#whitey on the moon

[padawan-historian]

"There is reason, after all, that some people wish to colonize the moon, and others dance before it as an ancient friend."

[history105rockandrollblog]

Lecture 20: More spoken word from pioneering rap trailblazer Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011). Here is the renaissance man’s legendary spoken word protest rap, “Whitey on the Moon” from 1970, a song about the dire poverty and hopelessness pervasive in a number of African American communities at the time of the moon landing in July 1969. This is a recording of Scott-Heron performing the reading live, and his remarkable stage presence and great sense of humour are evident from the get-go here. Recorded a year after the historic moon landing, this piece is a reminder of how alienated and disfranchised many African Americans felt in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement.

[arcticdementor]

It was a belated awakening. For many American Jews, Oct. 7 uncovered the deep rot in the elite institutions they had invested in for decades, psychically and financially. A recent poll found that 73% of Jewish students experienced or witnessed antisemitic incidents since the beginning of this academic school year, a 22-fold increase over the year before. Jewish students have been punched, spat upon, assaulted with sticks, shouted at, and corralled by students in kaffiyehs. But it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the DEI regime has fostered the flourishing of campus antisemitism under the Palestinian banner. Having established Jews as members of the “oppressor” class and defined “justice” as the dismantling of this class, the officially sanctioned ideology has given license to the Palestinian vanguard to demand fulfillment of the progressive promise, “by any means necessary,” while turning Jewish students into piñatas. In New York City public colleges, a kippa-wearing, red-headed leprechaun named Ilya Bratman—former U.S. Army tankist, applied linguist, long-distance runner, and immigrant from the former Soviet Union—has witnessed up close the socialization of young Americans into this toxic worldview. A teacher of English composition at Baruch and John Jay colleges who holds a Ph.D. in education from the Jewish Theological Seminary, he also serves as executive director of Hillel at eight CUNY and SUNY colleges.

…

After the students use cookie cutters to shape chocolate chip cookie dough into Stars of David, Bratman grabbed a microphone and stepped forward. “Last week, everybody was already seated in my 8:00 a.m. class, and a student comes in and she says to me, “Wow, I can’t believe you bombed that hospital last night and killed all those people.”

…

Bratman’s reaction, as a teacher, was to affirm the importance of sound reasoning and argumentation—and, of course, language. “I told her, ‘Wow, I can’t believe you forgot completely everything I taught you about the accusative voice and the proper use of the pronoun ‘you,’ because you just said that ‘I’ did this,” he recounted. “‘I’ bombed the hospital. What hospital? Where? Who?’”

…

Bratman believes strongly in America and the American dream. Teaching American students in New York City has brought him face-to-face with an entirely different worldview—one that appears to be particularly common among students from officially sanctioned “minority” backgrounds. The students don’t appreciate what a gift they’ve been given to live in America. Instead, they are lost in a zero-sum game of calculating relative oppressions. This fixation stops them from learning, Bratman believes, in part because it assures them that they will fail. In his composition classes, he explained, he tries to get his students to create and support an argument. One week, he asked them to write about space exploration. Should we go to space? Or should we not? One girl argued in favor of space travel because “white people will move to space, maybe to Mars, or wherever,” creating a gap, or an opening into which the “indigenous brown and black people can move up in the class structure and fill that gap left behind by the white people who will move to Mars.” “There’s a lot to unpack there, isn’t there?” Bratman responded. “First of all, the belief in this structure where white people are on top, everybody else on the bottom, and the only way to move up is if the white people leave.” Another girl wrote that no, we should not have space travel because then the white people would colonize the Martian people, as they always do, and ruin the Martians’ lives.

…

The narrative of victimhood has become welded to these young people’s identity, leading to an increased detachment from, and a sense of grievance toward, America—the irony of course being that they and their parents chose to immigrate here. One girl in the class told him: “I am here in this country against my will.” Bratman asked her: “Who’s holding you? Tell me, please. I’m frightened for you,” showcasing his high-energy, high-drama style. “Everybody’s laughing, and I asked her, ‘Where are you from?’ And she says, ‘Haiti.’ OK. ‘And where were you born?’ And she says, ‘Brooklyn.’” “So you’re actually from Brooklyn. Your parents are from Haiti,” he repeated. “Who’s holding you back? Do you really want to go to Haiti today? You should actually go and see what life is like in a noncapitalist, depressed country that is in a desperate economic struggle. Or go to Gaza to a totalitarian, autocratic, hateful, homophobic nation. Or go to North Korea, go to Iran, go to all the places as a young woman, and see what life is really like.”

…

Bratman told me he had a student at John Jay whom he will never forget, a student struggling mightily at school. “I had many conversations with him,” Bratman said. “I’d say, ‘come, come on, keep going, keep going.’ And he said, ‘No, I’m thinking of dropping out.’” “And I’m like, no, no, get through this class. I got you. I got you. And I carried him through this course. And on the last day he came to see me, and he said, ‘I dropped out of all the classes except for yours. Everybody in my family, including my mother and my grandparents—I don’t know my father—my uncles and everybody said, ‘What are you doing? Why are you going to college? You can get a job now for $20 an hour, and when you graduate, you’re gonna get a job for $20 an hour. What’s the purpose?’” Bratman seemed genuinely sad—not angry or offended, just sad—about what he heard next. “No one ever believed in me,” the student said. “I can’t believe that the first and only person who’s ever believed in me is a white Jew.”

[seoul-bros]

Jazz Friday - Aja Monet

I'm always late to the party but I get there in the end. Just discovered Aja Monet and the album "When the Poems Do What They Do".

Here she is performing The Devil You Know last November at the Lodge Room in Los Angeles.

“The Devil you know, taxes the air we breathe, privatizes the water, profits off homelessness, strangles the land and injects hormones in animals, rapes the people and rewards the rich”

Now this is good stuff but check out the short film on You Tube and you will be even more blown away.

I am a big Gil Scott Heron fan and when I first saw her Jazz is Dead performance I immediately thought of him. So it is reassuring to see him referenced in the film.

Here he is performing Whitey on the Moon and you can see that The Devil You Know takes up many of the same societal issues. Not a lot has changed in America in the last 50 years. In fact the possibility of a more equal society seems even more distant in 2024 than perhaps it did in 1970 when Whitey was released.

The radio station KCRW included the album in their 23 best albums of 2023 saying it is a refuge from the endless scroll of mindless content. A deep dive into an ocean of feeling. Monet wields words like a weapon, igniting passion that moves the listener to new levels of understanding.

The album is also is nominated for a Grammy in the Best Spoken Word Poetry Album at this years ceremony on 4th February 2024.

Post Date: 05/01/2024

[sh3nlong]

sleeping satellite is actually such a well written and deep song

SLEEPING SATELLITE BY TASMIN ARCHER

I blame you for the moonlit sky And the dream that died With the eagles flight I blame you for the moonlit nights When I wonder why Are the seas still dry? Don't blame this sleeping satellite

Did we fly to the moon too soon? Did we squander the chance? In the rush of the race The reason we chase is lost in romance

And still we try To justify the waste For a taste of man's greatest adventure

I blame you for the moonlit sky And the dream that died With the eagles flight I blame you for the moonlit nights When I wonder why Are the seas still dry? Don't blame this sleeping satellite

Have we lost what it takes to advance? Have we peaked too soon? If the world is so green Then why does it scream under a blue moon? We wonder why If the earth's sacrificed For the price of it's greatest treasure

I blame you for the moonlit sky And the dream that died With the eagles flight I blame you for the moonlit nights When I wonder why Are the seas still dry? Don't blame this sleeping satellite

And when we shoot for stars What a giant step Have we got what it takes To carry the weight of this concept? Or pass it by like a shot in the dark Miss the mark with a sense of adventure

I blame you for the moonlit sky And the dream that died With the eagles flight I blame you for the moonlit nights When I wonder why Are the seas still dry? Don't blame this sleeping satellite

this is basically the uk version of whitey on the moon holy shit

ok so i've been obsessed with this song for a few weeks now and have been listening to it on repeat, and like at first listen you'd think it's a catchy little ditty but nothing special... but nooooo tasmin archer is a genius singer songwriter like... idk her vocals alone are so masterful, so intentional and so well controlled!

anyway read the lyrics! they are not just about the moon landing and like blindly going along with the glorious american nationalist narrative that's spun around it, or like a lot of cold war propaganda... nah she's questioning the worth of the whole expedition by asking 'and still we try to justify the waste for a taste of man's greatest adventure' and 'Have we lost what it takes to advance?, Have we peaked too soon? if the world is so green, then why does it scream under a blue moon,,, we wonder why, if the earth's sacrificed for the price of it's greatest treasure'

so clearly she's saying the moon landings were NOT WORTH THE COST, implying that humanity (read: america) could have spent taxpayer dollars on actually improving the majority of human lives, like gil scot heron's poem:

A rat done bit my sister Nell. (with Whitey on the Moon) Her face and arms began to swell. (and Whitey's on the Moon) I can't pay no doctor bill. (but Whitey's on the Moon) Ten years from now I'll be paying still. (while Whitey's on the Moon)

tasmin archer may not be as explicit with her politics but i reckon the message is subtly there, i was so genuinely impressed with relistening to this after like not hearing it since i was a kid

[olena]

A rat done bit my sister Nell. (with Whitey on the Moon) Her face and arms began to swell. (and Whitey's on the Moon) I can't pay no doctor bill. (but Whitey's on the Moon) Ten years from now I'll be paying still. (while Whitey's on the Moon)

[readyforevolution]

Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011)

Gil Scott-Heron was a New York City–based writer, spoken word performer, poet, and musician whose 1970s songs are known for laying the groundwork for rap music. If you have heard the phrase "The revolution will not be televised," you have heard the words of Gil Scott-Heron. While both true and timeless, it's the title of Scott-Heron's poem that depicted the disconnected relationship between television/media representation and demonstrations in the street. He has been called the "godfather of rap," and his music and words have been sampled by rappers like Common and Kendrick Lamar. Even if you haven't heard of him, his work may sound more familiar than you think. One of his most famous pieces is "Whitey on the Moon" where he criticizes America's interest in space taking precedence over the well-being of African American citizens.

[bunjywunjy]

We have a poem here, it's called "Whitey On The Moon" It was inspired by some whiteys on the moon So I wanna give credit where credit is due

A rat done bit my sister Nell With whitey on the moon Her face and arms began to swell And whitey's on the moon I can't pay no doctor bills But whitey's on the moon Ten years from now I'll be payin' still While whitey's on the moon The man just upped my rent last night Cause whitey's on the moon No hot water, no toilets, no lights But whitey's on the moon I wonder why he's upping me? Cause whitey's on the moon? Well I was already giving him fifty a week With whitey on the moon Taxes taking my whole damn check Junkies making me a nervous wreck The price of food is going up And as if all that shit wasn't enough: A rat done bit my sister Nell With whitey on the moon Her face and arm began to swell And whitey's on the moon Was all that money I made last year For whitey on the moon? How come I ain't got no money here? Hmm! Whitey's on the moon Y'know I just 'bout had my fill Of whitey on the moon I think I'll send these doctor bills Airmail special To whitey on the moon

yeah that's fair

[melaninpov]

Lovecraft Country S1.E2: Whitey’s on the Moon

[heavensgateiowa]

i like jawbone’s externalisation of his capacity for violence. he stays in werewolf form all the time to say that he is the same person, whether he is under the influence of the full moon and biting somebody or spring cleaning in his tighty-whiteys.

compare this to the abernants, for whom appearance is everything. elven and elegant and reserved. adaine has to wear a uniform not because her institution requires it, but because her parents require it. they do all they can to give the correct appearance. but they are the wilfully violent ones, the destructive, hateful, loveless ones.

no wonder adaine and her furious fist, not only admitting to violence but revelling in the justice it can bring, found a home with jawbone.

[the-hottest-band-tournament]

Round Two

Sonic Youth

Defeated opponents: Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble

Formed in: 1981

Genres: Noise rock, no wave, avant-punk, lo-fi

Lineup: Thurston Moore – guitar, vocals, piano, production

Kim Gordon – bass guitar, guitar, vocals, production

Lee Ranaldo – guitar, vocals, production

Steve Shelley – drums, production

Albums from the 80s:

Sonic Youth EP (1982)

Confusion is Sex (1983)

Kill Yr Idols EP (1983)

Sonic Death (1984)

Bad Moon Rising (1985)

EVOL (1986)

Sister (1987)

Master-Dik EP (1987)

The Whitey Album (1988) (as Ciccone Youth)

Daydream Nation (1988)

Propaganda: 

Iron Maiden

Defeated opponents: Europe

Formed in: 1975

Genres: Metal, Power Metal, Prog Metal

Lineup: Bruce Dickinson - vocals 

Dave Murray - guitar

Adrian Smith - guitar, vocals, keyboard 

Steve Harris - bass, vocals, keyboard

Nicko McBrain - drums 

Albums from the 80s: 

Iron Maiden (1980)

Killers (1981)

The Number of the Beast (1982)

Piece of Mind (1983)

Powerslave (1984)

Live After Death (1985)

Somewhere in Time (1986)

Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988)

Propaganda: What other band could make metalheads love songs based on poetry ("The Trooper" inspired by Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade," "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (based on the Coleridge poem of the same name), history ("Alexander the Great"), cult TV series ("The Prisoner" based on the show of the same name), mythology (twisted a bit with "Flight of Icarus"), and classic literature ("Phantom of the Opera" based on the Gaston Leroux novel, "Murders in the Rue Morgue" based on the Poe story, "To Tame a Land" originally meant to be titled after its inspiration: Frank Herbert's "Dune")? These guys are proud geeks and one of the most epic bands on the planet, STILL going strong all these years later.

[transgenderer]

Billions for space, pennies for the hungry. Whitey on the moon. Space travel just angered black people a lot, and it was the civil rights movement so we just stopped doing it. Imagine if every penny spent on welfare and affirmative action and foreign aid was spent on space travel instead. We might have moon colonies by now, and the gaping maw of hungry parasites in the global south could just go unfed

okay so i ignored this guys other tedious asks but this one is a fun window into a sort of imagined history. can you imagine if this was true. thatd be crazy

[isefyres-archive]

𝔰𝔬𝔪𝔢 𝔞𝔡𝔡𝔢𝔡 𝔟𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔰 (𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔫𝔬𝔱 𝔟𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔰)

Princess Shireen Baratheon: Shireen Baratheon is a noblewoman of House Baratheon of Dragonstone, and is the daughter and only child of Lord Stannis Baratheon and Lady Selyse Florent. Greyscale has left half of her left cheek and most of her neck covered in cracked and flaking, grey and black stony skin. She has suffered from nightmares since infancy. Stannis's army and retinue travels from Dragonstone to the Wall to respond to the wildling threat. At the Wall, he leaves Shireen at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea with her mother, while his army marches to Castle Black. After her father's death, she remains in the North under The North care and request to be send to Dorne to her cousin, wanting to refute her father's claims about Myrcella. Canon. Song Era.

Lord Edric Dayne: Edric Dayne, also known as Ned, is the Lord of Starfall and the head of House Dayne. His father, Gwayne Dayne is the elder brother of Ser Arthur, Lady Ashara, and Lady Allyria Dayne. Edric serves as the squire of Beric Dondarrion, Lord of Blackhaven. Edric's mother did not have enough milk for him when he was born, so he was nursed by Wylla, a servant at Starfall. At some point, Edric was told that Wylla was the mother of Jon Snow, the bastard of Lord Eddard Stark. Edric attempts to befriend a wary Arya during the brotherhood's travels, and her friend Gendry is scornful of their interactions. Ned tells Arya more about his family, and he is surprised that her father never spoke of Edric's aunt Ashara committing suicide over her broken heart. Ned hesitantly tells Arya that his aunt Allyria told him that Ashara and Eddard fell in love at the tourney at Harrenhal. Edric is back in Dorne. Canon. Song Era.

Edric Storm: Edric Storm is the bastard son of King Robert I Baratheon and Delena Florent. Edric is a sturdily attractive youth, with jet-black hair and deep blue eyes. He resembles his father, King Robert I, and has the characteristic hair, eyes, jaw, and cheekbones of House Baratheon. Edric also has the large ears common to House Florent. Edric was conceived by King Robert I Baratheon and Delena on the wedding night of Lord Stannis Baratheon to Selyse Florent, Delena's cousin, in the couple's wedding bed. Stannis saw this as an insult to his honor, so he sent Edric to Storm's End to foster with the boy's other uncle, Renly Baratheon. As Delena was a noblewoman, Edric was acknowledged by his father. Edric sails across the narrow sea past the Stepstones to Essos on the Mad Prendos with Andrew and other protectors. He is hiding in Lys. Canon. Song Era.

Mya Stone: Mya Stone is a young woman serving House Royce of the Gates of the Moon. She is the eldest of King Robert I Baratheon's bastards. Mya serves as a guide on the treacherous rocky climb from the Vale to the Eyrie, leading trains of mules, such as Whitey. She also transports foodstuffs from the foot of the Giant's Lance to the Eyrie. Mya is somewhat openly known to be the bastard daughter of the king, although she was not acknowledged by her father. She has vague memories of him, as a big strong man tossing her in the air and catching her. Myranda Royce reveals to "Alayne Stone" that Mya lost her virginity to Mychel. Mya still hoped for marriage, till the newly-knighted Mychel was ordered by his father, Lord Horton Redfort, to marry Ysilla Royce, daughter of Lord Yohn Royce of Runestone. Canon. Song Era.

Gendry Baratheon: Gendry is a blacksmith apprentice for Master Tobho Mott in King's Landing. He does not know he is a bastard son of King Robert I Baratheon until later when captured by Melisandre and the truth is revealed, his blood used in a ritual. Gendry looks like a young Renly Baratheon, albeit with a squarer jaw, bushier brows, and tangled hair. He has since been legitimized and inherited all titles held by his father before Robert became king, and appointed the new Warden of the South. Gendry is not the eldest of the bastards and by all means, he supports his "sister" Myrcella for lady of Storm's End but he also reclaims his sibligns as his own, rebuilding House Baratheon under a new sigil, changing the colors to the inverted ones, considering the house is now mostly bastards. Canon. Song Era.

Joy Hill: She is the bastard daughter of Gerion Lannister. According to her cousin Jaime, Joy is a sweet child, but a lonely one since her father Gerion disappeared. As part of the pact between Lord Tywin Lannister and Lord Walder Frey concerning the betrayal of Robb Stark in the Red Wedding, Joy is to wed a natural son of Walder from House Frey once she is older. After the siege of Riverrun, Lady Sybell Spicer mentions to Ser Jaime Lannister that his late father, Tywin, had promised a bride from Casterly Rock for her eldest son, Ser Raynald Westerling. Because Sybell mentions "joy", Jaime thinks Tywin intended for Joy Hill to marry Raynald. Sybell is angered at the idea of her son marrying a bastard. Joy would prefer the handsom Raynald as a husband. Eventually, Joy is send to Dorne alongside Myrcella new sworn sword so she would become less gloom and safety. Canon. Song Era.

[knightotoc]

"Man would not be a world but a million worlds, a billion worlds... This is Earth. Not the eternal and only home of mankind, but only a starting point of an infinite adventure." -- The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov, 1955

"Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war... We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." -- John F. Kennedy, 1962

"Perhaps the only real moral question was whether or not he was working on a new weapon, a new means of dismembering men or destroying cities. And the answer to that was negative. They were building a vehicle to carry instruments around the solar system, and that in itself was, if not worthwhile, at least harmless." -- The Man Who Fell to Earth, Walter Tevis, 1963

"Don't say that he's hypocritical. Say rather that he's apolitical. 'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department!' says Wernher von Braun." -- Tom Lehrer, 1965

"'You think I'm suffering because I'm lonely. Hell, all Mars is lonely. Much worse than this... We came back,' Pris said, 'because nobody should have to live there. It wasn't conceived for habitation, at least not within the last billion years. It's so old. You feel it in the stones, the terrible old age.'" -- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick, 1968

"Was all that money I made last year for Whitey on the moon? How come there ain't no money here? Hm! Whitey's on the moon. Y'know I just about had my fill of Whitey on the moon. I think I'll send these doctor bills, airmail special, to Whitey on the moon." -- Gil Scott-Heron, 1970

"We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for 25 years the United States space program has been doing just that... We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space." -- Ronald Reagan, 1986

"We are all Godseed, but no more or less so than any other aspect of the universe. Godseed is all there is -- all that Changes. Earthseed is all that spreads Earthlife to new earths. The universe is Godseed. Only we are Earthseed. And the Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars." -- Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler, 1993

"They should've sent a poet." -- Contact, dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1997

"Life reached an evolutionary milestone when it climbed onto land from the ocean, but those first fish that climbed onto land ceased to be fish. Similarly, when humans truly enter space and are freed from the Earth, they cease to be human. So, to all of you I say this: When you think about heading into outer space without looking back, please reconsider. The cost you must pay is far greater than you could imagine." -- Death's End, Liu Cixin, translated by Ken Liu, 2016

"[A]ll I saw was death." -- William Shatner, 2022

[johnnycrass]

elon musk.... gil scott heron "whitey on the moon".... elon musk.... whitey on the moon...