The New Jim Crow
by L. Arthalia Cravin

The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid.

In Washington, D.C., three out of four young black men (and nearly all those in the poorest neighborhoods) can expect to serve time in prison.

In some states, African Americans make up to 90 percent of drug prisoners and are up to 57 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug crimes than whites.

“Jarvious Cotton’s great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole.”—FROM THE NEW JIM CROW

“As the United States celebrates the nation’s “triumph over race” with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status—much like their grandparents before them.

In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community—and all of us—to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.”

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After Super Bowl 44, Let’s Kill “Who Dat?”
by L. Arthalia Cravin

Who Dat? Who Dat? Who Dat? I’ve just about had enough of “Who Dat?” I know it’s Super Bowl time, and the N. O. Saint’s haven’t been to one in forty years, but a person can only take so much of “Who Dat?”

In August 2007 I wrote a column entitled: “Shibboleth: Honey Bunches Of Oats.” The column can be accessed at this website by clicking on “Wednesday Wisdom Archive” in the left-hand links, then reviewing the list of past columns. In my “Shibboleth” column I wondered how many people have paid close attention to the then Honey Bunches of Oats commercial that was airing on television. I wondered if I was the only person in the world who has noticed the way in which the black lady said: “Have you tried Honey Bunches of Oats?” If you saw the commercial, she was the first to appear and was wearing a white covering on her hair. What bothered me enough to fire off letters to Kraft Foods executives was what I saw as “deliberate denigration” of the black woman requiring her to pronounce “of” as “uh” so as to make her appear uneducated or illiterate. Well a Kraft Foods executive called me immediately after reading the column explaining that her articulation was her natural speech to which I then asked: “Is it to harder to say “uh Oats,” than to say “of Oats?” “Of Oats” rolls off the tongue quite effortlessly, while trying to say “Uh Oats,” is quite unnatural and requires too much effort. I then asked the “good executive” why no one else in the commercial mispronounced “of?” They agreed to review the commercial. Well the commercial changed, and given the recent economic downturn, it may have been pulled altogether.

In my “Shibboleth” column I asked this: “Have you ever heard of the term “shibboleth?” If you haven’t, turn to the Old Testament book of Judges. Judges is the seventh book in the Old Testament and appears after the book of Joshua. Now go to the 12th chapter and the 6th verse, which reads: “Then said they unto him, Say now SHIBBOLETH: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephramites forty and two thousand.” So what does “Shibboleth” and the Book of Judges have to do with “Honey Bunches of Oats?” A lot. Webster’s dictionary defines a “shibboleth” as “a password, phrase, custom, or usage that reliably distinguishes the members of one group or class from another.” If you will now re-read Judges 12:6 you will see that the person who could how pronounce the “SH” sound in the word “shibboleth” was killed on the spot. Wonder why? If you will read the rest of the story in Judges you will see that the Gileadites and the Ephramites were at war with each other. The Gileadites left over Jordan, and it just so happened that a group of escapee Ephramites wanted to go along as well. When they were confronted about their identity, the Gileadites asked if they were Ephramites, to which they responded “No, we are not.” They were then required to pronounce the word, “shibboleth.” As each one failed to pronounce the “sh” sound he was killed.

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Haiti’s “Hell”
by L. Arthalia Cravin

In an ideal world one would expect as much outrage over the history of how Haiti went from being the richest colony on earth to the poorest in the Western hemisphere, as there is shock and awe at the suffering on account of the recent earthquake. For reasons that we all know, a condition wrought by a sudden calamity is more attention-getting than an equally calamitous condition brought on by a slow, steady, stream of crippling events. Such is the case of Haiti.

What most of us knew about Haiti before the recent earthquake was that there was a Haitian Revolution that began in 1793, led by Toussaint L’Overture, that drove the mostly French whites out of Saint Dominque, (the then name of Haiti) resulting in the Haiti’s independence from French rule. If you are not familiar with High Plains Public Radio, may I suggest that you turn off your television now and then and listen to some of HPPR’s programming. Here in Amarillo you can listen to HPPR at 94.4 FM, or you can listen on your computer by going to High Plains Public Radio’s website and selecting programming. There is currently a NPPR program entitled “The Thomas Jefferson Hour,” in which Clay Jenkinson impersonates Thomas Jefferson in a sit-down, one-on-one interview. Jenkinson has the s scholarly credentials to back up his Jefferson impersonation that you can read on the Thomas Jefferson Hour link. A couple of weeks ago during Jenkinson’s impersonation of Jefferson, several questions were put to him about his true beliefs about slavery, and the Haitian Revolution. The questioning was no-holes-barred. One question asked Jefferson to admit that it was the Haitian Revolution that led to westward expansion of the United States resulting from the Louisiana Purchase.

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Reining in Budget Deficits
by The White House

The President pledges to rein the deficit, citing three specific steps to this end. He praises the Senate for restoring the pay-as-you-go law, discusses his proposal for a freeze in discretionary spending, and calls for a bipartisan Fiscal Commission to hammer out further concrete deficit reduction proposals.

Watch the address below:

Meeting Little Richard—Shut Up!!
by L. Arthalia Cravin

I was living in Shamrock, Texas when I met Little Richard back in 1960. As you know, Little Richard, whose real name is Richard Wayne Penniman, recorded songs such Good Golly Miss Molly, Tutti Frutti, Long Tall Sally and Keep a Knockin’. Little Richard was born on December 5, 1935 in St. Louis, Missouri. I did not know until I read his biography recently that Little Richard once considered becoming a minister and also recorded a few sacred songs. Mostly I remember Little Richard for wearing “c and c,” (conked and coiffured”) hair, pancake makeup, banging the piano, and singing ‘Long Tall Sally” who “ducked back in the alley—whop-bop, bop, a loo-bop a whop-bop-bop boom.”

I ended up in Shamrock in the 1960 for the same reason that all the other black folks ended up there—to pick and chop cotton. The compress, where cotton was baled, was on “our side” of the tracks, but not much else. There was no running water, no sewer, no paved streets, no sidewalks, and one schoolhouse. The school, which I understand had been some kind of army barrack left over from World War II, had four rooms, was shaped like a “U,” and served twelve grades, broken up into clusters of tree, with one black teacher for each cluster. I was in seventh grade in Mr. Smith’s class when Little Richard came through—not to—Shamrock. Mr. Smith taught all the 7th grade subjects and was also the girls and boys basketball coach.

On the day that Little Richard came through Shamrock, going to and from where I do not know, the teacher for grades first through third, Ms. Davis, got a call from someone at the old Blakemore Service Station on Main Street in Shamrock. Apparently Little Richard was traveling down what is now I-40 and needed some type of service on his bus. Ms. Davis got a call telling her that Little Richard was at the service station and that if she wanted to she could round up a bunch of kids and bring them down to meet him.

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by Dexter Harper

Employees of Panhandle Community Services arrived to work on Monday morning and found that their building had been burglarized. The burglars took office equipment, a jar of loose change but the most devastating act of the burglars was to take nearly all of the food stored in the pantry.

The thieves emptied the freezers, refrigerators and stole all the canned items. Donations from concerned community citizens and churches had recently replenished pantry nearly to capacity.

Maggie Smith, the administrator of the north branch office, says the burglary will cause an immediate halt to their food bank services. Panhandle Community Services has seen a steady increase in the number of families seeking assistance in the past months due to worsening economic conditions.

The North Heights office will continue helping qualifying families with payment of utility services and those with needs of food will be funneled to other community outreach agencies. The ability of these agencies to handle the increase demand is unknown at this time.

Also undetermined is when Panhandle Community Services will resume community food bank services.