Maria W. Stewart on YouTube

This showed up. I have no idea who or where it comes from. Odd. Sounds like an electronic voice.

Jordan Davis

This is a horrendous story. Orlando Bagwell’s Op-ed video for the NYTimes is a good intro. All of the interrogations and interviews are on YouTube.

Man, in Jacksonville FL, annoyed by loud music and boisterous teens shot into SUV. Drives away. Ordered pizza and went to bed. Hears on TV that one teen in SUV, Jordan Davis, died. Man never calls police; just drives home w/girlfriend.

Claims at trial he was in fear for his life (stood ground). Jury has been out for days. In the video, Jordan Davis’s father describes their conversations about Trayvon. Describes how Jordan, named for the river, was a deeply hoped for “miracle” baby, conceived after fertility procedure. Includes some family pictures and home video.

Not so much publicity. Guess the news cycle has Dead Black Teen fatigue.

And it’s NOT about loud music. It’s about a racist white man convinced first that black teens had insulted him. And second that that gave him the right to kill them.

Remember, he drove away. Had pizza and wine with his girlfriend, and went to sleep. He never called police. They found him because a homeless man in the parking lot got his plate number.

He made up a ridiculous story about what had happened, and got away with murder/manslaughter.

Headlines about how loud music was the issue oversimplify what happened, not so subtly play to sympathy from white people who don’t like hiphop, rap, etc., and believe that the word “thug” means any black teenage young man.

How Micro-Aggression Works

THIS is exactly what happens. This is how it works. This is how her young daughter’s spirit is affected. This is the sort of constant “micro-aggression” that is so hard to explain because each instance is close to petty. Mention it to many/most decent, reasonable white people and they think, “get a life; ignore the stupid clerk.”

I could tick off 50 similar experiences — usually followed by store personnel; shown to the one table in a restaurant without a candle or flowers (and next to the restrooms); asked for ID as in this case; always having to ask for another hotel room because the first one is next to the elevator and across from the housekeeping closet — nonstop noise. On and on. That’s just the make it through the day stuff.

I love that this is a crystal clear account of how this shit happens below white radar. Such daily encounters are a reason why the vaunted “conversation on race” is all but impossible to hold. Yes, these things happen to everyone from time to time. I’d say the difference is that black people recognize the pattern, know the drill, and keep taking the hit, sometimes protesting, sometimes, not.

El Benny

Cuban film

Worcester, MA Black History Conversation

Worcester, Massachusetts, 1905

http://archive.org/details/worcesterslavenarratives_2008

Excellent Fractals

I have long been fascinated by fractals. Here is some extraordinary information.

Only Film Of Mark Twain

A brief 1909 silent film of Twain and his daughters by Thomas Edison. The two men were friends.