DebraDickerson.com - Blogs - Black Catharsis

My son Dashiel will be 4 in May. He is, you might be surprised to know, quite precocious. He walked at nine months, very unusual, especially for boys. He is extremely verbal -- when I told him the other night that I'd be right back to finish his bedtime story, he said, "Be right back with chocolate milk, Mom." -- and walks around the house book in hand most of the time. He can recite loooong passages from his books on tape -- intonations, sound effects, voice changes and all -- and often passes up cartoons or outside play to 'read' (he's right on the verge). He sits himself down at his little Tiny Tim furniture in his room and gets lost in 'Findng Nemo,' 'A Toy Story,' or the fairy tales I'm (with some trepidation) introducing him to. He tells himself the story and knows exactly when to turn the pages. What writer/book nerd could be more proud.

Versatile to a fault, he's also quite the little personality. He has absolutely no fear of strangers or strange situations. When we visited new frends for the first time, he yelled "Hi!" as soon as they opened the door and headed right up the stairs to the second floor, curious to see what was up there. I turned away from my insurance guy just for a moment as Dash entered the room only to find the baffled suit-and-tie guy buried beneath a pile of my son and his slobbery kisses. I look up from my menu in restaurants to find him being passed from cooing lap to cooing lap at the 'ladies night out' table (always pretty young blondes, notes his black mother not-quite-amivalently). He is total kidnap bait. I can never help thinking: Bill Clinton must have been like this as a child.

Then there's Caldonia, my little riot girl. Two in October. Also walked at nine months (thank goodness. What do you do when there's a marked difference in these milestones?) This chick is such a diva. I have to leave pillows strewn about in her favorite corners so she can drag one out and recline oh so langorously with the bottle she literaly, LITERALLY, dragged me to the fridge for. If I don't she pounds on my thighs, mightily offended, untl I produce one. Chick wears size 5 diapers but will grab me by the pants-knee and frog march me like a Gitmo guard to wherever she wants me to be. I used to chuckle as she pushed and pulled at me. Then I realized that I was actually moving. I can't hold her sitting down, oh no. She grunts and yells and pounds on me until I stand up 'cause sister girl needs to be up high, I'm guessing so she can look down on everyone else. After she's pummeled me into submission, she'll sigh contentedly and nestle into the shoulder she's just pounded. Eventually, this chick is going either to jail or the White House. I can never help thinking: Courtney Love must have been like this as a child. Double gulp.

February 9, 2005

Gee. Been awhile, hasn't it? What can I say? More personal drama than even All My Children. I can't go into what's been happening with me -- not yet anyway -- but I've finally been able to resume this blog. Stay tuned.

September 3, 2004

Ooops! I did it again. Here's my latest sure-to-please article on Slate.

Also, the Philly Mag piece mentioned below will be on line soon, so keep checking.

September 1, 2004

updated as of 1045 pm: Call and Response, Harmed and Dangerous, Black Thoughts, Post Soul Post Cards

I have an article in this month's Philadelphia Magazine on the achievement gap in a very affluent Philadelphia neighborhood. Sixty per cent of the black kids are failing while the white kids are going on to the best colleges in the nation. Why? Well, you'll have to spring for the bucks because it isn't on line.

August 28, 2004

Updated as of 6:31 pm EST: Harmed and Dangerous, Down by the Riverside, Black Box, Call and Response, Black and Right, Black Thoughts, Audience Participation, Black Links (Events/Conferences)

I saw Collateral yesterday and embarrassed mysef by sighing in wistful surprise at the sight of Jamie Foxx risking it all for Jada Pinkett. I'm so pessimistic and hurt by the state of open warfare between us, I'd had no idea how much I needed to see a black man and a black woman bond of the level of their shared humanity and human struggle rather than over a petted (and usually overblown) sense of oppression. In 2004, I'm glad to see that some of us are mature and confident enough in our humanity to think about something other than white folks. Having the confidence not to use his blackness as a crutch (or even worse, a hiding place) artistically, Foxx, I pray, will help lead us into actually believing that we are more than the sum of our oppression. And that more is -- simply human and required to prove to others that our art is worthy on its own terms and not just to beat the 'look what you've done to us' drum.

But did I mention how happy and downright fulfilled I felt watching a black man handle his business and see to his woman? Thank you Jamie.

From the "Is This What Black Politics Has Come to?" Department:

MILLER BREWING ISSUES RESPONSE TO ROCK 'N ROLL COMMEMORATIVE CANS ISSUE

Milwaukee, WI - In response to the current concerns expressed about the lack of inclusion of African-American artists on the commemorative can series honoring the past half-century of rock 'n roll, Miller Brewing Company has issued the following official statement:

Miller Brewing Company sincerely apologizes to the African-American community, to music fans and to our valued consumers for this occurrence. African Americans obviously have played a formative role in the development of rock 'n roll, and despite our efforts, we did not manage this component of the promotion appropriately.

The commemorative cans promotion was one part of a multi-pronged campaign, executed in partnership with Rolling Stone magazine, which includes several events and promotional activities that prominently and proudly feature African-American music artists. Other aspects of the promotion that began in May are:

* An upcoming two-day concert, featuring James Brown, Bo Diddley, Wyclef Jean and Lenny Kravitz, among others, that is the culmination of the summer-long promotion.

* A free guide to this summer's hottest music events, which included a variety of African American artists.

* A digital music giveaway, in partnership with Napster, that included an African American component titled The Summer of Non-Stop Hip Hop.

* Print advertising in Rolling Stone that prominently represents numerous African American musicians from throughout the years.

* A major advertising presence in Rolling Stone's Immortals, Moments and Photos special issues celebrating the history of rock and roll. Rolling Stone is building on its long history of recognizing the pivotal influence of African Americans in rock by featuring many of the most influential African American artists in these issues. For example, six of the top 10 Immortals are African American.

* Print ads in Rolling Stone and African American media around the country, after the New York concerts, featuring the artists who performed and talking about the critical importance of African Americans in rock and roll.

By making the public fully aware of the breadth of our plan, which does include tributes to black music artists, Miller Brewing Company reaffirms its ongoing commitment to the contributions of African-Americans to American culture.

Virgis Colbert, Miller's executive vice president of worldwide operations, said: "We took a hard look at the situation and realize where we fell short. You can count on Miller to step up."

We should be satirizing the narcissism that leads whites to 'forget' the black contribution to rock and roll not acting like its 'another Selma'. Miller should be embarrassed and engaging in some soul searching rather than basically paying us damages for getting caught.

If life was fair and I was writing skits for Saturday Night Live, Martin Luther King, with a hoochie on each knee, would be asking St. Peter "I died for this? So Daquan can look at Bo Diddly's face while he's drinking his forties?"

August 25, 2004

Updated as of 10 pm EST: Reparations, Post Soul Postcards

August 23, 2004

Updated as of 10:30 am EST: Black Box, When Statistics Speak, Black and Right

Here's a link to a piece I did a few weeks ago and have been too disorganized to post. It's about being a black racist.

August 21, 2004

Updated: Black Box, When Statistics Speak

July 26, 2004

Updated as of 11:22 am est: Harmed and Dangerous, Black Ink

July 23, 2004

Oops! I did it again. Here's my take on the latest Negro overreaction to nuisance-level racial high jinks.

July 21, 2004

Updated today (as of 1:16 EST): Black Box, Black to the Future, Black & Right

Four inmates escape, go on beer run. This is what Bill Cosby meant when he talked about 'knucklesheads getting shot in the back of the head stealing pound cake'. Kneejerk Negroes who are too embarrassed to have any conversations about our problems that in any way involve us, ridiculously interpreted this to mean that it was ok to shoot people for stealing pound cake. An easy, if indefensible, way of changing the subject because God forbid we consider that there are better and worse ways to respond to the realities we face. Obviously, Cosby meant that too many of us subject ourselves to police purview for pathetically low stakes. Like, escaping jail to get beer AND THEN RETURNING. Risking escape is one thing. But risking escape to buy beer?

I grew up with three uncles named Charles, so we called the one who was a security guard Uncle Policeman because when we were kids, we couldn't tell the uniforms apart. Uncle Policeman was always disgusted about having to jack up so many young blacks for stealing bags of potato chips and the like. It's bad enough to be a criminal but a fool, too, who values his liberty and his life so cheaply? Wake up people.

Michael Jackson's may be having quadruplets? I get it. It's the next phase of his philanthropy. He's establishing The Jackson Foundation for the Full Employment of Plastic Surgeons and Child Psychologists.

July 20, 2004

Updated today: Black Cinderella, Black Thoughts, Black to the Future, Black Ink, Black Box, Down by the Riverside, Black and Right, Reparations, GI Jamal/Jaquita.

Wanna hear me talk? I'll be doing radio from Birmingham, Alabama tonight from 9-940 EST or so.

Urban League, Citigroup Offer Finance Courses to blacks.Why? Shouldn't we just keep trying to sue our way to equality? Why exert ourselves to learn how the game is played, however fair or unfair the game is, why try to jettison bad habits and defer gratification? Some people are soooo racist.

July 16, 2004

The show should start any minute so I'm trying to (finally) get a few things posted that I've let molder. Check out Harmed & Dangerous and Post Soul Post Cards. I don't know why they put up with me.

More, I swear, after the show.

July 15, 2004

I'll be doing the Brian Lehrer radio show tomorrow, from 11- noon. Unless I get booted at the last minute, a la NPR last week. Yeah, still Cosby.

Oh yeah, here's an assessment (NOT AN OPINION PIECE. Sheesh, learn to read, 'readers'.) I did for Slate on him.

July 12, 2004

This is too funny to be missed -- Bush and Kerry sing a lovely duet.

July 7, 2004

I'll be doing Talk of the Nation on NPR today from 2-240pm EST talking about the Negro story of the day, Bill Cosby. The man himself is thinking of doing the show as well. I won't know til I get there, so we'll see.

I have been off-line for A MONTH. A month.

The ridiculous difficulty of procuring and then paying for health insurance for our family of four finally forced my husband to take job and give up being a self-employed architect. (When it hit $900 a month, we said 'uncle'. There were other problematics, but that was the straw that broke the camel's back). Now, the impossibility of managing our home network may well force me to do the same. It's maddening.

I used to think I shudda been an auto mechanic, given the rates they charge. Now, I'm thinking I shudda been a computer techno geek. I couldn't even get those gomers to my house for two weeks, they're so fat with work. When one finally showed, he fixed the problem with one key stroke, the equivalent of simply checking to see that it was plugged in. An hour after he left (with $80 for 15 minutes on site), I lost my connection again. Now that I'm back up and running, my husband's computer is completely tango uniform (sexist milspeak for 'tits up'). Coincidence? I think not.

Just as many people believe that Janet and Michael Jackson are the same person, I'm beginning to suspect that all the worms and viruses come from the repair/maintenance nerds. So, Mr. Ashcroft -- leave the terrorists alone and let's start monitoring the slide rule and nerd-glasses crowd.

June 8, 2004

Wanna laugh until you soil yourself? Check this email from a friend:

The backstory is as follows: earlier this month, the web site for the Bush-Cheney campaign - the real one, paid for by MBNA America and Richard Scaife - featured a "create your own banner" tool, where you could enter your own slogan and print out your own poster, with the Bush-Cheney logo, and a note at the bottom "paid for by Bush-Cheney'04, Inc." Democrats, of course, couldn't get enough of this. The original sloganator accepted everything, then it started censoring profanity and words like "Hitler," "dictator," and "evil." Nevertheless, many clever folks exploited the sloganator to their own ends before its sad demise only a couple of weeks after its birth, and its mourners assembled some of the best for the slide show.

Make sure your volume is on :-)

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~meo232/sloganator/ (in case the link doesn't work)

June 7, 2004

Updated today (as of 4:25 pm EST) : Black Cinderella, Down by the Riverside, Black Ink, Black Box, Harmed and Dangerous, GI Jamal/Jaquita, Black and Right, Reparations, Black to the Future

The newsweeklies and Ronnie.

The Reagan legacy: He was a true believer who moved the country divisively to the right. But compared to the current president, Ronald Reagan looks like a moderate."

...And the number one reason why I adore Christoher Hitchens (hint: only he would kick Ron when's he's dead):

Not Even a Hedgehog: The stupidity of Ronald Reagan. "Not long ago, I was invited to be the specter at the feast during "Ronald Reagan Appreciation Week" at Wabash College in Indiana. One of my opponents was Dinesh D'Souza: He wasn't the only one who maintained that Reagan had been historically vindicated by the wreckage of the Soviet Union. Some of us on the left had also been very glad indeed to see the end of the Russian empire and the Cold War. But nothing could make me forget what the Reagan years had actually been like."

I'm going to trademark the words 'million' and 'march' so no one can ever, EVER use them again.

Million Worker March set for October. "Can labor organize an independent mass mobilization to address the broad range of problems facing the multinational working class here? Though many hurdles need to be overcome, the answer being given is a resounding "Yes!""

A Neighborhood of Their Own. "ONE century ago this June 15, Philip A. Payton Jr. realized his dream. For four years he had been working hard to place black families in apartments in Harlem, an area recently developed as an upscale, whites-only neighborhood. He had enjoyed some success, but nothing approaching his goal of making it home to the city's growing African-American population. So on that day he established the Afro-American Realty Company with a simple mission: erase the color line in Harlem and make lots of money in the process."

Why do I get so criticized for pointing out what all the generations before us knew: one fights oppression with proactivity, not by begging your oppressor to 'pretty please' stop. Segregation was real and Payton, duh, decided to turn it against itself and get rich in the process. Ancestors like him would be appalled at how lost we are today.

We're still shooting the messenger, I see.

"The reality of low-income black Americans falls far from Cosby's criticism."

Cosby's recent remarks are nothing shocking: the afrostocracy has been criticizing its more ghetto cousins for decades."The old maxim warns us to beware of priests who lose their faith but keep their jobs. By that logic, a whole lot of alleged spokespersons for black people should've been unemployed a long time ago. In the wake of Bill Cosby's now-famous Pound Cake Speech at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's dinner commemorating the Brown v. Board of Education case, the comedian has been praised by white conservatives and black folk at large for essentially keeping it real. For airing dirty laundry. For saying in public what your uncle Bobby has been saying behind closed doors for years.
But hold on. Before you fix your mouth to sing Cosby's praises, consider this: the fact that some black people make similar comments in private does not make them any more accurate when they are spoken in public."

Perhaps not, Dr. Cobb (whom I know and respect), but it does make them a conversation that this community needs to have. That's all some of us are saying. Hard to kill something that can't be acknowledged whether that something is the 'niggers' who embarrass us afrostocrats (?) or whether that something is the black boogeyman we blacks help keep alive.

Both of them take people to task for boneheaded moves. So how come one is funny, the other a sellout? "Why are people piling on Cosby when Chris Rock and others say the exact same things?"

For an added bonus, check this paragraph: "No, I'm not a neo-con. But I know first-hand that what Bill Cosby discussed at that gala is the truth. I leave the neo-con mantle to Debra Dickerson, Armstrong Williams, and the handful of other black "journalists" whose high profiles prove that blacks who regularly condemn the pathologies of other blacks, while ignoring the history that makes such behavior possible, are valuable commodities in the world of Big Media. (I wouldn't mind some of their cash, but I'm sure as hell not going to go there to get it.)"

How'd you like to be minding your own business, procrastinating on-line while you children go hungry and happen up on this? Welcome to my world.

a) 'neo-con': notice how throwing that word out does all the work for you. It's never defined. It's just an all purpose insult one need neither explain or defend. All blacks must be liberals, right? Silly me, I thought I was free. I'm a little slow, so help me think this through: when whites try to control me, it's called racism and white supremacy. What's it called when Negroes do it? I did a radio 'panel' with Elaine Brown, the former Panther Leader. How the mighty have fallen. She did the same thing, just started listing names ('you're just another Dinesh D'Souza, Clarence Thomas, ...'). No need for an actual argument when name calling will suffice.

b) She sneers that I'm a 'journalist' but doesn't explain what's lacking in my body of work. Ms. Alexander, I'll show you my CV if you'll show me yours. Right now I'm reporting on pieces for Philadelphia Magazine (black-white achievement gap) and Mother Jones (alternative sentencing initiatives). I spent an entire summer recreating the life of a young black prison inmate. I spent four months in a housing project to report on a gang truce. Et vous? Another column 'reported' directly from your comfy armchair?

c) "I regularly condemn the pathologies of other blacks"? When? Where? Why no quotes? The crack reporter couldn't even be bothered to google me and find out that I have a website chock full of Uncle Tommery. She wouldn't even have had to do her own research. Not that she would (as this proves.)

d) I "ignore the history that makes such behavior possible"? Methinks that, like nearly every Negro who criticizes me, she's only heard of me and, being a liberal and therefore all-knowing about things Negroid, doesn't need to actually read me. All we neo-cons are the same, just waiting for the white folks to send us the words to put our names to. If she'd perused The End of Blackness, she might have noticed nearly a hundred pages of "the history that makes such behavior possible." It's right up front 'Journalist' Alexander. I took serious heat for (lengthily) criticizing whites in a book meant as an intracommuncal critique and it didn't do me a damn bit of good with the kneejerk, no-nothing ossified black left. I forgot that they never read anything they don't already agree with.

e) Notice the tiresome conspiracy theory -- I'm successful because I tells Massa what he be wontin' tah hear. No, I'm successful because I'm good. Damn good. Better than you, Miss Alexander? We can't be sure til we compare bodies of work, so, please, lets.

f) "I wouldn't go there to get [the millions we sell-outs make from Whitey]. Oh dear. When will these kind of Negroes grow up? Tavis Smiley makes the odd buck and I doubt Ms. Alexander questions his Negritude. People read me, Ms. Alexander. Black people as well as white. (I guess they didn't know you'd disapprove.) You and I both know that's what determines the ducats you can command in the marketplace. I should have cc'd you on the HUNDREDS of emails I received (not to mention the third printing my book is now in.)

And by the way, you did 'go there'. You agreed with the 'neo-con' line of Rock and Cosby and Williams and Dickerson. But, oh yeah, you innocculated yourself against following your argument to its logical conclusion with your by-the-intellectual-numbers diatribe against the ideological underpinning of the very point of your column.

This is a complete waste of time, but I was already procrastinating (I have a great many deadlines Ms. Alexander. I'm a busy little 'journalist'.)

For more Cosbygate, see When Statistics Speak.

Holden posthumously frees York. "Gov. Bob Holden posthumously "freed" the only black member of the Lewis and Clark party, calling the recognition of the slave named York "long overdue." Ya think? Yeah, and Old Massas Lewis and Clark can posthuously empty their own bedpans. Thanks for nothing Governor. Ahm sho all de white folks feels better nah.

I thought I had seen egregious ass-kissing and piss poor journalism aplenty, but this takes the cake. If you didn't know better, you'd think old Snoop was Pat Boone. (You know you're in for some serious BS when an article about him begins with the word 'insightful').

Insightful Barks from Snoop Dogg. "Snoop Dogg is one of the most beloved rap artists around town. He's got a cool profile with youngsters and adults around the world. Pleased with his work (as a captain who's afraid of heights) on Soul Plane, Snoop is 100% behind this hilarious comedy from newcomer Jessy Terrero."

In the trade, this is known as desperately trying to gain entree behind the velvet rope. Somebody's trying to make it into the in-crowd by some serious celebrity sucking up. Get a real job!

I have to agree with Stanley Crouch on gangster rap but I didn't know that Daniel Boone was its father.

For young black men, rap's lure is false. "Gangster rappers are not what they seem. They do not represent "black culture" any more than the Mafia represents Italian-Americans. Ignorance of the Afro-American tradition is their specialty. .....

These young black men assume that the anti-intellectual stance and the misogyny that they hear screeching from rap recordings is purely black. It is not, by a long shot. It has, in fact, nothing at all to do with Afro-American thinking, which has been focused on education and honest self-betterment since the end of slavery.

...The worst of the early figures in American popular art appeared between 1833 and 1856, in fictional tales growing out of the life of Davy Crockett. Like a gangster rapper, this folklore character had no sense of fairness and fought without any rules other than winning. This Crockett also bragged himself into exhaustion. He opened the way for rappers when, in an 1837 story in "Davy Crockett's Almanac" he said, "I can walk like an ox, run like a fox, swim like an eel, yell like an Indian, fight like a devil, spout like an earthquake, make love like a mad bull, and swallow a n----- without choking if you butter his head and pin his ears back."

So when you next see some gold-toothed Negro strutting with a microphone, cursing, bragging, expressing hatred for women, realize that he is not doing anything black at all. He has fallen for the lowest version of white culture and, like the ignoramus he is, has absolutely no idea about his roots at all. Just like Davy Crockett, he should be wearing a coonskin cap."

Actually, I'd thought Jim Croce invented gangster rap. Remember 'Bad, bad Leroy Brown, baddest man in the whole damn town. Badder than old King Kong. Meaner than a country hog." And whatever you do, don't tug on Superman's cape, don't spit into the wind, don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger and you don't mess around with Jim." Cuz they're all OG's.

And the Number 1 reason to suspect you live in one hell of a ghetto:

'VEST' MAN SHOT DEAD IN CONEY ISLAND. "A bulletproof vest wasn't enough to protect a Coney Island man who was gunned down early yesterday morning inside the elevator of his housing project, police said."

BRITS EYE ANTI-FAT LEVY ON FAST FOOD. "Britain is considering imposing levies on fast-food firms to fund sports facilities and combat obesity, the government said yesterday."

If we tried that here, we'd raise a hella lot money pdq. We could probably wipe out that pesky deficit overnight.

Where I live in upstate NY, with its long, cold, aint-no-way-in-hell-I'm-going-outside six month-long winters, eating appears to be our official state sport. Fat people everywhere.

I remember coming back from two years in Korea in late 1983 and just marveling, dumbstruck, at all the fat people (and all the black people too, but that's another story). Only the old women are fat there and they aint very. But now, nearly 20 years later, its an obesity epidemic here in the good old USA.

Hey, I'm on a diet and if I can do it (did you know there are 616 calories in a martini!) anyone can. Two weeks in, I'm 4 pounds down. Only about two hunnerd left to go. I finally had to admit that after two back to back kids (in my 40s!) and no time to work out, I was round as a Buddha and had two closets full of clothes I couldn't wear. When will the rest of us wise up?

June 6, 2004

Updated today: GI Jamal/Jaquita, Harmed and Dangerous, Black Links/Conferences, When Statistics Speak, Black Box, Reparations, Help Wanted, Black Ink

Pro Reagan: A Life in Pictures, The Weekly Standard, National Review

Con Reagan: What Reagan Got Wrong, Ronald Reagan, Party Animal, Reagan's Liberal Legacy

Who's the bravest (most foolish?) organization in America? Read on:

N.A.A.C.P. Is Denied University Chapter. "The president of the N.A.A.C.P., Kweisi Mfume, has criticized a decision by Catholic University not to recognize a chapter of his group.

"It is outright discrimination and intolerance all rolled into one," Mr. Mfume said on Friday outside the campus and surrounded by about 20 activists and student chapter leaders from other universities.

He said it was the first time in decades that a university had not allowed a student chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He threatened to sue."

I'm as down with Brother Kweisi as the next Negro, but I can't help but laugh when I picture the expression on his face. "They said what! Do they know who we a--- You said 'NAACP', right? Did you mention Thurgood? Brown v. B--- Maybe he thought you said 'NWA'. Show me how you said it."

If I were a NAACP member, I'd be screening my calls. This is one protest march I think I'd skip.

Read these next two items and tell me again who the natural born criminals are:

Selling to Poor, Stores Bill U.S. for Top Prices. "Federal and state officials are expressing alarm about the proliferation of food stores that cater to low-income people but charge more than other grocery stores, thus driving up the cost of a major federal nutrition program. Federal and state officials are expressing alarm about the proliferation of food stores that cater to low-income people but charge more than other grocery stores, thus driving up the cost of a major federal nutrition program.

The program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or W.I.C., helps feed 7.7 million people each month by providing vouchers for infant formula, juice, eggs, milk, cheese, cereal and dried beans. Now a growing number of stores are selling only to W.I.C. families, accepting only the government vouchers, not cash, for payment.

About 47 percent of all babies born in the United States each year participate in the program."

Enron's Awesome Cynicism. "Tne energy trader gloats about cheating "poor grandmothers." Another suggests shutting down a power plant in order to drive up electricity prices. A third, hearing of a fire under a transmission line that caused a power failure, shouts "burn baby, burn." Another says that he would like to see Kenneth Lay — then Enron's chief executive — wind up as energy secretary in the new Bush administration."

June 5, 2004

Updated today: GI Jamal, Black Cinderella, Black Thoughts, Black to the Future, Black Ink, Black Box, Black Links/conferences, Black and Right, Harmed and Dangerous

Ronnie's dead. That's what I said.

'Plagiarist' to sue university. "The student claims the university was negligent
A student who admits down-loading material from the internet for his degree plans to sue his university for negligence. Michael Gunn claims his university should have warned him his actions were against the regulations."

My husband was attacked by a crazed idiot on our property. According to the police, we had to have a No Trespassing sign posted. Otherwise, y'all are correct in assunming you can come on our land and throw bricks at my husband's head (which is what happened) while his back is turned. So, wives listen up: be sure and tell your husbands that they can't have sex with 'that woman'. Men, be sure and tell the UPS guy to keep it in his sexy brown uniform.

One event, two very different spins:

Healthy Expansion of 248,000 Jobs Is Reported for May. "For the third consecutive month, employers added workers at a rapid rate, the government reported yesterday, suggesting that healthy job growth will sustain the nation's economic expansion through at least the fall."

Black Job Loss Déjà Vu. "In July 2003, Mary Clark saw a notice posted by the time-clock at the Pillowtex plant where she worked: The plant was closing down at the end of the month. The company would be laying off 4,000 workers. "They acted like we were nobody," she said; Pillowtex even canceled the workers' accrued vacation days. Clark had worked at the textile plant in Eden, North Carolina, for 11 years, inspecting, tagging and bagging comforters. By 2003, she was earning more than $10 an hour.

Clark's unemployment benefits don't cover her bills. Because Pillowtex had sent her and her coworkers home frequently for lack of work in the final year, her unemployment checks are low, based on that last year's reduced earnings. She lost her health coverage, and now she needs dental work that she cannot afford.

It's happening again.

In the 1970s, a wave of plant closings hit African Americans hard. Two generations after the "Great Migration," when millions of black people had left the South to take factory jobs in Northern and Midwestern cities, the U.S. economy began to deindustrialize and many of those jobs disappeared – in some cases shifted to the low-wage, nonunion South."

"DUI arrest for 'Ties' actor Bonsall, 22. He was arrested early Friday by police who said they saw someone vomit out the passenger side window of his car. Asked how much he had to drink, Bonsall responded, "Plenty," then failed a roadside test."

I know drunk driving isn't funny, but that reply is.

Candid Ludacris minces no words: "Rapper on the FCC, revealing videos, Bill O'Reilly."

Allow me to summarize: Ludacris is an ig'nent low life. Articles like this one are the equivalent of that scene from Salvador (about the military dictatorship established there in 1980) where the vapid American journalists are asking the violent-thug dictators 'who they'll win the women's vote."

"Reagan’s health said to have deteriorated: Former president, 93, has Alzheimer’s disease".

As I resist the urge to diss the dying President, I have to wonder: if America was being prepared for the impending death of Bill/Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, or Al Sharpton, WWACS (What Would Ann Coulter Say)?

1) The Liar in Chief hasn't croaked yet? Quick, somebody hand me a pillow.

1a) I didn't know the clap was terminal.

2) Alzheimer's is too good for Hillary 'Hate her, hate her, wouldn't wanna date her' Rodham. Why couldn't it have been the plague which swept through Europe and so mostly killed white people and since liberals hate white people, especially themsmelves, that's what she should have died from. The fat cow.

2a) Blue light special on XXXL caskets, Sporting Goods.

3) Here's hoping the so-called Reverend 'Al I want for Christmas is Affirmative Action' Sharpton has fun playing his race cards in Hell with all the other liberals and swarthy types because the Devil won't give in to that the way we longsuffering, sweetsmelling, totally innocent white folks who are alive do.

3a) I hope Satan has enough time to put out the flames and get rid of the pitchforks before 'Al, Al, I'm Tawana Brawley's pal' Charlatan arrives if he doesn't want to be accused of racism.

4) Ted Kennedy dying is like a liberal talking: who cares?

4a) Blue light special on XXXL caskets, Sporting Goods.

"O.J. Simpson complained Friday that the media have convinced the public he is guilty, and he said he hopes the real killer is found so that he can have the pleasure of proving people wrong."

Not the pleasure of knowing that justice has been done or that now the wife he claims to still love can finally rest in peace. He wants the 'real' killer caught so he can say 'told ya so! nyah nyah! I'm rubber, you're glue America!' Funny how he loved the media when it was making him a star, but now...

The Battleground/Swing states of the 2004 election.

Vrooooom: MTV's 'Pimp My Ride' Soups Up Cars and Fuels Ratings. "Krissy Miller freaked out when she opened the door to her Huntington Beach apartment. Xzibit, a rapper with tight cornrows and wearing a throwback San Diego Padres jersey, was about to repo her car -- temporarily. The host of MTV's unexpectedly popular reality show "Pimp My Ride," Xzibit has, for the past three months, been helping such down-on-their-luck twenty-somethings get a fresh start on the road to adulthood with a brand-new, grand G-ride.

Miller, who had sent an e-mail to the show's producers, knew she was a finalist to be picked for the show. But she did not know what to expect when a producer told her someone was coming out to see her.

"I was totally, totally surprised," she says. "I just lost it. I felt I was going to cry. . . . Good things like that don't happen to me."

"Pimp My Ride" is a makeover show. But instead of presenting a couple with a new living room or turning an ugly duckling into a beauty queen, Xzibit and the mechanics at West Coast Customs trick out broken-down Hondas and scrap-metal Fords with shiny chrome rims, radioactive paint jobs, asphalt-thumping sound systems and video game consoles."

How does Xzibit keep from getting shot when those MTV-watching white kids first spy his unexpected "tight cornrows" in their crib? IN their crib. Inside. Wiggers my ass. I bet homey has to 'temporarily repo' those cars with full police escort. How much do you 'spoze MTV has to pay him to delete the n-word filled screams of terror his 'guests' let loose at sight of him? I'm guessing that the producer's announcement that 'someone' was coming to see the lucky winners wasn't something they thought of right away. I'm sure the announcement was really "someone is coming to see you. Don't shoot, ok? He has a good job. He won't rape you and murder your whole family. Really." Likely, Xzibit was the second or third brother to host this show. The others' surviving families have probably gotten nice pay offs to keep quiet.

No skin off my back, though. Anyone who uses thos tiresome misspellings just to let the world know they're black and therefore cooler than you deserves what he done be gettin, yo?

Did White Teacher Spit in Black Student's Face?
You know the difference between me and Hazel Trice Edney, who wrote this cover story? I hope the white teacher didn't spit in the black student's face. Having read this very, very lengthy story, approached with all the seriousness of Watergate, I have to suspect that Ms. Edney hopes she did. I also have to believe that she hopes the white teacher did it because the student is black. I hope its because she's an awful person.

June 4, 2004

A Leap of Faith, By BOB HERBERT, NY Times. "Remember the name Barack Obama. You'll be hearing it a lot as this election season unfolds.

Mr. Obama, a Democrat, is tall, thin, youthful and very smart, and he's running (sometimes literally, depending on the schedule) for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois.

He's got a million-dollar smile and he's charismatic. At the moment he has a substantial lead in the polls. If that lead holds and he wins in November, he'll be only the third African-American to take a seat in the Senate since Reconstruction.

His partisans describe Mr. Obama as a dream candidate, the point man for a new kind of politics designed to piece together a coalition reminiscent of the one blasted apart by the bullet that killed Robert Kennedy in 1968."

June 3, 2004

Today seems to be stereotype day here at Annotations (see first entry today).

"Yo, Herald! Rhymin' ain't her bag

Read it and cringe:

Anybody who is truly in the know,

Says the flea market is the place you gotta go.

Liberty City is where I'm talking about,

Listen up now; I ain't gonna shout.

Those are just four of the 66 wince-worthy lines the Miami Herald printed last week about shopping at Flea Market USA in Miami-Dade's Liberty City. You know Liberty City. Lots of black people there. Black people rap. Makes sense to cover the flea market in jerky meter and lame rhyme, no?" From the Miami Herald.

My husband is really cute. Last night, he instigated a very serious talk about our son's education. He's worried that he'll be so far ahead of all the other kids, he'll be bored in school and underachieve for lack of sufficient challenge. We have to start saving for private school.

Dashiel is three. He's militantly not potty trained ("I'm gonna poop in my diaper forever, Mom!"). He joyfully drags his 8 month old sister around by the arm, insists she's a 'he' and thinks his toes are called 'piggymarkets' (you know, from the song.).

I thought I was the parent most likely to bore the whole world with my children's brilliance. I certainly am the overindulgent one. More than once, I've surprised myself whispering conspiratorially to Dash "Here. Don't let Dad see you eating this candy for breakfast." He's usually much tougher with the kids. Whew. Glad I'm not the only one who can't see straight where my babies are concerned.

"CIA Director George J. Tenet has submitted his resignation and will leave the agency in mid-July, President Bush announced today. Bush and CIA officials said the resignation was for personal reasons. The CIA officials denied that Tenet quit or was pressured to leave because of criticism of U.S. intelligence over the failed search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or missed clues to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist plot." From the Washington Post.

This is why I could never be in politics. I have no poker face. If I'd had to say those words aloud, I'd be snickering so hard there'd be snot bubbles.

The Black Boogeyman's Reign of Terror Continues or, Can Anyone Join in the Racial Stereotyping or Is It Just a White Thing We Wouldn't Understand?. Here we go again. A(n apparently Hispanic) couple in Atlanta killed their toddler and tried to pin it on '4 black men in a van', according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

I suppose if you're busy killing your helpless child, disposing of her tiny, two-year old body and contemplating a long prison stretch, originality is too much to ask. Let's see, we've had a white man (Charles Stuart), a white woman (Susan Smith), and now a Hispanic couple brutally murder someone with whom they share DNA and blame it on the most believable suspect ('cause white folks are much, much less likely of violence). Come on, Asians! Since we're talking in sterotypes here, shouldn't you model minorities with your cunning minds and stratospheric grades (not to mention hordes of multigenerational family to help lug the corpses) be able to actually pull off murdering a helpless loved one and pinning it on those bestial blacks? Show America how both family-cide and racial railroading are done! Let's see you bust that curve, too.

Hey fellow citizens -- why not try accusing those '4 black men in a van' of embezzling funds, insider trading, raiding pensions, despoiling the environment and saddling the nation with debt that our great-grand children will still be paying off. That would be novel. But not quite believable, eh? It would be delicious fun to watch the investigation that wound engender. Would whites want to live in a world where blacks were both able to acquire and demonstrate the requisite skills and, more frighteningly, the requisite access to commit 'white' crimes?

Black comedians own this territory. I forget who it was (Chris Rock?) who quipped: "black folks will knock you in the head and steal your ride or your TV. White folks steal your future." The sadly underrated (so underrated she has no website to link to) Cheryl Underwood satirized this racist notion best: "Aint no black man going to steal somebody else's kids. He don't even wanna take care of his own."

May 26, 2004

Being a writer sucks. You know why? Cuz we keep writing stuff down!

I turned 45 recently (I just typed that and I still don't believe it) and yesterday, had my third mammogram. This is a fairly lengthy, exceedingly annoying process which gives one waaaay too much time to think whilst trying not to scream. What I thought about was---my own mortality. And how I've thought about that every time I've had to try to be brave while very sensitive body parts are REPEATEDLY pincered with the equivalent of space-age pliers.

At 35, in 1994, I was in law school (hence, the nerdy legalisms), had just had my first mammogram. I had also just begun to write. Little did I know then that my silly little school newspaper column was the beginning of a new career. Here's what I published in May of 1994. Imagine, I felt old at 35. Life is so freaking unfair.

Body of Evidence

On April 16, my warranty ran out. The instant I turned 35, all my body parts became suspects in a conspiracy to slowly, but inexorably, kill me.

All the warning sirens sound for a woman at 35. Especially one who hasn't had a child. Why is that worse? Call me crazy, but since I'm not married, avoiding pregnancy seemed sensible. Story of my life--damned if I do, damned if I don't.

Actually, I shouldn't feel so suddenly besieged by my body. It's been turning on me slowly for some time now. I place the initial warning at about 28, when I got my first mystery pain. For two days, my left arm was too sore to use. The doctor found nothing, just dispensed Tylenol and congratulated me on being right-handed. The pain subsided and I didn't think much of it. Younger then, I was still unaware of the treachery of which the human body is capable. It fired a warning shot across my bow as a courtesy and began laying the groundwork for my gradual decline. An unexplained twinge here, quarter-inch of fat there, a smidgen of lung capacity lost from smoking during Reagan's first term. Soon, you're grunting to get out of a chair and manage to hurt yourself just stretching before a workout.

A societal warning light that I largely ignored came even earlier, at 25. I wore makeup then and noticed sneaky little ads and products aimed at "over 25 skin". I remember wondering what the hell that meant. Is there "over 25" shaving cream? Richard Cohen, in the Washington Post Magazine, once wrote that men age better than women. Bunk. Men and women age in exactly the same ways: thinning hair, thickening waistlines, wrinkles, sagging pecs. The difference is that its acceptable and natural for men to age and much less so for women. A wrinkled, gray man is `distinguished', `rugged'; a woman needs surgery and French hair dye. I always notice that at black-tie TV events, many men wear glasses. Virtually none of the women do. Are there any male equivalents to `crone' and `hag'?

Sexism notwithstanding, the war against me is largely medical and the formal indignities have begun: a "baseline" mammogram. After 17 years of pelvic exams, I thought I'd bottomed out on the indignity continuum. I was wrong. Basically, a technician drags your breasts across a room and gets mad if you try to follow. I told her that my 34Bs were only going to get her just so far, but she was adamant. Finally satisfied with the circus freak-like pose she oragami'd me into, she smushed `the girls' (as I like to call them) into a vise much like the one Bugs Bunny used on Elmer Fudd's head. She tightened the machine's grip on my favorite erogenous zones and hissed, "Don't breathe". No worries. If I'd had any breath left in me as I vogued, pinned and flattened like a science project under a microscope, I'd have used it to scream. At least I didn't come out of it with Madonna cone-breasts.

You can't avoid doctors though. Over the last few years, I've developed one annoying health problem after another. I stay in shape, but I've definitely felt myself slowing down, searching out elevators, accepting rides, nursing injuries. I realized I'd changed for good when I bored my teenaged nephew with the old saw about the two bulls. He was wasting energy washing a car without a hose, carrying a bucket back and forth.

"From atop a hill," I intoned sagely, "a young and an old bull watched a herd of cows below. The young one says, `Hey Dad. Let's run down and make love to a couple of those cows!"' The old bull replies, `Son, let's walk down and make love to all of them.' I waited for enlightenment to dawn on my nephew's face but there was only polite patronization of his aged aunt's clear dementia and severe un-hipness. Concerned, he got me a chair and some water. At that moment, I knew I'd crossed a line, developmentally speaking. I may not be old, but I'm no longer young.

I've accepted my decline and taken to cataloging the sins and offenses of my various body parts like the slow-moving old ladies blocking the [grocery store] aisles to compare operations. Blood vessels: first degree hypertension. Requires two pills a day, yearly cost of $432. Lungs: felony asthma. Requires a $22 inhaler the use of which makes me look like a complete nebbish. Feet: misdemeanor flatness. Require frequent elevation, immersion, and $47 orthopedic inserts which only fit into old lady shoes. Endocrine system: misdemeanor hypoglycemia. Gives me `the bends' if I go off prescribed diet. Reproductive system: attempted murder and fraud. I'm screwed for reproducing, screwed for not reproducing. Breasts: felony terrorism--matching time bombs.

For all my complaints, I wasn't really bothered by turning 35 until a "friend" described me as "pushing 40". What have I accomplished, am I as mature as I should be? Should I still be filing the 1040EZ? Is it seemly that I own a pair of green construction boots and fishnets?

On the plus side: I turned 21 in Air Force basic training, a college drop-out; 26 at Officers' Training School with honors as Wing Commander; 31 in Turkey as Chief of Intelligence; and at 36 I'll graduate from Harvard Law School. Achieving my goals is the flip side of aging, I guess. It's pretty hard to do one without the other.

Now if I can just manage to estop my body from further deterioration.

May 25, 2004

Here's a link to a NPR talk I gave that aired Sunday May 23, 2004.

May 21, 2004

"Justice Department Will Investigate Emmett Till Case: After initially declaring that it did not have authority to investigate the 1955 death of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American who was beaten, shot in the head, and thrown into the Tallahatchie River near Greenwood, Miss. for allegedly whistling at a White woman, the United States Justice Department reversed itself this week and announced that it will work with a District Attorney in Mississippi to see if further prosecutions are warranted."

I think prosecutions of this type are very, very useful in helping both blacks and America generally (the world, even) come to terms with the past. Much more useful, I think, than a strict call for reparations or any quest aimed solely at picking the magic number of dollars that should change hands. What we need is a truth and reconciliation process, not money per se, and I'm coming to reject my annoyance at the growing list of states and localities requiring inquiries into companies' past dealings with slavery. I saw that as just the undignified scrounging to total up the bill for my ancestors incalculable suffering. But now I see that it is the only way America will ever be forced to look itself in the eye and move past amorphous, passive voice, pseudo-, fingers-crossed-behind-the-back apologies for the past. The same with the reparations lawsuits, which I at first opposed as aiming at the wrong problem. Blacks speak of money because we don't have the courage to admit that what we want is a full reckoning, an acceptance of responsibility and an apology dammit. And most of all, we want whites, having accepted their culpability, to treat us like family. But, we always have to front being so militant. Its our way of whistling in the darkness of our shame and bitterness. Remember Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in Stir Crazy trying to hang in jail ? "We bad, we bad!" when we really lost and demoralized.

DuBois understood this when he lauded, in The Souls of Black Folk, the Yankee schoolmarms who flocked South to teach the freedmen: “This was the gift of New England to the freed Negro: not alms, but a friend; not cash, but character. It was not and is not money these seething millions want, but love and sympathy, the pulse of hearts beating with red blood;-a gift which today only their own kindred and race can bring to the masses…the contact of living souls.”

I agree. What we need from whites is not cash but the character required to look themselves in the mirror and admit to what they see there. This blacks will also have to do; slavery and racism were far, far from one-dimensional, uncomplicated simple tales of white evil. We have to find a way to get past the past and move on to a harmonious future. No simple exchange of money is going to do that.

"Black Soldier from N.J. Linked to Iraq Prisoner Scandal: Sgt. Javal “Shawn” Davis, 26, is part of the first group of soldiers facing a court martial for their role in the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq. Davis is the only black soldier to be accused in this case so far." Ok, so I need to take my own advice. I was hoping none of 'us' would be implicated even though I know that such thoughts are both racist against whites and dehumanizing of blacks. We are no more, or less, human than anyone else. No more or less prone to abuse power, no more required to be better than others because of our history of oppression. He's just an individual who, I have no doubt, was raised better than that. How will these folks ever face their families, let alone their country.

All together now: innocent until proven guilty, innocent until proven guilty, innocent until...he got a taste of power over some 'niggers'?

Morbid much? Hearse that owner says carried MLK up for auction on Internet. The 1966 Cadllac-Superior Funeral Coach was listed on the eBay auction site Thursday night and will be available for 10 days.

May 20, 2004

Don't you just hate it when the truth slips out? Check this from Bill Cosby who was in DC on Monday to celebrate the Brown v. Board 50th anniversary. According to the Washington Post,

"Bill Cosby was anything but politically correct in his remarks Monday night at a Constitution Hall bash commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. To astonishment, laughter and applause, Cosby mocked everything from urban fashion to black spending and speaking habits.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal," he declared. "These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids -- $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.' . . .

"They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English," he exclaimed. "I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is' . . . And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. . . . Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. . . . You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!"

The Post's Hamil Harris reports that Cosby also turned his wrath to "the incarcerated," saying: "These are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake and then we run out and we are outraged, [saying] 'The cops shouldn't have shot him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?"

When Cosby finally concluded, Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and NAACP legal defense fund head Theodore Shaw came to the podium looking stone-faced. Shaw told the crowd that most people on welfare are not African American, and many of the problems his organization has addressed in the black community were not self-inflicted."

I'm not saying this is 'truth' in the literal sense necessarily but 'truth' in that this critique is frequently heard in the black community. People like Swygert, Mfume and Shaw have to front that all our problems are exogenous when blacks are both more ambivalent and more nuanced in their analysis of the community's problems. They just don't usually cop to it in front of the Washington Post and a national audience.

Instead, we all too often usually hear from losers like this:

"In odd lawsuit, Columbus man argues blacks should not owe taxes. [Odd? Odd? How 'bout 'dummb ass'?] COLUMBUS, Ga. - The Internal Revenue Service is being sued by a 64-year-old man who argues that black taxpayers deserve a refund on all taxes paid since 1913.

William Wright, a black attorney who says he has endured racism all his life, filed a lawsuit this week in U.S. District Court in Columbus, naming the IRS and federal government. He seeks $25,000 in taxes he's paid since 1963, plus a refund for all taxes paid by black people since a tax code was passed in 1913.

"I think African-Americans not only need tax refunds for all that period of time, but also a moratorium on taxes, too," Wright told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.

Wright makes his argument based on a phrase in that 1913 law that applies to "citizens and aliens." To Wright's thinking, blacks are neither "by reason of the denial of basic rights of citizenship." From the AP.

First things first; he paid $25K in taxes in 41 years? I'm guessing homey may not be the world's best lawyer, which may go a long way in explaining why he has the time (and double digit IQ) for such a ridiculous lawsuit.

Black people, when are we going to walk away from this sick, twisted, undignified and life sapping obsession with white folks? There was a time when I'd be embarrassed for us when silliness like this reared its pathetic head. Now I'm just embarrassed for him, a sad, lost individual, not a sad, lost black person.

Cosby 'truth-gate' update: "Beloved comedian Bill Cosby wants black Americans to follow the example of civil rights leaders in improving their neighborhoods and reaching out for higher education." Was the Miami Herald's reporter at the same event?

Is she the last 'first black'? "Miami-Dade County lawyer Marcia G. Cooke was confirmed Tuesday as the first black woman to become a federal judge in Florida, after Democratic and Republican lawmakers reached a truce in their election-year political war over judicial nominations."

Is there anything left to be the 'first black' at? Pretty soon, it'll take a whole paragraph to find some meaning in 'old school' blackness, the kind that can only understand itself in opposition to whiteness, the kind of blackness that cannot define itself in its own terms, from its own point of view. First black man with one leg to..., first black women who used to be a man who..., first black high school student who dropped out, got a GED, and then went to college who... . Here's one to shoot for: last black person who thought that being descended from African slaves defines her current reality and was the only interesting, motivating thing about her.

May 19, 2004

America's Double Standards

US Soldier Sentenced to One Year in Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners. But see this in The New Republic: AMERICA'S ABU GHRAIBS. In Iraq, Abu Ghraib is an outrage. In Texas, it'd be a typical prison. So think we'll be seeing soem good ol' boys go to jail here? I do not believe I'll hold my breath.

Imported Negroes

South Africa, Ten Years Later
After a decade of democracy, the South African struggle continues. Increasingly, today's activists are fighting on smaller fronts — and sometimes against the ANC itself...."Many of us didn't have a teenhood," says Paulus Julies, who works for the ANC as a regional organizer. "We didn't date or write love letters, or play rugby, all the things that a kid in their teens do. We were sitting in meetings, planning, picketing. A big part of your life was taken over. You'll never that get that time back."

Haiti Update XI: Rebuilding
Haiti's problems extend beyond race politics. They are essentially socio-economic.

The Amen Corner

The Jesus Landing Pad: Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move. From the Village Voice.

Florida leader to present work on African Americans in SBC life. From the Florida Baptist Witness.

(Soon, there'll be a separate religion blog called The Amen Corner)

May 14, 2004

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.

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.

A final Condi thought from a reader, Catherine M.:

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.

April 15, 2004

Here's William Jelani Cobb's thoughtful take on Condigate and what it means for Negroes.

April 8, 2004

I've added lots of new links.

April 7, 2004

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.' "

See, we're not paranoid. They really are out ot get us. From the Village Voice.

April 6, 2004

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?

April 5, 2004

How do you say 'incogNegro' in Spanish?

"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."

Read this to find out where all the Argentinian Negroes went.

'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.

April 2, 2004

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 abou