Monday's Poetry: Lynchings, Then and Now

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

It’s been nearly a century since the practice of lynching ended in the United States.  Well, at least in theory.  The summary execution of black Americans by vigilantes and members of hate groups, including some who believe they are doing the Lord’s work, continues to this very day.  It’s just that now it has shifted away from the use of ropes – at least for the most part.

The outrageous acquittal of George Zimmerman, a racially focused vigilante who fatally shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, is an obvious example justice being corrupted by race.   Then there was the  Fruitvale Station murder of Oscar Grant, another young black man, by a subway cop in Oakland – as Grant was lying face down on the pavement in handcuffs .  His killer was taken a bit more seriously than George Zimmerman (primarily because bystanders filmed the entire incident - making it impossible for police to rewrite the account of what happened) and had to serve eleven months in prison for willfully taking a human life. 

Having just seen Fruitvale Station yesterday and with President Obama’s remarks about the difficulties facing young black men due to continuing racial prejudice still ringing in my ears, I set out to find a poem about lynching for today’s posting.  Unfortunately it was not an easy task – because there so many from which to choose.

There were three by Langston Hughes that fit the bill:  two dealing with the killing of 14-year-old Emmett Till by members of the Klan (Mississippi – 1955 and The Money Mississippi Blues),  and another (Birmingham Sunday) that focused on the Birmingham church bombing of 1963 that killed four young black girls.   Gwendolyn Brooks, another important black writer, penned a deeply moving poem about Emmett Till entitled A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi.  Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon.

The two that I found most moving, however, were The Lynching by Claude McKay (one of my very favorite writers and a member of the Harlem Renaissance back in the 1920’s), and jasper texas 1998 by Lucille Clifton.  Ms. Clifton’s poem is related to the killing of James Byrd, Jr, a black man who was tied to the bumper of a pick-up truck and dragged to death.  The two poems bridge the gap between lynchings, then and now.

The Lynching

by Claude McKay

His Spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven.

His father, by the cruelest way of pain,

Had bidden him to his bosom once again;

The awful sin remained still unforgiven.

All night a bright and solitary star

(Perchance the one that ever guided him,

Yet gave him up at last to Fate's wild whim)

Hung pitifully o'er the swinging char.

Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view

The ghastly body swaying in the sun

The women thronged to look, but never a one

Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue;

And little lads, lynchers that were to be,

Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.

jasper texas 1998

by Lucille Clifton

for j. byrd

i am a man's head hunched in the road.

i was chosen to speak by the members

of my body.  the arm as it pulled away

pointed toward me, the hand opened once

and was gone.

why and why and why

should i call a white man brother?

who is the human in this place,

the thing that is dragged or the dragger?

what does my daughter say?

the sun is a blister overhead.

if i were alive i could not bear it.

the townsfolk sing we shall overcome

while hope bleeds slowly from my mouth

into the dirt that covers us all.

i am done with this dust.  i am done.

Fruitvale Station, a Hard Movie

by Pa Rock
Film Fan

Chances are good that most of the people who go to see the film, Fruitvale Station, know the story and are also fully aware of how it ends.  They also realize ahead of time that watching the movie will, to a large extent, be a depressing experience.  All of that is true, but it still does not deter from the fact that Fruitvale Station is an awesome movie, a very emotional account of a real-life tragic outrage.

Oscar Julius Grant was a twenty-two year old black man who was detained and then fatally shot by security officers of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Systen (BART) in the early morning hours of January 1st, 2009.  Grant, along with his girlfriend (the mother of his daughter) and several friends, were returning from a night of New Year's celebrating when a disturbance broke out in the subway car in which they were riding.  The train was immediately stopped and Grant and several of his friends were forced to the pavement in the Fruitvale Station by members of the BART security force.  Grant was lying on his stomach with his arms handcuffed behind his back when one of the officers shot him in the back at close range.  He died later that morning in an Oakland hospital.

The story of the Fruitvale Station tragedy, and outrage, emerged basically in tact because several people on the stopped train had the good sense to capture it on their cell phones.  All of the officers involved in the incident were eventually fired, and the shooter was arrested on a murder charge.  The shooter was subsequently convicted of a manslaughter charge, sentenced to two years in prison, and released after serving only eleven months behind bars.

The movie follows Oscar Grant on his last full day of life, New Year's Eve 2008, which was also his mother's birthday.  While the story entails some of Oscar's dark side, like the fact that he had served time in prison, occasionally cheated on his girlfriend, sold weed, and had recently lost his job at a grocery store for coming to work late, it also depicts him as an outgoing young man who loved his mother, his girlfriend, and most of all his daughter, Tatiana.  He is seen on his last day helping a lady at the grocery - although he no longer worked there, playing with his daughter, dumping a large bag of marijuana in the bay, attending his mother's birthday party, and talking a San Francisco doorman to into letting his girlfriend and two other women, one of whom was a pregnant stranger, into the doorman's building so that they could use the bathroom.  A few hours later he was dead.

Fruitvale Station was written and directed by Ryan Coogler.  His work is masterful, and the end product is a gripping and highly charged account of a true crime.  The movie taps a range of feelings that puts viewers (or at least this viewer) through a tight emotional ringer.  Coogler knows his craft and is not afraid to take it to film.

Oscar Grant is played by Michael B. Jordan, a very focused and aggressive actor who is perfect in the role of the street survivor with the good heart.  Jordan is a young Denzel Washington - and every bit as talented.

Sophina, Grant's baby-mama, is played by Melonie Diaz.  Ms. Diaz, like Jordan, is perfect in her role - that of a woman seeking happiness in a hard world.

The other standout performer in this film is the amazing Octavia Spencer who is featured as Grant's mother.  She exhibits a range of emotions from tough love to full-on grief.  Ms. Spencer owns the screen through a good portion of the movie.

Fruitvale Station isn't a docudrama, even though some actual footage from the crime is incorporated into the movie.   But it is a drama that also serves to document a man's last day on earth and the events leading up to his murder.  It is a totally engrossing film that opens on the heels of the Zimmerman verdict and President Obama's comments regarding the impediments that society places in the paths of young black men.  The movie underscores the reality of "two Americas."

Fruitvale Station is a hard movie to watch, and that is as it should be.

Another Day, Another Mile on the Treadmill

by Pa Rock
Fitness Fool

I have been out of cardiac rehab since before my trip to the Ozarks late last month due to a billing dispute and the crappy hours that the rehab clinic maintained.  After inquiring at a couple of other hospitals, I came to the conclusion that they are not in business to meet the needs of people who are still employed.  Most offered availability only on weekdays with hours from approximately 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. - or thereabouts.  Finally a very nice nurse at one of the clinics said that if I would buy a personal heart monitor (around $60.00) and let her teach me how to set and use it - at no cost - she would approve my going to a gym and conducting my own cardiac rehab.

So yesterday I went back to my old gym and re-enrolled.  The nurse had told me to concentrate on the aerobic machines and to not get my heart rate too high - just take it easy to begin with.  Since yesterday morning I have made three trips to the gym where I did a mile on the treadmill during each of those visits.  I have increased the speed with each of those walks and am just about back to where I was when I quit rehab a month ago.

I also made a trip to Costco this weekend where I purchased a couple of pre-made salads and some healthy snacks.

If I am going to exhibit binge behavior, it might as well be a healthy binge!

You Make Me Feel So Young!

by Pa Rock
Perpetual Adolescent

Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger, the lead singer for the Rolling Stones and a founding member of the band, turned seventy today.  No word yet on whether the ancient rocker celebrated with a party, but if he did, it was undoubtedly an epic affair packed with hordes of honkey tonk women, hard drugs, expensive booze, and Metamucil.

Fellow Stone Keith Richards will be seventy this December.  Charlie Watts turned seventy-two last month, and Ronnie Wood is the group's youngest member at the tender age of sixty-six.  Former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman will be seventy-seven in October.

Happy Birthday, Mick.  Here's hoping you encounter plenty of satisfaction in your seventies!

Celebrating Urine-Soaked Rugs and Bowling Alleys

by Pa Rock
Cult Film Fan

So what becomes of Rocky Horror fanatics when they grow too old to attend midnight showings and dance across the stage in ladies' French underwear?  One possibility is that they adjust their focus for age and become Big Lebowski fanatics.  Beer and bowling alleys and sharing your bath with a ferret - that's the new normal as far as cult films are concerned.

A few days ago while channel surfing I came across Joel and Ethan Coen's classic (okay, one of several Coen Brothers classic films), The Big Lebowski.  I hadn't seen the 1998 film in several years, and decided to settle down for an evening's entertainment.  And while "the Dude," aka Jeff Bridges, may not be the role model that you would hope for your kids to emulate, he is definitely entertaining.

My first hint that The Big Lebowski was becoming a cult film came while I was on Okinawa.  Two of my friends in the clinic where I worked would throw lines from the movie back and forth with seeming abandon,  while demonstrating an almost perverse knowledge of the film.

My second hint came while watching the movie again last week.  There are so many sight gags and so much cleverness in the movie, that I'm sure I could watch it several times and always come away with some gem of a line or a visual that I had missed in previous viewings.  It is simply a very good movie, one that just keeps on giving.

The third hint cam a couple of days after I saw the movie on television last week.  I was listening to National Public Radio (NPR) while getting ready for work one morning, and they did a piece on The Big Lebowski Film Fest in Louisville, Kentucky.  It is an annual event that has been going on for fifteen years, and like Rocky Horror, it attracts fans in costume - ones who belch out lines from the movie with a beer in one hand and a bowling ball in the other.  The concept of a festival to celebrate The Big Lebowski has also spread to other cities over the years.

So it would appear The Big Lebowski has arrived as a cult film.  Or maybe it arrived fifteen years ago and I just wasn't paying attention.  Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, and Steve Buscemi, along with a big cast of talented irregulars, did themselves proud as they gave life to one of the Coen Brothers' best works.

Nick Macy at Forty

by Pa Rock
Proud Father

Forty years ago today I was at Camp Kue Army Hospital on Okinawa awaiting the birth of my first child, Nicholas Karl Macy.  Nick was already about two weeks overdue, and he chose that warm and sunny Tuesday afternoon to make his big entrance into the world.

That was back in the days when some doctors, and military doctors in particular, didn’t want fathers cluttering up the delivery room, so I was parked in a small waiting room just outside of Delivery.   Nick was a big boy (nine pounds) and his arrival necessarily took awhile.  I remember that I had a headache and the nurses wouldn’t dispense aspirins, so a doctor had to step out of the delivery room and hand me a couple of headache tablets.  The other thing I remember is that I spent my time watching reruns of Sanford and Son until Nick finally decided to leave his secure and warm world to venture into real life.

(I had the opportunity to revisit that waiting room on the fifth floor of Camp Kue Hospital while I was recently living and working on Okinawa.  As I stepped out of the elevator I immediately faced the waiting room door – and I was just as immediately transported back nearly forty years.   The room was exactly as I remembered it – except of a wall-mounted flat screen television which had replaced the older, clunky one that I had watched then.   Several years ago Camp Kue Army Hospital was turned over to the Navy and renamed Lester Naval Hospital.  The old, original building has closed since I left Okinawa a year ago, and military personnel and their families who require medical care are now seen at the new Lester Naval Hospital which is located at Camp Foster – a Marine Corps base.)

But back to Nick.  He began school  in Mountain View, Missouri, and attended there through fourth grade.  Starting in fifth grade he attended the Noel (Missouri) Elementary and Junior High School where he had the burden-to-bear of being the principal’s son.    We moved to Neosho, Missouri, in 1989, and Nick managed to graduate from high school there in 1991 amid a great deal of family conflict.

Nick now has a fourteen-year-old son of his own whom he raises on a half-time basis as a single parent.  Life has not always been easy for my oldest, but through it all he has remained a good person and a great parent – and he has always made me proud.

Happy birthday, Nick.

Fox Farts

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

There has been some buzz in news circles this week regarding the age of viewers of various cable news channels.   It wasn’t overly surprising to learn that the old folks are more focused on Fox News than they are either MSNBC or CNN.

The median age of Fox viewers is, according to the folks at Nielsen, above sixty-five – where it has been for six of the past eight years.  (Nielsen doesn’t record ages by individual year once they slip past sixty-five – so it is unclear how far over the age of sixty-five Fox viewers tend to be.)  The median age of MSNBC viewers is 60.6 years, and the kids congregate at CNN where the median age is 59.8 years.

Not only do the old farts tend to congregate in front of the Fox newscasts, younger people seem to be leaving Fox.  The number of Fox viewers in the age range of 25-54 has decreased each of the past five years.

Fox News viewers are older than the folks who spend their time watching the Hallmark Channel, the Military Channel, and the Golf Channel.

One reason that so many old folks stick with Fox News might be that they are just too damned sedentary to get up and change the channel.  Another, of course, could be senility.

Sadly, at least for Fox, the hearses keep rolling and the funeral bells keep tolling.  Speaking from the vanguard of the baby-boomers who are just now beginning to turn sixty-five, we expect more from news than hate and decrepitude.  You are going to have to inform us, and we are smart enough to fact-check.

Hey Fox, the Republican Party isn’t the only thing overdue for a re-brand.   It will be fun to what you become in your next life.

Poems Fit for a Prince

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Great Britain has a new heir to the throne.  The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a baby boy today, an infant who immediately becomes third in line to become the British monarch.  His arrival bumps Prince Harry into fourth place.

While combing through the Internet looking for a poem to honor the new Prince, I found two by former British Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, that he composed for the 21st birthday of the baby's father, Prince William.  The untitled poems are known simply as Side A (in Rap form) and Side B (more traditional).  Mr. Motion said that he modeled them after old vinyl LPs and 45s.  Motion's poems for William highlight the changing nature of the monarchy as well as the immutable responsibilities that come with the crown.  They wish him a life of personal fulfillment while recognizing the constraints that come with being a King-in-waiting.  Those challenges will confront William's son as well.

The following are poems fit for a Prince.  It would be interesting to know how the role of the monarchy in the modern world will have changed by the time little Prince No-Name-Yet accepts the crown as the 42nd British monarch since William the Conqueror.


Side A
by Andrew Motion

Better stand back

Here's an age attack,

But the second in line

Is dealing with it fine.

It's a threshold, a gateway,

A landmark birthday;

It's a turning of the page,

A coming of age.

It's a day to celebrate,

A destiny, a fate;

It's a taking to the wing,

A future thing.

Better stand back

Here's an age attack,

But the second in line

Is dealing with it fine.

It's a sign of what's to come,

A start, and then some;

It's a difference growing,

A younger sort of knowing.

It's a childhood gone,

A step towards the crown;

It's a trigger of change,

A stretching of the range.

Better stand back

Here's an age attack,

But the second in line

Is dealing with it fine.

Side B

by Andrew Motion

Is twenty-one the threshold any more?

Why not eighteen? Whatever. Most of us

Can choose which line we draw between the past

And future; we can call our lives our own.

But you're not 'most of us'. You cannot tear

Yourself from your inheritance, or pass

Unnoticed to find out what suits you best.

You stand apart but never stand alone.

That's what our 'happy birthday' means today:

A wish that you'll be free to claim your life

While destiny connects with who you are -

A Prince and yet familiar common clay;

Your father's heir but true to your own faith;

A mother's son and silvered by her star.

The Little Monsoon that Could

by Pa Rock
Desert Rat

Six years ago this month myself and my oldest son and his son arrived by car in Phoenix expecting to be consumed by the fierce temperatures of summer in this unholy desert.  What we got as we drove into the city on I-17 was quite a surprise.  It was raining hard and water was careening down the streets.  We had never heard of Arizona's monsoon season, but suddenly we were experiencing it first-hand.

The monsoon, or summer storm season, is an annual event which brings in much of the Valley's total annual rainfall within a window of a couple of months.   Six years ago the monsoon was actually soaking the Valley on a regular basis, but the amount of rainfall seems to have been dwindling over the intervening years.  Last year we had zero rain in the West Valley during the monsoon season.

This year, however, things are better.  There was one brief rainstorm while I was vacationing in the Ozarks, this Friday night we had more rain, and last night and today we had some nice showers.  I didn't have to water my usually-parched yard the entire weekend.  The reprieve has been wonderful!

This small amount of rain doesn't darned little, however, to relieve the general drought conditions that we have been under the past few years.  I understand that the legislature has ruled out global warming as a cause because that is just a plot to undermine American security that was dreamed up by the two Al's:  Gore and Jazeera.

The good old boys at the Capitol are, as a rule, all wet.  Now, thanks to an heroic little monsoon, so are the rest of us!

Tea Party "Horse on Donkey" Sex Fantasy

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

An obscure political group calling itself the Black American Leadership Alliance (BALA) which "boasts" among its members former Congressman Allen West of Florida and appears to be a tool of the Tea Party bowel movement, made news this week when it held an anti-immigration rally in Washington, DC.  Actually, it was one speaker who made the news, and that person wasn't even black.

The speaker, Ken Crow, former President of the Tea Party of America and now a co-founder of the Tea Party Community gave the crowd a down-and-dirty lesson on horse breeding.  He said, in part:

"I’m from Texas, and one of the things about being from a ranch in Texas is that you learn about breeding.  You learn about breeding livestock, you learn about breeding horses.  And believe it or not I’m here to talk to you about your breeding. 

You are American patriots.  You came from those incredible blood lines of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and John Smith. And all these great Americans, Martin Luther King. These great Americans who built this country. You came from them. And the unique thing about being from that part of the world, when you learn about breeding, you learn that you cannot breed Secretariat to a donkey and expect to win the Kentucky Derby. You guys have incredible DNA and don’t forget it. 

You’ve got the breeding, you’ve got the DNA, you’ve got the patriotism and you’ve got the sacrifice. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to give my country up to a bunch of people who do not deserve to be here."

It's nice that he mentioned Dr. King, even if it did appear to almost be an after-thought, but I doubt that the Good Reverend would have appreciated having his name used in that context or at that venue.

Other supporters of the Black American Leadership Alliance who spoke at the event included such ardent supporters of black issues and causes as Congressman Steve King of Iowa, Senator Ted "Calgary" Cruz of Texas, and Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions of Alabama.

Interestingly, it would have been possible to have bred Secretariat to a donkey.  Secretariat, a male horse, could have mated with a female donkey and produced a "hinny," or he could have mated with a Tea Party member and sired a jackass.

Neither would have won the Kentucky Derby.

Barack Obama Steps Up

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Although I certainly don't agree with our President's views on every issue, basically I like and respect Barack Obama.  That is something that I could never have said about either Bush, and only occasionally with regard to Bill Clinton.

Today Mr. Obama walked into the White House press room and addressed the issue of race in America head on.  He told a group of surprised White House reporters that he could have been Trayvon Martin thirty-five years ago.   He suggested that if Martin, a black youth, had been of age and armed and stood his ground, the jury might might not have been as receptive to a "stand your ground" defense.  He also said that things might have been viewed differently by a jury if the victim had been a white youth.  Just yesterday I saw research referenced on the Internet that said "stand your ground" defenses were over four hundred percent more likely to work for white defendants than they were for persons of color.

(The Internet was soon ablaze with comments from angry crackers saying that Barack Obama had just proven himself to be racist.  He isn't, and what a shame it would have been if America's first black President had been too cowered by these redneck loonies to have not used this opportunity to comment on the state of race relations in America.  He stepped up and did it - eloquently!)

The President spoke from the heart and said things that needed to be said - particularly by the leader of the country.    He talked about examples of racism that he has faced in the past, before he was a nationally known figure.  He mentioned walking across the street and hearing the locks on car doors clicking.  He spoke of white women in elevators clutching their purses tighter and holding their breath when a black person entered the enclosed space with them.  And he talked about what it was like to be followed around in a department store because of race.

I have a good friend who is a well educated, financially secure, conservative Republican.   He is also black.  My friend told me a story once about going into a very nice department store in downtown Phoenix.  He said there were only two black people in the store - himself and the security officer who followed him the entire time that he was there.

The President said there were things that we could be doing in America to lessen racism and particularly our attitudes toward, and treatment of, young black males.  He said that the Justice Department needs to work on offering training to local police agencies, stating that he felt many would be receptive to the training.  He suggested that some state and local laws need to be reviewed to see if they make things better or worse.  He stated a strong desire to bolster and reinforce African American boys, and to provide them with some avenues to success.  And finally, the President suggested that it was time for all of us to do some soul-searching with regard to racism in America as well as to our own attitudes on the subject.

President Obama did note that things are improving in America and said that his daughters' generation is proving to be better than his own when it comes to getting along across racial lines.  Attitudes are changing, but as the murder of Trayvon Martin shows, we still have not completely overcome the social and economic barrier of race.

Today's impromptu address to the White House Press Corps was Barack Obama's finest hour.  It was his Gettysburg Address, his Day of Infamy Speech.    The President stood tall and his voice rang clear.  I could not have been prouder.