this racism is killing me

This video made my Christmas:

(warning: video and sound are out of sync, but it's still so worth it.)



Take that white women in elevators!

Barack Obama will eat your children

And turn the country Muslim, which is almost the worst thing ever, except that he also conspires on behalf of a radical organization called the Black Community.





via adrizzle

And now, a message from John McCain on his suspect allegiance to the Black Community:


via ill doctrine

John McCain: That One Bigot

Via Adrizzle.

DNC Coverage: Fear and Loathing in Denver

I'm headed to Denver tomorrow morning for the Democratic National Convention. I'm excited to see folks, to see the shows and get a first-hand glimpse of the Democratic Machine. But in all honesty, I'm afraid.

Almost everyone is telling me how honored I should be to go to such a historic event. And no doubt, I'm humbled, privileged and flattered. But the Obama game, which I've never quite gotten into on the fanatic level that most folks around me have, is losing me.

Obama's recent selection of Joe Biden as his Vice Presidential running mate kinda sealed the deal for me. Biden might not be a bad guy. In fact, I don't know too much about his policies, his history in the senate, or his outlook for America. My lack of enthnusiasm is in part due to the fact that he's the antithesis of the Obama hype -- old, white and with a penchant to say racist shit. Like I've said many times before, the father the campaign rolls along, the more Obama looks like the new blackface of the political establishment.And Obama, because of necessity, has bad to brand his messages of hop and change in much the same way

A few months ago I spoke briefly to a well-respected, seasoned hip-hop journalist about his analysis of multicultalism and race in America. I'm probably taking his analysis way out of context, but his take went something like this: first the demographics change, then then culture changes, and slowly but surely, the political establishment changes. But change doesn't mean progress. Latinos are the fastest growing racial group in America, and already outnumber whites in the state of California. Yet immigration debates have reached an all-time high, and migrant workers continue to be imprisoned, deported and killed. From TJ Crawford to Soledad O'Brien in network newsrooms to Tyra Banks, Diddy, and the ever-so-classy New York, people of color are everywhere in popular culture. But when New York walks the streets of LA asking anyone she thinks might be Asian about Japanese culture, can you really call that progress?

And now there's Obama. Maybe I'm just severely uninformed. Or maybe I'm just a cynic. But putting a Black face on a white establishment just doesn't seem all that progressive to me. Groundbreaking? For sure. He's one of the most charismatic leaders in our nation's collective history. On par, if not far superior, to the allure of JFK.

And his campaign has been genius, the perfect combination of grassroots organizing, political and cultural branding, and the ever-so-important cool. He's changed the hip-hop game in ways that not even Jay-Z could fathom. He's an internationally bred, post Civil Rights baby who's Ivy League educated and listens to Jay-Z. Needless to say, hip-hop heads, mixed kids, Jack and Jill-type Black folks, most white liberals and baby boomer Black folks are all in his corner.

And according to the stats, I guess I should be too.

But as I get ready to leave for Denver, more than anything, I'm afraid. Afraid that the convention that will be like shopping at Wal-Mart during a 50% off sale -- oversaturated but with little substance. Afraid that I'll see the media cameras, the parties and the delegates and feel horribly out of place. Afraid that we've traded critical consciousness for political idealism. Afraid that we're confusing "change" with "progress."

Or maybe I'm just one of those oft-studied urban youths with street allegiances, hood cynicism and a college degree too insecure to plant one foot sternly in either world.

Stay tuned.

Next up: Cynthia McKinney, Rosa Clemente and the Obama Movement.

Stuff White People Don't Like

#97: Articles written by women of color who don't find their humor all that funny.

Shout out to Samhita from Feministing, who recently published a great in-depth piece on why the popular blog, Stuff White People Like, isn't so groundbreaking afterall:

It's worth wondering if such a blog could have thrived were its author a person of color. Would white people still read it and find the humor affectionate? Or would they suddenly detect a more harshly critical undertone? There are many people of color who write regularly (and yes, sometimes even with a sense of humor) about racism and whiteness, but they're not getting six-figure book deals. In effect, Lander is rewarded for being white, even though he is making fun of white people. To his credit, he is self-aware enough to mock this irony. He broke the news that he had a forthcoming book by publishing an entry on Stuff White People Like titled, "Book Deals" (No. 92). But that doesn't change the fact that, were he a person of color, No. 92 might instead have been "Calling Me A Racist."

Check out the entire article, originally published at American Prospect, and reprinted on Wiretap.

Spot 10 things that are wrong in the picture below ...

Bought to my attention by Jack and Jill politics ... I present the latest cover of the New Yorker.




Who is surprised? To be honest, I am. Not b/c of the disgusting racist, sexist and Islamophobic messages in this "cartoon." The Obama success has brought all sorts of racist cockroaches crawling out from under rocks all over the country. I am more surprised b/c it is a "liberal" magazine, that is hiding behind the "satire" defense. This is supposed to get people thinking. Someone needs to tell them that productive satire needs to be more than throwing up all the racist drivel purported be faux news and the like. The fact that some people think this is actually OK is ... fuckin out of line! I don't care how "progressive" your magazines history is: this is not any better than the continuous racist shit spewing from fox news. In fact, I think its worse because these people are trying to pass it off like its ok. If you are a hater, at least come right out and say it.

Where to even start breaking this down? Lets play a game ... spot aspects of this image that anger the shit out of you. We should be able to go on for a looong time.

The Baby Mama and 'Terrorist Fist Jabber'

Fox news is bent on painting Michelle Obama as an angry, bitter Black woman who can't think apart from her man.

BraveNewFilms shows just how ridiculous their attacks hgave been:


For more, check out Michelle Obama Watch

Legal Murders

One of the good things about having cable and nothing to do after 5 pm is that I get to watch lots of CNN. I think of it is as research for this blog, since CNN never fails to provide plenty of material to blog about (most of it in some sort of fury).

Yesterday, they broke the news about this guy in Houston, TX who shot and killed two men who he saw leaving his neighbours house after a break in. He was cleared of all criminal charges. That is after he called 911, and the operator explicitly told him NOT to go outside with his gun.

"Don't go outside the house," the 911 operator pleaded. "You're going to get yourself shot if you go outside that house with a gun. I don't care what you think."
"You want to make a bet?" Horn answered. "I'm going to kill them."

Now I am thinking: the men were shot in the back, there are no reports of either of them being armed, and does it count as self-defense if you voluntarily leave the safety of your house after being told not to by law enforcement? Isn't saying "I'm going to kill them" an expression of pre-mediation? The guys were burgalars, they probably woul'dnt have gotten more than 10 years for unarmed robbery.

It just was'nt making any sense. How could a court come up with this decision. Then the anchor guy asks the question, "can't the family of the murdered file a civil suit?" and the other anchor guy (can't rem their names) says "well ... not really ... I mean if they were illegal immigrants they don't have any rights to do that." And the first guy goes " so they were illegals" and the second guy says "im not sure, its highly possible though. They were from mexico ... or maybe puerto rico, dpesnt matter its the same thing. But I think they probably were illegal." And the picture of two brown men pops up on the screen. Fade to white anchor guys shrugging, and moving on to the next story.*

Just for the record, the CNN print version of the story says that the murdered men were Colombian, and would be classified as illegal immigrants.

*This dialogue might not have happened word to word as written, but it's pretty close.

Rebel Diaz Assaulted by NYPD

Anyone who's seen Rebel Diaz perform on stage or in the community know that they're easily one of the most powerful forces in hip-hop right now.

And maybe the cops know that too.

This week two of the groups members were assaulted and arrested after coming to the aide of a street vendor who cops were interrogating. The following video is everything you might expect from a situation like this -- powerful, disturbing, angering and -- at times -- awe inspiring. Young folks in the Bronx are mobilizing against police brutality and it's a beautiful thing.



Click here for full article.

Take Action:
You can also call the 41st precinct 718-542-4771 or arresting Officer MacHugo at 718-542-8745 to demand that the charges be dropped.

Who's White? Who's down? And Who Am I?

Believe it or not, I have white friends. And a helluva lot of "white tendencies" -- a penchant for weird ass music, a tendency to annunciate and say the whole. word. like. this, etc. And some might even accuse me of having a "high yellow" complex -- you know, those super political folks who use Black radicalism to compensate for their lack of melanin.

I've lived a lot of my life on the fringes of expected racial behavior. I was the only Black kid at a predominantly Asian middle school bumping Alice Deejay, and the only queer kid in a Pan Africanist student organization at the University of the West Indies. So I'm well aware of the dangers that come along with trying to generalize about folks.

I like to talk about white people, and poke fun at white people, but who am I talking about when I say white people? All white people? All snobby white people? What about snobby folks of color?

I remember vividly some of the conversations I'd have with one of my good friends in college. She was an immigrant from the Ukraine, grew up under the harsh realities of Soviet communism, came to the US where her family struggled to make ends meet in Jersey, and spent her high school years in a comfortable upper middle class neighborhood in Oregon. Now she's an immigrant -- twice removed -- teaching English in Chile. She was often the only one in my circle who openly challenged me to define what I meant when I said "white people". Depending on the year, her experience either made her a perfect candidate for, or the antithesis of, the monolithic white person I targeted so much of my anger toward.

When it comes down to it, I think that we in the US have a very limited vocabulary when it comes to race. Then again, we have one of the most nuanced racial histories of any nation on earth. We're a land of immigrants where whiteness became a commodity that disenfranchised Irish, Italian and German immigrants bought into for their own economic survival. Sure, it's a social construct, but tell that to the lone Black girl in a suburban Minneapolis classroom, or the migrant worker dying in an ICE detention center.

White people are not evil; power is evil. Historically, certain white folks in the US have had unlimited access to that power, but now shit's changing. Take the Iraq war, for instance. It was lobbied for by a Black woman (Condi), sold by a Black man (Colin Powell) and legally protected by the grandson of undocumented Mexican farmers (Alberto Gonzales). Corrupt governments and viscous multinational corporations around the world are run by folks of color.

This weekend I heard Roberto Lovato make an interesting point:
"We can't confuse the defeat of George W. Bush with the defeat of capitalism, or the defeat of the GOP with the defeat of empire."

But maybe I'm going off on a tangent.

Back to white people. When I talk about white people, I don't mean white people specifically. In a comical sense, sure, since our historical imagination makes it much easier for the collective (affected communities; communities of color) to connect white people to power, and the abuse of that power. But when I talk about "white people", I'm most often referring to folks who either blindly have power, or don't question it. "White people" is my symbolic term. It's the easier, albeit ill-equipped, term I use in lieu of more academic language that doesn't hit quite as hard. My "white people" is a euphemism for whiteness -- that fluid concept of racial identity that enables capitalism, and all the other "-isms" to breed a dangerous amount of corrosive power*.

People of color can feed into this. Women can feed into this. Queer folks can feed into this. We all feed into this in one way or another because it's as abundant as the air we breathe. I guess the trick is to at least try to check ourselves on it. And it's those folks who I have issues with -- the ones who see nothing wrong with the status quo, the one's who speak without thinking, and then continue without questioning.

I absolutely do not think that you have to be actively 'working' to end the systems of domination to be considered "down"; the non profit/social justice world is problematic unto itself. To me, social justice means enabling folks the ability to live in healthy, happy communities. It never has to be a job, just a way of life. I say and do dumb/ignorant shit all the time, and I will continue to say and do dumb/ignorant shit for the rest of my life. I'm not going to magically wake up one day and be absolved of my prejudices. Maybe justice is a journey, not a destination.

----------
*There are plenty of folks of color who I'd consider white. Think of: Former SF Mayor Willie Brown. Along with being the first Black mayor, Brown also opened the doors to modern-day gentrification. Is he a tool? Mos def. Does he really run shit? Nah.

Juan Crow

I first heard Roberto Lovato speak on Juan Crow back in January. At first, I thought it was just a witty, satirical analysis on the current hysteria surrounding undocumented workers. Reading more into it, it's much more than satire.

In his piece in The Nation, he writes:

The toll this increasingly oppressive climate has taken on Mancha represents but a small part of its effects on non-citizen immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, and other Latinos. Mancha and the younger children of the mostly immigrant Latinos in Georgia are learning and internalizing that they are different from white--and black--children not just because they have the wrong skin color but also because many of their parents lack the right papers. They are growing up in a racial and political climate in which Latinos' subordinate status in Georgia and in the Deep South bears more than a passing resemblance to that of African-Americans who were living under Jim Crow.

Call it Juan Crow: the matrix of laws, social customs, economic institutions and symbolic systems enabling the physical and psychic isolation needed to control and exploit undocumented immigrants. Listening to the effects of Juan Crow on immigrants and citizens like Mancha ("I can't sleep sometimes because of nightmares," she says. "My arms still twitch. I see ICE agents and men in uniform, and it still scares me") reminds me of the trauma I heard among the men, women and children controlled and exploited by state violence in wartime El Salvador. Juan Crow has roots in the US South, but it stirs traumas bred in the hemispheric South.

Read more here.

If 5-0 Shoots

From the acclaimed filmmaker Byron Hurt comes a touching tribute to Sean Bell, and other victims of police brutality.

And now I'll stop frontin' like I'm a random movie preview voiceover...

Via RaceWire:

Gay Pride...how?

My first Pride parade sucked. I was 15-years-old, scared out of my mind, and alone. As far as I knew at the time, my fam wasn't 'bout it 'bout it when it came to the gays and neither were my conservative Christian friends. So while I had mad crushes on girls from my basketball team and wrote silly little love poems for my future wifey, I was pretty much on my own when it came to processing what everything meant. I don't remember much about that first parade, but I do remember crawling through the masses of people near Civic Center and buying a few rainbow colored necklaces -- including a bright ass boa -- and somehow winding up at a bus stop on 18th and Castro. I sat there, alone, overwhelmed by it all. More than the fear, I felt a huge sense of pride that there were people like me and that there was hope beyond my adolescent daydreams. I made a promise to myself, right there, that I'd come back one day with a posse full of down ass queer kids and, of course, a girlfriend.

Seven years later, I can't say much has changed. I'm still scared, single and inching my way out of a self imposed closet. I've realized that there's a lot more to the game than who you're boo'ed up with in bed at night, and all that wordy institutional shit that I usually knock people for saying -- QPOC's, heteronormativity, racism, sexism -- has a lot to do with my averted glances and tendency to fuck up relationships.

So when a co-worker left an advanced copy of Kai Wright's Drifting Toward Love: Black, Brown, Gay and Coming of Age on the Streets of New York on my desk in early January, I barely gave it a second glance. I was so over all things gay and New York City. I took the book home and it sat in a pile of miscellaneous junk near my bed for months. Then on a random day about two weeks ago, when I was feeling particularly shitty after a conversation in which the other person used some ridiculously long, mutli-syllable word for some oppression that I was almost certain they'd never experienced, I decided I wanted to read something gay. I didn't make the decision out of spite so much as out of a genuine desire to "interrogate" why I was so uncomfortable with the standard activist lingo for sexual identity. At some gut level, I was sure that words like "heteronormativity" and "gender non conformity" bothered me more because they represented a part of my identity that I rarely got in touch with, let alone shared with others.

Then I realized I had no gay books. Aside from The Color Purple and some standard Audre Lorde, I had no books on queer folks of color. And while I wanted to be introspective, I didn't feel like being particularly deep in the "i'm-questioning-my-bodily-existence" lesbian type way.

Then I remembered Wright's book. I dug it out from its hiding place and became engulfed for two days. I don't like using the word "brilliant" because I feel like it's an overrated word to describe overrated things. But this book did change my life.

It follows the lives of a group of very different gay boys of color in New York City. It also manages to steer away from using textbook analyses to describe the lived realities of regular ass folks. It steers away from pointing toward answers, instead focusing on telling their compelling tales of heartbreak and survival. Through these amazing stories, Wright breaks down the notion of some monolithic queer kid of color experience and tackles it from all angles -- the headstrong guy from Brooklyn who proudly wears his queerness from birth; the shy 25-year-old struggling to get past familial expectations to live his own life; the foster kid who took New York City by storm; and so many others.

What I loved most about this book is that it looked at gay identity from more than just a gay lens. It took into account experiences of immigration, gentrification, displacement, emotional neglect, and how folks form their own racial identities. It examined how the culture wars of the '80's informed our popular view of everything from AIDS to sexual predators. From a narrative point of view, Wright examined a piece of one story -- the fight over Manhattan piers, for instance -- as the starting point for a historical analysis of the Village going all the way back to European colonization and the genocide of indigenous inhabitants, before launching into the traditional peek at Stonewall and how it liberated gay white men.

Two of the most poignant moments for me came in discussions about the lack of gay role models for queer youth. In one instance, a character discusses how important it is to be out, to fight for the safety of the entire community. At the very least, it shatters what we think we know about who gay folks are and what they look like. In another discussion, one of the young folks comes out to his brother, fearing rejection. His brother tells him that they had a gay uncle, who died of AIDS when they were young. From there, the book examines the death of a generation of potential leaders and mentors at the hands of the AIDS epidemic.

More than anything, I respect this book and its intent because it's more than another dooms day tale of how shitty life is for gay folks of color. Wright does a great job of letting the characters' personalities shine through, and they're funny, charismatic, shy and courageous. It opens the door for a much larger, inclusive discussion of sexual identity within the context of how Black you think you are and meeting Mama's expectations.

So as another gay pride month approaches, I may not be any gayer than I was seven years ago, but I'm starting to learn to take consciousness one small baby step at a time.

------------

For more on Kai Wright, check out his website at www.kaiwright.com and check out this month's edition of Colorlines, the Sex Issue, which he Guest Edited.

A breath of fresh air...

this add is fabulous.

i was walking down Broadway in Washington Heights yesterday and saw this




and saw this one in Elmhurst




for too long, fear has been the mode for hiv prevention, its clearly not enough. is this the new face of hiv prevention organizing?

after Health Organizations in this country have guaranteed to deliver queer communities of color offensive campaigns developed to promote safer sex, this campaign by Gay Men's Health Crisis is a breath of fresh air.

phillys Have you been Hit? and SF's "Don't Be a Bitch, Wear a Condom" (great analysis of SF's campaign by Gay Shame Sf) made me wonder if we would ever have a campaign targeted to young queer/msm (men who have sex with men) of color, that addresses safe sex without being racist, classist, sexist, or perpetuating some fucked up racialized conceptions of gender.

Evidently, that day has come.



Living Out Loud with Darian features the complete campaign.

this campaign, as Darian says, shows "Beautiful images of brothers loving and respecting each others bodies and souls. Now that's not something you see everyday."

I also love this ad because, it combats the idea that being gay is a "condition" that only affects white men, particularly middle and upper class white men. too often we see portrayals of "typical" gay men as white and and often professional. many people today, when thinking about MSM of color, are limited to images ofthe "the down low" and otherwise heterosexual men sneaking away from their wives/girlfriends to have sex with other men.

not only does this ad show queer men of color, its shows two men engaged, affectionate, in a relationship. this ad acknowledges same sex couples, even promotes them. rather than pandering to the serial sexing gay male caricature.


the contention behind this development is a larger problem in organizing that we see across all issues. Too often we have people organizing and working in organizations who aren't from or familiar with the communities they are "fighting" for. In order to have real change, space must be created in these larger organizations for leaders to step up and address the problems particular to the communities they are purportedly serving, rather than having a few researchers and academics or consultants behind the scenes telling us what our communities will respond to.

creating these spaces - not only in the media- for those outside the realm of what is deemed as typical, highlights progress. this exposure and presence might be seen as a minimal achievement to some, but i find it to be very powerful.

The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show

Banned Boondocks episodes:

DMX goes gospel on that ass

While publicizing for his upcoming "gospel" album, DMX had a word with XXL about Barack Obama.

Well, sort of.

XXL: Are you following the presidential race?
DMX: Not at all.

XXL: You’re not? You know there’s a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there’s Hillary Clinton.
DMX: His name is Barack?!

XXL: Barack Obama, yeah.
DMX: Barack?!

XXL: Barack.
DMX: What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?

XXL: Yeah, his dad is from Kenya.
DMX: Barack Obama?

XXL: Yeah.
DMX: What the fuck?! That ain’t no fuckin’ name, yo. That ain’t that nigga’s name. You can’t be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here.

XXL: You’re telling me you haven’t heard about him before.
DMX: I ain’t really paying much attention.

XXL: I mean, it’s pretty big if a Black…
DMX: Wow, Barack! The nigga’s name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain’t his fuckin’ name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, “Stop that bullshit. Stop that bullshit” [laughs] “That ain’t your fuckin’ name.” Your momma ain’t name you no damn Barack.

XXL: So you’re not following the race. You can’t vote right?
DMX: Nope.

Let's pray.

Oh, and about that gospel album. Check out the first track, aptly titled "Already (Dirty)":


bark, bark, bitches.

update:
Ok, maybe I didn't do DMX justice. If you read more of the interview, it turns out that he's got a point:

Is that why you're not following it?
No, because it's just-it doesn't matter. They're gonna do what they're gonna do. It doesn't really make a difference. These are the last years.

But it would be pretty big if we had a first Black president. That would be huge.
I mean, I guess…. What, they gon' give a dog a bone? There you go. Ooh, we have a Black president now. They should've done that shit a long time ago, we wouldn't be in the fuckin' position we in now. With world war coming up right now. They done fucked this shit up then give it to the Black people, "Here you take it. Take my mess."

Right, exactly.
It's all a fuckin' setup. It's all a setup. All fuckin' bullshit. All bullshit. I don't give a fuck about none of that.

We could have a female president also, Hillary Clinton.
I mean, either way it doesn't matter. I don't care. No one person is directly affected by which president, you know, so what does it matter.

Yeah, but the country is.
I guess. The president is a puppet anyway. The president don't make no damn decisions.

The president…they don't have that much authority basically?
Nah, never.

But Bush pretty much…
You think Bush is making fuckin' decisions?

He did, yeah, he fucked up the country.
He act like he making decisions. He could barely speak! He could barely fuckin' speak!
Can't be serious. He ain't making no damn decisions.

Well Barack has a good chance of winning so that might be something.
Good for him, good for him.

How's your family and your kids?
They're good. My son is rapping now.

Did he see you? I'm sure he was inspired by you.
Yeah, yeah. all that. Took him to shows and everything.

What does your wife Tashera think about him rapping?
She likes it. She's the one who told me. She told me.

Did you talk to him? What do you tell him about the industry? Do you give him advice about the industry?
He knows it, he knows all that shit. Ah, man. I give him some advice.

Obama: the myth or the man?

It's been four, maybe eight years since thousands of dumb ass voters went to the polls and voted for George Bush. Their reasons were simple. It had very little to do with his domestic policy -- just ask thousands of bankrupted white farmers in rural towns throughout the midwest. It had even less to do with his foreign policy -- just as the families of dead, awol, medically neglected and frustrated soilders in Iraq and Afghanistan. The real reason: his personality. He was likable. He was the type of dude you could go grab a beer with after work. Someone you could sit with and watch Cowboy quarterback Tony Romo stumble in the playoffs. Al Gore was too tired, and John Kerry walked with a stick up his ass. G.Dub, on the other hand, was the mythical "everyman" who appealed to the sensibilities of millions of folks looking for a best friend.

Now, they're all probably sitting on the steps of their recently foreclosed homes, scratching their heads while they read the classified section of their recently bought-out town paper. Oops.

I'm afraid that Barack Obama is slowly, methodically and dangerously trying to paint himself in much the same way: the mythical "everyman" who you can kick it with, smoke a blunt and watch re-runs of Dave Chappelle. But he's doing it by avoiding the very subject that's undeniably at the center of his campaign: race. And while he preaches about "hope" and "change" like they're the chorus of his favorite song, all the while holding onto his "it's not about race" platform", executives of Halliburton and Blackwater are sitting back, smiling because he's playing by their rules.

During Obama's sweeping victory in South Carolina last night, the crowd chanted "race doesn't matter" while Obama smiled back. If that were really the case, then why would it be a big deal that a Black man is running -- much less a leading candidate for -- the American presidency? Plenty of folks have noted the irony in this election's color and gender blind platforms: both candidates want to downplay the role of "identity politics", yet continue to use their positions as the first formidable Black male and white woman candidates as cornerstones of their historic race to the white house. You can't have it both ways.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as much as an Obama fan as the next progressive 22-year-old. His idealism appeals to me, his poise before a crowd amazes me and he's forcing me to come out of my cloud of cynicism about American electoral politics. But if there is one major flaw in his campaign, it's precisely that he's playing into the hands of right wing extremists. He (and Hilary for that matter) are too busy answering the question of "Is this campaign about race and gender?" Wrong question. That's like walking into a refugee camp and asking "Do you need food and shelter?" You can't live in an American society with a history of over 300 years of race-based chattel slavery, in the aftermath of Katrina, and just days removed from the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and think we're not still battling racism and sexism on the daily. Just because a Black man and a white woman are running for the most powerful office in the world, we're not suddenly the most progressive nation in the world -- hell, if that were the case, Condeleeza Rice would be a godsend.

So why is it so dangerous that Obama is running on his colorblind platform? Well, aside from the fact that it's utterly ridiculous, he's helping to paint himself as the iconic "every man" who's transcended racism and become our most powerful success story. He doesn't want people to vote for him because he's the first formidable Black candidate ever to seek office. Understandable. But by playing into the hype of "this campaign isn't about race", he's backing himself into a dangerous either/or corner. We've already seen it happen: he gets endorsed by Oprah, sweeps the South Carolina electorate, and is accused of running on a Black platform. Maybe those sorts of accusations are unavoidable, but he needs to change the terms of the debate. Of course this campaign is about race. South Carolina is a prime example of the history of Black voting and Obama's success is evidence to the cynicism of Black voters in the past because of white terrorist violence and disasterous federal politics following the Civil Rights Era.

Obama needs to use race as the cornerstone of his campaign. Just as he's used growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia as examples of how his political framework in foreign policy has been informed by his personal history, he needs to use his experience as a Black man in America as evidence of how he can better address our country's social fissures like the privatization of the New Orleans public school system, jobs, the economy, the warehousing of youth of color in the prison industrial complex and the drastic decline in spending on public education, violence in cities, the Iraq War....and the list goes on. Right now, he's backing himself into a corner where he's afraid to talk about race and becoming more of a myth than a man.

The audacity of Oprah

When Oprah Winfrey endorsed Barack Obama and sold out thousands of seats in South Carolina, a lot of folks thought it was unfair. She can turn a book into a bestseller, but to endorse a presidential candidate? Outrageous. Even though Bill Clinton can use his white male former presidential swagger to campaign tirelessly on Hillary's behalf, let a powerful Black alliance come to the table, and the white, wanna-be progressive masses cry foul.

Patricia Williams tackled the issue about a month ago in The Nation. I'm a little late on it, but it's still a good read, especially when put in the context of the recent "race and gender don't matter in this campaign" platform. Check it out:

In a very straightforward sense, it's no wonder that the Double O's are such an arresting team: one of the world's most influential black men links arms with the world's most powerful black woman, and together they sell out an 18,000-seat arena in Columbia, South Carolina, so fast that the computers crash. It's an unprecedented performance of black power in the heart of the old Confederacy. For someone who lived through the most hateful moments of the civil rights era, it's exhilarating and hopeful--and vaguely scary in the vertigo it induces.

From another perspective, to many people Oprah embodies a comforting sort of motherly everywoman, whose embrace has been perhaps too comfortably nonpartisan. If some part of her audience felt betrayed when she lost more weight than the average soccer mom, it stands to reason that they'll feel betrayed when she takes an overt stand in the political realm.

The campaign is getting real dirty right now, but at the very least, it's a Critical Race Theorists wet dream.

Let the games begin.

Perpetuating Racism

Recently I heard about a college class that was asked the following question:

How do you reinforce racism either through the things you do or do not do?

Everyone was told to write down their responses and then the papers were passed to different people in the class and read aloud.

Most of the responses were things like:

I get nervous when I walk by a person of color on the street

I don’t stop my friends or family from saying racist jokes or using words like “ghetto”

When I see students of color on campus I think they got here through affirmative action*

It is a beginning level course with mostly white students so I didn’t expect to hear much else, but I really want to.

I want to see the discussion of perpetuating racism deepen. I want it to be more than admitting you get nervous around men of color. I want it to be true confessions of outwardly things that people do.

But if you ask a white person what they do to reinforce racism and they think that they are not racist then they probably do not realize what it is they are doing. And if they are a student in college that is trying to be really pc, then they might admit something deep if they have had extensive classes but most likely they won’t because they don’t want to admit to themselves or others that their over use of pc terms is because of their deep seeded racist thoughts.

Ok, I’m generalizing, but this is what I have heard throughout my years in academia.

People in college are going to be the ones that take over big companies and have positions of power in the future. They will be in positions that can allow them to work from the inside out. I want them to acknowledge what they do so they can work to over come it.

I want to hear a college student say:

I work in a department store and I often follow people of color as they shop

I think people of color exaggerate when they talk about racist things that have happened to them

It’s an interesting conversation to have. It’s one that more college courses should have and professors should push students to go deeper. What would you say in response to that question?

*This one is an exception. It's on the deeper side for sure. Not something most college students are likely to admit.

On Radar, art and racism's old tricks

By now, Radar Magazine's highly racialized and sexualized cover has turned more than a few heads. The cover, originally intended to be a spoof of a Vanity Fair special edition on Hollywood. Editors claim:

“Candidates have become as manufactured as movie stars: coached on every aspect of their dress and demeanor, and supplied with perky sound-bites for spontaneous delivery on Letterman. Which is why, as we set out to plan the cover of Radar’s Politics issue, it seemed appropriate to do a little facile packaging of our own.”

But if today's politicians are more mechanized than ever before, our country's dealings with race and gender in art and media remain the same. RaceWire points out that:

The gender and racial implications of this cover are disturbing— just look at the placement and hierarchy of the candidates. At the highest point of the layout we have the white male (and the only candidate worthy of clothes), Guilliani, second to a nude Clinton— and at their feet a naked Black man, Obama, lying down!

If the potential Presidential candidates were all white men, they’d be in suits. During the 2000 election, Al Gore and George Bush were shown in masks or comic strip satire. Even Schwarzenegger didn’t get the nude treatment and there were plenty of those to go around—no photoshop needed. Now, we finally have a woman and a Black man running and the first instinct is to objectify and hypersexualize.

** And just when you thought Obama was starting to gain ground by refusing to wear the american flag pin as a blind item of patriotism, he's starting to slip up. Now he's pandering to the interests of Black Southern conservatives by campaigning with vehemently anti-gay gospel choirs. Check it out here.