More travel

I mean, not that I'm complaining. I'm just explaining why blogging will--again--be a bit light. Headed up to the Aspen Ideas Festival for a week to rub elbows with people much smarter than me. Gonna try to keep up, and do some blogging in between. Should be a lot of interesting stuff to talk about.

Why Ta-Nehisi and Kenyatta aren't married

I promise you a long post on this soon guys. But for now, understand that an admitted John and a closeted gay dude are trying to ammend the constitution so that other gay dudes (and dudettes) can't get married. Hmm, feels like a Chris Rock moment.

Notes on how to play yourself

I have no idea whether Bill Clinton really said that Obama will have to "kiss his ass" in order to get his support. But I am curious as to exactly where this dude thinks his leverage is coming from. Last time I checked, two in ten Dems and four in ten independents said that Bill Clinton would be a problem if Hillary were the VP. More to the point, exactly what country does Bill represent? Obama is beating McCain among women. He's beating McCain among Hispanics. He's even beating doing well among working class whites. So who exactly is Bill Clinton supposed to be wooing for Obama? Am I missing something here? Did Obama actually lose the primary?

I don't quite get hecklers

A good time for a Random Quote Of The Day, No?

Look how far Eldorado's and wine bottle's drug us,
Least God and the Sun love us..
--Common

McWhorter's New Book On Hip-Hop

The less said the better, no? Especially since my label-mate Adam Mansbach said quite a bit:

Simultaneously smug and beleaguered, "All About the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can't Save Black America" raises the question: Who, exactly, is claiming it can? No one -- academic, artist or critic -- has made any such argument since roughly 1988. This puts Manhattan Institute senior fellow John McWhorter in the awkward position of playing provocateur to an empty house, and gives his prose the tone of a petulant undergrad being shouted down in a dorm lounge. It also raises serious doubts about his engagement with either hip-hop or the large body of scholarship about it.

OK, so I'll violate and say a few words. Megan has this whole thing about being polite to people you disagree with. I think it's--generally--a good principle. I disagree with McWhorter quite a bit, but that isn't my beef. I think his book (which I recently received in the mail) is deeply dishonest. As Adam points out, it's the strawmanship that leaves me so cold--I just haven't heard anyone make a claim like that recently. If anything the kids, and the rest of us, have been doing the opposite. McWhorter is allowed to be dishonest because, in his circles, he really doesn't have to worry about people calling him out. This is basically the same scam that box-minded reporters have been pulling while purporting to cover "Obama and race." First you flatten your subject until he resembles a cartoon, and then you "argue" against the cartoon.

It's like watching a fighter who shrinks away from his most formidable opponents and builds his rep whipping up on jobbers and journeymen. It's also a sort of bullying, because you never have to deal with the most potent arguments of your potent critics. I have never known how to be polite with bullies. So I'll simply say this: For a young black boy coming up in these times, I would play Illmatic, De La Soul Is Dead, The Infamous, Word...Life five hundred times over before I would offer him a single word written by John McWhorter.

Random quote of the day...

Fopp me right, dont you fopp me wrong
Well be here foppin all night long
I'm too short, and you're too tall
But when were foppin' that don't mean a thing at all
I'm too young, child, and you're too old,
But that don't mean that you got no soul...

For absolutely no reason...

More evidence that the blacks may, in fact, be humans

Heh, from the department of "Black people found to be capable of language" comes a new study which tells us that blacks, "don't share similar views of the world." I'm tired, and I've been beating this drum for months now. Needless to say that anyone out there who's shocked that tend to not always agree with each other, is in trouble. The study, which was commissioned by Radio One, actually doesn't look as stupid as USA Today presents it. I can't figure out whether journalists--in particular--are just clueless, or whether this is symptom of a great ignorance and prejudice at work in the country. More likely, journalists are working on deadlines, and in that scenario, complexity in general tends to be a casualty.

On that note, check out One Drop's thread debating who has the right to define what it means to be black. I'm not sure anyone has that right. But I know who doesn't--people whose livelihood depends on drawing stark contrasts, regardless of how much said contrasts reflects the actual world. If you think reparations is a voting issue, if you haven't even given Dreams Of My Father a thorough read, but feel comfortable saying that Obama is "more white than black," if you believe that actual black people still use phrases like "Whitey" or "Black Is Beautiful" in everyday parlance, your credentials are fraudulent. More simply put, if you don't really know many black people. you probably should sit back and listen--and read. There is a reason you don't see me opining on the impact of immigration reform on the Latino communities in the Southwest...

Kane vs. The God

And now for a detour: Avery Tooley basically reprises my entire 9th grade year of high school by resurrecting the greatest debate of our time--Rakim or Big Daddy Kane. Non-hip-hop heads, leave while you can. This discussion is headed into the realm of a black nerd, whose ghetto pass hinged on his ability to offer a flawless rendition of The Symphony.

Those were the days, no? I always thought Kool G Rap killed that joint, and then I started really started listening hard to Kane. He was a master of MCing in its purest form--braggadocio, humor, timing and rhythm. I've heard very few MCs who sound more natural. I love Jay, but Kane was Jay in his time, but so much smoother--"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."

That said, for my money, Rakim was the first dude I heard who took the simple and egotistical claim at hip-hop's core ("I'm badder than you.") and raised it to literature. To the day I die I will maintain that the greatest statement of the power of African-American identity and culture is contained in this simple couplet:

I can take a phrase that's rarely heard
Flip it, now it's a daily word.

Of course, Rakim was specifically talking about his own MC abilities, but this is what I mean about his greatness as an MC. At his best, he managed to make the standard claims of the usual braggarts, but he always manged to say more. When I was writing my book, all I wanted to know was to be able to write like Rakim (and his progeny Nas, Black Thought etc.) wrote. I love Kane, but Rakim was just nasty. Anyway, a bit of nostalgia below.

Heh, keep it classy folks

Grover Norquist proves himself highly evolved on matters of race.

Unity

So I am watching the live stream of Hill/Obama's Unity rally. Go here to see it. Call me foolish, but I find it incredibly sad that a Unity Ticket is basically impossible. Some have dissed Clinotn by charging that she only got where she was by hitching her wagon to a dude. Of course this misses the unseen work that women often perform in other marriages. In other words, folks who say that Bill Clinton's presidency made Hillary's political career possible, seem to somehow assume that Bill could have president without Hillary in the first place. Knowing how long-term relationship work (ten years deep over here, fam) I kind of doubt that.

That said, I really think that the deal-breaker for a Clinton/Obama ticket is really Bill's inability to control himself. It's hard for me to hold her penchant for saying anything against her--she's an effing politcian. That's what politicians do. In varying degrees obviously, but in general, politicians lie. Maybe Hillary just wasn't deft enough about it. I don't know. But, even to this moment, her husband is holding a grudge against Barack--essentially--because Barack killed the dreams of restoration. I don't understand how a guy who was--and by some is--considered to be the greatest politician of his generation could go down like this--and take his wife with him.

My politics...

...are a bit to the right of John Conyers, but I really, really, really appreciate him holding David Addington's feet to the fire. For those of you who don't know the 411 on Addington, check out this lovely piece of journalism by one of my favorite writers working today, Jane Mayer.

Megan and Mugabe

So Megan is catching heat for claiming that Zimbabwe was likely better off under Ian Smtih than Robert Mugabe. She sees Smith as the lesser of two very evil evils. I don't know how much I disagree--mainly because I'm not equipped with the details of it all, but I do think I have a bead on what gets people's hackles up, that being a sense that there's something behind the need to compare the two. As I said, on facts she may be right, but it's a hallow right--we're talking about comparing the thuggish Mugabe, to the terrorist Ian Smith. I'm not saying that for any dramatic effect, or lefty hyperbole--these cats were literally terrorists who were responsible for the largest outbreak of anthrax (at least at that point) in history.

To the extent that blaming Mugabe's craven thuggery on colonialism or some such is fallacious and beside the point, I'd contend the same about a Rhodesia/Zimbabwe comparison. Mugabe may well be worse, but I think people are seeing in the comparison (rightly or wrongly) a tradition wherein white pundits revel in blacks doing what humans do to each other--exploit, kill, torture, main--and then using that as an excuse to expunge themselves, This is the "black people kill more of each other than the Klan ever did" argument, or the "colonialism was great and the blacks screwed it all up" case,

That said, I really don't believe Megan meant it that way, but I think folks are connecting other dots, and for that reasons, I'm not shocked that the comments went somewhere she really wasn't heading. People are nasty on the net.

Ta-Nehisi and his Pops on Tavis

A teaser at least. Check your local listings folks. I'll have video when the whole thing is online.

More on Nadar v. Obama

Last post on this, but yeah, seems we wouldn't want a nice tidy story-line getting ruined by something as trivial as facts. Furthermore, this idea that Obama is "talking white" and is using "white guilt" is pretty out there. How do you even deal with that?

Ta-Nehisi isn't black

I just realized this after reading Ralph Nader--that druken master of Ebonics--give his take on Obama and race. Nader, along with many other penatrating scholars of the black experience, have helped me to understand not just Obama's true nature, but my own. Seriously, I can't remember the last time I used the phrase "black is beautiful"--and wasn't trying to be ironic. I've said my share of awful things about white people, but I've never made it to "Whitey." Now I know I why--it's because I'm not black!

In fact, judging by these standards--which apparently require you to fall somewhere between Maulana Karenga and Jesse Jackson--there are roughly 317 black people in America. All of them live in the projects. All of them earn thier keep by making white people feel bad.

This is such a relief. Now, without any guilt, I can finally get to those keg parties, cucumber sandwiches, and most importantly, white women. Wait, if I were a black man, I'd still be chasing white women...Hmmm, seems there are still some kinks to work out...

Imus? Again??

Ugh. Can we stop paying attention now? I have no idea what he meant. Don't much care. I say this as a Cowboy fan who hopes Pacman has 20 interceptions and five TD returns--Dude, get off of it. The good news is thus far, this looks like media trumping up this story. I haven't heard any news about protests, or marches. Which is good. Keep it moving. Nothing to see here...

Sorry I don't have more guys. I'm out on the road. Talking to the LA Times in an hour or so, then chatting it up with Tavis, then a Red Eye back to the Rotten Apple. Wish me luck folks. Best.

How the West was won

Folks,

I'm out today and tomorrow. Headed to L.A. to read at Eso Won Books and to do a Tavis Smiley with Pops. I'll let everyone know when it's supposed to air. Will try to post some while I'm out there. If not, I'll check for you Thursday

Message to Obama reporters: Stop talking about black people

You aren't qualified. Here is Post reporter Jonathan Weisman discussing the intricacies of Barack Obama's ethnic identity:

He really did not become immersed in black American culture until he left college and went to Chicago. The great irony is that he is much more white than black, beyond skin color.

This is false. In fact Obama had quite a bit of exposure to black culture in Hawaii and at Occidental. But be that as it may, the worst part of this whole campaign season is watching us get defined by people who don't know us, and have no interest in knowing us. They throw some Jigga on the Ipod, and they're ready to go. Can't get through the first verse of "Lift Every Voice." Wouldn't know Elijah Muhammad from John Allen Muhammad. But they know us. Watching these fools talk about Obama and race is like watching a bunch of biologists discuss the finer points of corporate law--and discuss it with authority. Like they know.

UPDATE: I just thought about this--by dude's standard we would lose roughly a third of the black middle class. My spouse would be white. Half of my black friends, are apparently not black either. Amazing.

Anyway, something else. This post will attract trolls. Do yourself--and this blog--a favor and don't feed them please. If it's serious, than debate it seriously. If not, don't let yourself get drawn into ignorance. Do the right thing ya'll.

Obama and the Muslims

He deserves this hit. What often goes unsaid in his repudation of being a Muslim is the idea that it's something wrong with being a Muslim. It's disturbing that Obama lets the underlying logic stand.

MORE:Apparently Ellison and Obama got into it about the head-scarf fiasco. But here is why I support Obama for president, despite the fact that his campaign was dead wrong:

The conversation got so heated that CBC Chairwoman Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.) banged her gavel to try and quiet Ellison. Obama though asked Kilpatrick to let Ellison speak.

After Ellison finished, Obama told the caucus that he regretted the incident, but said that he had not ordered the women to be removed. Following the meeting, Obama called the women to apologize.

Classy. Very classy. That said, I am glad that Ellison called Obama to task. We have to hold him accountable.

Playerhate much?

Karl Rove basically advising Republicans to do what they've done since Nixon:

ABC News' Christianne Klein reports that at a breakfast with Republican insiders at the Capitol Hill Club this morning,  former White House senior aide Karl Rove referred to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, as "coolly arrogant."

"Even if you never met him, you know this guy," Rove said, per Christianne Klein. "He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by." 

I didn't know Puffy was running for president. Seriously, is this political advice, or psychotherapy. Karl seems like he's dealing with some, uhh, issues. Did Obama snatch his girlfriend too? Did he take his bike when they were five?

I'm with Matt. I mean, how did you even get in the country club to see this "cooly arrogant" martini drinking, cigarette smoking dilittante with the hot date? I haven't had the pleasure of being some place where I would have seen this fellow. And I keep my elitism credentials fairly current. Live in Manhattan. Enjoy a latte or two. Like fancy resteraunts. Why don't I know this dude??

How to not alienate whites

Having born witness to Obama's bold rejection of the all-powerful "Black Reparations Lobby," I am taking suggestions for how Obama can better prove to white people that he has no love for the darkies, without losing the vote of said darkies. I am thinking Obama should....

1.) ...address the NAACP convention. Denounce said convention and reveal their integrationist agenda for what it truly is--a plot to ensure easy access to white women,

2.)...visit 125th street. Repudiate Harlem as evidence of the ancient evil of  reverse discrimination.

3.)...get Sista Souljah another record contract. Denounce her again.

4.)...praise the Boston Celtics. These days, that's a win-win.

It's a delicate dance guys. We need your suggestions. Only with your help can Obama prove to whites that his election isn't the triumph of some Marxist-Muslim-Miscegenist-Afrocentric-Red, Black and Green-waving,  Frantz Fanon quoting cabal, while still getting the votes of those who are members of the Marxist-Muslim-Miscegenist-Afrocentric-Red, Black and Green-waving-Frantz Fanon-quoting cabal

Today's stupid analysis of Obama and blacks

Well at least they did some reporting, but really:

Obama's formula for energizing blacks while appealing to whites relies in part on demonstrating independence from the more militant traditions of black politics and using rhetoric that spans race. He has opposed monetary reparations for descendants of slaves, for example. And he has said that he does not think his daughters should benefit from affirmative action, because they have had a "pretty good deal," and he has expressed openness to programs that could help disadvantaged whites, Latinos and women.

Wow, I'm impressed risking the support of the crucial "Reparations Lobby." You know it was the "militant tradition" that elected Adrian Fenty, Corey Booker, Deval Patrick, David Dinkins, Doug Wilder, Carol Mosely-Braun, Anthony Williams, Kurt Schmoke etc. I mean seriously. When was reparations ever a voting issue for black people? Obama is going to clean up among black voters and do really well among other voters--not because of deft machinations, but because black people are--say it with me MSM--Amer-i-cans. You know all those people complaining about the housing market, pissed of about the war. and shaking their heads at the public school system? Some of them happen to be black. I'm just waiting for the story that touts up Cynthia McKinney's efforts to challenge Obama for black voters. It's coming.

A strange, strange libertarianism

So as some of you have probably noticed, I've got a quasi-libertarian thing going on here. Andrew had a link to Bob Barr, and though I know I'm voting for Obama, I decided to take a look. It's all very nice, except one thing--the dude is against gay marriage. I lost all respect for everything he said after that. On one level it's just hypocritical--either you want government out of your life or you don't. Then on another level it sounds eerily familiar. It's like no government interference, liberty for all--except those people who make me uncomfortable. Anyway, roll tape.

Marcus Garvey, Bill Cosby and Affirmative Action

A couple things have me thinking about the AA debate below. I don't want to contest the theory of Ivy League fraternity. But implicit in that seems to be this idea that if you get into the club, in the final analysis--once you become, say, a lawyer--it doesn't matter that you got in through AA. In other words, in terms of actual job performance, are we saying that AA Harvard law grads are no worse than someone who was just a star? If we aren't saying that, than are you setting someone up for failure in the market. If you are saying that, then it seems like the whole "standards" for admission are pretty trivial and should be thrown out anyway. Either the very idea of Ivy League is flawed, or AA admissions to Iv Leagues are--at the end of the day--inferior products, no?

Second--and here comes that old BookerT\Garvey\Malcolm shit in me--I think we need to talk about how power is wielded in this country. For the longest blacks have been focused on political power, and AA just seems to be an extension of that idea--go to a prestigious school so you can use government to influence policy. But what black folks really lack in this country is wealth. Read some Dalton Conley. Do we need an empty credentialism to make this happen? Or do we need some straight up hustlers? Dig this piece in the WSJ about how most CEOs don't attend elite colleges. We've got to find a way to fix our foundational problems (black families, our public schools etc.) and make use of what we have (HBCUs, state schools).

One of the things which gives me great, great pride is that I'm competing (with varying amounts of success) in a field (long-form journalism) where the Ivies ruled. But I come from something totally different. Like those cats, I have my support network, my own fraternity, but it came from the people who I was raised around and grew to love. The root is, of course, the family--my mother, father, brothers and sisters. It extends out into my father's business where I was forced to works as a child, and learned the value of work ethic (though, I still am the lazy journalist working today. I swear man). I did my Rights of Passage ceremony at Nationhouse\Watoto Shule up on Park Avenue and Georgia in the heart of Chocolate City. I played the djembe with Sankofa dance theater (then) down in North Avenue, where outside, the Crack wars were running wild.

Continue reading "Marcus Garvey, Bill Cosby and Affirmative Action" »

Sunday Conversation: Affirmative Action and the Ivies

Here's JP responding to my lukewarm feelings toward Affirmative Action:

You're right -- many more black doctors and lawyers come from HBCUs than from Harvard or Yale. But many more black mayors in major cities (Cory Booker, Kurt Schmoke), governors (Deval Patrick, David Paterson), Supreme Court justices (Clarence Thomas), and presidents to be (Obama) tend to come from the Ivy League.

"Elite" by definition means a small group of people -- even the people of color within that elite. But it's important that "we" make sure that we are represented in that tiny circle. Because those are the folks who shape the policy of who gets a tax break and who doesn't, whether we invade a country or not, and whether a woman has a right to decide what happens to her body.

It's important that there are black faces in the corridors of power. The Ivies (and Berkeleys and Stanfords and Dukes) of the world are the pathways to that power. In New York, the black neighborhood doctor undoubtedly affects the lives he touches. But so does the black Columbia alum who sits in the governor's mansion, who may decide how much funding the public schools will get next year.

And here is is Amitav responding to JP:

I would push back on JP's defense of the value of AA at Ivy League schools for three reasons. First-- why should we assume that the people mentioned needed race-based AA to get into their elite schools? Cory Booker obviously didn't; he played football at Stanford. And as a Rhodes Scholar, I doubt he was a borderline applicant at Yale Law. The idea that the Bookers and Obamas wouldn't be at top schools without race-based AA is not clear to me.

Second, such anecdotes imply a causation (Harvard --> political success) that is misleading and probably backwards. Douglas Wilder went to Virginia Union. JC Watts went to University of Oklahoma. Colin Powell went to CCNY and Condi Rice went to University of Denver. Willie Brown went to San Francisco State and David Dinkins went to Howard. For that matter, Richard Nixon went to Whittier, Ronald Reagan went to Eureka College, LBJ went to Southwest Texas State, and I don't think Harry Truman even went to college. It's true that an elite college can open doors-- but it's not the sole determinant of future success. The people JP named have the intelligence, work ethic and people skills to have been extremely successful coming from any school.

Finally and most important-- Economic empowerment comes from more poor people who are literate, numerate, and not in jail (to start), and who are ultimately in college-- not from a larger Congressional Black Caucus. Rather than pushing to get an upper middle-class kid into a Northwestern rather than a U of Illinois, we need to focus our resources on getting "at-risk" youth of all backgrounds to (a) graduate high school and (b) pursue some sort of higher education-- trade school, community college, or 2nd Tier State U would each be a huge improvement. The battle to have it both ways (race-based affirmative action without regard to income) allows people to stop and think that the problem is solved when it is manifestly untouched.

Most of you know that I favor the Amitav argument--I'm much more concerned with getting people "in the game" than getting them a higher seeding. At some point you just have to accept that you're in the game and compete like everyone else. Also, I'm bias--I think anyone who didn't attend Howard is deranged.  While this mostly applies to black folks, you aren't exempt white people. Anyway, I'd love to hear the rest of the room. As I always say, keep it civil please.

A good comment

From Reader ML. I'll try to keep this in mind when I'm talking.

You said, "I don't really want to talk to people who are convinced they know black people because, as I've said, they get BET in their cable package, or see black kids acting a fool on the train." Certainly there will be those who glance at, for example BET, and feel qualified to make sweeping generalizations. I can't speak for them. In fact, I’d venture that they’d have made those generalizations anyway. But there are others who have a genuine curiosity and reverence, for black culture, black opinions, and black history whose only window is through the media and/or random encounters in daily life. Sometimes people aren’t trying to Monday morning quarterback the black experience. Rather they, quite simply, care. They see the black experience in America not as “your” culture, but as among the many fabrics that make up “our” culture, and want to learn.

Not everybody knows how to say it right. Not everybody possesses the tact, the manners or the sensitivity to express this without sounding like an idiot. And maybe educating the clueless shouldn't be your cross to bear. But don’t admonish those who at least try.

As the product of a self-described “redneck” Appalachia-grown father, and a city-slicker, Tokyo born-and-bred Japanese mother, I’ve done my fair share of educating the clueless. My opinions on Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, Korematsu, or sushi for that matter, are far from definitive. But who knows when the person I’m talking to will have another change to get real in-the-flesh personal opinion. So, I do what I can. Curiosity (however awkwardly expressed) today can become awareness tomorrow.

Random TV On The Radio Sighting

Expect these from time to time. Watching this makes me realize how much I need to take Kenyatta (my better half and a big TVOR fan) to see these guys--except that she might leave me for them. If I could write like these guys make music...

UPDATE: Might help, if I posted actual video.

Barack schilling for Kia??

Courtesy of the wonderful Dayo Olopade

And now for a moment of cheap partisan hackery

There is a lot of talk about the various swing groups--suburban white women, Appalachian white people, Jewish white people, working class white people, Southwest brown people etc. I actually expect most of those cats to rally to Obama's side. But just like in the primary, one of the most decisive demographic group in this election will be black folks down South--particularly black people in Georgia, North Carolina and maybe Florida. At this moment, Obama is running neck and neck with McCain in Georgia and within four points in North Carolina.

I don't think that polls this early don't mean much, except this--all this talk from the primaries about what Obama can and can't do is pretty much out the window. The goes for (as I've called) the varying tribes of white people, and for the varying tribes of us. I think an Obama win, while winning some of the states that Dems have traditionally lost would say so much about where we are, racially, in this country. As for the "us," the Southern Tribes really need to come through on this one. With significant numbers, we may not win, but we can McCain sweat bullets. Should they lose North Carolina and Georgia, the math gets really tough. Some of you walked through night-sticks and police dogs for a chance to alter the world. We're not asking you to do that again. Just walk into the voting booth. Do that and some things--not everything--will change.

The politics of Ta-Nehisi

I got to thinking about this yesterday after I was on a panel discussing the Left and Barack Obama. It was a great panel, with a great crowd (lots of young people). And yet I had the same feeling as I did circa 1994 when I realized, "Oh, maybe I'm not a black nationalist." I still think I'm a lefty, maybe just a pragmatic one. Anyway, I thought about it again when I saw a guy below attack Megan McArdle for having "bad politics." And I thought, hmm what are my politics? Maybe I'm an Obamacon!!! I did vote for MIke Bloomberg and if he ran against David Paterson, I'd have to think long and hard.

Anyway I got to thinking about arguments that I will and won't entertain. There are very few things I've completely made my mind up about. Most of the ones that I have, are social issues.  I can't listen to anyone make a case against gay marriage--I just don't think there is one that doesn't involve prejudice. To me, this is the most disappointing aspect of the Obama campaign. I can't listen to anyone make a case for the government prohibitions in regards to women's health. I understand being pro-life, to the extent that you think that abortion is wrong, but not to the extent that you think the state should outlaw it.

Don't ever say the words "intelligent" and "design" in that order around me.  My eyes will glaze over, and I will stop paying attention. Don't talk to me about how black people--all 30 million of us--have a "culture of failure" or anything like that, as I'm likely to assume that you're either a racist or someone who keeps the company of racists. I think I want drugs legalized--maybe all of them, I'm not sure. I think I want aggressive prosecution of violent criminals--a couple weeks ago some punk rolled up and down Lenox Ave. spraying fools. That dude is out of his mind, and is a danger to my son. I want him treated as such.

I didn't think the guys who killed Sean Bell should have gone to prison. I just didn't buy the idea that they set out to murder him, and prison for negligence horrifies me, especially for people who are trying to be good guys. I did think they had no reason to be on the force anymore, and I hope that comes to past. I looked at it like someone botching a major surgery, and letting a patient die. You probably aren't fit for the job, and we need to instituite some reforms to make sure people like you aren't on the job. But I don't think those cops--minus thier badges--are a danger to society. I generally hate jail, across the board. It strikes me as wrong to argue for leniency for first-offenders, and drug dealers, but not for public servants doing a job that would scare me silly.I think government should do something to help poor people--but I want that help to be premised on a partnership that enrolls poor people in the possibility of one day not needing help. I'm prepared for the possibility that there will be some people who will always need some help.

Outside of that, I'll basically listen to anything, mostly because I just don't know enough yet--even at the old age of 32--to draw many conclusions.. I try to stay up on my reading, but there is such a deluge of info out there. It's one of the reasons I'm considering quitting blogging at some point. I talk way too much. I want to go back to just listening for a while.

UPDATE: I didn't expound much on race, and that's because it's an area I'm fairly open on. I don't really want to talk to people who are convinced they know black people because, as I've said, they get BET in their cable package, or see black kids acting a fool on the train. That said, I'm "meh" on race-based Affirmative Action, not out of any great sympathy for those who yell "Unfair!", but because  I'm not convinced it does much for those amongst us who need it most. I'm not convinced that black kids in Cali or Florida are any worse off because of Ward Connerly. I'm sorry, I'm just not gonna fight for your right to go to Berkley--so many more never even get a sniff of college. I kinda like class-based Affirmative Action--plenty of poor white folks who need help. I don't like it as a cheap Sista Souljah move, but as a matter of policy. More to the point, I want college period to be more accessible. I think color often functions as a lazy proxy for very specific issues that need to be addressed--por ejemplo, the problems of coming from a family with little or no wealth.

Anyway, I'd love to hear you guys chime in on your own politics, and those things which you just can't compromise on.

The economics of hiring ex-cons

Megan McArdle was kind enough to indulge me and do a post on ex-cons and the job market. I wanted to get the perspective of someone who wasn't like me (self-professed pinko, commie) and yet who I respected. Furthermore, I've really enjoyed the comments on Section 8, so I figured it'd be good to look at some other social issues. Anyway, I enjoyed her formulation of the problem. Also here are some of the solutions:

1) Reduce the number of crimes to things like assault, so that poor kids have as few opportunities as possible to make those sorts of permanent mistakes.

2) Less prison. Prison is awful for us as well as the prisoners. I'm not saying we shouldn't punish kids who rob liquor stores, but we could try to think of ways that don't involve shoving them into a metal box with a lot of other criminals. Here's where Mark Kleiman's ideas have a lot of merit--use intensive monitoring instead of warehousing. There's a lot of garbage that needs picking up on the streets of American cities; this is one example of something that would be a better use of low-level criminal time then staring at bars.

3) Tax breaks for hiring ex-felons, say for the first two years of employment. It will cost us more money up front, but less money if the felons stay out of prison--prison is extremely expensive, not only in the direct cost, but also because it makes criminals about as socially and economically unproductive as possible. Add a bonus for anyone who gets a sizeable promotion/raise, or skills training. Yes, this will be in part a boondoggle. So are prison building projects ardently supported by the prison guard's unions.

4) Small bonuses for the criminals themselves (or perhaps a reduction in monitoring) for things like getting their GED or staying clean for a year.

This is not perfect; the poor, and the criminals, we will probably always have with us. But it would be a hell of a lot better than what we have now.

Pretty good list, say I. But I wonder how much of our approach to crime is--dare I say--cultural...

Even More Section 8

Check out this critique from commenter Amitav. Also follow the discussion here and here. One meme I see popping up is that Section 8 rewards irresponsible behavior. That seems pretty broad-brush, unless the mere status of being poor is considered irresponsible. People are poor for all sorts of reasons. Even if you contend that there are more irresponsible people among the impoverished, it doesn't follow that Section 8 is necessarily a hand-out to those who are irresponsible.

I gather from Amitav that screening is left up to the landlords. It seems that one way to get around this--and to relieve the waiting list--is for the administers of the actual vouchers to do the screening. Something that came through in Nicholas Lehmann's book The Promised Land is that certain projects in Chicago actually did work. But the moment folks stopped screening, it was downhill. We need partnership, an effort to enroll everyone into the society. That means, to my mind, requiring standards of people who take government help, and at the same time, committing to giving that help as long as those standards are met.

Blacks and Gay Marriage

Jasmyne Cannick and Jamie Kirchik go at it over how much of a priority gay marriage should be for the gay rights movement. Hmm, I think--just off the top--I'm with Jamie--it probably should be a big priority. I'm not married. Been with the same woman for ten years now, and we've got a beautiful black boy who's gonna turn eight this year (Maybe I'll throw up a picture, if I can find a good one). But we both have our qualms about marriage and weddings, which I'd gladly expound on in another thread.

That said, I think marriage is such a core institution in this country, that it's hard for me not to see why it's a top priority for so many gays. Segregation affected every black person in the country. The North didn't have signs, but there is a long history of housing covenants which enforced segregation. Anyway, I think gay marriage is a similar issue--it bans all gay people from an institution that's central to American life. That said. People need to stop putting words in Jasmyne's mouth--at no point in her piece does she claim that gay marriage is racist.  Fight her on the merits--or lack of merits--of her argument. Strawmanship only makes it look like you have something to hide.

Cucumber sandwiches for black people

The other thing that people should know about me is that I am a foodie. My Dad was nasty in the kitchen, and he imparted some of that on to me, sorta like how Galactus touched the Silver Surfer. Anyway, just out of curiosity I am gonna try this, maybe as soon as this weekend. Something about the combo of the mayo and pepperidge farm white bread seems sketchy, but what the hell. I used to think sushi was sketchy too...

UPDATE: LOL. Postbourgie on cucumber sandwiches: Ya'll lost me at the mayonnaise family.

I may have this wrong but there is a black wariness toward anything that runs--mac and cheese has to be baked within an inch of its life, chicken has to be fried extra-hard, steak needs to have not a drop of blood. That last part is changing some--I see more brothers going with medium every day. Of course we also gave the world chitterlings--shudder. Anyway black people, please correct me if I'm wrong on this one

How to end racism, and all talk of racism

I'm not picking on commenter Nate, but I wanted to draw this out. Nate is referring to a piece I did on Cosby in the Atlantic.

Yeah, I read the article when the magazine came out. I remember being a bit confused by it, because it seems to me this embrace of a culture of personal responsibility should be more widely known, and yet it's not. You might perhaps attribute that to the ignorance of mainstream media, but my thought was that this is because black folks would rather whites not be privy to this difficult self-examination. Consequently, the conversation goes on over kitchen tables and on front porches, but not in any public forum. (Note the absences of press at the Cosby event you attended. You cited a different motivation, but perhaps this sense of the subject being a private affair is more of a driving force?)

I realize this is a difficult issue, since it involved black people airing their dirty laundry in the presence of white people. And on a visceral level, that is very hard to stomach for many blacks, due to the fact that whites were the authors of the past injustice that put them in this predicament. But look at the upside.

I have a notion that if black America were to expose this internal debate they are having to a wider realm of people, and risk exposing themselves to shame, they might be surprised at the level of support they would get. If defensive whites got a sense that blacks are trying to deal with these issues in a way other than complaining about grievances and injustice, and whites got a good look at this side of the black community that is not about anger, I think they would have more sympathy, and be less racist, and more open to supporting the kinds of social and economic programs the black community desires.

I mean, even if one feels anger is justifiable, there is the larger question of whether it is useful. I'm postulating that it isn't, and that a focus on problems other races can relate to would bear more fruit. I'm open to dissenters, since after all, I'm speaking as an outsider here.

One of the reasons many of us did not believe Obama could win in states where the population of black people dipped into the single percentage digits. We basically accepted that in states like that, there would be an immediate rejection of anyone black. That theory has been proven false, and its worth noting that most--OK I--drew those conclusions having never so much as visited Iowa, for instance.

With that in mind, here is what I suggest: Go see some actual black people in their own environments. There's nothing private about a black church, a black barbershop, or a black bar. If you've got money, they'll cut your hair. If you've got money they'll pour you a shot. Bring a friend, and just sit back and take it in. As soon as the subject turns to race--and at some point it will--I promise you will witness a vigorous debate, and it won't be censored because you're there. No BS, the day before Obama's big fatherhood speech, I was getting my own fresh Caesar and a young barber was arguing with an older one. The young dude was saying that if Obama wins, it's over, no more excuses that begin with the word "white." The old head took a different perspective.

No doubt some of us black folk need to do the same. Can't talk about Wyoming if you've never been there.

I am not saying that there is nothing to this diry laundry thing, but it gets overplayed. The one place where Cosby was doing a call-out did indeed ban reporters, but that had to do with the specific issue of fathers in child-support arrears. I saw Cosby give an incredible speech--with much the same themes--at a Connecticut prison, and the audience was totally mixed. The Million Man March targeted black men, but there wasn't much private about it. Anyway, my point is this--the truth is knowable. It's out there if we want it. Some funny looks may come with the deal, but it's out there.

Black men and R. Kelley

Brothers,

Here's a statement put together by my comrade and colleague Jelani Cobb. Needless to say I agree on all the points. Please link to your various blogs. Let's not let this thing feed into all the crap we've been talking about the past few days. I made my statement on this dude some years ago:

Statement of Black Men Against the Exploitation of Black Women

Six years have gone by since we first heard the allegations that R. Kelly had filmed himself having sex with an underage girl. During that time we have seen the videotape being hawked on street corners in Black communities, as if the dehumanization of one of our own was not at stake. We have seen entertainers rally around him and watched his career reach new heights despite the grave possibility that he had molested and urinated on a 13-year old girl. We saw African Americans purchase millions of his records despite the long history of such charges swirling around the singer. Worst of all, we have witnessed the sad vision of Black people cheering his acquittal with a fervor usually reserved for community heroes and shaken our heads at the stunning lack of outrage over the verdict in the broader Black community.

Over these years, justice has been delayed and it has been denied. Perhaps a jury can accept R. Kelly's absurd defense and find "reasonable doubt" despite the fact that the film was shot in his home and featured a man who was identical to him. Perhaps they doubted that the young woman in the courtroom was, in fact, the same person featured in the ten year old video. But there is no doubt about this: some young Black woman was filmed being degraded and exploited by a much older Black man, some daughter of our community was left unprotected, and somewhere another Black woman is being molested, abused or raped and our callous handling of this case will make it that much more difficult for her to come forward and be believed. And each of us is responsible for it.

We have proudly seen the community take to the streets in defense of Black men who have been the victims of police violence or racist attacks, but that righteous outrage only highlights the silence surrounding this verdict.

We believe that our judgment has been clouded by celebrity-worship; we believe that we are a community in crisis and that our addiction to sexism has reached such an extreme that many of us cannot even recognize child molestation when we see it.
We recognize the absolute necessity for Black men to speak in a single, unified voice and state something that should be absolutely obvious: that the women of our community are full human beings, that we cannot and will not tolerate the poisonous hatred of women that has already damaged our families, relationships and culture.

We believe that our daughters are precious and they deserve our protection. We believe that Black men must take responsibility for our contributions to this terrible state of affairs and make an effort to change our lives and our communities.

This is about more than R. Kelly's claims to innocence. It is about our survival as a community. Until we believe that our daughters, sisters, mothers, wives and friends are worthy of justice, until we believe that rape, domestic violence and the casual sexism that permeates our culture are absolutely unacceptable, until we recognize that the first priority of any community is the protection of its young, we will remain in this tragic dead-end.

We ask that you:

o    Sign your name if you are a Black male who supports this statement:

     

http://www.petitiononline.com/rkelly/petition.html

o    Forward this statement to your entire network and ask other Black males to sign as well

o    Make a personal pledge to never support R. Kelly again in any form or fashion, unless he publicly apologizes for his behavior and gets help for his long-standing sexual conduct, in his private life and in his music

o    Make a commitment in your own life to never to hit, beat, molest, rape, or exploit Black females in any way   and, if you have, to take ownership for your behavior, seek emotional and spiritual help, and, over time, become a voice against all forms of Black female exploitation

o    Challenge other Black males, no matter their age, class or educational background, or status in life, if they engage in behavior and language that is exploitative and or disrespectful to Black females in any way. If you say nothing, you become just as guilty.

o    Learn to listen to the voices, concerns, needs, criticisms, and challenges of Black females, because they are our equals, and because in listening we will learn a new and different kind of Black manhood

We support the work of scholars, activists and organizations that are helping to redefine Black manhood in healthy ways. Additional resources are listed below.

Books:
Who's Gonna Take the Weight, Kevin Powell
New Black Man, Mark Anthony Neal
Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot, Pearl Cleage
Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality, Rudolph Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Films:
I Am A Man: Black Masculinity in America, by Byron Hurt
Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by Byron Hurt
NO! The Rape Documentary, by Aishah Simmons

Your daily Ha-Ha

Yeah I know I'm late on this one, but this is pretty great. From Melinda Henneberger over at Slate:

Political consultants are always yammering about what a good idea it is to get the most damaging information out in the open ASAP, and on the candidate's own terms. Which is why I suspect Michelle Obama of cannily revealing that secret terrorist handshake in literally the very first moment it was safe to do so, on the very night her hubby acknowledged that he had closed the deal. The true genius, of course, was in the foresight and field work of spending the last 15 years getting millions of hapless suburban tweens and their hopelessly unhip parents thinking that this menacing shout out to fellow jihadists was harmless as a high-five; is there no end to this woman's perfidy? And that "baby mama" thing? Doubtless a plant, designed to deflect attention from the soon-to-be-released video of Michelle complaining about her husband's general messiness, and shouting, "Why'd he leave out the butter? Why'd he leave out the socks?'' Not to mention—oops, just did!—the shocking follow-up footage in which she asks a neighbor, "D'you see that?'' Let's just say I'll be curious to see what job that Fox "producer'' gets in the Obama administration.

Negro Please: William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson running for re-election

You folks know what I wanted to title this post. But this is a respectable establishment. It's funny. When I was working for Washington City Paper we always wanted to do a story on the only place more poorly ran than Washington D.C. (these were the Barry years) on New Orleans. So when I saw that Dollar Bill was running for re-election, I of course thought of Barry. Anyone interested in how William Jefferson should check out this lovely Jason Berry profile from the estimable Washington Monthly.

Another view on Obama's fatherhood speech

Different than mine. But perhaps more perceptive. I keep vacillating on this one. I am sooooo down with the whole "Fatherhood At All Costs" deal. In fact, on an individual level, I think poverty is simply not an excuse for potentially screwing up a kids life. But that's not a "public policy" point of view--the sort of perspective that looks at the behavior of a mass group of people. It's like something I'd want to hear in a church (yes, I know) or something my own Pops dropped on me. It's tough to know whether Barack is sincere or running a very subtle Sista Souljah move. I suspect it's both. He understands that the images of black folks are so distorted that he can say some pretty rudimentary shit (Be a father to your child) that sits firmly within the mainstream of black thinking (hell human thinking), and be lauded for his courage because there's this idea that black people, you know, spend their days cursing the white man for everything from bad credit to getting caught in the rain. It's actually quite smart, politically, at least.

Re: Obsessing over white people

Commenter Nate writes:

You know, for a blog that claims black people don't always sit around thinking about what white people think of them, there is an awful lot of complaining about about what white people think and say about black people. I mean, Barack Obama gives a speech about black fatherhood, and instead of a discussion of black fatherhood, we get a discussion of how stupid white people are to think Obama is saying something novel.

Yeah, and see that's the problem. Never confuse the ramblings of a pinko, commie who happens to be black, with all, or even most, of black America. As I've said before, the musings of those who think for a living are quite different from those who work for a living. I learned this many years ago when in my 10th grade Social Studies class, at my predominantly black high school, I made the mistake of defending welfare. I was immediately shouted down. The lesson of that early ideological smack-down? "Traditional values" run as strongly through my neck of the woods, as through the rest of the country.

There is no West Village for black people. If you're gonna live in the neighborhood, you're gonna be exposed to all ranges of opinion. In fact once we finally win and all this craziness is over, I'm sure I'm gonna miss the evangelical lady downstairs who keeps trying to convert me from my heathen ways.

Because I spend much of my time here talking about race, obsessing over white people is what this blog--at least partially--is all about. But confusing that talk with the views of "mainstream black folks" isn't any more intelligent than confusing the views of some white blogger with "mainstream white folks." Watch that Obama video again. Those are black people cheering for him.

More on Section 8

Insightful comment from Friend of the Room, and former po-po Peter Moskos:

Random post of the week: WTF Zooey Deschanel can sing?!?!

Yeah, I'm a reformed nerd so you'd think I'd be really into Zooey Deschanel, and maybe I will be after I rock this album a few more times. Anyway, this morning, in between writing stints, I was scrolling through emusic, checking out some of the recommendations from the music thread below. Somehow I winded up listening to this album by this group She & Him. Liked what I heard, and downloaded. So I'm listening thinking, Man this chick can blow, lemme do some research. Turns out she's Zooey Deschnal! Sorry, I'm kind of sick of actors trying to sing, especially when they haven't mastered acting. Anyway, I don't know how I feel about the album--I'm still straight of the Juice Crew and the Bomb Squad--but even a formerly troubled black youth, like me, can see that it's a game attempt. Here's the standout track

A schizophrenic post on the civilizing effects of Barack Obama

EDIT: I flubbed Battiata's name little ways down in the post. Nothing deflates your point like misspelling the name of the person you're going after. I try guys. But I'm human. Sloppy, but human.

This is why Obama's Father's Day speech leaves me ultimately cold. To see people whose understanding of hip-hop doesn't extend past a few random viewings of BET,  or their disgust at the handful of black boys they happen to notice on the street or on the train, proffering this idea that Obama will civilize the blacks makes me retch:

Lately I've been wondering what an Obama White House might mean for the future of bling. For the fate of heavy gold, medallions, below-the-butt denim, the whole hip-hop gangsta fashion habit. What if January 20, 2009 turned out to be not just a cultural and clothing pivot point for adults -- a return to the minimalism of sleek, 60s-era sharkskin suits, the containment of golf-ball sized Barbara Bush costume pearls -- but a watershed fashion moment for teenaged boys?

That's Mary Battiata whose ignorance of black kids is revealed by the fact that she's still using the word "bling." The "racial resentment" in her statement is like level 12 on the "Arrogance of Whiteness" scale. I could almost hear the Pat Boone rocking in the background. Battiata then launches into a predictable argument that hip-hop fashion is the real problem in the black community, and that Obama's aspect may create some of sort cultural transition in which black kids think it's cool to walk around in business suits, because everyone knows hip-hop fashion can be summed up in gold teeth, wife-beaters and gaudy jewels. No one in hip-hop wears suits.

Listen man, I don't busy myself perusing the fashions of teenage white boys, but I'm quite certain if I did, I could find some pretty objectionable outfits (ones not ripped off from black people). But black people are the stand-in for poor people in this era, and poor people are always held to a higher moral standard. Battiata seems completely ignorant of the fact that hip-hop's sales have been tumbling for a few years now, that part of that tumbling is the disgust that black youth themselves have expressed with the music. A few key-strokes of google or, heaven forbid, some actual reporting with real live black kids would have given Battiata some grounding. But nuts to that. Better to sit on one's ass and hold forth on the finer points of black youth culture, because, you know, it's only black people.

I'm not suprised to see Mickey Kaus jumping in on this. Kaus can only think of three things when it comes to the blacks--welfare, affirmative action and sista souljah. He isn't even worth a block quote. I'm a little more bothered by Andrew Sullivan (anyone who reads this blog knows I'm a fan) pushing this dumb-ass notion that black kids don't call Obama "'nigger" out of some sort of sign of respect:

Random anecdote: walking the beagles the other day, I bumped into a neighbor who told me that she noticed one word that the young black teens and boys she knows in the neighborhood don't use about Obama. The n-word. Or as Battiata puts it: the suit next time.

First, I'm almost certain that isn't true. I know in moments of levity in my home, I've definitely heard an Obama speech and issued a "Nigger, please."  I know some of you agree with Andrew. You know how I feel. But, more generally, I hate this idea that ALL black teens are somehow interchangable with what a few white bloggers find most objectionable in hip-hop. When you have actual black teens in your family, when you are raising them yourself, when you were one at some point in your life, you understand how this need to make us smaller,  this desire to turn the most troubled amongst us, into all of us, is the cousin of welfare queens and Willie Horton.

A quick aside: I've spent most of my life learning this great craft from two sources--rappers and professional writers, most of them white.  I've been reading The New Republic, The Atlantic, and the New Yorker for most of my life, steady banging Wu-Tang Forever, or Reasonable Doubt the whole time. My Black Panther father put me on to Wall Street Journal when I was in high school, and the New York Observer when I was in college. My heroes in this business are virtually all white (how many black people are doing long-form journalism these days? I'm still stuck on Baldwin) and when I read shit like this and this, I'm left humbled wishing I was smarter and worked harder. And yet so often, these same writers (not literally the ones I linked) whose minds are so nimble and nuanced, go rigor mortis when it comes to black people. I don't get it.

There are many, many tribes of whiteness in America which I don't particularly understand. I didn't get how some white people go off to expensive colleges and then spend their friday nights, french-kissing a keg of the world's cheapest beer, until they're rendered unconscious. I remember the first white parties I went to, in my early twenties, and I was shocked to see people standing around clutching plastic cups, music playing, but no one dancing. It took some time for me to get blue-collar comedy. I'm still not up on cucumber sandwiches--but judging by the diabetes rates here in Harlem, maybe I should be.

We all have our prejudice, but every time I've ever mistaked that prejudice for some sort of insight, I've paid for it. I learned to like going to parties standing around at actually "talking"--I didn't have to worry about some dude forming a Soul Train and forcing me to do my pitiful rendition of the Reebok or the Cabbage Patch. I still don't get the "keg party" shit, but I can be found on Saturdays in September, at half-time, standing on the sidelines, my hand on my son's face-mask, telling him "Get'r done."

Before, I started reading Andrew, I thought all gay people liked the HRC, sort of how a lot of white writers think all black people like the NAACP or Al Sharpton. You live and you learn I guess. I want writers to stop assuming that they know who we are, that black people are so simple as to be summed up in the latest Henry Louis Gates's missive (or Ta-Nehisi Coates missive, for that matter). I want writers to stop wishing that Barack Obama will teach us how to act. As in most things, when discussing us, they've got it exactly backwards.

More Ex-Hillary/McCain supporters who don't like Teh Blacks

Via Matt. Turns out that among McCain's former Hillary supporter is some idiot who insists that Thomas Jefferson never had relations with that woman, Sally Hemmings. There's a great comment on Matt's page about this sort of thing backfires and that, in the real world, Dogs aren't the only ones who hear dog-whistles. I don't think McCain is a racist. But this is like the street. You hang out on the corner long enough and you will end up in the company of drug-dealers. Ditto for the GOP, and McCain Democrats. Move among them enough, and you will find yourself in the company of racists. That said, Kathy G made a great point in comments today. A lot of these "Clinton supporters" could well be plants.

Music Thread

Copped Santagold and Radiohead off emusic yesterday. Don't know what I think yet. The Radiohead joint is the new one, In Rainbows. It's almost too accessible for me. I know that sounds strange. Anyway, anyone got any thoughts? I know I posted about Santogold before, but this is the first time I've listened to the whole album.

UPDATE: Guys lets open this up and make it a general music thread. These are some great comments. I'm interested in what else folks are listening to. I'm a huge TV on the Radio fan. Any thoughts on what I should be vibing off of? As for Santagold, I haven't decided yet. Like CeezDiem, I love L.E.S. Artistes. But my better half made a similar point to Ceez, noting that if she was 17 she would be in love with her. It's interesting.

Also, anyone here with kids? I had a nice discussion with my eight-year-old son about Lil Wayne's "Lollipop." Fun! Fun! Gotta talk about it though. Don't want him getting his facts from his idiot friends.

The Failure of Section 8 (The Conservative in me)

Matt mentions Hanna Rosin's brilliant investigation into Section 8. Rosin, who I've never met, is a friend of the room, not only because of piece's like this but because of her marriage to fellow Wash CP alum David Plotz. But I digress. Essentially Rosin shows that Section 8, which was created to disperse poverty and destroy the projects as centralized castles of despair, has also dispersed criminals and caused crime to rise in suburbs and medium-sized cities. In response, Matt writes:

I'm not 100 percent sure where that leaves us. Housing vouchers still seem like a better idea than "the projects" for various reasons related to economic efficiency and choice. And as far as crime goes, we seem to mostly still know what we know -- higher wages for low-skill workers, higher educational attainment, the presence of more police officers patrolling the street, throwing enormous quantities of young men in prison, fewer drug addicts, and reductions in the amount of lead poisoning all seem to lower crime.

I agree with much of this, but there was a subtle point in Rosin's piece which I think deserves more attention--all black poor people aren't the same. The real problem is that the poor attract more than their share of violent crime. Perhaps the most heartbreaking portion of Rosin's article was where she showed how Section 8 basically was destabilizing poor/working class communities where people weren't rich, but were basically handling their business.

I came away from reading that piece disturbed on so many levels, and it probably didn't help that I'd just finished reading an equally skeptical book, The Promised Land, which looked at the War on Poverty. A couple things emerged from reading both those pieces.

1.) Problems bloom when you look at the black poor--or the poor of any color--as this big mass of people who can't do shit, and thus don't ask anything of them. It seems insane, to me, to hand-out Section 8 vouchers with little to no screening, and little to no follow-up by caseworkers. To turn large numbers of poor people on communities which are the least equipped to handle them (stable working class/poor black communities) just seems morally wrong.

2.) Our criminal justice shit is an absolute mess. Let me talk about the velvet glove first. We have to change our approach to nonviolent drug offenses. Jail sentences for marijuana have got to go, and maybe even for crack-cocaine. But here's the catch--we have to bring the hammer down on violent crime. There is an utterly depressing story about a kid who's basically doing the right thing and is set upon by some gang members because he won't join there outfit. Perhaps because of my own story, I empathized deeply with that kid. We have to learn that there is a difference between a guy selling a crack on the corner, and a guy who's harassing  innocent people because they won't help him sell crack on the corner. I know that those two people are sometimes the same, and in that case bang them on the head for the violence, not for the sale. I have no problem with you moving your product on my corner. But you don't have the right to pull out guns and endanger the life of my son. I don't accept that one necessarily leads to the other.

3.) We are looking for a short-cut "magic bullet" approach to fighting poverty, which cost us nothing and ask virtually nothing of tax-payers. If you're going to relocate people out of the projects, you've got to have staff to track them. You've got to have rules. You've got to give them the support they need. Furthermore, you can't allow them all to move into otherwise stable working-class communities. Some of the more upper-income neighborhoods are going to have to carry some of the weight. And this has to be a partnership. Section 8 will likely now be targeted as another failed liberal social program. But it looks to me like lazy thinking, and lazier stewardship.

4.) The piece is a superior work of journalism, and I'll take it over 100 diatribes by "public intellectuals" who are only public if by public you mean "think tank" or "university. Writers who want to tackle race need to stop jacking off in the office, doing NPR interviews and go out and do some field-work.

Obama's Father's Day speech

Have only heard a snippet of it, but I am sure its great. Here is my beef with how this is already being reported. Barack Obama is basically touting a message that you will hear coming from any serious black person in any black community. Louis Farrakhan was saying this shit thirteen years ago, but I didn't hear anything about Louis Farrakhan offering "a strong rebuke" to absent black fathers. That's because this isn't really about black fathers, or black families. It's about Barack giving voice to white frustration. That's not a reason for Barack not to say what he's saying. He did it in front of a black crowd, and it was the right thing to say. But reporters need to stop acting like this dude is the only civilized black man in the world. I just came from the beautiful Real Men Cook event here in Harlem. This thing has been going for almost twenty years now, celebrating fathers who are doing right, and serving as rebuke (if I may) to the ones that are ghost. We don't need Barack Obama to tell us to be fathers, though I'm glad he's doing it. We need reporters to actively engage the people they claim to cover.

UPDATE: I thought some more about this speech, and I figured out what bothers me. I don't think anyone disagrees with the content of it. In fact, I've maintained that Obama is spitting rhetoric that's old hat in the black community. But when this stuff is reported, it's written as if it's the first time anyone's said this. The basic rule seems to be among white media--if we haven't heard it, it didn't happen. It's the Elvis shit all over again. Elvis knew black music well. Rumors of his racism were the "whitey tape" of his day. In fact he had great affection and much praise for black performers. But that still didn't stop white music writers and white fans from acting like this dude had the original Blue Suede Shoes.

Likewise, I don't know think Barack is presenting himself as the first dude to say what he's saying, so I don't really blame him. But these reporters who are trying to write about "race in America" are a joke. It's also a myth to imply that Obama is saying something that white politicians are somehow barred by the Gods of PC from saying. Break me a fucking give. No less than MITT ROMNEY made the same point in debate when asked about black America. Anyway, below is Barack Obama--but first Ed O.G. who gave Obama game (props to commenter dwhite on that).

McCain now openly courting racists

Oh, I'm sorry. I meant people who simply "resent black people racially." Because there are no more racists. We know this because Geraldine "not a racist" Ferraro told us so. McCain hosted a bunch of Hillary supporters, according to Ben Smith, and among them was the most famous "Not A  Racist" of our time, sucking up her 15 minutes:

McCain's staff extended the last-minute invitation to Clinton die-hards, including a founder of a group called "Party Unity, My Ass" (PUMA), and substantial numbers came from Washington and New York. They represented passionate campaign volunteers and supporters, but they're essentially a marginal group in Clinton's orbit, including no one with a prominent campaign role, public office or close relationship with the candidate.

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina stayed to mingle with the crowd, whose members also included Clinton backer Harriet Christian, made momentarily famous on YouTube for getting ejected from the Rules & Bylaws press area.

Yeah, that would be the same Harriet Christian who called Barack Obama "an inadequate black male" and then defended it on Fox. The same Harriet Christian who said "99 percent of the blacks don't know what they're doing." But she's not a racist. Because racism is no longer acceptable in America, so it's fine that McCain is courting her. This is when you see that a feminism which has no use for Sojurner Truth, which sees Shirley Chisolhm only as a steroid in the oppression olympics, which has at its core, a disbelief in the very existence of black women is really just White Power in a bad Halloween mask. Stop insulting us and acting like you stand for anything more than right of white women to join in in a collective smack-down of uppity, inadequate nigras. Play your position. That's black people talk for "Less Susan B. Anthony; More hoods and sheets, please."

When I date and recall a man on the family tree...

...my right hand, Pappa Doc I see. More me. Writing in the Washington Post about my Dad, in honor of Father's Day, which he doesn't celebrate:

When I think of my father, I think of a dynamic, tyrannical consistency. He cut his children off at every pass, and his message was terrifying: "I am bigger than you, stronger than you and smarter than you. I will win." We felt a constant pressure, a pervading sense that ending up as a nothing corner-boy was not an option. We lived by a kind of Bushido that simply held: Be somebody or die.

So much has changed since those days. The streets are, as they always were, marked by peril. But the murder rate has fallen, and Magic Johnson is still alive. And yet in the homes of so many black children, the father remains invisible. I don't want to slip into the lazy mythology of Ward Cleaver and the vanishing nuclear family. What's done is done, and as we move forward, families will no longer be what they were. So many fathers -- unable to be breadwinners, frustrated with the mothers of their children -- simply check out. But in these times, we must remember the core of fatherhood: that it is nasty work, that it is the dark art of manipulating children into striving for their higher selves, and that it will be many years before the children themselves see that this was best.

For those of you in the NYC area, I'll be at Real Men Cook up here in Harlem, celebrating the brothers who are living right. Come through, if you have a moment. Buy a book, while you're at it.

It's no secret who you wanna date...

Haha. Via Andrew. Wish it was better mixed. Next time, call my man Ricardo.

John Cole goes where I was too much of a chump to venture

This basically sums up my feeling on Tim Russert's death. I didn't know how to say this yesterday without feeling disgusting.

Tim Russert is dead

I'm in shock. I don't think I have much to say.  Please come with it, if you've got something substantial to  add.

Hide your daughters OR R. Kelly is innocent

Oh come on. You knew this was coming. Half of Chicago knows this dude likes the youngins, but they couldn't nail him. What can I say? Old girl said it wasn't her...

More Beautiful Struggling

Me, today with Brain Lehrer. Speaking on the book. Have a listen.

LOL of the day--Biodegradable Douche-bagism

Heh, from the great Troy Patterson:

In one episode, Grenier chills with a dude—obviously a douche bag, just a biodegradable one—who is constructing an eco-friendly pleasure dome in the hills of Los Angeles, a Playboy Mansion with organic bunny feed. We're told that the water from the showers will be treated and reused to water the garden, and also that the shower in the master bath will be spacious enough to accommodate 19 honeys. Elsewhere, some of the crew goes to an organic wine tasting, where they swill in a most obnoxious fashion. There are "great little tips" for exercising greenly, such as doing pull-ups on the limb of a tree. People seeking material gain are exhorted to "make that cheddar." It's impossible to say whether the show's smug superiority is more grating than its anorexic thinness of content, but seeing them in combination may fill you with a kind of retributive rage. I for one want to go out and kill a dolphin.

White feminism as white self-congratulation

Fascinating:

Mrs. Clinton may have begun that discussion in her concession speech on Saturday when she said that women deserve equal respect, along with equal pay, and that “there are no acceptable prejudices in the 21st century in our country.” She was referring to what emerged as conventional wisdom during the campaign that racism is no longer tolerated in America, but sexism is.

Heh, yeah because a structure run and controlled by white people, has ALWAYS recognized racism as a huge problem and done everything it can to rid the world of it. The very fact that "sexism is still a problem" is always followed by the "but racism isn't" line, shows you that race is still, to this day, the biggest dividing line in this country. Of course there's not a single black person quoted in the piece--just white people ruminating among themselves. Hillary is the same woman whose husband equated Obama dismissively with Jesse Jackson, the same woman who defined her base--and the base of the Democratic part no less!--as "hard working white people," whose supporters go on national TV and claim that 99 percent of black voters don't know what they're doing. Don't tell about how Harriet Christian is just some nutjob--so were the "Iron my shirt" dudes, and they weren't even Obama supporters.

Michelle Obama, an Ivy educated lawyer, is dismissed as "a baby's mama," someone is hawking a Barack Obama monkey doll, Sean Bell daughter is without a father, but racism is dead. Break me a fucking give. Tell you what white women. I won't pretend to be an authority on what it feels like to be sexually objectified, and you don't try to be an authority on what's it's like to be considered the progeny of knuckle-draggers. In fact why don't we all shut up and listen to some black women for a change. Oh, I keep forgetting. There are none.

Rich Ford on "racist" liberals who vote for McCain

Over at Slate Richard Thompson Ford argues that racism is an insufficient explanation for why some white Dems may support McCain:

Maybe some Democrats for McCain really buy into the experience line; maybe some voted for Clinton mainly due to gender solidarity and actually prefer many of McCain’s policy positions. Personally, I suspect most Democrats for McCain are driven not by racism but a much more widespread, simpler, and more primal motivation: spite.  

I suspect a lot of the reason Obama supporters want to tar every Democrat gone over to McCain as a racist is that they suspect that some unsavory motivation underlies this strange shift in political alliances and jump to the most uncharitable conclusion: racism. Juries are apt to do this in discrimination cases, too: If the employer is acting out of favoritism, vindictiveness, or spite, they figure he’s probably a racist, too. But in fact the likelihood of another unsavory motivation, sufficient in itself to explain the decision, cuts against the inference of racism: If Clintonites could be motivated to support McCain by spite alone, then we have less of a reason to suspect them of racism.  

Ford's more general position, from which this argument originates, is that racism has increasingly become the tool of the demagogue. He's probably right about that, except so is patriotism, classism, elitism, and isolationism. This idea that the charge of racism, lobbed in a country whose congress invented "Freedom Fries," would somehow remain pure is literally inhumane--it robs black people of their god-given right to reach for ad hominem, change the subject, and employ all sorts of non-sequiters. Meanwhile, I've yet to see anyone claim that the right-wing's shameless jingoism, somehow endangers the cause of patriotism at large.

But to the argument at hand. The trouble with this "spite" thesis is Ford offers no real evidence that it's anymore plausible than the "racism" thesis. Most likely, like all subjective pondering, there is no one answer. But there is sufficiently evidence that racism is part of the mix. We need not lean on the anecdotal, and cite the racism of windbags like Geraldine Ferraro and Harriet Christian, or their internet supporters. Let us for the moment dismiss them as mere anomalies. Let us also dismiss the minority of West Virginia and Kentucky citizens who saw no problem claiming--on the record--that while they'd vote Democratic if Hillary won, they simply couldn't vote for a black man. Surely this is not only a minority of Democrats, but a small, small minority of Democrats in those states, who in fact, just felt ornery on that particular morning.

But shall we also dismiss the stats in this Newsweek story:

NEWSWEEK pollsters recently created a "Racial Resentment Index" to measure the impact of race on the 2008 election. White voters were asked a series of 10 questions about a variety of race-related topics, including racial preferences in hiring, interracial marriage—and what they have "in common" with African-Americans. About a third of these voters scored "high" on this index; 29 percent of all white Democrats did. Overwhelmingly, these Democrats are the ones most likely to defect to John McCain in the fall. (Among "High RR" white Democratic voters, according to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, Clinton leads McCain by 77 percent to 18 percent, while you win by only 51 percent to 33 percent.) Many Democratic voters in West Virginia interviewed by a NEWSWEEK reporter on primary night, May 13, did not hide their animus toward you as a kind of exotic alien. Menina Parsons, 45, said she will not vote for Obama in the general election because "I don't think he's real. I don't think he's American.

Heh, don't you just love how they're no racists anymore? They're just people who score "high" on the "Racial Resentment Index." Sort of like how Jeremiah Wright high on the "Land Of The Free Index." Well not really. More like how Farrakhan scores high on the "Death To Jewish Blood-Suckers Index." Be that as it may, a third of white Dems would evidently feel uneasy, if I moved next door. But they wouldn't be racist, they'd just resent how people of my race play loud music, can't hold jobs, and tend to eye their daughters (ooohh!! white women!!). Of that group, a large number would support McCain.

Truthfully, I take two things from those stats--and from this whole Obama campaign. People, we've come a long frickin way. You have to note that even among those Dems that give Obama the creeps, he still wins. Of course you also have to note that there seem to be a lot of Dems who Obama gives the creeps, and if that's the case for the liberal party, then I don't even want to see the GOP numbers. My point, though, is that just as it's foolish to dismiss everyone who chooses McCain over Obama as a racist, it's equally foolish--in fact I'd say more foolish--to act like racism isn't a credible factor. I say more because historically it has been a factor. In 1980, 1988, 1992, and 2000, every winning candidate--at some point--either played the "I'm not a nigger-lover" card, or the "My opponent is a nigger-lover card" And there were no actual niggers in the respective races.

It's good to be counterintuitive, and no one finds the site simple-minded, reductive explanations more boring and irritating than me. But let's not overstate things. Just because the Sharptonites routinely use the race-card as a billy-club, doesn't mean that racism isn't a potent factor in our lives.

But god willing I be back home...

Guys, I'm sorry the posting frequency is slowing down. Damn book is overunning me. I have some thoughts that'll be up later today. Meantime, for the Mos Def fans out there, this old school joint sums up how I'm feeling these days,  minus the "bout to blow, ya'll" part. lol.

Thanks Joan Walsh...

...I mean, I'd have a lot more respect for her defending Michelle Obama from Fox calling her a "baby-mama," if she hadn't titled her post "Oh no they didn't..." That's Black English. You know. Like how black people talk when white people aren't looking. Ebonics. Yeah.

P6 reviews The Beautiful Struggle...

...and gives a resounding "meh"

This is not a biography (i.e., a life story). It is a memoir (i.e., a story about a life). It is not a introduction to Black folks, it's an introduction to Ta-Nehisi Coates. An easy to read introduction that gives you enough explanation to understand where his other stuff is coming from. As such, the book is successful, but if a brother or sister asked me about that Coates dude, I'll probably point them to a couple of his articles instead of The Beautiful Struggle

I appreciate P6, whose been incredibly kind to my work over the years, taking the time to actually read my book and offer a reasoned opinion. It speaks well of his decency, in the comments section, that he actually urged someone to buy my book even though he didn't care for it too much. Personally, I think he would have loved the book had my publicity people gotten it to him when they should have. I blame them. Had it went down like it shoulda, he'd be calling me Baldwin 2.0. OK, so maybe Danielle Steel 2.0. Donald Goines?

More tips for making feminism a movement by/for/about white women

Sorry I am late on this, but I present to you the eminently laughable Linda Hirshman:

The mostly white, middle-class feminist organizations could have established relationships of mutual convenience with groups such as the black feminists. An alliance like that might have been able to prevent the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991. White feminists opposed him, but he had enough support among black voters -- who are heavily female -- to induce four Southern Democratic senators who were heavily dependent on black votes for reelection to cast the crucial votes to confirm him.

Any see that rhetorical slight of hand? Hirshman points out that "white feminists" opposed Thomas, and contrasts that with something called "black voters--who are heavily female." But wait, those aren't equal categories. ALL voters are heavily female. Women are a majority of the electorate. Hirshman contrasts "white feminists" not with "black feminists" not even with "black voters" but with a hazy category called "black voters--who are heavily female." Oooooh!!!! The intellectual laziness is strong in this one! The reason she can't compare the reaction between black and white feminists is because Hirshman knows damn well that Barbara Smith and Toni Morrison undermine her point. Weak-ass strawmanship at its highest level.

I am sorry, I've been commenting on an astonishing amount of stupidity these past few days, and I need to stop. People who think that upper-middle class white women who opt to be homemakers, are the greatest plague on women of our time, are gonna be who they're gonna be. I would like to add one thing--whatever happened to "Hillary lost?" I don't understand why Hillary losing should reflect this moment of deep crisis for the women's movement. IF anything, as some have said, she wasn't feminist enough. She gambled that a woman wouldn't be able to credibly oppose the Iraq War, and further gambled that a woman couldn't apologize for one of the worst foreign policy decision in history, and she paid for it. On a more mundane note, what article of feminist thought gives someone the right to not organize for caucuses, to run a fractious high drama campaign, to have a husband completely unhinged campaigning for you, and still win? I mean, damn, Billie Jean King still had to BEAT Bobby Riggs, no?

Telling me how to raise my boy, unless he's taking over...

...I said Pop maybe when you're older. USA Today covers The Beautiful Struggle.

More on Black political identity as Black grievance

Don't forget the socialist espell check!!

Dig this piece from Townhall:

An Obama presidency would signal the final salvo by the Left in the culture wars. Obama’s advance troops have already taken over our college campuses, have bound and gagged our conservative professors, have ravished our virgins, have pillaged our stores of wisdom, and have ensconced themselves in the thrones of power in deans’, presidents’ and department heads’ offices.

The victory cry is heard across the land in the cheers of Obama’s constituency on college campuses.

This has been going on under the very noses of the Republicans.

Two words: Epic Lawl. Peace to balloon-juice for pointing this out. John Cole never disappoints:

For the record...

...I have absolutely no problem with Dianne Feinstein giving Kay Bailey Hutchinson some dap. This isn't like when Vanilla Ice came out and white kids thought that he'd invented hip-hop. Obama is a presidential nominee. Everyone knows why they are doing it. Frankly, I think it's cool.

Ta-Nehisi on Talk of the Nation

Spent some time this morning talking up the book for NPR. Please give a listen and offer some thoughts.

The blacks and the Jews

Following this, I fully expect to see the British intelligentsia convening summits, penning editorials, and otherwise making hay over the shocking rise in Jewish racism. I mean because, clearly, some drug-addicted soul crooner, high and at her worst moment, speaks for all Jews everywhere, around the world, for all time. OK, not all Jews. But most. Gotta be most.

UPDATE: As per Gussie's suggestion, I now demand Joe Lieberman denounce and reject Amy Winehouse--and Disraeli while he's at it. Didn't Disraeli give us the scramble for Africa? Who cares. I heard that he did. That's all that matters

I stopped reading Paul Krugman after...

...reading this sentence in his latest piece:

Fervent supporters of Barack Obama like to say that putting him in the White House would transform America. With all due respect to the candidate, that gets it backward. Mr. Obama is an impressive speaker who has run a brilliant campaign — but if he wins in November, it will be because our country has already been transformed.

Incredibly effing lazy. I realize the whole "set up an extreme argument, put in the mouth of some vague, nameless group, and then knock that argument down" is a standard tactic among columnists. But it's still weak. Who are these "fervent supporters"? People in chat-rooms? WTF? Come on man, quit with the strawmanship and get serious.

Why I've never read Thomas Sowell

I know I really should, but statements like this make it hard to take him seriously.

Message to the White Man: We're not thinking about you

If there is one thing I'd like my white readers to get out of this blog, it is some sense of the great diversity of opinion and sensibility which exist within black America. One of the most poisonous ideas to emerge out of the cultural wars of the 80s and 90s was this portrait of black America as a hotbed of radical leftists who spend their days berating Jews, demanding reparations, and thinking of new and exciting ways to make white folks feel guilty. I think that image has come to dominate because so many public intellectuals working in the arena of race began to confuse the debates occurring in the sociology departments of elite campuses and in the salons of the Upper West Side, with the debates that rank and file black folks have amongst themselves. No disrespect, but New York City and the Ivy Leagues may be the most distortive influences on the picture of black life, short of BET.

I say that as an avowed liberal and lefty, who has his roots in the black nationalist communities. Obviously I'd love it if large swaths of black America were obsessed with social and racial justice, but take it from someone who spent many a day trying to make that a reality, it just isn't the case. This is important because a key measure of humanity is the right to be wrong, the right to be complicated, to be contradictory. Just as America can at once be the first enlightenment republic and still carry with it a long legacy of white supremacy, black people can be the greatest engine for social change in this country history, and still believe that gay marriage should be banned. I obviously have huge problems with the latter half of that equation, but once you see that, within a group, political views can diverge all kinds of ways, it becomes foolish to define a group strictly by those views.

This leads me to the latest backward attempt to analyze Barack Obama and race. I think the MSM, frankly, needs to just give up on this whole topic, their record is disastrous. First Obama wasn't black enough. Then he was so black that he couldn't win the nomination. Now the question is "How black is too black?" Lemme explain something to you, dog: I just watched a black man carry Iowa and Oregon and then carry roughly nine out of ten black voters. Don't give me that business about Appalachia. You know damn well if I had told you three years ago that a black man would do that you would have laughed at me. With that backdrop I've gotta say, I don't even know what the phrase "too black" means.

One thing I do know, the Times definition of blackness--"a sense of black grievance"--is a joke. And if it weren't Al Sharpton would have dominated the black vote. That sort of flat rendering of black America, keep up this false idea that the most unifying factor of black culture is the ability to make white people feel guilty. Look, I know this is tough to believe, but black people aren't nearly as obsessed with white people, as media would have you think. Fueling that notion is  a cheap and easy way to fill some column inches, while not giving a flying fuck about stripping the humanity and complexity away from black folks. I should have known it was over when I saw the headline, but the dead giveway that I was in the midst of a half-hearted effort was here:

Mr. Obama’s campaign so de-emphasized race that for most of the 17-month nomination contest much of the news media became obsessed with the question of whether he was “black enough” to win black votes.

What a crock. Obama emphasized race about as much as most black people on the street emphasize race. What these intellectuals can't see is that the same issues that keep white folks up at night--the war, the economy, health care--are the same damn issues that keep black folks up at night. And I love the tautological bit about the news media obsessing over whether Obama is black enough. DUDE, YOU ARE THE NEWS MEDIA. You obsess over it because you're too lazy to ask the hard questions about Obama and race.

I love that the talking heads now think that they are the arbiters of what is and ain't black. These folks wouldn't be able to do the Electric Slide if you gave them a take-home DVD, can't pick Kenya Moore out of a lineup, ain't never set foot on the campus of an HBCU (don't even know what it stands for), and these cats are gonna tell us what's "too black" and what ain't. Come on man. Humor me a little, at least. Listen to some Isaac Hayes records. Then let's talk.

UPDATE:
Commenter Herb offers a solid critique:

Yup, I don't believe in the "white people just don't get it" line of thinking. Half of what I know about black people I learned from white people. I'm talking about Peter Guralnick, Nicholas Lehmann, Kate Boo and Dan Baum. These are cats who treated black folks like actual human beings, who did not sit in apartments or in television studios pontificating and acting like they'd spent time learning the mores of black people, when, at best, all they'd done is read John Ridley's latest in Esquire. This ain't racial at all. I find Juan Williams about as ignorant about the current state of black folks as Pat Buchanan. I also think the author of this "What is too black" piece was black himself.

As for the point about culture, I don't believe in "racial" culture either. But much as Jews exist as a religious group and an ethnic group, blacks exist as a racial group (ugh, as much as race exists) but more importantly as an ethnic group. There is no universal white culture--but there is an Italian-American culture, a Jewish American culture, an Upper West Side culture, a white Southern culture, an Appalachian Scots-Irish culture etc. And all of those are tributaries feeding into the broader American culture. Black folks are the same way. The culture isn't race-based--anybody who spends some time studying, and is equipped with some measure of empathy, can get it. But my problem is people who don't want to put in that time, but then want to go out and make blanket statements about "What Black Is," if I may paraphrase Brother Jay.

It's like, am I not black because I don't sit around thinking about "black grievance"? If blackness is based on "black grievance," how did Barack grab 90 percent of the black vote when he spent most of his time talking about the collective needs of the country? Why is Bill Cosby one of the most popular figures, among black people, in this country? Why did Barack deploy Oprah to South Carolina? Are these people, now, not black?

There is great hypocrisy here: The same mofos who jump on the necks of urban youth for playing the "not black enough" game, will gladly turn the tables and pull the same shit on Barack Obama. If it's pathological for a sixth grader to tease another kid for being "too white," then its equally pathological to bloviate in the Times about whether Barack Obama is "too black."

THE MICHELLE OBAMA WHITEY VIDEO REVEALED!!!

Props to Balloon Juice for finally getting the goods. Oh man, we're in trouble. More shocking evidence here and here. Oh man and on the day Hill endorsed!!

America's great multiracialism

Cool comment from Harry:

I can see how this is surprising if, as is the case for most Americans, somone is just getting to know Obama and isn't from his home base in the Midwest/Illinois (Land of Lincoln), where he won over (first) a racially integrated neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago (Hyde Park) as a State Senator in '96, then won a U.S. Senate seat for Illinois in 2002, most of which outside of Chicago is rural and white, as are of course large parts of Chicago. Of course it helped that the Republican Party has collapsed in Illinois, the way it has nationally, and in 2002 Obama was up against a Fundamentalist wing-nut -- who was also black.

In the SuperTuesday Illinois primary, Obama swept the state outside of Chicago, and the majority of Democratic primary voters were women. Something similar played out throughout the Midwest in Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota. The media has paid no attention to the history here: despite anti-black racism that has roots everywhere, these were all Northern Free states at the time of the Civil War, and had active lines of the Underground Railroad leading up to Canada. Appalachia and the South have different stories, and we've seen how that's affected the campaign.

If anything, more whites -- to the extent that that "white" is a static category of analysis itself (at different times it has not included Jews, Catholics, Italians, Poles, the poor, rural folks, etc.) -- should be surprised that so many blacks (another fluid category) voted for him. It was only relatively late in the game that so many left the Clinton camp. And Obama himself has taken conscious decisions to beef up his repertoire of conventionally black culture traits as he outlines himself in his writings.

America may not be post-racial, but it IS multi-racial, and so is Obama, and that's why he is such a beacon of hope to so many, especially the young, the urban, and the educated, and independent.

Jon Chait's advice for Obama

I'm a pretty big fan of Jon Chait, and in principle, I agree that Obama should embrace class-based Affirmative Action, but I find some of the reasoning behind this disturbing:

Third, the politics are phenomenal for him. He needs to try to regain his "post-racial image" that took such a beating in the primary. When you read interviews with whites who fear Obama, they often express a fear that Obama is only going to look out for his fellow African-Americans. What better way to show this isn't true?

But Chait doesn't ask why this is true. Maybe it's because I'm, you know, black, but there is nothing more irritating about the heat Affirmative Action generates, as compared to its actual effect on white people. From a black perspective, the greatest engine of our middle class are Historically Black Colleges and Universities which still generate half of all black college degrees in this country, 50 percent of all black school teachers, and 70 percent of all black doctors and physicians. This is why I've always been kind of "meh" about Affirmative Action myself. On the other hand, I'd love to see some stats on how many white folks will ever be affected by Affirmative Action in any way. I know that this is politics and Obama is a politician, but a tacit acceptance of irrational racial fear, is dangerous and short-sighted.

I have a radical theory: If  you never address white paranoia, class-based Affirmative Action is doomed. What Chait isn't seeing (and I submit this with much respect, because I am a fan) is that racism poisons everything. The War on Poverty programs were also class-based, but that didn't stop white racists from demonizing these programs a handouts to Negroes. Welfare supported more white people than black, but that didn't stop people from turning poor black women into welfare queens. The theory of class-based Affirmative Action as "great politics" rest on a foundation which black folks have always found wanting--the ability of crucial swaths of white people to not cut off their nose to spite their face. But, in regards to race, this country entire history is based on white people cutting off their nose to spite their face.

As policy, class-based Affirmative Action is great. As politics it is a nasty short-cut which seeks to avoid a very difficult, and politically costly discussion: Of all the great forces affecting the daily lives of white people, why do so many believe that Affirmative Action is somehow crucial? Given this country history and treatment of black people why does AA bother so many whites? Is it because it's poorly constructed policy? Or is it something else. You know what I think kids.

MORE: Commenter Riise offers an interesting critique:

99 Percent Of the Blacks don't know why they're voting

Paging Joan Walsh. Here is your "wail worth hearing.." This is nuts, and the fact that there are white Democrats defending this woman, or even acting like she has something to contribute to the conversation is disgusting. Check over at Larry Johnson's site and see how many people are defending this fool. Listen to her claim to be "the furthest thing from a racist" shortly after stating that "99 percent of the blacks don't know why they're voting. While your at it check out Will Bower claiming that Harriet meant nothing by her "inadequate black male" remark. I would love to the black Obama supporter who could go on TV and claim that Hillary was "an inadequate white woman" and 99 percent of white women who voted for her didn't know what they were doing. I don't want to hear anymore foolishness about how sexism is more acceptable than racism. The only people who believe that are idiots, who don't know what racism is to begin with, because they've never had to wrestle with it. This shit is just "White rights" dressed up as feminism. Get these mofos out the effing party. Send them to McCain. It's where they belong anyway.

DNA takes Juan Williams to the woodshed

dNa is going to be leaving us, which greatly saddens me. That said, the kid is going out on good note. Here is stepping on Juan Williams for one of the dumbest columns of this young century.

Things I don't understand

Who are these two dudes? Cam'Ron and Young Buck? WTF?

UPDATE: Also, I just don't care much for these arguments. This is reminiscent of the "Why are there no black people on Friends and Sienfeld debate?" If Negroes don't like being left out, they need to make their own films and television. Furthermore, I don't need to see a black person in every film/TV show I watch. I care about this mainly as a labor issue--I love Gabrielle Union and I think she should get more work. But we need to recognize that there aren't even enough roles for white women in Hollywood. If we don't like it, Negroes need to get some cash together and change. Otherwise stop complaining. Jesus, don't talk me to death. Get out there and do something.

Ta-Nehisi strokes his own ego...

So, some media updates on my new memoir, The Beautiful Struggle. First we have a conversation between me and Farai Chideya on NPR. Then we have a convo with me and my Pops on the book. And then we have a cover story on the book from Baltimore City Paper:

Like a young Rakim, Ta-Nehisi makes articulating the undefined world around him look effortless. Although he says, "Writing is a very physical process. It feels manual. I know it's not, but it feels like it."

In crafting his first book, he went back: "I took a rapper's approach." Struggle uses lyrics as chapter openers. "Fools think hip-hop is easy," Ta-Nehisi says, blasting the ignorance of detractor Wynton Marsalis. "Great MCs have to be careful with their words, you can only say so much within a bounded frame. I had a beat in my head, and I wanted the writing to be lyrical and rhythmic. I just couldn't come out and say stuff, or it would literally fall off beat."

Yeah, any dart I  can throw at Wynton's unlettered fulminations on hip-hop, is a good dart. A review from Entertainment Weekly:

It once seemed like every male memoirist of color needed a CV featuring prison time and drug addiction. Ta-Nehisi Coates (a former TIME staffer) sidestepped both, but his The Beautiful Struggle is as gripping as Piri Thomas' classic Down These Mean Streets.

And one last review from my old home, Washinton City Paper:

As Coates negotiates his father’s ideological hangover and the ’80s crack epidemic, choosing dorm life over thug life in the ’90s, The Beautiful Struggle puts an edge on a familiar coming-of-age tale at least as old as The Catcher in the Rye. There's a difference, of course: King WASP Holden Caulfield could always enroll in another cushy private school or take refuge in the lush life on the Upper West Side, but Coates was writing for his life.

Lastly for those who haven't seen it, here's the book trailer:

And since dap is the word of the week...

...allow me to extend some:

1.) Brendan Koerner is one of my of best friends. We met over tacos many many moons ago in a greasy Salvadoran joint, at the bottom of Adams Morgan, and since then have had a hell of a time reflecting on everything from Moby Dick to the ultimate fate of Peyton Manning. More importantly, Brendan is a beautiful writer, and this month he's published a history of a forgotten slice of World War II. His book, Now The Hell Will Start chronicles the life of Herman Perry, a black GI who kills his superior officer and then flees into the bush to hide out with a bunch of head-hunters. Do yourself a favor--check out this beautiful profile by Brendan on blacks and Native Americans. And then go buy his book.

2.) And then do yourself another favor. Get familiar with Amanda Ripley. Over ten years ago, me and Ripley worked togethe at Washington City Paper. Ripley was amongst a group of writers who I just knew were ten times smarter than me, and destined to kinda be a big deal. And they kinda are. Anyway, to understand the job of a real writer, check out Amanda's assault on the cult of John McCain which she published back in 1999. And then check out her new book, The Unthinkable, a fascinating meditation on who survives disaster, who doesn't and why.

Your momma's so privileged that...

...she's "shocked" to discover she lives in a sexist world. Dig this from the WashPo's Clinton campaign obit:

In an interview with The Washington Post last month, Clinton described some of the media coverage of the race as "deeply offensive to millions of women" -- a remark that aides later said they worried came across as self-pitying, but that was sincerely felt.

"She started to see gender inequity in a more profound way than she ever has," one top adviser said.

In that way more than any other, the adviser said, the campaign was a "totally transformative experience" for Clinton. She concluded that "there is a lot more sexism than racism," the adviser said. It was a difficult sentiment to square with the results in the later states, as white men voted for Clinton in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and South Dakota. But it lingered.

The sexism/racism comment is hokum, and has been roundly dismissed as such, but there is something deeper here. Why the hell was Hillary Clinton, and many of her allies, "shocked" by the sexism she encountered? I've been wondering this for months. I mean think about: Nobody black is "shocked" that Clinton won West Virgina and Kentucky 2 to 1. Nobody black is "shocked" that there is a Curious George tee-shirt of Obama. Nobody black is shocked that a Kentucky Congressman called Barack Obama "boy." Black people can't afford to be shocked. If anything we're  shocked Obama won Iowa, Oregon and Idaho. In other words, we're shocked that America is evidently less racist than we thought it was.

I think this reflects how gender interacts with privilege--and arguably white privilege. No black woman who has to walk down Lenox Ave. and endure the cat-calls, who has to deal with the latest ho-slapping Snoop single, who has to function in a culture where "pimp" is now a postive word, is "shocked" by sexism. Indeed, Essence magazine has been on this shit for years. In fact, I'd argue that no white woman who spends her days, say, as a waitress in a diner would be shocked. That is how you know Hillary is an elite--she has the right, indeed the privilege, to be shocked by sexism. If she's shocked by what she saw running for president, let me submit that a day as black woman, a Latina, or working white woman would send her into cardiac arrest. .

In this sense, race works completely differently than gender. Indeed, in some ways, racism troubles the black elite in ways that it never troubles the black poor whose major concerns are economic. You see whereas corporate women tend to live/eat/sleep with other corporate men, corporate Negroes don't eat/sleep/live with corporate whites. In other words, there is no natural relationship across race, like there is across gender. The result is that racism among the elite is an abstraction for whites, something that happens to that dude/chick who they nod at in the hall. But sexism is something that can happen to their wife/mother/daughter. The white male has a vested and immediate interest in at least a less sexist environment. Of course he can't always see things that way, and women in the corporate world have more than their share of horror stories. But privilege changes how things are seen.

(As an aside, think about Linda Hirshman and the whole "opt out" debate--an issue which, for a few months, consumed all the oxygen in the debate over gender. But "opting out" is discussion for approximately ten percent of the women in the country--you have to be relatively wealthy to even consider it. I guess it's a feminist debate, but it's kind of peculiar given that it's a not discussion that even applies to most women.)

I think this accounts for any "feminist rage" among white women. They really thought their white brothers, husbands, and fathers had evolved, and that now it was their time. But black folks had no such faith, and had Barack lost it would have simply confirmed what we thought we knew. I think if Barack wins, it will be very interesting to see how many white women writers deal with Michelle. Color, methinks, colors everything.

Give the sisters their props

Commenter Consuela rightly points out that the whole Michelle Obama image thing has been percolating amongst black feminist bloggers for some time. To the extent that I hadn't seen it, it just shows that the kid needs to read more. Anyway, check it out folks.

Black America to Hillary Supporters: Business Never Personal

Fascinating post over at TPM. A higher percentage of black Dems want Hillary on the ticket than white Dems. I'm just one black person. This is the sort of thing that makes it clear that I don't speak for black folks. That said, it also bears out what I was saying about this dumb idea that Hillary would have trouble with black folks in New York. All that said, I still think it's a bad idea.

Good post over at feministing

Check it out. I had a very visceral reaction to a disturbing image over there. I thought about putting it up on the blog, but decided against it. I don't know how I feel about it yet. But feel free to discuss guys.

Good God this is a beautiful post

UPDATE: Sorry guys, I actually had some computer troubles this morning in the midst of writing this post. Here it is with the links and all.

Update #2: Now really fixt. Thanks Gully.

It's from Hilzoy, and I don't even want to screw it up with block-quotes. It's a fascinating meditation on Obama and race, from someone who "gets it." Back in 2002, I had this New Year's resolution that I'd stop making general disparaging remarks about white folks. This wasn't of the "kill the white man" variety, but more of the, "Man, white folks can be so arrogant" variety. New York had really exposed me to the diversity of the world. Nevertheless, you'd be shocked at how hard it is for a middle-class black person to be true to such a resolution. But I did pretty good, even if I'd let the occasional generality slip out.

Then came this campaign, and after that, came my heavy involvement in the blogging, and even the generalities I had left over became glaring to me. When you're black, because your people didn't implement Jim Crow, you feel a freedom to do that sort of thing. But what I've really learned from this campaign is that the generalizations are just wrong, and can't be justified away on some "noble savage" shit. And they aren't just wrong on a moral level, they are wrong factually. Anyway, there is this creeping thought in the back of the mind that no white person could truly understand what it's like on the other side. Maybe a lot still can't. But when I read a post like that, I understand that the gap is all about empathy and effort. If you assume a basic humanity about the next man/woman, and then put yourself where they are, the world gets a lot smaller. OK, enough sap. Back to that Elijah Muhammad/Yakub science tomorrow.

The damage done

It ends like it begins. I just tried to read Joan Walsh's piece on Obama's need to reach out to women voters. I believe that, not because of Hillary, but because he should treat all members of the coalition like customers who could easily make another choice. Anyway I was humming along in the piece when I hit this disgusting bit:

We saw the face of the angry white female backlash against Obama over the weekend, and it was hard not to turn away. On Friday, Geraldine Ferraro complained in a Boston Globe Op-Ed that she's been demonized for saying that Obama's presidential run benefited from his being black, and called her treatment "reverse racism." On Saturday, Harriet Christian replaced Ferraro as the overwrought voice of white female resentment. There she was at the Democratic National Committee meeting, screaming at reporters that Democrats were about to nominate "an inadequate black male who would not have been running had it not been a white woman that was running for president."

Beyond Christian's deplorable reference to Obama as an "inadequate black male" was a wail worth hearing. She also said, "I'm proud to be an older American woman!" I can feel her pain. Reading the sexist attacks on Clinton and her white female supporters, as well as on female journalists and bloggers who've occasionally tried to defend her or critique Obama, has been, well, consciousness-raising. Prejudice against older women, apparently, is one of the last non-taboo biases. I've been stunned by the extent to which trashing Clinton supporters as washed up old white women is acceptable.

Once I heard Walsh invoking the words of two bigots to make her point, I checked out. Physician heal-thy-mutherfucking-self. Ferraro is the same woman who argued that "racial resentment" was OK. Walsh apparently thinks Harriet's description of Obama as an inadequate black male, "was a wail worth hearing." I'm physically sick reading that. I never much agreed with Walsh's take on the Clinton's, but for my money, she just fell into Pat Buchanan territory. Anyone who thinks there's something to take from someone who says it's fine to resent black people racially, who claims that there's something worth hearing in describing the first black man to ever win a major party's nomination as "an inadequate black male" is the moral equivalent of a racist to me.

I don't play these word games. I don't much care about what's in your heart. I don't make any distinction between people who think I'm less than, and the cowards who know the truth, but still run with bigoted fools anyway. There's nothing feminist about siding with worst impulses of white America. The fact is we're tied to each other. The same fuckers who've turned the incarceration of black men into a business, are the same fuckers who'd love nothing better than to drag women back into the dark ages. 

I want to see Barack Obama out there courting the vote of all women. I want to see him talking specifically about what his plans are. But I've got no interest in seeing him court those who would use feminism, as a cover for their own blackaphoic views. Later for them. Let them vote McCain, and go join the party where bigotry is part of the platform. The rest of us have a country to save.

UPDATE: To be clear, Obama should compete for the votes of ALL women--older, younger, white, black, purple whatever. But I don't accept that people who refer to him as an "inadequate black male." or people who think "racial resentment" is acceptable, or people (read: Joan Walsh) who think there's some truth to be gleaned from those opinions are represenative of that older, white female bloc. It's not I think older white women shouldn't be courted by Obama--they most certainly should. It's that I don't accept Walsh\Ferraro\Christian as a rep for them, any more than I would want someone to accept Al Sharpton as a rep for me.

I saw that Walsh called Christian's remarks "deplorable" but she undercuts even that weak declaration by embracing the racist Ferraro as someone who has something to say to Obama. Please. Ferraro was part of the worst Democratic ticket in modern memory. She helped invent the Reagan Democrats. I didn't even know she was still involved in politics until she decided to reveal her inner James Eastland. The idea that she somehow reps for women is fucking laughable.

That said, anyone who'd be willing to put the health of women, the chance to expand childcare, the chance to revisit equal pay, on the line in the name of electing a dude who called his own wife a cunt, who laughed as one of his supporters referred to Hillary Clinton as a bitch, who would most assuredly appoint judges that would reverse Roe v Wade, is a joke. There ain't nothing feminist, or "empowering" about gambling on the future of our daughters. It's a ego and sore loser-ism writ large. If that's your angle, take a hike. 

There is also an ugly subtext to that "unqualified" remark. Exactly how many terms in the Senate did John Edwards have? Was he also unqualified? Would we be hearing that label from Hillary-supporters if he'd won?

"I do it so it MUST not be black..."

Heh, one last note on this dap thing. The most interesting, and quite common, response has been "well I'm white as hell and I do the fist-bump with my wife, so it can't be that black." To me that response says more about the speaker--and race in this country--than about any measure of "blackness." It has as its unspoken premise that black is something that's stagnant, mutually exclusive to itself, and incapable of existing alongside other qualities. As I've stated, several other cultural signifiers have become mainstream, but there isn't much debate over their origins. Only the artifacts of black ethnicity are asked to surrender themselves as the move into the wider world. This is tragedy of calling Barack "postracial" or "post-black" instead of calling him what he calls himself--a biracial black man. No one calls Joe Lieberman post-Jewish, or Mel Martinez post-Cuban American. What folks are getting is that blackness damn near is the cultural mainstream of this country. The fact that you're in Wisconsin somewhere performing an ritual that was perfected on the South Side of Chicago probably means that it's mainstream. But that doesn't mean it didn't come from the South Side. Both are true at the same time.

It's wrong...

...but there's something about this I like:

Furthermore, during a Senate vote Wednesday, Obama dragged Lieberman by the hand to a far corner of the Senate chamber and engaged in what appeared to reporters in the gallery as an intense, three-minute conversation.

While it was unclear what the two were discussing, the body language suggested that Obama was trying to convince Lieberman of something and his stance appeared slightly intimidating.

Using forceful, but not angry, hand gestures, Obama literally backed up Lieberman against the wall, leaned in very close at times, and appeared to be trying to dominate the conversation, as the two talked over each other in a few instances.

Still, Obama and Lieberman seemed to be trying to keep the back-and-forth congenial as they both patted each other on the back during and after the exchange.

Afterwards, Obama smiled and pointed up at reporters peering over the edge of the press gallery for a better glimpse of their interaction.

I think it's the fact that he smiled and pointed up at the reporters.

More evidence that Clinton won't be VP

Anytime Bob Johnson is your emissary, you're in trouble. The whole way this VP thing happening is pretty sloppy. I see a bunch of hald-assed yes-men, and surrogates, who know if Obama wins without Clinton they're on the outs, pressing this thing harder than she is. Man this is sketchy. Folks this is just too much drama. He needs to run away as fast he can.

The sacred art of giving dap

John humorously notes that giving dap (sorry guys "fist-bump" is just dead wrong) is so widely practiced that even his thoroughly white lacrosse team did it. I don't doubt it a minute, but again that's the point. Just because many more people other than blacks are now giving dap, doesn't mean that it didn't start with black folks. Like I said, a lotta non-Mexicans eat enchiladas. That don't make enchiladas non-Mexican. Still, this whole thing has my head swimming now. It's quite possible that I have this backwards, I mean I first encountered the art of giving dap amongst black folks. But I also grew up de facto segregated--hell I first encountered french fries amongst black folks, so that isn't proof of authorship.

That said, the very fact that in all the instances where whites have claimed giving dap is common involve athletics is telling. Black folks give each other dap in all sorts of instances--not just competition. I may
give my man a "fist-bump" (arrrgggghh!!! it burns!!!) because my fingers are greasy, because I've got something in my hand, or just because I feel like it. In fact, one of the more awkward moments in black life occurs when two brothers greet each other and one isn't sure whether to use the open hand or the closed fist. You can end up with some pretty awkward exchanges--like shaking a dude's fist. Anyway, the place where "dap"  is most likely to be transmitted to other ethnicities is in athletic competition. So the mere fact that many of the cats who are questioning its origins are citing their encounters with dap in competition kind of makes me think I'm right.

When I got my first job around white folks, in the mid-90s, I had to stop myself from shaking my co-worker's hands every time I saw him, as was normal among the brothers. This has changed over the years, I think, with black culture going mainstream. So when I was working at TIME, for instance, I had some white friends who I shook hands with every time I saw them, because they were acculturated. Others I didn't because they weren't. But I shook hands with every brother I saw, whenever I saw him for the first time during the day. And then maybe again during the course of conversation. And then maybe again when I left. It just depended.

For those of you saying that you'd have to be from Mars to have never seen someone giving dap, dig this quote John dug up from over at from Human Events:

Michelle is not as “refined” as Obama at hiding her TRUE feelings about America—etc. Her “Hezbollah” style fist-jabbing—mouth-twisted anti-American speeches is STRAIGHT from ISLAM!

Oh my white people, we have so very very far to go...

Listening to Charlie Rangel speak right now

Talking about Obama. Frankly, I'm not in the mood to hear from people who didn't believe. Dude, can't even officially endorse Obama--even at this late date.When the books are written--haha, by me hopefully--the record will duly note who amongst us stood in "No, you can't" camp.

What Obama can't do

For many, many reasons, I am excited about the prospect of an Obama presidency. But I want us to be really clear about what our expectations are. There is certainly this sentiment that an Obama presidency represents a "get out white guilt free" card. I guess. Frankly, I think white guilt is overrated. Where are all these white people who can't get through the day without thinking about their ancestral culpability in the Middle Passage? I'm not even saying that would be helpful, so much as I'm saying I'm not sure how potent a force it is. More likely "white guilt" is one of these phrases pundits throw out to give the country more credit than it deserves. At virtually no point in the long black freedom struggle have masses of white people, propelled by their guilt, flocked to the sides of blacks. That doesn't mean anything about whites, as much as it's a statement about human beings. I don't see masses of blacks flocking to support gay marriage either, despite the historical parallels.

OK folks I'm rambling again. Here's my point: There are certain things that Obama can't cure. One of them comes to us courtesy of Daily Kos blogger D-T, who is laboring under the misapprehension that lots of people actually read this blog. Be that as it may, the kid raise some good points about a disturbing death penalty case in Georgia. Isn't it fascinating how the death penalty is basically no longer a presidential issue? Anyway, the case involves a Curtis Osborne who committed a brutal murder, but ended up on death row because his defense attorney--not the prosecutor--was racist. Wait, did I say racist? I meant he harbored some racial resentment against people who were darker than him. Word up. Dude actually said of his own defendant, "the little nigger deserves the death penalty." Well, he is going to get it, evidently. Curtis Osborne is set to be executed tonight.

Why Hillary Will Not Be VP

It ain't like she wasn't warned folks. Here is the GOP's first hit on our man. Hat Tip Balloon-Juice:

Epic Lawlz...

Via Too Sense

Obama's so black...

...he gave his wife dap before his speech. Incredible. I really wonder how many white viewers caught that. It's probably a generation thing. I bet a lot of younger folks got it.

UPDATE: Some grainy, but still lovely, video for those who missed it. It's so beautiful that Michelle initiated it. It shows a sort of confidence that I think this generation of black folks have come equipped with. It really was the perfect end to this primary.  Two caveats: 1.) It also shows a certain level of brother/sisterhood that's been achieved by blacks and whites of this generation. Somehow I think thirty years ago, people would have thought that was a signal for violent insurrection. Twenty years ago, they would have thought it was a gang sign. 2.) It is not true--as I was recently reminded--that such confidence is the province of the young. It's just that thirty years ago, if you were that comfortable in your own skin, as a black person, you were probably kept far away from the public stage.

Anyway, that fist-bump, that moment between those two--alone--tops all the speeches I saw last night. I think it says so much. Tell me if I'm out of line here, but there was something organically feminist about that gesture. The confidence of it reminded me so much of the sort of certainty I see in so many women who learned way before college that they would have to stand on their own. It really just erased Gerladine Ferraro for me. She ain't the future, ya'll. I am rambling here, and I feel like if I sat down, I could write a whole essay about that moment. Except that I kinda, already did :P

:

UPDATE #2: Commenter Marc makes an interesting point, "Is that really "so black"? Howie Mandel does it on his show, for heaven's sake."

I'd agree, and that's basically the point. But I'd reject the strict division between "black" and "mainstream" Turn it another way: "Putz" is a Yiddish word. The fact that all sorts of people say it, doesn't make it "not Yiddish." Furthermore, the fact that it's Yiddish doesn't mean all sorts of people shouldn't say it. This the whole point: the pound Obama and his wife exchanged is black AND it's mainstream. And that's fine, in fact it's one of the more beautiful thing about being American. I love enchiladas--my love for them doesn't make them any less Mexican. Plenty of white people love Otis Redding, but Soul is still black music. And American music too. It's not one or the other. It's both at the same time.

Harold Ford

Mat Yglesias gives him pimp slap he so desperately deserves. More importantly, Harold Ford lost. Who is he to give Obama advice? Barack Obama is the senator--not Harold Ford. Barack Obama won Oregon, while holding 90 percent of the black vote. Harold Ford should be sitting back, and taking notes.

Ego, Ego, Ego

Howard Fineman is reporting that Obama may offer Hillary the VP slot--but only if she agrees to not take it. I don't see that happening. The very idea that Fineman is reporting this, defeats the whole purpose, no? Only the Clintons could want something this stupid. I can't see Obama doing this.

Of course he won because he's black...

Balloon Juice has Limbaugh speaking on the ease of being a black guy with an Arab/African name. Heh, let's get some sense up in this piece. Come and talk to em Colson:

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 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.

Some people say Barack Obama and I get everything handed to us on a silver platter. But we don’t let it bother us. We’re taking those silver platters and making them our canoes. Then we’ll grab our silver spoons and paddle to a place where people get us. North Carolina, maybe. Or Indiana. I hear Oregon is nice this time of year. We’ll paddle on, brother, paddle all the way to the top.

Something just occurred to me

OK, sorry I have been gone guys. It is weird but I feel like I've been neglecting my kids! Anyway, I've been away working on pub stuff for the books. But I see now that Obama has clinched it. Obviously I have a rush of thoughts and feelings, but this is my major one--Barack Obama is on the precipice of becoming the most powerful black man since the whole concept of "blackness" was invented. I mean this dude could nuke a country. Sorry, but for those who came up under Reagan, Bush etc., the idea of a black man with his finger on the button is mind-blowing in so many incredible ways--and most of them aren't very positive. I need to think on this some more. But if any of you are reading, I'd love to hear some thoughts.

Gates whipping up on Watson