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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 20, 2013)
Opinion Lil Wayne, Emmett Till and History “Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now” B ERNIE F OSTER Founder/Publisher B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER Executive Editor T ED B ANKS Advertising Manager J ERRY F OSTER Account Executive L ISA L OVING News Editor H ELEN S ILVIS Multimedia Editor B RUCE P OINSETTE Reporter D AVID K IDD Graphic Designer M ONICA J. F OSTER Seattle Office Coordinator J ULIE K EEFE S USAN F RIED Photographers The Skanner Newspaper, established in October 1975, is a weekly publica- tion, published each Wednesday by IMM Publications Inc., 415 N. Killingsworth St., T he murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 was a watershed moment, mark- ing the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement. While visiting relatives near Money, Miss., the Chicago native was murdered for allegedly whistling at a White woman. The brutal act was intended to send an unmistak- able message to Black boys everywhere: If you even whistle at a White woman in the Deep South, you could pay for it with your life. Like everyone else, I was appalled to learn that rapper Lil Wayne had made a vulgar refer- ence to Till’s death. On a re-mix of an upcoming CD by Future called “Karate Chop,” Lil Wayne essen- tially spewed the line: “Beat that [female sex organ] up like Emmett Till.” When I sat down to write this column, I planned to excoriate Lit- tle Wayne about his insult. But rather than spend another nanosec- ond on Lil Wayne, we should use this Black History Month moment to educate young people who may not have ever heard of Emmett Till. While serving as editor of Emerge magazine, I had the pleas- ure of interviewing Mrs. Mamie Till Mobley, Emmett’s mother. For the 40th anniversary of his death in 1995, I wrote a story on Emmett Till. This is how it began: Mamie Till Bradley was about to experience a mother’s worst night- mare. She had to identify the corpse of her only child, 14-year- old Emmett Till, who had been abducted, beaten, shot in the head and tossed into the Tallahatchie T HE C URRY R EPORT George E. Curry River near Greenwood, Miss., for allegedly whistling at a White woman. As she approached the cold, metal slab that held the mutilated body at A. A. Rayner & Sons funeral home in Chicago, the grieving mother thought to her- self: “I got a job to do and it’s not going to be easy.” Mamie Till wanted to look body and stopped on his genitals. Later, she would be happy that her inspection included that section of her son’s body because some peo- ple later would say, incorrectly, that Emmett had been castrated. Now, she would know otherwise. Mrs. Mamie Till Bradley Mob- ley — who will be called Mrs. Till hereafter to make it easier to fol- low the cast of characters in this drama — examined Emmett’s hands and arms, which provided more confirmation of what she did not want confirmed. Finally, she took a deep breath and looked at her son’s decomposed face. This, too, she did piece by piece, sepa- rating his face into imaginary compartments, starting with his chin and moving to the top of his head. Mamie Till wanted to look directly into her son’s face, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not yet directly into her son’s face, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not yet. So she started with the lower extremities and worked her way up. “Those are his feet,” she con- cluded. The ankles? Yes, those were her son’s skinny ankles. Next, she surveyed the knees. Most people have sharp, pointed kneecaps. But the mother and son had flat ones. “Those are the Till knees,” she told herself. Her eyes continued up her son’s “Bo,” as he was known, had flashed a perfect set of teeth dur- ing his short life. Now, in death, only one or two were visible. “Oh, my God,” his mother thought. “Where are the rest of them?” The bridge of his nose, though all chopped up, was recognizable. She looked for his right eye — it was missing. There was only an empty socket. She looked at the left one and it was detached, dan- gling from the socket. “That’s his hazel eye,” Mrs. Till said. “Where is the other one?” She searched for one ear and it, too, was missing. Peering through the ear hole, she could see daylight on the other side. The remaining ear protruded from her son’s head, just like hers— another family trait. “That’s Emmett’s ear,” she said, softly. His hair? Yes. After inspecting the outstretched body inch by inch, Mrs. Till came to the sad but inescapable conclu- sion that the remains of what remained before her were those of Emmett Louis Till. Still, she turned to Gene Mobley, later to become her third husband, hoping he might have noticed something that she had not, anything that would cast the slightest doubt about whether this was indeed Bo. But Mobley had identified young Till in his mind long before the child’s mother had finished her methodical examination. The bar- ber had recognized the haircut he had given Emmett two weeks ear- lier, just before Bo left for Mississippi. Mrs. Till had one thought over and over: What kind of person could do this to another human being, especially a 14–year–old boy? Her second thought was that this was a sight so ghastly, so inhu- mane that people would have to see it for themselves to believe it. “Gene, I want you to go home and get some of Bo’s pictures,” she said. “We’ll spread the pic- tures around.” Read the rest online at www.theskanner.com P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228. Telephone (503) 285-5555. E-mail: info@theskanner.com World Wide Web site: http://www.theskanner.com Fax: (503) 285-2900 The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Associ- ation and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re - spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. © 2013 The Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED. To see The Skanner News on your smart phone go to theskannermobile.com or scan this QR code with your app. • • • • • • • • Local news Opinions Jobs, Bids Sports Entertainment Music reviews Bulletin board RSS feeds Obama’s State of the Union — on Point I was among the 33.5 million people who sat riveted to their televisions, parsing every sec- ond of the State of the Union address. I was stunned to learn, through a Washington Post article by Lisa De Moraes, that viewer- ship was less substantial for this address than last year’s 38 million, and even lower than the 48 million that watched in 2010. Are people less interested in what our presi- dent has to say? Or is there something else going on? In any case, this was an impor- tant and significant SOTU address. Unleashed from the pres- sure of re-election, and able to set forth a progressive and aggressive agenda, President Obama dealt with some of the key issues that face our nation. He was able to utter the word “poverty” without his tongue freezing up. Unfortu- nately, he is still unable to utter the words “Black” or “African Ameri- can.. Still, President Obama laid out an agenda that will ultimately have a positive effect on the African American community, especially if some of his efforts are targeted. In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take from soil or to consume the abundant animal Page 4 The Portland Skanner February 20, 2013 B ENNETT C OLLEGE Julianne Malveaux life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.” President Obama was not so efits, and about the employers who refuse to employ people full time so that they can avoid paying ben- efits. Obamacare will cover many of these employees, but the fact that profitable companies would rather offer a worker 22 hours than 30 to save money is reprehensible. President Obama discussed infrastructure improvements in his 2008 campaign. Partisan bicker- ing has made it difficult for him to work with states to refurbish, as he says, 70,000 bridges, as well as roads and highways. The last time ‘The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty’ --Martin Luther King Jr. direct, nor so cutting. But he offered important clarity to an issue his administration has ignored heretofore. While focus- ing on the middle class, he also noted that people should not work full time and still earn a wage that puts them beneath the poverty line. His advocacy for a minimum wage of $9 per hour, or about $18,000 a year for a single worker who might support a family, was a significant move forward for the poor. Missing was a conversation about poor people and health ben- our nation paid attention to these structural issues was in the 1950s when President Eisenhower, in a job-creation move, built federal highways across our nation to facilitate easy transportation. Have you driven on an interstate highway lately? Whether you are Democrat or Republican, we should all agree that these high- ways (some called pot hole central) need improvement? Some politicians are so willing to undermine the Obama administra- tion that they are also willing to see our nation become dysfunc- tional. The two emotional high points in this speech included the shout out to the 102-year-old woman who waited all day to vote, and the call to gun reform, mentioning victims by name. I was most moved by the family of Hadiya Pendleton, who sat with First Lady Michelle Obama, who had attend- ed their daughter’s funeral. They are not only important as parents of a gun violence victim, but as proxies for the more than 500 peo- ple shot in Chicago in the last year or so. It was also moving to see former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, unable to clap, who brought her hands together. The president’s comments got a stand- ing O, but as soon as the president’s speech was over, thirsty vultures, including Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) ran to the media to voice opposition. The president has offered an ambitious agenda, and one that will improve the lot of all Ameri- cans. While I chafe at his failure to mention African Americans, I am excited by proposals to close the wealth gap. His agenda won’t be implemented unless we advo- cate for it. What will you do to move it forward? Julianne Malveaux is a Wash- ington, D.C.-based economist and writer.
