News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Sunday May 19th 2024
Raise Your Voice: The Fusion Dance of MLK
By PETER MOLENAAR
January 16, 2023…
The MLK Day observance at the Powderhorn Park Community Center was a marvelous production. Tabatha, thank you so much for having mastered the ceremony straight from your heart. Oh, but it was the children who stole the show with spontaneous dance and gymnastic display. On the other hand, the two young women who performed a choreographed Afro-fusion dance blew me away. Then, to close the show, there was our own Brass Solidarity Band. Wow!
One sour note:
A young man had managed to insert himself ahead of the main program. He read on and on (and on) from a cell phone script (hmm) intent upon casting aspersions at Dr. King. Indeed, he asserted that Martin had been under the influence of “white liberals”. (Oh my!)
Moral means to moral ends? To be sure, “everything depends on conditions, time, and place”. Hey, a strategic conception must make a connection to significant masses of people. Right? Therefore, the inference that Martin’s nonviolent opposition was incorrect (or cowardly) is vile, to say the least.
A reminder note: consistent readers of the alley know that the burning of the 3rd precinct was initiated by white-nationalist provocateurs.
In truth, Dr. King understood that, subsequent to ‘the great migration’, Black Liberation would proceed via the struggle for equality and integration, and not via a struggle for a separate nation, (within historic boundaries which no longer existed.)… Read the rest “Raise Your Voice: The Fusion Dance of MLK”
WE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
By SHELIA BLAND
Confronted with the realization that our dreams did not come to pass,
We who raised our children with such confidence.
Sure of the difference they’d make in the future.
Sure that we knew what they’d need for the future.
We look up to discover
That the future looks just like the present—
The future that is now is no different
Than the present that was then.
And we are too tired to go on fighting,
Too tired, and too wise to believe again
In a future, future
That can be different from the present, present.
We experience a changing of the guard.
We see in our children’s eyes, our dreams of yesterday.
We see in our children’s limbs, our strength of yesterday.
We see in our children’s hearts, our enthusiasm of yesterday.
A changing of the guard.
Our selves replaced.
The same dreams re-hatched.
We experience despair perhaps–
A feeling of uselessness —
Of being out of step.
We experience both trauma and tragedy.
We fail to see it is just the Middle Ages—
Being ever experienced
As it has always been experienced.
As puberty is just a phase—
So, are the Middle Ages—
When we are sixties,
We will look back upon them
As the silly misconceptions of youth—
As we of the Middle Ages now look back
upon the ages of puberty as
the silly misconceptions of youth.… Read the rest “WE OF THE MIDDLE AGES”
Returning Chapter 28: Follow The Hearts!
By PATRICK CABELLO HANSEL
Little Angel led his parents north on Cedar telling them he “knew where there was a heart.” Luz and Angel followed, not because they were sure it would lead anywhere, but because they had run out of everything but hope. Home may be where the heart is, but hope is where the heart goes when nothing is left.
They walked half a block or so, passed a storefront church and its parking lot. Before they reached the Greenway, little Angel stopped in front of a house and pointed to the door. Even in the dark, his parents could make out a paper heart. It had seen better days. The lace trim around its edges was torn and dirty, it hung at an odd angle. But there it was.
“Ok, mi’jo,” Luz said to the boy. “I see the heart. Now what do we do?”
Her son looked at her for a moment, then up into the night sky.
“We look for another one!” he shouted.
And before telling them which way to go, he led them north. At 28th, he turned left, at 18th he turned right, never saying a word but walking—almost marching—with a determined stride.… Read the rest “Returning Chapter 28: Follow The Hearts!”
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