How Strong Are the Walls of Jericho?
Published on Imagine 2050
Jan. 25, 2009
http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/01/25/how-strong-are-the-walls-of-je...
By Walidah Imarisha
essays
Jericho Review
in
Race and the Left Response to Katrina
in
From the Ground Up: Race and the Left Response to Katrina
Brother From Another Planet Review
in
No Blacks, Immigrants or Aliens Allowed;
Review of The Brother From Another Planet
Published at Imagine 2050
http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2008/08/18/no-blacks-immigrants-or-aliens...
Hancock Review
in
Hancock: Black Superheroes Wanted
Published at Imagine 2050
http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2008/07/24/black-superheroes-wanted/
Children of Men Review
in
Who You Calling Illegal, Pilgrim: Children of Men review
Published at Imagine 2050
The Vital Importance of Mumia Abu-Jamal
in
By Walidah Imarisha
Mumia Abu-Jamal, award winning journalist, activist, organizer, "voice of the voiceless" and resident of Pennsylvania's death row, was denied his appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. They waited almost an entire year to hand down that verdict, I remember the big protest we had outside the court the day the hearing happened (a hearing Mumia was supposed to be allowed to appear at personally, until the last minute when they wouldn't let him come. It would have been his first in person court appears in over a decade).
Mumia Abu-Jamal, award winning journalist, activist, organizer, "voice of the voiceless" and resident of Pennsylvania's death row, was denied his appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. They waited almost an entire year to hand down that verdict, I remember the big protest we had outside the court the day the hearing happened (a hearing Mumia was supposed to be allowed to appear at personally, until the last minute when they wouldn't let him come. It would have been his first in person court appears in over a decade).
NO! Review
in
Printed in Left Turm Magazine
By Walidah Imarisha
“Every rape is an assault that happens to every one of as a people. It also means we are crippling our own folk… at our own hands... Racism wakes up everyday and begins to cripple us.” – Dr. Johnnetta Cole in NO!
I first saw a rough cut of the film NO! at a screening put on by a black fraternity at the University of Pennsylvania. Though I have been a black woman organizer for 10 years, this was the only forum I had ever been in where there was a deep and meaningful discussion of assault of black women by black men in a public venue. I felt cracked open, exposed. It was concurrently inspiring, moving, powerful and frightening as hell.
Just the same way Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ film NO! is.
Intensely and painfully personal, unquestionably and unapologetically political, NO! shows through interviews, archival footage, re-enactmnents, dance, and spoken word the way black women have been assaulted by black men, the way that our community and the larger society have colluded against us because of a triumverate of racism, sexism and homophobia. NO! brings the history of 500 years of oppression and encapsulates it in each woman’s story of having a piece of her stolen away.
By Walidah Imarisha
“Every rape is an assault that happens to every one of as a people. It also means we are crippling our own folk… at our own hands... Racism wakes up everyday and begins to cripple us.” – Dr. Johnnetta Cole in NO!
I first saw a rough cut of the film NO! at a screening put on by a black fraternity at the University of Pennsylvania. Though I have been a black woman organizer for 10 years, this was the only forum I had ever been in where there was a deep and meaningful discussion of assault of black women by black men in a public venue. I felt cracked open, exposed. It was concurrently inspiring, moving, powerful and frightening as hell.
Just the same way Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ film NO! is.
Intensely and painfully personal, unquestionably and unapologetically political, NO! shows through interviews, archival footage, re-enactmnents, dance, and spoken word the way black women have been assaulted by black men, the way that our community and the larger society have colluded against us because of a triumverate of racism, sexism and homophobia. NO! brings the history of 500 years of oppression and encapsulates it in each woman’s story of having a piece of her stolen away.
New Orleans: Occupied Territory
in
Printed in Objector Magazine
By Walidah Imarisha
The streets of New Orleans’ lower 9th ward are eerily silent when I am there in early October. This part of the city is still closed and only my press pass got me in to shoot footage for a documentary on the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The only other people I see are National Guard who have taken over a barracks in the heart of the 9th ward as their headquarters. The oppressive quiet is broken only by the sound of their hummers and helicopters.
By Walidah Imarisha
The streets of New Orleans’ lower 9th ward are eerily silent when I am there in early October. This part of the city is still closed and only my press pass got me in to shoot footage for a documentary on the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The only other people I see are National Guard who have taken over a barracks in the heart of the 9th ward as their headquarters. The oppressive quiet is broken only by the sound of their hummers and helicopters.
Machetero
in
Printed in Left Turn Magazine
Directed by Vagabond
Running time: 80 minutes
By Walidah Imarisha
Machetero. Taking its name from The People’s Boricua Army, aka Los Macheteros, a clandestine radical military organization in Puerto Rico fighting against colonialism, this film is a challenge, an interrogation on struggle, a call to arms. Designed to make people question, to make people uncomfortable, and above all to make them think, New York native Vagabond’s new release explores the concept of terrorism, violence and freedom in a post 911 world. Armed with a soundtrack by Puerto Rican punk band Ricanstruction, who says their music is only as loud as the bombs the u.s. military dropped on the island of Vieques, Machetero demands to be heard.
Directed by Vagabond
Running time: 80 minutes
By Walidah Imarisha
Machetero. Taking its name from The People’s Boricua Army, aka Los Macheteros, a clandestine radical military organization in Puerto Rico fighting against colonialism, this film is a challenge, an interrogation on struggle, a call to arms. Designed to make people question, to make people uncomfortable, and above all to make them think, New York native Vagabond’s new release explores the concept of terrorism, violence and freedom in a post 911 world. Armed with a soundtrack by Puerto Rican punk band Ricanstruction, who says their music is only as loud as the bombs the u.s. military dropped on the island of Vieques, Machetero demands to be heard.
Waiting to Rage
in
Printed in upcoming Revolution She Wrote anthology
By Walidah Imarisha
I recently had the disturbing revelation: I have lost my ability to yell.
I don't mean I lost my voice, or that that my vocal cords are strained. Psychologically, mentally, inside my head, I couldn't yell, couldn't allow myself to yell.
It happened when I was working with Ricanstruction, a Puerto Rican political punk band. I had written a poem that we were going to set to some punk music/noise. They asked me to yell: "We were envisioning something really loud and angry here, borderline screaming." "No problem," I said, "of course I can do that." But when I went to practice the poem, no scream, no warcry, not even a yelp emerged.
I know I used to be able to be loud. I know this because my mother was always telling me to "check my volume control." From playground yards to classrooms to social gatherings, I have been shushed throughout my life. I would terrorize entire neighborhoods with my bellows; my mother would get calls from three blocks away asking her to quiet me down.
By Walidah Imarisha
I recently had the disturbing revelation: I have lost my ability to yell.
I don't mean I lost my voice, or that that my vocal cords are strained. Psychologically, mentally, inside my head, I couldn't yell, couldn't allow myself to yell.
It happened when I was working with Ricanstruction, a Puerto Rican political punk band. I had written a poem that we were going to set to some punk music/noise. They asked me to yell: "We were envisioning something really loud and angry here, borderline screaming." "No problem," I said, "of course I can do that." But when I went to practice the poem, no scream, no warcry, not even a yelp emerged.
I know I used to be able to be loud. I know this because my mother was always telling me to "check my volume control." From playground yards to classrooms to social gatherings, I have been shushed throughout my life. I would terrorize entire neighborhoods with my bellows; my mother would get calls from three blocks away asking her to quiet me down.
