Tinseltown in the Rain (The Blue Nile cover)

#acousticcover #music #covermusic #coversong #80scover #80svideo #acoustic #singersongwriter #thebluenile #lafires #losangeles #tinseltown #rain My heart. ❤️ This one has been coming to me a something of a prayer for rain over the last few weeks and I finally got a chance to sit down with the guitar. Good to hear rain is in the forecast. Hopefully not too much. All my love to friends and their friends and family in this. Stay safe and sane. I own nothing here but the things that own me. Rights to the original authors in other words. This is a hobby/therapy. 🙏🏻

https://youtu.be/SHrbFyvi8NE?si=HaEF0pTMUN7rG1qD

Undoing Homework: Kwame Ture and Black Liberation

I put this ‘homework assignment’ together for myself a few weeks after the 2024 general election. It was an effort to have something productive to talk about when my Black friends, neighbors and co-workers ask; “what happened, Eden?” Based on the election results, and the many so-called allies and coalition members who didn’t show up right, there is a deep sense of betrayal in the Black communities I’m in relationship with. I thought to myself, “what do we need to know to do things differently?” I also started asking myself; “what is the opposite of anti-blackness?” One of my co-workers reminded me of Kwame Ture who I was first introduced to by Lila Cabbil and Undoing Racism.

In national and local postmortem calls, I’ve witnessed the scapegoating of those who organize around racial justice, equity and “wokeness.” Leadership are looking for someone or something to blame for the loss of large segments of the working class to right wing populism. I’ve been asking myself what I could have done differently since 2020. 

I’ve also been going to a few national and local meetings for wannabe do-gooder white folk like me. Most importantly, trying not to be a needy little vampire, I’ve been paying attention to the conversations my Black co-workers are having and gently seeking counsel from those I call on when perplexed about how to roll respectfully. 

The wannabe do-gooder white folk meetings were both hopeful and a reminder of why I don’t do white folk meetings. Internal tensions were apparent and energetically influenced the space. Many of these orgs support Black individuals, orgs, or specific efforts, like abolitionist letter writing. While this support is important and should be lauded, it differs greatly from the focus of the anti-racism model that I came up in. 

In my experience, my trauma informed experience, deep self-analysis and a critique of whiteness bordering on interrogation is requisite for some white (privileged or whatever word we are using for self-centered assh@ts these days) person to truly get it. Maybe some folk need fluffy bunnies, but I’ve always found that many will just stick with the fluffy and continue to show up weak when the shit hits the fan.

Of course, the end goal here, as I understand it, is to support systemic change toward material benefit by and for Black people. That’s enough for me because I have historic and familial foot in the fight. If you need a self-interested hook to engage, try this; if we get these systems right for the most vulnerable by redistributing consolidated resources and power from the top, everyone (including you) but the billionaire’s benefit. I know, they are already billionaires, so they’ll be OK. 

To change gears, there must be accountability and consequence, and Black leaders need to set the terms of engagement without council from white and privileged folk. These are the folk who can and will bail when things don’t go their way, time and time, again and again. We must learn how to do and think differently, like we are a part of something, not “a part” from it.

My hope is that going directly to Black voices, like Dr. Ture and James Baldwin, will help. That by developing accountability channels we can reduce harm to the communities we seek to support. Maybe through doing this hard work instead of the work that makes us feel OK, we could begin to comprehend what it means to be in unflinching solidarity with the politics of Black power as the “only viable hope” to reconnect with our humanity, save democracy, or insert some other high falootin’ idealistic statement here. 

Guidelines for learning and discussion

  1. Don’t listen to anyone else. Read Dr. Ture’s Howard bio and then watch and listen to Dr. Ture. Direct, not summarized, listening is important. No cliff notes, no short cuts, no figuring out what the correct thing to say is. Talk about it later in a co-facilitated group (see below)
  2. Process what was said. Give yourself some time with it. Document, write, draw, create ways to organize the most impactful aspects of the content for you. Ask what ‘made sense’ for you and what didn’t and make note of these things. 
  3. I’d recommend participation in a principle-based small group for a discussion co-facilitated by Black and white leaders who have been doing the work.

Homework – 1 Hour 

Read This:
Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) was a civil rights activist, writer, and orator known as a lead figure within the Pan-African and Black nationalist movements, and for coining the slogan, “Black power.” Ture was born in Trinidad in 1941 and immigrated to New York City in 1952. In high school, watching a televised sit-in for civil rights inspired him to join the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and participate in sit-ins across the United States. During his freshman year at Howard University, where he majored in philosophy, he participated in his first Freedom Ride. The Freedom Rides were integrated bus trips through the American South in protest of the segregated public transportation system.

After graduating from Howard in 1964, Ture became a field organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He played a vital role in the Freedom Summer, a campaign to register black voters in the Deep South. However, he eventually became disillusioned with the slow pace of progress and continued police violence faced by activists for integration. In 1966, Ture gave the speech wherein he first spoke the words “Black Power,” calling for cultural, political, and economic self-determination for Black people around the world. He joined the Black Panther Party and journeyed around the world to visit with revolutionary leaders, eventually ending up in Conakry, Guinea, where he changed his name from Stokely Carmichael to Kwame Ture in 1969. There, he dedicated the rest of his life to Pan-African unity. In his writings and speeches, Ture helped to redefine African American identity–as well as Black identity around the globe–with his revolutionary proclamation that Black is beautiful. Howard University Bio

Watch These

  1. For Context One – 20+ years after the Black Power Speech. Watch for the intentionality, planning, even with arrest, for this speech. This is organizing. Reframing of MLK as opposed to the use of Black Power v Non-violence.  Video 3 mins – Stokley Carmichael on Black power speech, November 7, 1988, https://youtu.be/4A9SKoMfzek?si=TWyVat1KvHqMK2JZ
  2. For Context Two – Visual Space, what the speeches looked like. Note the overalls, working class motif, very young, large crowd in face of police force. Video, 2 mins – Stokely Carmichael, SNCC leader — speaking on black power at rally (26 Jun 1966) https://youtu.be/2lAm2QhFq1o?si=7w_4ntu48G4oKjb4
  3. Main Content – Deep Listening to the full speech – Dr Ture speaks directly to white people, be still and listen. There is a HUGE reframe of civil rights legislation as being for white people, not for the benefit of the Black community who recognize their own rights. Anti-Racist Racism? Audio, 54 mins – Dr. Kwame Ture – Black Power Speech (1966) https://youtu.be/ysD5soO4iis?si=D3uxIn_YwbXk_8Td

Then Read This from Black Power: The Politics of Liberation

“Liberal whites often say that they are tired of being told “you can’t understand what it is to be black.” They claim to recognize and acknowledge this. Yet the same liberals will often turn around and tell black people that they should ally themselves with those who can’t understand, who share a sense of superiority based on whiteness. The fact is that most of these “allies” neither look upon the blacks as co-equal partners nor do they perceive the goals as any but the adoption of certain Western norms and values. Professor Milton M. Gordon, in his book, Assimilation in American Life, has called those values “Anglo-conformity” (p. 88). Such a view assumes the “desirability of maintaining English institutions (as modified by the American Revolution), the English language, and English- oriented cultural patterns as dominant and standard in American life.” Perhaps one holding these views is not a racist in the strict sense of our original definition, but the end result of his attitude is to sustain racism.” 

“At the beginning of our discussion of Black Power, we said that black people must redefine themselves, state new values and goals. The same holds true for white people of good will; they too need to redefine themselves and their role.”

“Some people see the advocates of Black Power as concerned with ridding the civil rights struggle of white people. This has been untrue from the beginning. There is a definite, much-needed role whites can play. This role can best be examined on three different, yet interrelated, levels: educative, organizational, supportive. Given the pervasive nature of racism in the society and the extent to which attitudes of white superiority and black inferiority have become embedded, it is very necessary that white people begin to disabuse themselves of such notions. Black people, as we stated earlier, will lead the challenge to old values and norms, but whites who recognize the need must also work in this sphere. Whites have access to groups in the society never reached by black people. They must get within those groups and help perform this essential educative function.”

“One of the most disturbing things about almost all white supporters has been that they are reluctant to go into their own communities—which is where the racism exists—and work to get rid of it. We are not now speaking of whites who have worked to get black people “accepted,” on an individual basis, by the white society. Of these there have been many; their efforts are undoubtedly well- intended and individually helpful. But too often those efforts are geared to the same false premises as integration; too often the society in which they seek acceptance of a few black people can afford to make the gesture. We are speaking, rather, of those whites who see the need for basic change and have hooked up with the black liberation movement because it seemed the most promising agent of such change. Yet they often admonish black people to be non-violent. They should preach non-violence in the white community. Where possible, they might also educate other white people to the need for Black Power. The range is great, with much depending on the white person’s own class background and environment.”

“On a broader scale, there is the very important function of working to reorient this society’s attitudes and policies toward African and Asian countries. Across the country, smug white communities show a poverty of awareness, a poverty of humanity, indeed, a poverty of ability to act in a civilized manner toward non-Anglo human beings. The white middle-class suburbs need “freedom schools” as badly as the black communities. Anglo-conformity is a dead weight on their necks too. All this is an educative role crying to be performed by those whites so inclined.”

“The organizational role is next. It is hoped that eventually there will be a coalition of poor blacks and poor whites. This is the only coalition which seems acceptable to us, and we see such a coalition as the major internal instrument of change in the American society. It is purely academic today to talk about bringing poor blacks and poor whites together, but the task of creating a poor-white power block dedicated to the goals of a free, open society—not one based on racism and subordination— must be attempted. The main responsibility for this task falls upon whites. Black and white can work together in the white community where possible; it is not possible, however, to go into a poor Southern town and talk about “integration,” or even desegregation. Poor white people are becoming more hostile—not less—toward black people, partly because they see the nation’s attention focused on black poverty and few, if any, people coming to them.”

“Only whites can mobilize and organize those communities along the lines necessary and possible for effective alliances with the black communities. This job cannot be left to the existing institutions and agencies, because those structures, for the most part, are reflections of institutional racism. If the job is to be done, there must be new forms created. Thus, the political modernization process must involve the white community as well as the black.”

“It is our position that black organizations should be black-led and essentially black-staffed, with policy being made by black people. White people can and do play very important supportive roles in those organizations. Where they come with specific skills and techniques, they will be evaluated in those terms. All too frequently, however, many young, middle-class, white Americans, like some sort of Pepsi generation, have wanted to “come alive” through the black community and black groups. They have wanted to be where the action is—and the action has been in those places. They have sought refuge among blacks from a sterile, meaningless, irrelevant life in middle-class America. They have been unable to deal with the stifling, racist, parochial, split-level mentality of their parents, teachers, preachers and friends. Many have come seeing “no difference in color,” they have come “color blind.” But at this time and in this land, color is a factor and we should not overlook or deny this. The black organizations do not need this kind of idealism, which borders on paternalism. White people working in SNCC have understood this. There are white lawyers who defend black civil rights workers in court, and white activists who support indigenous black movements across the country. Their function is not to lead or to set policy or to attempt to define black people to black people. Their role is supportive.”

“Ultimately, the gains of our struggle will be meaningful only when consolidated by viable coalitions between blacks and whites who accept each other as co-equal partners and who identify their goals as politically and economically similar. At this stage, given the nature of the society, distinct roles must be played. The charge that this approach is “anti-white” remains as inaccurate as almost all the other public commentary on Black Power. There is nothing new about this; whenever black people have moved toward genuinely independent action, the society has distorted their intentions or damned their performance.” from Chapter III of Black Power, The Myths of Coalition.

Extra Materials – 45 mins

  1. Video, 18 mins – Elaine Brown and Kwame Ture Interview (1993) No power without mass struggle – Former Black Panthers Elaine Brown and Kwame Ture, discuss the ideological principles of the Black Panthers that remain relevant today. https://youtu.be/N9iaDjOstzk?si=AUR0ri60d_5ucnnw
  1. Video, 30 mins – Kwame Ture – Lessons from the 60s (1989) Dr. Kwame Ture speaks on lessons learned from the African liberation struggle in the 60s. This talk was filmed at the University of Chicago on February 18th, 1989.” Note: Transphobic remark that needs to be recognized and discussed in current context of the brutal exploitation of the trans community in the presidential campaign. Frame as disinformation and use inoculation messaging without repetition of harm. https://youtu.be/iB7TgvIf0ZY?si=BejIm-fTW3hqY-e7

Even Deeper: Read the Source

  1. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation is a 1967 book co-authored by Kwame Ture and political scientist Charles V. Hamilton. The work defines Black Power, presents insights into the roots of racism in the United States and suggests a means of reforming the traditional political process for the future.
    FREE PDF: https://mygaryislike.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/black-power-kwame-ture-and-charles-hamilton.pdf

Eden Bloom – Owner of a Lonely Heart (Yes cover)

This was a quick one that came out well. I know pretty much everyone in the west has had this pounded into their heads over the past 40 years, but I’m not certain if we’ve known the lyrics. Particularly at the end there, just receive it.

I own nothing but the audacity to post these little therapy/OT sessions. 🙏🏻

Eden Bloom – Interesting (live demo)

by Eden Bloom
Written December 2023
Recorded on MLK Day, Jan 20 2025
from Without a Book

Maybe it was the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King that messed this up for me. I love myself in what I hope is a healthy way, but I see nothing in myself that gives me a sense of supremacy. Maybe that message that deep down we’re all the same sunk in and damaged my ability to think that somehow I’m more special or more deserving than anybody. Maybe his dream damaged me.

Maybe it was watching all the children I was supposed to hate playing hand in hand with kids who looked like me on public TV. Sanford and Son, Good Times and The Jeffersons are a part of the story. Maybe it was seeing the rise of Black folk on my TV in the seventies that did this to me. Maybe it was Roots. 7 years old, watching a man who looked like me commanding extreme damage be done on a Black guy who then ended up in reading rainbow, then Geordi from Star Trek TNG. Maybe stuff like that seeded the evils in my mind that now look a lot like critical race theory.

Maybe it was Paul and Stevie singing about black and white piano keys, remember? “Ebony and ivory, living in perfect harmony.” Maybe that so badly damaged my psyche that now I want to open borders and give all your stuff away to people in need.

Maybe it was learning how to read.

I don’t know what got me to fall for it, justice, equity, standing up and working for what is pretty much black, white and right.

Maybe it was those ‘tribal beats’ that rattled my brains…… I know Apollonia on the banks of Minnetonka got me thinking a little differently. Maybe it was those European guys with empathy and synthesizers like Depeche Mode that messed me up to the point that I have zero desire to kill anybody. “People are people so why should it be you and I should get along so awfully.”

Maybe it was the Detroit Institute of Arts, or maybe the zoo, public institutions notably too, that got me thinking about “other” people and “other” places in a respectful way. I know a subpoena should be sent for the idea that “You’ve gotta have art” and that we can become living breathing social commentary. These ideas, these institutions radicalized me.

Maybe it was David Carradine and fake Kung Fu or the white women doing yoga at 5 am on the basement TV, that got me thinking “other” cultures might be holding some of the healing I was seeking, and needing.

Maybe it was Field Commander Cohen, the Shulgins, the Leary psychedelic revival in the 90s. Maybe they got me feeling the tree bark against my palms, grains of sand falling through my hands, got me thinking wrong about connections between all things and that to cause others pain was gonna happen, but wrong.

Maybe it was the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King that messed this up for me.

© Eden Bloom 2025
https://linktr.ee/edenbloom2023

Vichy Detroit – Common Ground on Fire

Thursday, Nov 14, 2024 – Vichy Detroit – He awoke with a start. He hadn’t been sleeping well for the past few weeks. It wasn’t the result of the elections, it was the series of arsons on the block weeks before.

He hadn’t really been the same since the first fire. Jump-scared from a deep sleep by the house across the street engulfed in flames. The waves visibly altering space, like some fever dream scene, as though waking inside the burning eye of a mythical big bad guy. Heat waved oranges, reds, yellows and blackness fills the screen.

A chunk of me is back there, transfixed by the swirls. The rest of me awakes with a start. It’s the middle of November. The buildings that caught fire are gone or being worked on, cleaned up, made ready for what’s next.

The fallout from the election has found finger pointing instead of organizing and seeking solidarity. The disinformation worked, is working, will work in the oligarchs favor. You can track and analyze their progress by the changes they make to the sky – or you can keep looking down here.

The, “who could contest him?” white, write-in incumbent Emergency Manager announced he won’t run for Mayor again. Surrounded by his people, the light shown down upon him, he smiles, shrugs as he does, and says he’ll find ‘common ground’ with the fascists to do as much damage in 13 months as possible. It’s 7:33 am.