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• 1 2017-10-30T18:33:25-07:00 #56, subversion through grinning; learn truths from radical black artists who lived through civil rights 4 March 23, 2017 plain 2019-07-25T12:31:00-07:00 This #100hardtruths was shared with me by my friend, the filmmaker Stephen Winter:
  Enjoy learning the truth about and from Scatman Crothers: actor, singer, seer, subversive middle-finger-holder.
  
  As we enter a despotic future that will reduce the escapist concept of “pure entertainment” to ashes, take time to appreciate some black performing artists of the 20th Century who began their careers before Civil Rights yet lived to a grand old age where their barely concealed rage and voracious versatile talents were given a platform to haunt and inspire audiences through today. Since these are histories that are regulated to the margins, it takes some exploring to find their full stories, and you’ll have to wade through the sometimes completely wrongheaded biases of the (mostly white) documentarians, but that’s part of the “fun”!
  
  Get into:
  • Moms Mabley: performer, political comedian, radical queer
  • Sun-Ra: band-leader, political radical, asexual queer, space invader
  • Jackie Shane: soul singer, street icon, gender-bender trail blazer

  To see a poetic response to this hardtruth:

  how do we best make fun of power?
• 1 2019-07-25T12:30:00-07:00 how do we best make fun of power? 2 Toronto Couplet gallery 2019-07-30T08:45:21-07:00

  How do we best
  make fun of power?

  ...............

  radical 
  change
  cannot 
  come from
  isolation;
  it must be
  collaborative

  ...............

  time
  +
  repetition
  +
  stamina
  in material

  This poem is a response to hardtruth #56:

  #56, subversion through grinning; learn truths from radical black artists who lived through civil rights