Women

What’s in a Woman’s Toolbox for Peace

Imagine what peace would look like with 3 or more women at the table. Actually numbers and sex can’t be the sole qualifiers. There are patriarchal women whose framing is no different from the patriarchal men at the table. Official peace processes in use were never designed, built by, for and with women and any marginalized group in mind. Through custom or tradition, the men, the patriarchy, the persons in power have at best put women on the table as transactional bargaining chips along with any disputed natural and financial resources for what becomes a negotiated power grab.

For a panel the Second Sex Conference in New York in 1979, self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” Audre Lorde (1934-1992) remarked,

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about
genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.”

Nevertheless, women need and want a voice at this table. Too often the gun is the loudest voice while the women, children, elders, the vulnerable (those without military might) are mortally silenced.

The women who rise up, organize and demand a seat at the peace table don’t want to be treated like dinner guests. Presence isn’t power. For many women participation becomes a delicate balancing act of negotiating on two fronts: at the seats of power with governments, politicians, military officers, warlords; and on the home front in families where patriarchy can have its strongest roots and impact.

March 25 and 26 (9 pm ET – check local listings) PBS will broadcast Women, War & Peace II, a series of films by women filmmakers documenting the stories of women actively and nonviolently involved in peace making, risking life (and family life) with the hope of changing the course of history. The series is executive produced by Abigail Disney and Gini Reticker for Fork Films.

The series includes four stories many told for the first time on U.S. national television. We finally see the women of Northern Ireland’s Women’s Coalition (Wave Goodbye to Dinosaurs) at the negotiating table. The women elected to the task are steadfast to the goals of peace despite the dismissive and rude reactions from the men in the room. These women could be looking at the conflict reemerging with the UK’s Brexit separation from the European Union and the possibility of the return of a hard border (via trade) separating Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland.

The Trials of Spring, (directed by Gini Reticker) confirms the “Arab Spring” branding of the youth-led movement towards a more democratic Egypt was pre-mature. The removal of Hosni Mubarak from office followed by elections that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power, then the military takeover lead to social regression and a precarious situation for nonviolent women activists and religious minorities.

Naila and the Uprising uses animation to recreate student organizer and activist Naila Ayesh’s story of her imprisonment for being part of a secret network of women in a movement protesting Israeli occupaton of Gaza. Naila’s infant son is brought to live with her in prison. The film tells her story to audiences and also servies as a family document for Naila’s now adult son about his early life through his parents’ experiences with the intifada.

One can’t avoid noticing A Journey of a Thousand Miles is the only story in the series where women are required to carry a gun to maintain the peace. The film follows the all-women Bangladeshi UN peacekeeping unit and their mission to Haiti following the 2011 earthquake that devastated the country. It is also a story of the impact of their service causing conflict in relationships back home.

The films in Women War & Peace II show how nonviolent peace making takes tremendous patience, courage, resilience, and a passion for justice. In these four stories women are forced to use the master’s tools to achieve peace goals. Sisterhood is their additional source of support.

Poem for Aretha’s Music

In Nikki Giovanni’s “Poem for Aretha” she writes:

She’s more important than her music—if they must be separated—
and they should be separated when she has to pass out before
anyone recognizes she needs
a rest and I say I need
Aretha’s music

Aretha is now at her eternal rest. The death of Aretha Franklin in Detroit August 16, 2018 at 76, merits, in this opinion, a peach cobbler variation on Don McLean’s “American Pie” and “The day the music died.”

As long as I live in the mortal world I need Aretha’s music.

Nikki Giovanni recorded “Poem for Aretha” on a 1971 breakthrough record, “Truth Is On Its Way” featuring the New York Community Choir. (Aretha Franklin would release her live “Amazing Grace” gospel album with the Los Angeles Community Choir in 1972). The track under “Poem for Aretha” is “Nobody Knows the Troubles I’ve Seen.” Gospel records were hot in the 1970s.

In many ways “Poem for Aretha” is a poem for all giants who endure the road shows, the okey doke contracts, the hangers on with nefarious intentions, the fear of losing fans, family, and friends by putting self-care above caretaking. “Poem for Aretha” was written before the age of social media. Today she would unplug before she has to pass out. But somehow Aretha survived the blow backs and managed to make a way even demanding a 50% cash payment upfront before she would perform. Now we know why Aretha plopped her purse on the piano before performing in the “Kennedy Center Honors.” Only she could. The moment was pure magic.

Carole King needed Aretha Franklin’s music.

My first favorite single was by Aretha Franklin. How many times did I ask an able bodied sibling or adult to play, replay the 45 of “Chain of Fools” to the point that like a child’s favorite toy, the audible crackles and pops from the multiple needle drops on the vinyl fused with the soulfulness of the vocals and the rhythm & blues guitar. I needed Aretha’s music.

Aretha Franklin was more important than her music because there would be no music without Aretha, but at the same time there was no Aretha without music. It’s a magic moment when music can make you FEEL and sparks a surprise emotion. Words matter and they had a life of their own with Aretha. Nothing like the monotony and repetition in the bump and grind beat tracks of today. Even as the music changed, Aretha knew she could find her way through it and on her terms. You can’t be separated from your music and be Aretha Franklin. Aretha needed Aretha’s music.

Since the millennium I’ve grown so very weary of being told to recognize the “greatness” of “singers” (quotes intended) who prize volume over interpretation. Spectacle over enunciation. Predictability and sale-ability over –dare I say– R-E-S-P-E-C-T-ability. Growing up with Aretha set a high standard and expectation that very few and perhaps only she could reach. Aretha was also an accomplished instrumentalist, and arranger. That’s all the spectacle she needed.

Rainbow appears at tribute to Aretha Franklin in Detroit. Source: Detroit Tigers

Listening to Aretha’s playlist over the week has been like having my life flash before my eyes. She was my grounding and groundbreaker. There was no conflict or battle between secular and sacred music and spaces. In her music and musicality they were one and the same. And like church with a majority Black membership and culture, Aretha made you place your troubles and the BS at the foot of the altar she built.

We need Aretha’s music now more than ever.

Aretha was the riot was the leader if she had said “come
let’s do it” it would have been done
temptations say why don’t we think about it
why don’t we think about it
why don’t we think about it

Hear “Poem for Aretha” read by Nikki Giovanni on “Truth Is On Its Way”

What Would Ida B. Wells Do?

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Wednesday, September 13 I produced readings from a revised version of my first full-length play Iola’s Letter with an extended title: Iola’s Letter: The Memphis Crusade of Ida B. Wells. The reading was presented with the Hill Center on Capitol Hill – close to the power and the people who connect with the themes of this play. The timing couldn’t be better.

The undressed reading at the Hill Center by the cast under the direction of Michi Jones gave new life to the words for the audience to connect the dots and once again sadly resonate with the saying, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Ida B. Wells challenges all who embrace a passion for justice in ways that can make you uncomfortable. She was an unapologetic moralist, and asserted her rights as written in the Bill of Rights and that included the 1st and 2nd amendments. Ida was relentless, and the word often attributed to can- and will-do women like her – difficult. In 1892, her outspoken writings on lynching cost the journalist her Memphis newspaper, Free Speech, and forced her into exile…in Chicago.

Public and published efforts to silence Ida B. Wells made her one of the most famous newspaper women and activists of her time. Frederick Douglass would become a mentor; and she co-founded the NAACP with W.E.B. DuBois. Ida B. Wells-Barnett (after her marriage to attorney and newspaper owner Ferdinand Barnett of Chicago) was a founder and activist in women’s clubs serving persons in need, advanced the campaign for civil rights, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with suffragists for women’s rights.

I love historical drama. Many fans enjoy the beautiful “period” costumes, settings, and a chance to be swept away to another time. In the case of Iola’s Letter based on those real-life events in Memphis, Tennessee in 1892, there’s no need for the period dress up. The story, set in the post-Reconstruction South, is sadly familiar, even contemporary. In my introduction I describe the play as a series of conversations around unresolved issues around racial injustice, class, and the hopes and dreams of communities who are striving to build futures under hostile circumstances.

My play has its history too. Between Anita Hill’s testimony during Clarence Thomas’s SCOTUS confirmation hearings (1991) and the dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. by white supremacists in Jasper Texas (1998), I was contemplating, writing, and preparing Iola’s Letter for its first staged reading at Howard University directed by [professor emeritus] Vera J. Katz. Neither events were the impetus for this play, but the conversations certainly informed key themes: an African American woman whose words were disputed and characterized as doing more harm than good; an African American man tortured and killed because of the color of his skin.

How would Ida have responded to then Supreme Court nominee Thomas’ claim of a “high tech lynching”?. Would Ida, if there was “social media” in her toolkit, direct Justice Thomas to view the multiple videos of Black men and women being shot, assaulted, by persons known or unknown, including persons authorized to “uphold the law.” Would Ida just repost the video or investigate?

….I did not come to bring peace, but a sword ~ Matthew 10:34 I New Testament

The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them. ~ Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Despite threats from her enemies, or censures from her peers, Ida B. Wells never relented. Yet she could be dispirited by rebuffs from the “Negro leadership” whose organizations depended on the philanthropies of white supporters. Frances Willard, the crowned leader of the Temperance movement, publicly condemned lynching overall yet disputed Ida B. Wells’ reports especially when it concerned white women having consensual relationships with Black men.

The role of the press cannot be understated in this scenario. I wish there was more time after the reading to talk with the guest speakers. Jonetta Rose Barras, a community organizer turned journalist who embodies the Ida B. Wells spirit; and Dan Moldea, an investigative reporter who like Ida is willing to put his hands into the corruption therewith of a story. I wish there was more time to talk with the audience. The play triggered something in the room and for the persons who had the opportunity to speak, they gave testimony, shared information and concerns. Perhaps all the questions on this topic have been exhausted, except one — What are our next steps?

The First Mother’s Day Card from Julia Ward Howe

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Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.

“Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, disarm! The sword is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each learning after his own time, the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

The first Mother’s Day was proclaimed by Julia Ward Howe. The same Julia Ward Howe who gave us “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Howe was a true social reformer in the best sense. An abolitionist, suffragist, poet — Howe’s Civil-war era writings are spirited and inspirational. She made this Mother’s Day proclamation in 1870, after the Civil War, to establish a Mother’s Peace Day. Howe knew the Civil War would not be the last war. Shall we give the proclamation a stamp of approval? We can all gather around Howe’s motherly words today and for Mother’s Days to come.

Stand By Your Hillary

The “60 Minutes” interview is for me the presidential nominee’s most important media moment. This is a segment from the recent “60 Minutes” interview with the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and her running mate Tim Kaine. CBS flipped the format from the spouses to the ticket. We’re looking at a job interview (and that’s what all this campaigning is about). We’ve certainly come a long way from “Standing by Your Man.” And plus Bill and Hillary have already done at least two of these before. Republican nominee Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence’s interview aired the week before and is here. Be sure to pour yourself a drink first.

IMO Hillary saved Bill Clinton’s first bid for President in this 1992 “60 Minutes” interview with Steve Croft following the Gennifer Flowers scandal. It was early enough in the campaign to pick up the pieces. And btw, what we don’t see, but was recorded, was the video light exploding during the interview. It was a moment that showed how deep marriage can be especially this one. The outtake (that aired years later) also showed the Clinton’s tenacity, to not buckle under pressure. I always warn people, Clintons can thrive in crazy.

The Hillary in this interview from over 20 years ago is no fool personally or professionally neither does she suffer them. I didn’t notice the Arkansas governor or think he was viable at all until I saw HER.

In her acceptance speech tonight Hillary Clinton will do good to have Hillary Rodham Clinton standing by her candidate.

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Women