“I’ll Always Love My Mama (Part 1)

Posted on May 12, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Today, Mother’s Day, if one turns on the radio one is bound to hear The Intruders’ “I’ll Always Love My Mama,” inspired by one of The Intruders’ (Kenny Gamble) Mama, Ruby. Although the song, released in 1973, didn’t make it to Number One on the Music Charts — R&B #6, Pop#36 — today it will be the Number One Song.

In the song one hears how Mama is “one of a kind” and that “you only get one, you only get one.”

Anyone who has never herd this song must Google it today; watch one of the videos or read the lyrics.

To all the Mothers: Happy Mother’s Day!

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“Prison-Based Gerrymandering” and the 3/5ths Compromise

Posted on May 4, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

                The U.S. Census Bureau counts incarcerated individuals at the locations where they are incarcerated rather than at their prior addresses.  This has political as well as economic consequences. 

                Most states’ state prisons are located hundreds of miles from urban centers where the majority of individuals are arrested, tried and convicted.  After convicted and sentenced, these individuals are often transported from the place they call home to distant prisons.  Additionally, because of the disproportionate imprisonment of people of color, including Latinos, the political landscape changes dramatically, that is, because political representation as well as Federal funding is based on the number of people in a district.  In terms of political office, especially locally, seats that otherwise would not exist are created in certain districts because of the number of people in the district, including and most importantly counting the incarcerated and, on the other hand, seats are lost or a party that doesn’t have a political advantage in a given district gains one, as well as the entire Caucus.  Needless to say, these districts that benefit from having the incarcerated counted in their districts want to have them counted there. 

     Because of the disproportionate imprisonment of people of color, the 3/5ths Compromise is implicated again.  As any student of American history should know, the 3/5ths Compromise was a Compromise between the North and the South concerning how slaves would, if at all, be counted for purposes of political representation in the U.S. House of Representatives.  The South wanted its slaves (“property”) counted.  The North did not, knowing that this would give the South disproportionate representation in the House, counting individuals that could not vote.  Finally, the Compromise was that every five slaves would be counted as three for purposes of representation in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Still, this weighed in favor of the South.

     Sometimes the connections aren’t obvious, but tell me there’s no connection between prison-based gerrymandering and the 3/5ths Compromise.

 

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Roots – Back in 1805

Posted on May 1, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

I have been doing some research into my family’s family tree, and I have made it back in time 200+ years! I am back in 1805, and the White people in my family tree are starting to pop up. They’re popping up in both the South (North Carolina: father’s side) and the Caribbean (Barbados: mother’s side). Now it’s getting hard to identify individuals, because White slave masters didn’t claim their progeny by black women, and in the Census the children, even the mulattos, are identified as the children of the Negro husband (“relationship to head of household) and Negro wife — now tell me how that’s possible! One striking thing I encountered is the number of children women had. I’m seeing as many as 14, 10 surviving.

One thing you can say for the Old South: it kept good records, keeping track of African slaves (their chattel “property”). I bet this had something to do with the Three-Fifths Compromise, where every five slaves were counted as three for purposes of representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Census records have been invaluable in tracking my ancestors.

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From “Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass”

Posted on March 9, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Preamble

From slavery to freedom.
From pre-colonialism to post-modernism.
From revolution to reactionism.
From the War for Independence
to the Civil War
From the slave enlistment bill
to Selective Service.
From Articles of Confederation
to the Confederacy.
From agrarianism to technocratism.
From pre-industrialization.
to post-industrialization

From George Washington
to George Bush.
From the birth of a nation
to a kinder, gentler nation.
From Thomas Jefferson
to William Jefferson Clinton.
From Democratic Republicanism
to the New Democrats.
From honest Abe
to tricky Dick
to Slick Willie.
From preserving the Union
to fighting a “lawless society”
to establishing a New Covenant.
From Radical Republicanism
to Roosevelt’s reign
to Reaganism.

From Reconstruction
to public works
to trickle-down economics.
From the Welfare State
to a Police State.

From the Do Nothing Party
to the Freedom Now Party.
From New Deal Democrats
to Dixiecrats.
From the Grand Old Party
to the Great Society
to this dialogue on race.
From the melting pot
to multiculturalism.
From Jim Crow
to the Rainbow Coalition.

From Griots to the Last Poets
From Phillis Wheatley
to Gwendolyn Brooks.
From highly imitative
to Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry.
From Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
to Annie Allen.
From Zora Neale Hurston
to Toni Morrison.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
to Paradise.
From folklore
to Nobel Laureate fiction.
From Mules and Men
to Beloved.
From Richard Wright
to James Baldwin
to Walter Mosley.
From Native Son
to “Sonny’s Blues”
to A Devil in a Blue Dress.

From the Royal Family—
Count Basie, Duke Ellington
and Nat King Cole
to the King of Pop.
From a Lady singing the blues
to the Funky Divas.
From the Queen of Soul
to Queen Latifah.
From Bojangles
to M.C. Hammer
to the Tap Dance Kid.
From Porgy and Bess
to Jelly’s Last Jam.
From slave songs and spirituals
to soul.
From delta blues
to rhythm and blues.
From New Orleans jazz
to Brass Construction.
From ragtime
to rock ‘n’ roll
to rap.

The gift of story and song.

From slavery
to sharecropping.
From pickin’ cotton
to hoeing fields.
From the farm
to the factory.
From grapes of wrath
to industrial traps.
From the plantation
to the penitentiary.
From the old slavery
to the new slavery.
From chattel slavery
to the convict lease system
to the chain gang
to prisons for profit.

The gift of sweat and brawn.

From Africa to America.
From chains to the cross.
From a slave religion
to a religion of salvation.
From segregated balconies
to the front of the pews.
From hearing the Word
to proclaiming it.
From making a way out of no way
to leading the way.

The gift of the spirit.

The long shadows
of black history in America,
once hidden, often denied,
now revealed.

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About the book — Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass: Remembrance of Things Past and Present

Posted on March 9, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass: Remembrance of Things Past and Present is about the captivity, exploitation and suffering of Black people in America, and their triumphs.

The author, a history buff, took the challenge to look at the history of Black people in America, who are normally given one month, the shortest month of the year, February, to highlight “Black History” in America, and wrote this “epic.” For those who would separate “Black History” in America from American history, know this: American history and Black History in America are one and the same; one does not exist without the other, even though the latter has oftentimes been relegated to the shadows of American history.

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About the book — Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats

Posted on March 9, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats is a collection of poetry about law enforcement excesses. Most of the poems were inspired by actual cases from around the country. The author did not set out to compile a collection of these poems, but more and more, nearly every day, another case of law enforcement’s excessive use of force was reported in the Media. The author also did not set out to demonize law enforcement, but focused on those cases where things went terribly wrong, for a number of reasons. As a poet, as someone deeply committed to realizing a just society, the poet chose to report these cases in poetic forms. The poet acknowledges how tough the job is for those entrusted with “public safety.”

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In the Line of Duty — From Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats

Posted on March 9, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

IN THE LINE OF DUTY

The heroes are dead and nothing else matters
Under a gray sky the women are dressed in black
At the grave site hearing homilies paying homage to heroics
Their sobs background music to pontificating politicians

Under a gray sky the women are dressed in black
Weeping widows hold on to their offspring for dear life
Their sobs background music to pontificating politicians
Punctuating sentences with their inconsolable grief

Weeping widows hold on to their offspring for dear life
At the grave site hearing homilies paying homage to heroics
Punctuating sentences with their inconsolable grief
The heroes are dead and nothing else matters

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Blue Knight Riders — From Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats

Posted on March 9, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

BLUE KNIGHT RIDERS

They don’t wear white sheets
Or burn crosses in the night,
But there’s an unmistakable connection
Between these blue and white knights.
They kill innocent Black males
For horrific crimes real and imagined,
And because grand juries won’t vote true bills —
They give these cops a license to kill.
There’s something familiar in their faces,
A clearly recognizable white rage —
There since the birth of this nation —
Misreported in this tabloid age.
This is no mere comedy of errors,
But a full-fledged reign of terror.

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Also look for my new collection of poetry, “Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats,” in two to three weeks…

Posted on March 9, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats is a collection of poems, most based on actual cases, of police misconduct. The collection was a National Poetry Series Competition Finalist. In this collection, I experiment with various forms, e.g., sonnets, pantoums, triolets, etc.

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My award-winning book, “Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass,” to be reissued in two to three weeks

Posted on March 9, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

My epic poem, “Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass: Remembrance of Things Past and Present,” was described by Norman Leer as “a powerful expression of black anger and despair. Waters clearly knows his history…. I’m impressed that Waters is able to relate slavery back to historic and current African practices, which were in fact aggravated and exploited but not originated by Europeans…. The poem has some excellent materials on the sexual exploitation of blacks by whites during slavery, and on the artificial color categories that emerged from this and that were used to buttress segregation and racism. Stylistically, the poem is strong when it uses repetition to support its angers and ironies…. One might say that Waters’ poem celebrates the heroism of black survival.”

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