I Am Troy Davis

“On 19 May 2009, Amnesty International held a protest outside the U.S. Embassy in London calling for the commutation of Troy Davis’ death sentence. We recorded people’s messages of solidarity, which we are sending to Troy and his family.”

Update: “On May 20, twenty-seven former judges and prosecutors from across the political spectrum filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis.”

Click here for details, and for links to both the amicus brief and the original writ of habeas corpus.

Honesty, You Gotta Love It . . .

I have said similar as Charlie Brooker to friends.

Male and female.

I’ve even touted legislation for the past years years that I call “affirmative action voting.”  It’s a kind of compromise between those who believe in “voter testing” and actually having womyn’s voices and lives represented in the law of the land.

For something like a hundred years, womyn were denied the right to vote, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were literally laughed out of Congress (read: white men) when they first presented the Constitutional amendment giving womyn the right to vote to that ‘noble body’ (read: male body, writ into the law).

Over forty years later, after the death of both womyn, the amendment written by Ms. Stanton was finally ratified.

As a corrective to those years, I’ve proposed “affirmative action voting.” This voting test requires a physician’s statement of biological gender. Have a penis?  Sorry, outta luck for a few decades. (And guess what, size won’t make a bit of difference.) Take a number and wait your turn.

Silly?

No sillier than the presumptions that governed this country for over a hundred years, and it is in fact the precise standard that was applied in denying the womyn the right to vote.

Perhaps not so silly as it sounds. Or perhaps it is only silly if a womyn proposes the standard be applied to men.

I think it more than fair to employ a little affirmative action voting for a few decades, making everything the way it should be, evening things up a bit, giving the little ladies the reigns for a few years.

Let’s see what happens after a decade or two.

I am so glad Charlie Brooker wrote this column.

So much better coming from a man.

Honesty, you gotta love it.

Though I doubt many American men are ready for this strong a dose of it. Honesty, that is. G-d bless them, it’s a hard habit to develop, and there is certainly little in this testosterone driven culture compelling to behave so.

This week’s must read opinion, because instead of bantering about the specifics, let’s start getting a good look at the forest amid the trees.

Gaurdian Commentary: Charlie Brooker Calls On Women To Rule The World.

Darfur Fast For Life

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I read this week about Mia Farrow’s hunger strike for the people of
Darfur, a little after the fact as life has prevented me from being involved with too much other than the day to day.

As many of you know, the genocide in Darfur has been an important issue to me, well beyond the few entries on this blog, the needless slaughtering of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of over two million while the world turns a blind eye unconscionable to this writer.

So in my little corner here, I’ve highlighted articles by Nicholas Kristof, and at times promoted Ms. Farrow’s blog and photos to raise awareness, as well as the things I can do behind the screen, in the world.

Here is where the two come together in an unusual way.

Troy Davis Redux

Here is an update of the Troy Davis case, courtesy of Bob Herbert in today’s New York Times:

Bob Herbert: In the Absence of Proof.

For those of you unfamiliar with the case, you can use the search box on the right and type in Troy Davis for several pertinent articles and summaries on the case.

The Troy Davis case should matter to everyone, because of the legal ramifications that Georgia is setting with its rush to execution.

Of course, only those living on the fringes of society will ever feel the real pain of Georgia’s arbitrary “justice,” so I guess it’s okay and painfully predictable for the majority to live in blissful ignorance.

Troy Anthony Davis homepage

Amnesty International: Take Action, Troy Davis

Article written by Troy Davis’ sister and published in The Gaurdian, including various embedded links.

Photo downloaded from: Law and Disorder Radio.org

Life

I returned yesterday from California and the various responsibilities of my mother’s memorial.

My most recent entry is under “Header Photo.”

I would add to that entry, that my mother, as I tell people, “got on the boat to go back home,” the day after Easter, her favorite holiday, a day which gave her great joy every year, the celebration of Resurrection, redemption, and life, however one understands it.

I expect to offer more over time.

At present, I’m reorienting myself after a month unlike any other that I’ve lived.

Never Forget

Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 15, 1929  –  April 4, 1968

April 4th is like no other day.

It is my mother’s birthday.

My mother.  What a character.  She’s an odd combination, as are we all, but my mother’s dramatic predilections write her many idiosyncratic qualities in large letters.

Very large letters.

Through character and circumstance, she’s always been a woman ahead of her time, a pioneer in word and deed, rarely zipping her lip when it would have served her

She is also a quirky kind of Christian, fundamentally conservative for fear of fire and brimstone, yet socially progressive for love and compasssion’s sake.  She was a very  odd fish, for her time and place, for she early and enthusiastically supported Reverand King.  “A prophet of God.” she’s always said. “We’re all God’s children. King  taught that, he was the greatest of our lifetime, a prophet of God. God’s spoke through him. You could hear it every time.”

I’ve never have been able to convince her of Gandhi’s influence on Dr. King, hoping that the link between them might get her beyond that soteriological fear animating so much of her imagination.

And when I casually brought up Dr. King’s documented character weaknesses during a conversation, she nearly disowned her only begotten to honor the Lord’s chosen one.

I’ve since decided that bringing up Dr. King’s humanity is not the best thing to do.

Dr. King’s assassination forever changed this day, my mother’s birthday.  It seemed unusually cruel for Providence to foist this on her, a single working mother with not much more than faith and hope to her name.  Seemed she could have been born on the 6th or the 7th, maybe the 10th.  The arbitrary nature of cruelty, perhaps that was the point, and why she so thoroughly embraced Dr. King’s message, and perhaps why she was able to fearlessly speak so, against the nice white bourgeios conventions that we lived on the fringes of.

She’s never forgotten that day, what it meant to those living on hope and the Lord’s promises, when that’s the best life has to offer.

April 4th has never been the same.

My mother’s birthday.

And the day a prophet and one of this country’s greatest leaders was murdered.

From Dr. King’s last speech, given the night before his death.

Mia Farrow’s Pictures From Darfur

Though this stream is a bit dated, it deserves attention.

The photos later in the stream are the most poignant, in my opinion.

View Ms. Farrow’s photostream at Flickr. Please note, the “snapshot” feature on the preceding does not show the Darfur pictures, you must click on the link and go to her Flickr album to view.

Ms. Farrow has given permission for the use of these photos, by anyone who wishes to raise awareness about the 450,000 slaughtered and over 2 million displaced.

A link to her blog can be found in my blogroll, to the right.

Happy Birthday, Toni Morrison

Chloe Ardelia Wofford

18 February 1931

“We die. That may be the meaning of life.  But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

Toni Morrison,  Nobel Lecture.

Thank you Ms. Morrison for “doing language” and doing it as no one else.

Hero Of The Week: Got Milk?

A few years ago, I remember falling to my knees and kissing the living room rug when I heard on a pseudo-news broadcast that Selma Hayek had said during an interview, “I keep waiting to meet a man who has more balls than I do.“

You see, I’ve been saying the same thing, almost word for word, for too many years.

I would look at myself in the mirror, while applying my mascara and making sure the blush was applied with a light hand, and think, “good grief, the trash that comes out of your mouth . . . but it is true, I keep waiting to meet a man with balls as big as mine.”

The ambivalence between my words and how I wanted to see myself rankled me.

In an instant, the drop dead gorgeous Ms. Hayek, as voluptuous and feminine as any stereotype driven male dominated aesthetic could ask for, validated me.

I wasn’t just an angry, ball busting woman. I spoke my truth, and Ms. Hayek knew that truth as well.

Anger, feminism, traditional roles, gender bending, had nothing to do with it. It was my reality: I want to meet a man who has the unmitigated gall and foolish, in your face courage that I have.

Worth noting, this is a truth for many women. As scientific data is showing more and more, men are far more driven than women by “what is appropriate,” despite mythologies to the contrary.

Men more so than women fall back into comfortable norms, the fear of change being more threatening to them than the ever adaptable female psyche.

Women are more prone to enjoy breaking the mold, getting rid of the old and creating change.

Every since that day I fell to my knees, kissed the ground, and said, “Thank you, Selma,” I’ve kept an eye on Ms. Hayek’s impressive career.

The odds were against her. No actor who begins in Mexican soap operas ever reaches, dare I write it, professional gravitas in Hollywood. The rise to the top in tinsel town is difficult, but add to that a thick Hispanic accent and the baggage of a C.V. reading “Mexican soap opera,” and the odds were overwhelmingly against her.

She overcame the odds, and the impressive mammary glands were no doubt a big help.

Ms. Hayek astutely used her beauty to make inroads in her industry. And then she jumped headlong into a project of important story telling, bringing to life on film a character whose story needed to be told, Frida Kahlo. She stripped herself of pretense and in portraying an artist, emerged as one.

Not just a set of a mammary glands. The real deal.

In The Gaurdian today, I found this article on the front page, though it looks to be most everywhere now: Selma Hayak Breastfeeds African Baby.

There is an edited YouTube video on the Gaurdian article that I recommend watching, if you’re inclined. The only other available versions have inane commentaries attached to them, or I would have posted a YouTube video for this entry.

I thought Ms. Hayek’s gesture epitomized a woman’s love, unconditional nurturing, beauty, and warmth. And Ms. Hayek also promoted a long standing personal agenda: she’s been an advocate for raising international awareness, especially among developing nations, on the importance of breastfeeding.

Selma Hayek’s impromptu advocacy and courageous kindness are exactly what you’d expect from a woman with a huge and impressive set of . . .

cojones.

Selma Hayek. My hero of the week.

Time article on Selma Breastfeeding to Raise Public Awareness

New Troy Davis Song and Video

Steve from Amnesty International stopped by last night and commented on my most recent Troy Davis Update.

He posted this YouTube link to a newly released video written and recorded by State Radio, a group I’m happy to discover is from Boston, just across the river from The Bandit.

Thanks Steve for letting me know about this video.

Thanks State Radio for getting the word out.

Visit Troy Anthony Davis for more information.