Black History Month 2024
'slander' - 9 results
New York, New York - Birth of A Nation was shown, for the first time. It was also called the Clansman, from the 1905 book, and play, of the same name. It was about the Ku Klx Klan (KKK).
The movie was a fiction of the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. It was an all-white film. To present Black Americans, white actors appeared in blackface. Black people were shown as the bad guys. The KKK were shown as the heroes, to protect white society.
It was the first film shown inside the White House. The sitting President, Woodrow Wilson, invited his family, and his Cabinet to watch it. Wilson said, 'It is like writing history with lightning.'
The Enforcement Acts, of the early 1870s, reduced the KKK to almost nothing. It had been more than 40 years since the KKK was at its height, when the movie was released. When the film was shown for the first time, the KKK had almost no public presence. After the film, there was a massive increase in KKK activity. It lasted for decades, until World War 2 (1940s).
In 1870, a federal grand jury said the KKK was a terrorist group. With the release of this film, the KKK was reborn.
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New York, New York - King Kong was shown for the first time. The movie was created in the middle of the Great Depression and Jim Crow.
King Kong was a story of a giant ape that whites found on a tropical island. The whites were there to film a movie, on location.
The whites chained the black ape and sent it to New York, to make money. The black ape was shown to whites, in a show. There the black ape became angered. King Kong broke his chains and attacked whites.
The black ape grabbed a white woman and climbed the Empire State Building. Whites sent the air force to kill the black ape and save the white woman. In the end, the white woman was saved and King Kong was dead.
Jack Johnson, the heavyweight boxing champion, was the model for the might and size of King Kong. The name Kong came from the Congo, in Africa. New York was a former slave trading port.
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Atlanta, Georgia - The movie, Gone With The Wind, was shown for the first time, in public. The Black American actress, Hattie McDaniel, had a major role in the movie.
It was the story of a family of Georgia slave owners. It covered the time just before and after the Slavery War (or Civil War). The movie showed the enslavers as decent and hard-working. Many were made to be sympathetic, despite their use of forced labor.
Black Americans were only in the movie as slaves, in the pre-War period. After the war, Black Americans were shown as lazy or corrupt. The house slaves were shown as submissive, docile, childish, and obedient.
The story made slavery seem the same as a regular job. There were no whips, violence, hunger, or beatings against Black Americans, shown in the movie. McDaniel's role, as a house slave, was used against Black American women to show them as obese, bossy, loyal to her abusers, and hostile to Black American men.
McDaniel was given an Oscar Award for her role. She was not allowed to attend the ceremony because of her skin color. Instead, it was given to her in private.
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Boston, Massachusetts - Charles Stuart killed his wife and blamed a Black American man for it. Stuart, and his wife Carol, were white. After a pregnancy class, he claimed he drove through Roxbury, a Black American area of Boston.
At a stoplight, he said a Black American man forced his way in the car. Stuart said the man told them to drive to Mission Hill. It was nearby. There, Stuart said the man robbed them. Stuart said this man shot him in the stomach and his wife in the head.
Carol died hours after the shooting. The baby was born premature. His name was Christopher. He died seventeen (17) days later. Stuart was in the hospital for weeks after the shooting.
The story made national headlines. Boston police workers used stop-and-frisk on many innocent Black American men, on the word of Stuart. William Bennett, a Black American man, was jailed by the Boston Police, in the search for the killer.
On December 28, 1989, Stuart said Bennett shot him and his wife. On January 3, 1990, Matthew, the brother of Charles, told the police it was all a lie. Matthew said it was an insurance scam. He had met Charles that night. There, he told Matthew he killed his wife.
On January 4, 1990, Charles Stuart jumped off the Tobin Bridge in Chelsea, Massachusetts. His body was found the next day.
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Union, South Carolina - Susan Smith killed her two (2) children and accused a Black American man. Smith told local police said this man stole her car, with her two (2) children inside.
The story made national headlines. The national white media showed a sketch of a Black man that local police gave them. It was shown nationwide. The sketch was on television and in newspapers.
This was at a time of the drug war hysteria. Mass incarceration of Black American men increased rapidly during this time. Smith's story made Black American men to be violent criminals. All it took was the word of one white woman to convince the nation that Black American men were violent against white women.
On November 3rd, 1994, after a search returned no good leads, Smith confessed to the murder of her two (2) children. Smith drowned her own children in her car, in a local lake.
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Keene, New Hampshire - Hillary Clinton, then First Lady, called American youth, super predators. The comment was made with regard to drugs and crime. Clinton stated a new Crime Law had passed in 1994. She said the effort was anti-crime, anti-drugs, and anti-gang.
All of Clinton's comments were made against Black Americans. Since Nixon, crime fighting meant sending more police at Black Americans. Fighting drugs meant more jail for Black Americans. Fighting gangs meant using Black American youth as targets.
After decades of policy to link crime, gangs, and drugs with Black American youth, Clinton made the connections in one address.
To this day, these comments have followed her.
Source:
Hillary Clinton Super Predators
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New York City, New York - HBO showed Leaving Neverland, in two (2) parts. Part One (1) was shown Sunday and Part Two (2) was shown Monday.
The story made claims that Michael Jackson hurt two young white boys, from sexual acts. There were no facts, no evidence, and no one else to confirm the claims. Further, the two white boys never claimed Michael Jackson harmed them, until they got money to do so.
Michael Jackson died June 25, 2009, almost ten (10) years before this show aired. Jackson had no record for any crime of child abuse. While he had been tried, courts found no facts to support any charges against him.
Leaving Neverland implied Jackson was a child abuser. This was not backed by the courts, the law, nor any past record of abuse.
Source:
Why No Criticism About Leaving Neverland
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New York, New York - After Neverland aired, on HBO, hosted by Oprah Winfrey. It followed Leaving Neverland Part 2. In the show, three (3) white males joined Winfrey in verbal attacks against the long-dead Michael Jackson. The two white accusers were Wade Robson and James Safechuck. They were joined by the white director of Leaving Neverland, Dan Reed. Winfrey had no one to defend Jackson, on the show.
In the hour-long show, Winfrey gave the two white men a platform to make abuse claims against Jackson. The audience was picked from sexual abuse victims. No facts were given by the white men to support or verify their claims of abuse by Jackson.
Later that year, Winfrey tried to distance herself from After Neverland. She removed videos and comments she made. Winfrey denied it was an attack on the legacy of Jackson. The Jackson estate and Jackson family strongly denied and disputed any claims of child abuse by Jackson.
Source:
Oprah Backtracks After Neverland
Something Is Wrong
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Collegeville, Pennsylvania - Bill Cosby was freed from state prison in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled earlier that day, to end his prison term.
On April 26, 2018, Cosby was accused, tried, and convicted of aggravated indecent assault. All of the testimony was from white women. There was no physical evidence. No one backed any of their claims.
On September 25, 2018, Judge Steven O'Neill sent Cosby to jail for three (3) to ten (10) years. Cosby appealed the case and it was denied in the appeals court. It went to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, to be heard in 2021.
On June 30, 2021, the state Supreme Court made the decision that follows. 'As a practical matter, the moment that Cosby was charged criminally, he was harmed: all that he had forfeited earlier, and the consequences of that forfeiture in the civil case, were for naught,'
Cosby spent almost 3 years in prison on a false charge.
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