Take your time young man...

The incomparable Kojo Nnamdi (those of you in the D.C. area know him well) makes a pretty good point about the arrogance of youth:

Hey Ta Nehisi,

I only have one observation on your blog post "More stupid hand wringing over Nigger." It's the sentence "I will believe that till the end of my days" in reference to the use of nigger by black people as a lovely, lovely thing.

I'm here to tell you that at your age, you have no idea what you will believe till the end of your days. I used to think that I would believe in Black Nationalism, Pan-Africanism, Nkrumahism, socialism, Marxism/Leninism ,revolution, and Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not be Televised" for the rest of my days. But as you get older, the world changes. Like the brutal excesses and the fall of socialism in Eastern Europe, your world view changes, and if it doesn't, you'll find yourself clinging to outdated ideas and futilely trying to apply them to a changed reality.

You  don't want to practice nostalgia ideology, as too many of my friends do today, stubbornly insisting that they'll ultimately convince black folks, and the world, of the correctness of positions they held in the sixties and seventies.

BTW, I still love "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," but no longer delude myself that black people are in a revolutionary situation.

One love,
Kojo.

Props: Reading Rainbow

My Dad ran a small indy press, so I was primed to love books. But seriously, Reading Rainbow has to be at least partially responsible for me being a writer. What a great show. When the Republicans were talking about doing in PBS in the 90s, everyone was worried about Big Bird. Me? All I thought about was my son not hearing that theme song...

In the interest of fairness, revisiting the whole "Black nerd" debate

Awhile back, I kinda went off on David Adewumi for this post in which he looks at, what he sees as, a paucity of "black nerds." I probably could have been more charitable in my disagreement. What can I say? That one hit close to home. Anyway, upon further reading, I still find his perspective extremely problematic, and the utterly racist aspect of a couple of his posters disturbing, but that's beside the point. David responded in comments, and his rebuttal doesn't deserve to get lost in the archives. Here it is:

,

Quote of the day...

Although there are several great ones in that "black spokesperson" thread, I give it up to Susan Brooks Thistlewaite:

The New York Times would have us believe, however, that Senator Obama should have fixed this by now. “Obama isn’t closing the divide on race”, reads the accusing headline. Right after turning water into wine at the next reception he attends, Senator Obama will get right on eliminating 250 years or more of racial disparities

More stupid hand-wringing over "Nigger"

Seriously people, I love this argument put forth by stupid white folks who somehow clamor to say nigger and have black people smile, and even stupider black folks who claim that my use of nigger somehow empowers aforementioned white folks. The logic is just laughable, in that it basically asserts that words have the same meaning, no matter who says them, and no matter what the context. I'm sorry, if I called your woman "honey" you'd have a problem with me. Me saying, "But I just heard you call her that!!" probably wouldn't stop you from trying put me in the reconstructive surgery wing of a hospital. My partner and her closest female friends have been known to sling "bitch" around in playful banter. A quick way for me to lose custody of child and take up residence at the local singles bar would be for to address her in that manner. My father's mother used to call him "Billy" (His first name is William). But he'd have a big problem if I did the same.

I never thought that because Toby Keith made a record called White Trash With Money, that somehow gave me the right to address random white people in the fashion. I never thought the fact that there was a magazine called Heeb gave me the right to address my Jewish buddies as such. More to the point--I never wanted to. So this is what I don't understand--What's the big beef? Why is that in "Blackworld" the normal laws of human interaction somehow don't apply? I don't get white people who have a hard time with this--you call your mother "Mom," I call her Ms. Phillips--same deal here. Nigger means one thing when used amongst a group of people with similar experiences, and something else when used by people outside of that experience. Nigger when used by black people, is a lovely, lovely thing. I will believe that till the end of my days. It can be beautifully ominous ("Nigger, what?") and just plain beautiful ("Ta-Nehisi, that's my nigger").

Now a quick note of qualification--I am of that group of black people who've never had a white person refer to them as nigger, at least not to thier face. Frankly, we're I grew up there weren't any white people to say it. I once had a drunk white guy amble over to my table and claim his dog was a nigger, but that's about it. I was grown then, and he was obviously a fool. He didn't scar me one bit. But listen--there are black folks, who had to hear that word constantly as kids. I think there are less of them these days, but they obviously came up different than me. I have great sympathy for them and how they feel about the word. I understand why they don't want to be referred to in that way, or why anyone else wouldn't want to me. I just don't want them policing me.

UPDATE: In response to comment below, I--personally--have no problem with white people saying "nigger" while singing, say, a rap song. Also, I hate the phrase "n-word." I feel about "n-word" the way a lot of folks feel about nigger. Seriously, too many people in this world sit around waiting to take offense.

So much for those rumors of cash-flow trouble...

You have to believe Barack's people were spinning this whole idea of a cash-flow problem, no? I mean $52 million...

One Spokesperson to Lead Them All

Given that media seems to function best when only having to deal with one person who can sum up the hopes and ambitions of black folks, I asked for nominations for black spokesperson. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton both seem so 1995. Please vote your conscious, and say a short word in support of your vote.White people, have no fear, you may vote too. Furthermore we shall hold a contest for your spokesperson next week. I have to say that the Black Eyed Peas seem to be early favorites in the race to speak for All White People, though we must keep in eye darkhorses like Toby Keith

Pro-choice vs. Abortion Reduction

Props to Andrew Sullivan for this link. It features a fascinating debate between feminist pro-choice folks and Democratic evangelicals who would like to reduce the number of abortions. I call it fascinating because I can't quite understand what the pro-choicers are pissed about. They say they resent the implication that having a child is more moral than not. I don't quite know what that means. Moral by what standard? Furthermore, I went and read Wallis's pitch. He's claiming you can reduce abortion by alleviating poverty, mandating paid parental leave, and upgrading access to contraception. What about that threatens pro-choicers? I don't quite understand this fight. I guess there's a libertarian/fiscal conservative critique of Wallis, but somehow I don't think that's what they're getting at. Also, I must say, Wallis's memo seems like great politics. For whatever that's worth.

Gallup Breaks News: "Black Spokesman" Title Still Up For Grabs

Their headline boys and girls, not mine. Is anyone surprised that only 6 percent of black people and 4 percent of black people think Sharpton and Jackson speak for them? I guess I'm surprised more said Sharpton than Jackson. But yeah, this is stupid. I reject the idea that anyone can speak for black people. And I reject the implicit idea that white people are so stupid as to need an anointed translater to understand South Central. The only people in need of a "black spokesman" are lazy-ass reporters who can't afford to lose any shoe-leather. Sorry, I guess this is bash the press week. Eff it. It's always underestimate black people week in the press.

UPDATE: Following on Zach's nomination for "black spokesman," we will be taking names. Zach says John MacLaughlin. I think Pat Buchanan best speaks to the dreams and aspirations of black people. Can I hear a second? Who else could translate Ebonics for us? We are so mysterious, you know...

New York Times Uncovers A Shocker--Blacks and Whites Disagree

Sorry, but this article is pretty stupid and well critiqued by the Obama campaign. The older I get the more I think that journalism--daily journalism, especially--is simply incapable of dealing with something as nuanced as the black-white relations in this country. They just aren't capable, nor despite their claims of objectivity, are they unbias. Take it from a journalist--good journalism needs conflict. No conflict, no story. But while the artisan searches for the natural conflict inherent in life itself, the hack has some polling firm call a bunch of people, and then writes a headline overstating the results.

John McLaughlin on Barack Obama--Black people think he's an Oreo

Coates and Megan on Bloggingheads

Not so bad. Though she completely schooled me when went to cap-and-trade.

Jelani Cobb on the "The New South"

Good piece from Jelani Cobb, on ATL, Barack Obama and the New South:

In ATL, a thicket of race, success, vanity, poverty and glamour is packaged with great municipal swagger. If BET could design a city, it would look a lot like this one. Both the cable TV network and this city have prospered thanks to black music -- and by marketing a vision of black success and conspicuous consumption. In 2005, Mayor Shirley Franklin, a Philadelphia-raised transplant, undertook a branding campaign that actually commissioned music producer and longtime resident Dallas Austin to create an R&B song called "ATL."

A friend of mine who moved here, opened a successful business, bought a huge house and married a beautiful woman said that he came to the city because he "knew that as a black man, there was nothing that you couldn't achieve in Atlanta." You can see why he believes that. In 2007, Georgia's capital had the second-largest black middle class in the country, teeming with college graduates...

The large number of black Atlanta homeowners contrasts with the highest percentage of children living below the poverty line in any major American city. According to the most recent U.S. Census data, 48 percent of Atlanta's children and about 24.4 percent of the total population live below the poverty line. The disproportionate number of blacks with master's degrees coexist with one of the country's least efficient school systems.

In 2005, the majority-black city council passed a resolution banning panhandling in the downtown tourist districts -- an area that includes the King Center, a memorial to the civil rights leader's legacy. Thus the doctrine of progress has made it possible for a homeless person to be arrested for begging in front of the Gandhi statue on Auburn Avenue

Back

Needed a day off. That NAACP speech madness kinda got to me. But I'm back. Let's go.

Obama's NAACP Speech

TPM has the text. Pretty heavy on generational praise, a good bit of policy (education, EITC, jobs for ex-offenders etc.) and some of the personal responsibility stuff. Fine by me. I'll be very interested to see if we get another "Obama Scolds Blacks" headline from media folks. TPM thought that was the most important part of the speech, so who knows.

UPDATE: Thanks for the links guys. I'll have a longer response tomorrow. I find those headlines depressing. It says a lot more about media, and possibly--though I'm not sure of this--the broader country, than it says about Obama's speech.

UPDATE#2: That "Obama tells NAACP blacks must take responsibility" is borderline racist. I try not to throw that charge around much, But I can't see how anyone who doesn't think black folks are a bunch of roaring baboons could write that. I just don't get it...

UPDATE#4: I promised a long post analyzing the stupidity of the coverage of Obama and "personal responsibility." It's just not worth it. I can't spend the next few hours working out some nuanced explanation for why that headline is stupid. I'm hoping it speaks for itself. I don't have the energy to fight this battle anymore. If media wants to pit Obama against this strawman who sits around shaking his cup, demanding reparations and yelling "Whitey did it" there's not a damn thing I can do to stop them. And at the end of the day, who really cares? I'm too tired for this...

More reasons for blacks to love the Jews

So I'm making my way through Paula Giddings wonderful biography of Ida B. Wells, who may well me the mother of all black journalists--and even that understates her significance. But the incident that really kicks off Wells's career is a race riot in Memphis. The blacks in the town, fearing such an occurrence, had organized themselves into a fraternity/militia called the Tennessee Rifles. And you know who sold these cats guns? A local merchant who just happened to be a member of Memphis relatively small Jewish community, who defied his fellow Southern whites. Now that's what a call a black-Jewish coalition. Screw getting our asses kicked together, lets get some guns...

Last thought on the New Yorker cover

David Remnick flatters himself when he claims that the Obama cover is "Colber in print." Heh, you wish brother. That said, people who are canceling subscriptions are ridiculous. I am obviously biased, but seriously--I'll take Jane Mayer over Wolf Blitzer any day.

Be cool

So. Looks like we've been blessed with a few links from the blogging gods. Grateful as always. But I'm sensing the anger level in a couple of these posts bubbling. Lets make sure none of this devolves into a a bunch of people yelling at each other. In other words--Do. Not. Feed. Trolls.

The end of Sista Souljah

I don't think we've reached the stage where the Imprimatur Of Ta-Nehisi Coates means much, but if it did I'd offer that imprimatur to Obsidian Wings. What a great blog. Somehow I missed this beautiful post form Publius analyzing the implicit racism of the phrase "Sista Souljah moment":

Remember that Obama didn’t even say anything – the “moment” was created entirely by Jackson. Obama had nothing to do with it. But there were a bunch of black people involved, so let's call it Sister Souljah.

But anyway, the larger point is that the use of Sister Souljah here strikes me as a tad racist. Again, what idea exactly is Obama distancing himself from – castration? No, there’s nothing substantive here. The only thing that Obama is distancing himself from is Jesse Jackson – a black man who lots of white people (and the press) dislike and caricature unfairly.

If you dig a bit deeper though, something else is going on -- something that goes well beyond Jackson. I mean, maybe Jesse Jackson remains a central figure in Democratic politics, but that would be news to me. No, what’s really going on is more depressing. When I hear many people talk about what good politics all this is for Obama, what they are really saying is that “it’s good politics to be distanced from black people.”

That’s a pretty disgusting concept, so it gets dressed up as a “Sister Souljah moment,” which links it to a safe and more bland political science concept. Using the same label for both concepts masks the uglier aspects of its use. Hell, even if we’re talking solely about the benign concept, the relentless use of the name “Sister Souljah” to describe it probably subconsciously reinforces the notion that black people are a group that savvy candidates must distance themselves from.

Basically. I think this is what's at the root of the way the press covers Obama's interactions with African-Americans. Basically, they're just waiting for him to kic the folks to the curb. Some think Obama subtly plays on that. I'm not sure. Either way, this is why you hear about "Chastising" Bernie Mac or "Rebuking" black fathers. Implicit is a kind of cynical Dick Morris logic that holds you can't actually be close to black people and get white voters.

Bets on Obama's NAACP speech?

So he's addressing the NAACP convention tonight. It's tough for me to see him redoing his fatherhood speech again. I think that would be overplaying his hand incredibly. It's good to be seen as the guy who's the anti-Sharpton, but I think that has diminishing returns. Another "Obama Chastises Teh Blacks" headline won't help, and will really begin to make this thing look cynical. I'm sure they'll be some nods to "personal responsibility," but I'd be really suprised if he doesn't lean on the structural reforms he's outlined in his platform.

The tragedy of Jesse Jackson

One constantly overlooked fact about Jesse is that he--quite literally--made Barack Obama possible. People often say this in a really hazy, metaphorical way, pointing out that Jesse "paved the way" or "knocked down doors" for Barack. But those sort of weak homilies actually understate how much Jesse did for Barack. After losing in 84 and 88, Jackson's people, Harold Ickes being principle, fought for proportional representation in all states:

Jackson, who made his first run for president in 1984, complained at the time that the rules had been "stacked" against him by organized labor and Democrats aligned with Kennedy and former vice president Walter Mondale. In the 1988 election, Jackson complained that in Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey, and other states that awarded delegates on a winner-take-all basis within each congressional district, he had been deprived of his due share of delegates.

"We raised hell about the unfairness of the system that was in play," said Steve Cobble, Jackson's delegate director.

Dukakis eventually agreed to many of the changes Jackson wanted. Jackson's negotiators, Ron Brown and Harold Ickes, won an agreement to remove DNC members as superdelegates and mandated proportional representation as the only permissible method for states to apportion their delegates.

If you recall in the primaries, half of Barack's strategy was to keep it close in states like New Jersey and Pennsylvania, thus keeping Clinton from rolling up tons of delegates. It helped, of course, that Clinton's people basically ceded the caucuses allowing Barack to roll up huge leads in those states. Still, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that had Jesse Jackson not fought for those rule changes, Barack wouldn't be the Democratic nominee. Young cats--myself included--need to remember that when we tee-off on the guy.

Continue reading "The tragedy of Jesse Jackson" »

Don't hire Bernie Mac...

...if you're looking for Red Skelton.  I get that you're a politician and you've gotta play it safe, but there's a simple way out--don't book Bernie Mac. Did you not see the Kings of Comedy?

Maybe white folks shouldn't draw pictures of Michelle Obama...

At this very moment, me and Kenyatta are debating New Yorker cover. She's a little more pissed than me--particularly about the Michelle Obama pic and the Afro. I think the problem is that it's very hard to satirize the rumors around Michelle and Barack. Satire needs overstatement. But the cover doesn't actually overstate the beliefs of the scaremongers. Indeed its the sort of image you'd expect to see at one of the nuttier websites or publications, and so in that sense it doesn't work very well. 

I think "offensive" is bit much, but I can see that we do have the makings of a problem. Bearing that in mind I've come up with a compromise. White people--step away from the sepia-toned crayons. Black people--recognize that incompetence and epic fail may be the only things more common than bigotry.

UPDATE: So David Remnick went ahead and talked to Huffpo about the cover and why he chose to run it:

>What I think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama's -- both Obamas' -- past, and their politics. I can't speak for anyone else's interpretations, all I can say is that it combines a number of images that have been propagated, not by everyone on the right but by some, about Obama's supposed "lack of patriotism" or his being "soft on terrorism" or the idiotic notion that somehow Michelle Obama is the second coming of the Weathermen or most violent Black Panthers. That somehow all this is going to come to the Oval Office.

The idea that we would publish a cover saying these things literally, I think, is just not in the vocabulary of what we do and who we are...

I think this basically true, except that, again, satire doesn't just reflect it actually exaggerates to comical effect. Sadly, that picture exaggerates nothing--that's exactly what a slice of Americans believe about Barack Obama. Expect that image to be on tee-shirts within two weeks. Later in the interview Remnick compares this to Colbert's lampooning of the Right. Um, no. Again, Colbert is so exaggerated that only an alien could think that he was actually a right-winger. Watch Colbert at White House Press Corps dinner. He is very clearly mocking the president and his allies. I get the intent of the picture, but I think it just fails. It's hard for me to believe that the New Yorker literally set out to push the worst right-wing smears. It just looks like poorly executed satire.

UPDATE#2: Below, Gussie argues for the NYer cover being a clear exaggeration. I understand that point, and to the NYer's core reading audience, it probably is. But in the broader body politic, it just isn't. 13 percent of people actually believe that Obama's a Muslim. That number seems small, but in the right states, it will turn an election. Much worse though is the Michelle Obama attempt. No less than Christopher Hitchens--who exists well within the world of NYer readers--has argued that Michelle really is a Stokely Carmichael disciple who pushed Barack into Trinity--this despite the fact that Barack joined Trinity, like, five years before he knew Michelle. "The Whitey Tape" was the work of Hillary supporters, not the right-wing smear machine. At this moment there are Hillary-supporters, over at No Quarter, clamoring for Obama's passport. At the very least, the Michelle Obama caricature exists--not just among right-wing nuts--but amongst the thuggish Neandrathal wing of the Democratic party.

My point is that that this cover actually does reflect--not exagerate, not satirize--the views of a sizeable portion of Americans. That image is exactly what Fox News thinks of Barack and Michelle. Compare that, again, to Colbert. No real conservative actually thinks bears are the greatest threat to America. But that's not the point. Steven Colbert's threatdown/bear riff exagerates the right-wing stance on the enviornment. That's why it works as satire

A response from Eric Easter

This was down in comments, but it's worth highlighting, not simply because it's a response, but because it makes some fair and credible points:

Hey Ta-Nehisi. Thanks for mentioning my piece, but I think you miss the broader point of it. I don't think anyone was questioning Obama's right to give the speech. Important to note that Pbama has given that speech dozens of times (which is probably why he gave it that day, because of comfort level). The people who talked to me said it was specific to that day in that setting when the press (and middle America) was looking for him to distance himself permanently from Rev. Wright and Trinity. I really think their issue was that there were more effective ways to signal that break than doing that absent black father speech on father's Day.

But that was really just a smokescreen. The real issue is that that progressive crowd is not privy to Obama's strategic moves to win, and they (both black and white liberals) are wary of how far to the center a win for Obama has to go, and how much the strategy to win also will become how he governs. But those same people have also grafted their progressivism on to someone who has always at core been a centrist, or at least someone who looks at both sides first before choosing the liberal view - as opposed to knee jerk liberalism. That should be seen as a strength not a weakness.

This is really a case of Obama playing a running game and the liberal sideline screaming for him to throw more passes.

More watermelon in front of white people (The Malcolm X/Marcus Garvey edition)

Sometimes I believe the hype, man,
We mess it up ourselves and blame the white man
But don't point the finger you jigaboo
Take a look at yourself, you dumb nigger, you
Pretty soon hip-hop won't be so nice
No Ice Cube just Vanilla Ice
And you'll sit and scream and cuss
But it's no one to blame but us...
Us, will always sing the blues
Because all we care about is hairstyles and tennis shoes
And if you step on mine, you push the button
And I'll beat you down like it ain't nothing..
Got a heart condition
Still eat hog-mogs and chitlins..
And I'm havin' more babies than I really can afford
In jail 'cause I can't pay the mother
Held back in life because of my color
Now this is just a little summary
of us, but yall think it's dumb of me
To put a mirror to ya face, but trust
Nobody gives a fuck about us..

That's Ice Cube during his black nationalist phase almost 15 years ago. That song "Us" off the classic Death Certificate album, is a impolitic cut off a very angry and impolitic album. I highlight it, not because I necessarily agree with all its analysis, but to make the point that this business Obama is talking now--in much more politic terms--is not new, among black folks. Again, I don't buy it as a singular critique. But the black nationalist in me gets pissed at the implicit message of the hard-core black left--that the only change worth discussing is changes in the law. Given that we live in a majority white country, which never has shown any great willingness to do the right thing in regards to race, except when utterly embarrassed, given the response to Katrina,I find that outlook as unacceptable and irresponsible as people who say go to school, get married and everything will be fine.

This idea that the only real change comes from convincing a majority of white voters is poison, and ultimately fraudulent. The cultural transformation Malcolm X initiated in the way black people think about themselves--being unashamed of our skin color, our hair, our culture, who we are--was just as important as desegregation. We didn't need government for that. I'm sorry folks, I'm on that Marcus Garvey "Up ye mighty race" shit when it comes to this. I see nothing wrong with creating in environment in which black fathers are embarrassed when they don't perform thier basic parental duties. And now, more Cube...

Some Friday Fun: Race and the Electric Slide

Man, I always tell folks that there's nothing pure about being black. Turns out the Electric Slide was created by a white guy. But hey, there's no Stax without Duck Dunn and Steve Cropper, no Run-DMC without Rick Rubin. Marvin Gaye didn't write the national anthem, but he owns it all the same. All your anthems are belonging to us. Know what I'm saying? We don't write the music that makes the country, we just make the music funky. Anyway, with that in mind it's worth watching the video below, especially the middle to the end. So much beautiful to be said about race in all that. But I'll leave that to my lovely commenters.

From the department of "Oh my people..."

As companies are steady evicting folks from rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem, Charlie Rangel is holding on to four--FOUR--rent-stabilized units. Incredible.

Eating your watermelon in front of white people

So, I myself have had some reservations about how honest to be around issues of race. I've also had my disagreements with Bill Cosby and his approach to the problems of black America. I think folks should read Eric Easter's piece on Jesse Jackson and his criticism of Obama. I like Eric, and have a lot of respect for what he's doing over at EbonyJet.com. But I can't get with this perspective from some black progressives that seems to be more concerned with how we show up for white people, than with how we show up in our own communities.

This goes double for the black fatherhood piece. I've been pretty clear about my policy preferences. I want us to take another look at our drug laws. I want the EITC extended to noncustodial parents. I want us to take a hard look at our shocking rates of incarceration, particularly for young black males. But I don't want those policy positions--even for a second--to confuse folks about where I stand on the issue of black fathers. If there isn't a single policy change in the next fifty years, there will never ever be any excuse for a father to walk out on a child.

You must understand that this is incredibly personal for me. Though I had a father, most of my friends coming up in Baltimore did not and most of them paid a price for that. My mother didn't have a father, and hooked up with my father, almost entirely because she thought he'd be true to his paternal duties. Dating back to high school, I've loved three different women in my lifetime. Every one of those women was scarred by a father who'd fallen down on the job. Every one of those women were black. When you spend time cleaning up the crap left by men twice your age, when you walk the streets of Harlem and see kids who clearly need a man to yoke thier asses, when you read about black millionaires like Dr. J and Karl Malone refusing to perform the most basic of human duties, you just get tired.

Continue reading "Eating your watermelon in front of white people" »

Kathy on the utter dishonesty of Mickey Kaus

Great post from Kathy. I don't quite get this either. Mickey calls on Obama to do cynical Sista Souljah move--repeatedly as Kathy points out. Obama refuses to play black folks in that manner, indeed recoils from it, but still substantively addresses the issue of doing for self. Mickey's response? How dare Barack Obama seriously engage black voters, instead of using them to curry favor with whites!! How dare he actually act like, you know, a black guy running for president....or a white guy with even an ounce of class...

There is a certain type of public intellectual that's made a career speaking on race, that will be in trouble should Obama win. God forbid these dudes actually have to search for some framework beyond whether Harvard should have affirmative action at its law school. Or whether welfare--ten years after it was reformed--destroyed the black family...

Man, Al Sharpton is slick

Give it up. He's got game...

I'm a feminist because I like women

I know folks are hammering McCain over the Phil Gramm comment, but dig this incredible response from McCain to Carly Fiorina immenintly sensible point that if health care is going to cover Viagra, it should cover birth control. I don't understand how it helps "men" to restrict access of birth control for women. What man thinks that restricting access to birth control for his wife/mother/daughter/partner helps him?

Why Barack Obama can talk about black responsibility, and you can't...

Was just thinking some more on this. I think Barack gets leeway to speak the way he does about race because, to put it bluntly, he knows what he's talking about. I mean this in a very specific personal way. For instance, you can talk about Lil Wayne, when you have Jay-Z on your Ipod, when Nas has a song about you, and you can pull the "dirt of your shoulder" move. You can talk about black kids not obsessing over basketball, when you yourself had to balance basketball with school, and you still play. You can talk about black fathers laying down on the job, when your father laid down on the job, while your father-in-law clearly did not. You can critique black communities up one side and down the other, when you've spent a good part of your adult life organizing and working in those same communities, and when you're married to a black woman.

I'm sad that last one is true, but it is. Also, I'm willing to be that it'd be true of any other ethnic group in the same situation. My point, though, is that, Obama has a sort of credibility that, say, a guy who really had spent no time around black people (and didn't seem particularly interested in being around black people) just doesn't have. Furthermore, Obama isn't saying personal responsibility and no policy. He's talking both. There is a real lesson for black conservatives at think tanks and conservative journals. There's a difference between telling a guy he should focus more on school and less on basketball, when you can actually play one-on-one with him, or debate this years Chicago Bulls, and pushing that same message and then turning around and then, before a mostly white audience, talking about the greatness of Jesse Helms.

A lot of this would melt away if people started looking at Obama in the manner in which he sees himself--a biracial black man. To be a functioning black person, you don't have to grow up in Harlem, you don't have to be unacquainted the Queen's English, and you don't have to love Kool-Aid. You just have to not be disdainful of people BECAUSE they grew up Harlem, don't speak the Queen's English, and happen to like Kool-Aid. There really is only one absolute to being black---You must--MUST I SAY--know how to do the Electric Slide. There's no getting out of that one.

Quote of the week...

Sorry this is funny. It's the sort of thing my folks used to tell me:

Maybe you are the next Lil' Wayne, but probably not, in which case you need to stay in school
--Barack Obama

Yeah, I know I'm a college dropout. It's complicated...

Some other thoughts on Jesse Jackson...

I guess it's true that Jesse Jackson's comments will help Barack with some segment of white people, and not hurt him at all among black people. But the more I think about this, the more puzzling I find this to be. What did Jesse Jackson actually do to white people? I guess if you're Jewish you could have a legit beef with him over the whole "hymietown" remark, but I'm just not clear on why Jesse gets more hate than any other liberal. Better yet, why is Jesse hated more than some fool who calls America "a nation of whiners" for feeling uneasy about gas prices.

One other tangetial point--Can we retire the phrase "black leader?" There really aren't any anymore, and this is a good thing. Jesse hasn't commanded a national constituincy of black Americans in probably two decades or so. At this point he's basically a media pundit. And that's fine, I don't begrudge him that. But he isn't a "black leader" of any national significance. That's really not a knock on him, either. I don't think any of us would like a return to the conditions which made "black leaders" essential. 

Even more on out of wedlock births

It occurs to me that it would help if we had better stats. I'm not a stat guy but it's clear that the 70 percent figure for black out of wedlock births is dubious in that it reflects a possible rise in out of wedlock births, as well as a possible decline in "in wedlock" births. We should avoid confusing a rise in the relative number of black kids born out of wedlock with their percentage of black births overall. What we need to know is the number of black women who are having children of out marriage versus their numbers in the population. That seems to me much fairer. I've seen the "out of wedlock births per thousand" bandied about for instance. I'm currently fiddling with the National Center for Health Statistics website to get a fix on that number, and also to get some historical and demographic comparions.

Here is what we know: Despite grave reports about the demise of the black family in the post-Civil Rights era, in fact, the number of black women having children out of wedlock in 1996 was at its lowest point in 40 years. Maddeningly, the Times article I linked to provides no stats for 1956, it simply states it as fact, and for now I'm accepting it, given that i comes from a reputable source. If we have any stat guys looking at this or anyone who wants to join me in trying to navigate the NCHS site, please feel free to help. I should add that in the Times article Stephen Thernstrom says we should be more concerned about the 70 percent figure--but if we're going to do that we need to start critiquing black married couples who only zero, one,  two kids as hard as we critique black unmarried couples. Fair is fair, no?

UPDATE: Big, big props to commenter Akali for fishing these two reports which look at the rate of childbearing among unmarried women. The basic conclusion is that the birth rate for unmarried black women is--and has been--declining. In 1970 the birth rate for unmarried black women was 96 per 1,000. In 1980, it was 87.9. In 2005 it was 60.6. There is a huge spike in the late 1980s, but the overal trend is clear--the birth rate for unmarried black women has been declining for almost 40 years.

Something else that should add some context to that 70 percent figure which we all love. The birth rate for married black women has declined way more for married black women than it has for married white women.  Also, the birth rate for unmarried women overall is on the increase, but that seems to be being driven by an increase among white and Hispanic women. It's also worth noting that the rate for unmarried black women is still waaayyyy higher than the rate for white women, while lower than the rate for Hispanic women. 

I was not a statistics major in college. If anyone wants to debunk these or add context, I'm totally open.

UPDATE 2: I also agree that "born in wedlock" seems to be a very crude stat for measuring the quality of life for a child in the home. I'm esepcially suspicious--as Kathy notes in comments below--of this idea of causality,  instead of correality.

Black babies born out of wedlock (cont.)

One nagging question that persists from yesterdays post is why would unmarried African-Americans have more kids than married ones? There are all sorts of class arguments that I've seen on the web that don't quite make sense to me. Among them--the black poor see welfare as an incentive. But welfare has been cut dramatically in recent years (five years and then your cut off for life, I believe plus a work requirement in many states) and the roles have been plunging. Furthermore, that analysis conflates the black poor with the black unmarried. There may be a high degree of overlap but those two are not the same. Any explanations? As always, I ask that we not take this chance to simply verify whatever prejudices we already have. This doesn't mean I want people to be all PC. I just don't want tautology. I know there are some folks with experience in sociology and econ lurking around here. I'd love to hear their thoughts.

More On Jesse Helms

You know me, I look for the soft spot in everybody. So in the interest of fairness, I present this article sent to me by one of my readers. It basically lays out Helms surprisingly sympathetic thoughts on a proto-Affirmative Action plan. With guys like Helms, you always wonder whether their bigotry came from the heart, or whether it was a tool for whipping up votes. That Moseley-Braun episode, as well as the anti-gay stuff, makes me think a lot of it came from the heart. Not that race-baiting is any better.

More reasons for black people over 60 to zip it

My Dad is gonna kill me. But here's Jesse--on Fox News no less--telling some other dude that he'd like to cut Obama's nuts out. Nice. I'm not even sure this hurts Obama in anyway. Even Jesse's own son condemned him. There is a certain strain of the civil right era that really just needs to have a Jack and Coke and call it a day. It's not that we aren't grateful. We so really are. But this is getting embarrassing...

UPDATE: Anyone who thinks this will hurt Obama's support among African-Americans can come meet me on 125th where I will present them a deed for the GW Bridge. I've obviously given my critique of that speech. I don't much care about "talking down" as much as I care about the literal truth of what Obama was saying. Also, given that I mostly like Obama's fatherhood bill, the actual speech is a minor issue for me. That said--unlike Jesse Sr.--I've got sense enough to not confuse my politics, with the politics of the black community. I'm a typical East-Coast, latte-sipping liberal, whereas most of my brethren are Southeners. Expect the difference between my personal politics and the rest of the black communities to roughly mirror the difference between any Chardonnay liberal and any other Southerners. The only difference, I guess, is I still love my people. Even when I think they're dead wrong. They're still my folk.

The myth of "black" conspicious consumption...

I kind of alluded to this in the "black nerd" post, but Virginia Prostrel has a piece in the Atlantic that shows that while black people do--on a whole--spend their money on dumb shit, their blackness has virtually nothing to do with it:

...the economists compared the spending patterns of people of the same race in different states—say, blacks in Alabama versus blacks in Massachusetts, or whites in South Carolina versus whites in California. Sure enough, all else being equal (including one’s own income), an individual spent more of his income on visible goods as his racial group’s income went down. African Americans don’t necessarily have different tastes from whites. They’re just poorer, on average. In places where blacks in general have more money, individual black people feel less pressure to prove their wealth.

The same is true for whites. Controlling for differences in housing costs, an increase of $10,000 in the mean income for white households—about like going from South Carolina to California—leads to a 13 percent decrease in spending on visible goods. “Take a $100,000-a-year person in Alabama and a $100,000 person in Boston,” says Hurst. “The $100,000 person in Alabama does more visible consumption than the $100,000 person in Massachusetts.” That’s why a diamond-crusted Rolex screams “nouveau riche.” It signals that the owner came from a poor group and has something to prove...

...So this research has implications beyond race. It ought to apply to any peer group perceived by strangers. It suggests why emerging economies like Russia and China, despite their low average incomes, are such hot luxury markets today—and why 20th-century Texas, a relatively poor state, provided so many eager customers for Neiman Marcus. Rich people in poor places want to show off their wealth. And their less affluent counterparts feel pressure to fake it, at least in public. Nobody wants the stigma of being thought poor...

This is another one of those cases where black people do something stupid, but it's the sort of stupid which all human beings tend to do, and we go off on our "What's the matter with Negroes" rant. When anyone else who isn't black does it, we just yawn. It's worth noting that Prostrel also found the exact same pattern for Latinos.

One reason to not be honest in the race debate...

Half of me regrets writing that "black crime" post. Of course the smarter half doesn't, but I've made a big mistake by reading the comment threads of some folks who linked it, as well as the comments here. The problem with a post like that is that your attempting to be self-reflective in space where wolves tend to lurk in the dark, and any attempt to look across the track is just taken as an evidence to trump up whatever biases people carry. Oh well. It's not like I can stop--my writing career basically depends on honesty. But for my black people with no such attachments, yet still carrying the weight of history, I understand. I don't think it's right. But I do understand.

UPDATE: Good post below from commenter Tom West:

I'll have to say there may be merit to your regrets. There are some truths that *will* be interpreted by human beings in such a way as to be detrimental to many.

For example, I strongly suspect that there are biological reasons why there are fewer women represented in high end science institutions (mostly due to "long tail" effects in males, etc.). However, I *also* believe that Summers was rightfully let go (indirectly) for his comments.

As someone in the public eye, he should have been aware that his comments would be used to dismiss *rightful* complaints about social barriers against women to such positions, as well as confirm the biases of every sexist high school physics teacher (or student). His speech damaged (to a limited degree) women's ability to reach those very institutions and women studying science everywhere.

It doesn't matter that wasn't what he said - he should have known how it would be interpreted.

Obviously you are not quite as high profile as Larry Summers. But as someone whose profile seems to be rapidly growing (at least in the blogosphere), it behooves you to not only examine the contents of your words, but how those words will be interpreted, and how those interpretations will affect others.

This really is the conundrum. But the problem with not saying what you really think is it lets unscrupulous people shrink the debate, and it pushes fair-minded folks into extreme positions that they may not necessarily believe. I think this is, in some measure, how white folks came to believe that Al Sharpton somehow spoke for over 30 million black people.

How much of our race debate is really about posturing and holding out and how much of it is about what we honestly believe. I keep using the Affirmative Action example, but it's so apt. I think there are some people with a legit beef, but there are plenty more who just don't like black people. It seems unfair to lump them all together. And it cuts the other way. I'm against the drug war, but I don't want to be lumped--by the opposition--with people who see the drug war as a racist plot. The point is shouldn't we do what we can to discourage strawmanship and make people wrestle with the complexities of things?

Also, aren't you just more credible when you address the issue straight up? I wasn't blogging when Will Saletan did his series on intelligence and race for Slate, but I thought those of us who argued that it was racist for him to raise the question did "the cause" a disservice. Better to attack his actual evidence, which was thinly thinly sourced, and his conclusions, which were incredibly presumptuous given how little we know about the brain. I know I started this post by whining, but having gotten some sleep, I think I probably should not have written it. Better to take your lumps and keep rolling...

Things that make you go "Hmmm..."

I haven't seen Kes or Neelix
Oh yeah, well you just stay away from her with those lyrics
Please ain't nobody fucking after her
I'm out of here soon as I fix the flux capacitor...

Is that MF Doom line the greatest black nerd quote of all time or what? Are there even any other contenders? Star Trek: Voyager. (He actually does Neelix's annoying ass voice!)  Back to the Future. Hood slang. All of that in two couplets.

Ta-Nehisi feeds his own massive ego

Profile of yours truly in today's LA Times. And here I am on Tavis Smiley a few weeks back.

Black illigetimacy reconsidered

As anyone here knows, I'm a bit of a booster for black fatherhood, and glad to see things like this happening in Congress. But it's worth noting that illegitamcy figures which are often bandied about when we talk about the fall of the black family don't take a major factor into account--the fact that the birth rate among married black families is actually lower than the birth rate among married white families:

It is important to realize that the "percent of births" is not a birth rate. The birth rate is the number of births for every 1,000 women in a specific category. The last marital birth rates calculated by the National Center for Health Statistics were for 2002. In 2002, the black marital birth rate was 64.9 births for every 1,000 married black women. The white marital birth rate was 88.2 for every 1,000 married white women. The black marital birth rate was 23.3 births less than the white rate. In the past, the black marital birth rate was higher than the white rate. Because there is such a low number of births among married black women, the percent of births to unmarried black women is especially high.

Married black women gave birth to 357,262 babies in 1970. But by 1996, the last year for which complete figures were available, that figure had dropped to 179,568, a decline of nearly 50 percent, nearly twice the drop in the birth rate among married white women....

....statisticians and demographers point out that the startlingly high percentage of black children born outside of marriage is not merely the result of more single black women giving birth. The percentage of single black women giving birth has been declining since 1989, and reached a 40-year low in 1996. Instead, the high proportion of black babies being born out of wedlock is now mainly a function of its statistical comparison to the steep drop in the number of black children being born to married black women.

On some level, this makes a lot of intuitive sense to me. I'm effectively--if not legally--married. Been with the mother of my eight year old son for ten years now. More on this later. (I promise!) But basically when he was born I felt that he was the bond between us. In other words, he literally was the marriage ring. We'd both love to have more kids, but we simply can't afford it. Furthermore, we don't have particularly wealthy parents to fall back on. I think that's the situation a lot of married black folks find themselves in. They simply feel that they can't have more kids.

Even if married black parents had kids at the rate that white married parents did (or better yet, Hispanic parents), black babies would still make up a disproportionate share of kids borne out of wedlock. But I don't find that too alarming. I'd expect that over the next few decades for that gap to continue to narrow, and ultimately close. In these debates, it's worth remembering that black people have only been full citizens for forty years or so, and that followed two centuries chattel slavery, land theft and racial terrorism. Things will get better. Just gotta give it time.

Why Ta-Nehisi isn't a "Black Nerd"

A reader sent me this blog post which waxes disdainfully about the a black community seemingly obsessed with cars and clothes, while showing no regard for education. Just for good measure, we get a nice dose of black immigrant snobbism ("Realistically, I should have used the term ‘African nerds,’ because almost all of the smartest black people I know were either born in Africa or are first-generation Africans."). Of course like all prejudice, the commenter mistakes his limited experience to be somehow universal for some 30 million black people.

But before I go further, an observation--I'm totally with folks who say we need to stop blaming the white man, and have done my part to take on Sharptonism. But it always amazes me to see those same people turn around and blame a broader "black culture" for the larger problems of our black community. This strikes me as no better than "White Man-ism," because it still undermines the case for individual strength and effort. A blame paradigm is a blame paradigm, whether its blaming black people or white people. In my house, when I got bad grades--which was often--my parents would slapped the black off me if I blamed a D on "the white man." But they'd have done the same thing if I'd blamed my D "on a culture of pathology amongst black people." To me, it's fundamentally weak to blame others for a personal lack of success.

Which brings us to this Black Nerd posting. It begins by positing a strict dichotomy between popularity and intelligence, i.e. if you're black and smart, you necessarily won't be popular. The writer acknowledges that this same dichotomy exists among white people--indeed his whole article takes off from a white guy musing over why white nerds aren't popular. But like most Black Cultural Patholgists, the writer simply leaps past the context and into a meditation on the intellectual savagery of black folks.

Continue reading "Why Ta-Nehisi isn't a "Black Nerd"" »

The inept bigot

Heh, very nice takedown of Helms, from a conservative perspective:

[Fred] Barnes tried to argue that Helms, like Reagan, reoriented the political debate. "Positions he noisily took in Washington two decades ago, almost alone," wrote Barnes, "are now part of mainstream conservatism. Among them: the balanced-budget amendment, a flat tax, school prayer, curbs on food stamps, legislation banning abortion." Of course, what the items on that list have in common, with the possible and partial exception of limits on food stamps, is that none is a whit closer to enactment or broad acceptance than it was 20 years ago.

In 1997, Barnes asked: "Would the House have voted to kill the National Endowment for the Arts on July 10 if Helms hadn't first zinged the agency in 1989 for funding obscene art and roasted it regularly since then? Not a chance." Five years later, the NEA is not only alive but thriving, its budget up by 16 percent since 1997. If you are a conservative, pray that Jesse Helms does not take up your cause

Was Marvin Gaye a libertarian?

No, seriously. Me and Kenyatta spent much of last week hanging with Megan and the Atlantic crowd, so maybe I've been reprogrammed. But on the flight back from Denver, between reading Paula Giddings incredible biography of Ida B. Wells, I was banging three Marvin albums on random play. No surprise here--the albums were What's Going On, Let's Get It On and the vastly underrated Trouble Man. Anyway, I noticed that Marvin's politics were marked by a strong aversion to taxes ("natural fact is/Honey, that I can't pay my taxes" and "There's only three things that's for sure, taxes, death and trouble"),  a disdain for foreign occupation("Father, father we don't need to escalate."),  and a strong belief in the right to privacy ("I want to get it on/You don't have to worry that it's wrong." or "There's nothing wrong with love/If you want good loving, just let yourself go.")

Indeed there is way of listening to "Let's Get It On" as anthem for gay--or interracial--marriage. I mean think about lyrics like, "There's nothing wrong with me loving you/Giving yourself to me could never wrong, if the love is true." Give a good listen to "Right On" which has an almost laissez-faire acceptance of the natural order of things ("Some of us born with money to spend/Some of us were born with races to win/Some of us are aware that is good for us to care/Some of us feel the icy wind of poverty in the air.") At the end, Marvin addresses  those who live "where peace is craved," those who "live a life surround by good fortune and wealth," those who are simply "enjoying ourselves" and those who "got crowned in the sea of happiness, " with a simple, "right on." Or think of the title cut to Trouble Man where Marvin says that "I come up hard, but that's OK/Trouble man, don't get in my way" or "I come up hard, but never cruel/I didn't make it sugar, playing by the rules." The song is clearly a meditation on the limits of the state and the power of individual will.

Come on, give me my props. You thought I was there was nothing to me but Autobot and Zooey Deschanel love. But I just blew your mind. Admit it. I'm deep. OK, so maybe not. But while you consider my analysis, check out the last great song from arguably the greatest black artist of our time.

UPDATE: Props to Adina for the shout-out to another underrated classic, Here My Dear.

Why are there no black Republicans?

Hilzoy pretty much answers that question. Let's be clear--the conservative movement and its ideals can be judged on thier merits, race aside.  But most black folks don't even get to the judging part, and all the fawning over the ghost of Jesse Helms demonstrate why. According to the Heritage Foundation Helms wasn't simply a very important conservative, he was a "champion of freedom." President Bush said Helms was not just a distinguished senator but "a kind, decent and humble man."

I guess. But when Martin Luther King and the nonviolent protesters of the 60s were trying to secure basic rights, Helms, in between denegrating King's followers as communists and "moral degenerates," was busy asserting that "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights."" When Carol Moseley Braun was elected to the Senate, Helms would sing Dixie in the elevator whenever saw her, with the intent, as he told Orrin Hatch, of making Mosley-Braun cry. Behind closed doors, Helms reportedly referred to all black people as "Fred." I really could on, check out Hilzoy's post for the rest.

My point is simple: When the "champion" of your movement thinks that "crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced," don't expect a single sane, hard-working, red-blodded black person to take your arguments against Affirmative Action seriously. Homilies to Martin Luther King, given 40 years late, by people who did not even want to honor his birthday will not help. Hiring Yolanda Adams for your convention will not help. Not even gay marriage amendments will ultimately help. Trust me, as much as we may hate gays, we hate people who venerate racists even more. Purge your party of treasonous Confederate thugs, anti-miscegenists, and racial phrenologists, then we can talk.

UPDATE: Also I don't think this dismissal covers all "conservatives" who made the wrong choice in the 60s. Barry Goldwater's resistance to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was stupid, but he wasn't a racist. Goldwater also supported the Arizona NAACP, desegregated the state's National Guard and supported a ban on the poll tax.  Which makes the embrace of Helms, to me, all the more galling. I think civilized, good-hearted, intelligent people often disagree on, say, the role of the military in the world, the best way for a country to provide health care, the most prudent tax policy. Reasonable, good-hearted people can even debate the merits of hot-button issues like Affirmative Action, which we've done on this very blog. But reasonable good-hearted people don't do what Helms attempted to do Carol Moseley Braun. Vile bigots do that. And people who embrace vile bigots as their champions should expect to have thier motives doubted by people like me.

Seriously? Do they fire cops? For anything?

As you guys know, I'm not down with criminal prosecution. But it really tears me up that police officers, who basically commit lethal malpractice, still remain on the street to "protect us." More on this later, running to a panel. For now, check out this heart-breaker, courtesy of commenter MouseJunior. No more complaints about black people who won't talk to cops, please. Crack down on your own incompetence, rid your own house of thuggism. Then complain about us.

A very uncomfortable post about black crime

The D.C.-based blogging community has been quite upset over the shooting of Brian Beutler. I don't know Brian, but obviously my heart goes out to anyone who gets shot three times and has to have major surgery. I've been hanging with a couple of political bloggers here at Aspen who work out of D.C., and all of them sound absolutely terrified of crime in Washington. This has really shocked the hell out of me--I lived in D.C. in the early to late 90s, when crime was a lot worse. Given the subsequent drop-off, the idea that D.C. could feel like Murderland is mind-boggling to me.

I was just reading this entry from Ezra Klien where he notes that fully half of his friends have been mugged. That is just a shocking number to me. I got to thinking back on my days in the District, and I couldn't even think of more than three or four people who I knew that had been mugged. As I reflected more on it, I came to a very uncomfortable--if obvious conclusion--if you're a mugger in D.C., a young, white, bookish blogger probably looks like the perfect mark.

For most of my tenure in D.C., I was going to Howard University. This was before the advent of gentrification, and it was generally thought that Howard students, themselves, were easy marks. But me and most my friends knew that to be a simplification. It's true that if you walked through, say, Clifton Terrace star-gazing, if you're roaming the streets acting like it can't happen (as us ancient hip-hop heads say), you were very likely to get stuck. But as anyone whose spent some time in the city knows, if you moved through the streets with purpose, if you kept the ice-grill on and looked like you were all business, if you kept that sixth sense of yours buzzing, the chances of you actually falling prey were pretty low. I may have had one encounter my whole time in D.C. You may attribuite that to me being 6'4, but the same was true of virtually all of my friends because they tended to be, like me, kids who didn't have a thuggish bone in their bodies but were still intimately acquainted with, as Dre would say, the Strength of Street Knowledge.

In reading all of these blog postings about crime in the District, I am beginning to understand--to some extent--the fear that white folks must have of black crime, as something different than the fear that black folks have. I live in Harlem, still a relatively unsafe section of New York, but having lived in Harlems all my life, I acutally feel almost as safe there as I do here in Aspen. I know that violent crime most often happens in situations in which people know each other, or in situations in which someone looks like a target. I tend to not hang with criminals, and I do what I can to not make myself a target.

But how would I feel if I knew my skin color alone made me an easy mark for the most degenerate elements of a community? Heh, probably the exact same way I'd feel driving through the small towns of Texas. That's not entirely fair--random street crime is still more common than hate crime. What I'm driving at is this: For the first time in my life, I have some sense of what the white guy who is ignorant of  all things about black people is thinking when he drives through certain parts of town and rolls up his window. Because his very whiteness makes him an easy mark, he has to fear things in a way that I never do.

UPDATE: This post is an attempt to see the world from another perspective, one radically different from the vantage point I developed living in black communities all my life. It excuses nothing and indicts nothing, mostly because that's the last thing we need when we're trying to initiate some dialouge. I hope folks who are reading this can see that, and can do a little more than simply use this as an oppurtunity to advance what they already think. That goes for the belief that urban black kids are, in general, monsters and the belief that people who subscribe to a lesser grade of that idea are talking from Mars. I'm not asking you to agree with me. But lets just try to look across the tracks a bit. The motivating belief of this blog is that those folks, over there, are human, and if we believe that, they'll give us that same consideration. That goes for race, ideology, religion, whatever...

The Myth Of "Stop Snitching"

Marc Fisher, commenting on PG County CO's refusal to talk about a case in which a suspect was murdered:

...why should bad guys and ordinary citizens pay heed when police and prosecutors lecture them about how it's their civic duty to come forward with information about crimes? If law enforcement officers won't think of themselves as righteous whistle-blowers rather than as rats or snitches, how can a system that depends on witness testimony possibly function?

I've always loved watching cops, politicians, and moral arbiters invoke the "Stop Snitching" phenomenon as some sort of newly minted explanation for violent crime in the black community. Heavy on nostalgia, advocates of the "Stop Snitching" explanation proffer a mythical, fantastical ghetto where in the halcyon days of yore, it was easy to get witnesses to squeal on the thugs who lived next door. But now we live in the fallen era of black pathology, where criminals tend to act like, you know, criminals and threaten people whose words might send them to jail. When its black people refusing to testify against their neighbors, it's evidence of cultural collapse. But when its cops or correctional officers--people sworn to uphold justice--refusing to rat on each other in a murder case, well it's just following union advice.

From the Aspen Ideas Festival panel on race

Boy, the kid has some awful posture. I need some class, and fast. Anyway, here is a snippet from Tuesday's panel on race. I like this clip because too much of the panel was spent on the traditional black/white divide. Here Charles Kamasaki speaks on Latino issues. Rich Ford also speaks on moving away from a blame-based paradigm--i.e. either the white man has his foot on my neck, or my culture is completely pathological.

"I like beautiful things..."

Great quote from Jesse Helms, who is dead now. I don't have anything good to say. Best I could do was that quote, which for some reason, struck me.

Is this really racial profiling?

Don't know if I'm for or against this, but I always thought racial profiling was when you pulled someone over--or otherwise investigated them--strictly on color. So if a murder suspect were a black male, and you simply rounded up all black males, then yeah, you're profiling. But if the subject is a black male, known to frequent certain establishments, live in a certain neighborhood and work a certain job, and you start investigating people who fit that, uhm, "profile" that sounds like standard police-work to me. Here is the alleged "racial profiling" which the DOJ is seems primed to initiate:

The changes would allow FBI agents to ask open-ended questions about activities of Muslim- or Arab-Americans, or investigate them if their jobs and backgrounds match trends that analysts deem suspect.

FBI agents would not be allowed to eavesdrop on phone calls or dig deeply into personal data--such as the content of phone or e-mail records or bank statements--until a full investigation was opened.

I guess the operative phrase is "trends that analysts deem suspect." If such "trends" are limited to regularly attending mosque and having a full beard, that's probably profiling--and more importantly bad police tactics, no? If, however, it means a Muslim cat who makes frequent trips to, oh I don't know, Afghanistan, has had contact with suspected terrorists, and recently purchased a large number of firearms, that seems fine to me.

Seriously Jamie, tell us what you really think about the Netroots...

This post by Jamie Kirchick on the "Nutroots" seems a little silly. I don't quite get what he was trying to achieve with all the preening. I'm one of those people who think it's stupid to say Obama's "moved to the center," mostly because he was never really a leftie. He shares with the left a rejection of cynical triangulation and DLCism, but policy-wise, his fight with John Edwards--and to some extent with Hillary--wasn't a left/right clash.

That said, I'm all for people holding Obama to the standards of what he said--like not supporting FISA, or even accepting public financing. Save venting some anger, I'm not sure what Kirchick's beef is here. In the main, there is something weak about him not engaging Greenwald's specific charges. His post feels like one of those items that tells you more about the writer than the subject.

Hat-tip to Andrew.

The opacity of Obama

I was moderating that panel which Ross and Matt take on, in which Shelby Steele argued that Obama somehow hasn't told us who he is. I should have spoke up about that, but again I was moderating. From a policy perspective, Steele's claim is patently false--in the past month alone we've seen debates about Obama's stand on FISA, Supreme Court decisions, black absentee fathers and Israel. It seemed like half of every debate was spent on the differences between Hillary and Barack's health care proposals. I really think if you don't know where Obama stands on policy now, then your just lazy.

I think Ross's argument that Obama the person is more a mystery than most presidential candidates doesn't quite get it either. Obama wrote an incredibily revealing memoir long before he was a presidential candidate which, to my mind, detailed his inner workings pretty well. Obviously, I don't know him personally and it could all be lies. Still, I can't think of a single serious candidate for president who's admitted snorting coke. Moreover, I'd bet that a lot of voters thought the George Bush that was running in 2000 was a different man than the president they ultimately got. That's not to imply duplicity, as much as a healthy skepticism for assuming we understand people whose very livliehoods depend on them selling themselves to us.

Buchanan fights for the common man...

Caught this on TV this morning as I was getting dressed. I'd be very interested in what my fellow econ bloggers would make of this. Bottomoftheninth? Megan? Anyone?

Race and politics panel at Aspen

Now this was quite interesting. I'm really hoping these guys will give me some embed so I can post video. Anyway Matt--who attended--has his impressions here, here, here and here. The panel featured Shelby Steele, Charles Kamasaki, and Richard Thompson Ford. I had a devil of a time because I was moderating, but as many of you know, I have some deep deep--dare I say profound--disagreements with Shelby Steele. I was hoping that someone on the panel would challenge some of his more outlandish statements, but it mostly fell to me. i don't think that was out of any passivity--it wasn't Kamasaki's area, and I think Richard may be a little closer to Shelby's politics than me. I hope I'm not miscasting Richard there. Anyway, I challenged where I could--the idea that the biggest problem in America, regarding race, is white guilt was particularly ridiculous, and I said as much.

But more interesting to me was the crowd, which immediately made me understand why someone might think that white guilt was a problem.  When people say white folks are "uncomfortable" talking about race, I've basically accepted it as true. It's never been my experience--all the white people I know talk about it willingly. But once again, we're back to the differing tribes of whiteness, no? There were a few black folks in the audience (We've actually been represented well out here. Props to Aspen on that), but virtually no Latinos or Asians. More importantly, the crowd was, in the main, over fifty. What I mean is that, the crowd was of a generation where people were extremely uncomfortable discussing race.

Of course, I'm slow on the uptake. Man listen, I'm steady cracking jokes, trying to lighten the mood, and I'm getting the stone-face treatment the whole time. A riff on all the black folks rooting for the Celtics this year went over like a Toby Keith concert in Harlem. Tough crowd. Plus we got questions like "Where are all the black leaders to tell black people about social responsibility" and "Will Barack Obama be assassinated." The whole thing sort of depressed me, because I felt as a moderator, I could have done better, and yet I also wanted to be in a better position to challenge Shelby on some of his arguments. That said, again, this is where you see that the biggest divide on this whole racial conversation may not be between black and white, but between the old and the young.

UPDATE: On Monday Shelby bizarely claimed that white guilt was one of the reasons we were losing the Iraq War. I don't think I have to comment on that. But what's interesting is that it wasn't the first time he'd made such a statement.

The problem of police brutality

Ladies and gentlemen, I direct your attention to the Maryland's Prince George's County police department, which is, to my mind, the most brutal police department in America. You can read all about them here. But to give you some facts on these jokers--since 2000, they have paid out some $20 million in lawsuits for brutality. Now it's been discovered that one of the officers at a jail in PG county likely murdered a suspect in the killing of an officer.

I want to first say I've always thought it was arrogant and twisted that cops somehow are more outraged by the murder of a fellow officer, than the murder of some kid in the street. A cop is paid to risk his life. It's in the job description. But I digress. PG County has always been interesting to me for deeply personal reasons. First, it is home to the greatest concentration of black wealth in the country, and probably in the world. PG County is the only municipality in America to grow richer as it grew blacker. More pointedly, it's the only place I've ever seen that actually benefited, economically, from white flight. But despite this great largess, these guys have the sort of cops that swing night-sticks first and ask questions much, much later.

This is not mere theory to me. The picture you see above is of my old friend Prince Jones, fellow Howard University student, father to a baby girl, and great, great guy. People always say that, but I mean it. Me and Prince were in love with the same woman for a period of time, but he always carried it with class. Of course, you can see by the photo he was a handsome fellow, so it could be, that he just always had options. He's pictured in this post because eight years ago a PG county cop took Prince for a drug dealer, followed him from through Washington, into Virginia and then promptly shot him right outside the home of his girlfriend and baby daughter.

I am going to try to be fair about this. The cop was in an unmarked car, and wasn't wearing a uniform. According to his own testimony, he basically cornered Prince's car pulled out a gun--but no badge--and IDed himself as an officer. Prince. whose vehicle was hemmed in, rammed the cops car. The cop shot him Prince and he died. The officer was presumably in pursuit of a "suspect." But the suspect looked nothing like Prince, except that they were both black. All I could think when that happened was about what I would have done. The way we come up, if a black dude with dreads (which is how officer Carlton Jones looked) is following you and then he corners you, pulls a gun, but doesn't have a badge, you don't assume he's cop. You assume he's trying to rob you.

If people want to know why tempatures flair over, say, a Sean Bell, it's because the only denominator in all of these cases is color. The fact that Prince was doing the right thing with his life--raising a baby girl, finishing up a degree--meant nothing. He ended up in the same way as a suspected cop-killer. It was later found that the officer who killed Prince had lied in several drug cases, all of which had to be tossed out. Think Carlton Jones was tossed off the force for, essentially, malpractice? No. Dude was cleared of all charges, and as of 2006, is back on the PG County force, "protecting" your children.

No more complaints about how black kids act in public please

You really don't want to go there, dun. It's now cliche for white folks looking to justify their own paranoia and fears to invoke rowdy black kids on the train, with no parents, acting a fool. Word up, I hate it to. But my ability to see this threw a racial lens is undercut by one observable fact--white kids act a fool in full view of their parents. In the last three months, I've seen a white child hit his mother, tell her mother to shut up, and run up and down a subway car, ignoring his parents pleas to stop. Yesterday, on my plane to Denver, I watched a white kid get up and walk the aisle--while the plane was ascending. He kept going even after the stewardess warned him.

I've been watching scenes like this for much of my adult life, and there are some pretty good stats which show that white parents are much more permissive than black parents. This doesn't just mean that black parents are more likely to spank (though they are) but punishment in general:

...black parents punish their children more than white parents in all ways. If you're black and you misbehave, you're both more likely to get spanked and more likely to lose your allowance than your white neighbor, who in turn is both more likely to get spanked and more likely to lose his allowance than the Hispanic kid down the street. So on average, poor people spank more and withdraw allowances less, whereas black people spank more and withdraw allowances more.

Anyway, it's always amazes me how white folks--and black folks--will talk about how black kids act in public, but miss the obvious parallel among white folks. I know the white kid with his mother is just rude, while the black kid is "scary," but to me, they're just annoying--both of them. And that brings me back to a sort of equality I can embrace--Black and white folks, please yoke up your kids, so I don't have to.

From the desk of the ugly American...

I mean really, this is just stupid:

School officials in Terrebonne Parish are considering a policy that would require all commencement speeches to be in English.

The proposal comes after Hue and Cindy Vo, cousins who were co-valedictorians at Ellender High School, delivered part of their commencement addresses last month in Vietnamese.

Cindy Vo, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, spoke about high-school memories, friends and the future. Then Ms. Vo, 18, recited a sentence in Vietnamese dedicated to her parents, as they watched. She told classmates that the line, roughly translated, was a command to always be your own person.

A sentence? Just a sentence?? Turns out Vo's parents barely speak English, and people are pissed that she had the temerity to adress them in words they might understand.

Keep up the pressure folks

Seriously, just because we support Obama and think he's the best guy for the job doesn't mean we don't stay on him.

A reason to not vote for Obama

I am going to guess that this notion that Obama will support religious charities ability to hire and fire, based on faith, is false. It better be. I know New York isn't up for grabs, but I can't, in good conscience, support a candidate who would take that sort of step. Your basically talking about state-sponsored discrimination, no? This qualification doesn't help one bit:

He also only supports letting religious institutions hire and fire based on faith in the non-taxypayer funded portions of their activities, said a senior adviser to the campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the new policy.

I'm already uneasy about expanding faith-based charities, precisely because of crap like this.

UPDATE: The Obama camp claims AP has the story wrong, and even after ammending, they say it's still wrong.

Some thoughts on poverty, black folks and libertarianism

As I've said, there are certain things that I will never bend on--gay marriage, abortion, the war on drugs etc. I also hate demagogues and bullies, hence my general lukewarm feelings for race-based Affirmative Action, but utter disgust at people who want to use it to score points, while ignoring the broader context of preferences. I utterly despise people who make their living writing reports which disparage the pathology of the black poor, and yet spend no time talking with/living around/having a meal with actual black poor people.

But other things, I'm less rigid on. I arrived in lovely Aspen last night for this Ideas festival. Later today, I will moderate a panel on race and politics, featuring Shelby Steele, Charles Kamasaki, and Richard Thompson Ford. I'll report back on that later. But as for the trip, for most of it, when I wasn't admiring the shocking beauty of the Rockies or reeling over the majesty of "Heaven or Hell" ("So now we see him up in BoJangles/Stranglin a forty ounce, with ten G's worth of gold bangles/Diamonds, what, all up in his face/ With his man's mace, medallions the size of dinner plates" effing incredible), I kept mulling over this rather shocking blog post:

I know, far out in right-field. To put it as plainly as I can: I don't believe in a governmental attempt to engineer a substantively "fair" society through taxation.  I see taxation as a necessary evil to pay for those few social goods that private individuals cannot provide for themselves. And the mode of taxation, in my view, should be as simple and as market-friendly as possible and should treat citizens equally, irrespective of their incomes. I believe in formal equality and a very limited state, not substantive equality and the welfare state.

And:

I'm happy with the government then setting up programs to assist the poor, to provide better education for those at the bottom, safety-net healthcare and better policing. i.e. to gear spending toward social ends that might help the poor the most. These are measurable, practical goods. What I'm not happy with is the assumption that tax policy should really be about redistributing wealth, and engineering substantive economic outcomes. Yes, of course, at lower income levels, a 20 percent flat income tax will be more onerous proportionally than at higher incomes. So what? Why should that even concern a government that is not aiming to socially engineer more substantive equality? and the alternative - skewing taxes to target success - is an absurd set of incentives to put into a growing society.

Am I heartless? I hope not. I just don't believe that having a heart is what government should be about. It's what the rest of us should be about.

I'm not shocked that Andrew wrote this--I'm fairly familiar with his vaguely libertarian politics. I was more shocked by the baldness with which he expressed it. Anyway, my liberalism never originated in a belief that there were a cabal of white oligarchs conspiring to keep the black poor down. More likely, people just protect their interest. Because of how I came up, because I've lived around black poor and working folks all my life, my immediate sympathies are there, and always will be. But my sympathies are moral, or rather emotional, they aren't necessarily logical.

Continue reading "Some thoughts on poverty, black folks and libertarianism" »

A good man

Jonathan Weisman apologizes for saying Barack was "much more white than black." It's a credit to Weisman that he doesn't hedge in his apology--he explains, then says the explanation isn't a defense, and then he apologize. Frankly, his apology made me think that I should have picked up a phone or sent him a note before ripping him.

Funny of the day...

Heh, a self proclaimed "black Republican" group is trying to woo black voters away from Obama. Because black Republicans are so popular in the black community.