BlackMan Time

Archive for May, 2006

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin gave this speech on Monday, January 17, 2006, during a schedule in New Orleans’ City Hall commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr…

I greet you all in the spirit of peace this morning. I greet you all in the spirit of love this morning, and more importantly, I greet you all in the spirit of unity. Because if we’re unified, there’s nothing we cannot do.

Now, I’m supposed to give some remarks this morning and talk about the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. You know when I woke up early this morning, and I was reflecting upon what I could say that could be meaningful for this grand occasion. And then I decided to talk directly to Dr. King.

Now you might think that’s one Katrina post-stress disorder. But I was talking to him and I just wanted to know what would he think if he looked down today at this celebration. What would he think about Katrina? What would he think about all the people who were stuck in the Superdome and Convention Center and we couldn’t get the state and the federal government to come do something about it? And he said, “I wouldn’t like that.”

And then I went on to ask him, I said, “Mr. King, when they were marching across the Mississippi River bridge, some of the folks that were stuck in the Convention Center, that were tired of waiting for food and tired of waiting on buses to come rescue them, what would he say as they marched across that bridge? And they were met at the parish line with attack dogs and machine guns firing shots over their heads?” He said, “I wouldn’t like that either.”

State Black

Then I asked him to analyze the state of Black America and Black New Orleans today and to give me a critique of Black leadership today. And I asked him what does he think about Black leaders always or most of the time tearing each other down publicly for the delight of many? And he said, “I really don’t like that either.”

And then finally, I said, “Dr. King, everybody in New Orleans is dispersed. Over 44 different states. We’re debating whether we should open this or close that. We’re debating whether property rights should trump everything or not. We’re debating how should we rebuild one of the greatest cultural cities the world has ever seen. And yet still yesterday we have a second-line and everybody comes together from around this and that and they have a good time for the most part, and then knuckleheads pull out some guns and start firing into the crowd and they injure three people.” He said, “I definitely wouldn’t like that.”

And then I asked him, I said, “What is it going to take for us to move and live your dream and make it a reality?” He said, “I don’t think we need to pay attention anymore as much about the other folk and racists on the other side.” He said the thing we need to focus on as a community, Black folks I’m talking to, is ourselves.

What are we doing? Why is Black-on-Black crime such an issue? Why do our young men hate each other so much that they look their brother in the face and they will take a gun and kill him in cold blood? He said we as a people need to fix ourselves first. He said the lack of love is killing us. And it’s time, ladies and gentlemen.

What King Would Say

Dr. King, if he was here today, he would be talking to us about this problem, about the problem we have among ourselves. And as we think about rebuilding New Orleans, surely God is mad at America, he’s sending hurricane after hurricane after hurricane and it’s destroying and putting stress on this country. Surely he’s not approving of us being in Iraq under false pretense. But surely he’s upset at Black America, also. We’re not taking care of ourselves. We’re not taking care of our women. And we’re not taking care of our children when you have a community where 70 percent of its children are being born to one parent.

We ask Black people: it’s time. It’s time for us to come together. It’s time for us to rebuild a New Orleans, the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans. And I don’t care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day.

This city will be a majority African-American city. It’s the way God wants it to be. You can’t have New Orleans no other way; it wouldn’t be New Orleans. So before I get into too much more trouble, I’m just going to tell you in my closing conversation with Dr. King, he said, “I never worried about the good people — or the bad people I should say — who were doing all the violence during civil rights time.” He said, “I worried about the good folks that didn’t say anything or didn’t do anything when they knew what they had to do.”

It’s time for all of us good folk to stand up and say “We’re tired of the violence. We’re tired of Black folks killing each other. And when we come together for a secondline, we’re not going to tolerate any violence.” Martin Luther King would’ve wanted it that way, and we should. God bless all.

Photo: New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin, receives a hug from a (white?) supporter after defeating challenger Mitch Landrieu to retain his majoral seat.

Photographer: Mario Tama (c) Getty 2006.

Yesterday, on my way home from supermarket shopping I engaged a Nigerian man I had never seen before in general bonhomie chit chat. During the conversation he revealed he was travelling to Africa the next day and did not have scales to weigh his baggage prior to going to the airport. He asked me if had some.

Against my better judgement, considering he was a total stranger, I said yes and that I could let him borrow it after he told me his address and I realised he was two doors but one. He followed me home and I gave him the scales with him promising to bring it back around 9 p.m. that night. To be honest in my mind I had already written the scales off, thinking I would never see it again!

Anyway, I settled down for the night with a girlfriend and somehow fell asleep through all the entertainment fare on TV, etc. Maybe it was the wine we were having or something. When I awoke the next morning I remembered the Nigerian’s promise to return the scales. If he was really genuine he could or would have left it outside the door. So, I went to the door to check.

When I got there a post-it note was stuck on the door. It said: “Thank You Sir. Good day. I came to return the scale but I didn’t meet you at home. Please sir, I will be travelling tomorrow morning. I have dropped it with my brother at (an address). Thanks for your assistance.”

Believe me I was surprised and proven wrong! I have examples of people telling me how I should be aware of Africans, Nigerians in particular, but this example turn the whole thing on its head!

It just goes to show that there is still honesty and trust among people. It’s just a pity is so rare these days.

Back in the 1980s Black theatre was “bubbling on the top 100, just like a mighty dread”, to quote Bob Marley’s words! It was positively thriving or at the very least there were several companies catering to Black productions. This help to spawn a Black/African theatre-going culture.

Many comedians became stage actors and actresses and transferred their skills to the theatre. Some are still practicing that craft today and have even branched into films and television.

One of the major reasons why Black theatre was so prolific, particularly in London, was that government and local councils saw it as a way to placate angry Black people after the riots that had erupted in that time. In 1981 and 1985 we had horrendous (and much needed some may say rather controversally) disturbances in Brixton.

Black youths expressed their anger at police treatment out on the streets by smashing, burning and looting local businesses. This was an act repeated by youths throughout Britain becasue much of the same biased policing and attitudes were reflected by the country’s so-called law-makers and custodians.

This forced (or certainly helped and persuaded) the powers-that-be to rethink their general policies on how to accommodate an angry Black community. Arts and culture were two of the areas they identified, as was media, entertainment and sport. Huge chunks of money were poured into the sector to develop theatre arts projects.

Black Theatre Everywhere!

Suddenly, Black theatres were everywhere and the scene attracted talent from all over the world. Some of the actors featured prominently in TV programs, most well known of all was Channel 4’s Desmonds, the most successful of that station’s home grown products. Yet isn’t it funny how that series died a death the same time its leading actor Norman Beaton died! Anyway, as far as TV was concerned it was still too little too late for the Black presence on mainstream programming. But it was still better than the nothing we had become accustomed to.

By the end of the 1990s, the bubble seemed to burst in the Black theatre boom. A combination of withdrawal of funding for Black arts/theatre projects, decreased media interests, dwindling audiences, lack of creativity/ideas with productions and an over dependence on public funding for projects, all seemed to scuper the growth of the sector.

After the dust was cleared the mourning of Black theatre demise began. From a personal point of view I feel Black theatre failed because the companies that sprang up did not build their foundations on self-sustaining models.

I don’t know whether they chose to depend on Arts (and other) Council funding too much or whether the conditions of funding meant that they couldn’t seek or supplement their funding with outside, indpendent financing. Maybe they were blinkered into thinking that Arts Council would always fund their projects as long as there was an audience for their productions.

Either way, it was the withdrawal of funding by the Arts Council which signalled the beginning of the end for many Black theatre groups. Elsewhere, within some projects, reports of internal managerial incompetence and financial irregularities sprang up and these did not help the cause at all.

But it is good to know that some semblance of a Black theatre culture still exist and those companies that regularly still produce plays catering to this sector still enjoy support, but it is a much stiffer challenge than it was 20 years or so ago.

I am glad that here at BlackMag we are able to talk about topics like colour, race issues and discrimination in a manner that is often cantankerous, controversial and unpopular! This enables us to air views and opinions that you won’t find anywhere else and this gives hope, scope and depth.

Each media (in whatever form) has its own way of tackling such topics. Some are more daring, others take a softly, softly approach afraid of “frightening the horses” corporate sponsors or commercial advertisers. Currently, we are not affected by such considerations!

But, there is a price to pay for going it alone without corporate endorsement: you usually have to find other (sometimes creative means) of financially supporting your venture. In this we are very familiar. But the great thing about existing this way is that you keep your editorial viewpoint independent in the truest form of the term.

It is difficult if not impossible to knock McDonald’s when you’ve got a great big 468 x 60 pixel McDonald’s banner enticing visitors to use your website! We’ve got nothing against McDonald’s per se (after all the company is now run by an African (Black) man. But even after considering that we just don’t dig their fast food! In fact, we don’t dig most kinds of fast food, period!

My exceptions to this rule include Caribbean ‘fast’ foods of the fried dumpling, fish and bammy variety. But that is a story we’ll save for another time!

The bottom line is having full control over editorial judgement is great but there has to be a point or purpose to it. Otherwise why do it? Putting out and keeping a website online costs money and it is impossible to sustain such venture with revolutionary ideals alone.

This is one of the reasons why we are now looking at our existence in this arena and how we can maximise our presence so that we can be sustainable for many more years to come. If you have any ideas how we can do this please drop us a line or complete our survey when it is ready!

Watch this [ ] space!

Racism is at the forefront of why England has found itself replacing its manager so close to the soccer World Cup next month and the events that have occurred since then has borne this out.

An England team under Sven has actually only lost three full international matches out of 33 played. To give the full picture England has played 60 matches in total under Sven, 33 have been full internationals and 27 were friendlies with England losing a total of 10 (three full internationals and seven friendlies).

This is considerably better than many of the past England managers but the fact that Sven is Swedish did not sit well with some powerful people in higher echelon. The reality is though is that there is not an English manager good enough to manage the England team! As if to support this view, none of the top five managers in the English premiership is English!

Let’s break down this fact. For starters the winners of the Premiership, Chelsea, got a Portuguese in the form of Jose Mourinho. Second place Manchester United got a Scot in Alex Ferguson. Liverpool got a Spaniard in Rafael Benitez. a**enal got a Frenchman in a**ene Wenger. Totenham Hotspur got a Dutchman in Martin Jol. And the next club down Blackburn got a Welshman in the form of Mark Hughes.

First True English Manager

We actually have to scroll down to seventh place to find the first English manager in the form of Glenn Roeder, who currently is not even entitled to be given that title since he is not legally able to be a premier league manager! The reason is simple: he has not completed his qualifying coaching course. Even so with a name like Roeder it is probably more factual that the Newcastle stand-in manager has roots in Germany than in England!

That really leaves us to look at the eighth place where Sam Allardyce is an English manager.

Maybe this lies at the heart of why the English Football Association has struggled to find a suitable replacement for Sven Goran Eriksson: because the quality simply isn’t there among existing English managers in the first place!

In any case allowing Sven to leave (or giving him the push – whichever reason you prefer) so close to the World Cup, was not a bright idea! In my opinion they should’ve waited until after the competition to make such decisions because it detracts from preparation for the event. And, what if a miracle was to happen and England actually win the World Cup with the squad they have? Sven would be a hero without even a team to celebrate with.

It’s all ludicrous which is why I feel the underlying theme and reasons behind the FA’s decision is racism, firstly fuelled by the media which sensitized the public which forced the authorities to make a rash decision.

I have to say great to outgoing England soccer manager Sven Goran Ericcson for picking an untried, 17 year old Theo Walcott for the squad to play in the world cup starting next month.

But Walcott, whose grandfather was first cousin of the legendary West Indies cricketer Sir Clyde Walcott, has been included at the expense of four other Black players, namely Charlton’s Darren Bent, Chelsea’s Shaun Wright-Phillips, Ledley King (who is injured) and Spurs team-mate Jermain Defoe, who only makes the stand-by list.

On the one hand it is great that Walcott is being lined up for superstardom and the chance to shine in the world cup for England, but on the other I wonder if it wasn’t possible to name Bent for instance who is the highest scoring British player in the premier league this season.

One cannot help wondering how much this colour factor was a part of Sven’s decision making because it has always been a part of the process when considering players for England. In the final England lineup there are six players with African roots Currently (read Black). Another four would make it 10 which would add a different tone to things, to say the least!

Either way, Sven has admitted making a gamble on Walcott and it is this risky choice which currently has the media (and fans) talking.