Archive | December, 2009

Kwanzaa Reflection IV: Ujima-Collective Work and Responsibility

30 Dec

With God’s help I will build and maintain our own community and make my brother’s and sister’s problems our problems and solve them together.

With the third night of Kwanzaa, Ujima which means collective work and responsibility, represented by the first green candle (green for the land), again, I have moved into the realm of self-explanation when it comes to addressing some of the issues that are addressed in the last two recitations for Kwanzaa.  We need to be aware that by in large, many of us are not aware of what it means to be a part of a community.  I think Karenga was insightful enough to be aware of what we needed to keep our community in tact.  Perhaps Karenga was able to foresee that in some respects that after the Black Power movement was over that we maybe would have to address our communal issues differently.

That is to say, as the black community transitioned out of the the modern Civil Rights era, I believe we were forced into an identity crisis mode.  No longer were we a people defined by an external struggle for civil and human rights, but now we were recognized by the dominant culture differently than before.  What resulted was that many of our venerated institutions such as banks, education and most certainly the Black Church that were birthed because of segregation were now abandoned because blacks now were forcing open the flood gates of integration.  As a result, what was the “black community” began to change.

When in the early 70′s when there was the viable emergence of what was recognized as the black middle class, we began to see the economic disparities occur within the black race.  Not to mention, the actual physical community began to change as we saw blacks begin to move out of the inner city and begin to move to the suburbs.  What we have now is suburban places such as DeKalb County with metropolitan Atlanta, Prince Georges County outside of Washington, D.C. and places like Baldwin Hills in Los Angeles where blacks make up near super-majorities of certain areas–and most are well-to-do and are often times solidly-middle class to the actual wealthy.  And the lower-class blacks were initially left to suffer in the depressing urban centers going into the 1980s.

By the start of the 1990s when we see major urban centers such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York embroiled with urban decay as we recognize it at its zenith (it wasn’t until 1991 that Chicago actually began a new ledger line of “drive-by shooting”), and it was quite clear that blacks were stuck in a cycle of poverty and violence that no one seemed to know what to do about.  Clearly there were two communities that existed of the same race–neither side wanted to make their brother’s and sister’s problem their problems and solve them together.

Instead, those that weren’t stuck in the cycle of violence and poverty remained passive on many issues and as a result, 20 years later, these blacks that had once moved to the suburbs are now moving back into the city–along with other whites.  Why because if you go into almost every major city in America now, vast tracts of land have been razed and now “mixed income” has been built.  Seriously, if one were to drive down by 39th and Cottage Grove here in Chicago, it would be unrecognizable.  Even in Vine City, I can drive down old Simpson Road and see the place where public housing once stood, but still remains vacant with just grass growing, still in the shadow of the Georgia Dome.  Even in smaller American cities like Nashville, where public housing once stood overshadowing Charlotte Pk., now stands highly colorful mixed income housing.

So where did all of these people go?  Because please believe people were living in these public housing projects.

Here in Chicago, all of them end up in the south suburbs like Dolton and Harvey and God-forbid places like Ford Heights and Robbens and places that don’t have the infrastructure to deal with an influx of people and let alone be able to address some of the societal issues that seem to follow some of these people.  Or in Atlanta, they all end up in Clayton County and of course, it’s a county that can’t even keep their public schools accredited.

What am I saying?  We as a people can’t afford to not be aware of community.  I invoke the idea of DuBois and the idea of the “talented tenth.”  There are those of us who can do better, and we have a moral responsibility to DO better.  We can’t afford to fall asleep at wheel.  When people’s lives are at stake, and those of us who have the resources to do better are not.  We fail to not just make our brother’s and sister’s our problems, but we fail to recognize that there is a problem that needs to be addressed in the first place!

We fail to recognize the problem of economic disparity.  When we turn a blind eye to the vast economic disparity of the people that live on Main Street (which is where the black middle class is trying to claim their address) versus those that live on the Martin Luther King Streets of various cities and towns, we’re failing to recognize the problem.  When we still act as though health care is a privilege and not a right, we’re failing to recognize the problem.  When the black middle class believes that others need to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” and remain oblivious to other societal barriers, we’re failing to recognize the problem.  So of course if we fail to recognize a problem, how can we help out our brothers and sisters.

And if that’s not bad enough, we don’t even recognize the persons we see standing on bus corners in the inclement we weather as our brothers and sisters as we drive by with our luxury cars with heated seats and heated side mirrors.  Yes, I’ll admit it’s hard to identify with a young brother who grew up in Roseland and had to attend Fenger High School and I grew up in the Hyde Park/Kenwood neighborhood and went to school on the North Side of the city, but whenever we fail to empathize with each other, we’ve already lost the battle.

We’ve GOT to self-identify with each other.  We MUST see ourselves in the persons we pass on the street daily, in order to change the world, let alone change our community, we have to be the change we seek (thanks Gandhi).  Once we can see ourselves in them, how can we not help our self?  If you can’t help yourself, then indeed, you are one lost individual.

How often do you see yourself in the people that you may walk or drive by on the street?  How easily do you identify with others enough to help them?  Do your personal problems outweigh those of the community concerns? Or vice-versa.  What are your general thoughts about Ujima?

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Black Men Are Good Enough

28 Dec

 

For quite sometime my mother has had the title of this post on the message blackboard in the kitchen.  And that saying resonated with me as I saw this Nightline special that aired last week.  Here check it out.

In case ABC comes and pulls the above clip, in short, Nightline decided to talk about the plight of educated and financially sucessful black women and how there is a trending theme in our community about their inability to not just find a good man, but indeed get married.  So they highlight four BEE-you-tee-full black women aging from late twenties to mid thirties.  They go through these statistics (Note to Jay-Z: numbers do lie) that say 42% of black women have never been married.  And then they proceed to half the black male population eligible to pop the question.  As if this couldn’t get any more awkward and depressing: in comes Steve Harvey.

Bald-headed Steve goes on as though he’s the relationship expert per his book Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man where he comes in goes on about settling versus compromising.  Then we meet the other four women of various ages and various professions who all take this time to express their anguish over not being married. Then Harvey enters again and essentially tells these black women to go for the older man.

So, where do I start with this one.

It’s all kinds of wrong with that clip. 

Problem #1 — This clip made the assumption that 100% of black women are of the marrying status.  Just because based on those statistics, that they pulled out the crack of they ass, only 54% of black men are eligible to pop the question does not mean that of that 54% that we’re at all interested in this “100%” of black women.  Let’s be honest, not all black women are what we’re attracted to.  I mean honestly, was Mary Jones from “Precious” included in that mythical 100% of black women?  I think not.  She can “go to the welfare” for all I care because frankly I don’t want her and I don’t know any of my black male friends who would want her either.

Problem #2 — Some black women really don’t care.  This kind of is borrowed from the first problem, not all of the 42% of never been married black women are interested in getting married in the first place.  I’m quite sure that there are enough black women who are content with being baby mamas or even if not that, they’re okay with NOT being married. 

I will take a pause to address that in 2009 (2010) we still are struggling with how do we treat our daughters in black families.  We still have a generation and half who still believes that their daughters NEED to get married.  So we still have some elders pestering our daughters at every family gathering questioning their marital status.  What gets worse is that some of families from not just the older women, but from the older men, we make our daughters feel inadequate if they’re not married by 25 or 26.  My opinion is that rather than internalize those emotions, far too many black women don’t address the actual source of those emotions by not demonizing their family, but project them onto the black men who aren’t directly apart of that equation.  So for many black women, their families can’t be wrong, and they’re certainly not wrong–so it must be the black male.  What stems from that is this unfair demonization of black males for no apparent reason.  And we get lopsided stories like this presented on Nightline.

Problem #3 — Let’s be honest, getting married for women is all about status.  And to specifically address the four women in this newsclip, these women are going to stay single for a lot longer and let me tell you why.

Let’s start with Miss Jakene.

It took her until 34 to want to lower her height requirement from 6’5″ down to 6’2″?!?!?  Now I’m not sure how tall she is, and if she is over 5’10″ I could understand that, but damn, that’s her hangups and not something to blame on black men.  And since we’re quoting statistics, only 15% of the male population is 6’4″ and taller and only 30% of the population is 6’2″ and taller, so her chances of finding someone that tall is still not statistically in her favor.  Penultimately, I question her dingbat status if it took her until 34 to realize she needed to change that.  And ultimately, that was key as to what she was really interested in when it came to a husband.

Particularly those four women sitting there, they want heads to turn when they walk through a door with their husband.  Status. If anyone thinks they would allow themselves to fall for Darius around the corner, then they’re lying to themselves.  Those women want someone who’s over 6′ at least, and who–let’s just say it–LOOKS GOOD.  Status. They want the model type.  Status. And who doesn’t? It’s understandable.  We live in a society that fully lets us know what’s considered aesthetically pleasing.  But, on camera and for the sake of being politically correct, your average educated, professional, “pretty girl” is going to talk about how they want a man who’s educated, has a car, either has a house or has solid plans to get a house within the next 3-5 years, who’s in a professional field of some sort.  And when the rubber meets the road, they seriously want him to look like Shemar Moore or Pooch Hall.  Status.

Is this the X-factor?  The spark?  The chemistry?

I’ll charge back with a resounding No.  It’s not.  Far too many black women need to be serious with themselves and maybe fall back for a moment and check their own inventory when it comes to getting married. 

  • First of all, black women need to stop comparing themselves to their white counterparts.  Since when did black women start comparing themselves to their “white friends who got married at 25″ as a barometer for their own progression?  Oh yeah, I forgot white women as the standard has been around since black women got tired of their nappy hair and decided to start straightening it “because it’s just easier to manage.”
  • Secondly, black women need to always view themselves as God’s gift to the world–let alone to black men.  Too often, some black women approach relationships as though they’re the best thing that happened to their man and they approach it like it’s a project.  Fall back.  Why would any self-respecting black man want to get with a black woman who’s that arrogant? 
  • Thirdly, to echo some of what I’ve said earlier, not all black women are the marrying type.  I mean, black professional men, who are educated, cars and hopes of buying houses in the next 3-5 years have standards as well.  When it comes to marrying, we don’t want some around the way chick just like black women don’t want Darius. (I would make a joke about ghetto black names, but since two of the women in the clip are named “Chato” [what the hell? Bootleg-ass french house] and “Jakene” that joke would flop.) 

To back off the assaults I’ve levied against black women, I am fully aware of that spark and that x-factor that deems one attracted to another individual, perhaps I’m just saying that some black women perhaps need to be aware of what’s influencing that spark to occur.  And more pointedly, I’m speaking of the young black female professionals as portrayed in this clip.  Let’s be honest, not all young, black, female professionals are 5’9″, wearing a size 6 or even an 8 and have a light brown skinned complexion–and for the women who don’t fit into that paradigm, there is a whole ‘nother set of issues that they have to face.  Then the onus is flipped onto the black males who want the model types–who want the Halle Berry and the Beyonce’ (pre-Jay-Z days) look-alikes.

But since we’re discussing black females here…

I’m just simply saying that good black men are out there, but I’m of the opinion that as long as you fool yourself that they’re not, then you’re never going to find them.  What happens is that out of ten women who are black professionals and doing the damn thing, there is the 6’4″ brown skinned brother who drives the BMW 7 series has the loft in South Loop off of 16th and Prairie, and at least half of those women are vying for the attention of this brother. But young black brother, who’s educated, might not be rolling quite like the doctor and may drive like a 2004 Altima and is renting an apartment in South Shore, has to fight for attention–and then black women are running around saying “there are no good black men–they either all are taken, in jail or gay.”

Ultimately, all I have to say to black women is that black men are good enough–are you?

I know some black women are fuming right now and can’t wait to get to the comment section, but I just want to know why is it so easy for SOME black women to place so much blame on the plight of black men without ever holding a mirror up to themselves?  Why was it so easy for these black women to be so cavalier about this issue?  And why did they ask Steve Harvey of all people?  How do you feel about the state of the black family?

Kwanzaa Reflections III: Kujichagulia-Self Determination

28 Dec

With God’s help I will participate in the defining of ourselves, naming of ourselves and speaking for ourselves instead of being defined and spoken for by others.

Personally, I hold Kujichagulia, self-determination and the first red candle (red representing the blood shed of our ancestors) to the right,  in high personal regards.  For me this is one of those self-explanatory things; it amounts to common sense for the most part.  Because of that, I don’t have some long diatribe with which to pull out various theorems and pontificate exponentially for the sake of building and argument like I did with regards to Umoja.  Simply stated: I think the recitation above in the italics says exactly how I feel.

It’s time out for allowing the media to dictate and influence our consciousness. We allow what gets said on CNN, MSNBC and God forbid what FoxNews reports to infiltrate our minds and provide the rhetoric with which we talk amongst ourselves in our barbershops and beautyshops and around our dinner tables.  As a result, the media dictates the language with which we use to define and name ourselves.   This moves from not just news media, but also from generally what gets promoted on the television through commercials and various opiate programming.  And for those who are still lost, I’m specifically talking about programming on BET, MTV and VH1 just for starters. When our young ones take their intellectual cues from what gets said on 106 & Park from Terrance and whoever the latest female host casualty is and not to mention the top ten music videos, we have a problem.  I’m really not against taking certain fashion or other cultural cues from 106 & Park for instance, but one must be aware the level of influence of outside factors from the music and from what gets commercialized on the television.

As if allowing others to define and name us as a people and as a community, we allow others to speak for us.  This is multifaceted because just because someone is black doesn’t mean that they speak for us either.  Using some of the ideas in my previous post about Umoja, seeing as how we are divided in many regards, we need to be aware that one person does not speak for the entire black community.  Generally, I would say that it seems that a fair number of black people are aware of that, however, this message does not seem to have made it to the non-black citizens of this country.  Well, let me serve notice for those who are ignorant: one black person does NOT speak for the entire black race.  Too often whites view blacks much like Chris’ homeroom teacher in “Everybody Hates Chris” and use every stereotype in how they interact with us.

Black media pundits are always put in the awkward position of having to speak on the “black issues.”  We are forced to do this doublespeak: we can’t speak as though we’re the sole arbiter of black news, but by the same token we have to bring up issues that are specifically germane to many black communities across this nation and that many non-whites are totally ignorant of their existence.  As a result, “speaking for ourselves” becomes a tightrope act.

That being said, let us be conscious and aware of what we are defining and naming when we speak.  Sadly, we still live in a country that when we speak, we speak for an entire community.  Yet and still, when we speak in intra-racial venues, we need to let our rhetoric empower each other and provide the consciousness that positively defines and names who we be.

What are you’re thoughts about the black community being able to have self-determination?  Do we adequately define, name and speak for ourselves–is there a need to?  What are your personal reflections about Kujichagulia?

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Kwanzaa Reflections II: Umoja-Unity

27 Dec

Umoja (unity) — With God’s help, I will strive for and maintain unity in the family community, nation and race.

Umoja is the first principle of Kwanzaa,and represented by the black candle (black for the people) and attempts to address the impossible.  Generally, when we think of unity, or that which is united, we, as modern-day Black America, hearken back to the days of the modern Civil Rights era when the assumption was that the black community was all on one page.  While I’m not a historian (although sometimes when I think back to my Fisk education and getting to listen to John Hope Franklin in person I think I would have made a decent historian), I believe history would paint a picture that freedom and liberation for blacks was interpreted in many different facets.

With America’s first black intellectual and fellow alumnus W.E.B. DuBois, one could clearly see that freedom and liberation was the job of the “talented tenth” reaching back and helping their fellow black American.  Then Marcus Garvey came around and suggested a “back to Africa” movement; then by the sixties one had a non-violent movement personified by Martin Luther King, an “any means necessary” thought process with Malcolm X and perhaps a borderline anarchist “we-are-armed-so-deal-with-it” approach by certain facets of the Black Power movement.  And then you had large segments of the black community that were highly apathetic about the whole situation, and others that felt that when liberation happens is the right time, but in the meantime, black folks just needed to wait and be patient.

What I will say is that while the argument could definitely be said that the national black community has never been on the same page, uniform oppression of simply not being able to vote and the universal denial of certain civil and human rights was uniform.  For example, the black doctor and lawyer couldn’t vote just like the black sharecropper in 1948 Montgomery, Alabama.  But see now, while the black lawyer and doctor and factory worker can vote and operate with full civil rights in 2009 Montgomery, both may face different types of racism–but, nonetheless racism.

Whereas previously blacks in America could visibly see the blatant face of racism in the beating down of protesters on the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama or see protesters have fire hoses and police dogs sicced on them, we are not a generation that has encountered racism, let alone Jim Crow.  Al Sharpton quipped at Rosa Parks’ funeral in 2004 that we are no longer face Jim Crow, but rather his grandson James Crow, Esq.  We now face the invisible phantom of institutional racism.

This institutional racism that survives in tandem with this mythical notion of a post-racial society.  It results in many blacks second-guessing whether or not they have just been victimized by either racism, bigotry or simply prejudicial thinking.  Ultimately, it attacks our individual psyche which I will go so far to say, it results in us being even more dis-unified than ever before. While the doctor and lawyer are alleging that racism can be recognized as a, b and c, the factory worker or city works employee categorizes racism as j, k and l, yet and still our sisters and brothers who live in impoverished neighborhoods recognize racism as x, y and z.

What I am suggesting that by in large, we as a people need to fully recognise our non-monolithic existences.  We as blacks have never been on the same page, and the myth is that we once were.  We were, however, aware that something needed to be done about our then current situation.  And the same is true now.  How many black pundits do we hear on various news outlets discussing the situation in Black America from Marc Lamont Hill to Melissa Harris Lacewell to our tried and true in the form of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. 

What I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older and attempted to discover my own worldview, is that I’m convinced we are diagnosing the proper problem.  I’ve heard countless black people from radio talk show callers to their hosts and to the black pundits and to black preachers and pastors speak about various ills with such certitude, that it seems as though they and they alone hold the problem and the answer to the collective woes of the black community. 

To which I laugh heartily at the notion of such.

Granted, I have my opinion to address some of the issues within the black community, I don’t speak as though I have the panacea.  I personally believe that we as a black community need to do a better job of influencing the consciousness of our younger generations.  I don’t know what that looks like, but I am of the mindset of “what you think, so shall you be.”  I say this because as long as we’re addressing the symptoms, we’re doing nothing more than hyping ourselves up on metaphorical cold medication which in the process leaves us with clouded judgement and drowsy, but cognitive dissonance allows us to think that everything is okay because we took medication, but we addressed the symptoms and not the virus which was really the source of our maladies.

Personally, I’m calling for a unification of us to fully address the problems and perhaps even the various pathologies within our black community and communities.  At one point I was of the opinion that we had talked enough and that it was time for action, but as I got older I realised that while we have done a lot of talking (and I do believe talking is doing in many instances) it was indeed empty rhetoric–we give soundbytes and speeches that are so surface that it never compels us as a community nor even as individuals to change our thought processes or even to change our actions.  What results is the same thoughts and same actions that produce the same results. 

What I will strongly assert is that too large a portion of the black populace are living in a time warp that hasn’t moved past 1969–much less 1972 on a good day.  Too large a segment of our community operate under the modernist philosophy of absolutes and that the world is black and white with no shades of gray–in a nutshell at least.  Too many of us rely on a worldview informed by “barbershop and beautyshop philosophies” that at times go no farther than the street they are located.  These worldview inform the consciousness of many of us and perpetuated by many professors, preachers and other community leaders.  What they fail to do is tap into the consciousness of many of us who are pure products of post-modernity and as M.K. Asante, Jr. said, “the post-hip hop generation.”

If we can be united in trying to have a different outcome than what we’ve been getting, then perhaps we may go somewhere.  I am convinced that not enough of us are thinking radically.  We’re thinking the same thoughts and dressing them up and telling ourselves it’s something new.  If we were indeed “doing a new thing” would we not have different results? Either what we’re thinking isn’t working or what we’re placing our trust and faith in is faulty.

I don’t have some clarion call for unity, I really think perhaps that’s part of the problem.  Of course Karenga when he created the mantra understood “unity in the family, community, nation and race” as something that didn’t have a Sarah Palin, Paris Hilton, Kanye West or even a Barack Obama in the national collective consciousness, so I’d go so far as to say, such a mantra may need to be recognized as a bit antiquated.  Nevertheless, I think that we need to be working toward adequately addressing the issues in our community a bit more pointedly rather than throwing some flowery rhetoric and useless religion at the problem.

What are your thoughts about intra-racial unity in our various communities and even for the macrocosmic community? Do you think unity can be achieved, or should be achieved?

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Kwanzaa Reflections I: Getting Ready For Kwanzaa

26 Dec

Editor’s note: I had long since promised to do a blog per day for Kwanzaa to highlight each of the seven principals of the African American cultural holiday, perhaps this year I’ll at least get some of them done.  And actually, if I were to post a new blog for seven days straight, that would be a new personal milestone for me because I’ve never published that consistently.  Especially with my laptop out of commission and using my mothers, well, you know how that could go.  That being said, let’s get to work.

Kwanzaa basics are that it was started in 1966 in the height of the Black Power movement by Maulana Karenga who created it out of a sense of deep cultural pride for his people.  He grabbed the name from the East African (Kenya) language of Swahili which means first fruits.  There are the nguzo saba, the seven principals, celebrated one per day from December 26 through January 1st.  The seven principals are Umoja which is unity; Kujichagulia which is self-determination; Ujima which is collective work and responsibility; Ujamaa which is cooperative economics; Nia which is purpose; Kuumba which is creativity and Imani which is faith.  Traditionally, using a proverb native to the continent of Africa that “children are the reward of life” children are to receive a small educational zawadi, which is present, each night and there is to be an ear of corn on the mkeke which is the mat to represent each child.  The kernel on the ear of the corn represents the innumerable generations expected to come from each child.

Now Kwanzaa has become the butt of every black comedians’ holiday routine.

Frankly, as I see it, I just don’t get it.  It’s one thing to not celebrate Kwanzaa for various traditional reasons, but I just don’t get why we as black people have to poke fun at it.  As Africans living in America, there isn’t much that we have that is our own lock, stock and barrel. Yes, the Black Church as an institution is that is “unbought and unbossed” but generally each historically black denomination has borrowed some form of Euro-centric ecclesiatical model with which to structure said denomination.  Yes, we have added much negritude to many adopted American cultural motifs that and have made them uniquely ours, but still, I think many blacks would be hard-pressed to come up with anything that is culturally unique to African Americans.  I would charge that what we may call and claim as our own is probably some bastardized version of what was already being done in America–it was our way of assimilating and claiming our own stake as Americans.

As far as the holidays, most of us claim the tree, the presents and the high commericialization as “our own” just because we’ve been doing it in our families as long as we can remember, but in actuality, we’re doing it because larger America is doing it and we don’t want to be left out. 

Which leads to me ponder why is it when someone has the novel idea to create something for us, that we balk so grandly.  Is it because Karenga has a checkered past that resulted in his felony conviction?  Was it because he has rejected Christianity and adopted his form of secular humanism?–and you know you can’t mess with black folks and they Jesus.  Or is it the fact that we’re so American that we don’t even realise it?

I’ll contend it’s the latter.

Especially for those of us in this post-modern generation, and as products of a post-hip hop era, if something is not marketed on television vis-a-vis MTV, VH1 or BET or our local hip-hop radio stations, we’re not going to buy into it.  Kwanzaa has never seen mass market appeal, but rather it has stayed comfortably in the realm of Pan-African obscurity.  I’ll go even further and insult my Down South bretheren and sisteren, by saying that outside of Atlanta, for the most part Kwanzaa is still mostly in the North and in California.  I’ll mention Kwanzaa to my friends down South and that’s about as far as the conversation goes.  There is a passing awareness of its existence, but it provides nothing more than a topic to make the conversation light and maybe even crack a joke on the various pronunciations of Kujichagulia.

We are more American than give ourselves credit for.

That’s not the end of the world, it’s really not.  We’re just as American as our next door neighbor be they the same color as us or not, but still, I’ll admit I’m quite saddened by the way we have treated Kwanzaa as blacks in this country. Me and Scratch (twitter @VeeIsAnimated) of Scritch and Scratch blog had a back and forth on the issue and they highlighted that 1) they didn’t see the need for an alternative and 2) they didn’t recognize it as a holy day.  To which I think many people view Kwanzaa as such.  My response to those reasons is that Kwanzaa never sought to serve as an alternative to Christmas, which is why it starts the day after Christmas.  And by the same token, it never attempted to be a holy day–it’s a cultural holiday.

Black folk nuff wear green and put on a “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” button for St. Patrick’s Day, but would find it much harder to say “Habari Gani?” (what’s the news) to each other during Christmas.

I think another barrier that Kwanzaa faces is that it forces its celebrants to be Pan-Africanists.  If for no other reason by the fact that one must speak in a different language when it comes to the pronunciations of the principals, and it puts us in a different mindset as we talk about the principals.  Especially for those of us who attend Kwanzaa celebrations at various community places such as our local YMCA’s, community hall’s and local community colleges.  So this becomes the time when we see women dress up in kente cloth and do “traditional African dance” making noises with their mouths.  Male drumming troupes accompany the dancer with men with locs in their hair and long beards and we think they’d look better posted up somewhere on east 79th street here in Chicago. 

And your average black person here in America probably feels that the opening scenes of “Coming To America” are the only cultural relevance that we have to what we’re witnessing.

My hope is that we as blacks here in this country don’t demean or disown that which is culturally ours.  This was a celebration designed to celebrate us and celebrate the various facets of us.  Even for our family that’s been celebrating it my whole remembered life, my mother put a twist on it and Christianized it.  For each of the recitations per day, my mother added “With God’s help…”  And the church with my current affiliation has a big Kwanzaa program on Nia which celebrates it. 

We need to move to a point as blacks where we aren’t as culturally narrow minded and remain ignorant for the sake of the masses.  Our tunnel vision is going to lead to our own demise.  This myopia rears its ugly head when we so quickly denounce a Tiger Woods without thinking critically, or put Jesse Jackson in a box because of a few soundbytes and we don’t know the full picture, or even just the general haterade we shoot toward Oprah.  I mean have any of you visited some of these black political blogs or even worse some of these man-hating blogs written by black women and just the general tenor of comments–what we have is black community that cannot handle dissenting or opposing opinions.  We fall into our own set ways and we have a hard time listening to diverging opinions.  We suffer from severe groupthink fueled by barbershop and beautyshop knowledge; yes a valid worldview, but most certainly not the only one.

I hope this year we, as a people definitely make the decision to be open-minded enough to embrace and understand another facet of our culture because it is a part of our culture–we just didn’t know it.

Do you or anyone you know celebrate Kwanzaa? Why do you or why do you not celebrate Kwanzaa?  For those who say they don’t, why haven’t you been able to identify with Kwanzaa enough to celebrate it and do you encourage others to do so even if you don’t?  Do you think Kwanzaa is a waste?

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Happy Christmas

25 Dec

Hopefully you’re Christmas is going better than mine.

My laptop is in the shop and you know that’s my first love, I’m broke, Chicago is in the middle of an ice storm and soon to be snowstorm and who knows what the family is going to be on tomorrow when and if they show up.  Whether or not my mother and her sister will get into it or whether or no I’ll fall out with my cousins.  Whatever the case, I hope your holiday today will be exactly what you wished, hoped and prayed for.

The spirit of God with us is born each and every moment we reach out from within ourselves and form a bond with someone else.

By the way, just food for thought: since we have a black President, would it have killed ad execs to have shown some non-white Santas this year on the commercials?

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

UNN News Briefs — Sounding Off!

18 Dec

So, I’ve been gone for a good lonnnnnnnng time.

Since my last post I’ve moved a mere 14 credits away from receiving my dual masters degrees on May 8th of the upcoming year and I’ve travelled back home for the Christmas holidays.  But, in the midst of all of that a few other noteworthy news stories have popped up.  Seeing as how I’m trying to increase readership, I’m going to try and make these short and sweet and to the point.  Here goes:

The Tiger Woods Media Debacle is just a travesty of what we consider journalism.  In a world where terrorist attacks are common overseas (just think of Mumbai) we seriously have a healthcare crisis in this country where people like me are literally uninsured and a nation with a jobless rate of 10%, I really was just shocked over the last two weeks how major news organizations felt obligated to do breaking news stories with regards to Tiger Woods.  From each one of these air-headed bimbos coming out of the woodwork to the announcements about various sponsors pulling out from him or scaling him back.

I’m a man so I’m taking a man’s point of view: that is, no crime was committed, ultimately, there is no story.  Just like with David Letterman.  Tiger should have let the chips fall where they may rather than issuing statement after statement.  And honestly, I look down on the women that have come forward.  To me they come off as just some no-names trying to get their 15 minutes of fame.  And especially the northern European golfer who’s name no one knows let alone pronounce who introduced Tiger to Elin needs to get plowed with a driver for even opening his mouth on the issue–who asked YOU!

As a last point, I heard so many disparaging remarks about Tiger in the immediate days following the news break from black talk show callers on the Al Sharpton Show and on Atlanta local talk radio, and I think its sad how too many blacks develop this groupthink concerning Tiger.  I think there is something to be said about how quickly many blacks were to label Tiger as some evil sexual deviant and make sure to add that he never self-identified as 100% black, but rather his patented Caublasian which dumb black folks seem to forget was a simplified version of Tiger acknowledging his mixed heritage of Caucasian, Black and Asian respectively.

And you know black women had a field day with this one.

Word on the street is that T.I. is supposed to be going home early.  Personally I like the guy, I know “A.T.L.” had no point, but I enjoyed that movie as well.  I think he’s a talented rapper and entertainer.  Long time ago, I was impressed enough with his responses on that State of Hip Hop joint with Cousin Jeff a few years back, but ultimately I will say this: #justiceFAIL.  The dude was buying silencers and guns and assault weapons in a Walgreens parking lot on North Ave and Piedmont.  Send his ass to jail and make him fill out his sentence.  No wonder our young black males are thinking being a rapper and having money answers all problems–well I guess because it does.

My favorite hometown of Washington, D.C. decided to pass legislation to legalize gay marriages within the District and seem to have moved more quickly than the current president on the issue of gay rights.  Of course it’s all this outcry, the Catholic Archdiocese out there is threatening to pull out certain contracts with the city.  I wonder what Black America’s favorite crazy and drugged out uncle Marion Berry had to say about this because he had been one of the major dissenting votes earlier.  And the same goes for Houston electing Annise Parker.  Folks are acting like homosexuality is synonymous with an inability to perform certain duties.  And I think the bigger show of ignorance is that Parker had already been elected to city-wide offices for six previous terms.  All the hatas need to go saddown somewhere.

The April Gibbs-Robert Gibbs fallout was unnecessary (check the clip above).  Yes Ryan was being over the top with her wording of the questions a la “belle of the ball” and what not, but I still feel that her question went to the heart of a lack of security which was really the crux of the problem.  Roberts Gibbs gets a fat big saddown for the way he clapped back on Ryan by comparing her to his seven year old son.  Honestly, if he was right then none of the other reporters would have gasped knowing that Gibbs was way out of line for what he said.

I’m with AverageBro on this one.  Gibbs needs to go.

FTR, I still haven't figured out what to do with C. Breezy in these "tights" and these go-go boots.

I personally think the one and only Christopher Maurice Brown aka Chris Breezy has gotten the shaft on how his latest album dropped December 11th has been played out in stores.  Various unintelligent and narrow-minded bloggers who’s entire lives revolve around the vapid nature of all thing superficial have parsed this one over and over again some in favor of how it’s panned out and others saying he’s getting the shaft.  I really don’t know about the karmic natures of his album sales tanking under the projected 170,000 and the relation to his former girlfriend Robyn Rihanna Fenty aka Rihanna.

I’ll say this: if stores aren’t stocking his album then they need to clear out half of their inventory.  How many rappers and other artists have some super shady pasts, but yet and still their albums are fully stocked.  Not to mention other rappers that truly have been convicted of crimes and have served actual jail time.  I mean, hell, just take T.I. for instance, serving jail time and he got a TV show before he went in!  And perhaps this is the man in me coming out (and I’m not apologizing for it), none of us really know what happened in that car that night.  We’ve “heard” both sides of the story but both of them were so nebulous, do we really really know what happened and what events lead to it?

I’m not convinced.

What happens is that there is the three words that we, as non-celebs, never really take into consideration.  These three words exist when we read tabloid headlines, and read salacious gossip blogs and listen as major news outlets interrupt their regularly scheduled programs with breaking news: we…dont…know.  I think, and assume that Breezy’s immaturity was evidenced even more with the fact that he took out his frustration by deleting his @mechanicalDummy Twitter account just because.  Which makes me ask the question, if someone would delete a twitter account in frustration he certainly can’t be capable of dealing with more weightier issues.

But that’s another blog.

And this story of NFL Cincinnati Bengals player Chris Henry somewhat highlights some of the issues that I’ve tried to bring to light concerning domestic partnerships.  I think Henry’s response to jump off of a moving truck, is what Courting Olivia said over at Fresh Xpress Blog that what really happens is drama.  But I’ll say this, what we fail to contain in our conversation is that drama happens on BOTH sides.  It’s not just the man and his dalliances and antics in which the woman has to put up with, but particularly for women married to or attached in some shape form or fashion to celebs/athletes, women sometimes, let me repeat sometimes impose these unrealistic notions on these immature young men.

Don’t get me wrong, I truly feel sorry for his fiancee Loleini Tonga and whatever events that lead to it, I’m sure she’ll regret for many years to come.  But, yes, I’m going to go there and it may come off as insensitive, but I feel it needs to be said that as we tell our sons to not hit our daughters, we need to tell our daughters to not hit our sons. Our black women need to feel empowered, yes, but at the same time, they need not to feel that said empowerment is a license to run roughshod over the men they date and are connected to.  Many of our women act with impunity knowing that the law is on their side and moreover they commit violence and heinous acts (bust the windows out your car) knowing if the guy comes back, then they’d still get away with it (think “Thin Line Between Love and Hate” with Lynn Whitfield).

What I do know is that after I looked at that picture up there, I realise the reality that there are now three kids and a fiancee who don’t have a father and a soon-to-be husband.

And in final news, Sarah Palin definitely gets a go saddown for her bumping heads with the Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger over global warming, whereas she’s still debating the veracity of global warming.  She went on to call for Obama to boycott this Copenhagen conference.  Just last year she claimed Alaska’s climate was warming, but now for the sake of the national spotlight, the climate warming is now called into question. She’s becoming even more of an albatross around the necks of the GOP as she was photographed on vacation wearing a visor with John McCain’s name blacked out with a Sharpie.

I’m bizzack.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

It’s Finals Week…

8 Dec

I know I haven’t posted since before Thanksgiving, but combined with the work load increase, finals week, trying to do get my school list finalized for post-graduate (yet still graduate) studies and above all, not having internet in my residential complex, blogging is at the bottom of my things to do list.

So, I’ll holla at y’all once I depart this God-forsaken city of Atlanta and head back home for Christmas Winter Break where hopefully I’ll be rejuvenated to wrap up this final semester.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

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