DebraDickerson.com - Black Links

Commentary: Black-on-Black Youth Crime is Overlooked by Our Leaders "Read these names: Marcus McLain, Alexander Brown, William Thomas and Andre Mellerson. They were the four black boys shot on the grounds of Randallstown High School — located on the outskirts of Baltimore — last Friday after they left a charity basketball game.Now forget the names. It’s not as if they’re really victims. I mean, it’s not as if anybody white, or a cop, shot them." Gregory Kane, of the Baltimore Sun, is a tad ticked off and telling the truth all over the place. Check this out.

I've only seen one legitimate case of adult Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. "Broomstick" had been diagnosed as ADHD as a young child, and shortly after he got to prison he realized he hadn't outgrown it.

While he was sweeping the dormitory, an inmate in an upper bunk looked at "Broomstick," pointed at the inmate in the lower bunk, and suggested, "Why don't you poke him in the ass with the broom?" (In prison that's not gay.) Instantaneously, "Broomstick" earned the nickname.

Guys who complain of being impulsive because "I got ADHD" give themselves away by their choice of targets. They "impulsively" assault smaller or outnumbered inmates. Not "Broomstick." When I asked him about the reaction of the inmate who can't take a poke, he answered, "We had to go to the shower." In prison, the shower is the boxing ring. "He beat the shit out of me!" Such candor is always welcome.

Strattera, a new non-stimulant ADHD drug, has worked wonders for "Broomstick." Since he began taking Strattera, he has not committed any impulsive acts or suffered any consequent beatings, although "Broomstick" is smart enough to understand that evaluation of the drug benefit is confounded by his prison experience, including an apparently therapeutic thrashing. "i've grown up a lot in prison. I've been ridin' my bunk to stay out of trouble."

Unlike our first meeting, today "Broomstick" was able to sit still, listen without interrupting, and keep the conversation on topic. But he still has trouble attending to details. While riding his bunk, he said, "I've been reading U. S. News." Apparently, he's unconcerned with "and World Report." Still, it's a major improvement over poking inmates in the butt with a broom.

"Who do you think is going to win the presidential election?" "Broomstick" asked. Again, the ability to concentrate on such matters represents substantial progress.

"I don't think so," "Broomstick differed. "I think it's gonna be that other guy." Remarkable! Or so it seemed.

What we're calling prisoner mistreattment in Iraq is just another day on lockdown in the US. Also, check out Slate on the psychology of sadistic prison guards.

Farrakhan May Hold Another 'Million Man March'. Please, Lord, Make it Stop! Some 'friends' in town for a big celebration once left their car at our house and drove all of us crazy wanting to be chauffeured everywhere so as to avoid paying the $8 per day parking fee at their hotel. I finally just gave them the $32 dollars; it was too hard screening calls with so many (actually) loved ones in town. Similarly, there's a program aimed at providing suitably face-saving employment for African dictators so they can get the hell off their people's backs. Think about it; they usually only leave office feet first 'cuz, where they gonna go? So, here's the plan: let's all chip in and find out how much it will cost to buy off anyone who wants to "million-ize" ANYTHING ever again.

OK, now black people, on the count of three, everybody 'paper-scissors'rock' to see who has to invite Minister Farrakhan to their next Sunday dinner to keep him occupied.

Now here's a post-soul post card for your...behind. I believe I am officially scared of Colin Powell. Homey's got big nerve. Doesn't he know he's supposed to spit on his white ancestors and revere his sainted black ones?

The Prosecutor as Extortionist: "Wayne's World"

According to the prosecutor's office, on the last night of his life, "Puff Dead E." and his crew set out to steal some marijuana. They stopped at a gas station and asked a loitering saleswoman where they might find some weed. She referred them to "Wayne" and his brother "Garth," whom she paged with the order. "Puff Dead E." insisted the loitering saleswoman join his crew so that the marijuana merchants would not be suspicious when they ventured into "Wayne's World." She complied, got into the car of "Puff Dead E.," gave directions, and eventually introduced "Puff Dead E." to "Wayne" and "Garth."

When "Wayne" and "Garth" offered a bag of marijuana for sale, "Puff Dead E." claimed it "looked slack." "Garth" added enough marijuana to satisfy "Puff Dead E." "Wayne" requested payment. "Puff Dead E." reached not for his wallet, but for his Lorcin .380 semi-automatic pistol. (By the way, this is a gun that has been traced to this state in an incredible number of NYC homicide cases. Tobacco is not our only lethal export!) "Wayne" saw that his customer was not concerned with damaging his credit report. Shwing! Up popped "Wayne's" handgun. Then, as we say here, "It was ON!"

The following day the loitering saleswoman reported what she saw and heard to police after hearing that they had discovered "Puff Dead E." dead in the driver's seat of his car, with the lights on and the engine still running. She told police that she saw "Puff Dead E." produce a pistol instead of cash in response to the request for payment. She heard gunfire, and then, along with the not-so-loyal crew of "Puff Dead E.," she vamoosed, leaving him for dead.

The police immediately arrested "Wayne" and "Garth." "Wayne" was charged with Voluntary Manslaughter, for which he was convicted. In this state,"Wayne" was considered to have provoked the victim by way of engaging in an illegal activity, and thus forfeited his "perfect" right of self-defense. "Wayne" was not charged with Second-degree or First-degree Murder because he did have an "imperfect" right of self-defense, in that it appeared reasonable for him to conclude that he was at risk for death or great bodily harm.

That "Wayne" was charged with Voluntary Manslaughter indicates the police and prosecutor understood these matters of law. (This is not always a safe assumption.) Nevertheless, "Garth" was initially charged with First-degree Murder. "Wayne" and "Garth" were thus afforded the opportunity to contemplate "Garth's" death in prison, by causes natural or unnatural, as the investigation proceeded.

At no time in the investigation did the police have evidence that "Garth" had committed murder, let alone fulfill one of the three criteria for First-degree murder. These criteria are either: (a) premeditation; (b) poisoning, lying in wait, imprisonment, starvation, or torture; of (c) while committing or attempting arson, rape, sex offense, robbery, burglary, kidnapping, or any felony in which a deadly weapon is used. Nothing so reveals what an egregious overcharging "Garth" endured as the eventual sentence: 6-8 months for Possession with Intent to Sell or Distribute a Schedule II Drug (marijuana). You need not pass the state bar exam to understand the implications of the enormous discrepancy between either execution or life in prison without the possibility of parole and 6-8 months in prison. If a defendant is deserving of a state-supplied execution, he should not get off with a 6-8 month sentence; if he is deserving of a 6-8 month sentence, he should not be threatened with execution.

We don't usually identify with criminals, especially those involved in homicides, and that's a good thing. Still, in this case it is worth asking yourself whether you or anyone you know could ever have been convicted of selling marijuana. Tell the truth, to yourself if to no one else. I knew students who "worked" their way through college and graduate school selling marijuana. And the marijuana smokers I knew would never deny anyone wishing to purchase a small quantity from their stock. Now, back to the marijuana merchants you've known. Can you imagine any of them sitting in jail facing a death penalty?

In this case, overcharging "Garth" put pressure on "Wayne" to confess to and accept a plea for killing "Puff Dead E." "Wayne" admits that he shot and killed "Puff Dead E." under the circumstances described above. "Wayne's" prosecution, conviction, and sentencing were undeniably just.

But, as they say in "Wayne's World," "Garth" was not worthy of the treatment he received.

Today's list of New Admission includes two inmates with ideal drug-dealer names. (Don't get nervous; the names of inmates, their location, and their convictions are all public information.)

Orlando Crank sounds like a great place to buy methamphetamine before marching the kids through nearby Disney World. Alas, although Orlando Crank was convicted of selling drugs, he marketed cocaine.

Tony Sells has promise, not just as a name that could double as an advertisement, but also for a ""Who's On First" type of comedy routine. Imagine Tonay Sells as a kingpin, with his "shorties" on street corners. A customer stops to inquire about purchasing marijuana, and the following conversation ensues.

Were I as clever as Abbot or Costello, I would end this routine more cleverly. But just when I got to this point, I thought I ought to find out why Tony Sells is in prison. He was convicted of cruelty to animals. That's bad news for my comedy routine and worse news for another new inmate: Eric Beagle.

The activity the Chinese call "hand lewdness" and the English call "the solitary vice" is popular among inmates. I'll use the less formal term "wanking" which, sounding mechanical, will perhaps enable me to sneak this e-mail past Big Brother to my big brother Bob, an engineer.

On my first day on the job in this prison, I accompanied my boss, the Hindude, to the supermax facility to speak with an irate inmate. The irate inmate had been caught in the latest crackdown on wanking. The superintendent was cracking the whip on those caught "cracking the whip." I got my first look at the Hindude's repertoire of techniques for instantaneously calming irate inmates. The inmate, "Jack," greeted Dr. Rao (he pronounced it "Ra-ooo"), and without prompting, related his tale of woe.

"A'ight, I'm layin' in my bunk, jackin' my dick. Now you KNOW, I'm-a JACK MY DICK!" "Jack" was so angry his eyeballs were twitching.

"Of course," Dr. Rao assured the inmate. "And I will jack MY dick. Now, what happened?" My jaw dropped. What would the licensing board say? Then I looked at the inmate and saw that he was suddenly calm, smiling as if he'd just had an injection of morphine. Dr. Rao knew just what medicine the inmate needed for what he calls "dungeon syndrome." Later, Dr. Rao explained to his newest protégé "You have to connect with the inmate as a human being."

After just a few minutes of Dr. Rao's treatment for "dungeon syndrome," the once irate inmate was laughing and eagerly recounting his misadventures as a juvenile delinquent in the training school where, just three days earlier, I had been a psychologist. It was the first of many amazing experiences with "Dr. Ra-ooo" and the inmates.

When the next crackdown on wanking came I responded as I often do to the imposition of ridiculous rules and requirements: I got behind it with every silly bone in my body. I made a series of anti-wanking posters, a parody of the old safety posters that hung in the factories and warehouses in which I worked my way through college. I parodied another element of the ridiculous attempts to "reach" young criminals, employing famous athletes and "getting down" with gangs (including the Folk Nation, the People Nation, and the Nation of Gods and Earths, which claims that 85% of people are deaf, dumb, and blind, and thus incapable of learning their "sacred knowledge").

For your potential amusement, I've cut and pasted in the text from those posters.

Superstar Golfer
Tiger Woods says:
"In my game, the player with the fewest strokes wins."

If all we ever do is masturbate, some day there will be no
People in our Nation.

Remember when
"Beating your meat"
was something you did to a steak before you grilled it on the backyard barbecue? When
"Holding your own"
meant standing up for what you believed in? When
"Come one, come all"
was an invitation to a church picnic?

Stories like this are why I write nonfiction. You can't make stuff up this good. This movie writes itself, doesn't it?

"How the Other Half Banks: The depressing, amazing "payday loan" business". (Go'head. Front. Act like you don't know why I'm linking to this.)

"The United States is about to undergo a paradigm shift in the way it eats, and the success of Morgan Spurlock's super-entertaining, super-disgusting documentary Super Size Me will have something to do with it. With any luck, Spurlock's odyssey will do for patrons of McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, etc., what scientists did for the sociopathic Alex (Malcolm McDowell) in A Clockwork Orange (1971) when they pried his eyes wide open, administered a drug to induce nausea, and forced him to ogle hours and hours of violence. It will put you off your fast food—or, at least, slow you down. Just the thought of a Quarter Pounder With Cheese and a large fries makes me gag these days. And not too long ago, I was addicted to the stuff." (Go 'head. Front like you don't know why I linked to this.)

In the interest of fair play, here's a link to an article summarizing the new wave of jock bloggers. (Ladies, I have no idea why I linked to this knowing they already spend too much time on sports. Thank God my husband doesn't follow them. OK, now I know why I linked to it.)

"The injustice of white-collar sentencing rules". Yeah, they went there.

Of course, I immediately went back on the road. This time, however, to do some reporting in Philadelphia for a piece I'm working on. More on that when it runs in a few months. I got back late Saturday. Sunday was my son's third birthday, but, like I wasn't going to tell him that. May 9, June 9...what's the difference really?

I've been such an absentee Mom (and bill-payer and wife and neighbor and daughter and sister and all kinds of other stuff) and so exhausted, I decided to take advantage of the fact that he's only 3 and let him continue to think that he was only two. I figured, in a month or so, I'll have gotten life back on track and be able to throw him a killer party. What I didn't know, and what my husband forgot to mention until 1 pm on Sunday, was that Dash's nursery school uses all the kids' birthdays to teach about time and stuff. On Monday, they'd be talking about Dash's birthday party. Damn yuppies and their class-based assumptions. I always suspected the husband hated me for traveling so much. Here was the proof.

So, instead of going back home to sleep after the Birthday Pancake Brunch that Dash thought was just brunch, suddenly, I was putting together a kiddie party. As I'm speed shopping at partywarehouses, herding helium balloons, and filling goodie bags in my car's front seat, the cell rings and its a fancy news show wanting to send a film crew for their Monday broadcast. Something about torture, Iraq, the future of democracy -- definitely non-birthday related.

Thinking that, with the crew, there's be at least 8 people at Dash's party, I contemplated saying yes. I actually thought about it. They could set up in our large yard, right next to the pinata I was filling while talking with the producer. We could hang balloons from the cameras and send all (three) of the kids home with souvenir head shots.

But in the end, I couldn't think of a good explanation for why Mommy was talking to a hard-bitten film crew about the torture of naked prisoners while the lettering was still wet, so to speak, on Boo Boo's birthday cake. "Mommy won't be a playa, Sweetie, if she doesn't get as much visibility as she can, can she? You want Mommy to be a playa, right sweetie pie?" I remember reading somewhere that Kathy Lee Gifford chided little Dakota by asking him if he 'liked going to private school' when he objected to her frequent absences.

Besides my family, no one suffers more from that than the amazing folks who were minding their own business when I harrassed them into contributing to this blog. And then I abandoned them. I'll try to catch up and stay caught up with Lisa H and John Schwade, especially.

One of my (softball) players – let’s call her Nee-nee – missed practice the other day because she was running from the, as she put it, po-po. Some boy hit her when she wouldn’t give up her cell phone, and she called the law on him, but when po-po arrived, she acted brand-new and claimed she didn’t know what the problem was. When po-po said maybe I ought to just run you in, she took off and stayed on the lam all evening. She told me this the next day when I asked her if all that clicking I heard from my backseat was her text-messaging. She confirmed that it was. (Do I need to say that sponsors paid Nee-nee’s $50 registration fee because her mother said she couldn’t afford it?)

Nee-nee rides another player for talking white. The “white” girl, who has informed me that she takes Honors English, says “screet” and “scraight” and “axed” in the harsh, choppy, consonant-swallowing accent prevalent in her neighborhood. I cannot imagine what makes her white, other than that she seldom curses, actually likes school, and fervently wants to escape to college. She is clearly a teacher’s pet type. Nee-nee believes that being “ghetto” (her word) is the sine qua non of life. She does not want to go to college, but she does want to be a lawyer. When I tell her I'm one, she yells, "How much money you make?" The "white" girl hisses her disapproval: "You caint ask no grown-up they personal business like that." Nee-nee turns to me, coolly, "Well, den, you can bail me out."

Despite my current repositioning, I am still very much black-identified and deeply value my upbringing in a small-town, working-class Southern setting. (My own household wasn't working-class, but my larger community generally was.) I see myself as one who "knows" children like the ones I coach. The sting, then, comes from the realization that they don't see me that way, and they're honest about it. My blackness is of little note to them, because I'm "white." In that sense, they are more emancipated than I, because they fully understand that accidents of melanin are just that. I am obviously trying to have my cake and eat it, too, and am setting myself up for small pains. Even as I try to convince myself that I know these kids, I am astounded at the gulf between my value systems and their own, and it's not merely a generation gap. Can we ALL be black? In what meaningful way?

Well, my book tour finally ended. I was on the road from the end of January thru the end of April and I thought I wouldn't survive. I understand now why bands on tour do drugs. I think I'm still married, but I'm not sure. If I were my husband, I'd have packed up the brats and left. Wudda taken me weeks to notice. My three year old gets hysterical if I get up for more coffee, thinking I'm going to the hated "airport". My 7 month old sleeps a total of 20 minutes when in daycare when I'm gone. She sleeps 6 hours a day, then from 7pm to6 am when I'm not. But it's cool, 'cause I'm not entirely sure those are my kids, they look so diferent, but I'm too tired to do the math. They'll do.

Their teachers are black.
Their principals are black.
Their school superintendent is black.
The fire and police chiefs are black.
The city council is majority black.
Their mayor is black. (And female.)
Their state congressional representative – hell, their U.S. rep – is black.
Their hometown is waaayyyyy majority black.
Their hometown abuts Atlanta, which is also way majority black and has a black, female mayor. In fact, it’s had black mayors for 30 years. It is sometimes even called the Black Mecca.
(Just to set the stage.)
My friends and I coach a girls’ softball team. The girls are 12, 13, 14 years old. The going is rough right now. In this city of 40,000, we can’t find enough adolescent girls to make up a proper team. They have better things to do than spend 3 or 4 afternoons a week with some foreigners. I have lived here for 5 years, I am black, I am a female, I am a Southerner, but I am not confused – I’m foreign. After one girl charged another one with talking like a white girl, I said, “Well, what in the world am I?” The girl bit on a grin and stayed silent. Another turned from her cell phone long enough to murmur: “White.” So much for modeling roles. And that stung a little bit, fully conversant as I am in black vernacular speech. But I understand her. It’s “white” just to describe one’s code-switching, isn’t it?

a black friend from back home recently asked my sister "how's your sister doing?" She knew damned well he meant me, the one who left St. Louis on the first thing smoking, but just to be evil, she said innocently, "which sister? I have four." He replied: "the white one."

"Poop Dogg," the lad who, upon meeting me, commented on my substantial gluteal development relative to my melanin deficiency, has become one of my favorite inmates.

He's doing much better these days; I'd like to think my psychomologimical treatment has helped.

Today, he got to see his mother for the first time since his trial, whereat he was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life without parole by a jury who saw him in court, in a manic state, with his face covered by a leather mask. Last month, his mother called me to ask how her son was doing, and told me a pitiful tale. How's this for perverse? "Poop Dogg's" mother complained to me that when the prosecutor announced he would no longer seek the death penalty, "Poop Dogg's" attorney stopped supplying a "Mitigation Specialist" (an unemployed social worker who digs up "mitigating circumstances" to present to the jury in the sentencing phase of a trial in an effort to ensure the convicted dies a natural death in prison), so "I didn't have anybody to talk to anymore." So much for the legal "dream team."

On Friday, "Poop Dogg" told me his mother would be visiting today, and accepted my offer to drop by the visitation room (they are separated by bulletproof glass and converse on the telephone--as seen on t.v.) in case his mother had any questions for me. I stopped by upon returning from lunch, and saw through the glass that "Poop Dogg" was smiling (wish I had his teeth) and laughing, along with his mother. I told "Poop Dogg" I'd spoken to his mother, and he was pleased. He gave me a bigger smile and a thumbs-up sign. "Poop Dogg's" mother thanked me for my concern and for helping her son. Although it was a brief encounter, I thought I would be able to count it in the "Win" column.

As I left the visitation booth, I heard "Poop Dogg's" mother say to him, "Boy, you stupid as hell!"

I found myself once again singing my version of "Home on the Range": Home, home of the deranged... where seldom is heard, an encouraging word, and the skies are cloudy all day....

Welcome to my world: Here's an edited email I received from someone who'd invited me to discuss The End of Blackness at his organization:

"Erase [our organization] off your calendar. [The head of this organization] said he really liked your book. Then he said he wanted to enlist support among the black[s in the organization]. He approached two respected [members] who wasted little time agreeing that your appearance would be "too controversial and divisive." [Our leader] then dropped a note in my box stating the black community doesn't support your coming....They didn't have your book long enough for either of them to have read it, much less discuss its contents."

Hmmm. "Controversial and divisive". Isn't that how whites dismiss our critiques?

Rap, Rage, REDvolution. As hip-hop emerges as an empowering voice for indigenous youth, mainstream rappers still objectify Indian country. From the Village Voice:

"Conjuring up the charge of cavalries and natives on some futuristic-western warpath, OutKast stormed the 2004 Grammys in February with the brazenness of the former, while bedecked as the latter. Resplendent in neon green Halloween-Hiawatha approximations of Native American regalia—fringe, headbands, and feathers—Andre and Big Boi rose before smoking teepees, prancing proudly through their chart-slaying "Hey Ya!," the chorus of which is itself evocative of powwow singing. Was it some kind of tribute, or did the winners of the Album of the Year Grammy unwittingly channel Al Jolson's "Mammy"?

It's a question many Native Americans have considered, responding promptly to launch boycotts and Web petitions voicing their collective displeasure. CBS's brief, lukewarm apology—"if anyone was offended"—brought zero resolution, particularly since OutKast themselves refused even to comment. Two months later, people are still waiting; during an April 1 protest outside the network's Minneapolis affiliate, one person was arrested."

From The End of Blackness: "Because blacks do not stand outside of either Western or American history, they can not stand outside its crimes, alleged or proven. When Iran took the American embassy hostage in 1979, they released the blacks . They knew that blacks were neither valuable nor somehow quite guilty of America’s crimes. But came 9-11 and the anti-American terrorists were equally happy with the black dead as the white. Progress, albeit ironic. Blacks can no longer have it both ways, vested when it suits them, homegrown outsiders when that offers more perks. American history simultaneously robes and strangles them, too. Both their progress and their demands create the conditions for their retroactive condemnation.

For instance, they demand respect for unacknowledged black contribution to America’s military might, but only as a one way ratchet. Blacks exalt the Buffalo Soldiers but choose to know little of their role in helping to exterminate Native Americans so their land could be stolen; will they be any more forthcoming than whites if confronted by Apache and Comanche protestors?"

I’m sitting in a scheduling meeting for little league softball. While we’re waiting for everybody to get here, Soul Coach #1 breaks out a styrofoam box and pulls forth – of course – a big, ol’, greasy chicken leg. “Fried” immediately fills the room, as does the sound of her smacking. The couple other black folk in the room seem unperturbed, but I want to fall through the floor. I’m reminded of my favorite passage in Invisible Man, where the narrator, having resisted a pork chop breakfast as a shameless badge of his southern-ness, is later offered a buttery, baked yam. As he bites into its sugary goodness right there on the sidewalk, he reflects: “Why, you could cause us the greatest humiliation simply by confronting us with something we liked.” The vendor remarks, “I can see you one of these old-fashioned yam eaters,” and the narrator replies, “They’re my birthmark. I yam what I yam.” That’s me. And what I love, by God, is not fried chicken, but black folk. But I haven’t quite learned the narrator’s lesson, ‘cause I still wince when my yams show out in the street.

But on a lighter note, my sister put my 7 year-old niece on the phone 'cause she just had to talk to me. Breathlessly, she pleaded, "Pllllleeeeeeassssse get married soon." When I asked her why she was so pressed about that, she told me she needed a new cousin. (I think she's finally understanding that her mother has shut it down at one child.) I laughed and told her if I got married she'd be the first to know. After she got off the phone, I thought how refreshing it is to encounter a black child for whom that sequence of events is normative.

What is Afrofuturist Art? Don't ask me, ask Cinque Hicks. If it isn't strictly representational (you know, little black velvet Elvis's and dogs playing poker), a sister gets very confused.

On December 6, 1995, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, James Norman Burmeister, Jr., then 20, Malcolm Wright, Jr., then 21, and Randy Lee Meadows, then 21--all members of the U. S. Army 82nd Airborne Division stationed at nearby Fort Bragg--left the Que and Ale Tavern and followed Burmeister's order to "Go to a place where there's a whole lot of niggers and not a whole lot of light."

While "patrolling," one of the soldiers located "targets." "There goes a nigger couple right there!" one shouted upon spotting a man and woman walking together on the sidewalk. The "patrol" passed the "targets," drove around the block and passed them again, before Burmeister and Wright "dismounted" with a 9mm pistol. Burmeister and Wright approached the couple from the rear, and then fired two shots into the head of Michael James. His companion, Jackie Burden, was shot three times in the head and once in the back. (By the way, they still had 4 rounds remaining in the 10-round magazine, which makes me wonder whether a 10-round magazine limit in handguns was a goal worth pursuing by gun-control advocates.) The successful completion of this "mission" entitled Burmeister to the "decoration" he sought: a spider web tattoo over his elbow.

People don't just "snap" and commit crimes like this. Ale doesn't cause people to commit crimes like this. Evidence presented at the trials of Burmeister, Wright, and Meadows established that they were affiliated with a white supremacist, neo-Nazi group and culture that advocated and rewarded crimes like this.

One witness testified that Burmeister had explained the dress code. They wore Doc Marten brand boots, with color-coded laces: white laces signified white supremacy, red Nazi allegiance, blue laces were the "decoration" for killing a cop, and yellow for killing anyone. Blue jeans were worn with the cuffs rolled up to display the shoelaces. Red suspenders added a spiffy look. (This group knew how to "accessorize" long before "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.")

But the testimony that was most revealing concerned the murderers' taste in "music." They preferred "stomper" music. A favorite tune, "Doc Marten Dental Plan" (recognize the brand name?) referred to the boots Burmeister bragged they wore as weapons to kick the teeth out of their victims. When "Third Reich" played, Burmeister and his buddies would, at the appropriate moment, stand and make the "Heil Hitler" salute. "White Niggers" exemplified the diversity of their musical tastes, and emphasized that it is not skin color alone that makes one deserve to be murdered, but also how low one's pants sag.

These "songs" were played in open court at the trial of Burmeister, Wright, and Meadows, along with an unnamed song extolling the enjoyment of shooting black people. The lyrics, which were unbearable for the families of the victims, included "Point it at their head and let's have some fun…. It's so much fun to mow them down." This musical mirth included lyrics about shooting blacks in the back. Of course, Burmeister had shot the victims in the head and back. District Attorney Ed Grannis described this "art" as "a premonition of what happened to my two victims."

All three of the "soldiers" were convicted. Burmeister and Wright are serving life without parole for First-degree Murder. Randy Lee Meadows, the driver, was rewarded for his cooperation with prosecutors; he plead guilty to Assault with a Deadly Weapon Inflicting Serious Injury, and served a term on probation.

The prosecution and conviction of Burmeister and Wright for First-degree Murder raises a question. If the "stomper" music that was a "premonition" of the murder of Michael James and Jackie Burder may be presented at trial by the prosecution, why has the "hip-hop" music enjoyed by so many more murderers never been presented at trial?

Hip-hop is replete with the celebration of murder, kidnapping, rape, and other terrible crimes. The debate over the overall destructive effects of hip-hop "music" comes to a screeching halt when, in an individual case, an inmate describes committing a murder because "Tupac's music was like my Gideon's Bible. Whenever I had to make a decision, I would listen to Tupac. When that dude robbed me, I listened to Tupac, how he retaliated when someone robbed from him or his boys. So I thought I had to shoot the dude." Mind you, this inmate was not presenting this as a defense at trial. He had confessed to the murder, and after a year in prison was struggling to understand how he--while a student in his sophomore year of college--could have committed such a vile act.

Of course, the purpose of playing "stomper music" in the courtroom during the trial of Burmeister, Wright, and Meadows was not to convict "stomper music," but to convict Burmeister, Wright, and Meadows of the crime they committed, First-degree Murder. Toward that end, the prosecutor played their "stomper" music to establish the mens rea, or "guilty mind," of the defendants. The purpose of playing hip-hop "music" in the trial of its aficionados who commit First-degree Murder would, likewise, not be to convict hip-hop, but to establish the mens rea of murderers whose premeditation included hip-hop.

In the terms used by the United States Supreme Court in their most recent ruling on the matter (Staples v. United States), the requirement of mens rea as an element of a crime is a common law rule. It is also a common sense rule. For instance, consider how you would interpret a simple act in which a white man working in a crowded office turns around, hits a black man in the face with the back of his hand, and then apologizes, saying it was an accident. While you might have doubts about the white man's intentions or the sincerity of his apology, this information alone is not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of an assault. But suppose you learned that prior to the incident, the white man had been listening to these lyrics:

If I see you're black,
You better stay back;
If you're of that race,
I'll smack your face.

Naturally, your interpretation of the incident, particularly the intention of the white assailant, would change. Even if the assailant claimed he didn't take the lyrics seriously, or was not influenced by the lyrics, the fact that he enjoyed, or even tolerated such lyrics would be a significant revelation.

Too often, those convicted of the lesser homicides, Second-degree Murder, Voluntary Manslaughter, and even Involuntary Manslaughter readily admit to me that they committed premeditated murder, which is one of three classes of First-degree Murder. At the same time, they admit they were adhering to the rules of thug culture, as espoused by their favorite hip-hop "artists." Most often, these cases involve premeditated revenge murders or gang-ordered executions. Those prosecuting their cases did not "sample" the music collection of the murderer for the jury to reveal the murderer had been enjoying numerous boasts of, justifications for, and plans for murder, as did District Attorney Grannis in the trial of Fayetteville's neo-Nazi murderers. Instead, the district attorney approved a plea of Second-degree Murder. The district attorney tacitly accepted the murderer's explanation that he is a subhuman savage with no control over his impulses who murdered a man over, to use a popular example, "a drug deal gone bad." The worst result is that the murderer does not receive the due punishment, and the community is not provided with the due protection. Not to be overlooked is that not all of the factors that contribute to the worst of crimes are brought to light.

The timidity of prosecutors regarding hip-hop both reflects and contributes to the racial stereotypes that plague our courts and indeed our society. Here, the lower expectations and perceived mysterious nature of blacks is insidious. Were an employee of this prison to play "stomper" music in his or her office, there is no doubt that employee would be fired or referred to a psychiatrist through the employee assistance program. Yet the offices of this prison, and the cars in the parking lot, resound with hip-hop--the same hip-hop that inmates listen to, the same hip-hop that provides boasts of, justifications for, and plans for murder, kidnap, rape, and other terrible crimes. The same is true everywhere music is played: on the radio and television, in movies, in the barbershop, in the gym, in the shopping mall. "Stomper" music is underground, hip-hop is on a pedestal.

"Stomper music" is recorded exclusively by whites, including Europeans. Hip-hop, with the exception of Eminem (who claims to have been perverted by his fictional upbringing among blacks), is recorded by blacks. I know you're getting tired of reading about this, so allow me to make some generalizations about our courts and our society. White people are considered to be capable, intellectually and morally, or producing and enjoying things better than "stomper music." "Stomper music" has never been called "white culture," although Time magazine labeled hip-hop "music" "black culture" in 1999. Blacks are not considered to be capable, either intellectually or morally, of producing and enjoying things better than hip-hop "music." Furthermore, white people are not considered so mysterious that they warrant the type of article National Geographic published (in 1990, if you've got a stack of them in your attic) about "The African Americans" (as if they were a strange tribe National Geographic had just discovered).

When police and prosecutors investigating a murder discover the murderer listened to "stomper music," this is considered germane to the suspect's mens rea because "stomper music" is considered an aberration, a perversion of white culture. And anyone who listens to perversion is a pervert. Conversely, when the suspect is discovered to have listened to violent hip-hop "music" this is not considered a perversion of a culture, but mysterious black culture itself. Hence, police and prosecutors are timid, fearful of incurring the wrath faced by any critic of hip-hop "music." They are content to accept the slogan once popular on tee shirts: It's a black thing--you wouldn't understand. (By the way, 75% of consumers of hip-hop are white, so I am not using "listened to violent hip-hop" as a code for "black." I am referring to white murderers as well. Hip-hop is the preferred "music" of most black, white, Cambodian, and other murderers it has been my misfortune to interview.)

And, since most murder victims are black, it's not worth their trouble to try to understand.

"MOUNT POCONO, Pa. - Dazed with exhaustion, Angela Dean takes a third swipe at the snooze bar and then realizes she cannot afford another 10-minute reprieve from reality. It is 3:30 a.m., and there is laundry to be done, lunches to be made and homework to be checked before she can climb aboard the 5:15 bus that carries her to her big city job two states away. ... Ms. Dean is a weary soldier in a growing legion of teachers, subway conductors and executive secretaries, 17,000 strong, who make the voyage each day from the forested Pocono highlands to the steel escarpments of Manhattan. Largely black and Latino, urban refugees ... At St. Luke's Roman Catholic Church in downtown Stroudsburg, where the soup kitchen, once dominated by hard-drinking men, feeds a growing cadre of mothers and their children, the Rev. Thomas McLaughlin shakes his head at the tales of overworked parents struggling with unruly teenagers or imploding marriages. "People used to resolve their disputes around the dinner table," he said. "But when you're commuting five or six hours a day, there's no time for dinner." Here's Part I and Part II from the New York Times. Here's their accompanying op ed.

I’m on the MARTA train going home with my customary good book in my face as shield and protector. A piece of paper is suddenly thrust into my sight line, and, sotto voce: “CDs, DVDs, three dollars.” I mumble no thanks, and the hustler moves on down the aisle, but not before I apprehend – with a start – this man is white! As I jot this strange fact down, the elderly man beside me starts to fidget. He’s maybe 80, white, dressed in a neat golf sweater and snap-brim cap, and, at the next station, I slant my knees to let him pass. He heads not out of the car, but back. To the other white man, Subway Hustler, who is chatting with somebody about a bootleg copy of Tom Hanks’ Ladykillers. He’s sort of giving a review. Granddaddy perches near him, and asks a question, and I strain to hear their conversation, but all I catch is this: “I would go with J-Kwon.”

Don't you just hate it when white folks act all transracial? And why can't I find Ladykillers on amazon.com?

My thing came down this morning, so I was in Barnes & Noble satisfying my jones. I managed to keep the take down to three books, one a history of the Creek Nation. The saleswoman glanced at me and said, “Oh, are you part Creek?” And I said no. And she said her family is – of course – part Cherokee, and “We don’t teach our children that heritage is genetic, not what society says.” I think her point was: don’t get it confused, she is not really all-the-way black. And who am I, who am not black 7 or 8 days out of 10 lately, to quibble? Though when I’m not exactly black, when I’m done with it, I’m not white or Indian or Hispanic or some other “race.” I’m post-it. Post-black. Somewhere claiming my freedom to be and do and say as I please, without genetics or society or heritage or what the hell ever dictating my aesthetics, my politics, my relationships.

Zora Neal Hurston: "I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief." Apparently, she still is. I just love, purely love, when Negroes go on oh-so-nonchalantly about how hard it was to make their hair stand up "like that" back in the Afro days. I guess its just my hair that will stick out straight enough to hang Christmas ornaments from.

I spent a little time last week chatting with H.C. “Chris” Porter, a photographer and painter who creates stunning portraits of residents of Jackson, Mississippi’s poor black neighborhoods. I first encountered Chris’ work some years ago at the now-defunct Atlanta Festival of Arts and thought, “God, who is this brother? This is incredible.” And then the artist stepped up to greet me and was no brother at all. H.C. Porter is a woman. And a white one. She limns the daily lives of her Millsaps Avenue neighbors – boys playing basketball, a man cleaning fish, a woman tending her garden, a girl perched on a chair at the laundromat. Chris’ work is beautifully luminous, deeply respectful, and she catches hell for it from black folks who question the “right” of a white woman to create such loving work. But freedom’s for white people, too, and Chris – born in Mississippi the year Medgar Evers died – knows it and rejoices in it.

White folks are just doing this to get even. I spent the years from 1977-1990 or so watching white people's faces turn red when I showed up for appointments and the like with all this melanin. They don't really love or take us seriously. Do they?

You're always asking me what I'm reading. I’m not long ago finishing Randall Kennedy’s Nigger. (I know I’m late. I had to wait for the soft cover. I have an aversion to paperbacks that extends even to library books.) Kennedy, of course, made me reflect upon my own two times – in my southern life of some length – being called a nigger and assess the damage. (Of course, I’m talking about being called nigger by a white person. I could not begin to count otherwise.)

The first time, I was 12, it was the Bicentennial, and I had left North Carolina for summer school in the Berkshires. (Behind some serious sacrifice by my parents, don’t trip.) I don’t know how the beef started, but next thing I knew Rob Silverstein, a Jewish boy from Long Island, was screaming “nigger” down the stairwell at me. I was shocked and certainly angry. (And not too young to appreciate irony.) Was I slain, though? Not hardly. I reported the incident to Wesley Carrion, one of the few black teenagers around, and he scared the shit out of Rob like I asked him to.

Second time was not too long ago, and I was sitting in the car place waiting on some brake work when the side door opened and an enormous white woman in a Krispy Kreme uniform, a Flannery O’Connor kind of white woman, pushed through. I watched in rude, slack-jawed fascination as she crammed a dozen bags of hot fries and cheese doodles into various folds about her person. As she turned to leave, she caught me staring and snarled, “Nigger, what you looking at?” I was astonished. I was embarrassed. I sucked in my breath and – burst out laughing.

‘Cause isn’t that generally the case? It’s not your doctor, your lawyer, your office mate calling you a nigger. It’s not the mortgage broker or the insurance man. It’s the brokest down of the broke-down, who takes in your straight teeth and square heels, your good grammar and careless laugh, and comes for you with the last scrap of artillery in the arsenal. And, really, really, you are way beyond bullet-range.

Proof that scientists are just racists. They actually want us to believe that black children's educational problems are not all the direct result of racism. "We found that watching television before the age of 3 increases the chances that children will develop attentional problems at age 7...The study appears in the April issue of Pediatrics.Experts estimate that between 4 percent and 12 percent of U.S. children may be affected by Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Many parents may believe their children are just "born that way," but the home environment can also play a key role in the development of the disorder"...

Liars. For this to be true, it would have to logically follow that there were actions blacks could take to achieve their stated desired outcomes, whatever white people were up to. That couldn't possible be, ergo, science, I mean 'science', is nothing but racism with big words.

re: Rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission, I was intrigued by her response when Sen. Kerrey made a slip of the tongue and referred to her as "Dr. Clarke": "I think, sir, with due respect ... I don't think I look like Dick Clarke." Hmmm, let's distract everyone's attention away from my job performance by alluding to my race and gender. That will weaken and flummox the white men interrogating me. It worked when Clarence Thomas bellowed about a "high-tech lynching," even though his accuser was a black woman. It should work even better if I'm more suave in my delivery.

Here's my take on National Security Advisor Rice's fate at tomorrow's 9/11 Commission inquiry. It won't be pretty. It's in the LA Times. Props, btw, to blackcommentator.com's analysis of a few days ago. It was reading this piece that led me to write this op-ed (as well as lift two of their examples).

William Hung: Racism, Or Magic? From the San Francisco Gate. Here's the Village Voice's take on Hung. A sister was getting tired; let the Asians run the race war for awhile.

Shouldn't they just sue and demand to be given the money? "M.B.A. students at HBCUs compete for $22,000 in start-up capital as part of a business plan competition." Fom blackenterprise.com.

The Hiphop Cop: A Tale of NYPD's Rap Intelligence Unit "By 1999, the perception of an increasingly violent rap industry and Parker's acumen resulted in his becoming a one-man rap shop. "There was a lot of resentment and a lot of problems with me leaving to go and work with these other units in the police department," he says. Parker recounts that after he had made a presentation on Hiphop and its connection to gang culture at a police convention, then-chief of police Louis Anemone pulled him aside. "Anemone said, 'Look, Derrick. I'm going to have to put you in this unit, under the Gang Intelligence Unit.' He goes, 'Your unit doesn't really have a name. You're just going to be under Gang-Intel, but your specialty is going to be the rap music industry.' "

We have officially overcome. My latest needlecraft supply catalog (yeah, I sew, knit and crochet. Wanna make something of it?) boasts 'hip hop jaquard' yarn. What's next? 'Hip Hop' ice skates? 'New Jack' gingerbread?

"When songstress Josephine Baker visited Argentina in the 1950s she asked the biracial minister of public health Ramon Carillo, "Where are the Negroes?" to which Carillo responded laughing, "There are only two — you and I."

"Scholars have long pondered the "disappearance" of people of African descent from Argentina, long considered South America's "whitest" nation. A 1973 article in Ebony asked, "what happened to Argentina's involuntary immigrants, those African slaves and their mulatto descendants who once outnumbered whites five to one, and who were for 250 years 'an important element' in the total population, which is now 97 percent white?"

One history book calls the country's lack of self-identifying black people "one of the most intriguing riddles in Argentine history," while another notes that "the disappearance of the Negro from the Argentine scene has puzzled demographers far more than the vanishing Indian." Was the Afro-Argentine community annihilated by disease and war, or absorbed into the larger white community?

Of course, whiteness itself is relative. Many Argentines who proudly consider themselves white come to America and are shocked to find that in American racial discourse they are considered "Latino," "Hispanic" or vaguely "Spanish," and not white. Says Paula Brufman, an Argentine law student and researcher, "Argentines like to think of themselves as a white nation populated by Europeans. I was surprised when in the US, people — especially Latinos — told me I was not white but Spanish."

'Cause the black divorce rate isn't already high enough: "Family Digest, Black America's No.1 family and relationship magazine - announced that they are giving away over $3,000 in FREE gifts to EACH adult who registers and attends the Bid Whist World Championship and Family Fun Weekend being held in Las Vegas July 1-4, 2004". To get info and register, go to here.

Here's a review of The End of Blackness that completely misses the point. Again. One needn't accept my detailed arguments, but a reviewer might try something unusual like engaging with them. I'm so bored with the 'blacks/whites are not a monolith' point. Of course they aren't, a point I make repeatedly throughout the EOB with phrases like "blacks who do this," and "whites who do that". By the way, if I'm not describing you, why would you think I'm talking about you? (Answer: because I am describing you, just like the black men who deemed Waiting to Exhale an attack on all of them.). I thought I was talking down to anyone who'd read a serious book by making such obvious points, but I guess things just can't be simple enough for some people. Once again, I 'give institutional racism carte blanche' -- why no mention of the 70 pages I spend vivisecting white racism?

Gotcha! White racism, for the purposes of this discussion, is irrelevant. The main point of the EOB is that the existence of racism in no way negates our responsibility to handle our business but, in fact, requires that we do so. I wouldn't have needed to write a book about responding to racism if there was no racism. They focus on the racism because it allows them to stop thinking about what our response to it should be. In the EOB, I focus on the response. I laid out very specifically what I was up to in this book -- black identity and action plan in a post-movement environment -- but the kneejerks want me to spend all my time kissing blarney stones and not making them look bad to whites (by talking about bad black behavior. As if it's invisible.). Simply stating that 'white racism is irrelevant', ever irrelevant, allows the mentally squeamish to stop thinking. To them, it's the same as saying 'there is no white racism.' Nothing like a good straw man to defeat. You push certain people's buttons, and you push the off switch to their brains.

But of course, this is the kind of pseudocriticism the intellectually lazy, the intellectually challenged and those with hidden agendas make. That kind of 'review' writes itself, leaving the wannabe, mentally retired intellectual to chortle over his word counter. Would Williams make those critiques of The Souls of Black Folk or The Mis-Education of the Negro? They speak in the same terms, which is why I modelled the EOB on them (as well as The Culture of Narcissism). They're what inspired me to write it this way (the anger and smart alecry were my own). OK, now I have to waste everyone's time saying, sigh, that I'm not comparing myself to them. I'm trying to live up to them. You know what's saddest about that? It won't make any difference. The tiny brains will be shocked! shocked that I dare compare myself to the greats.

Now that that brilliant, space-filling observation is out of the way, let me say that, eventually, I'll archive all the interviews, reviews, articles about the EOB here on the site and let those with brains and backbones figure out who's an intellectual thug and who isn't. This is far, far from the worst EOB review. Usually I just make fun of them in emails with friends, but his prissy embarrassment over the lesser Negroes than he ("I've never felt any pressure to promote O.J.'s innocence, to call a sister a ‘ho’, to mate indiscriminately, to wear pantyhose on my head in public, or to dumb myself down to sound cool") plucked my last nerve this morning, even though he proves several of the EOB's main points. For instance, that too many bougie blacks despise 'the niggers' every bit and perhaps more than any Klansman.

By the way, the silly review ran on a very well done Negro-centered, Denver-based site which I've added to my black links page. It does much of what I intend to do with this site. Except for publishing 'reviews' like Williams's.

My colleague Danielle just administered an IQ test (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-2) to an inmate. That's an individual IQ test that we administer when the group IQ test, administered to all inmates upon admission, indicates an inmate might be mentally retarded and in need of extra help in coping with prison. (I'm begging the question of whether society has a better place than prison for its retarded criminals.)

What happened moments ago is quite typical of how we psychologists cope with the unspeakable tragedy revealed by testing. Danielle stepped outside her office, looked at me, and repeated the inmate's most inept responses as if they were revelations.

"Maybe that's why I feel so old," I replied. "After 50,000 weeks your body starts to get worn down."

"And, the reason we need a license to practice psychology [the test item is more general, asking the respondent to explain why professionals need licenses] is in case we get into a car accident!"

Danielle then grabbed our institutional size can of Glade "Country Gardens" potpourri spray and vaporized her office. She wasn't being mean--the inmate had left the building. But most mentally retarded inmates were never taught to care for their personal hygiene.

PS: In response to the question, "How many weeks are there in a year?" an inmate once correctly answered "fifty-two" after a long pause. I was surprised he answered correctly because his other responses led me to expect this item would stump him as it stumps most other mentally retarded inmates. After the testing was completed, I asked him how he figured out there are fifty-two months in a year.

"Well, there are four weeks in a month, right? And there are thirteen months in a year, right? So four times thirteen is fifty-two."

You are such a bleeding heart. One might almost think you're one of those lunatics who see a relationship between substandard education, lack of access to medical care and likelihood of incarceration. Don't you realize it's all about personal responsibility?

As long as I've dragged you into this prison for the day, I thought I'd tell you that when your last email arrived, I was speaking with a mentally retarded inmate--I'll call him "Mr. Byrne"--who was showing me the burn mark on his wrist, where another inmate stubbed out a
cigarette. At least I don't have to travel to Fallujah to see atrocities.

Having been introduced to the Bible in the two weeks he's been in prison, "Mr. Byrne" said that he'd found his answer in that. An inmate discovering the Bible is not necessarily good news. In our supermax facility an inmate told me he'd begun to read the Bible for the first time in his life. When I asked him what he'd learned, he was enthusiastic. "Mr. Schwade, did you ever notice that most of the women in the Bible are BITCHES?"

Given that "Mr. Byrne" is mentally retarded, and reads at a 3rd-grade level, I wasn't hopeful that even if he found what he was looking for, he would understandeth it.

But in the same "pod" of the "dormitory" where he'd discovered the savagery of which inmates are capable, he'd also found the kindness.
"Mr. Byrne" was aided in his Bible studies by the inmate in the bunk below him and the inmate in the bunk beside him. So "Mr. Byrne" can study the Bible, with more than a little help from his friends. "It brings me joy," he said. "It don't bring me misery, like other things."

The inmate below not only reads to him, he sings to him. "Mr. Byrne" told me, "When I get a letter from my Mom tellin' me how much she misses me, and I start cryin', he sings songs to me. He's got this one song he wrote, I'll never forget it."

This morning the inmate who slept beside him was shipped out to a minimum custody camp. "Mr. Byrne" had encouraged that inmate before they fell asleep last night. "He said he hopes he's gettin' shipped out, but he didn't think so. I told him, no you will! And I prayed for him. And he shipped out. That's God."

To prevent an inmate from escaping by arranging to have his associates meet the inmate transfer bus (they'd have to shoot the armed Corrections Officers on board, but the bus isn't armored), inmate movements are not announced. This morning, the inmate in the bunk beside "Mr. Byrne" was awakened at 4:00 a.m. and told to pack his gear. Before departing, the inmate awakened "Mr. Byrne" and whispered, "God will watch over you.

"Mr. Byrne" already misses the inmate who used to sleep beside him.
"When I woke up this morning and looked over there, he was gone! It didn't seem right."

I can only hope that tonight, the inmate in the bunk below him will sing one of his songs. Right now, I'd like to hear one myself.

Reissue of `Little Black Sambo' Stirs Controversy from the Orlando Sentinel.
"Once upon a time, when she was a child, it was the only storybook in which Jackie Perkins recalls seeing a character who looked even remotely black.As an elementary schoolteacher in Orange County, Fla., she remembers reading the story to her students, because in the 1960s, storybooks with black characters were rare.As a mother, she came to see the tale of the little boy and the four hungry tigers as an affront. She couldn't bring herself to read her children the story that begins: Once upon a time there was a little black boy, and his name was Little Black Sambo. And his Mother was called Black Mumbo. And his Father was called Black Jumbo.

"I thought whatever had a black character in it was a good book," says Perkins, 72. "I grew up between (teaching) school and my children. `Little Black Sambo' was not a book that I wanted my babies to identify with. I never read it to them."

But thousands through the years have read Sambo to their children and hold cherished memories of the story. So much so that Helen Bannerman's ``The Story of Little Black Sambo'' has never been out of print since its publication in 1899.

Indeed, it was never the narrative that incensed black readers but rather the characters' names and the pickaninny pictures often paired with the text.Now, Handprint Books has revisited both the enduring literary work and the classic clash over racism in literature, in general, and in particular, Sambo's polarizing past."

One event that made me want to marry my husband took place in the Union Square (Manhattan) Barnes and Noble. Coming back from the ladies' room, I heard his booming baritone reading a children's story aloud. Not reading. Declaiming, Olivier-style. "Ham," I thought, knowing this had to be for my benefit. (He wanted five kids. I wanted zero.) So he'd set himself up for a Kodak moment surrounded by adoring children, eh? But when I got there, there wasn't a child in sight. He was all alone, practising reading to children he didn't even have yet. The brother wore me down. When our son was born three years ago, I found the perfect Father's Day gift. I connived with his stepmom to track down (a very expensive) copy of The Real Story Book, circa 1927, his family's all time favorite kid's book, the one only Dad read to them. When the last of the wrapping paper came off and he saw what it was, he cried.

As we settled in later to read to our drooling infant, my Spidy senses started to tingle. I checked the Table of Contents. Bingo! Page 88. Little Black Sambo.

The husband does what he alwys does when I get black on him (he's white). He went deaf and became fascinated by every page in the book except the ones from 88-91.

I let it go and have never brought it up again because I don't want to tarnish such a viceral childhood memory for him. Nor do I ask if Dad read that one to them. (Of course he did. Who knew better then? It was in all the kids' book I read back in the day.) We've kept the tradition alive that only he reads to the kids from that one (I haven't settled on a signature story yet). Near as I can tell, he doesn't read that one. I now think he should. Just not quite yet.

I think he should read them Little Black Sambo for the same reason I have a mammy memorabilia collection, hideous though those figures are to me. I have an especially ugly, very heavy "Jolly Nigger Bank" that I lugged around Tuscany and all the way home again when I saw it in Florence. My husband despises the collection so that one of our worst fights was over where todisplay it. I think it very, very important for America to face itself in this regard and equally important for blacks to face these images and defuse them of their power to hurt. Blacks have to confront this fun house image of itself and realize that it says nothing about us and everything about whites and racism.

So when the time comes, Little Black Sambo will come to our house. When our children are ready for him.

What America needs is a ban on black shoe polish. Blacks decry GSU fraternity: Protesters complain of slur, threaten boycott of school. Tempers continued to flare at Georgia State University on Thursday over a racial incident that happened at a fraternity party in January.
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The call came on a Wednesday afternoon. The sergeant said, "I've got an inmate here, he's crying, he reports that his father died."

I told the sergeant to send him over to Mental Health and thanked him for calling. I notified my colleague Tiffanie, who, helpful as ever, offered to sit in with me. Grief counseling is never easy, but in prison it's worse than God-awful. None of the comforts available to mourners are available. They can't hug their family. They can't even cry.

An officer escorted the inmate to my office. Upon arrival, the inmate was too distraught to speak. Sobbing, he handed a newspaper article to Tiffanie and I. "That's my father," he cried. According to the article, his father left the scene of a "hit-and-run" accident. Unfortunately, the article was so poorly written it was not clear whether his father was dead or wanted for killing another man. Our first task, then, was to find out whether his father was dead or alive. I phoned the sheriff's department hoping for the best. I got the worse.

The newspaper account had erroneously labeled as "hit-and-run" what was actually leaving the scene of a one-car accident. "He is dead," the sheriff's detective assured me. The detective explained that after rolling his car over on Saturday night, the deceased left the scene and walked into nearby woods. The detective received a missing-persons call the next night, and a full-scale search--with dogs, boats, and helicopters--was initiated. Two days later, the man's body was found floating in a pond.

When I told the inmate his father was dead, I thought it couldn't get worse, couldn't get sadder. It did. After crying his eyes out for at least 5 minutes, the inmate concluded, "There ain't gonna be no funeral for me to go to. He died four days ago. He [must be] buried already."

Desperate to reassure him, I offered, "He hasn't been buried yet. They just found him last night." Wrong answer.

"He was alone in the woods all that time!" he cried. Me and my big reassuring mouth. All we could do at that point was watch the inmate cry again, and then listen as he explained the horrifying way in which he found the article he'd brought to us. "A dude was reading the paper, and he knew I came from that city, so he asked did I know the dude that died."

As the chaplains handle all arrangements for inmates to attend funerals or viewings, we asked the inmate if he wanted to speak with a chaplain. He did. As we accompanied him to the Chaplain's office, he asked me a question I've come to dread: "Do you remember me, Mr. Schwade?" revealing himself to be yet another incarcerated kid from the juvenile "training school" I'd worked at.

I recognized "Fifty-Four." "You've gotten much bigger," I said. He was, it seemed, pleased to have found at least some continuity among the grown-up men in his life. The chaplain took it from there, and Tiffanie and I returned to our offices in Mental Health where we consoled each other.

The next day, a more comprehensive article on the tragedy was published. As I read it, outrage joined my sadness. Those emotions are nearly constant companions in here. On Saturday night, the deceased dad was driving his wife and free children. They were heading home from a reunion. He "had been drinking at the reunion" and became angry as he spoke about a confrontation he'd had at the reunion. He began swerving from lane to lane when the car overturned. Nobody else was seriously injured, but he was knocked unconscious. After a few minutes he arose and wandered into the woods.

The State Highway Patrol responded to the accident. The sheriff's department was quoted as saying, "Highway patrolmen who responded to the accident searched the area Saturday but could not locate [the deceased man]." How in good conscience do you stop searching for a man with a head injury who wandered off into the woods after dark? Two years ago a car crashed into a field near my house at 1:00 a.m., ejecting the driver. I began searching for the victim, and was later joined by the County Sheriff's Department and the Highway Patrol. We didn't stop looking until the dazed man was found stumbling a mile away.

It gets worse. "The man's two adult daughters, [I've deleted the names], returned to the field to search for their father but say they were asked to leave by the property owner." Doesn't get much crueler than this, does it? Fortunately, the grieving inmate is not aware of these facts.

In anger, I wonder whether his father died while the highway patrol troopers who abandoned him were driving the roads trying to decide whether to harass blacks or Mexicans (as one local court has found), or whether the man died later, after his daughters were banished by the property owner. Was the father abandoned, and were the daughters banished, because they were black, or poor, or poor and black?

I've known the grieving inmate, "Fifty-Four," since he was a boy. I know his record. I know all the terrible things he's done. I also know that he's never done anything nearly as cruel as the troopers who abandoned a man with a head injury wandering around in the dark woods, or the property owner who would not allow a man's daughters to search for their father. But he's an inmate and they are free.

I got a "Negro, Please!" [note: we invented this feature yesterday. In it, we imagine black folks writing in, as they call in to Tom Joyner, and admit to frontin' on racial issues when they know they know better. Like.... ):

Deb, I need some advice. I'm a first-year at Harvard Law School. First semester I didn't speak to black folks, and my old white school chums didn't speak to me. Second semester I came back wearing a kufi and raising hell. I spearheaded a sit-in to protest the lack of black faculty. (We really need role models!!!) When a handkerchief head named Lisa H. protested, I spat, "There is no good time for revolution!" Problem is, errrr, maybe the timing is a little off. We're sitting in Tuesday, and finals start Wednesday. I really need to study for my Contracts final. I mean, if I'm going to get on with the best firms, my grades have got to be tight! What to doooooooo????????

Lisa H. lives in that great soul plantation, Atlanta. She is a chronic runaway.

I have failed the test. Several, actually. When I first heard the news that nine members of a family in Fresno, California had been murdered, it never even occurred to me that the suspected killer would be black. (Actually, maybe I get a passing grade for not even wondering.) Then I see him on the evening news, and I just groan. I want to be true to my post-blackness by not cringing about his blackness, but I couldn't help it. Some part of me still clings to the tired (and empirically beaten down) myth that black folks just don't do crazy shit like this. Collectively, we may murder dozens daily, but we are neither mass murderers nor serial murderers. Even after John Allen Muhammad and Lee Malvo. (My dad once said that we couldn't be serial murderes because it took too much planning. We plot it out, mess around, phone ring, get distracted, look at our watch, hustle on down to the killing ground, victim done left. That's terrible, but funny.)

So I failed that little test, but the bigger test is the measure of my shame for the actions of people I don't know, have no influence over, or responsibility for. And I felt it. Not a lot, but some, viscerally, just because both Marcus Wesson and I are black. And that tells me that what white people think about black folks is still occupying way too much space in my head. And it also tells me that I am still trying to take on other people's shit, still trying to mother the race, when I neither caused these folks' problems nor can affect them.

I failed the test this time, but I understood the questions, and I see where my logic went wrong. Freedom ain't easy, but I'm determined to pass the course.

As for Black Cindy being down - you think it might be sabotage? You know, some New Afrikan that don't want your word getting out. :-) And speaking of your word, I was talking about you to a friend of mine who was at HLS when you were. She reminisced fondly about the way you took it to BLSA, but admitted that she had enough "old paradigm" in her to wish that you hadn't aired [your disagreeent with its 'blacks-only' policy] in a "white" forum. I said, "Girl, come on now. How else you gon tell the truth? You got to go through whitey's paper. 'Cause black folk will shut your ass down the minute they finish the first paragraph. Your shit will not see the light." (Yes, I curse just that much. It's shameful.) If it ain't race-polishing (an artform perfected by Ebony magazine) or race-raging .... We had a good, sorrowful laugh about it.

Have you seen "The Passion of the Christ"? There are many things I could say about it, but only one that hasn't been said. I found myself distractedly fascinated by the number of black folk milling about in the crowd, watching the scourging or jeering along the parade route. It caught me off guard in conflicting ways, and I never figured out whether I was happy about Gibson's inclusion of these Aethiops. It invoked so many of my VOOPs (Vestiges of Old Paradigm.) I didn't spring from the womb at the End of Blackness, so I still flinch sometimes at involuntarily thoughts like, "Lawd, are they gon pin the crucifixion on us, too?" and "Well, damn. Why couldn't black folk have any of the speaking parts?" And, of course, Jesus was still way too white for me....

I suffer with the VOOPs, too, don't give me so much credit. In The End of Blackness I call it Stupid Defiance, defending something, or refusing to admit something, just because of the hay white folks might make out of it. I just typed a few examples of which I'm guilty, then deleted them because I'm too stiffnecked to 'give' whites any more than I already have. OK, that does look as stupid in print as I thought it would. Why, oh why do we still care?

Hey, I just thought of a new feature -- Negro, Please -- in which black folks write in, as they call in to Tom Joyner, and admit to frontin' on racial issues when they know they know better. Like....

Post Card No. 1. Hi. I changed my name from Charles to Abbabatunde when I was 18. I'm 50 now and no one can spell it! They never could! My mail goes to the Motherland and back before getting to me. But I can't change it back because.....I don't know...I just can't. Help me.

Post Card No. 2. Yo, Deb. I started playing golf with the boss, you know, just to help my career. But you gotta help me Deb -- I love it! I kee p trying to front about how 'they should put some public housing up in here' but that's just a lie. My handicap is getting lower and lower and the plaid pants are starting to look fly to me. What do I do?

>>JOB: Executive Director, Seattle African American Museum

The Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle (ULMS), an established 501 © 3 organization, seeks applicants for the position of Executive Director for the Seattle African American Museum. The Executive Director will work closely with the Museum Advisory Committee, the Board of Directors, dedicated staff and volunteers to develop 15,000-square-feet of an historic building into the Seattle African American Museum. There is opportunity to implement artist studios, workshops, exhibition galleries, a black box theater, reception area, and gift
shop. The Interim E.D. will be expected to:

* Instill a sense of confidence amongst staff, board, donors, foundations, and community leaders in regard to the continuing operations of
the museum. For more information, contact Sarah Hiller at 461-3792 ext. 3020. Email address is shiller@urbanleague.org >>

Hi Debra,
I am a psychiatrist who is responsbile for clinical services at [a major Northeastern] Medical Center, and my personal narrative is in many ways similar to your own. While I do not see exclusively African-Americans in my clinical work, I do see relatively high percentage of us, and I am often struck by how much feelings of racism is identified as the major barrier to individuals improvement and/or success even when there is demonstrated evidence of awful decision making and repetitive patterns of self-destructive behavior. After recently reading a review of your book and seeing you on C-Span, I decided that I wanted to say hello and offer my strongest support for your book The End of Blackness. I have not heard anyone articulate so clearly how much we- African/Americans-continue to enslave ourselves by holding so tightly to white folks' racisim.I am concerned that you may not be exactly embraced by the black intellgencia and viewed as "conservative"; however, I must say that this is one of the most progressive books that I have read. So in the vernacular of the day "You go girl!!"

For many years I knew something was very wrong with the way I looked at the world, and I never knew what it was or how to put my finger on it. I listened to your interview on the CBC radio (in Canada) with Paul Kennedy about your book "The End of the Blackness" and I was absolutely blown away. I have recently begun to look at race through a different lens because I fell in love with the enemy - a white man. We are now engaged to be married and it was this very relationship that made me question my "loyalties" to the black race. In my youth (or when I was younger because I'm 28 now) I was the one who shouted the loudest about black men and women "selling out" when they dated and/or married white men and women. I believed wholeheartedly, that it was our duty as black people to not let the white man bring us down and divide us. So when I unexpectedly fell head over heals in love with a white man I also felt an overwhelming guilt that I was abandoning my black brothers and people and defecting to a race that had raped and pillaged our people. In listening to you speak animatedly about your book, your life and your children I realized that my obsession with race and the guilt I felt (especially in the beginning of my relationship) were a product of my own misconceptions of what role race truly played in my life. You're right - race is the least of my worries when I have to pay rent and put food on the table. I want to thank you for giving me a new perspective on the role race is to place in my life, and funny enough, it's my white mother-in-law to be who heard your interview and told me that I should listen to you because she admired and respected what you had to say. I have a great respect in the work that you're doing with the College Summit program that you're running in the States and I am very interested in running something similar here in Canada. I know you said that you don't have a chance to read all of the emails you get, but I'm hoping someone else will read this and know that I'm blessed to have been able to hear about you and your work and I hope that I can get more information on the College Summit program so that I can work within my community to provide a similar service to inner city youth who are looking for other avenues in life. Thank you for your time and words of inspiration, they have changed my life.

Joanne D.

Note: I DO NOT run College Summit. I merely assist them in a very small way in the wonderful, tireless, 24/7 work that they do. Please, please check out their website and try to help them too. They have the same strange idea about fighting racism that I do -- arming minorities to defeat it rather than endlessly caterwauling about it. Silly, huh?

Just what Chicago needs, rhyming headlines: "A Jackson eyes Sun-Times: Jesse's son, with partner, joins bidding. Yusef Jackson, the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s No. 3 son, is making a play for the Chicago Sun-Times. ...The Sun-Times’ appeal to a financial or strategic buyer is less than it is to a bidder like Mr. Jackson, who could instantly transform the city’s No. 2 daily into the nation’s only major mainstream newspaper owned by an African-American. With a weekday circulation of 482,000, the Sun-Times is the 13th-largest paper in the U.S."

Prior to beginning to work with juvenile delinquents, I worked with mentally retarded youth and adults for 15 years. During those 15 years leaders in the field of exploiting the mentally retarded--that is, those who earned a living presenting workshops--became progressively bolder in denying that mental retardation was a handicap. This was never convincing to those of us who had to help mentally retarded persons--whom the workshoppers now call "persons with mental retardation"--and their families cope with their handicaps. We knew that mentally retarded persons needed to be closely supervised. Without adequate supervision, they would be overwhelmed by the demands of life and helpless to prevent their own exploitation.

The courts generally understood that an inadequately supervised mentally retarded child could not and should not be considered culpable--unless he committed a sex offense. I believe that cracking down hard on sex offenders, even those "with mental retardation," engenders the comforting illusion that we as a society have a modicum of control over our sexual impulses. Is this true? It depends on what your definition of "is" is.

Consider the sexual climate of the society during the time I was working with juvenile sex offenders, including those "with mental retardation." The President of the United States was getting "Lewinsky's" in the "oval office" (the one with the oval seat) adjoining the Oval Office, and the "spiritual advisor" he summoned to help him control his previously uncontrollable urge to violate Commandment VII brought along his pregnant mistress. Most uses of the burgeoning Internet were for viewing pornography, a predilection that cost the Dean of the Harvard Divinity School his position. A generation after the discovery of a fatal, incurable sexually transmitted disease, the number of new AIDS cases continued to grow at a precipitous rate. And two generations after the emergence of a women's movement that was presumed to have driven underground the sexual degradation of women, that became a staple of the most popular form of entertainment in the country, hip-hop.

Locking up retarded sex offenders provides only scant evidence of a society's willingness and ability to adhere to some rules in gratifying its sexual desires. But mentally retarded persons without proper supervision are incapable of comprehending or following those rules, and can readily be induced to violate those rules by those wanting to exploit them.

"Fifty-Four" had been adjudicated for felony larceny and numerous misdemeanors, but he was not committed to training school until he was adjudicated for 1st-degree rape. Under North Carolina law, this means the assailant had vaginal intercourse unlawfully; either the victim was coerced by use of a deadly weapon or the victim was under 12 years of age, even if there was no coercion. In the case of "Fifty-Four," his victim consented to vaginal intercourse with him, although this was not a legal defense to 1st-degree rape because "Fifty-Four" was 15 years old while his victim was under 12.

It is perilous to appear to diminish the actions of a male found guilty of 1st-degree rape. Nevertheless, in North Carolina, two very different acts constitute 1st-degree rape. And while no parents want to find their 11-year-old daughter is having vaginal intercourse with a 15-year-old boy, in this case the 15-year-old boy did not threaten or use violence. (Although the size discrepancy between the boy and his victim was not brought up in this case, it is noteworthy that the boy did not weigh more than 120 pounds.) And the boy had the consent of a girl whose mental age exceeded his own. "Fifty-four," you see, was the IQ score of this juvenile sex offender. This IQ score is considered to be in the "moderate" range of mental retardation. What does that mean in terms of his limitations, his ability to adapt to his environment, to function without adequate supervision? To put it bluntly, the IQ score of 54 of "Fifty-Four" means he just doesn't "get it" and he won't "get it" even if he is severely punished.

"Fifty-Four" tried to explain how he got to training school. "I were on probation for stealing bikes and all that stuff." By "stealing bikes" he did not mean he had stolen more than one bike, but that he and his accomplice each stole a single bike. His account of his bicycle theft was guileless: "We go and we see a nice bike and we need something to ride and we take it. They called the police, and they asked if it was a stolen bike and I said, 'To tell you the truth, yeah.'" Now that's refreshing candor!

His reply to "Why did the judge send you here?" was also candid, but as confused as we should expect from a person with an IQ of 54.

"Rape. It really weren't that; I violated probation." He did not understand that even if he were not on probation for stealing bicycles, adjudication for 1st-degree rape was sufficient to cause his commitment to training school.

"Fifty-Four" readily admitted to committing the act that constituted 1st-degree rape, having vaginal intercourse with an 11-year-old girl.

"But people have sex all the time without getting locked up," I pointed out. "Why did you get in trouble for it?"

"I guess I don't know what women like," he guessed, sounding more like he had violated the laws of Cosmo publisher Helen Gurley Brown rather than those of the state of North Carolina. In fact, "Fifty-Four" made the rarest of admissions, that he knew very little about sexuality in general. He had no contact with his father, and there was no other man in his life who could have told him what he felt he needed to know about women to avoid leaving them so unsatisfied or dissatisfied after sex that he ended up in the lock up.

Life outside of training school was best for "Fifty-Four" when it was not intellectually challenging. In school, for example, he liked best, "When we go on field trips, and stuff like that. We went to museum and saw animals and went to the animal museum and saw snakes and stuff." When not on field trips, he preferred to spend his time doing physical work outside the classroom rather than academic work inside the classroom. He proudly said, "If you go to the [name of school omitted] School and look at those trees out front, every one of those trees we built." (He was unaware of the poem "Trees," by Joyce Kilmer. As one of the millions of 20th-century New Jersey public school students forced to memorize the most famous poem by our fellow Jerseyan, I know it ends with, "But only God can make a tree.") "Fifty-Four's" least-preferred school activity was "When we sit there and do work all day."

After his release from training school, he hoped to return to an uncomplicated life, and recognized his need for loving family supervision. "My uncle cuts grass and wood and stuff. And if I be 16 when I get out I can work with my sister at Hardees. But I think I'm going to work with my uncle because he pay pretty good money and he a nice guy. He a Christian too. I'm going to go to church every Sunday when I get out so I won't be in no more trouble. My mama go every once in a while. She works so late. She works on Saturday, too."

When asked, "What do you know the most about?" "Fifty-Four" answered, "Car. I know how to fix a car. I like to work on cars. Me and my uncle."

Because this uncle was crucial in "Fifty-Four's" plans, I asked his name. "Fifty-Four's" difficulty articulating made it impossible for me to distinguish whether he answered "Tootie" or "Two-D." When I asked him to pronounce his uncle's nickname again, "Fifty-Four" was not confident he could pronounce it in a way that would allow me to spell it, so he said, "He's my Uncle Theodore. Well, if you met him you could just call him Mr. [last name omitted]." "Fifty-Four" didn't get it; I wanted to know how to spell his uncle's name for my report, not because I planned to meet him.

The training school was certainly bereft of loving family supervision, and "Fifty-Four" could not adapt. For example, he did not realize that he could no longer back up his tough talk. He gave this account of one of the many assaults he endured soon after his commitment to training school. "Quentin said, 'Today is the day I beat your ass.' So I said, 'Do what you got to do.' And he said, 'I am, bitch! I am!' Then he hit me." "Fifty-Four" was overmatched; he did not hit back.

"Fifty-Four" was disappointed that a student he went to school with on the outside had abandoned him. "Growing Boy" had been smaller than "Fifty-Four" when they went to school together on the outside. But now "Growing Boy" was larger than "Fifty-Four" and naturally began bullying his former friend. "Fifty-Four" lamented, "I thought we were cool. I didn't know he was going to be instigating." He reminisced, "At school, nobody didn't never fight. ["Growing Boy"] and me were cool, we were like brothers. But now it seems ["Growing Boy"] want to turn on my back."

"Fifty-Four" showed some insight into the betrayal by "Growing Boy." He explained that "Growing Boy" was also new to the training school, and was being intimidated by a larger, older "student." "Growing Boy," misled by the Hollywood version of prison gangs, thought that if he bullied "Fifty-Four" and others on behalf of his new slave master, his master would protect him. "Fifty-Four" explained the fallacy of "Growing Boy's" assumptions. "He thought [his slave master] was going to protect him, but when he got jumped, all he [the slave master] did was say, 'He needed to get his ass beat.'"

Concerned, I asked "Fifty-Four," "Do you have any plans for how you're going to get through here?"

"Fifty-Four" shook his head side to side indicating "no." He worried, "They already think I'm a punk because I didn't hit back. I don't want to hit nobody because I don't want to get a moderate [rule infraction]." He added, "I don't know if I can make it here. If I could, I'd go anywhere else."

At the end of his first month in training school, he attended his treatment planning conference, along with his mother, where he proved in a most humiliating way that he couldn't make it in training school. The presence of his mother, whom he adored, made his ineptness all the more dreadful. "Fifty-Four" virtually begged the assembled staff members for assistance in coping with the bullying of the other students, especially his former friend "Growing Boy." He was particularly upset because, "That boy ['Growing Boy"] say my mama suck dick." Even a child with an IQ of 55 would not bring this up in front of his own mother, who sat silent and apparently befuddled.

A benevolent social worker jumped in and tried to smooth things over. "That boy doesn't even know your mother," she tried to assure "Fifty-Four."

"Yeah, he do!" "Fifty-Four" argued. "He do know my mama!" "Fifty-Four's" mother stared blankly. If there was any small consolation, it was that she didn't appear to understand the insulting implication of what her son had just said.

As for the staff, we were mortified, except for one fellow. He might have asked "Fifty-Four's" mother for her telephone number, as he had with the mothers of other incarcerated sex offenders. But this randy staff member had all the evidence he needed that his sexual impulses were under control. After all, he kept retarded perverts like "Fifty-Four" locked up!

John Schwade is a psychologist working in a prison with 19-22 year old inmates. He previously worked with incarcerated juvenile delinquents. He wants you to know what he's found out without doing time.

Why Study Black Studies: The Status of the Discipline in the State of New Jersey

FRIDAY, MARCH 26TH, 2004 8:30 - 1:00, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Townsend Residential Learning

Description:This half day conference (and reception) brings together faculty, students and local educators in the State of New Jersey to examine the various curricular offerings in the field of African American Studies. It focuses on the challenges these programs face in their efforts to educate the public about the history and culture of African Americans. In a series of panel discussions, participants will be engaged in discourse with the academic leadership responsible for the development of the discipline, as well as scholars who accept responsibility to deliver on core areas of knowledge. In addition, attention will be f ocused on how local educators and students are enriched by these program
offerings. In light of the recent passage of the Amistad legislation in the State of New Jersey requiring local educators to expand upon their teachings of the Black experience in America, this conference also raises a fundamental question: How ready are we for Amistad?

1. The Leadership Challenge: Maintaining and Enriching African American Studies Programs.
2. Core Areas of Knowledge in the Discipline: What Are Our Teaching Imperatives?
3. African American Studies from K - 12: Program Articulation with Local School Districts.
4. Within the Classroom and Beyond: Our Majors and Minors: What Students Want and Need.

Closing Comments: Teacher Training and Re-training: Are We Ready for Amistad?

The conference is open to African American Studies faculty, administrators
and students free of charge. Registration is required. Local educators can
register for CEU credits at www.ettc.net.

Name:___________________________________
Institution:___________________________Address:_________________________________City/State/Zip_______________________
Telephone:____________________________e-mail__________________________________
Mail to: African American Studies, Richard Stockton College, PO Box 195, Pomona, NJ 08240.
E-mail: pat.reid-merritt@stockton.edu., or fax (609) -748-5559. More info: (609) 652-4609.

Lisa H. lives in that great soul plantation, Atlanta. She is a chronic runaway.

How are you? I read the following and thought it relevant to your labors:

Notable Achievements: A Black History Month Note (ok, so I didn't get it posted in February--dd)

We all know about MLK, Marcus Garvey, and the other famous, more
prominent black figures in history, but what about the less famous ones
who have made, arguably, as valuable contributions?

Cheryl "Peaches" Delaney of Englewood, NJ, was working the night shift
at a McDonald's in 1974. The 16 year-old high school junior had just
been severely reprimanded by her manager, one Arnold McFarland, over her
Afro hairdo being unprofessional. McFarland gave her an ultimatum of
wearing a clown hat or being fired, and Delaney, working to save money
for cosmetology school, relented and wore the clown hat.

Hours later, she noticed several of her classmates at the drive-through
window, on their way to a party. Luscious Jones, Fred Williams, Eddie
James, and Derrick Smith were riding in a green AMC Pacer. The four of
them ordered four hamburgers, and were going to split three orders of
fries and two Cokes.

Peaches, filling the order, noticing that McFarland (the manager) had
taken his nightly thirty-minute bathroom break, had an epiphany. She
locked eyes with LaWanda, who was on fries, and Fat Sam, who was on the
register and in a blur of motion, they stuffed 4 jumbo bags with every
single hamburger, cheeseburger, french fry, cookie, and other item they
could find, accepting $1.01 from Luscious Jones as payment.

Cotton Picker du Jour on that Last Plantation, The Mind: Keidi Obi Awadu, Lib Radio, and most of his emailers.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." Aristotle.

"Why she always got to be quotin' white folks? And, anyway, he stole that from Africa." Keidi Obi Awadu (probably)

I did this show last Monday and haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. I do a lot of shows and have so far held my opinion to myself about all of them, but not this time.

It did not go well. Given Awadu's mindset and the type of audience attracted to that mindset, I'm not sure things could have been very different. I was so appalled, so shocked by his puerile anti intellectualism (and that of most of his emailers), I was rendered speechless, then merely sputtering in disbelief. Ever argue with a ten year old? Know how they can leave you speechless with their arrogant inanity? It was like that. Unbelievable.

Even though it is people like him who propelled me to write The End of Blackness, I never get over my amazement at their lack of home training and hostility to any discussion putatively about the black community that doesn't revolve around white people. Except, of course, for the denunciation of those black people who dare not to think what they think. Those who dare to think outside the treadmill path Awadu and his ilk have stomped out are reserved for special hostility, personal attack and general intellectual thuggery. If you're not black precisely the way they are, you are a sell-out. So, we fought to be free of white people just to be enslaved to black ones.

But the reason he stays on my mind is how perfectly he proves the point of the EOB, that blacks have to update their identity to reflect the progress already made and that which still needs to come. That, post-Movement (however imperfect its results), we are more than the sum of our oppression. We can incorporate more into our identity than being they who are oppressed by and obsessed with white people. We can continue to work on eradicating racism while simultaneously consolidating our newfound freedom and doing what we can (which is considerable) to ameliorate the conditions that bedevil us, whoever's fault the conditions are. Otherwise, is it not true that we care more about getting guilt admissions from whites than about caring for ourselves? I love black people. He worships white people. They're all he can think about. Everytime I tried to remind him that my book was about blacks focusing on themselves, he immediately Pavlov'd his way back to his White God.

The first proof of their anti-intellectualism is their inability to understand anything I say after encountering the title, The End of Blackness. Indeed, their unexamined but all too obvious belief that they need not read the book, given it's title. Most amazing of all, they usually claim to have read the book when a child could see that they haven't. They don't have to. You see, Negroes like him belive they have a special insight into race and we race traitors. Whenever you hear one say something like, "When you've seen The White Man the way I've seen him..." run. You are about to hear vicious, virulent, haterating racism barely masking a longing for white approval and reassurance of black worth embarrassing to watch. It's like seeing someone you have no respect for naked when he thinks his door is closed; excruciating for oh so many reasons.

At the end of our puerile 'discussion' Awadu proved again one of the main points of EOB, the know-nothingness of white-obsessed blacks like him, by saying, "Shouldn't you have called the book The End of My Blackness?" My, my what a difficult concept irony, satire and parody can be for some folks. If I've learned one thing with this book, it's that when you push certain people's buttons, you push the off switch to their brains. I explain at length in the book exactly what I mean by that title yet he makes no mention of that explanation. This has happened repeatedly with "reviewers" and "interviewers;" they get stuck on a sentence and can't get past it to the two page explanation that follows. You don't have to accept my arguments but you do have to contend with them, don't you? Is he illiterate? No, it's worse.

The obvious point of the title is to shock blacks into considering exactly what their blackness coheres around. Then, to realize that we WON'T stop being black if we stop obsessing over the doing's of the all-important white man. That we define our blackness, not the other way around. When we do this, we'll become MORE black, more fully invested in our individual and then communal personalities, more fully invested in our humanity because we'll understand that it is illegitimate for us to be black in any way that violates either our, or someone else's, humanity. Like by, for example, despising white people. Or, by defending black criminals whites want to hang even though we're pretty sure they're guilty. Everything else is fair game, existentially. Play golf, marry interracially, dress like a hippie, go to Europe instead of Africa. 'Blackness' has to stop being pre-fab, one-size-fits-all, knee jerk, in any way 'required', or we're not truly free. If you black-identify, you're black. It's that simple, however you live your life. Otherwise I'm your new massa and here is the list of things you have to believe or Kweidi's gonna get you. Free is free. Chained is chained and my name aint Toby.

I am conflict-avoidant when it comes to arguing with people incapable of rigorous thought, self-examination or a free wheeling exchange of ideas, offenses of which I find the black far left to often be guilty. But, part of my message is that blacks have got to stop ex-communicating each other with bogus litmus tests. That we should grow up and work together where our agendas overlap, like any family full of contradictory opinions. So, with those good intentions, I agreed to do his show. It was ridiculous from the start. Factor in his matter of fact admissions that he'd managed to read little of the book and you can imagine what was to come.

First, off the air, he bizarrely described himself as a black conservative. This, after the "When you've seen the white man like I've seen him" claim to a special understanding which was merely racist. That was my first 'uh oh' indication: 'uh oh. Another dogmatist who thinks he's open minded and thoughtful.' Once I'd taken a look at his mumbo jumbo 'New Afrikan' website, I knew it would be bad, but it was so much worse than I was prepared for. On the reparations question, I asked what we should do if Native American protestors showed up at a commemoration of the Buffalo Soldiers, or Cuban ones at a service for the black soldiers of the Spanish American war. "Those were the white man's wars. We're not responsible for that." Case closed. We were just following orders....now where have we heard that before? I was speechless.

It took me forever to figure this gambit out. He took the following passage from page 12 (I doubt he got much farther):

"If a magic wand ended white racism tomorrow at noon, the black community would not be very much changed at 12:01. White racism doesn’t mug a neighbor at the bus stop, it doesn’t have unprotected sex or drop out of high school. It doesn’t underachieve, it doesn’t give up on the trouble students, it doesn’t give in to hopelessness and settle for a life behind a broom, it doesn’t favor its boys over its girls. It doesn’t refuse to breastfeed, it doesn’t infect fifty per cent of its young with herpes, it doesn’t believe ignorant conspiracy theories or that AIDS is a hoax. It doesn’t watch endless hours of television instead of reading to its children or overseeing their homework or taking them to a cultural event. It matters not at all whether white rates of these same phenomena are higher or lower; all that matters is that they are too high for black comfort. This is not who they want to be. There is work to do and it must be done by black people, however whites behave."

Here was his analysis after repeatedly getting me to acknowledge that he'd read it correctly: "The black community doesn't do those things. No community does those things."

"Huh?" was my response. Near as I can figure, he reads me to be saying that the black community (through some designated, perhaps elected SWAT team?) goes around mugging neighbors at the bus stop, having unprotected sex....

"'The black community favors it's boys over its girls'? Debra, you can't really belive that." Deep, huh?

My favorite: "If racism and its effects ended the community would be different. Yes, Debra, the functionally illiterate would magically become literate." Somebody didn't take Debate 101. I live in fear that he'll find my reference to a watched pot never boiling because, like, eventually it actually will and thereby invalidate my entire book.

"But they have not been left out of America; they affect rejecting it while availing themselves of every morsel of its benefits. But they are not hypocrites. They are liars acting out white-induced feelings of inferiority; they feel American to their core. The danger lies in their access to podiums from which they lead other blacks to join them in their civic insecurity. They lead blacks into asking for a refund on their American identity. They exhort them to make a mockery of their ancestors’ triumphs. But who and what are they if not Americans? African? The notion is laughable."

"Debra, you can't really belive that. Laughable?" demanded the black conservative.

I exagerrate but (this is from memory) but very little. No matter that, arguendo, I conceded that all black problems are the direct result of concerted white racism. We still could not move on to that which we could ameliorate on our own, we must only talk about white people.

Truly, I have never had so ridiculous a conversation and in my line of work, I get to have plenty. So full of himself is Awadu, that he remained serenely nice the whole time he was playing at being an intellectual and sent me a nice thank you note. Then the emails started:

Debra,

"Your interview on LIBradio was a DISGRACE! You deliberately evaded to comment about any serious analysis about your "own"(as if you really wrote this) book. The problems from this exchange with (Afrikans who are not in bed with the white establishment) is clear you hate yourself.

Your entire agenda is to disappear and fade to white. Until you deal with the system of global white supremacy that functions in: ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, ENTERTAINMENT, POLITICS, LABOR, LAW, HEALTHCARE, RELIGION, SEX AND WAR. You are a traitor to all people classified as non white. You a sellout!"

Folks like this never sign their emails. Wonder why. Note the incredible paranoia -- who did write the book, I wonder, and how was I chosen to be the beard? I chuckled when Awadu 'quipped' that Ashcroft must be causing the signal degradation his listeners were emailing him about. I stopped chuckling when I realized he wasn't joking.

I regret now having deleted the other 12 or so negative emails from the show. They were gems of the kind of know-nothing, do-nothing white obsession I'm fighting against. Check my amazon.com page for more of this nonsense masquerading as reviews of a book that has clearly not been read. I know this because they're all ad hominem attacks (really weird ones, too) posted shortly after radio or TV interviews; they claim to have read in my book things that I never said there but only on the air (the dopes think it's first person and demand to know why I didn't address things I wrote entire sections on). And why do none of them mention the 70 pages I spend critiqueing white racism, their favorite subject?

"Maybe, but first tell me what that means practically, besides libations poured to 'ancestors' and kente cloth accessories? Being black in America and the west is a full time job, you're going to have to persuade me that I should add another layer to an already overburdened psyche. You might be able to convince me but you can't order me." You could hear the emails roar. Not answer intelligently. Just roar in disgust.

What stops any black person from 'returning' to Africa if he so desires and why aren't y'all already there? Did they mean more than his Back to Africa movement? Who knows, it's all kabuki with them, no need to actually put forth an argument, just invoke totems and kiss blarney stones.

As Awadu reminded me frequently, "You said you welcomed debate." He's right but I forgot the magic word: INTELLIGENT debate. He ended his attacks with personal ones: "In the book (of which I read virtually nothing), you sound like about four people. [I forget the silly first three, but one was] the hurt little girl." What on earth does that mean?

This tactic, avoidance of intellectual engagement in favor of vicious 'hints' that I'm insane, is common. Here's another common tactic, frequent references to my having attended Harvard Law School, my having published in major publications and of course my powerful book publisher. The point? That I'm the white man's tool. Of course, when I ask why we fought and died to integrate such places if it somehow 'de-Negrifies' me to make use of them, I get no intelligent response. Couldn't be player hating could it?. (I should point out that Awade claims to have written two dozen books. Their absence on any major trade lists just speaks to how hard the white man keeps a righteous brother like him down. They, of course, would only publish a house Negro like me.) I reminded him that my parents were Jim Crow sharecroppers and that I'd attended community college and gotten both my BA and MA at night while active duty military before Harvard. Email: "Anybody that has to mention their working class credentials this much.....".

Then he hit me with 'the end of MY blackness' shot which was clearly meant to crush me. I swear, he was waiting for me to cry.

"I don't care what you think of me personally," I said. I was balancing my checkbook by this time. It's just so hard to keep track of all the money de white folks sends me for selling out my peoples.

"Nope. As is one of my book's points, I know who I am, so it doesn't matter what others think, just as blacks should stop caring what whites think." Does he think I'm running for Prom Queen?

He was so dumbfounded, it proved both that he hadn't read the book and wouldn't have understood it if he'd tried. He truly expected me to dry up and blow away in the gale force of his holy disapproval. In a vain last attempt to discuss at least one relevant issue, I brought up the community programs I was involved with and the foundation I was starting. Final parting shot: "Some people say that's a problem, too. You could work with a group that already exists."

But even though that 'discussion' went so badly, it served a purpose. I wrote this book in part to arm other forward thinking blacks against the soul-destroying do-nothingness and personal attacks they'll face for speaking truth to black power. I would imagine that ridiculous talk will be available on the site. I'd recommend listening to it just to remind yourself that this kind of anti intellectual pillorying can't hurt you in the end. You can survive the character assassination (they even attack my husband and kids on amazon. You can tell that the same people post repeatedly. Weird.) and you'll help embolden more truly emancipated blacks to assert their freedom against the new massa, self-enslaved Negroes.

I suppose it's worth it to reach the hopefully sizeable contingent of folks in his audience that aren't brain damaged; I did get two positive emails that heard me critiquing both racism and black complacency. But I guess some heads just can't manage two thoughts at once, what with what Albert Murray called 'filled but underdeveloped minds."

I think that when the white man orders me to bring out the paperback next year, i'll add these know-nothings to my dedication. After all, they are my inspiration.

Lisa H. lives in that great soul plantation, Atlanta. She is a chronic runaway.

I don't know how you do it. I have a bad shut-people-out habit that limits my engagement with the truly stupid or illogical. Combined with a fuck-you philosophy that often gains the upperhand, I seldom find myself debating these issues. Mostly, my like-minded friends and I sit around bitching and moaning about this foolishness. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't truly just love black people so much. I feel as buffeted as you must.

Things are especially disheartening right now, given all this gay marriage amendment foment. A local paper ran a photo of a little black girl holding a placard that read "Man + Man = Destruction of Human Life!!"

(B) Man + Gun = Destruction, Man + Crack = Destruction, Man + Woman + Abused Children = Destruction.

Have I ever seen black people riled up and snatching their kids out of school to march at the state house about black-on-black violence or drugs or teenage pregnancy or poor schools or any of a million other ills besetting the community? No, but, by God, we can whip up the froth behind those gays!

Saying the Unthinkable

A Book By Its Cover? I will admit to being addicted to American Idol, the spectacle of caterwaulers who simply cannot understand why three experts who have devoted their lives to pop music inexplicably won't 'put them through' to stardom. Now, I don't want to call any names, but as the contestants' families were shown reacting to each performance, I couldn't help being reminded of Redd Foxx's observation that if you follow an ugly person home, somebody ugly will open the door.

Who knew that Foxx was also an amateur genticist?

My good deed for the day: Blogging very glamorously from my local Starbucks, a man at the next table stopped at mine on the way back from ordering.

"Nice computer," he said amiably.

"Yeah? It's OK." I was confused. It's pretty beat up. I have to avoid both the letters 'm' and 'r'. They stick. Spilled beer probably.

"Are you a Christian?" he asked, swooping in like a pelican who just sighted poor little Nemo.

My cluelessness filled him with joy. He leaned in like I was a ham sandwich and he was on Slim Fast.

"Is Jesus Christ in your life?" he nearly drooled.

Oh. The computer comment was a conversation-starter, the evangelistic equivalent of 'what's your sign?'.

I just looked at him, waiting for the silence to become unbearable so he'd take his intrusive rudeness and go away. But of course not. The more uncomfortable, the better for him, the greater his terrible suffering, being so holy in such a sinful world.

"IS Jesus Christ in your life?" he grinned with the joy of self-righteousness.

"We are not having this conversation," I said and resumed typing.

He went away with flamboyant humility. But only for a second.

He came back waving a newspaper of some sort.

"Could I just ask you to read something I wrote -"

"No, you could not and you are very, very rude. Whether it's Amway or Jesus, you are obnoxious," I said.

He bowed himself back to his table where he and another Torquemada in training exchanged significant glances that confirmed my fully paid fare to Hell and theirs to Heaven. Just look at the price they paid for their belief.

So, I'm waiting for a Thank You. I helped them achieve the average American's favorite status -- faux victim without any of that pesky actual victimization. I just love this notion that Christians are oh so persecuted and disfavored in America. You say 'persecuted'. I say 'ill mannered.'

Post-Soul Post Cards

Lisa H. lives in that great soul plantation, Atlanta. She is a chronic runaway.

Thought you might like to meet one of the race's leaders....

With the support of Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin (read: black), State Senator Kasim Reed (read:black) has drafted legislation to create an independent authority to oversee and expand Atlanta's park system. For any number of reasons, the idea is not sitting well with many city council people (read: black).

Councilman C.T. Martin apparently believes a new park system would benefit white folk and deprive black ones. When asked why Franklin and Reed would go along with any such scheme, Martin said some black people "carry water" for whites. He went on (according to newspaper columnist Colin Campbell) to dredge up the "history of parks" in Atlanta, noting that Mayor William Hartsfield [40 years ago] filled pools with cement rather than allow blacks to dip a toe. On a roll, Martin went on to crown Franklin as the Champion of Gentrification, and to warn that "Slavery's not that far away. Black people had some land, and it was taken away from them.... We're still poor. We've still got some kind of foot on our necks." There followed some demands for reparations and apologies.

Is this real? Slavery's not that far away from whom? A century and a half after the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments; 70 years after the last ex-slaves passed on to their rewards; 50 years after Brown, nearly 30 years since Atlanta had its first (in an uninterrupted string of) black mayor(s) -- and slavery is not far away?

I don't know about the foot on our necks, but some of us need a foot up the ass for this kind of irresponsibility. Even if it's true that Hartsfield filled in the pools (but I'll have to check, because I don't believe a thing Martin says), what does that have to do with parks today? (Or is enjoying the great outdoors not a black thing?) By the same logic, black children in Prince Edward County, Virginia, would be sitting at home today, willfully ignorant, because, you know, "you have to know what white people did with the schools in 1961."

Anyway, hope this email finds you well and enjoying, perhaps, a bit more breathing room now that February has expired and with it brought all interest in black folk to a screeching halt. :-)

Harmed and Dangerous: Letters from Lockdown

An inmate almost made me cry today. In fact, after hearing what the "Tin Man" said, I still feel like I could use a good cry.

The "Tin Man's" presenting complaint concerned his family visiting him. I thought I was going to hear the same anti-social garbage about, "They tryin' to tell me how to live my life," but he really threw me a curve.

"Is the problem that they don't visit, or that they do visit?" I inquired, knowing that the latter is the more common complaint.

"They do visit. I got little nieces and nephews I ain't never held before. And they be sittin' on my lap and huggin' me. And they be asking me to leave with them." Gulp.

"I told them I couldn't leave, so they asked the officer would she let me leave. She told them I couldn't, so they be all cryin' and stuff." Ouch.

"They really love their uncle," I assured him, selfishly hoping to bring "closure" to that topic and move on to one less emotional. But the "Tin Man" continued, telling me of the "Plan B" devised by his nieces and nephews.

"They be cryin' and they asked that officer, 'Can we stay just one night with him?'" It was a double-whammy: the sight of the red-eyed inmate before me, doing the prison "dry cry" (blinking, flaring nostrils, swallowing, etc.), and the image of those innocent children, generously volunteering to stay in prison to keep their uncle company.

A line by the Tin Man, my favorite character in "The Wizard of Oz," came to mind. As Dorothy prepared to leave the Emerald City, the Tin Man looked at her and said, "I know I have a heart 'cause I can feel it breaking." I told the inmate that no matter what he's ever been told about himself or called, his feelings reveal he still has a heart.

For me, his experience was a stark reminder that each time a person is incarcerated, innocent persons inevitably suffer.

What's so bad about class warfare? The Black Politburo is right. I am a sell out. I must be because I just spent the last few minutes cheering David Brooks, of all people. But, hey, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Check out his New York Times op-ed on how much BS we Americans shovel around about our 'classless' society when the truth is we're worship our aristocrats as fervently as any Brit kowtows to their Queen.

I read recently in the New Yorker than when the British Navy discovered a cure for skurvy, they couldn't get the superstititous old tars to eat it until they let them "overhear" the officers raving about it. Then the bootlicks fell all over themselves to get it -- the British equivalent of the 'white man's ice.' Closer to home, during the Watergate turmoil, my uneducated but nonetheless brilliant mother knew from day one that Nixon was guilty. Her analysis: "Never elect a poor man to anything or give him any power. He'll spend all his time stealing and messing with folks 'cause he aint used to having nothing. Rich folks, especially the ones born rich, they can concentrate; they're used to power."

David Brooks has nothing on my mom, but it's a good column nonetheless.

Imitation of Life: "David Chang, the creator of Ghettopoly, the game that caused black folks to flip their lids last year, is suing Hasbro, the makers of Monopoly.
Hasbro, which makes Monopoly, filed ...suit to stop the sales of Ghettopoly, claiming trademark and copyright infringement." From the EUR Report.

Why weren't we told how to contribute to his legal defense fund? Surely he knows that if he's going to be 'black' he's going to need one of those.

Iron Mike Tyson will perform community service for one of his many brushes with the law (who can keep track) at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn. "The plan, said [Bruce] Silverglade, is not only to have him work with the younger kids boxing. "It is also important he talk to them about the hard lessons he has learned over the years," said the gym's owner. "I can't think of anyone who has gone through the highs and lows he has in his lifetime." EUR Report.

Hmmm. What might those lessons be? Yeah, yeah I know how rough Mike had it. But so did lots of people and we don't forgive them for brutalizing (literally) just about everyone they encounter. The jokes are just too easy with Mike, but let me offer a prophecy: the older boxers at Gleason's will abet Mike in his self-pity and blame-shifting and the kids (probably all male) will get another lesson in male privilege, misogy and the strategic uses of violence.

Word to Miss DuPree: Even though I took a (deserved) shot at him in The End of Blackness, I love the Tom Joyner Morning Show. I never feel as 'black' as I do when I'm listening to it. It's like being back in the neighborhood. I'll write more about why some other time.

I think of Miss Dupree because yesterday when I was looking for something to actually eat in my crowded pantry and cupboards, I was struck by how many huge, huge quantities of .... stuff we have that we'll never possibly finish. Did y'all see that excellent Bernie Mac episode about him shopping obsessively at the big Sam's/Costco/BJ's type box store? Well, I really related to that because we do the same at my house. I have enough instant cream of wheat to feed the 8th Infantry. Too bad it turns out none of us like it.

So, Miss Dupree, I always worry that you'll run out of material for coming up with the lucky numbers. So, just to have your back, here's a freebie: Count the number of 20 gallon drums of (fill in the blank...olives, peanut butter, toilet tissue etc)....

All I ask is a shout out, Tom.

Black Like He Never Was: You must check this out; brother has his DNA tested, finds out he's no brother of mine.

Which, of course, leads me to: Top 11 Reasons To Suspect You Aint Really Black

11) You instincitively added the word HALLEJUAH! at the end of the last sentence and corrected the 'aint'.

10) 'D. Whiteman' is your favorite Tom Joyner regular.

9) You fantasize about OJ making 10 cents an hour on laundry detail in Folsom.

8) You come up with annoying nicknames for everyone.

7) You can only bust one move, the played out Cabbage Patch.

6) You think the macarena is a real work out

5) You're that guy who always messes up the Electric Slide.

4) You think audience participation is unnecessary at the movies.

3) You expect a sister to get in the shower with you when she just got her hair ~~did~~ done.

2) You expect a sister to go camping, skiing, climbing up or jumping off of anything with you.

and the Number One reason to suspect you aint really black......

1) You're the guy who starts the drunken New York, New York chorus line at the office Christmas party and does the robot all night.

All I ask is a shout-out Dave.

Cotton-Picker of the Month on that last plantation, the mind: Had a radio 'debate' with Elaine Brown, former Black Panther leader. Read the chapter in The End of Blackness called Kente Cloth Politics: The White Man's Ice, Know-Nothingness and Black Futility; I should have run her picture there. Her idea of debate and discussion is just to throw out lists of names -- Dinish DeSouza, Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, Ward Connerly -- as if those are actual arguments. As if I in any way resemble them. As if nothing they say is defensible (with DeSouza, that's true). Just babbled non sequiturs like me 'benefitting from affirmative action and not wanting anyone else to' which is nonsense. I'd said nothing about affirmative action, I don't even discuss it in the book. I told the host he should send an ambulance to her house because surely she knocked herself unconscious with the force of those knees jerking. How sad for such a once formidable leader to be reduced to substituting merely hating whitey and any black who speaks of anything other than hating whitey for an actual program. It's time for lots of the Old Heads to go. She should stick to books.

Codewords, anyone? Check out these ethnic tassel dolls. Are they black, hispanic, Sikh, Chinese...what? All that matters is that they're not white, that's all you need to know. Once we know they're not white, what difference does it make what they are?

February 26, 2004

Size-ism Works for Him: I just received a nasty little email from a 'gentleman' who took issue with my use of the word 'midget' on the Bill Maher Show last week. His email was condescending, insulting, threatening and meant to intimidate. It ended with his promise to 'out' me on some appearance he's making somewhere to discuss the plight of Little People, the term he prefers. I told him to take a hike. Why?

Why not? If you want to give a lecture, become a professor. If you want to give sermons, become a minister. If you want to trot out your sanctimony with no fear of hearing a counter narrative, send more silly, self-righteous emails like that one. But if you want to have a conversation, if you're looking for converts rather than heretics, then try considering the notion that those of us of normal height don't spend much time thinking about the preferences of those who are not. I'm not justifying that. I'm just saying it's true. I never thought much about the life of the disabled until a relative ended up in a wheelchair for life. Now, if someone blocks a curb cut or parks in a handicapped spot, I stage a one-woman protest. Now, I can SEE the disabled and how a world built for the upright consigns him to a life of ....(you fill in the blank. I don't need new enemies).

But this guy, he's not trying to build bridges, he's not trying to point out our blind spots, he doesn't actually want to change things for Little People. He just wants to feel ever more victimized. He just wants to have lots of oppression anecdotes to tell on camera. He doesn't want equality. He wants to be superior.

On the back of my new book, The End of Blackness, instead of the usual blurbs, it just says this: Does Racism Work For You? It's exactly this kind of 'please don't throw me in the cabbage patch' opportunism of which I spoke. Size-ism works for him. Gives him lots of reason to feel abused.

If some reasonable Little Person (now that I know that's the correct term) wants to have an actual conversation about this, drop me a line and I'll post it. But, if you forget your home training, I'll forget mine, too. Otherwise, I'd be infantilizing you because you're small, wouldn't I?

Please include a discussion of these questions in your conversation:

a) what is the significance of this new Marry a Little Person reality show to this issue?

b) was Bill Maher on to something when he asked the panel whether it was harder to be black or "a midget" in America. If so, what? (Maybe he said 'little person'. I don't remember and I don't watch myself on TV.) As I recall, I couldn't answer the question.

February 25, 2004

It's a C-O-N-Spiracy: Why else would a brother, Air Force Colonel Will Gunn, be put in charge of defending the Guantanamo detainees accused of terrorism? Here's 2004's leading contender for understatement of the year: "What I would bring to the table, I belive, is that I could divorce myself from concern about career advancement..." (From The New Yorker). Let's all say a prayer for the brother.

Rock the Vote's First Black President...er, make that R&B The Vote (March 2004 Essence): 31 year old Jehmu Greene, daughter of Liberian immigrants, now heads the non-partisan L.A.-based group that has signed 3.5 million voters between 18 and 24 since 1990. The organization has a $10 million budget and a staff of 12. She's helping RTV organize presidential debates and a 25-city bus tour that starts in June. Only 32% of voters last presidential election were in that age group so sis has her work cut out.

February 23, 2004

Now I know why Aaron Magruder dogs her: in the November 2003 Savoy (which I just received. No wonder they went belly up.) Vivica A. Fox (lest she be confused with Vivica B. Fox) is dating 50 Cent, he of the many bullet wounds and misogynist rap lyrics.

Let's just cut to the chase. I always thought she was coarse and a very poor actress, but this takes the cake. I'll let the hood rat speak for herself.

Vivica on dating a younger hoodlum (and, inadvertently, on being an ovarian traitor): "Geez Louise! If he's 25, who cares? It would be different if I looked 40."

"So how does she reconcile her new beau's misogynistic music?" Savoy asks, knowing full well she isn't smart enough to see what she's doing to herself. "It's just lyrics," said the rocket scientist and feminist pioneer. "It's a form of entertainment. ...I don't take it personal," she said as she looked for her long lost grasp of basic grammar. And the kicker ladies and gentlemen: "Plus, Vivica likes a man with a little bit of thug in him." Vivica would, woudldn't she? As one comedian said of that song "I wanna roughneck," "in a minute, she'll want a restraining order."

"Did she devote any pillow talk to urging him to squash his much-talked-about beef with Ja Rule? "Ooh no" she says quickly. "I don't get involved in that. I hope that peace comes. But you must let men be men."

And silly 'itches be silly 'itches.

of her recent divorce, "I just didn't want to be married to him anymore. That doesn't mean I went into some long depression for a month." Long? A month?

Finally: "Don't hate. Congratulate. That's all I ask."

Shoulda held out for a brain and some class V.

A Rove by Any Other Name? President Bush likes to give nicknames, we're told. Shows how down to earth and approachable the trust fund baby is. Last I read, he named two White House pool reporters Stretch and Super Stretch. I'm thinking, they're both tall. But one's taller than the other, see?

Thought I'd see if I could manage such succinct summations of the obvious. Lessee....