The Sleep of Reason

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters — Goya
imagination

Two Sculptors — Daumier
politics

Half Man — Malevich
reductionism

The Raft of the Medusa — Gericault
incompetence

Orange Morning — Rothko
essence

Betty — Gerhard Richter
observer

Judith Beheading Holofernes — Gentileschi
praxis

Judith — Gentileschi
revolution

The Swing — Fragonard
what we are here for

Redemption Song . . . . again? Version Two

Its happened again, I've just heard yet another very well-meaning person, choosing as solace, a piece of music that covers-up more than it can ever hope solve, despite it also having the best intentions at the heart of it. This is 'Redemption Song' by Bob Marley, one of the last recorded works of his exceptional career.

"Old pirates yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I from the
Bottom less pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the almighty
We forward in this generation triumphantly
All I ever had is songs of freedom
Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had redemption songs, redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the book

Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs, redemption songs, redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Yes some say it's just part of it
We've got to fulfill the book

Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs
All I ever had, redemption songs
These songs of freedom, songs of freedom"

I'm sad that this is the one Bob Marley song that is the most commonly cited favourite of his work amongst POWC. Some white people have jumped on this piece out of all his other words, as they presume that it absolves them of their complicity — Well, they'd like to think it is, but it is no such thing:

Perhaps one sentiment, such as this granting of our absolution IS possible, but it has to be remembered that these lyrics could also be read as some of the most bitter and accusatory that we will hear: This is something that we have to hear, and meditate on, yes . . . but that we (the oppressors), have earned this one person's forgiveness from all the way back in 1979 I find to be too neat and tidy, and the whitey-we conveniently presume this one man has been appointed by the generations-of-slavery to forgive us; the mini-me mighty-whitey-we for our destructiveness— A lot's happened since then, but nothing's changed, and looks like we've been let off the hook, for our shame. Behind Marley, it feels like there's a vested-interest who's holding this valuable witness to ransom.

I can't bear hearing this song, because it reminds me of the Liberals I knew who hadn't/haven't a clue quite how painful, ever-present, and current racism still is. I've watched them aghast when at the end of a crappy party of white pople (god forbid there was black gatecrasher) when they would ritualistically put that "Choon" on (to signal end of the night), and with their drunken smiles and half-closed eyes, wanting to think 'the struggle' is over, and all that just by hearing his weary voice singing those great words.

"See you Dahling, I hope you don't have any trouble on the way back home, the streets are dreadfully dark!!"

Mainly I can't bear hearing that song, because it isn't even Bob Marley anymore: How typical for white fans to select this naked and unplugged recording —its like a man stripped bare for inspection at market— rather than his groundbreaking work with the Wailers who perfected a Brand New Genre that demonstrates their command, sophistication, and facility with electricity: what had made this modern man such a hero and icon has been taken away from him, and this song is more like the supplication, or the final plea, of the captive: its about as close to banging out a pattern on the bars — how ironic that is:

Picture . . .
it sounds like this recording came without his friends who he transformed music with; it is like a piece of performance art — almost like a confession written by the torturer; it is also emphasised by the fact he appears alone, and ON OUR OWN WHITE TERMS of the 'fear of syncopation' and using as much of our style of language as he could bear to utter, not his; and confined like the prisoner he is singing about, he has again been separated from the energy of his own identity, before we (the unmusical) can bear him to forgive us...

Was it was naive of Marley to think that his words would not be interpreted in any other way?

It is said that "We enter the world alone and with nothing, and we leave the world alone and with nothing".

Stick this in your Memes and smoke it!

Clint Eastwood

Sorry I've been away for so long, it is a rubbish story of medicalised lethargy; part of which I will eventually write about Kathleen — you are right to suggest I should try to document my condition.

The Guardian newspaper had an article on saturday which has confirmed Clint Eastwood's values for me. I will post it here unedited. How can a person be so blindered to evidence and testimonies?

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Here goes . . .

From Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Friday October 20, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

"Absent from history: the black soldiers at Iwo Jima"

Nearly 900 African-Americans fought on the Japanese island but not one appears in Clint Eastwood's Oscar-tipped film, writes Dan Glaister

Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Friday October 20, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

On February 19 1945 Thomas McPhatter found himself on a landing craft heading toward the beach on Iwo Jima.
"There were bodies bobbing up all around, all these dead men," said the former US marine, now 83 and living in San Diego. "Then we were crawling on our bellies and moving up the beach. I jumped in a foxhole and there was a young white marine holding his family pictures. He had been hit by shrapnel, he was bleeding from the ears, nose and mouth. It frightened me. The only thing I could do was lie there and repeat the Lord's prayer, over and over and over."

Sadly, Sgt McPhatter's experience is not mirrored in Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood's big-budget, Oscar-tipped film of the battle for the Japanese island. While the battle scene's in the film - which opens today in the US - show scores of young soldiers in combat, none of them are African-American. Yet almost 900 African-American troops took part in the battle of Iwo Jima, including Sgt McPhatter.
The film tells the story of the raising of the stars and stripes over Mount Suribachi at the tip of the island. The moment was captured in a photograph that became a symbol of the US war effort. Eastwood's film follows the marines in the picture, including the Native American Ira Hayes, as they were removed from combat operations to promote the sale of government war bonds.

Mr McPhatter, who went on to serve in Vietnam and rose to the rank of lieutenant commander in the US navy, even had a part in the raising of the flag. "The man who put the first flag up on Iwo Jima got a piece of pipe from me to put the flag up on," he says. That, too, is absent from the film.

"Of all the movies that have been made of Iwo Jima, you never see a black face," said Mr McPhatter. "This is the last straw. I feel like I've been denied, I've been insulted, I've been mistreated. But what can you do? We still have a strong underlying force in my country of rabid racism."

Melton McLaurin, author of the forthcoming The Marines of Montford Point and an accompanying documentary to be released in February, says that there were hundreds of black soldiers on Iwo Jima from the first day of the 35-day battle. Although most of the black marine units were assigned ammunition and supply roles, the chaos of the landing soon undermined the battle plan.

"When they first hit the beach the resistance was so fierce that they weren't shifting ammunition, they were firing their rifles," said Dr McLaurin.

The failure to transfer the active role played by African-Americans at Iwo Jima to the big screen does not surprise him. "One of the marines I interviewed said that the people who were filming newsreel footage on Iwo Jima deliberately turned their cameras away when black folks came by. Blacks are not surprised at all when they see movies set where black troops were engaged and never show on the screen. I would like to say that it was from ignorance but anybody can do research and come up with books about African-Americans in world war two. I think it has to do with box office and what producers of movies think Americans really want to see."

He added: "I want to see these guys get their due. They're just so anxious to have their story told and to have it known."

Roland Durden, another black marine, landed on the beach on the third day. "When we hit the shore we were loaded with ammunition and the Japanese hit us with mortar." Private Durden was soon assigned to burial detail, "burying the dead day in, day out. It seemed like endless days. They treated us like workmen rather than marines."

Mr Durden, too, is wearied but unsurprised at the omissions in Eastwood's film. "We're always left out of the films, from John Wayne on," he said. Mr Durden ascribes to both the conspiracy as well as the cock-up theory of history. "They didn't want blacks to be heroes. This was pre-1945, pre civil rights."

A spokesperson for Warner Bros said: "The film is correct based on the book." The omission was first remarked upon in a review by Fox News columnist Roger Friedman, who noted that the history of black involvement at Iwo Jima was recorded in several books, including Christopher Moore's recent Fighting for America: Black Soldiers - the Unsung Heroes of World War II. "They weren't in the background at all," said Moore.

"The people carrying the ammunition were 90% black, so that's an opportunity to show black soldiers. These are our films and very often they become our history, historical documents." Yvonne Latty, a New York University professor and author of We Were There: Voices of African-American Veterans (2004), wrote to Eastwood and the film's producers pleading with them to include the experience of black soldiers. HarperCollins, the book's publishers, sent the director a copy, but never heard back.

"It would take only a couple of extras and everyone would be happy," she said. "No one's asking for them to be the stars of the movies, but at least show that they were there. This is the way a new generation will think about Iwo Jima. Once again it will be that African-American people did not serve, that we were absent. It's a lie."

The first chapter to James Bradley's book Flags of Our Fathers, which forms the basis of the movie, opens with a quotation from president Harry Truman. "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." It would provide a fitting endnote to Eastwood's film.

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Now we know what to call the 'Man With No Name': He's a White-washing perpetuator.

BOYCOTT Flags of Our Fathers!