Ta-Nehisi Coates: March 2009 Archives

A Damn Good Blog

I've already recommend my man Brendan's blog. But this morning I got some insight into how good it actually is. The thing is completely apolitical and filled with just weird-ass entries on Dehorning Paste and firefighters who turn to arson. I was trying to find something to excerpt, when I simply gave up--every entry defied synopsis. You guys should just go see it to believe it.

The Futility Of Black Media

The old lions of black magazines, Ebony and Jet, are in trouble. PostBourgie elaborates:

The argument that they matter because of their historical import shouldn't be too easily dismissed. But that feeling of familiarity and cultural obligation, of supporting these publications because they're black publications has essentially been their entire business model for their entire runs, even as the media landscape changed in cataclysmic ways.
In terms of functionality, they don't do anything so superlatively (or even competently enough) that it would make me, an admitted magazine junkie, ever seriously consider buying them. At this point, you're more likely to find thoughtful and well-researched journalism/essays on issues that affect black people -- por ejemplo, here, here, here or here -- in mainstream publications than you are in either of them. They've completely ceded that space. They're just not very good magazines by most measures.

I think this is basically true--all of it. For various reasons, I've had to think about the future of "ethnic" media. This isn't an Obama, post-racial problem--it's been going on since the 90s when I was in college. I think The Source and, more specifically, Vibe, in their heyday, really pointed the way forward. They both were, in many ways, black magazines. But they weren't in the old way. At their best, they used hip-hop, a cultural movement with roots in the black community, to look out at the broader world. I think Vibe and The Source messed up by not moving away from hip-hop, as music per se, circa 99. Hip-Hop should have been the lens, and sometimes--but not always--the subject matter. But they had the right idea.

The closest I've seen to what a black magazine--or any black media--might look like in this era died shortly after it was birthed. That would have been Suede, the urban fashion magazine launched with much fanfare a few years back. It really looked gorgeous, and it had some great people working on it--including the best copy-chief in the business, one Kenyatta Matthews.

The less said about Suede's end, the better. But I think they had the right idea, and one that folks haven't really followed up on. You can't really have--nor should you want to have--an exclusively "black" media product. But you can have a vehicle informed by a black perspective that looks everything from Jay-Z to Tom Cruise. And the Dallas Cowboys. And wood elves. And Star Trek. What? I'm just sayin...

Those Moments When I'm Glad I Don't Have Cable

John Cole summarizes Lou Dobbs:

First, he is mad because Obama "fired" Wagoner.
Then he weeps for the future of capitalism with the government involved like this.
Then he gets mad because Obama doesn't know how to handle this crisis and isn't doing more.
Then he is mad because Obama didn't fire the head of the UAW.
And then he is mad because Obama might require the unions to make concessions.
And then he is mad because the Obama team is not doing enough for the traditional economy (which I guess is the economy outside of the financial markets and not having to do with the auto industry but doesn't involve concessions for blue collar workers).
And that was in one 5 minute portion of the show. No mention that half the things that upset him are at odds with the other things that upset him.
I've come to the conclusion that Lou Dobbs is just barking mad. CNN, it is time to put the crazy uncle out to pasture.

Dobbs has never been for me. But I've caught him on TV a couple times, when I was traveling. Am I hallucinating, or has he actually gotten angrier? It's pretty amazing.

The Tragedy And Betrayal Of Booker T. Washington

I've been (slowly) making my way through this Booker T. Washington biography. It really is a great read. But that aside, I think that it also highlights a great tragedy in race relations in this country. Washington is arguably the most effective and powerful black conservative in this country's history. (I maintain that Malcolm X was, for much of his public life, a black conservative.) Unlike today, Washington lived in a time when there actually was a credible black conservative tradition. Washington's "Atlanta Compromise" is remembered as a betrayal and a sell-out because it accepted segregation, and argued against black political agitation. But in fact, at the time, the response from black America to the "Compromise" was at worst mixed, and at best quite positive. No less than W.E.B. Du Bois called the speech, "the basis for a real settlement between whites and black in the South."

It makes sense, when you think about it. Washington basically said to the white South in 1895. "You win. We don't want the right the vote. We just want to till our farms, better ourselves, and be left alone. Leave us in peace, and you'll here no more of this voting or integration business." You have to remember the state of mind of black people, at that time. Reconstruction had been rolled back. The South was wracked by race riots. Three years after Washington's speech, the only coup in American history was orchestrated in Wilmington, North Carolina by racist thugs. Washington was basically conceding what he'd already lost. In return he hoped to simply secure the right of good Christian blacks to work the land in peace.

The dominant logic of the post-Reconstruction era held that the real problem wasn't white racists, but carpetbaggers and meddlers from up North who'd elevated illiterate blacks above their station. The white Southerner, presumably, had no existential objection to blacks, they just didn't want to live next door to them or have an illiterate and morally degenerate population electing their politicians. To this Washington, and much of black America, said Fine. Cease fire. You let us be, we'll let you be.

In retrospect, this was a grievous error. In point of fact, whites actually did have an existential objection to black people. Their beef wasn't that illiterates and moral degenerates might get too much power. Quite the opposite. Their beef was that blacks would prove to not be illiterates and moral degenerates, and thus fully able to compete with them. To see this point illustrated, one need only look at the history of race riots in the South. When white mobs set upon black communities they didn't simply burn down the "morally degenerate" portions--they attacked the South's burgeoning black middle and working class and its institutions. They went for the churches, the schools and the businesses. It's one thing to be opposed to black amorality. It's quite another to be opposed to black progress. The lesson blacks took post-Atlanta Compromise was that whites had used the former to cover for the latter. These days, it's popular to bemoan the fact that Washington has fallen into disfavor. But it wasn't blacks who proved the Atlanta Compromise fraudulent--it was the whites of that era.

You must understand the chilling effect this had to have on black people. To actually concede to all the racist propaganda out there, and then to be rewarded by hooligans burning down your community must have been psychologically devastating. People wondering why the GOP can't get a foothold in the black community, need to not just think about Goldwater and Nixon. They should think about Du Bois telling black men to go fight in The Great War, and then having those veterans come home to the Red Summer of 1919. They should think about the pogroms that greeted Booker T's compromise. There's a lot of hurt out there. A lot of ancient hurt. A lot of it, even in these times, quite deep.

The Case Against Michael Vick

CHFF says Vick needs to play his position--running back:

Vick's major problem as an NFL quarterback has been that he simply does not pass the ball nearly as well as the game's elite quarterbacks. He's never completed 57 percent of his passes, he's never thrown for 2,500 yards and he's never thrown more than 20 touchdowns. And his career passer rating of 75.7 is below average (typically about 80.0) and far below the elite status that might inspire a team to take a chance on him three seasons after he last took a snap from center.

Atlanta's running game has certainly suffered severely without Vick. The team's historic 5.47 YPA on the ground with Vick in 2006 fell sharply to a middling 3.95 YPA in 2007, before recovering in 2008 (4.36 YPA) behind Pro Bowl RB Michael Turner.

However, Atlanta's passing game hardly missed a beat without Vick.

In fact, it improved dramatically in the two years since Vick left football. We all know that Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan was the NFL's Rookie of the Year in 2008. His 87.7 passer rating easily exceeded Vick's best efficiency mark (81.6 in 2002). But the most damning indictment of Vick's passing capabilities is that the Falcons rose from 32nd in passing yards with Vick at the helm in 2006, to 18th in passing yards in 2007, when the team was led by rotating collection of castoff quarterbacks who filled the void in Vick's absence: Joey Harrington, Chris Redman and Byron Leftwich.

The Falcons averaged 5.70 YPA passing behind Vick in 2006, and 5.93 YPA passing behind the back-up all-stars in 2007.

I agree with the case against Vick as a QB. I'm not sure I agree that he's the heart to take the sort of pounding that a running back has to endure. There were quite a few running backs who were faster, bigger and stronger than Emmitt Smith. There weren't many that were tougher. Think how Walter Payton used to finish his runs. It takes something internal to deliver like that. I could see Vick as a third down back, a kind of Brian Mitchell back--but not much more.

Y Control

Nick Catucci spends some quality time with Karen O and her mens and them:

Chase describes it as a "new cool detachment." But let's just say it: Despite the detours into atmospheric balladry, this is a dance album. To some fans--the ones drawn to the band because, like the also bass-free White Stripes, their emergence promised a rock resurgence in deafening guitars--that might sound a little too cool. Their self-titled first EP, in 2001, and 2003's Fever to Tell trafficked in raw: Shouty, guitar-driven, and entirely one-of-a-kind, they were that rare band that maintained their indie patina even with a mainstream single (the transcendent "Maps"). When they dared to dabble with texture and instrumentation, to facilitate a bit of introspection on 2006's Show Your Bones, there was backlash. If Karen O came out of the gate a rock star, the thinking seemed to go, why should the band need to tweak their sound, for fame or any other reason?
O & Co. were therefore nervous about how the new album would go over. "We were concerned what their hard-core fans would say," says the band's lead producer, Nick Launay. "The new direction was a very, very brave decision--a strong and confident decision not to want to repeat themselves ... And Karen was definitely the main person who was adamant that we had to change direction."

It really is a dance album. $100 to the man or woman who hears "Dragon Queen" in the club and doesn't move. Alright, so I'm not exactly "in the club" anymore. Still up here, just off Lennox, that joint do make em yell go Karen and do the whop. We gotta work on the boy's rhythm. But we're getting there.

Even Though We Had Fun In 91...

Folks always note my penchant for announcing my public appearances at the last possible instant. (Reading in Cumberland, Maryland in two minutes! Catch it if you can!!) In an attempt to actually get people to come out, I'm offering advance warning. Next Tuesday evening I'll be in Brooklyn, at the Court Street Barnes & Nobles, reading with Adam Mansbach. I'll be, as always, hawking copies of The Beautiful Struggle.

Sorta. Actually, I'll also be previewing a project I'm working on--The Beautiful Remix. The idea is to take a few chapters from my book and do what Kid Hood did for Tribe in 92. Could be shockingly awesome and revealing. Could be shockingly derivative and redundant. Who knows until it's done. I'm not even sure how I, or if, I'm going to publish it. I may just throw it up on the blog. The more important point is that I'm having fun working on it, which is really all that matters. Takes me back to being a 16 again, when all I wanted was to do something like this. Feh, who am I kidding, even today, all I want is to do something like this.

Hey Ladies...

I'm sure there are some real hotties who frequent this blog. I am aware of the effect I have on women. All the Jennies love a Star Trek fan who spends his days listening to MF Doom, playing WoW, and bragging about having a kid when he was 24 (making me practically a teen parent) and not marrying the mother. Teh Sexah, indeed.

But even if it wasn't locked down, I can't see myself going where Ann Althouse has gone. I don't disapprove (who cares if I do?) but I'd be too scared.

It's funny because I've actually seen relationships come out of online gaming. When I used to play Everquest back in the day, I ran with two Wood Elves (I was a Euridite wizard. Even when I'm fantasizing, I'm a black nerd) who were hooked up in real life. I only figured this out as I hung out with them more. Whenever we'd go to Karnor's or the City Of Mist, this dude would follow us. Later the couple told me the dude was the girl's ex--in real life. They used to game together, but she met this other dude (the other Wood Elf) and left her man to move in with him. That just blew me away--but it really shouldn't. Virtual communication is a lot like real communication.

Anyway, if teh ladies weren't sweating me before this post, having heard me hold forth on Wood Elf mating rituals should do the trick. You may now mob me. I'm all yours.

The Fetish Of Centrism

He doesn't come out and say it, but I think Jonathan Chait's piece on the Democratic congress, really puts the lie to this idea that what we need right now is group of Senators assembled to prevent the Democratic Party from tilting to the left. My beef isn't with people who aren't as liberal as me--it's with people who call themselves moderates because it polls well, or to cover for their fundraising efforts. As Evan Bayh admitted, these dudes have no stated platform. They're just yelling "Centrism!" into a crowded room.

So what do they want? Who really knows. But here's Chait on Mr. Moderate Ben Nelson:

The most emblematic objection has come from Nelson, who is balking at Obama's plan to save money on college loans. You might suppose that a fiscal conservative like Nelson would agree with Obama's plan to save $4 billion on a social program. But he does not, for reasons that provide a useful window into the rot afflicting the congressional Democratic Party.
For many years, the federal government supported college education by guaranteeing bank loans to students. If a student defaulted on his loan, Washington would simply pay back the difference. In 1993, Clinton undertook to reform the program by cutting out the middlemen and simply having the federal government issue the loans directly. Clinton hoped to save money for the government and plow some of those savings into lower interest rates for students. Of course, private lenders who benefitted from the no-risk profit stream balked and forced a compromise whereby both kinds of loans--guaranteed private loans, and direct loans from the government--would exist side by side.
Recent years have shown beyond a doubt that the direct lending program works better. Every independent analysis--by the Congressional Budget Office, by the Office of Management and Budget under each of the last three presidents, and by the New America Foundation--has found that direct lending is cheaper. The guaranteed-loan program managed to cling to life through its congressional patrons and through simple graft. In 2007, a major student-loan scandal emerged when it turned out that private lenders paid off college administrators to drop out of the direct lending program and steer students to them.
Obama thus proposes to save the taxpayers more than $4 billion per year by ending the guaranteed loans. This is as straightforward a case as you can find of a fight between special interests and the public good. Nelson opposes it because one of the lenders that benefits from federal overpayments is based in Lincoln, Nebraska.

There's so much more. Read the piece.

White Music For Black People

Some initial impressions on the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs joint. I really, really like Karen O's voice, and I can't even tell you why. It really is the weirdest thing. I didn't come up in the church, but like a lot of black folks, my ideal is Aretha--in other words when I say I like someone's voice, I'm usually saying I think they can blow. I don't think Karen O "can blow." And I don't much care. She makes me feel like singing. I don't know what else to say about that. Besides, we live in an age of oversinging--too many motherfuckers doing the technical Aretha thing, but without any real passion.

More on the album itself--I think I must be the only person who's liked each one of the YYY albums better than the last. I know Show Your Bones had its critics. I think It's Blitz may be my favorite--but I should give it more time. "Dragon Queen," "Soft Shock," "Hysteric" and "Little Shadow" are just great.

I think my opinions are shaped by basically missing any music created by white people during the mid to late 80s. Kids like me would have been dismissed as "acting white" for listening to a ban like the Yeah Yeahs Yeahs. OK, that's dishonest--I would have been the one doing the dismissing. What can I say? I was young and stupid, and thought the Bomb Squad and Marle Marl created the world. To get a listen from me, you had to run game--think George Michael who half my hood thought was black. We couldn't get cable in the city, and so we missed a lot of videos. (Hell, even Madonna got cut off, post "Get Into The Goove.")

Kenyatta, who did listen to a lot of white 80s acts, was saying how much of the stuff I'm digging today is derived from her childhood. I can vaguely hear that. But not really. The YYYs offer a shot at redemption, a chance at forgiveness for that imaginary black kid who I mocked as white because he dug Flock Of Seagulls. Forgive me Derwin. Everyone else, cop It's Blitz. Derwin already has it.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero (Official Video) HQ
by wonderful-life1989

Tell Us How You Really Feel, Rod

Hilzoy pulls out this amazing nugget from a Dreher post on homosexuality:

If homosexuality is legitimized -- as distinct from being tolerated, which I generally support -- then it represents the culmination of the sexual revolution, the goal of which was to make individual desire the sole legitimate arbiter in defining sexual truth. It is to lock in, and, on a legal front, to codify, a purely contractual, nihilistic view of human sexuality. I believe this would be a profound distortion of what it means to be fully human. And I fully expect to lose this argument in the main, because even most conservatives today don't fully grasp how the logic of what we've already conceded as a result of being modern leads to this end.

There are these moments when, even during polite dialouge, you have to concede that you aren't living in the same world as other people. I'm at one of those moments. The idea that two gay cats marrying "would be a profound distortion of what it means to be fully human" leaves me flabbergasted. I thought "Rock Of Love" took care of that. But again we see a social conservatism that defines itself by a stigma of others, by an insistence that it has monopoly on what it means to be human, that the world would be a better place if we had more Ted Haggards, not less.

Justice Delayed

Matt swats at Bob Gates for delaying the death of Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

It's simply the nature of the military that this "a lot on our plates right now" excuse will almost always be available. In retrospect, the 1990s were a period of relative peace and quiet for the military, but at the time it was seen as a stressful period of multiple deployments (to Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia) around the world mixed with efforts at containment in the Gulf and the Korean peninsula. The Joint Chiefs are never going to say "eh . . . we don't really have much going on these days."
Meanwhile, racial desegregation of the military actually required a large number of active steps and was successfully carried out near the peak of Cold War tensions. The biggest step toward ending discrimination against gays and lesbians in the military would be the passive step of just not discriminating against them. Gay and lesbian soldiers are already serving. Gates could just decide that with as much on his plate as he has at the moment, he'll make sure we stop persecuting them.

Fucking Racist

I'm on the journolist e-mail list, and thus by definition, a closet liberal. I don't talk much on the list, preferring to embarrass myself publicly. On that note, I don't think it's crazy to call someone "a fucking racist" for saying the following:

Well, I am extremely pessimistic about Mexican-American relations, not because the U.S. had done anything specifically wrong to our southern neighbor but because a (now not quite so) wealthy country has as its abutter a Latin society with all of its characteristic deficiencies: congenital corruption, authoritarian government, anarchic politics, near-tropical work habits, stifling social mores, Catholic dogma with the usual unacknowledged compromises, an anarchic counter-culture and increasingly violent modes of conflict. Then, there is the Mexican diaspora in America, hard-working and patriotic but mired in its untold numbers of illegals, about whom no one can talk with candor.

I think a racist would claim that Mexican society is "congenitally corrupt." I think a racist would disparage "sub-tropical work habits." (There would be no slaves in the past, and no construction workers in the present without those habits.) But it takes a fucking racist to say all of that,and then assert that "no one can talk with candor" about illegal immigrants. Understand the difference--the racist simply argues that you are less than. The fucking racist argues he isn't allowed to say you are less than, right after he's said as much. The former deserves a dis track. The latter, only half a bar. Which means, I've already said too much.

Why You Don't Joke About Legalizing Weed

Because cops will shoot you over a dime bag.

Thinking Big

The BigThink people had me in for a session. Here's one clip. More later. Now, seriously, I'm off to talk to some kids. I know, I know. I wish I could quit you.

Obama And Pot

I agree with Andrew. I love Obama's sense of humor. His answer was funny. But then not really. I'd rather hear jokes after marijuana legalization actually gets a fair hearing.

Criminal Justice Week Continues

Ross offers a response to my response on conservatives and justice policy:

Here we have an issue - the design of our criminal-justice system - that's of burning concern to the African-American community. It's not an easy issue to wrestle with by any stretch: My preferred approach to reform, for instance, would marry a reduced incarceration rate to a substantial increase in the police presence on America's streets, which if implemented clumsily (as most policy shifts are) could mean fewer black men behind bars, but more tragedies like the death of Ta-Nehisi's friend. But it's also an issue where conservatives could embrace policy shifts without compromising their core beliefs - the question of where to strike the "build prisons or hire cops" balance is a practical rather than a philosophical one - and in the process, I think, substantially change the way the Republican Party is perceived in the black community. Also, it would be the right thing to do.

This is something I think that arguments like Steele's - which are common on the American Right - lose sight of. As I remarked in the context of the Europe-or-America debate, there are a lot of big-picture political issues that boil down to philosophical differences, and that can't (and shouldn't) be resolved or finessed through clever policy thinking. But there are also a lot of political issues that boil down a question of resource allocation: We're going to spend X dollars on prisons and police (or on the military, or on the school system or the highways or what-have-you), and the question is how. And getting that "how" right can make an awfully big difference - to the African-American community, and to many other people as well.

I basically agree with this, and I think, if, say, a Mike Huckabee, took this stance, he'd find a lot of allies in places where Republicans traditionally don't. I do think it's worth looking a little harder at the Shelby Steele argument that Ross is referencing. Steele basically argues that the GOP won't have much success recruiting blacks because our identity is built on alienation and grievance. I think the GOP won't have much success if it listens to people like Steele.

Steele's argument that black people exist in a "grievance-focused identity" is kind of amazing, given that he supports a party who held grievence as an integral part of their strategy. What was the Nixonesque "us against them" rhetoric, but grievance? What was the silent majority, if not a grievance? What was Sarah Palin's small town snobbery? Oh, right. That's not grievance. That's patriotism. In all seriousness, I don't know how you become a politician if you fon't have a grievance--that's the point.

Anyway, let us remember how Steele's poster-child for black grievance, Al Sharpton, did amongst black voters:

Mr. Sharpton's showing in the other state primaries was even worse, but he had staked his credibility on South Carolina, spending more time here than in any other state, hoping the large number of black voters would accept him as the defender of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy.

Yet polls of voters who had cast ballots showed that he had received 19 percent of the black vote as against 32 percent for Mr. Kerry and 36 percent for Mr. Edwards.

Let us also remember that Steele claimed Barack Obama would lose largely because black people wouldn't support him if he wasn't grievance-focused. That's the sort of proclamation that comes from spending too much time on a campus and at conferences, and not enough time at cook-outs and barber-shops. Steele's analysis of black people always amazes me, because there are rarely any actual recognizable people being discussed. What we mostly get are symbols and automatons, ripped from some debate circa 1994 between him and Cornel West. His columns always give me that feeling of watching a lit professor deconstruct a text.

Sorry for the digression. The upshot is that I think Ross is right. It's also that I'd do well to spend less time annoyed by Steele. One day I'll be as humble as my rhetoric.

From Baltimore To Fort Greene

Other way around actually. I'm traveling today guys, so the house is yours. No 40s. No blunts. And keep your Avia's off my Moms glass table.

Variations On A Theme

I don't mean to make this Criminal Justice Day at the Atlantic, but a comment just linked this incredible story, that must be read to be believed:

Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle stood in front of a dozen news cameras this afternoon at police headquarters to apologize for the behavior of an officer who stopped a family outside a hospital emergency room.

"His behavior in my opinion, did not exhibit the common sense, discretion, the compassion that we expect our officers to exhibit," the chief told a packed audience of media outlets that included Inside Edition.

During the traffic stop, caught on the officer's in-car camera, Powell berated the driver, 26-year-old NFL running back Ryan Moats, and threatened him with arrest for running a traffic light.

"I can screw you over," said Powell, 25. "I'd rather not do that.

Moats was speeding because his mother-in-law was upstairs dying. He recieved a call that he and his wife should get to the hospital if they wanted to see the woman before she passed. Moats explained this several times, the cop did not care.

The chief also praised Moats and his family for how they handled the officer's behavior.

"They exercised extraordinary patience, restraint, dealing with the behavior of our officer," Kunkle said. "At no time did Mr. Moats identify himself as an NFL football player or expect any kind of special consideration. He handled himself very, very well."

Moats rolled through a red light as he and his wife were en route to Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano. A Dallas police squad car pulled their SUV over near the hospital's emergency entrance.

Moats and his wife implored the officer to let them hurry on to the bedside of her ill mother.
"You really want to go through this right now?" Moats pleaded. "My mother-in-law is dying. Right now!"

His wife, Tamishia Moats, said Powell "was pointing a gun at me as soon as I got out of the car. It was the weirdest feeling because I've never had a gun pointed at me before under those circumstances."
Powell then spent long minutes writing Moats a ticket and threatening him with arrest...

Read the whole story. It's pretty shocking, in all kinds of ways. The officer did this despite the fact that his camera was recording the stop. You really have to wonder what would happen if this dude had not have been a ball-player. Also, check out Moats response to the cop. I think a lot of black men will relate. It reminded me so much of how my mother taught me to deal with the police.

On the other hand...

This is ridiculous:

About 60 people marched and rallied in Oakland on Wednesday to condemn the police and honor Lovelle Mixon, who was killed by Oakland police after he fatally shot four officers Saturday...

"OPD you can't hide - we charge you with genocide," chanted the demonstrators as they marched along MacArthur Boulevard, near the intersection with 74th Avenue where Mixon, 26, a fugitive parolee, gunned down two motorcycle officers who had pulled him over in a traffic stop. He killed two more officers who tried to capture him where he was hiding in his sister's apartment nearby.

The protest was organized by the Oakland branch of the Uhuru Movement, whose flyers for the march declared, "Stop Police Terror." Many marchers wore T-shirts featuring Mixon's photo, including a woman identified by march organizers as Mixon's mother. The woman declined to comment and gave her name only as Athena.
Lolo Darnell, one of Mixon's cousins at the demonstration, said, "He needs sympathy too. If he's a criminal, everybody's a criminal."
Asked about police allegations that Mixon was suspected in several rapes, including that of a 12-year-old girl, marcher Mandingo Hayes said, "He wasn't a rapist. I don't believe that."

This is a familiar refrain for anyone whose come up in shouting distance of the hood. Jay-Z articulated the phenomenon of mothers swearing their slain sons were angels:

I put your crew in hard-bottoms, the preacher's like God's Got Em
He ain't did nothing to nobody, but them boy's shot em

Beyond that, my Pops published a book a few years back looking at the legacy of the Black Panther Party. He was really proud, given that he'd been a Panther. Though largely sympathetic, and maybe slightly nostalgic, the book is not a piece of hagiography. In one of the more trenchant essays, the author points out the folly of equating thugs with revolutionaries, of essentially criminalizing the vanguard. Man, just writing that sentence takes me back to 95.

Anyway it's a rather stupid pattern that's been repeated on the black left (and likely on the radical right, too) right up through hip-hop. Think T.I. nuzzling up with Farrakhan, or Eldridge Cleaver asserting that rape was a revolutionary act. It's very hard for me to imagine Malcolm X making such a claim.

A few years back, I remember this group doing "cop watches" in the style of the old Panthers. They'd basically follow cops around to make sure they weren't brutalizing anybody. I used to think cool, but are you watching for them fools who stuck up my girl after she got off the Q train? In all fairness, that sort of thinking is much less common today. But when we see it, we should call it out.

A Little More On Prince Jones

Some folks asked about my buddy from Howard who was murdered by a police officer. The Washington Post did a very good investigation of the case, unfortunately it's behind a curtain. Here's a piece on the settlement. Here's some info on the cop, who is a piece of work, to put it mildly. And here's the reason I started writing. I knew for years that the Prince George's County police department was one of the most brutal in the nation, and had wanted to write about them. Prince's murder gave me that last push. It really was a small act. But it was something, and it was better than sitting at home stewing.

What's not in that article, is the profound personal effect Prince's death had on me. When I went down to his memorial service at Howard, I was upset, but not beside myself with grief. Truthfully, Prince had closer friends than me, and we'd been out of touch for a year or so. But I was disturbed, and didn't realize how profoundly until a year later when 9/11 happened. Everyone I knew was deeply shaken by it. And yet, again, I was disturbed, but not as grief-stricken as most of my friends.

I have a weird way of dealing with big, emotional events. My brain moves slow, and I tend to experience things in waves--it took weeks for me to understand, emotionally, what Obama's election meant. Ditto for 9/11, except longer. And then one night I woke up yelling and bawling like a four-year old. I'd had this dream where I saw Prince, alive and well, and tried to warn him, repeatedly, of the impending danger. But whenever I tried to explain, he would cut me off and tell me he didn't want to know.

This was a few months after 9/11. Kenyatta had repeatedly admonished me for being cold whenever someone talked about the attacks.I think I'm an atheist who's yet to come to terms with this fact. I didn't have a spiritual lens to interpret Prince's death or 9/11. I never believed in spirits sending you messages in dreams. But I did have a very concrete epiphany. The world had ended for my old friend, much as it had ended for all the victims of 9/11. But whereas we were hell-bent on bringing justice to Al'Qaeda, I knew that there would be no justice for Prince. The cop would keep his job, they'd rule the murder justifiable, and people would accept the death of a hard-working father, and a college student, the way the accepted the death of Patrick Dorismond and Amadou Diallo. It's the cost of doing business. And it's a cost born mostly by us.

I can't tell you how angry that made me. And anger breeds hate and blindness. And so for a good year, after 9/11 I was blind. I couldn't feel what this city was feeling. My son was almost two, and the thought of raising him right and him still becoming "a cost of doing business" filled me with fear--and more anger. The idea that someone, whose salary you were paying, could be lethally incompetent and yet continue to keep their job just burned me.

Emotions aren't moral. I wouldn't defend how I felt, and as time passed, and I came out of the anger, I came to feel deep shame for not participating in the public mourning after 9/11, for seeking to construct a morbid equation from death. I don't think Prince's murder justifies that. But it was how I felt. I simply didn't know how to cope.

Ain't No Sense In Going Home...

Jody's got your girl and gone...

I started writing this thinking that this was basically Big's "One More Chance," before Big's "One More Chance."

Jody leaves ashes in your ash-tray,
Footprints on your carpet, while you work all day.
Even got the nerve to sleep in your bed,
Sit down at your table, and eat your bread.

But isn't it much more? I love "One More Chance" but always found it to be, believe it or not, to explicit. The wordplay is incredible, the track is great, but I love hint of impropriety in this song, and its borderline feminism (this song could be performed by a woman without changing a single lyric). Big's song really is about manipulation of women. ("my game just rewind...") Johnnie Taylor is doing a similar thing, but a little more.

I always thought Taylor, here, (and especially in "Who's Making Love...") was great about making men uncomfortable (in a good way) by breaking away from the Madonna/Whore thing. I play this stuff for my son all the time. I get the humorous praise of the antihero cuckold, and, I'd argue, commentary on black men (niggers vs black people?) and mores. Of course it's more complicated and ambivalent than that. Words fail. Maybe I should just stop theorizing and let the music rock. I need to think more.

On a side-note, fools really need to see Wattstax. It's an incredible doc.

Some Clarification On Drug Convictions

I think I should ammend my post yesterday. I still maintain my thoughts on a basic fairness issue. Drugs are a multiracial equal opportunity problem. That said, we need to not repeat the mindless emotionalism of the "Tough on Crime" crowd. We should be more clear-eyed. I think this helps:

Wish I would have jumped in on this discussion before...
I've commented before on the topic of prison reform, and while I agree generally with the sentiment primarily voiced here against the "war on drugs", I think that it tends to be oversimplified in the comments.
As a previous commenter noted, plea bargains skew the statistics on the drug possession versus drug dealing charges. I'm a therapist in a medium-security prison and have worked with lots of guys down on drug cases. I think the notion that there are a lot of guys locked up on drug possession cases who were just drug addicts is false. I would say, anecdotally speaking, that most of the guys I work with that have drug cases were dealing. Often they were dealing to support their own habit, but nevertheless...
What is more common with the addicts is that they get arrested for theft, residential entry, battery, etc. That list includes violent and non-violent offenses.
The whole criminal justice/corrections system handling of drugs is a mess. I agree with the majority of what is said here about it, but I think we need to realize that the diagnosis of the problem is not as simple as it often is portrayed here.

John Hope Franklin Dies

A sad day for historians. A sad day for the country, though I'm not sure the country knows why.

Awesomesauce: Spiderman vs. The Machines

Seriously, this is great...

What To Make Of Condie Rice

Here she is on Cheney's PR campaign:

"My view is we got to do it our way; we did our best. We did some things well, some things not so well. Now, they get their chance. And I agree with the president. We owe them our loyalty and our silence while they do it. Because I know what it's like to have people chirping at you when they perhaps don't know what's going on inside. These are quality people. I know them. They love the country. And they won't make the same decisions, perhaps, that we did. But I believe they'll do what they think is best for the country and I'll give my advice privately and keep it to myself."

Mmmm. Sometimes I hate her. Other times...

I've got a running joke with my girlfriend. It starts in an alternate reality where I'm 20 years older, single, and childless. I've also gone all John Hinckley over Condi Rice, and somehow I manage to finagle my way into a social event where she is a guest. When she's off to herself and no one's looking, I whisper in her ear, "I hate everything you stand for. You take orders from a tribe of orcs who worship the Stone Age and mistake myopia for morality, and brutality for strength. You are a disgrace to your people and their long history of forcing this country to live up to its lofty ideals. Furthermore, you are the most beautiful woman inside the Beltway. Come away with me to a desert island. We will make beautiful arguments together."
Of course there is no alternate reality where anything like this could ever happen. Condoleezza Rice serves at the whim of a bizarro president who has pulled off the trifecta of wrecking the economy, waging a war in Afghanistan, and going off on Iraq before the dust settled in Kabul. She has been a willing participant in our isolation from the UN, and has willingly fed the dogs promoting anti-Americanism.
Worst of all, in the service of Bush, she's proved herself more than willing to obscure the truth. The African uranium hoax was "technically" accurate? But this wasn't the first or even the worst of Rice's prevarications. During one of her early appearances on Meet the Press, Russert went right for home base and asked Rice her thoughts on reparations. Her response was a clumsy attempt at historical revision: "I think reparations, given the fact that there's plenty of blame to go around for slavery, plenty of blame to go around among African and Arab states, plenty of blame to go around among Western states, we're better to look forward and not point fingers backward."
I'm not even for reparations, but that answer was equivalent to saying, "Well, there are four people who were involved in this murder, and since there's plenty of blame to go around, let's not prosecute it." Clearly Rice is smarter than that, and her willingness to use her intellect to bend reality pisses me off. It just makes me want to grab her by the arms, shake her, pin her down, and . . . uhh, I have to go now.

Six years late, but still, I really should be going...

Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform Pt.2

Adam does some reporting, and comes back with good news. Well, not entirely:

Not all of the ideas states have come up with to cut costs have been good ones. In Georgia, Republican state legislators proposed a bill that would make inmates liable for all their health-care costs relating to medication. Public-health advocates opposed the bill on the grounds that it could cause a public-health disaster, given that inmates might not seek out treatment to avoid being charged.
"[The bill] didn't have an exception for people with chronic illnesses; we're talking about diabetics, people with pretty serious conditions," says Sara Totonchi, public-policy director at the Southern Center for Human Rights. "If their treatment was contingent on whether or not they could pay, they would choose not to or be unable to seek medical attention. Which is a dangerous scenario to create in a prison."
The bill was changed to apply only to nonessential medications like cold or headache medicine. The savings are also now negligible and would save the Georgia Department of Corrections about $1.8 million a year, a small amount considering the $226 million Georgia spends on health care for inmates.

Bringing The Stupid

Seriously, Michele Bachmann's constituents should be embarrassed. Yesterday she asks Geithner:

"Would you categorically renounce the United States moving away from the dollar and going to a global currency as suggested this morning by China and also by Russia. Mr. Secretary?
Geithner: I would, yes.
Bachmann: And the Federal Reserve Chair?
Bernanke: I would also."

I can't take it. Hilzoy has the math on this fool. Here's the video. Wow.

Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

From Ross:

...as you might expect, a policy turn undertaken during a period of emergency will eventually produce diminishing returns - as Steven Levitt puts it, "the two-millionth criminal imprisoned is likely to impose a much smaller crime burden on society than the first prisoner" - even as it imposes substantial moral costs. And precisely because the tough-on-crime approach was largely vindicated by events, it's extremely difficult for elected officials to walk back from some of the dubious practices that have grown up around it - like, say, the possibly cruel-and-unusual use of long-term solitary confinement.

This political dynamic explains why the chances for effective prison reform probably depend on Nixon-to-China conservatives, who can put the credibility the Right has built up on law and order to good use. (It wouldn't hurt if conservatives were willing to champion some alternative approaches to crime reduction as well.) But they probably also depend on crime rates staying flat, or falling - and in the current downturn that may be too much to hope for.

I'm less certain that the "tough on crime" approach has been "largely vindicated" by events--mostly because I think a large part of the events include the moral costs, and the real costs to communities where alarming numbers of men are under the watch of the state. One should consider the numbers here--blacks make up a third of all drug arrests, and black men are 12 times as likely to be imprisoned on a drug conviction. Four in Five of these arrests were for possession, not sale. Perhaps this is because the drug epidemic has run rampant through black communities, but probably not. The difference in illicit drug usage is slight (9.5 percent of blacks have used illicit substances, 8.2% of whites). Those are the sort of numbers that feed an intense distrust of the justice system in many black communities. I think Ross (though I can't be sure) sees the ends justifying the means. But the means are disproportionately born by people who live far away from those "Nixon to China" conservatives.

This is more than theory for me. Ten years ago, my college friend Prince Jones was followed by a cop from Prince George's county Maryland, into the District, and out into the suburbs of Virginia, where he was going to see his young daughter and girlfriend. The police officer was allegedly looking for a drug dealer--a short man with long dreads. Prince was about 6'3 and wore a low caesar. The officer and Prince ended up in a confrontation, merely yards away from the home of Prince's girlfriend. He produced no badge, just a gun and a claim that he was a cop. Prince didn't believe him (and without a badge, I wouldn't have either) and rammed the guy's car. The cop shot Prince eight times, killing him.

Prince was not from the inner-city. His mother was a radiologist. He was a fitness freak. He was a born-again Christian who tried to convert me whenever I saw him. He was a student at Howard, who was killed mere yards from the home of his baby. The only thing he shared in common with the drug-dealer the cops were seeking out was color. Despite a botched operation, that spanned three jurisdictions, and resulted in the death of an innocent man, and orphaned a girl who will have no memories of her father, the officer was neither prosecuted, nor bounced off the force.

I don't bring this out to be cheap or try to shame my colleague, but to say that when you live close to that line, when you've been stopped by the police several times, when you know innocent people who are dead, when you know kids who are coming up fatherless because of our obsession with drugs, it becomes difficult to say that events have vindicated our strategy. Cases like Prince's wear on an essential thread in our democracy--a belief that the people who are charged with protecting you, actually care about protecting you. We've paid a heavy price for our crime policy. I'm heartened that some conservatives are starting to see that.

New Comment Policy Pt.2

So yeah, as you guys can see there are some changes. We're going with registration, for now. I'm still trying to work out a couple other things, but this is the first step. I agree the full moderation is something I should work hard to avoid. I'm hoping we can go to a trust system.

Bizarre...

I don't find the feud between MSNBC and Fox particularly engaging or entertaining. It's not new for news organizations to feud--just really small-minded. All of that said, I just want to note that I did watch this thing with Amanda Terkel over at ThinkProgress. I think she handled herself really well. Better than I would. Seriously. My gut reaction is to murmur to Kenyatta that if I see these fools posted up in Harlem, I'm fin to catch a case. But that isn't a particularly smart reaction. As an adult, I've gone with the gut a couple times. It never ended up anywhere good. I think Bill Moyers showed us how to do it, son.

Kid Fresh

PostBourgie looks at Allonzo Trier, the 12-year old NCAA prospect the Times Magazine reported on this weekend. I'm not joking about that prospect part, read the story. I'm not one of those "if black kids spent as much time studying as they did playing sports..." people. It's a sanctimonious argument that originates in the belief in white infallibility. So I actually don't worry about this kid wanting to be basketball player.

But I do worry about kids having that sort of life pressure at 12. I worry about a kid who's barely out of cartoons and into puberty, thinking about shoe contracts. I also worry about the range of life experience. Childhood is a great time to try out so many different things, and meet different people. When your profession is decided at that young age, it seems that a bubble must form around you. The kids parents seem solid, so I'm sure he'll be fine. But I wonder what the pressure does to someone that young.

Towards A Better Comment Policy

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to go to fully moderated comments. I've given this some thought over the past few weeks, and I think it's for the best. We've grown some since I started this a year ago. I've always prided myself on having a community of folks that would talk, listen and argue in good faith. But the bigger you get, the harder that becomes to maintain.

Moderation basically means, that someone (me) will have to approve your comments before they're posted. I'm not so much looking for people who agree with me, as I am people who have something to say that's informed, measured and meets the rudiment of logic. Specifically, I'd really encourage folks to get familiar with quotes and blockquotes. My main goal is to give posters an incentive to think and read carefully before posting. That sounds sort of high-handed, and I guess it is. I believe in the internet. But I don't believe that everyone's opinion is equal.

I'd say about 80 percent of what you see here will still go through. That said, I'm sure there will be some anger about this. Here is your place to vent.

Pour Out A Little Liquor

Somehow I missed this, but Culture11 is no more. Sad to see. Even on the web, it takes money to keep the ship afloat. People who care about this stuff should check out Charles Homans autopsy. (H/T The American Scene.) There's a great scene in there where some of Culture11's editors tackle Jonah Goldberg. It's not great because they're tackling him, but because it shows the price modern conservatives pay for walling themselves off from popular culture. In Culture11's wake, something more traditionally conservative has popped up:

It was a grimly funny coincidence that around the time Culture11's financial well was running dry, another Web site sharing its subject matter debuted to much greater fanfare in the right-wing media than Kuo's project ever received: Big Hollywood, an entertainment and politics blog created by Andrew Breitbart, a conservative Los Angeles-based Internet entrepreneur who helped launch both the Drudge Report and Huffington Post. Beneath an angry vermillion-colored banner, the blog offers recurring features like the "Celebutard of the Week"--tracking the latest vapidly liberal political utterances from the likes of Cher--and clips of the best conservative moments in film interspersed with rote breaking news from the entertainment industry. It's supposed to eventually host cultural musings from such notable film critics as House Minority Leader John Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor; commenting on a scene in the new thriller The International in which the characters shoot it out in the Guggenheim Museum, one Big Hollywood contributor coos approvingly, "I love seeing modern (phony) art destroyed."
But for all the bluster of all-caps headlines like "GLOBAL WARMING PROPAGANDA SINKS 'UNDER THE SEA 3D,' " it's a far less courageous site than the comparably nonconfrontational Culture11; beneath the patina of combativeness, it's really just a support group for 24 fans. What Big Hollywood does isn't criticism, or reporting--it's ideological accounting.

While the inability to confront culture is particular to the right, the problem of ideological journalism is not. My ideal is really Norman Mailer in Armies of The Night. Mailer was anti-war, but that didn't stop him from panning the anti-war protests, or panning himself. And he did it while reporting

I'm a lefty. That political bias informs my story selection and my interests. But I'm in the business of storytelling, not of converting people. Journalism is certainly informed by political beliefs, but even more so, political beliefs should be informed by journalism. If they aren't, you start claiming knowledge of masses of people you've never met. You get lazy, your mind slows and you become self-congratulatory and limited.

I always thought Culture11, at its best, was at war with that mentality. I'm sorry to see them go.

The Merits Of Jailhouse Hooch

Or the lack thereof:

If you're looking for proof of mankind's inveterate need for altered states of consciousness, look no further than pruno. Long created beneath the bunks of prison inmates, and often consisting of such odious ingredients as ketchup and sauerkraut, pruno is notoriously unpalatable, even for the most hardened toughs. According to a participant in a harrowing 2006 taste test, the stuff is reticent not of black currant and cinnamon, a la Spain's finest riojas, but rather "a rotten compost heap of tropical fruits consumed by maggots."

But it's not just the terrible taste that inmates must contend with. According to a new CDC study, recent batches of pruno have been found to be rife with botulism--yeah, the stuff that gets injected into Nicole Kidman's face on a semi-daily basis, but was once better known for killing people.

Thank You Mr. Vice-President. No, Seriously, Thank You Sir...

How did Dick Cheney ever get elected to anything? Even the House? Apparently some GOP folks are pissed that he's vying to be the face of the party. But this isn't new. Remember when he "endorsed" John McCain with like a week to go? It's like dude have you looked at your own poll numbers recently?

The Party Of Stupid

Even when it's Bobby Jindal.

We're All White Trash now

Or are we all niggers? Don't know. But the day of figuring out this black-white shit is coming. Hate, however, is eternal:

Discussing the first lady's visit to a Washington D.C. classroom last week, Bruce incredulously recalled Obama's story about wanting to get A's in school and called out her use of a "weird, fake accent."
"That's what he's married to," Bruce said. "...You know what we've got? We've got trash in the White House. Trash is a thing that is colorblind, it can cross all eco-socionomic...categories. You can work on Wall Street, or you can work at the Wal-Mart. Trash, are people who use other people to get things, who patronize others, who consider you bitter and clingy..."

There's a joke here--something about pots and kettles. There are many in fact. I'm overwhelmed though. Where do I begin? Yet again, the mind reels...

Why Do Black Immigrants Do Better Than Native Blacks?

This argument pops up from time to time, but it's been coming up a lot lately. It always seemed to me that the question answers itself--an immigrant is someone who's specifically come to this country to capitalize and exploit opportunity. Comparing any immigrant group to virtually any native-born group is like comparing the most ambitious members of one team with the entirety of another team. This is to say nothing of whatever skills, education and wealth a particular immigrant group may bring to bear.

I think it's very hard to accept what's happened to black people in this country post-slavery. I think we can accept that we had slaves--most countries did. But very few followed it up with the Klan and Jim Crow. These facts challenge our self-image as Americans. How can red-lining and Horatio Alger be true at the same time? The black experience threatens our image as a place of great individual opportunity. Of course, if our ideals are real, we shouldn't be threatened at all. Sometimes I say something stupid and unloving to Kenyatta. Doesn't mean I don't love her. But I also can't act like I never said it, or look for excuses for why I would. I have to confront myself and be honest, as opposed to trying to cover my ass

Where was I? Oh yeah, black immigrants. I think a natural--but ultimately cheap--reaction is to appeal to the Myth Of The Black Immigrant. If we can prove that other black people come here and do well, than it must mean that our ideals and our execution of them have, indeed, been righteous. It's just that the American blacks are too lazy and self-pitying to see this.

I think the best grappling I've seen with this was by Malcolm Gladwell, himself an immigrant black of West Indian descent. He rather brilliantly combines his own first person experience, his family's views, and some actual social science to show that, as he says it, someone must always be the villain. Forgive me for quoting at length. The piece is quite lovely:

I grew up in Canada, in a little farming town an hour and a half outside of Toronto. My father teaches mathematics at a nearby university, and my mother is a therapist. For many years, she was the only black person in town, but I cannot remember wondering or worrying, or even thinking, about this fact. Back then, color meant only good things. It meant my cousins in Jamaica. It meant the graduate students from Africa and India my father would bring home from the university...

But things changed when I left for Toronto to attend college. This was during the early nineteen-eighties, when West Indians were immigrating to Canada in droves, and Toronto had become second only to New York as the Jamaican expatriates' capital in North America. At school, in the dining hall, I was served by Jamaicans. The infamous Jane-Finch projects, in northern Toronto, were considered the Jamaican projects. The drug trade then taking off was said to be the Jamaican drug trade. In the popular imagination, Jamaicans were--and are--welfare queens and gun-toting gangsters and dissolute youths. In Ontario, blacks accused of crimes are released by the police eighteen per cent of the time; whites are released twenty-nine per cent of the time. In drug-trafficking and importing cases, blacks are twenty-seven times as likely as whites to be jailed before their trial takes place, and twenty times as likely to be imprisoned on drug-possession charges.

After I had moved to the United States, I puzzled over this seeming contradiction--how West Indians celebrated in New York for their industry and drive could represent, just five hundred miles northwest, crime and dissipation. Didn't Torontonians see what was special and different in West Indian culture? But that was a naïve question. The West Indians were the first significant brush with blackness that white, smug, comfortable Torontonians had ever had. They had no bad blacks to contrast with the newcomers, no African-Americans to serve as a safety valve for their prejudices, no way to perform America's crude racial triage.
Not long ago, I sat in a coffee shop with someone I knew vaguely from college, who, like me, had moved to New York from Toronto. He began to speak of the threat that he felt Toronto now faced. It was the Jamaicans, he said. They were a bad seed. He was, of course, oblivious of my background. I said nothing, though, and he launched into a long explanation of how, in slave times, Jamaica was the island where all the most troublesome and obstreperous slaves were sent, and how that accounted for their particularly nasty disposition today.
I have told that story many times since, usually as a joke, because it was funny in an appalling way--particularly when I informed him much, much later that my mother was Jamaican. I tell the story that way because otherwise it is too painful. There must be people in Toronto just like Rosie and Noel, with the same attitudes and aspirations, who want to live in a neighborhood as nice as Argyle Avenue, who want to build a new garage and renovate their basement and set up their own business downstairs. But it is not completely up to them, is it? What has happened to Jamaicans in Toronto is proof that what has happened to Jamaicans here is not the end of racism, or even the beginning of the end of racism, but an accident of history and geography. In America, there is someone else to despise. In Canada, there is not. In the new racism, as in the old, somebody always has to be the nigger.

Read the whole thing. It's wonderful.

Eraserheads

Alyssa Rosenberg tackles Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse." It's a typically smart take. Me? I'm not sure I want to watch some dude repeatedly erase a woman's memories. It feels like a rape fantasy, or some such. I'm sure it's more to it than that. But the shows premise makes me recoil a bit.

A Lack Of Old School Cred

A commenter licks a few hot ones:

Yo, dude . . unrelated, but I think it's a crime you posted a video of Aretha last week, and didn't even honor Chaka Khan on her b-day. your old schoolness is inconsistent, sir. i demand satisfaction. :(

The emoticon at the end really burned. So much cred to keep up with--street, nerd, old school, sports, lefty etc. The mind reels. Ah well, lets see what we can do.

Katha Politt On Ross Douthat

She raps a bunch of lefty doodz for congratulating Ross on his move, and strings together some his more disagreeable quotes. And then she gives us this:

So who would I like to see in the Kristol slot? Actually, Kristol. I was livid when they gave him the job, but he was perfect: a dull, complacent apparatchik who set forth the Bush line in all its fact-free glory. His columns were like press releases--you could hardly remember them two minutes after reading them. But his presence on the page reminded readers that David Brooks is not really what Republicanism is all about. Frankly, though, I don't see why there must be two conservatives on the page. Does the Wall Street Journal, the Times's national competition, have two liberals? That the Times, the closest thing we have to a liberal paper, cedes so much turf to the opposition, as progressive bloggers applaud, shows the truth of Robert Frost's quip that a liberal is someone so open-minded he won't take his own side in an argument.

As a liberal, I can see the point. Kristol was, indeed, a useful idiot. But we need to tease out a couple things. Kristol wasn't merely a conservative who was bad on the issues, he was a columnist who was bad at his job. He was not so much a conservative columnist, as he was a GOP shill, a political operator who ran an advance office for the Palin 2012 campaign, out of the Times' edit pages. Paul Krugman may be a liberal, and a lefty, but he most certainly isn't shilling for the Democratic Party.

More than that, Kristol failed at the non-ideological essentials. Getting your facts right is a basic standard of the profession. There's no left/right to it--either Obama was in pews to hear Jeremiah Wright, or he wasn't. Either Michelle Malkin said it, or she didn't. These are basic rules that you can teach a 14-year old. And Kristol got them wrong. Often. He was, in sum, an incompetent foe, the sort of boxer who think road-work is for sissies. In the midst of writing a review of one of Ann Coulter's silly tomes, Christopher Hitchens once told a reporter, "If I can't fuck up Ann Coulter before lunch then I shouldn't be in this business." Indeed. And to even the most simple-minded liberal I'd say, If you can't fuck up Bill Kristol before breakfast, you shouldn't be blogging.

The dude was good for that first Monday morning entry, no doubt. But here is the thing--in the war of ideas you don't gain much by measuring yourself against the worst that your opponents have to offer. The thing about competing against jokers, is that it eventually makes a joker of you. Your ideas lose their complexity, their volume and heft, mostly because you don't need them to take down Kristol. You just need to read the corrections on the Times website. I don't see how that helps me become a better writer.

Frederick Douglass once said that "A man is worked on, by what he works on." We have direct evidence of what comes to those who spend their days sparring with Kristol. Is that really where we're trying to go?

As a side-note, people who think Ross shouldn't have gotten the gig and want to enumerate why are free to comment. People who simply think he's a douchebag should probably just have a drink. I'll be deleting those comments anyway. Which will simply make you more frustrated, thus making you drink more. I know, I know. Life is so unfair.

Fix the wealth gap, Fix the world

After all our back and forth about culture, discrimination, young black men, and absentee fathers, so much of it comes do the fact that, as Meizhu Lui tells us:

The gap between the wealth of white Americans and African Americans has grown. According to the Fed, for every dollar of wealth held by the typical white family, the African American family has only one dime. In 2004, it had 12 cents.

That, really, is all you need to know about race in this country. ~~Your average white family holds roughly ten times as much economic power as your average black family~~ (UPDATE: see comments below for the change) . Moreover, I suspect that even if you're a black family on the upper end, you likely, still, enjoy less social capital than your peers, if only because there are going to be so few other black families like you. Why is the wealth gap so big? Frankly, I find race-based culture arguments to be hazy, unmeasurable and unknowable. I find arguments about job-discrimination more credible, but still unconvincing, mostly because I suspect that discrimination is a human impulse. I'm not convinced that we get it, today, any worse than the Irish or the Italians got it.

But the effect of past discrimination is observable and quite profound:

The biggest predictor of the future economic status of a child is the net worth of the child's parents. Even modest inheritances or gifts within a parent's lifetime -- such as paying for college or providing the down payment on a home -- can give a child a lift up the economic ladder. And historically, white families have enjoyed more government support and tax-paid subsidies for their asset-building activities.

Let's look at the rules of the game in homeownership, for example.
During the Depression, the Home Owners' Loan Corp. was formed to rescue families whose homes were in foreclosure. Not a single loan went to a family of color. The black section of Detroit was simply excluded. After World War II, GIs received government-subsidized home mortgages, but there was no oversight to ensure that soldiers of color got their fair share. Of the 67,000 mortgages issued under the GI Bill in New York and northern New Jersey, 66,900 went to white veterans, as documented in Ira Katznelson's "When Affirmative Action Was White."

This says nothing of redlining--a federal government policy which was, at its root, designed to keep black people in certain neighborhoods, and keep those neighborhoods poor. This says nothing of the the South's efforts to destroy black middle class communities, and violently suppress anything resembling black economic power. I think reparations are politically unworkable, but its becoming clear that we're paying a price for taking the easy way out. As Malcolm would say, agreeing that we sit on the toilet next to each other should be the minimum, not the apex, of our efforts to set history right.

Obama On 60 Minutes

Watch CBS Videos Online

No One Said It'd Be Easy

Jonathan Martin points out that Obama is catching from the Times's liberals. Meh, most of these guys were always lukewarm to him. Except Frank Rich, who offered the following on Sunday:

Within 24 hours, Summers's stand was discarded by Obama, who tardily (and impotently) vowed to "pursue every single legal avenue" to block the bonuses. The question is not just why the White House was the last to learn about bonuses that Democratic congressmen had sought hearings about back in December, but why it was so slow to realize that the public's anger couldn't be sated by Summers's legalese or by constant reiteration of the word outrage. By the time Obama acted, even the G.O.P. leader Mitch McConnell was ahead of him in full (if hypocritical) fulmination.
David Axelrod tried to rationalize the lagging response when he told The Washington Post last week that "people are not sitting around their kitchen tables thinking about A.I.G.," but are instead "thinking about their own jobs." While that's technically true, it misses the point. Of course most Americans don't know how A.I.G. brought the world's financial system to near-ruin or what credit-default swaps are. They may not even know what A.I.G. stands for. But Americans do make the connection between their fears about their own jobs and their broad understanding of the A.I.G. debacle.

I think this is pretty much right. Obama is, temperamentally, a deliberative, thoughtful guy. It's why I voted for him. Unfortunately that quality doesn't exactly lead you to outrage, when the public is demanding it. Maybe that's for the best. I don't know. What he most needs now, is to be right about the economy. I'm a laymen, but it's not clear to me that he is.

BSG Finale Open Thread

As you know, I swore off the show and thus wasn't interested in the finale. But my sense is that there's a group here who would very much like to talk about it. I want to provide a forum for that. With one caveat--don't be boring, and don't be an ass. That is all.

In Defense Of Iceland

From a commenter:

I find it fascinating to read this blog. So many people seem to be able to write about things they clearly know almost nothing about. Iceland did NOT trade fish for finance. The fishing industry has always been our most important industry, and it still is. The banking sector grew so much in a short time, that it became no 1 for a year (I think, don´t have the actual numbers handy). It is also incorrect (and irritading) to say Iceland, because it was 3 BANKS, not the whole country, that went bankrupt. A part of Icelanders took foreign currency loans, not everybody.
I read somewhere that 10% of households foreign loans on their houses. I read the article in Vanity Fair and thougt it was really funny. It was deffinetly not meant to be taken seriously. I thought the part about exploding Range Rovers funny. I also read in an article that people were warned not to come here because of riots, bunch of people making noice with pots and pans, that sounds real dangerous.
Sentences like "Iceland is a giant hedgefund" work because they are sensational and catchy, and people need to find somebody who is in a worse situastion than they are. That is why it works.

Also New York magazine objects.

The Death Penalty

With Bill Richardson outlawing the ultimate punishment, John has some thoughts on conservatives:

One of the things I have never understood is the seeming breakdown on opposition to and support for the death penalty. I have never figured out why conservatives, the people who flip out about zoning boards and if their taxes are raised 3% and who shout limited government until they are blue in the face have absolutely zero problem with the government taking that which is most precious- someone's life. All this posturing about the "ability to tax is the ability to destroy" just seems silly when you turn a blind eye to the government executing people.

There's more over at his place. But I'd offer one theory. I think a sizable, maybe not a majority, of the conservative base doesn't actually believe in small government. They believe in government not not taking their tax dollars and using it to help people who they don't like. This goes back to state's rights, Jim Crow and reconstruction. I don't mean to impugn principled liberarians, but there's certainly a strain of "small government" conservativism that's rooted in those old racist notions.

It's very difficult to disentangle debates over criminal justice, from race. Felon disenfranchisement laws have their roots in the efforts to keep black men from voting. I don't think the death penalty is a racist plot. But I wonder if the face of crime were more familiar, where we'd be on the issue. This is all a long way of saying that some conservatives don't hate big government, they simply want big government to work strictly for them.

Your Momma's Afro

Aretha Franklin Rock steady Soul Train
by chilavert

Chris Brown And Rihanna

Begin the groaning. I haven't said much about this for a reason--these are two people I've never met. I don't think it's a particularly smart idea to use individuals, who you don't know and whose image is mostly shaped by people trying to sell you something, to discuss whole masses of people.

But then yesterday someone sent me this article in which the author looks at the way kids are talking about the case. There is a lot of alarm over the fact that some study found 40 percent of kids "blame" Rihanna. This strikes me as the age-old tactic of marrying the latest controversy to the ever-present sense that our kids are more amoral than we were.

It's a bad idea to assess your society through lens of people whose business is fame. It's a bad idea to use a few kid-on-the-street anecdotes to assess how kids feel about domestic violence. It's a bad idea to present a single opinion poll as evidence of anything. It may be true, as the article implies, that kids don't take domestic violence seriously enough. But it'll take more than a few anecdotes and a single study to convince me of that. The uncomfortable fact is that Rihanna and Chris Brown are human beings--not tropes to be deconstructed in your local ethnic studies class, not symbols for our wayward young, not evidence of the pained relationship between black men and women.

How To Start A Friday

I'm extremely embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of the poet Frederick Seidel. Someone should slap me. The truth is that though my interest are wide, they're only deep in certain areas. That's the price you pay for being a traveler. But anyway, an editor recently sent me a copy of Seidel's collected works. If you care anything for words, do yourself a favor and cop his latest book.

Here's a sample--a piece called October, written after Seidel was asked to pen a poem for every month. This is what a love poem should sound like, not sappy and incredible, but painful and joyous, all in an understated way. It also feels so much like New York. I'm not completely sure why. Read this to your spouse. I did. She loved it. And she's never been anyone's idea of blonde.

October

It is time to lose your life,
Even if it isn't over.
It is time to say goodbye and try to die.
It is October.

The mellow cello
Allee of trees is almost lost in sweetness and mist
When you take off your watch at sunrise
To lose your life.

You catch the plane.
You land again.
You arrive in the place.
You speak the language.

You will live in a new house,
Even if it is old.
You will live with a new wife,
Even if she is too young.

Your slender new husband will love you.
He will walk the dog in the cold.
He will cook a meal on the stove.
He will bring you your medication in bed.

Dawn at the city flower market downtown.
The vendors have just opened.
The flowers are so fresh.
The restaurants are there to decorate their tables.

Your husband rollerblades past, whizzing,
Making a whirring sound, winged like an angel--
But stops and spins around and skates back
To buy some cut flowers in the early morning frost.

I am buying them for you.
I am buying them for your blond hair at dawn.
I am buying them for your beautiful breasts.
I am buying them for your beautiful heart.

"When you take off your watch at sunrise\To lose your life..." Gorgeous. Negroes need to read more poetry to their children. It would close the achievment gap.

UPDATE: Added the title. It's called October

Excuse me, flows just grow through me...

Like trees to branches, cliffs to avalanches. What a beautiful line. Are there any words for what we see below? So much emotion watching this clip--a lot of sorrow, a lot of pride, and a lot of shame. I make it hot, bloggers won't even stand next to you...

Iceland, The Economy, And More Great Writing

A couple of weeks ago, I steered folks to Ian Parker's gorgeously written take on Iceland and The Fall. The response from many of the comments was that I needed to check out Michael Lewis's piece on Iceland. It is as amazing as most of you said it was, but it got to me, on a personal level, as a guy who has struggled for most his (what, 13 years?) as a writer.

One of the hardest thing about doing anything in any sort of splendid way is getting past the conventional wisdom. For the work-a-day journalist the temptation to play small-ball, to write every story, the way virtually every other writer writes a piece is large. The upside is small--most of us aren't working places where there's much reward for breaking the mold. And the downside is huge--you could get editors yelling at you, you could have to rewrite the whole thing thus forcing people to blow through deadlines, thus pissing every other individual in the chain.

I think you almost have to be the sort of person who basically is incapable of writing in the manner of others, if you're going to do something different. I knew I was in for a treat when I read the following line from Lewis:

This in a country the size of Kentucky, but with fewer citizens than greater Peoria, Illinois. Peoria, Illinois, doesn't have global financial institutions, or a university devoting itself to training many hundreds of financiers, or its own currency.

It's stupid really, but I had this rule in my head that it's bad writing to begin a sentence with the same two words you ended the last one on. And yet it works here. Beautifully. There's a kind of poetry in the repetition of "Peoria, Illinois."

Straitjacketed editors are always warning young people away from the first person, and telling them to go report. The latter instinct is always correct. The former only sometimes. We live in era of over-indulgent, self-pitying, self-aggrandizing dreck. Same as it ever was, I suppose. Still, I think there's something to teaching kids to get in touch with their own original way of seeing the world (their voice), on top of being dogged reporters. Lewis brings both to bear with amazing results. The piece is fully reported. But it's also told in a way that no one else can tell it.

UPDATE: One thing I didn't get, mostly because I'm illiterate when it comes to things. Why did the "Iceland as a hedge fund" metaphor work so well? Is it because short-sellers started betting against it? Help me out here, all.

UPDATE 2: I don't want to compare and contrast the two pieces, but damn, this line from the Parker piece, is stuck in my head--"A country overwhelmed by evil has more dignity than one tripped up by fools." Reminds me so much of being black, being American, just being human.

I'm Black. I'm Dressed Like The President.

Larry Wilmore brings the awesome-sauce...

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The Ever Ready Drug Story

Jack Shafer must Nexis these. Seriously though, people need to stop writing them. Drug Use has been with us forever. It's not going anywhere.

The World Is A Ghetto

Jelani Cobb explains:

But we're in the middle of a recession right now because millions of middle class people bought more house than they could afford, because millions of others used home equity as a personal ATM machine to subsidize life styles they really couldn't afford. And because the CEOs and politicians who are supposed to be the responsible voices around here spent the better part of a decade indulging their addiction to cheap Chinese goods that have artificially inflated the value of the dollar. Ever wonder why it is that everyone in America can afford a flat-screen and most Chinese -- who are manufacturing them -- can't?
This is all made possible by those hood-ass folk over at Treasury and Citi and Lehman and the good folk in China whose economy is the international equivalent of an E-Z Credit joint in the... um... ghetto. Fittingly, those formerly high-end subdivisions where deer are running amok and swimming pools are the new mosquito nest have become suburban ghettoes. Which, I guess means that we'll have to retire Ghetto as an adjective because, ironically, the tide of foreclosures ensures even more need for it as a noun.
So break out your platinum grills, tattoo your children's names on your neck and head downtown with rollers in your head: we are all ghetto now.

Racism Ruins Everything

Piggybacking on yesterday's convo around minorities and Hollywood, I watched Breakfast At Tiffany's recently. I had just finished watching Mrs. Parker And Her Vicious Circle for the first time. Jennifer Jason Leigh was transcendent, as usual. Matthew Broderick was meh.I have no idea how those cats did any writing, given how much time the spent drinking and gossiping. But anyway, the movie was depressing, and so as a pick-me-up, I fell back on one of my old favorites--Breakfast At Tiffany's. For all sorts of reasons, too corny to recount on this blog, Kenyatta and me love that movie. But goddamn is Mickey Rooney's yellowface Mr. Yuniochi hard to take. It's not even hard to take in that "funny but dead wrong" sort of way, it's just rather stupid.

The movie has a Birth Of A Nation problem, but of a lower order. Whereas Birth Of A Nation is, at once, a revolutionary and racist film, Tiffany's is a great film with a racist portrayal. I don't know if people, at the time, thought the Rooney's bit was racist, or if he's reflecting the mores of the Mad Men era. I also try not to come down too hard on things like this given that prejudice in art, is as ancient as art itself. Imagine the films the Egyptians would have made about the Assyrians, or the Romans about the Germanic tribes.

At the same time, it reminds you why people who blame the fall of everything on political correctness are morons and, in many cases, bigots looking for cover. For instance...

Now That's A Trekkie

Seriously, this dude is going hard:

There is nothing particularly unusual about the living room of the two-story town house that Scott Veazie shares with his wife in Washougal, Wash., except for one piece of furniture in a corner: a full-size replica of the captain's chair from the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise, as seen in the original "Star Trek" television series.

Mr. Veazie, 27, was not yet born when that show first went on the air in the 1960s; even his parents were only teenagers. During his childhood, there were "Star Trek" spinoffs on TV with more sophisticated special effects than the original, and a more contemporary sensibility, and there were also movies featuring the old show's actors aboard updated versions of the Enterprise. But Mr. Veazie, who watched endless reruns of the original series with his mother in the 1980s, was never drawn to those later incarnations.

Meh, TNG FTW.

Obama's Socialism Revealed!!

Heh. In Soviet Brooklyn, Obama crush YOU!

We Don't Know The Half

Via Andrew, Lawrence Wilkerson (Colin Powell's old chief of staff) puts Dick Cheney on blast:

Recently, in an attempt to mask some of these failings and to exacerbate and make even more difficult the challenge to the new Obama administration, former Vice President Cheney gave an interview from his home in McLean, Virginia. The interview was almost mystifying in its twisted logic and terrifying in its fear-mongering...

But far worse is the unmistakable stoking of the 20 million listeners of Rush Limbaugh, half of whom we could label, judiciously, as half-baked nuts. Such remarks as those of the former vice president's are like waving a red flag in front of an incensed bull. And Cheney of course knows that.
Cheney went on to say in his McLean interview that "Protecting the country's security is a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business. These are evil people and we are not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek." I have to agree but the other way around. Cheney and his like are the evil people and we certainly are not going to prevail in the struggle with radical religion if we listen to people such as he.
When--and if--the truths about the detainees at Guantanamo Bay will be revealed in the way they should be, or Congress will step up and shoulder some of the blame, or the new Obama administration will have the courage to follow through substantially on its campaign promises with respect to GITMO, torture and the like, remains indeed to be seen.

Three things occurred to me reading this piece. The first is just how much of piss-poor job journalist have done in interviewing Cheney now that he's out of office. I don't think Jon Stewart is the right model. I'm more thinking Terry Gross. But Dick Cheney would never be interviewed by Terry Gross. If you want to know why, listen to Gross take on his wife.

The second thing is this--I've not written much about investigating the Bush era, mostly because I've been conflicted. I do think it's a political loser, and I'm also not sure if it would accomplish much. But watching Cheney, a man who in a country with no democracy, would be Mobutu, demagouging people who are trying to do the hard work of patriotism--not the sloganeering part, the how do we engage evil without becoming evil part--is stomach-turing.

Congress if you're listening--Air this motherfucker out, please. Not just to shut him up, but to send a simple message to to all the other swamp gnolls, hoods, hobgoblins and latent Mobutus among us--Don't fuck with the Constitution.

The Case For Jon Stewart

Matt alerts us to this Morning Joe appearance in which Evan Bayh announces a new centrist caucus. Clearly this is needed because the greatest threat to the Democratic Party--with Tim Kaine chairing the DNC, Hillary Clinton at the State Department, Lawrence Summers directing the National Economic Council, Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, and Bob Gates in the Pentagon, pro-lifer Harry Ried as Majority Leader--is a Marxist plot hatched by Dennis Kucinich and the ghost of Paul Wellstone.

Look, I'm not opposed to moderation or pragmatism as a principle. But what I see below from Evan Bayh is a rather shallow, sanctimonious, self-congratulatory, voodoo moderation. Here is a Senator who co-sponsored the resolution for the Iraq War--arguably the most delusional, Utopian act since Vietnam--talking up his pragmatist credentials. Laughable.

But worse than that is the way the Morning Joe crew line up to see who can administer the best blow-job. I'm not sure a single act of journalism was committed during Bayh's entire appearance. Come on man. Do your job. Or be forced to take lessons from a comic. I almost never say this, but particularly in the world of broadcast journalism, what we're seeing is a deficit of creative intelligence. It's really simple. Stewart isn't always right. But he's smarter and creating something more original than anything these guys could dream.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Jersey Stand Up

Not exactly Lauryn Hill. And I don't think anyone should tell anyone to "stand up" ever again, unless they're being ironic. Also this--something about this video (the earrings?) led me back to that old race/class question about culture. Meh, I love the earrings. Reminds me of home.

Jersey Girl Still Asks What the F*ck? - watch more funny videos

Diversity In Hollywood

A seemingly annual debate--the eyes glaze just contemplating it all. That isn't entirely fair--I'm not a fan of most TV, and the idea of making mediocrity blacker just ain't my fight. But then, I'm also not trying to make a living in the business:

On the eve of Barack Obama's election last fall as the first African-American president, television seemed to be leaning toward a post-racial future. In October two prominent cable networks -- CNN and Comedy Central -- began new programs that featured black hosts, a development that was notable because so few current programs on cable or broadcast channels have minority leads.

Five months later both programs -- "Chocolate News," featuring David Alan Grier on Comedy Central, and "D. L. Hughley Breaks the News" on CNN -- have been discontinued. In addition, CW, the broadcast network that regularly features comedies with largely African-American casts, announced in February that it was renewing six popular series, but its two with mostly black performers -- "Everybody Hates Chris" and "The Game" -- were not among them. (The network says it is still deciding their fates.)

I'm surprised about D.L. Hughley show, given the whole Michael Steel thing. I've never seen Chocolate News. I'd be curious to measure the tenure of "Everybody Hates Chris" and "The Game" against other sitcoms. I loved "Girlfriends" but I never thought "The Game" was very good.

Could the "Rooney Rule" help here? In other words, I think it may be better to urge studio heads to talk to more people of color pitching pilots, as opposed to urging them to put more shows on. The emphasis, it seems, should be on process. One other thing--these stories always focus on black people, and this one in particular focuses--not on blacks on TV--but on series led by black people. How does it feel to be Latino or Asian-American and see this?

Explaining Jay Cutler

Don Banks fingers Cutler's agent. I have no idea what's in this kid's head.

About That Shelby Steele Op-Ed

I can't respond every time dude says something crazy. I will say that Steele's op-ed on minoritiess and conservativism greatly underplays the racism of the very people who founded the modern movement. But honestly, iller men than me are on the case:

Steele is correct that too often liberals have sought policies that might alleviate guilt rather than achieve progress, but his persistent myth is that conservatives do not feel such guilt, and therefore they are free to respect people as "individuals." If that were true, they wouldn't need Steele to convince them that there was nothing to feel guilty about. Steele is not free from "white struggles of conscience." As the sole black voice telling conservatives they have no racial past to be ashamed of, he is inexorably tied to them. And what's really sad is he clearly has no idea.

Brendan Has A Blog

Iconoclast Brendan Koerner has joined us on the interwebs with the launch of his new blog. Brendan is an all-star journalist, author, and screenwriter, who sold his first book to Spike Lee. And I'm not just saying this because he's a fellow Harlemite and one of my best friends. Most important, Brendan has excellent taste in beer. We were both so smitten by Burkhard Bilger's recent profile of Dogfish breweries, that we've decided, this summer, to pack our kiddies and spouses into a rental, and head south for the beaches of Delaware. It's gonna be so awesome. Almost as awesome as Brendan's post on the film that will scandalize sci-fi for decades--Battlefield Earth:

This week's victim is John Travolta's Scientology-infused sci-fi stinker Battlefield Earth, which remains the great blemish on Forest Whitaker's otherwise amazing career. How the man behind Ghost Dog and Charles Jefferson got suckered into this disaster remains a question for the ages.

Also if you have a moment, check out this wonderfully layered profile Brendan wrote about black Indians, casino money, and DNA. It'll make some of us stop claiming that Cherokee blood.

The Party Of Stupid

Michael Steele strikes again:

And when a listener scoffed at the notion of global warming, Steele eagerly ran with the baton.
"Thank you, thank you," he said. "We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? No very long."
Greenland, for the record, likely had forestation some 450,000 to 800,000 years ago. But its name was derived, as is most commonly believed, from Erik the Red, who wanted to trick people into going to that island as opposed to the more hospitable Iceland.
The Greenland gaffe was not Steele's most glaring. Earlier in the program a caller asked him about the importance of education. The RNC Chair responded with a curious comment about the need to understand the differences between Hitler and Mussolini, as opposed to FDR and "his honor, the honorable Winston Churchill." Only, he spoke of "Roberto Mussolini" -- an obscure essayist, it seems -- as opposed to the much more infamous fascist, Benito.
"Education is key," said the RNC Chair. "It is where it begins, for all of us... If we understand the difference between Marxism, socialism and capitalism; if we understand the difference between a Roberto Mussolini, an Adolf Hitler, and a Franklin Roosevelt, and his honor the honorable Winston Churchill, if we know those differences than we can appreciate what these times mean. And how history is a precursor of things to come."

Can visits to the depths of creationist museums be far behind?

UPDATE: Link fixt. Sorry guys.

The Last Word On RE5--No Seriously

Evan Narcisse weighs in on yesterday's Times piece as well as the whole hoopbla. His response is measured and intelligent. That's likely because Evan has not only played the game (I have not) but he's also one of the few amongst us, critics and defenders, who's expended a little shoe-leather and done some reporting. Forgive me for quoting at some length:

For my part, I've never called RE5 racist, and I probably won't. Throwing the word around oversimplifies what I think is a more complex reality. What I will stand by is my assertion that this game will make plenty of people uncomfortable in racially specific ways.

That's worth discussing...

It's clearly not the main text of the game, but the subtext feeds on awful, previously understood notions about not just Africans on the continent, but black people everywhere. There's no sense of scale, in terms of humanity, in RE5. You don't see daily life before it's destroyed by the infection. No bustling market. No kids playing. It opens on guys with machetes. As a result, the fictional country of Kijuju looks like a place that's just ripe for evil to manifest.

Some reviews acknowledge that there's been a storm regarding the racial portrayals brewing around the game, but sidestep addressing those portrayals.

As this debate's carried on, the apologists' retort has taken the form of "What about Resident Evil 4? Huh? Huh? Huh?" Read this quote from commenter ado_rimbo in the thread following Scott Jones' review: "But the point is that Spaniards are whites with an imperialist history, not a racially oppressed minority, so there are not loaded images here that one could be irresponsible with." Read my answer during the Takeuchi interview: "And because there's a history of demonization and subhuman portrayals with regard to people of African descent, there's a certain sensitivity around that."

Spaniards don't have a long, loud history of being portrayed as scary, subhuman savages. The average American citizen that previous Resident Evil games have used as enemies don't have a long, loud history of being portrayed as scary, subhuman savages.

This black videogame journalist has never said that black people aren't fair game for being enemy antagonists in videogames. What's problematic is, the way that RE5 chooses to make them antagonists pounces on fears that were promulgated about black people in the not-so-distant past. Sure, we're all susceptible to zombie virus, as Schiesel's NYT write-up blithely notes, but the subtext of the game seems to whisper: "Yeah, but those Africans don't have as far to go to become savages." This subtext feeds on awful, previously understood notions about black people.

Final Thoughts On RE5

Seth Schiesel claps back at those who've called Resident Evil 5 racist:

For at least a year some black journalists have been wringing their hands about whether the game, the latest in the seminal survival-horror series, inflames racist stereotypes because it is set in Africa. The answer is no...

So Resident Evil 5 exposes the perhaps uncomfortable truth that blacks and Arabs can become zombies too, just like anyone else. Blacks and Arabs do not have a secret anti-zombie gene. And just like all the thousands of white, Asian and Hispanic zombies that have been dispatched in innumerable other games before them, the African zombies must also be destroyed, or at least neutralized.

I think it's worth reading Schiesel's piece and then seeing whether the arguments he's addressing actually match those made by RE5's most serious critics--such as Dan Whitehead and Evan Narcisse. I'll leave it at that for now. Badder mutherfuckers than me will be tackling this in the coming days. More soon.

Italians Do It Better

John Forte tackles Kate Bush. Pretty inoffensive. But I simply love the Chromatics' version--ethereal, airy and haunting.

John Forte "Runnin Up That Hill" from The ICU on Vimeo.

People Who Should Quit While They're Ahead Pt. 2

Yglesias on Dick Cheney:

It's really remarkable when you think about it that anyone would listen to Cheney on the subject of national security. His administration was by far the least successful in American history in terms of preventing international terrorists from murdering Americans. Also by far the least successful in American history in terms of preventing international terrorists from murdering NATO allies. And the military action his administration pursued in response to the terrorist attack we suffered under their watch has come to be mired in problems, teetering on the brink of failure, almost entirely thanks to a second--but completely unnecessary--war his administration chose to undertake in favor of successfully completing the first one.

Maybe he's running for president in 2012. Man we should be so lucky.

No Mayo. All Awesome-Sauce.

The NAACP Subprime Suit

The NAACP is claiming that Wells Fargo and HSBC discriminated against black families, by steering them toward subprime loans. I'm of a two minds on the subprime crisis. I hope that one thing that comes out of it, is that we learn not to sign contracts, which make us liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars, that we don't fully understand. Brokers, who stand to gain from the sale, don't count as independent advisers. That said, I think that the banks will need to explain this:

Blacks still were disproportionately steered into subprime loans when their credit scores, income and down payment were equal to those of white homebuyers, he said.

Adam has more on the suit.

Black People, Culture And Poverty

Sudhir Venkatesh salutes William Julius Wilson's new book More Than Just Race for its willingness to talk intelligently about the role culture plays in black poverty. I am a Wilson fan, and though I haven't seen his book, I can believe that it's all Venkatesh says it is. I have one quibble. Throughout, the piece Venkatesh uses the term "black" interchangeably with "black and poor."

The book stands to have a powerful impact in policy circles because it points to the elephant in the room. Wilson knows it is difficult to engineer cultural change. We can train black youths, we can move their families to better neighborhoods, etc., but changing their way of thinking is not so easy. Evidence of this lies in the many "mobility" programs that move inner-city families to lower-poverty suburbs: Young women continue to have children out of wedlock and, inexplicably, the young men who move out return to their communities to commit crime! These patterns flummox researchers and, according to Wilson, they will continue to remain mysterious until we look at culture for an answer.

I think it takes a real flight of fancy to dismiss the culture argument. If you are rich and you've been rich for generations, you almost certainly develop cultural habits. Likewise, if you're poor and you've been poor for generations, you do the same. If you've been wealthy for generations and you were suddenly asked to function in the ghetto, you may have problems because you didn't know the rules. You weren't acculturated. Likewise, if you're poor and you're trying to climb up the economic ladder, you may also have problems. What will keep you safe in the projects, may well get you fired from a job, or kicked out of school. I think this would be true whether you are poor in West Baltimore, or poor in West Virginia.

But one reason that a lot of African-Americans get pissed off at cultural arguments is because the "culture of poverty" is often so easily transposed over the "culture of black people." I went to public school all my life. So does my son. I've had my share of contact with the culture of poverty. But the culture that encourages people to jump the broom at weddings, isn't the same as the culture that makes drug-dealing a choice occupation. The culture at, say, Spelman isn't the same as the culture of the projects here in Harlem. And the culture at Spelman isn't the same as the culture at Howard.

To take it back to that quote, my son is a "black youth." He goes to school with other "black youth." He plays on a football team populated by still more "black youth." Some of these kids have been acculturated to poverty. Some of them haven't. We aren't trying to change how "black youth" think, we're trying to change how people acculturated to poverty think. A disproportionate number of them happen to black. Given the weight of a century of systemic wealth discrimination (from emancipation to the Civil Rights movement), I don't know why we''re surprised by that fact.

Still, I increasingly wonder what role "black" plays in anything. If you looked at the cultural practices that hold poor black people back, would you find more synergy in middle class black America, or poor white\Latino\Asian America? If you looked at the cultural practices of poor black people in cities, how much would they differ from the practices of poor people in cities historically? Culture attracts such protest from many blacks not because we think that the culture of poverty is a myth, but because the mass of us who, in the space of about 40 years, have made more progress than any group of blacks before us, don't deserve to be told that our culture is making people poor. Seriously. Fried catfish and Outkast ain't never disenfranchised nobody.

People Who Should Quit While They're Ahead

Tucker Carlson takes it to John Stewart, who bodied him back in 2004:

No, I think Jon Stewart is dishonest. And by the way, I also think he's a sacred cow. There's nobody who has the huevos to attacks Jon Stewart because he's too popular. The press sucks up to him like I've never seen -- it's like Oprah. Jon Stewart, all the kids watch Jon Stewart. He's brilliant. I would like to see somebody have the stones to come out and say, Jon Stewart's kind of a pompous jerk, actually.

Heh, I always love it when people claim "no one" is allowed to attack a guy, right before they do just that. Anyway, Carlson goes on to claim that Stewart isn't funny and that the rest of the world will soon see this. Of course Carlson has been dumped twice, since Stewart's been on the Daily Show. It's worth rewatching that Stewart take-down. It's timeless. Like KRS tossing PM Dawn off stage and then rocking their crowd. Except better.

Three Percent Of D.C. Residents Have HIV

I really, really, really wish I could say I was surprised:

The District's report found a 22 percent increase in HIV and AIDS cases from the 12,428 reported at the end of 2006, touching every race and sex across population and neighborhoods, with an epidemic level in all but one of the eight wards. Black men, with an infection rate of nearly 7 percent, carry the weight of the disease, according to the report, which also underscores that the District's HIV and AIDS population is aging. Almost 1 in 10 residents between the ages of 40 and 49 has the virus.
The report notes that "this growing population will have significant implications on the District's health care system" as residents face chronic medical problems associated with aging and fighting a disease that compromises the immune system.
Men having sex with men has remained the disease's leading mode of transmission. Heterosexual transmission and injection drug use closely follow, the report says. Three percent of black women carry the virus, partly a result of the increase in heterosexual transmissions.

There's something to be said for the demographics of D.C. making this possible. But still, those numbers are just shocking.

At Least You're Not That Guy

Andrew has posted a few links to Stewart ethering fools. But seriously, nothing beats the sonnage Colbert brings to Dinesh D'souza. Wow.

The Strength Of Street Knowledge

Below is the most damning clip from the Cramer\Stewart face-off. Stewart is obviously a genius, and he had Cramer's number. Still, something about it all didn't sit quite right with me. Stewart rightly attacked CNBC for not doing their job, and then he attacked Cramer for "throwing plastic cows through his legs." But I couldn't stop wondering the sort of nation takes its most crucial advice from a guy who throws cows through his legs?

In all of this, I find myself unsatisfied by the critique. For me, the investigation always begins at home--Who are we? Why is there a market for foolishness? I don't know much about the financial world. I come to this equipped solely with the weaponry I was deeded by the streets of Baltimore, and in the home of Cheryl Waters and Paul Coates. The shield in that arsenal, is the intuitive sense that no one gives you a house for nothing, that you don't base your future on advice from the dude who cameos on Arrested Development. Nothing special there. I think we all have access to the shield of Street Knowledge, and yet in these times, we seem to have put our faith, not in our innate sense, but in the worst sort of clownery.

I like Jon Stewart. I thought he did a good thing yesterday. But I left that interview unsatisfied. I left it wondering about the animal in us I know who Jim Cramer is. I know what wracks him. But what about us? Who are we in all this? Why are CNBC ratings still soaring? What madness has led us to hand off our shields and put our future in the hands of shaman and faith-healers?

The Base Ain't Racist Kid, They Only Hate You

Anybody ready to start taking bets?

On Thursday, several religious right officials and anti-abortion advocates criticized Steele for telling the magazine that he "absolutely" thought abortion was "an individual choice," to be decided at the state level.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: "Comments attributed to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele are very troubling and despite his clarification today the party stands to lose many of its members and a great deal of its support in the trenches of grassroots politics."
Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition: "I'm a little surprised that Michael Steele, being the leader of the Republican Party, is at odds with the pro-life platform, the platform that conservative put in place... If this is his viewpoint, he has made it be known. I'm just surprised that the leader of the party is at odds with the pro-life platform."
Evangelical leader Lou Engle: "Steele's argument that abortion is a matter of "individual choice" is extremely disappointing, especially in light of past statements in which he promised to protect and defend human life. "Steele's remarks to GQ indicate that he may be confused about "choice" and the "law." The law is supposed to protect human life, not permit the taking of it. And, it can never be a "choice" for an individual to take a life."
Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council: "I read the article last night so I am familiar not only with his comments about the life issue but also about the efforts to redefine marriage and 'mucking' up the Constitution. I expressed my concerns to the chairman earlier this week about previous statements that were very similar in nature. He assured me as chairman his views did not matter and that he would be upholding and promoting the Party platform, which is very clear on these issues. It is very difficult to reconcile the GQ interview with the chairman's pledge."

Stewart vs. Cramer (pre-fight buzz)

This is actually pretty interesting. One thing I've noticed, is from what I've seen, there are a some people (Scarborough) more pissed-off at Stewart, than Cramer is himself. I haven't watched his show enough to pass judgment. I have a visceral distrust of (borderline prejudice against) people who yell, and make a crazy show of themselves. I think people have a right to be wrong, but I generally dislike those who are wrong and take no responibility. I don't know where Cramer fits into that. I don't know if he's Santelli. I haven't watched enough of his show. I just think Jon Stewart is funny.

Jason Bateman vs. Will Arnett

I'm going back and watching Arrested Development. Yup, I'm late on everything. Except this. This is awesome.

Virtual Weaksauce

Some fool is claiming to hold a patent on all virtual gaming worlds:

Worlds.com claims to hold a patent for the idea of virtual worlds that dates back to 1995 and that could quite literally apply to every 3-D online world currently in existence. In fact, Worlds.com has already taken one MMOG heavyweight to court: Korea-based NCsoft, the company behind games like Lineage and Guild Wars. And while legal expert Ben Buranske, contacted by Business Insider, says the wealth of "prior art" will make the case tough to prove, World.com's court of choice, the Eastern District of Texas, is notorious for handing heavy damage awards to plaintiffs in cases like this. Nintendo was recently ordered to pay $21 million in damages after a jury in the district found the company had violated 12 patents relating to its controllers held by a small Texas company called Anascape.

"Being a foreign defendant in Texas is not a pleasant thing," a lawyer familiar with the NCsoft case said. "The juries are, many would say, biased towards American plaintiffs and have a propensity to offer high damages. Some defendants might view them as an unfriendly jury and it might make the defendant more likely to settle." That could be bad news for companies like Blizzard and Linden Lab, which Kidrin says he is "absolutely" going to sue if his suit against NCsoft is successful.

Ugh. Talk about a hustle...

The End Of The Michael Steele Era

Here's the chairmen on abortion:

How much of your pro-life stance, for you, is informed not just by your Catholic faith but by the fact that you were adopted?
Oh, a lot. Absolutely. I see the power of life in that--I mean, and the power of choice! The thing to keep in mind about it... Uh, you know, I think as a country we get off on these misguided conversations that throw around terms that really misrepresent truth.
Explain that.
The choice issue cuts two ways. You can choose life, or you can choose abortion. You know, my mother chose life. So, you know, I think the power of the argument of choice boils down to stating a case for one or the other.
Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?
Yeah. I mean, again, I think that's an individual choice.
You do?
Yeah. Absolutely.
Are you saying you don't want to overturn Roe v. Wade?
I think Roe v. Wade--as a legal matter, Roe v. Wade was a wrongly decided matter.
Okay, but if you overturn Roe v. Wade, how do women have the choice you just said they should have?
The states should make that choice. That's what the choice is. The individual choice rests in the states. Let them decide.

I think that about does it. I don't know when, but I can't see Republicans letting this sideshow continue. It's fascinating. I've been reading about Steele for years, but I still have no idea why he's a Republican. I've yet to get any sense of deep conviction from him. Colin Powell, I got. Condie Rice, I got. I even get Clarence Thomas. But what I get from Steele feels almost like a hustle.

Ross Douthat...

...is going to work for the New York Times as a columnist. Ross and I fight under different flags. But I expect he'll be at the Times, what he always was here--a swordsman of great caliber and greater honor. Here's to him. The roster won't be the same once he's gone.

They Shot Tupac And Biggie...

Folks I'm headed to the Georgia chasing a story I've wanted to do for years, now. All I can say about it is, is that if it comes through a certain sector of the commenters on this blog are gonna lose it. Here's hoping it all works out. Consequently, blogging will be light today. Black Star is gonna have to hold it down for me.

Stewart vs. Scarborough

Below is video of Jim Cramer defending himself against Jon Stewart's slam last week. I've got no problem with that. But Scarborough piles on by claiming Stewart is no longer "speaking truth to power" and then saying, "he's an ideologue and when George W. Bush was president, he spoke truth to power. Now that Barack Obama's president, suddenly nothing's funny about attacking the president."

Right. Which would explain this clip. Or this clip. Or this clip. Or this clip. Scarborough goes on to bizarrely criticize Stewart for not having transcripts that can be put up on YouTube (?!?!?). But, in fact, The Daily Show has some of the deepest archives on the net right now. If you want to see Stewart attacking The Surge, as Scarborough apparently would like to, all you need to do is go to Comedy Central's own site and search the archives, and watch the entire episode.

Look, Stewart isn't impartial, and no one who's seen their show would think that he isn't were. But arguing that they're somehow ignoring Obama is demonstrably false.

A Really Stupid Idea

Awhile back commenter and blogger KevDog, asked me to compile a list of essential hip-hop records, for non-hip-hop fans looking to expand. I've resisted doing this, mostly because these sorts of lists always end with some dude whose tattoed "THUG LIFE" on his chest insisting that Tupac is the most slept-on artist of all time. Or some other dude whose pissed that Divine Styler wasn't on the list. The partisans and the extremist tend to love his sort of thing, and somehow they always manage to take over the conversation.

Anyway, I'm going to venture forth and offer a highly biased, incredibly subjective list of records that are my favorites, and that, I think, display the genius of hip-hop. I encourage people to disagree. I also encourage people to create their own lists. Maybe at the end, we can come up with some sort of highly biased, unauthorative, unofficial master-list. But please, people who stand stand on the trains loudly reciting hip-hop lyrics should not comment here. If you think you may begin your list with "I love hip-hop more than my own Moms, son!!" then nuff respect, kid. But if it's all the same to you, I'd ask that you sit this one out.

Anyway here it goes, in no particular order.

1.) Outkast--Aquemeni
2.) A Tribe Called Quest--~~Midnight Marauders~~ The Low End Theory
3.) EPMD--Unfinished Business
4.) Ice Cube--Death Certificate
5.) Jay-Z--The Blueprint
6.) Nas-Illmatic
7.) Raekwon--Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
8.) The Fugees--The Score
9.) Gza-Liquid Swords
10.) Public Enemy--It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
11.) De La Soul--3 Feet High And Rising
12.) Gang Starr--Full Clip
13.) The Roots--Illadelph Halflife
14.) Mobb Deep--The Infamous

There's a lot wrong with that list--it's rooted in the early to mid-90s, there aren't any women on there, and its skewed to the East Coast. But beyond that it ignores some truly great feats of MCing. We'll save that for another day, though.

UPDATE: Couple changes, I had the wrong Tribe album as someone mentioned. Also added The Roots--Illadelph Halflife. And yeah Mobb Deep, also. Just forgot those.

Hammer And Vanilla Ice Together Again

It must be read to be believed. Wow. Who paid to see this?

Wunderkind

I saw the video of 14-year old Johnathan Krohn at CPAC, last week. I thought about posting it, and didn't, because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say was defensible. I'm a strong believer in social skills, and in children being children. I'm not a fan of, "child-preachers," "pageants" for five-year olds, or intense basketball camps designed to make six-year olds go pro. But as I thought about it, I decided that that's me. Those are my values. And what did I know of the kid? Maybe he actually had a gift, and his parents were just letting him live the dream.

But I do think Matt raises a pretty good point:

I really struggle to understand why this particular gimmick appeals to conservatives. What does it accomplish to put a 14 year-old front and center at CPAC? What's the message it's supposed to send? That the conservative message is childish? That the right's talking points can be easily mastered by a 14 year-old? That the CPAC audience doesn't care about the knowledge-base of the speakers there, they just want to hear certain ritual beats repeated? I wouldn't want to claim that liberals are so high-minded as to be above all that, but I'm hard-pressed to think of an example of liberals trying to flaunt disdain for knowledge and expertise.

And then there is this: When you're young, and you come into some political consciousness, self-assurance, intellectual arrogance, and prejudice come easy. When I got conscious, I would have told you that the Egyptians invented airplanes, black people never had slaves, and that the cold made white people acquisitive by nature. And I would have told you this publicly, in front of a crowd of people. And I'd have slapped you with a Chancellor Williams tome if you dared to disagree. Thankfully, I had parents who protected me from myself. But more importantly, I had people around me who valued reading, listening and life experience over talking, writing and publishing. The dispensation of knowledge must be grounded by the acquisition of knowledge

If you're a conservative and you care about this kid, you don't give him a public forum. You give him your card, and you take his e-mails. You give him a list of books that he needs to read. Then when you see him, you quiz him on those books. You tell him that you're glad he showed the initiative to write and publish himself, but his thesis is actually banal. That if he's going to play in the big leagues, he should expect to get hit and prepare himself thusly. You warn him away from sideshows, and teach him to pride hearing over being heard. You teach him that these are his weapons and his shield in the great war of ideas.

Of course if you did all that, you'd risk turning him into liberal. But that's the chance you take, and that's what a person confident in their ideas does. They don't urge their pupils to turn away from the challenge of foreign ides, but to embrace it, to attack it, relishing the possibilities of how they could ultimately come out. Conservatives should encourage the kid to take himself seriously. Challenge him, and make sure he understands that conservative ideology isn't so rudimentary that a 14-year old could master it.

How Did I Miss This?

No idea how Fallon is doing, since I'm disconnected. But here he is with The Roots. Pretty awesome, I gotta say. Props to PostBourgie for teh link.

Translating World Of Warcraft

Today we had a lot of comments like this:

All well and good for the black world, but can we get a translator for the World of Warcraft?

Are you non-WoW people really interested? With WoW/NFL/Comic book posts, I mostly assume that they're only for the hardcore. Is there, like, a 67-year old black grandmother in Mississippi trying to figure this stuff out? All jokes aside, I'll explain if you guys are interested...

All Natural Flavor. No Black No. 9

About that Michele Obama "dark-skin" post. A few interesting responses. From Chet:

I confess my white ass has a hard time understanding this post, since Michelle Obama seems kind of light, to me. But I suspect I'm just not calibrated to "the line" when it comes to light vs. dark skin re: black Americans.

And then from TexasGirl:

@ Chet - I don't understand the post either. Sometimes I really feel white reading this blog.

I suspect pulling you guys out in block-quotes, isn't helping things. To the point about color, I think Amari gets it:

No worries. We Black folk aren't calibrated either. Ask five different Black people their opinions of who's light versus who's dark, and you'll get five different answers. It's all relative, and, as I've also found, it's all relatives.
I find that folks who grew up around mostly dark-skinned people have a much lower bar for what constitues lightness. Many of my dark-skinned friends think I could easily trip over it, while I'd put myself firmly in a caramel category. On the other hand, my family is chock full of light-skinned folks, so I tend to err on the side of thinking someone is brown when browner folks would categorize them as light.
If that makes any sense at all.

Heh, like most things about human beings, it doesn't. I generally describe myself, to other black people, as "brown." But in my house (where everyone is darker than me) whenever I say this, I'm laughed at. Kenyatta insists that I'm yellow, or red at best, and she's now recruited Samori to her way of thinking. Meh, the perils of family.

Anyway, this isn't even taking into account the seasons when Negroes start changing color, and the fact that eyes are known to go from brown to gray. I've never actually witnessed that last point. I tend to think it's something that girls, back in high school, used to say to elevate themselves from nickel to dime-piece. It's right up there with "My great-grandmother was Cherokee." Whatever. Ain't no Cherokees in West Baltimore.

Where was I? Oh yes, the deeper point. One reason why I resist explaining too much in my post, is because I think it's a good thing for white people, who come here, to "feel really white," as TexasGirl says. I don't define that as "feeling guilty" or any of that business, so much as a nagging sense of having to work to get it. I imagine that many of my black readers have spent some of their lives feeling exactly that way, just in reverse. My first years working professionally made me immediately conscious that I was black, and that there were many people (in fact most people) in the world who were not.

I think we all need more of that in our lives. Here at this site, I try to present the black world as it is, or at least, as I see it. No frills. No translations. Just immersion. I was never the type to go to an island and lay up in a resort. Or go to Paris and eat at McDonald's. I want to see how other people talk, walk and live. I want to see our difference. It's the wierdest thing, but that's where I find the humanity--not in the sameness--but in the small details which I never would have imagined. I don't know how to explain it, but that's where I find unity. And that's what I try to give you here. Just black people as we are. Fucked-up and beautiful. No tourist trap, just the raw.

Lovers, Are My Brothers And Sisters

My moms used to like Salt-N-Pepa. She used to say she felt like they were the only female rappers (of that era) that didn't sound like they were trying to be dudes. Now, Moms wasn't exactly Harry Allen, but that always stuck with me for some reason. Dunno how accurate it was. Anyway, I do know this--that hair and them door-knockers are so Baltimore in 88.

Some Thoughts On Naxxramas (Warcraft!)

So, in my previous WoW life, I was mostly a PvPer. I still PvP quite a bit (Resil just hit 500. I know, long way to go.) but since I joined a new guild, I'm doing a lot more PvE. I've developed a healthy respect for the teamwork it requires, and how one idiot can ruin the whole thing. People can get a little too intense at times, and when that happens, I start to wonder why I'm even playing. If I want to be stressed out, I could be somewhere writing. But that isn't really a problem in my guild. A couple of weeks ago we wiped like seven straight times on a boss (I kid you not) and no one started yelling. We just needed to learn how to beat him.

Anyway, my larger issue is with the limits of PvE and narrative. WoW is set up in a wierd way, given than both sides are basically warring factions fighting against the same enemy. What you do in PvE doesn't really affect the internecine struggle between Horde and Alliance. One thing I'd love to see in the next big MMOs is for the actions of players to have long-term consequences in the greater war. As I recall, I think they tried this years ago with Total Annihilation--your online matches actually affected the greater war. And, I think, some of the other MMOs have tried it (Shadowbane maybe?) but the word has been that they've been too buggy.

An MMO is a huge enterprise, no doubt. But I can't escape the feeling after downing some boss, and winning a roll for some kick-ass gear of "Now what?" What do I use this arsenal for? Why to kill another kick-ass mob, until you've beaten them all. I'd love it if there was better integration between PvE and PvP. I think Wintergrasp is a really good start (though we lose constantly). But I hope Blizz takes it a little further, as they advance the game.

T.O. And The Bills

My man, Eyal Press is a Bills-fan, and Buffalo guy. So I'm wishing the Bills and T.O. nothing but the best, when they aren't playing the Cowboys, and probably the Ravens. Here's Peter King on how it all went down:

The only team to seriously kick the tires on Owens got its man a day later for three major reasons:

1. The Bills think Jauron is the perfect coach -- calm but commanding -- to handle Mount Terrell.
2. The organization is sick of perpetually being one weapon away from catching New England (and Miami and the Jets, as it turns out), and it's willing to take the risk of having Owens ruin the locker room so it can have a chance to win the division.
3. The Bills did the one-year deal for a fairly strategic reason, in my opinion. Owens is good when he's trying to make a good first impression. Check out his first years in his three prior stops -- with the San Francisco season being his first without Jerry Rice on the team, when the focus of the offense was clearly on him:

See the numbers on the link. I like the one-year deal a lot. Gives the guy an incentive to perform.

I Reserve The Right To Be Late

Which I am with this portrait. I think funniest response I've seen to the new First Lady is this:

Some of the adolescence on the House floor could be chalked up to excitement. Even the Republicans went gaga.
When Michelle Obama walked in, one young Republican House member turned to a colleague and mouthed, "Babe."

It's been said that Obama's presidency means black people can't complain anymore. I've issued a rather different dictum in my household--With the elevation of Michelle Obama, dark skin shorties are no longer allowed to talk about high yallars, good hair, and redbones. That ain't held weight since A.J. Johnson slayed Tisha Campbell, since the Jungle Brothers got on that "Blacker the berry\Sweeter the juice" tip. That "Sexy young ladies of the light skin breed" line deaded Kane's career. All whining about how hard the darker female side is official banned in my home. Now, if only I could enforce that edict...

Anyway, here's your first lady.

The Case Against Racial Dialogue

From the NY Times:

"I think it's fair to say that if I had been advising my attorney general, we would have used different language," Mr. Obama said in a mild rebuke from America's first black president to its first black attorney general.
In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, the president said that despite Mr. Holder's choice of words, he had a point.
"We're oftentimes uncomfortable with talking about race until there's some sort of racial flare-up or conflict," he said, adding, "We could probably be more constructive in facing up to sort of the painful legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and discrimination."

I remain confused about what Holder meant, mostly because I thought the words that followed were vague. People should go back and look at Obama's speech on race. I think one of the things that makes it great is its specificity. He talks in detail about crime, about white resentment of Affirmative Action, about his grandmother's prejudice, and of course about Wright. I just wasn't sure what I was supposed to get out of Holder except, "Hey, we need to talk more about race." But I'm not sure we do. I think we need to talk more about specific policies that may disproportionately affect black people. But I don't know that we can--or should--make each other do the right thing.

The War Against SNL

No disrespect, but come on man. As Chuck said, you got to give it up...

On Terrell

I haven't said much because there really isn't much to say. I think a lot of you know that I found last season to be really depressing, as a Cowboy fan. I think getting rid of T.O. was the right thing to do. I think it's T.O. is ultimately going to pay the penalty for his need for attention. It's a fatal flaw, career-wise. I think the Boys have deep-seated issues, beyond T.O. I simply can not see Wade Phillips coaching a Super Bowl team. But, I've been wrong before.

BSG And Gender Politics

I don't entirely agree with this article from Slate. I particularly think this cliche of sci-fi and comic book geekdom needs to go:

Perhaps because science fiction has historically appealed to men who don't leave home much, the genre has often used alien mores and alien technology to rationalize pornographic depictions of near-naked women. (Think Jabba the Hutt forcing Princess Leia to wear that ridiculous gold bikini in Return of the Jedi.)

Sci-Fi movies are, at this point, a billion-dollar enterprise. You don't get that way by appealing strictly to "men who don't leave home much." Moreover, the comment assumes that women somehow fare better in, say, horror movies, in comedy, or in hip-hop movies. Geekdom has its troubles when it comes to rendering women. But all one needs to do is watch a few Spike Lee or Woddy Allen flicks to realize that this isn't about sci-fi at all. Anyway, that's just a personal pet peeve. Sorry for the mini-rant.

The part of the piece I found most convincing is the indictment of the rather casual way rape is deployed in the series:

Even more insidious than the lack of female friendships are the casual threats of rape made throughout the series. In Season 2, a "Cylon interrogator" attempts to violate Sharon, a Cylon pilot and the only East Asian on the show, but her husband Helo intervenes in the nick of time. In this season's "The Oath," Helo fights with a mutineer--"Frak you," he says (that's Battlestar's four-letter-word variant), and the mutineer responds, "Sorry, I'm saving myself for your ... wife." He means it. Rape is a trope on the show: Starbuck finds herself in a bizarre insemination farm on the Cylon-occupied planet Caprica, and Adm. Cain orders some cronies to rape and torture a Cylon in "Razor." Naturally the show doesn't condone rape, but it's discomfiting that the writers drop sexual violence into the script so often without comment. If nothing else, this pervasive threat--directed only at women--negates the idea that Battlestar conjures a gender-blind universe.

I found that rape scene with Sharon, particularly disturbing--and not in a good way. I'll be honest--I have yet to put my finger on why. It wasn't because I like the character. Joan, from Mad Men, is one of my favorites. But I thought the rape-scene with her and her husband was troubling in the exact opposite way. I don't know how to explain it except in the following, admittedly creepy, language--it felt necessary and organic, given who the characters were.

On BSG, evil comes so easy. So much of it passes without explanation or context. The rape scene with Sharon left me horrified--but not at what had just happened to this woman. Indeed, I felt almost no sympathy for her. It was like watching a sadistic cartoon, or something. And that made me really angry and ultimately horrified that someone would write a scene like that.

I think so much of this revolves around the fact that, in the past decade, the ceiling for writing and acting on television has been raised. I can't have watched "The Wire," watched "Mad Men," watched "Big Love" and felt as I used to. I simply can't go back. BSG isn't operating in the world that Star Trek: Voyager did. The game is the same, but more fierce. Measured against that backdrop, I think the writing, and acting, on the show is rather lackluster (skipping ahead in time, at the end of season, was incredibly lazy). When narrative isn't done in a particularly inspiring fashion, it seems that the first people to suffer are women, and minorities. It's no mistake that "The Wire" is not only one of the best written shows ever, it is also one of the best depiction of black people ever committed to television.

This will not be a popular thread. I understand that I have just pissed off half my readership. But you guys asked me to watch. You asked me to behold. I could never guarantee that we'd see the same thing.

UPDATE: "Suffer" refers to the quality of the writing, not the actual characters themselves. More aptly put, when the writing is bad, the writing of women and minorities tends to be really bad--or really just stand out.

The Annals Of Ebonics

A reader reports:

I just heard one of the anchors on MSNBC say "I got this" when she was cut to for a breaking story. I suspect soon we will be hearing Andrea Mitchell telling David Schuster to "fall back."

Indeed.

Because It's Friday...

And John Coltrane was always smoother than you. (So was McCoy Tyner.)

Levin vs. Frum

This is rather painful to listen to. I actually couldn't it finish, as I felt bad for Frum (read his account here). Give him props though, he isn't backing down. I keep hearing this comparison between the Right now and the Left in the 70s and 80s. Obviously I wasn't around. For those lefties who were, and have some age and (more importantly) some wisdom on me, I ask, was it really this bad? Were we really this close to neanderthalism and mob rule? Were we really this fraking stupid?

The Watchmen

I don't think A.O. Scott is a fan of the movie. But this part is funny:

Indeed, the ideal viewer -- or reviewer, as the case may be -- of the "Watchmen" movie would probably be a mid-'80s college sophomore with a smattering of Nietzsche, an extensive record collection and a comic-book nerd for a roommate. The film's carefully preserved themes of apocalypse and decay might have proved powerfully unsettling to that anxious undergraduate sitting in his dorm room, listening to "99 Luftballons" and waiting for the world to end or the Berlin Wall to come down.
He would also no doubt have been stirred by the costumes of the female superheroes -- Carla Gugino and Malin Akerman, both gamely giving solid performances -- who sensibly accessorize their shoulder-padded spandex leotards with garter belts and high-heeled boots. And the dense involution of the narrative might have seemed exhilarating rather than exhausting.
I'm not sure that this hypothetical young man -- not to be confused with the middle-aged, 21st-century moviegoer he most likely grew into, whose old copy of "Watchmen" lies in a box somewhere alongside a dog-eared Penguin Classics edition of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" -- would necessarily say that Mr. Snyder's "Watchmen" is a good movie. I wouldn't, though it is certainly better than the same director's "300."

I think I'm mostly done with comic book movies, and big budget movies in general. I don't think (with a few exceptions) that they're made for me. Which is fine. But the more comic book movies I see, the more I value the imaginative space created by books. It's a great thing when your imagination is matched by the movie. I'm thinking that scene in the first Spiderman when Parker first swings on the webs to catch his Uncle's killer. Or that opening Nightcrawler scene in X2. Or the scene in the first Batman where Bruce Wayne is bumrushed by bats, and stands up and they all fly over him.

Pretty great stuff. But more and more, I'm feeling like I'd like to keep my memories, and perserve my imagination. This is mostly personal. A bad movie really exacts a psychic toll on me. Kenyatta can sit back and enjoy the experience. For me it's excruciating and I can't leave it at the theater. I tend to be over-sensitive. And so the more information I take in--audio, visual, text--the harder it is for me to let it go.

The Source Of The Beef

I was listening to NPR this morning and heard them discussing the Politico article on Obama's "dogwhistling." They quoted the following:

On matters of racial identity, many observers in the African-American community say he benefits from what's known as "dog-whistle politics."His language, mannerisms and symbols resonate deeply with his black supporters, even as the references largely sail over the heads of white audiences.

The last part. That's the problem. Sorry guys, I missed that. It's one thing to talk about Obama's ownership of certain African-Americanisms, and then note the particular joy that black folks get out of hearing them deployed. It's quite another to argue that white audiences--en masse--"don't get it." I don't I'm qualified to speak on that. Nor, probably, is Henderson. The fact that the mannerisms have a special resonance for black people, is clearly true--we simply have never had a president who talked like our cousins, uncles, brothers and fathers. That isn't true for most white people. But the idea that it "sails over the heads of white audiences" assumes too much.

It certainly sailed over the heads of the acolytes of Tim Russert (no disrespect). And you could probably say it sailed over the head of most White House reporters, and most people who work at Politico. But elite Washington reporters are a special breed---overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly middle-aged, and--most importantly--overwhelming susceptible to thinking right in the middle of the box. I can understand not wanting to be lumped in with those guys.

One last note. I've noticed something interesting about this blog--the complaints I hear from whites ("Don't lump as all together!" We're not a monolith!") have an eerie familiarity. I don't think it's cool to simplify anyone, ever. But I would ask that we all take a moment and think about how it feels for this to be the conflict of your life, to constantly labor under the weight of idiots who you've never met. What if very few people ever cared to sort you out? What if the generalizations which raised your hackles in Henderson's article weren't a one-off--they were the media and really the world--as you'd always known it?

This isn't about Schadenfreude, but empathy. It's so easy to toss people into the same pot--it almost feels natural, like something elemental and evolutionary compels us to do so. My own thoughts sometimes are so dark, they make me shudder, like, "Damn son, did you really just think that? Seriously?" You can't extinguish those impulses--they're part of us. But I think there's a humanity, a divinity, in pushing past them, in being more than what evolution and ancient instincts, have made us.

Awesome-Sauce Pt. 2

A reader writes:

I was hurrying to catch the Orange Line tonight when I noticed I a highschool kid coming up the escalator sporting a full-on Hi-Top fade. I haven't seen anything like it in a good decade or so, so it really snapped me to attention. Then I saw a couple other kids on the platform who looked like they were growing out their hair, and maybe tightening up the sides a bit -- sort of like it was too early to commit right now, but maybe they'd go into Big Daddy Kane mode come springtime.

Now this is the first time I've noticed this. Maybe it was just that one kid and I was imagining it with the others. Or maybe it's just a Boston thing, or like, a particular high school team thing...I don't know. But after seeing that 3rd Bass video you posted last week, I got all nostalgic. And now if I really am seeing the early edge of the next big wave, I want to be ready.

I currently have what's known as a "Boy's Regular" cut. Based on your experience, how long do you think it will take for me to look like MC Serch (like, THEN, not now)? Also is this a reasonable look for a 40 year old in middle management? Please note that I am caucasian, unlike Mr Serch.

Hmm, I think I should throw this one out to the crowd. What say you?

Awesome-Sauce

A reader writes:

Not sure how often you get these emails, but I wanted to let you know that I had a dream that we were roommates last night. After you moved in, some woman came by and dropped off a lifetime's supply of cornflakes in for you. As happy as I was about having an endless supply of cornflakes to mooch, I was concerned about how we were going to keep them away from the mice that currently reside in my apartment.

Even the fan-mail is surreal.

Michael Steele Talks Like A Regular Black Guy

We've alluded to this, but it's worth watching. This is Michael Steele talking to Chuck D and D.L. Hughley. This is the guy who could potentially help the GOP. I don't know who that "We did wrong. My bad" dude is. This guy, who as another commenter said, "just sounds like one of your conservative uncles" could help. Of course your uncle would never fall back for Rush Limbaugh, but that's another story.

The GOP's Urban-Suburban Hip-Hop Strategies Revealed!

Off the heezzy, son!

Some Off The Cuff Analysis

My name is Ta-Nehisi Coates, and I'm a social liberal. I'm pro-choice. I believe in the right to die. I believe in gay marriage. I'm against the death penalty. And, and as we've recently seen, I don't believe that all kids should be raised by married parents. I also like being black. But I'm clear that most of my views are to the left of most black people. By and by, I hope that isn't the case. But it is today, and understanding that difference is key.

I think one of the biggest problems with the GOP is that they they mistake their deepest held beliefs for mainstream American beliefs. The root of the current conservative crack-up probably lies in Iraq, but the one event that exposed it all, for me, was Terri Schiavo. Here you had a sitting President, a gaggle of Senators and congressmen bending over backward to argue that government was a better arbiter of a woman's fate, than her husband and her doctors. The moment Bill Frist decided to give a diagnosis via video tape, I felt the wind shift. When it comes to the end of their days, most Americans would want their spouse--not the Senate Majority Leader--to be the final authority.

The point is that you have to be able to distinguish your deeply held beliefs, from the electorates. I think much of the GOP's trouble stems from the inability to discern the difference. That whole "Real America," "Real Virginia," small-town snobbery bit, isn't an act--they actually believe it. I've never understood the whole "Center-right country" meme, because it's ultimately self-serving--and then self-defeating. It blinds you to the hard work of arguing, cajoling and fighting with the electorate, until they see your point. It's interesting that so many of their most dominant voices of the GOP (Steele, Gingrich, Limbaugh) have either never won an election, or haven't won one in a decade.

I keep thinking about the big things that have always kept me from being a conservative--the knee-jerk worship of a past that branded me half a man, the elevation of the loud imbeciles who think science teachers should be using the Bible, the toleration and baiting of bigots who cloaked themselves in the garb of "States Rights," and now run under the garb of "protecting marriage." The common denominator here is an unreflective veneration of what was, a belief that tradition, no matter how backwards, can heal all. Thus it's only right, that Steele, Gingrich and Limbaugh make up the leadership.

It's not that I think liberals are without flaw, but to argue that our most strident members should be our public face, would seem silly. As Ross intimates, if most liberals thought it was good idea for Howard Zinn Randall Robinson, or Noam Chomsky to be a spokesperson for the Democratic Party, I'd think we'd all gone insane. If Democratic politicians were scared to disagree with Keith Olberman or Michael Moore, I'd be a man without a home.

But these guys think that they are America. They delude themselves with that "center-right nation" analysis, and then mask their losses by claiming they didn't really lose. They think the problem is their wardrobe, their slang, their hairstyle. This is what black folks call Project-Bougie or--more aptly put--just plain trifling. The GOP is out shopping for a new dining set, a new couch, a flat-screen--anything to make the crib look a little more inviting. Meanwhile the water bill is two months past due. The lights are off. And the eviction notice is in the mail.

The Foolishness Of Rick Santelli

Don't ever say you're going on the Daily Show, and then cancel.

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To All The J-School People

I can't link to Ian Parker's piece on Iceland's financial tumble, in the latest issue of the New Yorker--it's behind the curtain. But I just wanted to say that it has the most gorgeous lede I've read in a long, long time. Anyone who's a fan of long-form journalism should read it.

I was reading Parker's piece on the 2 train, coming home on Tuesday, and I couldn't make it through the second graff. It was so good that it was actually causing my brain to hurt. I think all professionals in any field are competitive, and sometimes stumble upon a piece of work so well done, that you think to yourself, "Why do I even bother?" It's like watching Jordan hit that last jumper over Byron Russell. I read the first couple graffs of that lede and thought, "Why even bother?"

But wait...that was you!!

Courtesy of Andrew, here's your rofler of the day. Tonya Harding is pissed (or maybe not?) at Obama for using her name as synonym for kneecapping--except she did kneecap someone. Hilarious.

Big Love

I'm not feeling like I have the past two seasons--or even earlier this season. The whole thing feels rushed. The fraked up the trial by doing it so quickly. So much of the action seems dependent on the ineptness of otherwise normal people, and the seemingly superhuman guile of otherwise normal people. It's getting hard to watch.

One Last Thought On Steele

Any black people here starting to actually get embarrassed for the guy? You know like how any time a black guy fails publicly, you feel like it's your failure too? I read this Politico story, and for the first time felt that old twinge. I'm alright with the brothers laughing at him. I'm alright with other liberals laughing at him. But I don't actually want the GOP's first major effort at ending the Southern Strategy to be a comic disaster. I've never thought that it was good thing for the country, or for black people, to have all of us on one side. This could get ugly really, really fast. I, as much as anyone, should probably remember that.

It Ain't Where You're From, It's Where You're At

Come on man. It's "We're good" or "We all good," and in a pinch, "We're all good." But never "We are all good." Picking up on something said in comments yesterday, this is why you don't say things like "Obama's from Hawaii, he clearly doesn't know anything about being black." Steele probably spent more time than Obama around black people, as a child. But the history and cultural mores of black folks aren't exactly mystical, and anyone with eyes, and a healthy measure of respect, can pick them up. Moreover, black people appreciate the respect.

That's what Steele lacks--a basic respect for language of young black people. For him, Ebonics is prop, a device. No black person, of Steele's age, talks like Steele does when he's shilling for GOP:

The reason I find Steele's behavior irritating is that his invocation of archaic black cultural tropes is plainly not for black folks -- it's for white people. It's to remind them that he's black. His appearance on the DL Hughley show cemented this impression for me -- there was no awkward signifiying, no "off the hook" or "bling bling," as there was in his interview with Curtis Sliwa. There was just Steele being himself and arguing his position. Steele didn't front because he didn't have to -- talking to Chuck D. and DL Hughley, there was no one there to perform for.

On Sell-Outs

I'm reading Up From History, a really cool bio of Booker T. Washington by Robert J. Norrell. I have an old relationship with Booker T, as my Dad worshiped him. Seriously in our house the trinity was Malcolm, Booker T. and Garvey. Anyway, Booker T. has often been accused of being a sell-out. I think, after reading this book, people need to rethink what a sell-out is. Here's William Hooper Councill, president of Alabama A&M, in 1886, talking about lynching:

Were it not for the white ladies of this country, hell would have broken loose long ago. God Bless the white woman! I know she wants me hung when I assault or insult her and she is right! I tell you Negro men you had better let that white lady alone for she is the goddess of all virtue and purity.

Wow. Talk about a cooning. They don't make em like they use to, folks. Councill wasn't Booker T's ally, he was his sworn enemy. I think Washington deserves his share of criticism. But Norrell does a great job of contextualizing the man. Here is a dude running a school in South, during an era when whites were explicitly targeting schools and churches for destruction. It couldn't have been an easy row.

Obama's African-Americanisms

One criticism of Nia-Malika Henderson's article on Obama's "dogwhistling" is that many of the cultural markers that Henderson takes as black are either generational, or things that whites understand. The first thing that should be said is that blacks also heard Reagan's dogwhistles--it's not like we didn't know what he meant by "states rights." But more to the point, we went through this a few months back when Obama gave his wife a pound after he secured the nomination. The argument, again, was that this wasn't anything "black" because "everyone" does it. I think this argument originates from the idea that black is the perfect and exact opposite of white. Historically whiteness has meant exclusion (though this may be changing) and so when whites hear that something is labeled "black," they may think "not for me."

But of course blackness isn't the perfect opposite of whiteness--black is not simply a racial identity, it's also an ethnic identity. So, in much the same way that Jews are, in this country, racially white and ethnically Jewish, blacks are "racially" black and--in the main--ethnically "African-American." This can get hazy when we start factoring in diaspora influences, but the point is that blackness, for black people, isn't a matter of being born, simply with a certain skin color. Indeed, in some cases, it isn't that at all. It's about practices--the way we eat, the way we live, the way we walk. It doesn't mean that all black people participate in this, nor does it mean white people can't participate in it.

Unlike white racial identity, African-American (and diaspora) cultural identity wasn't created (in most cases) to keep white people out. Hip-Hop wasn't invented so that white people wouldn't buy or participate in black music--quite the opposite. Henderson's article refer to cultural markers in the black community. That many white people (but evidently not many white journalists) understand these markers, and have adopted them themselves doesn't change the origin of said markers.

Thus claiming that Barack Obama saying "We straight," isn't black because white people get it, is like claiming enchiladas aren't Mexican because all the black people I know love them. Oy is still Yiddish--no matter how many non-Jews use the expression. These things tend to overlap, and allowing for the differences between a racial blackness and a cultural/ethnic blackness, we can see how a pound can be an African-American invention, and yet still be an act performed by the Duke lacrosse team.

For the record, I think this is one of the reasons why blacks and whites tend to talk past each other. We need to avoid this lazy idea that black is simply the opposite of white, and be conscious of when we're discussing ethnic identity, racial identity or both.

Too Easy

Seriously, man...

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Stop Congratulating Your Indian Friends

Seriously, it's not cool...

If You Have An Hour To Kill

Dig this video of me, Atlien In Chief James Bennet, and Walter Isaacson, who runs the Aspen Institute, discussing my memoir, race, and the January/February issue of The Atlantic.

State Of The Black Union

Are people following this? I don't want to be disrespectful and assume too much. I don't have a TV, so I miss a lot of this stuff. Anyone out there paying attention?

The Other Dogwhistle

Nia-Malika Henderson gets something that very few reporters caught during election season:

On his pre-inaugural visit to Ben's Chili Bowl, a landmark for Washington's African-American community, President Barack Obama was asked by a cashier if he wanted his change back.

"Nah, we straight," Obama replied.

The phrase was so subtle some listeners missed it. The reporter on pool duty quoted Obama as saying, "No, we're straight."

But many other listeners did not miss it. A video of the exchange became an Internet hit, and there was a clear moment of recognition among many blacks, who got a kick out of their Harvard-educated president sounding, as one commenter wrote on a hip-hop site, "mad cool."

On matters of racial identity, many observers in the African-American community say he benefits from what's known as "dog-whistle politics." His language, mannerisms and symbols resonate deeply with his black supporters, even as the references largely sail over the heads of white audiences.

I remember watching Tim Russert try to tie Obama to Farrakhan, and thinking, "Don't they know this dude has been paraphrasing Malcolm X? Why aren't they asking him about that?" Not that I'm in favor of any of that, but I think this is what fueled so much of the "he's not really black talk"--most white reporters don't really know what black is. And so while they were waiting for Obama call for reparations or another Back To Africa movement, the missed the subtle things.

A Moment Of Sadness

I don't usually go here, but this looks really tragic:

One of four men missing at sea was found clinging to the group's capsized boat on Monday, more than a day after it flipped off Florida's Gulf Coast late Saturday night. Coast Guard officials said they were still searching for the other three men: the N.F.L. players Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith and the former South Florida football player Will Bleakley.

Nick Schuyler, 24, was rescued from the 21-foot boat, which was anchored when it capsized about 35 miles from Clearwater, Fla. He told the rescuers that the four men clung to the boat together after it flipped but the other three slipped away at one point and he did not see what happened to them, Coast Guard Capt. Timothy M. Close told The Associated Press.

Delete Comments First, Ask Questions Later

Looks like we're getting some unwelcome attention. Don't know if I caught a Stormfront link or what. I'm going to try to be discriminating here. But not that much.

Your Daily Moment Of GOP Insanity

Courtesy of Andrew:

"Anonymous liberal commentators, the rabid pests of the new media, sought out the most popular conservative blogs to flood the zone with familiar Rush Limbaugh slanders. Their goal: To demoralize the right with layer upon layer of media domination. Only talk radio with its emphasis on Socratic debate over raw emotionalism and with Mr. Limbaugh in the driver's seat has escaped the left's clutches of pure media dominance,"

Yeah talk radio will save "Socratic debate." That's what I always thought. Much like CNN will save the New Yorker.

Rush On Michael Steele: He's Alright, But He's Not Real...

I've been pretty hard on Michael Steele for his abuse of Ebonics. But I think his most recent sonning courtesy of Rush Limbaugh needs to be put in perspective:

"My intent was not to go after Rush - I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh," Mr. Steele told The Politico. "I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership."

I'm not offended that Steele is kow-towing to Rush. I'm offended that Steele would wrap himself in the garb on hip-hop, and then apologize to Rush.

Man listen: The first rule for establishing "Off The Hook Urban-Suburban Hip-Hop Strategies" is if you gonna dis a mofo, then dis him. Don't come out the box quoting "How You Like Me Now," and then go and apologizes to the guy who you just dissed.

Could you imagine Moe Dee apologizing to LL? Kris apologizing to Shan? Shante apologizing to the Real Roxanne? Hillary Duff apologizing Lindsay Lohan?

Come on man. You ain't no wiling-out-for-the-night-fist-thrower:

Mr. Steele called Mr. Limbaugh after the radio host belittled Mr. Steele on his show, questioning his authority and saying the new Republican leader was off "to a shaky start."
"It's time, Mr. Steele, for you to go behind the scenes and start doing the work that you were elected to do instead of trying to be some talking head media star, which you're having a tough time pulling off," Mr. Limbaugh said, in a transcript of his remarks he posted on his Web site.
"Mr. Steele: You are head of the R.N.C.," Mr. Limbaugh said. "You are not head of the Republican Party. Tens of millions of conservatives and Republicans have nothing to do with the R.N.C. and right now they want nothing to do with it."

Shorter Rush Limbaugh--"Don't make me have to call your name out\Your crew is featherweight\My talk-show will make you levitate..."

UPDATE: We'll re-open later. It's tough being popular. I like being the geek so much more.

More On Resident Evil And Racism

Friend of the room, Evan Narcisse, talks to RE5 designer Jun Takeuchi. The whole thing is worth reading. Forgive the extensive block quote, this exchange is great:

Narcisse: I had a strong reaction upon seeing the trailer. But, also I understand the series and I understand the fiction that it's building on. How do you feel about people having strong reactions about the game without prior knowledge of the series? There's potential for a large part of the audience playing the game to feel like a judgment is being made against them by virtue of their portrayal in the game.

Jones: He's having a hard time shooting poor black people. That's the core of what he's trying to get at. He loves the series but he's having a difficult time getting involved...

Narcisse: Maybe this is getting a little too personal, but I'm only a generation removed from that kind of experience.

Chris Kramer: Was it easier for you to shoot poor brown people in Resident Evil 4?

Jones: There were no brown people in Resident Evil 4.

Narcisse: Spaniards, they're swarthy ... Because there was a certain aspect of normalization in that game -- in that the contrast [between Leon and the human enemies he was fighting] was not as stark -- I didn't have that kind of reaction.

Kramer: Skin-color contrast or social contrast?

Narcisse: Both. And because there's a history of demonization and subhuman portrayals with regard to people of African descent, there's a certain sensitivity around that. I understand that legacy for the most part is completely different in Japan. But that history of negative portrayals was what informed my reactions. I'm not judging the game. In seeking to portray a certain kind of terror, the game may make people of certain backgrounds feel like they're being portrayed as frightening or less than human. How do you feel about this unintended consequence? I just want to know Takeuchi-san's reaction to that.

Takeuchi: You mentioned that you're one generation removed from those kinds of problems. If you look at us in Japan, one generation ago Japanese people who hadn't done anything wrong were being bombed in Tokyo and other places during the war. That doesn't mean that we think that Americans are all bad or that we think that Americans are bad at all. [These are] just things that have happened in our pasts. That's maybe not something that we should try to be too sensitive about, or not try to be too sensitive about, when we make these kinds of things... [telephone rings, startling us all] At the end of the day, we'

March 2009 Archives

March 31, 2009

A Damn Good Blog

The Futility Of Black Media

Those Moments When I'm Glad I Don't Have Cable

The Tragedy And Betrayal Of Booker T. Washington

The Case Against Michael Vick

Y Control

Even Though We Had Fun In 91...

March 30, 2009

Hey Ladies...

The Fetish Of Centrism

White Music For Black People

Tell Us How You Really Feel, Rod

Justice Delayed

Fucking Racist

Why You Don't Joke About Legalizing Weed

March 27, 2009

Thinking Big

Obama And Pot

Criminal Justice Week Continues

From Baltimore To Fort Greene

March 26, 2009

Variations On A Theme

On the other hand...

A Little More On Prince Jones

Ain't No Sense In Going Home...

Some Clarification On Drug Convictions

March 25, 2009

John Hope Franklin Dies

Awesomesauce: Spiderman vs. The Machines

What To Make Of Condie Rice

Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform Pt.2

Bringing The Stupid

Conservatives For Criminal Justice Reform

March 24, 2009

New Comment Policy Pt.2

Bizarre...

Kid Fresh

Towards A Better Comment Policy

Pour Out A Little Liquor

The Merits Of Jailhouse Hooch

Thank You Mr. Vice-President. No, Seriously, Thank You Sir...

The Party Of Stupid

March 23, 2009

We're All White Trash now

Why Do Black Immigrants Do Better Than Native Blacks?

Eraserheads

A Lack Of Old School Cred

Katha Politt On Ross Douthat

Fix the wealth gap, Fix the world

Obama On 60 Minutes

No One Said It'd Be Easy

March 22, 2009

BSG Finale Open Thread

March 20, 2009

In Defense Of Iceland

The Death Penalty

Your Momma's Afro

Chris Brown And Rihanna

How To Start A Friday

March 19, 2009

Excuse me, flows just grow through me...

Iceland, The Economy, And More Great Writing

I'm Black. I'm Dressed Like The President.

The Ever Ready Drug Story

The World Is A Ghetto

Racism Ruins Everything

Now That's A Trekkie

March 18, 2009

Obama's Socialism Revealed!!

We Don't Know The Half

The Case For Jon Stewart

Jersey Stand Up

Diversity In Hollywood

Explaining Jay Cutler

March 17, 2009

About That Shelby Steele Op-Ed

Brendan Has A Blog

The Party Of Stupid