Short Quiz – Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

[johnkarls]

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1. Did the famous Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein musical “Showboat” feature “Old Man River” sung by Jules Bledsoe in the original 1927 Broadway production, Paul Robeson in the original 1936 Hollywood black & white production and William Warfield in MGM’s 1951 Technicolor extravaganza?

2. Does “Showboat” begin with a typical Mississippi River “showboat” named the “Cotton Blossom” docking in 1887 at Natchez Mississippi in order to present to the local population its musical show?

3. Just before “Joe” sings “Old Man River,” is Ava Gardner (the Cotton Blossom’s leading lady in the MGM version) about to be arrested for violating Mississippi’s anti-miscegenation law based on a tip from a spurned admirer?

4. Does Robert Sterling (the Cotton Blossom’s leading man in the MGM version and the movie-husband of Ava Gardner) save Ava who had been passing as white (but who, as a black person, would have been the only one prosecuted for inter-racial marriage) by quick-wittedly pricking Ava to draw ONE DROP OF BLOOD which he promptly swallowed?

5. When the sheriff arrived to arrest Ava, does Robert triumphantly ask the sheriff whether ONE DROP OF NEGRO BLOOD MAKES ONE BLACK UNDER MISSISSIPPI LAW and, following the affirmative answer, TRIUMPHANTLY PROCLAIM THAT HE HIMSELF HAS ONE DROP OF NEGRO BLOOD!!!???

6. Yes, Robert saved Ava from prosecution and probable execution but, as blacks, were they promptly banned from performing in public?

7. Is it as Ava and Robert are leaving the Cotton Blossom that Ava looks sadly back at William Warfield who is singing “Old Man River”?

8. Is the TIMIDITY of this Broadway/Hollywood protest against racial discrimination in America surprising???

9. After all, didn’t Leonard Bernstein create “West Side Story” for Broadway in 1957 and Hollywood in 1961?

10. And didn’t Leonard Bernstein often say in subsequent interviews that he always regretted CHICKENING OUT!!!???

11. That in updating “Romeo et Juliette” to a modern-American setting, he had always intended it to portray the American black vs. white racial divide??? And that he WIMPED OUT by making it Catholic vs. Protestant (or, in other words, Puerto Rican vs. mainstream America which to this day is overwhelmingly Protestant)???

12. Isn’t another example of the TIMIDITY of Broadway/Hollywood during that era “South Pacific” which premiered on Broadway in 1949 and reached the Silver Screen in 1958???

13. In South Pacific, didn’t Rogers & Hammerstein feel obligated to KILL OFF Lt. Joseph Cable FOR THE “UNFORGIVABLE SIN” of falling in love with a Polynesian girl???

14. As we have studied in the past, did the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown vs. Board decide that “separate but equal” is INHERENTLY UNEQUAL in ruling as unconstitutional the de jure dual-school systems of the 17 former slave states (11 of whom joined The Confederacy and 6 of whom were gulled by Abraham Lincoln into believing that the Civil War was about “preserving the union” and had nothing to do with the abolition of slavery)???

15. And that Eisenhower decided NOT to enforce Brown vs. Board until after his 1956 re-election???

16. And finally, the first mini-step in September 1957 featured THREE WEEKS of Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus and his 10,000 National Guard troops preventing 9 African-Americans from entering Little Rock’s Central High School while Eisenhower kept saying, in effect “Don’t Make Me Do It” and Faubus kept replying, in effect “Over My Dead Body”???

17. On 9/24/1957, did Eisenhower finally (A) nationalize the Arkansas National Guard, (B) as their new commanding officer, order them to stand down, and (C) order the 10,000-plus “Screaming Eagles” of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to escort the 9 students into Central H.S., and then to establish an impregnable perimeter defense around the school???

18. Did the 10,000 Arkansas National Guard Troops who had just been nationalized know that disobeying their new Commanding Officer would result in court martial???

19. And were the 10,000-plus “Screaming Eagles” of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division -- which had been created by Eisenhower in 1942 for its famous 1944 “Rendezvous With Destiny” parachuting into three different “drop zones” behind Nazi lines on “D-Day” followed by pivotal roles in other crucial battles with the Nazis, such as the Nazi counter-attack at “The Battle of the Bulge” which nearly succeeded -- an intimidating-enough sight to “keep the peace” in what could have been a very bloody and wide-ranging rebellion???

20. Though wasn’t there a fair amount of speculation at the time that they might NOT be??? After all, at that time weren’t the U.S. armed forces highly-disproportionately composed of Southerners in both the officer and enlisted ranks??? And as in any rebellion throughout history, isn’t there always the question of whether a military unit will hold together and obey its orders, or whether it will disintegrate into opposing fragments, or whether it will “go over” to the other side??? And because of its predominant Southern composition, wasn’t there great doubt whether The Screaming Eagles would hold together and obey President Eisenhower’s orders??? And wouldn't it have been reasonable to suppose that President Eisenhower had some “sleepless nights” over what his “Screaming Eagles” would do??? But at least, like the careful planner he was throughout his life, didn’t Eisenhower choose the military unit that gave him “the best shot” of accomplishing the mission???

21. Accordingly, is it any wonder that enforcing Brown vs. Board had to await the summer of 1966 when the FIRST U.S. governmental task force was assembled to eliminate the de jure dual-school system of the 17 former slave states?

22. Was Yours Truly a member of that task force?

23. Have each of you heard more times than you would care to remember how he was within 60 seconds of being assassinated that summer in Bertie County NC?

24. Was that surprising since 1966 was ONLY 2 years AFTER the assassinations in Mississippi of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner who had been working on the “Freedom Summer” campaign of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to register African-Americans to vote and 1966 was 3 years BEFORE the assassinations of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy?

25. Had my Task Force African-American partner and I agreed at the beginning of the summer that being assassinated, if that should be our fate, would crown “lives well lived”?

26. Does our author, Isabel Wilkerson, paint a masterful canvas of, inter alia, how Hitler and his minions studied America’s segregation laws for ideas about how to persecute Jews??? And of the affinity felt between The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and India’s “Untouchable” Caste???

27. What is/are her proposal(s) for ameliorating the current situation?

28. Does she even mention Jonathan Kozol whose award-winning books about America’s “Apartheid” K-12 Public Education System – which is fairly close to the title of one of Jonathan Kozol’s books (“The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America” - Random House 2005) – include, inter alia –

Death at an Early Age (1967)
The Night is Dark and I am Far From Home (1975)
Illiterate America (1986)
Rachel and Her Children: Homeless Families in America (1988)
Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (1991)
Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation (1995)
Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope (2000)
Letters to a Young Teacher (2007)
Fire in the Ashes: Twenty-Five Years Among the Poorest Children in America (2012)

29. Did the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Parents vs. Seattle School District No. 1 effectively overturn Brown vs. Board and restore racial discrimination in America’s public schools since segregated schools simply reflected segregated housing patterns??? Does our author Isabel Wilkerson even mention Parents vs. Seattle School Dist. No. 1???

30. Did Jonathan Kozol’s 2005 “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America” examine in detail the “gathering storm” of conditions and lawsuits that would result in the 2007 “Parents vs. Seattle” decision???

31. Did The New York Times, for which our author Isabel Wilkerson proudly proclaims early and often she served as Chicago Bureau Chief, oppose providing WITH PRIVATE FINANCING (MUCH LESS PUBLIC FINANCING) 10 million inner-city children with “I Have A Dream”® Programs featuring tutoring and mentoring from third-grade through high-school graduation with a guarantee of college tuition AND ROUTINELY transforming SINGLE-DIGIT high-school-graduation rates TO MORE THAN 90%???

32. In all fairness to The New York Times, did President Obama and 20 other U.S. and California governmental officials (including U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) refuse three requests to file Amicus Curiae briefs in the litigation against 15 of the world’s largest financial institutions for refusing to pay the $84 billion that they owed Yours Truly and that had long since been pledged in legally-binding fashion to provide those “I Have A Dream”® programs when –

• Pres. Obama et al. routinely filed Amicus Curiae briefs in such litigation, AND

• Pres. Obama et al. were informed on each of the three occasions what was happening – that as described in our final certiorari petition to the U.S. Supreme Court as the “question presented for review” --

“Can state court judges order their decisions which they know are diametrically-opposed to well-settled law, not to be published or cited (a strategy labeled ‘the segregated toilet’ in correspondence with 51 inner-city clergy who represent the 10 million inner-city children who have been disclosed from the outset as the ‘real parties at interest’ in this law suit) in order to flush away the rights of the 10 million inner-city children without disturbing the rights of first-class American citizens -- without violating the ‘Equal Protection of the Law’ requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution?”

33. Did our final 10/5/2011 report to each of the 51 inner-city clergy from San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland who had been supporting the cause (A) inform them that the US Supreme Court on 10/4/2011 refused to hear our appeal, (B) thank them for their efforts with the solace that each of us would be able to say at The Pearly Gates with St. Paul (II Timothy 4:7): “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” and (C) request them and their congregants to pray for the 43 news-media superstars, the 21 governmental officials, the California judges and the U.S. Supreme Court Justices, that MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON THEIR SOULS???

34. Since Pres. Obama was well aware of the dozen-or-so “I Have A Dream”® projects operating on Chicago’s South Side when Pres. Obama was the “community organizer” there in the 1990’s, does Pres. Obama deserve, though “long may he live,” the following epitaph that Yours Truly has often proposed for him –

American’s First “Token” Black President
He “Knew His Place” on The Establishment’s "Plantation"
He Condemned 10 MILLION Inner-City Children to “A Fate Worse Than Death”


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Extra-Credit Questions

CAVEAT – In view of my Bona Fides (nearly being assassinated while desegregating schools in 1966 as described in Questions 21-25, being the co-founder of the first homeless shelter in Fairfield County CT in the 1970’s, being the founder and primary benefactor of the “I Have A Dream”® Program of Stamford CT that served 200 housing-project children in the 1990’s, and being the volunteer treasurer of the National “I Have A Dream”® Program that oversaw 178 such programs in 51 American inner-cities), I believe that I am entitled to ask the following extra-credit questions without being labelled a “racist” –

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Q-A: Did our author Isabel Wilkerson trash the United Nations’ now-22-year-old “War on Modern Slavery” which we have so often summarized as follows from the U.N. Biennial Reports on “Trafficking in Persons” and a book by the Director of the Harvard U. Kennedy School of Government’s “Program on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery” –

(1) Trafficking human slaves is more profitable for organized crime than illegal guns or illegal drugs.

(2) There are more slaves today than ever throughout history!!!

(3) Indeed, at least TWICE AS MANY people are CURRENTLY TRAPPED in some form of slavery as were traded throughout the 350 years of the transatlantic slave industry!!!

(4) And virtually all of the slaves come from refugee camps where they are easily enticed by the false promise of a better life!!!

(5) Indeed, the retail price of a slave delivered in the U.S. is only $5,250 as a result of which the average price of a sex act is only $27.50 which has unleashed incredible demand!!!

(6) And the average sex slave performs 3,296 sex acts per year for $90,648 of gross income which means that the net return after expenses (meals, bribery of officials, etc.) is an ANNUAL net profit of MANY TIMES the initial investment – with no workforce training!!!

(7) Of course, you can use your slave for anything you want including working in your vineyard or on your farm under whatever inhumane working conditions you like and, of course, for no remuneration other than enough calories to keep the slave alive!!!

(8) AND QUITE A FEW SLAVES ARE PURCHASED FOR ORGAN HARVESTING!!!

(9) The average sex slave is dead by age 35!!!


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Q-B: When we studied the UN’s “War on Modern Slavery” for our 9/18/2019 meeting, did we study, inter alia –

(1) The United Nation’s Biennial Reports on “Trafficking in Persons” AND

(2) “Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery” (Columbia U. Press - 298 pages) by Prof. Siddharth Kara who, at the time, was the Director of the Harvard U Kennedy School of Government’s “Program on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery” and also a Visiting Scientist on Forced Labor for Harvard’s School of Public Health.