From: Kwamebrathwaite@aol.com
Sent: Jul 7, 2007 8:13 AM
To: Ncanewyork@aol.com
Subject: NEW WHITE RESIDENTS SAY "NO" TO BLACK CULTURE IN HARLEM- RALLY TODAY



Rally today, Saturday at 4PM at MARCUS GARVEY PARK @ 5th Avenue at 124th street side. Our new White "neighbors" have decided that we should not be allowed to practice our culture. They also want to change the name of the park from Marcus Gavey Park back to Mt. Morris Park. If you agree with them, stay home.
Kwame

Whenever in Harlem, we go to the park where we can hear the drums. It's part of our culture. I am trying not to be angry but this further attempt to disrespect our traditions makes my blood rise. Please pass the word.

for immediate release
Marcus Garvey Park Drummers,
July 2 2007
Sat June 30 two white police officers approached drummers at 5th Ave Marcus Garvey park, at about 7:30pm, stating that they received complaints about the drumming being to loud.

Two spokes persons, a man and woman, from the drummers organization told the officers, 'We have been drumming every week until nine p.m. for the last thirty years ', They asked the officers why were they coming now when it was only 7:30pm. The officers responded that the residents at 2005 5th Ave (across the street) had complained that the drumming was too loud. The drummers said “We will continue until 9 pm”.

The policemen then called for reinforcement, when a car with a bar officer came , the drummers spokesperson continued along the lines of their right to drum, “it's our culture from Africa and the Caribbean” One women drummer said about the white residents. 'They have forced Black people out of Harlem to move here, they knew that we drum here every week, if they don't want to hear the drumming they should move”

Still another police car came, this time with lights, and about nine policemen. With the drummers, women, children and men around eighty people, the drummers resisted their position and continued to drum, while an assigned spokesperson talked to police offers.

Across the street at Fifth Ave condo (124) the four white residents watched while the struggle continued. The drummers, dancers and crowd took out their cellphones and video cameras recording. After 25 minutes the police backed down and the drummers drummed louder as a protest and message to the white residents that they will fight for their African culture.

Please join us next Saturday July 7th to help support the Marcus Garvey Park drummers in their struggle against the ongoing police harassment.

Statement written by

Johnnie Stevens
By Phone :
866-527-2545

Last night's drumming was uninterrupted by any disturbance from new residents or authorities. All day long, according to one attendee, people had been coming to the park to offer support.

At 7:30 there were at least 100 people, a dozen or more drummers, two trumpeters, several dancers drawn from the many listeners and any number of people with precussion instruments.

People came from Harlem and, responding to the call, from New Jersey, Queens, Brooklyn and who knows where else. Young and old (one man shared with me that he was 81) they stood, or sat, and enjoyed, or joined in, the music.

Seven thirty, the time events had been interrupted last week, came and went without event. At nine o'clock, the drumming stopped, the estimated one hundred participants and attendees left the park quietly.

It remains to be seen if last night represents a solution or a temporary respite due to the holiday weekend. What was clear, from the number of people who came specifically to support the drummers, is that the community won't stand for new comers assuming control over community institutions!

My own opinion, that brought me, from the African Arts Festival outside my window here in Brooklyn, up to Harlem to support the drummers, was a deeply felt resentment against the assumptions of the new arrivals to our communities - in Harlem, in Brooklyn, in all of our communities that newcomers have decided to try to claim for themselves - that they have, by right of arrival, the right to suppress our community institutions.

Nobody asked them to move in! The cultural fabric that they find when they arrive, would be well for them to accept, to learn to accommodate to. We still live here, it has been, and will continue to be, OUR community.

Confrontation is certainly not the path to harmony. We are not Lanape Algonquins, they are not the Dutch and this is not the seventeenth century! We will not be pushed out of our own communities in the interests of European expansion!

The forces of capitalism may be supporting their arrival, the forces of culture and the power of the community will support our survival!

This isn't, I suspect, over, and I hope we see a whole lot of folks up there next week - and for all the weeks it takes to deliver the message that it is our park, our tradition, our institution, and that we will, with respect and firmness, protect our prerogatives.

Note to the newcommers - you paid for your apartment, not our community, our culture or our institutions. These are still ours and we will both indulge and protect what is ours. You will just have to learn to play well with others. You don't own the playground. We, however, do.

It occurs to me - since the complainers live just doors from a convent of nuns who have not expressed any concern about the 9:00 closing time for the past 30 years , what makes last weeks complainers so high, mighty and holy?

I know. I'm p.o.'d and venting! I need to go eat breakfast and take the taste of their disrespect out of my mouth! Come on out to the African Arts Festival today - and see y'all in Marcus Garvey Park next week! If you see me, holla!

"Power concedes nothing without a demand" -Fredrick Douglass

ra!

BTW Kwame, sorry you didn't get up there last night. But I look to see you next week.

----- Original Message ----
From: "theblacklist@earthlink.net" <theblacklist@earthlink.net>
To: TBL-Riseup.net <theblacklist@lists.riseup.net>
Cc: Kwamebrathwaite@aol.com
Sent: Saturday, July 7, 2007 6:08:14 PM
Subject: [TheBlackList] NEW WHITE RESIDENTS SAY "NO" TO BLACK CULTURE IN HARLEM- RALLY TODAY

QUESTION: Can't we give us a fighting chance to show ?
When was this event planned?
Why can't we give us sufficient time to show up?
Note, this email was dated Saturday 8am EST.
I am reading it 5: 29PM EST
And you expect me to showup a 4pm.
By the way, how many people showed up?
Why do we have to know about things important to us after they show?

Being pissed off.

YES, I am unloading on you for all the late notice I have recieved.
Let's wake up and join the 21st cenetury.

KWASI
moderator

Well if that's how they feel they should just piss off to Idaho.

If you guys loose Harlem and New Orleans I'll be well upset. Its like us loosing Brixton, already lost Tottenham, looks like the eastern euros might even stay.

Over here we lost Notting Hill we have our carnival through there, it was once a black area not so long ago but not enough of us brought our homes, its now one of the most expencive places to live in london and they want to move the carnival as it apparenltly disturbs their finding inner peace and hatred so much they've complained and the council are up on tricking us by splitting the carnival in two and slowly moving it somewhere else.

Piss take.

I disagree about Tottenham, we haven't lost Tottz at all. Brixton, yes.

Nah man, we haven't lost Brix town yet... have we?

Tottenhams gone, hackney went a while ago. All those turks just swept through and the east euros are busy pecking at the carcass.. in my opinion the east euros will settle in an area of ours, probably tottenham. .lol. We're getting pushed around, can't wait for the E.U to come round full swing! They'll all have free passes and easy access to work permits not to mention benifits and so on all making things harder for us as we're still coming over fresh immigrant status and working bottom up jobs rather than helping one another and giving jobs to our own to support them and so on.

Well pissed about new orleans, wanted to visit.

I agree with Prince H, we haven't lost Tottenham, although its changed from being 50% white british 50% Caribbean to 20% white British, 20% EE, 20%Caribbean and 40% Nigerian. Brixton was little Jamaica now its been 'gentrified' aka 're-whitified'.

What happened in Notting Hill was a shame though, I really wish more black people would have bought their homes there, not to stay there mind, mainly so that they could have made some serious bank from their homes especially as many of them were forced to move there after the 'No Black, No Irish brigade forced them to congregate there. It would have been a nice payback, although I'm sure some blacks have done well. I have an aunt in a good part of Islington in a big old house. She's lived there since the 70s, but has always rented. She could have paid the mortgage twice over, especially as her 3 kids who also lived there were working and could have have easily paid it and sold that house for well over a million but I suppose we don't always make the right choices in life.

The next place that's going is North East London. The part where I live is becoming very white middle class (its also becoming a gay mecca) indeed and consequently the non-white shop owners are selling their shops to white people so that they can open deli's and sell organic food. Its because the white people who work in the city but can't afford West Londons prime areas desire the town houses, and there's a lot of them where I live.


On the mega-plus side though, we have a wicked new high-class West Indian restaurant around the corner called Mango & Papaya. If you ever come to Walthamstow its on Hoe Street, less than 5 mins walk from the station. The man who runs its fit too!

Got the same sh*t happening in East Dulwich/Peckham...Kensington, Fulham, Putney, Chelsea is not good enough for them. They strut around like they own the place and soon as they see a black person it's like what are YOU doing around here? And I look at them like - I've been living around here longer than you have so show me some damn respect!!

Don't worry, Tottenham and Enfield are going down next !!

Apedamek,

I cannot blame you for your disgust. Not long ago my mother and I had a conversation about the White residents that are moving into many of the Black neighborhoods here and while I welcome any race of people in the neighborhood,but I must admit that when it comes to the White people from the North( excludinging those from the South and the West), I have a major problem with it. Some people may say that what is the difference between those White people from those mentioned regions opposed to the North. Srangely, a White person can be from the South or West and for some odd reason, the price tag of property values isn't as widely affected as it is with them. But with a Northern White person, the degrees go up ---seriously.

With some of the Black residents here, they say like me, that they don't mind White people living in the places( as I was raised around them ), but they just mind the prices going up on their homes. They are more likely to accept the "veteran" Whites in their hood( those who have always lived in the neighborhoods), the Whites who are gay and the bizarre ones because they always been there and have always lived around us. and While Iwill judge this newer crowd as indivuals , I'm will always be suspicious because of the pricing out that so many residents have suffered because of it. My biggest problem with this isn't so much of them moving in as it is that the prices of the homes are going up to the point that the veterans cannot afford it and sadly, seemingly, nobody seem to be interested in helping them keep their homes. People may say it's about revitlizing the hood, but here is the magic question: Why do renewingof the neighboorhood means pricing people out of their homes? That's racist , elistist and wrong to me.

Not long ago, I passed by a neighborhood one where it's known as a poor White man's enclave(Ironically , That's another thing even some of the White people have complaints about it) ohh how beautiful it is, but I read one sign posted saying THIS IS TOO MUCH MONEY FOR THIS PLACE-----EVEN FOR A YUPPIE LIKE ME! I also passed by this dying Black neighboorhood and seen some more house being built and the one thing I liked what I seen--Black people coming out of those homes. Generally, I don't care the color of who get a home, but in this case I did because I think that when these homes are built, I think that there is an underlying thought with people saying" Yeah, we know that African-Americans can't afford these homes' or that they would not want to move in these homes---I think not." In some cases, i'm seeing some of the plan backfiring as like ai just say some Black people are buying the same places.

Don't get me wrong, I cherish diversity and a persons background shouldn't be a determing factor to who should move in the homes, but I do have problems when renewal prices people from their homes and in the case you brought up about the drumming on Harlem take away with ones traditional livelihood. I cannot blame you and your Black neighbors for doing for what you guys are doing.If I came to Harlem one fo the things that I would forward to is the Black culture in every way you can thing of. It would not bother me whatsover because it's about the beauty of the culture. I could not see myself coming to Harlem without it, it wouldn't be right without it. I think that we all should call attention to this problem because if not, we're all going to out in the streets. That is disrespect and you all should continue to call attention to it. You move into the neighborhood, that's part of the package. Many of them moved from it because they didn't want to live around Black people and some of them trying to come back trying to take it over. It's doesn't work that way.

Especially in America where you have rights to the land.

This isn't anything of mine btw its an Email i got from TheBlackList.com asking people to take action.

There was another one about a Jazz festival where they only had white people playing, the jazz community got pissed as it wasn't just about who they had playing but an ongoing educational matter where the black African children aren't being taught about their own culture in music whereas the white kids are happy picking up saxaphones and so on. Again taking advantage of the Black African communities (dis) position.

Tottenham is/has been taken over by Turkish and East europeans not ''white'' people so much. Its all a bit like them building roads through black communities in the 60s/70s/80s displacing people to further hold back on any progress.

You guys out in the states should be buying up places like New Orleans and Harlem wholesale. Especially New orleans, thats like a major league cultural place man.