Author of Urban Fantasy & Advocate of Egyptian Myth
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Red Stone Scribe

A discussion of news, ideas and opinions regarding the relevance of Feminism, Antiquity, Literature & Multiculturalism to the existence of urban communities 

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A Tragic Exchange of Great Hate for Greater Art

3/3/2015

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My admiration for the artistic mind, and those works which it spawns, demands that I conjure a horror, a nightmare of an alternative future that all Americans should consider unthinkable, yet we must think of it—if we are human, and consider all men and women as children of the same God.

Imagine if the United States democracy should fall victim to an insurrection by a confederacy of well-funded, well-armed and well-trained white supremacist groups. Think of something of the ilk of the Ku Klux Klan or some modern reincarnation of post-Weimar Germany’s Nazi Party. After implementing a systematic campaign of slaughter of the majority of African-American males by burning them alive, or for dramatic effect, in public displays of lynchings from streetlight poles lining downtown districts, the conquerors would amuse themselves with the most feral prosecution of rape against the adolescent and adult black female populations. Assume, further, that the women and girls who survived such an onslaught would be consigned to the reinstitution of slavery in the new American nation-state. Not content with mere biological extinction and subjugation of an ethnic group and gender, this confederacy of supremacists would then turn its attention towards a campaign of cultural genocide. There was little debate among their leadership as to the merits or legitimacy of this new chapter of the war, and the intent was clear: to erase all vestiges of black folks in America as thinking, spiritual and creative citizens of the globe. And since the warriors of this supremacist movement viewed themselves as righteous Christian crusaders undertaking a mission ordained by a white Christian god who had elevated Caucasians to hold dominion over the dark-skinned races of the earth, the purge proceeded methodically from state to state, from city to city. No museum, no classroom, no library, no gallery and no public square escaped the cultural cleansing. No more Romare Bearden originals, no more Elizabeth Catlett sculptures, no more James Van Der Zee photographic prints and not a single Richard Yarde canvas were left to be enjoyed by any teary eyes.

In Hartford, vandals invaded the Amistad Center for Art & Culture, either looting or destroying its precious collection of artifacts of the African-American experience. In New York City, these zealous Christian knights firebombed the interior of the Studio Museum in Harlem. In the nation’s capital, the Martin Luther King Memorial at the National Mall was toppled and shattered, torn asunder with the assistance of a motley assembly of pickup trucks, grappling hooks and jackhammers enlisted for breaking down the 30-foot statue, as well its adjoining components, into easily-manageable slabs of granite. From there, a task force of true believers would carry on with their mission. Since they were commissioned by the provisional government’s new Council of Righteous Arts Volunteers & Evangelical Nationalists (aka CRAVEN), they would zoom south on I-95 to Richmond, VA while whistling Dixie and bragging how a vengeful Christian god had made their movement invincible and beyond any earthly judgment. As such, condemnations and sanctions from Mexico and Canada fell upon deaf ears.

Upon arriving in the capital of the old Confederacy, which they treasured as sacred soil, those steadfast volunteers would topple and melt down that bronze statue erected to honor the legacy of tennis immortal Arthur Ashe. There were, of course, itinerant groups of true believers recruited in every city and village to assist with the cleansing. But the honor, the quintessential honor of destroying the Barack Obama Presidential Library was to be bestowed on only those most dedicated of zealots, those Christian warriors whose acts of genocide and rape held highest the burning cross before an honor guard dressed in white robes and hoods. Within three years of the supremacist conquest, the Pax Caucasiana, all vestiges of African-American creativity and accomplishment had been expunged. Black folks had once again become the invisible man—and nearly extinct.

By these acts of vandalism and cultural obliteration, the supremacists had administered a perverse auction of time itself. In that demonic exchange, all the time great artists expended to fund the creative process, to ferment their creative vision and to wield, mold and apply their plastic media, all of those weeks in the studio and months of labored artistry were traded for the time it took to destroy unique creations. But zealots could care less that months of painstaking precision by an artist’s paintbrush or a sculptor’s chisel should be so devalued, should be so diminished, that they were traded for the eighty-three minutes it took to topple the MLK Monument or the thirty-two minutes it took to burn a collection of Beardens. However, this exchange had linked to it a corresponding trade. The time that the viewing public had to enjoy those works of art, whether that be a decade or a slow-moving century, was itself mortgaged for that eternity which unfolds, and which we and successive generations must endure, without the calming presence of a particular masterpiece. For even if sanity could somehow be restored, even if efforts were made to recreate, painstakingly, all the shattered and melted monuments or incinerated paintings, they would never be that exact same phenomenon ushered from an artist’s hands and eyes and soul.

That is the horror story; that is the wretched nightmare. But it is more analogy as opposed to fantasy for such is the nature of what is happening in the Middle East. The depredations of ISIL fanatics are destroying works of art millennia old, a heritage—not only of the Arab world—but of all humankind. We were first alerted to this Islamist (not to be confused with Islamic) madness just months before the 9/11 attacks. It was then when the Afghan Taliban destroyed the Buddha sculptures of Bamiyan. Those twin wonders were carved long ago within the side of a sandstone cliff and, for 1,700 years, once constituted the tallest standing Buddhist statues in the world at heights of over 170 ft. and 115 ft., respectively. In March 2001, the Taliban had the monuments dynamited because they were deemed to be idols inconsistent with their warped vision of a great faith—as if Buddhism itself was not a great faith. (The next time you fly to Rio de Janeiro imagine what the Taliban or ISIL or any group of that ilk would do to the 125-foot-tall statue of Christ the Redeemer which has become symbolic of Brazilian tourism.) Recently, reports have circulated that the war criminals known as ISIL had ransacked a museum in Iraq, smashing 2,000-year-old artifacts from the ancient Assyrian empire. And for the same reason as the Taliban: a supremacist view of Islam that finds it impossible, not only to tolerate cultural diversity, but to even respect the artistic achievements of a long-dead civilization that posed no threat of revival. So with the work of smashing sledgehammers, ISIL trades the time it took to destroy those historic artifacts for the eternity they will be lost to the eyes of humankind. Once again, fanatics offer nothing but their hate in exchange for mankind’s art.

We did not need any more reasons to condemn the ISILs, Taliban and Al-Quaedas of the world. And murder, rape and slavery cast a more towering shadow of evil over the conscience of civilization. But attacks on cultural diversity constitute an assault against us all. As MLK stated, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” So I ask the African-American community directly, but really all Americans: how would you feel if white supremacists destroyed Dr. King’s monument? Would you be irate? Then have the same outrage of Iraq, and don’t be blind to the horrors unfolding in the Near East. However, just as important, be thankful that the treasures we have stored in Hartford’s Amistad Center, Harlem’s Studio Museum and all other similar venues will never fall victim to a supremacist ideology that would trade expression of great hate for expression of far greater art. – Geronimo Redstone, author of The Bachelor Scrolls
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Kurdish Female Fighters: Showing American Support for Global Feminism

2/15/2015

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Instead of exposing themselves to accusations of waging a “war on women,” Republicans in Congress—in bipartisan support with Democrats—can help women to wage war. Historically, warfare has been considered to be the exclusive province of men. The problem with that premise is that it imposes the burden of defending an entire society’s gene pool on just one-half of its members—even while further eliminating the youngest and oldest citizens of a nation-state (or territory that aspires to that status) from the call to arms. And, of course, universal ethical standards and effectiveness in the conduct of war dictate that children and the elderly should never be called upon to carry the spear, sword or Kalashnikov. However, the more self-defeating aspect of that sacred cow has been the arrogance of assuming that the moral virtues of soldiers—courage, cunning, leadership and the will to win—are also the monopoly of men.

America’s military has slowly maneuvered along a continuum away from such delusions. In my inaugural novel The Bachelor Scrolls, the character Athena, a Marine Corps major, represents a fictional construct of what equality in the military might entail. And we should hope that recent American experiments to assess the combat effectiveness of women on the battlefield will yield encouraging results for female military careers. American legislators should be diligent in monitoring those experiments.

However, perhaps the most consequential examples of the equality of women in warfare are the Kurdish female fighters of the Syrian and Iraqi theaters of combat, women who are fighting against the threat of rape, slavery and extinction by the so-called Islamic State. Constituting nearly a third of Kurdish fighters mobilized in Syria, they have captured the fascination of many in the West who are typically accustomed to seeing women marginalized in other Middle Eastern cultures. With battlefield courage displayed and broadcasted by a curious Western media—much to the misogynistic chagrin of ISIL fighters—these warrior-saints of feminist empowerment are shattering preconceptions of female capabilities and vulnerability. Arguably, one of their most significant combat accomplishments has been the propaganda value of shaming Arab men to take the battle to ISIL and terrifying jihadist war criminals with the notion of being slain by a woman. 

So as the United States Congress debates whether that body should provide President Obama with authority to wage war against ISIL, it should consider the example of these female fighters. It should not be forgotten that distinction earned in warfare has an interesting way of eventually advancing the rights of oppressed peoples. Although it happened far too slowly, and to the lasting shame of the American republic, the prowess of America’s all-black regiments of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as the African-American military accomplishments of WWII, all would help awaken some sectors of a racist America to the inherent dignity and rights of its dark-skinned populations. And that would help usher in the eventual victories of the so-called Civil Rights Movement. Granted, the American human rights campaigns of the 1960s were waged with a strategy of non-violence. But one of the most enduring questions that history asks of objective observers and political tacticians looking back on that era is this: just how effective would Dr. King, and the sons and daughters of Selma, have been without the threat of Malcolm X and his ballot or the bullet rhetoric? This is an important question to ask as the fiftieth anniversary of Malcolm's assassination is marked this week.

In a manner similar to the pressure point that Malcolm X provided, I believe that these Kurdish female fighters will, in time, prove an existential threat to the patriarchal prerogatives of Middle Eastern leaders in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq, a threat that will ultimately force concessions that move the needle on the register of female empowerment. I say this because, once the battle against ISIL has been won, those same Kurdish women warriors will not be satisfied to be relegated to bit roles as cooks, wet nurses and the erotic play toys of males. And I suspect that the heroism and exploits of these warriors, broadcasted via social media, will eventually shape the consciousness of women in the Middle East—exploits such as those captured in media video clips. Congress should also be diligent in supporting the ripple effects of such waves of self-determination, as they occur. And legislators might—if their constituents encourage them to do so. After all, there may be no better opportunity to spread the seeds of sustainable democracy in the region.

While always an option of last resort, freedom is sometimes only obtained at the end of the barrel of a gun. That is not mere sloganizing courtesy of the National Rifle Association; it is something that the French Resistance understood to be essential during the Nazi occupation of World War II. Therefore, if Americans truly believe in human rights and female equality, they should also believe in the valiant female fighters of Kurdistan. Among women in the Middle East, we most certainly will see that fighting back against evil and injustice has a way of becoming an ingrained attitude of mind. And, maybe, the story and example of Kurdish women fighters will eventually spread to the female generation endangered by Boko Haram? Or the teenage girls and women of Darfur? But only if they know of them and are equipped and trained to defend themselves.

So, perhaps the only thing that the populations of the former Assyrian Empire and Mesopotamia may be missing is their own female equivalent of a Malcolm X. And their valor suggests that, if well-armed with more bullets, they will ensure that all women (and men) in the territories they control have full access to the ballot and the God-given rights of men (and women). Indeed, the Kurds are showing the world that more boots on the ground can come in a size 6 or size 7.

–- Geronimo Redstone, author of The Bachelor Scrolls, the modern fantasy of female empowerment
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    Red Stone Scribe:

    The blog's goal is a focused discussion around issues of feminism, antiquity and a multicultural world outlook & how they are tied to the progress of urban populations -- themes hinted at in The Bachelor Scrolls.

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