THE DRAGONS

THE DRAGONS

When George Floyd was killed, or Freddie Gray or Michael Brown there is intense, widespread outrage and mass protests but then things die down until the next murder. The Dragon Panel Project connects these isolated events, touches people’s hearts and brings awareness that it is part of a system.

An Open Letter to Mary Daly by Audre Lorde

An Open Letter to Mary Daly by Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde wrote a letter in May 1977 to white feminist Mary Daly, the author of the book Gyn/Ecology. “Four months later, having received no reply, I open it to the community of women… I wondered, why doesn’t Mary deal with Afrekete as an example? Why are her goddess-images only white, western-european, judeo-christian? Where was afrekete, Yemaya, Oyo and Mawulisa?” —Audre Lorde

In the morning, you won’t find me here: A meditation in Blackness

In the morning, you won’t find me here: A meditation in Blackness

I am a black man.
I was planted in deep, loamy, black soil by my black father.
Cradled, cultured and coaxed out like a tuber of yam by my black mother.
Though I came from one womb, I am birthed by many mothers – some of skin like bark and timber, some of eyes of yellow like cassava.
I have a scandalous affinity with shadows in this here regime of light.

Things I Didn’t Know

by James Mulholland | May 2019
Nine years ago, I began to slowly awaken to my racial prejudices and white privilege.  It was a rude awakening.  During the past three years, I’ve blogged about that journey from racial ignorance.  Recently, someone asked me what have been the biggest surprises along the way.  What do I know now that I didn’t know before?  What follows is a short list of some of my bigger epiphanies and the posts where I shared these revelations.

  • I didn’t know scholars and sociologists believe nearly 100% of enslaved women were sexually assaulted.  I didn’t know how much the free access of white men to black bodies was part of white culture.  Some sociologists estimate 50% of all children of slaves had a white father.  This kind of sexual aggression continued throughout Jim Crow.  I didn’t know the conviction of a white man for raping a black woman was extremely rare before 1960.  When Rape Was Legal.
  • I didn’t know that – in some ways – the years after the end of slavery were worse than during slavery.  I didn’t know vagrancy laws allowed white people to “arrest and convict” nearly any black person and enslave them.  Thousands of black families were torn apart as fathers were sent off to “serve their time” in factories and on farms.  The death rate at these prison camps was as high as 50%, meaning that the penalty for “vagrancy” in the south was often death.  Worse Than Slavery.

TAGS: [Slavery] [Racial Terrorism] [White Privilege] [History] [White Blindness] [2010’s]

Fighting Hitler and Jim Crow: The forgotten Black soldiers of D-Day

by Rebecca Santana | June 2019
Roughly 2,000 African-American troops are believed to have hit the shores of Normandy in various capacities on June 6, 1944. Serving in a U.S. military still segregated by race, they encountered discrimination both in the service and when they came home. But on Normandy, they faced the same danger as everyone else.
During World War II, it was unheard of for African-American officers to lead white soldiers, and they faced discrimination even while in the service. Black troops were often put in support units responsible for transporting supplies. But during the Normandy invasion, that didn’t mean they were immune from danger….
After fighting fascism in Europe, many African-American troops were met with discrimination yet again at home. Jones remembers coming back the U.S. after the war’s end and having to move to the back of a bus as it crossed the Mason-Dixon line separating North from South. He recalls being harassed by police officers after returning to Louisiana.
“I couldn’t sit with the soldiers I had been on the battlefield with. I had to go to the back of the bus,” said Jones, who went on to become a lawyer and civil rights activist in Baton Rouge. “Those are the things that come back and haunt you.”
tags: [Racial Terrorism] [History] [Systemic Racism] [2010’s]