Emmett Till's father.

Dear Race / Answer Man,

Who was Emmett Till's father and what happened to him and why don't we ever hear anything about him in all the hooray about Emmett's murder and his mother's recent death?

Herbert / Wanna' know


Dear Wanna,

If you'd have asked me this question a few years ago, I would have been hard pressed to come up with an answer.

Even though the heinous murder and mutilation of fellow my Chicagoan Emmett was a pivotal event in my 7 year old mind, Emmett's father never entered it. His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, was well-known here because of her heroic fight to keep her son's memory alive. She even co-wrote a book " "The Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America" with lawyer/writer Christopher Benson. It was published the year she died (2003).

I just read the first few chapters and Mrs. Till-Mobley seems to be pretty honest about Louis Till.
But another book, "The Interpreter" by Duke University professor Alice Kaplan, was published in 2005. Although I haven't actually read the book, after seeing it reviewed, my Googling came up with a few interesting facts:

1. Emmett Till's father, Louis Till, was Court Marshalled in World War ll and executed for raping and killing at least 2 Italian women.

2. A much greater percentage of Afrimerican soldiers than Euromerican ones met the same fate in that war. The factoid I've heard is that although only 8.5% of American soldiers in World War ll were Black, almost 80% of those executed for war crimes like rape or murder were of that melanous hue.

Interestingly, lots of the info I've found on the web about Louis Till is on extreme right-wing or racist websites. I guess they think the fact Emmett Till's father was executed for raping "White" Italian women in Italy, justifies brutally lynching his 14 year-old son in Mississippi. That kind of "logic" and "morality" seems to be rampant on such sites.

I don't have the time, energy, space or patience to debate them here. Besides, somehow I don't think they're amenable to my insights. But if you'd like to see how alive and well racism is in this 6th year of the third millennium, check out:
www.americanrenaissance.com. It will probably lead you to a whole world that our so-called news media will happily ignore until the next Emmett Till moment reminds us that the legacy of 400 years of racist propaganda (first spewed and sanctioned by our sainted "forefathers" like Jefferson) wasn't ended with a handful of still largely unenforced "civil rights" laws. Please, don't get ol' RaceMan started. I'll never complete this post.



For more Information on these subjects:

White Supremacist site: www.americanrenaissance.com

Emmett Till: The Death of Innocence by Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson (I'm reading it now. So far, so good).

Black soldier executions in World War ll: The Interpreter by Alice Kaplan

Wikipedia has a good compilation of info on Emmett Till. Below is a list of references from their page on Emmett Till:

* The Emmett Till Murder, definitive site on the case by Devery S. Anderson
* The Murder of Emmett Till. American Experience - Transcript and additional materials for PBS film. Accessed May 10, 2004.
* Maria Newman (May 10, 2004). U.S. to Reopen Investigation of Emmett Till's Murder in 1955. The New York Times. Accessed May 10, 2004.
* Gary Younge, The Guardian, 6 June 2005, "Justice at last?"
* Stephen Whitfield, A Death in the Delta (1988 book)
* Keith Beauchamp, "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till" (2004 documentary)
* M. Susan Orr-Klopfer, The Emmett Till Book (2005) ISBN 1-4116-3843-3
* M. Susan Orr-Klopfer, Where Rebels Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited (2005) ISBN 1-4116-4102-7
* Body identified as Emmett Till, science .// AAA111111daily.com press release, August 26, 2005.
* David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, *Why It's Unlikely the Emmett Till Murder Will Ever Be Solved, History News Network
* David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, *Why the '60 Minutes' Story on Emmett Till Was a Disappointment, History News Network
* Christopher Metress, The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documentary Narrative (2002 book)
* Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson, The Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (2003 book)

SCARED TO LOVE

Dear Raceman,

Enjoyed reading your blog insights. I'd be interested in your perspective on the "downlow" phenomenon, and its alleged impact on the increasing spread of HIV among black women. Aren't there enough challenges to our relationships without having worry about literally being screwed to death?

Peace,
Scared, Single, Celibate Sista

Dear Scared,

Sorry it took so long to get back to you on this, but if you read the fine print in my introduction, this is a Slog (Slow Blog) not a Blog.

That said, here goes.

"When in doubt, keep it zipped" just about sums up the result of my admittedly limited research on your query.

I talked with a few of my more sexually active acquaintances (at least they say they are. Short of jumping into bed with them and their partners, I have to take their word for it).

One, who is actually older and presumably more experienced than I - at least in matters of the heart - says the whole issue is a dodge. He says many women use rumors of a downlow epidemic as a way to mis-direct attention away from the real action - lesbianism. He cited a few cases of women he suspected were "muffsters" themselves who complained of Black men downlowers. I guess you could say he thought that if men are downlow, women are "downlower".

Anyhow, I have to say that I really have no real clue about this popular subject, Judging from the number of books, articles and Oprah shows, this is a lot more important than extending the Voting Rights Act. But something tells me it's no more an epidemic than syphillis, gonorhea and all the varied forms of STDs have been since men and women first found out why Adam and Eve got kicked out of the Garden.
Besides, I don't even see this as a "race" issue. "Whites", "Browns", "Yellows", "Reds" and every tint and hue that humans come in have been mixing it up for eons. Somebody once crooned "Birds do it, bees do it......".

I think it may be just another way to keep "Black" folks eyes off the real prize - true equality in the not-so-good-ol' U.S. A.

It seems you should use the same rule for any type of "intimate" activity, whether it's male-female, male-male, female-female, or any other myriad non-human possibilities . "Look before you leap". My buddy Dan (the name has been changed to protect the guilty), says, he sees getting frisky with anyone as group sex because, as the old saying goes, you're sleeping with all the folks they've slept with, without the benefit of multiple orgasms.

If you're still in the mood for love after all this, good luck.