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Over the past few months, Ive been editing a book about soulful beliefs, practices and feelings that overflow from their religious and spiritual origins into secular and profane spaces. Ive also been wondering what Joe Biden means when he talks about restoring the soul of America.

In a country fatigued by COVID-19, Zoom calls and a president who thought he was entitled to grab the bodies and attention of his fellow Americans, it appears that Biden wants to offer us some solace. A politics of kindness that permits intentional listening and introspection. Or at least a news cycle that is less taxing, chaotic and demanding.

Such discussions of the American soul are often interpreted through the prism of Bidens Catholicism and Irish ancestry. On occasion, they are also read as a sign that we will be returning to the tone and texture of the Barack Obama years and the calm authority of no-drama Obama. Yet they are rarely connected to what the African American intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois called the souls of Black folk.

It remains difficult for Americans who live in a racially segregated country to consider how African American social and political thought might have informed the thinking of an average Irish guy about soul.

Even though Biden was a moderate Irish American who was psychically distant from the activist fervour of the 1960s, he participated in an American culture transfixed by Martin Luther King Jr.s soulful call for people to be judged on the content of their character rather than the colour of their skin.

He also lived through a period in which Black artists in music, performance, dance, fashion, food, film, literature and visual culture advanced a thrilling vision of soul power.

Obama and Kamala Harris are too young to have participated in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and are, in age or temperament, part of a post-soul generation. Yet, because of their skin colour and Bidens ability to work with segregationist senators in the 1970s and 80s, the American media remains more likely to associate them with the soulful, redemptive humanism of the 1960s than Biden.

The outcry over one of Bidens gaffes during the 2008 presidential campaign is one revealing example of what Obama might call the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races. After describing Obama as the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, Biden was thought to have perpetuated antiquated stereotypes about African American intelligence and cleanliness. Or, at the very least, was portrayed as a political dinosaur surprised by the existence of an African American candidate who appeared articulate, bright and clean to mainstream America.

While Biden was criticized for his ham-fisted attempts to make it clear that he did not think all Blacks look alike, a younger generation of post-soul politicians were praised for strategically using the phrase people who look like me.

After George Zimmerman deemed Trayvon Martin a suspicious young man wearing a hoodie and fatally shot him in 2012, Obama didnt point out that Martin was vulnerable to such violence because of racialized ways of seeing and stereotypes about young Black men wearing hoodies. Instead, he chose to acknowledge the power of family metaphors in American popular culture and noted that, if he had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin.

When Harris became Vice-President-elect, we were similarly bombarded with articles about how she sent a message of hope to young women of colour who looked like her. Harris is also featured on the front cover of Leadership Looks Like Me, a colouring book containing affirmations meant to inspire children and adults alike.

For my book about the history of soulful resistance, I interviewed African Americans who participated in a civil rights movement or produced work that was deeply inspired by a 1960s protest ethic. Many noted their discomfort with the contemporary discourse of people who look like me.

Some associated it with an image-based and superficial culture. Others connected it to profiteers and schemers who appropriate collective struggles for personal or career advancement. All were convinced that getting individual people of colour into powerful positions was a means to tackle structural inequalities, not a goal in and of itself.

They were concerned that a smattering of new faces in slick, official forms of multiculturalism may distract or co-opt campaigns to challenge racial hierarchy and neo-colonialism wherever it may be in the world.

If we are to include the substantive contributions of African Americans in our discussion of an American soul, we cannot presume that this is limited to the mere inclusion of African Americans in a Biden cabinet that looks like America. After all, such visual diversity may divert people away from a Black political identity that is defined by mental attitude and consciousness rather than skin tone.

We may feel too fatigued to question who benefits from the discourse of people who look like us. But if we are to deepen and develop our understanding of the American soul, we cant ignore the seriously soulful campaigns in the 1960s that talked about building solidarity with people who feel like us and participate in the struggle for freedom and justice with us.

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Post-inauguration, restoring the soul of Bidens America must be truly inclusive - The Conversation CA

History teaches us that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an African American Baptist minister who was the leader of the civil rights movement. He was known for advancing civil rights by conducting non-violent marches and protests not only for the advancement of African American people, but for all people. Due to the blatant inequalities related to blacks right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and basic civil rights, King felt that peaceful, non-violent protests, movements, marches, etc. would be an effective way to get legislation passed, laws changed, and accomplishments recognized for those who had been oppressed for years. His 1963 I Have A Dream speech spoke volumes because in summary, he wanted freedom, justice, and equality for all.

Now lets move forward to the 21st century. It appears that the United States of America is experiencing and witnessing the same inequalities and injustices that Dr. King did. In 2013, the Black Lives Matter Movement surfaced after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African American Trayvon Martin. Since that time, Americans have witnessed the disproportionate death rate of black lives more than any other race. Over the past 5+ years, every time a group of African Americans decide to protest or rally behind a social injustice, they are met with guns, tear gas, shields, etc., and this is coming from those who are tasked to protect and serve us. The protests are meant to be peaceful, without violence, as Dr. King would have wanted. For the most part, the protesters are carrying signs and banners, which does not compare to the damage that can be caused by guns, bullets, or a billy club, which in most instances, is being carried out by law enforcement officials. Due to the number of African Americans (both males/females) that have lost their lives, the families are tired and dont know what else to do besides to march peacefully and protest to try to get laws changed and legislation enacted that will hold those responsible and accountable when they cause the death of someone, particularly someone who is not armed.

Civils Rights Movement. Black Lives Matter Movement. Two Different Centuries. Same Inequalities and Injustices.

Gamma Lambda Omega Chapter Reporter, Grace Thompson, Follow us next week for more information on Dr. Kings life. The Man, The Movement, The Message.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. The Man, The Movement, The Message - Brunswicktimes Gazette

The Punisher should challenge audiences.

Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) seems like he should have been a much better fit on the Netflix streaming shows than in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. After all, the first seasons of Daredevil and Jessica Jones had demonstrated that Netflix could commit to a level of violence and a moral ambiguity befitting the complicated and controversial comic book character. Unfortunately, the characters appearances in Daredevil and The Punisher demonstrated a curious lack of commitment.

The Punisher has a complicated legacy. American military and police units unironically appropriate his iconography. This is unsettling as those organizations should exist to uphold the very values that Frank Castle has rejected. The Punisher is often the story of an angry man with a gun imposing his order on a world he believes to be broken subtext impossible to escape given his Netflix show premiered just a month and a half after the deadliest mass shooting in recent American history.

As with most comic book characters, Frank Castle was the product of a particular time and place. That time and place was New York in the 1970s. The antihero first appeared in an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by John Romita Sr. and Ross Andru. The issue was cover-dated February 1974, arriving five months before the Manhattan-set vigilante thriller Death Wish hit cinemas. There was something in the consciousness.

The 1970s were a turbulent decade in America, following the end of the Vietnam War, the scandal of Watergate, and an economic recession. The decade was particularly turbulent for New York City. The city faced a fiscal crisis. Between 1969 and 1974, 500,000 manufacturing jobs disappeared. In October 1975, President Gerald Ford ruled out any federal bailout for the near-bankrupt city, prompting the New York Daily News to run the infamous headline, Ford to City: Drop Dead.

The New York of the mid-1970s was viewed as a city in a state of collapse. By 1974, murder and manslaughter rates were more than twice what theyd been in 1964. In 1975, a coalition of public-sector unions calling themselves the Council for Public Safety published a pamphlet distributed to tourists, titled Welcome to Fear City. There was a surge in civilian anti-crime activities, from civilian patrols to volunteer block watchers. Vigilantes like the Guardian Angels worked to keep the city safe.

This New York created the Punisher, a city that would almost tear itself apart towards the end of the decade. As Gerry Conway has acknowledged, the Punisher spoke to something in the zeitgeist. He contextualized his creation, You had Dirty Harry. Death Wish had come out as a book I think. There was a series of novels called The Executioner. The notion of the lone vigilante doing things that society couldnt do was kind of in the air. Frank Castle could be judge, jury, and executioner.

When Frank Castle first appeared in Netflixs Daredevil, the show initially seemed to understand this. He materializes in the second season premiere of Daredevil. The episode seems to take place in an odd time warp to the New York City of 1977, with news reports of a heat wave with no end in sight recalling the rising temperatures of that turbulent summer. A character remarks that the city is about to explode, recalling the unrest of that year.

Of course, times change. Crime rates in New York City are now closer to the 1950s than to the 1970s. Times Square has been reinvented as a tourist haven where the biggest crimes are the prices. These days, the suggestion of a gun-toting urban vigilante is less likely to conjure up Charles Bronson working his way through a series of increasingly depressing Death Wish sequels than it is to suggest controversial real-life cases like Bernie Goetz or George Zimmerman.

This is the push and pull of the Punisher. Many of the best creators to work with the character have understood the inherent paradox of Frank Castle the simultaneous revulsion and intrigue around the man who brutally murders criminals with no recourse to due process. Writers like Frank Miller, Garth Ennis, Jason Aaron, and Greg Rucka understand that Frank Castle should horrify audiences as much as he appeals to them: Frank Castle might kill monsters, but he also is a monster.

However, Daredevil and The Punisher are wary of the baggage that comes with the character. The shows are reluctant to let Frank Castle become the vigilante figure from the comics. The show tries to humanize Castle, to present him as less absolute and less ruthless. When Frank catches Turk (Rob Morgan) selling guns, he declines to execute the criminal. This is obviously because Turk is a character who recurs across the Netflix shows, but it also makes Frank less of a killing machine.

Daredevil and The Punisher push Frank Castle away from the urban crime that had defined the character for so much of his existence. In Daredevil, the murder of Franks family is reworked from a botched mob hit into a military conspiracy involving his former commanding officer, Colonel Ray Schoonover (Clancy Brown). In The Punisher, Billy Russo (Ben Barnes) is reimagined, transformed from a pulp mobster into a former brother in arms who served with Frank in Force Recon.

This shift narrows the scope of Franks rules of engagement, but it also misunderstands the horror of that origin. In the comics, the death of Frank Castles family was a freak accident, like the death of the Waynes. The world is arbitrary; it is impossible to impose order on the chaos. The world is so random that Frank could lose everything in a moment. In contrast, a conspiracy proves the opposite: Everything makes sense, everything fits together, everything is ordered.

In the comics, Franks origin story is a detail that perhaps explains the characters unending war on crime. Frank kills criminals in general, not just those tied to the murder of his family. As reimagined in Daredevil and The Punisher, Frank Castles traumatic origin becomes a singular drive. Frank isnt interested in criminals in general. Frank is driven to avenge his family, exposing a convoluted conspiracy that spans both the second season of Daredevil and the first season of The Punisher.

As a result, Franks arc in Daredevil and The Punisher feels much closer to the conspiracy thrills of 24 than it does to the brutal violence of Death Wish. It is a calculated move designed to make Frank more palatable to modern audiences. After all, viewers might balk at a brutal and unapologetic killing machine murdering his way through a city of strangers, but its easier to root for a character directly avenging the loss of his family.

The Netflix Marvel Universe consciously attempts to de-problematize Frank Castle. In doing so, it turns the character into a much more generic protagonist. However, Frank Castle should be problematic. The character should make audiences uncomfortable. He should challenge viewers, by asking them what they are comfortable with and why. The Punisher should be a bitter little pill that forces audiences to consider their attitude towards violence and whom they deem acceptable targets.

Many superhero stories are power fantasies. It is interesting to compare those fantasies against an angry man with a gun and to ask why that fantasy has such staying power when contrasted with billionaire industrialists, gods of thunder, and teenagers with the proportionate strength of an arachnid. The first season of Daredevil asked probing questions about masculinity, and Jessica Jones grappled with hefty themes of its own. This should have been the perfect forum to explore the Punisher.

Instead, Daredevil and The Punisher coated that bitter little pill in sugar and never looked inside.

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How Netflix Failed The Punisher - The Escapist

Freshly installed Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams will review his predecessors decision to not to prosecute a homicide case with facts that date back to 2013, when it received widespread local attention, an office spokesman said.More than seven years ago, New Orleans police arrested Marigny homeowner Merritt Landry after Landry allegedly shot 14-year-old Marshall Coulter in the head as Coulter trespassed on his property. The boy survived, and Landry was initially booked on a charge of attempted second-degree murder. Months later, then-DA Leon Cannizzaro declined to prosecute the case after a grand jury failed to reach a decision and Coulter faced new allegations of burglarizing homes. A development in the case came Feb. 27, 2020, when Coulter died at age 21. WDSU learned about his death after the NOPD recently provided its official list of homicides for last year. Coulter's case was included in the list.A spokesman for New Orleans Coroner Dwight McKennas office said the death was ruled a homicide in connection to the July 26, 2013, shooting. The coroners office lists the cause of death as complications of sinusitis and remote gunshot wound of the head, along with bacterial meningoencephalitis with subdural empyema.The NOPD also classified the death as a homicide and, according to DAs office spokesman Ken Daley, notified the Cannizzaro administration about the death during the fourth quarter of 2020, and submitted a report documenting the death on Dec. 14, 2020. Staff from Cannizzaros administration, including First Assistant District Attorney Graymond Martin and the homicide screening division, agreed the report provided no new evidence surrounding the 2013 shooting that warranted reopening the inquiry, Daley said in a statement on Thursday. The case against Mr. Landry was closed following a grand jurys decision not to indict Mr. Landry in connection with the shooting, and after Mr. Coulters subsequent 2014 arrests for additional burglary, attempted burglary and aggravated burglary accusations, Daley said. Landry's attorney, Roger Jordan, said Coulter's death should not trigger new charges. "This case was justifiable in 2013, its justifiable now. Facts dont change," Jordan told WDSU.The Marigny shooting involving a white homeowner and Black teenager occurred about seven months after George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. A jury acquitted Zimmerman for second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in July 2013.Martins death sparked the Black Lives Matter movement that gathered new momentum this past summer with the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and other Black people. Like the Martin shooting, the Coulter shooting tested the states stand-your-ground law and castle doctrine, which allow people to defend their homes and property.Daley said Williams administration will review Coulters homicide and the 2013 shooting file in the coming weeks. Should any different course of action be decided the public will be informed at the appropriate time, he said.

Freshly installed Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams will review his predecessors decision to not to prosecute a homicide case with facts that date back to 2013, when it received widespread local attention, an office spokesman said.

More than seven years ago, New Orleans police arrested Marigny homeowner Merritt Landry after Landry allegedly shot 14-year-old Marshall Coulter in the head as Coulter trespassed on his property. The boy survived, and Landry was initially booked on a charge of attempted second-degree murder.

Months later, then-DA Leon Cannizzaro declined to prosecute the case after a grand jury failed to reach a decision and Coulter faced new allegations of burglarizing homes.

A development in the case came Feb. 27, 2020, when Coulter died at age 21. WDSU learned about his death after the NOPD recently provided its official list of homicides for last year. Coulter's case was included in the list.

A spokesman for New Orleans Coroner Dwight McKennas office said the death was ruled a homicide in connection to the July 26, 2013, shooting. The coroners office lists the cause of death as complications of sinusitis and remote gunshot wound of the head, along with bacterial meningoencephalitis with subdural empyema.

The NOPD also classified the death as a homicide and, according to DAs office spokesman Ken Daley, notified the Cannizzaro administration about the death during the fourth quarter of 2020, and submitted a report documenting the death on Dec. 14, 2020. Staff from Cannizzaros administration, including First Assistant District Attorney Graymond Martin and the homicide screening division, agreed the report provided no new evidence surrounding the 2013 shooting that warranted reopening the inquiry, Daley said in a statement on Thursday.

The case against Mr. Landry was closed following a grand jurys decision not to indict Mr. Landry in connection with the shooting, and after Mr. Coulters subsequent 2014 arrests for additional burglary, attempted burglary and aggravated burglary accusations, Daley said.

Landry's attorney, Roger Jordan, said Coulter's death should not trigger new charges.

"This case was justifiable in 2013, its justifiable now. Facts dont change," Jordan told WDSU.

The Marigny shooting involving a white homeowner and Black teenager occurred about seven months after George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. A jury acquitted Zimmerman for second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in July 2013.

Martins death sparked the Black Lives Matter movement that gathered new momentum this past summer with the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and other Black people. Like the Martin shooting, the Coulter shooting tested the states stand-your-ground law and castle doctrine, which allow people to defend their homes and property.

Daley said Williams administration will review Coulters homicide and the 2013 shooting file in the coming weeks.

Should any different course of action be decided the public will be informed at the appropriate time, he said.

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New DA Jason Williams to review homicide in 2013 'stand your ground' case - WDSU New Orleans

Although it might be pretentious for a white dude, in one of the whitest states in the union, weighing in on Black Lives Matter on the cusp of Black History Month, I think my concern is legitimate. Im sure Ill hear about it, in any case. My particular yank concerns Barre Citys questionable decision to fly the Black Lives Matter flag and then, after a month, replace it with the other BLM flag Blue Lives Matter subsequently replacing that one as well, creating what is essentially a flag of the month club for the remainder of the year, transparently ducking responsibility to unequivocally condemn racism wherever it appears.

Taking this approach, the Granite City zeroes in on the low hanging fruit, theoretically pleasing everyone by creating a kind of balance that, however well-intentioned, trivializes Black Lives Matter and unwittingly contributes to widening the abyss between two politically charged movements. BLM is a mostly reasonable, even, dare I say, toned down response to hundreds of years of racial discrimination and violence perpetrated on African-Americans in this country. Although burned into the nations consciousness after the live-streamed murder of George Floyd, the movement actually emerged after the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin.

After being ordered by Sanford, Florida, police not to follow Martin, George Zimmerman, a self-styled neighborhood watch captain, perceived the Black teen who was visiting his father to be in the wrong place, followed anyway, subsequently shooting him dead, and eventually being acquitted based on the states stand your ground laws. In death, Martin joined the growing contingent of young Black men three times more likely to be shot than their white peers.

But the movement really came into its own as America watched, horrified, as the last eight minutes and 40 seconds of George Floyds life ebbed away under the knee of a Minneapolis policeman, appalling in the ghastly reality of just how casual police-murders of Black men had become. Expressionless, one hand in his pocket, officer Derek Chauvin appeared as calm and collected as he might be squishing a bug. The stomach churning footage was a clear illustration of the police brutality African-Americans have alleged for decades, galvanizing the world as people took to the streets in 2,000 cities nationally and 60 additional countries, as far away as New Zealand.

As it became apparent the protests were diverse and largely peaceful a Harvard research study found 97.7% of all the demonstrations were without violence the movement was nonetheless demonized. While the data clearly showed the small number of violent episodes were directed toward BLM supporters rather than instigated by them, the far-right fog machine was already up and running, with the president and Fox News depicting the country as either burning down or completely taken over by violent, Black, left-wing socialists bent on destroying our way of life. However politically convenient, this assessment was a racially motivated fabrication.

Also coming to light at that time was the often too close association between police departments, violent militia groups and white supremacists, many of whom have adopted the Blue Lives Matter flag and its cousin, the Thin Blue Line flag, as potent symbols not only in opposition to the BLM movement, but as a show of solidarity focused on intimidating people of color into silence and submission. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the FBI has warned of White supremacist infiltration of law enforcement and along with Homeland Security pointed to racist groups as the most lethal domestic terrorist threat to the United States.

None of this is intended as an intimation the Barre City Police are anything but honorable public servants, showing up every day to do the incredibly difficult and dangerous work protecting the community. I appreciate the work they do, and although I dont support blanket defunding, I do believe in reallocation of resources are necessary to address some of the problems for which police are untrained that can frequently result in tragedy such as domestic issues or mental illness.

My issue is with city government and the apparent belief that a poignant entreaty by African-Americans not to be murdered based on their skin color, somehow needs to be balanced, especially with what has become a controversial symbol on its own, frequently used to justify the precise institutional racism that BLM and its supporters are aligned against.

Like much of our politics these days, this is complex, rife with nuance yet still requiring a clear decision, firmly denouncing racism without equivocation. In this, Barre missed the mark, in effect, limiting their support of Black Lives Matter to 30 days and subsequently promoting a movement diametrically opposed to everything BLM stands for. They cant have it both ways.

Earlier this week, as Congress prepared to make him the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice, Donald Trump put an even finer point on centuries of racial strife, in his first public remarks since the deadly Capitol insurrection he incited. As usual, dodging any responsibility and voicing no regrets, he claimed his remarks preceding the siege were totally appropriate, instead blaming racial justice protests as the real problem, suggesting If you look at what other people have said, politicians at a high level about the riots during the summer, the horrible riots in Portland and Seattle and various other places, that was a real problem.

Think about that. According to the president, African-Americans demanding the bare minimum racial equality would offer the privilege of not being shot is the real problem. The sheer audacity of that statement as the nation recoils from MAGA goons, Proud Boys and yes, white supremacists, violently storming an enduring symbol of democracy the U.S. Capitol should be the catalyst for every state, city, town and hamlet to proudly raise the Black Lives Matter banner and commit to leaving it up for as long as it takes to flush this poison from our system.

Walt Amses lives in North Calais.

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Amses: Red, white, black-and-blue | Perspective | rutlandherald.com - Rutland Herald