us troops massacre iraqi family

La Voz de Aztlan: US troops massacre 11 member Iraqi family

muslim enclaves in the west

Assyrian International News Agency: The Islamist Challenge to the U.S. Constitution discusses the implications and challenges of Muslims in the West forming distinct communities in order to more fully follow the principles of Islamic life.

santana and iraq

LIMA, Peru - Carlos Santana, speaking to Peruvian journalists ahead of a Tuesday concert, said young people's opposition to the war in Iraq is reaching the dimensions of the anti-Vietnam war sentiment in the 1970s.

"There is more value in placing a flower in a rifle barrel than making war," he said. "As Jimi Hendrix used to say, musical notes have more importance than bullets."

In 1971, Santana was prevented from performing in Peru by the military dictatorship, which deemed his music an "alienating" force. Santana returned to perform in 1995
(full story)

Planet Grenada: carlos santana

what if she was condoleezza jenkins?

That's kind of deep. A radio host accidentally says "coon" when talking about Condoleezza Rice. (And if you look at the transcript, it really looks like an accident. It's not like some weird shock jock stunt) And he gets fired immediately. Wow.

But then that raises the obvious question: what happens to a working class African-American woman who ISN'T semi-married to the President when they get called "coon" for real? Is this about race, or class, or just power?

---
The original link expired but I found a replacement here.

better late than never...

Unfortunately this conference already passed, but if you check their website you can get some sense of what state-of-the-art research is like in this area. IRADAC (Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean) in NY just had a day-long conference on March 17 called "Departures and Definitions of Afro-Latino and Afro-Latin American Identity in the New Millennium"

mexico and immigration

Immigration has been in the news lately, especially related to Mexico. I just thought I'd give a taste:
StarTelegram.Com: Mexican ads push guest-worker plan
Trentonian: ‘We are workers, not terrorists’
Black Electorate: Mexico And The Migration Phenomenon
Immigration Daily: Two Sides Of The Same Coin: The Connection Between Legal And Illegal Immigration by James R. Edwards, Jr.

latinos and baseball

I first thought about bringing these links together a long time ago when Spike TV announced that they were doing a special on Latinos in baseball. But then I more seriously started to look for link in early March, but then didn't really work much on it until now. To be honest, I'm not a big sports fan but I figured it would be interesting to see what was out there. Obviously alot of the Latinos in baseball are Afro-Latino which raises some interesting questions. But the last straw which finally got my butt in gear was just the fact that Cuba made it to the final game of the World Baseball Classic (and lost, unfortunately)

Now that I think about it, I wonder if anyone has done research on Afro-Latino identity and baseball players, especially around the time baseball was segregated. I remember reading that at times, African-American baseball players would try to "pass" as Latino and pretend to speak Spanish on the field in order to be able to play against white teams. And in the same vein the New York Cubans (an old team from the Negro Leagues) had no Cubans on the team. Anyway, if anyone could point me to good sources, I'd be interested.

Color Lines: Fields of Broken Dreams: Latinos and Baseball by Marcos Bretón

Early players hit home run for racial equality by Russell Contreras

Minnie Miñoso (Saturnino Orestes Armas Miñoso Arrieta) was a Black Cuban baseball player who played for the Chicago White Sox (and in Mexico, and in the Negro leagues). My dad knew him from a long time ago and somewhere in my house I think there is an autographed photo of him.

ESPN: Rise of the Latinos: Arriba Baseball brings together a number of different profiles and articles on Latinos in baseball.

Latino Legends in Sports Online Magazine and specifically: Latinos in the Major Leagues: The breakdown 2000

Major League Baseball Players by National Origin

Latino Baseball (Your Complete Guide to Latino Baseball)

Wikipedia: Roberto Clemente
Official Roberto Clemente Site

Other Grenada "sports" posts:
accepting the slurs
new york cubans
what's my name, fool?

this is what you can do with a good thesaurus

Will Durst: Don't Impeach, Impale

farrakhan in cuba

Most Grenada-esque post in a while:

Havana, Mar 20 (Prensa Latina) US religious leader Louis Farrakhan began a Cuba visit Monday, with plans to meet with US youth studying medicine on the Island.

Upon his arrival in this capital, Farrakhan, also a fighter against racism and poverty, was welcomed by Cuban Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon.

During his stay in the country, he will meet with Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and other political and social leaders.

As his first official activity, the religious leader will visit the Latin American School of Medicine where about 20,000 students from different countries are studying, including several US low-income youths unable to afford the universities in their country.

Farrakhan also plans to meet with relatives of the five anti-terrorist Cuban prisoners in the US, and members of the Henry Reeve Contingent, made up of Cuban doctors assisting other peoples in natural disaster situations.

The US leader will also tour an art instructors´ school, and meet Cuban athletes.

Prensa Latina

anarchism, hollywood-style

Alternet: Anarchism, Hollywood-Style by Anthony Kaufman, a review of V is for Vendetta. Check out:(the film or the graphic novel)

"a soul, three fingers and at least one good eye"

I once went to an open mike heard a poem which was inspired by Gil Scott-Heron's famous piece "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". It had a line that went "The revolution will make the government start to suspect and profile anyone with a soul, three fingers, and at least one good eye". It seems like those days are just around the corner. Just between you and me, I could almost understand some of the paranoid anti-Muslim measures which the neo-cons and the powers that be are in favor of these days. I certainly don't agree with them and I think they are horribly mistaken, but I can at least wrap my head around theirs. I "get" where they are coming from. I expect it.

But now, even more mainstream folks who speak out of turn are turning up on the radar:

the American Civil Liberties Union released a series of once secret FBI files that show the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force conducted a secret investigation into the activities of the Thomas Merton Center beginning as early as November 2002, and continuing up until at least last March.

Alternet: Punished for Pacifism

pat robertson is evil: reason #704

Pat Robertson AGAIN calls for Chavez to be assassinated ?!?!? Didn't he realize that he was wrong the first time? Whatever happened to "Thou shalt not kill" and "Love your enemies"? And at the very very least, doesn't he realize it was a bad PR move to call for folks to be assassinated on public airwaves?

MediaMatters for America: Robertson again calls for Chavez's assassination: "Not now, but one day"

past reasons:
pat robertson is evil: reason #865
pat robertson is evil: reason #873

chavez's alleged anti-semitism

Alternet: Chavez's Alleged Anti-Semitism which follows up somewhat from Planet Grenada: chavez and anti-semitism

what has hip-hop really done for racism?

From Black Electorate: What has Hip-Hop really done for Racism? by Al-Tariq Ibn Shabazz.

Especially as someone who grew up on Public Enemy and KRS-ONE I still want to hold onto some of my optimism when it comes to thinking about the power of music to politically enlighten urban youth.

I can't help but think of Common's "I used to love H.E.R. (Hip-hop in its Essence and Reality)"

She didn't have a body but she started gettin thick quick
Did a couple of videos and became afrocentric
Out goes the weave, in goes the braids beads medallions
She was on that tip about, stoppin the violence
About my people she was teachin me
By not preachin to me but speakin to me
in a method that was leisurely, so easily I approached
She dug my rap, that's how we got close

But I also have to admit that Ibn Shabazz has a point. If it is true that “The sole purpose of racism is to support and ensure that the White majority and its ethnic subgroups continue to dominate and use Blacks as a means to produce wealth and power” then the music industry in general, and hip-hop in particular are more part of the problem than the solution, especially if you think about how economic power is exercised behind the scenes.

More sober thoughts on hip-hop's limitations from Planet Grenada:
yo! pbs raps
the revolution won't have a video

circle of the black thorn

I wonder if Black Thorn League inspired the fictional Circle of the Black Thorn which appeared in the last season of Angel:

SPIKE
Who they?

LINDSEY
The Circle of the Black Thorn.

LORNE
Sounds like a little sewing club for pirates.

LINDSEY
It's a secret society.

GUNN
Never heard of them.

LINDSEY
That's 'cause they're secret.
(Gunn smirks)

SPIKE
There's plenty of these cabals about. They usually spend a lot of time in basements paddling one another's bums to prove their manhood.

LINDSEY
These are not frat boys, Spike. The circle's small. It's elite. They got connections you boys can't even comprehend.

WESLEY
They're evil.

LINDSEY
Sure. But evil's not the point. Power is.

WESLEY
Power.

GUNN
OK, we get it. They're bad ass. What do they do?

LINDSEY
(snickers)
Jeez. Are you guys always this slow? Huh? Starts with an "a," ends in "pocalypse." It's a well-oiled machine, this circle. These people grease the wheels, keep the parts in place. Make sure man's inhumanity to man keeps rolling along.

WESLEY
We thought the senior partners were responsible for the apocalypse.

LINDSEY
The senior partners are on a different plane. Down here...it's the players in the circle that make things happen. Hell, you get tapped by one of them, it's kind of like getting the keys to the chocolate factory.

Hakim Bey with his Temporary Autonomous Zones, Imam-of-one's-own-being concept and his Nambla involvement may not seem hellishly apocalyptically evil, but is arguably in the same ballpark as the evil secret society which appeared on Angel.

hard time for soft drinks

Alternet: Hard Time for Soft Drinks about the evils of pop. From time to time I think about the field of "prophetic medicine" or health in general and wonder if I should live a more natural kind of lifestyle. If I find some interesting information I'll pass it along.

green tea with the imam of the age

This is an older piece from Michael Muhammad Knight where he interviewed Peter Lamborn Wilson/ Hakim Bey: Green Tea with the Imam of the Age

moors, snakes and st. patrick

The Moorish Science Temple of America was a proto-Islamic group founded by Noble Drew Ali which gained some prominence in the United States among African-Americans before the Nation of Islam came on the scene. Not completely unlike the Nation, the Moorish Science had their own peculiar racial doctrines which set up a theological difference between whites and blacks. And so later on, when European-Americans (many of them "hippies" and "beatniks") saw something in Noble Drew Ali's teachings which was appealing to them and they wanted to accept the prophethood of Noble Drew Ali and form the Moorish Orthodox Church, a certain amount of explanation was required. And it just so happens that the explanation they chose connects Islam and the Moors to St. Patrick's Day.


Manifesto of the BLACK THORN LEAGUE

1. According to orally-transmitted teachings of Noble Drew Ali, founder & Prophet of the Moorish Science Temple of America: -- Ireland was once part of the Moorish Empire; that is, the celts were Moslems, & there were black moors from N. Africa also present in Ireland. But the moors were expelled by militant Christianity -- this event is disguised in the legend of St. Patrick's expelling the snakes - for which reason the MST celebrates St. Patrick's Day, in a mood of irony perhaps, in expectation of an eventual Return.

2. In Noble Drew Ali's system, celts are considered an "Asiatic race", & thus potential converts to Moorish Science. We consider NDA's theories to be racial but not racist, because (again according to oral tradition) they were based (at least in part) on spiritual affinity. "Europeans" who wished to Join the MST (including some of the later founders of the Moorish Orthodox Church) were declared to be really celts or "Persians" -- (which may have something to do with the oft-remarked similarity of Eiran and Iran).

3. NDA's hidden history of Ireland may be taken as an esoteric metaphor -but it is supported in some surprising ways by archaeology & even "official" history. In the first place, the celts are an Asiatic race, or at least the most recent arrivals in the west from the mysterious "Hyperborean" heartland of the Aryans -- last of those nomadic migrations which settled India, Persia & Greece.

4. Second: What is one to make of those early Celtic crosses inscribed with the bismillah ("In the Name of God", opening words of the Koran) in kufic Arabic, found in Ireland? The Celtic Church, before its destruction by the Roman hierarchy, maintained a close connection with the desert hermit-monks of Egypt. Is it possible this connection persisted past the 7th/8th centuries, & that the role of the monks was taken up by Moslems? by Sufis? in contact with a still-surviving underground Celtic Church, now become completely heretical, & willing to syncretize Islamic esotericism with its own Nature-oriented & poetic Faith?

5. Such a syncresis was certainly performed centuries later by the Templars & the Assassins (Nizari Ismailis). When the Temple was suppressed by Rome & its leaders burned at the stake, Ireland provided refuge for many incognito Templars. According to The Temple & The Lodge, these Templars later reorganized as a rogue Irish branch of Freemasonry, which (in the early 18th century) would resist amalgamation with the London Grand Lodge. The Islamic connection with masonry is quite clear, both in the Templar & the Rosicrucian traditions, but Irish masonry may have inherited an even earlier Islamic link -- memorialized in those enigmatic crosses!

6. It's interesting to note that Noble Drew Ali's Masonic initiations may not have been limited to Prince Hall or black Shriner transmissions, but may also have included some hidden lines connected to Irish masonry, & dating back to Revolutionary days in American history. It is known that many common soldiers in the British Colonial Army were masons affiliated with the Irish rather than the London Grand Lodge. This "class" difference -was reflected in the American Revolutionary Army, whose officers were "official" masons but whose private ranks tended to be "Irish".

7. Historians sometimes forget that in the 18th century, in America, the Irish were generally considered "no better than Negroes". In 1741 on St. Patrick's Day in New York a riot broke out, involving a conspiracy which included Irish, African, & Native American men & women -- naturally "of the meanest sort." Some Irish conspirators were overheard to swear they'd kill as many "white people" as possible. The uprising failed & the plotters were executed. As the bodies of two hanged in the open air decayed in an Iron gibbet, "observers noticed a gruesome, yet instructive, transformation. The corpse of an Irishman turned black & his hair curly while the corpse of Caesar the African, bleached white. It was accounted a 'wondrous phenomenon'" (Linebaugh & Rediker, "The Many-Headed Hydra").

8. Clearly the Celt & African were linked not only in the gaze of the oppressor class, but also in their own world-view -- as comrades, as somehow the same -- in a solidarity which extended to Indians & to other "Europeans" who fell beneath the level of the "respectable poor" into the category of slaves & outcasts. Racist feelings did not divide the 18th century poor & marginalized -- as would become the case under later Capitalism. Rather the marginalized of all races constituted an underclass & moreover, an underclass with some awareness of itself, hence with a certain power (the power of the "strong victim"). This consciousness might well have been developed in part by Irish-black "masonry" of some sort. And Noble Drew Ali might have known of this tradition, which he masked (or perhaps unveiled) in his parable of the snakes - & celebration of March 17th.

9. In another interpretation of St. Patrick's anti-reptilism, the "snakes" he banished were in fact "druids", i.e. Celtic pagans. The snake may have been an emblem of the Old Faith, as it is for many forms of paganism, including African (Damballah) & Indian (the Nagas) -- & even for the Ophite Christianity of Egypt (Christ himself depicted as a crucified snake).

10. Celtic pagan lore was embedded in the Romance traditions especially in the Arthurian material -- & here once again. we find ourselves in the world of the Arabo-Celtic crosses. For the romances are permeated with "Islamic" consciousness. In Malory's Morte dArthur & Eschenbach's Parzifal many Saracen (i.e. Moslem/Moorish) knights are depicted not as enemies but allies of the Celts -- & in the latter book the entire story is attributed to Moorish sources (which are now lost). Saracens, Christians, & crypto-pagans are united in a mystical cult of chivalry which transcends outward religious forms, & is emblematized not only in pagan symbols like the Grail & the Questing Beast, but even in such cultural borrowings as the lute (al-'ud in Arabic), or indeed the cult of romantic/chivalric love, transmitted from Islam to the west by Sufis in Spain.

11. Ireland's contacts with Spain certainly extend back into the Islamic period, & the so-called "Black Irish" may have as many Moorish as castillian genes. Medieval Irish monks probably absorbed Sufism & Islamic philosophy along with the art of the illuminated manuscript -- witness the extraordinary stylistic resonance between the Book of Eells & the Kufic Korans of Omayyad Spain. If St. Francis could visit N. Africa & come back to Italy wearing a Sufi's patched cloak, so the Irish might easily borrow from Egypt & al-Andalus.

12. All speculation aside, the Moorish Orthodox Church entertains its own esoteric interpretation of NDA's teachings on these matters. We heartily endorse his "elective affinity" theory of affiliation with a greater spiritual Celto-Asiatic "race". DNA counts for something, but soul for a great deal more. "Every man & woman their own vine & fig tree" (one of NDA's slogans) is not a matter of fate but of character, not of birth but of choice.

13. In our historical/imaginative exegesis & unfolding of NDA's parable, we have uncovered a complex of heretical Islamic & Moorish cultural strands linking Celtic neo-paganism, esoteric Christianity, & the Arthurian cycle, thru Sufism & masonry, to the perennial libertarian struggle of the marginalized & oppressed peoples of the "Atlantic" world.

14. We propose to embody this poetic complex in a popular chivalric order, devoted symbolically to the cause of "bringing the snakes back to Ireland" - that is, of uniting all these mystical strands into one patterned weave, which will restore the power of its synergistic or syncretistic power to the hearts of those who respond to the particular "taste" of its mix. We have borrowed this slogan from contemporary neo-pagans in order to symbolize the special mission our order will undertake toward Celtic-Moorish friendship. The BLACK THORN LEAGUE will be open to all, regardless of whether they are MOC members or not, providing only that they support this particular goal.

15. "Black" in our title signifies not only the black banners of the moors but also the black flag of anarchy. "Blackthorn", because the tree symbolizes druid Irelands & is used to make cudgels. "League", in honor of the various Irish rebel groups which have organized as such. Other organizational models include such Masonic revolutionary groups as the Carbonari, or Proudhon's anarchist "Holy Vehm", or Bakunin's Revolutionary Brotherhood. We also emulate certain anarcho-Taoist Chinese tongs (such as the Chaos Society)~~ & hope to evolve the kind of informal mutual aid webworks they developed.

16. The League will bestow the Order of the Black Thorn as title & honor, & will hold an annual conclave & banquet on St. Patrick's Day in memory both of Noble Drew Ali's vision, & of those rioters of 1741 who conspired in low taverns to overthrow the State. Bring The Snakes Back To Ireland!

Hakim Bey:
Moorish Tag Day Update

Planet Grenada:
"funny, you don't look moorish"
white muslims and moorish science
hakim bey, ontological anarchy and cultural expression

"my pride is racist people say, but no one minds st. patrick's day"

I haven't heard this song, or seen this video in a very long time. But given today's date it seemed appropriate. The song is called "Split Personality" from a group called Basehead.

happy birthday to me

Cool. Tomorrow is Planet Grenada's birthday. It's been an interesting year.