Last of De' Mo-Hee-Kins (Part V)

ASTA LA VISTA, BAY-BEE

''Well, I'd say there's peace even in war -- for war satisfies all needs, even those of peace; yes, they're provided for, or the war couldn't keep going -- war is like love, it always finds a way. Why should it end?''

The protagonist of Bertolt Brecht's play, "Mother Courage and Her Children," is a scrabbling profiteer riding the tidal wave of the Thirty Years' War. Moving from battlefield to battlefield, she peddles bullets and linen, famously earning her moniker after maniacally driving a supply wagon through the bombardment of Riga to keep the 50 loaves of bread from get moldy. Ultimately, she proved less adept at protecting her three children.

As barren icon, Oprah peddles a warm and fuzzy freedom designed to amuse and comfort trusting children while Machiavellan grown-ups attend to gay marriage, foreign occupation and the price of oil. Her lessons on civic responsibility focus on emotional obstacle and personal journeys. Her version of political life springs, fully-formed, from myth.

Prior to the wholesale, judicially-approved theft of Millennium presidency, she gave George Dubya Bush a chance to present his store-bought bona fides to American soccer moms in sore need of male solace and masculine reassurance. Guided by a "higher calling," this 21st Century Aunt Jemima presented to her audience of 22 million the smiling face of the New World Order.

Trailing badly in the polls, the teary-eyed, would-be Kingfish blathered about his hard-drinking twins, professed devotion to wife and God, and set straight a messy misconception that the perpetual glad-handing, chronic failure was "running on my daddy's name. That, you know, if my name were George Jones I'd be a country and western singer."

Oprah even gave Dubya a chance to show his smarts, or at least to cover his dumbs. Answering a question about what it was like to be considered a dunce at prep school, Yale and Harvard, he bravely replied: "Eventually, I realized smarts are not only whether or not you can write well or whether or not you can do calculus, but smarts also is instinct and judgment and competence."

"I've got a lot of experience," he continued. "I'm well educated. But I'm certainly not the kind of person who talks down to people because of my education. ... You can't inspire and unite by thinking that you're smarter than everyone else."

Comforting words for children trapped in dysfunctional schools -- You, too, can grow up to be president; all that's required is the price of a ticket. At least he could say Calee-fouhn-ya.

After candidate Bush appeared in her television studio, republican operatives were as happy as brothers in loose-fitting shoes. With the simple act of "celebrity-kissing" the black-faced totem, Dubya trumped the Democrats' homie' factor in one fell swoosh. Capitalizing on Gore's state media-manufactured "low Negro tolerance level," Dubya shucked and jived his way into Oprah's -- and America's -- cotton panties, rendering invisible tried-and-true Republican race-baiting a la Willie Horton and Wilma the Welfare Queen.

Among the worldly, cigar smoking contingent, the kiss proved less important than its placement on national television rather than inside a broom closet or motel room. Sitting in plush leather chairs, sipping Kentucky bourbon, red-cheeked plutocrats lolled back their heads and savored the latest lap-dance, every so often grunting in appreciation for Oprah's commendable deference.

As for Herr Gropen-Fuhrer, he is now an unquestioned member of the ruling elite. While he awaits a constitutional amendment sanctioning the ascent of a foreign-born president, he will assume certain responsibilities, not the least of which is to bloody his hands on state gallows, light incense (and contraband cigars), and offer up bundled tokens of appreciation to national deities.

Like Bush before bedtime, we expect the newly-minted governor to kneel before a altar, prominently displayed, atop which sits a carving made of the blackest ebony. This statue, surrounded by fragrant candles, flower petals and a modest glass of dark rum, is of a naked, seated African. In one arm she cradles a baby. With her opposite hand she squeezes out the miraculous milk from her breast, empowering the infant with the power to realize his personal version of the American Dream.

The words of this sacred ritual will be whispered in no more than 100,000 households across the country. Ever modest, the womenfolk will maintain respectful distance behind their pumped-up household lords. And, in the silence of midnight, America's golden cash register will contentedly chime as sacred payment wends its way toward HarpoLand.

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SOURCES


"Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben and Rastus: Blacks in Advertising, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow," Marilyn Forn-Foxworth

ibid

"Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima," M. M. Manring, Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1998

The "real" Aunt Jemima distributed her life story as a pamphlet and through advertising vignettes in popular magazines. James Webb Young, an "adman" exploited the loves, hates, and aspirations of the target market: white female housewives eager to please their husbands and experiencing servant problems. During the early twentieth century through the 1920s, the advertising industry connected her image to the antebellum southern ideal of racial order and white leisure. (ibid)

ibid

Advertising Age places Aunt Jemima at number seven on its Top Ten list of trademarks, coming right after the Pillsbury Doughboy but before The Michelin Man (Rondald McDonald reigns supreme). The marketing bible notes that "beginning in the 1950s, the Aunt Jemima logo started coming under criticism that its image of a black 'Mammy' in a kerchief was an outdated and negative portrayal of African-American women. During the 1950s and '60s the trademark was gradually modernized, with the most recent changes being made in 1989. "Today, Aunt Jemima's face beams from beneath a full head of dark hair -- sans kerchief -- but her sparkling eyes and warm smile remain the same."
(http://www.adage.com/century/icon07.html) Another source says she "still kept the traditional attributes of warmth, quality, good taste, heritage and reliability but discarded the bandanna and kerchief for a simple attractive look including gray-streaked hair and pearl earrings. Her character now looked more like the white counter part of Betty Crocker." (http://www.tvacres.com/admascots_auntjemima.htm)

ibid ("Slave in a Box....")

Madame C.J. Walker speaking to the National Negro Business League's 1912 Convention (http://www.madamecjwalker.com)
First told in the Kansas City Star, the story was later recounted in Ms. Magazine. (http://inventors.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.historychannel.com/cgi%2Dbin/frameit.cgi%3Fp=http%253A//www.historychannel.com/exhibits/womenhist/bios%5Fhtml/walkercj.html)

During her 52-year lifetime, Walker contributed substantial sums to promote black education (particularly for women), encouraged black businesses, supported homes for the aged, and aided anti- lynching legislation. Her favorite causes included the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Colored YMCA of Indianapolis, and the National Conference on Lynching. She also befriended many famous black leaders of her era and generously supported their efforts, among them Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute, Mary McLeod Bethune's Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls, Lucy Laney's Haynes Institute, and Charlotte Hawkins Brown's Palmer Memorial Institute. Meanwhile, she built a school for girls in West Africa. When the National Association of Colored Women appealed to their membership for donations to pay off the mortgage of the late abolitionist Frederick Douglass's home, Walker made the largest contribution. At the group's 1918 convention, she proudly held the candle that burnt the mortgage papers. (ibid)

American History Illustrated

In a story reminiscent of Bill Gates' early appropriation of Windows technology, an employee of Madame CJ Walker?s empire, Majorie Joyner, invented a permanent wave machine. This device, patented in 1928, curled or "permed" women?s hair for a relatively lengthy period of time. The wave machine was popular among women white and black allowing for longer-lasting wavy hair styles. Joyner went on to become a prominent figure in the industry, though she never profited directly from her invention, for it was the assigned property of the Walker Company. (http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blwalker.htm)

Theme from "The Jeffersons," a spin-off of Norman Lear's "All in the Family," the showappeared on CBS television from 1975 to 1985 and focused on the lives of a nouveau riche African-American couple, George and Louise Jefferson. George Jefferson was a successful businessman, millionaire and owner of seven dry cleaning stores. He lived with his wife in a ritzy penthouse apartment on Manhattan's fashionable and moneyed East Side. The Jeffersons lead lives that reflected the trappings of money and success. Their home was filled expensive furnishings; art lined the walls. They even had their own black housekeeper, a wise-cracking maid named Florence. The supporting cast consisted of a number of unique characters including neighbor Harry Bentley, an eccentric Englishman who often made a mess of things; the Willises, a mixed-race couple with two adult children--one black, one white; and, the ever-obsequious Ralph the Doorman, who knew no shame when it came to earning a tip.(http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/J/htmlJ/jeffersonst/jeffersonst.htm)

www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/win0bio-1

In 1987, its first year of eligibility, the show garnered three Daytime Emmy Awards in the categories of Outstanding Host, Outstanding Talk/Service Program and Outstanding Direction. The next year, it captured another Emmy for Outstanding Talk/Service Program with Oprah garnering "Broadcaster of the Year" Award. She was the youngest person and the fifth woman to receive the honor it the 25-year history of the International Radio and Television Society.

Phil Donahue, when Oprah received an Emmy for Lifetime Achievement

The Georgetown University professor's article was part of a package celebrating Oprah's place as one of the 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century

ibid

Ah-nald to Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1996

So dubbed by Garry Trudeau, creator of the "Doonesbury" comic strip

"The Frame Around Arnold," by George Lakoff, AlterNet, October 13, 2003

"Pumping Iron," 1977, quoted in Esquire Magazine, March 1985

Ah-nald to Rolling Stone, June 3, 1976

Ah-nald to Rolling Stone, June 6, 1976

According to "Arnold Built Vast Financial Empire ," NewsMax.com Monday, Aug. 11, 2003, Ah-nald holds "a significant ownership stake" in Santa Monica-based Dimensional Fund Advisors, which manages $40 billion. Its clients are primarily corporate and public employee pension plans, including the California Public Employees Retirement System.

ibid

The former Democratic vice presidential candidate and head of Peace Corps, a quaint organization catering to idealistic 60's youth looking to help downtrodden natives in faraway lands. http://www.askmen.com/men/mar00/15c_arnold_schwarzenegger.html

James Sterngold, San Francisco Chronicle, Oct.. 13, 2003

"I hate pants. This is something I have inherited from my father. He despised pants, and my mother was never allowed to wear them at home. We're talking about a different time period now, when the man was much more the ruler of the house. But I still feel that way, and neither my mother nor Maria is allowed to go out with me in pants." Ah-nald to Playboy, January, 1988

"Sometimes (press freedom) gets carried away at the expense of the country...If there's a problem within a political system, I feel it should be solved in the same way as a problem within a marriage: In the privacy of you own four walls. You don't go out and tell your neighbors and the press and everybody." Ah-nald to Penthouse Magazine, December 1981
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/15/arnold/

"The Birth of the White Corporation," Jeffrey Kaplan, By What Authority, Vol. 5, No. 2, Spring 2003

ibid (Reunion and Reactions: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction, C. Vann Woodward, Oxford University Press, pp. 208-09)

ibid (Reconstruction and Reunion 1864-88, Vol. 2, Charles Fairman, Macmillan, p. 584)

ibid (Everyman's Constitution: Historical Essays on the Fourteenth Amendment, The "Conspiracy Theory" and American Constitutionalism," Howard Graham, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, p. 417)

ibid (Graham, p. 423)

ibid

"Wal-Mart Actions Call for Increased Scrutiny," by Neal Peirce, Published on Wednesday, October 29, 2003 by the (MN)Twin Cities Pioneer Press

ibid

"Up Against the Wal-Mart," Jonathan Tasini

"Upstairs/Downstairs: Disturbing Disparities In Wealth And Privilege," by Arianna Huffington (http://www.inequality.org/upstairsdownstairs.html)

San Francisco Chronicle, Carla Marinucci, Oct. 9, 2003

ibid

Ah-nald to Playboy, January, 1988

San Francisco Chronicle, James Sterngold, Oct. 13, 2003

ibid, San Francisco Chronicle, Carla Marinucci, Oct. 9, 2003

Seth Sutel, Associated Press, Oct. 9, 2003

"Wal-Mart nixes 'Uncovered,' " http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/2004/03/001818.html

"CNN: Spinning PR Into News," Zachary Roth, March 22, 2004

"Costco staff collect signatures for workers' comp initiative," Kate Folmar, San Jose Mercury News, March 30, 2004

"Disney Forbidding Distribution of Film That Criticizes Bush," by Jim Rutenberg, May 5, 2004

ibid

Lady With a Calling: Oprah Winfrey, Time, August 8, 1988

The autobiography "Dust Tracks on a Road" by Zora Neale Hurston, as referenced in the Howard Zinn essay, "Just and Unjust War" in the book entitled, "Declarations of Independence"
http://www.oprah.com/books/favorite/books_favorite_main.jhtml

"THE WOMAN WHO WAS MAMMY," by Dibri L. Beavers

ibid

ibid

ibid

ibid

ibid

Other actresses who maid their livings playing domestics included Hazel Scott,Ruby Dandridge, Theresa Harris, Lillian Randolph, and Ethel Waters. The contract also explicitly confined McDaniel to mammy roles profitable to Selznick, according to the documentary film entitled, "Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel "

ibid

ibid

The documentary "Beyond Tara..." notes that White "offered Hollywood a more acceptable alternative to Hattie as a star, the (light-skinned) Lena Horne." With the NAACP behind her, Horne was able to write it into her studio contract that she would not play a maid.

"Mother Courage," Bertolt Brecht

ibid Time

Associated Press, http://wildcat.arizona.edu/papers/94/22/01_6_m.html

ibid

In "George W. and Oprah," Timothy Rollins contrasts Gore's french-kissing his wife Tipper with Dubya's "celebrity style" peck on Oprah's cheek. The two acts alleged underscored the latter's greater comfort with women "who look for that in a candidate." Rollins goes on to "tip his hat to Oprah for showing the then-governor "the appropriate respect" and for not engaging in "any pit-bull tactics in her asking of questions" and for conducting "the interview with a certain dignity that seems to be totally absent in so many of the other talk shows." (http://www.american-partisan.com/cols/rollins/092100.htm)