"It Changed Us!"

Last night I watched the new Edward James Olmos-directed Walkout on HBO. It's essentially a dramatization of the 1968 events in the documentary Chicano, focusing on one of the student leaders played by Alexa Vega (from Spy Kids, who I've always thought was pretty great, but she has much more to work with here and handles it beautifully).

With the walkout tactic in use all across the country right now, this is must see TV. The movie does an unusually effective job dramatizing collective organization and how a group strategizes a way to move forward, more or less, together. Perhaps most important is the way it captures the transforming power of a social movement. When Vega's undercover spy boyfriend asks her what she thinks was changed by the walkout, she finds the movie's thesis, "it changed us!"

And it changed a lot more than that. In fact, though I was born and raised in Oklahoma, I can say my life has been shaped by what happened in those schools in East LA in 1968--1970 because several of my greatest mentors came out of that time and place. Among the best known is author Luis Rodriguez, who has empowered so many, as he did me, with his books Always Running and The Music of the Mill. At his weblog (see the bottom right of this page where I have a link to his site), I found as concise and clear an explanation of the struggle uniting today's walkout movement as I've found anywhere:

Luis Rodriguez writes:

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Immigrant Rights are Human Rights

HR 4437, the anti-immigrant law the House of Representatives passed in December (and which comes up for vote in the Senate on March 27) is a rotten piece of legislation that would place the United States in violation of basic human rights.

Here’s why:HR 4437 will impose jail time for over 12 million undocumented immigrants (where are we going to get the money for all these jails? The US is already the world’s largest jailer).

It allows local police and the U.S. military to serve as immigration agents.

It allocates hundreds of millions of dollars to build an enormous wall across our southern border.

It will also make it a felony for anyone—be they churches, charities, employers, and even family members—to assist undocumented people.

At the same time, there are no provisions in HR 4437 for undocumented immigrants to apply for green cards or to become citizens.

Already a prison in Texas has been created to accommodate 7,000, mostly Mexican, undocumented criminal offenders.Instead of becoming the land of equality, opportunity, and reaching out, we’re becoming the backward, mean-spirited, and divided land that millions of Americans spent more than half of the last century fighting to change.

These laws are the revenge of the right-wing conservative and pro-capitalist rich and powerful who have wanted to destroy the gains of the 1960s ever since the freedom marches, protests, uprisings, and laws came down on the old Jim Crow and Segregation Black Codes of the South (and the de facto segregation and discrimination in the North).We must not allow these rights to be taken away. Moreover, we must continue to expand our rights for all people—including the right to live healthy and solid lives.

While people themselves have to prepare, get the skills, and do the work to achieve those things, government can help move the resources and social energy to make sure nothing gets in their way.Right now, the Old Guard is back with a vengeance. In the guise of neo-conservatism, they have brought back war to our doorstep (again sacrificing our children for the sake of markets and power as in Vietnam), neglect (look at the Katrina debacle), corruption (Tom Delay, Abramoff, and others), and fear (every other word from Bush and his cronies builds on fear).

We’ve been through this—perhaps with different characters and nuances—many times before. We must now move forward toward our interests for peace, cooperation, and security like we did thirty years ago—only with a vision that incorporates the future, technology, new ideas, and new strategies.We need to stop HR 4437. But we also need to lay the basis for the human and civil rights of everyone, regardless of their papers, regardless of their economic standing.

If Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream, we need to dream even harder. Fight and organize even harder. And get the maturity and intelligence to not be taken off track and into complacency ever again. Many of the leaders of the 1960s and 1970s were killed, drugged, imprisoned, or rendered impotent. It’s the people themselves who must insure the future of us all.

[end Luis Rodriguez]

Also, for a hip hop perspective, check out Davey D's statement today www.daveyd.com

The Real Reason I Write About Music

Perhaps THE highlight of my music writing career was the week, maybe 8 years ago, when I got to interview James Hetfield and Ozzy Osbourne back-to-back, two half hour phone calls about one day apart. They may have been the easiest, most gracious interviews I was ever given, and leave it to Hetfield to perfectly voice my own reasons for being on that phone.

Metallica's James Hetfield inducting Black Sabbath into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame--

James Hetfield: "BLACK SABBATH is mammoth riffs with menacing lyrics that made me oh so happy. That was gonna be my speech — that was it — but Springsteen kind of upped the ante the last year.

"I'll go a little deeper. Picture a nine-year-old boy — quiet, well-behaved on the outside, but on the inside boiling and dying for a life to burst open with some sort of — any sort of — stimulation and the discovery of music was what was to burst it wide open.

"But not just any music. This was more than just music — a powerful, loud, heavy sound that moved his soul. You see, this timid nine-year-old constantly raided his roommate-slash-older brother's record collection, and going against his older brother's wishes, played those off-limit records on the forbidden record player. And out of all the records he could have worn out, there was no other choice — the very moment he saw their earliest album cover, he knew they were going to offer him a different kind of ride. He was drawn to them like a magnet to metal…

"That's pretty lame, yes. OK, I'll try again.

"More like a shy boy to his own loud voice. Those monstrous riffs lived inside him and spoke the feelings he could never put into words [choking up], sending chills of inspiration through him, from those gloomy lyrics and outlaw chords and all. They helped crack the shell he was stuck in.

"Also, scaring his mom and sister was an extra bonus.

"And now, as the former nine-year-old speaks to you here, as an adult musician — I know those two words really don't go together — I realize that without their defining sound, as my friend Lars has said, there would be no METALLICA, especially with one James Hetfield. Never have I known a more timeless and influential band. They have spread their wonderful disease through generations of musicians. They are always listed as an influence by heavy bands to this day. They are loved and highly respected as the fathers of heavy music. It truly is a dream come true and an extreme honor for me and the nine-year-old still inside of me to induct into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame such a significant group of musicians. And in the words of our fearless leader Ozzy Osbourne, 'Let's go fucking crazy!'"

www.rockrap.com

Dumb and Dumber and the Divine

With regard to my blog about Hustle & Flow, Betty Lou (whose blog I strongly recommend by the way http://imbettylouhowdoyoudo.blogspot.com/ ) writes: "Am I the only one who thinks that really big studio films dumb down to the average movie goer?"

And I found myself chewing on this all evening, thinking, "No. I don't think so. Isn't that what most people think?"

I don't for a moment believe that my opinions on the value of popular culture reflect what most people think, not consciously at least. But what I'm afraid I see most often, what I hear from my students/friends/family all the time is an accepted agreement that what most people like is trash or only for entertainment and that nothing more should be read into it. The unexamined life is not worth examining, or something like that.

Actually, let's consider that more closely. It's acceptable to see popular culture as dumb or destructive, but we shouldn't read into it that it is also potentially smart or constructive. Stephen King is one of the great advocates of a perspective I agree with, which insists that kind of thinking is as empty as it is elitist, which is why I was surprised he oversimplified Crash.

One reason I write--the main reason I write?--is that there's a lot to be examined in what we respond to in this effort to be "entertained," whatever that actually means--for me it usually means some kind of excitement leading to a catharsis, and that usually doesn't happen without something real going on. And though the negative side of that gets talked about a lot, the positive goes unexamined. I don't try to overlook one in favor of the other, but if I often seem to go half glass full, that's why. I don't hear enough voices doing that, and I certainly don't hear enough people standing up for what they really love and talking about its power.

What I do know is that, for all the talk about commercial art being cynical, I have met very few artists (I actually can't think of one who has much impact) who are cynical about what they do--whether it's writing songs or books, drawing pictures of making movies. Art is, in general, not rewarded by commerce, and what motivates people to keep doing it is some vision that it's worth doing.

My own experience as a writer confirms this. A few years back, when I was dealing with some pretty serious dead ends in my personal and professional life as well as debilitating pain, I began to write more aggressively than ever before, generating two book manuscripts, in large part because it was the only way I was making meaning out of the loose ends of what felt like a terminally fragmented life. One of the books is by far the most commercial thing I've ever attempted. If I ever publish it, I'm sure many will assume I wrote it to make a buck. I don't think there's any shame in working for that buck, but the truth would be I was writing to save my soul and my sanity.

Tonight I was watching a documentary about Goya, and the commentator said that one thing that makes Goya's art so powerful is that he never acted as if he believed art was meant for anything less than tackling and perhaps transforming the whole of the human experience. I think that impulse motivates most people who create, whether or not they can intellectually cop to it--they certainly aren't encouraged to--but I think their greatest successes often happen in that intangible area where intuition insists on possibility, and both artist and audience feel the truth of that possibility. For me, it's in that moment when Nola grasps the wheel in Hustle & Flow, and it's in a million moments from pop songs where a flicker of self expression feels like the secret of the universe unveiled. Betty Lou and I are both Springsteen fans and, for me, that's what that "I learned more from a three minute record than I ever did in school" is all about.

As a side note, I don't know how much any of this applies to Hustle & Flow or Crash though--neither of which has the look, feel or the comfort level implicit in the description "really big studio film."

Say it like you mean it, "We're In Charge!"

Last night, I finally got around to seeing Hustle & Flow, and I am so sorry it took me so long. As happy as I was with the Oscars choice of Crash as best picture (I don't think I ever agree with them, but I can be pleased with them--and I take issue with Stephen King who oversimplified the movie way too much in his newest Entertainment Weekly column), Hustle & Flow deserves it more than any of the contenders. What it does brilliantly, which I think is at the heart of what needs to happen when we talk about politics in America, is that it manages to illustrate how class and race work together and separately in dividing America, and, most importantly, it finds its glimmer of hope without prettying up any significant aspect of the picture.

Where does the hope remain at the end of the movie? It's not in the system, which pits the successful against the unsuccessful. And it's not in the virtuous individual--everyone's morally pretty tangled here and our protagonist's weaknesses are tied so closely to his strengths that there's no certainty he'll survive his stint in prison much less whatever's waiting for him on the other side. But it does lie in the dream, the vision--a vision voiced by DJ Qualls, a geeky white kid who firmly believes that everyone has a right to contribute their verse to the future, and a vision that ties Anthony Anderson's "middle class" future to our family of protagonists. The real hope lies in the women, played by Taryn Manning (Nola) and Taraji P. Henson (Shug), who hold things together and keep the dream alive.

Proverbs 29: 18 says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." It's an often repeated refrain in the Bible, and perhaps it is as close to the central lesson of the Bible and any other religious scripture. We have to be able to see something worth living for in order to live a life worth living. It's harder than it sounds, and I think it's something most of us struggle with every day. A friend of mine commented not long ago that my blog was depressing, and that threw me for a loop because I don't see it that way, but it also made it clear to me that vision is the thing we all need to come back to time and again.

No doubt the best thing I've seen that's been written about Hustle & Flow was written by Kevin Gray, a South Carolina political activist and a contributor to Holler If You Hear Me, the blog that more or less dragged me into this little experiment in the first place. His essay has just been reprinted at Black Commentator, and I think it does a much better job than I'm doing suggesting the political significance of this movie as well as a vision of how we might begin to change the dynamics that suspend all of us in some aspect of the struggle defined by the movie.

To put it simply, the apathy and despair people feel about the politics of our society are rooted in the reality that the system is designed not to work in the interest of the individual, or the little guy, but in the interest of wealth. The end to apathy and despair comes with accepting the fact that the real hope lies in the prisoner talking to his prison guards about their hip hop ideas at the end of the movie, the prostitute taking charge and pimping her people's music to whatever radio stations she can reach--each person finding a role that contributes to a larger social revolution where our talents are welcomed and nurtured because they are helping to unlock the potential of others. In many ways, the music industry (for instance) works in the exact opposite way today--talented people are a threat to less talented people with position and fans who promote the music for free are sued for working outside of the industry's control. (The RIAA can call it stealing all they want, but the industry doesn't care about stealing--it's done that for years; it does care about who's doing the "stealing.")

Anyway, last night, after the movie, I was heartened to read an article by about the U.S. Social Forum's plans for regional social forums to take place this summer. 60 organizations, including "The Ordinary People's Society from Alabama, the Miami Workers Center and the Mississippi Workers Center, as well as the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, Black Workers for Justice from North Carolina, the Homeless POWER Project from Nashville, the Georgia Citizens Coalition on Hunger and the Atlanta Metro Task Force for the Homeless" plan to meet this summer to make a regional plan for next year's national U.S. Social Forum conference. Their vision? "Another South is Possible" Their strategic goal? To build a movement for social justice like nothing this country's seen at least since the Civil Rights Movement.

In their despair, people ask me all the time why there is no movement to actually change things in this country. Here are people laying the bricks. Why not get in touch to lend a hand?

As DJay and Nola say in Hustle & Flow, "We're In Charge." We are. And the sooner we join hands at the wheel, the better.

Danny

Kevin Gray's great piece on Hustle & Flow can be found here--

http://www.blackcommentator.com/175/175_think_gray_crossroads_race_class_art.html

More about "Another South Is Possible" can be found here--

http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2006.03/PT.2006.03.7.html