Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017 (part 2 of 2)

1/21/2017

"Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017" Postered Poetics by Aberjhani inspired by original image creations of Barron Claiborne.

Trends in demographic shifts, progressive grass roots movements aimed at correcting blatant social injustices, and social media have had transformative effects that strongly encourage revisiting and reflecting on images of Black men's realities in 2017. The prototypes identified in "The Many Ways of Looking at Black Man" are still important. They have, however, expanded considerably.

Signs of Our Changing 2017 Times

Both before and during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s through the 1940s gifted African-American actors and performers like Ira Aldridge and Paul Robeson at times left the States to find outlets for their talents where they could work without the hindrances of extreme racism. In 2017, that scenario has reversed as performers of African descent from countries outside the U.S. make their way to Hollywood, Broadway, and central strongholds of hip-hop to reap the financial rewards of professional gains made during Blacks' historic struggles for equality.

When giving interviews about his 2013 Academy-award-winning film, 12 Years a Slave, director Steve McQueen Afro-Britain noted he was able to adapt Solomon Northup’s book for the screen as successfully as he did because of the Transatlantic slave trade common to the history of Black people on different continents in the western hemisphere. That simple acknowledgment underscored an aspect of African American men’s' identity often overlooked: that African Americans are also members of the African Diaspora, or, if you will, African Diasporans. Despite the United Nations-endorsed 2011 International Year of People of African Descent, the profound implications and potential of the McQueen's observation is routinely overlooked.

In addition to McQueen, actors David Oyelowo, Idris Elba, DelRoy Lindo Del, and Chiwetel Ejiofor are only a handful of British actors of African descent whose artistry has been employed to dramatize interpretations of African-American men's lives. Such interpretations have ranged from Elba's portrayal of druglord Russell “Stringer” Bell to Oyelowo's acclaimed performance as Martin Luther King Jr. in the film Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay.

Echo Kellum's recurring role as Curtis Holt, a gay Black man married to a Latino on the hit television show ARROW, reflects an aspect of one population subgroup which many in the larger community still have extreme difficulty accepting. Yet, so far as popular television series go, Jesse L. Martin's role as Joe West in The Flash is no less a challenge to stereotypes and assumptions. As the Black adoptive father of a White son––Barry Allen (a.ka The Flash, a.k.a. actor Grant Gustin) who is involved in a romantic relationship with West's biological daughter Iris (Candice Patton )––his is a comic-book world where race is defined not so much by color as by those who have super powers and those who do not.

The Obama Legacy Effect

In his farewell addess, President Barack Obama quoted the late great novelist Harper Lee in which her character Atticus Finch states the following in To Kill a Mockingbird: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Finch's words may contain the wisdom necessary to help members of an increasingly diverse democracy better support one another as Americans rather than continually battle each other as cultural and political separatists. The president also wisely pointed out the need for African Americans to recognize the value of adopting the following practice:

"...Tying our own struggles for justice to the challenges that a lot of people in this country face – the refugee, the immigrant, the rural poor, the transgender American, and also the middle-aged white man who from the outside may seem like he’s got all the advantages, but who’s seen his world upended by economic, cultural, and technological change...." (Barack Obama)

Mr. Obama's commentaries on race and the American identity over the past nearly 10 years have not brought about an end to racial divisiveness or violence in the country. But they have played a major role in helping to decrease the magnitude of assumptions and racial bias that seemingly prompt the dismissal of Black folks' lives. His two-term presidency has allowed Americans and citizens of the global community to experience a black man as a "leader of the free world." That singular comprehensive achievement surpasses any categorical way of looking at African-American men that would have been considered possible in 1997.

If, however, someone did feel inspired to duplicate "The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man" with fresh 2017 faces, it would be easy enough to do with another seven individuals such as: Chance the Rapper, Colson Whitehead, T.D. Jakes, Semaj Clark, Jay Z, Michael B. Jordan, and Tyler Perry. Their celebrity or non-celebrity status would not really comprise the core issue. The main point would be a definitive demonstration that as catastrophic as violence and oppression have been in our lives, they have not and will not erase the most beautiful and essential truths represented by our stories and realities.

Author

Author-Poet Aberjhani is currently completing a book of nonfiction narratives about race relations, histories of erasure, the cultural arts, and practices of slavery in his hometown of Savannah, Georgia, USA.

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Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017 (part 1 of 2)

1/17/2017

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Photo collage of men featured in original Nov '97 ESSENCE Magazine feature. From top left: Maxwell, Aberjhani, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Michel Marriott, John Edgar Wideman, Tiger Woods, and Geronimo ji Jaga Pratt. (Collage inspired by original photography of Barron Claiborne)

Since the publication of "The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man" special feature story in ESSENCE Magazine, November 1997, perspectives on men of African descent in the United States of America have evolved to cover a lot of ideological territory. That observation rings as true for everyday citizens of the country as it does for mainstream media, in which we have seen a gamut of extreme images, sometimes horrifying bloody, sometimes wonderfully inspiring.

The atmosphere of combativeness generated when the country's President-Elect, Donald Trump, chose to castigate civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) for exercising his right (some might say duty) to voice concerns over political legitimacy, removed any doubt that a lot of work still needs to be done where race relations are concerned. In light of the increasingly disturbing violent deaths of African-American men, women, and children over the past few years, prompting me to wonder if their names inexplicably would soon join the others, and in light of unconcealed attempts at disenfranchisement, an industrial prison complex that gorges itself on Black men's lives, and other irrefutable factors, "The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man" takes on new and powerful significance in this year marking the 20th anniversary of its publication.

Among other things, it is also, as Black History Month approaches, one more reason to think back with gratitude for the leadership which Susan L. Taylor, now founder/director of National Cares Mentoring Movement, provided as editor-in-chief of the magazine for some 20 years. In the noted classic issue, she reminded readers of this: "Whatever parcels of power we claim today were not surrendered to us willingly or without long and painful struggle. That struggle continues because our oppression continues..."

Nevertheless, the dominant theme for the occasion was more one of celebration than protestation. As such, the following description of the African-American man is from the magazine's contents synopsis and introduction to the original feature:

"From sexual icon to warrior to caretaker--he is our black man. In this annual men's issue, we explore how he handles power, privilege and pain... He is many things to many people: husband and lover, father and son, brother, friend, sex symbol and political nightmare, crossover icon and business mogul..."

Those bright powerful noble words make a poignant contrast to the vivid horror of Black men's and boys' bodies falling in American streets to the repeated blasts of gunfire. That does not mean they are no longer relevant.

On Timelines and Parallel Conditions

We know in 2017 that how Black Men are perceived, perceived, or guerrilla decontextualized, is extremely important because of the various circumstances and events that have led to their deaths, or incarceration, in more instances than anyone can accurately count.

Alleged perceptions of unarmed black males as immediate threats to armed policeman's lives (or a would-be policeman in the case of George Zimmerman's shooting of Trayvon Martin) has resulted in numerous deaths declared "justifiable" under Stand Your Ground laws. Stunningly, Edward Lewis, who in 1997 was publisher of ESSENCE and CEO of Essence Communications, Inc., wrote in the November issue:

"Some victims of police brutality don't live to tell about it. They die from bullets and blows and choke holds that are found--upon review by higher authorities--to fall roughly within acceptable guidelines. Others, who seek redress, often find their paths blocked."

Could not Lewis's words written 20 years ago have been penned just as easily in 2017? Think Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray,Terence Crutcher, Walter L. Scott, Sandra Bland and, sadly, many more.

A Few Thoughts from Trevor Noah

Refuting Stereotypes of Irredeemable Infamy

Perceptions of Black men as dead-beat fathers have been reinforced by actual institutional systems designed to keep them at an economic, social, and political disadvantage. Perceptions of Black men as criminals increased with a manufactured war-on-drugs that first created the means for them to become suppliers of illicit substances and then, once they did so, punished them with prison sentences far more severe than equally-guilty White counterparts.

Call it the guerrilla decontextualization of an entire segment of American citizens' character and reality. One dangerous result of these manipulated perceptions and misconceptions of African-American men has been intensified inherited biases which, in turn, appear to have made institutional racism more severe than ever.

Unlike those who foster the above incongruences and paradoxes, Susan L. Taylor and her editorial board chose for their extraordinary annual men's edition to showcase a spectrum of black masculinity that was not based on a stereotype of irredeemable infamy. To accomplish this, they opted to present well-known and not-so-well-known Black men in the feature.

Among the outstanding aspects of the lay-out design was the line of light orange and blue text across the full-page black and white photographs of the subjects. Below are the names of the seven men featured, followed by a few of the words used to describe them, listed in the order that they appeared on pages 87-126:

Singer-Songwriter Maxwell: soft-spoken, playful, sizzling.
Golf Champion Tiger Woods: gifted, sophisticated, wholesome, young, fresh.
Political Advocate Geronimo ji Jaga Pratt: committed, impassioned, single-minded,
Entrepreneur-Entertainer Sean "Puffy Combs: self-confident, bankable, resilient, astute
Author-Poet Aberjhani: considerate, kind, resourceful, artistic, alert.
Writer Michel Marriott: reckless, noble, rueful, keen, masculine, vivid.
Author John Edgar Wideman: brilliant, somber, deliberate, original, intense.

In addition to those represented in the cover story, some of the other articles and profiles shined spotlights on: basketball legend Michael Jordan (actually seen shaving his head in a full-page ad for his cologne), actor-activist Harry Belafonte, actor Michael Beach, NFL footballer Keyshawn Jackson, poet-publisher Haki Madhubuti, intellectual properties manager Phillip Madison Jones, singers Tony Rich, Brian McKnight and Kenny Lattimore, and designer Dion Lattimore.

Addressing the difficulty of being a Black prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson murder case, Christopher Darden avowed in the special edition that grief does not play racial favorites when a loved one is lost to violence. Speaking of the Goldman and the Brown families, he acknowledged, "Their tears were the same color as the tears I have seen so many times before in the eyes of Black survivors of violent crime. I cannot distinguish between the two."

NEXT: Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017 (part 2)

Aberjhani
Bright Skylark Literary Productions
January 2017

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Presenting a Poem for the Earth and Al Gore’s Unwavering Optimism (Part 1 of 2)

4/22/2016

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"The Earth in Rapture, Our Earth" special PRINCE TRIBUTE EDITION Postered Poetics by Aberjhani (featuring Hubble Spacecraft photography).

Should people refer to the increasing occurrence of extreme climate events as evidence, signs, or warnings? Whatever the chosen terminology, it has become clear enough that humanity can no longer ignore the impact human activities have on the Earth.

The heart-stopping flash flood that brought Houston, Texas, to a halt earlier this week, the increasing intensity of hurricanes and tornadoes, and the unsettling occurrence of rapid-fire earthquakes in places where few ever popped up before have made something very clear. And that is this: the warnings about climate change that began to emerge decades ago could not have come too soon.

The Earth in Rapture, Our Earth

The Earth in rapture sings a holy hurricane
of ten thousand prophet-poets
burning stones and blood to the music
of higher rainbow spheres, every leaping tree
declares itself a divine idiot dancing inside
shadows of history and flames of tomorrow.

Our Earth in rapture screams the muted glory
of a shy goddess wed to ecstasy and destiny.
Her veil of tidal waves and indigo clouds
hide scalding tears of smoke and lava.
Volcano rumblings of cosmic grief
moan soft blue thunder as she re-births
her eternal rhythms of eternal love.

Aberjhani (from Visions of Skylark Dressed in Black)

Transcript of Al Gore's Case for Maintaining Hope

In a TED Talk presented earlier this year, founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project Al Gore shared why he believes humanity is in a good position to win the battle against self-destruction. The YouTube video below, first posted by “Climate Reality” under a standard share license, features his talk and is followed a transcript of the main address:

"I was excited to be a part of the "Dream" theme, and then I found out I'm leading off the "Nightmare?" section of it. [Laughter] And certainly there are things about the climate crisis that qualify. And I have some bad news, but I have a lot more good news.

"I'm going propose three questions and the answer to the first one necessarily involves a little bad news. But -- hang on, because the answers to the second and third questions really are very positive.

"So the first question is, "Do we really have to change?" And of course, the Apollo Mission, among other things changed the environmental movement, really launched the modern environmental movement 18 months after this Earthrise picture was first seen on earth, the first Earth Day was organized. And we learned a lot about ourselves looking back at our planet from space."

An Open Sewer

"And one of the things that we learned confirmed what the scientists have long told us. One of the most essential facts about the climate crisis has to do with the sky. As this picture illustrates, the sky is not the vast and limitless expanse that appears when we look up from the ground. It is a very thin shell of atmosphere surrounding the planet. That right now is the open sewer for our industrial civilization as it's currently organized.

"We are spewing 110 million tons of heat-trapping global warming pollution into it every 24 hours, free of charge, go ahead. And there are many sources of the greenhouse gases, I'm certainly not going to go through them all. I'm going to focus on the main one, but agriculture is involved, diet is involved, population is involved. Management of forests, transportation, the oceans, the melting of the permafrost. But I'm going to focus on the heart of the problem, which is the fact that we still rely on dirty, carbon-based fuels for 85 percent of all the energy that our world burns every year.

"And you can see from this image that after World War II, the emission rates started really accelerating. And the accumulated amount of man-made, global warming pollution that is up in the atmosphere now traps as much extra heat energy as would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every 24 hours, 365 days a year. Fact-checked over and over again, conservative, it's the truth."

Let’s Look at the Atmosphere

"Now it's a big planet, but [Explosion sound] that is a lot of energy, particularly when you multiply it 400,000 times per day. And all that extra heat energy is heating up the atmosphere, the whole earth system. Let's look at the atmosphere. This is a depiction of what we used to think of as the normal distribution of temperatures. The white represents normal temperature days; 1951-1980 are arbitrarily chosen. The blue are cooler than average days, the red are warmer than average days. But the entire curve has moved to the right in the 1980s.

"And you'll see in the lower right-hand corner the appearance of statistically significant numbers of extremely hot days. In the 90s, the curve shifted further. And in the last 10 years, you see the extremely hot days are now more numerous than the cooler than average days. In fact, they are 150 times more common on the surface of the earth than they were just 30 years ago. So we're having record-breaking temperatures.

"Fourteen of the 15 of the hottest years ever measured with instruments have been in this young century. The hottest of all was last year. Last month [January 2016] was the 371st month in a row warmer than the 20th-century average. And for the first time, not only the warmest January, but for the first time, it was more than two degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average. These higher temperatures are having an effect on animals, plants, people, ecosystems."

This Has Consequences

"But on a global basis, 93 percent of all the extra heat energy is trapped in the oceans. And the scientists can measure the heat buildup much more precisely now at all depths: deep, mid-ocean, the first few hundred meters. And this, too, is accelerating. It goes back more than a century. And more than half of the increase has been in the last 19 years. This has consequences.

"The first order of consequence: the ocean-based storms get stronger. Super Typhoon Haiyan went over areas of the Pacific five and a half degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal before it slammed into Tacloban, as the most destructive storm ever to make landfall. Pope Francis, who has made such a difference to this whole issue, visited Tacloban right after that. Superstorm Sandy went over areas of the Atlantic nine degrees warmer than normal before slamming into New York and New Jersey.

"The second order of consequences are affecting all of us right now. The warmer oceans are evaporating much more water vapor into the skies. Average humidity worldwide has gone up four percent. And it creates these atmospheric rivers. The Brazilian scientists call them "flying rivers." And they funnel all of that extra water vapor over the land where storm conditions trigger these massive record-breaking downpours. This [picture] is from Montana. Take a look at this storm last August. As it moves over Tucson, Arizona. It literally splashes off the city. These downpours are really unusual.

"Last July in Houston, Texas, it rained for two days, 162 billion gallons. That represents more than two days of the full flow of Niagara Falls in the middle of the city, which was, of course, paralyzed. These record downpours are creating historic floods and mudslides.

"This one is from Chile last year. And you'll see that warehouse going by. There are oil tankers cars going by. This is from Spain last September, you could call this the running of the cars and trucks, I guess. Every night on the TV news now is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation. [Laughter] I mean, really."

Systemic Causation

“The insurance industry has certainly noticed, the losses have been mounting up. They're not under any illusions about what's happening. And the causality requires a moment of discussion. We're used to thinking of linear cause and linear effect -- one cause, one effect. This is systemic causation. As the great Kevin Trenberth says, ‘All storms are different now. There's so much extra energy in the atmosphere, there's so much extra water vapor. Every storm is different now.’

“So, the same extra heat pulls the soil moisture out of the ground and causes these deeper, longer, more pervasive droughts and many of them are underway right now. It dries out the vegetation and causes more fires in the western part of North America. There's certainly been evidence of that, a lot of them. More lightning, as the heat energy builds up, a considerable amount of additional lightning also.

“These climate-related disasters also have geopolitical consequences and create instability. The climate-related historic drought that started in Syria in 2006 destroyed 60 percent of the farms in Syria, killed 80 percent of the livestock, and drove 1.5 million climate refugees into the cities of Syria, where they collided with another 1.5 million refugees from the Iraq War. And along with other factors, that opened the gates of Hell that people are trying to close now.

“The US Defense Department has long warned of consequences from the climate crisis, including refugees, food and water shortages and pandemic disease. Right now we're seeing microbial diseases from the tropics spread to the higher latitudes; the transportation revolution has had a lot to do with this. But the changing conditions change the latitudes in the areas where these microbial diseases can become endemic and change the range of the vectors, like mosquitoes and ticks that carry them.

“The Zika epidemic now –– we're better positioned in North America because it's still a little too cool and we have a better public health system. But when women in some regions of South and Central America are advised not to get pregnant for two years ––that's something new–– that ought to get our attention. The Lancet, one of the two greatest medical journals in the world, last summer labeled this a medical emergency now. And there are many factors because of it.”

NEXT: Presenting a Poem for the Earth and Al Gore’s Unwavering Optimism Part 2

Aberjhani
©Earth Day 2016
Bright Skylark Literary Productions

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Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017 (part 2 of 2)

Signs of Our Changing 2017 Times

The Obama Legacy Effect

Author

Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017 (part 1 of 2)

On Timelines and Parallel Conditions

A Few Thoughts from Trevor Noah

Refuting Stereotypes of Irredeemable Infamy

Presenting a Poem for the Earth and Al Gore’s Unwavering Optimism (Part 1 of 2)

The Earth in Rapture, Our Earth

Transcript of Al Gore's Case for Maintaining Hope

An Open Sewer

Let’s Look at the Atmosphere

This Has Consequences

Systemic Causation

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017 (part 2 of 2)

Signs of Our Changing 2017 Times

The Obama Legacy Effect

Author

Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017 (part 1 of 2)

On Timelines and Parallel Conditions

A Few Thoughts from Trevor Noah

Refuting Stereotypes of Irredeemable Infamy

Presenting a Poem for the Earth and Al Gore’s Unwavering Optimism (Part 1 of 2)

The Earth in Rapture, Our Earth

​Transcript of Al Gore's Case for Maintaining Hope

An Open Sewer

Let’s Look at the Atmosphere

This Has Consequences

Systemic Causation

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Transcript of Al Gore's Case for Maintaining Hope