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

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

For Shaniqua

What's in a name?

A recent post on Racialious got me thinking about names, tears and everything that happens in between.

I cried once during my time in Jamaica. Amid all the craziness -- the predominantly white group of American students who were in my study abroad program, the rampant homophobia of my Jamaican ally's -- there was only one time I broke down in tears.

It happened because of the name 'Shaniqua'.

After our mandatory SIT Gender & Development seminar, where we studied among ourselves and didn't interact at all with the rest of the University of the West Indies student population, the group of ten white women and myself made our way to the campus bookstore. I was annoyed, as always. My feelings were a mix of anger and confusion. I was angry because there were no other down students of color who I could bond with. Angry at the sense of entitlement that accompanies a white face and a liberal arts degree. Angry at the fact that these same white women who knew the lyric to every Bob Marley song that blared from their iPod speakers could look at me like I was crazy when I bonded with my Black Nationalist friends.

But I didn't want to be left out. So yeah, maybe I secretly wanted to know those random ass indy rock references they made. Or maybe I wanted to have a story about drug binges and beer pong to match theirs. But all I had were stories of the second-hand weed I smoked with my folks, and our late-night ciphers where we reminisced about childhoods, hip-hop and white people.

So on this day I weaved in and out of conversation with the attention span of an assassin. I participated from a distance, but paid attention to every word, every move. And then it happened.

"What would make you stop being my friend?" asked the white girl from San Francisco.

"I can't think of anything outside of you killing my family or something", replied the biracial (but always passing for white) girl from San Rafael.

"Hmh...what if my name was...Shaniqua!"

"Ugh, I'd kill you if your name was Shaniqua!"

In an imaginary world, I spoke up. I told them how fucking racist they were, how they were nothing but insecure little brats who deserved to have their asses kicked, their cameras stolen and their Visa's revoked. "Don't you know that Black women are killed everyday because of shit like that? Because of attitudes like yours? Because their names are Shaniqua's, or Tenisha's, or because they're too Black, too fat, too loud, too silent?"

But in the real world, I didn't say shit. I averted my eyes, swallowed my voice and stood there, in shock. By the time I processed what had been said, they were already on our chartered bus ready to go back to the program office. In that moment I hated being the only one to say something. Afterall, being brave is lonely. And as a Black girl, I guess I was used to being silent. Instead, my anger manifested itself throughout the rest of the trip, as I averted my eyes, disengaged from the group, and turned up my headphones.

The next morning I woke up from a bad sleep. Thirty five hundred miles away from home and everything that was familiar, music was my only salvation. So I turned to the only song I knew that addressed the issue I couldn't get off my mind: Talib Kweli's Black Girl Pain.

This is for Aisha, this is for Kashera
This is for Khadijah scared to look up in the mirror
I see the picture clearer thru the stain on the frame
She got a black girl name, she livin black girl pain

Then came the tears. I thought about all the girls I knew growing up: Myesha, Tasheanna, Chika, Naima. My best friends from childhood. I thought about how many times I wanted to go by my middle name "Nicole" when I was little because "Jamilah" was 'too ghetto.' I thought about how many times I had to slowly pronounce my name, or correct people when they mispronounced it. I thought about how many times I let people mispronounce it. I thought about Noah's bagles, or Jamba Juice, where I became "Jamie" our of 'convenience'.

And then I thought about what 'too ghetto' really meant, and if it was such a bad thing after all. Hell, it was the ghettoist girls I knew, named after democratic ideals, African goddesses or female versions of baby daddy's nicknames, who I could rely on when my mom drank too much, or who understood the concept of making a home out of mismatched nik-naks from Ross, broken dreams and laughter.

Now that I think about it, it would be wrong of me to place this just on white people. The pervasiveness of white privilege, and racist domination, most definitely. But it was my Black Jamaican host mother who called me "Jamie" for three months because it was 'easier.' And it was her cousin visiting from DC who laughed at my name after meeting me.

"That's an amusing name" she said.
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, well I thought it was a play off of "Jam" in "Jamaica" and something else."
"No. It's Arabic. It means beautiful." I said.

More and more, it's people of color I hear who want to name their children the whitest names possible to save them from possible embarrassment. I was on that bandwagon for a long time, too. Now I realize there's something incredibly beautiful and empowering about names that can't be found on amusement park keychains. And that a name, along with someone simply being, is one of the strongest acts of resistance around.

So five, maybe ten years from now, when you meet my baby girl Sorraya, pronounce her shit right!

Stuff White People Don't Like

#99: Respecting other people's space (ie: putting their feet on your armrests.)

Last weekend I was en route to DC on the oh-so-fancy Virgin Airlines. I settled into my nice leather seat to the soothing sounds of downtempo house music and the soft glare of neon pink and blue lights (f'real, f'real). I had a window seat -- score! I had just leaned over to glance out the window when I noticed that someone's crusty ass birkenstock-clad feet on my armrest. Apparently, the white woman sitting directly behind me, who look to be in her late twenties, thought that shit was cool.

I turn around, "Excuse me." I say in voice that was probably way too polite.

The dumb broad doesn't flinch. I call again, "Excuse me?" I say a little louder.

She finally puts down her paper, and looks at me, annoyed. "Can you please move your feet?" I ask.

She rolls her eyes and moves her feet from all up in my personal space.

Ten minutes later, she does it again.

Now I'm heated. I turn around and sternly say "Excuse me". She doesn't flinch. I pinch her feet and call out to her several more times in a voice that's so loud people in the back of the plane think I'm talking to them. She moves her newspaper to cover the space between my seat and the seat next to mine that I was looking at her from. Finally, I stand up, turn around, and look directly down at her.

"You need to move your feet", I say. "I've already asked you once."

Dumb broad: "Ugh, well, they're not touching you."

Me: I don't care. It's rude, and the last thing I want is to look at someone's feet on my seat for the next 5 hours."

DB: rolls her eyes again, mumbles some shit about how I better not move my seat back, and then moves.

I was pissed the fuck off, which is not a good thing when you're on a plane going cross-country. I was heated that this woman had the audacity to think that shit was okay. We all know that white people have a tendency to try to colonize shit when they get bored, but that wasn't what irked me the most. It was my response. I sat there for four hours as this dumb broad periodically kicked my seat, with the collective anger of all the disrespectful comments I'd heard from white people recently. And yes, this is less than a week after my run-in with Mr. "I-love-your-African-forehead." Anyone who knows me is well aware that I try to avoid confrontation like the plague, but I was two seconds from sticking my foot up this cocky bitch's ass.

More than anything, I felt helpless. I'm a soft-spoken lover, not a fighter. I was aware that my anger and frustration at this ridiculous situation had more to do with just being fed up with people taking advantage of me, period. Whether it's a white woman on a plane, a Black man saying vulgar shit to me on the street or an overpowering woman of color berating me for being shy, I was sick of it.

Anyway.

I decide to confront the woman when our plane lands. I wait for her at the end of the terminal and when she sees me, she immediately turns the other way to run into the bathroom. Fuck you, you shady bitch.

only a white kid can get away with it

SCROLL TO 1:50



NOT A DAY!

OMG. really? i cant imagine ever slapping my mother. if i slapped my mother i would of gotten beaten senseless by both her and my father and probably my sister too. this new age parenting ish is not a good look. what is with these 10 year olds talking to their parents like this?

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.

Stuff White People Don't Like

#100: Having a regular fucking conversation with a Black/non-white person in which they don't show off their world atlas skills.

Exhibit A: This weekend I've been at a conference in Minnesota. Great networking, despite the abundance of white reformists (ie: "we want free broadband!...racism? what?"). I had my ups and down, but today was actually good. Good people, connections, panels, presentations. It was hella white, but I had hope, like: "we must work with our white ally's. Even if some can be slightly obnoxious at times."

And then I met Mr. White World Traveler. In less than five minutes of already awkward, forced conversation, he mentioned: he's been to Mexico City four times, loves East African food and has a very close relationship with a Black woman at Trinity Church of Christ in Chicago.

Conversation went well. He liked San Francisco, he said. Road tripped it from Pennsylvania to California in his youth. Has a Black son. Blah, Blah.

Then he goes, " You have an interesting forehead."

Me: "Excuse me?"

White Man: "It's very profound, are you from Eastern Africa?"

Me: "No."

WM: "Where are your parents from?"

Me: "Here.

WM: "They're both African American?"

Me: "Yes."

WM: "Well, you never know. You may have some in your lineage."

Me: ::rolls eyes::

WM: "Well two years ago my wife and I were colonizing visiting Toronto and saw this regular ass Black woman in an upscale store. She was so out of place captivating that everyone in the store did a double take. My wife and I were pervishly obsessed interested and I harrassed asked what her ethnic background* was. She told us she was actually born in Canada (shocking!) and we pressed some more. Eventually we found out that her father was from Zimbabwe and her mother was from India** (and our racial exoticism wet dream came to fruition).

Me: "great."

WM: Looks at me, waiting for a "you're so enlightened!" look.

Me: "So are you saying that my forehead is beautiful?"

WM: ::mumble, mumble:: "well if you want me to, then yeah."

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

*Apparently, white people don't have ethnicities.
** What the fuck did this have to do with my forehead??"

One of those days...

Today was just one of those days.

So dead-tired in the morning I couldn't even wake myself long enough to hit snooze. Just let the alarm ring every 5 minutes for half an hour as I tried to pull myself from that sobbing dream I have so much--the one where everything inside of me is breaking and all I can do is cry to the one I love, who is leaving me.

Finally pulled myself up and brushed my teeth. Took my sweet-ass time making lunch; even ate some breakfast cuz I didn't eat any yesterday. Or dinner, for that matter.

Thought about the long walk to the bus stop, checked my watch and decided to drive. Hopped in the car and tried to psych myself into my day; threw the jumper cables on and tried to get my engine going. Today, that meant beating down those self-injurious visions; quelling the urge to cut, strangle, shoot, drown; commending myself for renting a spot with a low ceiling and no fan; thanking my lucky stars that I could never own a gun.

Pulled out the alley, drove up the street, and remembered the one I love loving me once, up this same path. Tried hard not to miss her. Tried not to feel that pain on top of the shit I was already dealing with.

*WhoopWhoop*

FUCK.

Stopped my car on the curb about half a mile from home. Cops had to approach me from BOTH sides of my vehicle.

"Sir, could you please turn off your engine? Are you aware that under California law, section BLAH BLAH BLAH it's illegal to stop beyond the painted line? Back there you stopped at the curb, not at the line. Can I see your license and registration?"

Popped open the glove compartment, got out my wallet, and pulled em out. "Sir, that's not your registration."

"Yes it is."

"No, sir, that's a license plate renewal form. Please give me your registration."

Panicked a little, but tried not to show it. How could that NOT be my registration? I always thought it was. But I've never been pulled over before. Proceeded to pull out every piece of paper from EVERY compartment my car had. Even tried the trunk. Flipped through EVERYTHING once, twice, three times, then four, all under her watchful eye, as her partner ran my Missouri plates back at their car.

Then it came: "MA'AM? What are you doing out here? Are you visiting somebody?"

Fuck me, my Missouri license, my brown face and my trans identity.

"I work at UCLA," I whispered. "I'm headed to work."
"MA'AM, Do you live around here?"
"Two streets over."
"Are you staying with a friend, MA'AM?"
"No, I rent a place." My voice kept getting smaller.
"How do you mean, you rent a place?"
"I signed a lease."
"For how long?"
"A year."

Gave him my address. Signed the damn thing saying I'd appear in court; got cited for failure to stop at the line and for failure to carry my registration (it WAS my registration. Verified that shit on the internet).

Got to work an hour later than if I'd just walked to the damn bus stop.

Work was marginally better. Kept dropping things and forgetting things, still had that "you're worthless" voice in the back of my mind, but managed to throw a surprise party, dig up lost papers, and find a Notary Public who could verify that a Hebrew to English translation was accurate. Just had me swear that it was right "so help me god."

But today was a "she" day. Don't usually hear these folks slip up, but today was something else. It was "sheImeanHe" this and "sheHeshe" that. Got through okay, though, and only worked 3 hours overtime. Left the office at 8:55 and RAN to catch the bus by 8:59...

Well, I woulda caught it...if it didn't leave a minute early. Instead I watched it pull away, chased it futilely for three blocks, and finally resigned myself to walking the mile and a half to where I'd parked my car this morning.

It was a good walk. Couple of white folks found the need to cross over to the sidewalk on the other side of the street to assuage their fears of being stalked by me. Started walking faster behind them on purpose--just to fuck with em--then stopped abruptly at my car and stared them down so they'd know how stupid they looked.

Got in the car and drove EXTRA carfully. No radio, no nothin. Just had to make it back and shake it off. Trying to remember that it was just one of those days.

Gavin, don't hurt 'em

Hmm...almost.

What happens when your city's in the spotlight for one of the biggest international protests in recent years? Your mayor goes and switches it up.