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Grounded by Sky: A Southern Epitaph

A construction worker cheers as a monument of Robert E. Lee, who was a general in the Confederate Army, is removed in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S., May 19, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman

By A Scribe Called Quess?

knowing that I walk atop the bones of my ancestors

in the shadow of their oppressors

towering statuesque above me

I cannot look down without feeling

the puzzled pieces of my past beckoning me back together

cannot look up without feeling

the weight of history break me into pieces

 

I cannot leave this ground and feel whole

cannot stand it either

without its heavy sky

pummeling my dreams into nightmares

the ground is a haunt

is a restless cauldron of simmering spirits

bubbling over beneath the soles

of callous sojourners singed

by the heat beneath their feet

yet numb to the stories in its foment

 

the sky is riddled in dead eyes

the probing gaze of ghastly men

now ghosts cast into iron

who when flesh

owned men, women, and children my kin

who when flesh

beat men, women, and children my kin

who when flesh

raped men, women, and children my kin

who when flesh

slaughtered, maimed, murdered

men, women, and children that looked like me

 

I cannot leave this ground

where the scattered bones of my ancestry

lay namelessly

without tomb nor headstone

sans burial ground much less monument

and not feel the echoes of a chorus

of gnashing teeth testimonies hissing at my heels

can not stand this ground

their once slavers hovering above us

without feeling

the frozen laughter of gilded antebellum

the sky a glacier of silence

that yet speaks so loudly

if you dare to listen closely

you’ll hear their names

whispering proclamations of self praise

form the perch of street signs

that hang like still nooses

suspended in time

lynching the esteem of listless passersby

the stories beneath their feet

and above their heads

having passed them by

 

yet the themes having ground their weight

into their subconscious

making of their minds infertile soil

insufficient to nourish the seeds of dreams

for the dead eyes have probed

and made lifeless the soil

the bones have spoken

but their voices have been muted

by the cast iron gaze above

 

I live in New Orleans

where the bones of my ancestors

beat the ground like a drum

bang Bamboula rhythms

through the soles that walk this land

 

I live in the South

where monuments to Robert E. Lee

Andrew Jackson & Jefferson Davis

stand taller than most homes

and the street signs are noosed

in the names of slavers

 

I cannot leave this ground & feel whole

 

cannot stand it either

and not feel history

trying to break me

on its cyclic wheel

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Take ‘Em Down NOLA Takes on Mayor Cantrell’s Backwards Ways

By A Scribe Called Quess

After Take ‘Em Down NOLA’s groundbreaking summit last March, welcoming Take Em Down organizers from around the country and ending in the disruption of Mayor Landrieu’s book signing, the coalition celebrates the one-year anniversary of forcing the city to remove four monuments to white supremacy by continuing to charge unapologetically forward. This time, TEDN’s sights are set on mayor Latoya Cantrell. TEDN recently issued a letter and held a press conference calling Cantrell out for her latest flubs regarding white supremacist monuments.

It’s not the new mayor’s first time being on the wrong side of this issue. During the infamous monument hearings of 2015, the former City Councilwoman earned the nickname Latoya “Cant Tell” for refusing to pick a side as pro or anti-monument removal. She recently revisited her compromised stance by allowing leaders of the pro-monument movement to set up a committee to determine what to do with the four monuments removed last year. That committee included renowned racist Tulane professor Richard Marksbury, bigoted Monumental Task Committee president Pierre McGraw, and multi-millionaire Frank Stewart, who publicly faced off with Mitch Landrieu over the former mayor’s attempt to remove monuments.

TEDN’s letter informed mayor Cantrell that “we are very disappointed and angry that [she] would set up a secret working group to discuss the fate of these monuments, not meet in public.” On May 16, TEDN cofounder Malcolm Suber stated that “we are calling on Mayor Cantrell to get rid of that committee and to have a public forum where she discusses with the public what are her plans not only towards the removed statues, but what is her attitude toward our ordinance that mandates that the rest of these white supremacy monuments be removed from our city.”

Cantrell’s enlistment of these men to make decisions about the future of this city is reminiscent of the Yankee government that squashed the progress of Reconstruction after the Civil War by compromising with racist white militias that carried on the legacy of the Confederacy. By removing federal troops from the South in 1877, the US government allowed groups like the KKK to rise as monuments to white supremacy went up all over the South. Likewise, Cantrell has chosen to compromise with the present day losing defenders of white supremacy. And their ideas promise harm for the city’s future like their ancestors’ did for the city’s past. They proposed to put Robert E. Lee up in Greenwood Cemetery and make that place a landmark for Confederacy defenders nationwide. This would only turn New Orleans into a hub for the lowlife types that swarmed Charlottesville in August of last year, leaving Heather Heyer dead under the wheels of a racist’s car.

TEDN’s next step this summer to push the ordinance to remove all signs, symbols and statues to white supremacy will be a large public forum. Community members will be informed and speak their piece on next steps around dealing with the already removed monuments as well as the remaining symbols. Mayor Cantrell and other community politicians will be invited to this forum and thereby be forced to pick a side in the fight for racial and economic justice as opposed to hiding in back rooms making deals with the oppressive ruling class.

Take ‘Em Down NOLA invites everyone to come out and be heard and take a stance against the symbols that represent the system that continues to oppress working class Black, brown and white poor people in the city. If Cant Tell—ahem, Cantrell’s actions show nothing else, they show that she, like so many New Orleans mayors before her, will bow down to the money system of the ruling class rich white elite unless we the people force her to do otherwise. Take ‘Em Down NOLA encourages you to come out, be heard, and take part in shaping the future of this city to be free from the chains of its past.

Take Em Down NOLA’s next moves: Take Em Down NOLA Zine is looking for experienced educators, writers and copy editors interested in contributing to our first Zine. Email us at info@ takeemdownnola.org for more info.

In June, TEDN will hold a public forum to speak on the remaining monuments and our ordinance to remove ALL remaining symbols to white supremacy.

TEDN continues to support its comrades in other cities and states making major moves against white supremacy. To that end, shout out Take Em Down JAX, who completed 40- mile march against white supremacy in May. This is the largest march against white supremacy by a Take Em Down coalition and we are hugely inspired by their efforts!