Author: michael o. allen
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Musings, strange
A Facebook friend, John Burroughs, posted this searing Langston Hughes poem today: Song for a Dark Girl Way Down South in Dixie (Break the heart of me) They hung my black young lover To a cross roads tree. Way Down South in Dixie (Bruised body high in air) I asked the white Lord Jesus What…
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INCREDIBLE ROAD TAKES HIM HOME: Mandela Has Only Begun to be Great
By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers | Tuesday, May 3, 1994 JOHANNESBURG—This day was never supposed to come. Nelson Mandela was never supposed to return from life imprisonment to divert South Africa from the ruinous path apartheid has laid for its peoples. And blacks in this country were never supposed…
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The Gitmos before Gitmo
Zina Saunders‘ illustration for “Guantanamo at Home” in The Nation magazine in which Jeanne Theoharis, with the proposed closing of Guantanamo, takes a hard look at the harsh treatment of terror suspects in prisons on American soil. Read the article here. Love0 Share Tweet Share Pin
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Men’s laws for women’s bodies
Zina Saunders did this piece to accompany an article in The Nation magazine. Ordinarily, it would carry her byline but I do not want attribute to her my own thoughts on this issue. My thoughts, such as they are, are unformed and unsophisticated, incoherent even. Try this: Isn’t it time we men stop manifesting our…
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It’s a New Day for S. African Women
By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer | Sunday, May 8, 1994 JOHANNESBURG—Zodwa Tshabalala, her left leg shattered at the knee, crawled through an open gate as neighbors who heard her screaming clustered around her. “I’ll kill you if you are not gone by the time I come back,” her fiancé told her before…
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Mandela, ANC Readying for Power
By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer | Sunday, May 8, 1994 JOHANNESBURG—South Africa’s new national assembly sits for the first time tomorrow, and the African National Congress, which holds 252 of the chamber’s 400 seats, will select Nelson Mandela, as president. On Tuesday, he will be sworn in as the nation’s first president…
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Mandela Sworn in as Freedom Reigns
By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer | Wednesday, May 11, 1994 PRETORIA—Climaxing his journey from political prisoner to nation builder, Nelson Mandela assumed the office of president of South Africa yesterday vowing that “never again” would racial exploitation be tolerated. In a joyous ceremony that marked the end of the country’s pariah status…
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A sour tale of home sweet homeland By MICHAEL O. ALLEN
My recent journey to South Africa to witness its epic sprint to democracy plunged me, like a pebble flung into a stream, deep into memories of my childhood in Africa. Beside unleashing bred-in-bone memories, my sojourn forced me to examine thoughts I had long held, especially about myself. By the time I left South Africa,…
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Rush Limbaugh for The Progressive
This is an illustration for an article in this month’s Progressive, Conservatives in Crisis by Ruth Conniff, about how conservatives are facing an ideological crisis after eight years of Bush and their trouncing in the election. From the article: “While Obama is declaring the argument between big-government liberals and free-market-fundamentalist conservatives over, Rush Limbaugh is …
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Speaking, plainly
I guess Chris Rock has always spoken this way. This was from his Bigger and Blacker 1999 tour. This excerpt of the transcript is courtesy of Drew’s Script-O-Rama Racism everywhere, everybody pissed off. Black people yelling, ”Racism.” White people yelling, ”Reverse racism.” Chinese people yelling, ”Sideways racism!” And the lndians ain’t yelling shit ’cause they…