The girl brought in by the slave ship
Moved haltingly down the dock.
A client scans her, hip to hip,
Ogles and does gently rock.

Skin-lightening began right there,
Right in that first client’s eyes.
It encompassed both skin and hair;
They’re both part of what he buys.

The law recently was altered –
Kids now flow from the mother –
And the girl, the one he haltered,
Brought forth a lighter other.

And, so, with the girl from the dock,
Her child’s eyes the light did fil.
Then, as time wore down on the clock
The offspring were lighter still.

The offspring change and brighten out.
The girl from the dock now gone.
As such, they have much more clout,
More brightness to depend upon.

The African American
With more white than he oughta,
Most likely carries that same tan
As did the dock-girl’s daughter.

It’s passed along upon a scale
That pulls the white line tighter.
At times, it lightens up so pale,
That it could not be whiter.

Therefore, fellow Americans,
Don’t always believe your eyes.
If he’s a White American,
He just may be in disguise.

Unlike the uneducated boor on Pennsylvania Avenue most Americans are familiar with Juneteenth. At this poignant, harrowing, chaotic time I hope that my simple words can help in the push for equality that should have been given to Black people in 1619. Here are few women, much braver than I, who worked towards the freeing of humans from slavery in the US. The recent movie, Harriet, has brought one women’s story to our current generation. Another Black woman, Sojurner Truth, many are familiar with for her famous speech at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention held in Akron, Ohio, ‘And ain’t I a woman?’ 

Maria Stewart

Maria Stewart was a free-born African American, a teacher, a journalist, a lecturer, an abolitionist, and a women's rights activist. She was also the first American woman to speak to a mixed audience of men and women, white and black, speaking of women's rights and against –slavery.

Maria Stewart began her activist career in 1831 by writing essays and making speeches against slavery, promoting educational and economic self-sufficiency for blacks. Two of her two pamphlets were published by The Liberator, entitled ‘Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, the Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build’ (which advocated abolition and black autonomy) in 1831, and another of religious meditations, ‘Meditations from the Pen of Mrs. Maria Stewart’ (1832).

She was a public speaker for three years giving her last public speech in 1833 before retiring to work only for women's organizations and as teacher and head matron at Freedmen's Hospital, where she eventually died.

One reason for her brief career was an address at the Boston’s African Masonic Lodge, February 1833, where she claimed that black men lacked "ambition and requisite courage". Not surprisingly this caused an uproar among the audience and soon ended her brief lecturing career. Stewart decided to retire from giving lectures with her final speaking engagement seven months later, where she gave a farewell address at a schoolroom in the African Meeting House.

Despite her brief career in speaking she heavily influenced African American women speakers like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman, among others.

"Every man has a right to express his opinion. Many think, because your skins are tinged with a sable hue, that you are an inferior race of beings ... Then why should one worm say to another, Keep you down there, while I sit up yonder; for I am better than thou. It is not the color of the skin that makes the man, but it is the principle formed within the soul.” Maria Stewart

Sarah Parker Remond

Sarah Parker Remond was born in 1824. the ninth child of two free born Black parents who were relatively financially secure. They were invested in food catering and hair salons and the extended family were active in antislavery and equal rights for all.

The Remonds' home was a popular place for Black and White abolitionists hosting many of the movement's leaders, including William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips. They often housed and protected fugitive slaves fleeing north to freedom. John Remond was a life member of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

She her first lecture against slavery at the age of 16, with her brother Charles in Groton, Massachusetts, in July 1842. Despite her inexperience, Remond rapidly became a successful speaker. William Lloyd Garrison, a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer, praised her "calm, dignified manner, her winning personal appearance and her earnest appeals to the conscience and the heart." Sarah Clay, a tailor-ess and Secretary of the Lowell Female Anti-Slavery Society, wrote that Remond's every word "waked up dormant aspirations which would vibrate through the ages.", She went on to became one of the society's most effective lecturers.

When she refused to sit in a segregated theater section, Sarah gained attention among abolitionists in 1853. She had bought tickets by post for herself and a group of friends, but when they arrived at the theatre, Remond and her party were shown to segregated seating. Because she refused to move, she was physically forced to leave the theatre and pushed down some stairs. This did not deter Sarah and she sued for damages, winning her case and awarded $500, plus an admission by theatre management that she was wronged. The court further ordered the theater to integrate all seating for the future.

In 1856, Sarah and her brother, Charles, along with Susan B. Anthony were hired by the American Anti-Slavery Society to a lecture tour of New York State addressing anti-slavery issues. Over the next two years, she, her brother, and others spoke in New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Sadly, typical of the time, Sarah and other African Americans were often given poor accommodation due to racial discrimination despite their fame and popularity.

Abby Kelley Foster a noted abolitionist in Massachusetts wrote of Sarah on December 28, 1858:

“I feel almost sure I never should have made the attempt but for the words of encouragement I received from you. Although my heart was in the work, I felt that I was in need of a good English education ... When I consider that the only reason why I did not obtain what I so much desired was because I was the possessor of an unpopular complexion, it adds to my discomfort.”

Remond moved to England and studied at the London University College, graduating as a nurse. At the age of 42 in 1867, she permanently left London to Florence where she studied at the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital School (one of the most prestigious medical schools in Europe) as a medical student. Remond finished her studies and become a doctor, remaining in Florence practicing medicine for more than 20 years, never returning to the United States.

She met and married Lazzaro Pintor in Italy, on April 25, 1877.

Remond died on December 13, 1894, in Rome. She is interred at the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

One of the first African American women to be published in the United States, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, an abolitionist, suffragist, poet, teacher, public speaker, and writer published her first book of poetry at the age of 20. Frances was born free in Baltimore, Maryland, her career was long and abundant. She published her widely praised novel,Iola Leroy at the age of 67. Her biggest commercial success was a collection: Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects. Frances made Anglo-African literary history with her short story "Two Offers” as the first short story published by a black woman.

She made a living as a young woman teaching sewing at Union Seminary in Columbus, Ohio, a school affiliated with the AME Church. She also helped refugee slaves make their way along the Underground Railroad on their way to Canada. In 1853 she began her career as a public speaker and political activist after joining the American Anti-Slavery Society. She remained active most of her life as superintendent of the Colored Section of the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Women's Christian Temperance Union and helping to found the National Association of Colored Women and serving as its vice president. Harper died aged 85 on February 22, 1911, nine years before women gained the right to vote.

As a kid, living in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, I heard the term “niggersandspics” so often I thought it was a single word. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but because of the way people (whites, Jews, Italians, Irish, Poles, etc) used it, I knew it was not complimentary.

I also grew up with blacks using half that word in a friendly, cajoling and casual way. Ricans also used spic as a self-identifier in a way that made clear they had owned the word.

As I grew up and heard many other racial, sexual and LGBT epithets the one thing that seemed always true was that the words themselves were almost meaningless except for two factors; context and intent. The difference between some cracker (irony intended) calling me a spic and one of my homies doing it was so different that you could substitute a completely made up word, insert it into the slot where “spic” had been in both instances and the outcome for both would be exactly the same.

So I realized and hold, that there is no such thing as a “bad word”. That ALL words are dependent on context and intent in order to properly gauge meaning. As an example I present the word “boy” as most often used in sentence based in love; That’s my boy!, That boy! Ok boys and girls, take a seat. But this same word was also used in a way so as to be interchangeable with half of the title of this article; Come here boy and fetch this bucket. Even a sentence that is made of the exact words used in the loving example, can be hate filled when the context and intent make plain; That’s my boy. Boy is not the only word that can be considered a hate term, but only when used in a specific context.

This also applies to what are commonly called “curse words”. My daily language is laced with profanity, so when I was about to get married, my soon to be wife, who also likes to use the odd fuck or shit, discussed how to handle it in front of the kids. I said that I would not be a hypocrite and do what my and many parents did, which was to tell the youngins that those were bad words, or some such. That we would do the only reasonable thing and tell them that there were words only adults could use and that they would be more than welcome to make use of them too, when they came of age and not before. So in public people would curse, notice the kids then apologize and we would simply respond that they are fully aware of those words and we have no fear of them being damaged by hearing them. Loved watching the faces of other parents who tried to keep their kiddies ears virginal in principle, but in reality only managed to teach the wrongheaded lesson of "do as I say, not as I do" hypocrisy. This approached worked perfectly and neither of them even tried to include them in their vocabulary until they were deep in their late teen years. We had also taught them the concept of “appropriateness”, so even once they came of age where they could curse, they knew there were times for them AND us during which it would be inappropriate.

There is a short story that is relevant here... When I arrived in San Diego many years ago, one of the first friends I made happened to be black. He had traveled and lived in NYC for a while and “got” Puerto Ricans. One day I went to hang out with him and was the only non-African American on the set. It quickly became clear that most of them didn’t understand why I was there and displayed unfriendly and even downright hostile attitudes. My friend asked what their problem was and heard “why you bringing white boys ‘round here”. Without hesitation he replied “you stupid fucking country-niggers don’t know nothing. This here is a homie, he ain’t white he’s a fucking Rican. But yall wouldn’t know ‘nutin ‘bout that ‘cause you aint never been nowhere. In New York niggerandspics hang and if you dumb fucks don’t give him some respect, you’ll talk to me.

There it was again “niggerandspics” not only in a context that went way beyond familiar, but made clear that the intent was to save me getting a beat down and help get acceptance.

On the other hand; I also understand that the way I think words must be viewed in context to understand meaning is NOT how many others view it. For them the words themselves, regardless of “context and intent” are hateful and painful in and of themselves. That means there is a balance that must be kept, by knowing who you are heard by, so unecesary pain is not caused and you are not misconstrued. 

It is also easy to separate Richard Pryor or Ice Cube or anyone else holding that there is another factor that must be considered, i.e. WHO is saying it. That even going back to my childhood, still innocent and not yet fully understanding language, it took no effort to comprehend the polar opposite gut reaction I had when an “other” used the word vs when one of “ours” did.

Post script;

Felipe Luciano, Minister of Information and my old "boss" in the Young Lords Party and a Member of The Last Poets here recites a poem he wrote many years earlier and adds an eloquent intro that is a thing of beauty.

Who invented the computer? Most of us immediately think of Steve jobs and Steve Woznick. Or perhaps even, Alan Turing, Charles Babbage, Konrad Zuse, or the IBM team of Bill Lowe, and Don Estridge in Boca Raton, Florida who, with a group of 12 strategists, worked around the clock to manufacture and promote of a computer Or perhaps you might think of the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient hand powered Greek analogue computer which has also been described as the first example of such a device, but we do not know who created it.

You may even think of William Oughtred who in 1622 invented the first computer, the abacus or its descendant, the slide rule.  The first computer resembling today's modern machines was actually the Analytical Engine, conceived and designed by British mathematician Charles Babbage between 1833 and 1871. Before that time, a "computer" was a person, someone whose job it was to crunch numbers all day, adding and subtracting numbers and entering the results into tables. These tables then appeared in books that people used to complete tasks, such as launching artillery shells accurately or calculating taxes.

We do, however, know who the first computer programmer was, a woman, Ada Lovelace (1815–1852), the daughter of poet Lord Byron. English mathematician Ada Lovelace, who has been called "the first computer programmer" for writing an algorithm for a computing machine in the mid-1800s.

Ada, born as Augusta Ada Byron on December 10, 1815, was the only legitimate child of the famous poet (and cad) Lord George Gordon Byron. Lord Byron's marriage to Ada's mother, Lady Anne Isabella Milbanke Byron, was not happy and Lady Byron separated from her husband only weeks after their daughter was born. A few months later, Lord Byron left England, dying in Greece when Ada was 8 years old and Ada never saw her father again.

Ada‘s upbringing was atypical for an aristocratic girl in the mid-1800s. Her mother insisted Ada’s tutors teach her mathematics and science. Taxing subjects like these were not the standard topics for women at the time. Ada’s mother hoped that engaging in these rigorous studies would prevent Ada from exhibiting her father's moody and unpredictable artistic temperament.

From early on Ada showed a talent for numbers and language and received instruction from William Frend, a social reformer; William King, the family's doctor; and Mary Somerville, a Scottish astronomer and mathematician, one of the first women to be admitted into the Royal Astronomical Society. 

When she was about age17, Ada met Charles Babbage, a mathematician and inventor. They became friends, and the much older Babbage served as a mentor to Ada. With his tutoring she began studying advanced mathematics with University of London professor, Augustus de Morgan.

Ada was fascinated by Babbage's ideas and had a chance to look at the machine before it was finished, and was enthralled by it! Known as the father of the computer, Charles Babbage invented the difference engine, which was meant to perform mathematical calculations. Babbage also designed another device known as the analytical engine, designed to handle more complex calculations.

In 1835, Ada married William King, who became the Earl of Lovelace, taking the title of Countess of Lovelace and had three children together. Historical accounts indicate he was supportive of his wife's academic works. Ada and her husband associated with many of the academic minds of the time, including scientist Michael Faraday and writer Charles Dickens.

Eventually Ada was asked to translate an article on Babbage's analytical engine, written by Italian engineer Luigi Federico Menabrea for a Swiss journal. Not only did she translate his engineering text from the original French into English but added her own thoughts and ideas on the machine. Her notes were three times longer than the original article and was published in 1843, in an English science journal. Ada used only the initials "A.A.L.," for Augusta Ada Lovelace, in the publication. Probably because she would not have been considered seriously if it was known the author was a women, like Mary Anning, who had to publish her finds under a male contemporary’s name. 

In her notes, Ada expressed how codes could be created for the device to handle letters and symbols along with numbers. She also theorized a method for the engine to repeat a series of instructions, a process known as looping that computer programs still use today! For her work, Ada is often considered to be the first computer programmer.

Typically, Ada's article attracted little attention when she was alive. In her later years, she tried to develop mathematical schemes for winning at gambling and developed a gambling problem. Unfortunately, her schemes failed and put her in financial peril. She ultimately had to sell family jewels to pay for gambling debts.

Ada had lifelong health problems after a bout of cholera in 1837, with lingering problems with asthma and her digestive system. Doctors gave her painkillers, such as laudanum and opium, and sadly her personality began to change. She reportedly experienced mood swings and hallucinations. Because she introduced many computer concepts, Lovelace is considered the first computer programmer. Ada died from uterine cancer in London on November 27, 1852. She was buried next to her father, in the graveyard of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Nottingham, England.

Ada's contributions to the field of computer science were not discovered until the 1950s. Her notes were reintroduced to the world by B.V. Bowden, who republished them in Faster Than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines in 1953. Ada has received many posthumous honors for her work. In 1980, the U.S. Department of Defense named a newly developed computer language "Ada," after Lovelace.