The Fresh Prince lied to me

It turns out that 90s sit-coms are not reliable sources of historical information. Who knew?

I clearly remember the moment, sitting at home after school watching the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air finding out something about African American identity that he didn't already know. He was suitably humbled and even granted his namby-pamby cousin a degree of respect for knowing something that he didn't.

You see, the Fresh Prince had thought that negro spiritual/gospel songs were simply ways of bouying themselves up, of giving themselves some hope for the future, and some way of taking their minds off the hell on earth in which many of them lived. But no! His cousin (whose name completely escapes me, so I'm going to have to google it...Carlton!) Carlton knew the true history, and then Will Smith and the entire audience did too...

You see, the story goes that many of the early negro spirituals were 'code songs', giving precise directions and instructions for escaped slaves to find their way along the Underground Railroad - of safe houses where people would give them shelter and help them escape to the north/Canada.

I have loved this story for years, and whenever I hear or sing one of those classics like 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot', or 'Wade in the Water', I'd remember the secret purpose of those songs. I would thrill in the daring and terrifying escape plans, and the communication from field to field as a song got passed along. I never found out any more about it, but that little snippet was enough to fire my adolescent imagination.

The other day we had a CD of Sunday School music playing and there was one song which went

The animals went in one by one
There's one more river to cross
something something rhymes with one
There's one more river to cross

There's one wide river
And that's the river of Jordan
One wide river
There's one more river to cross

The animals went in two by two...

Which I thought was odd. The story of Noah's ark and the animals has nothing to do with the River Jordan. So I thought it must be one of those special songs. I thought that I would finally find out more about these secret code songs, for which I assumed there would be a whole pile of information. Which led me to the internet, of course. Which led to the shattering of a really good story.

Because, you see, there is absolutely no evidence that spirituals were used as precisely coded instructions for anything. All 'reputable' historians who have looked into it have sadly concluded it was a nice story but have placed it into the 'urban legend' category, with the first references to it arising in the mid-20th century. The other type of historian have continued to talk about it, but mysteriously fail to include any reference as to the source of their information.

Which makes me a bit sad.

But in the process, I have learned some more about the Underground Railroad, of which I was utterly ignorant (aside from knowing its name). I also found The National Geographic's Underground Railroad game, where you are a slave seeking to escape from a Maryland farm in 1850. Duly bookmarked for when the kids get old enough to not have nightmares about it.

I have also learned that 90s sit-coms starring teeny-bop rap artists are not reliable sources of information. Who'd a thunk it?


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Locally made shoes

We bought Miss4 some good winter shoes today. The thought of sweat-shop labourers producing our shoes weighed heavily on my mind, so instead of going to The Warehouse and buying our usual $15 pair of shoes, we went into McKinlays - one of the few shoe manufacturers left in this country. And they make them right here in town.

They are just like the ones in the picture but Tomato coloured. Miss4 thinks they are the coolest thing she has seen :)

Guilt-free shoes, worth paying quadruple the price of sweat-shop ones. And hopefully these will be very hard-wearing. Read more...

Amazing Grace

We finally got around to watching this movie last week. It is great. But even greater are the resources on the website for discussion and action.

We watched the DVD at homegroup/bible study group/whatever you want to call the group thing last week. I had noticed that there were some study resources on the website, so I figured we would do some of those questions this week as a kindof follow up. WOW. We used the Faith Guide (UK edition), thinking that would be more relevant for our Commonwealth context, so I don't know what the US version is like, but the questions were thought provoking and intelligent. We ignored the "conversations over coffee" questions which weren't as good, and went straight for the themed questions. There's a study on each of the themes: Courage; Friendship; Community; Belonging; Work; Action; Transatlantic Slavery; Modern day Slavery; Guilt; and Grace.

Figuring that we have 3 weeks of studies left before the end of the year, we'd have a crack at 3 or 4 themes each night. We got as far as Courage. Using a scene from the movie as a spring-board for discussion, there were questions like "What motivated Pitt's courage? Wilberforce's?", "Do you think W and P's age influenced their desire for social change?", "Are we limited by our idealism in our attempts to make a difference?", "How does one obtain faith?", "are our fears reflective of the way in which we understand God?". We found plenty to talk about and pray about!

Highly recommended! Read more...

Slavery

My Tear Fund newsletter arrived today.

Aside from being overwhelmed by the hugeness of global poverty and need, I read a review of the movie Amazing Grace, which I have been meaning to go see, but will probably wait until it comes out on DVD. (How do other parents manage to actually leave the house as a couple in the evenings?!). The review states

"At the start of the film it is said there were 11 million slaves. Hard as it may seem, there are now more than 27 million slaves."

This includes, of course, child soldiers, bonded (debt) labour, third world prostitution, cocoa plantation workers in ivory coast etc etc (where 40% of the world's cocoa is produced - think of that the next time you munch into a Cadbury/Nestle/Herschey's product).

Slavery is a huge problem. These organisations (here, here and here) are full of information on getting actively involved in the fight against slavery. If (like me) you are a bit overwhelmed at adding yet another organisation to your 'save the world' burden, there are some simple purchasing decisions you can make.

It comes down to economics. As it states elsewhere in my Tear Fund newsletter

"Few parents would abandon or sell their children if they could afford to keep them. A sponsored child is unlikely to become a slave. A mother in a thriving Microenterprise business can keep and care for her children. A community where Aids and other diseases are being treated will have fewer vulnerable orphans. A country which is receiving fair prices for its goods and resources will be wealthier, more stable and more able to enforce anti-slavery laws... It may sound a bit far-fetched but when you buy fair trade products, you're actually fighting slavery in an indirect but real way" (italics mine)

So here's to Fair-Trade.

And the chocolate tastes even better when it's not blood-flavoured. Read more...