Tag Archives: Racism

Space-time: A Cosmic Perspective of Man’s Entanglement

27 Sunday May 2018

Posted by in Human Behavior, Poetry by Rosaliene Bacchus

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Artist conception of curved space-time around Earth - NASA

Artist’s conception of GP-B measuring the curved space-time around Earth
Photo Credit: NASA

 

Einstein’s theories of relativity
upending the way we view time.
Past – present – future but an illusion.
Time & space woven together
forming a four-dimensional fabric.
Space-time, Einstein called it.

Quantum entanglement defies physics.
Separate entangled photons
& they remain connected
mimicking the behavior of the other
at the same time.
Spooky action at a distance, Einstein called it.

What of Man made from stardust
of atoms & entangled photons
existing in space-time
mindless of his cosmic entanglement
and shared fate?

Misogyny – racism – xenophobia
expand space-time between photons
disrupting their entanglement.
Same but separate
yearning and friction without end.

America
rising from the detritus of war
splits the atom
unleashing humanity’s Doomsday Machine
in space-time.

Jerusalem
citadel of the gods
of Christians – Jews – Muslims
trapped in space-time
where past – present – future are one.

In space-time warped by Man
world peace is impossible.

Man of Earth
how do you undo
what can’t be disentangled?

 

LEARN MORE:
Space-time Continuum
http://einstein.stanford.edu/content/relativity/q411.html
Quantum Entanglement
http://www.livescience.com/28550-how-quantum-entanglement-works-infographic.html
The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg (USA 2017)
http://www.ellsberg.net/doomsday-documents/

 

 

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“Obscure Life” – Poem by Black Brazilian Poet João da Cruz e Sousa

01 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by in Brazil, Poetry

≈ 12 Comments

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Black Lives MatterPhoto Credit: Black Lives Matter

 

In honor of Black History Month in the United States, my Poetry Corner February 2015 features the poem “Vida Obscura” (Obscure Life) by Brazil’s greatest black poet João da Cruz e Sousa (1861-1898).

Born in the Southern State of Santa Catarina, Cruz e Sousa was the son of freed slaves. (Not until 1888 was slavery totally abolished in Brazil.) When their former slave owners adopted and gave João da Cruz their surname Sousa, it became both a blessing and a curse for the child named after Saint John of the Cross.

After he revealed great intellectual aptitude, they enrolled ten-year-old João de Cruz in the Liceu Provincial where he spent the next five years studying French, English, Latin, Greek, mathematics, and the Natural Sciences.

Exposed to higher education and Brazilian white society, Cruz e Sousa assumed he could enjoy the same dignity and rights of whites. But late nineteenth century Brazilian society was not yet ready for the learned, talented, and multilingual black man who did not know his place. His bold and independent manner was viewed as arrogant. Judging from his poem, “Acrobata da Dor” (Acrobat of Pain), he hid his humiliation from those around him.

He guffaws, laughs, in a tormented laughter,
Like a clown, unhinged, nervous,
He laughs, in an absurd laughter, inflated
With an irony and a violent pain.

Fleeing racial prejudice in his home state, Cruz e Sousa moved to Rio de Janeiro where he worked as the archivist of Rio’s Central Railway Station. At twenty-six years old, already married and father of three, he struggled with financial problems and poor health.

In “O Assinalado” (The Branded), Cruz e Sousa laments his affliction and misfortune but observes that they provide food for the soul.

But this same shackle of affliction,
But this same extreme Misfortune
Makes your pleading soul grow
And blossom into stars of tenderness.

In adopting the new French Symbolist poetry of Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) and others, Cruz e Sousa countered the Parnassian poetic style, the dominant style among leading Brazilian poets at that time. Among Brazil’s literary circle, some branded him the “Black Swan;” others the “Black Dante.”

Lack of recognition by his peers drove Cruz e Sousa to strive harder for perfection in his art. In “Alma Solitária” (Solitary Soul), he dispels his melancholy which he likened to an adolescent archangel forgotten in the Valley of Hope.

O Soul sweet and sad and pulsating!
What kitharas weep solitaries
Across distant Regions, visionaries
Of your Dream secret and fascinating!

His battle with tuberculosis took his last profound breath. He was only thirty-six.

You can learn more about Cruz e Sousa’s contribution to Brazil’s poetic tradition and read his poem, “Vida Obscura” (Obscure Life), in its original Portuguese and English versions at my Poetry Corner February 2015.

Can the Human Race Save Itself from Self-destruction?

25 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by in Human Behavior, Nature and the Environment, Social Injustice

≈ 4 Comments

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Earth taken by Russian weather satellitePlanet Earth – Image taken by a Russian weather satellite
Source: Live Science Online

We all belong to the human race or human species: Homo sapiens. Black, brown, white or yellow, we are bound together as one on Planet Earth. Traveling at 67,000 mph or 18.6 mps around the Sun, our Spaceship Earth is a beautiful, tiny, fragile planet with a paper-thin atmosphere. The few privileged individuals who have seen Earth from outer space share an awareness of our home planet as a living, breathing organism. (See the video, Overview).

We are all part of this organism. There is no separateness, only what we have created in our skewed conception of who we are and our place in the world. Growing inequality in the world’s richest, most powerful nation and across our planet is a signal of distress. If we want to survive, we have to start thinking and acting as one species.

Our global human population has grown beyond levels that can be supported by our planet. Natural disasters, famine, and disease have not contained this growth. According to scientists monitoring our global footprint, our demand for renewable ecological resources and the services they provide is now equivalent to that of more than 1.5 Earths. In financial terms, we are spending more than we earn. Mother Earth is under stress.

We are releasing more greenhouse gases into our atmosphere than the Earth’s forests and oceans can absorb, with devastating results for our oceans and climate. (See NASA’s key indicators of global climate change.) To make matters worse, our forests are shrinking, other vital species (like the honey bee) are dying out, and overfishing has caused the collapse of large-fish populations. These and other developments also affect our economies, our jobs, our livelihood, our neighborhoods, and our families.

On the planet we call home, everything is interconnected and interdependent. We disregard this fact at our peril.

Climatic changes are already underway and progress faster than previous projected rates. In numerous areas across our planet, grass root movements, such as 350.org, are working to bring about change. If we are to survive as a species, we all have to work together in changing the way we relate with each other and with our planet.

In Manuscript Found in Accra by Paulo Coelho, an internationally renowned Brazilian author, the Greek Copt says to a young man who asks what the future holds:

We were all told from childhood that what we wanted was impossible. As we accumulate years, we also accumulate the sand of prejudice, fears, and guilt.

Free yourself from that. Not tomorrow, not tonight, but now.

UPDATE 26 AUGUST 2013:

For readers interested in learning more about the forces leading us to self-destruction and the way in which racism is used to prevent dissent, I recommend that you read the article, “Crisis of Humanity: Global Capitalism Breeds 21st Century Facism” by William I. Robinson, published today in Truthout.

 

Racial Profiling in the United States

18 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by in Human Behavior, Relationships, Social Injustice, United States

≈ 23 Comments

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Stop Racial Profiling - Demonstrators in New York City - June 2012Demonstrators in New York City – USA – June 2012
Source: news.yahoo.com

 

In 2008, for the first time in US history, an African American made it to the top post in the White House. Last year, thirty nine percent of white voters helped him to continue serving as our president for another four years. Considering the opposition he still faces in getting needed legislation passed in Congress, we need to do much more to narrow our racial divide.

Racial profiling persists in towns and cities across our nation. The stand-your-ground law – applied in some form in over thirty states, including California where I live – puts the lives of black and brown-skinned people at risk. In New York, the excessive use of the stop-and-frisk police tactic, targeting blacks and Latinos, is under attack.

I fear for my young adult sons. One of them, a service provider in home-remodeling who owns a white pickup truck with rack for his equipment, is often targeted by local police for traffic and parking violations. One night some months ago, the police stopped him in their search for a hit-and-run driver of a white SUV. While he sat subdued on the sidewalk, it took them almost an hour to learn that the vehicle they were looking for did not have a rack.

African Americans and Latinos fill our prisons. Although they made up approximately 25 percent of the US population, they represented 58 percent of all prisoners. African Americans alone accounted for 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated Americans (2008 statistics, NAACP).

Racism also exists between African Americans and Latinos. At the retail store in West Los Angeles where I worked, the divide between the majority black and Latino workers became evident during lunch breaks. Each group clustered together in separate fixed areas in the company’s lunch room. Joining the Latino team members was a challenge for me since they conversed in Spanish among themselves. At the time, the only two white team members occupied the middle table in the room. Working together as one, yet separate.

The apartment complex where I live reflects some of the racial/ethnic diversity characteristic of Los Angeles. My neighbors include African Americans, Indians, Japanese, Korean, Latinos, and Whites. Their children play together. My sons and I have never experienced any form of racism.

Racial profiling continues to plague us. I am not without guilt. Growing up in Guyana, I learned to fear black men in hoodies, like the one used by Trayvon Martin, and big built, tattooed white men who rode large motorcycles. Although these racial stereotypes were not common in my world, they were frequently portrayed in British and American movies featured in our cinemas.

Our culture is filled with racial/ethnic stereotyping. I suppose it serves a purpose in helping us to cope with our cultural diversity. Subliminal racial/ethnic messages, whether intentional or not, bombard us daily through innumerable forms of media.

I am guilty of racial profiling. I need to change.

 

Reflections: The Specter of Race

28 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by in Human Behavior, Relationships, Social Injustice

≈ 18 Comments

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Smiling FacesPhoto Credit: gamerfitnation.com
Faces, faces, faces, faces
Everywhere you turn
The more you learn
There is no real difference among races.
Excerpt of Poem, “Faces” from if only the gods were awake
by Guyanese-American Poet Gary Girdhari

 

On 13 July 2013, the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin not only raised concerns about Stand Your Ground laws in America, but also reminded us that the election of a black president did not mark the end of racism.

As defined in the Encyclopedia Britannica, racism is any action, practice, or belief that reflects the racial worldview—the ideology that humans are divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races,” that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural behavioral features, and that some races are innately superior to others. (The emphasis is mine.)

There is ample historical evidence that all peoples share the same human intelligence. The BBC series, The Lost Kingdoms of Africa, were an eye-opener for me. The great achievements of ancient African kingdoms were not “lost.” They were hidden from us to perpetuate belief in African inferiority.

The documentary film, Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey, astounded me even more. Based on research of human genetic markers on the Y-chromosome conducted by Spencer Wells, an American geneticist and anthropologist, the documentary traces the geographical dispersal of early human populations back to our origin in Africa. In other words, each racial group carries the genetic marker of the same African ancestor. Given the theoretical nature of some of his scientific methods, these findings will no doubt be refuted by those seeking to maintain racial inferiority.

The more we learn about ourselves and our origin, the more it will become clear that the division of our species into several races, ranging from white supremacy to black inferiority, is a fallacy of the rulers of empires past and present. Their intentions were and remain the division, subjugation, and exploitation of those peoples defined as inferior.

In my upcoming three-part series, I will tackle the diverse, overt and covert manifestations of racism in Guyana, Brazil, and the United States. Though differing vastly in size and economic development, these three nation states share one thing in common. Situated in the Americas, formerly known as the New World, they were all colonized by European powers of the time. The imported African slave labor force was crucial to their expansion and economic development.

We have come a long way since the emancipation of black slaves. But Zimmerman’s acquittal reminds us that the entrenchment of racial profiling and racial stereotypes will take many more generations to be eradicated from our society. Until then, the specter of race will continue to threaten the lives of those of us who are not white or cannot pass for white.