Wo Nsa Da Ma A

Why an Obama presidency is good for American feminism

2008-05-31T14:39:00.012-04:00

Obama is not so much a progressive candidate, as Clinton is a regressive one. And by extension so are the 2nd wave feminists supporting her. It has been disheartening to witness the unwavering, even hardening of support from so many white women for Clinton as her campaign has taken a turn toward open race baiting, and racial divide and conquer tactics to muster up votes.

The moral bankruptcy of this form of feminism has become clear to anyone who is willing to take a critical look and see it.

Steinem, Ferraro, Jong and others aren’t advocating for a radical change in the white and male power structure as much as they are seeking to take over its reigns. What appears to be an irrational fear on the part of these white women that if Clinton doesn’t get the nomination NOW feminism has lost its shot makes total sense if their form of feminism is about finally wielding power like white men do, not creating a radically different power structure in and of itself.

Call it the white (wo)man’s last stand, or so to speak.

As the bi-directional influence of globalization becomes clearer and undeniable, in order to compete globally Americans of European descent will have to give up white privilege, or at the very least expand it to an “American privilege” that includes its citizens of color. New centers of power both economic and cultural are taking root among brown and yellow countries in the world, and who better to negotiate with them than America’s own brown and yellow people? The value of a Thatcher-esque presidency, rife with social impact on gender relations for Americans, will be lost on the rest of the globe’s citizens of color who aren’t likely to suffer a kinder, gentler white supremacy when they are holding so many of the cards now.

Those who wish to see Obama become president right now are angling for America to stay relevant in this new global reality. Those who wish to see Clinton win are angling for whiteness to stay relevant in this new global reality.

In a post-Obama presidency, any white woman who runs and wins will not easily be able to wield power in a racially supremacist kind of way as all prior 43 presidents have done to varying degrees. In a weird kind of way an Obama presidency might force white feminists to give up their (nowadays not so) latent white supremacy if they want a shot at the title down the road.

Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton - 2nd wave feminists - white privilege

Why drop out of the race before all the assassins have had their say?

2008-05-24T12:27:00.008-04:00

It just gets worser and worser. I used to pray for Howard Dean to grow a pair and tell this lady to exit stage right, but I think it is more instructive for the American public to see just how deranged Killery Clinton is. I don't think any amount of mojo from the comeback kid can save her political career now. This Boomer blogger seems to think her generation will finally come to its senses. To that I say YES THEY CAN!

Thanks Keith. I couldn't have said it better.

Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton - Bobby Kennedy assassination - Baby Boomers

An Open Letter to the Baby Boomers

2008-05-22T21:26:00.006-04:00

Much is being made of the Democratic nomination process between Senators Clinton and Obama as a battle between competing aggrieved groups (women vs. blacks). Given that much of the media is owned and operated by Baby Boomers, it stands to reason that many pundits would opine on the contest in terms of these kind of identity politics. Clearly Obama has been fighting to get out from under this kind of victimhood masquerading as empowerment, and that's why young people who've grown up in an integrated society where women are expected to occupy the workforce are flocking to him in droves. Clinton is fighting a battle that for Gen-Xers and Millennials has in many respects already been won, and they simply can't relate. And frankly, we've got bigger fish to fry.

Clinton has been trying her best to bring Obama into her frame, and the media has lately been playing along. On the gender card tip she's thrown Gloria Steinem and Erica Jong at him. Bill, Bob Johnson and Geraldine Ferraro shuffled from the deck of race cards. And even she has joined the fray with her thinly veiled southern strategy-type pronouncements.

But yesterday Clinton made statements that did worse than wade in the gutter of gender victimizing, race baiting, divisive politics. Comparisons, though sometimes inflammatory, can often be instructive in understanding the gravity of contemporary political realities. But Clinton - sans irony - compared the disenfranchisement of Michigan and Florida voters in the 2008 Democratic nomination contest with one of the major U.S. social movements of the 20th century, and in effect denigrated a core life changing juncture in her generation's coming of age in order to pander for votes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe anyone in Florida or Michigan was lynched, firebombed or disappeared in fighting for their right to the vote.

Clearly Clinton's moral relativism (read: lying) seems to mean nada to most white women Boomers who are after the crown, principles be damned. I have to wonder about other Boomers out there, though, like Glenn Loury who support her because it's their generation's "time". Does he still think its acceptable to support this candidate when she would willingly sell out one of their shared formative experiences? And does he and other thinking Boomers really think this kind of behavior would stop once the power was seized? I've got to ask: can you people come to your senses on this woman and these kind of tactics already? Or will this really require an actuarial solution to be rectified?

Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton - moral relativism - Baby Boomers

In Defense of the Guilty White Liberal

2008-05-22T20:27:00.006-04:00

Finally a white person publicly states the obvious:

Guilt is good, people! The only people who don't suffer guilt are sociopaths and serial killers. Guilt means you have a conscience. You have self-awareness, you have—in the case of America's history of racism—historical awareness. Just because things have gotten better in the present doesn't mean we can erase racism from our past or ignore its enduring legacy.

It's a shame that the country had to go damned near off the deep end for folks to be able to come to their senses.

Technorati Tags: guilty liberal - 2008 presidential campaign

Obama's VP?

2008-05-21T21:33:00.003-04:00

Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) tackles the race issue from the working class white perspective, making a clear case for the VP slot in an Obama administration...

Technorati Tags: Jim Webb - Kentucky primary - Scots Irish - Appalachia - affirmative action

Obamatopia

2008-05-20T22:56:00.002-04:00

I admit, even sometimes I get a little carried away...

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama

Racial Passing: A Concept Whose Time has Passed?

2008-05-18T17:04:00.011-04:00

Senator Obama's meteoric rise from obscurity just 4 years ago to his almost certain clinching of the 2008 Democratic Party nomination (and barring a kamikaze move by the Clintons, the presidency) has raised the specter of race in both public and private conversation to levels not seen since the Civil Rights era. And what has become clear is that there is no longer a consensus on the assumptions that most folks make both privately and publicly about identity and culture, and how they relate to the political sphere. The fact that there are differences in perspective, especially along generational lines as opposed to racial ones, appears to be a strange shock to a lot of folks in the 50+ set. It's as if the Baby Boomers took the Civil Rights Movement as the end in itself, and not the means to the end - which was supposed to be a color-blind, more racially equitable society.

Clinton minions who wish to see her secure the nomination at all costs are consistently the worst perpetrators of this strange myopia, insulting the generations who grew up in an integrated society because they don't (and can't by definition) subscribe to the neurosis of that barrier-busting generation. Senator Obama spoke directly to this generational divide in regard to the African American community when he tried to give some context to the anger expressed by Reverend Wright in the clips aired ad infinitum on Fox News, et al. The Reverend was not to be outdone by the Clinton crew, and his fratricidal impulse in defense of his generational worldview nearly derailed the aspiring candidate. A lot of black folks wondered aloud what the hell Wright was thinking. Did the brother have his eyes on the prize or what?

For me these are the moments when the long view is instructive. A suave, black gentleman friend of mine aged 72 years young regularly puts these issues of race and identity in perspective for me. A life-long New York city native who grew up in Harlem and now lives in Brooklyn, he remembers when sanctimonious Northern cities were (informally) segregated, and shares strategies with me on how he worked his way up the ladder in the architectural world to operate his own design firm. He is not just a student of history, but lived it.

Over brunch on Sunday we talked about an issue that is basically taboo in discussions about 20th century black life – namely the tensions between the light skinned (biracials) and dark skinned (blacks) where issues of leadership are concerned. Yes, there were the Marcus Garveys out there, but on the whole it is biracials who occupied the higher tiers of black society. One need only look as far as Reverend Wright, with his even lighter skin and even more European-looking features contrasted to the biracial Obama, to see an example of this. Could the Reverend’s public unhinging have to do with his deep-seated frustrations at not being allowed to play the leadership role that Senator Obama has been occupying in our brave new “postracial” world – as Obama hinted at in his speech on race? Is the Reverend suffering from a jealously heightened by a form of tragic mulatto-ism?

During our conversation my friend mentioned an interesting factoid of which I was not aware, that if true, adds a further dimension to the discussion. Apparently, the member of President Truman’s inner circle who convinced him to integrate the military was actually a black man “passing” as white. Passing is a phenomenon generally vilified by black folks; a famous fairly recent example is Henry Louis Gate’s posthumous outing of Creole writer Anatole Broyard, resulting in his daughter Bliss’ memoir One Drop. However, since One Drop rule made it traditionally impossible for the biracial leadership to get really close to the annals of power it could only be “passing” blacks or sympathetic whites who could turn the ears of powerful men to do the right thing. I’ve wondered if that ever stuck in the craw of biracials like Gates or Wright who might have had the same vision as an Obama, but the times wouldn’t allow them the space to lead beyond the Jim Crow era race categories.

Obama is messing with black people's minds as much as white's because he is a biracial that is not out there solely representing the black struggle, as was the case for the majority of the Civil Rights leadership of the 20th century. His platform and worldview can be summed up as a rising tide lifts all boats. There is no denying that things are still bad for many black folks and there is a lot of work to be done. However, opportunities for black advancement have improved in the post Civil Rights era -- along with the minds of many white people young and old about the intelligence and leadership capabilities of people of color. If this were not true, Obama would not be winning!

It is precisely because Obama is biracial, not just genetically but also culturally and politically, that many white people feel comfortable in his ability to represent the needs and desires of all Americans not just black ones. His biracial appeal to whites is also the reason why black people eventually came out overwhelmingly in support of him; they recognized that he was being taken as a viable presidential candidate, and not just seen by whites as running for the president of black America.

One drop rule may have once been agreed to by whites and blacks alike – as a necessary mechanism of economic control for the white elite while also a way for blacks to foment solidarity for the freedom struggle. But in President Obama’s America will it still be necessary or even possible? Will newly biologically white folks (read: passing) need to hide African descent in order to advocate for black advancement when there is a bi-racial president advocating for all people's advancement? When there are blacks, biracials and other people of color (not proportionally representative but getting there, albeit slowly) in leadership positions in government, business, academia and media across the board? And just where does that leave the Reverend Wrights of the world?

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama - Hillary Clinton - Democratic nomination - southern strategy - race baiting - Reverend Wright - One Drop rule - passing - biracial

A Picture Says A Thousand Words

2008-05-12T21:02:00.001-04:00

'Nuff said

Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton - southern strategy

Obama the Reagan-lover?

2008-01-18T17:53:00.000-05:00

The overblown rhetoric coming from the left wing blogosphere (read the comments section) over the above statement would make one think that Obama suddenly switched sides to run as a republican. But a careful look at his comments using logic and reason, instead of hyperbole and distortion, would make it clear that he is not endorsing Reagan's policies per se, but his ability to capitalize on an historic political moment.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama - Ronald Reagan

Return of the King

2008-01-15T14:53:00.000-05:00

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at Aaron McGruder's take on how MLK would respond to today's black community.

Technorati Tags: The Boondocks - Martin Luther King Jr.

Michelle Obama for President?

2008-01-07T11:34:00.000-05:00

Technorati Tags: Michelle Obama - New Hampshire primary

It's No Fluke

2008-01-05T16:43:00.000-05:00

Hillary's core demographic roots for the upstart at New Hampshire's 100 Club Dinner

Political bloggers from the left and right wrote enthusiastically last night about the response Obama received at the annual Democratic Party pow-wow in Milford, New Hampshire. Apparently, Clinton was trounced once again by the Obamania that has taken over voters young and old, Democratic, Republican and Independent. Today's polls seem to indicate that he may indeed take New Hampshire next!

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama - New Hampshire - 100 Club Dinner

Obama, Not Bill (or Hill)

2008-01-04T00:28:00.000-05:00

A victorious Obama at the Iowa Caucus

As I have been saying to friends for months and months now, which was alluded to by former South Carolina Democratic chairman Dick Harpootlian in this article, is that blacks, not whites, are the Doubting Thomases where an Obama presidency is concerned.

His victory in Iowa, "which is as white as vanilla ice cream … will let African-Americans in South Carolina know that he can go the distance."

Wake up black people! Bill Clinton was NOT the first black president. Barrack Obama can be, if you would simply support his candidacy like the 95% white state of Iowa did tonight.

Jim Crow is over.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama - Iowa caucus

Bole2Harlem

2007-10-01T20:29:00.000-04:00

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Technorati Tags: hip hop - Bole 2 Harlem

A pro-gay republican?

2007-09-27T10:13:00.000-04:00

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders (R) astonishing announcement in support of gay marriage.

Technorati Tags: gay marriage - San Diego Mayor Jerry Brown

Ease Di Tension

2007-08-20T23:52:00.000-04:00

Sierre Leone comes correct with hip hop dancehall group Dry Hai.

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Technorati Tags: Dry Yai - - Sierra Leone

Prison Thriller

2007-07-27T15:59:00.000-04:00

Complete with transvestite love interest, this 1,500 strong production of Thriller by the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in Cebu, Philippines proves Jacko is still the king of pop.

Technorati Tags: Thriller - Michael Jackson - prison

Montessori's School of Hard Knocks

2007-07-26T15:55:00.000-04:00

Hip hop finally joins the fray in attempting to reverse the literacy crisis among young black American boys. Effective or tasteless? You be the judge...

Technorati Tags: hip hop - literacy - BET

Walk it Out, Fosse

2007-07-11T21:32:00.000-04:00

Apparently, Fosse was hip hop before hip hop was hip hop...

Technorati Tags: hip hop - Fosse - UNK

A Cacophonous Sound for A Cacophonous Age

2007-07-02T22:19:00.000-04:00

Brooklyn-based Afrobeat collective Antibalas from their Spring 2007 release Security.

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Technorati Tags: Antibalas - afrobeat

Latifah is to Diana as Angelina is to Pearl?

2007-07-02T20:25:00.000-04:00

Todd Boyd, professor of critical studies at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, makes the ridiculous claim here that Angelina Jolie playing the role of the multi-racial widow of slain journalist Daniel Pearl is akin to Queen Latifah acting the part of Princess Diana.

Purportedly part Iroquois, actress Angelina Jolie (above left) is pictured next to widow Marianne Pearl (above right), who was nicknamed "my mulatta" by husband Pearl.

Queen Latifah pictured above her doppelganger Lady Di.

Technorati Tags: one drop rule - Angelina Jolie - Marianne Pearl

Golden Jubilee

2007-03-06T06:54:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1957 independence leader Kwame Nkrumah announced to the people of Ghana - and the world - that their "beloved country is free forever."

Technorati Tags: Ghana - Kwame Nkrumah - independence

Southern Gothic

2007-02-27T19:47:00.000-05:00

Click on me for video clip

Technorati Tags: black white dichotomy - Al Sharpton - Strom Thurmond - McCallum Tarry

Port Chester rejects govt-imposed legal segregation

2007-02-27T18:49:00.000-05:00

Hispanic Voters Raise Questions in Port Chester

WNYC Newsroom

NEW YORK, NY February 27, 2007 — A New York village that's almost half Hispanic, but governed mainly by whites has asked a federal judge to let its politics evolve naturally, instead of canceling elections and imposing a new system to give Hispanics a greater voice.
An attorney for Port Chester says "an organic and natural system is beginning to take hold" to benefit Hispanics. The attorney says cutting the village into districts to increase Hispanic representation, as the Department of Justice requested, would officially segregate the village. The attorney spoke during closing arguments on the government's request for an injunction against village trustee elections scheduled for March 20th.
The Department of Justice claims the village's elections violates the Voting Rights Act.

When will African Americans begin to question the efficacy of civil-rights era tactics in improving their lives and their status within America - TODAY? What is it that Hispanics get that blacks don't?

Technorati Tags: separate but equal - Hispanic voters - Voting Rights Act

The Golden Voice of Africa

2007-02-20T20:30:00.000-05:00

Malian singer-song writer Salif Keita arranges layers of rhythm on this track from his fall 2005 album M'Bemba. Known as the Golden Voice of Africa, Keita is unique not only for his voice but also for his lineage. The albino singer is a direct descendant of the Mandinka warrior king Sundiata Keita who founded the Malian empire in the 13th century.

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Technorati Tags: Salif Keita - M'Bemba - Mali

My Day Job

2007-02-16T23:16:00.000-05:00

StoryCorps Griot is a national oral history project that is designed to collect the stories of African Americans. An airstream trailer outfitted with a soundproof recording studio will travel around the country for the next year to reach out to nearly 2,000 families. Yesterday, I welcomed the press to its Atlanta launch.

WABE's Senior Vice President John Weatherford introduces me.

Weatherford and I standby as Griot's first interview participant Reverend Chuck Barlow tells the audience about his work in the community.

Reverend Barlow, Barlow's sister Cheryl, and WABE Board member Kevin Ross listen in.

Photos courtesy of David Barasoain

Technorati Tags: StoryCorps Griot - oral history - WABE 90.1 FM - Atlanta

Obamania!

2007-02-13T21:59:00.000-05:00

Technorati Tags: The Daily Show - Barack Obama - Larry Wilmore - The Colbert Report - Debra Dickerson

Música Popular Brasileira

2007-02-05T23:32:00.000-05:00

MPB maven Marisa Monte mixes it up on this hip hop infused samba tune Satisfeito from her 2006 album Universo Ao Meu Redor.

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Technorati Tags: Marisa Monte - Música Popular Brasileira

Negro Hysteria Month

2007-02-05T23:02:00.000-05:00

This Onion satire, which a good friend sent to me, brilliantly encapsulates so much of what is wrong with Black History Month.

Nation To Celebrate First-Ever Black History Month History Week
February 5, 2007 | Issue 43•06

WASHINGTON, DC—Saying the time had come for America to recognize "some of its most unsung heroes," President Bush issued a statement Tuesday announcing the creation of Black History Month History Week, which is to be held in the last seven days of February and will honor the men and women who pioneered the commemoration of Black History Month.

Officials unveil a new commemorative Gerald Ford stamp.

Technorati Tags: The Onion - Black History Month

Going South

2007-01-23T00:37:00.000-05:00

New moon diva Cassandra Wilson updates her roots-y, Africa-tinged blues with hip hop inspired cuts produced by Red Hot's T Bone Burnett. From her spring 2006 album Thunderbird:

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Technorati Tags: Cassandra Wilson - Blue Note Records - Thunderbird

The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend?

2007-01-20T11:52:00.000-05:00

In the clip below, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill discusses on Fox News Live Desk why the black leadership hasn't yet come out in full support of Barack Obama's presidential candidacy. Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez nails the fears of the established black leadership on the head when she states that "Barack Obama doesn't need a connection with African American leaders to build a connection with African American voters."

The zinger is Martha MacCallum's follow up comment: "Yeah and I don't know, David, you know, politically whether he wants to be going around the country with Al Sharpton."

Dr. Hill assures the panel that the black leadership is not against Obama per se; they just want to to see him "take a stand." A friend of mine has an interesting take on what steps the black leadership may actually take if Obama refuses to "take a stand" and tow their party line:

"Obama's biggest danger may be if the civil rights establishment tries to deliberately sink him by embracing him, accusing mainstream white institutions of "anti-black racism" for campaign tactics against him. I have a feeling that that's a big part of what sunk Harold Ford, Jr., perhaps deliberately by the NAACP, when they made a lot of noise about how campaign ads against him were anti-black racism."

This recent statement may be an indication that those tactics are not so off.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama - Al Sharpton - black leaders - Fox News - Harold Ford Jr.

Kian and Remee Hodgson

2007-01-18T23:49:00.000-05:00

Biraicial parents Remi Horder (far left) and Kylie
Hodgson (far right) with their daughters Kian
(middle left) and Remee (middle right).

People continue to believe that "black" women cannot give birth to white children. Is Remee really black? If her parents and sister weren't in the picture, would anyone think she had African ancestry? When Remee grows up will she be "passing" if she calls herself white?

Their Wikipedia entry points to 6 other examples of "black" and "white" fraternal twins (how black is Kian - isn't she just a black/white mix like each of her parents?) where scientists erroneously describe the one in a million chance of its occurrence. (Creoles, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans know better I'm sure.) Of course, anyone with some knowledge of Mendelian genetics knows that it's really more like a one in sixteen chance to produce a purely white child from a biracial couple's mix. Since our culture has a habit of one dropping people with African ancestry, the fact that there is equally a one in sixteen chance of producing a purely black child from a biracial couple's mix is unknown to most.

Technorati Tags: Kian and Remee Hodgson - biracial - fraternal twins - Mendel

The Infamous Giftbox

2007-01-18T10:46:00.000-05:00

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS EXPLICIT MATERIAL

Okay, it's Thursday not Tuesday...and this little ditty has made its way 'round the internets already. But it's still funny!

Extra: Keith Olbermann interviews Bunny about her box.

Technorati Tags: Dick in A Box - Box in A Box - Keith Olbermann - SNL - Bunny

Afro-Cuban Sounds from the Source

2007-01-15T16:41:00.000-05:00

After a near 15-year hiatus, Senegalese African/Latin band Orchestra Baobab reunited to cut their 2002 album Specialist in All Styles.

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Technorati Tags: Orchestra Baobab - Senegal - Specialist in All Styles - Afro-Cuban - casamance - Wolof

MLK Enlisted in Iraq Anti-War Effort

2007-01-15T13:55:00.000-05:00

Slipping in middle eastern music and photos of our soldiers currently abroad (look closely at the end), Alex Therrien produces a 9 minute MLK video that actually is a film against the Iraq war.

Technorati Tags: - MLK - Vietnam War - Iraq War

John Edwards - More Black than Obama?

2007-01-15T10:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, John Edwards threw down the gauntlet to the newly minted Democratic majority congress by calling for them to cut the purse strings so the US can stop the Bush "surge" in Iraq. Edwards accomplished two important political goals at this speech:

1) he positioned himself against the other Democratic presidential frontrunners - Clinton and Obama - as the anti-war candidate
2) he aligned himself with the majority of American voters who want this war to end

I predict the leftwing mainstream media will spin the crap out of the meaning of the speech. And from all accounts, they've already begun. This morning on NPR's Brian Lehrer show guest commentator Juan Williams dismissed Edwards anti-war credentials because he voted for the Iraq war resolution. Apparently, like the Bush camp, Williams believes that politicians cannot change their minds lest they be weak or opportunistic.

Both Williams and Lehrer concluded that Edwards' positioning of himself as the anti-war candidate is an appeal to the Democratic base, while Clinton's response proves that her camp is attempting to appeal to the general population. This of course is poppycock. Apparently, like the rightwing mainstream media, the American people's repudiation of the Iraq war vis a vis the Democratic sweep of the 2007 mid-term elections has gone down the Williams/Lehrer memory hole.

Interestingly, Obama's camp has not yet responded to the Edwards speech. Williams and Lehrer glossed over this fact and instead concentrated on Obama's amount of foreign policy experience, and whether or not he has made his supposedly "mainstream" position on limited support for the war clear.

The two of course could not explain why Obama hasn't yet responded to the Edwards speech because they missed the third, more subtle political goal Edwards was shooting for: positioning himself as the real "black" candidate for the 2008 presidential election.

Obama has been playing a very slick game up until this point by keeping one foot in the black camp and the other in the biracial one. He has been coding his biracial consciousness underneath his status as a 2nd generation Kenyan-American. To my knowledge no pundit has yet caught onto this game, but Stanley Crouch has come awfully close. Since Crouch's November 2006 editorial, Obama has continued, albeit cautiously, riding between America's newly resurgent black/biracial color line. That is, until Edwards' speech at Riverside Church yesterday.

The Southerner Edwards has been making subtle overtures to black America at least since Kerry's failed 2004 presidential run, where Edwards served as the Vice Presidential candidate. When it became clear that the RNC was pulling a jack move in Ohio a la Florida circa 2000, Edwards called for a full recount while Kerry basically conceded. Kerry eventually came around, but the damage was already done and the presidency went to the Bush camp.

Edwards' second significant appeal to blacks was the launch of his 2008 presidential campaign from the ruins of New Orleans, where he lauded the efforts of the black children rebuilding a flooded house directly behind him as he announced his bid. In the speech he linked New Orleans, the Iraq war, the genocide in Sudan, global warming, poverty and the need for a new energy economy.

Edwards' most clear challenge to Obama as the candidate for black America, however, is evidenced in yesterday's speech at Riverside church. Forty years earlier in an anti-war speech held at the same church, MLK called the Lyndon administration "the greatest purveryor of violence in the world today" for its prosecution of the war in Vietnam. Taken with his call for an Ohio 2004 vote recount and his campaign launch, Edwards' alignment with black America's ultimate political symbol on the eve of black America's most significant national holiday is calling Obama out on his game.

In effect, Edwards is rejecting America's two color lines and attempting to force Obama to do so as well. The more Edwards appeals (or appears to appeal) to black interests, the more Obama will be pressured to "out black" him - lest he be considered a traitor to the race and lose the support of both blacks and whites who are vested in the African American race category.

Obama's next move will be the most crucial in his political career. If he can deflect Edwards' attempt to force him onto the black side of America's color line - meaning maintaining biracial consciousness without losing the trust and support of black Americans while also keeping the support of white Americans looking to deflect responsibility for continued black American poverty - than the Jim Crow era of black/white racial endogamy may truly be over and a new three-tiered political system based on color has re-emerged.

Biracial America's Formidable Opponent

Technorati Tags: - John Edwards - Iraq war - 2008 presidential race - Barack Obama

Sketches of Spain

2007-01-08T23:21:00.000-05:00

Ojos de Brujo, or "wizard's eyes" in Spanish, is a Barcelona based group that mixes flamenco with hip hop. This track comes from their 2006 album Techarí.

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Technorati Tags: Ojos de Brujo - Techarí - flamenco - hip hop

The Year in Review

2007-01-02T23:57:00.000-05:00

Two different takes on the highlights of 2006...

from Miguel Cuevas:

from The Electronic Intifada:

Technorati Tags: Middle East - Iraq war - World Cup - George Bush

Happy Birthday Haiti

2007-01-01T23:46:00.000-05:00

did you have your pumpkin soup today?

Technorati Tags: Haiti - Haitian Independence Day

A New World Groove

2007-01-01T12:25:00.000-05:00

The Brooklyn-based group Nation Beat combines two of the richest cultural syntheses of the Western hemisphere in their album Maracatuniversal. Fusing funky New Orleans second line brass with the rhythms of mangue music from Recife, Brazil, Nation Beat connects two of the more substantive variations of the New World's African/Latin (Yoruba/Catholic) amalgam. Some call it syncretism others call it transculturation. Socio-economics and politics aside, I just call it booty-shakin' fun!

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Technorati Tags: Nation Beat - mangue movement - second line - New Orleans - Recife Brazil

House Cleaning Cures Cancer?

2006-12-28T23:24:00.000-05:00

"Women who exercise by doing the housework can reduce their risk of breast cancer, a study suggests.

The research on more than 200,000 women from nine European countries found doing household chores was far more cancer protective than playing sport.

Dusting, mopping and vacuuming was also better than having a physical job."

Yeah...right. I'm as weary as the next woman with some of the over-hyped feminist paranoia, but the research conclusions in this article just scream of naked roll-back-the-clock type propaganda. I'm glad these kind of stupid studies are routinely done to gently remind me why we needed a feminist movement in the first place.

Technorati Tags: Cancer Research UK - breast cancer

Floodwall

2006-12-28T20:46:00.000-05:00

Floodwall
350 Drawers, 225' Long

Moved and heartbroken by the profound loss inflicted by Katrina, New Orleans' artist Jana Napoli attempts to preserve a small part of what the levees could not. Constructed of more than 300 drawers salvaged from heaps of trash along the curbside of flooded neighborhoods, Floodwall speaks of what was lost to Katrina and what remains of New Orleans. It defies death and reasserts the spirit of the city — made up of the vibrant, diverse culture and history of New Orleans that is tied to neighborhoods, material culture, traditions, and most importantly people.

January 4 – February 9, 2007
7am-11pm daily
World Financial Center
Liberty Street Bridge
Enter at One World Financial Center, corner of Liberty Street and South End Avenue
New York, New York
New York Floodwall exhibition designed by Whirlwind Creative

Floodwall co-presented by arts > World Financial Center and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council

Technorati Tags: Floodwall - Lower Manhattan Cultural Council - Hurricane Katrina

On the Internets...A More Democratic Future?

2006-12-27T22:57:00.000-05:00

Lately I've felt the doom and gloom overcome me when reading about the Spanish bears that have stopped hibernating, or the right-wing pile on of Jimmy Carter for stating the obvious, or our pResident's new brilliant strategy for dealing with Iraq. And don''t EVEN get me started on the sorry state of affairs in our own backyard. De Nile is not just a river in Eqypt, know what I'm sayin'? It appears to be flowing straight through the American heartland with no end in sight.

However, this Guardian/UK article posted by Will Hutton on Christmas Eve caught my eye. Hutton argues that 2006 was a vintage year for world-changing ideas - and get this, he means positive ones! His first, and I believe his most interesting point, is the importance of the growth of the web. Perhaps as someone who has been bitten by the blogger bug, I have a bias. But I couldn't agree more that the development of this interconnected web community is a world changing, paradigm shifting event.

Yet, I think he only scratches the surface in his analysis. The West has become a completely mediated environment, and much of the rest of the world is fighting to catch up and follow suit. The impact of media on our daily lives cannot be easily disregarded. Given that reality, the media we consume, how it is produced and by whom, makes a difference.

In film school, we were taught that form = content. This means that the way characters stood next to each other on the screen, or the way the lighting cast a shadow on an object, provided certain visual cues that the audience took meaning from. For instance, this image from The Lady from Shanghai gives the viewer a sense of danger and intrigue about Rita Hayworth's character Elsa Bannister because the low key lighting shadows so much of her face.

Of course, Hayworth does indeed turn out to be quite the femme fatale, embroiling Orson Welles' character Michal O'Hara in a complex murder plot. Damn, don't these gullible film noir leads see the shadows like we do?!!!!

In any case, the 20th century world of mass media is giving way to the 21st century internet world, and given that form equals content the difference is significant. Sure it's all "mass" media - TV, radio, newspaper, internet - but there are qualitative differences between last century's media and today's. TV, radio and newspapers are all produced by "experts" and "tastemakers" who know what's best for us - what we should know, what we should like and what we should want. These forms of media have become all the more toxic as monied, bottom-line interests have taken further root in the production and distribution processes. All one has to do is take a look at NBC's primetime line-up today and compare it to one from just 5 years ago, and the difference is obvious. And how about CNN's all junk news all the time?

No doubt there are pitfalls to online news (and entertainment) segments produced and posted by Joe Blow from the block. But the fact that Joe Blow can see an event with his own eyes, write about or record it, and then share that information far and (world)wide is revolutionary for its democratic possibilities. It no longer requires enormous sums of cash or access to contribute to the community dialogue. Conceivably all voices can be heard in the internet media production model. Not so much in the corporate controlled mass media world of General Electric's NBC or Clear Channel's Z-100 100.3 FM. Can it be a coincidence that the 20th century, with all its flirtations with fascism and its many forms (Nazis, Stalinists, McCarthy-ites, etc.), was also the century that gave rise to one-way mass communication controlled in the hands of the wealthy and powerful few?

Technorati Tags: mainstream media - internet - The Guardian UK - film noir

Two for Tuesday

2006-12-27T01:17:00.000-05:00

RIP...the Godfather of Soul (May 3, 1933 - December 25, 2006)

Technorati Tags: James Brown

Rubba-Dub-Dub Frenchmen in My Tub

2006-12-25T18:01:00.000-05:00

Marseille's Massilia Sound System, from their album Occitanista:

share your files at box.net

Technorati Tags: Massilia Sound System - Marseille - Occitanista - reggae - dub

What Black Men Think

2006-12-22T20:10:00.000-05:00

Good friend and fellow blogger Alice Backer links to the thought-provoking video clip below of African-American men countering some time honored, yet worn liberal myths.

Technorati Tags: African-American men - liberal myths - KiskeyAcity

The Ragin Cajuns

2006-12-21T22:04:00.000-05:00

Late morning on Monday I boarded Amtrak, and left New Orleans for Lafayette, Louisiana. My day job sent me there for a two-day, in-the-field training session with a colleague. Little did I know that this small town would be such a wonderful gem!

We stayed at a quaint little bed n' breakfast called the Blue Moon Saloon. The early morning banging and fire alarm drill are but a small blip in my memory now, as I recall how the funky ambiance and charming French boarders from University of Virginia entertained my work buddy and me over wine our last night there.

Best of all were the wonderful crew of public radio station KRVS 88.7 who showed us their town, introduced us to the cultural movers and shakers of the community, and treated us to the best business lunch on record.

Although not quite the same as New Orleans, Lafayette certainly has its share of beautiful Francophone architecture, as well as gorgeously landscaped parks and public grounds. University of Louisiana Lafayette's Cypress Swamp, with alligators and all, was particularly pretty even if we didn't get to see any of its reptilian inhabitants.

At our station meeting I met folk musician D'Jalma Garnier, and the host of Zydeco Est Pas Salé John Broussard. These two Creoles were the essence of Francophone Louisiana culture - recounting the area's history and its elders, describing the cuisine and its authentic purveyors, and rolling both French and Creole with ease off the tongue. What the hell does Alan Richman know anywho?

The piece de resistance was Executive Chef Terryl Jackson's culinary masterpiece at Prejean's Restaurant. He came out to greet us and the station staff as we sampled his delectable selection of Cajun cuisine. Blackened redfish smothered with crawfish étouffée, dirty rice, eggplant and okra gumbo, seafood fried catfish, stuffed mushrooms, pecan pie - the list went on and on and no matter how much coffee I drank after it all I was still overcome with the "itis." I thanked Terryl and his mama for teaching him how to cook like that, and rolled out of my chair and out the door.

I must admit the most enjoyable part was the overall feeling of Lafayette. Sure it's small town living, but the cultural traditions are so rich and so much a daily part of life for the people living there that it's a far more sophisticated existence in many ways than living in New York City. I will have to come back to this place again, and explore this interesting dichotomy more. Maybe in late April?

Technorati Tags: Lafayette Louisiana - KRVS 88.7 - Blue Moon Saloon - Prejean's Restaurant - zydeco - Creole - Acadian - Cajun

Two for Tuesday

2006-12-19T20:46:00.001-05:00

FAMILY SURVIVAL KIT

A DRAWN TOGETHER CLASSIC

Technorati Tags: Drawn Together - holiday humor

K'Naan - Soobax

2006-12-18T21:07:00.000-05:00

Somalian rapper K'Naan shows us Yankees how the political rap game is done with his scathing commentary on the corrupt regime of his native land. Who said hip hop was dead?

Technorati Tags: K'Naan - hip hop

A Streetcar Named Desire

2006-12-17T16:48:00.000-05:00

At the crack of dawn this Friday past, I headed down to New Orleans to Desire Street where my better half lives in a funky little neighborhood called the Bywater. Dr. Bob, Christopher Porché West and the Flavor League are some of the better known artists who, along with Second Line Clothing, have taken up residence in this old Creole neighborhood.

We've been painting the town in his decked out limo, which he has been adorning with Mardi Gras beads for something like six years now. The infamous Mardi Gras car is stopped regularly by onlookers who want photos, like Bass Goddess Greta from whose site I took this shot pictured above. Vblogger Miss B Havens also included a couple of good pics in her flickr Mardi Gras 2006 photoset.

One might think that riding around in a car like this would make the passenger a magnet for some unorthodox adventures, and they'd be right! Over the last three days I crashed a film crew Christmas party where I met a midget double for Brad Pitt, I was smoked out by a couple of community housing activists and tricked into eating alligator at a New Orleans staple, and I danced with a group of trannies in a second line down St. Claude Avenue. Only in New Orleans!

Technorati Tags: New Orleans - Bywater - Bywater Art Market - Jacqueimo's - second line parade - Creole

Afropop's Picks for 2006

2006-12-15T00:31:00.000-05:00

Afropop Worldwide has chosen their top ten "stocking stuffers" for 2006 - and might I say it's quite a nice selection!

Africando, "Ketukuba" (Stern's Africa) (Senegal)
Various Artists, "African Guitar Summit 2" (CBC Records)
Ali Farka Touré, "Savane" (World Circuit/Nonesuch) (Mali) - A giant of African music who passed this year.
Cheikh Lô, "Lamp Fall" (World Circuit/Nonesuch) (Senegal)
Various Artists, "Congotronics 2 Buzz 'N' Rumble From the Urb 'N' Jungle" (Crammed Discs) (Congo) - Don't bother with this second volume in the series...the Konono No.1 album is far better, but for the full experience you MUST see them live!
Etran Finatawa, "Introducing Etran Finatawa" (World Music Network) (Niger)
Marisa Monte, "Universo au Meu Redor" (EMI) (Brazil)
Salif Keita, "M'Bemba" (Decca) (Mali) - Love this record from start to finish...a moody trip that grew on me with more plays.
Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, "Living Like A Refugee" (ANTI- Records) (Sierra Leone)
Thomas Mapfumo "Rise Up" (Real World) (Zimbabwe)

Technorati Tags: Salif Keita - Afropop Worldwide - Congotronics

American Underground #5

2006-12-14T23:11:00.000-05:00

On Friday, December 15, Shrine for the Black Madonna returns to the concert stage for the first time in eight months. The gig is at Southpaw in Park Slope Brooklyn, and it's part of the American Underground Concert Series - meaning a full night of hip new music. Admission is $8. Come prepared for moving, grooving, and maximum lift-off.

American Underground #5:
Friday, December 15 @Southpaw8pm: DJ SPIRITHOOD of the Dustbin Brothers.
9pm: SANKOFA
10pm: FAITH
11pm: SHRINE FOR THE BLACK MADONNA
12mid: IFWHEN

Southpaw
125 Fifth Avenue (between Sterling + St. John's)
Park Slope, Brooklyn 11217
718-230-0236
2/3 to Bergen Street
4/5, Q or W to Atlantic Avenue
M or N/R to Union Street

Technorati Tags: Shrine for the Black Madonna - black rock coalition - Brooklyn - afropunk

Obama: Black or Biracial in 2008?

2006-12-13T23:14:00.000-05:00

Apparently others are wondering the same thing that I am. Barack Obama - black in politics or biracial in politics? Blogger James D. Walton of the site Black in Business, asks the question and links to the reader response blog of Chicago Sun Times columnist Mary Mitchell on this very topic.

Obama seems to be riding the middle ground between black Americans who generally one drop anyone with any African heritage, and whites who want to be proven wrong in their desire to one drop anyone with African heritage. Black Americans still seem to believe (erroneously in my opinion) that enforcing a group identity will somehow ensure the social, political and economic interests of black people in America. White Americans appear to be believe that most black politicians aren't fit for national leadership positions because they are too narrow in their focus of securing the interests of black people above the (white) majority. Both positions reinforce each other, and it will take an especially skilled politician of African descent - black or biracial - to sufficiently soothe the fears of either group to be voted into the highest office. Whether Obama can keep it real while simultaneously passing into the mainstream will be a fascinating process to watch in the next couple of years.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama - Election 2008

Two For Tuesday

2006-12-12T23:32:00.000-05:00

Technorati Tags: The Daily Show - Apocalypto recut

Some Brazilian baile funk for your earlobes

2006-12-11T20:31:00.000-05:00

I realized today that I've been quite critical about a lot of music/artists on this blog. Yet I've offered little in the way of alternatives. So I'd like to offer up a segment every week of music I DO like by artists I find interesting. Since I like alliteration I'll call it "New Music Mondays". Enjoy!

Guerreiro by Brazilian artist Curumin

Technorati Tags: Curumin - Quannum Projects

Why Halle Berry and Vanessa Williams are Bad for Black Women

2006-12-10T18:21:00.000-05:00

Just about all Americans agree that our society suffers from color prejudice. Many would refuse to openly acknowledge it in such blatant terms, but if pressed would admit that European skin and features are depicted as the most desirable while African skin and features are rated at the bottom of the totem pole. Moreover, they may unconsciously (or even consciously) hold these views themselves.

Celebrities of all stripes understand this reality quite well, and act upon it accordingly. Yes, we all agree that "black is beautiful", but when was the last time you saw a black female celebrity consistently wearing her hair without a perm?

Black America suffers from some serious schizophrenia on this issue. Charges of light-skinned bias are issued against the fashion, music and film industries on a regular basis for their choices of representation. But black folks complained little when Halle Berry was described as the first African American woman to win an Oscar. In fact, more often then not when racially mixed celebrities buck the black race patrol and refuse to one drop themselves, the outcry of "sell out" and "race traitor" is not far behind.

With the exception of those biracials who are too light to pass as only black, no one suffers more from this hypocrisy then black women. Not only are they unable by nature's design to compete with European standards of beauty, they are also forced to contend with so-called black women whom they could never look like either. It seems obvious that black women will only be able to develop healthy self images when authentic representations of their physical traits are depicted. Conversely, this means biracial and mixed raced people who refuse to identify as such will continue to disadvantage black women in their ability to find beauty in their African features, kinky/curly hair and dark skin.

Black Americans do not come in all shades and colors. Vanessa Williams does not descend from a blue-eyed, light-skinned tribe of Africans kidnapped from the coast of West Africa. She is a multi-generational mix of Africans and Europeans who created her right here on this side of the pond. She is not a black woman. She is not a white woman. She is biracial. The sooner black America understands and accepts this fact, the sooner black people - especially black women - will be able to create attainable standards of beauty for themselves that are healthy and affirming.

Technorati Tags: Vanessa Williams - Halle Berry - Lauryn Hill - Nia Long - Alek Wek - Regina King - color prejudice - biracial

The Political Significance of The Flavor of Love

2006-12-09T22:45:00.000-05:00

Flava Flav's meteoric rise from sidekick rap hasbeen to pimped out leading man is not just another example of mainstream media's plunge into the depths of mediocrity. It just may equal the final nail in the coffin of Hip Hop as a mainstream source of positive social change in the lives of African Americans. Formerly one half of the most important political rap group of all time, Flava Flav presently takes minstrelsy to new heights as the monied mac daddy slumming among a harem of 20 video hos for a chance at finding true love. On its face the exploits of the clock slinging lothario are degrading and offensive for the stereotypical way in which women, especially black women, are portrayed as man hungry beasts and black men are hypersexual thugs with only one thing in mind. You won't be finding much in the way of black love on this show.

However, it is this caricature that has been catapulted into the popular culture juxtaposed against the waning significance of counterpart Chuck D that is most instructive. As the front man for Public Enemy, Chuck D was probably the most important political lyricist of the golden age of rap music. Flava Flav's yesman cooning was acceptable solely because it complimented the serious challenge Chuck D's nationalist lyrics posed to mainstream America. In the post Civil Rights era where integration was the (social) law of the land, Public Enemy's insistence on fighting the powers that be threatened not only the structural racism of white society, but also the efficacy of the Movement and its leadership. Flava Flav's antics confused some and offended others, but smart people understood that he took the heat off of Chuck D to enable those politically challenging messages to see the light of day.

Fast forward 17 years later...Chuck D has seen nowhere near the resurgence in popularity as has his sidekick. His lone regular media outlet bumped him out of a daily primetime morning slot in favor of Jerry Springer. Jerry Springer! The rap icon has been relegated to a Sunday evening talk show that reads more like a description of a James Brown godfather of soul revue than a serious analysis of the day's events. But one has to wonder how much of this is really him. The rank paternalism of a show that insists it's doing its audience (i.e. black people) a favor by delivering news "tidbits" so that they "won't be bored", and because "its positively futile" to think that "journalists can change your unique perspective" with "two hours and one beat to death topic" could hardly be called pro-black or nationalist. But can anyone be surprised of the content when it's produced by Air America - a group of aging white liberals who still haven't figured out that telling people that they just don't know what's good for them is not a winning strategy?

Divorced from each other, the political agency of either partner has been inverted. Chuck D's message of black self sufficiency and black political power has actually become the opposite within the framework of Air America's programming. True it's sad, but hitched to the wagon of the bankrupt station, his redlining has less of an impact than the explosion of Flav's cooning on the pop culture scene. Any political agency Flava Flav had, was by definition as Chuck D's dissembler. Severed from that role his playacting of minstrelsy actually becomes minstrelsy. One wonders when watching Flav today if he ever understood the nature of the game Public Enemy was playing. If not, he is one of the biggest dupes of all time. If so, he is one of the biggest sell outs of all time. Of these evils, can one really pick the lesser?

Technorati Tags: The Flavor of Love - hip hop - Flava Flav - Chuck D - minstrelsy

Free Speech or Hate Speech? I Report You Decide...

2006-12-08T00:52:00.000-05:00

Found this NYOIL video on the blog Postgradute Musings. Apparently it was banned from YouTUBE in less than 48 hours. One might be inclined to reject the language and the approach, but isn't it about time more of us start having this conversation?

yall should all get lynched

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Technorati Tags: sell out - hip hop - race traitor - video ho - cRappers - fake azz gangstas

Strong Island Native Drops Science on the Sean Bell Debacle

2006-12-05T02:33:00.000-05:00

Fellow blogger William H. Sunday is doing some hard hitting commentary on the NYPD's latest criminal killing of an unarmed black civilian. Check him out at his site Dallaspenn.com...You Can't Handle The Truth.

Technorati Tags: police brutality - racial profiling - Sean Bell

Can There Be Any Doubt Now That American Democracy Is Finished?

2006-12-04T23:11:00.000-05:00

Leading up to the mid-term congressional elections I had many a conversation with friends who were estatic about the impending Democratic take over. The endless Republican scandals spelled doom for the party, my friends insisted, and Bush's wave of terror on both the Iraqi and American people would soon come to an end.

My expectations were far less optimistic. The Republican alternative was just not all that great to begin with. As the loyal opposition the Democrats have done little to protect the interests of the American people in the face of the Constitution-busting Bush juggernaught. One party rule has certainly enabled the Bush administration to steam roll over our democracy. But the Democrats give new meaning to the phrase "who needs enemies when we've got friends like these?" Having done absolutely nothing of substance to even attempt to slow the Republican roll, minority party or not, the Democrats were no more likely to change the course of the country while in a position of power, either. They, too, are slaves to corporate interests just like their pachydermal cousins.

Not to mention, we have suffered two elections packed with vote fraud that virtually no one within the political elite lifted a finger to address in any substantial way. We know Gore actually won, and it appears that Kerry probably did too, despite himself. The mainstream media waited until the last minute to focus on our broken democratic process, and in doing so at such a focused and intense level just prior to the election may have made voters feel powerless and stay home. After all, those Diebold machines weren't going to accurately register your choice anyway, so why bother showing up to the polls?

But no matter how much Karl Rove insisted he was Archimedes, and the mainstream pundits minimized the sound beating about to be doled out to their great white hope, the Democrats swept both the House and the Senate. Pundits were reluctantly forced to conclude that the vote was a referendum on the Iraq War and Republican malfeasance - and the American people gave a resounding "NO!!!!" to the whole kit and kaboodle. The world engaged in a collective sigh of relief as it became clear that the American people were not completely out of the minds after all.

This December 1 NYTimes article by David Sanger, however, confirms my prediction that none of it would matter anyway. The Democrats are soundly in bed with the Republicans on this thing. Liberals have been making excuses for this completely lame, so-called party of the people based on their inability to wield power from a minority position. I can think of at least two different minority groups in world history that made their all-powerful opposition eat it. The Democratic Party is for the most part composed of a group of rich white American men - the most powerful and privileged people in the history of the world! So what's their fucking excuse?

Wake up America! The first step to recovery is admitting we are in denial. We can call Chavez authoritarian all we want, but at least he won an overwhelming majority of the Venezuelan votes cast - twice. We can no longer call it a democracy when the people we vote for refuse to do what we've voted them in to do.

Technorati Tags: Iraq - Chavez - republican scandals - vote fraud - mainstream media - democrats

Epilogue - Passing

2006-12-03T01:52:00.000-05:00

Biracials have been passing as blacks for so long that they themselves don't even know who they are anymore. It took the perennial Vineyard vacationer Skip Gates to make it safe for the rest of us when he coyly admitted after a 50-50 genetic test result that he did, after all, remember something about his family being partly European.

In fact, all of America is confused - black, white or otherwise. And how could we not be with more than a century of biracial faces representing black ones?

Confirmed biracials (50% black/50%white)

Halle (pre-nose job), Barack Obama, Skip Gates

Hmm, if they are...what about?

Terrence Howard, Sanaa Lathan, Manning Marable

First "black" to sign with a major Holywood studio? First "black" hopeful for Tennessee Senator since Reconstruction? First "black" nominated for an Oscar?

Lena Horne, Harold Ford Jr., Dorothy Dandridge

Far be it from me to claim some biracial form of "gaydar"; however, the basic principles of heredity, summed up handily here by history and molecular anthropology PhD candidate Frank Sweet, plainly prove that what you see is what you get.
When ideology trumps reality to the point that one cannot admit that there is a difference between and , and how that difference came to be then we’ve all ceased to be rational beings. Can anyone really wonder how such cognitive dissonance as George Bush’s insistence that Saddam = Osama can exist unchecked among the American electorate for damned near 5 years, when something as basic as who we are and where we come from has been denied for the last 100? When effectively 350 years of pre-1900 history has been wiped out of the collective American memory?

Forcing our hand is the wave of mulatto Latin immigrants who have more honest racial identities, as well as the well-educated, middle class African immigrants who give lie to the blackness equals poverty equation we have so ingrained in the American psyche. The jury is still out on whether or not they will fall in line with the prevailing color line myth of the 20th century, or mount a serious challenge to its efficacy. I, for one, am ready to see the bubble burst and the whole damned thing come apart.

I spent the majority of my life being confused, feeling alienated and ashamed for not being able to conform to our American race myths. Acknowledging obvious physical and cultural markers of European heritage does not negate African heritage; French Creoles prove this and I am so glad to have met some who have provided me with a healthy and positive model to live by. Mixed race people with African heritage should not have to one drop themselves to support any group's agenda - white, black, immigrant or otherwise. I can understand the desire for white Americans and immigrants to employ One Drop Rule, as historically both groups have benefitted handsomely from it. But haven't African Americans figured out already that adopting tactics that their white oppressors have cooked up cannot ultimately be in their own best interests? It's time for African Americans to rethink their political positioning and their group identity. This one is, and she is not looking back.

These series of posts are dedicated to "the finest woman in East Elmhurst" of her day, my mother Kathlean Elizabeth Barnes. I am bold because she could not be.

Technorati Tags: Halle Berry - passing - biracial - immigrants

Act Three - Transformation Pt. 2

2006-12-03T01:19:00.000-05:00

Understood within the history of fluctuating racial categories in the pre-Jim Crow era, the failures of the Civil Rights Movement, contemporary color tensions within the “black” community and my own personal experiences (and probably that of many other “light-skinned” blacks) make far more sense.

Once the new industrial economic system had been fully established, and the latest wave of European immigrants were fully assimilated into “whiteness”, the American elite was prepared to concede to a change in race relations. The Civil Rights Movement was this change and it reintroduced the two color line system into American society. The integrationist and separatist factions within the 20th century’s “black” leadership have actually represented the interests of two different groups, biracials and blacks respectively. The gains of the integrationist led Civil Rights Movement ultimately only served biracial’s interests, along with those blacks that managed to attain middle class status during the Reconstruction and Jim Crow periods.

The black integrationist MLK, who himself married a biracial, led the charge. Although the tactics were often economic, the ends effectively called for the reintroduction of a two color line system that also held blacks at the bottom economically. The American elite answered with the legal reinstatement of rights enjoyed by some biracials pre-Jim Crow, and the end of the One Drop Rule. However, the structure that kept blacks at the bottom of the economic ladder remained intact.

When MLK began to challenge this economic order with his Poor People’s Campaign, in effect advocating for black advancement, white liberals (many belonging to ethnic groups that had just passed into “whiteness”) waned in support. MLK moved ahead anyway and was promptly assassinated.

Since then the integrationist black and biracial leadership has mostly moved into the mainstream and left blacks to fend for themselves. Hip Hop – a music and culture describing the ghetto experience – was born out of this split. Except for the nascent Black Power Movement that fizzled out in the early 70s, Hip Hop has allowed blacks for the first time to represent themselves and their struggles in their full humanity. (Unfortunately this is in danger from corporate takeover and stereotype propaganda) Some biracials have been making attempts to reject the One Drop Rule and self define as well. And the drowning of New Orleans may be influencing Louisiana Creoles to reclaim their culture and assert their mixed racial identities. The wild card in all this is biracials who continue to one drop themselves. Whether One Drop Rule will continue to serve the socio-economic interests of blacks or biracials, if it ever really did, is being put to the test with this latest wave of immigrants. Time will tell.

- These series of posts are dedicated to the ‘finest woman in East Elmhurst’ of her day, my mother Kathlean Elizabeth Barnes. I am bold because she could not be

Technorati Tags: One Drop Rule - Creoles - hip hop - Jim Crow - Civil Rights - immigrants

Act Three - Transformation

2006-12-03T01:15:00.000-05:00

When biracials were forced onto the black side of the color line (i.e. the Jim Crow period) they brought with them the capital inherited from two centuries of prior middle class status, which propelled them into the black upper class and the black leadership of the 20th century. This prior middle class status was not the middle class we think of today, but the legal class of people who were literally in the middle. Not Africans with no legal rights to anything and not Europeans with legal rights to everything, but Afro-Europeans who depending on the colony they were from had different levels of legal rights.

In French Louisiana biracials could own slaves, hold real estate and be recognized in court. In Spanish Florida biracials could do all that and intermarry with whites. In the British colonies biracials had varying degrees of legal status at different periods until, for reasons unique to the British situation, miscegenation was outlawed and the color line was introduced. French and Spanish biracials could teach themselves how to read and write, and along with British biracials learn skills as craftsmen and artisans. African slaves, on the other hand, were relegated to hard labor and denied education often times upon pain of death. Freed slaves quickly joined the ranks of their biracial cousins; however, in French Louisiana biracials resisted their entry into Creole society.

In the illuminating text Wealth And Democracy by lifelong Republican Kevin Phillips, the economic factors that led to the Civil War are laid out in detail. The Northern industrial machine outstripped the Southern slaveocracy in all economic indicators except for wealth itself. Slaves were worth $2-$4 billion to the Confederacy. The loss of slaves, and by extension the end of their agriculturally based economy, would mean financial ruin. The North, although quite wealthy from the budding industrial revolution, did not have the resources to compensate their ceding Southern cousins if they were to free their slaves. So war ensued.

Predictably, when the South lost it plunged into total economic collapse. The US govt. exacerbated the problem by imposing heavy taxes on the vanquished to pay off Northern war bonds and pensions for Union soldiers. Wars cost money and the victors usually don’t pay for it.

Followed by a postwar deflation that lined the pockets of bondholders, this wealth transfer according to Phillips “enabled the United States to achieve in four decades what had taken the United Kingdom nearly a century” – namely its position as the world’s leading industrial power. Over the next 80 years poor European immigrants flocked to the country’s industrial centers for a chance at a new life, and blacks and biracials migrated north in hopes of escaping the South’s economic depression.

The new capitalist industrial class now found themselves in the same position as their British colonial precursors, i.e. with a workforce comprised mostly of people of European descent – American whites, European immigrants and biracials. Taking a page out of the Virginian colonial playbook, a race-based divide and conquer strategy was legally imposed nationwide to control exploited workers who might otherwise form coalitions along class lines. American whites and European immigrants on one side, biracials and blacks on other. Jim Crow and its partner in crime One Drop Rule were born.

- These series of posts are dedicated to the ‘finest woman in East Elmhurst’ of her day, my mother Kathlean Elizabeth Barnes. I am bold because she could not be.

Technorati Tags: immigrants - One Drop Rule - Creoles - biracials - Our Kind of People

Act Two - Journey Pt. 4

2006-12-03T01:04:00.000-05:00

When my parents returned to America with me and my two sisters in tow, we lived for a short time in East Elmhurst, Queens. My mother had grown up there during its heyday as a middle class black neighborhood. Along with Ella Fitzgerald, Willie Mays, Tommie Agee, Louis Armstrong and Malcolm X, my Bahamian grandmother and Virginian grandfather made a home for themselves there in the postwar period.

My father's star rose in the corporate world, and he moved us out of New York City and "to the country" - known as Connecticut to tri-state dwellers. The neighborhoods in Stamford where I would live until age 15 were completely devoid of blacks. Being a classic over-achiever I was assigned to "power cog" classes, also completely devoid of blacks. The only black people I would see in my school were students in the average to remedial classes, and none of them looked like me nor did their families resemble mine. They were all darker than my father who was the darkest of my family members, and among their family whom I would see at parent teacher conferences or school events there was virtually no variation in skin color.

I knew we were all supposed to be black, but I also knew we were different. They knew it, too, and made it very clear that they did. I was regularly teased for being white, accused of being uppity, being a traitor and thinking I was superior because I was whiter. White kids treated me far, far better, but when it suited them they let me know that I didn't belong to their group either. Although I wouldn't have been able to explain it in these terms back then, I realize now that I thought of myself as a white ethnic. Like the white kids of Jewish, Irish or Italian ancestry in my classes, I thought of myself as a white person with African ancestry. My "blackness" didn't feel so fixed, encompassing and racial; it was more fluid, ethereal and ethnic. Needless to say I was lonely.

My sister and I transfered to another district and I started junior high school. It was then that we met and made fast friends with another black girl who was in a similar boat to ours. The band U2 was all the rage back then, and the three of us fantasized about starting an all-girl rock band just like theirs. We became obsessed with all things Irish, and when I discovered that my last name actually was an Irish name I immersed myself in Irish history and culture. I even went as far as identifying the family crest associated with my name.

I suspected that given the way I looked there must have been some Irish ancestry in my background. I was so much lighter and whiter looking than all the other black people I knew, even my siblings. Other black people around were so different from me. What about the name for goodness sake? I started to inquire from family members about our history and when I brought up the possibility of European ancestry I was returned with blank stares. The whispering campaign quietly began about my identity crisis, and my mother was implored to nip it in the bud.

Finally one evening my mother sat me down and asked me about my interest in all this Irish stuff. I recounted my speculation about my coloring, how other black kids didn't like me and I didn't understand them, and then I brought up our Irish surname and the family crest. Before I could say anymore my mother cut me off and said, "Your father is black, I am black and that means you are black, nothing else."

I was stunned. Fully expecting my mother to confirm my thinking, she instead decimated it. Her words cut through me and lodged in the pit of my stomach. I was having an identity crisis, after all. I suddenly felt embarassed that I didn't know who I was. Then the shame set in. All those black kids who criticized me my entire childhood were right! I was a traitor for thinking that I was anything other than black - a traitor to them and a traitor to my own family. Ashamed, I left the room and never brought up the Irish name or crest again. It would take another 18 years before I began to think of myself as a biracial person, and ironically it would be sparked by a man who looked exactly like my mother.

- These series of posts are dedicated to the ‘finest woman in East Elmhurst’ of her day, my mother Kathlean Elizabeth Barnes. I am bold because she could not be.

Technorati Tags: black middle class - identity crisis - biracial - U2

Act Two - Journey Pt. 3

2006-12-03T01:00:00.000-05:00

America began flirting with the One Drop Rule in the 1830s, with the concept of passing predictably following suit. The French and Spanish had been bought out in the preceeding 30 years, giving the British license to impose their race and class sensibilities on the entire region. Freed Northern slaves, who were often themselves biracial, also embraced the One Drop Rule but as a way to foment ethnic solidarity and fight prejudice. The first American novels about passing, Clotel and The Garies and Their Friends, were actually writen by blacks not whites.

America's most famous 19th century "black" abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, was one of the first casualties of Northern white and black collusion on One Drop Rule. Douglass, the son of a slave woman and an unidentified white man, desired early on to be recognized as half-black and half-white. White and black abolitionists alike refused. The white Garrisonians who kicked off his lecturing career exposed their paternalism, and by extension their refusal to see his whiteness, when Douglass traveled to Britain with his anti-slavery message. Black abolitionists ignored his newspaper The North Star until he actively courted the black leadership and their agenda in its editorials. According to Douglass biographer Benjamin Quarles, black abolitionist James McCune Smith would say this to white abolitionist Gerrit Smith of their contemporary:

You will be surprised to hear me say that only since his Editorial career has he seen to become a colored man! I have read his paper very carefully and find phrase after phrase develop itself as in one newly born among us.

Douglass' launch of The North Star would trigger his break from the Garrisonians, and put him firmly in the camp of black abolitionists. This "black" Douglass, considered by some as the progenitor of modern African American thought, is the one America reveres - not the one who tried to reconcile American society to his biracial identity.

- These series of posts are dedicated to the ‘finest woman in East Elmhurst’ of her day, my mother Kathlean Elizabeth Barnes. I am bold because she could not be.

Technorati Tags: Frederick Douglass - passing - One Drop Rule

Act Two - Journey Pt. 2

2006-12-03T00:45:00.000-05:00

I was born on July 19, 1975 in a private hospital in the bedroom community of Wimbledon, UK. Years later my sister would tell me that the hospital staff had a running joke that I must have been the milkman’s baby. Born with pale skin and dark blue eyes, I would quickly darken like many caucasian babies do once melanin production begins. The scientifically trained hospital staff was well aware of this phenomenon, but apparently found it strange coming from the product of a medium brown black man with dark brown eyes and hair, and a light skinned black woman with medium brown eyes and hair.

I was conceived 9 months earlier in Nassau while my parents were on holiday with family. Family lore has it that my maternal grandmother was the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy Irish American politician named Ralph Collins and one of his house servants, a Bahamian native. An importer who was rumored to have been a rumrunner, he built an enormous mansion in Nassau with an equally enormous wall surrounding it nicknamed Collins' Wall by the natives.

My uncle who would later settle in Cambridge, Massachusetts and become a real estate mogul in his own right, once described how painful it was to have his wealthy grandfather refuse to acknowledge him and the rest of the family. He could never understand how a man could knowingly let his children and grandchildren live in such squalor when he had so much wealth.

Himself the son of a Cornell alum, my uncle would graduate from Harvard Law and practice in Boston for several years before finally becoming a law professor full time. He married and had a son with a lawyer descended from a British family who came to Massachusetts in the early colonial period. His son would later attend college in Atlanta, settle there after graduation and become a hip hop music producer.

- These series of posts are dedicated to the ‘finest woman in East Elmhurst’ of her day, my mother Kathlean Elizabeth Barnes. I am bold because she could not be.

Technorati Tags: Bahamas - biracial - interracial

How Ironic is this Picture?

2006-11-28T12:12:00.000-05:00

Comedian Michael Richards apologizing for his use of the "n" word on Nov. 17 at a club show in West Hollywood. Is that Jesse Jackson he's pictured with?

Technorati Tags: celebrity shenanigans - Michael Richards - Kramer

Act Two - Journey

2006-11-26T11:11:00.000-05:00

One of the prevailing myths of American slavery is the impermeability of the color line. Most Americans of all races believe that only Africans were slaves, only Europeans were masters, and any mixing between the two was rape pure and simple. The existence of New Orleans Creoles gives lie to this myth, of course. I suspect that 20th century Americans, especially blacks, have always felt uneasy about this because rather than hide in shame for sleeping with the enemy many Creoles proudly claim their mixed ancestry. Not too many tragic mulattos to be found here.

But travel further down the rabbit hole Alice, like I did, and you will find that reality is far more complex then that. Dig more into the history of the Spanish on our shores and you'll find that Africans and Europeans occupied each tier of society, albeit unequally. The British colonies, too, had both European and African landowners and laborers during the 17th century. To understand how this is possible, one must first understand how the management system of slavery actually works. History and molecular anthropology PhD candidate Frank Sweet explains that:

Not only was it necessary to deter runaways by making examples of those caught, but it was also vital to deter revolts by keeping on hand a traditionally large buffer class of armed yeoman. The challenge faced by colonial rulers was that the buffer class had to be roughly as numerous as the colony's forced labor population, and the forced laborers themselves were its only possible source. Like it or not, every New World colony lacking sufficient yeoman had to transform at least half of its forced laborers into landed yeomen if it was to survive.

The Spanish, by taking the place of Latin America's indigenous aristocracies, implanted their rule into pre-existing stratified societies so there was no need to recreate a yeoman class. In the Caribbean and North America, they simulated the French who intermixed with their African slaves to create a yeomen class of Creoles. In contrast, the British conquered lands that lacked indigenous empires so the Spanish tactic could not apply. And unlike the French, the British slave population initially consisted of more Europeans than Africans.

Unable to birth a biracial class of yeomen in time to control their erupting slave revolts, the British employed a race-based divide and conquer strategy that doomed African slaves to eternal servitude and graduated newly freed European indentured servants to yeomen class status. Reinforcement in the form of anti-miscegenation laws grew in severity until laws banning interracial marriage altogether were passed, and then spread from colony to colony in the British territories.

In 1705, Virginia passed history's first law defining blackness: a person with one or more great grandparents who were African - called an octoroon for having one eighth fraction of black blood. Taken together with the 1662 partus sequitur ventrum law that defined slave status through matrilineal descent, biracials still continued to be born, but at considerably slower rates of miscegenation. More importantly these two laws combined meant that, unlike the French and Spanish systems where color and class necessarily correlated, white or lighter colored skin only mattered if one were free.

- These series of posts are dedicated to the ‘finest woman in East Elmhurst’ of her day, my mother Kathlean Elizabeth Barnes. I am bold because she could not be.

Technorati Tags: slavery - Creoles - biracial - color line - miscegenation

Act One - Awakening

2006-11-21T19:40:00.000-05:00

They say falling in love changes your life. However, I never expected it to change the world. A little over a year ago I met and fell madly in love with a New Orleans Creole. A near replica of my late mother in looks, he charmed me completely with his genteel manner, fun-loving spirit and dedication to Creole culture.

As he and his family began to accept me into the fold and share their traditions with me, I began to examine my own history – and lack thereof. What was so different about these people? Other French Creole friends of mine, New Orleanian and Haitian, also shared family bonds and traditions that were far more cohesive than my own. I suspected that it had something to do with the French connection and set out to find just what that thing was.

Frankly this connection didn’t surprise me so much, as France has enjoyed a kind of favored nation status within the African American arts community for its acceptance of our greatest artists when our own country did not. But the link between the French and Africans here in our own country I think is less well known.

One upside of Hurricane Katrina, if there could be one, was the reintroduction into the American mainstream of New Orleans’ unique centuries old tradition of race mixing. The inference of course is that plenty of miscegenation had been goin’ on, and not just of the white master raping the black slave variety that lurks unresolved in the imaginations of contemporary Americans, both black and white.

Creoles are a special bunch because they are heirs to an atypically enlightened view of interracial relationship that was squelched by the Louisiana Purchase and did not have a resurgence until after the Civil Rights Movement. If the French and the Africans could love each other under those circumstances, then maintaining familial unity over petty internecine rivalries must be a no brainer for their offspring.

I was about to leave it at that when I learned that the Spanish controlled Louisiana for a period of 40 years (1763 - 1803) before ceding it back to the French - who then sold it to the Brits (Americans) a year later in the Louisiana Purchase. Interestingly enough it was actually under Spanish rule that the gens de couleur libre grew from 3% to 20% of the total population of New Orleans. Turns out the French weren’t so damned special after all!

Why didn’t I remember any of this stuff from my US history classes? Intrigued, I decided that I would need to dig deeper. Maybe Virginia, where my family hails from, had more complex race relations during its pre Civil War period, too.

These series of posts are dedicated to the ‘finest woman in East Elmhurst’ of her day, my mother Kathlean Elizabeth Barnes. I am bold because she could not be.

Technorati Tags: New Orleans - Creoles - Hurricane Katrina - France - miscegenation - Haiti

Do black folks know how to dance anymore?

2006-07-03T06:42:00.000-04:00

For 8 years now I've been watching black NYC's under 40 set slide into a pathetic display of unoriginal groovin'. You know what I'm talking about...the part grind, part wave-your-hands-in-the-air, part two step? Sure our folks have still got rhythm, but they don't know what the hell to do with it anymore except to simulate sex on the dancefloor.

We used to be free, letting our bodies be conduits for sensuous rhythms and beats. There was a time when black folks used to get down! Sure sexuality was always a part of our movement, but nowadays seems like all we want to do is profile. A jiggle here, a little ass in the air there, and voilá a video ho is born.

I recognized this as a serious problem when I was out dancing several weeks ago at a local gay club and there was no deep house, no disco, no R&B even. There were no fabulous queens tearing up the floor. Almost all the boys were thugged out, "dancing" to the only music playing: hip hop. What is the world coming to when fags don't even break a sweat anymore?

My worst experience to date, however, had to be at a barbecue I attended over this past July 4 holiday weekend. Things started out well enough with an early evening music mix of classic R&B and disco jams. Sure we'd heard them all god knows how many times before, but the sounds of Chaka, Yarborough & Peoples and Teena Marie can and do always get a Brooklyn party started.

As darkness fell and the crowd began to really feel the liquor, the atmosphere changed. A group of husky Latinas headed toward the dance floor. Feeling those several Kettle One and tonics I myself had imbibed, I was right behind them. Just then the DJ changed up the flow and put on some popular hip hop songs. The wind came right out of my sails as I watched the women light up with glee. With absolutely no shame in their game they proceeded to switch and tick in front of the entire group of men, women and (young) children at the barbecue. Oh not THIS again! Girl don't you know that all that long hair does not make you Shakira?!!!

The lascivious glares of the party's intoxicated men quickly curdled the vodka in my belly. Sure I had dealt with a meat market before, but this time it was different. Two young black girls grinded among the portly women on the floor. Our table watched the men watching these little girls move, and the implications were disturbing. I finally got up from my chair and approached the two pre-teens.

"Girls, how old are you?" I asked.

"Thirteeen," replied one who was engrossed in a handheld videogame. The other piped up, "twelve." Jesus these girls were young! Where the hell were their mothers? Weren't they peepin' how these nasty men were checking out their adolescent daughters' moves?

"Well ladies," I continued, "I think you are really great dancers, but you should be careful about the kind of attention you could be attracting with those sexy moves." The girl with the handheld pretended to ignore me as she took in my admonition, while the other focused intently. "I just want you two to be careful. Take it from me...I have been in situations before where I aroused interest from people I did not want to be interested. Although you may think you want it, you really don't want that kind of attention just yet. Leave that to the grown folks. Y'know what I'm sayin?"

"You mean grown folks like you?" asked the 12 year-old. The vidiot turned up from her handheld to catch my response.

"Well, I may be grown but I still don't want that kind of attention," I gestured over to three drunken men sitting along the edge of the dance area. I turned back to eye the pair's response and they nodded in agreement with me. Satisfied that I had made my point, I retreated back to my seat. The two young girls continued to dance - albeit in a more age appropriate manner. Finally the 12 year-old scampered off the floor. I felt relieved. Just then the vidiot wrapped her arms around one of the most egregious offenders on the floor.

"Hey mama, are we going home soon?" she asked the woman.

"In a little while baby," she replied, "I'm still getting my groove on!"

My friend leaned in close to me and said, "and now you know why them girls are like that, huh?" I turned to look at her and she shook her head in disapproval. "There ain't nothin you can do about it when her own mother's like that." I turned back to catch the young vidiot switchin and tickin right along side her mother, as a tall, boozy brotha sandwiched between them.

Technorati Tags: Soul Train - Brooklyn - R&B

We’re Here! We’re Queer! Get Used to It?

2006-06-26T21:06:00.000-04:00

The atmosphere was merry as I walked along 7th Ave yesterday with my brother who was back from Indiana for the summer. Now a vegan and unable to chow down on the customary college kid cuisine (burger n’ fries, pizza, et al), he required more humane, meatless fare. So we chose Gobo, a vegetarian joint right smack in the middle of all the gay festivities.

We left the serene confines of the West Village restaurant for the raucous street atmosphere, and immediately I was annoyed. This was not at all like me as I normally enjoy a good party. In fact, six years earlier I had marched in PrideFest 2000 along side the God’s Love We Deliver float. My sister had been volunteering for the AIDS relief organization and I gladly joined in, pleased that I could simultaneously let loose and support a worth while organization’s efforts.

But this year’s queens were getting on my damned nerves. Ironic as it may be, they just seemed so contrived. Was I getting fag fatigue? Or worse still, becoming a republican?!!! No, no my progressive credentials were still intact. Something else was amiss. It was the fags themselves that were wrong.

All that gender-bended sashaying may once upon a time have been a revolutionary challenge to mainstream sexuality and gender roles. But when straight men willingly allow five men’s queer eyes to give them the once over on cable TV, when a primetime sitcom about a gay-straight couple who shack up and play married tops the ratings year after year, and when those three annoying little words “you go girl” refuse to evaporate from the national lexicon, you know that gay culture is in no fear of disappearing.

Co-opted by the corporate powers-that-be for mainstream consumption, gayness has been thoroughly diluted and is loosing its edge. The empire has struck back folks and unlike Luke, many of those gay boys are joining their fathers. Plagued by the same bugaboos of the 60s feminist movement, racism and classism, the gay rights movement fell prey to the Faustian bargain of mainstream acceptance: a place at the table in exchange for adopting the values of America’s patriarchal, supremacist majority.

Mainstreamed gay culture is extremely elitist and subtly racist. The popularity of the show Will & Grace can no doubt be attributed to their fantastic Manhattan living. Could you imagine TV viewers being as interested in Billy Bob & Grace, the story of a closeted middle American high school drop out who shacks up with his pregnant teenaged friend as cover for his “alternative” lifestyle? And how about the “Fab Five”? African Americans have consistently been at the forefront of cutting edged fashion in the US. Yet, how is it possible to have five gay male leads on a show about fashion tips and not one be black? The coding is all there – to be gay and fabulous one must not be black, or poor (hell not even middle class!). So much for that famed Stonewall "rebellion” against the powers-that-be.

And the propaganda is clearly working, as evidenced in the instructive documentary Flag Wars about the gay-driven gentrification of the working class black community of Columbus, Ohio. In one memorable scene a wealthy white realtor, Nina Masseria, rails on camera in a drunken fit about the local blacks’ unworthiness to own property. In real life, it appears that this dike’s racism isn’t so subtle (Oh Oscar Wilde, you genius you). This same situation has replicated itself in other formally black neighborhoods like Boston’s South End, where now in an ironic twist gays are being priced out by even more upwardly mobile (mostly white) breeders. Faustian bargain, indeed.

In short, gays have ARRIVED and all the tactics they put into place to get themselves here now seem unnecessary, passé even. We know you’re here, and we’ve gotten used to it. Now what?

Technorati Tags: gay pride parade - gay culture - Queer Eye for the Straight Guy - Will & Grace - Flag Wars

Engulfed by Katrina: Photographs Before And After The Storm

2006-06-23T16:37:00.000-04:00

Curated by Deborah Willis Ph.D. and Hank Willis Thomas

Artists: Marc Asnin * Harold Baquet * Nathan Bassuouni * Charlene Braud * Keith Calhoun * Gerald Cyrus D. Michael Cheers * Cheryl Finley * Vangy Franklin * Russell Frederick * Delphine Fawundu-Buford Lonnie Graham * Wyatt Gallery * William Greiner * Jessica Ingram * Chester Higgins Jr. * Eric Julien Melvina Lathan * Chandra McCormick * John Pinderhuges * Joe Rodriguez * Benjamin Orion Rush * Sophia Schechner * Will Steacey * Frank Stewart * Eric Waters * Lewis Watts * Carla Williams Clarence Williams * Nathaniel Ward

On View: June 15 – September 22, 2006

Opening Reception: June 29, 2006, 6-9pm

The Nathan Cummings Foundation
475 Tenth Avenue (14th Floor) Between 36th & 37th Streets
New York, NY 10018
RSVP – (646) 485-1284
For private viewing please contact Karen Garrett (212) 787-7300, ext.206.

This exhibition project examines and interprets the experience of Katrina on the Gulf Coast. Featuring more than 80 photographs, this thematic exhibition will explore the devastation of cities within the Gulf Coast, as well as life before and after the storm. The focus of the show is to fulfill the promise made by everyone almost immediately after the event which was to not let the impact of this horrific experience be forgotten. The exhibition will invite viewers to recall their own experiences of watching the events unfold on television, and attempt to counter the complacency that has already set in the aftermath of this on-going tragedy and to "re-member" images of the city.

Technorati Tags: Hurricane Katrina - photography

Some Happenings on the Other Side of the Pond...

2006-06-22T16:12:00.000-04:00

What: RISE short film festival
When: Sun 2 July 1-3pm
Where: Tricycle Cinema

The Tricycle Cinema is screening a selection of shorts celebrating London's cultural diversity, made by members of London's black and ethnic minority communities as part of the RISE FESTIVAL (formerly RESPECT). Including films by Lawrence Coke (winner of the BFM Best Short Film 2005/Images of Black Women Film Festival), Julius Amedume and Wayne Campbell. Q & A with a panel that includes some of the writers, directors and performers featured will follow the screening. Tickets are FREE and are available from the Box Office 020 7328 1000.

Technorati Tags: cinema - London - Tricycle Cinema

Upcoming African shows: NYC

2006-06-22T15:30:00.000-04:00

JUNE 2006
Date: Thursday, June 22
Artist: The Refugee All Stars from Sierra Leone
Details: Human Rights Watch International Film Festival - NYC Festival Info
Location: Lincoln Center

Date: Friday June 23, 7-10 PM
Artist: The Refugee All Stars from Sierra Leone
Details: The Refugee All Stars of Sierra Leone
Location: Central Park Summer Stage

Date: Thursday, June 29, 12 noon
Artist: Salif Keita
Details: http://www.bam.org/events/metrotech.aspx
Location: MetroTech Center, Downtown Brooklyn

Date: Friday, June 30, 8:00 PM
Artist: Salif Keita
Details: http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/00003C951AFFB763
Location: Apollo Theater

JULY 2006
Date: Saturday, July 1 st 3:00-6:00 PM
Artist: Antibalas, Balkan Beat Box, Ska Cubano
Details: Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra * Balkan Beat Box * Ska Cubana
Location: Central Park Summer Stage

Date: Saturday, July 1
Artist: Angelique Kidjo, Vusi Mahlasela & more!
Details: http://www.celebratebrooklyn.com/celebrate/schedule.asp
Location: Prospect Park

Date: Sunday, July 2
Artist: Baba Maal
Details: www.irvingplaza.com/calendar/
Location: Irving Plaza

Date: Sunday, July 2, 3:00-6:00 PM
Artist: Seu Jorge, Jose Gonzalez, Alex Cuba Band
Details: Seu Jorge * Jose Gonzalez * Alex Cuba Band
Location: Central Park Summer Stage

Date: Saturday, July 8, 3:00-6:00 PM
Artist: Hakim, The Lion of Egypt and his Egyptian Orchestra
Details: Hakim, The Lion of Egypt and his Egyptian Orchestra
Location: Central Park Summer Stage

Date: Thursday, July 13, 12 noon
Artist: Amadou & Mariam
Details: http://www.bam.org/events/metrotech.aspx
Location: MetroTech Center, Downtown Brooklyn

Date: Sunday, July 16, 3:00-6:00 PM
Artist: Amadou & Mariam, Daby Toure, Birdy Nam Nam
Details: Amadou & Mariam * Daby Toure * Birdy Nam Nam
Location: Central Park Summer Stage

Date: Saturday, July 22, 11:30pm
Artist: Daara J
Details: http://www.joespub.com/caltool/index.cfm?fuseaction=detail&performanceID=2036
Location: Joe's Pub

Date: Sunday, July 23, 3:00-6:00 PM
Artist: Konono No. 1 * Daara J * Maldita Vecindad
Details: Konono No. 1 * Daara J * Maldita Vecindad
Location: Central Park Summer Stage

Date: Monday, July 24, 8pm & 10:30pm
Artist: Konono #1
Details : http://www.sobs.com/african/2006/0724.html
Location: S.O.B.s

Date: Tuesday, July 25, 8pm & 10:30pm
Artist: Tomas Mapfumo & The Blacks Unlimited
Details: http://www.sobs.com/african/2006/0725.html
Location: S.O.B.s

Date: Wednesday, July 26, 8pm & 10:30
Artist: Kekele
Details: http://www.sobs.com/african/2006/0726.html
Location: S.O.B.s

Date: Thursday July 27, 8pm
Artist: Jump N' Funk feat. Brooklyn Funk Essentials
Details: http://www.sobs.com/african/2006/0727.html
Location: S.O.B.s

AUGUST 2006
Date: August 5, 2:00 PM- 9:00 PM
Artists: "African Festival!" Kékélé, Lágbájá & more!
Details: http://www.celebratebrooklyn.com/celebrate/schedule.asp
Location: Prospect Park

Date: Tuesday August 8, 7:30 & 9:30
Artist: Lenine
Details: http://www.joespub.com/caltool/index.cfm?fuseaction=detail&performanceID=2144
Location: Joe's Pub

Date: Wednesday August 16, 9pm
Artist: Brook's Qawwali Party / American Ghazal
Details: http://www.joespub.com/caltool/index.cfm?fuseaction=detail&performanceID=2161
Location: Joe's Pub

Date: Wednesday, August 16, 7:00 PM
Artist: Antibalas
Details: http://www.antibalas.com/pages/index3.html
Location: Jackie Robinson Park

Date: Thursday, August 17, 7:00 PM
Artist: Antibalas
Details: http://www.antibalas.com/pages/index3.html
Location: Marcus Garvey Park

Technorati Tags: Afropop - world music - Seu Jorge - Konono No.1 - Amadou Mariam

Take Ur Spankin' like a Good Lil' (Cow)Boy

2006-06-22T13:29:00.000-04:00

Haminu Dramani takes out American goalkeeper Kasey Keller

Photo: Reuters

Ghana Boots US from World Cup

Technorati Tags: World Cup - soccer - Ghana

Danny Simmons Corridor Gallery presents:

2006-06-22T12:58:00.000-04:00

Technorati Tags: Danny Simmons - hip hop - graffiti art - Brooklyn

A Reflection on Our Reflections on Slavery

2006-06-21T20:03:00.000-04:00

This evening I attended an opening reception for the NY Historical Society's exhibit Legacies: Contemporary Artists Reflect on Slavery. Kara Walker, Willie Birch, Whitfield Lovell and Betye Saar were among the many talented artists whose work was presented. It was like most other art openings - a mix of the high class, the art set and a few politicians here and there. It was mostly pretentious in its make up, but some interesting and well-meanging folks were there nonetheless.

What was different, however, was the surreal mix of this business as usual behavior with the somber works on display. Lifeless silhouettes hung from branches against a plain white backdrop. Frederick Douglass' matter-of-fact description of how he came to name himself as a freed man sat ensconced in a glass case. The haunting cut-out image of a slavemaster's sexual taunting of a young slave girl laid bare all its ugliness. The whole thing was disturbing.

But what was most unsettling was my experience at the simulated slave ship with two well-to-do, older black women. The three of us waited patiently as an Hispanic gentleman entered the cylindrical wooden tomb. Of all the entrants we had watched up until this point, he had been the first to actually close the door behind himself. He spent what seemed like an eternity in there, when finally one of the two ladies knocked and opened the door. He came out obviously not ready to end his experience, but we entered anyway. The space was quite small, yet still large enough for the three of us to stand somewhat comfortably together. One more would have been just enough to make us feel like sardines in a can...or slaves on a ship. (But no one was really interested in that experience. We were the first to go in as a group, making it possible to replicate that kind of constriction. But still not enough to truly feel trapped.)

As our eyes adjusted to the light, we could see the the reflection of the objects hanging outside through the tiny hole at the center front of the cylinder. The women chattered on incessantly about the light, the space, etc. Then one commented to the other, "my goodness isn't this just fabulous?" Blithely affirming, the other responded, "why yes it's just like the bowels of a slave ship!" I began to feel dizzy. I told the two women that it was too much for me and immediately turned for the door. The near total lack of light was disorienting, especially after twisting so quickly. I couldn't find that handle fast enough to get outta there.

I looked around for my white co-worker who invited me to the opening, and found him edging toward the exit. He commented on how the whole thing was so unsettling. All the chatty interaction seemed incongruent with the gravity of the subject matter. He would need to come back for a more private viewing to fully appreciate and respect the work. I agreed, and then wondered how my two partners in the "bowels of the slave ship" didn't as well.

Technorati Tags: Frederick Douglass - Kara Walker - Slavery in New York - New York Historical Society

The African Game

2006-06-19T15:06:00.000-04:00

When you see more and more folks rockin' those neon yellow Brazil t-shirts, you know that World Cup fever is in the air! I admit that like most Americans I was only nominally interested, until last week when Ghana put the smack down on Czech Republic. Did he really score that goal in just over a minute into the game? Damn!

Those with real love in their hearts do a far better job than me at sharing why football (ahem...soccer) is such a kick-ass sport - no pun intended. There is of course the classic autobiography Pele, My Life and the Beautiful Game by the Afro-Brazilian legend. But there are two more recent additions that look like a good read regardless of one's level of interest in the sport itself. Franklin Foer of New Republic fame penned How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, which blends his lifelong love for the sport with his career interest in international politics.

The second, The African Game, is a book of photography and essays that delves into contemporary life in the continent using football (ahem...soccer) as a medium. Nigerian-born filmmaker/photgrapher Andrew Dosunmu and Brooklyn-based writer Knox Robinson collaborate to bring much-needed, modern stories of African people to life. An exhibit of Dosunmu's work is coming up on June 22 at Brooklyn's Rotunda Gallery.

Technorati Tags: soccer - Andrew Dosunmu - Knox Robinson - The African Game - Brooklyn

Al Gore is a Marketing Genius

2006-06-19T13:39:00.000-04:00

Check out An Inconvenient Truth’s MY SPACE page for the “artist on artist” interview. Mos Def interviews Al Gore about global warming, and asks why the former presidential hopeful thinks it’s the most important domestic and foreign policy issue for the 21st century.

At one fell swoop not only does Gore recast himself as an “artist” as opposed to a failed political figure, but he does it on MY SPACE, which even with the flap over their fine print is the (virtual) place to see and be seen. Everybody who is anybody is on MY SPACE. Guess it comes easy for the man who invented the internet to know how to exploit it.

Not to mention, Gore’s hipness factor increased about 500% by appearing with hip hop icon Mos Def. (Hmmm…seems straight outta the Clinton playbook, yet slightly modified. Ditch the triangulation, but keep the miscegenation.) The “Mighy Mos” is hands down the most important hip hop artist today. Through his various film and TV roles he’s garnered mainstream cross-over appeal, while maintaining mad street cred among EVERY segment of the notoriously divergent hip hop community. (Remember East Coast vs. West Coast?).

Whether Mos’ mass appeal translates over to Gore is yet to be determined, but it’s a safe bet that a lot more young people, black and non-black alike, will see the film. Fan or not, hip hop is where it’s at! Those who ignore its power as the race-crossing (or class, or gender, or fill-in-the-blank) worldwide cultural force that it is risk going the way of the Dodo bird. Perhaps Al got hip to the game after he read this?

Technorati Tags: global warming - Al Gore - Mos Def - MySPACE - An Inconvenient Truth

Hot Fun in the City

2006-06-05T20:53:00.000-04:00

For Brooklynites and other city dwellers in the know, the annual Dance Africa Festival at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is the unofficial kick-off to the summer. With movies, music, street fair and dance performances, this Memorial Day weekend event is a 4-day smorgasbord of culture from around the Diaspora.

As I walked the fair with my buddy George who was in town for a few weeks, I saw folks I hadn't seen, well, since last year's festival. We exchanged hellos while we chowed down on a coupla corns on the cob before making our way into the Saturday nite dance performance.

And my how it was spectacular! Baba Chuck Davis started off the festivites with his usual respectful dedication to those who had passed on to the ancestral realm. An elder was escorted to the customary spot on the stage where performers could offer up dance in his honor. (And as usual this all took too long!)

The Peruvian dancers Peru Negro were the final act, and they were wonderful. But I had been dazzled by the group who performed just before intermission, the Universal African Dance & Drum Essemble. Stilt dancers, an all female drumming troupe (spectacular in its own right as I have rarely seen a female African drummer much less a whole troupe!), "afrobats" and children no older than 4 or 5 years of age took over the stage in a whirlwind of motion. It is hard to describe the feeling that came over me while watching, the sense of kinship. It stirred something in my core, something rooted deep in the familiar. I was proud to see so many black people unapologetically taking part in an expression of their own cultural heritage.

Watching the young children on stage reminded me of the performances I had just seen at the New Orleans Jazzfest a month back. The Creole Wild West Mardi Gras Indians, too, had their tiny young children singing along on stage. And Sunpie Barnes (hmm that's my family name...) of Sunpie & the Louisiana Sunspots had his young son playing along on the accordian to their funky Afro-Caribbean inspired zydeco tunes. The children looked so free and natural and happy playing up there with their parents. I knew those kids, both here in Bklyn and there in NOLA, would have no doubt who they were when they grew up. In what seems like the endless sea of bad news we have to deal with about the possibilities for our children's future, watching them I felt hopeful for the first time in a long time.

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When I'm feeling overwhelmed by the rat race and wondering why the hell I live in this overcrowded, overdeveloped city I remember Dance Africa, and all the wonderful cultural events in store for the next three months. There is nothing like summer in New York City.

Central Park Summerstage

Celebrate Brooklyn at Prospect Park

World Financial Center concerts

City Parks Foundation concerts

Wingate Park concerts

Asser Levy Park seaside concerts

Charlie Parker Jazz Festival

Brooklyn Museum 1st Saturdays

"NYC For Free"

Technorati Tags: BAM - Dance Africa - New Orleans Jazzfest - Brooklyn Museum

Life Drawing Classes: Sundays in Downtown Brooklyn

2006-06-03T23:09:00.000-04:00

Brooklyn jewelry designer Masani Mulraine hosts life drawing art classes at her Fort Greene studio every Sunday from 1 - 3 p.m. Masani is a Pratt Institute graudate who has distributed her work to various retail stores and boutiques including Canal Jeans Co., Charivari, Knapps, Pieces and Redberri. Her jewelry is featured in the June 2006 edition of Essence Magazine.

Light refreshments served. Classes are $20, materials (drawing pad, paints, ink, etc) not included. Seating is limited to 10 people per class. For more information or to RSVP, please email masanidesigns@aol.com.

G train to Clinton-Washington or C train to Lafeyette Ave.

Essence June 2006, p. 151
necklace by
Masani Wearable Scupltures

Technorati Tags: Masani Wearable Sculptures - Brooklyn - Essence Magazine

Brooklyn Photo Exhibit: Images from PK NOLA

2006-06-03T22:54:00.000-04:00

Harriet's Alter Ego is pleased to present…

Muddy Water Gumbo & High Tide Blues
Images from New Orleans, Post-Katrina

A Photography Exhibit by Award-Winning Photojournalist Delphine Fawundu-Buford

Opening Reception & Artist Talk
Sunday, June 4, 2006, 4-7pm

Exhibition Dates: June 4 - 30, 2006
Harriet's Alter Ego Boutique & Gallery
293 Flatbush Ave. bet. St. Marks & Prospect Place
Brooklyn, New York
2, 3, 4, 5, Q, B, N, R, D to Atlantic Avenue

For more info: 718-783-2074 or Harriet's Alter Ego

Photographer Delphine A. Fawundu-Buford latest series is a collection of riveting images of the Big Easy, post-Katrina. Muddy Water Gumbo & High Tide Blues is a photo-essay created during her 2006 trip to New Orleans as a NABJ Gulf Coast Fellow. A large part of her mission was to document the lives of the everyday people who were affected by Katrina. The images largely excerpt Crescent City and its inner communities that have been ravaged by Katrina with emphasis on the 9th Ward. Muddy Water Gumbo & High Tide Blues consists of five smaller series "The 9th Ward Remains," "Blues Soldiers" "2nd Line" "Infatuation with Mammy?" and "We Still Here."

"As I photographed these remains, it felt as if I were at an archaeological dig," Delphine explains of "The 9th Ward Remains" series, "getting a more personal perspective of everyday people who lived in the 9th Ward, some who listened to music, read books, wore under-wired bras, used silver metal forks, and earned degrees just like me."

Delphine has gained wide recognition from her image "Patiently Waiting," which graced the cover of the catalog for the memorable 'Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers' exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2000. Her career that spans over a decade includes publications such as Black: A Celebration of a Culture and Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers from 1840 - Present by Deborah Willis. Some of her editorial credits include RollingStone, Essence, Honey and Vibe. Delphine has exhibited locally and nationally and has participated in critically acclaimed exhibitions 'Only Skin Deep' at the International Center of Photography and 'Open: Artist Working in Brooklyn' at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Her works are in the private collections of Danny Simmons (NYC), The Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the New York Coalition of Creative Art Therapies just to name a few.

Technorati Tags: Hurricane Katrina - Brooklyn - Delphine Fawunda-Buford