Second Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

.
-----------------------------------------------------
From: john@johnkarls.com
To: Our 156 Members Individual-by-Individual
Bcc:
Subject: RL-SL – Second Short Quiz + Suggested Answers to The First Short Quiz – Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson – For July 31
Date: To be sent pre-dawn on Sat, July 13, 2019
Attachments:
-----------------------------------------------------

To: Our 156 Members Individual-by-Individual (for reasons explained below in the PS)


Dear Friends,

Hopefully you were intrigued by the First Short Quiz in last week’s e-mail entitled “Introducing Jacqueline Woodson (our author) and Putting Her In Historical Context.”

Suggested answers are posted on our bulletin board [as the next item in this section].

********************
Our Focus Book for July 31 = “Brown Girl Dreaming” by Jacqueline Woodson

Amazon.com – 2016 paperback (349 pages) for $8.00 + shipping; $9.99 Kindle
Salt Lake City Library – original 2014 hard cover – 4 of 9 copies currently available
Salt Lake County Library – original 2014 hard cover – 30 of 41 copies currently available

********************
Short Quiz – Bringing “Brown Girl Dreaming” To Life

1. Is “Brown Girl Dreaming” a 349-page memoir of poems by Jacqueline Woodson (the author of more than 30 award-winning books) about her own experiences of how it was to grow up in the 1960’s and 1970’s living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights Movement?

2. Born 2/12/1963, did Jacqueline Woodson live for the first 7 years of her life 1963-1970 in Greenville, South Carolina?

3. Was Jacqueline Woodson born a mere 5.5 years after the first school integration featuring President Eisenhower nationalizing the 10,000 Arkansas National Guard Troops that Gov. Orville Faubus had called out to prevent 9 African-American students from entering Little Rock’s Central High School – whereupon President Eisenhower, as their new Commanding Officer, ordered the 10,000 Arkansas National Guard Troops to “stand down” while 10,000-plus “Screaming Eagles” of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division escorted the students into Central High School after establishing an impregnable defensive position around the school?

4. Was Jacqueline Woodson 1.5 years old when James Cheney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were assassinated in Mississippi while trying to register African-Americans to vote?

5. Was Jacqueline Woodson 5 years old when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis TN and Bobby Kennedy was assassinated while running in the 1968 Presidential Primaries, primarily on a Civil Rights platform?

6. Although Jacqueline Woodson would, of course, not have been aware of the incident, was she a 3.5-year-old African-American girl living in Greenville SC, when Yours Truly was “within 60 seconds” (literally, according to the NC State Police) of being assassinated in Bertie County NC while serving as a member of the first U.S. Government Task Force to integrate Southern K-12 public schools?

7. Fewer than 200 miles apart, were Greenville County SC and Bertie County NC comparable in terms of population density, ethnicity, racial attitudes, etc.?

8. How observant do you think even a 5-year-old minority child is growing up in the middle of a racially-tense environment?

9. After 7 years 1963-1970 in Greenville SC, would Brooklyn NY have probably seemed like The Promised Land for a “Brown Girl Dreaming”?

10. Was Brooklyn the third-largest city in America when the Dodgers (who abandoned Brooklyn for L.A. in 1958) began playing baseball in Brooklyn in 1883?

11. Did Brooklyn not merge with NYC until 1898, 15 years after completion of The Brooklyn Bridge?

12. For many, if not most, African-American slaves fleeing north before the 1861-1865 Civil War, was Brooklyn the terminus of the famous “Underground Railroad”?

13. Had the British Empire abolished slavery in 1807 [except for the possessions of the East India Company – Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Saint Helena]?

14. Accordingly, was Canada the co-terminus of the famous “Underground Railroad” comprising abolitionists stretching all the way to the Canadian border and willing to secretly shelter escaped slaves as they fled the American South?

15. Nevertheless, was Brooklyn America’s first “Sanctuary City” – though providing “sanctuary” for escaped slaves (vs. Brooklyn’s modern-day counterparts which provide “sanctuary” for “undocumented” immigrants)? And was Brooklyn more effective in providing “sanctuary” since bounty hunters pursuing fugitive slaves didn’t dare to enter Brooklyn?

16. HOWEVER, was Brooklyn THE POLAR OPPOSITE of modern-day “sanctuary cities” because Brooklyn was OPPOSED to slavery while (as we have studied many times beginning with our 2/14/2008 meeting 11.5 years ago focusing on Dana Milbank’s “Homo Politicus” and Robert Kuttner’s “The Squandering of America”) concluding that “The Establishment” (which we have always defined as the billionaires who “own” both political parties, who “own” many, if not most, members of the Mainstream Media, and who “own” many members of academia) have conducted a “War on American Workers” since 1992 in the form of exporting American jobs via so-called “free trade” agreements AND IN THE FORM OF REVERSING THE OUTCOME OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR BY IMPORTING “SLAVE LABORERS” (ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WHO CANNOT COMPLAIN ABOUT ANY CONDITIONS METED OUT TO THEM FOR FEAR OF BEING REPORTED TO I.C.E.)?

17. Do Jacqueline Woodson’s poems seem to reflect the vast differences between Greenville SC and Brooklyn?

18. Which of Jacqueline Woodson’s poems are your favorites? Why?

19. Have you memorized any of them?

********************
RSVP’s REQUESTED

The minimum quorum for our meetings has been waived while we are coping with the refusal of Major E-Mail Providers to deliver our e-mail (as documented in the four postings of Section 2 of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org) -- Yours Truly and George Kunath* will discuss each month’s focus book at the scheduled time whether or not there are any additional RSVP’s.

HOWEVER, please RSVP to ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com if you plan to participate, because the RSVP’s can, BY UNANIMOUS VOTE, decide to change the venue from the Salt Lake Library (210 East 400 South) to suit their convenience.

[* George Kunath is one of my former NYC partners with whom I have had a weekly multi-hour gabfest for 31.5 years; George was our world-wide coordinating tax partner on Mobil Oil and on a major private-equity fund. George has participated in our meetings for nearly a decade via Skype.]

********************
SKYPE PARTICIPATION

Non-SLCounty residents (and residents who are out of town) are invited to participate in our meeting via Skype.

If you would like to do so, please press your reply button and type “request participation via Skype” and we will contact you to make appropriate arrangements.

********************
We hope to see all of you on Wed evening, July 31.

Your friend,
John K.

PS – This e-mail is being sent individual-by-individual because of the refusal of Major E-mail Providers to deliver our e-mail as documented in the four postings in Section 2 of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org.

PPS – To un-subscribe, please press “reply” and type “deletion requested.”