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A Final Word on President Obama and the Congressional Black Caucus

29 Sep

President Barack Obama speaking to the Congressional Black Caucus Phoenix Awards banquet on September 24, 2011

The less and less I’ve found myself blogging over the past couple of months, when I do I try and add something new to the conversation.  Something new doesn’t necessarily mean adding something contrary or opposing to what’s already been said, but often times it is and sometimes it’s just taken that way.  But this topic, who knows how it’s really going to be received.

This past weekend, President Barack Obama spoke to the Congressional Black Caucus about various policies and initiatives all of which were tailor made for the specific crowd.  He opened up with a quote from the revered modern Civil Rights-era icon Rev. Joseph Lowery (the same man who gave the benediction at his inauguration in 2009) from a famous biblical passage of the three Hebrew boys who are at the center of the story in Daniel 3.   It was as if Obama was taking a text.  All I was waiting on was a sermon title.

In a speech (not a sermon) shortly over some 23 minutes, he closed if you will, on this call to action for the CBC to “take off [their] bedroom slippers” and put on some “marching boots.”  There was some admonishment to stop grumblin’ and complainin’ as well.  Here’s a clip below:

 

Invoking Martin Luther King and the old modern Civil Rights motif of “the Promised Land” as some ethereal and mystical utopia where humanity lives in harmony, the concept of “stop grumblin’” and “stop complanin’” is a clear enough reference to Moses and the former Hebrew slaves, making that metonymical transition into Israelites.  The story of the Israelites in the wilderness is one of them complaining to no end–complaining to the point that they wished they were back in slavery because at least Pharaoh fed them, but they believed they had been led out to the wilderness to die.  Many times Moses’ conversations with Israelite tribal god of Yahweh was focused around the people complaining to no end.

To which I say, I think President Obama’s speech was on point and to the right audience.

While I agree with Congresswoman Rep. Maxine Waters that Obama would have never said this to another demographic such as the Hispanic/Latino caucus, an LGBT political community or a Jewish community, it’s probably because those demographics aren’t the personification of a “rubber stamp.”

Granted that’s a very, very surface analysis of the situation, but I’m going somewhere with this, so journey with me.

From jump the other demographics don’t have anything of their own demographic represented in the singular personhood of the President which starts complicating this dynamic portrayed between Obama, the CBC and the black community’s subsequent reaction.  But, all of the other demographics have a working political base that’s operates on politics based within the last decade, not the last half century.

 Let’s just be honest, we don’t hear a lot about the CBC on a national level that often.

We can’t trace the hand of the work of the CBC in the last five years.  While yes the individual members may be doing meaningful work in their own districts, as a unified body they are not a force to be reckoned when it comes to being able to influence political thought in an electorate.  When the CBC is imaged by the disgraced Congressman from Harlem, Charlie Rangel or by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee or Rep. Maxine Waters (whom I both like by the way) what most in the black community see is the old guard, still stuck in a political era long gone.  For what it’s worth, it says a lot that Barack Obama ran against Rep. Bobby Rush in Illinois, lost, only to win the U.S. Senate seat and finally the Presidency.

And where is Bobby Rush?

I don’t know.  When I voted in 2010, I thought that was one of the most depressing ballots I casted.  I honestly couldn’t point to something Bobby Rush had meaningfully done for our district in all my life–at least nothing beyond the status quo.

It also needs to be said that complaining does not equal meaningful discussion.  I’m not against talk if it’s talk that’s moving us forward, pushing our minds, pulling us toward challenging our embedded political philosophies–but talk, for the sake of talk somewhat equals complaining.  With recent events such as the Troy Davis execution and recently hearing about possible voting rights violations in Texas, one is wondering where is the civil rights outcry?  Instead our organizations that have historically done this well such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) have become reactionary rather than controlling the rhetoric and being proactive in their fight.

Granted reactionary politics, showing up a day late and a dollar short has come to categorize the nature of liberal politics in America in general in the age of neo-conservatism that we’ve seen since Bush II administration, it still doesn’t absolve one from finding refuge in the reactionary and solace in being go-along-to-get-along types.  Prior to the jobs move that the CBC launched this past summer, I would be hard pressed to think of an instance where their name was attached to an independent initiative that had national ramifications.  Truth be told, I think they were just riding the wave of anti-Obama sentiments that had been kicked off by the rather public disagreements amongst the academic Negro intellectuals namely Melissa Harris-Perry and Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, but perhaps that’s for another blog post.

Nevertheless, what I saw in Obama’s speech amounted to a coach lighting a fire under the butts of a team that might have been the underdog going into the big game.  What baffles me about the nature of being black and being political is that often times we use the exceptionalism card when we it’s to our advantage and we reject it when it forces us to look in the mirror at our own actions.  Many blacks have been complaining the whole summer about Obama isn’t black enough. [ I think some of this was thanks to Cornel West's observation that Obama was a "black mascot" and that Obama had a fear of "free black men" combined with a comment that "he {Obama} feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men..."]  And it reignited the same questions about ontological blackness that we’re no closer to ending than we were before we elected Obama than we were at the beginning of the 20th century when DuBois so famously remarked about the nature of the “color line.”

Given Obama’s hesitation to make appearances at decidedly black functions in the 2008 campaign season and his pitiably few appearances at decidedly black functions even now, I was just happy that it was getting significant press coverage that he was speaking at the CBC.  But the nature of being black and the nuanced relationship of politics behind just being black in this country gives many blacks the privilege, for lack of a better word, to move back and forth between exceptionalism.

Case in point, Obama’s speech with the CBC.

For what it’s worth, the CBC could have found themselves in a position to complain either way.  If Obama had given a straight laced speech, Rep. Waters might have very well ended up saying complaining that Obama didn’t connect well with the room and the larger national audience.  And the blogosphere would have lit up saying Obama wasn’t black enough.  But, since Obama did his damnedest to connect with the room and a larger black national audience, we’re essentially saying that Obama came off as too familiar with us.  Bottom line is that Obama didn’t have this tone with the other demographics because he’s not a member of the other demographics–which is what I said at the beginning of this.

When it comes to organizations that have their roots directly tied to the modern Civil Rights struggle in this country, understanding this political exceptionalism that blacks sometimes help themselves to is rather difficult.  The younger black generation recognizes it much easier.  No, this is not some roundabout way of me talking about reverse racism, but exactly what I’m calling it: political exceptionalism.

Somehow I think Obama knew this which is why he called on the people to stop grumblin’.

Beyond ALL of this, why are we fixated on one line of a 25 minute speech?  Isn’t this what we defended his former pastor about in 2008?  A handful of quotes and soundbytes out of a 40-plus year preaching career?  And why, just why are we defending the CBC’s right to participate in one of the most pedestrian and banal exercises of one’s First Amendment right–the right to complain and grumble?  Shouldn’t we at least aspire to be known as more than that?

In retrospect, Rep. Waters should have known better, that was red meat being thrown out by the mainstream media and she went for it.  For the last couple of days, that was the media cycle about Obama’s complaint about the complainers, who in turn complained about his complaining.  No one is talking about the context of his speech, but we’re discussing the very, very superficial aspects of it–who’s winning now?

If I can see this, surely the people who do this for a living can.  C’mon people, wake up.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

P.S.  Happy Birthday to Mama Uppity

Uppity Updates

25 Aug

Seeing as how I have a “day job” now, I’ve noticed my posts have gotten farther and farther between–monthly almost.  But nonetheless, I’m still here in the blogosphere and you can check out my comments on some other famous blogs that I visit pretty regularly.  That being said a lot has happened in the month since I’ve last posted, so here’s a rundown on the latest current events with the usual uppity twist to them.

Obama and the Debt-Ceiling Crisis

Quickly stated, Mr. Obama acted as he always has: slowly, yet deliberately.  That’s half the reason why he won the nomination in June 2008 because we believed in his ability to be a bit more calculated in his approach to politics.  With recent blog topics and op-ed pieces throwing out the question of Democratic buyers remorse with regards to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the question is moot.  Neither had any presidential experience and Clinton still has none, I think to ask such a question opens up the topic to too many “what ifs” and nothing is concrete.  To ponder seriously is to fall into the trap of “the grass is greener on the other side” myth that really does nothing to help the current situation.

Nonetheless, there is a liberal fatigue that is sweeping the nation, so much so that former D-NY Rep. Anthony Weiner’s seat is actually being contested by a GOP candidate–seriously so.  I would encourage people to not miss the forest for the trees.  Even if someone is elected who’s a GOP (the trees), I wouldn’t worry about the 2012 election (the forest) for a district that has historically been Democratic and the people aren’t changing that much in the long haul.

What I do think the White House has done a bad job of is getting the word out about Obama’s fiscal responsibility.  The Congressional Budget Office clearly can show that just in the two years Obama has been in office that we’ve seen reduced spending in comparison to the Reagan/Bush I years and Bush II administration with a drastically reduced spending in the future.  Part of this reduction is because of the predicted withdrawal from our wars overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.  While Medicaid/Medicare and Social Security have been the proverbial third rails of politics since the mid-20th century, the issue of the mountains of money shelled out to fund these wars has been almost mum from the White House to the GOP and to all other talking heads.

Simply stated, the wars are driving us to the poorhouse–and quickly.

Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann and the GOP Presidential Contenders

Rick Perry

I still say Mitt Romney is the best hope for the GOP up against Obama come 2012 given the trajectory we’re headed.

Seeing as how I don’t have a glimpse into the future, I don’t know how well or how terrible the economy is going to fair in the next 12 months or so, but if unemployment numbers stabilize and don’t uptick, a GOP candidate can still come in and Obama would lose the White House.  It’ll be a tough sell if jobs numbers begin to go up and unemployment starts ticking down; all Obama needs is a solid full 1% drop close enough to the election time when the jobs gains are close enough in the voters minds.  I will admit this: if unemployment drops to 8.1% or hell, even a nice 7.8% by December, and it hovers between 7.5-8.0% for all of calendar year 2012 during campaign season, this country would still elect a GOP candidate who ran on the promise to bring unemployment down further.

The problem with Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann is that they’re not center enough.  The religious right that elected the likes of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush aren’t in existence the same way.  I think its safe to say the country has ticked a bit left to center (evidenced by Obama’s election), but the far right has dug in their heels in a way we haven’t seen before in this country–just look at the Tea Party.  While they have candidates in office across the country, most of them are in state representive or House of Representative offices and in highly conservative districts that haven’t seen liberal Democrat elected in decades if ever.  The districts that switched from Democratice to Tea Party GOP in 2010 were districts that have historically flip-flopped and had a mostly evenly divided electorate anyway so to believe anything otherwise is pretty much smoke and mirrors.

As of this moment, I don’t think the Tea Party has enough collective capital with the U.S. population to garner a national election.  Considering how Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell’s campaigns in Nevada and Delaware for U.S. Senate so gloriously imploded upon themselves as major Tea Party candidates, I’m really not convinced about the campaign of Michelle Bachmann and even a Tea Party support candidate of Rick Perry.

Black Racial Sensitivity and the Nivea Ad

Honestly, I don’t think there’s much ado about nothing.

For me to call something racist, I have to first understand what’s the intent.  If anything, the ad is weird before it’s racist–or prejudiced or bigoted.  Why there’s a cut off head in the guy’s hand is a mystery to me.  And seeing as how Nivea has a series of ads with random people holding random heads, I think we’re being hasty in judgment in calling the ad racist.

There’s a nuanced discussion we need to be having when it comes to discussing “post-racial America.”  One of which is whether or not post-racial is really where we need to be headed.  One of the initial problems with this concept is that it advocates the “melting pot” theory over the “gumbo pot.”  A melting pot speaks toward us moving toward a homogenous texture irrespective of race, religion, thought and everything else that makes one culture unique.  A gumbo pot on the other hand takes uniquely different items, mixes it together to form a unique taste, but the shrimp is still the shrimp, the andouille sausage is still the andouille sausage and the chicken is still the chicken.  The roux forms and acts as the substance that blends all flavor to produce a new taste and holds all of the disparate parts together.

When I speak of us moving toward a post-racial America, I am speaking of reconcilliation.  There must be a day in human history where we can “study war no more” and discover our similarities and celebrate our differences.  Do I think this Nivea ad is holding us back or moving us forward?  I don’t think it’s doing either quite frankly.  But just as Jay-Z and Kanye pulled the clip from “Blades of Glory” on their track “Niggas in Paris” where Chaz Michaels and Jimmy MacElroy are having the discussion about “My Humps” song being used and Chaz says “because it’s provocative,” I think such a phrase is appropriate here.  Just as Jay-Z and Kanye give an explanation for some of their imagery, the same holds true for this ad–it’s provocative.

London Riots and U.S. Flash Mobs

Riot police patrol the streets in Tottenham, north London as trouble flared after members of the community took to the streets. Photo: PA

Let me be clear from the beginning, I do not condone violence as an appropriate means of offense and protest.  That being said, I’m still at a loss for what was going on with the London riots.  For the life of me, I cannot rationalize violent acts throughout a municipality as a means of public protest.  Does this mean that I side with the British officials that are wantonly calling the looters as “thugs” and miscrients of the lowest kind?  No, I do not.  Rather, I am more interested in trying to move said protests toward relevant revolution.

There’s a difference between a revolt and a revolution.  Revolutions are interested in the long term and usually are a series of events that lead a point in history and result in structural and fundamental social change.  Revolts on the other hand result in short term gains for a small section of a populace and possibly can result in negative gains.  This is not to say that either aren’t birthed out of the same oppressive conditions that need to be changed, but the question protesters must always ask is what is the ultimate result.

I had a conversation with a colleague when I pressed the matter saying how can the London rioters loot their own neighborhoods for the sake of material spoils whilst knowing that eventually it was going to settle down?  He responded that the acquisition of material possessions was a mimicry of the oppressor; getting the same things that the ones who they claimed to be oppressing them possessed.  I thought it was a keen observation.  Why are we, the underclass and oppressed, struggling for the same things that the oppressor owns?  For me, the question of struggle is are we moving toward reconciliation or simply vying for the formerly oppressed to now be the oppressor.

What spurred the flash mobs in American cities as of late, namely Philadelphia, was the result of oppression American style.  Much like in London, police brutality brings out the masses to riot.  One need not go to the Watts Riots or the King Riots or even the Rodney King Riots, but think back to the Cincinatti race riots of 2001 or the Benton Harbor, Mich. race riots of 2003 all spurred from police brutality cases.  The problem that I have with the governmental response in both London and Philadelphia is that it’s the same oppressive rhetoric that helped create the atmosphere for teh rioters to riot.  Yes, order needs to be restored as soon as possible, but labeling the protesters as anything less than concerned citizens worthy of being reasoned with is a recipe for disaster.

Check the clip below [particularly from minute 9:00 and forward]:

Notwithstanding the black church culture, the image of the black preacher and all that went into this moment, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter choosing to focus on many of the aesthetics of young black teens and hearkening back to an era that has long been passed and using tactics that are outdated and outmoded for an iPod and social networking society, one is dead in the water.  Just last Sunday, I was talking to some of the young male students where I work and was asking why some of the incoming freshman males were standing outside of the chapel rather than waiting inside.  They responded that young black men don’t like church, I asked why, they said “We don’t like being talked at.”

That’s what’s happening.

We’re talking at the youth and certainly are keeping the marginalized marginalized for the sake of our own selfish sensibilities.  As humans and fellow citizens we have a responsibility to ourselves to live in harmony with one another.  No one group, young or old, rich or poor should be subjected the way many of these demographics are.

And these are my uppity updates.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

How The West Was Won: Violence in the American Wild, Wild West

20 Jun

 

A little known factoid about me is that I like modern Westerns.

I don’t know what it is about them, but I do.  Personally I blame the “Back to the Future” trilogy.  That was a movie my parents had taped for me, only had part two and part three, but I watched them on repeat.  The third installment took place in the first week of September the year 1888 in the fictional Hill County, California.  It used all the stereotypes from the old Clint Eastwood movies with women wearing the frilly petticoats and dresses, the men all carrying six shooter pistols, fraught with saloons, blacksmiths, steam locomotives–something straight out of a Hollywood set.

I’ll admit, my intricate knowledge of the frontier is a bit slacking, that is to say that I’m not a scholar of this part of American history, however most Americans have become scholars in the Hollywood narrative of the American west.  My love for westerns, I think came from my liking of the computer game “The Oregon Trail.”  I remember the original game that my parents had on their Packard Bell 386 that you had to access the game from the C-prompt in DOS after you logged out of the Windows 3.1 version.  I remember the oxen dying and morbidly living through the virtual death of family members you named as they died from cholera and dysentery along the side of the 2,000+ mile trail.

I grew older and movies like “Back to the Future III,” “Tombstone” and “Young Guns” and even the comical “Cherokee Kid” and”Wild, Wild, West” were movies that I liked–the modern Westerns.  The remake of “3:10 to Yuma” was the movie that made me pause and think this out however.  The remake of “3:10 to Yuma” was a reaction more toward railroad barons and the expansion of America than the typical cowboys and Indians concept we have of when we think of Westerns.  Then I looked back at all of the Westerns that I had come to enjoy over my short years and I realized that for the most part Indians were non-existent in these movies.

Out of the movies that are a part of my modern Western viewing memory, only one short scene in “Back to the Future III” shows any aggression on behalf of tribal Indians.  In the other movies, Indian portrayal is that of some pseudo-assimilated male who is shown as a skilled warrior who doesn’t have a speaking role.  If an tribal woman is shown in the movie, she’s usually portrayed as some mystic or exotic beauty that transfixes the lead character and becomes some type of romantic interest for the movie.

Like I said, I’m not a historian, but somehow these staid plot lines seem like Hollywood machinations.

What bothers me about this is the gross romanticizing that gets done in this movies.  It’s one thing to portray this fictional historical account about “how the West was won” with regards to American settlers on tribal territories and the reverse barbarianism of whites against Native Americans, but even the false depictions of everyday life have begun to irritate me.

Now I was the geek that watched the episodes of “1900 House” and “Frontier House” set in 1883 Montana on PBS (and yes, I remember seeing Oprah with no makeup when she and Gayle did a guest appearance on “Colonial House”), and trust me, the life was NOT glamorous.  The people were dirty all the time, there was no indoor plumbing, life was hard even on a good day and sicknesses were a constant threat.  So when I watch these movies and see these people in pristine clothing that looks tailor made (as it is a costume), no one exerting more energy than what it takes to saddle a horse and draw a pistol or a knife, I find myself rolling my eyes.  To see these women, as portrayed in “Tombstone” living the grand life of ease and even wearing makeup–by golly, they had makeup out in Tombstone, Arizona that readily available?  Color me surprised.

But, I’m not a historical expert on this.

It teeters into the realm of revisionist history.  I think even the most conservative historians would have to admit that Hollywood has romanticized the view of the “wild, wild, West” to the point of pure fiction.  What personally irritates me is this glorification of Americanity through violence.  The West, as we know it, was “won” through violence.  For as much hard work, endurance and perseverance settlers and homesteaders who emigrated west put into establishing towns and settlements, they were occupying previously inhabited land.  I guess the glory of the slayings of tribal Indians doesn’t go over well in Hollywood.

No wonder we haven’t seen a modern Western movie about the Battle of  Little Bighorn, huh?  Portraying the might of the American military as losers just isn’t a story worth telling for Hollywood.

I had a friend in high school, the son the Polish immigrants to Chicago and a Poland native himself evidenced with a last name full of hard consonantal clusters say in our 12th grade AP U.S. History class that if it wasn’t for the settlers that we’d all be living in teepees.  I think that’s when I stood up and knocked over my chair incredulous that he felt comfortable enough to say that out loud, let alone that this was a belief of his.  And others in the class just seemed a bit indifferent to the statement.  So if the son of Polish immigrants felt this way, one had bought into the American story so wholly as his own, what about the rest of us?

"Manifest Destiny"

Without question, history is written by the victors.  In this case the victors are white, heterosexual males.  The “cowboy” depiction is one of those Alpha-male images that Americans easily identify with.  It’s a defined ruggedness that is equated with the epitome of maleness.  From images of the Marlboro Man wearing the large Stetson to George W. Bush making covert cowboy references with regards to our foreign policy on terrorism and Osama bin Laden.  Such images and rhetoric respectively conjure sensibilities that are familiar and uniquely American.

What I’m having issues with is that a) how we have seemingly revised the history of the American west post-Civil War until 1900 and b) how comfortable we are with “West being won” through means of terroristic violence.

The acts of terrorism on behalf of railroad barons, US military and the pop-up haphazard local law enforcement from local territories toward tribal Indians was merely one small step away from being categorized as a successful genocide.  The calculated and wanton extermination of Indians is absolutely repulsive.  I guess it’s not a hard stretch because of the infuse of theology into the equation.  The historical concept of “manifest Destiny” is just as much of a theological mindset as it was a domestic policy concept.   There was the belief that the American settlers had been ordained by God to inhabit the land.

This isn’t an unfamiliar biblical concept.

The Israelites were sanctioned by God to inhabit the “land of the giants,” which was Canaan and they had God-specified orders to kill everyone and everything.  I’m not making this up–go read the first eight chapters of the Book of Joshua.  We so readily identify with the victors of the story that we rarely if ever see things from the side of the victims of the story.  Honestly, can you imagine Canada saying that God told them to begin inhabiting the city of Jericho Detroit, just on the other side of the river Jordan Detroit and the U.S. would be okay with it?

I was spurred to write this story after seeing the following trailer.

I can only imagine what this plot will hold for us.  No doubt the name of the town is going to have some apocalyptic end-of-the-world terror infused in it and I’d bet money that somehow the cowboys and Indians are going to unite powers in order to defeat the aliens–yet again, history isn’t being told.  I guess when you throw aliens into the story line all bets are off on sticking to historical facts.  To that end, I guess I can concede a bit.  But I wonder will the film fall into the “us vs. them” dichotomy, but still reserving Americanity as superior and therefore “us” is better and will prevail.  I mean, I can hardly see a Hollywood moving diverting from that path; why would we image “them” as better than “us”?

But if the movie goes that way, the aliens being superior–obviously when it comes to technology–then what does that say about cowboys versus Indians?  Does it not admit that belligerent and hegemonic behavior is abhorrent?  Essentially it does, but no doubt the underlying message will still be that America is the best.  No doubt the cowboys of the movie will prevail based on their grit, their endurance, perseverance and their strong belief in American values (whatever those are) thus showing that the alien and Indian narrative are subordinate to theirs.

Is it wrong that the nomenclature of “alien” in the midst of our ongoing domestic immigration policies with ethnic Mexicans is a bit too ironic for me to not laugh at loud?

On another note, why are imaging manliness with a name that refers to men as a “boy”?

Just asking.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

The Rage of Black Academia: Melissa Harris-Perry and Cornel West, A Collegiate Conundrum

19 May

It would have been nice if Dr. Cornel West never made the personal comments on Obama, but it was an interview by Chris Hedges of Truthdig.com entitled “The Obama Deception: Why Cornel West Went Ballistic” and questions were asked to which West answered.  It does seem petty on West’s part, but honestly, we all have an outsiders view on the relationship between West and Obama.  Clearly West felt that he had enough of a personal relationship to feel betrayed by Obama.  I’m more interested in why he felt betrayed beyond just getting his feelings hurt.  For such an answer, I turn to the latter part of the interview where West discusses policy.

It’s abundant West’s political self-identification as a Democratic Socialist.  By his staunch advocating for the poor and his new rhetoric against the “plutocrats and oligarchs” we see that West is in favor of much more socialist programs.  I think West’s betrayal came when he felt that Obama was giving more audience to the status quo and mainline advisors and economic policymakers–and not him.  Mind you, if I had shown up on stage with Obama while he was campaigning 65 times, I would have at least expected some inauguration tickets or a return phone call as well.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry’s response to West was childish and way beneath her standing as a public scholar and intellectual.  She even accused West of undermining Obama’s candidacy in 2008 because of West’s outward criticism of him.  But she’s long since had a problem with West and Tavis Smiley from back in 2008, and she’s been a water-carrier for Obama.  Generally, I don’t hear her addressing Obama’s criticisms, but I hear her offering accomplishments on Obama’s behalf in order to combat criticisms.  That’s fine, but to act as if Obama’s sh*t don’t stink is delusional at best and conciliatory to a fault at worse.

And understanding where Harris-Perry (formerly Harris-Lacewell) is coming from goes back to 2008 when she wrote the article “Who Died and Made Tavis King?” where she criticized Tavis Smiley (who we later found out endorsed Hillary Clinton prior to the Democratic National Convention) for being mad that Barack Obama didn’t attend the State of the Black Union that year.  I think her later criticisms of Smiley and later West are disingenous because prior to 2008, most of Black Academia were tripping over each other to get a seat on that stage.  By the same token, as an electorate we must hold our elected officials accountable.  When Harris-Perry in more recent memory lambasted Smiley and West for a comment about the “Machiavellian politics” of Obama, it was clear there was no love lost between the Harris-Perry and the two.

Harris-Perry’s support of Obama reminds me of the strange relationship seen in [black] churches with an authoritarian pastor.  The hope is for a benevolent dictatory, but dictator nonetheless.  One who we support in public and mildly criticize behind closed doors.  I am reminded of a quote from Ricky Jones’ What’s Wrong With Obamamania?  Black America, Black Leadership and the Death of Political Imagination published prior to Obama’s victory.  Jones says of the Black Church that

The black community, maybe more than any other, is affectively linked to churches and their pastors to the degree that criticism of either (no matter how rational) is often viewed as nothing short of an attack on God…Unfortunately, black ministers (be they emancipators or collaborators in oppression) are often protected from secular intellectual confrontation by the almost certain ire of their flocks, which is heaped upon any critic who questions their leaders’ decisions and/or motivations.”

If we supposed Obama as a pastor, and the black community, steeped in an ecclesiastical leadership mindset, as the congregation of a church, then we’d see some stark parallels.  For many of us, anything that was seen as a detriment or a derailment to Obama as a candidate or as president was to be handled in house and as to not air dirty laundry.

As for Harris-Perry I can’t help but mention the tripe she spewed on Twitter comparing West’s criticisms to Donald Trump focusing entirely on the personal sensibilities of West and then said both of them had bad hair.  I thought it was telling when after her piece on TheNation.com was published that her fellow colleague Dr. Eddie Glaude tweeted that he couldn’t take her seriously anymore.  Certainly that was hyperbole on his part and a kneejerk reaction to her article and her tweets I’m sure, but it did speak a deeper level of critical thought that we lack in this country at times.

My major problem that I saw with the fallout was Black Twitter (yes, it does exist) and the Black Blogosphere’s innate inability to choose the provocative over the substantive thus choosing the path of least resistance.  It was easier to talk about West being full of himself by seemingly lauding over the hotel worker who got inauguration tickets and he didn’t rather than discuss the effect of Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geitner controlling economic policy that disadvantages and ignores the poor, pays mere lip service to the middle class and protects the rights of big business and the rich in this country.  Certainly West’s comment of Obama being afraid of a “free black man” added another level of complexity to the issue.

Was West playing the race card?  Yes he was, but knowing West, it wasn’t without merit for the sake of being sensational and covering up hurt feelings.  Yes, Obama is black by all accounts, but he did have a white mother and white grandparents who were much more fundamental in his upbringing.  West said that Obama “feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want.”  Certainly that’s a damning statement, but does it negate it’s veracity?  There’s very little color in the persons that Obama has surrounded himself by.  I don’t think that this is a nod toward wanting Obama to be the President of Black America as it is criticizing Obama for continuing business as usual–something that he more or less campaigned against.

West brings up the touchy issue of ontological blackness.  Is it a nice and politically correct subject to talk about?  No.  Not by a long stretch.  But by us not talking about it doesn’t make the issue vanish into thin air.  It’s my opinion West brought it up in this instance because of what he observed: who Obama has surrounded himself with and how he was raised.  These are fair and equal criteria that would be apropos for me, my parents, and West himself: we are products of the matrices from which we have experienced in our lives.  That is to say, Obama’s Euro-American and international upbringing is just as important to his ontology as I am the product of a mother who was a part of the Great Migration and a father who was born and raised in rural Acadiana here in Louisiana.  I’m not convinced that West is expecting Obama to be apologetic from whence he came so much so as he wants Obama to be cognizant of it, to let Obama knows that he knows and also to bring a wider knowledge to the masses about this.

Michael Eric Dyson termed it as one being intentionally black, incidentally black and accidentally black.  West, is clearly and unapologetically, intentionally black.  Obama obviously made the decision to be intentionally black as well–he married Michelle.  But Obama has the privilege of being incidentally black when it suits him.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  But I think this proves bad for the likes of West when it disadvantages the poor citizenry at the expense of protecting the rights of the few and rich.

Above all, West and Harris-Perry just have different political outlooks.  I’m a bit shocked that as learned as both of them are that neither of them took the time to acknowledge their different politcal vantage points.  West is a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist.  So am I, for the most part.  I believe in the process of the many electing a few for the sake of governance, but I also believe that the goverment should provide some basic services for all of it’s citizens–clear emphasis on all.  I think it would be safe to label Harris-Perry, based on what I know of her from her former blog “The Kitchen Table” and her articles and essays over the years, her commentary on MSNBC and her tweets that she’s a Democratic Populist.   To me this means she’s much more interested in ideas and policy that effect the majority of the people positively.  This doesn’t mean that I believe she’s in favor of the status quo, but such a political situation isn’t as iconoclastic as what West was presenting.

Cornel West, goes the path of the iconoclasts before him: political and social alienation.  This was evidenced in the May 17th interview on the Ed Schultz show on MSNBC where Ed was more or less scratching his head at West’s comments.  And naturally so, you can’t explain ontological blackness in 60 seconds or less to a national audience.  When Harris-Perry came on, Ed was found nodding his head much more and smiling in agreeance with what she had to say.  Below is the clip in case you missed it:

Despite my Twitter rants and my satirically alleging that “Harris-Perry had a #lovejones for Barack Obama,” I respect and validate Harris-Perry’s opinion on this issue.  It’s just that I think she chose to highlight the provocative over the substantive issues, and for that, as a community and as citizens of this country, we’ve got to do better.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

P.S. Happy 86th Birthday to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, and better known as Malcolm X.  May your #revolutionary spirit lives on my brother.

The Unnatural Politics and Religion of Natural Disasters

12 May

A man takes a picture of a flooded mobile home park as floodwaters slowly rise in Memphis, Tenn., May 8. (Eric Thayer / Reuters)

This was a post I had been planning to write for some time after some of the major natural disasters we had seen in the news.  It probably began around the Haitian earthquake, but I’m sure my mind was more focused on the horrendous theology of Pat Robertson and his comments surrounding a deal with the devil to overthrow the French in the Haitian Revolution.  I remembered I thought about it again following the Japan earthquake and tsunami, but between work and another topic on the subject I wanted to address, this topic didn’t get published.  However, as I am directly affected by the Mississippi River floods of 2011, I can’t help but write about it this time.

In the wake of the Tornado Outbreak of 2011 and the immediacy of the Mississippi river spring floods, the United States is a bit full at the moment when it comes to natural disaster.  The Japan earthquake, tsunami and now nuclear disaster is well within reaching distance to recall the images of the walls of water coming into harbors and overtaking the streets.  We remember the images of a coach at the University of Alabama filming a massive EF4 tornado rip asunder structure after structure in Tuscaloosa, Alabama only to be replaced by images of houses submerged in West Memphis, Arkansas and farmers watching their crops disappear under a toxic soup of river water on Missouri farmland.

Even though we often times see the good in people after the events occur, it seems that before and during the events we see the horrible marriage of politics and religion manifest themselves in ways that are simply inexcusable.  Although I’m not an ethicist, I will try and parse the ethics of this situation.

Politically speaking, we hear and see local politicians from mayors, city council members, state representatives all the way up to governors pitted against each other all clamoring for attention from the federal government when it comes to what monies to be released after the event occurs and what to do before it occurs.  In Missouri and Illinois it was the difference between flooding 100,000+ acres of farmland for the sake of protecting tiny, yet historic Cairo, Illinois.  Cairo, who’s boom years have long since been behind them is mostly black and mostly poor.  The decision was made to bomb the levees and flood the farmland on the Missouri side of the river and Cairo was spared.  Now farmers have to contend with fields that are covered in river waste and garbage possibly polluting the land for the next season or two.

A river levee is blown up at Caernarvon, Louisiana during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. SOURCE: US Army Corps of Engineers

I personally felt in that case, from my armchair perspective that authorities should have just let nature take its course and hope the levees hold.  Cairo was in no more immediate danger than anyone else in the region.  However, in such cases, citizens want something to be done even if it has zero effect or even an adverse affect on someone else.  This was experienced when famously the levee at Caernavon, Louisiana was dynamited below New Orleans on the river in the landmark Mississippi River Flood of 1927; New Orleans wasn’t in imminent threat, but something was done even though it flooded St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes that were wholly rural and poor.

We see the same anxiety with residents of Baton Rouge and New Orleans in the present.  Baton Rouge’s mayor is advocating strongly for the opening of the Morganza Spillway above the city to flood the Atchafalaya river basin* to take pressure off of levees in his city.  There’s no regard for the people of those lower parishes; we’re more worried about big city infrastructure and revenues than those who have less resources in the first place.

The politics of this go back long before floodwaters flowed down the the river to the zoning and the establishment of homes and business in flood plains.  The land was cheap so naturally less upwardly mobile persons were able to settle it.  What I noticed while watching the scenes of the flooding in West Memphis, Ark. and across the river in Memphis, Tenn. that all of the faces of the metropolitan residents experiencing floods were majority black faces.  Certainly the fact that both cities have a majority black population increases that likelihood, it still shows the income and subsequent race gap that still exists.  It is easier for us to disadvantage those who have less means of recovery after a natural disaster than those who would have the insurance and the money and other resources to recover.

This is nothing new.

In the aftermath of the Flood of 1927, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover made promises to blacks with regards to recovery, but failed to deliver.  How he promised versus how he handled the situation spurred another wave of blacks to move north in the Great Migration and his failure to deliver on promises resulted in blacks shifting party alliance to the Democratic Party and voting for Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 election (not to mention a little thing called the Great Depression).  We see this yet again here in these floods where the faces of victims are oftenblacks with lesser resources than their white counterparts.

If I could push the envelope, I would say that has even less to do with race than it does have to do with how our society deals with the economically disadvantaged.  The well-to-do family cares nothing about persons living in a flood plain regardless of skin color just as long as their well-being and lifestyle isn’t affected.  We do nor say anything on behalf of the poor people of the country, we only pay lip-service to the middle class meanwhile protecting the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Old River Control Structure at the juncture of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers

The creation of human made structures to control river flow and spillway flood plains places supernatural power on something that is indeed natural thus giving humanity the false assumption of controlling the supernatural.  If the human fashioned structures weren’t in place, no one would be living in these floodplains in the first place.  If that was the case, the ethical dilemma of flooding out rural residents versus urban dwellers wouldn’t be up for questioning.

Religiously speaking, we can count on the nut jobs to claim any type of divine retribution.  We heard it with Hurricane Katrina, we heard it with Haiti and we can open up our Bibles to Genesis 19 and read about an egotistical deity who not only destroys two entire cities, but goes and turns someone to a pillar of salt just because it’s within their power to do so.  Usually when instances like this happen (and even when it comes to government sanctioned assassinations on foreign soil of terrorists), we run to the seemingly black and white Old Testament that gives us prescribed and proscribed understandings of justice from supernatural sources.  Employing the basic understanding of the sovereignty of divinity, either God caused it or God allowed it to happen.  That leaves us humans wrestling for an explanation of the seemingly unexplainable.  Using a New Testament scripture outside of Revelation might leave you with more questions than answers, so back to the Old Testament we go.

The Old Testament widely uses the dichotomy of cause and effect to get across the idea of retributive justice.  We see it in “you shall reap what you sow” and “eye for an eye” versus “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  This concept of justice is what we see in western society where everything is supposed to fit into a one-size-fits-all box from our legal system to how we’re supposed to do politics and even religion as a whole.  When it comes to religion we act as though if some malady came upon you, it was because you failed to please God. [Even as I wrote that last sentence I almost wrote "it was because you failed to please the gods" borrowing from the idea that in Greek and Roman mythology sacrifices and behaviors were to be done to please the pantheon of gods.  I think such a parallel is a damning critique against the foolishness of western religion at times.]  

Frankly, I’m tired of hearing fools on Facebook or Twitter in their update status use a natural disaster as a moment to point toward God and further alienate non-Christians from associating themselves with a sentient being that would cause such utter pain on their own alleged creation.  The blind trust and authorative emphasis placed on the biblical scripture, especially rape has been used to justify rape, sexual harrassment, misogyny, gender inequalities, racism and religious intolerance.  It’s certainly time we question our purpose for which we use the Bible to explain supernatural occurences: are we using them to support a myopic view of justice or are we using it to uplift those who are experiencing hardship.

This line of reasoning proves problematic for me because not only are victims hearing this theological agenda preached directly or subversively in their ecclesiastical settings, but it eventually becomes internalized.  I’d suppose that there are hundreds of flood victims who have gotten to this point in their lives and are asking themselves “What did I do to deserve this?” and trying to figure out “where they went wrong” with their relationship with God to allow this to happen.  Even in the understanding of the sovereignty of God and the allowing of an event to happen, deep down we’ll still say God caused to happen somehow and some way.  Victims are left feeling guilty wondering what do they need to do in the future to prevent it from happening again or even to successive generations. 

This internalized oppression, as I see it, does nothing to strengthen communal bonds with other people and does nothing for the already broken spirit.  I’m not advocating that persons brought this on themselves in the traditional sense of “you reap what you sow” but certainly, when you live by a river, you will become a victim of circumstances because one year, it will flood.  Same with persons who live in the midwest who deal with tornadoes or Californians who deal with earthquakes or those on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts who have to encounter hurricanes, it simply is what it is.

A towboat pushes barges down the flood-swollen Mississippi River south of Memphis, May 9. (Danny Johnston / AP)

Religion and politics failure to equip a person’s consciousness to deal with the vicissitudes of natural disasters, both good and bad has resulted in a society that operates out of harmony with the world we inhabit.  We now have added super- to the phrase “natural disasters.”  We act as though there’s something else at play than just the natural ebb and flow of seasons.  No longer does the Mississippi river naturally flood as it did thousands of years ago, but is corralled by levees.  The incredulity of humanity to act so privileged as if this is not supposed to happen stands as a monument to our own arrogance.  These events should be humbling moments, reminding us not just of our mortality, but also of our status as creatures of this terrestrial ball: there are some things that are out of our control.

Rather than feeling powerless going forward, we should be empowered to not make the same mistakes as we did before.  Instead politics allow us to rebuild bigger and better in the same places as a testament to our wanton hubris and religion allows us to go in and conquer the land, then guilt ourselves and question our relationship with the deity if something terrible from nature befalls us.

My word of advice, after placing on the hat of ethicist today, is that we should learn to live in harmony with the natural that surrounds us.  Nature is indeed supernatural in an of itself, much like we are too!  While yes the after effects are devastating and disruptive to our everyday lives I think we should find an inner resolve to seek the inner divine and inner peace that will help us endure the hardship.  As humans, we were designed to endure pain.  It doesn’t make it easier, but our survival is a testament that it takes a lot to break the human spirit.  Even if we emerge on the other side with our bodies bruised and our material accumulations taken away, we still have our minds and each other.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Possible avulsion track of the Mississippi River through the Atchafalaya Channel.

* The Old River Structure is built at the juncture between the Red River of Louisiana and the Mississippi River. It is a diversionary waterway that keeps 70% of volume down the current meander of the Mississippi River channel and 30% down the Atchafalaya (pronounced as ‘ah-CHAF-fah-Lie-ah’) River, a distributary of the Mississippi River.  It was noticed as early as 1900 that volume flow was ticking upward from 13% to 34% following the 1973 floods where the Mississippi almost changed channels and began diverting through the Atchafalaya basin rather than it’s current course. 

Naturally, this would pose a serious economic threat to both Baton Rouge and New Orleans ports.

Donald Trump Asks to see Jesus’ Birth Certificate and Why He is a Racist

27 Apr

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Point-Counterpoint Guest Post: Why Obama WILL Be Re-Elected Next Year

24 Feb

Today, The Urban Politico and The Uppity Negro have joined forces to tackle an impending question that has rapidly moved to the forefront of our collective minds in these recent days since we’ve officially arrived in the year 2011: Will President Barack Obama be re-elected next year?  It’s a simple question but it doesn’t necessarily have a simple answer.  Up until now, the answer to this question has been dismissed around the blogosphere as premature since the year “twenty-twelve” sounded like it was so far away.  But now we’re here; 2012 is literally around just around the corner.  So it’s time to ask ourselves – is this man going to actually be re-elected?  Today, the Uppity Negro will make the argument as to why Obama will NOT be re-elected next year, and we will do our best to make the argument as to why Obama WILL be re-elected next year.  The Urban Politico team weighs in after the jump:

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Dealing With Racism in a Post-Racial America

21 Feb

People gathered for the Confederate Heritage Rally in front of the Capitol in Montgomery, Ala., on Saturday. Jeff Haller for The New York Times Feb. 19, 2011

 

Today on Facebook, one of my professors had posted a link to the New York Times article covering the Sons of the Confederacy and their commemoration of the swearing in of Confederate President Jefferson Davis 150 years earlier on February 19, 1861 in Montgomery, Alabama, the first capital of the Confederate States of America (CSA).   Here’s a quote from the article that most got to me:

The principal message of the group is that the Confederacy was a just exercise in self-determination that has been maligned by “the politically correct crowd” through years of historical distortions. It is the right of secession that they emphasize, not the cause, which they often describe as a complicated mix of tariff and tax disputes and Northern attempts to politically subjugate the South.

The other matter of subjugation — that is, slavery — went unmentioned at the event (Davis did not refer to it in his original address, but he emphasized the maintenance of African slavery as a cause for secession in other high-profile settings). And the issue of slavery was largely brushed aside in interviews as a mere function of the time, and not a defining feature, of the Confederacy.

Asked about the prominent speeches and documents that describe the protection of slavery as the primary cause of secession, Joe Dupree of Mobile, Ala., said the question itself was wrong.

“African slavery is a 4,000-year-old African institution that affected us a couple of hundred years,” he said. “It is, historically, an error.”

So, in 2011 we have white Southerners who are of the opinion that a) white Confederacy has been historically distorted–it wasn’t that bad; b) they had a right to secede and better yet, their reasons for secession had nothing to do with slavery, because–it wasn’t that bad; c) that slavery was really an African continental practice that whites just merely picked up casually, and that it should be viewed as a human and historical aberration in the long line of good that Europeans have done, because–it wasn’t that bad.

This was an article that I read in juxtaposition to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article I stumbled across last Friday.  That article was speaking of the increased racial incidents on the campus of University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, their flagship school.  The story recounts the number of incidents of blatant racism from racial epithets being yelled at passing black students by white students, to graffiti on sidewalks.

Frankly, I was a bit shocked.

And then I remembered I went to three HBCUs for all of my education, and now I’m working at one.

If I can parenthetically park here and and say that because of my HBCU education and experience, I never had to deal with blatant racism nor the institutional kind that many of my friends who went to majority schools had to encounter.  Whatever slights I may have run into, I never had to question “Did this happen because of my skin color?”  (Well, maybe at some depending on how light or dark you are, but that’s for another post.)  So, when I read of the story at ‘Bama, I had to realize that this didn’t quite jive well with my understanding of how far we’ve come.

Let FoxNews and the tragedy that is FoxNation website, and Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and all of the ilk of the Tea Party movement tell the story, we have entered a state of post-racism, as evidenced by us electing the first openly mulatto black president and seeing diversity numbers constantly rising.  From the likes of Andrew Breitbart who can sanction the imaging the First Lady as a fat black woman in a cartoon, to how college age students feel free to yell racial slurs at their fellow classmates, to a white fraternity stopping in front of a black sorority house at ‘Bama in Confederate military attire, we get a sense that indeed we’re not post-racial at all in this country.

Attempting to block integration at the University of Alabama, Governor George Wallace stands defiantly at the door while being confronted by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. 11 June 1963

I think if these had highlighted cases of perhaps subtle racism, where people’s prejudices oozed to the top subconsiously just because they were on auto-pilot or something, I’d be the first to excuse it and truly use it as a moment to not be angry, but moved to use it as a teaching moment.  But from what I read in the AJC article, some of this spurned from when the school decided to commemorate the first black students enrolled at the school.  And all of us who have seen “Eyes on the Prize” remember the ghostly black and white image of then Alabama Governor George Wallace physically standing in the doorway of that school symbolizing everything there was about the Jim Crow South and it’s wretched and abominable human, civil and equal rights policies the systematically disenfranchised, disengaged and dehumanized the black populace at the time.  So to have a statue or memorial erected to honor those students and their sacrifices certainly was a move in the right direction.  But, I’m sure in the school administrators’ zeal to do the right thing for outward political action, they failed to address the culture of the students and attempt to overcome the apparent obstacles.  Given the track record of whites in the South, however, this was probably intentional.

The University of Alabama's Foster Auditorium was the site of George Wallace's `stand in the schoolhouse door' against integration in 1963. Don Kausler Jr., AP

By erecting a memorial or dedicating something to those black students gives the image of “doing the right thing.”  However, particularly in a culture where change often times results in an entrenchment deeper into the countercultural values, “doing the right thing” can actually result in the opposite effect of what you expected.  What I can’t help but wonder is if this is the result of one’s submerged beliefs, or a concerted effort meant to purposely undermine diversity initiatives.  Besides that, I must admit that I’m a bit discouraged that we have given birth to a younger generation that is still steeped in the horribly racist past of their foreparents.  It’s 2011.  To hear of 20 and 21 year olds who feel okay to drive down a street, pass black students and yell “Nigger!” and God knows what else out of a car window is more than disheartening.  To act with such impunity speaks to a culture that supports and endorses such hurtful and destructive thinking.

Then I read the article today celebrating the inauguration of Jefferson Davis.

Aha.  This is where it comes from.

When Americans, today, who have the benefit of an historical lens with which to look back and measure against, still come to the conclusion that a) it was their right to secede from the Union and b) they were justified in doing so, because of taxes and tariffs that unjustly affected the Southern states (and might I conjecturally ask, were the taxes and tariffs incurred because of their holding of slaves and import and export amongst other slave holding entities in the Caribbean–therefore, of course, these levies would affect the South more strongly than the rest of the country), it shouldn’t really come to any shock that this cultural mindset would be passed on down to a younger generation.

This is a generation that may have been told by parents that they got replaced on their jobs because of affirmative action initiative or by that ugly word “quotas.”  And also, let’s remember that many of these white people live in rural communities that are just about as segregated as they were prior to the 1960s.  Going to college may be the first time that some of these white people were actually forced to have to interact with blacks and people of other races.

Is there anything we can do?

Well, for starters let’s stop telling the myth that we’re in a post-racial America.  As far as I’m concerned there’s just as much racism as there was 50-plus years ago.  Rev. Al Sharpton said it best at Rosa Parks’ funeral: his generation and before had to deal with Jim Crow, but our generation has met his son James Crow, Esq.  They have the same DNA and the father has passed on the same amoral compass on to his son, but the son has a different outward appearance and no longer fits the quintessential image of a redneck from a rural southern town, but has expanded to include the Wall Street banker or the CEO of a company with racist hiring practices.

What struck me interesting was in the AJC article and their quick discussion of the self segregation of Greek life on the campus of ‘Bama.  First off, that’s a bad premise on which to comment on Greek organizations.  Black Greek organizations were created almost solely because all of the other Greek organizations had a “whites only” policy.  Beyond that, black Greek organizations, like HBCUs, never had “blacks only” policies.  By the time white Greek organizations began accepting black members, it was almost as if to say “too late; we have our own.”

I think this logic can be extrapolated to some extent to the other entities such as church and other clubs.  Certainly blacks and whites have certain cultural signifiers that would automatically draw racial divisions, but I think to act as though the onus of reconciliation should be on the part of blacks is ludicrous.  Yes, forgiveness for past sins is done by the one victimized, but still, that’s done more for personal healing rather than for reconciliation on the part of the victimizer.  Blacks are more expected to join white fraternities than whites expected to join black fraternities; blacks are expected to join multi-racial churches with a white pastor while whites aren’t expected to join black churches with black pastors.  It speaks to blacks forced into assimilation, not just into American culture, but into white American culture.

Blacks are always asked to move out of our comfort zone for the sake of racial parity.  I personally think that’s unfair.  I think it’s like telling a woman to apologize to a rapist for wearing seductive clothing that enticed him to want to rape her.  Blacks should not have to apologize for their skin color in order to achieve racial equity be it de facto or de jure.

Seeing as how recent protests in Egypt concerning the now former President Mubarak have inspired the proletariat of the world, even in the midwest as teachers’ unions protest their right to come to a collective bargaining table against a GOP governor, I think “we, the people” here in the United States should be reminded of our collective power.  This power can be utilized in marches and democratic displays at the voting booth all the way effectively lobbying in Congress directly addressing the policies that often times help the rich and harm the poor.

We can’t afford to continue this lie that we are in a post-racial America.  Lying to ourselves as a country will never move us forward as a country nor as a human race.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

State of Emergency: We Who Believe In Freedom Cannot Rest

13 Feb

1966, Prairie Mission, Alabama, USA --- Segregated Classroom in Alabama --- Image by © Bob Adelman/Corbis

At the risk of sounding yet another clarion call for action that goes unheard, I still feel compelled to discuss the massive and total failure of many of our systems that are in place within the boundaries of the black community.  The failure to do what needs to be done is comparable to the levee breaches during Hurricane Katrina.  Comparable so much so that what we’re suffering from is akin to a flood.  Floods are a steady increase of a force of water that is generally unstoppable and unmovable and floods require the victims to wait it out until storm waters recede.

The Hurricane Katrina comparison is apropos in the sense that I’m living in New Orleans now.

Without going into too much detail about my surroundings (granted its a 50/50 chance you’ll know where I’m talking about), we have a massive failure of our young students in this current culture.  There are a plethora of issues that need be addressed, and we hear them talked about ad nauseum and as infinitum.  We can recite the failure of public education, the lack of fathers in the home, drugs and gang issues in our sleep and quote statistics like it’s going out of style.  But, the issue that I want to briefly discuss is the basic lack of civility that we’re facing today.

It seems that quickly we’re losing a hold on the basics of human interaction.  The change from speaking to one another as you pass each other on the sidewalk transitioned seamlessly into mere head nods and now silence without any hint of acknowledgement.  That’s not really the end of the world, I grew up in the North and that certainly didn’t affect much one way or the other, but what I’m observing is that many of our young people simply have no couth.  It’s not so much that I expect 100% of young people to know the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork or which glass is theirs at a five star restaurant as I expect them to put the phone away when an adult is talking directly to them.

Can we blame the parents?  Sure.  Even at my young age, a teenager doesn’t need a cell phone.  The claim during the 1990s was that we were creating a culture of instant gratification, and boy was that prediction true.  With instant message, push emails, text message, immediate status updates, up-to-the minute breaking news alerts sent to your phone, actual face-to-face communication at times seems a bit out-moded.  No wonder our young people are more fascinated with their phones than with what’s going on in the world happening around them.

I could trot out the warhorse story about a time when a neighbor could spank a child, call the parents and send them home, and they’d spank them again (as if corporal punishment produced the best and the brightest all the time, but that’s another blog post) or about how the community looked out for each other back in the day, but honestly, we see how all of that turned out.

No, I’m not trying to be pessimistic about the situation, but rather trying to be realistic.  I think we need to be real about our past motives and how what we were trying to achieve and how we tried to go about achieving them has affected us today.  Often times we complain amongst ourselves that “we talk about the problem, but not coming up with solutions” as if to say that a) we’ve correctly diagnosed the problem and b) that we’ve seen the challenge as easy or difficult to surmount.  Painting with a broad stroke, since most of the issues that are pre-eminent not just within the black community, but the United States as a whole rest in their foundational and concretized beliefs, these challenges are quite difficult, therefore requiring an adaptive approach to dealing with them.

The problem with “adaptive challenges” is that they are not easily solved.*  We can pick up the phone and tell the gas company our furnace at the office isn’t working and we have no heat they send someone out and Voila! your heat is restored.  The difficulty arises when the gas company is backed up because of the severe cold snap and you’re told someone will be out around 4pm, and no one shows up, and it’s still cold.  Each day maintenance says they’re going to fix it and for various and sundry reasons, it’s still cold in the office.  The constant promise of fixing the heat results in a back and forth between the challenge being easily solved or being solved through adapting to the new circumstances.

This is very much the position that blacks in America find themselves.

We had the promise of 40 acres and a mule, but that was taken away, so we adapted.  We had the promise of the Reconstruction, but that was taken away and we adapted.  We were dealt the blow of Plessy vs. Ferguson, but we adapted.  We faced lynch mobs, house bombings, water hoses, attack dogs, redlining in residential neighborhoods, substandard schools, poor city services, unfair sentencing practices, yet we were promised equal protection under the law, affirmative action was implemented and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights bills were passed.  But we still face redlining in residential neighborhoods, substandard schools, poor city services, unfair sentencing practices and plethora of other forms of subtle and institutional racism–so we adapted.

But we’re tired.

The people in the office with no heat in the winter time are placed in a hostile working environment.  Persons aren’t happy to come to work, and production slows because they’re preoccupied with a problem that she be no more difficult than calling a maintenance worker, but yet their forced to have to deal with a problem longer than what’s appropriate.  As a result the office coffers are lower because of having to pay for space heaters, and ultimately their electric bill may be higher because of the constant energy the space heaters are consuming.  The failure to get the main issue solved has resulted in time and effort spent to adapt to the new circumstances and more resources spent on issues that were created (space heaters, higher electric bill) as a result of trying to combat the hostile working environment.

And the people in the office are tired as well.

Having to vacillate between what could be considered a technical and an adaptive challenge is a tiring process.  What should be easy has become difficult.  What happens is other problems are created and those problems spur their own problems and it becomes a sickening downward spiral that leaves one tired.

At the present bottom of this spiral, we have some of our young people who just aren’t connecting with each other in a way that denotes civility.  I think that we need a few people to simply stick their neck out on the line and feel free to tell these young people what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate in certain settings.  And by the same token, I think adults need to do a better job of setting an example.  We can’t ask our young people to do behavior that we don’t model.  If having a cell phone is inappropriate in the classroom setting, then the professor should turn their cell phone off as well and give the students their undivided attention as well.

Al Sharpton and Robert Michael Franklin at State of the Black Union

It’s not so much that we need to continue talking just to place blame at accountable entities and individuals (we can blame the inefficiency of the maintenance workers in the office building just as much as we blame our congresspersons and other governmental agencies), but rather I’m not convinced we’ve really named what the problem is–yet.  We’ve sat up and decried Tavis Smiley for holding the State of the Black Union for ten years and not doing anything, but prior to him supporting Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries, many black folk didn’t have much to say about him one way or the other.  We sit up and talk about Rev. Al Sharpton and his talk show, but most people complaining haven’t even listened to one full show for three hours to see what he has to say exactly.  Meta-instances like this can only lead me to do a reverse extrapolation that would say, generally, the people complaining the most are the ones who are doing the least.

Of course in instances like the residents of New Orleans following the levees breaking were not in a position to do much of anything but be rescued from rising flood waters and were solely dependent on the help of the humanity on the outside world, but most of us don’t have a story of being that desolate, yet we sit around and complain and do nothing to adapt to the situation at hand.  Am I advocating a resignation to the circumstances of life?  Hell no.  What I am advocating is that we must learn to manage the meantime properly.  Yes, the office is supposed to have heat, but thankfully we do have enough resources to purchase space heaters.  The black community has the resources and capital to sustain life amongst ourselves.  No, again, not advocating a supreme nationalist or isolationist thought, but rather saying that we have the power, the mindset to not be so dependent on others to do for us what we have the ability to do for ourselves.

To revisit the issue of civility amongst our young people, it’s simply performing the task of being a martyr.  But calling one to martyrdom isn’t easy.  Martyr has a Greek etymology and its root word forms the Greek word for witness. Just as the writer of the biblical account of the Acts of the Apostles records Jesus telling the disciples that they will be his “witnesses,” I believe it is appropriate that Jesus was asking them to die for a cause.  Indeed, history records that many of the disciples met very violent deaths at the hands of the government and by lynch mobs that supported the state tyranny.

I doubt any of us will die in the task of restoring civility within our community, but it certainly is a life sacrifice to participate in doing so.  Will we be cussed out?  Probably.  Called all kind of names?  Eventually.  Could our house be egged or teepeed? Very possible.  Responding to an adaptive challenge is not resigning to the powers that be, but rather regaining control of the situation and redefining it for ourselves.  Employing the principles of Kwanzaa concerning self-determination, we have to be able to speak for ourselves and name ourselves instead of being defined and spoken for by others.

Simply stated, it’s a state of emergency, we can’t afford to remain silent as though the problems will rectify themselves.

The following is a quote from Ella Baker.

Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind.

* The notion of adaptive and technical challenges comes from Ronald A. Heifetz & Marty Linsky and their book Leadership on the Line.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

We Do Big Things: Celebrating Obama as Head of Empire, Redux

27 Jan

In March 2009, not even a full three months after President Barack Obama had been sworn into office, I wrote a blog entitled “Celebrating Obama as Head of Empire.”  It flew under the radar for the most part except for my then small blogging audience that read and commented.  It was a notion that I had kept in my mind ever since, but for the most part I had relegated it to the back of my mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I still did and do recognize Obama as the head of the American Empire.

Make no mistake anyone who is at the cockpit of this mothership is certainly running an overseeing an empire–and America is indeed an imperial force.  An empire is defined by their ability to conquer nations and impose their ideals of civilization.  The conquering of civilization is undoubtedly done through the pornography of violence.  That is to directly suggest that the relative peace experienced in the western hemisphere, Pax Americana if you will, that we’ve achieved post World War II and Vietnam War era regards peace not as an absence of war, but the rare situation that existed when all opponents have been beaten down beyond the ability to resist.

This understanding of American imperialism is mainly a direct attack on the free-market, and laissez-faire style of capitalism.  I’m aware of that, but I stand by it.  Imperialism 18th and 19th century style with mother countries in Europe with their colonies in North America, Africa, Asia, South America and the Caribbean sees itself today with the United Stat

es with their commonwealths and insular areas (protectorates) all the way from the Philippines to Puerto Rico.   These are places where the people are taxed, but don’t have the full rights of citizenship that we enjoy.  The Philippines and Puerto Rico are places that were taken over as spoils of wars stemming from World War II and the Spanish-American War.

The mark of imperialism is also noted when a nation has themselves embroiled in the domestic affairs of another country and we see that exampled with our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.  If we travel anachronistically through time we see the United States’ involvement with Haiti, Nicaragua, with Vietnam, the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico have all left lasting imprints on those nations going all the way well into the early 19th century. The U.S. flexed its power with the Monroe Doctrine declaringtheir imperial powers in the western hemisphere in the 1820s.  Teddy Roosevelt revisited that ideology with the Roosevelt Corollary that made the U.S. a hemispheric policeman that was a de facto arbiter of Latin American wrongdoing.

This is the foundation of this country.

This country was framed by imperialist thought that has been transferred from generation to generation and has truly become part of the ethos of this country.

Generally speaking, I don’t hear these themes of American exceptionalism from our current head of Empire, Barack Obama.

And that’s a good thing.

When Obama delivers a speech, I hear about the stark reality of our nation, but I feel good about it and it’s possibilities and a hope for a better tomorrow.  Obama, while speaking thematically still gives an outline of what he plans on accomplishing while giving a sense of clarity and stability — something that is sorely needed these days from politicians.  After Congress delivering right before Christmas break and having presented to the nation so appropriately with his speech in Tucson, I know that Obama is capable of speaking to my sensibilities.

Tuesday night was not one of them.

For me the speech took an ideological turn when he declared that the troops had “borne the greatest burden in this struggle [for freedom]” which was a dovetail from him discussion the political unrest in Tunisia.  I remember thinking to myself that perhaps enlisting to fight over in Iraq of Afghanistan might provide a more predictable struggle than fighting for the poor and disenfranchised here at home.  The troops received across the board support and recognition from hometowns, from churches, from other local organizations, but the fight for freedom also is being fought with our teachers, our social workers, the local pastors who don’t mind rolling up their sleeves and getting dirty.

Suffice it to say, it was indeed a corner that was turned that Obama never recovered from.  He received a distinctive eye-roll when he spoke about the “American Dream” as it related to the illustrative Allen brothers and certainly when he gave a nod to Speaker of the House John Boehner (and Biden as well).  Perhaps I have been jaded since I read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers and my basic understanding of success has altered.  I felt the picture of the American success story, you know, the one that speaks of rugged individualism, true grit, a certainly level of stick-to-it-ness mixed with the right amount of innate talent and Voila! a self-made success story is just a bunch of rigmarole.

The icing on the cake was Obama’s twice spoken refrain “We do big things.”

It was as if Obama had pulled it out and dared to measure it in front of everyone.

No, I’m not talking about the penile length of America’s metaphorical dick, but rather the size of Americas influence and imperial power as measured by what we can produce and what we can consume.  This allows everything to be commodified — even our ideology.  To reach empire status, it’s not enough to own the physical features from land, to building, amassing assets untold, even the physical body as an asset, but no, the empire must hold sway to the righteous mind of the individual and the masses both at the same time.

Manifest Destiny

As the head of an empire, Obama re-presented the package of manifest destiny, refashioned into the American dream and delivered to a willful public by putting for the ideals of egalitarianism, individualism and populism presenting America as some “city on a hill” and a shining paragon of what should be in the world.  Even as Obama quoted education statistics, he certainly was invoking tried and true politicking from ideologies past.  The idea that we are a country where “we do big things” runs the risk of promoting this exceptionalist ideology that has it’s roots in favoritism is only shown on America.  It tells Americans it’s okay to say “God bless America–and no one else.”  Not to mention “we do big things” is the mentality that allows us to “super-size” ourselves to death and to measure our success and our blessings with a rubric of materialism and consumerism rather than deeper intrinsic values that speak to more humanistic virtues.

The citizens of ancient Rome certainly thought well of Caesar Augustus.  He had brought this relative stability to a region that had seen wars and more wars and then more than that as their native land grew into an empire subsuming other independent nationalities all under the Roman rule.  From the Greek isles down into the Northeast African continent.  Roman government promised protection of smaller nationalistic subsets from others like the Babylonians or Persians if only they become a part of the Roman empire.  And it worked!  These groups found themselves Roman citizens, using denarii and paying taxes to the Roman government.  It seems like all goes well while being a citizen of the empire, but either outside the reach of the empire or taking a stance opposite to the propaganda disseminated by the empire one will eventually feel the wrath of the empire.

This country has systematically squashed meaningful debates over the years to move toward a more perfect union.  The victories that have been accomplished have been long fought and hard won resulting in many casualties along the way.   This country does not generally think twice about maintaing a conservative and imperialistic foreign policy when dealing with countries where the indigenous people have a darker skin hue.  Not to mention, we don’t treat the poor and black and brown people the same even in our own country.

It was my hope in that March 2009 blogpost that at the dawn of a new administration that Obama have the audacity to pick an anti-empire cabinet and lead not as the head of an empire but as a duly elected official by a populist vote.  I have to say that for the most part I’m pleased with what he’s done.  Being the progressive that I am, I am still concerned with the “least of these” that are living in Haiti (I was disturbed that Obama didn’t mention Haiti which is in our backyard not even one time, but felt the need to discuss Tunisia halfway across the globe), and seriously addressing the education crisis that is facing our public schools from urban to rural districts.

The fact that Obama, the rest of our elected politicians remain so stagnantly status quo on such issues lets me know how much of an empire we really are.  Empires’ existence is heavily dependent on how much can they maintain an equilibrium where the power rests with the aristocrats and the proletariat is never allowed to manifest their own power both physically and ideologically.

To hold off the chorus of “love it or leave it,” there may be a time for that to come (I haven’t quite seen the exit yet), but loving this country doesn’t mean transmogrifying into some jingoistic bot that mindless agrees with everything the Tea Party government says, but actually staying here stateside to change what we see.  However, if one makes the decision to stay, one must not succumb to apathy nor become casualties of cynicism.

When we surrender to cynicism, we become casualties to the struggles of freedom rather than matyrs for the cause of liberation.

For those willing to stay and fight, I leave to the famous Frederick Douglass quote as means of encouragement:

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

 

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