So I'm at this Black political convention in Chicago and there is this cat there who appears to me to be White, but I am not certain. He also had an accent which sounded British to me. At one point another attendee indicates to me that this individual should not have been allowed up in the spot. As it turns out this man who appears to be White is Dennis Brutus, who is an emeritus professor of Africana studies at Pitt and a well known Black activist, poet and political prisoner (alonside Mandela @ Robben Island). This was the first time I had heard of him, so I stood mute as his presence was questioned. But this experience was very memorable because it really brought to mind how confusing the notion of race is and how quickly race and the illusion of race can produce knee-jerk reactions. So my ultimate question is this: can a "Black" person who passes for "White" be "racist" or not???
Sunday, July 25
Sunday, July 4
A Dissenter Speaks
i've been stewing over the Cosby speech (now speeches) for a while now. in my inarticulate rage, i've been trying to figure out just why the Cos' words irk my last nerve so badly. some of it rests upon the definition my friends and i came up with to define the axis of black culture: we decided that the one trait all blacks had in common was a shared experience of oppression. that trait encompasses liberals, conservatives, da black bougeoisie, da ghetto fabulosi, the niggerati and the skreet kids - a multiplicity of worldviews shaped by the one experience.
if so, where does the Cos stand? Ta-Nehisi Coates hit on it back in May. there is a core of black elitism; one that is ashamed of and hyper-aware of their "country cousins". they exemplify a tried-and-true method immigrants have used to enter mainstream society. let's call it the 'American Way'; assimilate supremacist attitudes towards blacks and black culture in order to gain acceptance.
so what, if any, difference is there between Cos and a white supremacist? Cos is allowed - nay, encouraged - to air his views on the paucity of black culture at every chance. in a society where trent lott was pillaged for hinting that he might have been in favor of segregation, why has the Cos not been urinated upon by the media? instead, he's been lauded by celebrities and pundits, columnists and 'people-on-the-street'.
what makes it worse is that his statistics are off and his distate for his brethren blares from every sentence. prometheus6 spoke on it, as did Earl Ofari Hutchinson. Pinko Feminist Hellcat also addresses the problems inherent in Cosby's words.
Coates noted that Cos' show, set in crack-era NYC, never once had an episode where the kids had their 'pockets were run' (good turn of phrase, mr. coates). a blindness to sociopolitical conditions then; a blindness to socialpolitical conditions now.
if so, where does the Cos stand? Ta-Nehisi Coates hit on it back in May. there is a core of black elitism; one that is ashamed of and hyper-aware of their "country cousins". they exemplify a tried-and-true method immigrants have used to enter mainstream society. let's call it the 'American Way'; assimilate supremacist attitudes towards blacks and black culture in order to gain acceptance.
so what, if any, difference is there between Cos and a white supremacist? Cos is allowed - nay, encouraged - to air his views on the paucity of black culture at every chance. in a society where trent lott was pillaged for hinting that he might have been in favor of segregation, why has the Cos not been urinated upon by the media? instead, he's been lauded by celebrities and pundits, columnists and 'people-on-the-street'.
what makes it worse is that his statistics are off and his distate for his brethren blares from every sentence. prometheus6 spoke on it, as did Earl Ofari Hutchinson. Pinko Feminist Hellcat also addresses the problems inherent in Cosby's words.
Coates noted that Cos' show, set in crack-era NYC, never once had an episode where the kids had their 'pockets were run' (good turn of phrase, mr. coates). a blindness to sociopolitical conditions then; a blindness to socialpolitical conditions now.
Sunday, June 27
Late, late, late nights
so...i wuz drinking Sparks (which i'm nominating for "Caffeine Replacement of the Millennium") while writing a paper last night. it's now 7 AM and i CAN'T GO TO SLEEP. so i started updating our Links section, which might explain why i found myself on Debra Dickerson's weblog. I cain't stand her Booker T.-esque views on race (see her book) - but that's a discussion for another day containing actual sleep time.
Anyhoo, ms. dickerson did post something worth watching. You can check it out here.
For the faint of heart (read "afraid of viruses/spam/pr0n"), imagine that the Bush-Cheney campaign let YOU make up the slogan for their bumper sticker...NOW go check it out.
Anyhoo, ms. dickerson did post something worth watching. You can check it out here.
For the faint of heart (read "afraid of viruses/spam/pr0n"), imagine that the Bush-Cheney campaign let YOU make up the slogan for their bumper sticker...NOW go check it out.
Monday, June 21
An Interesting Perspective
Below is an article that was sent to me. I found the author's perspective to be intriguing. Even though I might not be totally in line with everything that he is saying, I thought he made some valid points. I would be interested to hear what anyone else thinks about what he has to say.
Miss Moni
Commentary: No Handouts: Open Up the Door and we’ll get it Ourselves
Date: Sunday, June 20, 2004
By: Gregory Kane, BlackAmericaWeb.com
The late President Ronald Reagan, buried nearly a week now, received few
praises from blacks during America’s seven-day mourning period after the
40th president died June 5.
What we did hear from many black commentators was a constant theme: Reagan,
as president, didn’t do anything “for” black folks.
You have to wonder where these commentators are learning their black
history.
Before continuing, I feel compelled to point out that Reagan most certainly
did do something “for” black people. It’s the same thing he did for
Americans of every race: his best to convince us that the federal
government, with its powers strictly limited by the Constitution, is not
our mommy and daddy and was never meant to grow to the behemoth proportions
it has since the New Deal started.
Legislators in cities and towns that have passed resolutions against the
Patriot Act seem to concede Reagan’s point.
But the history says no president has done anything “for” black people
that black people didn’t cajole, agitate, exhort or implore him to do.
You remember the fairy tale you heard back in grade school: President
Lincoln freed the slaves. You’ve since learned Lincoln’s Emancipation
Proclamation freed no one, that he didn’t accept blacks into the Union army
until Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists urged him to do it, and
that many slaves, by abandoning the plantations and providing invaluable
labor for Northern forces, more or less freed themselves.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn’t issue Executive Order 8802
[anti-job discrimination] because he woke up in the White House one morning
with the itch to do something “for” black folks. He did it because A..
Philip Randolph threatened to raise hell and take thousands of black folks
in a march on Washington that would expose America to its fascist foes as
preaching equality and freedom while practicing a vicious racism of its
own.
Randolph was around again after World War II ended, at a dinner with
Roosevelt’s successor, President Harry S. Truman. Randolph let Truman know
blacks would not serve again in a segregated army. Truman was miffed at
Randolph, but he got the message. Truman desegregated all branches of the
armed forces in 1948.
The president perceived to have done the most “for” blacks — John F.
Kennedy — actually did very little. He proposed a civil rights bill but
couldn’t get it passed, and he, along with his brother, Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy, actually resegregated some Army units sent to quell a
1962 riot that broke out at the University of Mississippi when James
Meredith enrolled. The Kennedys hoped to appease Southern racists and
rioters, while putting the lives of Meredith and black and white soldiers
in jeopardy.
The president who actually did the most “for” black people was President
Lyndon B. Johnson. He got the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting
Rights Act of 1965 through Congress, but he had lots of help. Given little
credit is a man named Clarence Mitchell Jr. who, as head of the Washington,
D.C. branch of the NAACP, lobbied to get that legislation passed.
Mitchell became known as “the 101st senator” for his efforts.
This notion that blacks need a president to do something “for” us flies in
the face of our history. We have always done plenty for ourselves. We even
did it during slavery, the “white-man-as-devil, black-folks-as-victims”
school of history currently in vogue among us notwithstanding.
Historian Ira Berlin, in his “Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries
of Slavery in North America” tells much of this story. Berlin’s book is not
very popular. It doesn’t have the attraction for many of us that, say, the
Willie Lynch fantasy does. But Berlin makes clear that black folks did
plenty for themselves during slavery.
Our ancestors “established cook shops, groceries, and taverns to cater to
their own people,” according to Berlin. They also “educated themselves and
their children, insured themselves against disaster, protected themselves
against kidnappers, planned for their future and…set the standards for
their deportment…”
These were the black folks who didn’t fret about what a president could do
“for” them. Many did for themselves, including hiring out their free time
to make wages to purchase their freedom and that of their loved ones.
If Ronald Reagan didn’t do anything “for” black folks, perhaps it’s because
he was more in tune to our history than we are.
Miss Moni
Commentary: No Handouts: Open Up the Door and we’ll get it Ourselves
Date: Sunday, June 20, 2004
By: Gregory Kane, BlackAmericaWeb.com
The late President Ronald Reagan, buried nearly a week now, received few
praises from blacks during America’s seven-day mourning period after the
40th president died June 5.
What we did hear from many black commentators was a constant theme: Reagan,
as president, didn’t do anything “for” black folks.
You have to wonder where these commentators are learning their black
history.
Before continuing, I feel compelled to point out that Reagan most certainly
did do something “for” black people. It’s the same thing he did for
Americans of every race: his best to convince us that the federal
government, with its powers strictly limited by the Constitution, is not
our mommy and daddy and was never meant to grow to the behemoth proportions
it has since the New Deal started.
Legislators in cities and towns that have passed resolutions against the
Patriot Act seem to concede Reagan’s point.
But the history says no president has done anything “for” black people
that black people didn’t cajole, agitate, exhort or implore him to do.
You remember the fairy tale you heard back in grade school: President
Lincoln freed the slaves. You’ve since learned Lincoln’s Emancipation
Proclamation freed no one, that he didn’t accept blacks into the Union army
until Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists urged him to do it, and
that many slaves, by abandoning the plantations and providing invaluable
labor for Northern forces, more or less freed themselves.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn’t issue Executive Order 8802
[anti-job discrimination] because he woke up in the White House one morning
with the itch to do something “for” black folks. He did it because A..
Philip Randolph threatened to raise hell and take thousands of black folks
in a march on Washington that would expose America to its fascist foes as
preaching equality and freedom while practicing a vicious racism of its
own.
Randolph was around again after World War II ended, at a dinner with
Roosevelt’s successor, President Harry S. Truman. Randolph let Truman know
blacks would not serve again in a segregated army. Truman was miffed at
Randolph, but he got the message. Truman desegregated all branches of the
armed forces in 1948.
The president perceived to have done the most “for” blacks — John F.
Kennedy — actually did very little. He proposed a civil rights bill but
couldn’t get it passed, and he, along with his brother, Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy, actually resegregated some Army units sent to quell a
1962 riot that broke out at the University of Mississippi when James
Meredith enrolled. The Kennedys hoped to appease Southern racists and
rioters, while putting the lives of Meredith and black and white soldiers
in jeopardy.
The president who actually did the most “for” black people was President
Lyndon B. Johnson. He got the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting
Rights Act of 1965 through Congress, but he had lots of help. Given little
credit is a man named Clarence Mitchell Jr. who, as head of the Washington,
D.C. branch of the NAACP, lobbied to get that legislation passed.
Mitchell became known as “the 101st senator” for his efforts.
This notion that blacks need a president to do something “for” us flies in
the face of our history. We have always done plenty for ourselves. We even
did it during slavery, the “white-man-as-devil, black-folks-as-victims”
school of history currently in vogue among us notwithstanding.
Historian Ira Berlin, in his “Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries
of Slavery in North America” tells much of this story. Berlin’s book is not
very popular. It doesn’t have the attraction for many of us that, say, the
Willie Lynch fantasy does. But Berlin makes clear that black folks did
plenty for themselves during slavery.
Our ancestors “established cook shops, groceries, and taverns to cater to
their own people,” according to Berlin. They also “educated themselves and
their children, insured themselves against disaster, protected themselves
against kidnappers, planned for their future and…set the standards for
their deportment…”
These were the black folks who didn’t fret about what a president could do
“for” them. Many did for themselves, including hiring out their free time
to make wages to purchase their freedom and that of their loved ones.
If Ronald Reagan didn’t do anything “for” black folks, perhaps it’s because
he was more in tune to our history than we are.
Monday, May 24
My wife said it best...
Kanye is a producer, not a rapper. we are in agreement on this one: although he's topical and at times even hilarious, his delivery leaves something to be desired.
My pick for best hip-hop/rap album of the year so far? Cee-Lo Green is the Soul Machine. College Dropout is damned good - even though it brings up the question "why producers never save their best beats for themselves" - and the Pretty Toney album is in the CD player as we speak...
My pick for best hip-hop/rap album of the year so far? Cee-Lo Green is the Soul Machine. College Dropout is damned good - even though it brings up the question "why producers never save their best beats for themselves" - and the Pretty Toney album is in the CD player as we speak...
so this is why i'm a professor in training
because it's 75 degrees and sunny while i surf the web at panera, suckas!
granted, i'm a barely-functional member of an exploited underclass (read: PhD student), but i CHOSE this life. it went a little like this:
after f*ckin around tryin to be grown, i finished my undergraduate degree Magna Cum Laude/Phi Beta Kappa in 2001. my choices were: go work my liberal arts degree into a better job (admin assistant is a job best suited for the organized/anal retentive) or listen to my boosterized advisor and apply to PhD programs in Rhetoric and Composition.
so i sent off applications for both options (remember interviewing on campus? - it still sucks BTW) and lo-and-behold, i was accepted to every program i applied to. not only accepted: 1 school offered me a full ride for the PhD even though i hadn't exactly completed the application(!). at around the same time, Salomon Smith Barney offered me a position as an operations analyst (which paid less than my admin assistant job - go figure). i weighed my options, asked god for advice/help/a frickin sign, and decided on grad school.
end of story.
granted, i'm a barely-functional member of an exploited underclass (read: PhD student), but i CHOSE this life. it went a little like this:
after f*ckin around tryin to be grown, i finished my undergraduate degree Magna Cum Laude/Phi Beta Kappa in 2001. my choices were: go work my liberal arts degree into a better job (admin assistant is a job best suited for the organized/anal retentive) or listen to my boosterized advisor and apply to PhD programs in Rhetoric and Composition.
so i sent off applications for both options (remember interviewing on campus? - it still sucks BTW) and lo-and-behold, i was accepted to every program i applied to. not only accepted: 1 school offered me a full ride for the PhD even though i hadn't exactly completed the application(!). at around the same time, Salomon Smith Barney offered me a position as an operations analyst (which paid less than my admin assistant job - go figure). i weighed my options, asked god for advice/help/a frickin sign, and decided on grad school.
end of story.
Sunday, May 23
by way of introduction
imma write this in as conversational a style as possible, so you grammar fiends and Ebonics-phobes please step the f*ck back. this space is where i plan to ramble about my two favorite obsessions: race and rhetoric. being that black culture is where my heart is, that's what i'll prolly talk bout the most - but other cultures (read: white) might crop up from time to time *evil grin*.
got an academic background (read: master's) in rhetoric and critical race theory, so if i start getting nerdy, please move past the parts you don't like. i study race, technology, and rhetoric at the University of Illinois, so my classes will probably make their way into this space too. because of my interest in critical race, i tend to rant about the economy, white privilege, and the black bourgeoisie as well...
which leads to my next point (and i do have one); i decided to start blogging because of the commentary i kept coming across about Cosby's speech - not just from the Niggerati Online, but on the radio stations i listened to afterwards. let me just say this one time - ITS TIME TO STOP HATING ON THE "COMMON" FOLK.
i was raised in Louisiana, grew up in Queens and Houston. although i was always crammed into gifted/talented classes (mostly in white schools), i never lost my appreciation for my folks that didn't have my opportunities. hell, most of them schooled me in things i could have never learned in school. my family is middle class on one side, poor on the other - and trust me, we've weaved betwixt and between both sides of that equation.
it irks me so much when black people forget that ALL of us make up the "black race". even those that claim to be aware of the plight of those of us who ain't economically viable seem to fall into a neoliberalist mindset that sez that po black folks CHOOSE to be po. that economic discrimination, environmental racism, poorly funded and poorly staffed school systems, a shitty job market, an omnipresent consumer culture that glorifies materiality, and just plain ol racist white folks might just account for the reasons why some of us never make it off tha block.
i'm not claiming a victim mentality, so put your conservative bullwhips away. i understand that there are many who actually do work hard in school and manage to find good jobs and then move away (!) from the 'hood. if it was all that easy, there'd be more of us in the middle/upper class, hmm?
Rebecca Gordon (i'll post the link later) writes that single mothers on welfare have trouble keeping jobs because of scarce child care resources; when their child is sick and they have to take off, employers are usually unforgiving. however, these mothers are considered "lazy" because they have trouble keeping jobs and have to apply for welfare to help make ends meet...sound familiar? poor black people in general have a higher hill to climb when it comes to "moving on up", so this theme of "personal responsibility" rings false to me - and probably to you too.
dang - this went longer than i meant for it too...we shall return.
got an academic background (read: master's) in rhetoric and critical race theory, so if i start getting nerdy, please move past the parts you don't like. i study race, technology, and rhetoric at the University of Illinois, so my classes will probably make their way into this space too. because of my interest in critical race, i tend to rant about the economy, white privilege, and the black bourgeoisie as well...
which leads to my next point (and i do have one); i decided to start blogging because of the commentary i kept coming across about Cosby's speech - not just from the Niggerati Online, but on the radio stations i listened to afterwards. let me just say this one time - ITS TIME TO STOP HATING ON THE "COMMON" FOLK.
i was raised in Louisiana, grew up in Queens and Houston. although i was always crammed into gifted/talented classes (mostly in white schools), i never lost my appreciation for my folks that didn't have my opportunities. hell, most of them schooled me in things i could have never learned in school. my family is middle class on one side, poor on the other - and trust me, we've weaved betwixt and between both sides of that equation.
it irks me so much when black people forget that ALL of us make up the "black race". even those that claim to be aware of the plight of those of us who ain't economically viable seem to fall into a neoliberalist mindset that sez that po black folks CHOOSE to be po. that economic discrimination, environmental racism, poorly funded and poorly staffed school systems, a shitty job market, an omnipresent consumer culture that glorifies materiality, and just plain ol racist white folks might just account for the reasons why some of us never make it off tha block.
i'm not claiming a victim mentality, so put your conservative bullwhips away. i understand that there are many who actually do work hard in school and manage to find good jobs and then move away (!) from the 'hood. if it was all that easy, there'd be more of us in the middle/upper class, hmm?
Rebecca Gordon (i'll post the link later) writes that single mothers on welfare have trouble keeping jobs because of scarce child care resources; when their child is sick and they have to take off, employers are usually unforgiving. however, these mothers are considered "lazy" because they have trouble keeping jobs and have to apply for welfare to help make ends meet...sound familiar? poor black people in general have a higher hill to climb when it comes to "moving on up", so this theme of "personal responsibility" rings false to me - and probably to you too.
dang - this went longer than i meant for it too...we shall return.
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