« The Obama Administration And BSG | Main | The Sanity Of Glenn Beck » These Streets, No Game. Can't Ball, Don't Play...01 Apr 2009 10:00 am A few people have asked me to comment on this. I'm a bit hesitant, because this tape hits me somewhere very personal, and requires that I say some critical things about people I like. I think Mos Def was offering up that corner consciousness, in which brothers preach nihilism under the cover of an alleged "Knowledge of Self" or "Thinking for oneself." I think Christopher Hitchens, rightfully, sonned him. As a Mos Def fan, and member of the hip-hop generation (whatever that means) I felt embarrassed. That's probably not my right, but I felt that way. Here's where it gets really weird, I held one person responsible for the whole debacle--Cornel West. I don't know that this is fair, but I immediately thought back to when West and Mos Def were on The Bill Maher show and Mos basically said he didn't believe Bin Laden brought down the towers. West pointed out that he disagreed, but instead of pushing Mos, he went into this explanation for why black people tend to be paranoid. His explanation was perfect in substance, but bad for Mos Def. I thought the elder radical owed it to the younger radical to challenge him, to push him past nihilism and paranoia. Again, this is all about me and my constant ruminations over my status as a lapsed black nationalist. With that in mind, two things need to be said. The first is about what I still hold on to. I came up in the "conscious" community, and the one value that the Babas and Mamas taught me, that I hold with me to this day, is the sanctity of the relationship between the elders and the young, the sense that the elder doesn't exist to simply cosign the emotions of the young, he exists to push the young past that, to challenge them, to force them to be better despite themselves. The whole notion of "It takes a village" was pushed by the conscious community. That idea has been wailed upon by people who don't know what the fuck their talking about, who've never sat on a stoop in a ghetto, who file reports and columns about people who are Martians to them. At its core, it simply means caring about people who are younger than you, in the way that you care about your child. I get the conservative critique of that ideal--it's certainly Utopian, but no more so than, say, "love thy neighbor." My interpretation (others may not share it) of the "It take a village" mantra would have called on West to pull up Mos Def, as opposed to making excuses for why he would think that way. The other thing I learned in the conscious community was the value of critical thinking. The idea was that you live in a world where the Tuskegee experiments actually happened, where the FBI did plot to destroy the Panthers, where J. Edgar Hoover terrorized black leaders from Garvey to Huey Newton. In that vein, you should be skeptical of what you see and hear. This is the perspective Mos is coming from. (Note the Assata reference.) But here's the thing--if you really get that message, it ultimately leads you to be critical, not just of the larger white narrative, but of the narrative put forth by those around you. So here's the deal--I was a history major at Howard University. I came to that school believing very much in an Afrocentric view of history. From that perspective, my first semester was just devastating. I had a professor, Dr. Linda Heywood, who specialized in taking on kids like me (the ones who believed ancient Egypt built fighter jets) and forcing us to face facts. She was, of course, a trained historian who was used to debating kids like me, and for every Chancellor Williams or Diop I whipped out, she had a David Brion Davis or a Eugene Genovese. I couldn't escape by dismissing her as part of a white plot--she was not just a black woman, but a black woman with a PhD in African History, who was teaching at the most storied black university in the country. I couldn't attack her street cred, and so I had to engage the argument. I found her infuriating--which led me to take two more classes from her. A buddy of mine recalls the most poignant moment for us under her tutelage. At the end of a particularly debilitating lecture, she looked at us and said, "So with all the evidence I've given you, explain to me why blacks are not inferior to whites." She didn't believe that of course. The point was preparation for what we'd encounter out in the world. Here is thing--my best professors at Howard (and there were many) knew that those of us who fashioned ourselves budding intellectuals would have to debate people who did not believe that it took a village, people who'd gone to the best schools in the world, and who were armed with the latest facts and science, and Ma'at would not save us. We could not hide behind myth--even if our opponents could. We were black. We had to be better than they'd heard. I watched that clip of Mos Def, and thought back to my own rather tortured relationship with my past. I guess I'm a bit narcissistic. But you guys already know that. Still, I couldn't help but feel that someone should have prepared him, should have made him better than what Christopher Hitchens had heard. That people who loved him should have pulled him aside after his last appearance, and said "Like it or not, you represent us. You can't lean on myth and paranoia. You do a disservice to yourself, and to black people, when you do." I thought Cornel should have pushed him away from being slippery with the facts, away from media conspiracy, away from that "I'm from the projects" pose, and out into the real. I thought he should have went at him brutally. Because somewhere out there a Christopher Hitchens was waiting, and when they met, he would have no mercy. What you are getting here is the raw. Words and emotions that will likely come back to haunt me. I don't know that it's right--but it's what I feel, it's what I aspire to, even as I fall short on a daily. I believe that we have to be prepared for these motherfuckers. I believe we have to be equipped. I believe that the world is not Martha's Vineyard. But I also believe that the world is not the ghetto. I'm due for shape-up, like all the rest of us. But there's a reason this sort of shit stays in the barbershop. This is supposed to be real talk, right? Comments (165)Post a comment |
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Thank you. An edifying post, and it really wasn't meant for me (though I do have a personal connection, in that I studied with West). I will defend the guy til the cows come home, but I'm afraid your point is why the word "devastating" was invented. Prof. Heywood is a true elder. West kept Mos Def in the Matrix. Hm- what role did West play in the Matrix again?
Good Mornning, Coates. And yes, that was real (and necessary) talk. I grew up surrounded and influenced by so-called ghetto philosophers, who while well meaning where equipped most often with shaded truths and global conspiracy theories. Often the messages were innocuous. By too often, they were potentially dangerous if believed and acting on broadly. Coming of age, I was always impressed with the artful phrases, the ability to articulate grassy knoll theories in a credible way.
Dr. West should have called Mos Def on it, on the spot. I love me some Def, but bro what'nt right.
Real talk, indeed.
Thanks for this piece - I think it gets at a shameful feeling that I haven't been able to describe well. But that's it. Your stories about Howard echo a deep embarrassment at intellectual folly that I think many of us have brushed under the rug rather than air out.
But you know, the thing that gets me about this clip - and, truth be told, about the dude in general - is Mos knows better. True, he's from the 'jects. But he's been around the world, he's paid, he's worked closely with people from all different walks of life, and his appearance with Cornell West was certainly not the first time he was around an elder statesman of Conscious Black Culture. Even if its origins are true, his manner feels like an act, a put on. A crutch - crouch? - and a defense mechanism. Plenty of kids are intelligent, charismatic, outgoing, witty and goofy around their folks... but in a room full of "others" hats draw down over their eyes, full sentences become monosyllabic yes-or-no's, eyes focus on the floor. Maybe Mos is that dude, even to this day - but I don't believe him. Not now. From kicking rhymes with Kweli at poetry events and doing readings at the Nkiru Book Store, to performing in major motion pictures and big concerts... Mos is saying to us that you really "can't take the ghetto out the nigger". I disagree.
I've thought this about Mos Def as well. To me he always seemed to retreat to "the corner" only when he starts getting out of his depths or as a self check to make sure he hasn't lost his edge. It's lazy but no one has called him on it until now. It's much harder to face some stinging truths and open yourself up to be truly schooled than to just play a role.
"Plenty of kids are intelligent, charismatic, outgoing, witty and goofy around their folks... but in a room full of "others" hats draw down over their eyes, full sentences become monosyllabic yes-or-no's, eyes focus on the floor. Maybe Mos is that dude, even to this day - but I don't believe him. Not now."
Thank you for this. While I do think he made some legitimate points (I agreed with what he said about Louisiana post-Katrina, and what he was trying to get at about the god/religion thing even though I'm not religious), watching Mos on Real Time last week made me really uncomfortable and I couldn't articulate why. And you said it, Jonathan. He acted the way it's cool to act when you're around your friends, in a "safe" environment. I've seen him be calm and rational and thoughtful, all of us have. And maybe it's not fair but when you're brown in a room full of people who are not, you can't get too familiar. You just can't. I know from experience, unfortunately. And I know Mos knows that too.
I still love him but this was not a good look. Not to say he needs to turn into Stanley Crouch or something when he's making appearances like this because, ew, but I agree. It seemed a bit of a put-on.
Yeah, Ive seen Mos slip like this on Maher's show a few times. I now have him categorized with Canibus and Nas in the "brilliant poet in rap verse form but not as articulate in a debate setting" classification. All three emcees have disappointed me on occasion when called to defend their more alternative views in the media.
Having said that, as charismatic as Mos is, I bet Kweli would hold up a little better in those settings. He always seemed to be the more well-read and erudite (both his parents are professors) of the two.
Great post. This was uncomfortable to watch. Maher trying to intervene didn't help matters.
what I don't understand is why we, meaning the "hip hop generation," continue to accept this lack of rigorous logic from our public faces. this isn't just about Mos Def misrepresenting black people, but also a subgroup of young Americans. there are plenty of educated hip hoppers out there, and I agree Mos needs to be told to step his game up. as a quick example, I remember seeing his partner in rhyme, Talib, at a panel on post-9/11/Katrina America and thinking that he could actually put together an argument not based primarily on outdated, sloppy reasoning.
You deserve respect for your honesty and introspection here. Reading this I thought back to your Talking Heads debate with John McWorter. You came across a lot better than Mos Def did in the clip above, of course, but, in a way, was McWorter your Hitchens? Both are brilliant but also incredibly facile with spoken English: they can speak better extemporaneously than most people can write. In your defense, when McWorter called you out on a previous comment of yours at the end of your debate, you were a man about it.
I leave that for other people to determine. That really isn't my place.
I believe you missed the point, Dave. The eloquence of Hitchens is immaterial in this instance-- the point is he asked Mos Def a very simple set of questions, and he received no good answer. Rushdie started off sympathetic, but even he became impatient with Mos Def stonewalling. Saying that McWhorter speaks more smoothly than TNC is irrelevant, and I'm not going to bother to comment on it (whole different post). What matters is the content of one's thought, how one is thinking, whether one is striving to learn and strengthen one's thinking. TNC does that consistently in my experience, McWhorter most of the time (when he isn't delighting in his own cleverness-- much like Mr. Hitchens giggling over "Mr. Definitely"). Even conceding that, Ari Fleischer can speak more smoothly than Nate Silver-- but who's right, who's sincere, and who's the better thinker? Mos Def was not sincere, was not open, mailed it in-- he didn't WANT to learn about Al-Qaeda, because his mind was made up.
I don't want to thread-jack, so I'm not going to take this too far, but my point wasn't about smoothness. It's not that they speak smoothly but that they speak precisely, and that precision means they can rain down accurate fire on anything you say that isn't measured and well thought-out. Mos Def was mailing it in, as you say, and Ta-Nehisi was not, in his debate with McWorter. But I think Ta-Nehisi's point about the lessons he learned from that history professor at Howard apply to his debate with McWhorter as well.
Fair enough-- it's just that sometimes Hitchens being "facile" with English doesn't mean being substantive in thinking. Still, I readily take your point.
Sonned him? Really? Maybe I watched a different video. Here is what I saw
1. Mos Def asked a legitimate question. Everybody else jumped on him for asking a question as if he was siding with the Taliban and al qaeda. Funny but I thought you were SUPPOSED to ask when you don't know something. Point to anything that Mos Def said that was wrong. I will wait all day.
2. Hitchens told a bald face lie about the "50 detainees that went back into terrorism"
3. Mos Def said Bin Ladin was PROMOTED like a mythical character not that he didn't exist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LckgJd2beMI
And if anybody got sonned it was Hitchens prior to the clip you posted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB3PXcvopYk
4. Mos Def legitimately says he doesn't trust the news to give him the truth. Hell I agree with him.
5. Hitchens gets shit wrong on foreign policy all the time and nobody calls him out on it. He is a hawk and a war mongerer but people think he is better than neocons simply because he came out against torture. You should really check out the fear mongering and out and out lying he does about Iran. He totally disregards the 2007 NIE that said Iran had no nuclear weapons program and have no prospects or resurrecting one. Or the IAE report that says its close to impossible for them to weaponize their uranium because they are watching every step they take. So while he sounded all calm like he knew what the hell he was talking about most of what he said was bullshit. The Caliphate bullshit is classic fear mongering against Muslims.
I'm inclined to agree with most of your points, but "Mr. Definitely" got schooled.
The problem, I think, is that he doesn't know what he's talking about. It's one thing to drop 16 "deep" bars using innuendo and half formed thoughts. However, I don't think it translates well into a debate with someone who is in command of the facts. Now, I'll aver that I'm using "in command of the facts" rather loosely when it comes to Hitch, but if Mos Def was more fact oriented that gut oriented, he would have done a lot better.
Really, so again I ask, what "fact" did Mos Def get wrong. I would love to hear an answer to the primary question of my post.
It was nothing he said, specifically that was wrong. That's not where I'm going. I feel where Mos was coming from. What I'm saying is that he let Hitch run a gang of game on him, especially about nuclear weapons and Iran, that you or I would not have, because we're in command of the facts.
I pretty much agree with Mos Def, but because his knowledge about the topics (or his presentation of said knowledge) is shallow, he was easily bested with lies and saber-rattling.
You're right and you're wrong...
right on the points 1, 2, 3...
4 is dubious, because it feeds into conspiracy theories...
5...well, again, you're right and you're wrong...Hitchens is a bold faced liar. Trouble is that the Caliphate theories are real, AQ is a threat. Right now it's hard to quantify that threat, and i bet you even Hitchens get's that wrong 5 times out of 10!
So you feel that the media is giving us the truth the whole truth and nothing but? Seriously? Its not a conspiracy theory to notice that our papers and our cable "news" shows get it wrong A LOT. The lead up to the Iraq war is just the most egregious example. I could go into George Will and his global warming denial in the Washington Post, the propaganda spewed by Bill Kristol in the New York Times, the ridiculous use of "anonymous sources" in just about any article you read now adays and the list goes on and on. These days there are more conspiracy theorist watching cable "news" shows like Glenn Beck than there are regular people.
As for the Caliphate, thats what some terrorist groups want yes, but Bin Ladin has never said thats what he is waiting for on ANY video. And the Taliban is more into extremism for the money than any religious fanatacism. Hell Rushdie schooled Hitchens on that.
No, i didn't say that...i said that it was dubious because if you don't get it from the news media, then where the fuck do you get it from?? 99 % of all news come from sources i can count on my right hand. It's not practical. You seem like a smart guy, you probably have a more fine tuned filter for horse-shit than i do.
"And the Taliban is more into extremism for the money than any religious fanatacism."
This is not helpful. Women in burqas are wrong, be it for money or for principle. I would actually like Mos Def to stand up for them as he has for so many others, but he like many others on the culturally realtivistic left are sweeping this under the fucking rug. This isn't a matter of multiculturalism because that's not culture. Buddha statues are culture, Burkas aren't. 2500 years of monetary history is culture, nukes aren't. If Mos wants to make a case for multiculturalism, then stand with those who support culture in these countries. Don't stand on the side-line and claim that you haven't made up your mind yet because the "facts aren't in". This is my critique of him, and of the broader left, in europe (which has lost almost all credability), and it's starting on the left in the US.
This!!! This is the whole problem.
I'm with you that I thought Hitch was basically being a dick at first when Mos was trying to ask a legitimate question: what do al-Qaida and the Taliban want?
But the weakest point from Mos (and I usually like him) was when he went on that paranoid shit about not believing the media, not believing the translations, etc.
Bruce had it right... where else are you gonna get info? You have to be able to make some judgements about who to trust and who not to trust.
If you reject all information as untrustworthy, then you make yourself ignorant. As Mos Def revealed himself to be.
Sgwhtinfla,
"The Caliphate bullshit is classic fear mongering against Muslims."
Nope, Hitchens is right on this one. The Caliphate is popular not only amongst radical clerics but large sections of the population in many predominately Muslim countries. Along with their disregard for borders, thinking of all muslims as part of one group irrespective of nationality etc.
Personally, I would say that they all messed up in various ways.
Mos Def wasn't technically wrong in most of his statements, but he was also woefully unprepared. Maybe that's not his responsibility, but it's hard to have a discussion between "experts" and an individual with no background in the subject. For instance, if Mos had already looked into Al Qaeda and the Taliban's goals, they (hopefully) could have had a productive discussion about whether those organizations' publicly stated goals meshed with their private goals. I think that might have been what Mos was trying to get at, but because he didn't have the background to talk about the subject, it all got lost in Hitchens and Rushdie trying to explain the basics (lamely, admittedly). Also, I'm going to have to agree with the other posters who have speculated as to whether or not Mos was on something, because it definitely didn't seem like he was all there.
With all that said, the other members of the "panel" were almost equally pathetic. Hitchens was more or less dismissive and didn't make much of an effort to understand what Mos Def was trying to get at. Given the places he tends to travel, that smug superiority is going to get his ass kicked one of these days.
Rushdie, who should have been the most effective member, tossed out that silly business about the Taliban wanting to ban music. While this is technically true, it was a lame attempt to try to make the discussion directly relevant to Mos, which in the end only served to provide a distraction.
Bill Maher barely even qualified as a moderator. He didn't bother to hold anyone back when they started talking over each other, nor did he try to disentangle what everyone was trying to get at. Worst of all were his attempts to simply complex statements ("They're baaaaad" seriously, that's the best he could think of?).
So, while Mos Def didn't exactly acquit himself too well, it's not as if the others around him were doing much better.
I don't think Rushdie was trying to be relevant to Mos, I think he was linking it to his own experience. It's 20 years since he went into police protection after the Satanic Verses fatwa and although he was being talked over he said 'they want to ban music. They want to ban books'.
And I think to someone like Rushdie that's at the core of why the Taliban are a horrid group. They want to ban art which, from what I've read of Rushdie, he thinks is at the core of being human. His argument has been that art is how we make sense of things and explain ourselves to ourselves and banning it in favour of a received religious truth is actually one of the worst things about fanaticism, from his perspective.
Shaun
THIS. And precisely the reason why I haven't read Slate (or Vanity Fair, for that matter) in nearly a year. Fact checkers continue to give this dude a free pass, no matter how WRONG he is.
Anyway.
Mos isn't the most articulate guy, and his delivery did make me cringe. But the content of his words? No different from what I've heard in barber shops, hair salons, dinner parties, etc here on Chicago's south side.
I was also annoyed that no one challenged Hutchins' asserting that Iran is the only country in the world that actually intends to use an atomic weapon. His evidence? A poster at a Hizbollah rally in Lebanon.
He should have been called on that one.
As you point out, our own intelligence agency found that Iran had ended its nuclear weapons program. No one asked him about that, either. And since he's so hot to challenge the Iranians, I don't understand why someone doesn't ask him why he still favors toppling Saddam -- which eliminated the one credible block to Iran's rise as a regional power.
Hutchins may sound erudite, but much of what he says is blather -- and I'm an atheist also so I'm not knocking him for dissing Jesus. His ongoing rants on "Islamo-fascism" (goes nicely with "Axis" of Evil) sound like neocon briefing papers, un-historical and out of touch with reality.
Hitchens, IIRC, had friends who were disappeared by Saddam's military. It is something that isn't discussed much but if you research it you will find that he mentions it.
// I couldn't escape by dismissing her as part of a white plot--she was not just a black woman, but a black woman with a PhD in African History, who was teaching at the most storied black university in the country. I couldn't attack her street cred, and so I had to engage the argument. I found her infuriating--which led me to take two more classes from her. //
Totally on point. Most of my favorite profs over the years have been people I initially hated. Usually, I hated them for challenging me and not being able to refute what they said. In other words, for being right.
I love Mos as a rapper, but he strays way too far into loony bin territory without giving any context whatsoever. Pulling out the ghetto card is a lazy response to being out of your element. He's smarter than that.
This isn't that new for him, though. "You may dig on the Rolling Stones, but they ain't come up with that shit on they own."
Really, Mos? They directly stole, without proper compensation, all their material? Say what you want about the Stones, but they played with, raised the profiles of, and paid royalties to, a great many of their black blues idols.
Most of my favorite profs over the years have been people I initially hated. Usually, I hated them for challenging me and not being able to refute what they said. In other words, for being right.
So very, very true.
I think it would be difficult to overstate the importance of the point you make here TNC. This is something that I have always found incredibly depressing about the kinds of philosophical and ideological discussions that often take place within the black community. I remember when I was a teenager, there was this local talk show that often featured a lot of discussion with local children about their issues. In DC, this meant they were mostly black of course and they would talk about things like interracial dating or premarital sex or getting married young. (As an aside, this show was hosted for awhile by Erik King who some may recognize as Seargent Doakes on Showtime's Dexter. He grew up not too far from me.)
Anyway, one of the things I remembered about the show was that there was always some young black philosopher, sometimes a Fruit of Islam kid, other times some son of a preacher type, who would have something "deep" to say. They would tie whatever issue back to some nonsensical bit of numerology or spout some tangentially related verse from the Bible and the host would give him some high praise and he would get a few claps from the audience.
This always very seriously disturbed me because I could see these kids were smart but that whatever their potential for insight and real knowledge, it was being stifled by this kind of easy, intellectually lazy wankery. They were smart but they were being raised up, not because they were bringing hard truths to light, but mostly because the community around them wanted to believe in their intelligence. I knew this because I knew, from personal experience, that all of their bluster would never stand up to the far more intellectually rigorous approach employed by the kids I went to private school with. I don't know where or who those kids are today but I wonder about them. I hope like hell that they grew out of it.
I understand the point (and I agree with it) but I'd warn against this:
I don't think these sort of conversations take place in the black community any more regularly than in any other community, of similar class makeup. Look back over the rallies for Sarah Palin. I'd put that sort of nuttery up against anything that came out of, say, the Million Man March.
But that said, we're more concerned about the nuttery in the black community, because we live around it. Because it's our nuttery. Because it doesn't help us. We don't have to actually deal with the "Obama's a Mooslim!" crowd. We can come to sites like this and laugh at those guys. But our nuttery is another matter.
Actually TNC, I am not talking about the nuttery itself. Of course that exists in every community. I realize my comment was unclear on that now. What depressed me was the way that the nuttery was contextualized. That is to say, one of these kids would go through the rabbit hole on some crazy numerological bit and the host would say something like: "Wow! This young man is really taking us deep!" And the audience would cheer. I felt that this sort of absurdity was being validated by the community because it superficially resembled intellectualism. But like West with Mos, the host, who really should have known better, should have challenged this type of thinking. I don't think this is quite analogous to the sort of thing you see at Palin rallies. Whatever authenticity is attached to the Obama is a mooslem crowd by their surrounding community is based upon their "real" Americanness not their supposedly deep analytical methodology.
Paranoia is also insidious because it feeds off of our innate talent for pattern recognition. There's a reason why it's going to be a while before computers get up to our level of abstract pattern recognition. It's really complicated and it's amazing how well we do it. But that ability can also go too far and see patterns where none exist. It's hard to get the one without the other. Hence why critical thinking is so important. If you're not policing your own ideas, they can easily spiral out of control. And in the case of the black community, it's also that much harder because there have been so many genuine conspiracies against them (Tuskegee experiment, etc., as noted above). It's not something to be accepted, but it something where you can understand where it comes from.
Or maybe we should just we should just file a bug report.
Great post.
I don't know what Maher's producers were thinking, stacking Mos up next to Rushdie and Hitchens, two guys who have at the ready a mental rolodex of the entire Western canon. Mos' only defense was to get louder, after his faux inquiry into the "manifestos" of Al Queda (or the Taliban, whatever - more sloppy thinking to set off the intellectuals).
Paranoia and conspiracy theories don't look good on anybody, but sitting next to two guys who have traveled the world and reported on it, as well as read almost everything in print imaginable, Mos limitations were painful to watch. Clearly, he's fronting that he knows best what's on the "corner" - and whether he believes this microcosm can be extrapolated out into the rest of the world or whether he poses that way to seem hip is another story.
I think Hitchens was able to get Mos Def off his game and of Al-Quedia and the Taliban and onto himself.
Mos Def ask a legitimate purpose what is it that Al-Queda and the Taliban want. Neither Hitchens nor Bill were able to to come up with an answer so they went on the fall back they want to destroy America.
Lets no raise the profile Hitchens this is a very arrogant and self-righteous person.
I thought Hitchens was pretty clear on the point about what Al-Qeada wants: The triumph of their version of Islam and the eventual restoration of the Caliphate. Every time he tried to elaborate on that, Mos Def just started talking over him.
Yeah, Hitchens had a pretty concise answer that was about right. But I see why Mos got annoyed at their "elaborations"... Rushdie talking about banning music. They were trying to convince Mos that the Taliban are Bad Bad Bad.. which of course they are... but Mos was getting impatient with them because he's asking about the big picture, what are their goals, what do they want. The Taliban aren't in this just to ban music.
Mos might also have been annoyed given that he himself is Sunni muslim, no?
Posts like this are why I read this blog. Keep thinking and keep writing! Thank you!
"I don't know what Maher's producers were thinking, stacking Mos up next to Rushdie and Hitchens, two guys who have at the ready a mental rolodex of the entire Western canon."
I bet it was Maher's idea, and Maher did it because he thought highly of Mos Def. It's also Maher's M.O. to mix together intellectuals, politicians and celebrities. I happen to find it annoying sometimes, particularly when a couple of intellectuals are in the middle of a spirited debate and then it gets derailed by someone like Dana Carvey or D.L. Hughley jumping in with a lame bit.
I also think though that sometimes celebrities' view points are automatically dismissed BECAUSE they are comediens are movie stars or musicians. I remember Dana Carvey being obnoxious, but I remember DL Hughley being on a few times and making some valid points. The panelists were talking about nuclear power in Iran. I think he raised a point many "non-politicos"/"non-intellectuals" have been pondering, "why is it that nuclear weapons are only a problem when they are in the hand of non-Western nations?" I think he said (it's been a while since I've watched it) something to the effect that we believed those countries to be irrational when it truth they are actually very shrewd and less crazy than we'd like to think. I for one, agreed with him. I think his celebrity guests sort of feel the pressure to be funny or entertaining, but I think we often miss nuggets of truth and intelligence because we expect them to act the clown and that's how we perceive everything they say.
"why is it that nuclear weapons are only a problem when they are in the hand of non-Western nations?"
I hope that one didn't stump any of the panelists. I mean, does Hughley really think that we should be more afraid of France's nukes than Pakistan's?
I think the larger point both he and MOS were making was that nuclear weapons in general are bad and I would go further to say it's turned into a "big penis" contest for nations. Iran wants one because America and Israel have them. Pakistan developed them because India was. It goes on and on. When will it stop? You can't deny that there isn't hypocrisy. Sure no one can really see France using their nukes but why wouldn't America or Israel for that matter downt he line. I think Hughley's point was that we are upset that Pakistan and Iran have them, when the truth is it's hard to prove that they would have them if we didn't have a stockpile. There are extremists in power in those countries, there's one in power in North Korea and they still haven't managed to annihilate anyone yet. I think the hypocrisy to me sounds a bit like, we have them and we reserve the right to bomb you with them, but we're too "sane" and "rational" to do that (even though we're the only country that's every dropped the MAJOR bomb) but YOU on the other hand are crazy and can't be trusted ...just let US have all the nuclear weapons.
And yes as sghwhite says below me, it DID piss Rushdie and especially Hitchens off, because the party line is that these groups want to destroy America, our way of life and et cetera and they want the bomb to do that and that's why Iran can't have the bomb. OK.
@dragonflyingash
"it DID piss Rushdie and especially Hitchens off, because the party line is that these groups want to destroy America"
ok, don't know what "party" you're referring to. but, i suggest you check out rushdie...his beef is much more personal than the great Bloviators. And it's definitly not connected to any "party" or "line". He's been intellectually honest to a much fairer degree than most that share his title. And i do think that he has good points on both TWOT and Iran. Don't muddle the waters as the bloviator said.
muddy, it's supposed to say muddy...
I find it weard in the threads that I can't reply directly to Bruce, but whatever. Of course everyone knows about Rushdie and his beef, and he's definitely entitled to it I'm referring more to Hitchens than him. Rushdie really rarely got a word in edgewise in the Hitchens vs. Mos debacle above. I still maintain that he was a little annoyed, but he barely got a chance to open up his mouth before Hitchens went and made the whole thing personal.
When I said party line I obviously don't mean literally a particular "party" I mean the overwhelming belief in the West, that Islamofascism hate us for our freedoms and only want to annihilate us and everything we stand for. Of course Rushdie's beef is a lot more complex than that, maybe he didn't get to spill it in this clip. However Hitchens did get plenty out, at in Hitchens explanation he never really went beyond that line. I'm sure he has in depth somewhere (I haven't read a lot of Hitchens) and I know there is a lot more to it than they hate us. But that's pretty much what it sounded like in this particular discussion.
You know whats funny? Mos Def made the EXACTLY same point about nuclear weapons on Maher prior to part of the show in the clip thats posted. And thats what really pissed Hitchens and Rushdie off. Imagine that.
There are a few comedians that have come on and completely derailed the conversation. I don't think that adds to the show, no matter how funny they are. Nor do I think it's helpful when Maher brings on people like Coulter. If the point is to further conversations, then what's the point of bringing someone on that is so incendiary and partisan?
DL I don't mind, because I feel he makes good contributions to the discussions.
Agreed. Would anybody stop watching Bill Maher if he just stopped having celebrity on the panels altogether? It definitely makes the show worse. I love Gary Schandling, and think the guy is hilarious, but is he really bringing anything to the table? I suppose it's a little different if the celeb really knows their stuff, which some of them do.
If Maher took the celebs off his show, it would cease to have a clear purpose. Maher's niche has always been attempting to blur the line between entertainment and politics by bringing people from both worlds together to discuss things. In the process, some show biz stars have been able to prove they have an intellectual side most of the public wasn't aware of, and the more serious commentators have gotten a chance to loosen up a bit. Of course, it doesn't always work that way, and sometimes, as you and others have pointed out, what happens is simply that the celebs end up derailing serious conversations. But Maher's show is simply not going to become another news commentary show, nor should it. Maher himself has always straddled the line between being a comedian and being a pundit of sorts, and he frequently seems out of his depth when talking to intellectuals. That wasn't so much of a problem on this episode, because he's an undisguised hawk with no patience for conspiracy-mongering, and therefore he was naturally more in agreement with Hitchens and Rushdie in this particular conversation. But he probably wouldn't fare as well if he disagreed with them on something (and he and Hitchens do disagree on some important matters, such as the Iraq War).
I have mixed emotions about the whole thing. I'm really happy you shared your thoughts on it though. My parents, my sister and I are all huge fans of the show. We often re-has our viewpoints the next day. I watched the show on Monday when it came on HBO on Demand and then I watched Overtime and I was horrifed and incensed. The problem is that, I GET where Mos is coming from. I really do. Though I disagree with his entire 9/11 conspiracy theories and such, the inclination to NOT take everything that you are told at face value because we have been straight-up lied to many times on many different things. There is an underlying current in the black community that questions each villain the government and the media wishes to denigrate and yes that unfortunately includes known terrorist groups. During the main show, I agree with his points about nuclear weapons and the hypocrisy of that debate in the Western world and I also agreed with him on the Marijuana/Obama comment debate earlier.
Where I think he lost me and many of the people who would be inclined to agree with his point of view was just his inability to articulate what he believed in the OT segment. And instead of defending his belief, when he saw that the couldn't he retreated back to an easy out. It was disappointing. As much as I wanted to be mad at Hitchens (he did seem irritable and needlessly personal at times and he definitely has gotten lots wrong in his day), Mos should have came harder than that. But he didn't and he looked like a babbling paranoid bell ringer at times. Unfortunately. I know conspiracy theorists and skeptics who could have busted it out a LOT better than that. WHY, why, why didn't someone pull him aside and have him go over some talking points before he got on national TV like that. Many if not all of his points were valid questions. I don't ever think that someone can't debate with someone just because their last names are Rushdie and Hitchens, but yes it could have been loads better.
critical thinking is good. questioning assumptions is good. but i guess my question would be: if you're taught not to take everything at face value, wouldn't you logically also have to question the idea that the government is corrupt and lies to you constantly? seems to me you're just replacing government "misinformation" for another kind of "misinformation".
i'm not saying you don't have your reasons for thinking those things or for believing that, but at some point don't you also have to question and be skeptical about the value system that taught you to believe that?
or as coates said it much better and more succinctly than i:
No, I completely agree. I was just saying I understand where he's coming from. I probably didn't it express it well enough, but I don't think that anyone should take any one source or any one narrative as the owner of complete truth. I don't think Mos Def is doing that either, I think he's using his distrust but not ever informing himself on why he distrusts. It doesn't mean he's wrong for distrusting but my initial point was that there's more to disagreeing than just...disagreeing. I agree with TNC also that you have to be critical of all narratives. There's a lot to be skeptical of in the larger narrative, but you have to also be critical of the smaller narratives if you are a critical thinker and and want to have an informed opinion.
I still think though that Mos just erred on the side of just being misinformed in general and retreating. I think I've seen him better than this and that he could be better if he bothered to back up some of his statements with the facts. If he had done that he could have easily held his own even against the increasingly pompous Hitchens.
I tend to think that learning how to be wrong is one of the more important skills we can gain in life. At my alma mater, most of the kids who went there had been intellectual hot shit in high school. I knew more than a couple of people who dropped out after their junior years because they had simply grown bored with the lack of stimulation. So toss several hundred college freshmen who are all used to being right most of the time together in some seriously hard courses and you come out with an awful lot of smackdowns. It was certainly tough for me because I finally realized that even in the introductory science courses I couldn't skate by on what I already knew, which had tended to be the case in high school. Recently I read a really good article on the importance of stupidity in scientific research that I thought made an incredibly important point. It's absolutely necessary that you get used to feeling like you don't know what's going on, because if that doesn't happen on a regular basis then you're not investigating really interesting questions. While this is an article focused on the sciences, I tend to think that it still applies to other parts of life. If you're not exploring new subjects where you don't know everything and are regularly going to find out that you're doing something wrong, you need to expand your boundaries a lot more. Personally, I would like to thank Reed College and my current boss at Oregon Health and Science University for instilling a profound respect for feeling stupid in me.
I have to say that while Mos Def periodically spouts some semi-coherent shit that sounds crazy, anyone who takes his foreign policy views seriously is operating at about the same level of seriousness as people who bought stocks on the advice of that Cramer guy who shrieks and makes funny noises on CNBC. Christoper Hitchens, on the other hand, poses as somes sort of serious foreign policy guru and his track record is epic fail. He's also at least as irrationally paranoid in his ravings about "Islamofascism" taking over the globe and the need to invade more countries to stop them as Mos Def is in his nattering about the US government. Difference is Hitchen's is paid to make speeches and write articles on this shit, and he was promoted assiduously by the neocons as a contrarian apostate essentially to discredit their critics from the left. Mos Def is the crazy dude on the corner talking shit. Hitchens has proven himself adangerous and almost ridiculously pretentious gasbag as a cheerleader for policies that have dragged our country down into the dirt. The one thing he's shown some integrity on is rejecting the torture policies his neocon buddies instituted. If Mos Def needs someone to help him think straight, so does Hitchens.
Good point on Hitchens. For someone who hated Kissinger's bombing of Cambodia, largely on the basis imperialism, it's awfully curious why he was so enthusiastic about Iraq and the War on Terror.
Again, in the interests of not thread-jacking, I don't want to take this too far, but although I disagree with Hitchens's take on Vietnam, he has explained in his writings why he was against the U.S. involvement there and in favor of it in Iraq. Hitchens believes that the NVA/Vietcong were "people's armies", and doesn't think that was true of Saddam's military, or of Al Qaeda in Iraq and the other insurgent groups that we have fought in Iraq.
Ok, fair enough, I still disagree but thanks for clearing that up, I hadn't heard that before.
I mean really, doesn't it basically boil down to his hatred for religion? If Islamofascists were just communists hell bent on spreading their way of life, would he be in favor of invading Iraq? Certainly not.
actually, Saddam was a secularist...don't know if it changes anything for you?
I don't know. Being a religion-hater myself, I can't make that link. I think what it really boils down to is that after 9/11, a lot of people lost their damn minds. Unfortunately, some of those people will never recover. Not to downplay the Western arrogance angle, because there's a lot of that as well.
Bruce,
No, it doesn't change anything for me because I'm not supporting Hitchens in this case. I simply think that he would not be supporting the Iraq war, or the war on terror, if he didn't hate the idea of religion and religious extremists. I'm not saying his reasoning is sound, I just think that's really how it boils down for him.
Short answer: no. Hitchen's had long been opposed to Saddam, who was a secularist, for his genocide against the Kurds (who are also secularists).
This is why Bill Maher's show is so unique and always a pleasure to watch. What other show is going to pair Christopher Hitchens, Mos Def and Salamon Rushdie. Without all these different characters on the same show (and Hitches unique stubborn unwillingness to let falsehoods go unchallenged) it's unlikely Coates, and all of us, would be having this discussion. Others shows should do this also.
Truest point yet....
Incidentally, I think it's a bit over the top - especially when Obama is President - to suggest that black folk have to be embarrassed when a rapper goes into overdrive about his foriegn policy assumptions on a comedic talk show. Do white women have to be embarrassed every time Rosanne opens her mouth ? Were Jews embarrassed every time Bill Kristol wrote a column for the New York Times ?
That's a fair point, but Mos does tend to position himself as a spokesman for the average black dude on a Harlem street corner.
In a broader sense, it may not be fair that Mos Def is seen as more representative of black people than (to use your analogy) Bill Kristol is of Jews, but them's the breaks. Regardless of the subtext, I think it's important for anyone's views - Mos Def's, and Hitchens's, for that matter - to be subjected to scrutiny without getting into semantic debates like this one.
I just want to amend my comment, realizing that TNC was really talking as a member of "the hip-hop generation", which I guess Mos is more representative of, but I'm a bit concerned when entertainers are somehow held to a standard of serious spokespeople for a generation. Mos Def cracks me up and I like him as a character, but he's not a spokesman for anything but Mos Def. I've heard Republicans on that show spouting much crazier shit than Mos Def - like the guy last week who runs some rightwing website, on with Michael Eric Dyson - who I also happen to think is more than a bit of a fool - but the guy was much more paranoid and toxic than Mos Def and Dyson came off as the height of intellectual integrity and civility in comparison. I guess that's just the kind of street-corner hyperbole I expect from Mos Def. My first bit of advice to him if he wants to be taken more seriously would be to lose that outfit...
I agree with you, but then again I can't speak for the black community on this issue. When my cousin talks about wanting proof that Obama is a citizen and says he doesn't trust the media, I am not embarassed for my race (maybe embarassed for my family though) I think the failing in Def's arguement is that he claims he can't trust the media, but there is such a thing as the internets and Al Jazeera. A whole slew of information is out there, it seemed like he was excusing his ignorance because he doesn't trust CNN. The Taliban were the scourge of the left, human rights activists and feminists long before W was elected.
I hear the same thing from conspiracy people, the "I am just asking questions" when they theorize about a missle going into the Pentagon.
They don't have to be embarrassed. I wrote it the way I wrote it for a reason. I'm embarrassed--an conflicted (for reasons you point out) about that embarrassment. Only me. i don't speak for anyone else. If you feel it, you feel it. If not, that's cool to.
"Hitches unique stubborn unwillingness to let falsehoods go unchallenged"
Kool-Aid !!!!
Is it possible that the fact that certain black public figures feel comfortable spouting some fairly crazy unexamined ideas is in part symptomatic of the fact that a lot of white people are uncomfortable challenging them, because they are afraid to come off as racist? I can imagine that a lot of people would be very uncomfortable publicly disagreeing with Mos Def, even if they think he's completely wrong. Just throwing that out there.
Just so we are clear here, what "crazy unexamined idea" did Mos Def spout?
I think the issue is less what Mos said than how he comported himself.
Oh ok. Because I thought the issue was.
And although Mos Def kept saying he is paranoid I am still waiting on the whole myth part of it.
sg, the problem is that Mos Def asked a question about the political agenda of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and it was answered by Rushdie and Hitchens. Was it the best answer? No. But if you, Mos Def, don't trust that answer, fine. But then you can't keep saying "No one has explained to me..." Some one tried to explain it-- you may not like the answer, but someone tried. You can't just say "Well, I don't trust anyone." Then how do you get your facts? Do you read Juan Cole? Fine, cite him. Cite Chomsky. Cite your own research. But don't just say you don't know Arabic, so you don't know anything. You better learn Arabic then, otherwise you're just saying you don't give a shit. Give us some idea of how you WILL learn about it, how you will find something out. I think Mos Def is better than what he showed, but he basically came off as saying "They framed Shakur, so everything they say about al-Qaeda is probably a lie anyway." That's cynical surrender to ignorance (however understandable), not critical intelligence.
Here is my POV of what happened: He asked the question but didn't dismiss what Rushdie or Hitchens were saying. However, they questioned him after that, put words into his mouth and then asked him to explain why he didn't know. His answer- which seemed muddled because everyone interrupted everyone else- was that he didn't trust everything he heard on the news or 'No one explained it to me' etc... My impression was that he wanted someone else to tell him what they thought. Instead it turned into an attack on his intelligence.
(Backing down may have been controlling himself. I felt cornered for him and might have come out swinging..LOL..probably not but I wanted to smack Hutchins..)
Anyway.. from what I have read so far..you guys feel he didn't 'perform' well on the debate and maybe embarrassed himself and the 'hip-hop' generation. I guess..if asking a question shows lack of intelligence.
I shrug at that.
When TNC was talking about West's unwillingness to correct and challenge Mos Def's errors in a previous appearance, it reminded me of one of the things that really bothers me about some commentators.
I'm thinking specifically about hearing Robert Reich(?) (Sec'y of Labor under Clinton) on NPR a while back talking about the economic crisis. The man refused to correct or challenge any of the callers' comments; even when these comments were completely wrong, ill-informed, or misguided. Regardless of whatever mess the caller said, Reich would make it a point to fix on some small (however tiny) fragment of the comment that he could affirm and respond positively to.
This is pretty similar to what happens in a lot of college and university classes now. Some professors do challenge their students to think critically and analytically and support their arguments with evidence, but many other professors just don't bother. They will likely take whatever a student says in a seminar or class discussion at face value and either not respond to it directly or search mightily for the one truth or near truth that they can affirm or elaborate on. And the extent to which anecdotal "evidence", personal biography, and feeling are allowed to substitute for critical analysis in classroom discussion is downright shameful.
It is sad to see intelligent men like Mos Def fall into the trap of lazy thinking and hazy argument. There is a particular sting to it knowing the neccessity of black public figures representing the community. But make no mistake, intellectual laziness is a widespread problem and many intellectual "elders" are abdicating their responsibility to help maintain standards of intellectual discourse.
This is pretty similar to what happens in a lot of college and university classes now. Some professors do challenge their students to think critically and analytically and support their arguments with evidence, but many other professors just don't bother. They will likely take whatever a student says in a seminar or class discussion at face value and either not respond to it directly or search mightily for the one truth or near truth that they can affirm or elaborate on. And the extent to which anecdotal "evidence", personal biography, and feeling are allowed to substitute for critical analysis in classroom discussion is downright shameful.
I very much agree with this. I and many of my friends certainly feel that the "interesting point...next?" from a professor is kind of a kiss of death, but that comes, I think, from a background of having been the smartest kid in the class in high school and sort of expecting, when you think you've said something smart, more engagement than that. Not everybody is going to measure "interesting point" on that basis. And lord knows, the one time I heard a prof say, "That's interesting. Will you expand on that? Because when you're done, I'm going to tell you you're wrong" I damn near jumped out of my seat and cheered. There's no reason we should all have to sit there and politely nod along while we listen to someone say that the Christian missionaries were just like Al Qaeda (which is what was going on) and have nobody call bullshit. We are in a class to learn, and presumably we are listening to Robert Reich on the radio to learn or at least get informed. In such contexts, bull has to be identified for what it is.
I think this whole phenomenon feeds back into superparenting and the notion that every kid is special (see The Incredibles: "...which means no one is"). Every kid may well be special in their own special ways, but that doesn't make a professor, or an intellectual, or an elder responsible for making them feel that way--or making them not feel unspecial--in the limited context in which they interact, all the time. That's ultimately down to your parents, or to your parent figures (since we know full well parents are sometimes lacking). It's not my professor's job to worry that he or she is making me feel bad; it's their job to teach me, or go home.
I mean this in absolute seriousness, and not to take away from your point at all, but did anyone else think something seemed, you know, weird with Mos Def? Maybe he was just incredibly flustered, but Bill Maher even accused Mos of being high on that episode--I'd have to go and watch again to check when it happens. He certainly seemed it. Even Bill Maher, devout stoner, would not go on his own show baked.
You make a very good point, and I'd add that Will.I.Am also really looked bad on the show when he went on, which is a shame. I'm left wondering if Mos Def even knew what we was getting himself into--will.i.am sure didn't; he was expecting Bill Maher to just go with anything pro-Obama. You truly have to bring your A-game on that show, which is why I love it so much. Bill has not given Obama a free pass at all, in fact he spent most of that episode bashing him.
Someone else brought up McWhorter, who wrote an excellent article on the Root awhile back about the politics of hip-hop. I didn't agree with most of it, but in a way I'm glad rappers are being challenged--eventually it will elevate the dialogue and hip-hop will gain even more legitimacy. And hopefully embarassing moments like this will be less and less common. Hitchens, though certainly a skilled rhetorician and thinker, can be brought down.
That was a very thoughtful post about the ambivalence of solidarity.
However, it seems to me that a lot of you saw this debate as some kind of game in which your guy was sonned by their guy and should have been better prepared for these mf etc., as if it was a battle of skills. But this was Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens and Mos Def talking about a serious issue. I love all three of them and to see that they can't even have a remotely intelligent discussion makes me kind of sad.
A few points, some in response to Sgwhiteinfla:
Al Qaeda and the Taliban are two separate organizations. Many of their interests overlap and they thus have a strong alliance, but they ultimately want different things. The Taliban, who are primarily of Pashto background, want to rule Afghanistan, while Al Qaeda, mainly comprised of Egyptians and Saudis, wants to topple the rulers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia with the eventual plan to reestablish the Muslim Caliphate. The Caliphate was the medieval Muslim empire that the Turks eventually took over and ruled until 1918. Perhaps this new 21st-century Caliphate would be ruled from Istanbul, perhaps elsewhere. Al Qaeda has said as much, and it’s not “classic fear mongering” to point this out.
Anyhow, Mos Def clearly doesn’t know or understand the distinction between Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Rushdie and Hitchens tried to point it out to him, and they actually did answer his question. Mos was evidently not prepared for the answer that he got, or maybe he didn’t think it through (which would be hard for anyone on national TV with Rushdie and Hitchens sitting at the table). Or maybe, as some have suggested, he was in a mentally altered state.
Whatever the case, Mos just kept repeating his question and eventually claimed that no one would answer it.
This then led Mos to the “paranoid style” of American politics, known to both left and right. He claimed that all Al Qaeda’s statements have been deliberately mistranslated. To argue this has been going on for the last eight years and that no one has pointed it out is irrational and absurd! Mos may be a decent rapper, but he’s not a thinker. He’s starting from what he already believes and ignoring anything that clouds his clear vision, facts be damned.
Now, Hitchens is no great philosopher himself, nor does he appear to be a particularly gracious person. I agree with some of the things said against him in comments above.
But Hitchens actually knows how to make an argument that will be rational and factually based (even with some holes and inconsistencies, as most arguments have). He's very quick minded in debates, and he's a virtuoso essayist. All of these skills make him a formidable opponent.
Mos Def, by contrast, was speaking conspiracy-minded nonsense, and he sounded like a sullen teenager. He was completely out of his league, and he ought to do his homework if he plans to take on sharp-minded people like Rushdie and Hitchens in the future.
Again I ask you to specifically point out some of your assertions.
You said.
The YouTube clip has a timer on it, please to refer to that section of the clip where Mos Def said nobody would answer his question. I saw and heard him say nobody HAD answered the question for him up til that point but I didn't hear him say nobody was answering his question on the panel. And several times when he repeated the question he was pointing out that he was just asking a question and they were jumping on him for asking it.
Again I would love for you to point to this part of the clip. I remember him saying he doesn't speak Arabic and he doesn't trust the translation but I don't rememeber anything about "deliberately mistranlated". I could point out that several of Bin Ladin's tapes have had different translations by the way.
Where I am from in a debate people take different sides of an issue. In this clip Mos Def asked a question and ACKNOWLEDGED that he didn't know the answer which was why he was asking in the first place. That Hitchens mischaracterized what Mos Def had said previously and his motivation for the question doesn't make it so. Again please point to the point in the video where Mos Def says, "nah thats not what the Taliban/al qaeda believe".
Did you even watch the clip?
TNC -
While we're criticizing people we like, here's some unwelcome parallel criticism. I think you're a smart and very interesting guy, but your cavalier misspellings and grammatical errors fall into a similar category of problem. Did no one ever son you regarding these errors? Spell check would son you, and it wouldn't even cause any discomfort. Slang doesn't bother me in the slightest; that's a stylistic assertion as far as I'm concerned. Spelling and grammar (there/their/they're..? Come on!), however, are basic technical issues. You work for the Atlantic, Man!
If Mos Def is going to be on a panel with Hitch and Rushdie, he needs to suit up and read up. If you're going to write for the Atlantic... well, you get the idea.
I kind of feel like a prick now, and I know this isn't exactly topic-specific, but it was the proverbial straw for me.
Obviously, I continue to read and enjoy your work. You're the man.
"If you're going to write for the Atlantic... "
This is a blog - I see words dropped, misspellings, etc on blogs all the time. I don't think serious writers have time to do a lot of editing or spell checks of their blog posts. If they had to do that in the blog form, they'd probably abandon it and get on with their real work.
I'm guessing you never read the blog of Ta-Nehisi's predecessor at the Atlantic, Matt Yglesias.
Please don't do this. I've addressed this several times. I'm blogging and bad at grammar. Send me an e-mail, if you have corrections. I'm happy to make them.
This is a Reply to Bruce up above who said.
Now I don't want to put words in your mouth but it seems you are saying we should invade a country and overthrow their government because their women wear burkas and are mistreated. Now the charges are true without a doubt, but if thats the litmus test then we would be invading a helluva lot of countries. Bigger than that what about mormons or fundamentalist christians or quakers here in the US that dictate what their women wear and what role they can or can't have in society? Why haven't we busted all of those religions up and outlawed their practices? Shouldn't we start at home if we are going to be the moral authority for the world? Or is it just when muslims oppress their women that we should act? If thats the case they wear burkas over in Saudi Arabia too. Should we send the troops in post haste?
You are talking about an issue that never even came close to coming up in the clip. Mos Def asked what the philosphy of the Taliban/al qaeda was and he said himself that he was asking because he didn't know. They didn't accept that he was asking in good conscious so all three, Hitchens, Rushdie, and Maher attacked. Now go back and watch the clip again and try to find a time when Mos Def said Hitchens or Rushdie was wrong. I know its hard what with all those captions on the screen but just listen and see if you can find any time when he said "no you are wrong about that". I have listened 4 times now and I have yet to hear anything that resembles that.
Here is something that Mos Def said that was one of the realest lines ever.
"Just because you have elections doesn't mean you have a thriving democracy"
I liked that line also, because it's true. Though it got lost in the shuffle. Also, Hitchens began to really put words in Mos's mouth...he said something like "yeah, elections are the devil" in a very dismissive way. I'm sure Hitchens as supposedly brilliant as he is can agree that elections in no way shape or form are indicative of a democracy. I can probably name a dozen or so "elections" that happen last year that were complete frauds.
Fair point. Im leaving that particular point at that actually. Problem is, that you've already invaded. So it's time to deal with it correctly, isn't it? It's fair to point out that the invasions where done on dubious terms (atleast in iraq, NOT Afganistan). And it's even more fair that it was done poorly. But that's to Hitchens and Rushdies points...these are dangerous people. Period.
As you pointed out, Mos was suggesting that al-qaeda wasn't presented to the people as a real threat (he did it the first time he was on the show), the orange-alert episodes before the 2004 election are proof enough of that. Now, Mos, was first being resonable, and asked a good question, given that he had one true intellectual, and a bloviating former trotskiyte at his disposal. They answered his question, but he persisted with asking the same question enough times to frustrate the intellectual, and tick of the bloviator. Now, after Rushdie explained to him what it was that AQ wanted, he interrupted the intellectual when he said "those are finer points" and didn't give him enough room to explain why they weren't. This pissed off the bloviator and they were off to the races.
My problem with this is that just "holding an unpopular idea" isn't an intelligent stance. It doesn't bring anything to the table.
It may be real, but it's not especially profound or original. Iran, after all, has elections, and few objective observers consider it to be a democracy.
I've never commented here before, though I have been reading this blog for several months. But I couldn't let this bit slide by...
"Bigger than that what about mormons or fundamentalist christians or quakers here in the US that dictate what their women wear and what role they can or can't have in society?"
If you think that Quakers dictate what their women wear or what role they can or can't have in society, you don't know a single thing about Quakerism.
I'm a Quaker and this made me laugh pretty hard. But then the guy has a point: think of the poor, backward Quaker women, attending inferior institutions like Swarthmore and Haverford, where they are brainwashed to perform limited societal roles like "surgeon" or "senator" and forced to wear limiting traditional Quaker garments like, ya know, halter tops and jeans. To church. Help, help, I'm being repressed!!!!
WTF???
Well spoken. My experience at Hampton U. was eerily similar. From a radical to a skeptic.
i haven't read all the posts but i saw the show and i thought mos def said the most intelligent stuff that night and i say this as someone who has read hitchens and rushdie.
he got to the philosophical heart of what it means to say we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons.
Great Post TNC.
Of course I'm late to the party....damn west coast time.....I don't have much to add though, excellent post. I remember seeing this and saying to my lady that Mos Def was talking out of his ass and it was embarrassing.
I have been reading your site for quite awhile & never been moved to comment until now. That is one of the best posts -- most illuminating & true -- that I have read. I wish this idea of elders bearing a responsibility to stretch & push the young was more prominent across multiple cultures. It seems pretty counter-cultural now...or at least counter to white, middle class culture. Which is truly a shame.
Thanks for sharing this, TNC. I loved it.
great description of what it feels like to have your foundations rocked. it doesn't happen enough to all of us. it really takes a person who cares about us to do it in a constructive way.
the thing about mos def and others is that while they are intelligent enough, they don't care enough about these conversations to come prepared. their main goal in life isn't to look as intelligent or hold their own against people who live this stuff day to day. he's not going to look at his performance and say to himself, oh next time I'm going to read up and then show them. instead he's going to say, I asked a simple question and got killed for it.
if hitch or maher really respected def they would have calmly taken the question at face value and answered it.
i hate the celebrity aspects of these shows - because in a way the celebrities are the lay people but i feel the "experts" would respect a true lay person much much more than a celebrity. i would love to see a show where they took applications from lay people and had them go up against the "experts" i would love to see half the people on this blog take it to one of the talking heads. can someone do that for us?
Another great and honest post TNC. I too watched this whole show last night, woke up thinking about it, eventually clicked on your blog and lo and behold ...
I agree with a lot of what has been said here. In the above clip Mos Def does becomes defensive before retreating into what you call "nihilism" like this is somehow a legitimate position given the subject they were discussing. He was frustrating on the show because not all his points were off base. They were just not fully formed or logically thought through. Earlier in the show he brings up Muhammad Yunnis and the Grameen Bank without saying how he and/or it pertained to all this Wall Street bullshit in anyway - like some how just dropping that reference was enough.
In the above clip he started by asking a question and I can't tell if he was legitimately curious or he just wanted to start in on the whole 'its all one big con' thing. He kept confusing 'Taliban' and 'Al Queda' and should have stopped talking and listened while Rushdie explained the distinction between the two.
But that said - I agree with many of the above comments here: Hitchens also drops a lot of bullshit that NEVER gets challenged. I see it all the time since he seems to adhere to the Gore Vidal dictum that one should never pass up a chance to have sex or appear on television. But the irony here in my view is that there was somebody on that show who could have challenged him and that was Rushdie - who as we all know is willing to take on Islamist fundamentalism but also has an acute understanding of Western hubris and limitations - which is where we're at, I feel.
Al Queda is an alliance of anti-royal family Saudi fundamentalists and the Egyptian Muslim Brother hood - Bin Laden and Al Zwahiri. Their goals were first and foremost American troops out of the Holy Land and then the overthrow of the Saudi royal family and then the Egyptian government. This whole "restore the Caliphate" thing is utter horse shit. And perhaps I'm kidding myself but I feel that Rushdie knows this.
Suicide bombing is a paramilitary response to the occupation of lands the bomber considers his (or her) own by a foreign democratic country. It is an attempt to influence that democracy to the extent that they will ultimately end their occupation. People like Hitchens are forever portraying it as irrational religious hysteria and thus we have no choice but Permanent War (that just makes it worse, and will ultimately bankrupt you, as we are seeing) when in fact it is quite logical. Certainly some American policy makers must understand this at some level because what happened after 9/11 - they pulled their troops out of Saudi Arabia. "Dying to Win" by Robert Pape is unassailable on this subject. I would recommend it to anyone.
Though it actually hasn't been proven yet - its all well and good to say that Iran wants nuclear weapons and we just can't let this happen but if sanctions don't stop them - what are the policy implications? Is Hitchens advocating for war with Iran? Or even just bombing Iran? In my view this is far more dangerous than the alternative - which is that we need to learn to live with a nuclear armed Iran and act accordingly.
Iran's position with regards to the United States is logical. They see the United States as a threat. The United States staged a coup that overthrew their democratically elected President in 1953. The United States supported the Shah and his brutal secret police. The United States supported Saddam Hussein and encouraged him to launch the Iran-Iraq war which was absolutely brutal for Iran - hundreds of thousands of dead, Iranian soldiers gassed - just completely horrendous. If I were an official of the Iranian government I would certainly see the acquiring of a nuclear weapon as a deterrent. Certainly now that they have American troops on both borders. I do believe that Iran has signed the nuclear non-proliferation agreement. What is the only country in the Middle East that hasn't signed it? Israel. Any upcoming war would be a war to maintain the present nuclear balance of power in the Middle East. Whose up for that at this point?
If Mos Def was trying to suggest that maybe, just maybe the United States is more than a little hypocritical on this score its a legitimate point.
An incidentally, I feel the Obama Administration must understand this and that is why they are opening a dialogue.
Though I find his writing challenging it needs to be remembered that Hitchens is a polemicist and comes from a tradition of the Trotskyist far-left that believes in Permanent Revolution through military means and I don't believe he is ever really changed from this basic stance. And he is forever challenging other people on his perception of their supposed ideological impurity and he loves doing it. He absolutely loves baiting liberals for their sloppy thinking but nobody ever challenges him on the policy implications of his. But I believe that somebody above used the word "gasbag". He would pop in a second, but nobody ever challenges him.
Okay, I need to stop now, I am getting way too tangential.
Again, great post. You do take risks here. But your position of openness and honestly serves you and your blog very well I feel, and makes it well worth the read.
Great point. Two things come to mind: 1, this is what happens when you're the smartest guy in the room (or, on the corner) for the majority of your life.
But 2, this goes back to what TNC was saying, a specifically black/urban/dare-i-say-hip-hop way of trading of information. "Building". It's almost taboo to challenge the rhetoric. You "add on to the cipher", not argue with it. The concept of "dropping knowledge", "dropping bombs" or whatever, is not about thorough hashing out of opposing views, submitting proof, research... it's almost free association, shards of information gleaned from all over the place: hearsay, superstition, The Final Call, numerology, street scholarship, mythology... as much the result of a lack of information as the accumulation of it. Someone says, "yo... like Muhammad Yunus." The cipher responds, "true, true." The point goes unchallenged, and the speaker is never required to think the idea through, content with its mere mention. It has to be correct, because the alternative is the news, the schoolbooks, the "official" story. Nobody trusts that version of events.
This sort of paranoia is hard to unpack, and a lot of folks (maybe Mos Def included) might rather stay in it than challenge the entire world view.
TNH, your title really said it all. Can't ball? Don't play.
Here's the Gold Standard for crackpot paranoics in the infotainment industry:
http://www.glennbeck.com/
Unless and until a black guy who is equally out-to-lunch and swinging wildly gets a prime time show to spout his crazy shit, folks of our President's hue who are concerned they're not being well-represented in the public sphere can relax for a minute.
LOL. Well at some point we did have the inaptly named Alan Keyes is Making Sense. That was an MSNBC show I believe.
I missed that one, but I googled it and found this:
"The (Keyes) show's cancellation led to an ongoing boycott of the network by 78,137 people, sponsored by the Jewish education group Mesora.org.[8]
"In the weeks following the cancellation, the Israeli government presented Keyes with an award for his integrity in journalism. This marked the only time the award had ever been presented."
I'll refrain from two or three snarky comments that come to mind...
Regarding Mos Def, I'll remind folks that we're talking about a 36-year old man who also believes the moon landings were staged.
"The elder doesn't exist simply to cosign the emotions of the young, he exists to push the young past that, to challenge them, to force them to be better than themselves."
I immediately pasted that quote onto a Word document and posted it on the bulletin board in my offce (including the proper attribution to you , TNC). Thank you for this post. I teach composition and critical thinking at a community college and tomorrow I have to engage in a post-evaluation meeting in which I will have to try and explain to a colleague why her class discussion I observed was so lousy in spite of the fact she got rave student reviews. I have been crafting some kind of articulation, and so much of what you wrote today really solidified the problem as I saw it. She was allowing the class--a room full of white kids, incidentally--to comment on the material rather than analyze it, to feel good about where they are rather than where they should go. It's no fun having to bring her down from the giddiness she expressed in an e-mail over the student evaluations she received, but reading your post reminded me of how important it is to bring said issues to her attention. Whether she is able to actually achieve the necessary adjustments in rigor may not be possible, I'm afraid, as I strongly suspect she is a product of the kind of academic cheerleading she is now promoting.
To me, the crux of the video is when Mos mentions Assata Shakur, and the three other men's faces go blank. I wouldn't say that Mos's point of view is clearly and eloquently stated, but I think that is fair under the circumstances. The other three men are able to speak with great clarity and conviction because they don't have to actively engage with the sort of cognitive dissonance that comes with knowing the names Assata Shakur, Albert Wooodfax, Robert Hillary King, Herman Wallace, Fred Hampton, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, goodness the list goes on and on. Knowing those names breeds deep distrust of "authority" and requires one to be able to function on two levels in an argument. Mos fails -- he isn't able to engage his counterparts in a discussion of Al Qaeda because the feedback from his cognitive dissonance between knowing how often police forces (domestic and military) imprison innocent people and that there is some legitimate threat that some authority will have to deal with.
To be fair, Hitchens and Co. also fail, because their ignorance of this fact of American life (which a cursory "I hear what you're saying" doesn't cover) means they can engage only on one level: "Either you understand this threat and therefore bow to authority's handling of it, or you are incompetent." At the end of the day, they can't fully grasp Mos's perspective just as he can't grasp theirs.
Totally agree. I felt as if Hitchens was being patronizing for a bit of the exchange, but no one, not even Maher knew who Assata Shakur was??? Come on people. I was very dissappointed, I felt like it was a missed opportunity for Mos to throw out more of those names you just mentioned and explain to them why distrust of authority and government is longstanding in our community without sounding like he was uninformed and paranoid.
I also think in your last paragraph you explain much better what I was trying to say earlier. Which is that because Mos wasn't adhering to the dominant line of thinking on this, it was agitating, especially to Hitchens.
Mmm...the only one who explicitly showed his ignorance of Shakur was Maher. Remember, Hitchens is a veteran Labour leftist with a instinctual sense of global solidarity, so he likely did know about Shakur. My guess is he may have politely declined to pursue Mos's very sketchy association of Shakur the liberationist heroine with Bin Laden and Al'Queda, which prevented the discussion from becoming even more of an intellectual hot mess.
I’ll tell you what, I watched that entire show (as I usually do) and the entire interplay between Mos Def and Hitch, and to a lesser extent Rushdie and Maher, made me very uncomfortable. Sure, there were a lot of factors that exacerbated the situation like MD’s inability to navigate deeper waters as well as Hitch’s obvious inebriation. Still though, that he spoke to Mos Def like he was a child really bothered me. Bill Maher, too, was at times surprisingly patronizing. Sure, he wasn’t the sharpest or most intellectual guest ever, but he did make a couple decent points that were worth listening to and pursuing even though they weren’t eloquently phrased, and let’s be honest HE IS AN ENTERTAINER. He is there for the unique point of view and mass appeal that an entertainer brings to the table, and although out of their element in a real debate, for some reason Bill Maher insists on populating his show with entertainers as well as intellectuals. As a big fan of the show, I can tell you that by and large, the entertainers on Bill Maher’s show say nothing worth remembering. And week after week, these vapid celebrities sit there and opine and not once have I seen them treated in that way. From Ashton Kutcher to will.i.am to Sean Combs to Kerry Washington, all with strong opinions, none worth listening to. Mos Def at least was a step up, and to see him disrespected like that really disappointed me.
Reminds me of when Maher tried to patronize Shyne (the rapper) that way for 'playing gangsta' and got his behind handed to him by Shyne.
Odd that Shyne was a more compelling debater on the Bill Maher show than any Mos appearance Ive ever seen on said same show.
http://www.daveyd.com/fnvdec42000.html
Read the transcript, if you guys get a second. Maher wandered into the debate arrogant, condescending and smirking and Shyne got WITH him. Talk about underestimating your opposition.
I remember this show. It was good to see someone clearly underestimated by the host who handled himself well. Shyne made some great points and to me it was the complete opposite of what Mos was doing. Which was nothing more than barbershop grandstanding...that's all good for the barbershop but if you take that show on the road, at least be prepared to back up what you say.
Yes, I thought he was high the moment I saw him with his hat pulled down, as if he was trying to hide his eyes, and I think Bill knew it. Maybe that, coupled with the pressures of debating public intellectuals like Rushdie and Hitchens, exacerbated his paranoia.
I thought about raising this one on the blog, but it would have stunk too much of crowing - basically laughing at a guy who has allowed paranoia to make him ignorant.
All the same, Mos Def is a musician, it's not just him who makes a fool out of himself when he tires to rebrand himself as an 'activist' - most musicians do. Look at John Lennon with his bed-in for peace, or Paul McCartney when he released 'Ireland for the Irish', or Paul Simon's tour of South Africa, or a million other examples to which there are probably no more than a dozen or so solid counter-examples.
A friend of mine interviewed Public Enemy a while back when they did a press-conference in Taiwan, asked them whether they still kept to all the Nation of Islam conspiracy stuff - I'm talking particularly about the idea that white people were created by an evil Dr. Something-or-other 999,999 years ago (or was it 333,333? I forget). Of course they still do, but so long as they start calling themselves 'activists' (activists for what?) nobody is going to be all that bothered.
Wonderful & thoughtful post, thanks for the window seat TNC.
This show is one of the few things I miss about cable. Maher annoys the hell out of me most of the time, but I miss the debates. I suppose the whole thing is probably streamed these days though right? I hate just watching clips from something like this, as it leaves out a lot of context.
Terribly embarrassing. There is something very hollow about holding up the principle of thinking for one's self without actually articulating an idea. If one is going to be skeptical one should have a concrete reason to be. As a black man in my early 20's, who didn't grow up in that "conscious" atmosphere but nonetheless had similar experiences as Mr. Coates with black professors in college, I question whether or not being black in America is a good enough reason.
While the point about pairing entertainers with intellectuals is a good one, I would argue that a musician like Mos Def, whose rapping is "socially conscious," should have a better understanding of the world around him instead of remaining isolated. I guess that brings up a broader question: How can rappers--Nas and Mos Def are two prominent examples--sound so intelligent over beats, but so clunky on camera or in interviews?
I understand the feeling that Cornell West should've challenged Mos instead of simply explaining his ethos, but if you are really going to advocate knowledge, then the brunt of the responsibility to get educated should fall on those who aren't. Blaming Cornell West--directly or indirectly--lets Mos Def off the hook. I don't know how much money he has made during his career, but I would wager it is enough to acquire all the major papers and news stations(including Al Jazeera), which should be enough for him to know what Al Queda's deal is. This, instead of asking Hitchens what Al Queda is all about, then saying he didn't believe anything that anyone told him, then saying he thinks for himself without articulating a thought, then accusing Bill Maher of setting him up to look stupid, and so on.
If we are really going to defend the "hip hop generation" from accusations of unintelligence and buffoonery, then the sad fact is that those who are truly unintelligent have to get thrown to the wolves. It certainly beats the hell out of pulling Cornell West into this, who has been one of the few black intellectuals who has been an advocate for rap music without being a demagogue.
At first I agreed with TNC, but after reading your post, I've changed my mind. Perhaps TNC conflates his young self with Mos Def here a little too much. Mos Def is not a college kid who hasn't seen much of the world and who needs elders to point him in the right direction, he's a grown 30 something man with significant resources who apparently hasn't taken advantage of opportunities to learn about the world around him. And these discussions aren't taking place in a college classroom debate, it's prime time TV. If I were going to go on TV to discuss a subject, I think I'd do a little (or a lot) more homework. Blaming Cornell West is sort of like saying somebody should have taken poor little ignorant Sarah Palin aside and taught her something about the world before she did the Katie Couric interview. I'm all about elders stepping in and helping young people out, but at some point, if you're ignorant there's only one person to blame.
We should all exercise healthy skepticism when it comes to what we hear, see, and read from the MSM.
However, Mos Def's comments were inexcusable, out of line, and off the wall.
Any intelligent person, who hasn't been in a coma for the past 8 years, knows Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
Bin Laden is a real flesh and blood homicidal maniac. He's not the figment of the CIA's imagination.
Under slavery and segregation, the US govt upheld a system of laws where millions of innocent African Americans were harrassed, persecuted, tortured, and murdered.
No transgressions committed by the US govt against African Americans give Mos Def an excuse to shut down his brain to reason, rationality, logic, and common sense.
I strongly disagree with Hitchens about the Iraq War, but I have no patience with Mos Def pleading ignorance about the goals and objectives of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Bill Maher should be ashamed of himself for having had Mos Def on his show.
Mos Def contributed nothing to the broadcast but breathtaking ignorance.
If Maher has a brain or a conscience he'll do the right thing and never agsin invite Mos Def to appear on his show.
I'll have to respectfully disagree, while Mos was off base for his comments about Bin Laden and 911. He gave a refreshing perspective on the fact that we spend $10billion a month on a illegal war in Iraq, meanwhile public school teachers are being fired nationwide. He also raised a interesting point with regards to New Orleans still being a debacle 4yrs after Katrina. Hilts I feel like you are being a bit tough on Mos.
Are you real or a troll-bot? "illegal war in Iraq" "Teachers being laid off", blah, blah, blah - it is the equivalent of a Christian Fundie type spouting off about how we spend millions on the appeals of death row inmates, yet murder millions of innocent babies every year. It adds nothing to the debate. And it is utterly wrong on Federalism, but so is the current president, as well as the previous three, so I guess you are in good ignorant company.
So someone "respectfully disagrees" with you and you call him a troll-bot? Nice. Doesn't make him any LESS correct about the fact that we've spent billions on a war based on a bold-faced lie while continuing to turn a blind eye to our stateside meltdown. The LOGIC FAIL in some of these comments is utterly fascinating.
Way to take my point personally, I congratulate you being a sensitive has my 2yr old God son. I’m not a troll bot and or ignorant in the slightest. I was merely pointing out the fact that we attacked a sovereign nation w/o UN approval on the basis that said nation possessed WMD's. When no WMMD's were found we then changed our reasoning for the attack to a cold war era type of ideology (spreading Democracy with guns). Since this debate centered on how off base Mos Def was on "Real Time" I was merely pointing out the fact that he made several good points. As far as teachers being laid off and avg HS class sizes be in the ballpark of 42 students in CA not being an issue or a problem... Well I'll point you to every study on poverty that indicates the fastest way to break the cycle of poverty is through education. If we don't spend the money on schools, we'll end up spending it on prisons down the line. Everything I said was on point and relevant to the debate. You just happen to disagree with me which is fine. You're clearly wrong but you are permitted to disagree. No need to take my comments so personally.
This is the exact sort of thinking that I was talking about in my earlier comment.
We have two narratives in this interview that are both correct:
1) Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are legitimate terrorizing threats to American citizens.
2) A racist criminal justice system is a legitimate terrorizing threat to American citizens.
One does not cancel out the other. Admitting that the FBI stalked, terrorized, murdered, and imprisoned Black Panthers does not neutralize the threat of Al Qaeda. Admitting that Al Qaeda is a threat does not neutralize the threat of violent and brutal police presence.
So the question is this: if Mos Def is "inexcusable, out of line, and off the wall" for not knowing that, yes, quite clearly, Osama Bin Laden was main strategist and perpetrator for the attacks on America of September 11, 2001, then why are the other three men not "inexcusable, out of line, and off the wall" for not knowing who Assata Shakur is?
Please note: I am not saying that Mos Def's assertions on Al Qaeda were correct. However, the other three men at that table demonstrated an incalculable, willful ignorance that no one is calling them out for, because their narrative is more powerful.
I completely agree that a ton of white and Anglo intellectuals either don't know or don't care about racism in the U.S. justice system. Since one of the themes of this post is paranoia, it is worth noting that, unlike a guy like Bill Ayers--basically living a quiet life until he got politicized to imply that Barack Obama was unamerican--many black radicals are either dead, incarcerated or in exile. White radicals from the country's most turbulent period are faring far better than their black counterparts, perhaps because of the stigmas associated with the Black Power movement. This is certainly unfair.
I don't know, though. One could argue that neither Ayers or Assata Shakur were household names outside of people who grew up during the era, or who were particularly studious. Al Queda, because of their global implications, is another story. Thus I think it is a bit more excusable not to know about Shakur than about Al Queda.
Your point is well-taken.
I suppose a way of further extending the legitimacy of knowing Assata Shakur's name is that she is still actively sought by the FBI (with a $1 million bounty), as two of the original Angola 3 are still in prison. Isn't it still "the era" if people are still imprisoned or in exile for "crimes" committed during that time?
Great Post! As someone that grew and developed with the conscious community in Colorado and having recently moved to Harlem. I blame a lot this on not just Dr. West but New York City. Here in Harlem, I sometimes wonder, exactly who is more paranoid, our elders or our youth? I now realize that those of us that were raised in places with small black populations and right to work states (where without unions, you will simply be fired for merely "talking crazy") have benefited from the fact you MUST have game or you will get ran out of your mama's or grandma's house, church, or job. Mos problem is that he raised around a 3 million strong echo chamber.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2020029531334253002
The above URL is for a documentary called 'Hip Hop - Beyond Beats and Rhymes'. Mos Def is in it briefly. It's an interesting scene as the presenter asks about homosexuality and possible intolerance in the hip hop community. Mos and a couple of other panelists walk away.
Hm. Well one, it wasnt exactly a panel, it was an impromptu interview in a studio. Not quite like walking out of a scheduled discussion, but the gesture stands. Two, Im not surprised Busta walked out (for all kinds of half-baked reasons I wont elaborate on) but its a shame Mos didnt engage the question. I really respected Kanye for addressing homophobia in hip-hop in a very honest, almost self-deprecating way. I wish more rappers would touch the topic but...bad for business I suspect.
Sorry, I saw this for a women's studies class over a year ago so the memory was fuzzy. But that was my introduction to Mos Def. But I get the sense that he wants it both ways intellectually.
Damn, should preview before I hit submit. I meant to say that Mos Def wants it both ways. He appears to believe a certain set of realities but disbelieve others. I think its been stated well in this comments section that Mos is strongly opinionated sometimes to his detriment.
Justin,
Mos Def was correct about the neglect shown towards New Orleans following Katrina, but the way he arrogantly dismissed the threat posed by Al Qaeda was absolutely ridiculous and extremely stupid.
Another thing that bothered me about Mos was his "I'm from Brooklyn, I ain't scared of nothing" bravado. First off, you're talking to Salman Rushdie. Dude couldn't even go in public for two decades. Walking around East New York at night is a cakewalk compared to his life. And Hitch, who makes a habit of showing up in every hellhole and war zone he can. Chechnya, Liberia, Brooklyn? He just got assaulted by Syrian Nazis in Beirut. Come on Mos, this crowd isn't going to be impressed by that.
Great post, Mr. Coates.
I think it's interesting how this made you feel, because as a white guy, I wouldn't feel embarrassed at all if this was Ian Mackaye or Jello Biafra or Zack de la Rocha (not white, but makes white kid music) or whoever, but I guess if you think Raekwon the Chef belongs in the canon, clips like this could be a bit more of an issue for you. I have to say, I was a bit surprised that the man who co-wrote Thieves in the Night and Respiration could be this ill-informed, but oh well.
That's exactly right. Mos Def demonstrated profound ignorance about his interlocutors, especially Rushdie. In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, the father of the Iranian Revolution and a man of great power and authority in Shiite Islam, sentenced Rushdie to death. This decree had the full weight of Iran (over 50 million people) and much of the Islamic world behind it. Britain broke diplomatic relations with Iran over the incident.
And Mos Def tries to take on this guy and Hitchens by posturing about his Brooklyn roots? His attitude would be hilarious if it were confined to him alone.
"This decree had the full weight of Iran (over 50 million people) and much of the Islamic world behind it."
This is neither provable, nor proven...
Claim no. 1: "This decree had the full weight of Iran...behind it"
* the Iranian government offered a reward for Rushdie's murder
* the Iranian government preferred to break relations with Britain rather than rescind the fatwa
* This state of affairs lasted for nearly 10 years, and even today Iran has not officially repealed its Supreme Leaders' sentence.
Claim no. 2 "Much of the Muslim world [was] behind [this decree]."
* the book's Japanese translator was murdered, in his home country
* translators and publishers in Norway and Turkey survived assassination attempts
* British citizens of the Islamic faith openly declared their support for the sentence
* MI6 felt it necessary for a British citizen to go into hiding in his own country for having exercised his freedom of expression. This occurred in a country where much of our Western liberal tradition was first developed. Mere British residence, it was felt, did not ensure Rushdie's safety.
Perhaps it would have been better to say "*too much* of the Muslim world supported this decree." Certainly the families of those murdered because of their links to the book would agree.
In any case, Rushdie's life was torn apart by the whole affair, and the type of toughness required to endure it is unassailable by anyone -- especially Mos Def, Brooklyn and all.
seriously...you're kidding me right??
so, a quasi-dictatorship proclaims a fatwa and you claim that 50 million people in iran are behind it?
surely sir, you must jest??
this just in from teh Internets, muslim extremists in dictatorial countries are suddenly representation of the broad public. please...as a man of persian blood, i like rushdie...alot...
what i don't like is servings of weaksauce, whether they be in small or big portion.
As far as im concerned, you've proven diddly-squat...get real man.
Oops. My previous comment was intended as a reply (or Amen!) to doog.
Yeah, and mine was meant as a general reply to the post and not to Doog. I suck at life.
Ta,
On point. This was a very sincere and real post. And given that John Hope Franklin passed this week, an appeal to the fact that we don't need fictive histories and pseudoscience to make our appeals to truth is refreshing and timely.
One thought, no small amount of what counts as "afrocentrism" is solid scholarship albeit marginalized (For obvious reasons) by the "mainstream" of academia. Yes, for every non-sense book peddled by some organic intellectual (no hate intended) we have an Ivan Van Sertima (sp?) who demands serious engagement. In parallel, "Eurocentric" scholars are often on some nonsense, but 1) aren't hamstrung by immediate incredulity because their work is "mainstream" and 2) don't see themselves as having any limitations of social location, lens, race, class, identity, etc. etc. because their work is "normal" and adheres to some type of positivism (at least they would like to believe so).
Last thought and reflection: in our younger days one can't deny the visceral appeal of discovering this forbidden knowledge and the joy of attending an occasional Black Man's Thinktank (it was an alternate reality/bizarro universe but it was affirming for the first few hours at least).
As usual, great post.
I understand why you would pin this on West, but I disagree with that being the proximate cause of the sonnage we saw. It was the refusal to accept plan facts and logic. For my money, it his dealing with the nuclear issue where I got embarrassed. (And by the way, you have every right to feel that way for many, many reasons.) He publicly made the decision to ignore a very real threat (the man who doesn't want a nuclear arsenal, he just wants one to explode) for the sake of keeping his ideology. When he ignored that to offer a platitude on nuclear disarmament, I was embarrassed. He just couldn't man up enough to say, "Point taken," and move on.
Great tie-in to JHF.
For the record Coates, I feel you 1000% percent. Im glad I went through the Afrocentric street scholar period and had to step my game up--I wouldnt trade either phase for the world. I hear cats like...like this one guy swearing Obama is Skull and Bones and a part of a grand conspiracy to enslave us and I'm wondering...how hard is it to verify that S&B is limited to Yale grads?
Bottom line, rigorous thinking will always be outside of the norm, and invective and polemics will always be easier and more attractive.
Exactly. I wouldn't trade it either. No matter what I think now, my foundation is there. It's where I learned to be skeptical.
While Mos might not have been right about everything or on his game even, Hitchens isn't generally right about anything so he's in no position to do any damage to Mos Def.
Personally I think that ego often gets in the way of effective listening and that's what happened here. It started off as a resonably constructive discussion but the egos in the room stopped the conversation from being constructive.
... Assata Shakur's is Tupac Shakur's aunt.
His death was mourned as the loss of a great artist -- i wondered why, despite the depth of his catalogue (even unpublished) -- but his story is about someone who was groomed to have an artistic voice. He was the child of revolutionaries (tupac amaru shakur shares a name with a south american leftist group) who grew up to be Tupac -- he commanded a huge audience. then he was killed. i mean shot. by ?
anyway, where are the people spotting tupac in s. america, like elvis
/tin foil hat
TNC, thanks for your honesty. I wonder if West didn't speak to MD about his ConTh after that show? And, does wishing West would have "sonned" MD publicly seem the same as Black mother's scolding or "beating" there kids in public when they "misbehave" in front of white folk? The elders in my village have certainly loved me enough to correct me, all while holding my dignity in tact (I definitely didn't deserve such respect from them). The aside is have you considered that a power dynamic could have been in play as the two "disciplined" guests may have been insulted to be on the same show as a "rapper." They seemed dismissive to me (sort of the way my older brother would treat me when his friend came around-- I didn't belong with the big boys). That to me was more blaring than Mos Def's supposed debacle.
Coates,
I feel what you're saying. I do. But the tone of this post and the congratulatory responses are a bit unsettling.
Having watched the episode twice, it was pretty clear that though Mos appeared to be a bit out of his depth on a couple of issues. I'll give you that. But when he DID make salient points, Hitchens and Maher (and Rushdie, at times) dismissed and mocked him. It wasn't a debate, it was a gangbang. And NOT a hot one.
That said? Mos is one of my all-time favorite emcees. But I didn't think for a second that he represented me (or black folks and hip hop heads in general), though I understood what he was saying because, again, I'd heard it all before. And from cats so well-versed on world history they'd put professors to shame. Not the most eloquent types, but definitely intelligent enough to get a point across. (Mos's inability--or unwillingness--to codeswitch may have been another reason why people thought so poorly of his debating skills) So dismissing him as some "ill-prepared rapper" is something that I...can't necessarily do.
Meh. I'm exhausted, and the other points I wanted to make have escaped me. Perhaps they'll come after a good night's sleep.
The YouTube clip has been removed so I can't see exactly what part of the show we're referring to, but I believe its about the conversation on Iran. Hitchens, like him or not, makes a very valid point about the distinction between the acquisition of nuclear arms with an open intent to use them versus without that intention. This IS an important distinction, and one that was completely lost on Mos Def, who instead chose to invoke his personal theories on the fairness of our world policing. Clearly, that is an important argument too, who are we ('Westerners') to lord over anybody for bullying, nuclear armament, or sovereignty? His anger toward the hypocrisy is valid. The problem is that Mos clearly prefers to hear himself speak than to submit himself to a legitimate argument. It's not that he doesn't have a point, he has plenty, it's that he makes his points at the expense of real information. He by turns feigns ignorance with cheeky conspiracy theories and then claims moral authority with only rudimentary information. His lamenting that information is unavailable sounds more like a personal convenience to him, as he apparently relishes being one of those without access. He could be so much more powerful a presence if he wanted to be.
I know the subject is Mos Def and "street ideology" more generally, but I think it's worth digressing a bit since I notice so many people taking shots at Hitchens. I wasn't with him on the Iraq war, but once my knee stopped jerking and I got over the whole "Hitchens is a liberal sellout" meme, I went back and read most of what he'd written on the subject, and I found was that his *reasons* for backing the war came from a place that was solidly left (i.e., anti-dictatorship, anti-fascist, and anti-theocratic). Unlike a lot of people on the right and left, I always had the sense that he was at least approaching the thing seriously, with grown-up arguments. Hitchens has also loudly and consistently put on blast such arch-assholes as Ronald Reagan, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell (read it on Slate - hilarious!), Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and others, and has never gone back on his politics the way actual liberal sellouts like David Horowitz have done.
In addition to Gulf War 2, a lot of us are probably pissed about how CH talks about Islam, to be blunt. It sounds very close to the "these people" rhetoric we're used to from white folk. Many people in or close to the the orbit of black nationalist / street-conscious ideology don't want to bad-talk Muslims or Arabs, even when they're messing up - as they are in much of the Middle East and Africa. But if you go back and read what Hitchens has written you find that what he hates is not Islam or Muslims, but the encroachment of tribalism and religion (especially apocalyptic religion) on any civil society anytime and in any country. This is happening everywhere in the world to some extent, but it's most dangerous right now in the Muslim world, particularly in nuclear-armed Pakistan and nuclear-aspiring Iran. To assert otherwise is self-deceptive at best and dishonest at worst.
Do we think evangelical Christians who can't wait for the Rapture should be manning missile silos? No? Then we need to be able to man up and say hands off the nukes if you're a Salafist Muslim waiting for the coming of the 12th Imam.
BTW, it's worth noting that after Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death warrant for Salman Rushdie for the crime of writing a novel (The Satanic Verses), CH put imself and his family on the line and took him into his home, where he remained in hiding for some time. The term "liberal" is obviously more than a set of talking points for this guy.
Carbon Mike, I can't cite you chapter and verse on Hitchens, but I've been reading the guy for 20 years and I just can't share your respect for his current incarnation. He says that he's still working from solid lefty principles, and he may have convinced himself of that, but there's something else going on... I know I'm not the only one who sees a big irrational and hateful streak there and I don't think it's just imagination. Without the quotes in front of me all I can say is that he's become unable to imagine any principled difference from his own position. If anyone opposed the war for any reason, he would trash them for being naive wimpy dirty peaceniks and he would be weirdly gleeful about it, like he was so glad he no longer had to make common cause with those people. It doesn't matter if his original support for the war came from idealistic motives, because it became a force that would override all other ideals - Hitchens would defend any authoritarian move by the Bush administration just because they were fighting the war... or just because it offended the dirty peaceniks. His style of debate is now straight-up propaganda, with very little difference from the overall right-wing program, and he's clearly smart enough to recognize this.
He's often said to be a drunk, but I think the same effect can be achieved by overindulgence in one's own righteous anger. Once you decide that you've chosen sides and everyone else can go to hell, intellectual honesty becomes a sign of weakness.
Hob,
I really think you should go back and look at some of the clips on YouTube where CH debates people about Gulf War 2. In every clip I saw, he attacked the issue and not the person, *except* when confronted with arguments that were ridiculous on their face (i.e., "no blood for oil") -- or when he was himself the target of an ad hominem attack. I've also seen him attack the Bush administration several times, on both style and substance, since hostilities in Iraq began.
Across all those debates, his essential argument never changed all that much and, for all I disagreed with it, never descended into mysticism or exceptionalism. If anything, I think CH is guilty of overlooking the fact that no matter how good the rationale for war, we had the wrong guy at the helm and therefore the thing couldn't help but be botched, and badly. But believe it or not, he correctly cited international law as providing an adequate framework for intervention, and even more importantly, he never lapsed into the error (common on both sides of the debate) of seeing the Iraqi people as abstractions or political symbols.
In short, he seemed to be motivated by a desire for a regional order that was more just than stable, and for the people involved to get more of a chance to write their own history. I thought he was wrong at the time, but I think he argued in good faith. Evidence that he might have been partly right is that after we invaded, we actually had a reservoir of good will to piss away (which we proceeded to do with all haste).
Whatever we think about Gulf War 2, its problems didn't all come from its principles -- the execution was largely (maybe even mostly) to blame. Would the war have gone this badly if Obama had been CIC? To quote Clay Davis from The Wire: Sheeeeeeeeeeeeit.
Sorry, I just went way off topic there! I should circle back in another post.
I don't think Mos Def got sonned. I think he raised a legitimate question which nobody answered, what are Al Quaeda's political objectives. This is something that is not portrayed in the media, it is more of creating an ideological boogeyman about "they hate our freedoms" or the extremes of Sharia law. That is not why we have beef with Al Quaeda. The US cooperates with all kinds of non-democratic, fascist, fundamentalist regimes when it serves our purpose. The heavy-handed vilification of Al Quaeda in cultural/ideological terms serves to keep people distracted from the economic, political and military root of the grievances Al Quaeda and like-minded movements have against the US. Mos Def's tone and manner may not come across as "articulate" but I think he clearly communicated his point. Also Hitchens takes that same arrogant condescending tone to anybody, that was not special for Mos Def as a result of being a black rapper.
Hitchens answered Mos' question numerous times. Mos got sonned not because he was wrong about something he specifically said, he wasn't, but because he clearly either 1. didn't really know what he was talking about 2. Was feigning ignorance to try & make Hitchens look stupid or 3. Didn't understand the context in which and of the questions he was asking.
Typically well written & heartfelt post, with weird resonance for this white kid. Here's a story from my blinkered perspective.
In the '90s I was at Hunter College in NYC, after growing up mostly in suburban & de facto segregated environments - except for high school where it was pretty diverse, but where no one wanted to talk to anyone about anything except getting out of high school.
So being in a history class full of kids of color, from all different backgrounds & sides of the tracks, but clearly sharing a lot of cultural common ground that I had no idea about... an eye-opener for sure, but what really made an impression was the history teacher. She was black & late 30s, very serious, very funny. You could see the wheels turning in her head all the time as she engaged with left-field questions that my high-school teachers would've just laughed at - except no one in high school would've even bothered asking them because no one gave a crap, but here everyone had at least proven that they gave a crap. If someone started to free-associate with stuff they had vaguely heard about, she would turn it around and connect it up with something that did make sense, and she was incredibly good at reading where you were coming from, and keeping the rest of the class in mind. She was like your Dr. Heywood, and also like the total opposite of silly Bill Maher and just about every other talk show host whenever confusing shit arises on their show. One of the first real teachers I had ever seen.
One time a real stern-looking young guy asked her, apropos of nothing, if she knew about such-and-such weird idea, and it was a Five-Percenter thing - he clearly was in the mood to proselytize - she didn't miss a beat, she was just like "Uh huh, you mean the Five Percent Nation of Islam, right?" and said just enough that anyone else in the class who wasn't into that would know more or less what he was talking about, and know that she would have information & a point of view if you asked her about it later - but didn't let it all become about that mythology.
When I meet people my age it's real easy to tell if they've never had anyone like that teacher in their life. Sadly this is true of a lot of self-taught radicals, white kids who rebelled against the suburbs but didn't have an anchor, or anyone hard-headed to bounce their own thoughts off of. Those are the people with the most half-assed conspiracy theories ever, like not just that 9/11 was an inside job, but that clearly the towers were blown up because buildings don't fall down because [insert the lamest possible non-facts about engineering here]... and they're so proud of having figured this out, they just go on about it like it's a game; no thought about what, if it were true, they would do with this knowledge. And unlike the Five-Percenter guy, it's not like you can even say where this comes from - it's not like there's a faction of people you see in your neighborhood and this is their point of view - it's just a lot of free-floating scary dreams that are out there, and kids who don't feel connected to anything.
I actually thought Mos Def comported himself quite well. Hitchens was the one who came off like a bully, and the audience clearly cheered at Def's points, not Hitchens'. Hitchens has always been a blowhard; nobody I know takes him seriously. I mean, come on, the guy tried to slime Mother Theresa of all people, and he was a huge cheerleader for the war in Iraq; how much credibility can he possibly have. For the record, I'm not sure I would trust Arabic translators from the CNN or any other media outlet for that matter.
This is more in response to the whole thread here than the actual discussion on Maher.
We live in a smack down era that is also a 24/7 Derrida deconstruction: everything is a text with the exact same value. Bob Marley who was (and continues to be) a world wide force for human liberation, but his idolization of Haile Selaisse who was a thug was also a part of who he was. Bob Dylan has been one of the most incisive social critics of my generation, but there was a period where he nattered away about the earth being a few thousand years old. That said, both have been far more significant in a positive way than more intellectually erudite political commentators, and Hitchens will always have to live with his part in drumming up the invasion of Iraq--yes, hundreds of thousands killed, hundreds of thousands displaced, the Middle East an ever enlargening conflagaration, the American treasury down the toilet, the nation divided as is has been in only a few other times in history, and an unwillingness to accept that the invasion itself was an invitation to torture.
While I certainly believe that Al Qaeda and the Taliban have a history of thuggery, I also believe their philosophies are a front both for populist appeal and, more importantly, intimidation. They strike me as gangsters. That is, I don't believe we get a clear view of who they are from the media.
The more important question of why they have followings and what to do about that--the disease, not the symptom--is too complicated for a panel comedy show such as Maher's. That's for Bill Moyers on PBS, is it not? If we are going to go all debate, well Maher's show is the ultimate in smack down deconstructivist narrative entertainment. I can barely stand to watch him and as a liberal, I am often embarrassed by his patter or the set up of his debates. They talk about serious stuff, but they are peddling their own star, their own egos. Let Mr. Hitchens go freestyle in rhyme about all this, and we'll see how articulate he sounds.
I am not into this conspiratory stuff myself, especially about 9/11, in part because I think given that reporters have even uncovered victims of rendition, I find it hard to believe that a counter story to 9/11 if true would not have become open and agreed upon info, but I have had explosives and demolition experts tell me to my face that there is no way the towers could have come down that way, simply from airplanes crashing into them.
To Ta-Nehisi
After reading your commentary, The New York Times seems to be implying that "YOU" think afrocentricism and its premises are blatantly false.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/goodbye-to-all-that-afrocentrism/
Although I fully understand why the "Times" would attempt to lump Afrocentricism as a movement and Pan-African Scholarship as a whole into one box others may not and so a distinction should have been made on your part to prevent them for using your commentary as a springboard from which to do so.
One has to assume that they are insinuating that the previous bodies of work by the preeminent Pan-African scholars Clarke, Rodney, Jackson, Williams, Jochanan, Diop were indeed valueless when measured against European scholarship. I was a tad bit upset with you for not asserting otherwise towards the end of your commentary. You pretty much left it up to the reader to ascertain what was meant via the dialogue between you and your professor.
Are you indeed attempting to assert that the work of these scholars was blatantly false as you use exaggeration by saying "Eyptians built fighter jets"? Although I do get the overall point your trying to make, I have a problem with the lack of distinction between African Americans gravitating towards a Pan-African world view and a complete
disparaging of Pan-African scholarship.
I think "blatantly false" is over the top. I also don't think the scholarship is "valueless"--it's certainly more valuable than the racist scholarship it was answering. Beyond that, I have tremendous regard for people who tried to record our history, at a point when no one else really cared, and tried to record it in a way that gave us some humanity. That's worth praising. I also think, specifically, the debate over casting Egyptians as people who looked like Germans is really important.
But like everything else, Afrocentric scholarship warrants critique. At the end of the day, I didn't find an Afrocentric world view any more helpful than a Eurocentric world view. As for its impact on me, I've written a book in which that (among other things) is tackled directly.
I think there is audience out there that loves to see it's own criticisms, valid or not, confirmed. I can't be responsible for that. But I'd hope that instead of pointing the finger and saying "A ha! You guys really are stupid!" that people would, instead, harshly examine the myths that they work under. Empathy will always give us more than schadenfreude. If we're empathetic then we understand that all people are moved by myth. I can't really help people who need to feel that black people are somehow more so moved by myth. They have to wash their own laundry. That's their issue.
I normally don't like to get into blog debates as they tend to take up too much time but I'm really getting at two things specifically here. Although I do agree with you that Afrocentricism and Afrocentric scholarship warrants critique (as does all scholarship)I'll say it again. I don't like the way you've so carelessly associated a specific world view (Afrocentriscism)and your critique of it with a specific body of scholarship (that of the pre-eminent Pan-African scholars) without providing specifics to assert your claims. Remember, Afrocentricism was merely one outgrowth of Afrocentric scholarship. What you had, were lay people attempting to extrapolate and interpret viable bits of information from what their scholars had discovered. During this extrapolation process, did some of the information become a bit glamorized? Absolutely. However this by no means discredits the scholarship itself. So I'm asking you to clarify yourself. If you're actually asserting that Pan-African scholarship via the earlier names I mentioned has been discredited,then by all means provide me with the names of the scholars who've done so, in order that I may educate myself. This is the point I was originally getting at as your initial piece left room for interpretation via the commentary related to your Howard professor having pre-prepared rebuttals to Diop and Williams. You seemed to be clearly implying that their worked has been debunked. I'd hate to think so many in the African-American community still swear allegiance to bodies of work which are based on faulty premises.
Secondly, you seem far more intelligent than to assume that there exists the possibility for potential good intentions in future on the part of those who wish to harm the African-American community. You and I both already know they don't have the capacity to be empathetic, and that's why we simply resort to calling them racists. To a certain extent (I was relaying this to my woman as she is who sent it to me) after reading your piece, I got the sense that you were guilty of the very thing you ascribed to Mos. By leaving room for interpretation and not clearly stating whether or not you actually believed African scholarship had been debunked or still stands vindicated to this day, you provided fodder for the spin masters with your name utilized as the current certified black "Notary". Is this not what happened with Mos? Did his lack of clarity not provide food for fodder within the blogsphere just as yours has do so ( and from the "Times" no less). Seriously, looked how quickly they jumped on what you wrote. I'm just asking that if you're going to dive into murky waters (critiquing your own people in public) do so in a manner which is indeed thorough, such that there can be no confusion as to your true intent.
Lastly, you referred to a book which you've written which may address some of my concerns related to the issue of African scholarship. What is its title? By the way, if you don't include the specific works of scholars that have debunked African scholarship within this book, I'll indeed await a book list from you.
Guidance,
Ahh..this is what is so scary about being a black writer. You run the risk of being used by whites as justification for their own opinions ("TNC said..so it must be true!!") AND you have to deal with explaining yourself to Blacks who may take issue with what you have to say..
This is a lesson for me, to remind myself that you, TNC, are just a man with his own opinions, that this is a blog, and that you have no real responsibility for my knowledge (although I admit, this blog is a learning experience for me) or that of anyone else.
On the other hand- there will be young people who will look to this blog for inspiration and knowledge and take what you write with them into their daily lives.. (and I don't mean to imply anyone in particular is 'young')
That's a heavy cross to bear...
It's an honor. It's always an honor.
Dear Tonya. Please bear in mind that race is not only manufactured (as you more than likely already know) but a concept that feeds off its own nastiness. Don't be nasty and give in. I implore you to fight any urge you ever have to use race as any excuse, ever...you'll not only feel better about yourself, but you'll realize just how stupid some stuff really sounds. Because in all honesty, I don't care what anyone's excuse is for anything, just fix yourself.
Dear Combat,
What am I using race as an excuse for? Why do I need to fix myself?
I am going to take your advice with good intentions, however please don't assume anything about me. If you feel that anything I have posted was disagreeable, I would prefer you to just argue the specific point or share your point of view about what I have posted, so that I might actually learn something.
I hope you won't take offense. I am always down to take advice. However, without giving me any specifics about why you feel I need this particular piece of wisdom, instead of being inspiring.. you have only succeeded at being insulting.
tdl
Deleted. Find another blog.