"America's 'democratic experiment' is inextricably tied to the history of slavery."

Solid, thought-provoking essay for Sunday morning coffee. But maybe you'd rather be watching a film derived from a comic book.

America's 'democratic experiment' is inextricably tied to the history of slavery, by Peniel E. Joseph (The Guardian)

The year 1619 laid out rough boundaries of citizenship, freedom, and democracy that are still being policed

This year marks 400 years since enslaved Africans from Angola were forcibly brought to Jamestown, Virginia. This forced migration of black bodies on to what would become the United States of America represents the intertwined origin story of racial slavery and democracy. This year also marks what would have been the 90th birthday of Martin Luther King, the most well-known mobilizer of the civil rights movement’s heroic period between 1954 and 1965.

While Americans are quick to recognize Jamestown as the first episode of a continuing democratic experiment, the nation remains less willing to confront the way in which racial slavery proved crucial to the flourishing of American capitalism, democratic freedoms, and racial identity. The year 1619 laid out rough boundaries of citizenship, freedom, and democracy that are still being policed in our own time ...

This writer doesn't disagree with the consequences of slavery, but isn't in favor of selecting a specific year (1619) as the jumping off point.

The Misguided Focus on 1619 as the Beginning of Slavery in the U.S. Damages Our Understanding of American History, by Michael Guasco (Smithsonian)

The year the first enslaved Africans were brought to Jamestown is drilled into students’ memories, but overemphasizing this date distorts history

1619 is not the best place to begin a meaningful inquiry into the history of African peoples in America. Certainly, there is a story to be told that begins in 1619, but it is neither well-suited to help us understand slavery as an institution nor to help us better grasp the complicated place of African peoples in the early modern Atlantic world. For too long, the focus on 1619 has led the general public and scholars alike to ignore more important issues and, worse, to silently accept unquestioned assumptions that continue to impact us in remarkably consequential ways.

LIVE TO EAT: Adrian Miller asks, "Is Fried Fish and Spaghetti Soul Food’s Most Debatable Dish?"

Photo by EatingOxford.com

There is something about the noun "foodie" that annoys me, much as with "beer geek."

Granted, eating is my original sin as a trencherman, verging on gluttony as it periodically does (last night, for example), and I'll try just about anything once, but kitchen creativity for the sake of creativity alone is a form of exuberance bordering on the narcissistic.

However by all means, feel free to indulge. May the chefs harness every last ingredient and technique, so have fun and best wishes -- just allow me to hover on the periphery, because absent cultural and historical contexts, I'm still peckish even when my belly is full.

Having said this, I'm very interested in food writers like Adrian Miller, author of Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine One Plate at a Time, which I read last year and quoted in my Food & Dining Magazine essay about Louisville's Chef Space incubator.

"Soul food is really the interior cooking of the Deep South that migrates across the country. I think of soul food as an immigrant cuisine and ultimately a national cuisine, because black folks just landed in all parts of the country. But in terms of the difference between the two, soul food has more intense flavors. It's going to have more spice. It's going to be sweeter. It's a matter of intensity."

Miller posts essays on Medium, and here's the link to a recent one. To my knowledge I have not eaten spaghetti with fried fish, but it doesn't sound objectionable at all.

Is Fried Fish and Spaghetti Soul Food’s Most Debatable Dish?

As African Americans left the South, this controversial coupling migrated to parts of the U.S.

... Spaghetti seems like the real head-scratcher here, but it shouldn’t be. Italians have long been in the American South as explorers, agricultural and railroad workers, and eventually, entrepreneurs. A large number of Italians settled in Louisiana and Mississippi in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Italian and Greek restaurateurs featured pasta dishes on their menus. African Americans in the South became familiar with spaghetti by either patronizing these restaurants or cooking it at the public places or private homes where they worked — and eventually, their own homes.

Thus, black Southerners were early adopters of spaghetti decades before the dish entered the American mainstream. By the late 1920s, spaghetti recipes were regularly appearing in African American cookbooks. In time, spaghetti eventually made the jump from entrée to side dish, and black Southern cooks thought nothing of pairing it with fried fish, much like they would with coleslaw or potato salad. The combination caught on, especially in the Mississippi Delta.

That's the thing about food writing.

It makes you hungry.

The revival of the black athletic struggle, and a collision with our post-9/11 world.

Just about everyone in New Albany believes Romeo Langford will be a professional basketball player following his tenure at Indiana University.

Just about everyone in New Albany will be closely monitoring Langford's evolution as a basketball prodigy.

My own little bit of voyeurism from afar will be observing his evolution as a black athlete. 

‘There’s No Substitute for Confrontation’: An Interview with Howard Bryant on Today’s Political Black Athlete, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

Bryant’s new book explores what happens when black athletic struggle is revived, but collides with our post-9/11 world.

Howard Bryant is the author of eight books including Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball, and The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron. He is also a columnist for ESPN The Magazine and was the editor of The Best American Sports Writing 2017. His latest, out next week, is called The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism.

What is The Heritage? How do you define it?

To me, it’s the responsibility the black athlete has accepted or has actually been placed on them, since World War II. It’s the responsibility that these athletes feel to be the public faces and political faces of Black America.

It’s not a responsibility they’ve always wanted, but it’s one that was created in the mold of the Paul Robesons, the Jackie Robinsons, and then Muhammad Ali and Tommie Smith and John Carlos. I think it’s something that no matter how big your contract is, it’s a responsibility that will always stay with you, not because of your successes, but because of how far African Americans have had to go to gain equality.

(snip)

There is no greater influence in American culture today than 9/11. 9/11 is Pearl Harbor. 9/11 is Watergate. When you look at sports, or going to the movies, or walking through the airport, the specter of 9/11 touches everything. And what 9/11 did to sports was transform it from a place where being apolitical was part of the business model, to making politics part of the business model.

And those politics are extremely, extremely powerful. They are militarized. They are racialized. They are internalized in terms of heroes and villains and it set up a confrontation because you have this hero-worship of police at the time when police brutality is an everyday occurrence and fear in the black community and many of the athletes are from these communities. You’re asking African Americans to deify and to genuflect toward the very entities that have really caused a lot of harm in the black community ...

What's the highest elected office attained by an African-American in New Albany and Floyd County government?

Yesterday I was asked a question, and to be honest, I don't know the answer. Maybe a reader does.

What's the highest elected office attained by an African-American in New Albany and Floyd County government?

Neither the questioner nor blog management is interested in the whys and wherefores, primarily because we already understand the overarching context of social and political history in places New Albany and Floyd County.

But I have to admit, it makes me curious. Who's got something?

The Chicago Defender: "American newspapers once stood for something more than a marketing plan."

My book of the month is The Defender: How The Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America, by Ethan Michaeli.

As foreign as the concept may be at present, the book is about standing up. You listening, Mr. Hanson?

New Book Highlights Historic Black Newspaper (NPR)

American newspapers once stood for something more than a marketing plan. The Chicago Defender was founded in the early 20th century to fight segregation in the South, build strong and lively African-American communities in the North and to root for the Chicago American Giants. It would become in many ways one of the most influential newspapers in the United States. The Defender could claim partial credit for the Great Migration north, the end of segregation in the U.S. military, the election of presidents, including Warren Harding, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy and encouraging the career of a young South Side legislator named Barack Obama. Ethan Michaeli, who was once a reporter for The Chicago Defender in the 1990s, has written a book "The Defender: How The Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America."