From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Keywords: (312)-E-B-O-N-Y--M-T
Date: 15 Sep 92 20:21:10 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Lab, APG MD.

In article <1992Sep14.152720.26206@midway.uchicago.edu> 
thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

>In article <19166@smoke.brl.mil> matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt) 
>writes:

-->. . .Furthermore, Louis Farrakhan is alive and my understanding 
-->is that you don't place a man on a mountain, or a stamp, until he is
-->dead.   ^^^   [Ed Nilges; emphasis added]

>>Nelson Mandela is also alive.  Mr. Nilges may have in mind such examples 
>>as Mount Rushmore and Stone Mountain, carved by white men in memory of 
>>other white men who were dead.  But the drive for "Ebony Mountain" is 
>>being spearheaded by a Black man.  Why should the white man's rule
>>apply to Ebony Mountain?   [Matt Rosenblatt]

>It's obvious, especially given Nilges's love for the racist Marx Brothers,
>that Ed is just a cultural imperialist.  [Ted Frank]

Hell, I'm a cultural imperialist, too!  But see, I believe that
"turn about is fair play."  That's why my dismay at seeing free
speech rights suffer another body blow in Canada was tempered by
a sort of grim satisfaction that the censorship weapon that Andrea
Dworkin and Kitty MacKinnon forged was being turned against the
"Andrea Dworkins" up there in the True North.  Could it be that
it was about "male privilege" that the prophet wrote, "No weapon
that is formed against thee shall prosper" (Isaiah 54:17)?

Thus if the white man's "Mount Rushmore" is carved out of a 
mountain in the vicinity of South Dakota's "Black Hills," it would 
serve the white man right if "Ebony Mountain" gets carved out of 
one of New Hampshire's "White Mountains."  The advertisement that
I quoted in the _Washington Afro-American_ had an artist's rendition
above the text appealing for funds.  Imagine all those Yankees
having to look up at the stern visage of Marcus Garvey, the
"Black Moses" of the '20's, the man who thundered, "Up, you
mighty race!" -- and did *not* mean the white race.  Imagine 
the editors of the _Dartmouth Review_ newspaper in Hanover, 
New Hampshire, as they "lift up [their] eyes to the hills, 
from whence cometh [their] help" (Psalm 121:1) -- and gaze up 
at the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior, the man who 
took the obscure words of a Jewish herdsman named Amos from ancient 
Tekoa and made them into a worldwide clarion call in the struggle 
against Racism:

           "But let justice well up as waters,
            And righteousness as a mighty stream."

For what it's worth, Marcus Garvey was an example of someone trying
to free his people from Racism with *deeds*, not just talk.  He
didn't just *talk* about leading his people out of the white man's
house of bondage.  He founded the "Black Star Shipping Line."  He
sold stock in it at five dollars a share to the common people along
One Hundred Twenty-fifth Street and up and down Lenox Avenue.  He
bought ships -- three ships, as I recall, the same number that 
Christopher Columbus sailed on his epic voyage four hundred thirty
years earlier.  

As it happened, the white man defrauded him (among other things, 
not all the ships they sold him were seaworthy for an ocean voyage), 
then locked him up in prison on trumped-up charges.  Marcus Garvey 
didn't just talk about Racism.  Rather, he followed in the footsteps 
of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who pledged 
"our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor" to their cause.
Today, his name has sunk into obscurity, even as Amos's name had
faded from view before Doctor King brought his words back to life.
Marcus Garvey's image on "Ebony Mountain" would serve the purpose,
"uns zu edler Tat begeistern, unser ganzes Leben lang," showing
young folk of all races what dedication and perseverance can
accomplish.  That's (312)-E-B-O-N-Y--MT.

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Up, you mighty race!"
      -- Marcus Garvey
Newsgroups: misc.legal