VoxUnion Media
Assassinating the Image and Legacy of Martin Luther
King, Jr.
January of every year we are encouraged
to celebrate the legacy of Dr. King even as such celebration
occurs over the assassinated image of an assassinated
man. As Vincent Harding noted, quoting a poem by Carl
Wendell Himes, Jr., "Dead men make such convenient
heroes: They cannot rise to challenge the images we
would fashion from their lives." Harding's extension
of this to his own work on King, The Inconvenient Hero ,
summarizes perfectly the position King must hold today.
His popularity must be used to testify against his living
legacy, his life's struggle, and both the reasoning
and people behind his assassination. While his name
is evoked each year, and at times of heightened political
activity even more so, this reference comes specifically
to recast a revolutionary into one comfortable with
current and false notions of "progress" or
"change." Barak Obama borrows his oratorical
flare (attempts at least) with none of his politics
and Hillary Clinton misuses his legacy to give undo
credit to the executive branch for a movement's struggle
for equality while simultaneously suggesting that King
himself saw president Johnson's signing of Civil Rights
legislation as completion of victory and liberation.
He most certainly did not. All this, of course, occurs
while electoral
political efforts to carry out King's plan (his
dream had long since been considered by King himself
to be a "nightmare") are summarily ignored
by mass media popular and "progressive" alike.
To help reclaim our fallen hero, and the international
struggle to which he was attached, we have compiled
this PDF
consisting of King's rarely discussed ideas and
plans of action, as well as, Counter Intelligence Program
(COINTELPRO) documents borrowed from Ward Churchill
and Jim Vander Wall's The Cointelpro Papers: Documents from the Fbi's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States (South End Press Classics Series, Volume, 8) , and finally
headlines/articles from the Washington Post demonstrating
King's re-imaging from hero to one to be feared by those
in power. This PDF
is a summary portion of a Capitol
Resistance presentation designed to engage and challenge
currently held perceptions of Dr. King, mass media,
hip-hop, journalism and political struggle.
1. The
Real King Download (PDF)
2. Captiol
Resistance
3. Cynthia
McKinney Runs for President!
Colonialism is the Lens and Hip-Hop
is the Mirror
Jared A. Ball, Ph.D.
Green Institute Communications Fellow
It is July 29, 2007 and Washington, DC is in full focus.
Its hip-hop community is doing big things with D’mite’s
(Bomani Armah) “Read A Book,” making waves, we recently
celebrated Hip-Hop Theater, Head-Roc is on the rise
in progressive politics,* and DC’s Petey Greene is again
popular. It is also days after a new report announced
that the number of juveniles being held in our jails
has tripled. As it is days after DC Black radio stalwarts
Ambrose I. Lane, Sr. and Mark Thompson were unceremoniously
removed from Black-owned Radio One’s XM airwaves. And
though not based in DC it will be shown to be pertinent
and entirely related that it is also a few days after
AllHipHop.com released its poll concerning the control
of hip-hop and that American Indian and activist professor
Ward Churchill had his tenure revoked by the University
of Colorado. READ>>
Colonialism
is the Lens and Hip-Hop is the Mirror (part 3 of 4)
by Jared Ball
August 1, 2007
Green Institute Publications
It continues that colonialism, without conscious and
organized interruption, reproduces itself even as it
goes often unnamed or perhaps misunderstood. Whether
referred to euphemistically (consciously or not) as
“inequality,” “racism,” “misogyny” or, in terms of image
and media, as “poor/inaccurate representation,” “entertainment,”
and “news,” colonialism is what Fanon wrote it to be.
Hip-Hop
and the Corporate Function of Colonization (part 2 of
4)
by Jared Ball
May 10, 2007
Green Institute Publications
Having elsewhere looked at the function of mass media
as primary mechanisms of the maintenance of colony,
recent events have again emerged requiring further investigation
into the function of corporate control over the cultural
expression of colonized populations.
Hip-Hop,
Mass Media and 21st Century Colonization (part 1 of
4)
by Jared Ball
March 20, 2007
Green Institute Publications
The fraudulence of mass media hip-hop as popular culture
resulting from the colonial status of Black America
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MLK
Jr. Day Special Presentation