LINES OF THE DAY

". . . But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past -- or more accurately, pastness -- is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past." p. 15

". . . But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." p. 153

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Monday, November 23, 2015

For ME, Tomorrow Is The Big Day

 Lenny Lopate Show, tomorrow, at 1:25 PM tomrrow.

Can be listened to streaming live.

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate

Tomorrow the site will all look different than it does today, long long long before midnight, when it all turns over for the next day, i.e. tomorrow.

For me this is a VERY BIG DEAL!


Starting with LL's interview of Edward Ball about Slaves in the Family 1998) that verified that what I was doing with the Della stories was right.  Because I was told by the male history experts that I was all wrong.  So much so, I doubted myself.Which meant digging ever deeper into U.S. history, which showed me that far from being wrong, slavery was central to U.S. history from the earliest colonial era to present.




Katherine Kerr provide me the first opportunity to explore these matters of slavery -- and the transmission of cultures and spiritual paths to sustain individuals, families an communities in slavery -- in the United State with an invitation to submit a story for her anthology, The Shiimmering Door -- 1996).  As my stories continued, mansplainers of sf/f told me the stories were charming but were historically all wrong because I didn't understand basic facts of American history, particularly the fact, "My dear, the Civil War wasn't about slavery."

More lately the same mansplainers are informing everyone that the Civil War was about slavery, doncha know.

Which has a lot to do with why I spent 5 + years of my life working to make The American Slave Coast.  Whenever anyone sneers that the Civil War -- or as we prefer to refer to that southern unpleasantness -- as the U.S. Revolution -- now I have something to point to which refutes every gddmned bs argument one wants to make, in one (yes, big, covering 350 years) volume.  Or, as Mama Jennifer of the New Orleans Community Book Center down there instructs, "Throw that book at em!"

We meet Edward Ball at Tulane before our thing with Gwen Tompkins, and he says he can't stay coz he's got a thing, but he stayed all the way because he couldn't tear himself away, and BOUGHT copies!  He's here right now as a NYPL Cullman Fellow (which el V was one of back in the day), so we can all hook up, which we are doing.

This Lenny Lopate thing -- Edward Ball thing -- isn't the same thing for el V that it is for me. For me, this is HUGE.

By the way, what thrills me most of all -- The American Slave Coast is in the NYPL system, including the e-book version!

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