Halfrican On Rice

This is a good point, and I'd forgotten about it:

Just a quick history note for those who are shocked by Condoleeza Rice publicly stating that America has a "birth defect" when it comes to race: Rice grew up in Birmingham, Alabama in the late 50s and 60s. One of her childhood playmates was among those four little girls who were murdered by a Klansman's bomb in the basement of their own church. Stop and think about that: four beautiful little black girls, attending church on a Sunday morning, blown up with dynamite by a white racial terrorist. This was not an event that Condoleeza Rice heard about on t.v., or saw in the paper. It was her personal friend torn apart by racial hatred. Rice has every right in the world to have the opinions that she does when it comes to race. To suggest that she does not, that somehow she is out of line to voice those opinions (as Dobbs did below), is simply obscene. It is an insult to the history that Rice has lived through firsthand, and a devaluation of the price that she has had to pay for America's racial sins.

That puts the profound stupidity of Lou Dobbs in greater perspective, no?

Lou Dobbs--Fool

Yet more evidence for why any national conversation on race should ban all squawkers from the Cable news blabberfests. Witness the buffoonery that is Lou Dobbs. I don't much care that he almost said "Cotton Pickin black leaders." What I want to know is, who are all these black leaders telling Lou he can't talk about race? Names please, screw the weak, lazy generalities. Then I want to know why he listens to them. Oh right--he doesn't. Roll tape please.

More On McCain's Claim To The Holy Roman Crown

From my good buddy Brendan Koerner, whose book will be hitting in May;

Interesting post re: McCain claiming to be a descendant ofCharlemagne. This is actually very common practice among American genealogical fanatics. Funny how no one wants to admit that they're descended from some dude who spent the 11th century whacking the soil with a stick, praying that a passing knight wouldn't chop off his arms for sport.

Also, note the importance of lineage claims to Arab politics--the head of virtually every Arab regime claims to be descended from the Prophet Muhammad. That includes our friend Saddam, as well as his Hashemite cousin in Jordan.

First Post At TPMCafe's Discussion On Race

Here it is. The Essence:

We err when we talk about racism as this force that ultimately helps whites, but hurts blacks. The truth is that white people have paid terribly for America's original sin. Consider that while other countries were able to relatively peaceably excise themselves from slavery, America had to sacrifice some 700,000 of its young in order to move forward. That is a horrible toll. Look at the Civil Rights movement and compare, say, the fates of Atlanta and Birmingham, and then look at how the two cities handle the impending epoch of integration. I confess no hard evidence here, but is it a mistake that some of the least prosperous states in the country are also some of the most historically anti-black? Beyond history, from the perspective of cold capitalism, we are in a dog fight for dominance with rising powers. Isn't every black child we lose to a broken educational system a soldier lost before we could even enlist her for the coming battle?

At some point, this has to move beyond a "do the right thing white people" discussion and become a "this is for the good of America" discussion. We have to start convincing people that closing the racial gap helps everyone. The good news is we're starting to see some action that moves down that path. Glenn rightly alluded to the continuing crisis of the large portion of black men residing behind bars. One of the more promising developments is that states are starting to own up to some of the foolishness of their criminal justice policies. But they're not doing it out of any love for black folks, they're doing it because it's in their economic interest—they simply can't afford to keep warehousing black men. I think there's a light in that reasoning. We have to begin to show people how this discussion benefits them.

Ta-Nehisi Tries to Keep Up At TPMCafe

So the folks over at Talking Point Memo are holding  a discussion around race and Obama's speech. I'm one of the guest asked to comment. But truthfully dog, I'm just gonna try to keep with Glenn Loury, knowahmsayin? Naw, seriously though, it should be a good panel. In addition to me and Prof. Loury we have Prof. Joseph Lowndes,  Prof. John Skrentny and Carmen Van Kerkhove. I've some of what will being going up throughout the week. Definitely some good stuff going down. Stay up, folks.

John McCain Traces Lineage Back To Charlemange; Claims The Holy Roman Crown

Heh, people kill me when they attack black folks for the whacky isht we believe and for transforming Africa into this glorious continent, pre-whitey. Over the years I've been one of the people doing the attacking. But I never act like white folks--indeed all folks--don't do the same damn thing.

Witness John McCain who claims that he is not just a descendant of the 13th century Scottish King Robert The Bruce, but also of the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of modern Europe, the 9th century monarch Charlemagne. Understand with that means. John McCain would have had to have traced his lineage through literally millions of relatives, and over a millenea. Haha. Bridge in Brooklyn anyone?

...the ancestral link appears to originate from a 1999 family memoir, Faith of My Fathers. In it the senator said his great-grandparents "gave life to two renowned fighters, my great-uncle Wild Bill and my grandfather Sid McCain."

Wild Bill, he wrote, "joined the McCain name to an even more distinguished warrior family. His wife, Mary Louise Earle, was descended from royalty. She claimed as ancestors Scottish kings back to Robert the Bruce." The passage goes on to say that Mary Louise Earle was also "in direct descent" from Emperor Charlemagne.

Not so, according to Dr Katie Stevenson, a lecturer in medieval studies at the University of St Andrews. "What wonderful fiction," she said. "Mary Louise Earle's claims to descent from Robert the Bruce are likely to be fantasy. Earle is not a Scottish name. I think it is incredibly unlikely that name would be related to Robert the Bruce. Charlemagne and Robert the Bruce were not connected - that's ludicrous."

More Evidence That The Clintons Are Overrated Politicians

Gotta love this, at least as someone who wants Obama to win. Who does James Carville think he's helping with his foolish fulminations? Does he think people are gonna see his full-throated defense of that stupid Judas remark and say, "I had it all wrong. I think I'll vote for Clintons." These guys are a hamfisted bunch I tell you.

I know enough to know that comparing a former Cabinet secretary and sitting governor to Judas is inflammatory and provocative.

Ahh but you don't know enough to see how it just stains the candidate you claim to endorse. Oh, the humanity.

Condie Rice On Slavery--"America's Birth Defect"

This bears reading. It's interesting in that it cuts against the stereotype of the black conservative as shill who will say anything to get over. I don't know if the world is more open to comments like these, or what. But as I've said before I think a viable cadre of black conservatives is a good thing. Black folks shouldn't have to reject Republicans because of the whiff of latent racism. They should be free to reject them because they are wrong--at least in the opinion of this flamin' lefty.

Blogging Light This Weekend

Sorry guys, blogging will be an off and on affair until Monday. I'm running around doing promotional stuff for the book. I'll be back at it by mid-Sunday, early Monday. Have a good weekend all.

Lebron And Gisele Or This Week's Fake "Black People Are Too Sensitive Story"

So there's this game that media plays--find a few black people who've got a beef with something and then tar all black people with it. Typical is this Lebron/Gisele foolishness. The story in question is headlined, "Vogue Cover with Lebron stirs up controversy." The Essence:

...the image is stirring up controversy, with some commentators decrying the photo as perpetuating racial stereotypes. James strikes what some see as a gorilla-like pose, baring his teeth, with one hand dribbling a ball and the other around Bundchen’s tiny waist.

It’s an image some have likened to “King Kong” and Fay Wray.

Well yeah, if you define "some" as a writer at ESPN's website, some guy who analyzes magazines, and a woman on the street. This is the sort of thing editors publish because they know if you even whisper "racism" a bunch of white people--preconditioned to believe that blacks are always complaining--will come running. DIg the poll at the end of the story. Of course Jason Whitlock ways in with his usual illogic. Whatever. White people out there. Are you listening? Most black people could give two flying monkeys about who Vogue puts on the cover.

UPDATE: The Today Show featured this "controversy" apparently. I think this ultimately about white people's need to turn racism into a dumb debate about magazine covers, and thus quickly dismiss it. When will you Negroes get it? There is. No. Racism.

Why We Fight

I saw No End In Sight a couple nights ago on Netflix streaming service. What an incredible documentary, and it really reminded me of what was at stake in this election. I urge everyone to check it out, as well as the Frontline documentary  Bush's War, which you can watch on PBS's website. It's important that we don't get bogged down in the Clinton-Obama tit for tat and remember what's really at stake here. Below is the trailer

Obama Leading Us Out Of The Wilderness?

Sullivan posts an interesting note he got from a reader:

I worked four years as a teacher in the Black community in Oakland in the early 90's and these ideas from Wright's sermons were endemic. To me the remarkable thing about Obama is that he has positioned himself, and set as a goal for himself, to lead Black culture towards one of participation and non-victimization. You can't do that if you're not participating as a member of the Black community, whatever state you find it in.

How do we go forward? 3 percent of all Black men are in prison, and it's 11 percent of black men aged 25-29. Mostly on drug charges. The community has been in crisis for decades. And here come many conservatives with a message to marginalize the Black community further. 

What is more helpful here? That, or putting into a position of leadership someone who has really heard and understood all these arguments in the Black community, disagrees with
them and says so and yet is still respected there, and asks young Black men to take responsibility and shows how it's possible to live a decent life in America?  It seems pretty obvious.

The reader makes a huge mistake by conflating his experiences in the black community with the entirety of black America. Also, to put it bluntly, he thinks too much of "mainstream" white people. A healthy percentage of black folks may believe that the government concocted HIV to kill us, but the conspiracy theories of white America are legion--and  much much deadlier. A sample:

In a February CNN-Time poll, 76 percent of those surveyed felt Saddam provides assistance to al Qaeda. Another poll released in February asked, "Was Saddam Hussein personally involved in the September 11 attacks?" Although it is a claim the Bush administration has never made and for which there is no evidence, 72 percent said it was either very or somewhat likely.

That was in 2003. It is also an incredible number, and it led to arguably the largest military blunder in the history of this country. Black people do not need to be lectured about conspiracy theories when fully THREE QUARTERS of this country believed Saddam was behind 9/11. This is to say nothing of the religious fictions of the wing-nuts, which Chris Hayes outlined, last week.

Evangelical Christians believe that anyone who has not accepted Jesus as his personal lord and saviour will be sadistically tortured for the rest of eternity, which means that each of the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust now spends each instant from here to end of time suffering torture far worse than what they faced in Dachau or Treblinka.

Continue reading "Obama Leading Us Out Of The Wilderness?" »

Oppressed-A-Thon Defined--Or The Olympics For Historically Screwed-Over People

So I used the term "Oppressed-A-Thon" in another post and I thought I should define it. I got the idea from this brilliant entry.

Oppressed-A-Thon--An unintentionally amusing pastime, in which flummoxed pundits unable to make heads or tails out of actual human beings, engage in a dubious contest to prove that said human beings' respective group is more doomed, victimized, and otherwise shat-upon than all other doomed, victimized and presumably shat-upon groups.

"Misoginy is the last acceptable prejudice"--Katha Pollit

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is."--Geraldine Ferraro

"Hillary ain't never been called a nigger."--Rev. Jeremiah Wright

Why It's Easier To Elect A Black Man Than A Woman

Because George McGovern says so. And he's an expert on race and racism.

"I have a feeling that in this country where we're at today in our thinking, it's going to be harder to elect a woman than to elect a black man...I wish that weren't true ... I'd love to see Hillary as president."

For the record, I have no idea whether it's easier to elect a black man or woman, and frankly I could care less. I refuse to become embroiled in an Oppressed-A-Thon, during which we try deduce whether playing the back for most of human history is worse than enduring colonialism, slavery and Vanilla Ice. But after listening to this line repeatedly bellow out from Hillary supporters, I'm starting to understand why the Democratic party has been such a zero in presidential politics. These cats deserve great credit for being so forward thinking on integration. But that same vision has seemingly forced them into a dumb, crude, hamfisted politics in which your gender/race/sexual orientation can be separated out from who you are as an individual.

The "Who's it easier to elect?" query is uniquely suited for white Democrats. There is no agency in that question, no individualism, no sense that Barack Obama isn't Alan Keyes, and Hillary Clinton ain't Libby Dole. (Notice how black women never even show up in this equation.) Basically if you have a chance to win you become your respective grievance group. It's disgusting, simple-minded, stupid, reductive and condescending way of seeing the world. And it's likely no mistake that it comes from one of the men that led liberals into the winter that we're now so desperately trying to find our way out of. Rid us of these fools please. I beg you voters out there. Rid us of them. Their stupidity is a plague on all our houses, and the future of my son.

Slate On The Black And White Women Divide

Interesting post here at Slate's XX Factor.  Melinda Henneberger tries to understand why black women and white women struggle to find common ground. The obvious reason, to my mind, is segregation. Black women live around, and in most cases with, other black men or boys. They have fathers (not enough), they have husbands (not enough), and they have sons (maybe too many, hehe). But they don't have these sorts of close relationships with white women, under any circumstances.

The same, I suspect, is true of white women, which is what explains Gloria Stienem and Geraldine Ferarro. I'm just going to guess that neither of them know many black women. I'd bet money that if you ask them to name three different black families they'd sat to dinner with, they'd probably have to reach back a decade for each equation. Without some tangible understanding of each other, it seems to me it's going to hard to find much transracial unity. Until segregation falls, sadly, I think this will always be the case.

The Audacity Of Liberalism

I meant to post on this piece in the Times yesterday, which I think perfectly captured what, exactly, Obama brings to the table. Basically, the piece contrasts Obama's bipartisan pitch with the old Clinton "New Democratic" pitch. The Essence:

In many ways, the Obama campaign is challenging the fundamental political premise that has prevailed in Washington for more than a generation: that any majority coalition must be carefully centrist, if not center-right. Bill Clinton ran in 1992 as a candidate willing to break with liberal orthodoxy on many issues, including crime and welfare, and eager to move the party — which had lost five of the six previous presidential elections — to the middle. Mr. Clinton’s New Democrats assumed a certain level of conservatism among voters.

Mr. Obama and his allies are basing his campaign on a different bet: that the right-leaning political landscape Mr. Clinton confronted has changed. Several major Democratic strategists, and outside analysts as well, argue that the country has shifted to the left because of the Iraq war, the economy and seven-plus years of President Bush, and that it has become open to a new progressive majority.

This is basically the reason I'm an Obama supporter. I believe that the progressive agenda, unfreighted by empty identity politics, can actually work. We deserve a candidate who does not condescend to people, but at the same time is deft enough as a politician to communicate and not be boxed into anyone's caricature. Anyway, it's a good piece. Check it out.

Kevin Drum Finally Comes Around

Drum has mostly defended Hillary from some of the more outrageous attacks, and granted, they've been a few. At any rate, Hillary's latest tactics seem to have pushed him a bit too far. Also check out Josh Marshall's take on Hill's resurrection of the Wright flap.

Of Rednecks And Niggers

In my piece over at The Root I put out the following challenge:

I saw no picket signs when Toby Keith declared himself—on his sixth album—White Trash With Money. I'm still looking for the white Al Sharpton, who'll deign to protest Jeff Foxworthy for his album, You Might Be A Redneck If…While we were hemming and hawing over potty-mouthed MCs, Steven Spielberg was backing a magazine called Heeb.

Challenge accepted. A commenter over there linked to an absolutely fascinating article on the word "Redneck." In the piece the writer, Will Campbell, basically argues that Redneck is a racial slur. I think that's pretty inarguable. But he actually goes further and parrellels many of the argumunets that people make about nigger. The Essence:

I am growing weary of people like Jeff Foxworthy making millions of dollars with their "You may be a redneck if..." books and television shows.  If what?  You may be a redneck if you eat fried squirrel and Moonpies for breakfast, for example.  Well I ate fried squirrel for breakfast of necessity, sir, but Moon pies were a delicacy for the more affluent. We didn't have the nickel the Moon pie cost in

Amite   County

,

Mississippi

in those days.  You may be a redneck if you mix Jack Daniels with butterscotch malted milks.  Don't knock it if you ain't tried it, Mr. Foxworthy, but those of the poor, rural, working class of the South of my youth had neither a surplus of Jack Daniels nor butterscotch ice cream around the house to mix.  You may be a redneck if you hang around the bus station all day and pick your nose.  Very funny.  But put those putdowns in front of the epithets used to describe and insult African-Americans, women, Jews, people of Polish, Italian, Japanese or Chinese extraction, or any other ethnic, racial, or gender minority and see how many of your politically correct friends laugh. But redneck isn't indexed yet. Well, let's index it.  There comes a time when a body gets weary.

There seems to be a subtle difference in that if feels like Campbell's beef is that people are basically making fun of poor Southern whites, not that it's been reinvented with a measure of cool. Anyway, it's a fairly interesting piece. Worth taking a look.

Continue reading "Of Rednecks And Niggers" »

America's Latest Export--Fat

From Mclatchy, a depressing accounting of Mexico's attempt to overtake America as the world's fattest country:

Some Mexicans say there's less space on an already crowded Mexico City subway because riders are getting larger. At a flea market in the south of the city, vendors hawk clothes brought from the United States made for overweight individuals.

Francisco Princegali knew he was eating too much junk food when he bent down last week and heard a tear.

"I ripped my pants because of the fat," said Princegali, who's 20, crumbling up a wrapper of sweetened bread he'd purchased from a vendor. "I think I'm addicted to junk food."

Princegali, sucking in his stomach, said that many of his pants were too tight these days. Some people are addicted to alcohol and smoking, he said: "My problem is I love fried chicken — Kentucky Fried Chicken."

Halfrican On The Racist Pat Buchanan

A much needed rhetorical beat-down. The one thing that amazes me is how this thing hasn't really been an issue, except amongst black bloggers. It's amazing this cat can spread this foolishness and still be on a major network.

I Was Gonna Respond To Hitch's Hit On Obama...

..But Sullivan did a better job than anything I was thinking.

Were The Clintons Just Overrated?

I've been thinking about this as I've watched this campaign unfold. There's this standard narrative which holds that Bill Clinton is the greatest politician in a generation, and that the Clinton machine is a juggernaut, the likes of which  have not been seen in the Democratic party in decades. And yet, in the midst of the War years, Hillary Clinton is loosing to a first term African-American senator with a Muslim name and a black nationalist pastor. On a paper, can you think of a plausibly worse mixture for a candidate? The daily feed of information and controversies blinds us to this essential narrative--the Clintons are getting their clocks cleaned by a rookie who's damn near straight out the state legislature.

How can this be? I think in large measure, the Clintons are basically running a campaign which depends heavily on smoke and mirrors, spin and narrative, and various other optical illusion. Whenever the discussion turns to Clinton, I keep hearing vague political-speak like "inevitability," "momentum," or "change the narrative." Remember at the start of the year when her campaign switched their slogan damn near every week? Meanwhile Obama has run a fact-based campaign that focuses on delegates. Clintonistas can crow all day that Obama has yet to win a big state, but that doesn't make it true. No narrative can alter the basics of delegate math.

Continue reading "Were The Clintons Just Overrated?" »

Chris Matthews Has A "Chris Wallace" Moment

By way of commenter over at Jack and Jill. Man, is there something in the water? About three minutes in, it gets very uncomfortable in the MSNBC studios.

LOL Of The Day: Me And My White Trophy Wife

From Baratunde. The following is hilarious. Her name is Erin Jackson, by the way.

The Myth Of The Reagan Democrat

Fascinating deconstruction here of white working class racism. Peter Dreier exposes the lie that working class whites are Obama's biggest problem.

Ta-Nehisi Speaks On The N-Word At TheRoot

So here is something I did on the word "nigger," and why I love it. I recognize I'm going to loose half of my minuscule readership over this mess, but please bear with me guys. The Essence:

When I consider nigger, I think of Doug E. Fresh pulling the funk of an old Inspector Gadget ditty. I think of the kids I used to watch in Chocolate City who could take a few buckets and turn them into a percussive orchestra. I think of my father, after work, dog-tired in the kitchen making cans of beans do things that they were not meant for. This is what we do.

As I said, this is about first impressions. How would I feel if my introduction came from a group of menacing troglodytes in the backwoods of some Confederate state? Writer or not, I don't think I'd ever be able to hear anything more than evil from the word. Thus to those who refuse to say nigger, and don't want it used in reference to them, I say, Respect Due. But it's another thing entirely to seek to restrict the vocab of a group who've come up completely different. There is something essentialist about it all, a spirit of "blacker-than-thou" in the word-police who claim that only they may decide how and when to use the allegedly abominable word.

Anyway. Read the whole piece. And holla back, if you dare.

The Myth of The Tuskegee Experiments

Guys, it's time to stop claiming that the government injected blacks men with syphilis. They did not. They refused to treat them, and prevented them from getting a cure. I know it's only a minor difference, but it's an important one. We don't have to embellish, folks. The truth is horrid enough.

The Amazing Racism Of Pat Buchannan

I really don't want to give Pat Buchanan any attention at all. There are  a list of people in this country--most of whom talk for a living--who stand to loose a lot if Barack Obama's take on race and racism bears out. Buchanan's stock and trade is ancient and straight out of Mississippi circa 1919. He peddles in anger and plays to that shrinking contingent of America that believes that their biggest problem is people who don't look like them. Nevertheless, the following bears comment. Here is what Pat Buchanan thinks of you.

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

Wow. There is a lot wrong here, but one central thread of errant logic undergirds it all. Buchanan, like most racists, doesn't actually believe that African-Americans are Americans. This isn't an interpretation, Buchanan's argument that white Americans, in the form of social programs, have done more for black people than any group (including presumably the entire Civil Rights Movement!) assumes that black people have never paid any taxes for those programs. He quite literally doesn't categorize black people as Americans, but useless layabouts who've never contributed anything to the country. All those charities that Buchanan lays out, presumably none of them were run by black folks.

It goes without saying that Buchanan ignores Jim Crow, the epoch of lynching and housing discrimination. That's what bigots do. And Buchanan's rhetoric shouldn't make us angry. He's always been a racist. That said, it's always frustrating to see rank neanderthals, half-wits, and fools making the argument that black people should be thankful to them. Intellectually, Pat Buchanan can't carry Barack Obama's unwashed boxers--from last week. I just got done jogging down Lenox Ave and passed no less than five brothers that would smash Buchanan in any debate.

But Buchanan has always been big media's favorite bigot. And unlike the unsavvy racist (like say Steve Sailer), Buchanan is tolerated among polite society. He's not worth a full fisking. But anyone looking for a primer on Buchanan's thoughts regarding blacks and Jews should check out Jacob Weisberg's  piece from a few years back over at Slate. Among Buchanan's greatest hits? Supporting apartheid and dabbling in Holocaust denial. Man--makes me glad I'm cutting off my cable.

Blogging TBS: The Uncanny X-Men

I tell you these days, it almost feels cliche to cite the X-Men as an influence. But what can I say? I don't think I'd have much of a memoir, without them. If it's true, it's true. I mentioned in one of my other posts that absence of religion in my house caused me to search for god-like figures in other places. The X-Men seemed cut right out of what you'd expect from Greek mythology, but with a twist--they were like us. I think in some respect all kids feel alienated. I just knew it was my destiny to be living out in Columbia or Randallstown, going to a school where every day I wasn't thinking about how to not catch a bad one. I just knew there'd been some horrible mix-up. And I just knew I was possessed with something that the wider world wasn't recognizing. Later I discovered what that was--a huge ego.But in those days, when I was trapped in a victim narrative, the X-Men were an allegory for my life--or at least how I wished my life was.

Here it was--It's not because of jacked-up fade, my NBA kicks (Next time Buy Adidas), my ashy knees or big lips that I got teased. It's because I can walk through walls, because my bones don't break, and eyes shoot that sort of darts that punch through steel. Later, as I got older, and became conscious, I developed a more mature interpretation and came to see the X-Men, and all mutants, as like a stand-in for West Baltimore, the South Bronx, and North Philly. In other words, the X-Men repped for anyone in the grand scheme who was under pressure.

Continue reading "Blogging TBS: The Uncanny X-Men" »

Chris Wallace Pwns Fox and Friends

Uhm, Ouch...

Wright's Sermon In Context (No Soundbites)

It's worth checking this out. I gotta say there ain't much I disagree with here. Hat-tip to Andrew Sullivan. Yeah, I've come almost full circle...

The Second Ammendment And Race

Very nice piece from my old editor Stephanie Mencimer on the inherent racism of the Second Amendment. What you didn't know? I'm telling you, it poisons everything. The Essence:

Last week at an American Constitution Society briefing on the Heller case, NAACP Legal Defense Fund president John Payton explained the ugly history behind the gun lobby's favorite amendment. "That the Second Amendment was the last bulwark against the tyranny of the federal government is false," he said. Instead, the "well-regulated militias" cited in the Constitution almost certainly referred to state militias that were used to suppress slave insurrections. Payton explained that the founders added the Second Amendment in part to reassure southern states, such as Virginia, that the federal government wouldn’t use its new power to disarm state militias as a backdoor way of abolishing slavery.

This is pretty well-documented history, thanks to the work of Roger Williams School of Law professor Carl T. Bogus. In a 1998 law-review article based on a close analysis of James Madison’s original writings, Bogus explained the South’s obsession with militias during the ratification fights over the Constitution. “The militia remained the principal means of protecting the social order and preserving white control over an enormous black population,” Bogus writes. “Anything that might weaken this system presented the gravest of threats.” He goes on to document how anti-Federalists Patrick Henry and George Mason used the fear of slave rebellions as a way of drumming up opposition to the Constitution and how Madison eventually deployed the promise of the Second Amendment to placate Virginians and win their support for ratification.

Jeremiah Wright On Gays And Lesbians

The more I read about this, the more depressed I become. This is from Andrew. I know I took a pretty hard line on Jeremiah Wright from jump. Increasingly I feel that was presumptious. Maybe I'd watched too much MSNBC? And also, i did disagree with much of what he was saying--I think it's a bad idea to blame AIDS on the government. That said, this is pretty revolutionary:

He started one of the first AIDS ministries on the South Side and a singles group for Trinity gays and lesbians—a subject that still rankles some of the more conservative Trinity members, says Dwight Hopkins, a theology professor at the University of Chicago and a church member.

I have never really bought the whole "blacks, all things being equal, are more homophobic than whites" argument. But I do buy the whole "blacks on the South Side of Chicago are more hompophobic than whites on the Upper West Side of Manhattan." My point is that this was a pretty brave thing to do, given the enviorenment as compared to other places where it usually happens. The problem of course is that the same people who aren't going to vote for Obama because of his pastor, probably hate gays also. Sad.

How White Racism Kills White People

I just finished Chris Hayes excellent take on Jeremiah Wright. Amidst many, many good points in the piece, there was one in particular that caught my eye:

And if, of all things, it is his pastor's heated denunciation of American injustice that undoes the candidacy of an African American with a legitimate chance at the White House, any conscientious observer could be forgiven for thinking: God damn America indeed.

Basically. But I don't think people understand what this really means. For years we've watched as black leaders and white liberals have presented the fight against racism as a battle of morals and justice, not as one of self-preservation. What people fail to understand is that the final victims of racism are always white.

Virtually every pundit who's spent the last week commenting on Rev. Wright has taken the position that Wright's views are likely not Barack Obama's. And yet many of them still believe that it is--and evidently should be--a tremendous hurdle for him to the presidency. This, to me, is the equivalent of standing in the middle of the street while a tractor trailer is barreling down on you, and getting pissed because the people telling you to get out the way happen to be yelling.

Continue reading "How White Racism Kills White People" »

Sarah Jessica Parker vs. Maxim

So not sure if you guys have heard, but Maxim named Sarah Jessica Parker the "Unsexiest Woman Alive." I don't have a complicated case against this one. It's just another example of how superficially mean magazines are these days. They would counter by saying that their just trying to sell copies--basically the crack-dealer argument. This is the sort of thing that really brings home that whole "sexism is alive and well" thing. Not that I really doubted, but it's so blatantly the sort of thing that no women's magazine would do. I mean even if you don't get down with her like that, do you really have to put the weight of your magazine behind a bashing of this sort?

Man I'd love for some of their editors to have stand up and be judged. Maxim is one of the few "men's magazines" that I ever read and afterward, actually felt my self-esteem seeping out of every orifice. It's product by, for and about pathetic men. But don't just take my word for it.

Newsflash: A Lot Of Americans Think Thier Friends Are Sexist, Racist

Nice post over at the Washington Monthly.

Why Black People Won't Join The Republican Party

There's an interesting debate about Obama's speech going on between Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan over at the Atlantic's site. Sullivan sees the Right's reaction to Obama's speech as tinged with racism, while Douthat thinks that the problem is that the Right is, well, Right. I think Douthat has a point, but with the following line, and Andrew's rebuttal, he really summed up for me why, despite a strong conservative tradition in the black community, there will be never be any black Republican presence in the near future. Here's Douthat on what white conservatives would like to see out of black people:

The conservative idea of a candidate who's "transformational" on race is someone who sounds like Bill Cosby and works with Ward Connerly

Here's Andrew's smart rebuttal:

I admire Connerly and Steele and Rice and even Thomas after a fashion. But they have obviously not brought black America along with them - or much of white America either. And all of them have failed to be elected nationally or even locally.

Continue reading "Why Black People Won't Join The Republican Party" »

Blogging TBS: Transformers The Movie (The Real Won Fools)

One of the things I tried to do with the book was construct a personal mythology, something that pulled together all the elements of my adolescent life and invokes them in such a way as to make them feel real. A lot of the the things you'll see me speak on in these entries may not stand the test of time. But that's not the point. At the time when the memoir takes place, they felt gigantic. Being young in the 80s was a constant assault of ideas and emotions. Obviously that's part of being young. But to be young and black, a that point, only amplified things. Black folks had existed in this tragic way for so long, and now we were shaking ourselves out of our slumber and assuming this new identity.

So speaking of new identities, I present a few scenes from the original Transformers: The Movie. (I know odd segue) Largely regarded as a commercial and critical flop, I thought this flick was one of the greatest things I'd ever seen. I was 12, this was like 86. I was raised agnostic. But there's a biological impulse to theology, you know? And so I constructed my own out of some disparate source material ranging from Malcolm to Jayce and The Wheeled Warriors (we'll get to that eventually). Anyway, when I was 12, the Transformers were like Zeus in my loose cosmology--they ruled.

I loved how they all had different personalities, motivations, and ways of speak. Even though the Autobots were the good guys--Ironhide wasn't Prowl wasn't Beachcomber wasn't Huffer wasn't Brawn. Transformers The Movie took things a step further and did something that no one (save, maybe Robotech) was doing in the 80s--they killed main characters. Let me not be nostalgic--they did it so they could clear out a toyline and make some cash off a new one. But that wasn't how we saw it. To see Ironhide and Prowl and even Prime go down was world-shaking.

I selected a few scenes from the movie which have lived in my head ever since. One of the most impressive to me, was Prime's heroic death-scene ("Megatron must be stopped"). Then too, the transformation of a mortally wounded Megatron to Galvatron and the subsequent murder of Starscream. I'm sure it won't be apparent why this stuff was shocking--these days, the murder of central characters is basically the main way people gin up ratings (as we'll see on Lost this week). But in those days it never happend, much less on a cartoon. Anyway, check it out and enjoy.

LOL of the day--The Onion On Barack Obama

Simply Classic:

Those who encountered the black man Tuesday said he engaged in erratic behavior, including pointing at random people in the crowd and desperately saying he needs their help, going up to complete strangers and hugging them, and angrily claiming that he is not looking for just a little bit of change, but rather a great deal of change, and that he wants it "right now."

"I'll be honest, when that black guy said he would 'stop at nothing' to get change, it kind of scared me," local mechanic Phil Nighbert said. "Just leave me alone."

Mike Huckabee Says Cut Jeremiah Wright Some Slack

This is the whole interview, but part the way through Huck speaks on Wright. He came off as totally honest. Maybe the discourse is changing. He did call him Louis Wright though...

New Speed Racer Trailer

Doubt I'll see it. Why, in my mind, did I think this part would go to an Asian cat? Oh well...

Especially The Blacks And The Jews (Part 7458575)

Nice piece from Hillary-supporter (I believe) Leon Wieseltier on why Obama scares some portion of the Jewish community. I didn't buy it all, but there's some good stuff in there.

Should The Race Talk Have Been A Gender Talk Too?

Pretty interesting discussion going on over at Feministing. Some folks are arguing that Obama should have tackled gender issues also. That point springs from Wright's argument that Hillary had not been called a nigger. A lot of folks took umbrage with that, because they saw it as another entry in the Oppression Olympics. I can see that. Though to say that someone has never experienced racism, isn't the same as saying sexism doesn't exist.

More to the point, I think it would have been a bad idea for Barack to have included gender in the discussion. The case he was making was complicated enough. Too complicated, according to some folks. I don't subscribe to that school of thought, but I just don't know why you have to tie in gender at this point. If Barack was addressing homophobia, I wouldn't expect him to address Affirmative Action also. Still, it's a good convo. Go over and get some. Knowledge, that is.

Video Of Obama's Speech

TNR On "The Race Speech"

Michael Crowley wanted to hear more welfare/crime/affirmative action/black people bashing from Obama:

Instead he argued that "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." This is a complex and nuanced point--one which, taken from the context of Obama's larger assessment of race in America, won't satisfy people horrified by a preacher who blamed 9/11 on U.S. policies. Other headlines are likely to focus on Obama's overall call for racial reconciliation and a more perfect union. Obama said, quite rightly, that the recent flaps over Wright and Geraldine Ferraro "reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through--a part of our union that we have yet to perfect." But the question is whether working class voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania and West Virginia and elsewhere believe, particularly in a stalled economy, that racially perfecting the union really ought to be a central goal of the next president. I would like to believe so. I'm not convinced they do.

This is the same logic which led Clinton, in 2004, to tell Kerry to throw gay people off the bus. Crowley is addressing the political implications here. But from my perspective, we deserve to know how sharp the rest of America really is. Have we gotten past Willie Horton and welfare? We deserve to know that.

There are people who bear the brunt of cynical welfare-bashing and to us, it looks neither smart, nor insightful. In fact, I'd argue that sort of calculating, inauthentic triangulation does absolutely nothing to close the racial chasm. We deserve to know what we are, to have a campaign fought on issues. We deserve politicians who are willing to risk something, not a bunch of sniveling cowards, huddled around a mass of spreadsheets and demographic data. At some point the question becomes, What are you willing to loose for? What is so essential to you that you won't toss it aside? It was beautiful to hear Obama cite the black community AND his white grandmother as two things he would never disown.

Samantha Power On Colbert

Looks like she's doing fine. Glad to see it.

Some Thoughts On Obama's Speech

First off, just as fan of debate, I have to say that this cat is the most incredible counter-puncher I've ever seen. Let's review: It was widely believed that the Wright conflict represented a mortal threat to Obama's candidacy. You could turn on Fox or MSNBC any day this week and hear the talking heads and their claims of impending doom. But Obama pulled the rope-a-dope. All campaign his pushed race to the back, and let all of us--people like me--wax on about what this means for black folks. Only when cornered and with nowhere to go, does he come out with combination that stops the doom-sayers cold. It was the "reject and renounce" moment writ large. Obama turns what everyone is sure a gaffe, into a devastating counter-attack. That is a mean bit of jujitsu

I appreciated Obama extending the olive leaf to Geraldine Ferraro, despite my criticisms, I really did. The dude is running for president, it's his job to lead, and back and forth bickering about her comments would be unsightly coming from him (I said coming from him, not me). No one likes to see people whining to the refs. That saidm this is why Geraldine Ferraro is dead wrong. Being black put Obama in this debate--but there is not a candidate in this race, who sharp enough, or intellectually flexible enough to give the speech Obama just gave--on any subject. What's Hillary Clinton's earth-shattering speech on the future of feminism and gender? Where is John McCain's great ideology-bending speech on foreign policy? Obama has been thinking about this stuff all his life, so I guess to some extent he has an advantage. But it takes a supple mind to offer such a textured analysis of where we find ourselves.

I especially appreciate that he didn't taken Mickey Kaus's foolish, cynical and hamfisted advice and throw black folks off the train. It would have done nothing but lost him some black votes, and gained him nothing among whites, who likely would have taken it all as disingenuous. Instead he explained why we feel the way we felt, why we tend to shout, and with that in hand, did the same for ethnic whites. White bloggers, them being, you know white, tend to think that was the most important point in the speech. But we've had black conservatives before who basically sided with ethnic whites. What Obama did was show how all these grievances, while understandable, ultimately miss the point, that both of us are shooting at the wrong enemies. He went right at the jugular of the Reagan coaliton, and did it without fear. Obama articulated old liberal "voting against your interest" argument, without the patina of condescension and insult.

I'll spare you more and just tell you this--Both Charles Murray and Jesse Jackson think this was a great speech on race. When was the last time you saw that?

Obama's Speech

More on this later. I thought this was pretty damn good. I don't know if it's a winning speech, but if it isn't, it's hard to see any black person winning anytime soon. This was the part that got me:

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me.  And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

That just struck me as honest, and honorable.

Glenn Greenwald Brings It On The Wright Fight

This cat is always so sharp. As always, Glenn is just, no pun intended, right:

Neither Jerry Falwell nor Pat Robertson ever retracted or denounced their view that America provoked the 9/11 attacks by doing things to anger God. John Hagee continues to believe that the City of New Orleans got what it deserved when Katrina drowned its residents and devastated the lives of thousands of Americans. And James Inhofe -- who happens to still be a Republican U.S. Senator -- blamed America for the 9/11 attacks by arguing in a 2002 Senate floor speech that "the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States of America" because we pressured Israel to give away parts of the West Bank.

The phrases "anti-American" and "America-haters" are among the most barren and manipulative in our entire political lexicon, but whatever they happen to mean on any given day, they easily encompass people who believe that the U.S. deserved the 9/11 attacks, devastating hurricanes and the like. Yet when are people like Falwell, Robertson, Hagee, Inhofe and other white Christian radicals ever described as anti-American or America-hating extremists? Never -- because white Christian evangelicals who tie themselves to the political Right are intrinsically patriotic.

This is a great point and furthermore, saying that American foreign policy caused 9/11--as crude as that claim is--is at least a claim, and can be argued. Unlike, say, arguing that gays caused Katrina and 9/11.

The Beautiful Struggle--First Review

Allow me to sweat myself for a minute. Kirkus reviewed TBS last week. While it's inaccessible to non-subscribers, the review is on the B&N website here.

"The world was filled with great causes-Mandela, Nicaragua, and the battle against Reagan," Coates writes. "But we died for sneakers stitched by serfs, coats that gave props to teams we didn't own, hats embroidered with the names of Confederate states." It's one of the saddest descriptions of the crack epidemic ever put to page. Given the tragic number of African-Americans who didn't survive that epidemic, it's a pleasure to read the author's awed appraisal of a fatherwho never stopped striving for the best in his family and community, no matter how hopeless the view outside his window. A rare, lyrical family memoir that rises above banal domesticity.

Heh yeah. We were a lot of things. Banal domestics ain't one of em...

Newsflash--Black Woman Supports Hillary

From theroot:

I am a Hillary Clinton supporter.

There, I said it.          

And I'm tired of the dirty looks I get when I out myself. Why is it so surprising that someone like me – a black, educated, progressive chick – would put my support behind Hillary Clinton?

Oh, I know. I'm black, so, of course, I should support Barack Obama for the number one position in the country.

Wait but wasn't it only a year ago that people were running around claiming that Obama had little support in the black community? It's amazing how quickly the narrative switches.  Anyway, obviously I'm fine with black folks voting for Hillary, but please do not invoke the following reasoning;

It's never okay to be racist in our world, but, unfortunately, it's still 'normal' to be sexist.

This is good to know. From now on I'll tell my son that he has been born into a magnificent age in which racism is dead. The foolish Gloria Steinem argument is one of those backwards statements that people just repeat without even attempting to prove. They just say it. And of course, if you see the "Gloria Steinem" card, you know the "Questioning My Blackness" card isn't far behind:

Now, in case you're questioning, I do have race pride. No question about it. I am absolutely connected to the beautiful, soulful energy of African-American culture. But I hate that I just had to say that. I hate that all black Clinton supporters are somehow expected to qualify their blackness, as if we are naïve at best and traitors to the race at worst. Hillary's national co-chair, Sheila Jackson Lee, had to do it, too. She said on the Tavis Smiley Show, "I did not leave my blackness at the door. I am still a sister. I shout in the church. I love the Lord. And I love my people."

Who cares.  No one's talking about your people, stop changing the subject. I'd give her the Strawmanship Of The Year award, if I hadn't already given it to Ferraro. I accuse you of supporting an oppurtunistic, morally bankrupt candidate and the respons is, "How dare you question my blackness?!?!" I mean, really. Get a grip. Drop the whining and woe-is-me-ism. Make the case for your candidate and then keep it moving.

Obama's Speech On Race Tomorrow

Folks I think this is a big deal. While I expect Obama to put some distance between him and Rev. Wright, he can't do his standard shtick of attacking black people, and call that a speech on race. That's not a dis. I like him dealing with black homophobia. I less like him dealing with black antisemitism, not because I think there are no black antisemites, but because I think it's a trumped up issue which people overstate and then exploit. People attack Farrakhan--like he somehow is demonstrative of the mind-state of black folks--while ignoring these rabid right-wingers who "support" Israel, because they believe it will beckon the Apocalypse...

Oh sorry, was I ranting? Anyway, my point is he needs to stand up for Trinity and he needs to stand up for black people--if only just a little bit. Even if he doesn't share Rev. Wright's views, he can't act like they come out nowhere. Most white people in this country simply have not a clue what it's like--not so much for us young'uns--but for folks who actually saw segregation. I'm thinking about people like Rev. Wright and my Pops, folks who actually went into the service and found that a substantial portion of this country still didn't see them as any more American. Barack can be candid. I expect him to make a case for us letting bygones be bygones---and I'm with him on that. I'm so tired of fighting over Affirmative Action, but I'm just getting warmed up on an Earned Income Tax credit for men, and a case for a different prison policy hinged on fiscal responsibility. But he can't act like these views come out of nowhere. He just can't.

LOL of the day--Jim Cramer on Bear Stearns

As If I needed any more reasons to feel good about the impending end of my cable TV service...

McCain Tosses Obama An Assist...Right?

Not exactly shocked McCain doesn't take Hannity's bait. It's a good move for him, as TPM has said--he either lets the 527s do the dirty work, or maybe he just knows that he's got even worse people who are--still--backing him...

The Times Cosigns Fraudulent Right Wing Hackery

Yeah, hackery is one thing. But fake hackery is just over-board. RIght wing fool, Bill Kristol relies on that vaunted source of info NEWSMAX and thus reproduces a major error in the pages of the Grey Lady in which he accuses Obama of being at particularly ferocious Rev. Wright Sermon in Chi-town. One problem--Obama was in Miami. Seriously, what does it take for this idiot to loose his job? Isn't this like his third error?

More On Jeremiah Wright

So after some input from a few other people (Hey Pops! Hey Chris!) I think I may have gone a little too hard on the Wright Rev. I still don't know what I think--I imagine that part of my distaste stems from a visceral dislike of people using religion to further politics. I know that everyone in the country does this, and among black folks it's been especially powerful. I don't have a strong argument here against it, accept a very personal one, and that being that I was essentially raised agnostic, and thus just don't "get" religion. But that's about me, not Rev. Wright,

That said, one of the big things that's made me reconsider all this is the fact right-wing political folks are some much worse and utterly and unapologetically bigoted. My Pops sent me the following off of HuffPo and I think you might see what I'm talking about within:

Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father's footsteps) rail against America's sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the "murder of the unborn," has become "Sodom" by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, "under the judgment of God." They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama's minister's shouted "controversial" comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.

More later, once I know how I feel. One thing that's clearly at work here though, is something present in all of black life--we always get penalized more. Clearly Wright's statements aren't even in the same ballpark as some these wing-nuts. Furthermore, while it's simplistic to say it this way, isn't it basically true that 9/11 results from American foreign policy? Did we or did we not empower the Mujahideen in Afghanistan?

Tracy Morgan's Dead Wrong

His take on Obama

Feel-Good Post OF The Day: Colbert's Beat-Down Of D'Zouza

Haha. An oldie but goodie...

More on Jeremiah Wright

Sullivan basically sums up my feeling:

It's nutty, offensive and paranoid stuff. And it is perfectly legitimate for reporters and voters to ask questions. It is not much nuttier than Falwell and Robertson, however. And I don't think it's racist to understand that the black church has a different cultural style in its preaching and activism style that helps add some dimension to Wright's record.

Also here's a video of Trinity's incoming pastor which makes me really hopeful

Who Does A Guy Have To Lynch Around Here?

So this is me on Ferraro in Slate:

The racist card is textbook strawmanship. As opposed to having to address whether her comments were, as Obama said, "wrongheaded" and "absurd," Ferraro gets to debate something that only she can truly judge—the contents of her heart.

It's a clever and unassailable move: How would you actually prove that Ferraro is definitively a racist? Furthermore, it appeals to our national distaste for whiners. It's irrelevant that the Obama campaign never called Ferraro a racist. It's also irrelevant that Ferraro said the same thing of Jesse Jackson in 1988. And it's especially irrelevant that Ferraro apparently believes that Obama's Ivy League education, his experience as an elected official, and his time of service on the South Side of Chicago pale in comparison with the leg-up he's been given as a black male in America. By positioning herself as a victim of political correctness run amok, Ferraro stakes out the high ground of truth telling.

A couple commenters pointed out that I never explicitly said why I thought Ferraro's comments were racist. Fair enough. Basically anytime you reduce someone success or failure strictly to their race, the comment is racist, no? The most potent aspect of racism, to me, is that it simplifies people, it dehumanizes them, and strips them of all complexity. Ferraro argued that the most essential factor in Obama's success was that he was lucky to be black--not his skills as a politician, not his intelligence, not his education, not his speech-making. He's black, and thus is getting a pass from hypnotized blacks and, more importantly, sympathetic whites.

When you discount all of someone's attributes, and essentially say that, but for the sympathy of white people, you would not be in this race, I don't know what else that is, besides racism. It's dehumanizing, belittling, and false. Again, if I said that the only reason Hillary was in contention is because she's a woman, that would be patently sexist. There'd be no debate at all. So why are all complicated about race?

Kwame Kilpatrick In Full Demagouge Mode

Man I tried to avoid this dude. At first I thought it was that his personal life was being dragged out into the open. But now, Kilpatrick has gone off the deep-end--taking his critics with him, as Jack and Jill demonstrates. They're a little kinder to him then I would be, still it's a good post

Sorry Guys, Jeremiah Wright Is Where I Get Off The Bus

Most of this video is pretty inoffensive stuff, but casting the crucifixion of Jesus as a racist crime committed by Italians seems silly. I mean, I don't believe in the crucifixion of Jesus as historical fact or as an article of faith, but if I did, this would come off as bigoted to me. I don't think Barack can stand with  his pastor on this one, and I'd think no less of him for denouncing this. Citing the also-bigoted Pastor Hagee doesn't cut it. Either we're setting a new tone here, or we aren't. But that's just me. See for yourself.

Oh Boy, Pat Buchannan Better Gaurd His Grill

For the record Kelly Goff was wrong--South Carolina is the first state with a sizable black population. What I think she's trying to say though is that Obama was behind in the polls amongst black voters for months, and they only came around once he actively solicited their votes.

Nevertheless, watch this clip and then afterward say it with me children--There is no racism...There is no racism...There is no racism...

Geraldine Ferraro--A Repeat Offender

From Ben Smith over at Politco. Man, oh man:

Placid of demeanor but pointed in his rhetoric, Jackson struck out repeatedly today against those who suggest his race has been an asset in the campaign. President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don't ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his "radical" views, "if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race."

Asked about this at a campaign stop in Buffalo, Jackson at first seemed ready to pounce fiercely on his critics. But then he stopped, took a breath, and said quietly, "Millions of Americans have a point of view different from" Ferraro's.

Discussing the same point in Washington, Jackson said, "We campaigned across the South . . . without a single catcall or boo. It was not until we got North to New York that we began to hear this from Koch, President Reagan and then Mrs. Ferraro . . . . Some people are making hysteria while I'm making history."

The fascinating thing to me in this, is not whether Ferraro is racist. But Jesse's public response. It's measured tone really reminds me of Obama. Sometimes I wonder how different Barack actually is from Jesse. Did the times just change and are the men basically the same? It's pretty clear that Barack could not have existed in 88, at least.

Is The Red Phone Ad Racist?

I just want to say, in the interest of fairness, that I think Orlando Patterson was tripping in the Times today:

I have spent my life studying the pictures and symbols of racism and slavery, and when I saw the Clinton ad’s central image — innocent sleeping children and a mother in the middle of the night at risk of mortal danger — it brought to my mind scenes from the past. I couldn’t help but think of D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” the racist movie epic that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan, with its portrayal of black men lurking in the bushes around white society. The danger implicit in the phone ad — as I see it — is that the person answering the phone might be a black man, someone who could not be trusted to protect us from this threat.

Dude sometimes a phone is just a phone.

Geraldine Ferraro Digs Deeper...

Man, Somehow I don't think Barack is gonna be asking her for much...The "Arrogance of Whiteness" is strong in this one...

Geraldine Ferraro Race Baits For Hill

This is sad on so many levels. Here's Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984 and Hillary supporter on Obama's campaign:

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she continued. "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." Ferraro does not buy the notion of Obama as the great reconciler.

As we watch the Clinton campaign slowly break under the unrelenting pressure of the math, as it becomes apparent that they can't win this thing, I'm starting to get past anger at this sort of thing. I was  eight years old when Ferarro ran with Mondale. That was the year my pops voted for Jesse Jackson for the first time. My concerns were--in particular order--Transformers, the Dalls Cowboys, and weird insects. Still I was worldly enough to know--in some sort of vague way--that what Ferarro was doing was historic. Plus I was naive enough to think that her and Mondale might actually win. When they lost I knew, again vaguely, that it was bad news for kids like me. I had some sense, not just that a Mondale administration would be more favorable to my kind, but that a country that would elect a woman as VP, was likely to be a country that was open to whatever aspirations I held.

Continue reading "Geraldine Ferraro Race Baits For Hill" »

Slate Slams Dungeons & Dragons

I can't wait for Ed Park to get a hold of this one. Anyway, Slate does its usual contrarian number, this time applying it to D&D. The writer, Erik Sofge, basically argues that Gary Gygax was an overpraised hack who invented a game that revolved around killing imaginary creatures.

I'm just gonna say that I dismiss any article on fantasy, science fiction, comic books etc. that uses the word "nerd," or any cliches of "geek culture."" Sofge, of course, opens up with a few of those including eating too many nachos, and not having a sex-life. Again, this may just have to deal with being black, but that just wasn't my D&D experience. Beyond that it's just lazy and cliche. But I digress.

Here we have a case in which contrarianism becomes an ideology, and thus displays all of ideology's attendant problems--like ignoring contravening evidence. Sofge argues that D&D was amoral, but never mentions the alignment system which Gygax puts in place. Furthermore, D&D's rules were always supposed to be guidelines; following them in a rote, strict manner violates the whole idea of role-playing. Sofge attacks D&D because it birthed into World Of Warcraft, which Sofge sees as a game strictly built on hack and slash. Except WoW isn't just built on hack and slash and requires actual real-world social skills to build guilds and conduct raids--take it from someone who was an officer in a guild. In a way WoW breaks that fourth wall between the player and the matrix. Furthermore WoW has specific "role-playing" servers where players are encouraged to stay in character and interact with the relatively deep lore of their world. Even if we bought Sofge's argument about WoW, it'd be like someone saying that it's Biggie's fault that most hip-hop today sucks.

Sofge finishes up by dissing D&D because it's been surpassed by other gaming systems which were subsequently invented, which is a little like, as one commenter put it, dissing the Wright brothers for not inventing the jet engine. Sometimes writers have nothing to say. That's hard to believe in this world of constant up to the moment analysis. But sometimes, even when you have a notion, it's best to chill for a sec and let it marinate before spouting off.

New York About To Get Its First Black Governor

Here it comes. I feel bad for Spitz, mostly because I think prostitution should be legal, but then he enforced the law as it was. So I don't know.

Blogging The Beautiful Struggle: We're All In The Same Gang

Sorry, just happened to see this while I was digging through Arsenio's clips. This was the West Coast response to Self-Destruction--it's so ironic to think, at that point, Cali and NY were competing to see who could increase the Peace, as we used to say. And man, to see that go to Big v. Pac...

Ah well, I can remember cats coming to school the next day bragging about how Humpty ripped it on that "the underground's down for peace among brothers" (how is it that him and Shock G are on stage together). But all I remember watching this clip was that the dark-skin chick in Oaktown 357 was a stunner. We'll get Juicy Got You Crazy in here at some point. No pubescent boy should have seen that video. But for now...

Blogging The Beautiful Struggle: Arsenio Hall vs. Queer Nation

So I've decided to include in this blog, along with random political observations, some thoughts on the influences of my my debut memoir, The Beautiful Struggle (hereto forth known as TBS). At the very least, it should break up the monotony of hearing the kid drone on and on about the greatness of Barack Obama. I'll be posting video/audio/text which I think really shaped my world-view during the period of the memoir (roughly 86-93, post-Good Times, pre-Illmatic) as well as my writing (no real time limit on that).

A lot of this is stuff that I didn't actually see (this is the era before DVR, kiddies) but that still signify the times. One of the things that I hope comes across in TBS is the chaos of the early 80s and early 90s in black inner-cities. On the one level this is crack and the attendant rise of violence, but it's also the culture, which seemed to be changing every other year. It's nice, every once in awhile, to revisit those moments when the weirdest things imaginable, actually happened.

Item: The Arsenio Hall Show.

Arsenio was like what late-night talk would look like had it been black people who sailed out from the coasts of West Africa and colonized the larger world. It was Johnny Carson done, not just in a black way, but in the way of our generation. I usually was sleep, and thus missed most of Arsenio's greatest moments, but the next day at school all everyone talked about was what happened on his show the night before. There was always an allure of danger and mayhem to what he was doing--this dude interviewed Farrakhan--that matched how we, as young black people, saw the world. I hope that perspective comes through in the book.

Anyway, I should stop talking. Here's a fascinating clip where Arsenio gets into it with some gay activists. Beyond just being fascinating because it's Arsenio, the politics of it all seem so of that time. Would this happen to Jimmy Kimmel? Probably not and for a variety of reasons.

Exposing The Myth That Black People Don't Turn Out And Vote

At least in the South. Basically Tom Schaller demonstrates that blacks in the South vote proportionate to their share of the population. But when you take class into account, they actually are more--not less--likely to vote then their white counterparts. Can we now retire these stupid diatribes about young black folks squandering the right their parents fought for? Or would we then take that as license not to vote...Things that make you go, Hmmmm...

Russert Grills Ed Rendell On Hill's Commander In Chief Qualifications

Take a look:

More On Fake Memoirs

The academic who put Maragaret Seltzer on weighs in here. The piece is pretty silly and towards the end takes to arguing in favor of a blurry line between memoir and fiction based on precedent (Memoir writers have been faking it for centuries!). Except by that token why don't we bring back witch-hunts, slavery and betamax. Anyway, dude just seems to be defending himself and his old student, and I was willing to let him go on that. And then he went and said this:

The New York Times reported that because “Ms. Seltzer told (Times reporter Mimi) Read that her foster siblings were dead, in prison or no longer in touch, it was difficult for Ms. Read to find people to interview.”

The real scandal is that, given the predicament of African-American men in Los Angeles, the claim is plausible, not that the agent and publisher accepted it.

No it isn't. Neither the reporter, nor the editor should have accepted the "no longer in touch" fudge. That should have been a tip off. It's the reporters job to get names and go and track those people down. Dude then continues with this.

To discredit “Love and Consequences,” in which Seltzer writes, “We used to say that South Central was separate from the luxury of America — it was an urban Third World” allows Americans the luxury of continuing to ignore the problems the book represents, or at best of waiting for another voice to bring it to our attention.

Right, uhm, because John Singleton never made Boyz In The Hood. Because Menace II Society never hit. Because NWA never existed. In fact gangsta rap never existed. Dude get out the Ivory Tower and get a F--ing clue.

The End Of The Wire--What I Know

I haven't been blogging about The Wire, and I won't be blogging about the season finale. I know, as a native Baltimorean, I should something to say. But I don't right now--except this: The Wire is one of the most painstakingly detailed works of art that I've ever seen. It seems deeply wrong to offer up any level of instant McAnalysis of what it all means. I know, I know. It's what I do on this blog all the time. But for The Wire, somehow, and I don't know why, it just seems wrong.

Obscure Memorist Blogs About Fake Memoirists

So since I have a memoir coming out in May, I felt extra qualified to talk about the temptations of fakery and fraud. Tried to get this published, but you know how it is for the kid--every day is hustle when the Man is trying to keep you down. So I'm taking it to the streets, check it out:

When news broke that Margaret Seltzer had concocted an entire life for her memoir, Love And Consequence, I thought about calling up my editor and telling him that my own upcoming memoir was a fake. I imagined him going through several stages of panic, and this made me laugh a little, but only a little and in a really uncomfortable way. The truth of the matter is that whenever I hear about another Jayson Blair/J.T. Leroy/Stephen Glass I shudder just a little. So much of what any nonfiction writer does occurs out of the line of sight of any supervision, and plagiarism and fabulism are always there as tempting possibilities. This isn’t like the deliciously mind-fogging temptation of say, adultery, but more like the self-destructive madness that makes you wonder what it would feel like to shoplift.

Continue reading "Obscure Memorist Blogs About Fake Memoirists" »

Katha Pollitt's Ill-Concieved Response To That Ill-Concieved "Women Are Stupid" Column

In a much-needed, but flawed retort to Charlotte Allen's foolish piece on why women are so foolish, Katha Pollitt represents for Grey's Anatomy fans the world-over:

Oh, gag me with a spoon. Sure, girly culture can be silly -- but what does that prove? It's not as though men spend their evenings leafing through the plays of Moliere. Susie whips up doggy treats, Mike surfs porn sites; she curls up with the Friday Night Knitting Club, he watches football. Or maybe the two of them watch "Grey's Anatomy" together -- surprise, surprise, about half the show's audience is male. If you go by cultural preferences, actually, you could just as well claim that women are obviously smarter than men -- look around you at the museum, the theater, the opera house, the ballet, the concert hall. Women read more than men, too, especially fiction, which men tend to avoid. (A story about things that didn't happen? How does that work?) Women even read fiction by men and about men, further evidence of their imaginative powers -- while men, if they do pick up a novel, make sure it's estrogen-free. Who's really the dim bulb, the woman who doesn't see the beauty of "Grand Theft Auto," or the man who thinks Tom Clancy is a great writer?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Katha Pollitt doesn't know what she's talking about. She's basically sinking to Allen's level and using the same methodology of hasty generalizations. It's not enough for Pollitt to simply dismiss Allen's thesis on its merits--an easy enough task. She has to argue that it's actually women who are smarter than men, via a highly dubious series of markers of intelligence--opera, theater, ballet etc--and ignorance--video games and football. Does Pollitt even understand football? Has she ever played Grand Theft Auto? The problem with Allen's article wasn't that she argued the wrong side, it's that she reduced really complex observations into a grab-bag of overstatements and employed to make a transparently false argument.

Pollitt ends by asserting that "misogyny is the last acceptable prejudice." Great, the good old "Whose More Opressed Than Who" contest which the left so delights in. Hey Katha, I know a lot of Muslims, Asian-Americans and Latinos who would love to get in on that. I'm glad Pollitt took on Allen for her stupidity--but I wish she had have been more disciplined about it. Instead what we got was piece that was almost as problematic as the article it sought to refute.

That's just my view though. I will say that one my favorite blogs thought the piece was great.

"I don't appreciate being called racist. I voted for Hillary like the rest of you.."

Bonus LOL of the day via Gawker. This thread is classic. Enjoy.

Sorry To Keep Harping On Sullivan Folks...

...but here is a dire prediction:

What I think this misses are the cultural and social consequences of beating Obama (or McCain) this way. I don't mean beating Obama because the Clintons' message is more persuasive, or because the Clintons' healthcare plan is better, or because she has a better approach to Iraq. I mean: beating him by a barrage of petty attacks, by impugning his clear ability to be commander-in-chief, by toying with questions about his Muslim past, by subtle invocation of the race card, by intermittent reliance on gender identity politics, by taking faux offense to keep the news cycle busy ("shame on you, Barack Obama!") and so on. If the Clintons beat Obama this way, I have a simple prediction. It will mean a mass flight from the process. It will alter the political consciousness of an entire generation of young voters - against any positive interaction with the political process for the foreseeable future. I'm not sure that Washington yet understands the risk the Clintons are taking with their own party and the future of American politics.

Generally, I agree with that statement, but there is one problem with it. Hillary can only win this way --barring an unlikely move by the super-delegates--with the consent of the voters. I really have been thinking a lot about this lately, and I think we need to remember that old quote about the people getting the government they deserve. If we, as Democrats, are prepared to send Clinton back to the White House again, then I'll have to do some heavy thinking about politics. I'll know for sure, then, that I'm not a Democrat--the Democratic presidential nominee who I've seen who and liked the most in my life-time was John Kerry. Yeah, I know, not saying much. Bill was amoral, and there was something really cowardly about Gore's 2000 campaign--his hedge on Elian still irks me. But I'll also have to do some thinking about my own place in this country, which I no doubt, love. I will just need to assess what that means.

LOL of the day

When all else fails, go to old Daily Show clips. I actually missed this one. It comes courtesy of my Mormon brother, Colby Poulson. Check it out

Jon Chait Trying To Push Hil Out The Window

Nice piece and he's got a point:

Clinton's path to the nomination, then, involves the following steps: kneecap an eloquent, inspiring, reform-minded young leader who happens to be the first serious African American presidential candidate (meanwhile cementing her own reputation for Nixonian ruthlessness) and then win a contested convention by persuading party elites to override the results at the polls. The plan may also involve trying to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations, after having explicitly agreed that the results would not count toward delegate totals. Oh, and her campaign has periodically hinted that some of Obama's elected delegates might break off and support her. I don't think she'd be in a position to defeat Hitler's dog in November, let alone a popular war hero.

It's Official: I Will Not Vote For Hillary Clinton

I was really thinking about it, but this latest bit tears. Only a power-hungry fool--and yes a Democrat--would imply that the Republican opponent was more qualified than their fellow Democrat. I know I live in New York and it doesn't matter, but on GP, there's no way I can, in good conscience, vote for this craven fool.

Andrew Sullivan Critiques The Obama Campaign

Not bad advice at all. I am especially in favor of this one:

4. Make a speech about the Internet slurs. Stop ducking them. Confront them. Talk about your Christian faith and your childhood exposure to Islam. Tell people about your parents. Debunk that idiotic pledge of allegiance meme. Grab the flag pin issue by the lapels. Do it all at once undefensively. Yes, it will raise the profile of every single slur. But if you rebut them candidly, gracefully, calmly, you will defuse them. You can run but you can't hide from Internet crapola. So confront it; defeat it. Right now, on these issues alone, the Obama camp is actually captive to the politics of fear. Don't be.

You said you would go right at them brother. Well, don't talk me to death.

Decade's Most Misogynistic Movies

Heh. Nice list over at Radar. Half of these movies I never saw because the sexism oozed off the trailer. Generally I hate listacles, but this is worth a look.

In Depth Breakdown Of The Clinton campaign

Pretty awesome reporting job here by Anne Kornblut and Peter Baker. Screw the dumb analysis. Here is a pretty comprehensive accounting of the past few months. I've been burnt out on this stuff since Tuesday, but this was too hard to resist. I salute them both.

And More On Hagee--The White Farrakhan, But Much Worse

I thought I told you that we won't stop...

Oh man--There Will Be Mud

I want to say up front that it was stupid for Obama to deny this happened, when it in fact did. The "I was dealing with the facts as I knew them" defense doesn't cut it. Bush would say the same thing about Iraq. What I've loved so far about Obama's campaign is the cat's willingness to, as we say in the old country, Man Up. I hope he continues in that tradition and takes responsibility for his mistakes, and remains willing to

Now that that's out of the way, it also seems clear that Obama was basically set-up. Here's a piece in TNR on Canadian conservatives attempts to influence the election:

First and foremost, the U.S. media has identified his chief of staff, Ian Brodie, as the leaker of the diplomatic cable written by the Chicago consulate reporting on the Goolsbee meeting. Harper's domestic political foes are advancing a narrative that has already angered Democrats, and would be bad news for bilateral relations: that Harper was trying to do a favor for the GOP by tossing a piece of political dynamite in front of Obama's train as it was barreling down on Ohio.

"They will do what is necessary to help Republicans. They're a nasty, unprincipled bunch, who are incompetent to boot," Bob Rae, foreign affairs critic and member of the opposition Liberal party, wroteasked on his blog. "Is it possible that the prime minister himself knew about this information and authorized the leaks in order to discredit the campaign of Mr. Obama for president of the United States?" New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton

And also from Talking Points Memo:

Seems the NAFTAgate leak started with -- surprise, surprise -- the Chief of Staff to Canada's conservative PM Stephen Harper. Only the first hint wasn't about stuff the Canadians had heard from the Obama camp. It was about reassurances the Canadians got from the Clinton campaign. According to a reporter who heard the original conversation, Brodie said "someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry."

Only somehow this evolved into a story about the Obama campaign giving such reassurances. 

Nasty stuff. But Obama better get used to it, and fast.

Dems Primary Battle--Follow the Math, Not the Hype

Well Obama got creamed last night. There's just no way around that. But Marc Ambinder points out that, even after her big ones, the math of Hillary come back is still really hard to see:

It is a sad irony or perhaps cosmic justice: just as Hillary Clinton succeeded in reforming her coalition -- older voters, working class women, self-identified Democrats, Latinos, the less affluent, the less educated -- just as she's succeeded in raising doubts about the presumptive Democratic nominee, the claws that are the Democratic rules tightened, perhaps inescapably -- in that she cannot escape from them. Forget about momentum. Or press coverage. Or arguments. Or moral claims to this or that. Forget about the external things that all of us in the media normally cover.

As the calendar progress, the reality is that the rules have become the controlling legal authority. When folks say "this ain't over for a while," they don't have a predicate. Perhaps the scrutiny on Obama will increase and that he will crash and that 30% of his superdelegates will crash and that 30% of his pledged delegates will defect and that 60% of the remaining superdelegates delegates will go her way. That could happen, but it is still not that likely to happen. I suppose that if we discover that Obama has a second family in Idaho...

Gary Gygax Creator of D&D Has Died

Heard this today from my good friend Ed Park. Gygax, outside of my parents, may be the single most important factor in me becoming a writer. It's hard to explain to people today--hell it was hard then--what it meant to create an entire world inside your head with only some paper, weird dice, and rule-books. But, oh man, that world was so real to me. I later went on to MMORPGS like EQ and WoW, but in truth, nothing that any programmer does could match the limitless possibilities of conjuring a world in my head.

My sessions of Dungeons & Dragons were the most fun I ever had as a child, bar none. And it wasn't like I was the stereotypical geek with a pack of weird friends (really though, who was?). I was a relatively popular, if somewhat awkward black boy attending the public schools of West Baltimore. My brother Malik, who introduced me to D&D, was a similar dude--though a hell of a lot smarter.
The great thing about D&D though, was that as fun as it was, it really pushed your abstract thinking skills. I think that abilityto conjure a complete picture, based only on skeletal details stayed with me, and has really helped me as a writer.

And so now I look at my seven-year-old son, who has seen some of my rulebooks and wants me to teach him. What will I do? I was seven when I started. And yet, it's been so long since I've played. I wonder whether it will still feel the same. Time, I guess, to dig out my old gem dice...

2008 Campaign Officially Drives Obscure Blogger/Wannabee Writer Crazy

Be still my heart. Man I can't take it--we got killed in Ohio and ambushed in Texas. I don't think I have the heart to even begin to try to analyze what any of this means yet. I think I'm with a lot of folks my age who just feel that we'll just die if we have to endure a smackdown of Hillary in the primary--that's what will happen--and then another four years of Republicans running this in D.C. Add that to the fact that I just don't see Barack Obama making another run for president after this.

I read somewhere that he really needs to take the gloves off and start hitting her hard. But I don't want to see that. I don't want him to become a win-at-all-cost Clintonite. I want him to draw a line in the sand about what the future means, and then force the Democrats to make a choice over embracing it, or rejecting it out of fear. All of that said, I'm with Andrew Sullivan tonight guys:

I just had a Jager shot, and hope to get drunk very soon.

OK, so maybe only in spirit. I still gotta get the boy to school in the morning...

Hitchens on the Depressing State of Campaign Rhetoric

Nice hit piece here on the inanity of Yes We Can and other campaign rhetoric. Hitches, as always, siffs out the b.s.:

Pretty soon, we should be able to get electoral politics down to a basic newspeak that contains perhaps 10 keywords: Dream, Fear, Hope, New, People, We, Change, America, Future, Together. Fishing exclusively from this tiny and stagnant pool of stock expressions, it ought to be possible to drive all thinking people away from the arena and leave matters in the gnarled but capable hands of the professional wordsmiths and manipulators.

He ends with a rather uncharitable jab at his now ex-friend Sid Blumenthal:

How well I remember Sidney Blumenthal waking me up all those years ago to read me the speech by Sen. Biden, which, by borrowing the biography as well as the words of another candidate's campaign, put an end to Biden's own. The same glee didn't work this time when he (it must have been he) came up with "Change You Can Xerox" as a riposte to Sen. Obama's hand-me-down words from Gov. Deval Patrick.

Obama and the Press

TNR argues that the press is finally turning on Obama. I gotta say, even as a supporter, I'm glad to see that happening. First of all, it's good for him--if he's going to be any sort of candidate in the general, or any sort of president, he better get used to answering tough questions. Second, it's good for all of us. I just hope he doesn't slouch into the same whiny press-bashing that the Clinton campaign has.

On Fake Memoir Writers

When I started The Beautiful Struggle, I refused to read any other memoirs. With the exception of Walter Bernstein's lovely Inside Out, I kept that promise. My reason for such a weird decision? Stories like this:

In “Love and Consequences,” a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret B. Jones wrote about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers, running drugs for the Bloods.

The problem is that none of it is true.

Margaret B. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is all white and grew up in the well-to-do Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in the North Hollywood neighborhood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members. Nor did she graduate from the University of Oregon, as she had claimed.

I flipped through a few memoirs when I was writing my proposal, and while I didn't get the impression that they were completely fabricated, I was amazed at the level of detail with which people could recall events. I'm talking about memories of attire and weather on specific days from, like, age five. And not just once, but all across the book. I felt like I couldn't trust any of it. To my mind, memoir is supposed to be true.

When I wrote mine, I struggled with even the idea of recreating dialogue. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that I couldn't write the book without doing that. I'm still not sure that was the right decision, and my discomfort is reflected in how little dialogue is actually in the book. OK, I'm getting off-track here. My point is that editors are going to have to start fact-checking mo-fos. They don't have to fact-check everything, because as I understand it, that would be prohibitively expensive. But maybe an audit system where they randomly fact-check books, and fact-check ones that raise the B.S. alarm. I think a white chick claiming to have grown up gang-banging in South-Central qualifies. Man, a few phone calls would have revealed the fraud...

Especially the blacks and the Jews (part. 3458575)

Nice take down in The Nation by Jon Weiner of the Times' foolish "Obama and the Jews" story.
Here's an interesting note:

Of course there are lots of other reasons why Jews support Obama. Jews have been the religious group most opposed to the war in Iraq. Jews are overwhelmingly liberal Democrats. The American Jewish Committee poll last November asked American Jews to pick their most important campaign issue. 23% named the economy and jobs, followed by health care (19%), the war in Iraq (16%), and then terrorism and national security (14%).

At the bottom of the list: support for Israel, at 6 percent.

That wasn't in the New York Times, either.

I find that fascinating because it mirrors a lot of what I see in black folks. People somehow think that reparations or Affirmative Action are voting issues for black folks, when in fact it's same stuff that other Americans worry over--the economy, the War, and health-care.

Woman-Hating Woman: Gee Girls, I Was Only Kidding!

No you weren't. The Washington Post trots out an editor who raises a weak satire to defend running a "Women Are Dumb" editorial on Sunday. You don't get a woman who routinely speaks on the inferiority of women, to satire the inferiority of women.

Glenn Greenwald Takes It To Howie Kurtz

Oh man, you just made my blogroll. Yeah I know, I'm late. But anyway, here's Glenn's bumrush of Howie Kurtz:

On a weekly basis, Kurtz -- who, due to his deeply conflicted joint positions at both CNN and the Post, has significant influence on how political journalists behave -- makes his method for "media criticisms" clear. He scours the right-wing blogs, religiously consults Drudge, and listens to right-wing talk radio. He writes down all of the scurrilous filth he picks up there and copies it into his column (hence, his prominent, respectful featuring of Red State Erickson's "cokehead" commentary today). His most frequently cited sources are Bill Kristol, Michelle Malkin, and various far-right bloggers. And then he angrily demands to know why the media isn't passing along all the attacks and manufactured scandals he heard from Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin. That's Kurtz's formula for "media criticism."

More on Hagee v. Farrakhan

Never thought the Catholic League would nail this, but they basically get it right here:

Catholic League spokeswoman Kiera McCaffrey says Hagee is a "larger problem" than Farrakhan because Farrakhan is "small potatoes and old news" compared to Hagee and his huge following. McCaffrey says her group is calling on McCain to repudiate Hagee, a Christian leader spokeswoman McCaffrey claims has a long history of "anti-Catholic bigotry."

Yeah, maybe in the 80s and 90s, Farrakhan held some truck with black folks. But the NOI has been on a steady decline since the MMM. I think Tim Russert thought that his questioning put Obama in a bind because, it would split him from black folks who, of course, are mindlessly loyal to Farrakhan. What Russert fails to understand is how bad black people want this, and how little sway Farrakhan has, these days, in the neighborhood. No one cares if Obama denounces Farrakhan. This isn't Jesse circa 88.

Fake Equivication--Hagee vs. Farrakhan

Josh Marshall breaks down Wolf Blitzer for trying to equate John Hagee's relationship with McCain and Obama's relationship with Farrakhan:

Let's be clear what happened here.  John McCain solicited the support and endorsement of Hagee and then he held a joint appearance with Hagee in which he formally endorsed him. In these terms, Obama has no connection whatsoever to Farrakhan. He's just someone who said positive things about Obama. So the premise for even asking Obama is dubious in itself, whereas McCain has openly embraced Hagee.

Kay Bailey Hutchinson, speaking on McCain's behalf, then basically refuses to denounce the dude. This is a guy who called Catholicism "the great whore." I'm not a Farrakhan fan. I was at the Million Man March in 2005. I want to know where all that money went that was collected. That said, there is something to this idea that media, and most of us, tend to tolerate white bigots, while leading lynch mobs to the homes of black bigots. Anyway, see for yourself.

Even Women Have Uncle Toms

Yeah I avoid that term like the plague, but wow. Man, listen, or rather, Woman, listen:

I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say, "we women," of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women "are only children of a larger growth," wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?

Better people than me have taken this on, but it just amazes me that this sort of stuff gets published. People just want to see a fight these days--preferably, apparently, a catfight.