Commemorating Earth Day

Today is Earth Day. Yesterday I went to the post office and bought a sheet of 20 postage stamps that commemorate Earth Day.

Let's honor and protect the Earth, our home.

National Poetry Month

A reminder, April is National Poetry Month. So find a good book of poetry, or if you prefer, a good book of fiction, to soothe your frazzled nerves in these days and weeks of a worldwide pandemic. And as you turn the pages, have a relaxing cup of tea or coffee nearby.

Coronavirus Alert

Re: Coronavirus: wash your hands with soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizer. For more information, visit nyc.gov/coronavirus.

The American Cities People Most Want To Say Goodbye To

The website MSN Money posted an article by Doug Whiteman dated June 19, 2019 listing the 19 American cities people are most eager to pack up and leave.

Here is the list of cities in descending order along with the reasons people gave for wanting to get out of town:

19. Indianapolis--bad roads, extreme cold.
18. Spokane,Washington--unemployment high, renters priced out.
17. Richmond,Virginia--bad schools, costly housing.
16. Des Moines, Iowa--unforgiving weather.
15. Eugene, Oregon--housing costs.
14. Champaign, Illinois--Weather stinks, outside of town is nothing but cornfields; Chicago's two to three hours away.
13. Rockford, Illinois-- unemployment high (5.4%);public schools are poor; high crime rate.
12. Houston--unemployment, housing, and living costs are all above the national average; flood prone.
11. South Bend, Indiana--punishing winters; high rates for murder and other violent crime and bad roads. (Pete Buttigieg, are you listening?)
10. Detroit--(current population is 673,000; 1.8 million in the 1950s); high unemployment.
9. Milwaukee--lacks decent schools and public transportation.
8. Hartford, Connecticut--high property tax; unemployment (6.4%).
7. Seattle--housing not cheap; weather is cloudy and rainy.
6. Denver--high cost of housing.
5. Chicago--cold weather; horrid traffic; high cost of property tax and cost of living.
4. Washington, D.C.--high cost of housing and property taxes.
3. Los Angeles--high cost of living; soaring rents and stiff property taxes plus freeway backups.
2. San Francisco--expensive real estate.
1. New York--America's most fled metro area; steep food and housing costs.

We Need "A Red Record" For The 21st Century

In 1895, while living in Chicago, African-American social activist, journalist, public intellectual Ida B. Wells published A Red Record. In it, writes Iowa State University professor Brian Behnken in his essay,"The Quest for Racial Change," published in Black Intellectual Thought in Modern America (University Press of Mississippi, 2017), "Wells forcefully articulated an intellectual vision regarding how the government could work to end lynching." (Page 83)

We need a similar publication like A Red Record in the 21st century to document the numerous shooting deaths of black men, women, and children across the United States by police officers and non-police individuals.

These shootings have reached such an epidemic level that A Red Record-like publication would help put a human face to these deaths with photographs, background information, and a summary of each shooting incident. They would no longer be just statistics in a newspaper or an evening newscast.

A 900 to 1,000-page record of these deaths would demonstrate to political, civic, religious, and academic leaders that there is a dire need for a solution to this slaughter that's taking place in our urban areas. Gun violence is not just a legal issue, it is first and foremost a public health issue inextricably linked to mental health.

Black History Month Suggestions

Last year (February 4,  2019), Dr. Steve Kussin, the education reporter for WCBS Newsradio Eight-Eighty in New York, did a one-minute segment suggesting ways schoolchildren could celebrate Black History Month.

Below are Dr. Kussin's suggestions:

"Listen to some famous speeches such as Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream'; study the landmark court case Brown versus Board of Ed; read the biographies of famous black people such as Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, and Paul Robeson; research famous African-American inventors and performers who made it in the arts; schedule a concert featuring the music from the Civil Rights Movement; read a novel or short story written by an African-American author; plan a dance festival; schedule a concert; plan an exhibit featuring the work of black artists; hold a food festival; search for photos capturing the civil rights struggles; interview people who were active in the movement; view the CNN series Black America; organize an assembly or design a project supporting a charity important to the African-American community. Quite a list."

Indeed, it is quite a list. And a useful one, too. However, despite Dr. Kussin's good intentions, he, like a lot of people in the media, ignore the fact that Black History Month is not just about the accomplishments of black people in the United States. There are and have been black people in other parts of  the world, including, needless to say, sub-Saharan Africa. And to limit the focus to the United States gives schoolchildren a distorted and incomplete view of black history. It renders non-American blacks invisible and unimportant. To be fair, Dr. Kussin did mention Nelson Mandela but that is only one name from outside the United States.

Overlooking black people from outside the United States ignores the fact that various black-led movements such as the Harlem Renaissance (or the New Negro Movement) influenced, and in turn, were influenced by others in the African diaspora.

It is important to reveal these interconnections and cross-pollinations to get a better understanding of black lives, black thinking, and black accomplishments in all of their diversity.

Note: Kussin is pronounced "kew-sin."

Magazines I Would Like Brought Back

Three magazines that I miss and would love to see revived are Negro Digest (aka Black World), Quinto Lingo, and Book Digest. I have a few issues of each magazine.

Negro Digest published by Johnson Publishing, the publishers of Ebony and Jet, and later renamed Black World, was a magazine that featured articles, essays, short stories, poetry, and book reviews by leading writers and academics like Larry Neal, Amiri Baraka, Addison Gayle, Jr., et al. Despite that, it was accessible to a lay audience. If Black World were around today, I can see Ta-Nehisi Coates, Edwidge Danticat, Walter Mosley, Michael Eric Dyson, among others writing for it for a new generation.

Quinto Lingo was for language enthusiasts. Stories were presented in five languages side by side (hence the magazine's name). Those languages were English, German, Spanish, French, and Italian. There were also English-only articles in each issue focusing on a particular language like the one called "If You Speak Spanish You Can Speak Ladino" (May 1969).

Book Digest was a Reader's Digest for book lovers like myself. Each issue carried a condensed version of fiction and nonfiction books like Peter Straub's supernatural novel Ghost Story (September 1979). Although the books selected were in the best seller category, a contemporary version could also include non-best sellers that would be of interest to bibliophiles.

These magazines are sorely missed by me and I would welcome them back in a heartbeat.