Wright Again

So, I didn't want to immediately comment on Obama's renunciation of his pastor yesterday. In my initial post I expressed shock that folks were so incensed by Rev. Wright. That said, I want to be clear that I thought Wright acted a fool on Monday. There's a lot of chatter out there claiming that Wright was trying to sabotage Obama. I don't buy it. Like I said yesterday, I think Wright just wanted  to say whatever he felt. But he made a few mistakes. Chief among them, as my friend Jelani Cobb has said, was not recognizing the difference between his pulpit and the lion's den. This press lives to expose these sort of performances, and Wright just gave them low-hanging fruit.

Why he would do that, given what he's been through the past few months, just boggles the mind. You can't, on the one hand, attack the press for distorting you, and then go right to the press to communicate who you are to the American people. The saddest part of this to me, is that I don't think Wright understood what was going on. There's a lot of reporting now suggesting that Bill Clinton's biggest problem is that he simply doesn't understand how much media has changed since his White House days. His gaffes are not the product of a decline in skills, as I've written before, but the result of a fundamental misunderstanding of what the press has become--a gaggle of cynics who sit around waiting for people say something stupid. Gotcha journalism rules the day. Wright's mistake was much the same--he simply had no understanding of the press.

Frankly, I don't know how Barack Obama goes back to Trinity. The one thing he said that caught me in that press conference was that he goes to church to pray, not to be a distraction. How is that possible now? Any appearance by Obama there would immediately turn the church service into a charade.

One Last Point

No disrespect whatsoever to Brendan Loy, but this is the sort of thing that white people who don't spend much time around black folks say:

This is the promise of the Obama candidacy, encapsulated and made real. Obama is urging blacks to leave behind, once and for all, the politics of conspiratorial victimhood -- the politics of Jeremiah Wright and, although Obama can't afford politically to say so explicitly, of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton -- and embrace the politics of unity and hope and, ultimately, self-empowerment.

OK, so some black people say that too. But the point I want to make is that to the extent that there are "politics of conspiratorial victimhood" at work in the black community, its because black people have been--and still are--victims of conspiracies. OK, so not much lately, you say? Well we're still suffering from yesterday's BS. Furthermore, forgive us if after centuries of slavery, racial terrorism, police brutality and otherwise wanton discrimination, if we can no longer tell the difference between conspiracy and plain old ineptitude.

Beyond all that, the truth is that the notion that the ideology of victimhood holds some great truck in the black community is consistently overstated by people, who frankly, aren't qualified to speak on this. In fact, as I wrote in my Cosby piece, when black folks were asked to list who they thought had a positive impact on black people, know who finished first and second? Those great paragons of "blaming the white man" Oprah Winfrey and Bill Cosby.

We don't need Barack Obama to lead us out of victimhood. What we need is white people to stop listening to a few Al Sharpton speeches and concluding that they've peered into the heart of black America. For right and wrong, African-Americans are the original Americans, the only true natives of this country, the only people whose history truly begins here. We have fought and died in every major war this country has fought. If we're guilty of anything it's too much optimism, it's too much belief in American exceptionalism. We are the ones who had to get the shit kicked out us in Selma simply to use a water fountain, and we held up the Bible and the Declaration of Independence while doing it. To the extent that Obama is attracting near universal support among black people, it's a reflection that people who thought that we were zombies marching lockstep with Sharpton and Jackson need to check themselves. Our problem was never that that we thought we thought we were victims, it's always been that we thought we were citizens. 

And Now The Rejection And Denuciation

Knew this was coming, no?

Fear Not Folks

Yup, the Wright business had me down. Feeling a little better after this, though...

Wright, Wright, Wright

I'm still confused some by the latest Rev. Wright hoopbla and not completely sure what to make of it. I'm not so much in agreement with the guy as I am blown away by the fury he's provoked. I don't quite get it. Is Wright really anymore outrageous, than say, Michael Moore? Are his claims any worse than people who blame Hurricane Katrina's 1,800 deaths on gays? What is it about Wright which inflames the media so much more than any other blow-hard? I suspect that some of this has to do with the moral double-standard that black folks have always labored under, that it's related to the reason why black parents tell their kids to be "twice as good," that it has something to do with why Barack Obama's only shot at the presidency is to run a near flawless Jackie Robinson campaign.

In other words, the moral problems of black folks (hubris in the case of Wright) are always overblown. There is something in certain sectors of white America that expects all black people, at all times to act like white people did them a favor by bringing them here in chains. Indeed, Martin Luther King's whole approach to defeating segregation rested upon a sort of surrender, a relinquishment of anger at white racism. Of course when King asked the same of white America--a'la Vietnam, poor garbage workers--he was shot. There is a price to pay for setting aside that anger, that side of us which still feels scars of slavery. Forever, you're held to that outrageous standard, and should one of your own flash that old angst, the vultures began to circle.

There is a running meme going among blacks and whites that Wright is now sabotaging Obama's campaign. But what no one is seeing is that the game is rigged. Obama was sabotaged twenty years ago when, instead of going the Tiger Woods route, he dared to explore and drink deep in the beauty/pathology/irony that is black folks. From that point forward, he was marked. Now in his pursuit of arguably the highest office in the world, Obama finds himself dogged by the "nigger rules" which apply to all black trailblazers--no pessimism, no crying, no Farrakhan, and no rage.

More On Rev. Wright

dNa notes that it really doesn't matter what Rev. Wright says, his very appearance is a liability to Obama. I'll have more to say on this later, but I've been thinking about this since I watched Wright on Bill Moyers on Friday. I've always expected a little bit of compromise out of my politicians--but I also like supporting people who know what they would be willing to loose over. If Barack Obama looses because of Jeremiah Wright--something I don't see happening--I will know what sort of country I'm living in. I'm one of those optimistic blacks that generally believes that the "white working class" is routinely caricatured, that race is complicated, and racism even more so. I have great hope for this country, and I believe that every generation has gotten a little better in how it deals with race.

But I watched Wright on Friday, and I can't, for the life of me, figure out why he's allegedly so offensive to white sensibilities. Pastor Hagee is a certified nut and a bigot, no question. But, really, him endorsing John McCain isn't the reason I won't vote for him. Billy Graham was a lying anti-semite, but that didn't keep me from supporting the Clintons. James Baker says "Fuck The Jews" and is still considered a respectable member of the foreign policy establishment. But when a black pastor is taken out of context, suddenly it's Armageddon. If this is the basis by which we elect a president, then we're in more trouble than we can begin to know.

On Sean Bell

I wanted to lay back for a second and just marinate on this verdict before commenting. Like a lot of black New Yorkers, my visceral reaction to these cats getting off was horror. Ask me to pick sides between the cops and a black dude they killed at his bachelor party, you can guess which way I'm going. But then I started thinking.

First, I want to put what I'm saying in context. Dig this piece from the Times today which basically concludes that black New Yorkers don't see this thing through the same lense that they saw Diallo, Louima, Dorismond etc.

In Harlem, Willie Rainey, 60, a Vietnam veteran and retired airport worker, said that he believed the detectives should have been found guilty, but that he saw the case through a prism not of race, but of police conduct. “It’s a lack of police training,” Mr. Rainey said. “It’s not about race when you have black killing black. We overplay the black card as an issue.”

And further down:

But even as some condemned the behavior of the police, other black men and women interviewed praised Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

“He’s got people who are at least willing to communicate with the black community,” said Salaam Ismail, 50, a youth coordinator, standing outside the Harlem headquarters of Mr. Sharpton’s National Action Network on Friday. “The mayor has done a lot of pre-emptive strikes with that kind of stuff, meeting with community leaders.”

On Nov. 27, 2006, two days after Mr. Bell was killed, the mayor convened a private meeting of black religious leaders and elected officials at City Hall. One of those at the meeting was the city’s police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, who a month after the shooting set up a panel to review the rules and tactics of undercover operations in response to the Bell case.

A lot of this summed up how I felt about this case. We tend to lump all instances of cops shooting innocent black folks into the same ball. But I think it's smart to unpack this stuff and examine each case and what it means.

Continue reading "On Sean Bell" »

The New Nas Joint Or Why You'll Wish You Were A Nigger Too

As some of you may know, this joint basically sums up my view on the "Nigger Wars" (I really hate the phrase "The N-Word." It's everything language shouldn't be--weak, evasive, passive and vague). Nas also gets to a very interesting aspect of black life--as much problems as we all have regarding race, I wouldn't trade being a Nigger for anything in the world. My old friend Joel Porter (aka DJ Renegade) once put it as follows: "By the time I'm through\You'll wish you were a nigger too."

I always, always believed that. Being black gives you a sort of knowledge, a particular and original view of America that most white people will never have access to. I'm not even talking politically necessarily. I'm talking about the unique feeling that you get around  1 A.M., when your at a great party, the D.J. throws on your song, and though you can't dance a lick, you come to understand that it really doesn't matter, that the real crime is not dancing at all. I'm talking about things that can go unspoken during, say, your tenure at Howard University, the ability to not have to repeatedly explain your every move, to translate your world-view. I'm talking about an intimate understanding of violence, the knowledge that bar-fights aren't actually fun, and when one dude punches another one in the face, there are no sound effects, and entire lives hang in the balance. I'm talking about running through Central Park in the morning and the mandatory nod you exchange with every black person that jogs past.

Though we war against it daily, it must be said--it should always be said--that it is a beautiful, beautiful thing to be here in this way, to be despised in this way, to live on the margins, just outside, to be a citizen of this country, and yet to know it in ways that it can't even know itself, to know it in ways that it simply refuses to know us. But that's white America's loss--not ours. Let us never forget the blessing of being held outdoors. There's a section in Nicholas Lemann's beautifully rendered The Promised Land, where racist whites in order to prove the loose, animal nature of their black sharecroppers claim that blacks routinely tell them,  "Boss if you could be a nigger on Saturday night, you'd never want to be white again." The "Saturday night" reference is meant to play up this idea of blacks as always partying, and never working. But as usual white racists miss the point. We are bigger than Saturday night. We always have been. We always will be.

If We're Going To Start Counting Black People...

Haha, John Stewart skewers the XX State Doesn''t Matter meme.

Res Part II

As many folks have noted, Res's album was produced by Santi White AKA Santogold. Here's her smoking new single, and somewhat less dynamic video. I think I'm a fan.

The Incredible, Unparralleled, Indomitable Colson Whitehead

Ladies and Gentleman I present...

I know some folks feel bitter about me, as bitter as the first dandelion greens of the season. Yet these people are not without hope, hope that is drizzled on those dandelion greens like a dash of sweet pomegranate vinegar. Do they begrudge the scorpion its sting, or the duck its quack? How can I be other than what I am, The Guy Who Got Where He Is Only Because He’s Black?

Frankly it’s a lot better than my last two gigs, The Guy Who Left the Seat Up and The Guy Who Took the Last Beer, although I do suffer from a lot of work-related injuries, as you can imagine. For all this jibber-jabber about how I don’t understand a working man’s problems, you should take a look at my medical chart. I have carpal tunnel, tennis elbow, miner’s lung, scapegoat rash and vintner’s dropsy, and just last week I burned my thumb making horseshoes. The funny thing is, I didn’t want to be a blacksmith. But I heard they had an opening and I couldn’t help myself.

I put in a good day’s work, unwind with a little Marx, and then settle down for some well-deserved rest. I have a nice bed. It is a California king. It is stuffed with gold doubloons, the treasure I have accumulated by gathering the bonuses and raises that would have gone to Those Who Would’ve Gotten It Except for That Black Guy. The bed is quite comfortable. I sleep O.K.

It makes the head spin, this talk of who’s elitist and who’s not. I’m confused, myself. For years, they said you can’t have this because you’re black, and then when you get something the same people say you got that only because you’re black. I mean, here I am, The Guy Who Got Where He Is Only Because He’s Black, and yet the higher up you go in an organization, the less you see of me.

It’s as if Someone Out to Prevent Me From Getting What I Worked For is preventing me from getting what I worked for. If only there were something — a lapel pin or other sartorial accessory — that would reassure people that I can do the job.

First off let me say that I have a new signature: "It’s as if Someone Out to Prevent Me From Getting What I Worked For is preventing me from getting what I worked for. If only there were something — a lapel pin or other sartorial accessory — that would reassure people that I can do the job."

Second, I have a whole blog post I've been meaning to write on the influence of The Intuitionist on me. For now, let me pay Colson the ultimate compliment and say I wish I had the skills to do what he just did. I've been thinking op-ed on this for weeks, but everything I was coming up with stale. That folks, is why writers are underpaid. Incredible. Props to Too Sense for the link.

Obama As McGovern

Basically, I've let it be known that I few historical parallelism as primary weapon of the professional hack, the stock-in-trade--if you will--of weak-minded writers who'd rather grab the crutch of history and precedent, than do the hard work of determining what this particular, unique moment means. Still there is this stupid debate going on. Most of the entries reject the McGovern line, and thank God they do. Calling Obama, McGovern is incredible refitting of history.

From The Department Of Fake Terrorism...

Yeah, remember these guys? They were the Haitian cats down in Miami who were in a cult, and were basically entrapped into declaring their intent to commit an act of terrorism. But man, you talk about a thought crime, get this:

...an F.B.I. search of the group’s headquarters in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami yielded no weapons or evidence of preparation for a large-scale attack.

Still the government is making a big deal out of this and trying these guys for the third time. If memory serves, Alberto Gonzales held a huge press conference when these guys were busted to puff out his chest and act like he was actually doing work. Turns out he was doing nothing of the sort.

The Man Behind The Man

Nice piece in TNR on David Plouffe--one of the architects of Obama's campaign:

It's often assumed that the limits of such political nerd-dom roughly coincide with the borders of Iowa and New Hampshire--that presidential campaigns become momentum-driven, television-saturated affairs once they leave the early states. There's no doubt something to this--the Obama campaign has been running on a mix of soaring rhetoric and media buzz since January. But, under Plouffe, the tedious work of crunching numbers and scouring precinct maps has remained a central campaign obsession. Plouffe has run the entire Obama campaign as though it were the Iowa caucus writ large. And it's brought Obama to the brink of the nomination.

One of the fascinating things to me about this primary is how much the Clinton campaign constructed their strategy around media and spin. We see the effects of that even today, with people unwilling to count her out. Obama, meanwhile, just outsmarted her campaign by looking at the map and seeing what was possible.

The Inescapable Math Of The Democratic Nomination

Sorry, but I'm going to keep banging this home. Here's the Jed Report demonstrating why Hillary has virtually no chance to win. This race is over folks. There are a lot of people--mostly on cable news--making money by convincing us that Obama can't knock out Hillary. They are lying to you for ratings. This race has basically been over for two months now.

Slate On Clinton's New Math

Heh, Tom Noah skewers the fake metrics deployed by Hillary Clinton's campaign, given that she is neither going to win the popular vote or the delegate count:

As Clinton's prospects dim, her preferred metrics grow more rococo. The Democrats, Clinton now argues, can't afford to nominate someone who can't carry the big, industrial states that matter in the Electoral College. Never mind that, after the 2000 election, Clinton said the Electoral College should be abolishedalas), or that in the midst of an economic recession, it's hard to imagine Clinton supporters in hard-hit places like Ohio and Pennsylvania voting for the party in power. Obama's on the ropes, Clinton argues, because he spent three times as much as she did and still lost Pennsylvania to her by 10 points. But that's just another way of saying that Obama's campaign is flush and Clinton's is strapped for cash. And anyway, as long as we're being arithmetic, Clinton did not win Pennsylvania by the much-fetishized target margin of 10 points. She won it by 9.2 points, which rounds down to nine, not up to 10. Hillary's weirdest metric is that, if you count the primaries in Michigan (where Hillary was the only more primary votes than any previous Democratic nominee. So what? The Democratic National Committee refuses to seat the delegates from these states because they didn't follow party rules (a position Clinton had no problem accepting back when she had much more clout to change it; see "Fair-Weather Wolverine" by S.V. Dáte).

Haha. He forgot the claim by some of her henchmen that Clinton's states held "more electoral college votes." I loved that one. Anyway, after about ten minutes of brief depression yesterday, I started feeling good again. Do not allow cable talking heads--whose very livliehoods depend on drama--to fool you. This race has been over since Super Tuesday. When Obama didn't fall, Clinton had no plan. She's won the big states on sheer demographics, whereas Obama has won on demographics and on organization. My point is that she's knocked-out on her feet. There is no amount of spin that can summon more voters or more delegates. This thing is a wrap folks. And has been so, for months now.

Coates Out For The Day

Doing some traveling folks. Hoping that Barack keeps things under five points or so. Meanwhile I leave you to ponder Mos Def.

Facts Are Stubborn Things

Nice analysis by Bloomberg on the actual state of the Democratic race. I keep hearing people speak like Hillary actually still has a chance to win by catching Obama in the popular vote. Probably not.

The Gloom And Doom Of Being A Leftie

Ugh. I don't know what's worse--the fact that Dems have lost so many recent presidential elections, or the loser mentality that's come to accompany them. This week Salon gives us a really lazy exercise in historical parallels by basically implying that Hillary is Mondale, and Obama is McGovern. This sort of hazy searching for historical precedent, as opposed to analyzing people as individuals existing in a unique time (as all humans do), is intellectually weak.

I once heard Norman Mailer inveighing against newspaper writers, asserting that half their job is spent looking for precedent and plugging people into predetermined narratives. He was so right. If Obama looses, it won't be because he's like McGovern, because he said that working class voters are bitter, or even because he's black. He'll loose because his campaign sucked, and he, as a candidate, wasn't ready for prime-time.

Obama On Hip-Hop

Barack has some kind words--and some deserved criticism--for hip-hop. Unlike Marsalis and Cosby, Obama actually enjoys some of the music and--most importantly--has considerable respect for it as an art form. Also in his criticism he adds one oft missed problem with the music to the frequently cited duo of misogyny and violence. That would be rank materialism. Anyway here's the clip. Props to Farragut for the link.

Obama Speaks On Jay-Z

Wondered how long it would take the bigwigs to pick up on this:

Yesterday, Obama's campaign spokesman, Tommy Vietor, would say only this: "He has some Jay-Z on his iPod."

The rest are as souless as they are clueless:

The move illustrated both a generational and a cultural gap: On MSNBC host Joe Scarborough's show yesterday, The Washington Post's Richard Cohen said the shoulder shaking was "contemptuous and aloof" and "not smart." Scarborough on Obama's move: "We looked at each other and said, 'What's he doing ?' "

Long Rambling Post On Hip-Hop, Ross and Too Sense

So spinning off of Cosby, there's a good little debate going on over at Ross Douthat's spot on hip-hop and the effects of culture. dnA chimed in on his site and basically read my mind by making the point that people who make judgments about the moral worth of hip-hop, often aren't especially schooled in the music. I was literally thinking that this morning, during my jog. I virtually never write about country music, or have any commentary on it. Know why? Because I couldn't tell a Toby Kieth song from a Tim McGraw cut. Essentially, I'd have no idea what I was talking about.

But hip-hop, evidently, requires no such knowledge and any Tom, Dick and Hank often feels free to weigh in and lambaste the entire genre, or better yet, attempt to do it themselves and lambaste it. Withness the unbounded folly that is Wynton Marsalis's Where Ya'll At? Of course this cuts the other way also--I was horrified when Nikki Giovanni got a tattoo of Thug Life in honor of Tupac. I got love for Pac, but I hated how folks weren't grappling with him and were just intent on making him a saint. Anyway for the most part, I think, very few people outside of hip-hop's most devoted fans understand what's going in the music. They think it's just some kids same some moronic phrases in time with a beat, and thus nearly anybody can come in an analyze.

I don't know if you guys know this about me, but I am an Illmatic fiend. I consider it to be the greatest statement on young black men in inner-city America in the early 90s. But, like most fiends, I've developed this opinion after numerous listenings, and after consuming hip-hop albums the way most sentient beings consume water and air. I think the second verse of "One Love"--"Shorty's laugh was cold-blooded as he smoked so foul\Only twelve trying to tell me that he liked my style."-- is a masterful employment of rhythmic timing, irony, narrative. The stark tragedy and black humor of "New York State Of Mind"--"I keep some E&J, sitting bent inside the stairway\Or either on the corner bettin gramps with the Cee-Lo champs\Laughing at base-heads, trying to sell some broken amps."--makes me shudder even after some fourteen years. I'm still not sure what Nas means when he says, "I switched my motto, instead of saying fuck tomorrow\That buck that bought the bottle could have struck the Lotto." But it's ambiguity has left me  reciting it back to myself for years.

In fariness to Ross, he was specific in his criticism of Gangsta Rap, and many of his criticisms I share. I went back--for kicks--and listened to Straight Out Of Compton and was amazed at how dated and laughable it sounded. Then I played the incredibly slept-on D.O.C. record, No One Can Do It Better, and was amazed at its understated beauty. People talk about misoginy and violence-glorifying lyrics as crimes against women and young people. But most of all that stuff has been a crime against hip-hop, as its marred many a great lyrical performances. Now we are heading into a time, when the profane is all hip-hop is apparently all that makes hip-hop notable.

Continue reading "Long Rambling Post On Hip-Hop, Ross and Too Sense" »

Jigga And Barack--We Knew This Was Coming

Peace to Jack And Jill for the clip.

Can Gangsta Rap Go Highbrow?

Ross pivots off of Cosby into a discussion about whether gangsta rap will become high-brow like jazz. I highly doubt it, if we mean that in the strictest sense.  I would add, though, that plenty of hip-hop already is high-brow--Tribe, De la, Common, The Roots etc. Also, I'm no so sure that some of the more quasi-gangsta cats won't make it. What about Jay-Z? He's pretty profane but he's managed to style himself as the thinking man's gangsta rapper.

What about Wu-Tang? The Rza's music has earned a certain amount of respectability beyond hip-hop circles--I almost flipped out when I heard him and then 3000 on Fresh Air.  Which brings me to Outkast, who basically started out as Southern gangsta rap? Now they're considered by some experts (meaning me) to be the greatest hip-hop group ever. I could easily see them being considered high-brow. Anyway, it's a pretty lively discussion. Feel free to chime in--or start your own over here.

Another Critique Of The Cosby Piece

The eminent Ross Douthat offers some kind words and criticism of my Cosby piece. His critique is similar to John McWhorter's but slightly different. Both argue with my point that, culturally, the black past was  more virtuous than the black present. John takes an aim at the illegitimacy rates, while Ross goes wide-angle and argues for asserting the virtue and morals of one era over another. I hope that's fair. I obviously disagree. But like I said in reference to John's piece, I had 7k words to make my case and if I didn't do it there, it's highly unlikely I can do it here.

I will say this--we need to be very careful about conflating hip-hop with gangsta rap. I have my problems with the intersection of both, but they aren't the same. In the piece, I criticize Ronald Ferguson for saying that the rise of hip-hop in the early 90s had some sort of relationship to the alleged decline of reading among black kids. I then pivoted to say that throughout the 90s gangsta rap exploded almost inversely to a decline in murder rates and teen pregnancy rates among black kids. But Ferguson didn't argue that the subgenre of gangsta rap caused the decline--he argued that entire genre of hip-hop caused the decline. That's a broad swipe that includes everything from M.C. Hammer to to Rakim to Tribe Called Quest to Scarface to X-Clain. I cited gangsta rap example to point out problem of confusing causation and correlation. But I was still tackling Feguson's faulty argument that ALL hip-hop caused the decline.

That said, I think Ross's point about eras and virtue is a good one and worth considering and debating. The gangsta rap/hip-hop confusion doesn't entirely invalidate that. I just want us to be clear about what were discussing. By all means check out the convo. I read Ross regularly, and certainly recommend his blog.

This Is How We Lost To The Straight Man

Here is a fascinating take on Cosby by a gay conservative cat:

I think that gays should be more concerned over their own lives than being marshaled by Rosie O’Donnell  into a spectacle waiting to be exploited by Fox News. Bill Cosby complains that “No longer is a person embarrassed because they’re pregnant without a husband,” and that “No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child.” The modern ‘gay’ community is fraught with drug abuse and disease. While there is little obvious violence, the self-destruction is quite clear.

Our people, too, are sick. Gays have few civic inistitutions, save a Pride Parade, modeled after St. Patrick’s. Most have little resource, but to go to bars, if they expect to meet anyone like themselves. But, even gay bars are fading fast in favor of internet havens like Craigslist and Gay.com, which speeds up the cycle. At least at gay bar someone is witnessing how ridiculously pathetic you are acting.

As a flamin' lefty, of course I'm gonna disagree with this. But it's fascinating how this idea crops up amongst all sorts of demographics. It ain't just a black thing, I guess.

Barack Obama Channels Jigga; Gets The Dirt off His Shoulder

Classic as usual. Fear not folks--we are watching the greatest politician of our time. Damn right, I said it. Not like there's much competition...

So I Know I Said Stop Crying But...

...Here's a very nice critique of last night's debate via Michael Grunwald. The Essence:

It's funny, because the intended point of Obama's ill-advised comments about small-town voters was that they "cling" to wedge issues involving God and guns because they've lost faith in our political culture's ability to solve problems. It's an arguable point. But last night suggests that there's little denying that our political culture has lost its ability to illuminate any issue more complicated than the appropriate condiments for a red blooded American to eat.

Still I agree with one of the commenter who noted that if Obama can dispense with these bums. he probably shouldn't be president. I think he'll do it though.

A Message To Obama Supporters: Stop Crying

I say this, as anyone who reads this space regularly knows, as an avowed  Obama supporter. One of the most unbecoming aspect of the Clinton campaign is the persistent whining about the media and a double-standard. I actually think that's one of the reasons she's getting thumped in this race. I didn't watch the debate last night, as I now barely have TV (jettisoned it all for my sanity), but I trust what I'm reading from my compatriots and don't dispute it at all.

Here's my problem--That's what the MSM does. The same folks who are crying about last night's travesty are the same folks who--with much justification--have been putting the MSM on blast for years. We knew what the terrain was. With that in mind, it does almost no good to complain about vapid moderators. Who here thought that ABC News was some font of intellectual dialouge to begin with? The hard truth is that our boy fumbled the ball last night. He got hit hard and low and he wasn't ready.

But here is what I believe--it won't happen again. Barack Obama is trying to take down the Clinton machine and after the GOP machine. If he is half as smart as I know he is, if he is anywhere near the politician he's demonstrated himself to be thus far, he will never again go into a debate expecting that the media will do its job. Instead he will be prepared for low blows, haymakers and phantom calls. That's what these guys do. They are soft-headed simpletons, chiefly concerned with ratings. If we expect justice from them, indeed if we allow their injustice to rationalize our own shortcomings, then we all need to fold our tents now. If Obama truly is the Jackie Robinson of politics--and I believe he is--he will understand that, and instead worrying about what ABC didn't do, he'll tighten up his own game.

One Explanation For The Achievement Gap

It always amazes me to hear people prattle on about holding black kids to higher standards, but never take a look at the actual environment surrounding the schools themselves. Here is a depressing article about a teacher assaulted by a student that highlights exactly what I mean. What people don't realize about most "failing schools" is that they are also "dangerous schools." When I was in middle school in Baltimore, I spent almost as much time trying to figure how not to catch a beatdown, as I did figuring out my studies. Eventually, I landed on a strategy that embraced violence more than it avoided it--always travel in a pack, and respond swiftly and immediately to any challenge. This is logic of so many of our kids.

In the article they talk about penalizing schools that are "dangerous," and I guess that's a start, but I think this problem goes beyond the schools. You start looking around, and you see that bad schools are usually a part of a failing ecosystem. Families are broken, brothers are out on the corner, mothers are scrambling for child-care. Kids do not come to school as empty vessels--they bring all of those social problems with them. Unless we can look toward comprehensive solutions (like, possibly, the Harlem School Zone) I don't think education can be fixed for black kids. The problem is so much bigger than the schools themselves.

Heh, Talk About Phoning It In...

Over at TNR, John Judis dispenses with actual evidence and attempts to prove Barack Obama's unelectability through a medley of assertions, hypotheticals, and sheer will-power. Oh man, where shall we begin...I know, here:

Some Democrats insist that Obama need not worry about these states because he will be able to make up for a defeat in Ohio or even Pennsylvania with a victory in Virginia or Colorado. But in Virginia, McCain will be able to draw upon coastal suburbanites closely tied to the military. These voters backed Democrats like Chuck Robb and Jim Webb, who are both veterans, but they may not go for Obama. And in the Southwest, McCain will be able to challenge Obama among Hispanics. So to win in November, Obama will have to win almost all of these heartland states.

Uh yeah, they may not go for Obama. But that's why they run the campaign, no? Is he seriously arguing that the only way to win is to be a veteran? Really? In a state that's been governed by back to back Democrats, both whom graduated from Harvard Law? I think I know another dude who went there...Wait. it'll come to me. Oh yeah--BARACK OBAMA. The same dude that Judis claims can't win there solely because he never served in the military. Then after lazily stating that Obama will loose to McCain simply because he will be "challenged," Judis moves on to his whopper of a conclusion.

Seriously, this is an argument akin to saying the earth might be hit by a comet tomorrow, so no one should save money.  And the rest of the piece follows along similar lines--a series of soft-headed arguments devoid of stats and proofs. Seriously, Hillary-derangement syndrome is real. Cats are bending the very laws of reality in order to save her candidacy. Meanwhile in the real world, Bittergate has revealed itself to be another media-invented controversy.

Michelle Obama On Colbert

Lovely as always. Great dress.

Most Slept On Post Of The Day--Res

By the Ghost of Lady Day, this is what it means to black and beautiful. Really though--Res is like the living incarnation of that "Nubian Queen" nationalist propaganda I absorbed as a kid. Beautiful woman, with a unique voice, and original music. This is the sort of talent we lost when we bartered away hip-hop for peanuts. What happened to her? I hear this and I want to cry--and then I want to go punch someone in the face, and then I wonder about the merits of polygamy. But mostly I just want to do a thousand crunches and eat nothing but tofu. Anway, here's Res.

Two Ways Of Looking At A Black Man (More on Cos)

So, the Atlantic just put up some video of me speaking on Cosby. Have a look, and then check out me debating Alvin Poussaint a few years back about Cosby after writing this and this. Do you know what's funny? I stand by all of it, even as it must seem in opposition. I want to add something also to the point I make in there about BET. Unlike the legions of critics who run around demonizing the rappers themselves, I hold Bob Johnson--not some here today gone tomorrow MC--responsible. I always love how people want to blame the state of hip-hop on a bunch of kids. There were grown black folks in that room too, who could have stopped all of this. Somehow they always evade criticism. Anyway, the PBS video can be seen here.

About That Hollywood Boycott...

I'm thinkin, not so much. Boycotts are overrated anyway...

More On Bob Johnson

Anyone who doubts what this dude is, should read Jonathan Chait's masterful vivisection of this fool who would be kingmaker--but isn't.

Bob Johnson Does It Again: Barack Only Barack Because He's Black

Amazing. I don't even put this on Hillary, so much as I put this on surrounding yourself with known fools and idiots. Here is Bob Johnson--the man who, more than any one person, may be more responsible for turning hip-hop into a parade of thongs, guns and blunts--speaking on Barack Obama:

What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant (is) if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called 'Jerry Smith' and he says I'm going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote? And the answer is, probably not. Would he also start out with the excitement of starting out as something completely different? Probably not. He would just be a freshmen senator ...

Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair trigger on anything racial. It is almost impossible for anybody to say anything.

But, uhm, Bob you just did. Isn't it thrilling when people say something "un-PC" and then complain about not being able to say it? This is an amazing statement from a guy who made untold billions turning black folks into a 24-hour minstrel show. Of course he's wrong on the facts--Obama was in fact running BEHIND Hillary in the black vote as recently as the Iowa caucus. The reason black folks shifted is not simply because Obama was black--Al Sharpton, Carol Mosley Braun, and Alan Keyes are all black--but because Clinton let fools and political sycophants like Johnson be her mouth-piece. People who are arguing that this is somehow coordinated by the Clinton campaign are wrong. I think we've reached the stage where it simply doesn't help her to have Johnson spouting off like this. All it does is make her camp look dirtier and sully her--admittedly loosing--effort. If Obama's smart he won't even diginify this nobody. I know he's a rich nobody. But that evidently ain't enough for him. Johnson knows how we will remember him. Very rich man. Very loathsome human being.

Tim Noah On The White Working Class

Very good piece in Slate challenging the simplistic "voting against their interest" argument that Obama and plenty of liberals make. Tim Noah rightly points out that research increasingly shows that the "white working class" (because blacks never work, just like all women are white) is actually disappearing. Furthermore the idea that these guys delivered the election to Bush is something of an overstatement. And by the way, can we call our ownselves to account on that one? Remember that 15 percent of the black vote Bush got in Ohio, much of seemingly pushed by the gay marriage ban on the ballot?

Ahem...Anyway my own thoughts are that it is INDEED condescending to say that white working class people can't or shouldn't vote against their economic interest, when rich people do it all the time. You may say, yeah well rich people can afford to do that. But that misses the point. Why is that poor or working people aren't allowed to think that there are things more important in the world than money? Maybe they actually believe that government SHOULD be keeping the gays in their place, and that the feds are just two steps away from disarming law-abiding assault rifle-toting citizens. How do we know that these cats really are deluded?

Too Sense Smacks Up George Will

Hell, somebody's gotta do it.

And Bittergate comes to naught...

She's still winning as she damn well better. But not because of Bittergate. I guess it didn't help, but one of the reasons I tried not to comment on this is that there's just no evidence that flubs like this mean anything--especially in the hands of the flabby, lumbering, hamfisted machine that is the Clinton campaign.

And more on Bittergate...

Basically Bill Clinton said the same thing:

When their economic policies fail, when the country's coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them.

John McWhorter's Rebuttal To My Cosby Piece

Interesting argument. Probably unfair for me to offer much of a rebuttal here. I think John has like 800 words or so. I had 7,000 plus to make my case. If I couldn't make my point in that much space, I need to get another career. What'd Big say? Don't be mad, UPS is hiring...

On Cos, Du Bois and Booker T

A lot of folks have e-mailed me recently about the Cosby piece. I would say they fall into two camps--black followers of Booker T. Washington, or white people who believe that black folks have consigned themselves to the demographic basement. Better, smarter, more literate folks than me have hit this one out the park. Kenneth Jackson's incredible Crabgrass Frontier includes some devastating chapters on how black folks were essentially excluded from FDR's housing programs. Ira Katznelson's book, When Affirmative Action Was White, does a fine job showing how FDR was forced by Southern Democrats to exclude black people from many of the other programs which basically subsidized the middle class in this country.

There are reams of stats showing blacks lagging behind whites. I think virtually all of them are irrelevant save one--the difference in wealth between black and white America. The great Dalton Conley (who I had the chance to interview, but regrettably, not quote) has written movingly about how many of the differences between blacks and whites are actually differences in wealth. Social scientists who simply try to control for income, and then wonder why blacks still lag are missing the point. As arguably the greatest black intellectual of our time, Chris Rock, once noted, "Shaq is rich, the white man who signs his check is wealthy...Wealth is passed down from generation to generation, you can't get rid of wealth. Rich is some shit you can loose with a crazy summer and a drug habit."

That was the message of Booker T, and from that perspective he was right. The Du Bois faction overlooked the great power of economics, and how wealth allows you to bend society and--if your cause is just--make things right. But, equally, Booker T took an incredibly pollyannish view of America at large, and the white South in particular.

Nothing else so soon brings about right relations between the two races in the South as the industrial progress of the negro. Friction between the races will pass away in proportion as the black man, by reason of his skill, intelligence, and character, can produce something that the white man wants or respects in the commercial world.

Continue reading "On Cos, Du Bois and Booker T" »

What Barack Has That Hillary Doesn't

He's funny. It's that simple. It's what allows him to counterpunch with such effectiveness. Dig the video below, where he apologizes and then two-pieces John McCain and Hillary. The Annie Oakley crack is great.

Ghostface Speaks On His Cameo In Ironman

Peace to CeezDiem for the link. Ghost is one of my all-time favorites. Sometimes his women issues get the best of him and he becomes too extreme for the kid. But he was a HUGE influence on the writing style of my book. I just give him props for the line, "Yo, who goes there?" in "Shakey Dog." Classic.

Powell Video--On Obama And Wright

Worth a look...

Ta-Nehisi On Bill Cosby In The Atlantic

So here's the piece I referenced. They'll have some video up soon also.

Suspending My Boycott Of Hollywood

So, with the exception of the new Batman (hell any Christopher Nolan flick) I'm done with the theater. But I might have to go see the new Harold And Kumar. Check out the site if you haven't.

Does Ta-Nehisi Hate White People?

Evidently, just a little bit. According to this prejudice test, I "moderately" prefer people of a darker hue compared to people of a lighter hue. It's funny because I'm a light-skinned brother. Still, being black, you forget all of that and lump yourself with everyone else, I think. My feeling is that color prejudice in country as segregated as ours has to be somewhat of a foregone conclusion. I didn't have any significant relationships with a white person until I was, like, nineteen. I've never dated anybody who wasn't black, or so much as even cracked on a girl who wasn't black at a club.

I'm certainly not saying that to brag. As far friendship goes, that simply wasn't possible as there were practically no white folks in my corner of West Baltimore. As far as anything more than friendship, it never even seemed like an option to me. I was black. I was gonna be black all my life. I was gonna live around black folks all my life. So what was the point? I guess that's all fine a good, but I think there's one problem. I've come to believe that segregation breeds prejudice. When you're not around people who don't look, talk and act like you, it's becomes incredibly easy to dehumanize them.

But that's me talking years later, as a New Yorker, with friends of all shades. I have no idea how I would have been, had I been this way from jump. I guess I'm going to find out while watching my son grow older. Anyway take the test. Let's hear how you do, and whether you think it reflects who you are. I have to be honest and say it probably does reflect me. You can't come up this way, and then suddenly wake up color-blind.

Black liberals and Black conservatives--Can we hug now?

I've got a piece coming out in this month's Atlantic, which attempts to place Bill Cosby in, what  Professor Christopher Alan Bracey calls, the organic black conservative tradition. In that space I see folks like Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, Macolm X, hell, maybe even David Walker. The point I try to make is that it's wrong to see black conservativism, strictly, as the province of fools like Alan Keyes or ragaholics like Clarence Thomas. We have to concede that Louis Farrakhan, the man who led us to the mall, is a black conservative--if a somewhat nutty one. We have to concede that Malcolm, in all likliehood, probably would have been pro-life. (As a die-hard Malcolmite, I'm just dying for some reader to correct me on this, by the way).

I'm pretty much a left-libertarian (do they even make us anymore?) , which sort of reflects my upbringing. I was mostly raised to the political left--my mother worked, my folks believed in a woman's right to choose, they would have opposed a gay marriage ban, had the issue came up in the 80s. Plus my parents had a strong, healthy critique of American mythology. But at the same time they stressed education and hard work--there was no way I could be failing in class (as I often was) and claim that I was failing because I was black. I was raised to be, as my mother would say, a strong black man--get a job, don't broach any foolishness, and be a good spouse and a great father. Thus, there are times when I hear conservatives talk, when I find myself nodding in agreement with a lot of what they have to say.

Continue reading "Black liberals and Black conservatives--Can we hug now?" »

Black Snob On Black Clinton Superdelegates Crying And Complaining

Black Snob takes on these fools complaining about the pressure they're getting for supporting the sinking ship that is Hillary Clinton:

So, pardon me, if I'm not buying into all this "black treason" garbage. I'm about as not mad at black superdelegates for Clinton as I am not mad at white women superdelegates for Obama. Seriously. This is the dumbest load of hooey ever.

Let me clear--superdelegates have the right to support whoever they want. And then their constituents have the right to vote them out of power for disagreeing. It's called politics. If you can't take it get out the business. Better yet stick around, and give us the honor of putting you out. I swear this is like watching running backs complaining about getting tackled.

The Journey From Malcolm To Martin

Fascinating post up over at Model Minority, about getting older and realizing the wisdom of MLK:

Malcolm naturally appealed to me. For us, in the early 90's witnessing, the vestiges of the 80's crack era, the notion of violence as amethod of obtaining and retaining power made sense.

Same for a lot of us. The violence and the anger of the late 80s-early 90s just us all up to be Malcolmites. I guess in many ways, I still am. But as I got older, and got hip to the radicalism of MLK, I came to see things his way too. Plus, I still grapple with his point about the basic immorality of ALL violence, state-sponsered or personal. I think that point he made about being unable to lecture ghetto youth about the emptiness of violence, and yet remaining silent about Vietnam is one of the most courageous statements made ever in American history. But there will always be some Malcolm in men. The self-determination, the unflappability, the intellectual curiousity (transcribing the entire dictionary while in prison!!) will always be with me.

Even More On Black Teen Anti-Intellectualism

The following comes from the comments section in the initial post, by CVT. I thought it was interesting:

More On The "Anti-Intellectualism" Of Black Youth

Did some more thinking about this and read some comments to my initial post. Here is my problem. "Black Anti-Intellectualism" is a broad lazy phrase, that comes from broad lazy thinking. It is of a piece with "The War On Terror," or "The War On Drugs." It's big and abstract, and ducks the hard thinking needed to get our hands around the problem, and thus get to tangible solutions. To accuse black kids of being anti-intellectual, is, in itself, anti-intellectual. It's a charge that results from not pushing yourself to get tot the core of the problem.

Furthermore, I submit that it's foolish to define intellectual curiosity by how you perform in school. That doesn't mean that the achievment gap is a myth, or that it isn't a problem. But I'm very leery of hazy, undefined, sprawling answers. I'm much more apt to believe that this has to do SPECIFIC problems--a chronic level of broken families, a lack of safety in and around schools, the wealth gap etc.

I don't object to people pointing out the achievemnt gap. It's real and deeply problematic. But it's incredibly weak-minded to basically say that black kids just don't care, or they just don't want to know about the wider world. If that's the line we're taking to our children--as opposed to critiquing ourselves as parents--then our kids are in big big trouble. If we--the very people who are supposed to be their guardians--are condemning from day one as "anti-intellectual," I can only imagine what the wider, unsympathetic world has in store.

Marketplace On Ex-Cons And The Job Market

Interesting piece...

These Aren't The Racists You're Looking For:

Move along...

Say it with me children: There is no racism. There is no racism. There. Is. No. Rasim.

Jonathan Chait On Clinton's Attempts To Move The Goal Posts

Pretty cool piece by Chait over at TNR exposing the folly of Sean Wilentz' attempts to blame the rules for Hillary terrible performance in primaries. Wilentz has now taken to arguing that the proportional system devised by the DNC is the reason for Hillary's loss, which is sort of like arguing that the Giants would have lost Super Bowl if the field had been 130 yards long:

Clinton supporters are spending an inordinate amount of time devising scenarios where Clinton would be winning if the rules of the primary were changed retroactively. Yet all the rules were understood and agreed to by both candidates in advance. The rules are not perfect, but the hypothetical alternatives proposed by Clinton's side -- imposing a winner-take-all system, counting the votes in states with no campaigning or only one candidate on the ballot -- would make the race less fair, not more fair. So, yes, it's possible to imagine different, less-fair rules where the losing candidate would have prevailed. But so what?

This is why I am glad Hillary is going to loose. I can just imagine her whining her way through the general, complaining about a double standard, and unfair rules. The last thing we need is a nominee whose team spends most of their time crying on the sidelines, instead of running out on the field to hit somebody.

Too Sense On Hitchens

dNa does me one better and takes apart Hitchens foolish, strawmen-like "Obam Is No King" argument:
 

Again: I don't see anyone comparing King to Obama other than people who want to explain how much better King was than Obama. They're not in the same fucking league: Obama is an elected official, and the very nature of his position means that he will have to compromise his ideals. And I have yet to see a white politician held to such an absurd standard: It's as thought because Obama might be president, he has to be implicitly compared to the only other black guy who was a national figure that all Americans can agree on liking (even if they have to make him up to do so).

Moreover, dNa notes, Hitchens sees not a wit of irony in the fact that he's waving the flag of King, when King was an avowed pacifist. It is virtually certain that King would have opposed the very Iraq War which Hitchens can't seem to get over.

Obama's Sister Speaks

I've maintained for a long time that Barack Obama is no more unique than any other black person. Hmm, I guess. This video is incredible.

The "Anti-Intellectulism" Of Black America

It's amazing to see people making this argument right at the moment when Barack Obama--one of the most cerebral presidential candidates in recent memory--is making such a strong bid for the White House. Furthermore, Obama is doing this with utterly unprecedented support in the black community. And yet, here we have Harold J. Logan spewing generalities to whoever come may over at theroot.

no one who has spent any significant amount of time with African-American teenagers over the past 20 years can fail to have observed that far too many of our children see the behaviors that lead to success in school as fundamentally foreign to their conception of authentic blackness.

Uh, you talking to me? Is he talking to me?? Well given that 20 years ago, I was exactly 12 and on the precipice of my teen years, I think he is talking to me. Seriously, this is the sort of claim tossed out by people who are just tired of thinking. In Logan's defense, he argues that America at large is increasingly anti-intellectual (not sure I even buy that). But to buttress his main point, he offers, literally, NO proof that shows black people today are in the grips of neandrathalism. Logan just leans on a John Mcwhorter book written some eight years ago. Meanwhile there is considerable evidence that the "acting white" explanation, as a meaningful agent in the achievement gap, is either mythical or greatly misunderstood.

Surely there can be no argument that the educational gap between black and white, and between all of us and the rest of the civilized world, is yawning. But leaping from that contention to the idea of a black anti-intellectual culture confuses credentialism with curiosity. Sorry, but I feel this intently. I was an awful student. My two parents weren't much better. But in my house, literature was the national past-time. When I wasn't thumbing through Greg Tate, Chancellor Williams or David Walker, I was transcribing the Chuck D's latest, trying to decipher what was being said. Hip-hop in those days was a great pop intellectual movement--no one who truly understands De La Soul or Nas would ever say that the black kids who pledged themselves to hip-hop, were anti-intellectual.

I can't speak for most of today's acts, but I'm leery of people who cut on BET and then go write essays about the stupidity of black folks. Teenagers generally don't write for op-ed pages, publish studies, or write for the theroot, and thus are easy targets. Furthermore, there is something ironic about accusing black people of essentially worshiping stupidity, when the plaintiff, himself, has not subjected his own claims to any intellectual rigor. Physician heal thyself. You want black kids to raise their game? Set an example by raising yours first.

That Depends On What The Meaning Of "Is" Is

Baratunde over at Jack And Jill looks at the utter lies of the Clinton campaign, focusing on this week's whopper--Clinton opposed the war before Obama:

The short version is this: Hillary has all to often not demonstrated the leadership qualities necessary to be president. She has had many choices available to her, but she has chosen the course of short term gain (mocking Obama supporters, fuzzy mathematical hypotheticals, Jeremiah Wright dissing, Muslim fear flaming).

Kurt Anderson On Falling Out Of Love With Bill

Interesting, if not entirely original, piece:

For me and most of the people I know, the postpresidential love for Bill Clinton has evaporated completely and breathtakingly fast. No matter how many mosquito nets and microloans he helps supply to the Third World, I’m out of love. I found Bill Richardson’s endorsement of Obama two weeks ago especially gratifying not in spite of its fuck-you to his former patron but because of it.

And this swing of sentiment isn’t just some elite coastal phenomenon. According to NBC News/Wall Street Journal polling, from Clinton’s impeachment until the end of his presidency, his approval number never sank below 44 percent, but in the latest survey it’s down to 42 percent—and his “very negative” number, 32 percent, is nearly at an all-time high. The other polls tell similar stories: People feel more negatively toward Bill Clinton than at any time in at least the last five years.

Blogging TBS: MF Doom

So, there are a lot of MCs who were influenced me during the period my memoir covers (roughly 1986-1992). Rakim, Chuck D, Kool G Rap and Big Daddy Kane basically constituted an ad hoc Introduction To The Principles Of Great Writing. Hip-Hop lyrics are a lot like other poetic forms, especially The Sonnet. The beat acts like a wall forcing the writer to contain his lyrics in such a way as to not violate the rhythm. At the same time, the writer must construct an appropriate rhyme-scheme and also say as much as possible. If you've never tried writing hip-hop lyrics I encourage an attempt. It is incredibly, incredibly difficult. When you see MCing done at a high level, it is truly incredible. I must have been, like, twelve when I first heard The Symphony, and when I finally got Big Dady Kane's verse, it occupied, probably, thirty percent of my brain for the next month. You have to hear it to truly get it, but I was just amazed at the word-play--"So I can let lyrics blast like a bullet\My mouth is a gun, on suckers, I pull it\The trigger. You figure, my pockets getting bigger\Cause when it comes to money, Yo Grant's my nigger."

But this isn't a post about what MCs influenced me at the time--more on that another time. This is about the MC who influenced me most at the time of writing. With all due respect to Ghostface (whose Pretty Tony Album left me reeling) I have to give that award to MF Doom. Let me just be grandiose and old and crotchety all at once--MF Doom is the last great MC.

Continue reading "Blogging TBS: MF Doom" »

Obama Now Tied In Penn.

Amazing. I don't think Barack can win. But man, what a comeback. I'd be happy if he kept it within five points.

I'm Just Saying I'm Black

Heh, dnA sums up my small tiff with Jim Sleeper. Pretty funny.

Give McCain His Props

At least he said sorry. I actually feel bad for him in this clip. That said, I really believe--as I've said before--it would be a good thing for Republicans to start leaving the racist baggage at home, and make a real pitch for black voters. I'd feel fine if Obama won, but McCain got 20 percent of black votes. Won't happen. But it'd make for a better country.

The Lazy Thinking Of Juan Williams

I don't know if I've seen a lazier analysis of Barack Obama, than the one put forth today by Juan Williams. I've done my share of Sharpton and Jackson dissing, but Williams has officially rendered me unable to do anymore. It's just become so effing cliche for any black person looking to be taken seriously by white people to begin their comments with a smackdown of the good Reverends. I think both are problematic. That bears saying on behalf of the substantial number of black folks who know this, and also for the white folks out there who've been fooled into thinking that the sum ambitions of black America can be summed up in two people.

But I detect another agenda in Williams--the need to ingratiate himself with a particular tribe of white America who will not be happy until black folks, en masse, take to self-flagellating in the streets of Harlem, Detroit and B-More. I mean no disrespect to Williams--who I have people in common with--but this sort of errnoneous and factually inaccurate commentary can't be allowed to stand.

Continue reading "The Lazy Thinking Of Juan Williams" »

Theme Song For Obama's America

So The Atlantic has an interesting item breaking down the phenomenon of the gone but not forgotten, blue-eyed souler, Rick Astley. Don't front like you don't remember. Kid had Mormon's haircut (sorry Colby) and a black man's voice. For an act of incredible cognitive dissonance, see his video here.

Anyway, the Atlantic suggests that this may be the theme song for Obama-ism, what with all its alleged transracialism. But you know me. I mean, I got love for my Atlantic peeps, but I don't know how the theme song for Obama's America is anything other than hip-hop song. Obama's coalition is made up of a black core and some support from other ethnicities, and a lot of support from affluent whites. Also there are tons of young folks involved. It might take me a sec, but lemme think here....where have I seen that coalition before...Oh yeah--on Def Jam.

It's personally a tragedy to me that hip-hop has basically allowed itself to be banished into the bin of ill-repute. And this isn't the "good" bin of ill-repute, the one occupied by those who speak truth to power. This is more like that strip-club buffet sort of ill-repute. Still, hip-hop presaged Obama's America, a place that was not transracial--I hate that effing term--but just allowed folks to be. At any rate, for those reasons ,and many more, I offer up a forgotten gem--Eminem's Mosh--as Obama's anthem.( By the way, Please don't address me on that corny Will.I.AM joint. It gets no love round these parts.) It's probably the best channeling of Chuck D that I've seen this side of the millennium, and really captures the feeling of being young, frustrated--but directing it toward change.The scene at the end when, what appears to be a riot just turns out to be a bunch of people going to vote, is classic. Mosh is just a case of being too early. 2004 wasn't the year. But if you look at this video, it is really amazing how much of what Em is saying is still with us today. Great song. Great video. Great anthem. You guys got any nominations? Lemme know. Will post.

Barack On The Hardball College Tour

More Props To The New Yorker

So I slept on Michael Kinsley. Sue Me. For whatever reason this cat sort of melded in my mind with the array of Slate-ish, New Republic-ish writers who've made counterintuitive arguments their hallmark, and contrarianism their religion. My mistake. But this is what happens when you make cartoons of people. Kinsley comes correct this week with a beautiful meditation on that great equalizer--death:

The baby-boom generation in America is thought to have found something approaching genuine happiness in material possessions. A popular bumper sticker back in the nineteen-eighties read, “He Who Dies with the Most Toys Wins.” This was thought to be a brilliant encapsulation of the baby-boom generation’s shallowness, greed, excessive competitiveness, and love of possessions. And it may well be all of these things. It’s also fundamentally wrong. Is there anything in the Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue—or even listed on Realtor.com—for which you would give up five years? Of course not. That sports car may be to die for, but in fact you wouldn’t. What good are the toys if you’re dead? “He Who Dies Last”—he’s the one who wins.

To my mind though, the story turns especially beautiful when Kinsley turns to his own battle with Parkinson's and what it says about his own mortality:

I was around fifty when I went public about having Parkinson’s, and the effect was like turning sixty. A person who is sixty and healthy almost surely will live many more years. But sixty is about the age when people stop being surprised if you look old or feel sick or drop dead. (It’s another decade or so before they stop pretending to be surprised.) It’s often said of people that “she’s a young seventy” or “he’s thirty, going on forty-five.” And it’s true: there is your actual, chronological age, and then there’s the age that reflects how you look, how you feel, how much hair you have left, how fast you can walk, or think, and so on. At every stage of life, some people seem older or younger than others of the same age. But only in life’s last chapter do the differences get enormous. We are not shocked to see a seventy-one-year-old hobbling on a cane, or bedridden in a nursing home, and we are not shocked to see a seventy-one-year-old running for President. The huge variety of possible outcomes—all of them falling within the range considered “normal”—makes the last boomer competition especially dramatic. So does the speed at which aging can happen. Sometimes it’s even instantaneous. Fall, break your hip, and add ten years. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. It’s easy to imagine two sixty-year-olds, friends all their lives. One looks older because he’s bald: no big deal. Ten years later, when they’re seventy, one has retired on disability and moved into a nursing home. The other is still C.E.O., has left his wife for a younger woman, and, in a concession to age, takes a month off each year to ski. Contrasts like these will be common.

Sorry for the extended quote. But that was just beautiful. Every once in a while, OK more than every once in a while, the NYer really lives up its rep. What a lovely piece.

More On TPMCafe's Discussion

So my response to Jim Sleeper is up. They wanted us to keep our responses a little shorter, so I neglected to tackle Carmen's question about the nature of racism. Even if I don't get to take a stab at it over at TPM, I will here, because I think it's important. Again, briefly, I think it has a lot to do with how things are defined. A guy commenting on Carmen's post compared racism to spousal abuse and argued that the abuser also is victimized by the process. While I don't think the analogy follows all the way, I do think that there's a good point to be made in the logic that spousal abuse is bad for men, also. Anyway, more later.

Tavis and Bill Maher Bring It

Nice segment on Real Time. Bill and Tavis make some great points comparing the incredible racism of Pat Buchanann with the treatment of Jeremiah Wright

The New Yorker On Jeremiah Wright

There is so much fair and right about Kelefah Sanneh's piece on Jeremiah Wright that I think I'd be wrong to even try and quote from it. Just read it. It's fairest and most complicated rendering of Rev. Wright thus far.

Updating TPMCafe's Discussion On Race

Few posts up now including contributions from, respectively, Glenn, myself, John, Joseph and Carmen. For me, the biggest questions which linger in my head are Carmen's thinking on how we redefine racism, and John's point about policy stricltly aimed at blacks. I'm not completely sure what I think yet, and I want everyone to get to chime in once before I pop off.

Hillary Backer Would Be "Stunned" If Obama Lost

Heh, with friends like these, eh?

In an unusually frank interview on Canadian public radio, CBC, Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver of Kansas City -- a Hillary supporter and superdelegate -- gives a sense of how tenuous Clinton's hold on many black superdelegates is.

"If I had to make a prediction right now, I'd say Barack Obama is going to be the next president," he said just after 18:00. "I will be stunned if he's not the next president of the United States."

Seriously though. Brother just spoke the truth. Hopefully folks won't come down on him. Cleaver is one of the cats who was feeling some heat from black folks once Obama went on a roll. Peace out to TPM for the heads up.

Why The Civil Rights Movement Is Dead

Because defending black men who rape black women is apparently now the province of the movement's leaders. Witness, the one and only, Al Sharpton--backed by local NAACP officials, no less--weighing in on the fantastically gruesome Dunbar Village rape case. Instead of standing for some decency and conceding that, yes, some people do deserve to go to jail, Sharpton has decided to argue that this group of black gang rapists are being treated harsher than a white group of gang rapists.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and NAACP activists stood outside the State Attorney's Office Tuesday morning, protesting what they say is disparate handling of black teens accused in the rape of a Dunbar Village woman and her son and white teens from suburban Boca Raton accused in the rape of their drunk friends.

Sharpton said the black teens remain jailed and the white teens are free on bond, despite them committing the "same act."

"To have different reactions to the same set of circumstances is a crime in itself,"  Sharpton said.

Umm, no:

In the Dunbar Village case, four teens are charged with armed sexual battery for the June crime where they allegedly forced the woman at gunpoint to have sex multiple times, including with her son. Police say the teens then used cleaning agents on the victims afterwards in an attempt to cover their crimes, including stuffing a bar of soap inside the woman. They face possible life in prison.

In the Boca case, five teens are charged with sexual battery on a helpless person because the then 13- and 14-year-old female victims had downed repeated shots of vodka.

Both heinous, no doubt, but come on dude. In 2008, this is really what it's come to?

Continue reading "Why The Civil Rights Movement Is Dead" »

The Twists And Turns Of Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Interesting story on the Defense Department's attempts to keep a gay Congresswoman from bringing her partner on a fact-finding trip. The problem isn't blatant homophobia, but the end-result of a policy of blatant homophobia. Turns out the military brass were worried about what message they'd be sending in the era of Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

The Pentagon appears to be self-conscious about transporting gay domestic partners at a time when it continues to enforce a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in its own ranks. The speaker is sensitive to the gay rights issue but doesn’t want to be drawn into a situation where it appears she is dictating policy for the use of military planes.

I'm not sure what we need more--a national convo on race, or a national convo on sexual prudes.

The Clinton Brand And The Future of The Dems

E.J. Dionne argues that the Clintons have damaged their brand in the fight for the nomination:

Bill Clinton's approach to the South Carolina primary, the Clinton campaign's effort to ignore everything it once said about the irrelevance of the Florida and Michigan primaries, Hillary Clinton's willingness to say (or imply) that John McCain is more prepared to be president than Obama--all this and more have created a ferocious backlash against the Clintons. The result is that when the word "Clinton" crosses their lips, many Democrats sound like Ken Starr, Bob Barr and the late Henry Hyde.

Hmm, maybe. But wasn't there always a large contingent of Clinton-haters in the party? The Clinton Camp was in power during my high school and college years, and they always came across to me as extraordinary hedgers. I mean these are the folks who invented the Sista Souljah moment, I don't know how you get more unprincipled than that. Furthermore, I always smelled the stench of political ambition wafting off of Sen. Clinton's war vote. In the words of Denny Green--They are who we thought they were, no? Here's Peggy Noonan, last February, pointing out how tenuous the Clintons' position was in their own party:

Hollywood titan David Geffen, who now supports Barack Obama, this week famously retagged the Clintons as an Ivy League Bonnie and Clyde. Bill is "reckless," Hillary relentless--"God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary?" In an interview that seemed like an audience, with the New York Times's Maureen Dowd, Mr. Geffen said, "Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling." In this he was, knowingly or unknowingly, echoing Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska senator, who said in 1996 of the then-president, "Clinton's an unusually good liar. Unusually good. Do you realize that?"

I think it is true that President Clinton has done serious damage to that bipartisan aura that surrounds all ex-presidents, as well as his reputation as a politician. But I don't see how any of this is going to hurt the Dems.