Unbelievable...

it's unnerving to think that something this culturally archaic exists side by side with all of the advances we enjoy in this day and age. and then something happens, the veil is lifted and the world glimpses something so horrible, so barbaric that some people flat-out refuse to believe it.

do the chinese devalue females this much? are chinese girls really so worthless? if girls are so easy to discard, then who are all of their precious, bratty "little emperor" sons going to marry when they come of age?

i wish i could adopt all orphaned girls everywhere.

Chinese Police Bust Ring Suspected of Murdering Females to Serve as Brides to Dead Bachelors


BEJING — A ring of gangsters who traded in the bodies of women they murdered, selling them as brides to keep dead bachelors happy in the afterlife, has been arrested in China.

The arrests have exposed a trade that places a higher value on women when they are dead than when they are alive.

Yang Dongyan, 35, was arrested on January 4 in Sha’anxi province as he played cards with his children. In his prison cell, Yang showed little remorse for committing two murders. He told a newspaper, “I just wanted to make money. It’s a quick way to make money. I was arrested too soon otherwise I had planned to do this business a few more times.”

Two accomplices, Liu Shengbao and Hui Haibao, were also arrested, as was Li Longsheng, a self-styled undertaker who traded the bodies to bereaved families.

Zhang Yanjun, chief of police in Yanchuan county, said: “It’s lucky that the case was cleared up in time or we don’t know how many women would have been killed by them. These people thought they had found a short cut to wealth.” Instead, they face the death penalty.

The men preyed on the superstitions of ill-educated farmers eager to ensure that a dead son was happy in the afterlife. It is not uncommon in rural parts of China for a family to seek out the body of a woman who has died to be buried alongside their son after the performance of a marriage ceremony for the deceased pair.

Ancestor worship is a tradition that runs through many aspects of Chinese life. One of the main Chinese festivals is Tomb Sweeping Day, when families visit graves of their forebears to clean them and burn incense. The spirit is believed to live on in the afterlife and at funerals families burn offerings of paper money and models of houses, cars and other little luxuries that the dead may need.Yang chanced upon the trade in dead bodies when he paid 12,000 yuan (£800) for a mentally handicapped woman whose family hoped to marry her off for a price. The trade in women as wives is a common practice in rural China and a woman may be sold several times by intermediaries before meeting her eventual husband.

Yang arranged for the woman to stay in a guesthouse in Yanchuan county where Liu offered him £666 for her. Yang refused, until Liu told him that the woman would be worth much more dead than alive. The next morning the two men set out across the Yellow River to meet “Old Li” in Xixian County, Shanxi province. Old Li agreed to buy the woman’s body for £1,050 and to complete the deal late at night on the Yanshuiguan bridge.

The next day Yang killed the woman and took her body by taxi to the bridge where Li was waiting and handed over £1,000 for her. For his part in the deal, Liu received £300 and Yang came away with a loss of £200 after his expenses.

Back at the guesthouse, Yang told an old acquaintance, Hui, that he had found an easy way to make money. The two men agreed to go into the body business together. Last November they sought out a prostitute they knew in nearby Yan’an — the city where Chairman Mao began his Communist revolution — but she threw them out after they said that they could not afford to pay her £20. They returned the next morning and killed her.

On December 3 they completed a similar body handover with Li on the bridge. This time they made only £530 because the buyer was unhappy with the quality of the body and, after costs, Yang and his two friends each earned £100 on that deal.

Old Li had made a name for himself in Xixian county by selling clothes to outfit the dead and by handing out cards that offered to help families in need of a spirit marriage. They want young and good-looking dead brides for their sons and regard the family of the girl as “in-laws”. Police discovered that Li paid between £530 and £660 for a body and sold it on for as much as £2,300.

the black mac

i'm sure that i'm probably the only person in the world that hasn't seen this infamous pc vs. mac spoof -- but just in case i'm not, here it is.

What Does The "S" Stand For? Part 2: The Bernard Goetz Factor

I was on the east side and I was running for the S train. No, not running. I was moving fast, which would be considered running if I lived anywhere else. But I live in a city where everyone moves this way when you’ve got somewhere to be. It’s kind of like driving at a certain speed in spite of what the speed limit says, because that’s how fast traffic is going. When everyone around you is moving that way, you either pick up the pace or get run over. I’ve lived in New York City for so long that I know how to eat lunch, talk on my cell and move it with a quickness – in heels.

Everyone around me was going in the same direction at breakneck speed like some urban herd, with some band or some panhandling toothless freak or some guitar player’s incessant canoodling as the living soundtrack to the airtight nightmare i call “getting there.” When the music is full-tilt and I am surrounded by oblivious strangers, when my legs get to swinging underneath me like I’m a lifesized metronome and my eyes are wide with exhaustion behind my dark shades, when the flow and the crush of the herd makes my mind wander, that’s when I know I’m moving in stereo.

About a month or so ago, I was caught in one of these panoramic sensurround lapses that forces so much noise and confusion onto me that I didn’t really hear anything at all. On this particular day, I was thinking that if I moved from train (S) to train (2 or 3) to train (1), I would be home inside of 30 minutes. No waiting on the overcrowded platforms, no down time for casual interaction of any kind. Keep it moving – that’s the goal.

I hear them before I see them: three black girls, long and lean and somewhat lanky, one of them pushing a baby stroller, the other two lagging behind her, around her – falling behind, catching up, hanging on. Bobbing in and out of the herd in their own rhythm as though they were the only ones there. It’s a game they’re used to playing. They are laughing so loudly, it almost sounds as though they are screaming. Sweet-faced girls. Pretty. Probably teenagers. I don’t give them a second thought.

I head for the back of the train because at the next and last and only stop, it will be the front, which will crash-land me in a direct path to my next train line. Everyone is already sandwiched in every doorway I pass like sardines in a can. They look like obedient sheep being led to the slaughterhouse. I approach the last door and who do I see? Those three black girls. I step in next to one of them, I murmur an “excuse me” to her, she readjusts and then I wait for the door to close. Right as the doors are about to come together, this white woman runs up and jumps on. She was blonde and she was pale and she was dressed in black. It was a nice overcoat. She had heels on. Comfortable heels. She didn’t look nondescript, but she did look like she worked in an office. Immediately the black girl to my left started loud-talking and shoving into her with her arm and her shoulder, trying to get her off the train. “can’t you see there’s no room?” something like that. The black girl to my right immediately started to calm her down. And the black girl with the baby threatened imminent bodily harm if the child got hurt. That’s when the doors went all herky-jerky the way they do sometimes when the train is packed and someone’s belongings are keeping them from closing completely. It’s like they’re having an epileptic fit. To tell you the truth, it was almost as though the doors wanted her to get off the train, too. But she didn’t move. She didn’t say anything, either. She just held her ground physically and looked down. And then the doors closed, the girl stopped hitting her and the train began to move.

Everyone saw this girl hitting this woman and no one came to her defense. I was standing right next to her, and I said nothing. I figured she could handle herself as a city dweller. No. Scratch that. What I really figured was that it wasn’t any of my business. I figured that interfering in moments like these is what gets you beat up or badly injured or even killed. I figured that with a train filled with men, I shouldn’t have to say anything. Some gentleman would appear. Or a cop. Or something. Or maybe what I really figured is that it was over. But it wasn’t over. The black girl to my left said something like, this lady (she points at me) said excuse me but this one (she points at the blonde) said nothing, and she starts going off. She’s loud and young but she’s old enough to have already learned that it’s all in the delivery, so she’s smiling and sounding really light and affable as she’s saying all of this foul racist garbage, stuff like “if I was a certain kind of bitch, I would kick your ass,” and all this junk. Someone on the train said something. She goes, who said that? No one said anything. She kept going.

Honestly. It’s a two minute train ride with one stop in either direction and I’m telling you, it felt like I was on that thing for more than a half-hour.

The black girl to my left went on and on and on. She had a chip in her heart, she laughed. And then all of a sudden, we were there. It looked like it was over. Everyone wanted it to be over. The blonde turned around and faced the door so that as soon as she stepped out of the train, she’d be on her way. The doors opened and pow! It happened in an instant: The black girl to my left shoved the woman with all her might and made some declaratory statement about white people, with the black girl to my right begging her not to and the black girl with the baby carriage laughing; some guy over my shoulder said, “don’t do that to the lady”; and the blonde staggered, very nearly fell, recovered and kept going. Picked up the pace, moved fast and disappeared into the crowd. It all happened in a nanosecond. It was over just that fast.

I can’t stop thinking about the blonde, how frightened she was, how she never said anything the whole time. I keep wondering what I would have done -- if I would have hit that girl in the face and shoved her onto the tracks or kept it moving. i actually thought about Bernard Goetz. i know that statistically, i'm the one that's more likely to get physically assaulted or harassed or robbed, but i'm convinced that if stuff like that keeps happening, paranoia will turn this place into a city of Bernie Goetz' guns.

and they won't be the ones saying "what are you going to do, shoot us" either.

short 'n sweet

i made the first cut with the ISC. twelve songs. four categories. who knew? read all about it here.

Martin Luther King, Jr's Letter From A Birmingham Jail

"Letter from Birmingham Jail” is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s rebuttal to a statement published on April 12, 1963, by a group of local clergy who urged an end to street protests against racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. The clergy’s statement echoed the claim often made at the time that the civil rights movement among Southern blacks was caused by “outsiders.” In rejecting the clergy’s appeal, King crafted a powerful moral argument for refusing to obey unjust laws and for responding to injustice everywhere. King wrote his reply after being arrested and jailed for taking part in the protests. He initially began writing on the newspaper in which the clergy’s statement appeared, then on scraps of paper, and finally on a pad provided by his attorneys. The letter was published in The Christian Century magazine in June 1963 and included in King’s book Why We Can’t Wait (1964)

This is a letter that changed the course of the civil rights movement and eventually reverberated all over the world. It should be required reading for every American.

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MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN:

While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities 'unwise and untimely.' Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would be engaged in little else in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine goodwill and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the argument of 'outsiders coming in.' I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliate organizations all across the South—one being the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Whenever necessary and possible we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago our local affiliate here in Birmingham invited us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented and when the hour came we lived up to our promises. So I am here, along with several members of my staff, because I have basic organizational ties here.

• • • •

Beyond this, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the eighth century prophets left their little villages and carried their 'thus saith the Lord' far beyond the boundaries of their home towns; and just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Graeco-Roman world, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial 'outside agitator' idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere in this country.

You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in Birmingham. But I am sorry that your statement did not express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the demonstrations into being. I am sure that each of you would want to go beyond the superficial social analyst who looks merely at effects, and does not grapple with underlying causes. I would not hesitate to say that it is unfortunate that so-called demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham at this time, but I would say in more emphatic terms that it is even more unfortunate that the white power structure of this city left the Negro community with no other alternative.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1) Collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive. 2) Negotiation. 3) Self-purification and 4) Direct action. We have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying of the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community.

Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of this country. Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than any city in this nation. These are the hard, brutal and unbelievable facts. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the political leaders consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.

Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the economic community. In these negotiating sessions certain promises were made by the merchants—such as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the stores. On the basis of these promises Rev. Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to call a moratorium on any type of demonstrations. As the weeks and months unfolded we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs remained. Like so many experiences of the past we were confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark shadow of a deep disappointment settled upon us. So we had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community. We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved. So we decided to go through a process of self-purification. We started having workshops on nonviolence and repeatedly asked ourselves the questions: 'Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?' 'Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?' We decided to set our direct-action program around the Easter season, realizing that with the exception of Christmas, this was the largest shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we felt that this was the best time to bring pressure on the merchants for the needed changes. Then it occurred to us that the March election was ahead and so we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that Mr. Connor was in the run-off, we decided again to postpone action so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. At this time we agreed to begin our nonviolent witness the day after the run-off.

This reveals that we did not move irresponsibly into direct action. We too wanted to see Mr. Connor defeated; so we went through postponement after postponement to aid in this community need. After this we felt that direct action could be delayed no longer.

You may well ask: 'Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn't negotiation a better path?' You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of the work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. So the purpose of the direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. We, therefore, concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that our acts are untimely. Some have asked, 'Why didn't you give the new administration time to act?' The only answer that I can give to this inquiry is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one before it acts. We will be sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Mr. Boutwell will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is much more articulate and gentle than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to the task of maintaining the status quo. The hope I see in Mr. Boutwell is that he will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from the devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was 'well timed,' according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the words 'Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.' We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied.'

We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, 'Wait.' But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: 'Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?'; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading 'white' and 'colored'; when your first name becomes 'nigger,' your middle name becomes 'boy' (however old you are) and your last name becomes 'John,' and your wife and mother are never given the respected title 'Mrs.'; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness'; then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask: 'How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?' The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just and there are unjust laws. I would agree with Saint Augustine that 'An unjust law is no law at all.'

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority, and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. To use the words of Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher, segregation substitutes and 'I-it' relationship for an 'I-thou' relationship, and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. So segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Isn't segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, an expression of his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? So I can urge men to disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong.

Let us turn to a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal. On the other hand a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in enacting or creating because they did not have the unhampered right to vote. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up the segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout the state of Alabama all types of conniving methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters and there are some counties without a single Negro registered to vote despite the fact that the Negro constitutes a majority of the population. Can any law set up in such a state be considered democratically structured?

These are just a few examples of unjust and just laws. There are some instances when a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I was arrested Friday on a charge of parading without a permit. Now there is nothing wrong with an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade, but when the ordinance is used to preserve segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and peaceful protest, then it becomes unjust.

I hope you can see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law as the rabid segregationist would do. This would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly, (not hatefully as the white mothers did in New Orleans when they were seen on television screaming 'nigger, nigger, nigger') and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks, before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman empire. To a degree academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience.

We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was 'legal' and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was 'illegal.' It was 'illegal' to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. But I am sure that if I had lived in Germany during that time I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal. If I lived in a Communist country today where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate disobeying these anti-religious laws. I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;' who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a 'more convenient season.' Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice, and that when they fail to do this they become dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is merely a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, where the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substance-filled positive peace, where all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But can this assertion be logically made? Isn't this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical delvings precipitated the misguided popular mind to make him drink the hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because His unique God-Consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to His will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, that it is immoral to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth of time. I received a letter this morning from a white brother in Texas which said: 'All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great of a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost 2000 years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.' All that is said here grows out of a tragic misconception of time. It is the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill-will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

You spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of the extremist. I started thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency made up of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, have been so completely drained of self-respect and a sense of 'somebodiness' that they have adjusted to segregation, and, of a few Negroes in the middle class who, because of a degree of academic and economic security, and because at points they profit by segregation, have unconsciously become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness, and hatred comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up over the nation, the largest and best-known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. This movement is nourished by the contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination. It is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incurable 'devil.' I have tried to stand between these two forces saying that we need not follow the 'do-nothingism' of the complacent or the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. There is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I'm grateful to God that, through the Negro church, the dimension of nonviolence entered our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, I am convinced that by now many streets of the South would be flowing with floods of blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as 'rabble rousers' and 'outside agitators' those of us who are working through the channels of nonviolent direct action and refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes, out of frustration and despair, will seek solace and security in black-nationalist ideologies, a development that will lead inevitably to a frightening racial nightmare.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will eventually come. This is what happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom; something without has reminded him that he can gain it. Consciously and unconsciously, he has been swept in by what the Germans call the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa, and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, he is moving with a sense of cosmic urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. Recognizing this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand public demonstrations. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations. He has to get them out. So let him march sometime; let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; understand why he must have sit-ins and freedom rides. If his repressed emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous expressions of violence. This is not a threat; it is a fact of history. So I have not said to my people 'get rid of your discontent.' But I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channelized through the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. Now this approach is being dismissed as extremist. I must admit that I was initially disappointed in being so categorized.

But as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist for love—'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.' Was not Amos an extremist for justice—'Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.' Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ—'I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.' Was not Martin Luther an extremist—'Here I stand; I can do none other so help me God.' Was not John Bunyan an extremist—'I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.' Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist—'This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.' Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist—'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' So the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice—or will we be extremists for the cause of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill, three men were crucified. We must not forget that all three were crucified for the same crime—the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thusly fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. So, after all, maybe the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this. Maybe I was too optimistic. Maybe I expected too much. I guess I should have realized that few members of a race that has oppressed another race can understand or appreciate the deep groans and passionate yearnings of those that have been oppressed and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too small in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some like Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden and James Dabbs have written about our struggle in eloquent, prophetic and understanding terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy roach-infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of angry policemen who see them as 'dirty nigger lovers.' They, unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful 'action' antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.

Let me rush on to mention my other disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Rev. Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a non-segregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.

But despite these notable exceptions I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say that as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say it as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

I had the strange feeling when I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery several years ago, that we would have the support of the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be some of our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of the stained-glass windows.

In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause, and with deep moral concern, serve as the channel through which our just grievances would get to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed. I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshippers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say, 'follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother.' In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, 'Those are social issues with which the gospel has no real concern.' And I have watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely other-worldly religion which made a strange distinction between body and soul, the sacred and the secular.

So here we are moving toward the exit of the twentieth century with a religious community largely adjusted to the status quo, standing as a tail-light behind other community agencies rather than a headlight leading men to higher levels of justice.

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at her beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlay of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over again I have found myself asking: 'What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave the clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when tired, bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?'

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment, I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church; I love her sacred walls. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great-grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being 'disturbers of the peace' and 'outside agitators.' But they went on with the conviction that they were 'a colony of heaven,' and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be 'astronomically intimidated.' They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.

Things are different now. The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. I am meeting young people every day whose disappointment with the church has risen to outright disgust.

Maybe again, I have been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to status-quo to save our nation and the world? Maybe I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ecclesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone through the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been kicked out of their churches, and lost support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have gone with the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. These men have been the leaven in the lump of the race. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the Gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope though the dark mountain of disappointment.

I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are presently misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with the destiny of America. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. For more than two centuries our fore-parents labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; and they built the homes of their masters in the midst of brutal injustice and shameful humiliation—and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

I must close now. But before closing I am impelled to mention one other point in your statement that troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping 'order' and 'preventing violence.' I don't believe you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its angry violent dogs literally biting six unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I don't believe you would so quickly commend the policemen if you would observe their ugly and inhuman treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you would watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you would see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you will observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I'm sorry that I can't join you in your praise for the police department.

It is true that they have been rather disciplined in their public handling of the demonstrators. In this sense they have been rather publicly 'nonviolent'. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the last few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. So I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Maybe Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather publicly nonviolent, as Chief Pritchett was in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of flagrant racial injustice. T. S. Eliot has said that there is no greater treason than to do the right deed for the wrong reason.

I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of the most inhuman provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, courageously and with a majestic sense of purpose, facing jeering and hostile mobs and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two year old woman of Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride the segregated buses, and responded to one who inquired about her tiredness with ungrammatical profundity; 'my feet is tired, but my soul is rested.' They will be the young high school and college students, young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders courageously and nonviolently sitting-in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience's sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, and thusly, carrying our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Never before have I written a letter this long, (or should I say a book?). I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else is there to do when you are alone for days in the dull monotony of a narrow jail cell other than write long letters, think strange thoughts, and pray long prayers?

If I have said anything in this letter that is an overstatement of the truth and is indicative of an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything in this letter that is an understatement of the truth and is indicative of my having a patience that makes me patient with anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader, but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Source: © Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Mild Winter Of My Contentment

last saturday, my friend and i decided to celebrate the 70 plus degree temperature by walking to the little red lighthouse that's tucked underneath the george washington bridge. we walked along the bike path to get there, stopping occasionally to take in the picture-perfect day. at one point, as i turned around to take in the brilliance of the sun over the water i realized that i had forgotten my camera and i was profoundly disappointed. but then i remembered that my treo had a camera. that's what i used to take these pictures. not bad for a phone.



evidently, the little red lighthouse is quite the landmark: built in 1921, deactivated in 1947 and saved by millions of little children because of a book that told its story. in the fall, there's a little red lighthouse festival with food and music, a hayride (!!!) and lighthouse tours. i wonder if its haunted?

well. that was last weekend. this one includes a national "black" holiday (the only national black holiday, actually), one that has most of my friends working -- except the black folk i know who refuse to not take the day off. to celebrate dr. king and his life's work, i just might go see little richard at bb king's. then again, being who i really am, without apology or explanation -- an uppity negress, basically -- is celebration enough.

if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be priceless!

here's james brown, in action -- and in french, evidently. so nice to glimpse his greatness, mustache and all. enjoy!

james brown's wake: a view from west harlem

I got a phone call from Jack Sprat in the middle of the afternoon a few weeks ago. He told me that they had brought James Brown’s body down 125th street in a white carriage earlier, drawn by white horses, festooned with white plumes on their heads. They drove all night from Atlanta to have him there by 1pm. Later, I would see photos of his family walking beside that carriage led by a remarkably somber Al Sharpton, with all of the pomp and dignity that’s usually reserved for dignitaries and heads of state. How completely and utterly perfect, to bring him to the very heart of Harlem, the (cultural) capital of Black America, the site of what many consider to be his greatest triumph – Live At The Apollo, the series of performances that changed so much for him. For all of us as a people, really.

This is the part where I was going to try to explain exactly why Harlem is such a special place and why it matters so much to me and just about every other black person that I know or have ever met. How when I decided to live in New York City, there was no other neighborhood. But I don’t think I can.

I remember when a trip to Charleston brought me to a family reunion for my aunt’s people. When I told one of them that I lived in Harlem, she looked starstruck. I felt compelled to ask why. She said that although she traveled far and wide, she’d never seen anything like it: coming up from out of the125th station at Frederick Douglass Boulevard, there was every kind of black person imaginable, from all over the entire span of the African diaspora, every shade, every ilk, everyone – from the beautiful Senegalese woman draped in beautiful robes waiting to cross the street to that Nigerian graduate student on his way to City College to the Kenyans and the 'Bamas playing chess and arguing politics at Starbucks to the that ghetto princess, that thug, that hoodrat that everybody knows to the neighborhood grandmother from somewhere down South that everybody loves, making her way to prayer service, and all kinds of southerners everywhere – everyone, all together, and busy, moving at a pace she could neither understand or keep up with. All of us, a sea of Africans to the core, living ordinary lives of epic significance. This sight, when combined with the history of the area that oozed at you from every nook and cranny all around you, had a dizzying almost stultifying effect on anyone that came uptown. More so for black folk, because it’s ours.

I can’t forget the look of awe and wonder and pride that was set aglow on her face as she described all this to me in painstaking detail.

If Jack hadn’t called me, I would never have known that they were holding a wake for James Brown at the Apollo. I was resolved to go the following day but before I knew it, I was in the throes of unhinging my apartment – cleaning, reorganizing, and discarding things that I’d held onto for years. Dana was moving into her own place off Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and I told her that she could take a few large pieces. She promised to come by at 4pm. Three hours later, she showed up – all apologies. The wake was to end at 9pm but I went anyway. Ralph went with me.

In retrospect, I’m glad we did.

We walked down Convent Avenue to 126th street and headed east, the route I used to take when I did Harlem Song. I can still remember the older black folks I would wave to on the way there, the bodega I’d stop in to get a cup of tea occasionally and the crackhead that would wave me down everyday before I got to the backstage door, like we’d known each other our whole lives. (I miss doing that show...) That familiarity still rang true. Although we could hear it from Convent Avenue, by the time we got to St. Nicholas Avenue, we could see the overspill, and it was all over creation. It was all of us Africans from the far-reaching corners of the globe that my distant relative had seen on her Harlem visit, to the tenth power. And it was glorious.

The line stretched all the way down past 129th street with a huge bottleneck in front of the benta funeral home, strangely enough. There were a lot of police and an endless array of barricades and the confusion that comes with traffic routed and rerouted. There were storefronts and boomboxes and cars circling the area slowly, all of them blaring James Brown songs. There were those who felt compelled to testify, to television interviewers on cameras and into radio microphones and to any passerby. There were those who played congas in the middle of the street, those who made grand proclamations and read poetry aloud. There were those who cried openly. There were those who felt compelled to dance. All of this was happening all around us. It was emotional and spontaneous and random and free. The last time I felt anything anywhere near that, I was either at the Grand Canyon or a Parliament Funkadelic show. Both experiences left me with the same sensation: that i was face to face with something that completely overwhelmed me from the inside out.

Once I realized that I couldn’t get through the backstage door, Ralph remarked that they may as well have had a gigantic pile of pure gold inside. The security around the area was that tight. We drifted towards the front of the building in the hopes that I would be able to grab someone that I knew but a cop told me that they were about to cut the line off because they didn’t want to stay out there all night long. Ralph quickly suggested we get going before the rest of the crowd behind us figured it out. We drifted along its periphery, chatting here and there until we walked the length of 125th street and realized that we were hungry. we opted for fish in a nearby african restaurant off of St. Nicholas Avenue instead of a fish sandwich from my favorite spot, "a taste of seafood (and a touch of soul)" over by Mt. Morris Park (or Marcus Garvey Park, depending on who you ask).

there was still so much excitement in the air, as we drifted along. I couldn't shake the sensation that something was about to happen. i think that's when i realized that all of us, all together -- that was the excitement. our unity, our collective selves, even in sorrow, made us one and filled us with conviction and joy and a kind of power that can only come in such moments. when do those moments happen nowadays in the black community?

it was revolutionary, somehow. it was explosive at that moment, as someone walked by brightly singing "say it loud (i'm black and i'm proud)," i felt a wonderful connectedness to every African everywhere, whether they were from mali or all the way around the corner. i knew that the love i felt in that instant might fade but that connectedness never would.

what's the next spark to bring us together?

what happened to me?

Where did the time go?

Five minutes ago, it was spring. I couldn’t believe that I actually grew narcissus in the dead of winter and I was seriously considering adding another blooming flower to my indoor makeshift apartment garden when suddenly I found myself in the midst of summer stock and then recording with rope-a-dope and then work. A flurry of gigs transgressed, the way they always do. I woke up in late autumn with a desk job, a (boy)friend and no gym membership. Now, that's a blactress trifecta if there ever was one. *sigh* Trust me on this (because I know): When you want to keep your edge creatively, those three things are the axis of evil. Here's the kicker: In my spare time (when I had any), I was sitting around, practicing my guitar or my piano. practicing! My backside was turning to lard – which for me means a size 8 instead of a size 4. A crisis ensued, mainly because I don’t believe in buying bigger clothes when I pile on the poundage. Oh, no. I believe in strapping myself to a treadmill and getting back into what I've got in my closet. I’m too cheap to do anything but keep myself lean, stitch my clothes up and keep it moving.

I had nothing to wear in The Mild Winter Of My Contentment but my vintage Diane von Furstenberg wrap dresses. It gave me an excellent excuse to be a dazzling urbanite at any given moment. Random occasions were bound to occur. Case in point: James Brown’s wake (which I’m still processing and yes, you’ll hear about it in a minute). That’s right about when Christmas Eve found me motoring to Pennsylvania to visit with my friend’s family, New Year’s Eve found my friend and I in Koreatown and New Year’s Day was awash in collards and black eyed peas downtown with my friend’s friend, a Texan who believes in seasoning such things with as much pork as possible. (Dee-lish.) I brought a freshly baked pound cake with me (it’s actually a very good southern blackgrrl calling card), hung out for the company, stayed longer than I thought I would to watch the Edie Sedgwick biopic “Factory Girl” (what a dud) starring that insipid Sienna Miller (ditto).

I sauntered back uptown at a reasonable hour, feeling like a responsible adult. All the way there I tried to figure out what happened to my year and why it ran out on me the way that it did. Somewhere in there, I stopped trying and went to bed. But the question remains. And sometimes it nags at me. What happened to my year? What’s happening to my life? Is everything speeding up, or what?

Maybe that’s why I’m blogging – so I can keep up with all of it, somehow.

i can feel myself staggering into the work week but i have no intentions of falling down, unless i mean to hit the ground running. and i will, in time. time off will give me a second wind. i'm going to pray for rain -- the kind that means fertility and not destruction, the kind that nurtures and grows things and not the kind that kills. the compelling kind. it's a new year, a new beginning, a new plan of action. according to parliament, this is a chance to dance my way out of my constrictions. i do believe i'll take it.

lead or follow. keep up or get left behind. sink or swim. root hog or die.

Happy New Year!

Here's a little something for everyone's new year:

The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun