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The Insurrection and the Lost Cause

Investigators are still going through video and social media documenting the attempt to disrupt congressional affirmation of President Joe Biden’s victory. Just six months ago. 

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A violent insurrection engulfed the U.S. Capitol just six months ago. One United States Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died and other Capitol police are still healing.

Investigators are still going through video and social media documenting the attempt to disrupt congressional affirmation of President Joe Biden’s victory. Just six months ago. 

But many Republican leaders are already trying to rewrite the history of that day and what led up to it.

Some are downplaying the seriousness of the attack on Congress. They portray the invasion as a tourist outing. Some far-right activists are trying to shift blame away from the Trump supporters who were clearly responsible for inciting and carrying out the attack.

The people spreading lies about the Capitol insurrection are the spiritual heirs to the Daughters of the Confederacy. They are the ideological descendants of those who spent decades lying to the American public about slavery and the Civil War.

Promoters of pro-Confederacy propaganda known as “Lost Cause” ideology had a purpose. 

They wanted people to view the defense of slavery and the “southern way of life” as a noble cause. They wanted to create justifications for the brutally enforced segregation and subjugation of Black people during the Jim Crow era. 

They created and promoted in textbooks and media a false version of history. And they used that false version of history to keep a grip on power that they did not deserve to hold.

Republicans who deny or downplay the insurrectionists’ attempt to overturn the presidential election are creating their own Lost Cause ideology. They are trying to portray Stop the Steal activists and insurrectionists as patriots pursuing a noble cause—the defense of “election integrity” and the “purity of the ballot box.”

What we have here is layer upon layer of lies.

Trump’s claim that his victory was stolen by Black and Brown voters in corrupt cities was the lie that fueled insurrectionists’ rage. It was repeated endlessly on right-wing media. It is still repeated by Trump and his supporters to portray President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris as illegitimate.

The stolen-election lie is being used to justify new voter suppression laws aimed at preventing future Democratic wins. It is a lie that Trumpists will use to mobilize white, right-wing voters in 2022 and 2024.

Lies about the January 6 insurrection began while it was still under way. Right-wing figures claimed without evidence that the attack was not led by Trump supporters but by unnamed leftists. Some claim that it was all planned by Trump’s “deep state” enemies in the FBI.

And now we have an added layer: the frantic campaign against “critical race theory.” 

The manufactured panic about critical race theory demonstrates why right-wing funders spent billions of dollars over the past few decades building an infrastructure of political and media networks. 

Think tanks, media outlets, political organizations, religious-right groups, AstroTurf operations, and Republican politicians have all swung into action, sounding alarms about the supposedly dire threat of students, soldiers, and employees learning to think critically about the racism in our country’s past and our institutions.

They are recycling the red scare propaganda used against Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights activists, warning of Marxist infiltration and indoctrination in schools, businesses, government agencies, and even the military. 

Conservatives who, until the past few months, proclaimed themselves champions of free speech and academic freedom have turned on a dime and are supporting laws banning teaching or discussing racism in the classroom.

The campaign against critical race theory is designed to scare white parents and other Americans into fearing the growing presence of Black and Brown people in positions of influence and power.

It is designed to inflame fears and provoke fearful people into action to “protect” themselves and their loved ones. It is designed to bury our understanding of history to control the future. Its perpetrators are playing with fire.

We cannot successfully face our future by lying about our past, ignoring the realities of the present, or outlawing the truth. Our path forward must be as a multiracial, multiethnic, religiously diverse democratic society united by a shared commitment to the principles of equality, fairness, opportunity, and justice for all.

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Oakland Post: Week of March 29 – April 4, 2023

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 29 – April 4, 2023

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 29 - April 4, 2023

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Commentary

Re-Fueling Jet Magazine Where Everyone Can Be ‘Beauty of the Week’

Remember “Beauty of the Week,” Jet magazine’s famous page 43, which featured Black women college students, actors, nurses, and everyday girls in swimsuits? Now, anyone can be a beauty of the week or even grace the cover as the iconic publication re-sets digitally and where readers and fans can go to myjetstory.com and upload their photos and create a personalized Jet cover.

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Founded in 1951 by John H. Johnson, Jet proved a mainstay in primarily Black households across America. Like Ebony, founded six years earlier, Jet chronicled Black life in America and provided a lens into the African American community that mainstream media either ignored or misrepresented.
Founded in 1951 by John H. Johnson, Jet proved a mainstay in primarily Black households across America. Like Ebony, founded six years earlier, Jet chronicled Black life in America and provided a lens into the African American community that mainstream media either ignored or misrepresented.

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

Remember “Beauty of the Week,” Jet magazine’s famous page 43, which featured Black women college students, actors, nurses, and everyday girls in swimsuits?

Now, anyone can be a beauty of the week or even grace the cover as the iconic publication re-sets digitally and where readers and fans can go to myjetstory.com and upload their photos and create a personalized Jet cover.

“Everybody has a Jet story,” Daylon Goff, the president of Jet, said during a 30-minute interview on the National Newspaper Publishers Association daily show, Let It Be Known.

“I’m always rocking Jet merchandise, and when someone finds out what I do for a living, they immediately give me their Jet story. Unprompted.”

For Goff, that’s all the fuel he needed to help in what he calls the re-set of Jet.

“It’s super exciting for me to be able to take this on,” Goff insisted.

“When you hear ‘Beauty of the Week,’ you don’t have to even say Jet beauty of the week. It’s synonymous. I get those conversations from both men and women at least three times a week.”

Founded in 1951 by John H. Johnson, Jet proved a mainstay in primarily Black households across America.

Like Ebony, founded six years earlier, Jet chronicled Black life in America and provided a lens into the African American community that mainstream media either ignored or misrepresented.

Goff recalled the disturbing but necessary images Jet published in 1955 of Emmett Till’s body after he was lynched and tortured.

“We had to be bold because you have that full ownership and understanding of the significance of that story,” Goff related.

“Jet was to the Emmett Till story what Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook live was to George Floyd. It started a movement. It wasn’t like little Black boys and men weren’t getting killed in Mississippi in 1955, but when you saw it on those pages, you felt you had to do something.

“The same way when you saw on social media George Floyd’s murder, you had to do something about it because it wasn’t as if before that moment, Black men weren’t getting killed by the police.”

While Jet told real stories about real people, most readers began with page 43.

With the re-set, Goff said one shouldn’t expect an immediate return of the Beauty of the Week.

“It was relatable and owned by our community,” Goff explained.

“The Beauty of the Week was a college student at Fayetteville, a nurse, secretary, or actress. Relatable people that we all thought were attainable. But how can we be relevant to our audience in a world that’s different and the way we consume information and get information?”

For instance, Goff wondered what would happen if Rihanna were chosen as the first beauty.

“Then Lizzo fans could say, what about her? And if we choose Lizzo, RuPaul could say, what about me?” Goff stated.

“People would have every right to say that Jet is saying ‘I’m not beautiful.’”

Indeed, Jet was social media before Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Going viral in pre-social media days meant being on the cover of Jet.

Goff, whose background is brand marketing, understands that the Jet re-set is a challenging assignment.

But he’s thrilled to take it on.

“I call this being re-fueled by Jet. We can be relevant to our audience in a world that’s different, and the way we consume information and get information is different,” he stated.

“I also have to be relevant to an audience in a way that Ebony isn’t cannibalized. And we can do that. If we compare Ebony and Jet to iconic television characters, Ebony is Claire Huxtable, and Jet is Martin [Lawrence]. They both speak to the Black experience but in a different way.”

The key, Goff said, is figuring out how to keep Jet around for the next 70 or so years.

Basketball legend Charles Barkley still refers to Jet as the Black ‘bible,” Goff said, but the challenge is to ensure that a younger generation connects with the publication.

“Talking to 20 and 25-year-olds, I’m sometimes surprised that they are familiar with Jet,” Goff said.

“People never threw away Jet. They put them in boxes, and I’m sure there’s a ton in someone’s attic. You just had to hold on to them. There’s a spark from the younger generation; for me, it’s about igniting that spark.

“The great part about the next generation is that they also grew up with this computer in their pocket and can find and search for knowledge. So, we need to ensure that our iconic brands remain for years.”

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Art

Emil Guillermo: The Historical Indictment Party in New York City and the 1st Presidential Mugshot

I’m still in Manhattan, performing in Oakland resident Ishmael Reed’s off-Broadway play now at Theater for the New City. I’m not a New York tourist, I’m more like a working resident. Acting like a New Yorker. That’s not to say I’m brash or rude, but when it comes to whether or not there’s protests over the possibility of an impending Trump indictment, most New Yorkers seem more concerned with when the cold weather is going away, not when Trump is going away, or with any repeat of Jan. 6.

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Impending Trump indictment

I’m still in Manhattan, performing in Oakland resident Ishmael Reed’s off-Broadway play now at Theater for the New City.

I’m not a New York tourist, I’m more like a working resident. Acting like a New Yorker.

That’s not to say I’m brash or rude, but when it comes to whether or not there’s protests over the possibility of an impending Trump indictment, most New Yorkers seem more concerned with when the cold weather is going away, not when Trump is going away, or with any repeat of Jan. 6.

And if anyone wants to “take back the government” in the name of Donald Trump, I’d like to see them take on the NYPD.

I’m actually still quite immersed as an actor in Ishmael Reed’s “The Conductor.” In Reed’s play, a fictional Indian despot’s actions impact Indian Americans who face a wave of xenophobia and are forced to flee to Canada on an “underground railroad.”

Hence, the need for a “conductor.”

Turns out everyone who is feeling some heat may need to flee the U.S.

“The Conductor” runs through March 26. Get tickets so see in person or live-streamed here:

https://theaterforthenewcity.net/shows/the-conductor-2023/

Reed wasn’t so prescient to include the possibility of a Trump indictment (or four) in a storyline but  I now wonder if the twice-impeached former president of the United States will soon need a “conductor.”

To get to Canada? After all that he’s said about Justin Trudeau?

I was thinking out loud on this issue with Asian American Studies Professor Daniel Phil Gonzales on www.amok.com (Episode 489/481).

We go straight to wondering if Trump will get convicted for any of the cases that are brewing. From minor to major, they include the hush money/Stormy Daniels/falsifying of documents case in New York; the voter fraud and possible racketeering case in Georgia; the Mar-a-Lago stolen presidential documents case; and possible federal charges connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

If Trump is ensnared in any or all of them, would he even have the courage of a Martha Stewart to don a matching orange jumpsuit? Or does he just flat out leave the country?

Gonzales says he leaves. But to where?

I think Trump has his Putin parachute ready under his left arm. And under his right arm, there’s his North Korean parachute fashioned together with love letters from Kim Jong Un.

Ah, a former president in exile because he dared to be president again?

That’s the narrative the Republicans are drumming up, as if all this is simply a political “witch hunt.” We won’t know till we see any official charges.

Republicans can opine about the legal process, but it’s another thing to intimidate the New York DA with threats of congressional investigations.

What’s worse is that law-and-order Republicans can’t see their blind spot when it comes to the respect for the rule of law when their own fearful leader is the possible perp.

Trump’s reaction was simply to go off half-cocked, not even knowing what the charges are. But most appalling is his “go to”—the call for violence.

“Protest, protest, protest,” Trump wrote in his social media posts over the weekend, prompting calls for “civil war” among his base. Trump respects the law so much, his best response to a possible indictment in New York is to throw a dictator’s tantrum.

This is a man who doesn’t understand American democracy and didn’t deserve to be president even once.

And it’s not just the GOP leaders under Trump’s spell, but even some in our communities still supporting the twice-impeached former pres.

When it comes to Asian Americans running for president, Nikki Haley is still mum. But there’s one presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, the anti-woke Indian American rushing to Trump’s defense.

“This will mark a dark moment in American history and will undermine public trust in our electoral system itself,” Ramaswamy said, undermining a standing criminal investigation by  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

We should all be rooting for Bragg, a Harvard College and Harvard Law graduate who grew up in Harlem and knows what it’s like to be stopped by police for no good reason other than one’s race. Bragg has said his prosecutors will not be intimidated.

If Bragg’s indictment comes down this week or next, Trump will be treated both like a former president, and a common criminal. No man is above some kind of perp walk, right?

That’s never happened before in history. Will it make him more popular? That’s Chris Rock’s spin. But no democracy-loving American I know would ever vote for an indicted outlaw for president.

And once Bragg lights the wick, it should clear the way for Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis, another African American with a keen sense of justice, to explode on the scene.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has decried all the politics and said he just wants to see equal justice for all. What a hoot.

We all do, especially those of us in the BIPOC community, where equal justice is too often hard to come by. Ask Tyre Nichols’ family in Memphis.

Me?  I can’t wait to see the first presidential mug shot.

NOTE: I will talk about this column and other matters on “Emil Amok’s Takeout,” my micro-talk show. Occasionally Live @2p Pacific. Livestream on Facebook; my YouTube channel; and Twitter. Catch the recordings on www.amok.com.

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