. Two years after her birth New York had voted for the abolition of slavery, however she and her children passed thirty years is sesrvitude before she decided enough.

"I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right."

Her speech "Ain't I a Woman?" was a call for African in America and women everywhere.

This is the 1863 version from Wikipedia.

"Wall, chilern, whar dar is so much racket dar must be somethin' out o' kilter. I tink dat 'twixt de niggers of de Souf and de womin at de Norf, all talkin' 'bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all dis here talkin' 'bout?

"Dat man ober dar say dat womin needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to hab de best place everywhar. Nobody eber helps me into carriages, or ober mud-puddles, or gibs me any best place!" And raising herself to her full height, and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked. "And a'n't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! (and she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous muscular power). I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And a'n't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear de lash as well! And a'n't, I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilern, and seen 'em mos' all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And a'n't I a woman?

"Den dey talks 'bout dis ting in de head; what dis dey call it?" ("Intellect," whispered some one near.) "Dat's it, honey. What's dat got to do wid womin's rights or nigger's rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?" And she pointed her significant finger, and sent a keen glance at the minister who had made the argument. The cheering was long and loud.

"Den dat little man in black dar, he say women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wan't a woman! Whar did your Christ come from?" Rolling thunder couldn't have stilled that crowd, as did those deep, wonderful tones, as she stood there with outstretched arms and eyes of fire. Raising her voice still louder, she repeated, "Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothin' to do wid Him." Oh, what a rebuke that was to that little man.

Turning again to another objector, she took up the defense of Mother Eve. I can not follow her through it all. It was pointed, and witty, and solemn; eliciting at almost every sentence deafening applause; and she ended by asserting: "If de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn de world upside down all alone, dese women togedder (and she glanced her eye over the platform) ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now dey is asking to do it, de men better let 'em." Long-continued cheering greeted this. "'Bleeged to ye for hearin' on me, and now ole Sojourner han't got nothin' more to say."

Sojourner Truth State Park works for me.

She was a true New Yorker.

The Evil of Slavery

Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army, has been widely cited for stating that the Civil War was not about slavery. Modern supporters of the South add to this quote that not every southerner owned slaves and claim the defense of Dixie was to protect State's Rights. Unapologetic slavery advocates say that African and Arabs sold their people into bondage and that the plantation system in the Old South was a benefit to the 'negroes'.

Their points of view has spread over the old Rebel territories to be accepted as a truth as holy as the Bible, but this is not the case.

Slaves were whipped mercilessly.

A life in chains was not an exception.

Hangings and lynchings were a common practice to instill fear into the captive race.

There is no sugar-coating the evils of slavery.

For while an estimated 1.6% of Americans owned slaves, a larger number worked for that peculiar institution as overseers, traders, carters, and slave hunters.

Slavery was the GM of the South.

The source of its wealth.

Hell on Earth.

So fuck Massa Robert E. Lee and bring down all that cracker's statues.

Free At Last In MIssissippi

The Mormon author of THE REDEMPTION OF COLUMBUS offered the supposition that slavery was a boon to mankind, since that particular institution established a value to human life previously sacrificed to satisfy the blood lust of pagan gods. A GOP politician echoed Orson Scott Card's theory in the 2012 election by saying that slavery in the South had improved the lives of Africans by cultivating western values in the savage beasts. Such thought is considered progressive in some parts of the Deep South and this week the country was astounded to hear that the State of Mississippi finally ratified the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery.

The vote was brought about by a University of Mississippi Medical Center professor after viewing the film LINCOLN and subsequently discovered that the measure had been passed by both branches of the state legislature, but never registered with the Federal authorities. This oversight was righted by an unanimous vote, although a number of 'ssippi representatives abstained from casting a yea or nay.

I was speaking with a Southern friend who defended Mississippi's reluctance to join the modern world, "Everyone sold slaves back then. Africans captured other Africans to sell to the Arabs and Portuguese."

"That may be true, but it's also no excuse for slavery." My Yankee side of the family had been involved in shipping during those centuries of human trafficking. There was a chance that they might have transported slaves to the South and West Indies, but that was a long time ago. "There's no place for slavery in this world, even though it exists throughout the world and even in the USA where young people are forced to work as unpaid interns with corporations."

"They have to learn somehow."

"Not as slaves." There is no other word for it.

The South will not rise again and neither should slavery exist in any state in America, but it does no matter what Mississippi does.

Back To Work

Last week I had no work ahead of me and the rest of the year promised to offer more of the same. I luckily sold two diamonds to make enough money to pay rent and send my kids in Thailand, but my own existence was threatened by a dismal lack of funds. I called friends to any leads. Most of them were leaving town from the holidays. My luck seemed to have crapped out, until I spoke to my old employer, Richie Boy, on 47th Street. "I can use you over the holidays." "Thanks." I started last Tuesday and have worked every day since. Getting up at 7am and not getting home until 7pm. My entries into Mangozeen fell to zero. Today will be the seventh in a row. "Working every day sucks," Richie Boy stated yesterday. "Not working every day sucks worse." Don't I know it.