Bernie Hayes Understands
February 24, 2011
BH 404
Holidays often bring families closer together and millions are already planning to celebrate Easter although it will not be observed this year until April 24. I ask this question because often what we celebrate is not the truth and often rooted in lies, erroneous beliefs, legend, falsehood and fallacy.
The National Network for Child Care says some aspects of holiday celebrations may seem innocent or harmless at first, but it is vital that early child care professionals think about the curriculum and how it affects children. Halloween colors, for example, include orange and black. Black is generally not presented in a positive way, but a scary and dark way. What does teaching the color black in this way do to children whose skin is dark, and who are sometimes called black? What does it do to children whose skin is not dark? The effect on the self-concept of all children, whether the teacher's intent is "only Halloween fun" can be intense for children of all ethnicities and colors.
So how does this relate to Easter? Because the day that we celebrate Easter this year, April 24th is because an African Pope set the standard. Yes, a Black Pope designated the period for which the Holy Day would be observed. He was Pope St. Victor I.
Saint Victor was born in Africa and bore a Latin name as most Africans did at that time. Saint Victor was the fifteenth pope and a native of black Africa. He served from 186 A.D. until 197 A.D.
A troublesome controversy over when Easter should be celebrated occurred during the reign of Victor, with the result that Christians observed different days for the most important feast of the year. Victor decreed that Easter should be celebrated on a Sunday
Easter is the oldest and most important Christian festival, marking the end of the fasting season of Lent and the death, on Good Friday and resurrection of Jesus Christ, on Easter Sunday. It has deeper and more complex associations than Christmas.
There are many customs and traditions associated with Easter which, like most other holiday and feast days, are derived from a combination of both Jewish lore and pre-Christian and pagan practices. It is named after Eostre, the goddess of fertility and birth, worshipped by first-century pagans at the vernal equinox, who believed she would bless both their families and their crops. Christian missionaries saw this celebration took place around the time of the resurrection of Christ, so they adopted Easter as a Christian holiday to increase conversion.
However, for many years it has been agreed that Easter falls on the first Sunday after the Full Moon that occurs on or after the Vernal (spring) Equinox (21 March). If the Full Moon falls on a Sunday then Easter is the next Sunday. This means that Easter can fall as early as 22 March or as late as 25 April. Next year it falls on 23 March, the second earliest date possible. Easter last fell on the latest possible date, 25 April in 1943, and will next fall on that date in 2038. However, this year it will fall on 24 April, just one day before this latest possible date. It is the origin of the phrase "moveable feast".
What if our African American family knew that there have been three African Popes of the Catholic Church? Why is it hidden?
Gandhi wrote “and where there is Truth, there is also is knowledge which is true. Where there is no Truth, there also is knowledge which is true. Where there is no Truth, there can be no true knowledge."
And Buddha said “The energy of the Truth is a powerful protection and an energy that sends waves of influence throughout the world and down the ages, unlimited by space or time. Truthfulness is much more than not telling lies.
Without truthfulness there can be no society. Without truthfulness human communication breaks down and distrust, hostility and force take over. Truthfulness is, therefore, of fundamental importance to a harmonious and peaceful society and of fundamental importance to the harmonious and peaceful individuals who constitute that society. There is also a false speech of omission. This is when what we say is strictly true but because of what we leave out it is not the whole truth. In fact, it may even convey a completely wrong impression. And that can be the intention.
So by being honest we create a world of honesty and also by being untruthful we create a world of dishonesty, which is an unpleasant and tiring place to live.”
So when you celebrate Easter this year, with your new suits and dresses, expensive fancy hats and shiny new shoes, remember why that Sunday is special and say thank you to one of our ancestors. Happy Easter!
Please listen the Bernie Hayes radio program Monday through Friday at 7am and 4 pm on WGNU-920 AM, and watch the Bernie Hayes TV program Saturday Night at 10pm and Friday Morning at 9 am on KNLC-TV Ch. 24.
I can be reached by e-mail at: berhay@swbell.net.
Be Ever Wonderful!
Hotep!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
The History of Black Hair
You can read this piece, published on February 2, 2011, at the St. Louis American's site.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Faceless Heroes and Heroines!
BH 402
December 2, 2010
While growing up in Chicago all of my friends, both male and female would tell stories of how one or more of their family members had to flee the south because they wounded or killed members of the Klu Klux Klan or other white people in retaliation for the way they were treated. Today’s column is my tribute to those unsung heroes; some of them gave their lives for us.
For many years, we've been taught the harrowing description of the civil rights movement as a series of nonviolent protests, led primarily by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and other ministers, that so stirred the hearts of northern white America that the courts and the government passed a series of laws that ended white supremacy and the practice of Jim Crow. This is his-story, not the truth. The civil rights and human rights movement for Black people began before they left the Motherland.
No African-American accepted their status as slaves and the slave owners were aware of this and lived in fear of the Blacks under their control. Not only did slave owners expect slaves to run away, but they believed that revolution would happen at any moment. It demonstrates how Americans get a distorted understanding of their past in their high school years, believing that persons of African decent accepted the injustices heaped upon them from persons who considered themselves superior. This was not the way that it was.
African slaves revolted as early as 1733 in St. John, Virgin Island; the first major slave revolt in the south was led by a slave named Gabriel Prosser in the 1800’s: Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Cinque and other followed shortly thereafter. And while these are the most prominent that is documented in the annals of history, there were thousands more, by Black men, women and children that are not known.
Frederick Douglas in his Fourth of July speech acknowledged: ‘What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters?”
Most states in the South passed anti-African American legislation. These became known as Jim Crow laws. This included laws that discriminated against African Americans with concern to attendance in public schools and the use of facilities such as restaurants, theaters, hotels, cinemas and public baths. Trains and buses were also segregated and in many states marriage between whites and African American people.
There are hundreds of thousands of stories of African Americans who were intolerant of the conditions when the South was under the grip of so-called Jim Crow laws but Blacks fought back, although the history books will teach you that they did not. Long before Emmett Till and Rosa Parks.
By the First World War, Blacks were increasingly armed and prepared to defend themselves from mob violence in many parts of the country, even in the Deep South. In one case, the mayor of Memphis, Tennessee was advised, “The Negroes would not make trouble unless they were attacked, but in that event they were prepared to defend themselves.” Most of the race riots were the result of Negro retaliation to white acts of persecution and violence.
The "Red Summer of 1919 there were 26 race riots between the months of April and October. These included disturbances Charleston, South Carolina: Gregg and Longview counties, Texas, Washington, D. C., Chicago and Elaine, Arkansas.
These quotations are taken from “The Voice of the Negro,” a brilliant compilation by Robert T. Kerlin, professor of English at the Virginia Military Institute. They reflect the true mood and reaction of the times.
“For three centuries we have suffered and cowered. No race ever gave passive resistance and submission to evil longer, more piteous trial. Today we raise the terrible weapon of self-defense. When the murderer comes, he shall no longer strike us in the back. When the armed lynchers gather, we too must gather armed. When the mob moves, we propose to meet it with bricks and clubs and guns. If the United States is to be a land of law, we would live humbly and peaceably in it; if it is to be a land of mobs and lynchers, we might as well die today as tomorrow.”
So, likewise, the New York Age: “Every day we are told to keep quiet. Only a fool will keep quiet when he is being robbed of his birthright. Only a coward will lie down and whine under the lash if he too can give back the lash. America hates, lynches and enslaves us, not because we are black, but because we are weak. A strong, united Negro race will not be mistreated. It is always strength over weakness, might over right.” Meanwhile a colored preacher writer in the Cleveland Gazette: “don’t start anything, but when something is started make it hot for them and finish it.”
These are stories and factual descriptions of the temper and frame of mind of our forefathers and of our ancestors and America should be exposed to the truth and not the myths of American history. The important thing to point out is that here in America, a propaganda machine was set in motion, powered by huge media and political interests repeating the Myth that Black people were docile and afraid. Their mission was and is, to prevent real history from reaching people. Do not trust those sources. Do your own research.
Please listen the Bernie Hayes radio program Monday through Friday at 7am on WGNU-920 AM, and watch the Bernie Hayes TV program Saturday Night at 10pm and Friday Morning at 9 am on KNLC-TV Ch. 24.
I can be reached by e-mail at: berhay@swbell.net.
Be Ever Wonderful!
Hotep!
December 2, 2010
While growing up in Chicago all of my friends, both male and female would tell stories of how one or more of their family members had to flee the south because they wounded or killed members of the Klu Klux Klan or other white people in retaliation for the way they were treated. Today’s column is my tribute to those unsung heroes; some of them gave their lives for us.
For many years, we've been taught the harrowing description of the civil rights movement as a series of nonviolent protests, led primarily by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and other ministers, that so stirred the hearts of northern white America that the courts and the government passed a series of laws that ended white supremacy and the practice of Jim Crow. This is his-story, not the truth. The civil rights and human rights movement for Black people began before they left the Motherland.
No African-American accepted their status as slaves and the slave owners were aware of this and lived in fear of the Blacks under their control. Not only did slave owners expect slaves to run away, but they believed that revolution would happen at any moment. It demonstrates how Americans get a distorted understanding of their past in their high school years, believing that persons of African decent accepted the injustices heaped upon them from persons who considered themselves superior. This was not the way that it was.
African slaves revolted as early as 1733 in St. John, Virgin Island; the first major slave revolt in the south was led by a slave named Gabriel Prosser in the 1800’s: Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Cinque and other followed shortly thereafter. And while these are the most prominent that is documented in the annals of history, there were thousands more, by Black men, women and children that are not known.
Frederick Douglas in his Fourth of July speech acknowledged: ‘What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters?”
Most states in the South passed anti-African American legislation. These became known as Jim Crow laws. This included laws that discriminated against African Americans with concern to attendance in public schools and the use of facilities such as restaurants, theaters, hotels, cinemas and public baths. Trains and buses were also segregated and in many states marriage between whites and African American people.
There are hundreds of thousands of stories of African Americans who were intolerant of the conditions when the South was under the grip of so-called Jim Crow laws but Blacks fought back, although the history books will teach you that they did not. Long before Emmett Till and Rosa Parks.
By the First World War, Blacks were increasingly armed and prepared to defend themselves from mob violence in many parts of the country, even in the Deep South. In one case, the mayor of Memphis, Tennessee was advised, “The Negroes would not make trouble unless they were attacked, but in that event they were prepared to defend themselves.” Most of the race riots were the result of Negro retaliation to white acts of persecution and violence.
The "Red Summer of 1919 there were 26 race riots between the months of April and October. These included disturbances Charleston, South Carolina: Gregg and Longview counties, Texas, Washington, D. C., Chicago and Elaine, Arkansas.
These quotations are taken from “The Voice of the Negro,” a brilliant compilation by Robert T. Kerlin, professor of English at the Virginia Military Institute. They reflect the true mood and reaction of the times.
“For three centuries we have suffered and cowered. No race ever gave passive resistance and submission to evil longer, more piteous trial. Today we raise the terrible weapon of self-defense. When the murderer comes, he shall no longer strike us in the back. When the armed lynchers gather, we too must gather armed. When the mob moves, we propose to meet it with bricks and clubs and guns. If the United States is to be a land of law, we would live humbly and peaceably in it; if it is to be a land of mobs and lynchers, we might as well die today as tomorrow.”
So, likewise, the New York Age: “Every day we are told to keep quiet. Only a fool will keep quiet when he is being robbed of his birthright. Only a coward will lie down and whine under the lash if he too can give back the lash. America hates, lynches and enslaves us, not because we are black, but because we are weak. A strong, united Negro race will not be mistreated. It is always strength over weakness, might over right.” Meanwhile a colored preacher writer in the Cleveland Gazette: “don’t start anything, but when something is started make it hot for them and finish it.”
These are stories and factual descriptions of the temper and frame of mind of our forefathers and of our ancestors and America should be exposed to the truth and not the myths of American history. The important thing to point out is that here in America, a propaganda machine was set in motion, powered by huge media and political interests repeating the Myth that Black people were docile and afraid. Their mission was and is, to prevent real history from reaching people. Do not trust those sources. Do your own research.
Please listen the Bernie Hayes radio program Monday through Friday at 7am on WGNU-920 AM, and watch the Bernie Hayes TV program Saturday Night at 10pm and Friday Morning at 9 am on KNLC-TV Ch. 24.
I can be reached by e-mail at: berhay@swbell.net.
Be Ever Wonderful!
Hotep!
Monday, November 8, 2010
In The American: "Segregated Sounds"
Please read the newest column for the St. Louis American, "Segregated Sounds."
The piece, published online on October 28, 2010, is available right here.
The piece, published online on October 28, 2010, is available right here.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
African American Endurance!
August 26, 2010
BH 399
On my radio program recently, I played an episode of the Amos N’ Andy radio series. I wanted my audience to remember, or for some, to be exposed to how the descendents of Ancient Africans were portrayed and demonized by two Caucasian men for fun and profit.
Records show Amos ‘n’ Andy was the story of two black characters created by two white actors, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. They presented the characters as fools, womanizers, crooks and buffoons that were senile, docile, lazy and unintelligent morons. The show became a national phenomenon with nearly 40 million listeners.
For the program's entire run as a nightly serial, Gosden and Correll portrayed all the male roles, performing over 170 distinct voice characterizations in the show's first decade. It was the first radio program to be distributed by syndication in the United States.
Most of their audience was white who had never seen or met a person of color, and the image these performers delivered was devastating to black people. Although Amos ‘n’ Andy’s so called dialect humor caused much controversy among African-Americans, the show’s appeal during its prime was not restricted to any single race. We all should be appalled at the crudeness and discriminatory words used in the Amos N Andy series but it was so popular among whites that the program was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1988.
After playing only a portion of the racist, bigoted Amos N Andy program, I enlightened my audience with a taped interview I did with writer and historian Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan, the author of several volumes including ‘The Need for A Black Bible’, ‘The Myth of Exodus and Genesis and the Exclusion of Their African Origins’, ‘African Origins of Major Western Religions’, ‘St. Augustine: African Influence in Christianity’, ‘Moses: African Influence on Judaism’, ‘Bilal: African Influence on Islam’ and Dr. Ben's best known work ‘Black Man of the Nile and His Family’, that was first published in 1972.
The publication is described as ‘capturing much of the substance of his early research on ancient Africa. In a masterful and unique manner, Dr. Ben uses Black Man of the Nile to challenge and expose "Europeanized" African History. He points up the distortion after distortion made in the long record of African contributions to world civilization.’
I also treated my listeners to part of a lecture by Dr. John Henrick Clarke, educator, lecturer and professor, humanitarian and scholar. Dr. Clarke lectured and held professorships at universities worldwide. His longer and most influential tenures were at the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell in Ithaca, New York, and in African and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York City. He received honorary degrees from numerous institutions and served as consultant and advisor to African and Caribbean heads of state. In 1997 he was the subject of a major documentary directed by the noted filmmaker Saint Claire Bourne and underwritten by the Hollywood star Wesley Snipes.
Dr. Clarke said “I saw no African people in the printed and illustrated Sunday school lessons. I began to suspect at this early age that someone had distorted the image of my people. My long search for the true history of African people the world over began. My main point here is that if you are the child of God and God is a part of you, then in your imagination God is suppose to look like you. And when you accept a picture of the deity assigned to you by another people, you become the spiritual prisoners of that other people’.
He said ‘religion is the organization of spirituality into something that became the hand maiden of conquerors. Nearly all religions were brought to people and imposed on people by conquerors, and used as the framework to control their minds. Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it.’
These two gentlemen are only two of the thousands of our leaders, scholars and elders. They played a crucial role in bringing about the ending of the racist system that held our minds hostage, while preserving our dignity and refusing to submit, psychologically, to the definition that the oppressors attempted to force upon us. Both Ben-Jochannan and Clarke fashioned a link between generations and regenerated our belief in the morality, respectability, strength and the wisdom of our ancestors.
As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, and our scholars have shown that education is the key to overcoming prejudice and discrimination.
It is easy to realize that Gosden and Correll, being members of a different culture received different kinds of information from their environment. If they knew the achievements of the sons and daughters of Africa, or respected the works of George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Sojourner Truth or even Abraham Lincoln, there never would have been a radio series or television program such as Amos N Andy.
In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson said “there is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem”, but President Barack Obama said “the past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” He said “we do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow”.
Goodbye Amos and Andy and hello Mr. President.
Please listen the Bernie Hayes radio program Monday through Friday at 7am on WGNU-920 AM, and watch the Bernie Hayes TV program Saturday Night at 10pm and Friday Morning at 9 am on KNLC-TV Ch. 24.
I can be reached by e-mail at: berhay@swbell.net.
Be Ever Wonderful!
Hotep!
BH 399
On my radio program recently, I played an episode of the Amos N’ Andy radio series. I wanted my audience to remember, or for some, to be exposed to how the descendents of Ancient Africans were portrayed and demonized by two Caucasian men for fun and profit.
Records show Amos ‘n’ Andy was the story of two black characters created by two white actors, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. They presented the characters as fools, womanizers, crooks and buffoons that were senile, docile, lazy and unintelligent morons. The show became a national phenomenon with nearly 40 million listeners.
For the program's entire run as a nightly serial, Gosden and Correll portrayed all the male roles, performing over 170 distinct voice characterizations in the show's first decade. It was the first radio program to be distributed by syndication in the United States.
Most of their audience was white who had never seen or met a person of color, and the image these performers delivered was devastating to black people. Although Amos ‘n’ Andy’s so called dialect humor caused much controversy among African-Americans, the show’s appeal during its prime was not restricted to any single race. We all should be appalled at the crudeness and discriminatory words used in the Amos N Andy series but it was so popular among whites that the program was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1988.
After playing only a portion of the racist, bigoted Amos N Andy program, I enlightened my audience with a taped interview I did with writer and historian Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan, the author of several volumes including ‘The Need for A Black Bible’, ‘The Myth of Exodus and Genesis and the Exclusion of Their African Origins’, ‘African Origins of Major Western Religions’, ‘St. Augustine: African Influence in Christianity’, ‘Moses: African Influence on Judaism’, ‘Bilal: African Influence on Islam’ and Dr. Ben's best known work ‘Black Man of the Nile and His Family’, that was first published in 1972.
The publication is described as ‘capturing much of the substance of his early research on ancient Africa. In a masterful and unique manner, Dr. Ben uses Black Man of the Nile to challenge and expose "Europeanized" African History. He points up the distortion after distortion made in the long record of African contributions to world civilization.’
I also treated my listeners to part of a lecture by Dr. John Henrick Clarke, educator, lecturer and professor, humanitarian and scholar. Dr. Clarke lectured and held professorships at universities worldwide. His longer and most influential tenures were at the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell in Ithaca, New York, and in African and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York City. He received honorary degrees from numerous institutions and served as consultant and advisor to African and Caribbean heads of state. In 1997 he was the subject of a major documentary directed by the noted filmmaker Saint Claire Bourne and underwritten by the Hollywood star Wesley Snipes.
Dr. Clarke said “I saw no African people in the printed and illustrated Sunday school lessons. I began to suspect at this early age that someone had distorted the image of my people. My long search for the true history of African people the world over began. My main point here is that if you are the child of God and God is a part of you, then in your imagination God is suppose to look like you. And when you accept a picture of the deity assigned to you by another people, you become the spiritual prisoners of that other people’.
He said ‘religion is the organization of spirituality into something that became the hand maiden of conquerors. Nearly all religions were brought to people and imposed on people by conquerors, and used as the framework to control their minds. Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it.’
These two gentlemen are only two of the thousands of our leaders, scholars and elders. They played a crucial role in bringing about the ending of the racist system that held our minds hostage, while preserving our dignity and refusing to submit, psychologically, to the definition that the oppressors attempted to force upon us. Both Ben-Jochannan and Clarke fashioned a link between generations and regenerated our belief in the morality, respectability, strength and the wisdom of our ancestors.
As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, and our scholars have shown that education is the key to overcoming prejudice and discrimination.
It is easy to realize that Gosden and Correll, being members of a different culture received different kinds of information from their environment. If they knew the achievements of the sons and daughters of Africa, or respected the works of George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Sojourner Truth or even Abraham Lincoln, there never would have been a radio series or television program such as Amos N Andy.
In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson said “there is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem”, but President Barack Obama said “the past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” He said “we do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow”.
Goodbye Amos and Andy and hello Mr. President.
Please listen the Bernie Hayes radio program Monday through Friday at 7am on WGNU-920 AM, and watch the Bernie Hayes TV program Saturday Night at 10pm and Friday Morning at 9 am on KNLC-TV Ch. 24.
I can be reached by e-mail at: berhay@swbell.net.
Be Ever Wonderful!
Hotep!
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Black media is abating its mission!
July 21, 2010
Numerous studies find that people of color continue to be under-represented, stereotyped or misrepresented, and the spread of racist thinking in the Tea Party Movement and Right Wing Media has many of us lost in a sea of misinformation, and black radio and television outlets are actually contributing to the crisis.
Not too long ago, in the African American media names such as Frederick Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, infused our national awareness.
We heard and read about the achievements and writings of A.J. Rogers, John Hope Franklin, Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, Dr. Chancellor Williams, Dr. Leonard Jeffries, Dr. John Henrick Clarke, and listened to Dr. Ben, Percy Sutton, Douglas Wilder, and David Dinkins on Bob Law’s Night Talk radio program; Wesley South was speaking to Jesse Jackson and other religious and political figures in Chicago; Joe Madison was interviewing members of Congress; Mildred Gaddis and ‘Martha Jean’ were talking to Coleman Young and others in Detroit. I was talking to Dick Gregory, Naim Akbar and Malauna Karenga. Ty Wansley was keeping the community of Pittsburgh informed with timely news and events that impacted the African American community. There are others who made positive differences and created positive change. We were communicating.
We used to discuss how and why African-Americans fought for American independence, the abolition of slavery, civil and equal rights. Black media that featured black programs provided this information to the people. Today the industry has become filled with buffoonery, sarcasm and silliness, with hours of hip hop music that lulls us to sleep.
While Armstrong Williams, Ann Coulter, Bill O’Rielly, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Russ Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Hugh Hewitt and others are blasting the airways with their points of view, we are being entertained by Tom Joyner, Michael Baisden and Steve Harvey. Katt Williams being arrested is headline news. I am afraid that we have failed our mission.
Despite the fact that the right wing media machine is creating and spreading false impressions of the Obama administration and the African American and Latino communities, most black owned and black oriented media outlets are engaged in a war to promote themselves as “number one in hip hop and old school."
Black talk radio and black oriented television stations have to return and be a place where conversations can begin, where communities can be strengthened, and where the human spirit can be celebrated. The main mission for our existence should be to provide outlets to broadcast the truth, or in any case to counter the lies and untruths that some of these so called conservative media moguls are spewing.
In the past black radio, black oriented television stations and African American newspapers were the only means of communications, and acclaimed as the champions of African Americans, the poor and people of color. We were a critical communications link that offered programs that motivated, inspired, and educated. We interviewed experts in marketing, business, personal development, health, and music.
Are the black radio and television stations today forward-thinking and positive? Black media outlets can provide valuable input and should be realistic, operational, inspirational, motivational, informative, and even emotional, and should be reassessed on a regular basis by the public that it serves.
Collaboratively we must define our fundamental purpose, philosophy, and values, and we must verify whether the Black media is doing its intended job and making the right decisions for the community.
Life can be a real challenge at times and Black radio and TV audiences include a diverse group of individuals: young children, students, intellectuals, political figures, young parents, the elderly, and while understanding social media we ought to be required to entertain, to engage, to inspire, and to inform the listeners of the truth with dignity, and continue to honor the commitment of the pioneers that gave black talk radio, black newspapers and black oriented television its rich heritage and proud legacy.
Please listen the Bernie Hayes radio program Monday through Friday at 7am on WGNU-920 AM, and watch the Bernie Hayes TV program Saturday Night at 10pm and Friday Morning at 9 am on KNLC-TV Ch. 24.
I can be reached by e-mail at: berhay@swbell.net.
Be Ever Wonderful!
Bernie
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Emmett Till -An indispensable piece of American history!
June 17, 2010
When you celebrate Father’s Day, remember Emmett Till.
Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till would be 69 years old; probably a father and grand father and perhaps a great grand father. Who knows what his children might have been. They may have preceded Barack Obama as the first African American president. But Emmett died at the age of fourteen. He was murdered by a group of bigoted thugs, with the help of some blacks.
In August 1955, Till supposedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman in a grocery store that she and her husband owned in Money, Mississippi. Three days later, two white men dragged him from his bed in his uncle’s home, beat him brutally and then shot him in the head. His mutilated body was found in the muddy Tallahatchie River. His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who died in 2003, held a three day open-casket funeral in Chicago, and a photograph of Till's disfigured and decomposed face was displayed in Jet Magazine. She said "let them see what they have done to my boy”. The photograph stirred and motivated the nation. His death motivated the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks was quoted as saying "I thought of Emmett Till, and when the bus driver ordered me to move to the back and I just couldn’t move."
Roy Bryant, Carolyn’s husband at the time, and J. W. Milam were arrested for the murder but were acquitted of the crime by an all-white jury. The men later confessed in an interview with Look magazine. How could Bryant and Milam hate and kill a fourteen year old juvenile? Because they believed their actions were completely justified.
Does racism run that deep? I must presume the answer is yes. It is unfortunate that people find a way to hate people who are different from themselves. Racism is not only the bad attitude by people with different color skin, but it refers also to people that feel superior to others. Many of the less intelligent of the country have attitudes about other races. Some of the truly ignorant southern people even today hate blacks.
Southern whites, such as Bryant and Milam, and every member of the jury that freed them, did everything in their power to keep African-Americans in a downgraded and substandard social position. How and why did they feel justified by committing such an immoral and shameful act? At that time in Mississippi, it was unheard of for an African American to even glance at a white woman, or to publicly accuse a white of committing a crime.
The nation was also complicit in creating a climate of fear and hatred. In 1857 Chief Justice Robert B. Taney of the United States Supreme Court wrote the opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford: ‘In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument. “They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit’.
Taney’s name should be listed along with Adolph Hitler, Nathan Bedford Forrest, founder of the KKK, and George Lincoln Rockwell of the American Nazi Party as some of histories worst criminals. The South should idolize and commemorate Taney as much as they celebrate Robert E. Lee. Taney is the instigator and creator of the contention and affirmation that “The Negro Has No Rights” and the nation at that time adopted his premise. Not too much had changed even now.
Taney’s pronouncement could easily be classified as ‘hate speech’, because hate speech creates an environment of hate and prejudice that legitimizes violence, as in the Emmett Till slaying, and it is not limited to a few isolated instances or any one. Hate speech against vulnerable groups is pervasive in our society today.
We must remember Emmett Till, his mother and uncle, Money Mississippi, Leflore County, Tallahatchie County, Fannie Lou Hamer, Sumner Mississippi, and places where pioneers of the movement marched, sat-in at lunch counters, gathered in churches; where they spoke, taught, and organized; where they were arrested, and where they lost their lives.
Emmett Till’s birthday is July 25 so along with July 4 you now have two dates in July to observe.
Till is buried at the Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, with his mother and grandmother. My parents are buried there also. Although four former cemetery employees are accused of disturbing hundreds of gravesites in a plot-reselling scheme, the Cook County Sheriff said the slain youth’s gravesite was not disturbed.
You should visit the Emmett Till Multipurpose Complex and Tallahatchie County Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism in Sumner, Mississippi. This is a chance for us to learn, remember and be proud of a group of people who struggled to make changes and remember the men and women that are etched into our national memory.
Please listen the Bernie Hayes radio program Monday through Friday at 7am on WGNU-920 AM, and watch the Bernie Hayes TV program Saturday Night at 10 pm and Friday Morning at 9 am on KNLC-TV Ch. 24.
I can be reached by e-mail at: berhay@swbell.net.
Be Ever Wonderful!
Bernie
When you celebrate Father’s Day, remember Emmett Till.
Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till would be 69 years old; probably a father and grand father and perhaps a great grand father. Who knows what his children might have been. They may have preceded Barack Obama as the first African American president. But Emmett died at the age of fourteen. He was murdered by a group of bigoted thugs, with the help of some blacks.
In August 1955, Till supposedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman in a grocery store that she and her husband owned in Money, Mississippi. Three days later, two white men dragged him from his bed in his uncle’s home, beat him brutally and then shot him in the head. His mutilated body was found in the muddy Tallahatchie River. His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who died in 2003, held a three day open-casket funeral in Chicago, and a photograph of Till's disfigured and decomposed face was displayed in Jet Magazine. She said "let them see what they have done to my boy”. The photograph stirred and motivated the nation. His death motivated the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks was quoted as saying "I thought of Emmett Till, and when the bus driver ordered me to move to the back and I just couldn’t move."
Roy Bryant, Carolyn’s husband at the time, and J. W. Milam were arrested for the murder but were acquitted of the crime by an all-white jury. The men later confessed in an interview with Look magazine. How could Bryant and Milam hate and kill a fourteen year old juvenile? Because they believed their actions were completely justified.
Does racism run that deep? I must presume the answer is yes. It is unfortunate that people find a way to hate people who are different from themselves. Racism is not only the bad attitude by people with different color skin, but it refers also to people that feel superior to others. Many of the less intelligent of the country have attitudes about other races. Some of the truly ignorant southern people even today hate blacks.
Southern whites, such as Bryant and Milam, and every member of the jury that freed them, did everything in their power to keep African-Americans in a downgraded and substandard social position. How and why did they feel justified by committing such an immoral and shameful act? At that time in Mississippi, it was unheard of for an African American to even glance at a white woman, or to publicly accuse a white of committing a crime.
The nation was also complicit in creating a climate of fear and hatred. In 1857 Chief Justice Robert B. Taney of the United States Supreme Court wrote the opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford: ‘In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument. “They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit’.
Taney’s name should be listed along with Adolph Hitler, Nathan Bedford Forrest, founder of the KKK, and George Lincoln Rockwell of the American Nazi Party as some of histories worst criminals. The South should idolize and commemorate Taney as much as they celebrate Robert E. Lee. Taney is the instigator and creator of the contention and affirmation that “The Negro Has No Rights” and the nation at that time adopted his premise. Not too much had changed even now.
Taney’s pronouncement could easily be classified as ‘hate speech’, because hate speech creates an environment of hate and prejudice that legitimizes violence, as in the Emmett Till slaying, and it is not limited to a few isolated instances or any one. Hate speech against vulnerable groups is pervasive in our society today.
We must remember Emmett Till, his mother and uncle, Money Mississippi, Leflore County, Tallahatchie County, Fannie Lou Hamer, Sumner Mississippi, and places where pioneers of the movement marched, sat-in at lunch counters, gathered in churches; where they spoke, taught, and organized; where they were arrested, and where they lost their lives.
Emmett Till’s birthday is July 25 so along with July 4 you now have two dates in July to observe.
Till is buried at the Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, with his mother and grandmother. My parents are buried there also. Although four former cemetery employees are accused of disturbing hundreds of gravesites in a plot-reselling scheme, the Cook County Sheriff said the slain youth’s gravesite was not disturbed.
You should visit the Emmett Till Multipurpose Complex and Tallahatchie County Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism in Sumner, Mississippi. This is a chance for us to learn, remember and be proud of a group of people who struggled to make changes and remember the men and women that are etched into our national memory.
Please listen the Bernie Hayes radio program Monday through Friday at 7am on WGNU-920 AM, and watch the Bernie Hayes TV program Saturday Night at 10 pm and Friday Morning at 9 am on KNLC-TV Ch. 24.
I can be reached by e-mail at: berhay@swbell.net.
Be Ever Wonderful!
Bernie
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