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Archive | February, 2009
I Still Got My Blue Ticket because [turn to your neighbor and say] “Favor ain’t Fair”: an Uppity Negro Inauguration story, Part Two
9 Feb
Okay, yeah, I’m late. It’s February and I’m just now writing this post. Oh well, the joys of having one’s own blog.
In short, the Inauguration Planning Committee had an EPIC FAIL when it came to the idea of tickets.
So this was the largest we’ve had on record, apparently the city was planning minimally for 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 people to be on the Mall on Washington. Alright, they had Metro set and planned, no real complaints with Metro from here, but Oh Gawwwwd when we got in that line…..
It was about 7am by the time we got in “the line” for Blue Tickets. I use the term loosely because clearly it wasn’t a line. We had come up Independence Ave. after meandering through the neighborhood from the Eastern Market Metro station because the fools didn’t open the doors to our car, and our car alone at the Federal Center station and so we walked up to the Cannon House office building and then was forced to be detoured south to C Street and walk back toward the ticket gates. We saw a line and asked someone in a uniform and they told us that it was the line for the Orange Tickets. So we walked through a clearly formed line toward the general direction of the blue tickets.
We ended up just in a little island park over the 395 tunnel entrance on Washington Street or Canal Street–and stayed there for about 3 hours.
We saw the line progress for the Orange Ticket holders as they walked through the security lines and we saw where we supposed to end up for the Blue Ticket holders, but by about 8:30 long after the Orange Ticket Gate had been opened we still hadn’t seen people with Blue Tickets walking from the main entrance gate toward their seats. Slowly tensions had begun to build. People were yelling at each other to not cut “the line” because we had been out their patiently since 7am and earlier clearly. But the lack of visible uniformed individuals had left the crowd to their own devices.
Somewhere around 9:30 when our position had moved up to about C Street (and as I look on the map, we had moved LESS than 1/4 of a normal of a city block in 2.5 hours) it was really a big mass of people moving in the general direction all with blue tickets.
Somewhere about 10:00 am I told my girls that we were ditching and just walking around like the rest of the people and try and the line because there was no way in hell we were going to get through the gate by 11:30. By now we had already begun hearing the musical prelude and the crowd was getting very VERY nervous about whether or not we were going to make it. So we heard a few individuals from various states making their own witty complaints about the EPIC FAIL that was the Blue Ticket line. One white girl from Ohio was so pissed that by about 11, she left the line mumbling under her breath about how this could not be an Obama coordinated event because his events were ALWAYS well planned.
This CLEARLY was not.
I think what was more tragic about her story was that many of these people were like me, who had taken off of work, traveled and spent time and money to go there–WITH A TICKET IN HAND!
I know people’s frustrations wouldn’t have been as high if we were, let’s say down by the Smithsonian Castle or something because we never fully expected to be so close to see anything. But the assumption is that with a ticket, you’ll get inside the gate.
To help bring this point home, work with me because apparently I don’t have software (or just don’t know how to use what I already got-PREACH PREACHA!) that can do captions inside the picture and use arrows and what not.
The top of the picture is East, the left is North the right is South and the bottom is West.
The long white continuous line in the middle right of the picture is the security checkpoint for the blue ticket line. Cross the street and you’ll see the mass of ants and that’s ALL of the blue ticket holders trying to funnel through a gate to the bottom left of that white continuous line.
I’m actually somewhere in that line probably–seen from satellite in space.
Now for my rant:
HOW IN THE HELL could you bumble this one up this was SIMPLE THIRD GRADE MATH?!?!? This was the easy part. You knew how many tickets were issued. No more than 240,000. That meant that corrals and the officials necessary for 240,000 people should have been in their places. Moreover, this was simple math people. There were approximately 52,000 tickets issued for the Blue and Purple Zone which mirrored each other on the Mall. Ultimately (which we never got close enough to see with our own eyes) was that they were forced to funnel that number of people through essentially two normal sized double doors.
And at maximum capacity, each of the 24 gates could process only up to 400 persons an hour?!!? Did I read the article correctly?
Simple math would say that perhaps if there were approximately 24 gates with which to process people and the average person took no more than 30 seconds even with a magnetometer, that’s approximately 6 or 7 people a minute not to mention the person who was old and slow and mad about having had stand in line taking up more time. From there they could have suggested and planned for people to be standing in the line 5 to 6 hours earlier.
But, I was–I got there at 7am!
And then to hear that the police officers possibly opened up ticketed areas to non-ticket holding people–that’d been fine if the ticketholders had already been in place.
I guess favor aint fair.
They said that there is restitution for the ticket holders, but what about the many of us who clearly aren’t from the DC area and strolling into a congressional office isn’t as easy as “oh, I’ll do next time I have to go downtown”? So, I guess I’m stuck with my ticket as souvenir. I just looked at it and realized this stuff may as well had been printed back when Reagan was inaugurated since the date never changes. Barack Obama’s name isn’t even on it; just says “January 20, 2009″ on it.
Sorry, it’s not, but dammit I feel mildly played after all of this. Will I be bitter the rest of my life? No. It’s a decent story set up for the grandkids, lol.
But, while I’m talking about seating, I have a little rant about those who did receive special seating to get off of my chest.
*****************
Personally, I never used to care about reserved seating, but then I talked to my friend over at Soul Jonz who’s not become The Critical Cleric and he informed me that’s he not a fan at all. I had told him that during Trinity United Church of Christ’s thrust into the media spotlight nearly a year ago (can some say Thank you Jesus that’s over) that they had removed the seats from the pulpit and that the only chair up there was the central chair. We both joked that it harped of deification of the pastor by leaving his lone and empty chair in the pulpit while the rest of the pastoral staff operated from the front row.
Perhaps it’s ingrained in black culture, and probably from the Black Church specifically. The only spaces we owned worth meeting in were the churches. Aside from random barns and brush arbors, the church house, or the building was a multipurpose room in many communities, rural and urban. But still as a result, this idea of a raised pulpit with ministers sitting on and behind has been something the black church has been remiss to let go.
Okay, before I go on a tangent…
It’s normal in the black church setting to have reserved seating. Don’t get me wrong many a-white church does it as well, but look at many of the newer white churches, it’s usually only one person at a time, aside from the worship band, that occupies the raised platforms (often times movable) where the focus of worship takes place. But in the traditional settings, in the black church especially from the mainline denominations, there’s the pulpit reserved for the persons on ministerial staff (and you can’t walk across the pulpit if you’re not ordained), the front row reserved for the deacons, various people have the first and second rows reserved by de facto law, hell, even the back row is reserved for the ushers. I’ve been to church and seen big ole fat women who can barely walk ask people to move from their end pew seat so they can sit on the end and then have the unmitigated gall to get mad when the people on the inside of the pew ask to get out of the pew to go to the bathroom or something.
And then the passage of Jesus’ disciples James and John asking to sit one at the left hand of Jesus and the other at the right hand when they’re all in glory comes to mind.
Seriously people are we really that blind, deaf and dumb to what we preach on Sunday morning?
Countless times have I heard that scripture from Mark chapter 10 quoted, but never practiced. So, it was more than a bitter pill to swallow knowing that I had waited in line after taking the Metro for four and half hours with a ticket–with something that should have guaranteed me access–and my access was still denied, but other’s who hadn’t waited as long as me were able to get access.
Real talk y’all, I was [am] still pissed that Jay-Z and Halle Berry and Beyonce got front row seats.
Alicia Keys at the inauguration. I guess the only thing in common with her and Obama are their mixed race status because aside from sporting a t-shirt at a concert here or there--what did she do!??!?!
Denzel Washington getting his seat earlier than the rest. Again...what was his contribution that was so great that he deserved a seat
No name needed, lol
....and it gets worse.
Maybe I could see Richard Roundtree only because he was still an early black actor in Hollywood. Same as if Sidney Poitier was there--but still what did he contribute to the campaign that was so damn special that he needed special seating?
Bee-yohn-niss and her husband (blegh!) Jay-Z. Oh hell naw! See y'all at the inaugural neighborhood balls!
C-Martin Luther King, III. I mean this guy spoke at the Democratic National Convention on the nomination acceptance night, now HE deserved a seat.
Oprah and Stedman. Oprah used her star power to gather votes for Obama, and she campaigned along side of him at rally and introduced him and used her strengths to Obama's favor. She deserves a seat. Stedman can have a blue ticket.
Sean "Piddy" Combs. Another resounding "Oh hell naw!"
Say what you want, say what you will, but I’m hatin’ on this one. Honestly, from the list of celebrities’ pictures I put up there, none but Oprah really did any mobilzing of troops. We see how Puffy’s campaigning and organizing skills flopped back in 2004. Who the hell sells a friggin T-shirt for $39.99 on a HBCU campus?!?!?! And then Jay-Z–oh my Gawd, where do I start?!?! Seriously, what did he really do for the Obama campaign except make fodder for the FoxNews outlet?
Frankly, none of those celebs except Oprah Winfrey or Martin Luther King III, can anyone point to ONE blessed event that they did that placed them more worthy of a reserved seat than the million or so other people at the inauguration. You see, that’s why they had the concert that prior Sunday and the various balls that night so that the stars can do what they do best, which is entertain.
As I sip more of this Haterade on my nightstand as I type this blog, I fail to understand why we as a society are so tacit when it comes to grand disparities such as this. I mean, I would have had much more respect for these various celebrities if they had hosted various inaugural parties in their various hometowns, donated proceeds to various charitable organizations and hopped on a plane to make it in town for their ball appearances that night.
Or hell, at least have a celebrity viewing booth or something.
I’m just against them being front row center when there were others who didn’t have the same privileges as they did.
Well, this is two down, and two more to go in the “an Uppity Negro Inauguration” series.
Do you feel that the whole ticket debacle was a foreseeable SNAFU, even with alleged generators going kaput? Do we even need to worry about “the next time this happens” to plan accordingly? Should there be reserve seating–this event notwithstanding? Should those celebrities gotten a seat over, say the person I met from Portland, Oregon who came, or the field worker who had spent over 1 year campaigning for Obama?
Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL
Still I Rise: A Graphic History of African Americans, an Uppity Negro Book Review
7 Feb
Okay, this is a first in UNN history.
I’ve done movie reviews, and clearly I review culture, or rather participate in cultural criticism, but I’ve never done a book review, so bear with me.
I’ve never read a graphic novel along the lines of a 30 Days of Night or Sin City. In fact a third party would have to inform that particular genre, that as far as I’m concerned, “He’s just not that in to you.” So when I was asked to read this book, I wasn’t quite sure how I would receive it. For some reason, the whole picture/comic thing was a distraction to me. I was never a comic book kid, not even remotely. When I discovered that art was not necessarily a strong point of mine, I was really done with graphics by about 14.
But, these were black artists, and black comics have always intrigued me–think Aaron McGruder. I grew up avidly reading the syndicated comic strips from Robb Armstrong’s “Jumpstart” and Ray Billingsley’s “Curtis,” but yet again, it was evident that black comics were few and far between. Aaron McGruder’s “Boondocks” was carried by the Chicago Tribune and my mother was an avid Sun-Times reader because the Trib was too big for her to read on the kitchen table. That aside, blacks comics always mildly intrigued me.
So, when I opened the book Still I Rise: A Graphic History of African Americans by Roland and Taneishai Nash Laird and illustrated by Elihu “Adolfo” Bey, I wasn’t quite sure just how easily I was going to be able to jump into it. It opened with an older lady and older gentlemen setting the stage as narrators for this journey in the Americas. These two people portrayed either a brother-sister relationship (perhaps what a functional Madea to her brother Charles on the oxygen tank would be) or, an older married couple in lieu of the fact that this book was authored by a married couple.
What made this book different aside from it being a graphic novel was the dramatization of the historical facts in addition to the running color commentary from this unnamed couple throughout the entire book. This book had a clear slant in favor of African Americans as victorious victims in the face of adversities imposed upon them by conniving and calculated Europeans who took up residence here in North America. For example when the historical period of the U.S. Constitution and the 3/5ths compromise arose, the older lady had her own box and opined “Three-fifths of a man, but five-thirds of the work.” Or their was the running commentary of her saying “A few white folks benefitted from the actions of those Buffalo Soldiers [in reference to the Spanish-American War of 1898], but blacks didn’t get diddly squat.”
Also, the authors clearly had an agenda as far as pushing certain particulars about Black History and it was one that I was appreciative of: economic independence. Even growing up, when black history was mentioned, the idea of economic independence was never at all entertained. It wasn’t until my senior year of college did I hear the stories about blacks who were engaged in marketable trades such as blacksmiths, shipbuilders, cooks and seamstresses as opposed to placing all slaves on numerous great big plantations. And this was before the American Revolution.
Along the same vein, the authors made sure to tell the stories of various unnamed individuals in their own quest for freedom and equality such as Alvin Coffey who accompanied his master to California during the Gold Rush of 1849 and eventually purchased his own freedom; a black female from California named Biddy Mason who was granted her freedom by the state courts in 1855 just to name two. Throughout the entire book was the unwritten undercurrent that ultimate black stability lies within our own economic independence.
What I also appreciated was the fact that I didn’t get the impression that the authors sugar-coated much of the historical facts. But this does nothing more than buttress this book as a scholarly publication not some random machination as a result of “black man who read a book” syndrome. This is evidenced by a bibliography with heavy-hitters such as Lerone Bennett’s Before the Mayflower, Vincent Harding’s There is a River, John Hope Franklin’s seminal publication From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans and other books that speak to the specific areas of expertise that were needed to give this book it’s intellectual teeth.
This is the second publishing of the book as evidenced by the page 204, 205 demarcation. Originally published in 1997, this country had not experience Hurricane Katrina, the Bush policies of the last eight years nor had we seen the meteoric rise of our current President Barack Obama. It was in this last portion of the book that I felt that running commentary of the older couple finally made sense. Through the ante-bellum years this book highlighted the various conflicts that arose with the Anti-Slavery Society and it’s members versus Frederick Douglass, of course the controversy of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois or even the differences between Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin Luther King, Jr., so it was a bit refreshing to see this older couple bicker over the inner city violence that still occurred following the Million Man March such as Biggie and Tupac’s murders in stark contrast to Mark Dean, a computer engineer inducted to the Inventor’s Hall of Fame. For the first time I thought they were going to get off script and duke it out.
By this time, the book had read like a TvOne Black History Month special hosted by Black America’s favorite couple Angela Bassett and Courtney Vance or perhaps some Iconoclast inspired pairing like Will Smith and Maya Angelou. Whatever the case, it worked for what seemed to be the aim of the book. I put my full recommendation behind this book, and I am proud to place it on my shelf amongst my collection of African American Studies.
To purchase the book from the Amazon, click here.
Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL
Call Me a Xenophobe, but I just want a number eight and a hashbrown
3 Feb
Okay, quick problem.
I really don’t know what to do about immigration in this country.
It’s hard for me to say Latinos, Fillipinos, and others from various Asian and African countries are taking jobs once held by blacks, or in other words, “taking all the good jobs from good hard working Americans” because it proposes yet another paradox of the oppressed becoming the oppressor. Little do we know that it was the economic clarion call of Protestant Anglo-Saxon men during the years of legal slavery in the United States in response to free Africans living in this country.
But, it’s interesting to see the geographic differences in employment of those in the service industry.
Down south, at least in the two cities that I’ve spent significant time living, New Orleans and now Atlanta, by in large the service industry has been dominated by blacks. But, as was the case when I did my internship in Montgomery County, Maryland over the past summer–it was no telling who you were going to get going to Popeyes ordering the chicken strip dinner.
Seriously, the language barrier became more than passing nuisance.
Me and the other intern used to mildly joke about it. At first I seriously felt uncomfortable about it, especially when a few times the people behind the counter were my color, but when I went to the Popeyes on 355 over last summer and it took me about 10 minutes to get two orders down solely because of the language barrier I realised that this was not a passing problem. Now no one need worry about how I handled the situation, I was quite calm and never once got heated or demanded to speak to a manager and I politely smiled throughout the entire ordeal save me heavily rolling my eyes with the other intern every time she looked down or turned around.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
This was the case when I rolled into the drive through at Taco Bell, or McDonald’s and honestly it was quite annoying. So, that was last summer. So just last week when I found myself back in the DC Metro area for the inauguration festivities, I popped up to the McDonalds off of 355 by the Sports Authority and the mall in Gaithersburg after I filled up my tank. I went inside because the lines didn’t look too long. I ordered the sausage biscuit meal, and homegirl behind the counter never discovered the “s” in sausage nor the “b” in biscuit let alone the endings.
She soooooo couldn’t speak English that I wonder who filled out her job application. I mean if her spoken English was that bad, did she miraculously know how to write it? I’m really not sure, and I don’t mean that as a tongue and cheek. Personally I remember when I took my languages, the easiest part of learning a language was the writing and reading part. Now personally, I think I have a slight knack for languages, so speaking wasn’t a hang up for me. Listening on the other hand–oh hell naw, I never knew what those records and tapes were saying. I could understand my professors and teachers in person much easier.
Whatever the case was, homegirl at the McDonalds that morning wore me out.
Again, I didn’t get angry. But I do remember that she slurred “sausage biscuit” so severely that I remember my immediate response was to channel my inner Samuel L. Jackson via Lakewood Terrace and say “What the hell did you just say? Because I didn’t understand it.”
Now I think going to McDonalds and having problems with ordering your number eight is one problem that perhaps Americans could deal with, but I think the major outsourcing of these telemarketing jobs to places like India are what’s starting to work the collective nerves of the public. None of us really talk about it in public because it comes off as culturally insensitive. Only blowhards like a Limbaugh can say it and get away with it, or the off-color joke from one of the women on The View or bloggers. But, it seems to me that our congressional representatives both in the state and federal level must be in bed with the lobbyists to allow crap like this to happen. In all honest fairness, with the unemployment rate creeping up slowly, I’m sure many people here in THIS country wouldn’t mind getting a telemarketing job for about $10 an hour–but no, someone over in India gets the job, and we’re still on step one with them asking “is the product securely connected to a reliable power source.”
That’s the problem as I see it–really a language barrier with both the people in the service industry and the international telemarketersI don’t have an answer to this, but it’s something I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while. I aint hatin’ on where immigrants live, what stores and businesses they open up in their communities, but when their shortcomings begin to affect me, I begin to wonder WTF?!?!
So, it seems to me that either I end up with someone who probably doesn’t understand me when I place an order and I ultimately don’t understand them, or Shanaynay from around the corner–honest answer, I’d rather have Shanaynay.
Have you had any particularly memorable experience with someone who was clearly not born in this country in a service sector, particularly a language problem? How did you deal with it? How do you suggest we deal with it, or is it even something that’s really a problem?
Is It Really That Serious? Obama vs. “President” Obama
2 FebI'm President BITCHES!!!
Over the last week or so, I kind of got off board with Michael Baisden. I usually find myself driving around metro Atlanta sometime between 12:30 and sometime shortly after 3pm. As a result, that means I get to hear the bastion of mediocrity that is Warren Ballentine.
He has his mother come on his show.
**shakes my head**
And he loves us with the love of Jesus Christ–because that’s what he believes.
Lawwwwd…I’m not even going to go there tonight, I’m going to save all of that another post, but you all already know where I stand on those issues.
But, aside from Al Sharpton having on the ridiculousness that E. Bernard Jordan on, Al’s show is usually a blessing to my day. I never really held Michael Baisden to the same standard as I did Sharpton and Ballentine, but I did begin to question this push that he, and others seemed to start about referring to Obama explicitly as “President Obama.”
I was headed up GA 400 the first time I heard this, and I turned my radio up to make sure I heard the discourse between Baisden and George Wilborn. In the short time frame, I heard callers call in to express their utter disgust for white media anchors and hosts referring to Obama as simply that, and not putting the handle on “President.”
As if, you all don’t know where I stand on this issue, let’s back this train into the station and do a little historical criticism.
It has been standard in the black community to place titles, or “handles” as the old folk say, when referring to adults, or people who have certain traditions. This is particularly true when various members of the black community received their medical degree, it was necessary to refer to them as “Doctor” and most certainly to the men of the cloth as “Reverend.” Adding a “Mr.” or “Miss” or “Mrs.” to the beginning of a name was just a given and didn’t require being taught. Even for the less formal names of people, it was taught in the black community, even by my parents to add an “Aunt” so-and-so to a name for close female friends of my mother, or for older relatives a “cousin” was added for me. Still to this day, I hold to these titles I associated from my childhood.
This is not necessarily true for white folk.
My mother encountered a connundrum, which I hopefully won’t have with my kids–she really didn’t want me attaching the same titles to older white adults, given that they weren’t just older people who had flat out earned it. As a result, everyone I encountered got the title of “Mr.” or “Mrs.” I think it stemmed from my mother not wanting to be referred to by her first name by little white kids. Perhaps it reminded her too much of the old “mammy” days where the white kids weren’t forced to acknowledge the eldership of the maids and other house servants.
Big Man over at Raving Black Lunatic brought this situation to light centering on the letter left by the Bush twins to the two youngest inhabitants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. Sasha and Malia Obama. The twins mentioned the ushers’ names of “Buddy, Ramsey and ‘Smiley’”
Okay, yes, my mind immediately went to “Coons-R-Us” with headquarters not far from Crawford, Texas where you can “Pick a nigger, any nigger you like and if we don’t have it we’ll ship it to you.”
I mean, with the name “Smiley” you wonder if he was specially ordered for the occassion.
Granted blacks have been working in the White House for some time now, and have always been there, I think it’s an interesting juxtaposition between how some blacks have taken offense to “Ramsey” while having trashed Bush in every possible over the last four years. Now, magically we believe in titles again.
Honestly, blacks perpetuate and participate in double standards when it works to our collective advantage. I’ve commented on other blogs and somehow that argument doesn’t seem to get any traction. But the moment the specter of white privilege rears it’s ugly head blacks are willing to jump on the bandwagon. I’m not at all asking for anyone to back down from calling out white privilege when and where it exists, but I do ask one to be fair about the situation. In all fairness, blacks have been referring to the 43rd president, one time selected, next time elected president of the United States by his last name for the last four years without batting an eye. Not to mention finding every possible joke to make about the name.
Here comes Barack–all of a sudden blacks are ready to start email and letter campaigns to FoxNews and CNN to enforce that they call him “President Obama.”
All I have for that argument is a big fat “FALL BACK!”
Seriously, in the midst of all the problems that are facing not just black Americans, but Americans in general, are we seriously giving this mediocre argument attention?!!?! I’d much rather hear black Americans spend time asking the critical issues to Obama such as what is he really going to do with the prisoners from Guantanamo Bay? Or ask just when are we going to begin to see the effects of his green energy plan? Or why in the hell Obama fashioned himself like Abraham Lincoln invoking the memory of “a house divided [over slavery]” as opposed to Franklin D. Roosevelt who in his inaugural address said
Primarily this [Great Depression] is because rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence….The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
Okay, I got back on my own campaign against anti-intellectualism soapbox again, but whatever. Are we really having this discussion about names and what to call “the help” or what to call the current president? Honestly people, Obama’s, if I can use colorful language, sh!ttin’ on folks because whether you call him “Obama” or “Mr. Obama” or “President Obama” he’s still the official President of these sometimes United States of America.
I guess you’re wondering that if it wasn’t such a big issue, then why did I write a blog about it? Well, to answer that, I did so because I felt a need to bring it to the attention of my readers that that particular question is moot. Also, the age old soapbox of mine that we have a responsibility to be intelligent and raise questions.
Did you ever put “President” in front of Bush’s name? Have you ever called Obama simply, Barack or Obama? Do you feel I went overboard on this one or do you agree with me on this one? Am I the only one who thinks Al Sharpton is a bit out there with E. Bernard Jordan coming onto the show?
Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL
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