Sleeping in Aunt Earnestine's Bed, Part One

One memory of my childhood that I now find hovering over me, just above my consciousness is that of sleeping in my Aunt Earnestine's bed. My aunt Earnestine had one of those tall, high backed, old-fashioned beds, the type that if you successfully climbed up into it on your first try you really needed a medal or something. There were two windows surrounding the bed, one directly behind it, where her climbing rose could be seen growing through the pane right behind the bedboard. The other was in the bottom right hand corner of the bed, letting out onto the front porch. The television sat on a separate stand at the foot of the bed. Mounds of Ebonys and Jets sat on the bottom shelf of the stand. A bookcase sat at the direct right of the bed, a buffer between the bed and the wall. There was always something that I might pluck from the shelf to hold my interest while lying in bed--the entire complete series of those children's bible stories that you always find in doctors' offices; anthologies from the Reader's Digest-always interesting reading material; and other books of varied degrees of interest. On the nightstand situated at the left side of the bed, she always kept various copies of The Daily Word, her glasses, and various other items.

In the top drawers of the chest of drawers across from her bed, one could always find sweet, crunchy peanut butter candy or whole sticks of peppermint, or lemondrops. Those drawers also contained thousands of letters, perhaps merely hundreds, but mounds of them--correspondence that she had kept with her relatives, friends, and other people going back for years. Aunt Earnestine was a renowned letter writer Among her most treasured correspondences, I believe was that she kept with our Cousin Cottye, which went on or over forty years. Also in those drawers, along with those letters, were an autographed picture of a 1950s popular do-wop group and hundreds of notebooks, papers, obituaries, photographs of various relatives, and other documents which altogether I'm sure transcribed her years as a teacher and a principal, her two master's degrees, doctoral work, years as a church steward, sunday school teacher, baker of communion bread and steadfast relative and friend. Her papers not only resided in her chest of drawers. They also claimed their own space in stacks against the back wall against one chiffarobe and again against another chiffarobe in the lower right hand corner of the room. Without fail, as one spent the night in Aunt Earnestine's bed, one could retrieve from the stack of papers that stood against the rear wall, either at her invitation, without her knowledge, or to be shared with her, oreo cookies in the blue paper package, in various states of either smoothness or crumble. Sometimes the package, you could rest very assured, had been in that corner for one or more years, however, you obligingly ate the cookies-not only because they were offered and they were good, but because it wasn't so much the age of the cookies as the sentiment behind them that was enjoyed.

To spend the night in Aunt Earnestine's bed, one was either comforted by the warmth of the mounds of quilts that she kept on the bed, winter, spring, summer or fall, or one constantly tried to fight one's way to the top of the bed to have at least your nose sticking out from under the covers so that you might breathe and not suffocate under the mounds and heaps of bedcovers.

Jennifer Hudson's Christmas Special

Oh my, how I relished and enjoyed Jhud's Christmas special this evening! Talking about nostalgia in high gear! When she went to Evergreen Plaza, I yelped! When I was little, Evergreen Plaza was the place to go! At Christmas, when everything was lit up-there wasn't a better sight anywhere. Oh Chicago, fair city! Kudos to Jennifer for taking it home!

Notes from New York

While in New York I attended a labor conference held at the Joseph. S. Murphy Institute at CUNY. The conference took place very early in the morning my first day there. The topic for the panel was Unemployment and the African American community and the two panelists who spoke were Steven Pitts from California and David Jones from New York. Mr. Pitts is an academic and Mr. Jones is the CEO of a Nonprofit. Here are some of the notes that I jotted down from the session. Mr. Pitts spoke first and spoke about a U.S. Jobs machine-an idea that I had never heard or thought of before--the idea that jobs in this country--in that classic sense of the word, are created through a "jobs machine" as opposed to some kind of organic thing. He spoke about the need for place based jobs--construction, education, hospitality, healthcare-jobs that do not move and therefore are stable. Black women are situated mostly in place-based jobs--primarily domestics and social services.

Pitts' first major question/focal point was "Whats wrong with Black folks and the progressive community?" There has always been a disconnect between the Black Community and the Social Justice community (only with the communists from the beginning of the 20th century up through the 1950s was there truly a cohesive union between the two). The New Deal was basically Affirmative Action for white folks-- the two groups excluded from the Social Security Act--domestics and sharecroppers--blatantly excluding Black folks. Mr. Pitts made it very loud and clear

YOU CANNOT HAVE RACE NEUTRAL POLICIES AND ADDRESS THE ECONOMIC CRISIS AT HAND

(My thoughts--my Aunt Johnnie was very active in the Chicago Teachers Union. My father was active in unions--disdains them-the bad rub for some Blacks with unions).

He said that the country needs to shift the discussion beyond job training -beyond individuals to a much broader picture.

Mr. Jones Asked-

why does the ruling class feel impelled to help the poor? Not because of any noble reasons--Social Control is the idea--you dont want sick immigrant workers handling food in the supermarket--make sure they have reasonable access to healthcare. You dont want a crime problem--fund schools and provide opportunities. Margaret Sanger and the early immigrants of the late 19th and early twentieth centuries.

Black Male Labor Participation. Currently there are approximately four million Black men unemployed in the United States. Rockefeller Drug laws--civil death for nonviolent offenders--they can never participate in the economy- unemployable. Not just an urban problem, but a suburban problem too.

Underpaid workers-- no sick days, no benefits, no unions, no nothing.

One million workers in New York City are working without the benefit of a High School Education.

unemployment rates for people with less than a high school education- 24.2 percent.

In NY half a trillion for transportation infrastructure. Need to create WPA camps.

Welfare reform in NY actually increased the poverty levels... tie that to the need for unionization among low wage workers.

The budget for public housing in NYC alone is 1.3 billion dollars.
Section 3 of New York housing code--give employment priority in public housing sector to public housing residents and people in the local community--this provision ignored.

Blacks and Latinos not universally welcomed into the U.S. labor market.

Unions need power-self interests.

power means the ability to cut deals--Steven Pitts.

David Jones-son of first black assemblyman in NY--friend of Shirley Chisolm.

Detroit has downsized from a population of 3000000 to 600000-all sorts of problems.

Borders are not official--they are an act of power. The nationstate is no longer needed.

Transnational corporations.

How do you engage folk?

My Recent Trip to New York

I just returned from a lovely trip to New York on in the wee hours of Monday morning, where I spent four days in conference. While planning to make the trek to New York, I decided that one thing I wanted to do was find Chez Josephine, the restaurant dedicated to the legacy of Josephine Baker, owned and operated by two of her sons. I found the restaurant on 42nd Street in Manhattan, in the far end of the theatre district. I arrived terribly early, so was not able to eat there but did see the decor and exquisite menu offered.



God and the fates were at play that day as well as quite to my surprise, exactly right next door to Chez Josephine was the famed nightclub, The Lion, where Barbra Streisand got her start oh so many legendary years ago. Not to mention that I stayed in Brooklyn in Flatbush, where I constantly wondered how far I was from the actual birthplace of Barbra....what a lovely time!

Afghanistan the Unwinnable War: Parrallels between the Russian Effort and the American One

A Wonderful Article By Melissa Harris Lacewell

President Obama is steering the ship in the right direction! Right makes might- not Might makes right!

Obama is rewriting the course of America--a Progressive course!

Thoughts on President Obama's Speech on Afghanistan

I love Afghan quilts...."to seek an end to this era of war and violence"....I love President Obama because he is a conscious and beautiful spirit, good in soul and spirit....however, I don't know or think that America will be able to escape this "era of war and violence...." this war and violence is much larger than Obama...it is something in the sinews of this country that will be the destruction of it. I love that he addressed the idea of America no longer being anyone's patron...a nice blow to patriarchy. May he be wise and forthright always....