Revolutionary Cooperation Writes New Chapters, Thwarts Manipulator’s
Egging on Idiocy, Furthering Enslavement.
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Democracy Now’s” Amy Goodman is like a shadowy figure standing on the
edge fueling the flames of mob violence. She seems to be telling the young and
impressionable that they will achieve immortality by strapping on a suicide
belt and blowing themselves up.
She asks a doctoral student in Chinese History, a vandal in Chapel
Hill, North Carolina, what would you like to see replace the statue you are
destroying. And furthering her
manipulative stupidity she comments, Maybe they will replace it with a statue
of you.
The songwriter was right when he penned: the “revolution,” if it comes,
“will not be televised.” In present day language, it will not be “instagrammed”
or “twitterized.”
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The Revolution will not be televised” was written by a man who wrote a
new chapter without violent aggression or vandalism.
Musician and poet Gilbert “Gil” Scott-Heron famously collaborated with
another musician, Brian Jackson, in “a musical fusion of jazz, blues, soul”;
and, on occasion, in rap style commenting on “social and political issues of
the time.”
Scott-Heron described himself not as a forerunner of the modern rapper but
“a scientist” “concerned with the origin of the blues,” a “bluesologist.” About
the rap “rap” he reportedly said rap is “something that’s aimed at the kids…;
it’s (not) aimed at me. I listen to the jazz station.”
In addition to his musical performance, Scott-Heron was also a college
lecturer in literature and creative writing in Washington, D.C. A Chicago,
Illinois, native, he was the son of opera singer, Bobbie Scott-Heron, and
Jamaican soccer player, Gil Heron. One of his best-known compositions was “The
Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
Excerpt from
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The revolution will not be televised … There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock News… The revolution will not go better with Coke… The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal… The revolution will not make you look five pounds / Thinner… The revolution will not be televised.” [Songwriter Gilbert “Gil” Scott-Heron]
News: Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now!” August 22, 2018, Dances with a Vandal
“Meet Maya Little, UNC Student Whose Protest Ignited the Movement to Topple a Racist Confederate Statue” [my bracketed italicized comments in this section]
[Headline eggs on conflict and
violence. An inanimate object cannot possibly be “racist.”]
Excerpt from
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my Goodman’s “Democracy Now!” talk with “activist and doctoral student
at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Maya Little, who is facing
“charges of property destruction and possible expulsion [from UNC-Chapel Hill]
for pouring red ink and her own blood on the statue during a protest earlier
this year.”
AMY GOODMAN: “… talk about what you did in April.”MAYA LITTLE: “… I threw my blood and red ink on the statue. I was providing the context ….”
[No, you were committing an act
of violence.]
Justifying act of violence
MAYA LITTLE “A statue that advocates violence against ‘us,’ that honors slave owners. … At this statue I have felt degraded, and I have also been harassed. I have been surveilled by police. I have been called a nigger. I have been told that I will be hung [hanged!] from the tree right above Silent Sam.”
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Statues are inanimate objects
incapable of advocating or committing violence or “honoring” any person, place
or thing.
A person can choose to attend another university.A person can choose not to be “offended.”A person can choose not to be harassed—all of these without committing a single act of violence or destroying something or becoming hysterical or breaking a justifiable law, law against destroying or defacing public property.]
Justifiably charged
MAYA LITTLE: “Right now I’m facing criminal charges for vandalism. I’ll be tried in Orange County, which is very historic in many ways. Orange County is the same place … that Bayard Rustin and many of the first Freedom Riders were tried, after being stopped in Chapel Hill. My court date is October 15th at 9 a.m.”
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[
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She’s no traditional civil rights
activist and I don’t recall Bayard Rustin committing any act of violence. Once
a person commits an act of violence he or she loses moral and legal standing.]
Goodman shamefully, embarrassingly eggs on idiocy.
AMY GOODMAN: “Maybe there will be a statue for you, Maya Little.”
This parting shot loud with irony, an answer Goodman must have known
before she posed the question.
AMY GOODMAN: “What are you majoring in? What is your doctorate in?”MAYA LITTLE: “I study recent Chinese history.”
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ill Amy Goodman and the producers of Pacifica and “Democracy Now!”
offer their useless “thoughts and prayers” when this young Chapel Hill student
is tried and convicted on vandalism charges and spends her uncompleted doctoral
studies years languishing and undergoing unspeakable indignities on the
solitary confinement ward of a U.S. privatized prison?
I’ve visited the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. Many years ago I spent time on
a research retreat there and I admit to having not noticed a statue of any kind.
I wasn’t there to scrutinize statues. I was there to further my own education
and to draft my own chapters.
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he quality of U.S. institutions of higher learning have changed over
the years so I don’t know how well this young woman is being educated or
whether her prior years instilled an appreciation for education.
Not many young people in the United States appreciate the inherent
value of education; or, when taken seriously, education’s endlessly giving
qualities which instill a character of learning and relearning, search and
research, reach and discovery.
To today’s students—high on arrogance, often drinking and drugging—are
getting through, if they don’t die of an overdose; not getting educated. The piece
of paper handed or faxed to them is useless not only because the quality of on-
or offline training is inferior; but also because they were divorced from
reality, stunted in growth, numbed to the extent that they were incapable of
taking in whatever quality might have been offered to them.
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hat has this young woman to offer? Nothing that I can see!
What chapter—in whatever language, English or Chinese—will she write
for the nation and people who gave her birth and opportunity?
What song will she write?
What creation or what decimation will bear her name?
This is the kind of lunacy and self-destructiveness that Amy Goodman
encourages. I will not encourage lunacy or self-destruction.
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have always believed in the
power of the human spirit for redemption, for rebirth, for good, for a common
brother/sisterhood. All people have ancestry, and a right to ancestry. No one
is the creator of his or her ancestry. But, looking forward, one can in oneself
and in the content and character of one’s journey amend and choose anew.
A new chapter can be written that buries the hatchet and whose content takes
the hand of all varieties of descendants of all varieties of ancestors and
ancestry.
People together (even with Amy Goodman and her “Democracy Now!”) will uproot
their resentments. Let go of fear. Rise together and give rise to—
a civilized (civil, respectful), robust and humble, non-twittered, non-televised, real time neighbor-to neighbor nonviolent revolution.
Sources
News peg
Democracy Now!“Meet Maya Little, UNC Student Whose Protest Ignited the
Movement to Topple a Racist Confederate Statue” August 22, 2018
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/22/meet_maya_little_unc_student_whose
Biographical notes
Gill Scott-Heron (April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Scott-Heron
“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is the title of Gil
Scott-Heron’s poem and song and his compilation album released by Flying
Dutchman Records (1974), featuring recordings previously featured on his first
three albums for the Flying Dutchman label (Small Talk at 125th and Lenox,1970)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution_Will_Not_Be_Televised
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution_Will_Not_Be_Televised_(album)
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