The Woolly Mammoth Theater in DC is celebrating an alliance with Native partners in this year's programmatic offerings. The program starts March 5th. For more infohttps://www.woollymammoth.net/productions/celebrating-native-performance/?vgo_ee=925W%2BQUAyYNT9NFwvLCX53U58EJI34Eq0XgkuaunZIDikWM%3D%3AmzbmdKKdESEFX7Hu%2FAtahTQbHEqUhbax
There's a hoop dancer! Rare to see that performance on the east coast.
Haven't been energized to post music with crazy going on in the world. But I'll list all the music that's going to the DC/MD area for the next few weeks at Strathmore Music Center. If you're around, try and catch some of it: Mar 8- Ladysmith Black Mambazo; Mar 10 - Arturo Sandoval & Pedrito Martinez; Mar 18- Rhiannon Giddens; Apr 7 - Sona Jobarth; Apr 26 -Terence Blanchard w/opera suite he composed!
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#Abolition#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter#CriminalLegalSystem@blackmastodon While I was in Canada I popped into the Toronto Black Film Festival and yep, I found something that inspired an #abolition thread. They were screening a documentary film called “Dancing in A-Yard, which documented a dance program that was established for men in a California prison. Most of the men were serving long sentences, with a few lifers in the mix. Many of them were sent to prison while they were teenagers. 1/5
#Abolition#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter#CriminalLegalSystem@blackmastodon The men shared two things: they were all in pain and traumatized in the environment where they were raised and growing up none of them believed their lives mattered. The dance therapy allowed them to heal themselves and see themselves, and others around them as humans worthy of being loved. At some point they realized they could touch each other while dancing without triggering any toxic masculinity. 2/5
#Abolition#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter#CriminalLegalSystem@blackmastodon
Each and every one of the men in the film was on a journey of transformation, but most of them were to remain in prison. Listening to their stories reinforced for me that we have to free our children from the toxicity of white supremacy that removes persons who could be role models from our communities; that re-enforces to them in their schools, in their housing, in their neighborhoods that aren’t worthy of love. 3/5
#Abolition#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter#CriminalLegalSystem@blackmastodon Maybe if we viewed restoring our communities as a post-war effort, people could understand that tinkering with reform around the edges simply cannot work. If we want to be free, and I realize not everyone wants freedom, but for those who do, we really must give up relying on models infused with supremacy to find our solutions. Let us be bold and revolutionary. Here's the trailer for the doc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQaMgSqjbGY 5/5
#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter#Politics#FaniWillis@blackmastodon
So while I was up in Canada scouting out safe places to wisk my family to n case white people start acting up again this fall, I missed Fani Willis testifying. A friend sent me a link to the full testimony while I was in the airport Sunday. Just watched it last night...so I am compelled to point out...again...the hypocrisy of white America and how they still don't know a damn thing about how black folks live. A thread...1/4?
#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter#Politics#FaniWillis@blackmastodon
Remember when Stacy Abrams ran for Gov the first time and how everyone made a big deal about the fact she had debt, like that made her unworthy in some way. Then reflect on the fact that Kavanaugh who presently sits on SCOTUS had 100 orfthousands of dollars of debt until he was nominated? And somehow that debt disappeared? Did anyone ask if he took a freakin vacation while he owed that money? 2/4?
#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter#Politics#FaniWillis@blackmastodon
Did you notice how they referred to her savings as her "hoard of money" rather than her savings and then try to imply criminality because she used CashApp and cash to pay. How many people today use Zelle or Venmo rather than checks? But what? CashApp is something black criminals use? Is that what we are supposed to infer? And what black woman in her right mind does not keep emergency cash where she lives? 3/4?
When my mom passed we had to search diligently through 3 floors of her house for any piece of paper that was folded because odds were there was some $ tucked into it. A good friend was cleaning up her mother's belongings after she passed and in the bedroom she shared with her husband of 65 years, they found a safe, which the husband DID NOT have the combo to and inside $40K in cash - her life savings for emergencies! 4/5?
#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter#Politics#FaniWillis@blackmastodon
Black people go on vacations, we save, and we prepare for emergencies just like white people do. Both my grandmother, my mother AND my father taught my sister and I to always have our own cash, and to this day we do. Fani WIllis is angry, rightfully so and she is exhausted,. You could clearly see that on the video. But, that sister jumped out there in Warrior mode. I'm wishing her the best and hoping she'll get relief soon. 5/5
Hey folks. If you remember last year I posted a survey on issues Black folks won't talk about. Since then I've been trying to get someone to come on the podcast and talk about them! I wanted a faith based person because they have the hardest time talking about sensitive issues. Whew! It took 8 months of begging and pleading and being ghosted repeatedly, but we finally got a minister to come on the show.
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#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon The second part of the ThoughtExperiement asked you all to assume Trump was a distraction and to indicate what you thought the underlying root complaint is for the MAGAs. I asked Europeans not to reply, because their underlying causes of right wing discontent are different from ours AND because they are more willing to critically look at systems than Americans are. I wanted to hear from the people who live here. 1/2
#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon And just as with the first experiment results were not surprising. Less than 10 people offered a guess as to the underlying root complaint of the MAGA. Let me offer one. You’ll need to remember some history but I promise I’ll only ask you to go back as far as Richard Nixon. I won’t traumatize you with a connection to Reconstruction (!) 2/7
#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon Just recently someone on Mastodon re-posted the interview with Nixon’s man Halderman where he proudly admitted that they created the war on drugs to negate any forward movement that was created by the civil rights legislation of 1964/65. This happened within the lifetimes of you old heads on this site and for the young people when your parents were already adults.
#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon Reagan continued those polices as did both Bushes. And frankly, Bill Clinton signed some of the most repressive legislation that has ever been wielded as a hammer against poor people and people of color. What Nixon and Halderman and the others have been worried about was a population of free black and brown people, who were educated, employed and able to participate in the so-called American Dream. 4/7
#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon The root of the MAGA angst is the fight for the American White Identity. The fight is over whether "White America" will join a world order where they are not on top and where their voices are not always considered the most important one or will they enter a world where there are equals who don’t look like them, don’t speak their language, don’ eat their food or pray to the same gods. 5/7
#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon A large swath of white America does not want a new world order. They are desperately fighting for Jim Crow 2.0 where people of color know their place, don' look them in they eye and step off the sidewalk when they walk by. They want a world where they can work black and brown children to death, and kill their parents with impunity of they complain. 6/7
#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon They want a world where women don’t get to talk and die in childbirth like it used to be so they can get the next model. Do you see it? Are you prepared to frame that issue and talk about it? If someone were to ask me how I see the fight ending, I wouldn’t be able to answer. I think there’s a 50-50 chance we go fully and openly to Jim Crow 2.0. And when I look around sometimes I wonder..which side are you all on? 7/7