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Should We Change the Black National Anthem? My Response to Toure

17 Nov

This morning I log onto Facebook and I see a link to an article entitled “It’s Time for a New Black National Anthem” entitled by black cultural critic and favorite provocateur  Touré.  He’s making the claim from his opening paragraph that there might be a need for a new Black National Anthem given that the one we pull out during February and HBCU commencements is nearing its 112th year of use.  Usually I’m up for discussion when it comes to things of antiquity as to whether or not we’re beating a dead horse and whether or not the joys of postmodernity have offered us a newer and better alternative.

Touré has the gift of challenging subtle thoughts while provoking angst.  The true artist.  Recently  Touré has been the whipping post for the black blogosphere with some of his random musings on black culture as it intersects the triumvirate of cultural taboos: politics, race and religion.  Toure represents, to me, the better part of what it means to think critically and be situated squarely within a post-modern Civil Rights Black America.  As with most essayists young and old, the sarcastic wit and humor go a long way to illustrate a point–this is a field where hyperbole is your friend not your enemy.  So when I read Toure commentary on “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” I had to remember to not respond with a blatant knee-jerk reaction, but dig just a bit deeper.

What I revealed was a reflection of a culture through the lens of being a member of Generation X.  By in large that generation of Americans were taught to question the ideals and mores of yesteryear–nothing, for the most part, is off limits.   Touré was making the claim in this article that we should substitute “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” for Marvin Gaye’s “Trouble Man.”  One of the benefits being that the latter is actually a song you can dance to at a party versus the former.  My knee-jerk reaction that Toure doesn’t know the difference between a soul ballad and an anthem or that even the title “Trouble Man” poses some problems that would undoubtedly draw the ire of those reading through a feminist or womanist lens.  Not to mention that the lyrics don’t evoke the antiquity that the tried and true anthem does.

While I agree that “Trouble Man” certainly does illuminate the “multiplicity of multiplicities” that is the black experience, the difference between the anthem and the soul song is the difference between one nation and one man respectively.  The anthem is a song about a collective and united body lifting every voice to sing and and shout with a oneness, a second stanza that acknowledges the hardships of the past and a third stanza that invokes a prayer and a rallying cry rooted in the present but looking toward the future.  Don’t get me wrong, “Trouble Man” conjures up emotions and imagery that aren’t present in “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” of which Toure notes when he says

“Trouble Man” is a unique song in that it draws from many sonic aspects of Blackness. It’s a blues song in spirit, but the blues isn’t about sadness, it’s about survival in spite of adversity and that sense is at the heart of this song….The song also captures the sense that our history remains a work in progress. We’re not “there,” we’re not at Dr. King’s mountaintop, but we’ve made gains, yet those gains are often washed away with the tides as if we’re always taking two steps forward and one back. The growth of the Black middle class in the ’80s has been stripped away by a recession that hit Blacks harder than anyone. The cool brilliance of Barack Obama is followed on the national stage by the small-minded buffoonery of Herman Cain. This sense of gains and losses that has marked our history is captured by the deep line, “I had to win, then start all over, and win again.”

Touré’s lens for understanding this is dead on for his generation, my generation included, but I think he somewhat misses the point.  The anthem attempts to speak for a united people while the soulful song voices one man’s lament about being a black man in certainly what then, these yet-to-be United States.  A poem set to music written at the turn of the previous century before DuBois commented on the “souls of black folk,” and before Martin had a “dream” didn’t carry the same baggage that a troubled man would have.

Favoring the individual over that of the national is a hallmark of post-modern thinking.   Touré, undoubtedly would err on the side of postmodernity before he would take an apologetic stance on the tenets of modernity.  Whenever you publish a book Who’s  Afraid of Postblackness?  What it Means to be Black Now? you are certainly stepping all in the area of postmodern ideals.  While most black people probably don’t give “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” a second thought, to understand it as the Negro National Anthem invokes such a clear defiance of the established and dominant culture it still sends chills down my back.  The Negro National Anthem should do for blacks what “Dixeland” did (and still does) for those who refer to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression.

The words for me even through my, at times, unwavering allegiance to postmodern ideals, pushes the envelope and still speaks toward some of the collective emotions of those located in black America irrespective of class.  Perhaps  Touré had issues with the assured Christian tone of the anthem as it does mention God a few times and “Trouble Man” certainly does move away from that.  But still, I could see black women having a problem with “Trouble Man” as it does not give voice to black women relegating them to romantic and perhaps even sexual objects such as “baby” and “sugar.”

The black experience, or should I say, the Black Experience, is more than just here in America.  It’s bigger than hip hop, it’s bigger than the Civil Rights movement, it’s bigger than Obama, bigger than slavery and the Middle Passage and it’s bigger than Mother Africa herself.  To encapsulate the Black Experience in a song  through the eyes of a singular troubled black man somewhat falls short of the greater glory that is blackness.  The “multiplicity of multiplicities” that make up our is-ness and our being should not be confined to one song.  Seeing as how we have the parameters of human language, when we attempt to embody the human spirit in an art form such as a song, I am quite sure that we can do better than “Trouble Man.”

Be that as it may, I think Toure’s article this morning did what I’m sure he set out to do: it made the reader think.  To that end, job well done sir.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2011/11/17/its-time-for-a-new-black-national-anthem/#ixzz1dyjMx2XL

Herman Cain, the Magical Negro…and Other Topics on Ontological Blackness

2 Nov

Carlos Osorio/AP Photos

Let me just be up front and honest: I don’t like Herman Cain.

Granted I dislike his opponent Texas Governor Rick Perry even less, and Rep. Michelle Bachmann has devolved into a “Love Boat” joke, I just really don’t care for Herman Cain.  His politics seems to hearken back to a Brady Bunch or even “Leave It to Beaver” era of this country–one that never truly existed–and people are eating it up.  Maybe that’s what it is; I’m just mad people are actually buying what he’s shoveling.

But why not?  He’s a magical Negro.

Yes, the phrase “magical Negro” is a bit of a tongue-and-cheek mash up and probably draws more questions that it answers, but if you will go with me, I would like to explore this magical Negro called Herman Cain.

Let’s be honest, since we’re not in a post-racial society despite what mainstream media continues to assert, more and more people are trying to wrap their minds around the now seeable possibility of having two men of color run for the office of the President of the United States.  What is interesting to me, is that both of these men have had the core of their blackness challenged.  For Barack Obama it was his mixed ancestral heritage, being raised by his white grandparents in part and for Herman Cain his affiliation with the Republican party and aligning himself with the likes of other GOP’ers who take such conservative stances when it comes to the disenfranchised of this country.

So how is Herman Cain able to ascend to the point he has now despite being black?  I think very much the same way Obama did for the Democrats: there’s a level of “safeness” about both of these men.  This country isn’t ready for a black man to be president (( wink wink )).  By black man, one need only reference the 2004 nomination process for the Democrats and Al Sharpton didn’t make it past South Carolina.  While Sharpton was able to parlay himself into a nationally syndicated radio talk show and now a full time slot on MSNBC, an elected official he is not!

It’s easy to call Herman Cain a sellout for his political position when it comes to his comments on the Occupy Wall Street movement by inferring persons need to simply go get a job.  Even the most simple of political commentaries understands that with a 9.1% unemployment rate nationwide to suggest protesters need to just get a job wholly oversimplifies the problem.  And that’s Cain’s political achilles heel to me: he oversimplifies relatively complex problems.  While his 9-9-9 plan (( think 9 pizzas, 9 toppings for the low low price of $9.99 )) is easily repeatable, it’s a rather basic solution to a real complex problem.  Even in the last debate, after I finally got the gist of it, Cain was left comparing apples and oranges, literally, to an audience and debaters who could see through it.

This is the problem that Cain faces when it comes to his blackness being challenged.

Most political commentators with any validity to their reputation (so this excludes most anyone who appears on Fox News) and across color lines will admit that the issue of race is not a simple one: it never has been and will probably never be.  Cain’s haste to oversimplify things flies in the face of conventional wisdom in many of the black communities across this country.  This is why Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia in 2008 following the initial fallout behind Jeremiah Wright was so poignant and resonated with many people.  It was the first time in recent memory we heard a speech that tackled the issue of race head-on and didn’t use euphemisms to address it.  Obama’s speech was the only speech on race I had heard in my lifetime coming from somone with the high level of political status as he, it at least did not dismiss race nor add to the apathy and disillusionment that often characterizes the lives of disenfranchised people.

A potential GOP nomination of Herman Cain could actually be a political jackpot for the GOP when it comes to issues of race.  The GOP has been facing ever increasing flak from the black communities across this nation when it comes endearing blacks to their party.  It’s a joke worthy only of the black blogosphere, Facebook and Twitter when GOP events are aired on national TV and we sit back and count the number of black faces we see in the crowd.  Usually we never run out of fingers.  With the recent chairperson of the GOP, Michael Steele, being black he was forced to deal with these questions directly, and the GOP as a party was able to point and say “Look, we’re not racist.  Our chairperson is a black guy!”

But, as I noted above, that oversimplifies the issue of race.

What the GOP obviously fails to realize is that running a black conservative candidate against Obama runs the risk of political suicide.

Just ask Alan Keyes.

Granted the GOP in the state of Illinois had Barack Obama running unopposed for a U.S. Sentate seat for six whole weeks, but Alan Keyes, as the paragon of foot-in-the-mouth conservatism was the absolutely worst candidate to run against an Obama campaign.  But Obama won 70% of the vote with over four million votes cast in a state that outside of the Chicago metropolitan area consistently voted Republican and in a state that has no qualms about electing a Republican governor when they feel like it.

70-percent.

For social conservatives to vote for a black man in a political office is the equivalent of the “oh, I have black friends” meme.  It somehow tells them that they’re really not that conservative–or prejudiced, or bigoted, or racist–deep down.  What makes this a falsehood one tells one’s self to sleep easy at night is the fact that voting for the likes of a Herman Cain don’t require much of a leap.  Herman Cain’s rhetoric, for the most part is interchangeable with that of Mitt Romney or Rick Perry at this stage of the game.  Nothing Cain stands for or has spoken about would look any different coming from a white GOP politician–no one would raise an eyebrow.

With the latest political bungle lain at the doorstep of Herman Cain surrounding this sexual misconduct from years ago, he seems like a Manchurian candidate of sorts to me.  He seems out of his political element–like Sarah Palin.  The folksy-ness comes off as aloof and unaware of the stakes of the game.  While I don’t mind perceived flip-flopping on the issues when new information is available, Herman Cain’s doublespeak is pushing the appalling level.  And his speaking in unknown tongues referring to not knowing the capital of “Uz-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan” doesn’t show salt-of-the-earth values, but rather a frightening dearth of knowledge of foreign affairs.

Launching into a rendition of “He Looked Beyond My Faults” at the National Press Club earlier this week–as though he were singing a sermonic selection before he preached…

…doth not a presidential candidate make.

Honestly, I don’t like the guy, but as a fellow black man, it felt like Cain set us back the proverbial 400 years when I saw him launch into song.  It came off as a minstrel production; that to placate to white conservative sensibilities he felt the need to sing a song.  It hearkened back to a time when racist whites of the antebellum and Jim Crow era dismissed Negro work songs as songs sung because we were happy to be doing the back breaking labor.  Certainly it roused images of blacks portrayed as mere entertainment and advertisement with black face, exaggerated lips and noses plastered on billboards, food labels and the like.

Notwithstanding Cain’s matriculation at Morehouse College or his parents insistence to not get involved with Civil Rights protests in Atlanta, to be unaware of the consequences of singing as he did disturbs me.

But so is this Magical Negro–the one Herman Cain.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

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

Coonery or Comedy: What’s the Difference? A Case Study of Tyler Perry

16 Sep

Every once in a while I pose a question on Twitter and actually get some responses.  Today was one of those days.  I visited fellow blogger Average Bro’s website and I saw his story on the recent news that Tyler Perry raked in the most money in Hollywood for a year between 2010 and 2011, a nice sum around $130 million.  Naturally, the black blogosphere had jumped on this a day before when the story broke and a fresh new round of criticisms about Tyler Perry were refreshed.  It’s as though we treat Tyler Perry like some wound that as soon as the scab begins to crust over, we pick at it again opening a fresh wound hellbent on making sure that we create a permanent scar.

The question coonery or comedy isn’t exactly a new one, and certainly not a new topic surrounding Tyler Perry and his brand of cinematography and small screen ventures.  But, since Facebook is enjoying reminding its users of status updates from the past two years on any given day, I saw that this time last year I was encouraging and hoping the best for Tyler Perry as his screen adaptation of “For Colored Girls” was then soon to be released.  For me, that was when the tide turned and I seriously stopped hatin’ on the guy and decided to congratulate him for his successes.

What I posed today on Twitter was:

You can’t criticize Tyler Perry and his Madea image if you think “Coming to America” and “Friday” are funny.

While many people went on to tell me how one could criticize one and not the other, I began thinking what constitutes coonery and what constitutes comedy.  For a basic definition, fellow Twitter follower @Brandale2221 said to the effect that comedy is new jokes in new places and that coonery is old jokes in old places.  While have some nuance differences with that statement, I think most people would agree to that; it sounds good.

Let’s be honest, black comedy has seen a number of “envelopes being pushed” throughout the ages.  From the likes of Redd Foxx, Flip Wilson and LaWanda Page all the way to Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Adele Givens and Sheryl Underwood.   We’ve seen many of these black stand up comedians and comediennes jump from the stage to the silver screen and small screen making cameo roles to even being Hollywood stars themselves.  Many of them have shows and movies that particularly depict black culture and add to the conversation of what is blackness.  For good or bad, they add to this image.

When the 1990s came around and we had safely moved away from the blaxploitation era of movies, the image of the Huxtables had easily began to dominate the scene, gangsta rap had fully emerged as a force to be reckoned with birthed out of the hip hop culture.  This hip hop culture had given birth to movies such as “Coming to America” to “Boyz N Da Hood” and we saw television shows such as “Living Single,” “Martin” and “The Wayans’ Brothers” become top shows amongst black audiences.  From black romantic comedies such as “Boomerang” to “Love Jones” showed an image of black love rarely seen on the big screen.

But none came out the gate swinging more than Spike Lee.  Quintessential Spike Lee movies from that era still speak volumes for the black community and the purpose of this discussion: “School Daze” and “Do the Right Thing.”  [I would include Malcolm X in this list of quintessential movies, but since it's a biography, it doesn't quite fit the genre comparisons that I'm going for.]  We hold Spike Lee and these movies as the paragon of what it means to be black, male, writer, director and producer–the holy trifecta of the Hollywood movie making industry.

Somewhere, sneaking under the radar came Tyler Perry.

Helloerr!

Perry doesn’t fit the mold of any of the aforementioned black productions.  His movies don’t achieve the level of political and racial consciousness of Spike Lee joints; they don’t exude the smooth romantic comedy vibe that was eloquently delivered in “Love Jones” and his movies certainly don’t fit the genre of the gangster movies such as “Menace II Society.”  Tyler Perry came on the scene in a country that had survived 9/11 and in what some sociologists are already referring to as “the Lost Decade.”

The 20-aughts have seen the death of the live studio audience sitcom replaced by reality TV shows that take you from the jungles of Southeast Asia to the chef’s kitchens of Los Angeles and audiences will pay money to see human jackasses on screen play tortuous pranks on one another.

What better time for Tyler Perry to step on the scene.

Na’im Akbar, the acclaimed clinical psychologist, wrote in his book Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery even before we knew who Madea was, wrote about “the Wayans’ Brothers and “Martin” as coonin’.  For me, personally, much of the comedy of Martin Lawrence on the show vascillated between comedy and coonery.  A typical scene with him, Cole, and Gina and Pam all playing off one another when the plumber died in the apartment was sheer comedic genius.  Watching Shenehneh Jenkins act a fool in the hallway was coonin’ to me.

Did I laugh?  Sometimes.

A basic question I pose when I have this discussion is what’s the difference between Flip Wilson in a dress, Martin Lawrence in a dress, Jamie Foxx in a dress and Tyler Perry in a dress; what makes the first three comedy and the last one coonin’.  One someone told simply that the first three are funny and that Perry isn’t.  Well, what’s considered an appropriate emotional stimuli to overbalance neurological stressers that produce laughter is highly subjective–just because you think it’s funny doesn’t mean I will.  But, to suggest that because one doesn’t find Tyler Perry funny automatically means it’s safe to call it coonin’ I think is disingenuous.

Tyler Perry isn’t a stand up comedian who made the crossover, but rather he’s a guy who has said that he’s trying to put forth a message about black culture.  He didn’t go to school for filmmaking and he hasn’t been working in this area terribly long compared to other blacks in the industry.  He’s overtly religious and spiritual in his films.  All of these things make him a clear outlier from the other disparate writers, producers and directors.  And he’s producing these movies in different cultural climate than the one’s we often compare him to–and he’s clear that he has a different target audience.

Much of what I fielded from criticisms about “The Help” are much of what I see in criticism of Perry that are levied against him.  ”The Help” as a movie, never set out to tell a gripping tale of black domestic life in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963, it set out to be an entertaining movie about black domestic life in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963.  Perry, clearly unlike Spike Lee, never set out to tell stories about racial and political injustices–nuanced and blatant–or a clear and pointed view of black culture.  Perry, at best from what he’s said in interviews, set out to tell tranche de vie stories about blacks with basic human uplift themes–he just wasn’t trying to be all that deep.

And boy did he suceed.

Yes, Tyler Perry’s movies and sitcoms are bland at best.  The plots of his movies fall marvelously flat like a cake in a oven on the set of The Bozo Show; a horrible, tired and staid punchline that you can see coming a mile away.  The acting leaves a lot to be desired, and the writing is bad.  It’s so bad that to see the likes of Angela Bassett and Lynn Whitfield have deliver some of those words is truly cringe worthy.  The level of comedy of the sitcoms “House of Payne” and “Meet the Browns” is on par with that of a 1st grade Christmas pageant.

But, Tyler Perry has made power move after power move and for that alone, I celebrate what he’s been able to do.  What makes him and Spike Lee comparable is that, to my knowledge, they are the only two black people in Hollywood who comprise all aspects of writing, directing and producing–and acting–in their full-length productions.  Most times in Hollywood you find black directors and black writers, but to have black producers who also own their own production company is what incurs the wow factor.  While yes you have the Smith’s (Will and Jada) who have their own production company, if one looks at the credits you’d see in Spike Lee and Tyler Perry films, they’re not sharing the rights of production with anyone else but themselves.

That’s some Steven Spielberg type ish!

I guess the next power move for Tyler Perry is to start his own film distribution company to which I say more power to the brother as well!

As with things of this topic, if it’s something you seriously don’t consider to be comedy but view it as coonin’  just flip the channel, as I do when I see Ella’s short T-Rex arms appear on my screen in “House of Payne.” [SN: You know that's the same character hanging out the window of the girls dorm at Mission College yelling at Dap to go away?]  And given the plethora of foolish images we as a black culture have dealt with in the past and are dealing with right now, I somehow think we’re overreacting.  The vapid lyrics of “You Look Better With the Lights Off” from the New Boyz featuring Chris Brown or the anti-love song Miguel is crooning out saying “I Don’t Wanna Be Loved” and that he only wants a quickie–no bite marks, scratches or hickies please–I think has just as much an impact on how black culture is viewed as “Madeas Big Happy Family.”

In an age where Italians are reduced to the images of greasy haired mob bosses or guidos from the “Jersey Shore” and middle class white families paint their young daughters as hoes in training on “Teen Mom” I think Tyler Perry’s image of Madea is about right on target for the U.S. as we see-saw between life imitating art or art imitating life.

Slightly diverging from this line of thinking, but I think equally important in this entire conversation, no one ever questioned the sexuality of many of these previous comedians to the point and extent of Tyler Perry.  Mind you, “Boondocks” did an ENTIRE episode openly criticizing this man’s sexuality.  While the “Pause” episode was brilliant and stood in stark artistic difference to the production work of Perry himself, still, was it morally right for Aaron McGruder to do that?  I think we, as a black community, have given ourselves a bit more of a green light to openly criticize the work of Tyler Perry and Tyler Perry himself because we feel that we are morally superior–we don’t go around acting super churchy all the time while dressed in drag, therefore we’re in a position of moral judgment.  I dare say if Perry wasn’t so overly religious and spiritual in his films that some of the issue we may have with a man who’s 6’5″ dressed in drag would somewhat be allayed.

Still, does that make one’s criticisms less valid?  I would say no, but as much as I’m always interested in authorial intent when I read novels, and works of non-fiction and certainly when I read the biblical text, I ask myself the same thing when it comes to entertainment.  One criticisms are always valid, but what is the intent of your criticisms?  Are they from a knowingly subjective vantage point or from a delusional and seemingly objective point of view?  What bothers me is false objectivity.  I have no problems with people being clear with their bias, but to ignore it, to me, bankrupts the value of your opinion.

For those who think I’ve evaded the question, for me, comedy is rooted in the intent of the artist.  If the artist is simply pushing the envelope for the sake of laughter, then it’s comedy.  Coonin’ is also rooted in the intent of the artist–if the artist is compromising an artistic integrity for the sake of laughter.  

Failing to be, who you be, and be the best at it….you’re nothing more than a coon.

Keep it uppity and truthfully radical, JLL

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

The Death of Life

15 Jun

Robert "Yummy" Sandifer, 11, shot and killed in 1994 after having shot and killed a local neighborhood girl.

This following sermonette was brought about by a story I stumbled across on the web about a mother in Chicago receiving the high school diploma of her slain son.  Her son was killed on the sidewalk after walking up to a group of three young men.  No arrests have been made.  I read the story and was disturbed by the rosy picture of the slain son.  The story reports he wanted to go to college and how happy and jovial he was as a person, but somehow I felt it was only a half image.  I’m not trying to pathologize young black men, but if a brother walks up to three people on a street, apparently there’s some familiarity–meaning he probably knew his killer.

The code of silence of the community keeps this violence happening.

We stand by and say nothing. We peer out of our windows and say nothing.  We see injustice and we don’t bat an eye.  Why? Because we may be the next dead body found in our homes or the street?  We very well may be.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

******************************************************************************

“The Death of Life”
Ecclesiastes 2:16-17

For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered;
the days have already come when both have been forgotten.
Like the fool, the wise too must die!
So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me.
All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

It has become commonplace in the context of our community too see t-shirts airbrushed and stamped with the view of the sky and a sunburst in the background and pictures of a young black male in various casual and posed shots.  At the bottom is their name, a nickname in quotes and all too familiar two words “sunrise” and “sunset” with two anno domini years placed beneath it.  It has become an all too familiar occurrence to log onto Facebook and run across a status update that refers to the death of a young person; to come across a memorial photo with a name and the phrase “gone to soon” and the ubiquitous “rest in peace” tag.

Death remains a mystery to all of us in the room, but it’s a final mystery.  The reality and finite qualities of death always grab our attention, pulling us from life, tapping us on the shoulder and reminding us of its existence.  However, it has become too common a moment when death does not gently tap us on the shoulder reminding us, but knocks us out with a heavy blow laying us flat on our backs.  It is here and it is real.

Dealing with the death our young people is common in the inner city black community.  We have gotten accustomed to Death as a part of Life.  Yes, while all people succumb to that ultimate statistic—ten out of ten people die—we ought not recognize Death as the norm to Life.  The death of Life ought not be normal in our community. When recognize the death of Life as normal, then life is seen as abnormal.

When Life becomes abnormal, it’s not unusual for our young black men to have kids at age sixteen and seventeen because they expect death by age 25.  If we have moved to point in our collective and communal consciousness that the lives of young black men beyond the age of 25 is abnormal, it should come to no shock that the young black women of our community are promoting manhood by age five. Telling a five year old to “Be a man” and to “Man up” and not show any emotions is considered normal, because by age 13, they will be considered middle age in a community that accepts the death of Life as just the way it is.

If we have moved to a place in our black communities where complacency has set in like dry rot in an old house, permeating the essence of our conscience, then we have already lost the battle.  If the death of the lives of our young black men is Life itself, we have conceded our consciousness over to the enemy at the gates.

One would think that we would tire of seeing “sunrise” and “sunset” dates differing no more than 25 years for our beloved Pookie. One would think that we would tire of seeing Facebook memorial pages dedicated to our black brothers, dead before 25…but we don’t.  One would think that we would grow weary of hearing preachers eulogize slain brothers repeating the bankrupt and hollow phrase “heaven must have needed an angel”…but we don’t.  The people who make airbrushed t-shirts with the computer generated images shouldn’t be making any money in our communities—there should be no need for such forms of memorializing.

It is a problem when Death defines the context of a community.  No longer do we measure time by kindergarten promotions, baby dedications, weddings, eighth grade and high school graduations, senior proms, but we measure them by distances between shootings, deaths and funerals.  When optimism moves to pessimism and pessimism moves to cynicism and cynicism moves to nihilism, we have experienced the death of Life.  When a community experiences the death of Life, God becomes an afterthought.

The title of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Masoretic text is “Qoheleth” and has been translated as “The Speaker” or even “The Preacher.” Some even understand it as “The Voice.” From whatever point of view one understands it, I think the sentiments and emotions that are voiced in these two verses speak to where many of us in the black community see ourselves.  This concept of nihilism, this belief in nothing beyond you yourself, is not a new concept; it is as old as the world is young.

However, the redemption of this nihilism is what is at issue.  What a sad state of affairs to be living waiting on Death.  A false bravado that “I ain’t afraid of nothing” including Death is a false hope in the known certainty of the unknown character of Death.  Tempting Death with your lived experience does not a man make.

For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered. Might as well make your mark on the world you say; all of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind you may reason.  Well, I’m not here to preach Jesus and have you give your hand to the preacher and give your heart to God.  I’m not here to tell you that if you get S-A-V-E-D you’ll be S-A-F-E from hell. My job is to not offer you Christ and then suddenly you’ll change your ways.  My assignment is to offer you the chance of Life.

I want to offer a chance at a life that moves from nihilism and enters into a new wonder and consciousness of you and of God.  Now if that consciousness comes through Jesus, then so be it.  But if it doesn’t, I won’t lose any sleep over it.  But I be  damned—the name of Jesus— if I am okay with seeing any more violence begetting more violence that results in one more black man being killed.

We are not allowed to be okay with seeing teddy bear and candle memorials on street corners with rain faded posters and Mylar balloons listing in the

Angel Brown holds tight to the diploma awarded her son, Isaiah Carter, at Manley Career Academy High School's graduation Sunday. Carter was killed this past November. 6/12/11 (Heather Charles, Tribune photo)

afternoon sun.  We do not have the privilege to be okay with seeing single black mothers accept  high school diplomas on behalf of their murdered child cradling a posthumous award as the last accomplishment of the fruit of their womb.  We do not have the authority to accept t-shirts and FB page memorials of our slain youth as normal ways of Life.  We are not given divine permission to be okay with news stories and funeral sermons that act as if the deceased and their relatives and all friends present are removed from corporate responsibility for the death of the one laid out in the casket.

When will we as a community move from grief to action?  We’ve become inured to the pain of death and unable to recognize and accept the joys of Life.  In too many of our communities, our pessimism about our children making it is really shrouded nihilism.  If we already don’t believe that our children are going to make it past 25, what’s the point of preparing them for a life past that age.  If a post-25 year black male life is a foreign concept, one that is filled with vast blankness, it’s no  wonder that we are okay with the death of Life as we see it.

This myopic inability to see Life outside of the context of death is supposed to be saved for those to succumb to natural causes.  At the morgue the coroner and medical examiner have hundreds of reasons to choose for cause of death.  One of the simplest is “natural causes.”  But too often in our community, we see “death by gunshot wound” as a natural cause. Recognizing death through murder as a natural cause, and even going out like a man, we have ceded control of our own lives resulting in death having the final say over our Life.

But I stand here today and decree and declare in the name of the One who sent me that Death will not have the final say over  Life as long as there is breath in my body. As you eat, live, breath, move and have your being about you; every moment and every second of every day you have another chance to live.  Every moment, you have one more chance to say to hell with Death and say yes to Life. You are empowered to do things different; you are empowered to stay in school and be somebody. As a community we are empowered to say to hell with the statistics, to hell with nay-sayers and the haters, to hell with the system hell-bent on keeping us left behind, to hell with the people who choose Death over Life.

You shall live and NOT die!

If Paul can say “O death, where is thy sting; O grave where is your victory” I can say that this is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it—I CHOOSE LIFE.  To hell with the killings, to hell with the murders, to hell with nihilism, to hell with pessimism and to hell Death.  And no I’m not using “hell” as some colloquial cussin’ but hell as a eschatological and imaginative destination and hell as an existential reality.  The things that cause Death in our community, we need to confront them, stand in its face say Get the hell out of our Life, you are no longer welcome here.  I dare each and every one of you to make up in your mind to speak the Death of Death and proclaim the joys of Life.

If Death no longer has its sting then we can put a new song in our heart, receive the joy of the Lord—this joy that I have, the  world didn’t give it and the Lord can’t take it away.  If the grave no longer has it’s victory, then I can say “Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is my strength.” If Death no longer has the final say, then I can say with an assured voice weeping may  endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning light.

For Black Religious Intellectuals Who Considered Suicide When The Foolishness Was Too Much

8 Jun

Black America paid close attention last fall when New Birth Missionary Baptist Church pastor Bishop Eddie Long was accused of sexual impropriety and misconduct.  Four young men were launching a civil case against Long for misconduct during their teenage years under the tutelage of Long as members of New Birth.  Suddenly picture text messages surfaced that Long had allegedly sent to these young men, and sordid stories of Long financially supporting one of these young men, and then cutting them off began to surface.  Long stood defiantly in his pulpit the next Sunday after the civil suit was filed and said that he was going to fight to the end; he compared himself to David fighting Goliath that he had “five rocks, and [hadn't] thrown one yet.”

He was preparing for a fight, and from all accounts his congregation was with him.

For almost two days, black Twitter was all abuzz with Eddie Long puns, lampooning his hairpieces and his trademark muscle shirts.  People automatically considered him guilty to saying that we should “cover” him.  I did a blog piece back then about the various categories persons seemed to fall in with regards to how they felt toward Long.  The point was, however, that everyone had an opinion.  But who didn’t?  It was a story that was covered by CNN leading to news anchor Don Lemon admitting on air his previous sexual abuse as a child, and it, yet again, propelled the mysterious and labyrinthian institution that is the Black Church into America’s living room.

And that’s when things got murky.

The last time America had been treated to seeing a black preacher hailing from a megachurch battling a national image, it was Jeremiah Wright’s homiletical treatises that famously included “goddamn America” and other strategically spliced soundbytes from previous sermons.  Not to mention Wright gave a full out press conference that mainstream media pounced on like a pack of rabid wolves after live prey.  Nonetheless, America’s image of the black preacher, the black church as individual churches and as a institutional behemoth, and more importantly for the purposes of this article, the image of black megachurches, was all put on display and America gave a failing grade for all categories.

Not only did America give our formerly esteemed institutions a failing grade, so did we, in the black community.

In an odd admixture of Baby Boomers and Generation X’ers, in the black community, they have contributed to this post-Soul, post Hip-hop pluralistic concept of “spiritual, but not religious” section of the black community.  These persons, reject “church” and “churchiness” in most forms.  This 35 and younger crowd, predominantly, very much enjoys engaging in the postmodern and post-critical thought that our pluralistic society offers.  This generation questions foundations, allows truth to be relative often times in the hope of searching out new truths.

I too, am a part of this culture.

This generation claims spirituality over religion in an attempt to seek the purity of the divine without the logical contradictions that organized religion offers.  This generation holds dear to them the quote from Mahatma Gandhi that “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians” as a pinnacle of their belief in spirituality over religion. However, as this article attempts to argue, what boggles my mind is relatively traditional and often times inaccurate image that this generation has towards the Black Church and black churches.

I recently rediscovered Kelefah Sanneh’s article that originally was published in The New Yorker back in 2008 entitles “Project Trinity: The Perilous Mission of Obama’s Church.”  Just from his telling of his experience at a Good Friday Seven Last Words service, he writes about it as a novel experience and as an outsider.  While one is entitled to one’s opinion, as I offer mine, it seems as though Sanneh’s ignorance of the black church religious experience was sorely lacking.  Contextualizing his background of being born in Birmingham, England (not Alabama) and being raised in New England, and being the son of mixed racial heritage, his view point certainly offers a unique spin on the topic.

A unique spin, however, does not make up for ignorance.  While I certainly am appreciative of Sanneh for his literary offering, I think his piece though intellectual it is, is indicative of the multifaceted problem we face when it comes to the black religious community.  There are commoners offering up an opinion based on misconceptions and willful ignorance and persons who know better and have exhibited higher levels of cognitive processing and still fall into the same trap of being willfully ignorant.

It doesn’t surprise me though.  The image of the black preacher has been caricatured for an entire generation.  This post-______ generation who does not have a cultural and collective memory of a tangible civil rights struggle, neither boasts of having an image of the Black Church nor the black preacher venerated.  Sure those venerations were probably uncalled for in specific instances, but from Arsenio Hall’s image of Reverend Brown in “Coming to America”; Bernie Mac’s image of the preacher in “Friday”; James Brown in “The Blues Brothers” complete with the ubiquitous “church scene” to boot and even to the image of Rev. Rollo Goodlove in “Boondocks” there are more mainstream images of the black preacher as coon, buffoon, bamboozled, a black male Buck who’s a womanizer, a charlatan, a pimp and a myriad of other negative images.  These images are what we think of black male stereotypes that we project onto our black male preachers.

There is a segment of those in the black community who have allowed their preconceived notions and perceptions of the Black Church and black churches to automatically dictate their response to anything having to do with black people and religious life in this country.  Granted I have had the privilege of going to seminary and going to a seminary that allowed me to purposely intermingle with different denominations stemming from different religious reformations, most people are ignorant of other denominations and I dare say ignorant of their own!  This ignorance has turned into arrogance with some when they speak vehemently about topics that they think they know something about and don’t.

Less than 24 hours prior to the publishing of this post, a YouTube profile posted a recent clip of Pastor Creflo Dollar alluding to Long’s settlement and members in a Sunday, June 5, 2011 worship service.  The clip is below.

 

[the clip was removed drat!]

Aside from the YouTuber’s commentary in the pop-up bubbles on the screen, I stumbled upon a Twitter feed that completely and unapologetically castigated megachurches.  Just in general.  No qualifiers.  She now has a public problem with all megachurches.

Just like that.

Now yes, Eddie Long and Creflo Dollar do not help the image of black preachers, black churches nor black megachurches, but I still have to ask, to what level of critical thinking are we using here to have this discussion?  Let me first be transparent and say that when I posted that clip on my Facebook profile page that I publicly compared an imaginary demise of Creflo Dollar to the murder of Osama bin Laden; the ending of life is never pleasant, particularly in cases of murder, but I would not shed a tear over the riddance of their rhetoric.  Granted on a spectrum bin Laden’s rhetoric was not just hateful and vengeful, but injurious to the body as well.  However, Dollar’s rhetoric is injurious to the collective consciousness of black America’s psyche.  As cooler heads prevail, I’m sure what I had to say wasn’t the most constructive, but my own bombastic rhetoric was only checked by one of nine separate commenters.  Which let me know that out of persons willing to comment, only one felt strongly enough to disagree with what I had to say.  Therefore, others shared in my, what was then, righteous indignation.

What I saw on social networking sites and what I observe and listen to when I tune into mainstream media when it comes to issues concerning the black religious community is a lack of depth and a willing ignorance of most topics.  The perception of black churches falls neatly into the traditional church of one’s grandparent or a megachurch where the pastor is taking all the money from mindless bots who sit in the pews every week.  Again, as with the caricatured image of the black preacher being prevalent, it’s no wonder that the image of the black church is shaped by what one sees on television.

If one turns on the Word Network, that channel that tends to carry more black preachers with predominantly black congregations, you’d see pastors, preachers and churches that present a somewhat monolithic image to the untrained eye.  For the most part these are congregations that qualify as megachurches (scientifically designated as having more than 2,000 members on a role) and their worship style and doctrinal beliefs fall into the neo-Pentecostal tradition.  These are mostly men.  Many of whom are attractive men at that.  Many of whom sport designer clothes from suits to lavish robes and some wear jewelry meant to appear expensive whether it is or not.

The average black religious viewer irrespective of income strata or educational accumulation wouldn’t be able to tell the doctrinal and worship difference between seeing Jamal-Harrison Bryant who is AME over that of Apostle R.D. Henton and his Holiness beliefs.  They might see generational differences and other functional differences, but certainly not begin to parse the differences that certainly exist.  The average viewer is merely listening to certain catchphrases and a rather basic and non-intellectual theology that requires a basic fourth-grade level of cognitive skills.

The sad thing is that now when we speak of the “black church” and make reference to a black preacher, we conjure up an image in our heads as though every black church is properly and appropriately situated in a megachurch setting.  [Usually I take that moment in a conversation with my peers to point out that the average church in America is between 150-200 persons and this number includes Joel Olsteen's Lakewood Church and St. Matthew's AME Chapel in Nowheresville, Georgia with three persons on the role.]  This meta-narrative of the this image is so dominant that most people don’t challenge it in the midst of conversation; it’s as though it’s a given.

I watched Obery Hendricks, author of The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus’ Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted, attempt to discuss Black Liberation Theology and Rev. Timothy MacDonald, a local Atlanta pastor and friend of Jeremiah Wright both attempt and fail miserably at discussing the nuanced nature of the Black Church on “The O’Reilly Factor” back in 2008.  Of course I understood what they were talking about, but the rest of America didn’t and apparently neither did a sizeable portion of the black community–both religious and non religious.

Simply put, we cannot afford to be ignorant of the things that directly affect our community.

Seeing as how blacks are a demographic in this country that associates themselves overwhelmingly with the Christian faith tradition, let’s do ourselves and our sisters and brothers a favor and actually take the time out to be aware of what we’re talking about.  Just because a preacher is found in a YouTube clip spouting all types of foolishness that you do not understand, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are preaching.  If we learned nothing else from the Jeremiah Wright situation, we should learn that we ought not jump to conclusions with soundbytes from preachers.

While I am an unashamed apologist for the institutional Black Church and the many other newer traditions that the institutional Black Church has birthed from the neo-Pentecostal tradition to other forms of emergent worship that have become subsumed under the idea of the Black Church, please believe am not an apologist for Dollar’s comments.  Even in their entirety, such statements are homiletically irresponsibly and morally reprehensible as far as I’m concerned.  If Jesus was quoted as saying that “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea,” then I don’t think I’m too far off in being repulsed by the emetic and wretched sentiments that Dollar was putting forth.

In an appeal to black intelligentsia (yes, the same one that I eulogized some weeks back), and certainly with an emphasis on a black intellectual religious community, I appeal to logic and an inner sense to hold one’s self intellectually accountable for the thoughts and rhetoric that we utter.  When we publish tweets, write blogs, leave comments after an article, write a book and certainly when one speaks from the pulpit, you are influencing the consciousness of the listener!  I cannot stress enough how imperative it is that we do a better job.  Seriously, members of the black religious community feel that they have the trump card to any and all discussions and argument by saying “My preacher said…” as though that effectively should end any further discussion.  That couldn’t be farther from the truth.  Although many feel that by uttering “The Bible says…” should seal the deal, neither statement does anything to foster intellectual thinking.

As members of a post-_________ (fill in the blank) generation that has owned the concept of being “spiritual, but not religious” that feels free to question any and all things and dare declare the death of God, how have we failed to question our own perceptions of religion and ask is it truly a fair perception.  If we fail to be fair to others in the human struggle, are we not crippling ourselves?  Being a self avowed Christian Universalist with humanist leanings, I do myself no good if I castigate my atheist brother and sister.  Religious Christianity would say we’re ultimately connected through Christ, but I say we’re connected through our humanity.  If we don’t expect better from ourselves, what good does it do to complain and expect better from others?

Sad to say, I’m somewhat regarding some clergy as lost causes when it comes to expecting better.  Today Creflo Dollar joined that group.

Keep it uppity and 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

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