Ta-Nehisi Coates: August 2008 Archives

The Axe

The trolling is getting off the hook, and the truth is that all the weapons I have at my disposal are brutal, inartful and indiscriminate. If you're an innocent who happens to get chopped by a wild swing, if you notice your comments held for quarrantine, my apologies--be consoled in the knowledge that it's for the greater good.

There is a God

So I'm not religious, but this is the sort of thing that will pull me out my heathenism. Focus on the Family dude prays for rain at the Dem convention, now the GOP may have to cancel their convention because of hurricane headed to Gulf region. Heh. Alright, alright I know the dude was being humorous. Still, come on my conservative brethren...this is a freebie!

Some clarity

This:

This post makes me sad. One of the most corrosive forces in modern American politics is the idea that anyone who disagrees with you, or sits on the other side of the isle, can't possibly have a rational reason for it. So they must be dumb, or evil, or both.
If you don't understand why people think the way they do -- beyond "they must be dumb, there's no other explanation" -- then you'll have a harder time beating them, whether in an argument or an election.
Besides, idiotic and ineffective mud-slinging is par for the course in any election. Either side. People made fun of Kerry over ketchup. Bush was unfit for the presidency because he was a cheerleader. If that bothers you, don't just switch it on 'em.

And this:

I think it is a big mistake to consider Palin to be "dumb," and suspect that is part of the rationale behind the selection. she gave an interview to Maria Bartiromo for CNBC, and on the subject of energy, she is very conversant. Yes, she advocates the "drill here, drill now" philosophy, but she does so in a way that will appeal to Mr. and Mrs. NASCAR, and even more so with creationist/pro-life NASCAR Gimme CHEAP Gas crowd.

I want to be very clear here. The point isn't that Palin is stupid--it isn't even neccessarily Palin. The point is that a strategy that seeks to make an issue out of Honest Tea and arugula, to preach intelligent design as science, to claim govenorship of Alaska as foreign policy is dishonest and an appeal to ignorance. Palin's intelligence is beside the point--equating intelligent design with evoloution is either, on its face, ignorance or an appeal to ignorance. Arguing that arugula consumption should have something to do with presidency is either ignorance--or an appeal to it. Now, you may not agree with that formulation--but it clearly isn't the same as saying that Palin--or anyone who disagrees with me--is dumb.

It's also worth saying that Asher is right--candidates appeal to ignorance all the time. I'm a lefty so I'm going to see it more in the GOP. But for what it's worth, I don't think the number of homes John McCain owns is--in and of itself--any statement on his knowledge of the economy.

The GOP's new campaign theme: Are you dumber than a third grader?

That's what this election comes down to. Do you think drinking Honest Tea disqualifies you from the presidency? Do you think global warming comes from comet dust? Do you think evolution is the work of the gene-fairy? And do you think being governor of Alaska gives you foreign policy experience via osmosis? If so, you're surely dumber than a third-grader, so vote McCain\Palin.

The dishonesty of Karl Rove

I don't blame him--he's doing what he's supposed to do. But the idea that reporters give this guy a platform is amazing. Here's Rove on Tim Kaine. Of course Barack did the exact opposite of what Rove said. Fifty bucks that Rove changes his tune on Palin. Journalists should be ashamed of themselves for letting this dude camouflage his propaganda as insight.

Ronnie Lott hits harder than you

Goddamn this dude could hit--I think only Steve Atwater comes close. I know Primetime is the greatest cornerback, probably ever, but Ronnie Lott inspired more fear than any player I've ever seen maybe short of LT. And just because of the position he played, Lott may have inspired more fear. With LT, you always knew he was coming. But with Lott--because he was a safety--you never knew necessarily where he was coming from, if at all.

This video is bitter-sweet for me. The most poignant moments are not when Lott delivers a blow--though that Icky Woods joint is off the chain--but when he takes the worst of a collision. I love that because it shows that what made Lott so ferocious wasn't so much his physicality per se, but his mentality. He hit like he had nothing in the world to lose. I know a lot of pro players have paid for that mentality, and I guess that's why its kinda bitter. At the same time, there is something deeply spiritual about watching this dude continuously sacrifice his body. It mirrors the way I've always tried to approach life--go big or go home as my buddy David Carr says. I think that's what I love about football. There's no half-assing anything. Either you're going to be fearless or you're going to get ran over. It's such a metaphor for life. There is no substitute for mental courage.

A note on my colleagues

Obviously on many issues I disagree with a good number of my fellow bloggers here, and on occasion I even say so. I also realize that there are some readers who are frustrated that only two of the blogs at The Atlantic allow comments. I would quit blogging before I closed all comments. But that's me, and it's more reflective of my social and psychological needs than any sense of grand magnamity.

I understand the frustration with not being able to publically shout back at the bloggers here not named McArdle or Coates. Still, I'd really appreciate if people didn't use this blog as a place to uncharitably air their differences with my colleagues. They aren't off-limits, per se, but I don't want to be a conduit for personal venom. I'm not here to defend those cats--we obviously have deep fundamental differences. But I am here to defend this small room in the ongoing Atlantic House Party. You may think Ross/Andrew/Marc is the spawn of the devil himself--and you may be right. But that's why they each have a giant "E-mail Me" button on their page. Please make use of it.

UPDATE: Stupid of me to make a post like this and leave comments open. Fixt.

She ain't a crook, son...

This is a great, great post by Josh which elegantly and simply distills TrooperGate. Reading this, I can see I've actually underestimated this story and its Alberto Gonzales-like implications. Old girl didn't simply pursue a vendetta against her creep ex-brother-in-law. She pursued said vendetta, came up completely empty and, instead, took out a civil servant who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong-time. Read the piece. It's not shocking because of the revenge factor, politcians clap back at their enemies all the time. It's shocking because of the ineptness of said revenge. I've always said that the biggest problem with the Bushies wasn't that they were thugs---it's that they're fake thugs.

UPDATE: As a commenter below reminds, it's also only right that I give the Post their due for this story, given how hard I went at them this morning.

Elitism Bait

The entire Sarah Palin pick comes down to one thing--the hope that George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, or (God forbid) Will.I.Am. will make a joke about moose-burgers. At that point, the McCain campaign will cut an ad which says They're laughing at you. Vote for McCain and you can show the world. You can show them all! Of course said ad will never appear on television but will be screened only for the media--who will then do their job and turn the cable news into giant echo chamber in which the "Real Americans" yell They're all gonna laugh at you! They're all gonna laugh at you! Welcome to Victimology 101--the White Working Class Edition. Oh well. I personally prefer this ad. More please.

Weak-sauce defined

What an incredibly thin and one-sided story by the Post on the Palin selection. You can almost see the McCain folks calling up the reporter promising exclusive access--except they just offered a bunch of anonymous quotes. Talk about hard dick and bubble-gum, the Post gave away premium inches and in exchange got a press release in disguise:

Far from being a last-minute tactical move or a second choice when better known alternatives were eliminated, Palin was very much in McCain's thinking from the beginning of the selection process, according to McCain's advisers. The 44-year-old governor made every cut as the first list of candidates assembled last spring was slowly winnowed. The more McCain learned about her, the more attracted he was to her as someone who shared his maverick, anti-establishment instincts.

Never mind that the McCain campaign, themselves, said that they would only make a pick after Obama made his. The real deal is that this is strawmanship posing as a nut graffe. The real question is how heavily was she vetted? Why did McCain only meet with her about the job once? Instead we get vague cliches like "maverick anti-establishment instincts." That phrase is so lazy, and so weak, that it borders on the offensive. As a quick aside, it's also--I think--one of the biggest reason blogs are giving mainstream media hell, right now. That phrase is exactly the sort of bullshit that Serious Journalists laughingly fling at each other on Sunday morning talk shows, only to retreat to their offices, the next day, and wonder why no one is reading them. Anyway, at least we have the cheetos-munchers over at TPM to sift through the stupidity:

Booo...Boooo!

You trying to get elected
But the crowd are my paid hecklers
--El-P

Heh, courtesy of Andrew, Sarah Palin strains the borders of cynicism:

As she did at in her debut speech in Ohio yesterday, Palin appealed to the women in the crowd here in Pennsylvania with a political shout-out to Geraldine Ferraro, who preceded Palin as the first women to be tapped as a vice presidential candidate.
But in contrast with the mild reception that greeted her comments at the Ohio event, when Palin praised Clinton here for showing "determination and grace in her presidential campaign," the Alaska governor was met with a noisy mix of boos, groans and grumbles around the minor league ballpark where the "Road to the Convention Rally" was held.

Words from the Arch-Bishop

Frequent commenter Deborah sums up the smart approach to Palin:

Don't underestimate her. Give her plenty of credit, and let her hang herself with enough rope. At least if she doesn't, you're then playing on equal footing, rather than pouting about how she fooled everyone.

One good thing about Obama's campaign is that they specialize in the deft touch. I am worried about Biden in a debate with her, but these guys know how to tear someone down and have the media only catch on to it weeks later--think about their high/low strategy of hitting McCain with "smart-ads" that neither play nationally nor are screened for media.

This is a situation that calls for the Dagger of Venom, not the Horn of Blasting. Word up. We talking to you, Goldfarb. Smacking fire at your ass, Tiamat-style. Know what I'm saying, kid? Somehow, I think you do.

About those Hillary voters

Nate Silver does the knowledge:

What's interesting, however, is that while there is a gender gap in these numbers, it's not the one many observers were anticipating. Rather, along a variety of metrics, men like the Palin choice better than women:

These numbers pretty much speak for themselves, but men have a favorable imperssion of Palin by a 35-point margin, whereas women have a favorable impression of her by an 18-point margin. Conversely, by a 23-point margin, women do not think Palin is ready to be President, whereas Palin lost this question among men by a considerably smaller 6-point magrin.

Why does this gap exist? Don't know, but it may simply be a matter of ideology. Men are generally a bit more conservative than women, and opinions of Palin are very strongly determined by ideology.

I have to say that I'm not surprised that women are harder on Palin than men---she's repping for them, after all. But moreover, I'd be utterly surprised if there weren't an "insult factor" at work here. More to the point, I bet there's a strong possibility that a portion of Hillary voters will actually be repelled by the pick of Palin. I'd be very interested to see how these numbers broke down by age, for instance. The more I think about this, the more ite appears that the upside here is in locking down the evangelicals. I don't know what else there could be. It's not like McCain needed help with men, or working class whites.

Pity the Bengals

Remember when Chad Johnson was the less-egotistical, more fun-loving version of T.O? These days, not so much.

On grammar

In all seriousness, if grammar is that interesting, I can start a post each day where we can list and debate my grammatical errors. I'm not being sarcastic. If people will post, debate and are interested, I would do it. I get to get better, generate some traffic and the threads don't get diverted. Up to you guys.

The limits of media manipulation

Matt deftly summarizes something I've been thinking about, since the days of the Clinton campaign:

The Obama team is constantly frustrating progressive bloggers and news junkies by being extremely cavalier about the news cycle. They don't seem especially interesting in pouncing on gaffes or in responding to accusations, and they're not especially quick on the draw or generous with talking points. Instead, they have a very inner-directed approach that's all about building and cultivating the Obama brand to their own specifications and on their own schedule. The McCain campaign's not like that at all. They're obsessed with winning the news cycle and they're good at it. But they're much less interested in the McCain brand. That's one thing you see with the "POW! POW! POW!" schtick -- McCain's war record is a great asset so they don't hesitate to bust it out in all kinds of situations irrespective of the fact that busting it out constantly undermines the asset and creates a powerful negative counter-narrative. What you see with the Palin pick, from a political strategy point of view, is I think the McCain campaign's focus on winning the news cycle taken to a myopic and senseless extreme.

I think it was Ken Auletta who said that there was no left or right-wing bias in media--only a bias toward the bottom line. The McCain strategy has pay-offs for both media and for the campaign. Basically McCain's people need only release a fulminating press release or screen a commercial for an assemblage of reporters to get some free publicity. Meanwhile news orgs, get to generate content simply by either quoting dueling spokespeople, "strategists" of dubious repute, or cribbing from the latest press release.

This is the essence of McStory--but it seems to me to have limited returns and serious risks. First, "dominating the news-cycle" is the sort of thinking that flatters reporters and encourages them to give a campaign points whether or not there is any discernable impact. It gives the news-media an unearned sense of importance and makes people think MSNBC was somehow more decisive in the Democratic primary than team Obama's superior knowledge of the primary system.

Continue reading "The limits of media manipulation" »

Hyperlinks make everyone happy

Hmmm. I agree with Reihan that if you want to defeat McCain/Palin it's a bad idea to mock the names of her kids. For obvious reasons, I always thought the worst part of Bill Cosby's diatribe was his attack on "black names." As a quick aside, I didn't realize there was a such thing as a "black name" until I went to college. I knew way more Keishas than Ambers. But I think if you're going to bust on liberals for snideness, you'll need more than a joke site. I'm sure that there will be plenty of latte-sipping, dinner party-attending, wine track lefties snapping on old girl. But somehow I don't think those people will be introducing Barack Obama at a campaign rally.

Because it's Friday

And all your base are belonging to 'Kast. Goddamn they always made me proud to be black.

Outkast - Bombs Over Baghdad
by hushhush112

Outkast - So Fresh, So Clean
by G-Mike

Basically

You guys are gonna O.D. on Sarah Palin today. Oh well. I'm in hotel room outside Denver holding until it's time for my Red Eye back to New York. I need the company. Anyway here Peter Scolbic sonning John McCain. (I'm going to run that word into a hole, if only because the response to it was so hilarious):

McCain undoubtedly thinks he has his national security bases covered; picking Palin shows that, unlike Obama, he doesn't need an eminence grise like Biden to add heft to his ticket. But surely McCain recognizes that Palin may have to fill his shoes someday. By choosing her anyway, he has demonstrated hubris well beyond anything Obama has displayed on his most arrogant day: a belief that he can master unforeseen circumstances, physical and otherwise, that are well beyond his control. This is insulting and dangerous and suggests that McCain may want to think twice before accusing Obama of putting his personal ambition ahead of the national interest.

I heard Paul Begala make this point earlier. Dems should be leery of directly attacking Palin, if only because they don't have to. All they have to do is ask what this choice says about McCain. What does it mean that a dude puts someone a heartbeat away from the nuke button who he's only met once? Especially claiming Barack Obama wasn't ready. That is the real question.

Worlds collide

I just watched Chris Matthews correct Pat Buchanan who kept calling Sarah Palin--a 44-year old woman--"gal." Buchanan called her this just as he was claiming she was feminist. Also, apparently, McCain did nothing close to a vetting. But she eats moose-burgers!

A note about typos

As you guys have undoubtedly noticed, of my many weaknesses, my penchant for typos is supreme. A few things that I want to be clear about:

1.) I take zero offense at being corrected. I'd rather have corrections not accompanied by sarcasm, but if I'm in the wrong, I'm in the wrong. If you point out something I've done that's grammatically incorrect, I'll gladly fix it--and thank you for doing so.

2.) I have no idea how my brain works, but I'm almost hardwired to fumble words and place commas where they don't belong. My magazine copy was never particularly clean, but I usually could hold it a few days, re-read it and catch most of the errors. I usually hold my blog posts a couple hours in hopes of doing the same. But, as you can imagine, it's not quite as effective.

3.) As you likely know, I'm working without an editor--thus errors will make their way into blog posts. If that's a deal-breaker for you, if the sheer number significantly detracts from your ability to enjoy the blog, then you probably should look elsewhere. I don't say that in defiance--I think it's perfectly defensible to throw up your hands and say, "Enough." I just know my own limits. I'm pretty good at seeing the world in different ways, not so good at presenting the world in a pretty package.

4.) I promise to get better. You're just going to have to trust me on this one guys. I'm actively working to make sure that my copy is cleaner and easier to read. My hope is that a year from now, you will see the difference. I know that this is a problem. I don't intend for it to remain one though.

5.) As always, thanks much for reading.

One way for Palin to help McCain

If I were Sarah Palin, I would go on Hardball with Chris Matthews every other week. If anyone can remake a rabid creationist pro-lifer into an icon of feminism, it's Matthews. Who wants to bet on how many times Matthews comments on how "beautiful" Palin is? Remember this?

Favorite clip of MLK

UPDATE: Bumped for justice. Sorry I watched this again just. It's always incredible. He almost fades away at the end. The word is that he was so exhausted that he almost fainted when he walked back. If you look, you can see someone (maybe Abernathy?) catch him as he falls. Is it wrong that I thought of Jordan falling into the arms of Pippen in the "flu-game?" Obviously not the same. Anyway, this clip is about courage, and this was the clip that convinced--as a very young Malcolmite--of the courage of nonviolence, and the power of the moral high ground. MLK should be on this country's currency. He is, as far as I am concerned, the most important non-president in American history. He is the founding father of modern American.

Seems appropriate. I've always loved this, makes me choke up whenever I see it. What? You were expecting Malcolm's "Ballot or the Bullet?" It's not that sort of night...

Alaska, do we have a problem?

Would love to hear from my Midnight Sun peoples. What's the deal with old girl?

McCain's abortion kabuki

Here's another thing McCain just lost--any veneer of being a "moderate" on abortion. Did we mention that Palin is not simply pro-life, but pro-life in all cases except the life/death of the mother. In other words, in cases of rape and incest, Palin believes the government should force women to go through with the pregnancy. I think it will be very clear where these guys stand from here on out. And I think it's more of us than there are of them.

One criticism of Obama's speech and race

There was one person who I wanted to hear from yesterday, even more than John Lewis--Joseph Lowery. He is not only the oldest link to Martin Luther King, he was the first of the old-guard cats to really see what Obama could be. While Andy Young was joking about Bill Clinton being blacker than Obama, and Jesse was complaining that Barack was running his campaign like he was white, while scared Negroes were fretting that Obama would ruin the Democratic Party, Joseph Lowery--in his mid-80s mind you--was dropping it on fools like this. Talk about never scared..

Is the experience argument over?

Isn't the biggest problem with a Sarah Palin pick that by McCain's own standard, she fails:

John McCain's central and best argument in this campaign is that Barack Obama simply lacks the experience to be President of the United States. And now John McCain, who is a cancer survivor who turns 72 years old today, is picking a vice presidential nominee who has been governor of a small state for less than two years and prior to that was mayor of a town with roughly one-twenty-seventh of the citizens that Barack Obama represented when he was a state senator in Illinois.

Also, if you're making a play for Hillary voters---older, middle-aged white women in rust-belt states--is the way to get it done by bypassing, say, Carly Fiorina and Kay Bailey Hutchison, to pick a former Ms. Alaska who's only been governor for two years? There's a meme about Barack Obama reminding older women of the slick, handsome guy who beat them out for a big promotion, even though they were more qualified. But here's another very likely meme--Sarah Palin as the inexperienced, younger, attractive woman who beats them out for a promotion, even though they were more qualified.

UPDATE: Just want to bang on that last point a little more, as I just got off the phone with Kenyatta. I think there are some weakness to being a party associated with identity politics, and hopefully, the Dems are moving past that. But if you think about it, this is the sort of mistake you make when you have only a vague understanding of sexism and women's issues. I may be very, very, very wrong about this, but let me go out on a limb. I think "Hillary voters" can only resent Barack Obama but so much because he actually won an election. He wasn't appointed--he actually won, and that's a crucial difference.

Palin was appointed by a 72-year old man who passed over many more qualified, older women for a much younger, ~~former~~ runner-up for Mrs. Alaska with a thin resume. Add in the fact that this is a dude who left his wife after coming home from Vietnam for a much younger rich, former rodeo queen and you have the makings of a narrative. And it's not the sort of narrative that attracts "Hillary voters,"--it's the sort of narrative that attracts dirty old men. To be clear, I'm not saying that that's what McCain is. In fact, I think it's the opposite--this looks more hamfisted than sexist.

McCain VP Thread

11:38 Damn, a brother can't even get in a jog without news breaking. Sarah Palin it is.

9:53 TNC headed out for a run. I'm in beautiful Denver and haven't gotten any miles in since I've been here. Back in an hour or so. Remember--Only you can fight forest trolls. Do the right thing guys.

9:42 CNN is reporting that sources point to Palin. Mostly by process of elimination, it looks like.

9:00 No Sarah Palin, looks like. Cats are talking Joe Lieberman. God, I so hope it's him. Do it. Do it. Do it.

8:32 Now they're talking Ridge. On another note, damn those freecreditreport commercials are annoying. When did corny-ass music become a credible sales pitch? I'm so out of touch.

8:25--NBC is talking Sarah Palin. Chuck Todd says Romney and Pawlenty are out. I wanted Romney, and I thought Pawlenty was the best bet. But apparently it's neither. Damn, I really wanted to see a Romney vs. Biden debate. Biden would have decapitated him.

Back to Thoreau

I've always struggled with the inherent solitude that comes with being a writer. Decided this was a good time to finish Walden. Was looking through this morning and came a line that defines my entire approach to journalism and to life. Dig this:

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.

Man, that is beautiful. Obviously it's not that I don't interview folks--I think reporting is the essence of writing. But the writer should always be aware that he is the filter. First person has been given a bad name in journalism by a lot of people who just were bad writers--first person or not. Me, I'd like to see more of it. Nothing is more annoying than reading some story and seeing a journalist refer to herself as "the reporter" or "when a reporter asked..." It's like dude, we see you. You're right there.

West, Malveaux and Smiley

Here's a clip from the discussion last night This is the sort of thing that makes me afraid to blog. What I see there is a reaction more out of anger than any real consideration of strategy. The thing about Barack is that for all his rhetoric, he's a pragmatist, and he's a politician. Half the reason for having John Lewis, for having the film of MLK, for having MLK's kids is so that Obama is free to focus on winning the election. I don't think you do that but making the speech a paean to MLK--God bless him. How many votes is that going to get you? When you're on the battlefield, you don't pause put down your sword and sheild to praise God for allowing you the privelige of being there. Do that after the battle's won.

A question which only Big L could answer

Here's an interesting one:

Can you son a woman? I just need to get the details straight for future use around the water cooler.

Hmm, I actually don't think you can. It just doesn't sound right--something abusive about it. You can put a woman "on blast" though, as in, Keith Olbermann just put Anne Coulter on blast. That probably is more in line with the laws of Ebonics, no?

Did Barack need more MLK references?

From JGR:

Hey Ta-Nehisi, have you watched Tavis yet tonight? Drs. Julianne Malveaux and Cornell West just unloaded on Barack for not talking about Dr. King enough. Basically dismissed the whole speech for not saying the words: "Dr. Martin Luther King."
I'd like to know what you think. I hate to even think it, but was that jealousy? Pride? Is it something about the talented tenth wanting their props? It sure seems like Barack knows what he's doing, so I'm not going to jump to any conclusions. The name was conspicuously absent, and the journey to this historic moment was not especially built up. Basically, this did sound like a "post-racial" political speech, and ironically a lot of folks might not like that kind of "post-racial" (especially if it means you have to downplay the people that came before you).
I'll leave it there, but it was an interesting moment. I'll continue to think about it, but please let us know what you think after you check it out.

I don't know. We had the John Lewis tribute and the film. I don't see it as particularly postracial. I see it in much more simpler terms--as my buddy Jabari Asim says, Barack Obama is running for president of the United States, not president of the Urban League. But moreover, I just don't have much respect for the "kissing the ring" critique. I think you can hit Obama for not pushing specific issues that are important to the black community--I don't know what they are--but I would at least respect that. The problem with this idea that Barack isn't talking about "black issues" is that the most important issues to black people right now--the war, jobs, the economy, education--are "American Issues." So what then? If black people--your base--mostly want to hear about the same issues that most Americans want to hear about, where is the impetus to not talk about those issues? I don't quite get it...

UPDATE: One other thing. This theme keeps recurring that Obama isn't claiming his blackness like he needs to during this campaign. I just got off the phone with one of my best friends who just basically nailed it--I need Obama's policies to be progressive. I don't need him to be a civil rights leader. Ironically, no one has pushed this angle harder than Al Sharpton. My requirements for Barack Obama--as a black man running for president--are very simple: I need him to publicily be affectionate to his wife and kids, to acknowledge them whenever possible. That, really, is the only extra burden I put on him.

Wow MSNBC is nuts

Keith Olbermann just sonned some dude from AP--Charles Babington--for writing this:

...instead of dwelling on specifics, he laced the crowning speech of his long campaign with the type of rhetorical flourishes that Republicans mock and the attacks on John McCain that Democrats cheer. The country saw a candidate confident in his existing campaign formula: tie McCain tightly to President Bush, and remind voters why they are unhappy with the incumbent.

Let's go

11:08 Pity Juan Williams. Just made the mistake of turning to him on Fox. He's supposed to be the liberal over there, but he's going hard after Barack. It's really sad, not because he disagrees, but because he disagrees with him on nothing substantial. He just attacked the dude for not mentioning MLK enough. Sad.

11:00 I know I said it--but the fact that Barack's family is so multiracial is just starting to hit me. You know blackness can be blinding, for so long that's what I saw. Not saying it wasn't important. But there's just so much more at work there.

10:56 Goddamn. Owned. And all that other good shit. Dude he killed. That didn't even feel half as long as folks said it would be. In the words of Wu--shackling the masses with drastic rap tactics.

10:54 Was wondering when he'd get to MLK. Also, best comment of the night from AJ:

"It's about you." Holy shit. I'm in love!
Is that gay?

10:49 Props on the Gay/Lesbian deal. What he's doing here is exposing the inhumanity of strict ideology. He's fixing his opponents in one place, while he dances and jabs.

10:46 Man he's in the zone. I actually fear for McCain having to give a speech at the end of the GOP convention. And now he takes it to him directly, "I've got news for you John McCain. We all put our country first."

10:42 "John McCain likes to say he'll follow Gates of Hell, but he won't even follow him to the cave where he lives." Delivered with feeling. He's bringing the battle-axe tonight. Not the dagger.

10:39 I like the individual responsibility going from the environment to the kids. At least the Negroes didn't bear the brunt of it tonight. McCain has no answer for that line. Once he concedes individual responsibility, I think it gets hard to argue that the government should do nothing. That's why that "You're on your own" riff was great.

On another note, damn, I wish he would pick up that "Candidate McCain" joint that Kerry used the other night.

10:37 I'm the only one in the world bored by policy in political speeches. I know. But I hate it. It's not like you can''t see dude's platform.

Continue reading "Let's go" »

Text of the speech

I hate reading these things before they're presented. But if you're interested, read after the jump:

Continue reading "Text of the speech" »

Yal'm Goin Be There

Heh. Michael McDonald just sung "America The Beautiful." Interesting racial symbolism, no?

John Lewis is pumped

I've come down hard on black folks over 50, sometimes more out of generational anger than any real reason. I'm reminded of that watching John Lewis, who is pulling from deep to give his speech right now.

The shocking racism of PUMA

Oh who am I kidding, they are who we thought they were.It is sort of sickening how they always go for Michelle, and doubly how they impute their own fears on her. These guys are sicker than any West Virginia racist who makes moves out of ignorance. These folks move with complete suicidal awareness. Hillary should have smacked them down months ago.

Well that does it for the Lieberman VP talk

Not that I'm into polls, but this is tough. Man, how unpopular is this guy?

Affirmative Action vs. Legacies

All around cool-ass dude Chris Bodenner sends us this Wash Times editorial comparing legacies and race based AA. It's pretty interesting:

Authors Nathan D. Martin and Kenneth I. Spenner show that Duke's legacies underperform as freshmen, are less likely to pursue challenging disciplines including pre-med or engineering and, generally, are less likely to pursue further study. Even the fact that their grades improve measurably during the sophomore year and remain improved is itself an argument for the inherent unfairness of legacy admissions. Why should the children of privilege get a leg up? But that question is hardly the end of the matter.

The Times can't bring itself to really bang on the hypocrisy of it all, but still it's a fair-minded piece. I think it also highlights the fact that this idea that AA is some sort of flagrant violation of the great American meritocracy is bull. I have no sympathy for people who think AA is a sin against the American dream.

An oddly compelling look into the life of Lanny Davis

I don't know why I finished reading this, but I did. What a weird article about a weird guy. I almost--almost--think he has some sort of weird crush on Hillary.

Beef is when anchors ain't safe up in the streets

I knew I didn't imagine this the other night. Eric Alterman chronicles the infighting at MSNBC--with video.

Best speech at the convention

Let me concur with Andrew and Josh. This was simply an incredible speech. I don't know how people get up there and show zero passion. John Kerry brought it. I felt so bad for how he went down. But it looked like he pulled from all of that pain and just offered up an incredible speech. I caught it on NPR while driving toward the Pepsi Center. Funny thing is, had I been watching the networks, I would have missed it. Anyway, see for yourself.

When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

Just make some shit up:

we still have not taken the measure of Obama: What sort of man is he? He is famously the man from everywhere, which means nowhere. He has a great and moving personal story, but he seems to withhold something -- to not need you as much as you need him. This is the essence of charisma: a cold love that goes only one way.

This is how a columnist says that he doesn't like you while maintaining a scintilla of credibility amongst your equally vapid Washington scribblers. When you're too weak to just out and say you hate somebody's guts, you just pull together as many strawmen as you can find. "The man from everywhere, which means nowhere," is barely functional English. Seriously I would flunk a high school freshman for writing that. "Obama, seems to withold something." Really? Maybe he used to be a druggie? Maybe he was born to a single mom? Maybe he used to belong to a church that was unapologetically black? I think Obama should write a memoir which would then be hailed as penetrating and reflective. Yeah, that would get Cohen on his side

Uhm, Chargers fans...

Norv Turner has never been the strongest coach, but I can't figure why he doesn't make Shawn Merriman sit this season:

The star outside linebacker returned from Miami on Tuesday after seeking yet another opinion on his knee.
Merriman said last week he has two torn ligaments in his left knee and has been told by doctors that he could suffer a possible career-ending injury if he attempts to play without having surgery.

Incredible.

The essence of boredom

Watching the roll-call vote. I was never one for ceremony. Maybe I'm missing something...

UPDATE: But dude from New Mexico should be announcing for boxing. He rocked.

Business as usual

Lady De Rothchild does it again:

"It feels like this is the last big party before a general election that the Democrats are sure to lose," said de Rothschild, who was wearing a button honoring Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the late Ohio congresswoman, and fervent Clinton supporter, who died last week from a brain aneurysm. "It's the political equivalent of re-arranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. It feels like that because of the polls. The pick of Joe Biden telescoped that Barack Obama knows his weaknesses. He doesn't have experience in foreign policy and he does not connect well to ordinary people, and Joe Biden doesn't fix that. He just magnifies the problem. He's a fine guy. I want him to go back to the Senate."

Last Thing

Building off the post from last night about Obama being a surprise, I'm interested in this idea that Hillary was the "perfect storm" for a president. From my--very male--perspective, she was anything but. Furthermore there seems to be a whole slew of women in govenorships and in the Senate who could eventually contend. Plus--as someone pointed out yesterday--women actually are a majority of the electorate. Why the sense of doom?

By the way though

Man I caught Al Sharpton today at the African-American Caucus. He killed. He should have gotten a good speaking slot. He was totally on message too--basically told the crowd to not allow themselves to be divided. At one point he addressed Barack's "blackness" and said something like. "The tell us he's too black. Then they tell he's too white. But it doens't matter because too us, he's alrigh." He was really good and was able to put "black issues" in an "American issues" context.

Coates on the run

Chasing Michelle Obama around Denver today guys. Sorry for being out of touch. I'll be back with you this evening. I know, I know. Get a MFing air-card. What I can I say? I'm slow on some things.

Mika Brzezinski

Man I'm watching her on Morning Joe. Good lord is she the Alan Colmes of MSNBC? Man they just walk right over her. Joe and Pat just push her aside. Why is she on the show? The irony of course, is that I'm watching them do this just as they're praising Hillary Clinton's run.

UPDATE: Closed the thread. Sorry guys, I'm going to be on and offline. This could get out of hand.

And Here...We...Go!

11:06 This was a big, big, big magnanimous speech. Perfect antidote to PUMA-ism, in that it put it all in historical perspective. When you consider it all in the sweep of history, it makes holding out because you're angry, because you don't like the Iowa caucus system seem so small. I actually wanted to hear more. I was sorry she was done. Harriet Tubman was just murder.

11:05 Wow Harriet Tubman. Wow. That was great.

11:03 Props to Seneca Falls.

11:02 Oh man, she's ripping McCain. The "Equal pay for equal work" line was murder. I wasn't sure she would do that.

11:00 Alright, so even as an Obama supporter, I like her pressing him on health-care. Good line.

10:59 And props to the Big Bill. Got him to smile.

10:57 She's rolling now. That "Were you in it" riff basically nailed it--again.

10:49 She looks good too. Working the orange. Makeup and hair is tight. Sorry guys, I'm kind of a fashion-head too. Even if I dress like Larry David. One day when I'm a rich well compensated writer, I'll dress like Gay Talese.

10:47 Great line about not fighting for "35 years in the trenches" to put a Republican in the White House. That's basically it. And the "No McCain" line was great. Uhm, she's on.

10: 42 Meh, that 18 million cracks line was always a corny. You can't redeem a cliche.

At least Brian Schweitzer

sounds excited. And he's tackling McCain.

UPDATE: Also, nice note on "American wind and sunshine." Even if it is a little jingoistic. Even the sun is American!

UPDATE #2: OK, he kinda killed it. And MSNBC missed the whole thing.

Mark Warner

Hmmm...to quote Jigga, "he's alright, but he's not real." I just didn't get much emotion of his speech. Love the points, but I didn't feel much electricity. He got better toward the end. Picked up some steam. Tell me I'm wrong people. I'd love to hear why.

UPDATE: Maddow just went ballistic, but I think she nailed it. That was a speech that offended no one, but probably earned no votes.

Spike Lee On MSNBC

Was hilarious. One thing that I was reminded of. Spike was asked if he ever thought he'd see this day. He responded "Never." That is the difference between black men/women and white women. I think a large number of Hillary supporters believe that a white woman could actually be nominated, and Hillary seemed perfectly set up for it. She's also been known among feminists since her college days.

But, as much as Barack came out of nowhere for the country, he completely snuck up on black folks. We never saw this coming. I think that explains a lot of the bitterness. It's not like we've been waiting 30 years for this. A "black president" was the sort of thing you used as a punchline, or as like a cultural symbol of something. But we didn't really think about it as a literal reality. I would not have been surprised--or particularly upset--if I had died without their ever being a black president. But that's the trouble with expectations. I may be now.

Riddick Bowe

In between the coverage, I happened to catch that fight where Golota threw like ten low-blows at Riddick Bowe. Man boxing has really sunk. I was sinking then really. Remember Sugar Ray and the bolo-punch on Duran? Here's the riot from the first fight.

Rachel Maddow

Is really bringing it. Smacking around Pat Buchanan. Not that I like any of this. You know me. Serious, Very Serious, blogger. No way I'd be stuck on MSNBC. Did I mention I was Serious?

UPDATE: More Seriousness--Did Chris Matthews just bust on Kieth Olberman on air? Or did I catch that wrong. This was just as Olberman was pulling in Steny Hoyer.

The split

Pretty nice piece from the Times on Clinton fund-raiser who aren't hopping on board with Obama. Sometimes when you see this stuff you just have and marvel at the pettiness:

Even as Mrs. Clinton prepared for her moment in the spotlight on Tuesday night, with a speech expected to offer a strong embrace of the nominee, the lingering rancor between the two sides appears to have intensified with the convention this week, with grousing from some Clinton fund-raisers about the way they are being treated here by the Obama campaign in terms of hotel rooms, convention credentials and the like.

Man, this is becoming almost literary in its dysfunction. One thing is clear. I completely underestimated the loyalty some folks feel for Clinton. I just watched a delegate from Maryland claim she might vote for McCain if the Clinton delegates weren't "respected." It's amazing. Folks would sell the freedom of their daughters for the right to be angry.

UPDATE: Forgot about this nugget of maturity:

Perceived snubs leading up to the convention have not helped. Only a handful of Clinton donors got rooms at the coveted Ritz Carlton, where the biggest Obama fund-raisers are staying.

Luke Russert

For obvious reasons, NBC should be ashamed of themselves...

Hmmm, looks like I'm live-blogging tonight. Wasn't really the plan, but what the hell.

Ed Rendell...

...is talking now. He really doesn't seem on. It's clear that working an interview is a lot different than working a speech. But if you wanted the battle-axe, he's bringing it. Still, I think he was a lot more effective sticking the dagger in Obama earlier today.

Clinton does it again

Mere hours before his wife is to speak before the Convention, dude goes off the reservation. Disgusting, honorless and suicidal.

The deplorable trend of hiring operatives as "analysts"

I think this is what makes me most uneasy about the ethics of mainstream media. A lot of these guys are not "analysts," but people nakedly advocating for their pet causes and world-views. Dig Karl Rove below. Does anyone believe that anything's he's said below is genuine? You can laugh this off as Fox being Fox, but that misses the point that Rove writes for Newsweek, Mike Murphy works for TIME, and Kristol did the same before him and is now at the Times. Look at Begala and Carville, who really just look like they're pushing their next book.

The case for structural critique

Commenter Karl makes some good points about my post on Obama and white sympathy:

I kind of get what your saying but it seems a bit all over the place. What is really so wrong and off base about that quote, blacks have all the reason to be mindful of stalled progress; jim crow and reconstruction anyone? I've read you rail against white guilt/sympathy a number of times and I don't get it. You seem to conflate the acknowledgment of white privilege and the benefits that come along with that by whites with sympathy. Even worse you seem to imply that the the meager benefits gained via affirmative action proportionally add up to the reverse of white privilege. Also, why do you always point to Ivy leagues in these discussions, what about all the state schools that have benefited from AA? Is that type of one-sided analogy any different from the folks who point to welfare queens when they argue against public assistance? I see nothing wrong with addressing structural and cultural privilege skewed towards whites for various reasons, race being central. Would you deny that this is the case? I agree with the points that dropout rates, teen pregnancy etc should be folded into a larger American agenda no doubt but that doesn't dismiss the need to acknowledge and keep track of the role of privilege as well. As proven by the rise of Obama and others these agendas are merging into a broader American agenda, maybe not as quickly and as intellectually concise as you would hope but it is happening so what's you beef?

Hmm, quite a bit there. The short answer is that my beef is with the idea that an Obama administration is somehow bad for black people, but let's back this up a sec. I think I should say that I have absolutely no problem with structural critique of the country. To me, the biggest problem, in terms of the black-white gap, is that Jim Crow/racial terrorism/housing covenants/red-lining/job discrimination effected a wealth transfer out of black communities. I don't think you can get away from that, and if you just think about it for a minute, you become instantly unsurprised at why things are as they are. Moreover, there are some very solid studies which show that job discrimination continues even up to today. I don't know what you call those sorts of things, if not structural.

Continue reading "The case for structural critique" »

Is Alex Smith done??

I don't know how I missed that the Mike Nolan had benched this dude for a career journeyman. CHFF uses that as an opportunity to chronicle the fall of one of the greatest sports franchises of all time. Predictably, as my buddy Brendan Koerner always says, the fish rots from the head:

If you want to pinpoint the day it all fell apart, point to May 23, 2000. It's the day ownership was transferred from Eddie DeBartolo Jr. to his sister, Denise DeBartolo York and her husband, John York. They are the Romulus Augustus in the story of the 49ers empire, ineffective leaders who watched the organization crumble during their brief reign. (The great site, DumpYork.com seems, sadly, to no longer be updated.)

In a sport where management means everything, they've destroyed the organization through a series of personnel mistakes.

The Yorks made their first critical error when they fired Steve Mariucci after a 10-6 season in 2002 (he went 12-4 in 2001). Mariucci's 49ers had suffered losing seasons in 1999 and 2000, but he had compiled a 57-39 (.594) record in six years at the helm. San Fran fans can only wish they had it so good today.

I think--in the main--owners are way to quick to fire coaches in the NFL. It's pretty insane. Jeff Fisher has never won a Super Bowl, but he is probably the second or third best coach in football. Mooch wasn't nearly as good, but how do you fire him after 10-6? And then hire a coach who'd already failed in the NFL. Dennis Erickson is exhibit A for black folks who want to bitch about coaching hires in the NFL. It doesn't really work anymore, but dude, Dennis Erickson is white privilege.

Also--Is it just generally stupid to draft a quarterback with the number one pick?

More mock umbrage from McCain

Because Madonna has always been an expert on presidential politics. Really though, does she think she's helping Barack? More likely she only vaguely cares. All of its good for her, no?

I haven't decided who is worse

The reporters who think it's front page news that blacks disagree, or the blacks who think that the very existence of an Obama administration would be a setback for "The Black Agenda." There are many, many, many things wrong with this theory--the first of which being, from what I can tell, "The Black Agenda" is basically "A Black Middle Class College Professor Agenda." I've only seen one issue emerge from this debate--Affirmative Action. Nothing about the kids failing out of school. Nothing about the (slight) uptick in teen pregnancy. Nothing about wealth creation. Nothing about drug policy. I have no clue what makes these people so maniacally focused on this one issue, like the whole of black America hinges on their kids getting into Berkeley. Give me a break.

But there's more. I've generally been very dismissive of this notion of white guilt, but when I read stories like this I think Shelby Steele is only 75 percent wrong as opposed to 95 percent:

"I worry that there is a segment of the population that might be harder to reach, average citizens who will say: 'Come on. We might have a black president, so we must be over it,' " said Mr. Harrison, 59, a sociologist at Howard University and a consultant for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies here.

No disrespect to Dr. Harrison, but I got a sick feeling in my stomach when I read that quote. I've talked about this before, but there's something deeply emasculating, weak, and cowardly in this notion that if white people don't recognize, black people are done for. I have my doubts about whether that's true, but more importantly, it's a stupid message to pass on to a generation of black kids. I have no idea, given the history of this country, how anyone could tell their children that their live hinge on white beneficence.

I make no brief for separatism--quite the opposite; any considered study of humanity reveals all people to be single-mindedly self-interested. The only way to enroll whites into any sort of "Black Agenda" is to appeal to a mutual self-interest. In other words, A "Black Agenda" has to be flush with an "American Agenda." The whole point of Barack is that that's exactly what's possible. You don't have to black to think that the War on Drugs is a bad use of tax dollars. You don't have to be black to see that, in order to compete, America needs as many educated citizens as possible.

Beyond aesthetics there's the simple fact that the "White Sympathy" strategy as executed by the heirs of MLK, has been a dismal failure feeding the careers of demagouges, and leaving the rest of us to carry the weight. It's not like these guys have spent the 80s and 90s effectively pushing any policies. Moreover, what is the alternative? Elect John McCain and keep guilting white folks? Do these people really think that would be more effective than a Democratic White House and Congress? Or is it something deeper. Is it a fear of what lies ahead, a comfort with the old fights, a certainty in duking it out with the acolytes of Jesse Helms. No matter if it's an unwinnable fight. It's the fight you know. Are we talking about a fear of thinking forward, of no longer having the crutch of the past? Certainly there are principled reasons for blacks to oppose Obama. But fear of white ambivalence shouldn't be one of them. We really should be used to white ambivalence, by now.

The problem with "traditional media"

I'm with Matt. I just don't have much sympathy of people working at big newspapers whining about the netroots attacking them. Reporters--if they're doing their job--spend their lives bringing scrutiny to other people. There's something weak about complaining when someone does the same to you. Matt points to this particularly egregious quote by Richard Cohen:

"I used to get a lot more on the right," said columnist Richard Cohen, who broke with liberals when he supported the Iraq war. More recently, the left has picked apart columns that are perceived as being favorable to John McCain.

"If you're a little bit critical of Barack Obama, you get really a pie of vilification right in the face," Cohen said, adding that his liberal critics "were born too late, because they would have been great communists."

Dude, you get paid to state your opinion. Why do you care what some D&D-playing, popcorn eating, living in his mother's basement blogger is saying? I mean really. These guys want the megaphone, and then not the criticism. All power. No responsibility.

In fairness to Juan Williams

Who I've taken some shots at. Here is, courtesy of Andrew, a genuine response to Michelle's speech.

The "wasted" first day of the convention

So the consensus seems to be that the Dems should have hit McCain harder last night. I have no idea, frankly. I'd like to see some hard reporting and research on why and how conventions work for the broader voting body. Anything else is conjecture. I don't know what to make of Mark Warner not attacking McCain, except that I agree that that's never been his forte. I did think Michelle killed. But she doesn't have to convince me, so I don't know what that means either. I don't know whether the need to attack was more important than the moment with the kids. Guess I'm not helping much here, huh guys?

The incredible arrogance of Bill Clinton

As I've said, I don't doubt that Obama's people pushed this idea that Bill Clinton was race-baiting in the primaries. Frankly, I don't care if he was or wasn't. But it's shocking to see that the dude who flew home to see Ricky Ray Rector executed, who invented the Sista Soulja moment is actually still pissed at Obama. World-class primary-denier Howard Wolfson offers a list of steps that Obama should take which basically amount to holding Billy's hand and treating him like a 12-year old girl who got dumped for the first time:

Senator Obama would go a long way towards healing these wounds if he were to specifically praise the accomplishments of the Clinton presidency in a line or two during his speech on Thursday.

Whatever, dude. I mean, I'm sure Obama will do exactly that, but the idea that people should cater to the amazing smallness of this dude strains good sense. His anger is clearly more important to him than the fate of his country. This is what must have driven Andrew and Hitch insane. Bill Clinton carries this sense of having been perpetually wronged--the game is only fair when he wins. I think what must burn him up the most is (assuming that it's true that the Obama people pushed the race-baiting angle) that Obama actually Sista Souljahed Clinton, that he took a few minor mis-statements used them to paint Bill as, well, exactly what he was.

White people

Justice delayed is not justice denied. At least not for you guys. I have thought long and hard about who to appoint as your official Jesse Sharpton--The One White Person To Speak For You All. The task is grueling in ways that you can not comprehend. And for those reasons, I shall not announce your leader/diplomat/kingmaker/spokesperson today. I thought about claiming CP time. But it was recently pointed out to me that the brothers can't take the rap for this too. The fact is that I'm moving on MW (Magazine Writer's) time. You shall hear from me soon enough. I assure you all that you will get to the Promised Land. Even though most of you are already there. Except for Lions fans. And white people who live in Gary, Indiana. I feel for you.

Publius tackles Wilentz

There's a certain string running through a group over 50 that's seemingly driven crazy by Obama's candidacy. I don't quite get it but the line runs through a group as diverse as Juan Williams, Thomas Sowell, Glenn Loury and Sean Wilentz. I don't know what the line is. Maybe it's the fact that an Obama win would disrupt so much of what we thought we knew about race in America. I'm not on that "end of black politics" bullshit, but I think there is considerable hesitancy to reconsider old assumptions. By and large, these attacks are silly, tending toward the "vague" canard. I can't figure out if these guys can't log on and check Obama's platform or what. Anyway, here's Publius breaking Wilentz off:

Wilentz is essentially exploiting his authority to write shoddy work. And so here's my question -- if Wilentz is willing to cherry-pick and ignore historical sources in pieces like this, what confidence should I have that he hasn't done something similar in his historical works? If he's so willing to let his emotions blind and taint his column (a column he is holding out to the public as historical), it calls into question -- to me -- his other work. And certainly his reputation.

About that third Fugees album

Teresa Wiltz digs into the mystery of Lauryn Hill:

Like many a blues woman before her, Lauryn lets her pain saturate her art. Even the music aches. In "Ex-Factor," she sounds tormented, pleading and entreating, her voice hoarse and straining at the pipes, repeating over and over again, "cry for me /cry for me/you said you'd die for me." Her fragility is palpable. You get the feeling that whatever went down in the Fugees' studio, it did damage.

Which is a shame, because Lauryn is about 65 percent of The Score, a truly incredible left-hook of alterna-rap in a year when everyone wanted to be a player choking a bottle of Mo. Bleh. That said, at some point, folks have to show and prove, and no one gets an award for "might have been." I've long thought Miseducation was way overrated--it's a nice album, Lauryn's a good singer, but was (at the time) a much better MC. At this point, I'm kinda tired of hearing about her. For a moment, she had the touch, and now something's gone terribly wrong. A tragedy, no doubt. But not one that requires regular notations on a career that hasn't produced anything of note in a decade.

Poem for Monday

So as you guys know, I'm like, a huge poetry-head. Here's something from one of my favorite poets of all time--the beautiful Lucille Clifton:

Signs

when the birds begin to walk
when the crows in their silk tuxedos
stand in the road and watch
as oncoming traffic swerves to avoid
the valley of dead things
when the geese reject the sky
and sit on the apron of highway 95
one wing pointing north the other south

and what does it mean this morning
when a man runs wild eyed from his car
shirtless and shoeless his palms spread wide
into the jungle of traffic into a world
gone awry the birds beginning to walk
the man almost naked almost cawing
almost lifting straining to fly

Lucille Clifton
Best American Poetry 2000
Scribner

Frankly, I'd love hear some interpretations of this one. The reversal of nature? An apocalyptic premonition? Meditation on global warming? I love--love-- the rhythm of it, the imagery ("the crows in their silk tuxedos") and the beautiful detail ("the man almost naked, almost cawing/almost lifting straining to fly"). Clifton, like all the masters knows how to swing the verbs, I'm just not sure what it all adds up to.

Call me totally naive....

...but I'm really still trying to wrap my head around this idea that people actually decide who they're going to vote for based on ads. I don't think I've ever seen an ad and went out and bought something because of it. An ad has made me decide to go investigate an item, but never to just purchase it sight unseen. Polls show I am wrong, but man are we in a civics hole when a significant number of people allow their votes to be decided by a television commercial.

The thing about Bill Kristol...

...isn't that he's a conservative, it's that he's that he's insincere. As Andrew alludes to in his post, Kristol's take on Biden really could have been a press release right out of the RNC's offices. Look I'm a liberal, but the only thing I look forward to more than Barack Obama winning, is gadflying him after he wins. It's one thing to be a conservative writer, with the sort of take on the world that liberals simply don't agree with. It's another thing to basically make a career as the RNC's house organ, under the guise of "journalism." Kristol may be the only case I've ever seen of the press trying to spin the press.

Worst franchises in the NFL

Michael Silver does the knowledge. I don't know, I think Detroit--on the strength of the perpetual reign of Matt Millen--really should be first among the least. Also Al Davis, who is a parody of himself, belongs among the great contenders. Remember "Just win baby?" I'm old enough to recall announcers bragging that the Raiders were the only team to win a Super Bowl in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Times change though. And Davis ain't changed with them.

A drive-by of thoughts--The 1985 Edition

Damn. Julius Carry is dead. Sho'Nuff is a great great figure from my childhood. Maybe I'll start calling myself the Shogun of Harlem. Anyway, more proof that us blacks and Asians go back like sunflower seeds and quarter waters. The Last Dragon marks a break for me, it was like right after this flick hit that the city began to change. This is, like, the end of the kitchy 70s Jackson Five innocence, and the beginning of Just-Ice and "Latoya," Colors, "PSK," Eric Dickerson and Mike Tyson.

Jesus, Vanity had a some beautiful eyes. And this idea of Bruce-Leroy as the Virgin-Warrior--isn't he the patron-saint of black nerds everywhere? Isn't he who we all thought we were? Weren't we all just waiting for a doe-eyed Vanity to show us what it was like? Then we got jumped by some project niggers, got screamed on by a couple hood-rats. The city made us harder, and waiting made us weak. I think I was better for that lesson. But then I watch shit like this and get to reminiscing on 1985, right before the Crack era hit with full force, and I start thinking about what we left behind, on what all of us lost when we reached for the mask.

And so its Biden

It's no mistake the text came at three AM is it? Nate claims that this means Pennsylvania is no longer a swing state. Hmm, not so sure. Anyway here's the GOP hitting back, courtesy of Marc. Nice shot, I guess. I fucking hate this game. Who really knows what's going to happen? I have this deep-seated suspicion that the things we think decide elections--ads, gaffes, rallies, counter-punches--aren't as important as we make them. I mean they are important, but often I suspect that they're just distracting us from much deeper, uncontrollable--and in some ways unknowable--questions. How's the war going? How will the economy be doing in November? What do the voter reg numbers look like? How many of those are likely to turn out?

I distrust a lot of the coverage I'm seeing of this campaign. I can't tell you why, only that it feels wrong, only that it it feels surface. Wasn't the Democratic primary decided on two simple factors--1.) Obama's team understood the rules, the Clinton's didn't 2.) Obama opposed the war, Hillary didn't 3.) Hillary ran for the Senate from New York, not Illinois. I'm not shorting the theater of it all. Of course you need actors to play their part, but I'm so sick of reading about performance. What's going on at the local level with this thing? What's happening--right now--in the voting precints of Ohio and North Carolina? Stop telling me how much money Obama is pouring into those states--I want to know what that money does, how is it being put to work. Less top-down coverage, more bottom up.

Anyway. That's my rant for today. Let's talk Joementum. I do think that there isn't a single VP candidate who McCain can select that wants to see Biden in a debate. Not one.

Because it's Friday

I used to be really into these guys. Can't figure out whether they fell off or me. Anyway, here's a piece about how I went from Nas to The Strokes. I think a lot of black folks my age can relate.

The Strokes - 12:51
by Flouzoom

Life after The Wire

Simmer Snoop. Simmer:

Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, the actress who played a cold-blooded killer of the same name on the HBO series The Wire, was arrested on minor drug charges yesterday after police picked her up for refusing to cooperate as a witness in a murder trial, records show.

Members of the homicide unit forced entry into the 28-year-old's Northeast Baltimore home Wednesday morning to serve a "body attachment" warrant, which would allow authorities to detain her, if necessary, until the Sept. 16 murder trial of Steven James Lashley.

Although, when you read the story, it really says more about the cops than it says about Felicia Pearson.

And it gets iller

Obama claps back at McCain. TPM thinks there's an age card in here. They also thought there was a race card at work from McCain. I doubted the race thing, and I really doubt the age deal. In other news, whose idea was it to have Robin Leach step up and defend McCain?

Abolish the air

For diatribes against air-conditioning, it just doesn't get much better than this Will Saletan piece from a while back. That said, Edward McClelland's take on how air-conditioning helps the GOP is a joy also. I'm sort of primed for this sort of thing, however. My Dad hated air conditioning.

Payola for inner-city schools

Basically, I'm unimpressed with moralists who object to this new wave of programs that pay kids to do well in school. Parents--who can afford to--offer rewards all the time to their kids when they do well. I don't think it much matters that school authorities will take over that function.

Here's where my skepticism lies--the program assumes that the major problem with getting kids to function better in school is a lack of interest. Certainly that's part of the problem, but pre-high school, I don't think poor kids are much less interested in school than rich kids. The difference is the flood of distraction that weighs on poor black kids. Chief among them--getting your ass kicked. It's all well and good to give a kid $500 for acing a standardized test, but that doesn't do much for the constant violence which children in these neighborhoods are exposed to. When I was going to school in Baltimore in the 80s and early 90s, fully a third of my brain was occupied with the task of getting home safely. Another third was occupied with girls. The last third was an even split between (you know me now) the Dallas Cowboys, Rakim, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, and school. You can imagine how my scholastic career went.

And violence is just a part of it. It's coming home and not having an environment in which people are reading. It's the habits of your peer group and the unliklihood that they're a particularly studious bunch. It's the fact that study-habits are learned and not inbred, and that you need people around you who are interested also. I really hope this works, but the older I get and the more I read, the more I feel like we, as a society, aren't really set up to fix these problems. We can barely face up to big looming threats like energy consumption. How can we really hope to do anything at all for a troubled minority of citizens?

From the department of too good to be true

I think Nate is right to say that Mittens makes a good deal of geographical sense. But I may have never seen a more insincere, wooden candidate in my life. The qualifications for VP are different, but I'd pay to see Biden and Romney in a debate. Anyway, more to the point, the possible entrance of Mittens gives us an opportunity to reminisce on the color-line. The saddest thing about this clip that the folks are clearly excited to see Mittens, and man, he'd rather be anywhere else.

Frankie gets a post

I think I get the logic of Obama supporters now calling for Hillary as VP. Obama isn't an angel, but in terms of hardcore, step on your throat, attack politics, it just ain't his game. Watch the video from yesterday, and then watch this video below where Obama brings up Wal-Mart. When I saw it, I was half glad--and then not. It's not that Obama isn't a fighter, but his weapon of choice is the dagger not the battleaxe. From "I'm looking forward to you advising me" to "They take pride in being ignorant," Obama is at his best when countering with humor.

If we're going down this muddy road, if we're going to be in the slop with these guys, if we're going to be trading mansions for Ayres, if nothing is going to be off limits, we really need somebody who is going to relish the dirty-work--someone who thinks of this as the "fun part." This is Hillary's greatest strength. She gets a lot of points for having cajones and being a tough woman. But that idea misses the point and gives her male colleagues more credit than they deserve. Clinton isn't a better fighter than Barack--she's a better bar-fighter. Barack wants to dance like Ali. Clinton will pummel that ass Kimbo Slice style. It would be a great combo from that perspective. Notice the "we're just getting warmed up" part before she drops Rezko on him.

My only fear is that Clinton brings just so much baggage with her. Any Hillary supporter who thinks that Lanny Davis, Bob Johnson and Bill Clinton were effective surrogates is smoking. Man with friends like those...The only way this could possibly work is if Bill and Lanny and co. stayed the eff away, or were very strategically deployed. Hillary couldn't control him in the primary. What makes us think Barack could control him in the general?

He hit me first

The McCain folks claim that their only releasing the hell-hounds because Barack Obama did it first:

"We're delighted to have a real estate debate with Barack Obama," said spokesman Brian Rogers, adding that the press should focus on Obama's house. "It's a frickin' mansion. He doesn't tell people that. You have a mansion you bought in a shady deal with a convicted felon."

The felon reference was to Tony Rezko, a former Obama friend and financial backer who was convicted on fraud and bribery charges this year. Rogers vowed to intensify efforts to link Obama to Rezko in the coming days. "That's fair game now," he said. "You are going to see more of that now that this issue has been joined. You'll see more of the Rezko matter from us."

Right. Because no one was thinking about Rezko/Ayres/Wright until yesterday.

Bump for black paternalism

Alright white folks, here's your shot. You too can be portrayed as one-dimensional by the mainstream. You too can now have a go-to mouthpiece for lazy reporters and cable-news clucking heads. Your choices are indeed staggering. But there can only be one. Who will be megaphone-bearer?

UPDATE: Polls close tomorrow, white folks. You will be awarded your spanking new racial spokesperson at on Monday. I'd like to say that, thus far, I've heard all your voices and understand your strong desire to see Jeff speak for you. Even if it isn't expressed in poll numbers. I know it's expressed in your heart, and I would know because I've watched Seinfeld, played some Toby Keith and even considered a cucumber sandwich. Hey come on, I read Stuff White People Like too!

PUMA vs. Feminism

The wonderful Dahlia Lithwick explains how the media gets juice out of PUMA:

The media have been complicit in lapping up the tales of bitter old women. Any story erected around a pre-literary archetype of the destructive power of a woman scorned is destined to be hit candy, whether or not it represents any statistical reality. It's hardly clear that Team Hillary is as vast or as powerful as it claims. Polls suggest there isn't a deep pool of Obama-hating women who could derail his election.
These disgruntled women--whether they plan to vote for John McCain, sit out the election, or simply gobble up airtime--are tacitly working toward electing McCain; a candidate who claimed last week at a presidential forum at Saddleback Church that life begins "at the moment of conception" and who voted against legislation ensuring equal pay for women. These women must be well aware that a vote for McCain is a vote to overturn Roe. I assume they don't care. But my real problem with the Hillary Harridans--and the media's relentless focus on them--is that they give new life to Paleozoic stereotypes about irrationally destructive older women.

I don't think anyone needs PUMA to flatten women into caricatures. Not to be cynical, but that's part of the business of media. Still, I think it's wrong, at this point, to draw any real connections between what are basically conspiracy nuts, a step removed from Lyndon Larouche, and the broad swath of women voters.

Uhm, basically

An ex-campaign explains why I should stick to D&D:

As someone who has worked in political campaigns, this is the worst piece of political advice I have ever read. Ideally, you will be ahead by as large a margin as possible. You will destroy your opponent early, and they will remained destroyed. In what world doe you want to stay behind until 2 weeks to go? No politician wants to do anything but win, and win by as big a margin as possible. Before 2000, most elections were big wins for the presidency.

I'd agree with all of that except "before 2000." I'd also add that this was never going to be a blowout against McCain. But yeah, he's right otherwise.

Uhm, wrong Atlantic blogger

A mistaken commenter wanders across the tracks:

It's all very good that patriotic Americans play D&D. I'm just not sure how that, you know, detracts from Goldfarb's point that the Andrew Sullivan led attack on McCain's Cross story has absolutely no backing in fact and that their original effort (the Solzhenitsyn angle) proved to be embarrassingly false.
Now that D&D players everywhere have been avenged, can we get back to the inconvenient fact that the people who are attacking McCain's Cross story are simply political hacks who have no evidence or reason to call the story into question?
But hey, you PWNED!!! (or however you spell it) Goldfarb so good for you!

Hmm, leaving aside the fact that we haven't talked much about the McCain Cross, and dude's frustration that Andrew doesn't allow comments, can someone tell this dude exactly what level of nerdom he's fucking with here? Get your little kicks making fun of the blacks, the Jews, the women, the gays, and the disabled Drw (or however you spell it). But the gamers, the gamers are off limits.

From the department of small-ball

Am I the only Obama supporter who doesn't care that McCain can't remember how many houses he owns? Again, I'm not an undecided. I guess there is a swath of them who find this offensive, and maybe there's a way to put this to use. I'm really not seeing it though.

Also, I know we're heavy on Obama today, but come on. I gave you some Robotech. Robotech.

UPDATE: For the record, I may be off the mark on this--as it looks like I was about the elitist ad. I just don't much care for this whether it's Dems or the GOP. But I'm not the target voter either.

UPDATE to the UPDATE: Here's the ad. Props to the commenter below.

UPDATE #3: Obama on the stump hammering the point.Looks a little uncomfortable to me.

UPDATE #4: Ok, Ok, I give. It's Karl Rove's world--I'm just blogging in it.

Peter Parker tackles the Invid

Somehow, I missed that Toby Maguire was working on live-action Robotech movie. I bought the whole series years ago. I think that was the first cartoon I actually saw deal with death--and cross-dressing. Anyway, my hopes aren't that high for the movie. Still, any day you can play a clip of Yellow Dancer is a good day.

The attack ads cometh

I'm on the record as saying I don't really know how ads work on undecided voters. I'd love to see some hard reporting and scientific data on what happens to "undecided" voters when exposed to ads. On the merits, I'm a fan of Obama's strategy of not announcing to the world that he's putting out an attack ad, and instead targeting it where it needs to go. Anyway, here are the two newest ones. Lots of Obama this morning guys. Hope your not tired yet.

Obama falling

Al Giordano on Obama fading. I've got a theory about all this, in terms of media. McCain's peeps are enjoying the coverage right now and lefties are grousing that they're giving the whole maverick thing a free ride. Probably not. What I know of political coverage is that, if there is any bias, it's weighted against whoever is in front. The "why isn't Obama pulling away?" story never made sense--except if you were cable news director and didn't want to say night after night "Obama up by five." When there's no action, you wonder why there's no action. But that has nothing to do with a grudge against Obama, it's the nature of front-runner status. Ideally what you want as a candidate is to stay slightly behind your opponent until, what, two weeks out or so? And then snuff him at the last minute. I don't know if Obama will have that option--but a constant five point lead was probably just as unsustainable, as a 15 point lead was unlikely.

McWhorter v. Loury on Obama

Nice exchange. (Fixt) At least on Obama, I'm with McWhorter. I don't think there's anything magical about it. So much of the stress of being black is cutting on CNN and hearing about fools making it rain. So even now, it's quite simple: For the first time in recent history the most famous black man in America isn't dribbling a ball or acting a fool.

Watch the whole thing. I think Loury, who I've long admired, has a visceral dislike of Obama which I can't process. The is why the "One Who Speaks For Them All" thing is flawed. There so many ways of looking at black existence from the inside. Loury's experiences are so much different than mine--even if he is a black man on the left--and thus how we see Obama and what we expect are totally different.

Greatest PWNAGE of ALL TIME

LOL! Courtesy of Hilzoy. Robert Mackey, who actually served in the military, sends Tucker's Kobolds after Michael "Uncle Tom of nerds" Goldfarb:

Yes, Mr. Goldfarb, I play Dungeons and Dragons. And I have, in my home, a very large box filled with medals and decorations that prove my service to this nation. Where were you, sir, when your country called? Oh yes, writing for the Weekly Standard.
While gaming geeks rallied around the flag.

It's amazing to me that this dude didn't know that a lot of military cats play D&D. I would estimate my old guild in WOW (Gnomeland Security for the win!) was about ten percent military. On another note,you like that Tucker's Kobolds reference, don't you. Once again to quote Ghostface--My remarkable armor is supreme.

Randall Cunningham--The greatest player who never was

Talk about a guy with Hall of Fame talent but a Hall of Very Good career. I'm a weird fan, in that, I usually end up developing a great degree of admiration for great players from division rivals. Randall Cunningham is tops on the list of players who I rooted for, on teams I rooted against. The flawed case that people make against Emmitt Smith for Barry Sanders (better overall team) is the same flawed case I make for Randall--admittedly. In the 90s, an era of exciting players, I thought Randall was king. Below are some of his greatest hits, and, for me, quite simply one of the greatest feats of football athleticism every committed.

A solid case for hyperventilation

Nate Silver does the knowledge, but with precision. He finds bad news for Obama. Not all bad, but bad enough that the worst could happen:

The most disappointing for result for Obama is probably in Indiana, where SurveyUSA has John McCain pulling into a 6-point lead after having trailed by a single point last month. Why so disappointing? Because Obama has been investing heavily in Indiana while McCain has not. A couple of caveats, though. Firstly, investments in the ground game may not show up in the polls in the first place. And secondly, the partisan leaning of the sample has shifted a fair bit more Republican than the last edition of this poll. It's possible that, as McCain enthusiasm grows (and Bush fatigue wanes), more Republican-leaning independents are now willing to identify themselves as Republican. It's also possible that we're just looking at some static.

It is officially time for Obama to be worried in Minnesota, where SurveyUSA marks the third consecutive poll to show him with a lead of only 2-4 points? Our model says ... maybe not qute yet. There has certainly been a pretty big shift in the raw numbers in the Gopher State, but there aren't really any demographic explanations for it -- Obama hasn't lost much ground in demographically similar states like Wisconsin and Iowa. So our model is going to need a little more coaxing before it considers Minnesota a toss-up. It might be close enough, however, that there is an electoral rationale for McCain to pick Tim Pawlenty.

Amy Klobuchar anyone?

Women who date the "wrong" men

Slate takes on that stupid-ass story about the pill causing women to choose the wrong guy. Ugh. Our lives are filled with chatter about women who pick the wrong guy, but I never hear much about dudes who date the wrong girl. I used to like to note that every girl I had ever loved had significant Daddy issues as a way of highlighting the crisis of black fatherhood. Then one day Kenyatta, while reading a blog entry where I'd made that argument, offered a different interpretation, "Uhm, maybe your just on some Captain Save-A-Ho shit."

Basically. The truth was that I'd known plenty of women with healthy relationships with their fathers. Funny how I was never attracted to any of them. Funnier how I never see articles about why so many men enjoy the company of crazy women. Anyway, I've got a theory: A lot of these stories about women not knowing what's good for them are actually authored by jerks who've convinced themselves that they're "nice guys" who've been overlooked. This extends across the spectrum. Hip-hop has elevated self-serving whining about gold-diggers into quasi-art. Of course the same artist will turn around and brag about his hit it and quit it pimp mentality. The shallowness of men is yawn-inducing. The shallowness of women is a national crisis.

Michael Goldfarb: Closeted Nerd

And not to be riding the coat-tails of TAPPED this morning, but Adam is dead on when he says of Goldfarb that, "for all his criticisms of the "Dailykos" crowd, if "Dungeons and Dragons" becomes a part of our political lexicon, we'll know who to thank." Part of this is this idea to just make Obama whatever seems foreign. But the continued slams on D&D are too specific and takes us back to Ta-Nehisi's rule of Ghetto-Snobbery--we often are what we hate. Goldfarb remark smacks of a geek trying to get down by slamming other geeks.

Hillary Clinton's feminist cred

Dana Goldstein on Sebilius v. Clinton:

Sebelius, of course, would be the bold, unconventional choice -- very Obama. But by choosing a female running mate, Obama would, unfortunately, thrust the Hillary die-hards and their ever-more marginal discontentment back into the spotlight. That said, anyone who believes that only Hillary Clinton deserves to be the first female president or vice president doesn't deserve the designation "feminist." So I'd relish watching the reactions to a Sebelius nod, not only because such a choice would double down on Obama's most effective message -- "change" -- but because it would reveal exactly which Clinton boosters are ready to widen the lens and enthusiastically support women's leadership as such.

I always thought the most telling detail about "feminists" who were insistent that Hillary be on the ticket was this claim that a Sebilius or McCaskill nomination for the VP slot would be the highest insult. What we see in that attitude is not so much feminism but Hillaryism.

UPDATE: Locking comments for just a bit guys. I don't want this to get ugly. We're not there yet, but we're teetering. Let's all take a breather and get some fresh air. Will resume in an hour.

UPDATE#2: OK, back open folks. Nothing to the face please.

What to make of George Lucas

I was just reading Matt's take on Clone Wars when it occurred to me that the worst thing about this new flick is that it will obscure the beautifully surreal 2003-2005 series of animated shorts by the same name. That first series, which ran on Cartoon Network, was simply the most original thing to come out of Star Wars since the original trilogy. Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky of Samurai Jack fame, the Clone Wars were almost an anti-Star Wars--the art is minimalist, the dialouge sparse, and its power comes story and not from spectacle. I actually found the action scenes in the CN shorts to be much more compelling than anything I saw in the films. The whole series is entertaining refutation to the "more is more" theory of the world.

UPDATE: Because Kevdog mentioned it, I went and dug up the incredible chase scene at the end. SPOILER-ALERT: Don't watch these if you don't want to know how it ends, I'm so tempted to post Anakin's fight at the end, which was--uhm--deep. He achieved more humanity and tragedy there then in anything Lucas has ever done.

Your chance to go to school on Ta-Nehisi

I have my reasons for supporting Obama--a thorough understanding of his tax policy, and the field of economics at large, isn't one of them. That's embarrassing to admit. I'm saying this because I think each candidates tax plan is one of those issues that actually matter, but a lot of us Americans don't quite grasp. I guess that's the difference between being an actual Ivy Leaguer and a guy who gets mistaken for one because he blogs here at the Atlantic.

Oh well. Knowledge is power. I'm all up for getting as much as I can. So consider this an open thread. I want to hear from folks who've really thought about the pluses and minuses of both plans and what they'd mean for the economy. Go for it.

This is good, no?

Really, I think it is. I want to see video of the whole thing. Transcript here:

Silly season--no, seriously

Not that she should care, but Michelle Cottle is one of my favorite writers at TNR. I recently read a bunch of Michelle Obama profiles, and her's--which wasn't even quite a profile--was by far the best. But I don't quite get the point of this piece on Obama's cool:

The "No Drama Obama" label suits him. Long, lean, and always perfectly turned out, the man looks as though he could withstand a nuclear staredown without breaking a sweat.

All of which strikes me as a bit of a problem at this point. While the cool, composed, no-drama demeanor helps Obama appear presidential--and no doubt allays some subliminal white racial anxieties--it also threatens to make him look a bit detached from the many and multiplying crises around him. These are not, to put it mildly, the most soothing of times for Americans. The economy is shaky. Unemployment is up. Growth is down. Oil prices have hit the roof just as home prices have crashed through the floor. Detroit is facing a full-fledged meltdown. We are still embroiled in two wars, neither of which offers much hope for a happy ending. Al Qaeda is running wild in western Pakistan. And now, like some bad acid flashback, Russia is acting like it wants to restart the Cold War.

Now admittedly, my brain shuts down whenever I read phrases like "appear presidential." It's one of those phrases which, in a world of Monica Lewinsky and missing WMDs, I simply can't comprehend. Moreover, I keep wondering when some humility will kick in for those of us in the punditry class. Remember when Obama wasn't black enough and Hillary was going to murder him in the hood? Remember when John McCain campaign was effectively dead? Remember when the primary was going to be over in New Hampshire?

Of abortion and abolition

Like Megan, I kind of have trouble with this church/state deal. If I believed that not accepting Christ condemned people to an eternity of torture, I'd be an unrepentant zealot. I say that having never been a church-goer, so there could be something I'm missing in the translation. Equally, I'm not so much dismayed that that the religious right is religious, as I am dismayed by what much of what they literally stand for. History has shown that, even without God, people have no problem exuding homophobia, sexism, racism, xenophobia etc.

Anyway, I want to offer a humble corrective to Megan's comparisons between abolitionists and pro-lifers today:

The question of personhood is not definitionally religious, even if the only people interested in expanding society's definition of personhood are religious. Blacks are people, and those of us without any particular religious convictions are able to apprehend this, even if 150 years ago the only people much interested in prosecuting their claim to personhood were ministers and their flocks.

The fundamental question in the abortion debate is, "When does life begin?" Slaveholders and abolitionists were quite clear that slaves were alive. What they doubted was that they were actually human and thus equals. The debate wasn't over the personhood of blacks--but, quite literally, over their humanity. This may seem like nitpicking, but here is why it's important. Moreover, if religion is to take the credit for abolishing slavery, it has to take the weight for helping enshrine it in the first place:

Indeed, though I myself am pro-choice and mostly irreligious, it seems more likely to me that the main effect of faith is to spur people to embrace causes that are personally and socially inconvenient. Slaveowners didn't need religion to motivate them to defend slavery; they had a powerful financial interest in doing so. Similarly, the pro-choice movement, at least in my experience, gets most of its activist energy from reproductive-aged women who have a strong interest in being able to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

Well yeah, in the name of religion, people often do take positions that are inconvenient. But at least as often, people use religion as cover for what is manifestlt in their self-interest. Thus the conquistadors weren't brutalizing the native population of the Americas, they were bringing them civilization and Christianity. Slaveholders weren't simply coldly pursuing profit, they were fulfilling The Book, which had long ago decreed that blacks--by divine order--were destined to be slaves. The whole reason abolitionists had to use religion was, A.) Because there simply was no other real tool for making a popular argument and B.) Because the slave-holders, themselves, had made the case for slavery, largely, on religious grounds.

UPDATE: Several commenters have noted that "alive" question really isn't up for scientific debate, thus giving credence to comparison. I concede the first half, not the second. The claim that undergirded slavery--and really Jim Crow--wasn't simply that blacks lacked "personhood" it was that they either weren't human, were sub-human, or were a lower order of human. This wasn't simply an ethical debate--whole reams of bad science sprung up to back up this notion. Eventually, better science prevailed. I'm arguing that that's a lot more cut and dry than abortion, and that religion was a constant on both sides, and basically dominant among those who defended slaveholding. Science, which rose above the level of alchemy, on the other hand, was not.

Continue reading "Of abortion and abolition" »

The New York Jets' no-count fans

Peter King on football in Gotham:

I think I don't want to hear what great fans the Jets have. Not for a long time. That crowd Saturday night was a disgrace. At least half the stadium was empty for Favre's debut in a Jets' uniform. I expressed my amazement to a few fellow scribes Saturday night -- emphasizing that N.Y. traded for an all-time-great quarterback, not a broken-down one -- and they gave varying reasons for the poor turnout. Like it's the middle of vacation month for New Yorkers, and it's a preseason game. Horsefeathers. If you really love your team, and you have season tickets, you should have been at that game unless you were in Tibet. Ridiculous.

Right. Because it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that the last memory any football fan in New York has of Brett Favre is this:

Great quotes from awesome commenters

Assembled dudes,

That thread on white spokesperson has been the most entertaining thing I've ever read on this blog. You guys are what we used to call "good white folks." I just wanted to highlight a few gems of irony and high comedy:

Most of the better nominations were vetoed. Ta-Nehisi, why are you trying to keep the white man down?

I voted Jeff because he's demonstrated the qualities I'm looking for.

Folks! Don Draper is the only choice. He's bright, well dressed, clean, articulate.

In this case, our black overlords have presented us with a full slate of candidates, all but one of which are not popular enough to win the prize. The only one popular enough to win, is of course, a jester...

And I, for one, welcome...
Nevermind.

Of the choices presented, I'd go with Galactus because he best symbolizes the impermeable dominance of white culture in the post-Ghengis Khan world - along with the heavy guilt he feels and all the shit he's detroyed feeding his lifestyle, not that he does anything about it. However, I think Jesus would be a good choice as well. Not only is he white - just check him out sometime - but he's got great abdominal definition and people are always taking him out of context and accusing him of being racist. Yeah he's a white guy, but he's a compassionate, sensitive white guy. I'll bet he'd even vote for Obama.

I am also disappointed with Ta-N for the nominations, but then again he's black so he wouldn't understand our needs as a people.
I don't even know who Jeff is. Or Galactus. I guess that makes me a schmuck, but I'm pretty sure if you polled 100 white people, 80% wouldn't know them either.

I ask for a second round, so the anti-Colbert forces can unite on an appropriate figure. Whiteness is not self-aware, and not particularly clever either -- the point is that it doesn't have to be.

Seriously guys this is great stuff. Of course you are aware that no white man can cast a vote for White Spokesperson that any black man is bound to respect. Otherwise, how else would you know how it felt to be Al Sharptoned? Of course I will take this vote "under advisement." At the moment, I have to say, Jeff is rocking the shit. Galactus is a Streisand.

The racial "code-word" revealed!

Alright the old Coates-humor seems to have gone awry in the post below. For the record, the "125th street" line wasn't a gang sign--I live six blocks from 125th. I wasn't being cryptic, seeking cred, or speaking in code. I literally was referring to my own neighborhood. Besides, anyone who knows Harlem knows that the days of using 125th street to garner cred have long passed. If they ever existed in the first place. If you're worried about me "seeking cred" and being exclusionary, you should be flaming those posts on D&D. To the uninitiated, they're indecipherable.

The term I was actually thinking of was "project bourgie" or "ghetto snob." They both generally refer to people who revile the neighborhood for its alleged close-mindedness and ignorance, evidently unaware that their very revulsion marks them as close-minded and ignorant. So, like, old girl is steady pushing this idea of Barack as un-American, and unable to connect with "ordinary Americans," while taking jaunts from New York to London and having journalists address her as "Lady." There is a lot of projecting going on--the ghetto snob is always more ghetto than the people he/she dismisses. Ditto for our friend. To the extent the term exists, who really seems un-American here?

For obvious reasons both of those terms are sort of un-PC. And by noting 125th, I meant to say it's the sort of phraseology that I might be more likely to use face to face, as opposed to on a website read by thousands of people who may now feel free to call any old upwardly mobile black person a "ghetto snob."

That's all there is to it. No terrorist fist-bump. No cry for the Maroons to descend from the hills. No secret drumming meant to convey a racial flame-war on the internets. It's just Ta-Nehisi--as always--too clever by half.

Acting white vs. Acting French

Here is billionaire Hillary Clinton jihadi, Lynn Forrester on Obama:

"We're not going to win by pretending problems with Barack Obama don't exist. He has a huge problem connecting with ordinary Americans, who think, 'He doesn't understand me.' He is not modest; he is arrogant. He radiates elitism."

This was Forrester conclusion after Obama compromised on the roll-call. But there's more:

"Barack Obama can use the words 'the American dream', but they don't resonate," she said. "He magnified the problem by going to Berlin and calling himself a citizen of the world."

This from a woman who lives in New York and London. Negroes, after this election I don't want to hear anything about "acting white." This whole election has been code for "Acting French." Truly xenophobic anti-intellectualism at its highest. Props to Leon Panetta for putting the idiots in context:

"There is a sense of entitlement that almost seems to be inbred," Panetta said. "They are convinced Hillary is the one who should be assuming the mantle and it's tough to crack that."

The brothers have a name for an inbred "sense of entitlement." But we are in polite company. Come see me on 125th if you wanna be down.

The inanity of post-racialism

People can go back through the archives and see I've been pretty back and forth about Obama and his whole "morals first" approach to black people. I've been thinking some about some of my commenters who've objected to Obama's rhetoric--specifically to his father's day speech. One critique that's come up frequently is that Obama is more than willing to harangue African-Americans about their moral failings, but less willing to say the same to the broader country.

I thought about that yesterday while watching this Andrew Bacevich interview. Watch it all the way through because it's shocking on a number levels. But what rang home for me was that Bacevich's critique of America mirrors the Cosby/Obama critique of black America--that the biggest problem facing these two overlapping communities isn't a threat from without, but the threat from within. And yet Bacevich was very clear that neither candidate in the race had been willing to give Americans the sort of straight talk that's needed. Bacevich doesn't fault the candidates though, he faults the people.

I've mostly been in favor of Obama's moralizing because his message is basically the same one that was pushed to me as a kid, as well as the one pushed in most black households. As I've said before about his fatherhood speech, there may be no creature on earth that I find more reprehensible than the deadbeat dad. But that said, there is something weak in the fact that Obama can't bring the same moralism to bear on the wider he country which he applies to the black community, that he can't point out to Americans that oil prices going up is a good thing. Polluting the world your children will inherit is a moral issue. A system that allows people to buy homes with no money down is a moral issue. Telling people that the best thing they can do after the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil, is go out an shop is a moral issue.

I hear all of this talk about Obama as a post-racial candidate--but that only applies when its time for white people to pat themselves on the back. A truly post-racial candidate would be free to preach morals not just to African-Americans, but to all Americans.

Jesse on Jesse

Here's a fairly interesting interview with Jesse Jackson. (Peace to J&JP for the link) I think the fact that it's done by a black magazine (ESSENCE) gives it a flavor that's lacking in MSM discussions of Jackson's faith. Put more plainly, ESSENCE knows what it's talking about. Anyway, I think people interpret this Obama/Jesse rift as something new brought about by Obama's "post-racial" approach. This is just wrong. I can remember back in 1995, as the Million Man March approached, a great degree of disenchantment with Jesse, who at the time, was weighing whether to attend. The funny thing is the issue then, was the same issue now--if cast in a different light.

The most attractive thing about M3 was that it was that it offered a sense of empowerment--it said to black men, "Your life is not perfect. But you have it within you to fix it." What so many people forget about M3 is that it wasn't a protest aimed at the broader country--it was a demonstration aimed at ourselves. The theme was, literally, atonement--the idea that black men had disgraced themselves and needed to be redeemed. From a young black perspective, there was always something emasculating something weak about Jesse's protest approach. There was this implicit message in the tactics--protests, boycotts, marches--that if white people don't help you, you're fucked. So many of us came up on the words of Malcolm, and to us, that sort of talk was just another form of shuffling. I'm not saying that's right, but it's how we saw it.

Moreover, that "Appeal to white folks" approach was basically the dominant picture of black America as seen by the MSM. For a lot of us young cats, it was embarrassing and enraging to watch the murder rate shooting up in our neighborhood and then turn on the news and see the NAACP boycotting Denny's. I think the picture was always more complicated than that. But the fact is that we had about as much contact with "black leadership" as most white people. We knew Jesse the way most of the country did--through the television. Thus there was this distance between the daily struggles of being black, and what we saw Jesse focusing on.

I think a lot of the venom that's come Jesse's way has come as a shock to a lot of white people, especially as the MSM has begun to pick up on this idea that there is no singular "black opinion," (though there is a singular white opinion, more on that in a bit) and thus maybe there was never one black spokesperson. But this was never really about Obama, as much as it was about our desire to be seen in the world in more than just one way.

I generally like Chuck Todd

Mostly because he brings science to the gaggle of pundits who daily trying to play oracle. Still, Andrew is dead-on in checking him for basically saying non-pandering equals fail:

Chuck basically says that unless you pander in soundbites, you lose. If you show respect for your opponent's views, you lose. However defensible this is as analysis, it isn't part of the solution, is it

I understand that sentimentalism is deadly for these guys, and that they have to be realistic about the electorate. But every once in a while it's good to be existential about your craft. Moreover, it helps to have some humility and remember how many times you've been wrong. It's like Hillary won, or something.

Frank Rich cuts through the hyperventilating

Seriously folks, slow down:

Obama has also been defeated by racism (again). He can't connect and "close the deal" with ordinary Americans too doltish to comprehend a multicultural biography that includes what Cokie Roberts of ABC News has damned as the "foreign, exotic place" of Hawaii. As The Economist sums up the received wisdom, "lunch-pail Ohio Democrats" find Obama's ideas of change "airy-fairy" and are all asking, "Who on earth is this guy?"
It seems almost churlish to look at some actual facts. No presidential candidate was breaking the 50 percent mark in mid-August polls in 2004 or 2000. Obama's average lead of three to four points is marginally larger than both John Kerry's and Al Gore's leads then (each was winning by one point in Gallup surveys). Obama is also ahead of Ronald Reagan in mid-August 1980 (40 percent to Jimmy Carter's 46). At Pollster.com, which aggregates polls and gauges the electoral count, Obama as of Friday stood at 284 electoral votes, McCain at 169. That means McCain could win all 85 electoral votes in current toss-up states and still lose the election.

I have no idea who's going to win this November. But I'm hearing too many people tell me Obama's in trouble on too much flimsy evidence. Among my favorites--the claim that the McCain campaign thinks that "the celeb ads are working." So what? What are they supposed to say--Yeah our latest ad really flopped. If you can't tell me that it is working, and what the long-term impact will be, I'm not interested. Really man. To paraphrase Ghostface, cats need to lay back and enjoy the moment, instead pushing for the end of the story.

McCain as pro-choice

You'd like to think this particular myth ended last night with the following emphatic declaration:

"I have a 25-year pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate," McCain said. "This presidency will have pro-life policies."

And then maybe not. Check out this TNR piece about how successfully McCain has masked his pro-life zealotry. I have to say, even I was shocked by the reporting. I always thought of McCain as a guy who merely tolerated hard-right social conservatives. I was mistaken.

UPDATE: Also, check out this bit of reporting, also from TNR, on the changes made to the Democratic platform regarding abortion. I found this encouraging:

An interesting aspect of the platform decision is that pro-choice leaders, I'm told, were genuinely interested in making the party more palatable to evangelical leaders. That this compromise would get public support from religious Democrats almost certainly factored into the pro-choicers' willingness to bargain. The language is not officially final until it is ratified at the national convention, and pro-lifers will probably make some nominal efforts to address their lingering doubts, especially in regard to the "conscience" language. But for the most part, this has been a success for the platform committee and the Obama campaign. "It's a big difference from 2004," Kristen Day, Executive Director of Democrats for Life, told me. "And it's a big difference that the committee reached out to us. It shows that we're accepted into the party."

Off for the weekend

Hey guys. Got some other writing to deal with, so I'll be checking in lightly (monitoring comments) but likely not posting much. I wanted to leave you with a wonderful piece by Barbara Ehrenreich. What I love most about her is, despite digging into weighty issues, she never ever loses a sense of humor. Here is she is on "prosperity gospel," the Osteens, and the flight attendant that's suing them:

I would be more sympathetic to the flight attendant, Sharon Brown, if she weren't demanding 10 percent of Osteen's fortune to compensate for injuries including a "loss of faith" and hemorrhoids somehow incurred from a frontal assault. But it isn't easy being a flight attendant in this era of layoffs, pay cuts and packed planes--certainly not compared to being a millionaire on her way to Vail. Whatever dubious substance Victoria Osteen faced on that first-class armrest, she should have been able to derive some serenity from the fact that the church she co-pastors draws 40,000 worshippers a week and that her husband has been dubbed "America's Most Influential Christian."

Because it's Friday...

I'm just gonna post a random TV On The Radio video. Lycanthropy as sex drive is a great metaphor ("a man not entirely himself".) The poetry of it is pretty incredible--"Charge me your day rate, I'll turn you round in kind\When the moon is round and full, gonna teach you tricks that'll blow your mongrel mind." Love these guys. Dying to see them live.

Update on that White Leader poll

It'll be up Monday folks. I picked nine nominees from the list and threw one more in. The process was not democratic. The thinking was that white people never really know what's good for them.

What I want from an Obama administration

1.) Address the incarceration rate and drug prosecutions specifically.
2.) Bring back Samantha Power. Anyone whose last name is "Power" is cool with me. Sounds like she should be a member of the X-Men. But I'll settle for an administration post.

More on the fake nobility of victimhood

There is this constant meme out there that the John McCain running for president in 2008 isn't the John McCain who ran in 2000. Joe Klein mourns the fact that McCain hasn't spoken out against professional liar Jerome Corsi and claiming that, "Back in the day, John McCain was the sort of politician who would stand first in line to call out this sort of swill."

Maybe so. But likely because I'm black, my most vivid memory of John McCain 'back in the day," was that he endorsed South Carolina's right to literally fly a flag of treason. Then, after he was knocked out the race, McCain flipped and said that the Confederate flag should come down. Now, at the time--like most of the media--I saw a kind of courage in McCain's stand. But the reality is that he did the right thing when it was easiest to do it. McCain showed no courage there. He ran a reverse Sista Souljah on his friends in South Carolina to kowtow to media.

This is why one should be careful about shedding tears for what the Bushies did to McCain in 2000. McCain, if he thought it would work, would likely have done the same thing. McCain wasn't a "maverick" in 2000--he was just the guy who was losing. There's nothing inherently noble about getting your ass kicked.

The NFL rankings to end all rankings

CHHF has its NFL rankings up, What say you all?

So, being gay is, like, worse than murder?

Like Hilzoy, I was completely baffled by John McCain attempt to sound moderate by saying he may choose a pro-choice candidate:

"I think it's a fundamental tenet of our party to be pro-life but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice. We just have a -- albeit strong -- but just it's a disagreement. And I think Ridge is a great example of that. Far moreso than Bloomberg, because Bloomberg is pro-gay rights, pro, you know, a number of other issues.""

Hilzoy digs in on the thinking behind this:

I'm trying to figure out by what logic supporting gay rights might seem worse than supporting abortion rights. Last time I checked, people who were pro-life thought that abortion was murder. People who are gay, by contrast, might be (to conservatives) immoral sodomites, but worse than murderers? How? Saying they're a threat to the family doesn't work: accepting this for the sake of argument (since I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who's opposed to both abortion rights and gay rights), can being gay possibly be a worse threat to the family than allowing parents to legally kill their children?
I mean: how could a disagreement about abortion rights be just a disagreement, while a disagreement about gay rights is somehow orders of magnitude more serious?

Three words--God. Hates. Fags. But apparently not murderers. What the fuck does he even mean "pro-gay rights?" How is that even slur? I think the best part about growing into an old man, for me, is going to be watching all these cowards and demagouges catch the vapors as "gay rights" become mainstreamed. I don't hold anything against conservatives who oppossed "civil rights" when it was convient and then switched when it wasn't. I think some people have had legitimate changes of heart, others were oppurtunists, and then still others--like George Wallace--are just hard to grapple with. But history remembers, you know? And a half-century from now, I have a feeling that a lot of these guys are going to look like cavemen.

BREAKING: Jeff Goldberg exposes secret Obama memos

Clearly Goldberg has outdone Josh Green in his investigative efforts which expose the Obama campaign as riven by bitterness and petty infighting.

PUMA Pwnage

Don't know if you guys saw this. It kinda made my day. More on the nuts that comprise PUMA here. It gets ill. I'm talking Lyndon Larouche/"Exterminate Jew Power" ill. Hmm, my guess is that these guys aren't team players on the lam--but nuts filing into the asylum.

Is it harder to write a great sonnet than a great hip-hop verse?

Frequent commenter lucretius takes issues with me comparing complexity of writing rhymes with writing sonnets:

you may be pushing it comparing the best of rap to sonnets: the purpose of the two things is so different that any comparison is surely moot. but i am prepared to say that it is certainly MUCH harder to write a shakespearean or petrarchan sonnet at a technical level than it is write a rap: the rules of sonnet writing are exceedingly strict. the metre and rhyme work as a means of crystallising a certain thought or feeling. rap is the opposite: it's strength is its looseness: in fact seems to put almost no emphasis on concentration of mood or meaning whatsoever: e.g., the T.R.O.Y. lyrics are a pretty random collection of unconnected thoughts. in fact, isn't this when rap works best, i.e. as a series of one liners? or at least a series of wildly contrasting items? i offer in support of my argument compelling melnges such as chuck d / flavor flav and the wu tangs, but any dozen or so examples are to hand.

I actually have no idea, which is harder. But I'll tell you a story. Before I went into journalism, I was actually a poet, and before that I was an MC. As a rapper, I sucked. I mean I was just awful. But I loved words, and I turned to poetry armed with the exact same logic that lucretius offers here--I thought it would be freer, because I didn't have to stay on beat, and thus easier. Ironic, no? So I turned out to be a so-so poet--a better poet than MC, definitely, though some of my early stuff is just embarrassing. I was going to get my MFA--even did a week long workshop at Provincetown with Pulitzer prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa. But what I quickly realized was that my essential problem was the same--just like in hip-hop, formal poetry put a premium on words. You had to find a way to say as much as possible, by saying as little as possible The premium for me was always Rakim--"I can take a phrase that's rarely heard\Flip it, now its a daily word."

The point is, in my time, I actually got to try my hand at both sonnets and hip-hop lyrics and I found them both very difficult for the same reasons. I think people who firmly believe that "formal poetry" is harder should do themselves and try to write some hip-hop verses and then offer them up to a knowledgeable audience. Or they can save themselves the embarrassment and listen to Wynton Marsalis laughable "Where Ya'll At" track. Whoever let him within ten feet of a microphone should be caned. And then water-boarded.

But should you try it yourself, I think that you'll find that the rules for writing hip-hop lyrics are shockingly strict. Most frustrating, they change depending on the track--so it doesn't matter if you rocked it one track. Try doing it over twelve different tracks. Second of all, while it sounds like great hip-hop is just some guy freely talking, that's more a testament to the greatness of said artist, than a statement on its relative ease. The greatest compliment you can pay any artist is that they make it look it easy. It doesn't mean that what they're doing actually is easy.

Continue reading "Is it harder to write a great sonnet than a great hip-hop verse?" »

The arrogance of Rangel

Courtesy of Dannity, Charlie Rangel thinks he's somehow entitled to a speaking role at the Convention:

Rangel surrogates approached Obama staffers this week about the possibility of securing him a slot at the podium, making the case that it would showcase reconciliation between the nominee and Clinton's African-American supporters.

What African-American Clinton supporters? All seven percent of them? Give me a break. Charlie's a man without a country on this one. Why should Obama cut out people that risked their necks by supporting him for Rangel? I just can't believe he's pissed about this. The worst part of this whole affair is the sentiment among some Clinton supporters that they didn't actually lose the primary, they agreed to give to Obama and thus should be treated like co-winners.

More thoughts on T.R.O.Y.

Fred asked for the lyrics so here they are. Also below is the video. Hearing this song makes me sad because it really displays the sort of humanity that, as the 90s wore on, it just became hard to get away with in hip-hop. This is more about the business than the people. Pop music is, at its core, almost always hedonistic. And hip-hop was always targeted at the hedonism of young men. As time went on, I think, the business folks just excelled at pinning down the sort of things that occupy the thoughts of boys and men in their teens and early 20s--namely sex, money and power. I'm not sure how much difference there is between say Maxim and hip-hop at this point. Hip-hop may be more profane, but that's about it.

I don't know that T.R.O.Y. is the greatest hip-hop song ever made, but it ranks in my top five. It comes from a place of pure emotion--it's an ode to Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth's friend Trouble T Roy, a dancer for Heavy D and The Boyz, who died in a complete freak accident. But the beauty of the song--the incredible horn loop aside--is that C.L. expands it beyond the sort of soppy elegies put out by rappers grappling with death (Dead Homiez, Six Feet Deep etc.) and turns it into a portrait of an American family. And there are all kinds there--his mother, who had children by C.L.'s less than ideal father, Papa Doc who stands in for C.L.'s Dad (and gives him arguably the best advice ever recorded in music--"use your condoms and take sips of the brew"), his entrepreneurial Aunt Joyce, his car-collecting Uncle Sterling.

This song always hit me hard--it gives the sort of complete portrait of the black family that I so rarely see out in the world, and always, always makes me think of my own flawed and incredibly beautiful family. T.R.O.Y. is wholly unconcerned with giving a "positive portrayal" of black people--it just lays out out the unsensational truth. I spent most of last year working the last half of my memoir, and I swear, I rocked this joint nonstop. All I wanted to do--all I've ever wanted to do--was write something that hit people the way T.R.O.Y. hit me.

This is what I mean when I say hip-hop taught me how think and how to write. It was the first poetry I ever knew, the first attempt to capture something deep and unsaid about humanity, and do it in rhythm and in a condensed powerful form, that I ever heard. The great M.C. is like the author of a great sonnet--he operates in a constricted space, and works to get as much emotional resonance as possible out of every word. I learned that basic lesson first from Rakim and later from Nas, from C.L. Smooth, from Kool G. Rap. People who think these dudes are just picking up a mic and saying whatever should give T.R.O.Y. a few sustained listens, and see if they can do the same. I've been trying it for years now. I'm trying in this post you're reading right now. I can tell you, it's not easy.

These are not the minorities you're looking for...

We've been hearing these "pretty soon white people won't be the majority" stories for years. I've always thought they had one big flaw--assuming that the idea of "whiteness" is this timeless, static thing. Of course, as an scholar of American immigration can tell you, this is basically false--and the New York Times knows it:

All the projections are subject to changing cultural definitions. The share of Americans who identify themselves as white, regardless of their ethnicity, will remain largely unchanged, declining from less than 80 percent in 2010 to about 76 percent when the majority-minority benchmark is reached in 2042.

Of course this note is buried under graffs and graffs of meditations on the impact of us becoming a majority-minority country. Meh. I'm not saying nothing will change. I'm just saying that we probably don't know what, or how.

Random note on underrated MCs

Three words--C.L. Smooth. Was bumping some joints from The Main Ingredient while running this morning. Jesus, that kid was nasty. Obviously, as I've said before, I love T.R.O.Y. I play that song for anyone who thinks hip-hop is music for the functionally illiterate. But C.L. was nuts. One of the top ten greatest moments of my life was seeing him kill it with Pete Rock down near Union Square. They did T.R.O.Y. and I basically lost my mind. I haven't recovered since.

More Isaac Hayes

A nice note from a reader riffing on the folly of the youth:

A few days ago you wrote in your post of discovering Isaac Hayes via a sample of one of his songs in a hip hop piece. Having turned 55 on the same day, all I could say was "Yikes" as my introduction to Hayes was the summer party in someone's basement on the south side of Chicago the summer before college, when we girls quickly learned that the opening bars of the endless "Walk on By" was the signal to scramble near a brother you wanted to dance with or far away from one who had come to the party straight from the basketball court.

Just now I heard that when asked to name his favorite song, Barack Obama responded "'Ready or Not' by the Fugees." What? Someone tell Chuck Todd to subtract 1 vote if my Illinois Senator doesn't publicly acknowledge in the near future that the real "Ready or Not" was recorded by the Delfonics when Lauryn Hill was still a twinkle in someone's eye.

I'm the one who forwards my adult children and community college students articles and posts from the blogosphere, which had me, for a minute, convinced that 55 was the new, well, 45. But now you and the Senator have dragged me back to LPs and 8 Tracks. Thanks, youngblood.

You'll understand when your son lets it slip that D and D is old school.

They shoot bigots, don't they?

Commenter Spottie on the Spanish basketball teams, uhm, diplomacy skills.

Hardcore, to make the liberals act fool

Wow. Again, I can't tell if this works, being that I'm out the target audience. But this is pretty hard and, I think, gets at the Obama case against McCain. Obama didn't put this one out though. Bet he wishes he had. He needs to fire his ad people and get this guy. HT to Andrew.

A Better Class of Punditry Pt. 3

And the projects, is screaming that "Somebody gotta die" shit
It's logic, as long as it's nobody that's from my clique.
--Nas

I was thinking this morning on my jog about Beinart's piece and Matt's thorough dismantling of the thesis. The thing that really got me was the unseriousness of the entire effort. We frequently are treated to statesmen-like recitations of all the issues one shouldn't play politics with--patriotism, foreign policy, personal tragedy etc. But its completely fine to argue that we should "play politics" with the color-line. That is the undergirding of Beinart's argument--that we should woo racists by appealing to thier base fears. This, almost literally, his argument. Again:

even racists can be wooed. Think about it this way: Many of the voters who right now won't vote for Obama because he's black would probably vote for Colin Powell even though he's black. That's because they don't see Powell as a racial redistributionist, a guy who would favor his community at their expense. There's no rational reason to believe Obama would, either.

Beinart concedes not only that voters who oppose Obama because he's black are racist, but also that they are irrational. But he actually argues that we appeal to that irrationality--not attmept to stamp it out. This is a curious notion indeed. I am going to be blunt--I find it unfathomable that Beinart would approve of the same tactics if we were talking about, say, Jews. In other words, were we dealing with a group who Beinart conceded were antisemites, and who's fears were irrational, that Beinart would say "even antisemites can be wooed" strains credulity.

There a sort of intellectual dishonesty at work here, a revoliting amoralism bred by too little acquaintance with the people who've been on the other side of this kind of thinking. I want to be clear--there are very principled reasons for supporting class-based Affirmative Action. Furthermore, there are very principled reasons for opposing Affirmative Action in any form. But romancing the mental paralytics who regard my eight-year-old black boy as subhuman isn't one of them.

UPDATE: More thinking. How are pundits who urge Democrats to use "white resentment" to suit there own ends, any different than 'Black Leaders" who use "black resentment" to their own ends? What gets me is that these guys will stand up and excoriate Sharpton and Jackson to the ends of the earth but turn around and run the same hustle themselves.

He knew he was right

Really though. I should be running the Obama campaign. Today Marc is reporting that it looks like they're going to follow my advice and allow Clinton's name to be put up for nomination. Smart move. The kid has absolutely nothing to lose by doing this. Too many people fight over things on GP. There is no real reason--short of spite--to deny Hillary this. Snap necks when you have to. At all other points, make as much love as possible. Words to live by, son.

One caucasian to speak for them all

Been getting a lot of e-mails wondering why I keep referencing Billy Dee Williams. A few weeks back--before I came to Atlantic-ville--I wrote a post noting a Gallup story which concluded that the "Black spokesman" title was up for grabs. This was horrible. Who would now interpret the drums? Who would translate the Ebonics? Were we doomed to have lovely economic slang like "dap" and "pound," mangled into "fist-bump" and "terrorist fist-jab?" Would white people begin claiming that my blog was "articulate?" Egads man!! Something had to be done!

And so I took nominations for the One Negro To Speak For Us All. The nominees were a diverse bunch ranging from Geraldine Ferraro to Morgan Freeman. But in the end MF Doom was just barely edged out by Billy Dee Williams--as Lando Calrissian, mind you. Anyway, at that time I promised my readers of the Caucasian persuasion that I'd hold a similar contest for them. Alright, the time is now. I am officially take nominations for One Caucasian Who Speaks For You All.

I guess I'll go first. I nominate Kevin Costner. Kevin Costner rules. Especially in Upside of Anger. Plus Alicia Witt is hot in that movie. Of course she would have been hotter as Mary Jane in Spiderman. Yeah, Alicia Witt...

UPDATE: Hurry folks. Nominations close at 3 P.M. EST. We'll have a poll up for voting tomorrow.

UPDATE: Welp, nominations are officially closed. Will have a poll with our frontrunners up tomorrow.

WTF is John McCain talking about?

Really? I don't like tracking blunders. I don't think it says much to have a couple slips of the tongue, but come on dude, this is getting crazy.

A great stroke for racial equality

It's sick, but this comment really made my day:

Thanks Mr. Coates, but white people don't need you to tell us what we think.

This is how I know we will reach the Promised Land. I now have the ability to sit on my living room couch and define millions of people--and then shut off all comments if I choose too. Does no one see the beauty here? Put differently, equality doesn't mean that black bloggers will be smarter than white bloggers, it means that we're capable of being just as sloppy. For the record the commenter is probably right. I tried qualifying the point with "a lot of,"--not most, not all. But that said I really have no way of quantifying it. It's just me sitting back playing racial psychologist. Sound familiar at all? No?

A Better Class of Punditry Pt. 2

Matt tackles Beinart's silliness:

...the merits of the issue, abandoning race-based affirmative action makes sense to the extent that we don't think present-day racism -- as opposed to economic issues that may in some cases reflect the legacy of racism -- is a substantial problem. But if racism really is a huge barrier to Obama's electoral prospects, that suggests that present-day racism really is a substantial problem and we should probably maintain some focus on race per se.

And Adam on Barack as racial miracle-worker:

It's not Barack Obama's job to help America deal with racism. It's America's job to help America deal with racism. But it certainly suggests there's something accurate about David Ehrenstein's argument (forever twisted by Rush Limbaugh into a simple racial epithet) that some people see Obama as the "Magic Negro" prevalent in films like The Green Mile and Bagger Vance, since people like Beinart clearly expect Obama to be the instrument of their redemption.

Ask and I shall answer: Black homophobia

:

Frequent commenter Amitav asks:

Ta-Nehisi, I've often felt that homophobia has been more acceptable in the poor urban black communities I've been around than in society as a whole. Do you think this is true andif so, why?

I think the whole "more homophobic" deal--kind of like the "more antisemitic" and even the "more sexist" comparison--is heavily weighted by the wealth gap, and where black people live. Poor, unwealthy African-Americans are not only a disproportionate share of black people, there also a large number of them living in urban centers with all their pathologies on full display.I suspect that a lot of white--particularly a lot of white people who are concerned about black homophobia--have more random contact with black poor people than they do with white poor people--this despite the fact that there are more white than black poor in this country.

I'd love to see a comparison between, say, East New York and some random poor white community in Mississippi which matches East New York in terms of poverty. Maybe the cats in East New York are shockingly more homophobic than the folks in said poor white community. But I kind of doubt it.

A plug David Carr doesn't need

Very few people know this, but David Carr is arguably the biggest reason you are reading this blog right now. Some day, I'll tell you guys about that--it's not half as exciting as his book. Anyway, here he is on the Colbert Report. The kid cleans up well.

This country deserves a better class of pundit

One of the most dispiriting aspects of this election has been watching white pundits charge Obama with purging white people of their own suicidal racism. These are some of the same pundits who revile black leaders for charging America with purging black people of all of their problems. And yet they're fine making one black man responsible for this country's most historically insidious feature. Peter Beinart, after noting that an unfortunate number of white voter say they won't vote for Obama because he's black, busts out with the "Why are you making me hurt you" argument and offers the sort of counsel we've come to expect:

even racists can be wooed. Think about it this way: Many of the voters who right now won't vote for Obama because he's black would probably vote for Colin Powell even though he's black. That's because they don't see Powell as a racial redistributionist, a guy who would favor his community at their expense. There's no rational reason to believe Obama would, either. But because, unlike Powell, Obama is a liberal Democrat who enjoys overwhelming black support, that's what many racially hostile white voters assume.

For these voters, Obama can't make race go away by ignoring it, especially because the GOP and the media won't. He needs to acknowledge their fears and do something dramatic to assuage them. Paradoxically, his best shot at deracializing the campaign is to explicitly make race an issue.
He can do that with a high-profile speech -- and maybe a TV ad -- calling for the replacement of race-based preferences with class-based ones. That would confront head-on white fears that an Obama administration would favor minorities at whites' expense. It would be a sharper, more dramatic, way of making the point that Obama has made ever since he took the national stage (but which some whites still refuse to believe): that he represents not racial division but national unity.

In the words of the departed Heath Ledger, Where do we begin. Well, start with the fact that Beinart gives a lot of credit to white racists--probably because he's never had to tangle with them. As I've argued before, there's just no evidence that Affirmative Action is the reason why these people are telling pollster that they won't vote for Obama because he's black. It simply isn't the same thing to be against Affirmative Action and to refuse to vote for someone because they're black. Second, Beinart's test-case, Colin Powell, is pro-Affirmative Action. I really have no idea how Powell would fair with white racists. And really Beinart doesn't either, because there's just no data on it.

Continue reading "This country deserves a better class of pundit" »

What did you think would happen?

I really don't want to hear any complaining about Michael Mukasey. Democrats--specifically Chuck Schumer--rolled over for a guy whose language around waterboarding was beyond Orwellian. To, again, paraphrase Denny Green--he is who we thought he was.

Alan Rogers

I made a mistake by not highlighting this New Yorker profile a couple weeks ago. It tells the story of Alan Rogers a black, gay soldier who's become a rallying point for those seeking the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." When I was reading the profile I kept thinking about how misunderstood African-American patriotism is in this country. Half of it comes from the very human problem of conflating criticism with disloyalty, and then half of it comes from the need to establish an other. The real deal behind defining Barack Obama as "post-racial" or "post-black," is that to accept him as a black man, would cause a crisis of identity for a lot of white people--for if Barack Obama Ivy League grad, brilliant orator, and most importantly unencumbered by racial paranoia is a black man--and seemingly quite comfortable with it--who am I? What is "whiteness" in that context?

But I digress. Alright, not really. That's always been the problem of black patriotism, you see. Because of our outsider status, blacks have been the most consistent agent of change in this country's history. You must understand that this isn't even just about color. The first person to give his life for America was Crispus Attucks, and thus the founding father, in the sense of blood, of this country was a black man. It's true that Frederick Douglass supported the vote for black men over white women--but Douglass was not simply a suffragist, he was the only man of any significance--black or any other color--who even attended the Seneca Falls convention where the movement was born. It's almost unfair to cite Martin Luther King at this point, but suffice to say, to see the Civil Rights Movement merely as an effort to open the doors for blacks is to miss the point.

It's true, as I said yesterday, that oppression isn't, in and of itself, ennobling. But its also true that African-Americans, because their oppression has been so stark and so at odds with the promise and potential of America, have a history of being able to see beyond themselves. It's not the only history mind you, but it's one. From that perspective, Barack Obama really is well within the black tradition, as is Alan Rogers. It is from, one perspective, a statistical fluke that Rogers was black. But from another, not so much.

UPDATE: Stay on topic and keep your cool.

Yet another note on comments

So the past few days, the troll factor has definitely dipped. We did have the one incident with the Wolfson thread, but I think that was basically an invasion. Can't do much about that. One thing I'd like to encourage: If you're arguing with someone in a thread and like five posts in you see it's only you and that person, and neither of you are budging, you might consider getting a room. It's not so bad when the argument is at least about the topic at hand, but drawn-out acts of thread-jacking just aren't fun.

I'm getting the feeling--and I believe someone said as much--that I'm inheriting some old holdover beefs from Matt's comments section. I really don't want any part of that. As I've said, I strongly believe that a good community improves a blog tremendously. You can scroll through the threads and find people disagreeing all over the place, but it doesn't have to descend into the personal. Sorry if I'm coming off like a Nanny. I just hate going into blogs and reading a comment section that looks like its been taken over by ten-year olds.

One last thing--I'm not ignoring the request for a specific comment policy. The truth is, I just don't have one yet. I'm learning on the job here--at my old site it was basically just me and a few internet friends. This is, as I've said before, a house party. I'm not exactly sure what, specifically, should be allowed and what shouldn't. I know it when I see it, but not really before. As the weeks go on, I'll get a better handle and then post some guidelines. Meantime, please bear with me.

UPDATE: One thing that will get you deleted is using a fake e-mail. I'm slow, but I have picked up on that one. Do the right thing guys.

Earl Campbell: Or football as performance art

I don't think Earl Campbell is the greatest running back ever, but he is my favorite running back of all time. I love Emmit, love Gayle, love Marcus and Bo, but I've never seen anyone run with more ferocity, intent and aggression than Earl Campbell. The most fascinating thing to me is that he really paid, ultimately, by sacrificing his body to the game. I saw a Real Sports piece on him and he can barely walk today. It was interesting because they interviewed Tony Dorsett. Dorsett and Campbell are about the same age--but I swear Tony D could be my brother, whereas Earl looks like my father. And still in all while I was watching him, I couldn't feel sorry for him. He didn't seem pitiable at all. In fact at the end of the interview, I think he said he'd do it all again.

My thing has always been you only live once. When I think of Earl Campbell I think of some old sci-fi/fantasy/comic book deal where a diety imbues a man with great power and the chance to be a legend, but at a severe cost. That's Earl Campbell. He sacrificed his body to become a superhero--The Tyler Rose--and to claim his place in our own modern day Valhalla. This may be twisted, but I have so much more respect for that attitude, than people who just try to get by.

It's also worth noting that Campbell came across as a decent human being. He said he really regretted that hit where he put his helmet into the chest of dude from the Rams (it's in the video), because it basically ruined the kids career. Apparently after that hit, psychologically, the cat was never the same. That's heavy.

UPDATE: Spottie asks who's the closest equivalent to Campbell today? Can anyone think of anyone who comes close? I can't. I think runners are dissuaded from running like Campbell now. Coincidentally, Eddie George was in Campbell's mold--but he never had as much power or speed. And yeah, the powder blue was great. I think it sucks that it's gone.

Lots of poetry today

Frank O'Hara. Robert Hayden. So, what the hell...I'm coming out as giant poetry fan. In fact, in college I really thought I was going to app for an MFA program after I graduated. We see how that turned out. Anyway here is a Frank O'Hara piece that I just loved when I was in college called the "The Day Lady Day Died":

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille Day, yes
it is 1959, and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in East Hampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me
I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness
and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega, and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatere and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it
and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing.

Some rambling thoughts on Don Draper

Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?
--James Baldwin

You should know, from jump, that I am absolutely in love with Mad Men. It really does for a certain group among the upper class, what The Wire did for a certain group among the underclass. It has that same rejection of good and evil, that same detailed humanity that we loved about The Wire. But also, to its credit, it lacks the anger which ultimately contaminated The Wire's final season. Furthermore it rejects the naked cynicism that's poisoned efforts as diverse as Crash and Desperate Housewives. It would have been really easy to make a show panning this era, or to make another one completely romanticizing it. Instead Mad Men just bores hard down on character, character and more character.

This is sort of continuation of the Hillary Clinton post, in that respect. Last night I was watching the latest episode with Kenyatta when she said that she really wanted Don's wife to just have an affair. When I asked her why she said it was because she felt that it would help her with her issues and she might learn something about herself. She later went on to say that the difference between Betty and Don is that one gets to have all these experiences (French films, Frank O'Hara, affairs with various women) while the other is trapped at home. Betty having the affair would symbolize an attainment of a kind of power which Don wields over her, as well as a sense of satisfaction.

Continue reading "Some rambling thoughts on Don Draper" »

The false nobility of victimhood

When I was a young man seeking some measure of maturity, I came upon something which I found hard to reconcile--my progenitors were sold into slavery by other Africans. I was about 16 at the time and fully invested in the arcana of black nationalism as well as the proclamations of Paris and Brother Jay. This was not a pose--I was raised agnostic in a city that was falling apart. You know it all too well--crack, murder, AIDS, teen pregnancy. It's the headlines for late 80s urban America, and perhaps nowhere more so than in my native land of Baltimore.

The worst part of all the chaos was that I had no framework, no religion, no mythology to make sense of the mayhem. That was what black nationalism gave me--a means of understanding how we had all fallen into disgrace. So full were we on that notion, that we called it "Consciousness," for if you did not know that we were Original Man, that we were the descendants of kings and queens and thus royalty ourselves, that our time would soon come again, than you were mentally dead and truly lost. If you're snickering, it's because you aren't thinking hard enough. All of us need some sort of mythology and no group is immune to nationalism, to the need to believe that we are special.

Understanding slavery was, for me, a first step toward understanding humanity. Learning that black Muslims killed Malcolm X was another. Guns, Germs and Steel, still another. I never lost that old pride, because, as Hitchens says of religion, the truth turned out to be mythological enough. Harriet Tubman stealing south--repeatedly--to liberate slaves was a verified miracle. Ida Wells Barnett riding the railroads of the segregated South to investigate a lynchings, a pistol at the ready, was heroic on its face. In other words, the actual story was incredible enough. But more to the point, the deeper understanding that there was no dark and light, that there were no paladins, no orcs marked me for life

I thought about all of this again, last night reading Josh Green's piece on Hillary Clinton, and then the comments in the Wolfson post. Here is the thing--believing that you have fallen because of actions outside of your control, or the collective control of your tribe, rewards you with an unearned sense of the cosmic. It allows you to fashion yourself as heroic--a Hercules robbed by the smallness of Gods. It fills you with an anger which is, at its root, a sort of false power, a weak righteousness that turns your enemies into demons. It was thrilling to believe we'd been kidnapped by white interlopers, as opposed to knowing that, in the words of the great Robert Hayden, we'd been sold off for "tin crowns that shone with paste" for "red calico and German-silver trinkets."

That need to believe in something more is exactly how you come to think that you were robbed by John Edwards and Chris Matthews, as opposed to Bill Clinton and Mark Penn. It's how you come to believe that the order of questions in a debate is more decisive than your ability to keep the peace in your own campaign. Think on this for a second: Here was a candidate who was pressing the case that she was uniquely qualified to work Washington's sprawling bureaucracy, while failing to work the bureaucracy of her own campaign. Yet the belief that she was robbed persists.

Continue reading "The false nobility of victimhood" »

Billy Dee Williams says "Step away from the Cotillion, ma'am"

Long time poster Shani-O blogs about a week of reading, the Washington Post's internets for blacks, The Root, and concludes:

The multitude of views share the same over-earnest musings of privileged black folks who are mainly interested in talking about how privileged they are.

So what do you think Ta-Nehisi? Well, I'm glad you asked. Having written for the Root and other WashiPo outlets, I think its cool that they're offering a place for black writers. So often, much of what we believe either doesn't get said, or it gets said in publications whose subscription base is over 60. From that perspective, it's a good thing.

Still, I do think it's hard to do a black publication in this day and age. Not because we don't need one, but because we're all sort of at this bridge point. Take a look at this blog. Obviously I spend a lot of time thinking about black people. But I also spend a lot of time thinking about the Dallas Cowboys, video games and The Prestige. I try to render the world through an African-American male lens--its the only one I have. But I also try to remember that the world is bigger than that.

Obama's mother revealed to be mad scientist: inventor of the Genesis Device

Dave Weigel brings us the latest Larry Johnson hit--Barack Obama is a clone!

This is better

McCain still pushing the celeb angle. I disagree with Eric on the race angle. It's just hard for me to buy that the mere presence of a white women in the same space as Obama would change a substantial number of votes. If the entire election were in Tennessee, maybe. But as a national strategy?

Anyway, I thought it was funny. Maybe too funny. Like so over the top as to not be taken seriously. But again, I've never been an undecided. If you are, in fact, undecided, please post and let me know what you think of these ads.

Only built for elvish linx pt.3

I've gotten a lot of questions from folks like this:

Your post got me really curious, and I have an eight year old son who is mad about pseudo-D&D computer games. I've never played D&D myself, but definitely qualify as a Nerd (I played Advent on a mainframe for crying out loud. The terminal was a yellow paper teletypewriter.). Do you think I could learn D&D and teach him at the same time? Any recommendations on how to get started?

I've just started back, so I have no idea how this is supposed to work. I went with First edition because it was what I knew, and because I actually like the complexity. I do know this--DMing is really, really hard and I'd forgotten how much prep work it takes. Think of it like this--you're the director of a film, but you have no idea what your actors are going to do. Anyway, anyone got any thoughts on the above question?

The Wolfson post

Sorry I was late guys. I made the mistake of walking to the cafe. I know to watch the posts on race. I should have known for that one too.

Why I never wanted to get into blogging to begin with

If you talk as much as blogging requires you to, eventually you say something stupid. In January I will have done this for a year, at which point, I'm going to comb through my archives and pull out every ill-conceived, poorly thought out comment I can find. I may even let you guys vote to see which one is king. One of the great things about editors--when they're competent--is that they protect you from yourself. What you're seeing here, is pure Ta-Nehisi. Opinions, opinions, opinions. Some of them good. Others not so much. Lots of thoughts--and lots of spelling errors. (I'm working on it guys)

Anyway, below I've offered an example--courtesy of TPM--of my worst nightmare. Cokie Roberts makes the sort of comment that seems to come from simply talking to much. I hesitate to call the comment stupid--I'll simply say that the commenter was unambitious in her pursuit of something intelligent to say. My sense is that its probably wrong, but that's not the point--it's just shockingly unoriginal in its underestimation of the intelligence of voters. I know about P.T. Barnum and going broke. But we're no't salespeople, you dig? Anyway here it is.

UPDATE: Stacy, here's the transcript. Asl, you sound like yet another lake-front liberal, latte-sipping elitist. Real Americans work through August. And they like it. Also I save my arrogance for my long-form journalism.

RENEE MONTAGNE: Now Obama is spending the week on vacation in Hawaii, he's taking a vacation, he says, because it's good for his family, but is it a good point in the presidential campaign? COKIE ROBERTS: It's a little rough to be doing it at this point, although I think he's feeling somewhat secure, but Hawaii is also a somewhat odd place to be doing it. I know that he is from Hawaii, he grew up there, his grandmother lives there, but he has made such a point about how he is from Kansas, you know, the boy from Kansas and Kenya, and it makes him seem a little bit more exotic than perhaps he would want to come across as at this stage in the presidential campaign.

What's the matter with Thomas Frank

On Ross's recommendation, I finally read Nicholas Lemann's essay/review of Thomas Frank's new book The Wrecking Crew. Frank's ~~first second~~ third book is a classic, if somewhat problematic. The thesis (that working class whites were being tricked into voting against their interest) soft-pedaled the first being the uncomfortable possibility that said whites had not been tricked at all. Telling them to put aside their values and vote their pocketbook seemed, to me, like a good way to verify the stereotype of the condescending liberal. Furthermore, my own upbringing has left me with a visceral distaste for talking down to the working people by changing the subject. Holding two jobs does not, in and of itself, mean that one has to be anti-gay. That said, I'm not a politician. And I think you now know why.

Anyway Lemann's article basically takes on Frank's new book for its "Right-Wing Lobbyists Run This Piece" thesis. Instead Lemann prefers Authur Bently's The Process of Government , an forgotten classic of political science which pushes the notion that politics is all about interest groups. Here is a particularly lovely--if poignant graph from Lemann's article:

"The Wrecking Crew" is what Arthur Bentley would call a discussion-group activity, meant to fire up the troops. It is reportorially and intellectually imprecise. How many lobbyists are there in Washington, exactly? By what yardstick did Frank conclude that we are undergoing "the greatest wave of political corruption in living memory"? What would be the sign that conservatives no longer rule, if Democrats' controlling the political apparatus doesn't count? Frank rarely mentions Democratic lobbyists or interest groups and glosses over the complexity in the coalitions that form the two parties: "corporations" and "conservatives" seem always to operate in perfect concert, on the Republican side. "Lobbying brings a constant pressure in a single direction," he writes. An illustrative example is one that he offers in passing: "There was the two-day get-together between House Republicans and media company CEOs, after which the various broadcasters and publishers were asked to replace their Democratic lobbyists with Republicans; the Telecommunications Act of 1996, almost certainly written by industry lobbyists, followed soon afterward, deregulating the airwaves and trailing clouds of glorious profits for the media companies." You'd never guess from this that the Telecom Act pitted one group of telephone companies and their lobbyists against another group of telephone companies and their lobbyists--or that business-versus-business battles of this kind go on constantly in Washington.

As I said, it's a good essay. I just wish Lemman had discussed technology. When the biggest social networking page on Barack Obama's website is made up of people opposing one of his policies--people who can dole out or withhold donations, what do we say about the future of interest groups? I don't mean to apply an end, but that there must be some consequence for the hurdles of organization being lowered

A funny quote on a sad day

Commenter Marc P on the death of Isaac Hayes:

Loved those albums, thought he was great on South Park but the scientology thing always freaked me out. I had always hoped that he was doing it to get some hot, alien infested scientology babes like some smooth soul singing Captain Kirk. The look, of love, it's in, your pseudopods...

Only built for elvish linx pt.2

Sorry guys, I know I'm killing the uninitiated with this. Just wanted to report back on the Coates-Matthews family journey into the realm of swords and sorcery. All things considered, it went really, really well. We played Keep On The Borderlines but only made it to the Keep and then to the Southern wilderness--where Kenyatta (half-orc fighter and halfling thief) and Samori's characters (half-elf magic-user, human cleric) were promptly owned by a party of chaotic fighters. They did better than my first time in. My brother Malik was DM (I hope's reading this, don't know if he remembers) and my party was basically slaughtered by a mad hermit and his pet mountain lion. This was disturbing for many reasons. 1.) I was seven and had no idea what a hermit was. 2.) The hermit didn't even use weapons, he beat me with his bare hands 3.) I'd never played a game where characters actually died. I couldn't believe I had to roll another one.

One note of sadness--it's really depressing that so many of the intangibles of table-top RPGs have translated over to computers relatively poorly. I say this as a recovering World of Warcraft addict. (keeping my distance from Wrath of the Lich King.) The little non-combat things, like the importance of dialogue, the comprehension of various languages, the role of race, the exquisite customization, have all basically been shaved away. Part of that has to do with the limits of technology--I think you basically need AI to experience a D&D level of dynamism on a computer. In fact, it may be good that that hasn't happen. You think WoW is bad--a WoW that could truly envelop you like a good game of D&D would raise the divorce rate, the dropout rate and the bankruptcy rate in this country by a quarter.

These people are disgusting

Amazing;

Sen. Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic presidential nominee if John Edwards had been caught in his lie about an extramarital affair and forced out of the race last year, insists a top Clinton campaign aide, making a charge that could exacerbate previously existing tensions between the camps of Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama.

"I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee," former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com.

In its specifics, this claim is preposterous. Recall that Clinton lost Iowa by almost ten points. Recall that the Clinton campaign's biggest weakness was an utter ignorance of caucuses. Recall that after Edwards dropped out, Clinton lost eleven straight primaries. But in broader terms, the worst thing about the Clinton campaign is/was their complete inability to come to terms with the fact that they were supposed to lose. Not because Barack Obama is more of a liberal, not because he'd make a better president, not because Clinton supported the war, not because Bill Clinton is amoral, but because they ran a losing campaign.

People rarely fail because of mysticism. There are almost always specific things that are under their control, which they fail to do. For instance--not exercising self-awareness. For much of the primary Clinton's argument was based on dubious qualifiers. Here was excuse-mongering as art: If you count only the primary states we're winning. If you count Florida and Michigan we're winning. If you count the states with the most electoral votes, we're winning. Now it's, If the John Edwards story had broke we would have won.

Woflson claims that Edwards and Clinton voters were the same. Really? What happened in Wisconsin? What happened in Indiana? (you know what I mean) What happened in Virginia? This is, ultimately, why I'm glad Clinton lost. Accountability does not exist with these guys, and in that, they really are Bush-lite. They had millions of dollars, front-runner status and, allegedly, the greatest politician of our era stomping for them--and they got their asses handed to them. But they can't come to terms with it.

In what universe should you be able to run a disorganized, mismanaged campaign, to not understand proportional representation, to disregard whole states, to not have a Plan B, and still win? This is like a quarterback throwing six interceptions and then complaining about the fans. Give me a break.

UPDATE: Why speculate when we have actual data:

In the networks' Iowa entrance poll, 43 percent of those who went to a caucus to support Edwards said Obama was their second choice, far fewer, 24 percent said they would support Clinton if their top choice did not garner enough votes at that location. The remainder of Edwards' backers said they would be uncommitted under such a scenario, offered no second choice or said they preferred someone else.
Nor was Clinton the obvious second choice among Edwards supporters in Post-ABC pre-election Iowa caucus polls in July, November or December. In July, for their alternate pick, Iowans split 32 percent for Obama to 30 percent for Clinton. In November, Obama led 43 to 26 percent as backup pick, and he had a slight 37 to 30 percent edge in December.

This dude works in PR? Really? This is what you from your flack? Look, in this world of cynicism, I know we think public relations basically consists of only lying, but one should at least be able to lie intelligently. I have no idea why dude said this. It doesn't help Hillary. As for getting another gig, I wouldn't hire this cat to clean my drapes. He'd halfway do the job, and then blame the wind.

The death of Isaac Hayes

You may want to curse, recoil or roll eyes when I tell you how I first came to Isaac Hayes. But I suspect it was like so many of my generation, drunk on Chuck D's new left escapism and the Bomb Squad's sample of"Hyperbolicsyllabicseequedalymystic." I spoke some the other day about how that song hit me, but there was another angle which I didn't really get into. In those days, older cats hated hip-hop, mostly because they felt it butchered the classics, and reduced the complexity of cats like Hayes to repetitive loops. You can't listen to Jay-Z's "Can I Live"--lovely as it is--and then listen to Hayes's reconstitution of "The Look Of Love" without sort of seeing their point.

Still, when I think of hip-hop and the art of sampling I think of that great Rakim line, "It'll answer your questions, if you understand the message." Those who understand the message know that hip-hop, at its Bomb Squad best, is a history of music. Whenever, I heard a great hip-hop track, my next question--always--was what was the sample. And then after tracking the sample and hearing it in its full context, I usually wanted to hear the whole album. And then, if I was truly taken, I'd move to the artist and his entire catalog.

That was how I came to love James Brown, to love Stax, and consequently, Isaac Hayes. There's something to be said for coming to an artist in that fashion, like falling for a beautiful woman you've only seen as a photo, and then falling again when you see her in the three-dimensional pulsing flesh. You get the initial, head-nod inducing thrill of the sample, and then you come back, hear the sample in context as it originally existed, and you get something deeper. Finally--if its actually a classic--you just take it all in as a great song.

Continue reading "The death of Isaac Hayes" »

Obama and the fall of America

Andrew has an interesting post on the efforts to label Obama as a pessimist:

It seems to me that if "optimism" means always saying that America has never fallen or failed, then Ronald Reagan was an inveterate pessimist. His campaign in 1980 was premised on the notion that America had objectively declined as a nation under the hapless presidency of Carter. His optimism was about how to improve that. How, after all, could it have been "morning in America" if it had never been night?

The trick is to be optimistic about America as a country--as an idea--while being very pessimistic about America under its current stewardship. One needs to believe in Americans themselves, while convincing us that we are ill-led. This is why Phil Gramm's "nation of whiners' remark is a killer--it attacks the people themselves. This idea being floated that Obama is a pessimist really smells like an effort to conflate a skepticism of Republican polices with a skepticism of America as a country. In other words--more of the same.

Matt Bai's piece on black politics

For professional reasons, I'd rather not comment on this piece. I'll just note how fond editors are of writing headlines about "the end of blackness" or the "the end of black politics" or "the end of affirmative action" or "post-black" or "post-racial." Freudian much? That has nothing to do with Matt's article. Just a small pet peeve of mine. Anyway, consider this an open thread. I'd love to hear what folks thought.

And once again it's on--Obama's riposte to "Celebrity"

You wanted him to hit back. Here it is. I can't tell if this works. The closest I've ever been to being an undecided voter was when Freddy Ferrer ran against Bloomberg. That lasted about two hours. Anyway, what does the room think?

Do it.

The only thing that would please me more than McCain nominating Joe Lieberman for VP, would be McCain nominating Mitt Romney. I can't really see him doing either. Lieberman, it seems, creates serious problems with right-wing evangelicals who already don't like McCain. Or maybe McCain would be willing to write them off. Mittens, it seems, would really hurt that whole "maverick" persona. Speaking of which, if you ever want to read an early but thorough debunking of the McCain mythology. Check out Amanda Ripley's piece from way back.

Mark Penn revealed

They are who we thought they were.
--Denny Green

So as to build the anticipation for Joshua Green's piece on the Clinton campaign, here are a few nuggets:

The Penn memo suggesting that the campaign target Obama's "lack of American roots" said in part: "All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light.

"Save it for 2050. ... Every speech should contain the line you were born in the middle of America American to the middle class in the middle of the last century. And talk about the basic bargain as about the deeply American values you grew up with, learned as a child and that drive you today. Values of fairness, compassion, responsibility, giving back

"Let's explicitly own 'American' in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn't. Make this a new American Century, the American Strategic Energy Fund. Let's use our logo to make some flags we can give out. Let's add flag symbols to the backgrounds."

I'm not particularly outraged by this. Let Mark be Mark. The fact is, if anything, it looks like Clinton ultimately held back, no? I was pretty pissed about that hard-working white voters remark, but for some reason, I've come to think of it as a slip. Let me expound on that. Not a slip, like Clinton didn't mean it. But a slip like, it's exactly what she meant. It just wasn't supposed to be a dog-whistle. It was the un-pc truth. At least from her twisted perspective.

Also let me make a preemptive strike against any snark about me getting news about the magazine I write for from Politico...

Ok, so I don't actually have a clever line that qualifies. Oh well. Snark away.

UPDATE: Seeing as how I stole TPM's headline, I guess could at least give them a hat-tip.

Basically

Andrew on Rove-ism:

Here's why all this matters. A critical part of what's gone wrong these past few years has been the tendency of a war president to bully opponents, distort their meaning, use base emotional appeals when we need far more rational discussion about how to counter a very complex, terrifying Islamist threat. The kind of campaigns Rove ran in 2002, 2004 and 2006 made all this far harder. It reduced important debates about priorities in the war, detention and interrogation policies, the wisdom of long-term enmeshment in the Middle East, the difficulties of securing loose nukes, the excruciatingly difficult calls on which allies to trust and how - into dumb-ass contests about who is the biggest bad-ass, who is a treasonous wimp and which opponent most belongs in a French hair salon.

Bernie Mac--I haven't forgot

I really just don't know what to say. Mac never rose to the levels of Chappelle or Rock, but I think his show was a great take on the modern black family--or just the modern family in general rendered through a black lens. I'm sorry he's gone. It's not fair that some people's last memory will be stories of him being scolded by Barack. He was better and smarter than that.

Nerd culture and Black people--not an oxymoron

It ain't where you from, it's where you at.
--The God

So in the other D&D thread there's a lot of convo about black folks and their resistance to D&D. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but if you're here in New York, I suggest you stop by a gaming/comic book store some time soon. I went to Neutral Ground on 37th Street yesterday to grab some dice and miniatures. In the back were a bunch of kids gaming--cards, not p&p. They were all black and Latino, with a couple Asians sprinkled in. The guy at the register was Latino. He was in his late thirties. We reminisced on gaming in the 80s for a bit.

It's true that gaming culture is predominantly white. But so is golf. And so is tennis. And so are most debate teams. And so is Harvard. The point I'm trying to make here is twofold: 1.) I think the world has changed since 1987, when the only people I basically played D&D with were a couple of my brothers and cousins. (Have you seen all the black skateboarders recently?) 2.) Even if it hasn't, it's worth pushing for change. But a bad way to make that push is to presume to know how people are going to react. The very act of anticipating prejudice is a prejudice in and of itself.

It's like this: I'd never teach my son to expect white people to be racist. Likewise, I do my best not to assume that the hood is necessarily close-minded. I worked at a publication (which shall remain nameless) for a couple years, where the staff was 90 percent white and probably two-thirds Ivy League. Some folks were more close-minded than any hardrock I ran into during all my time coming up. Alright, so maybe not any hardrock--but you get the picture. The close-mindedness, the ignorance and prejudices of the privileged are always overlooked; meanwhile, such qualities among the poor are always moral failings.

Hmm, I took it a little far there. What I'm saying is, as much as I think it's counterproductive to assume the worst of the world (which is why I would never repeat the "twice as good" mantra to my son--we set the standard, not someone else), it's probably more counterproductive to assume the worst of ourselves.

Obligatory John Edwards post

I mostly agree with John Cole, I just kinda don't care. That said the brazen recklessness of all this is stunning.

The greatest run in NFL history

About 6:10 against the Rams. Put this dude in the Hall of Fame--this is a Cowboys fan saying this, by the way. The 10k yards marker is increasingly obsolete. Oh yeah--good morning guys.

Billy Dee Williams warns Detroit, "Stop embarrassing us respectable Negroes."

Really though. Did we learn nothing from Marion Barry?

Only built for elvish linx

I unfold the scroll, plant seeds to stampede the globe

--Nas

So you may not see me for awhile guys. What you see below is the contents of a package I received yesterday. I've been blogging about my decision to teach my kid D&D. Well the moment is here. I've been going through all the old rule-books and stuff--this has to be the most complicated "game" ever invented. It's more like a guide to acting or something. I had forgotten how hard it was to be a dungeon-master. Nevertheless, if you want your kid to be an actor/writer/director I really can't think of a better start. I swear I am gonna start a movement to get kids here in Harlem playing table-top role-playing game. It's a great time-killer and it really builds on imagination and abstract reasoning skills. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

D&D.JPG

Continue reading "Only built for elvish linx" »

More on Nikki Tinker

Who's sort of hot. Uhm, in a racist, antisemite, burn in hell with ~~Norman~~ George Rockwell sort of way. Ahem. Alright, here's bright young thing Adam Serwer in classic form:

There exists a bizarre idea that somehow, because of racism, black people should be immune to the kind of petty clannishness that afflicts other human beings, and it is therefore even more reprehensible when they aren't. But there really isn't much difference between what Tinker did in Tennessee's Ninth District and what Republicans do every year. The Tinker campaign's attempt to argue that only a black candidate could represent a majority black district isn't so different from John McCain's invocation of himself as "the American president Americans have been waiting for."

Here is the quote of the week:

Fox's Hannity and Colmes invited the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson onto the show to say what white right-wing pundits would feel less comfortable saying. Peterson blamed the entire black community of the Ninth District, declaring that "most blacks" in Memphis are "so racist that they don't even realize that white Americans have moved on, and so whenever there is a campaign like this, such as this, they always use racism in order to intimidate white Americans." Hours later, the virulently racist black community of Memphis strapped on their black berets, and clutching copies of Soul on Ice, handed Cohen a landslide win with 79 percent of the vote to Tinker's 19 percent. She got a larger share of the vote in 2006, running against 13 other people.

UPDATE: Wrong Rockwell.

The Party of Stupid

Krugman channeling Colbert:

...I don't mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don't mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.
What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism -- the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there's something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise -- has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party's de facto slogan has become: "Real men don't think things through."
In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump. In fact, earlier this week Republicans in Congress actually claimed credit for the recent fall in oil prices: "The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking," said Representative John Shadegg.
What about the experts at the Department of Energy who say that it would take years before offshore drilling would yield any oil at all, and that even then the effect on prices at the pump would be "insignificant"? Presumably they're just a bunch of wimps, probably Democrats. And the Democrats, as Representative Michele Bachmann assures us, "want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, take light rail to their government jobs."

I think Krugman is conflating pandering with anti-intellectualism--not that you can't employ both at the same time. Still, no party has a monopoly on the art of pretending that there are easy answers to difficult problems. I don't think Obama is above doing that himself--certainly Clinton wasn't. Remember the gas tax? That said, the past few weeks worth of attacks on Obama have had "stupid is a virtue" feel to them.

I should also add..

...running an ad juxtaposing a guy with a KKK hood and Nathan Bedford Forrest doesn't exactly sound like Jew-baiting. One thing I'll say--maybe I'm missing something here. It could be Jew-baiting and race-baiting. Certainly the flier was Jew-baiting. But her outward public strategy seemed to be a very explicit appeal to race.

Oh yes, there will be links

Dude, I can't effing wait to see this:

Just when you thought everyone had moved on... former advisers to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are in a tizzy over an upcoming piece in the Atlantic Monthly that chronicles the inner workings of the now-defunct campaign. Of particular concern are nearly 200 internal memos that the author, Josh Green, obtained -- 130 or so of which he plans to scan in and post online. When the piece is published sometime next week, readers will be able to scroll through the memos, from senior strategists such as Mark Penn, Harold Ickes and Geoff Garin, and see what exactly was going on inside the infamously fractured Clinton organization. That has some former team members in a panic. And we thought the Abramoff e-mails were fun....

H/T to Andrew

Michelle Obama's Dickipedia page

Again, not wrong because it's politically incorrect. Wrong because it just isn't that funny. Contrary to popular opinion, It really isn't that hard to make fun of black people. I think all the whining from comedians really is about their desire to make lame jokes about black people. Put another way, they want the right to joke black people, while having only a surface level insight into black people. Folks just need to work harder. Sarah Silverman pulls it off all the time.

Dude, just give her the roll-call vote

Nice piece from Anne Kornblut this morning on the behind the scenes pre-convention dealings:

The Obama and Clinton camps said this week that they agree on a central point: They would like to avoid an embarrassing display of discord from Clinton's most ardent backers when the national convention begins in just over two weeks. Conversations about how to achieve that have increasingly focused on the question of whether Clinton's name will be offered in a roll-call vote by delegates to determine the nominee, even though she has said she is not challenging Obama's claim as the party's standard-bearer.

You know what, he should just give in. Here is how the scene will play out. She'll get the roll-call vote, which will be news for a day or so. Then Barack will give an incredible speech at the convention--40 years after "I Have A Dream" no less--and the whole narrative will shift back to Obama. I don't see how this causes any long term damage. Clinton adherents get what the want, and the rest of us get to move on.

Should a white guy get to join the black caucus?

Commenter Scipione ask whether Steve Cohen--who reps a majority black district--should be able to join the CBC:

I was wondering if I could get your take on Lacy Clay's comments when he decided not to allow Congressman Cohen join the CBC:

"Quite simply, Rep. Cohen will have to accept what the rest of the country will have to accept -- there has been an unofficial Congressional White Caucus for over 200 years, and now it's our turn to say who can join 'the club.' He does not, and cannot, meet the membership criteria, unless he can change his skin color. Primarily, we are concerned with the needs and concerns of the black population, and we will not allow white America to infringe on those objectives."

Obviously, on its face, Clay's logic is silly and Cohen should be allowed in the CBC. In fact, given his circumstance, I almost think he should sue them. Clay thinks he's punishing Cohen, but more likely he's punishing the black people who sent Cohen to Congress. That said, Clay's statement really is only shocking because we view black America through the prism of some old noble savage-type shit. The expectation, post-Martin Luther King, was that black folks should--and would--always and forever occupy the moral high ground.

But most of the people who benefited from the Civil Rights Movement weren't any more moral than the white people they wanted to compete with. They just wanted the right to get a better job and live in a bigger house. Nothing wrong with that. But we really shouldn't be shocked when black politicos, act in the same stupid provincial manner as other white ethnic politicos. There is a great saying about black America, power and the moral high ground--black folks only problem with slavery is that they were the slaves.

Here's a fun fact

Morning folks. Here's a quote that commenter Nquest and lot of us on the Obama bus will find interesting:

He has ventured into areas of criticism only he could get away with, unabashedly calling problems of individual conduct that bedevil the black community and the quality of urban life by extension. No white politician could presently challenge black people to get off drugs and raise the babies they make, to stop being lackadaisical in public school, to work their way out of problems rather than merely whine as they sullenly accept their conditions. Any white politician so bold would be shouted down as racist, or as one given to dangerous generalizations... He therefore has more than meager appeal to whites...

White conservative meditating on the effect of Bill Cosby telling black folks to stop blaming the white man? New York Times columnist reflecting on the impact of Barack Obama urging black America to take responsibility for its own problems?

Not quite.

More like black writer commenting on Jesse Jackson as he ran for president in 1988. Sorry I don't have a hyperlink. My man Jelani Cobb dug this up for a book he's working on. Most of you know I've been critical of Jesse--though not for the same reasons as most conservatives. Still, quotes like this serve as a useful corrective to this noxious notion that black people have, post-1968, been held captive by victimologists toting around a "culture of failure." More likely, media likes the victimology narrative because it offers a nice easy counterpoint to "individual responsibility." It also has the luxury of fitting in snug with the established, if crude, right/left paradigm. Of course this narrative does have one significant drawback--it ain't true.

This is just smooth

Frankly, I'm glad Obama is engaging the hecklers, rather than quarantining them out. HT to Andrew for the link.

Photographer insists on Pledge of Allegiance before Obama rally

A little bit more on posting

You guys have probably noticed that I've deleted a few comments. It isn't a perfect method, but for the moment, it's the best method I have at my disposal to tamp down the nonsense. I strongly believe that if this blog didn't have comments, it would lose about 75 percent of its whatever magic it has. If it were overrun by trolls, it would lose about 50 percent. I don't like deleting people's shit. But I'll do whatever I can to make this a space for civil conversation. Hosting a blog (as I was telling one of the Atlantic online guys) is like have an ongoing dinner party at your house. If I were hosting that party, I wouldn't allow some jackass to just wander in and ruin everyone's good time, so I won't allow it here.

There will be some changes in the coming weeks that make moderating discussions easier. But for right now, this is what we have. If you see someone making an ass of himself, please hit that "email Ta-Nehisi" link, and I'll look into it and do what I can. Thanks guys.

From the department of Monkeys with Typewriters

I don't have much hate in my reservoir for Karl Rove. Still it amazes me that people like him actually makes money saying things like, "to win, Mr. McCain must also make a compelling case for electing John McCain." Or better yet:

He needs to describe the consequences of specific domestic policy decisions. He must explain how his proposals on energy, health care, jobs and education will make a difference for ordinary families.

You think, Karl? This is like going to the cardiologist with a heart condition and him telling you to eat more vegetables right before shooing you out the door. I can count on one hand the times I've heard one of these "strategists" say something original. Maybe they save their best insights for their campaigns. Or maybe elections depend on, you know, the actual candidate.

For the record

I've said many many times that my basic attitude toward "race-bases" Affirmative Action (in education) can be summed up as "meh." My biggest problem is that it expends tremendous political capitol to help those in the black community who need it the least. I think Obama summed up my view really well. I basically agree with everything he said. I'm not really interested in a debate about Affirmative Action at Harvard Law when black kids are dropping out of school at a truly shocking rate. I guess I favor class-based Affirmative Action, mostly because I don't believe my son should be given preferential treatment--at any point--over some poor white kid from Kentucky.

But here is the thing--people who think this will sell better because it's color-blind need to read up a bit. Ostensibly color-blind social programs like food stamps and welfare get colorized all the time. I also resent using Affirmative Action as some sort of Sista Souljah move, and--obviously--I especially resent the idea that it is somehow a reverse version of Jim Crow.

Obama's answer to Affirmative Action is about three minutes in.

The "Wasn't Me" defense

Sorry to turn this into Affirmative Action day guys, but there's a lot of interesting stuff in comments. Glad folks are speaking their mind, and arguing with a level of intellectual honesty. Anyway, here's another argument I've been turning over in my head:

Try explaining to 3rd generation immigrants how they or their forebears benefited from slavery. There are many facts that you could produce that may indeed prove it. But do these arguments have the same impact as the anecdote about the 2nd cousin who was denied a promotion because of a quota? This is the disconnect. The descendants of immigrants see themselves as not personally responsible for the crime of slavery, yet they see themselves personally paying for it. Why shouldn't they resent it? AA doesn't seem all that noble to them.

Obama gave a nod to this argument in his speech on race. As a politician, I wouldn't expect him to do anything else. I think it's an effective line and it reaches out to people who he needs in his coalition. Fortunately, I'm not a politician and so I'll just say this--the "immigrants didn't do it" argument is dubious. Let's skip past the fact that the argument rather conveniently reduces a case made against slavery and Jim Crow into simply, "slavery." Let's skip past the fact that even at the reduced standard, the commenter owes, at the least, the very existence of the seat of his country to slave labor. Let's ignore all the slaves who died in the Revolutionary War, without which, there would be no country for the commenter's forbears to immigrate to. Let's skip past the era of redlining and excluding blacks from New Deal programs which "benefited" all whites--immigrants or not.

Let us jouney to the heart of things--what the "immigrants didn't do it" defense offers is an a'la carte brand of citizenship where one gets to pick and chose what one will or won't claim. Here is fellowship rendered on the cheap--scarfing down hot dogs and cheering for fireworks on the Fourth of July (despite the fact that said commenter's forbears did absolutely nothing to liberate the country) while slinking away when the subject of slavery or Jim Crow arises. I should thank the heavens that I had nothing to do with the forced removal of the Native Americans. But I recognize that I live in Manhattan--on land that I didn't settle. Moreover, I certainly had nothing to do with the murder of millions of Jews by the Third Reich, but I'm quite proud that my taxes help pay for the Holocaust Museum. Either you're an American, or you are not. If you are, welcome to the family--the entire family.

One more thing. I want to push back on this notion that asking the country to acknowledge past wrongs and commit itself to righting them is some sort of "give away" to black people. I think it's myopic to say whites "benefited" from Jim Crow because, when we refused to be mature and decided to segregate, we did not merely disenfranchise blacks, we passed our problems off to our children--black and white. I have made this case before, but bridging this chasm, healing this wound is only a "favor" for black people if you have no problem with your grandson having this same conversation again in fifty years.

Continue reading "The "Wasn't Me" defense" »

Especially the blacks and the Jews pt. 233231

TPM knocks Nikki Tinker's ad in which claims, "While he's in our churches, clapping his hands and tapping his feet ... he's the only senator who thought our kids shouldn't be allowed to pray in school." Turner's opponent Steve Cohen is Jewish, which leads TPM to claim that Tinkeris Jew-baiting. Maybe. It's clear Tinker is invoking bigotry--but I don't think it's that kind. It seems that the more salient fact is that Cohen is the only white person in Congress representing a majority black district. The "our" in question likely refers to the church--a bastion of voluntary segregation.

Frankly, I've always doubted the power of Jew-baiting as a method of scaring up votes in any black community outside of ~~the tri-state area~~ Gotham. That's not because blacks aren't antisemetic, it's because--in the words of the great Jimmy Baldwin--they're antiwhite. Jew-baiting against a white Jewish guy in a majority black district, is like attempting a 360 dunk. Why go through all that when the the plain-old race-baiting layup will suffice?

August 2008 Archives

August 31, 2008

The Axe

There is a God

Some clarity

The GOP's new campaign theme: Are you dumber than a third grader?

The dishonesty of Karl Rove

Ronnie Lott hits harder than you

A note on my colleagues

She ain't a crook, son...

Elitism Bait

Weak-sauce defined

August 30, 2008

Booo...Boooo!

Words from the Arch-Bishop

About those Hillary voters

Pity the Bengals

On grammar

The limits of media manipulation

Hyperlinks make everyone happy

August 29, 2008

Because it's Friday

Basically

Worlds collide

A note about typos

One way for Palin to help McCain

Favorite clip of MLK

Alaska, do we have a problem?

McCain's abortion kabuki

One criticism of Obama's speech and race

Is the experience argument over?

McCain VP Thread

Back to Thoreau

West, Malveaux and Smiley

A question which only Big L could answer

Did Barack need more MLK references?

August 28, 2008

Wow MSNBC is nuts

Let's go

Text of the speech

Yal'm Goin Be There

John Lewis is pumped

The shocking racism of PUMA

Well that does it for the Lieberman VP talk

Affirmative Action vs. Legacies

An oddly compelling look into the life of Lanny Davis

Beef is when anchors ain't safe up in the streets

Best speech at the convention

August 27, 2008

When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

Uhm, Chargers fans...

The essence of boredom

Business as usual

Last Thing

By the way though

Coates on the run

Mika Brzezinski

August 26, 2008

And Here...We...Go!

At least Brian Schweitzer

Mark Warner

Spike Lee On MSNBC

Riddick Bowe

Rachel Maddow

The split

Luke Russert

Ed Rendell...

Clinton does it again

The deplorable trend of hiring operatives as "analysts"

The case for structural critique

Is Alex Smith done??

More mock umbrage from McCain

I haven't decided who is worse

The problem with "traditional media"

In fairness to Juan Williams

The "wasted" first day of the convention

August 25, 2008

The incredible arrogance of Bill Clinton

White people

Publius tackles Wilentz