By Their Strange Fruit

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Friday Fruit (1/31/14)

Cheerios doubles down with another
super-cute Super Bowl commercial

On Fridays, BTSF offers links to other discussions about race & Christianity. It's an opportunity for you to read about racial justice & Christianity from other perspectives, and for me to give props to the shoulders on which I stand...

Weekly Round Up:

The Tipping Point

“They” Are All the Same

Beneficial Event ( 利事)

Thoughts About Shonda Rhimes’ DGA Speech On Diversity

Human Trafficking and the Super Bowl: “It’s a Huge Problem”

Macklemore’s Grammy-Winning 16 Bars and the Search for Our 40 Acres

America's Leading Black Women Advocating Change

These are some of BTSF's links of interest this week. What are yours?

Feel free to contribute your own links in the comments section, or submit items you feel should be included during the week. Self-promotion is encouraged.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Fred Korematsu Day

On January 30th, we celebrate 'Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution,' in honor of his birthday. Korematsu (是松豊三郎) is the first Asian American to have a day named after him.

Korematsu was living in California when Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in 1942, stripping American citizens of their legal rights, and allowing their indefinite imprisonment without due process. Thousands of Americans of Japanese descendants were removed from their homes and detained in internment camps (See post: Racial Profiling and the Japanese American Internment). Having broken no laws, hundreds of thousands suffered the undue loss of their freedom and property.

Rather than surrender to military detention, Korematsu went into hiding, only to be captured and arrested several weeks later. He contested his detainment as unconstitutional, but in their 1944 ruling on Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066.

It was later shown that during the course of the proceedings, Solicitor General Charles Fahy suppressed legal documents that stated "there was no evidence Japanese Americans were disloyal, were acting as spies or were signaling enemy submarines." Through it all, white Americans either voiced support for the internment program or simply remained silent. Indeed, the ACLU largely sided with the FDR administration.

Korematsu and his family were eventually sent to the Topaz internment camp, where he had a horse stall for his living quarters. He was forced to work long hours in the labor fields, receiving $12/month. After his release, Korematsu was still strapped with a federal conviction, affecting his ability to get work, even above the racial discrimination faced by his peers.

Having spent his early years as shipyard welder aiding in the defense of the USA, he worked welding water tanks in Utah. He soon learned he was being paid only half of what his white colleges were earning. After asking for equal pay, he was threatened with arrest and was forced to leave his job.

Receiving the
Presidential Medal of Freedom

Four decades after his arrest, Korematsu's conviction was finally vacated. To the judge, he said "According to the Supreme Court decision regarding my case, being an American citizen was not enough. They say you have to look like one, otherwise they say you can’t tell a difference between a loyal and a disloyal American....I would like to see the government admit that they were wrong and do something about it so this will never happen again to any American citizen of any race, creed, or color." He continued, "If anyone should do any pardoning, I should be the one pardoning the government for what they did to the Japanese-American people."

Though his name was cleared as an individual, the 1944 Supreme Court ruling in favor of Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 still stands today. In Korematsu's words, "As long as my record stands in federal court, any American citizen can be held in prison or concentration camps without a trial or a hearing. That is if they look like the enemy of our country."

After September 11, 2001 Korematsu fervently urged the public not treat American Muslims as Japanese Americans had been treated during WWII. He also spoke out against detainments in Guantanamo Bay, maintaining that “full vindication for the Japanese-Americans will arrive only when we learn that, even in times of crisis, we must guard against prejudice and keep uppermost our commitment to law and justice.”

With Rosa Parks

To his death, he maintained “I'll never forget my government treating me like this. And I really hope that this will never happen to anybody else because of the way they look, if they look like the enemy of our country.” He knew that "No one should ever be locked away simply because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion as a spy or terrorist. If that principle was not learned from the internment of Japanese Americans, then these are very dangerous times for our democracy."

January 30th is Korematsu's birthday. How will you remember his legacy?

"Don't be afraid to speak up. One person can make a difference, even if it takes forty years."

- Fred T. Korematsu

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Friday Fruit (01/24/14)

Intention Isn’t the Point or the Problem

The Good Samaritan

Why We Can Hope for True Racial Reconciliation

How Well Does the Media Cover Race?

What are you supposed to tell your sons about the black woman chair?

See also: When "art" imitates societal constructs of black femininity

MLK Boulevard: A Snapshot of King’s Dream Deferred

Sunday, January 19, 2014

The Origins of MLK Day

Today, it seems everyone tries to co-opt the name and message of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr for their own cause. His name is invoked to promote everything from gun laws and shoe sales. Politicians know to quote him if they want to get elected, and you can bet every school child knows his name (even while the rest of Black history is ignored).

He's one popular guy and revered guy--as he should be. But he's not always had that status. The battle against naming a national holiday after him was fought tooth and nail. And it's final adoption across the country was more recent than you might think.

Less than a month after King was killed, Congressman John Conyers Jr. of Michigan introduced the first legislation to create a national holiday to honor him. Three years later the Southern Christian Leadership Conference submitted a petition with 3 million signatures in support of a national MLK holiday. But the bill met significant opposition in Congress and had trouble gaining much traction.

Rep. John Conyers Jr.

Many of the objections to King's work sound terribly familiar today. As is often the case, so-called moderates believed the pace of progress be slowed. At the time, author David Garrow suggested that “a lot of younger people today probably aren’t aware of just how virulent that open segregationist racism against black people was.”

Hours after King's 'I Have a Dream' speech, Senator Strom Thurmond argued that “the Negroes in this country own more refrigerators, and more automobiles, than they do in any other country,” (an argument often re-used today). He continued, “no one is deprived of freedom that I know about.” Indeed, shortly before his death, a national Gallup poll showed that only 33% of Americans felt positively about King and his work.

Fifteen years after Kings death, a second petition for a national MLK holiday was submitted to congress, this time with the backing of 6 million signatures. Corretta Scott King, along with Stevie Wonder (listen to his song and watch his interview) and several other celebrities, were able to convince Congress to reexamine Conyers's bill.

The House managed to pass the bill with a 338 to 90 vote. After his decision to support the bill, New York Republican Representative Jack Kemp stated that “I have changed my position on this vote because I really think that the American Revolution will not be complete until we commemorate the civil rights revolution and guarantee those basic declarations of human rights for all Americans and remove those barriers that stand in the way of people being what they are meant to be.”

Wonder and King

The Senate, on the other hand, had more trouble in changing hearts and minds. Opponents emphasized King's opposition to the Vietnam War, and continued to level allegations of communist affiliations. North Carolina Democratic Senator Jesse Helms led a long filibuster to pressure the FBI to release their files on King. The FBI had profiled King for several decades and at one point even sent him a letter "that suggested he kill himself to avoid embarrassing personal revelations hitting the media." Helms hoped that some of these indiscretions would come to light and prevent the forming of a national holiday in King's honor.

Nevertheless, the Senate eventually passed the bill 78 to 22. President Reagan signed the bill on November 2, 1983, at which point Coretta King declared "This is not a black holiday; it is a people's holiday." Similarly, as the bill was being argued in the House, Conyers had stated "I have always viewed it as an indication of the commitment of the House and the nation to the dream of Dr. King. When we pass this legislation, we should signal our commitment to the realization of full employment, world peace and freedom for all.”

The first national observance of MLK Day was in January 1986. At the time, only 27 states honored the holiday. Famously, Arizona fervently resisted the its adoption. All three Arizona House Republicans (including current Senator John McCain) voted against the 1983 bill, followed three years later by a public referendum in which 76% of Arizonans voted against the holiday (prompting Public Enemy's single 'By the Time I Get to Arizona'). As a result of Arizona's continued resistance, the 1993 Super Bowl was moved from Tempe, AZ to Pasadena, CA in protest.

"A day on, not a day off"

It wasn't until 2000 that the last state legally recognized the holiday. In the same year it removed the confederate flag from its statehouse, South Carolina passed a bill to recognize the day, concurrently removing several Confederate holidays from the official calendar.

Even today there is reluctance to observe MLK Day. In fact, it has taken some significant whitewashing to get him to that place, with many of his more soul-convicting speeches ignored. His stances on poverty, systemic racism, and black pride are often pushed under the rug. But they are essential to who he was, and the lessons we should take from him.

Rather than reading his speeches or acting on his legacy, many schools continue normal classes on MLK Day. Most employees are expected to report to work, even in places that regularly observe Columbus Day and President's Day. In 2007, 33% of employers gave employees the day off.

Unfortunately, those that are excused from work take it as just that...a day off work. Instead, let's use MLK this year to follow the lead of recent US presidents and use it as "a day on, not a day off." Let's use it to serve one another and increase justice and equity int he world around us. Find some practical ideas here.