12 Years a Slave

A review of the movie made from the book by Solomon Northup

Initially I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the film 12 Years a Slave.  I knew the film would be a gruesome depiction of the institution of chattel slavery that would be difficult to watch.  However, I also knew that within that film there would be a biography of someone who had a unique story to tell.

When we went to high school, we probably learned something about the Civil War.  We might have learned that about the 600,000 soldiers who perished in that war.  We might have learned that General William Tecumseh Sherman, in his march through the Confederate states, ordered most of the buildings he could find burned to the ground.  The question is: Why did all this happen?

The film 12 Years a Slave gives an excellent answer to that question.  In Solomon Northup’s book written in 1853, he summarized his years in slavery.  He said that when he was made a slave he had “reached the threshold of unutterable wrong, and sorrow, and despair.” 

Unlike most slaves Northup had not been raised as a slave.  He had a wife and three children.  He was a carpenter and also earned money playing the violin.  Although he never had a lot of money, Northup understood clearly that his life as a slave was totally different from his life as a paid worker.

The most compelling reasons for the Civil War will not be found in the thousands of history books written on this subject.  No, when we look at the biographies of people like Solomon Northup, this is where we learn the real reasons for that war. 

We can look at the book and film of Alex Haley’s family titled Roots.  We can also look at the biographies or autobiographies of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, and Denmark Vessey.  When we look at the world through the eyes of these heroes of our history, then we can understand why there was immense destruction during the Civil War.

The legacy of slavery in the United States

We also might consider that the same political party that ran the slave system, as well as the system of Jim Crow segregation, is the Democratic Party.  Given the enormous amount of destruction this party has been responsible for, it is amazing that it wasn’t abandoned a long time ago.

One of the most difficult horrors Solomon Northup experienced was his separation from his family.  Today, the United States government has a policy of separating people from their families through the so-called criminal justice system and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Michelle Alexander documented how the government targets Black people for imprisonment in her book, The New Jim Crow – Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.  The theme of Alexander’s book is to point out that Black people are grossly over-represented in the dungeons of this country.

We might consider that Solomon Northup was placed in solitary confinement for a few days in an attempt to break him of his will to be free.  Today there are entire Supermax prisons that confine inmates in solitary confinement for years as a time.

1,000 deportations per day

The Presidential Administration of Barrack Obama has been deporting people from the United States at a rate of about 1,000 per day.  This amounts to about 30,000 deportations per month, compared to the 20,000 per month under the administration of President George Bush. 

Thousands of those who were deported are the parents of children who were born in the United States.  When the I.N.S. sends these parents to other countries the children are sent to foster homes.  When the I.N.S. separates children from their parents, how are they different from the slave catchers of Solomon Northup’s day?  

We might also consider that today about 40% of the world’s population lives on about two dollars per day or less.  When someone is deported from this country there is a good likelihood that they will live in conditions where the salary is about two dollars per day.  Are these conditions significantly different from the conditions of slavery experienced by Solomon Northup?

Most immigrants come to this country from Mexico.  The facts are that the entire South-West of this country was stolen from Mexico through means of war.  The Mexican people are mostly of Native American descent.  This means that the ancestors of the Mexican people where the first ones to inhabit this part of the world.

What are the roles Hollywood gives to Black people?

The film 12 Years a Slave won the Oscar for the Best Picture of the Year.  Chiwetel Ejiofor should have won the award for best actor for his portrayal of Solomon Northup.  Lupita Nyong’o won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a slave who was viciously beaten and raped.

Certainly I’m glad that this film was made and should be seen by anyone who is interested in our history.  However, we might list the biographies of heroic Black people who have not received attention from Hollywood.  These biographies would include: Frederick Douglass, Martin Robinson Delany, Sojourner Truth, W.E.B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, Ida Wells, Toussaint L’Overture, and Antonio Maceo.

On the other hand, Halle Berry did receive the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in the film Monster’s Ball.  Berry portrayed the wife of a Black man who was executed while in prison.  Berry’s character was also the mother of a son who died in a car accident because he needed to walk home in the rain.

Denzel Washington won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the film Training Day.  Washington’s role in this film was of a corrupt LAPD narcotics officer.  Washington should have also won an Oscar for his role of Ruben “Hurricane” Carter, who served twenty years in prison on framed-up murder charges.  I also felt that Washington gave a wonderful performance in one of my favorite films, The Great Debaters.    

Danny Glover is attempting to make a movie about the Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint L’Overture, but he has had difficulty in getting funding for the project.  Indeed, Spike Lee needed independent funding to make his film about the life of Malcolm X, titled X.

Today we can all be glad that the conditions Solomon Northup experienced as a slave no longer exist for most people in this country.  However, when we understand the naked reality in the world today, it is clear that we don’t experience freedom.

My opinion is that the reason why the films 12 Years a Slave, and Roots have been so popular, is because working people today can identify with slaves who yearn to be free.  Genuine freedom is something we are all still struggling to achieve.     

      

A Community Meeting Protesting Budget Cuts in Education

Recently, I attended a community meeting in Philadelphia aimed at protesting the enormous budget cuts in public school funding the government is implementing.  This meeting, unlike other community meetings I’ve attended, gave the participants a real feel for the fact that the legitimate fight against cutbacks in public education will continue.

I’ve attended several other community meetings that claimed to ask for recommendations from citizens as to what improvements might be made in the city government.  The Philadelphia Inquirer and university professors were the ones who organized these meetings. 

Community meetings of the past

One of the earlier meetings that I attended was titled, “Great Expectations,” because the organizers felt that citizens had a legitimate right to expect great things from the city government.  Another community meeting asked the participants to come up with ways to cut the city budget. 

At this meeting participants were asked to eliminate entire departments that might be considered “low hanging fruit.”  The “low hanging fruit” supposedly signified the least desired departments.  I always thought that a good place to start would be in eliminating the so-called “ethics department.”  Since nothing the managers of the city government do is in any way ethical, I feel that the existence of this department isn’t necessary.

At these meetings I attempted to impart a different perspective.  I argued that working people in Philadelphia deserve an improved standard of living.   However, the city government is on an all-out drive to make sure our standard of living continues to deteriorate.  Understanding this reality, I argued that instead of making suggestions to city hall, we need to organize a movement to fight against all cutbacks in social services.  While some people respected this point of view, most participants viewed this perspective as inappropriate.

The response to the cutbacks

The recent community meeting started with a film documenting the cutbacks in public education in Philadelphia.  About 23 schools have already been closed and over 2,000 school employees have seen their jobs eliminated.  The film estimates that by the year 2017 a total of 64 schools will be closed.  Clearly, this would only happen if the city meets no opposition to its budget cuts.  The panelists made a strong argument that the city government’s hopes of driving through these cuts will be challenged. 

Looking at the fight against these cutbacks, we might also look at a few facts.  First, we can look at the 1954 Supreme Court ruling of Brown vs. The Board of Education.  In this ruling the Supreme Court decided that segregation in public education is illegal. 

The city of Philadelphia borders on the Lower Merion School District.  When someone walks across the street on City Line Avenue this person walks into a school district where per student funding is double of what it is in Philadelphia.  The large majority of students in the public schools of Philadelphia are Black or Latino.  The large majority of students in the Lower Merion School District are Caucasian.

Other facts that might be considered are that Philadelphia has the largest tax abatement program in the nation.  This means that corporations don’t need to pay taxes on new construction for ten years.  The amount of money not paid in taxes due to tax abatements amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The city has also spent hundreds of millions of dollars on sports stadiums and the convention center.  Hundreds of millions more has been spent on interest payments on municipal bonds. 

The result of these economic policies has been that today Philadelphia and Detroit are the two poorest of the large cities in the United States.

No Child Left Behind

Current school policy follows a government mandated plan called “No Child Left Behind.”  This program claims to teach students to pass tests in reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Requiring students to dedicate themselves to passing these tests undermines any effort to inspire students to learn the subjects they are studying.

The Labor Department has estimated that most jobs in the future will not require a college education.  These jobs include: nurses aids, waiters, security guards, housekeepers, and truck drivers.  Understanding these facts we can see that the program of “No Child Left Behind” is aimed at meeting future corporate interests.

The fight against school cutbacks in 1971

I graduated from Arts High School in Newark, New Jersey in 1971.  During the years I attended Arts, Newark had the longest teachers strike in United States history.  This situation prompted the students to teach our own classes and to put forward our own demands.

Listening to those teachers, parents, and students who are fighting against public school cutbacks today reminded me of my high school years 43 years ago.  The biggest difference between then and now is the economy.  Back in the 1970’s jobs were relatively easy to get.  Clearly these weren’t good jobs, but people had a chance to pay their bills and raise a family.

Today, unemployment has reached the highest levels since the depression of the 1930’s.  Even working people who have jobs find it much more difficult to make ends meet.  Most of the better paying jobs require a college education, and the cost of that education is astronomical.

All of these facts point to a new reality where the fight against all cutbacks will become more and more determined.  Mass movements promoting the rights of labor, civil rights, and the movement against war were the primary way progressive change came about in this country.  Judging from the meeting I attended against cutbacks, young people are beginning to learn this invaluable lesson.       

An Outstanding Tribute to Black History Month

Billy Holiday

HOLLA – If you hear me – The Voices of the “Black Experience”

A review of the performance

Recently I had the opportunity of attending a tribute to Black History Month at the Princeton Theological Seminary.  This was the best tribute to Black history that I’ve attended.  The event was a fund-raiser for The Generations Center that aids mostly women who have mental health issues.  Dr. Melinda Contreras-Byrd works for the center and helped to organize the event.  Melinda was my classmate in the 1970’s at Arts High School in Newark, New Jersey and she invited me to the event.  Her daughter Alexa Esperanza Byrd was the featured vocalist.  Alexa was assisted by Joshua Foster on drums and Alec Gross on guitar.

Mental Health

We can begin by saying that mental health might be the most used of the health care specialties in this country.  We might also say that Dr. Gabor Maté has documented the connection between emotional stress and physical disease in his book, When the Body Says No.

We might also mention that the United States spends more money, per person, for health care than any other nation in the world.  Yet, this country ranks about 34^th in the world with respect to access to health care.  While mental health is one of the most needed specialties, this is the area that has received the most cutbacks in funding.  These are the underlying reasons why this fundraiser was necessary.

Black History

When we look at the topic of Black history there is one area that is rarely mentioned.  This is the fact that much of the enormous wealth that exists in this country was, and continues to be created because of the work of Black people.  Slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and the continued discrimination we have today, has helped to create conditions that allow for a tiny percentage of the population to live in opulence.

These are some of the reasons why James Baldwin made his statement that, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”  Baldwin was one of the best writers that I know of and he knew the definition of words.  We might notice that he used the word rage and not the word anger. 

The rage and the joy

The immensely talented Christian A Cheairs gave deeply moving performances of his poetry at this event.  The audience listened to his justifiable rage in his tributes to Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin.  Cheairs spoke about why Jordan Davis might have wanted to play his music loud.  Apparently this was all it took for a modern day lynching.

The title of Cheairs’ tribute to Trayvon Martin is Skittles and Ice Tea.  Apparently these were the so-called weapons that led to the lynching of Trayvon Martin.

Melinda Contreras-Byrd performed a wonderful poem titled, Revolution.  Clearly the idea of a political revolution doesn’t come from the fact that people are merely angry at a government.  No, feelings of rage against the existing environment provokes masses of people to demand a completely different kind of government.  We listened to this justifiable rage in Melinda’s poem.

However, it would be a serious mistake to argue that all of Black history consisted of rage.  There were also expressions of profound joy.  We listened to the background of two songs, and then Alexa Esperanza Byrd gave breathtaking performances of each.  One of these songs was Duke Ellington and Irving Mills’ 1931 song, It Don’t Mean a Thing If You Ain’t Got That Swing.  The other song was Bricusse & Newley’s 1964 hit, Feeling Good.

Clearly Duke Ellington was one of the most important contributors to music as well as the style of music known as Jazz.  Saying this, we can also say that most of Ellington’s compositions were collaborative efforts.  His primary collaborator was Billy Strayhorn.  Strayhorn didn’t receive much of the credit he deserved because he didn’t fit the stereotype of a star at that time.  He was Black, short, and gay.  My opinion is that Strayhorn is just one more name that needs to be remembered when we talk about Black History.

Black Latino History

This was the first Black History tribute I have attended where part of the program was dedicated to Black people who speak Spanish.  Alexa Byrd performed the song Angelitos Negros.  This song was taken from a Mexican play.  The play portrayed a white racist mother who gave birth to a Black baby.  She then learned that part of her family was indeed Black.

We might also consider that the language spoken by most Black people in the Western Hemisphere is not English or Spanish, but Portuguese.  There might be as many as one-hundred-million Black people who speak Portuguese and live in Brazil.  A new estimate that I have read argues that today Brazil is a majority Black nation.

What’s Goin’ On

Then, we listened to Alexa Byrd’s rendition of Marvin Gaye and Al Cleveland’s monumental 1971 hit, What’s Goin’ On?  This song argues that, “We’ve got to find a way to bring some lovin’ here today.”

This program ended in a similar way as Billy Holiday’s performances ended many years ago.  This was with dimmed lights and the singing of Abel Meeropol’s and Billy Holliday’s 1939 song Strange Fruit.  Meeropol wrote this song after he learned of a lynching in Indiana.  This song is a painful reminder that the United States is not the land of “liberty and justice for all” or the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”  No, the song Strange Fruit is a reminder of the savage repression that has also been a part of the history of this country.

Malcolm X

I will end this review with a quotation from Malcolm X who gave, in my opinion, the best reason for why we study Black history.

In an interview with a reporter from the Village Voice Malcolm argued:

“The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals.  You have to wake the people up first, then you’ll get action.”

“Wake them up to their oppression?” the interviewer asked.

“No, to their humanity, to their own worth, and to their heritage.” Malcolm replied.

Yes, by educating people about Black History, we can learn that humanity has had the capacity to confront the most stubborn obstacles.  Understanding these facts, we will see that people living today also have the capacity to transform the world.            

           

One Reason Why Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa

A review

Visions of Freedom – Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa 1976-1991

By Piero Gleijeses

A basic question that we might ask is, why do we study history?  One reason why I study history to learn what were the strategies used in the past that either benefitted or harmed the interests of working people.  Looking at history from that perspective, Piero Gleijeses has written a book that documents one of the most important wars of the 20^th century.

When Nelson Mandela walked out of a South African prison to become the President of that nation, the entire world took notice.  Anyone who has studied this inspiring chapter of history will come across the following narrative.  The people of South Africa became intolerant of the apartheid system and made that nation virtually unmanageable.  Nations from around the world also protested and instituted economic sanctions against South Africa.  While all of this is true, there is another narrative that is rarely mentioned in the mainstream press.

In the early 1970’s, the relatively small nation of Portugal was the colonial power for vast areas of Africa.  For years the African people struggled against this colonial rule.  The only way Portugal was able to maintain an army to put down this resistance was because of massive aid it received from the United States government.  Then, in the mid-1970’s the Portuguese dictatorship was overthrown and Portuguese colonial rule of Africa was over.

Angola and the MPLA

In Angola the MPLA was the most respected of the liberation groups and took over the government in Luanda.  The other so-called liberation group was UNITA.  It’s leader was Jonas Savimbi.  Savimbi was an opportunist who worked with the Portuguese colonialists, as well as the apartheid government of South Africa.

At this time the apartheid government of South Africa based itself on the minority Caucasian rule of that country.  Since Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress supported the interests of all South Africans, this organization was a target of those who favored the continuation of apartheid.  The MPLA in Angola allowed the ANC to organize in their country.

Then, there was the nation of South West Africa.  Today that nation is called Namibia.  This nation was also run by a Caucasian minority regime.  Namibia is located between South Africa and Angola.  The liberation group of Namibia was called SWAPO and it’s leader was Sam Nujoma.  SWAPO’s headquartered its forces in Angola with the support of the MPLA.  The United Nations eventually voted to demand elections in South West Africa that would place SWAPO in power.

The apartheid government of South Africa resented these changes and mobilized their armed forces to impose a solution.  In the mid 1970’s South Africa invaded Angola and marched all the way to the outskirts of Luanda.  They were confident that they could replace the MPLA with their own client government headed by Savimbi.

The Cubans intervene

Then, something unexpected happened.  The Cuban government saw these developments and mobilized over 30,000 soldiers to stop the South Africans.  The South African offensive was pushed back and the MPLA remained in power.

However, South Africa didn’t give up their goal of overthrowing the MPLA.  For years the South African armed forces stationed themselves in Southern Angola.  The Cuban Armed forces established a military line preventing the South Africans from launching another offensive.

For over ten years the Cuban troops remained in Angola.  They lived under difficult conditions knowing they could be attacked at any time by the South Africans.  This was all made possible because of the enormous material support the Cubans and Angolans received from the Soviet Union.   

However, government and military officials of the Soviet Union had other priorities and repeatedly gave bad advice to the Angola.  In 1985 and 1987 Soviet military officials promoted the idea of an Angolan offensive against UNITA in the Southeast of the country. 

The Cubans opposed this strategy arguing that South Africa would intervene and the Angolans would not be able to defeat that army.  Both these offensives ended in Angolan defeats because of South African intervention.  At this time, both the governments of the United States and South Africa demanded that the Cubans leave Angola.

Understanding that this was a crisis situation, the Cubans again acted on their own and increased their military presence in Angola.  Most of the Cuban air-force went to the Southeastern part of Angola to do battle against the South Africans.  Because of this strategy, the Cubans were able to launch an offensive with MPLA and SWAPO forces that ran South Africa out of Angola.

The defeat of South Africa brings about change

Because of these defeats and the uprisings of the South African people, the apartheid government began to understand that its days were numbered.  Elections finally took place in Namibia and SWAPO took political power.  Then, the apartheid government released Nelson Mandela from prison and he became the President of a new South Africa.

Piero Gleijeses has shown how Nelson Mandela and the new South African government thanked the Cuban government for the immense contributions they have made.  The Cuban defense of Angola literally helped to change the face of Southern Africa.

Gleijeses also gives a useful comparison between the Cuban support of Angola and the United States war against Vietnam.  In Angola Cuba supported a popular government against a thoroughly discredited and ruthless apartheid regime.  In Vietnam the United States supported the forces of repression against the NLF that won independence from both France and Japan.

In today’s world, when we read the pro-capitalist press it is easy to through up our hands and wonder what the future will bring.  Gleijeses quoted the commercial newspapers in the United States.  They made the absurd claim that the so-called negotiating skills of U.S. government representatives were the only reason why change came to Southern Africa. 

However, in reading Gleijeses’ book we find that there are clearly forces of good and evil in this world.  Those forces are the exact opposite of the U.S. government’s point of view. 

The Cuban government has proven that it will do virtually everything it can to advance the living standards of people throughout the world.  On the other hand, the U.S. government has shown over and over again that it will use its immense resources to block any genuinely progressive change in the world.