The Historical Background to Jackie Robinson’s Story

The other evening I viewed the new film about Jackie Robinson’s life titled, 42 directed by Brian Helgeland and starring Chadwick Boseman in the title role.  The film is one of the few Hollywood productions that I would recommend.  Even with all of the film’s limitations, we see a realistic depiction of the obstacles Jackie Robinson needed to overcome just to play major league baseball.

I believe that the Jackie Robinson story becomes even more compelling when we take a look at many of the events that led to the integration of major league baseball.  We can begin with the fact that Jackie Robinson was not the first Black baseball player to play in the major leagues.

19^th century baseball and Reconstruction

Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Welday were among dozens of Black baseball players who competed in the major league that was known as the American Association in the 1870’s and 1880’s.  So, the immediate question is: Why were Black baseball players allowed to play in the 19^th century, but then excluded from the major league game until 1947?

We can begin to answer this question with an excerpt from President Abraham Lincoln’s speech after the Civil War battle at Gettysburg.  Lincoln argued that the thousands of soldiers in the Union Army who died in that battle did not “die in vain.”

As a result of the Civil War, the U.S. government passed the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments to the Constitution.  The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery.  The Fourteenth Amendment gave full citizenship rights to everyone born in the United States.  The Fifteenth Amendment gave full voting rights to all citizens.

The Fourteenth Amendment also declared that people who participated in or gave support to those who were engaged in insurrection would not have the right to hold political office in the United States.  This section of the Amendment prevented everyone who supported the Confederacy during the Civil War from holding political office.

This meant that the four million former slaves who lived in the former Confederate states now had the right to vote and to hold political office.  The governments in the South after the Civil War were called the Reconstruction Governments. 

Those governments were the most democratic in the history of the United States and allowed many former slaves to learn how to read and write.  During slavery the law clearly prohibited slaves from learning to read.

Then, in 1877 the Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes made a deal where federal troops were withdrawn from the former Confederate states.  This deal took place at a time when terrorist organizations that would become the Ku Klux Klan were organizing to militarily defeat the Reconstruction governments.  After a number of years the Ku Klux Klan managed to take political control and used the Democratic Party as their front organization.

Moses and Welday Walker played baseball in the American Association because of the fact that the Reconstruction Governments existed and opposed racial discrimination.

When we read about this history, we oftentimes see how the Jim Crow Laws that denied Black people citizenship rights, had their beginnings with the Supreme Court decision of Plessey vs. Ferguson.  However, as we have seen, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution gave everyone born in the United States full citizenship rights. 

The facts are that the Supreme Court isn’t supposed to have the right to reverse the Constitution.  However, that is exactly what they did and the federal government did nothing to correct the Supreme Court’s error.  The reason for this inaction had to do with the fact that both political parties in this country gave full support to the segregationist policies of Jim Crow.

As result of these policies the government allowed for thousands of Black people to be lynched by racist mobs.  All of those lynchings were acts of murder and murder is supposed to be against the law in the United States. 

Since Black people were supposed to have full rights in this country, the federal government had an obligation to prosecute the people who murdered thousands of Black citizens.  When federal government officials refused to prosecute these murderers, they became accomplices to thousands of these murderers. 

The rise of the C.I.O.

During the depression of the 1930’s the capitalist economy of the United States fell apart.  Unemployment reached about 30%, banks closed their doors, and employers routinely cut wages.  The union movement at this time was very weak.  Unions had participated in about sixty years of strike action since 1877, and most of these strikes ended in defeat.

Then, in 1934 things began to change.  Three strikes managed to win broad solidarity and win union recognition.  These strikes sparked the rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and millions of workers became union members.  This unionization drive was cut short by the U.S. entry into the Second World War.     

The Militant Newspaper was one of the few papers that followed the struggle against racial discrimination during the Second World War.  The articles that documented these struggles are contained in the Pathfinder book Fighting Racism in World War II by C.L.R. James and others.

Jackie Robinson engaged in one of these acts of defiance when he was a lieutenant in the army stationed in Fort Hood, Texas in 1943.  Robinson refused to sit in the back of a bus and the authorities arrested him.  He was placed on trial in a military court and sat in chains as his trial proceeded.

In 1941 there was a strike organized by the United Auto Workers against the Ford Motor Company.  Henry Ford had pioneered the assembly line, but this innovation was useless without workers who would do the job.  Ford found it difficult to recruit workers who would do the arduous, dangerous, and monotonous work his assembly line required.  For this reason, Ford hired thousands of Black workers to toil in his plants.

At the time, Ford was the largest automotive producer.  In order for the UAW to become a national union it had to prove to Black workers that it would support their interests.  The UAW did this, won the Ford workers into its ranks, and their 1941 strike won union recognition.      

After the war, the United States government wanted the armed forces to remain in Asia in order to confront the new revolutionary government in China.  The soldiers in the military had other ideas and organized a movement to “Bring the Troops Home.”  This movement succeeded in forcing the government to abandon their militaristic plans in Asia for a while.

After the war, workers found that employers eliminated millions of jobs due to a decrease in armaments production.  The capitalists in this country had reaped enormous profits during the war, and also because the government attempted to enforce a no strike policy.

Facing this reality, millions of working people mobilized and carried out the largest strike wave in the history of this country.  All of the basic industries were shut down, and unions forced employers to grant major concessions. 

This strike wave took place at the same time as the labor movement in Europe advanced.  There were also colonial revolutions unfolding in China, Korea, Vietnam, and Algeria.    

Jackie Robinson

I believe it is useful to consider that all the above events took place before Jackie Robinson played baseball in the major leagues.  In the film 42 various characters mentioned that the times were changing in the United States.  The above events begin to explain why they were changing.

Certainly, in 1947 Jim Crow segregation continued to be the law of the land.  However, Chris Lamb in his book Blackout – The Untold Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Spring Training, gave some interesting information as to the racial climate in this country during those years.  According to a survey Lamb cited, 75% of the baseball fans interviewed at that time supported the idea of Blacks competing in the major leagues.  Lamb also sighted another survey showing how the majority of major league baseball players also supported the integration of the game.

According to Lamb, the way Jackie Robinson was portrayed in his first minor league game in the film 42 was distorted.  The film portrays Robinson as being booed by the majority of the fans.  Certainly Robinson expected those boos, especially since the game was being played in Daytona Beach, Florida.

However, when Robinson came up to bat the sellout crowd at the stadium responded in near silence.  Black spectators and a minority of the white fans broke this silence.  Robinson remembered the chants of some of those fans.  “Come on black boy!  You can make the grade”,  and “They’re giving you a chance—now come on and do something about it.” 

While today we would not speak in this language, these comments were in no way meant to be hostile to Robinson.  To the contrary, they spoke to the fact that these fans believed he had the potential to compete against any players in baseball.

Clearly there was an enormous amount of hatred hurled at Robinson during his career.  The problem was that while most of the fans supported the integration of baseball, few took on the racists who made life difficult for Robinson.

There was a scene in the film 42 where we saw the kind of action that did make a difference.  A Philadelphia manager repeatedly called Robinson the n-word while he was at bat.  One of his teammates came out of the dugout and face-to-face threatened this manager.  The manager showed everyone the coward that he was, and ended his racist tirade.  Had more people made this kind of stand, Jackie Robinson would have had an easier time in baseball.

The government’s refusal to act

We might consider that Robinson, as well as all Black people were supposed to have full constitutional rights according to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.  Therefore, the “gentleman’s agreement” that barred Black people from the major leagues was always illegal. 

In the film 42 we see a police officer ordering Jackie Robinson to leave a game because his presence violated the Jim Crow laws.  The action of this officer was one of the thousands of violations of federal laws that the federal government refused to enforce.   

Branch Rickey

The one flaw to the film 42 was the portrayal of Branch Rickey who was the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Rickey made the then unconventional decision to break the “gentleman’s agreement” and hire a Black player to compete in the major leagues. 

However, in the film 42 Rickey gave one of his reasons for breaking the color line in baseball.  He stated that he was a “business man.”  In fact Rickey was about 66 years old when Robinson played his first major league game.  Before that, Rickey had gone along with the “gentleman’s agreement.”

Rickey reportedly paid players for the Dodgers less than any other owner in his day.  Jackie Robinson was a world-class player who became the Rookie of the Year in his first year in baseball.  Robinson also became Most Valuable Player.  During Robinson’s tenure with the Dodgers, they were always one of the top teams and in one year they won the World Series. 

In many of Robinson’s games fans packed the stadium to see the first Black player in the major leagues compete.  Understanding all of this, we can see why Rickey made an excellent business decision by recruiting Jackie Robinson.  In other words, Rickey had entirely different motivations from Robinson for breaking the color line.

Towards the end of the film 42, the character of Branch Rickey, played by Harrison Ford, gave another legitimate reason for why he recruited Robinson.  He said that when he saw Robinson in the major leagues, for the first time, he could be genuinely proud of the game.

Conclusion

Jackie Robinson wasn’t the best player in the Negro Leagues or the major leagues.  Yet, today is April 15, and on every April 15 every player in the major leagues wears Robinson’s number 42.  Clearly these players are honoring the contribution Robinson made on and off the field.  As was said in the film, Jackie Robinson helped to make baseball a game people can be proud of.

Today there continues to be systematic discrimination with respect to employment, housing, education, health care, and in the so-called justice system.  However, the discrimination Jackie Robinson endured was significantly worse than the discrimination we see today.  Yet, Robinson was one of many who defied the discrimination of those times and made a real contribution towards the struggle to achieve human dignity.

For these reasons he clearly deserves the honor and respect that people give his memory today.

The Sixty-year war against the Korean people

Recently Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had this to say about Korean war games that 10,000 U.S. soldiers have participated in.  “We have security issues here that we have to protect.”  A basic question that might be asked to Hagel is: Who’s security are you talking about?

Today in the United States about one out of every six people do not have enough food to eat.  So, how are Korean war-games aiding in the security of the 50 million people in this country who would like nothing more than a decent meal?

How are these war games protecting the security of the Korean people, or the 28,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in southern Korea?  How are the U.S. submarines armed with hundreds of nuclear weapons that now surround Korea aiding to the security of anyone?   

In order to begin to understand the issues in the current conflict in Korea we need to take a brief look at history.

 

The history of Korea

Foreign powers have attempted to dominate Korea ever since the late 1500’s.  Korean independence movements struggled against invasions from Japan, China, and the United States.  In 1895 Japan forced China to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki that gave Japan political control of Taiwan and China gave up all claims to Korea. 

In the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902 Britain and the United States recognized Japanese hegemony in Korea in exchange for Japanese recognition of British and US interests in China.  In 1905 in the Taft-Katsura Memorandum the US recognized Japan’s interests in Korea in exchange for Japanese recognition of the US colonies in Hawaii and the Philippines.  The defeat of Russia by the Japanese in 1905 and the repression of Korean independence forces allowed Japan to take political control of Korea in 1910.   

Resistance to these invasions by foreign powers has been a part of the Korean identity.  After the United States Asiatic Squadron attacked Korea in 1871 the Korean King Taewon placed stone markers in several locations that read: “Western barbarians invade our land.  If we do not fight, we must then appease them.  To urge appeasement is to betray the nation.”

The Tonghak religion became popular in Korea and in many ways was similar to the Taiping movement in China.  The Tonghak called for and end to foreign intervention, including the expulsion of all foreigners; better treatment for peasants including equitable distribution of farmland, fair taxes, and cancellation of existing debts; and administrative reforms including the firing of corrupt officials.

The Japanese occupation

The Japanese occupation of Korea was similar to its occupation of China.  The occupation forces instituted horrendous repression while provoking a sustained resistance.  Political prisoners in Korea increased from 6,200 in 1910 to 140,000 in 1918.  The Japanese took control of 40 percent of Korean farmland and made life for the peasantry increasingly difficult.  The Korean industrial labor force increased from 385,000 workers in 1932 to 1.3 million workers in 1943. 

The Korean Communist Party was first organized in 1921 and by the 1930’s began to gain support in the worker, peasant, and student movements.  In 1923 strikes organized by women rubber workers led to the formation of the Korean Labor federation.  While wages declined by 50 percent from 1927-1935, the average number of working hours per day increased from twelve to sixteen.  These conditions led to a strike wave in 1929-1930 that coincided with the 1927 revolutionary movement in China.

One aspect of Japanese rule was the forcible recruitment of “comfort women” who were virtual sex slaves.  Many of these Korean women opposed Japanese occupation and were forced to have sex with as many as 30 to 40 men per day.

During the war against the Japanese, the Korean Communist Party organized the resistance movement in Korea and also fought against the Japanese in China.  After the war a new Korean government came to power and attempted to form a broad coalition.  However, this government only lasted a few days.  The United States government continued its imperialist drive in Asia and invaded southern Korea, placing Syngman Rhee in power.

The United States replaces Japan in Korea

Rhee had received several degrees in the United States, including a PhD from Princeton University.  He became President of Southern Korea largely because he was the most recognizable figure to the U.S. occupation forces.  Rhee’s hostility to the communist forces was similar to Chiang Kai-shek’s point of view in China. 

Because there was widespread support for a united Korea with a government that would prioritize the interests of the Korean people, there was significant opposition to Rhee’s policies.  In 1946 there were several uprisings of workers and farmers throughout southern Korea that opposed the austerity policies of the Rhee government. 

Rhee, with the aid of the US armed forces responded to this political climate by carrying out several massacres in an attempt to destroy any opposition to his rule.  He also made several provocative raids against the communist dominated North Korea.  Ultimately, he argued that the United States needed to use its atomic bomb to subdue China.

The North Korean government demanded elections to determine which government would rule all Korea.  Rhee declined this offer but staged his own rigged elections.*  Faced with a determined effort to prevent the formation of a united Korea and several military provocations from the south, the North Korean government responded to these provocations with a military effort to unite the nation on June 25, 1950.

Because there was little support for the repressive rule of Syngman Rhee in the south, the armies from the north had little problem in taking control of most of the nation in a very short period of time.  Only the city of Pusan in the south was able to hold out because of sustained US military support.

What the United States could not achieve on the battlefield, they attempted to achieve in the U.S. dominated United Nations.  The Truman Administration was more confident in the support they had in the United Nations than in the US Congress.  In fact, while the UN voted to send troops to invade Korea, the US congress never voted to declare the Korean conflict a war. 

The U.S. prevented the KPR (Korean People’s Republic) from addressing the U.N. and explain why they were taking military action to reunify their country.  The U.S. didn’t allow any discussion of the fact that the conflict in Korea was a civil war that did not affect other nations.*  The U.S. introduced resolutions calling for a UN sponsored army to invade Korea and to prevent the formation of the Korean People’s Republic.

We might consider that when the United States had its Civil War, Washington opposed any foreign involvement by Britain that would have supported the confederate forces.  This was just one more argument that was never presented in the discussion by the United Nations to invade Korea.

At this time the Peoples Republic of China was not recognized by the United Nations and therefore the largest nation in the world had no say in this so-called debate.  The government of the Soviet Union was supposed to be allied with the Korean communists and had the power to veto this proposal.  The Soviet Union failed to take this step and thereby aided in the UN invasion of Korea.

The argument of the United States was that the conflict in Korea was not a battle between different forces in Korea, but an example of Soviet expansionism.  In fact, while the Soviet Union gave military aid to the north, Joseph Stalin opposed the attempts by the KPR to unify the Korea.

 The U.S. invades Korea again 

The United Nations forces invaded Korea in the port city of Inchon on September 15, 1950 with 260 ships.  Faced with this tremendous military onslaught, the KPR forces retreated to the north.

At this point the new government in China that had recently taken power in the 1949 revolution became concerned.  They knew that the United States had consistently advanced imperialist policies with respect to China since the Opium Wars of the 1840’s.  They also understood that the Japanese had invaded China through Korea.  Chinese and Korean forces had already fought together against Japanese occupation.  Faced with this history, the Chinese government made it clear to the Truman Administration that if the US invaded North Korea, China would oppose that invasion.

However, General MacArthur and the Truman Administration felt that the US forces were invincible and that they had an opportunity weaken the Chinese revolutionary government.  The U.S. forces drove through northern Korea with very little opposition all the way to the Yaloo River which borders China.  Then, in late November the U.S. dominated forces were attacked by hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Korean troops.  The United States army proceeded to abandon an entire battalion of soldiers and make the longest military retreat in U.S. history.    

General Douglass MacArthur asked for authorization to use twenty-six atomic weapons to be used on cities that included Beijing and Vladivostok.  Faced with the defeat of US forces in the field, President Truman fired General MacArthur.  President Truman was ultimately fired by the US electorate and replaced by General Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

While the U.S. did not use atomic weapons, much of North Korea was destroyed due to bombing raids.  The naval bombardment of the northern city of Wonsan lasted for 861 days ending one minute before the cease fire on July 27, 1953. 

According to Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings in their book, Korea, The Unknown War the following is the human death toll of the Korean War.  “More than 4 million people died, including some 2 million North Korean civilians, 500,000 North Korean soldiers, 1 million Chinese soldiers, 1 million South Korean civilians, 10,000 South Korean soldiers and 95,000 UN soldiers, of whom 54,000 were Americans. 

To place these figures in perspective, North Korea lost more then 20 percent of its prewar population.  That is a higher percentage than either the Soviet Union or Poland lost during the Second World War.  Japan suffered a total of 2 million civilian and military deaths during the Second World War, but that represented only 3 percent of its population.”   

After the Korean War the Soviet Union gave a significant amount of aid to the KPR.  In fact, for several years North Korea was significantly more developed than South Korea.  Because of this development the United States began to make significant investments in the south.  Many of the capitalists who emerged in the south were collaborators with the Japanese occupation forces.  These were the reasons why South Korea became the only underdeveloped nation in the world that became industrialized due to US economic aid.  However, working conditions in South Korea continue to be horrendous. 

Soviet investments in North Korea tapered off due to conflicts between the KPR and the Soviet Union.  One object of contention was the KPR’s stance that opposed the “peaceful coexistence” policies of the Soviet Union.  The KPR Premier Kim Il Sung argued that these policies had little meaning for Vietnam, China, and Korea and were in reality racist.  Another point of disagreement was the Soviet government’s growing hostility to China.  The KPR refused to criticize the nation that helped Korea defend itself against a US led invasion.

One of the arguments of the United States for going to war in Korea was that the KPR was just a satellite of the Soviet Union.  The real history of Korea indicates that the KPR played a clearly independent role of both the Soviet Union and China.  However, the south Korean government has rarely if ever broken from the foreign policy objectives of the United States.

The United States government has never signed a peace treaty with the North Korean government.  U.S. hostilities against that nation have continued for over half of a century.  

James P. Cannon’s letter to President Truman

When we look at this history we can understand why the late James P. Cannon, who was a leader of the Socialist Workers Party, wrote a letter to President Truman and the Congress in 1950 at the beginning of the Korean War.  Cannon served eighteen months in prison for the Socialist Workers Party’s opposition to the U.S. participation in the Second World War.  The following are excerpts from those letters:

“The Korean people have a mortal hatred of the Wall Street ‘liberator’.  They despise unto death the bestial, corrupt, U.S.-sponsored dictatorship that made South Korea a prison camp of misery, torture, and exploitation.”

“The right in this struggle is all on the side of the Korean people.  Like the colonial peoples everywhere in Asia, they want no part of U.S. or even U.N. ‘liberation’.  They want the American troops to get out of Korea.  They want freedom from all foreign domination.  They want to decide their own fate.”

This is the perspective that continues to be relevant today.  The cause of the problems on the Korean peninsula have always been imperialist domination by foreign powers.  Working people and farmers have nothing to gain from U.S. forces stationed in Korea or in the more than 800 U.S. military bases all over the world.

When I was active in the movement against Washington’s war in Vietnam, we had one simple demand.  That was for immediate, unconditional, and total withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Southeast Asia.  That demand was simplified with the words, Out Now!  When Washington as well as the press beat the war drums to escalate the hostilities against Korea, we need to have a clear answer.  That is to bring all the U.S. troops in and around Korea home now.  

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News for March 19 & 20, 2013

Over the last few days I’ve been reading a few stories in the Philadelphia Inquirer that clearly underscore the idea that we need a new government in this country.  First allow me to list those stories.

1.   In an editorial on the effects of the ten-year war against Iraq, I read that the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan cost about 2.3 million dollars per minute.

2.   On the front page of the Inquirer there was a story that “Of the big cities, Philadelphia is the worst for people living in deep poverty.”

3.   Then, there was a banner headline in the Inquirer reporting that 215,000 people had been stopped and frisked in Philadelphia in the year 2012.  Half of these stop-and-frisks were unconstitutional.

4.   Finally, the Inquirer celebrated on its front page that there will be 250 new jobs at an Air Force base in Horsham.  The base will operate drone aircraft in foreign countries.  The overwhelming majority of deaths attributed to the drone attacks were civilians.

The war against the Iraqi People

First we can say clearly and unequivocally that as horrendous as the regime of Saddam Hussein was in Iraq, the U.S. occupation has been much worse.  Iraq used to have one of the best medical systems in the Middle East.  Most Iraqis were able to make a living under the former regime.

Today, only the affluent can receive decent medical care by travelling to other nations.  The infrastructure of Iraq has been destroyed.  While obscene amounts of money have been spent on defense, today Iraqis live in constant fear for their lives.  Today Iraq has the highest rate of capital punishment of any nation in the world.  Yet, the United States government expects the Iraqi people to pay for rebuilding the nation that the United States government destroyed.

Today we can also say that about one-third of the women soldiers in the U.S. military have been raped.  The numbers of men who have been raped in the military is even higher.  Yet, the military rarely prosecutes the soldiers who were guilty of rape.        

One of the poorest cities in the nation

At the same time as the government has been spending obscene amounts of money on the war against Iraq, Philadelphia has become one of the poorest cities in the nation.  12.9 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.  23 public schools are scheduled to be closed.  Hundreds of thousands of people in the Delaware Valley do not have enough food to eat.

Yet, the city government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on sports stadiums, the convention center, and on interest payments on municipal loans.  The city has the largest tax abatement plan in the nation, where the owners of the largest skyscrapers pay no taxes.  The federal government has spent trillions of dollars on a so-called stimulus plan.

Stop and Frisk

Today anyone who lives in the United States has a better chance of going to prison than residents of any other nation in the world.  In Philadelphia, as in other cities, politicians believe that these policies are not harmful enough to punish the people who live here.  Today, the police are stopping and frisking anyone who they feel like humiliating.

There are supposed to be laws in this country and the police have been sued for violating the rights of citizens.  They responded by agreeing to document all stop and frisks.  The result was that now the police admit that half of the 215,000 stop and frisks in Philadelphia in 2012 were illegal.

The new job of murdering civilians with remote control

Before we consider the new jobs operating drone aircraft, we might consider the United States government’s record with respect to international relations.  Towards the end of the Second World War the U.S. armed forces literally burned about 67 Japanese cities to the ground.  At the end of this six-month firebombing campaign, the air force dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

During the wars against Korea and Vietnam the United States armed forces murdered literally millions of human beings.  Those nations continue to experience the effects of those wars.

Aside from these horrendous acts, the U.S. government has supported some of the most ruthless dictatorships the world has known.  These would include the regimes in Iraq, Iran, the Congo, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Philippines, and Israel.

When we look at this history, it should come as no surprise that prominent politicians applaud the fact that there will be new jobs that are specifically aimed at murdering civilians by remote control.      

Conclusion

When we look at these stories, we need to understand that I haven’t offered any opinions, but merely reported on the facts as they are.  In the Declaration of Independence it states:

“Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, envices a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.”

This column alone demonstrates that the U.S. government is in no way interested in defending the security of people living in any part of the world.  No, as it says in the Declaration of Independence, the only time we will have security is when we have a new government that supports the interests of workers and believes that human needs are more important than profits.         

Fela! – The Play – A review

Directed and Choreographed by Bill T. Jones

The other day, I had a genuinely rewarding experience of viewing the play Fela!  This play portrays the life, music, and dance of one, Fela Anikulapo Kuti.  What made Fela! so moving for me, was the fact that it showed the naked reality we live with today, while making a profoundly beautiful statement.  In order to fully gain an appreciation for this play, I believe we need to look at Fela’s homeland Nigeria.

Nigeria

Today the scientists of the world are agreed that human life began on the continent of Africa.  This means that the ancestors of every human being on this planet came from Africa and had a dark skin color.

The area of West Africa where Nigeria is located has a history of about 9,000 years.  European colonists created most of the borders of the nations of Africa, as well as Latin America, and Asia.  The British gave Nigeria its name, which came from the Niger River.

Today, Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa.  About 90% of the income Nigeria receives comes from the export of oil.  The enormous amount of money Nigeria receives from its oil exports has the potential of making that nation extremely wealthy.  However, this has not been the case.

The United States is the world’s super-power.  All corporate profits are related to the fact that this country has a constant flow of oil.  Without this oil, workers would not be able to go to their jobs, and corporation would not be able to transport their commodities.

One would think that the powerful people of the United States would be grateful to Nigeria for allowing them to amass this enormous wealth.  However, the facts are that while the U.S. government claims it represents liberty, justice, and democracy, in reality, Nigeria is one of many nations throughout the world where the U.S. government has supported ruthless dictatorships.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti

Fela Anikulapo Kuti was born into a prominent Nigerian family.  His father was a pastor and his mother was a well-known teacher who advocated women’s rights.  Fela went to London to pursue a professional career, but became sidetracked with the music he saw all around him.  Later he would travel to the United States where his informal music education, as well as his political education continued.

Fela lists his musical influences as Afro-Cuban Jazz, James Brown, Hugh Masekela, Bob Marley, as well as musicians from Accra, Ghana.  Out of these influences Fela and his drummer Tony Allen developed the AfroBeat.

In the U.S., Fela became influenced by the Black Power movement and saw how this movement could be relevant to Nigeria.  Fela also became an opponent of what he called cultural imperialism.  Although Nigeria became independent of Britain in the early 1960’s, the rulers of that nation had many of the same values of the old colonizers. 

Repression

Today, in the United States people who attend concerts don’t expect to be arrested or tortured by the police.  People don’t expect that prominent musicians will be arrested hundreds of times on trumped up charges.  However, this was the experience of Fela Kuti in Nigeria. 

In 1977 Fela released a recording that he titled Zombie.  The song likened the Nigerian police to Zombies who mindlessly did what they were told.

The Nigerian government responded to this song by surrounding the compound where Fela lived and performed with 1,000 police officers.  People who attended Fela’s concert, dancers, musicians, as well as Fela were arrested and tortured.  Fela’s mother, Funmilayo, was thrown from a second story window to her death.  Fela’s life was only spared by the intervention of a commanding officer.  In all, the Nigerian authorities arrested Fela about 200 times.

In the play Fela!, we see how Fela Kuti responded to this repression.  He took the coffin to the capitol and declared his mother “President” of Nigeria.  He also commemorated his mother’s assassination with the song Coffin for Head of State.  In the play we also see the cast laying coffins of others who had been brutalized or executed that included: Rodney King, Troy Davis, and Malcolm X.             

Fela was never intimidated and continued to inspire the world with his songs: I.T.T. (International Thief, Thief), Teacher, Don’t Teach Me Nonsense, Beasts of No Nation, and Authority Stealing.  In all, he published 70 recordings. 

Many have criticized Fela for the fact that he had about 27 wives and he made it a practice of smoking ganja.  The women portrayed in the play in no way appeared to be repressed.  To the contrary, they appeared to be defiant, proud, as well as beautiful.  While we might criticize the practice of polygamy, certainly the most horrendous practices in this play came from the Nigerian government and the United States government that supported it.

Usually when I think of music and dance I think of having a wonderful time flowing with the music.  This is how the play started.  However, by the end of the play the music and dance took on a new meaning.  The music and dance became an act of defiance against repression.

This to me was the core of who Fela Anikulapo Kuti was.  The music and dance he wrote and performed will continue to live as long as people strive for human dignity.

We can get a bit of a feel for the play at the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB0GepZMzKU       

Philadelphia politicians will close 23 schools

All politicians who run for office say they support education, at least for young people.  Yet, in his book Savage Inequalities – Children in America’s schools, Jonathan Kozol documented how some schools in this country resemble country clubs, while other inner-city schools are literally falling apart.

To further along this process, Philadelphia has become the city with the most school closings in the nation.  There will undoubtedly be more school closings because the district has borrowed $300 million just to pay its bills for this year. 

However, on the other side of City Line Avenue, there is the Lower Merion School District where per student funding is double of what it is in Philadelphia.  The student population in Philadelphia is largely Black and Latino, while the student population in Lower Merion is largely Caucasian.

The Supreme Court ruled in its Brown vs. The Board of Education decision in 1954 that segregation in education is illegal.  However, these savage inequalities continue to exist.

What is the purpose of education in capitalism?

In order to get a full appreciation for what these cuts mean we need to look at what purpose education fulfills in the capitalist society we live in today.  First, we can look at the fact that the Labor Department argues that most of the jobs needed in the future will not require much education.  These are jobs include: security guards, nurse’s aids, and housekeepers.  The highly skilled jobs only account for a small percentage of future employment.

When we look at the jobs workers have that supply everyone with the things we need, very little education is necessary.  Workers who toil at auto manufacture, or construction, or the garment industry, or food production do not need, for the most part, to be literate.  Clearly, if the workers in these industries were trained to think for themselves, they would soon demand union representation and improved working conditions.

The progressive aspects to education are that it teaches students to read, write, compute, and study.  Sitting down in one spot for hours analyzing information takes effort and a basic education sometimes teaches students to have this kind of discipline. 

This state of affairs points to the fact that there is something fundamentally wrong, not just with the educational system, but with the way people who have power view education.  Therefore, we need a different kind of government where human needs are seen as more important than profits.

What education might be with a workers government

In his pamphlet, The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning – The fraud of education reform under capitalism, Jack Barnes gives another view of what role education can play in society.  A workers government would begin by making education a lifetime endeavor.  Young people would become inspired to learn new things.  This desire to learn would carry on for a lifetime.

Instead of the regimentation that teachers indoctrinate students with, teachers would inspire students think for themselves.  Instead of holding down jobs where we do what we are told, we would participate in the continuing process of improving the standard of living throughout the world.   

Today we can only imagine what it would mean if the entire workforce was engaged in a continuing effort to educate ourselves.  Most production jobs can be automated.  There are more than enough people to supply humanity with the food, housing, clothing, health care, communication and transportation we all need.

A continually educated workforce might work to allow humanity to live in harmony with nature, to improve our diet and prevent injuries and illnesses, or to produce top quality housing for all.

These ideas aren’t just abstract theories.  The nation of Cuba had a political revolution and today there is a workers government of the island.  This has meant that today, Cuba has more teachers and doctors per capita, than any other nation in the world.  As a result, Cuba has the highest literacy rate in the world and millions of adults take advantage of continuing their education.  

No more cutbacks

Understanding all of this makes it even more imperative to oppose all school closings.  We need to say clearly that the children in Philadelphia deserve the same funding for their education as the children who live on the other side of City Line Avenue.

City officials argue that there is no money to keep the 23 schools open.  They ignore the fact that hundreds of millions of dollars in city taxpayer money was used to build sports stadiums, the convention center, and in interest payments on municipal bonds.  Philadelphia also has the largest tax abatement program in the nation where the owners of the largest skyscrapers in the city pay no taxes. 

The federal government has spent trillions of dollars in a stimulus plan.  All of these payouts demonstrate that the United States government is nothing more than a cash-dumping machine that dumps obscene amounts of money on some of the most affluent people in the world.

Capitalism is an extremely unstable political economic system.  This explains why we are currently in a period of increased unemployment with no end in sight.  Capitalists have responded to this downturn by investing unbelievable amounts of money in derivatives, or bets on future stock prices.  The amount of money invested in these funds might be as much as one quadrillion dollars, or one thousand trillion dollars.

For the capitalists these derivatives are clearly more important than the education of young people.  We can also see how these investments also point to the fact that there are more than enough resources to vastly increase investments in education.  All of these facts support the demand: Stop the School Closings, and No Cutbacks in Education.    

       

             

The Framing of Mumia Abu Jamal – A review

© 2008 J. Patrick O’Connor

Published by Lawrence Hill Books

Today the name Mumia Abu Jamal is known throughout the world.  He is known for being an outstanding journalist who was unjustly incarcerated for the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. 

J. Patrick O’Connor book The Framing of Mumia Abu Jamal gives the world a blow-by-blow analysis of the facts that underscore the argument that the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office worked diligently to manufacture evidence against Mumia Abu Jamal.  O’Connor also shows how Mumia’s so-called trial was nothing more than an inquisition.  However, before we look at the framing of Mumia Abu Jamal, I believe it is useful to look at his life story.

Mumia Abu Jamal

Mumia Abu Jamal understood the shortcomings of the so-called justice system at an early age.  At the age of fifteen Mumia made a less than prudent decision to attend a rally in support of George Wallace for President.  Mumia and his friends answered the chants of “Segregation forever,” with their chant of “Black power.”  Mumia and his friends were beaten, and when the police intervened they continued the assault on Mumia and his friends. 

Mumia was arrested for assaulting a police officer.  At his trial the judge said that Mumia’s face assaulted the fist of the police officer and dismissed the case.

With this background Mumia became a news reporter and journalist.  Unlike other journalists, Mumia made it a practice of exposing police brutality.  This stance of Mumia put him in conflict with his employers in the media, as well as the government.  The F.B.I. had a seven-hundred page file on Mumia.  However, even the F.B.I. acknowledged in 1974 that Mumia “has not displayed a propensity for violence.”

In fact, those people who knew Mumia said that he was the type of person who would try to calm down tense situations.  Even in prison, the journalist Chuck Stone reported that Mumia was friendly with the prison guards.

Mumia was such a well-respected journalist, he became the president of the Black journalists of Philadelphia.  Unlike the so-called journalists on news programs like 60 Minutes, Mumia was not paid a salary of millions of dollars per year.  To the contrary, he was fired from his job because of his style of reporting and needed to supplement his income by driving a taxi cab.      

The so-called case against Mumia

The murder of Daniel Faulkner happened on December 9, 1981 on the corner of 13^th and Locust Street in Philadelphia.  Anyone who even passed by that area at during those years could see that this was a center for prostitution and drug dealing.  Clearly, this state of affairs could only take place with the support of the Philadelphia Police Department.

In fact, the F.B.I. had been investigating the sixth district of the police for six months prior to the murder of Officer Faulkner.  The F.B.I. found that police officials and officers had been receiving kickbacks from pimps, prostitutes, and bar owners.  Many of the officers who were involved in the prosecution of Mumia were convicted of receiving kickbacks.

The incident that led to the murder of Officer Faulkner started when Faulkner pulled over Wesley Cook, Mumia’s brother, while he was driving his Volkswagen.  We need to understand that Faulkner made a decision that it was more important to stop Wesley Cook than to deal with the prostitution and drug dealing that he knew was going on every night.

Faulkner then beat Wesley Cook so badly that blood was pouring out of Cook’s head.  Several witnesses testified to the fact that Mumia, who happened to be there at the time, ran across the street, but had no gun in his hands.  O’Connor argues that when officer Faulkner saw a black man with dreadlocks running towards him he pulled out his gun and shot Mumia.  The bullet that entered Mumia’s body was a near perfect shot at his chest and had a downward trajectory.            

At this point Robert Harkins, who first reported the murder to the police, testified that Officer Faulkner grabbed a man who spun Faulkner around and threw him on the ground.  Faulkner’s pants were ripped at the knee and this supported Harkins testimony.  Then Harkins heard three shots.  The first hit Faulkner from less than 12 inches away, while he was on his knees.  The next shots hit Faulkner after he turned over and struck him in the head.

Kenneth Freeman was the man who O’Connor believes was the shooter.  Freeman was Wesley Cook’s best friend and he was in Cook’s car at the time of the shooting.  Freeman had an Afro hairstyle, unlike the dreadlocks worn by Mumia.  Witnesses testified that the man who shot Faulkner had an Afro hairstyle.  O’Connor argues that the motive for the murder might have been the fact that Faulkner had beaten Wesley Cook and then attempted to murder Mumia Abu Jamal.

Kenneth Freeman died in 1985 and his naked body was found bound and gagged in a vacant lot in Philadelphia hours after the bombing of the MOVE home at Osage Avenue.  This police had the audacity to rule Freeman’s death to be a heart attack.  He was thirty-one years old

From this story, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s advanced the following scenario.  They argued that Mumia ran across the street with a gun.  They argued that Mumia then fired the gun hitting Faulkner in the back.  Then, somehow Faulkner took his pistol out of his holster.  Since Faulkner’s gun was defective, he needed to take an extra step to fire the gun.  Then, the D.A. argued that Faulkner fired a near perfect shot hitting Mumia in the chest as he was falling down backwards from the bullet wound to his back.

One obvious problem with this story is that the bullet wound to Mumia’s chest had a downward trajectory.  This would mean that Faulkner would have had to jump up after he was shot in the back.  This argument is patently absurd, but this was the story the D.A. presented to the jury that convicted Mumia of murder.

Cynthia White was a prostitute and the only witness that testified to the version of the D.A.’s story.  Anthony Jackson, who a judge assigned to defending Mumia, established that White had given three stories to the D.A.  Each story came closer to the story the D.A. presented at trial.

Twenty years after Mumia’s conviction Yvette Williams, who shared a jail cell with Cynthia White, signed an affidavit stating that: “Cynthia White told me the police were making her lie and say Mr. Jamal shoot Officer Faulkner when she really did not see who did it.”

Two other witnesses came forward and testified that they were coerced by the police to testify against Mumia. 

Several police officers testified at the trial that they heard Mumia confess to the murder of Faulkner and this became compelling evidence in the case.  However, these officers only made statements about the alleged confession months after Officer Faulkner’s murder.  These statements were made after Anthony Jackson sued the Philadelphia Police Department for brutalizing Mumia while he was in police custody.

However, two of the officers who were with Mumia the entire time of his arrest wrote down that they never heard him say anything.  The presiding Judge Albert Sabo would not allow one of these police officers to testify because he was presumably out of town.  In fact, this officer was only minutes away from the courtroom.

What does this frame-up say about the so-called justice system?

J. Patrick O’Connor argued that Mumia as well as the lawyer Anthony Jackson might have conducted themselves differently at trial and this might have made a difference in the verdict.  While this argument might have some merit, I believe O’Connor is missing an important point. 

The conviction of Mumia Abu Jamal has been appealed and the appellate court did not overturn the verdict.  Therefore something is happening that goes beyond the lack of an effective defense at the trial.     

                    

In the United States, defendants are supposed to be presumed to be innocent until they are proven to be guilty.  If the so-called justice system conspires to coerce witnesses to testify against someone, there is no way that guilt can be proven. 

Anyone who lives in the United States has a better chance of going to prison than citizens of any other nation in the world.  In Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow, she argues that Black men have an incarceration rate that is way out of proportion to the crimes committed by Blacks.  This has been documented, but the courts see no problem with this state of affairs.

When we look at the facts surrounding the frame-up of Mumia Abu Jamal, it becomes clear that the entire criminal justice system in the United States needs to be replaced.  As Malcolm X once said, “Either we will all be free or no one will be free.”  While we can all support the demand for a new trial for Mumia, I believe a better demand would be, Free Mumia Abu Jamal Now!  

The Untold History of the United States – Part 2 – A Review

By Peter Kuznick and Oliver Stone

Published by Gallery Books

Made into a ten part documentary by the Showtime network

In my first review of Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick’s Untold History of the United States, I argued against Stone’s claim that the world would be a better place had Henry Wallace become President.  In looking at the rest of this work, Stone also argues that if John F. Kennedy was not assassinated, and had Al Gore become president, the world would also be a better place. 

My point was that change happens because of mass movements like the labor and civil rights movements.  The general trend of capitalist governments has remained constant through so-called liberal and conservative administrations.

The many crimes of the United States government

While this central theme remains constant in the Untold History, there are some redeeming characteristics to this work.  One of the primary points this book uncovers is the history of horrendous and violent crimes committed in the name of the United States government.  We see the effects of the millions of people who died as a result of U.S. wars against the people of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  We see the vicious policies the U.S. government needed to carry out in their wars against Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Cambodia. 

Another theme of this book is the exposure of the seemingly mindless insanity of the U.S. drive to amass tens of thousands of nuclear weapons.  The government’s explanation for this policy is the belief, by government officials, that the U.S. can win a nuclear war. 

Aside from the fact that a nuclear war would mean the death of hundreds of millions of human beings, there is another basic problem with this point of view.  Some of the people responsible for the invention of the atomic bomb explained that this weapon could, one day, end all human life on this planet. 

A nuclear war could generate a mushroom cloud so large that it might block sunlight from reaching the earth.  Without sunlight, plants will not grow and human life would eventually vanish.  In other words, the policy of developing nuclear weapons is a policy to end human life on this planet altogether. 

These facts underscore the argument that no significant change will come about by supporting liberal or conservative capitalist politicians.  Politicians who supported these policies will not transform this nation into a place where there are harmonious relations between capitalists, and workers and farmers throughout the world.

The First and Second World Wars

Oliver Stone continued his narrative in their Untold History arguing how he is critical of the participation of the United States in the First World War.  However, with respect to the Second World War, Stone argued that the United States needed to become involved sooner than they did.  This review will give the reasons why the U.S. engaged in both wars, and how this participation in no way benefitted working people.  

First we might look at Oliver Stone’s rationalizations for his arguments.  Stone gave evidence showing how the JP Morgan bank had large outstanding loans to Britain.  He also showed how armaments manufacturers reaped in huge profits during the First World War.  Stone concluded that these were the primary reasons for the U.S. participation in that war.

Clearly the facts Stone presented are true.  However, Stone ignores another basic fact.  That is how after the First and Second World Wars, the United States became the world’s superpower.  By dominating the world economy, United States corporations were able to gouge out much more in profits than by merely receiving payouts on British loans.

The facts show that prior to both world wars, the British Empire that once ruled the world, was falling apart.  Shortly before the First World War, revolutions erupted in Mexico, Iran, China, and Tsarist Russia. 

Germany, Japan, and the United States were the emerging capitalist powers that attempted to take control of the markets once dominated by British capitalists.  As I pointed out in my first review, it was the Soviet Union that defeated Nazi Germany.  Most of the Japanese forces were tied down in Asia where they encountered fierce resistance.  The United States entered the Second World War at a time when Germany and Japan were loosing the war.

Understanding this, we can see why the United States made a temporary alliance with the Soviet Union.  Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union were at war with Germany and Japan.  After the Second World War the U.S. government continued to view the Soviet Union as a problem because it existed outside of the capitalist world.

Kuznick and Stone’s mistaken view of the Soviet Union

For Kuznick and Stone, the Soviet Union was merely a developing nation that could have co-existed with the capitalist system in the United States.  They view the fact that the U.S. amassed tens of thousands of nuclear weapons to defend itself from the Soviet Union as irrational.  In fact, the Stalinist government that betrayed the Russian Revolution wanted nothing more than to have peaceful relations with the United States.  These policies started with Joseph Stalin’s idea of “Socialism in one country,” and continued with the policies of “Peaceful coexistence,” “Détente,” and “Perestroika.”

Vladimir Illyich Lenin had a different view of the capitalist world.  Lenin wrote a pamphlet titled: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.  Lenin understood that the capitalist system would always be an obstacle to human development and worked to advance an international political movement to advance the interests of workers and farmers.  This is the kind of movement that we continue to need today. 

When we look at the efforts of the government officials in the Soviet Union from this perspective, it is no wonder that their efforts to peacefully coexist with capitalism in the United States ended in a dismal failure.

In their efforts to make deals with imperialist powers, the Soviet Union worked to compromise workers struggles throughout the world.  After the Second World War there were workers uprising all over the globe.  In the United States, unions shut down entire industries demanding an improved standard of living. 

The Soviet Union had considerable influence within the workers movement because of the prestige of the Russian Revolution.  Yet the Stalinist Soviet government preferred to make deals with imperialists and worked to compromise the struggles of workers throughout the world.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, U.S. imperialists no longer had that government to contain the struggles of workers throughout the world.  For this reason the capitalists of United States effectively lost the cold war.

As a result of this new situation, governments in Latin America are acting more independently of the United States.  Working people have staged massive uprisings throughout the Middle East.

The U.S. war against the people of Iraq was clearly aimed at creating a stable environment for oil to be extracted from the Middle East and sent to the imperialist powers.  That war only created an environment where working people are determined to create political movements where they can live with dignity.

What would a rational political movement look like?

Before we consider an alternative to Kuznick and Stone’s view of the world we might look at a few facts.  Working people and farmers produce literally everything we need and want.  The clothes we wear, the food we eat, the transportation we use, the health care and education we need, all are supplied by working people and farmers all over the world.  Yet, because of the instability of the capitalist system, our standard of living has been deteriorating for the past thirty years.

The idea that the capitalist media refuses to even consider, is the idea that the very people who produce the things we need and want, are the same people who have the potential to transform the world.  Yes, working people have the potential to run the economy in harmony with the environment, using fewer natural resources.  We can do this while working to eliminate alienation, making our day to day lives inspiring.  Just think about it.  If we worked collectively to improve the standard of living in the world, think of what might be accomplished.

Without the drive to maximize profits, working people could easily eliminate poverty.  Many diseases might be eliminated by merely allowing people to live more healthful lives.  Education wouldn’t be seen has a chore needed to “get ahead,” but as a lifetime pursuit to enrich everyone’s lives.

The pro-capitalist media pundits view this political orientation as absurd.  However, if we learn anything from the book The Untold History of the United States, we learn about the horrendous loss of life of millions due to the natural functioning of the capitalist system.

I’m confident that working people have the potential to see through the mindlessness of the capitalist system and create governments that view human needs as more important than profits.