Scary Black Men

I know I should be incredibly offended by the faux New Black Panther Party Scandal trumped-up by The Right and Fox News. I just can’t though. It’s so utterly ridiculous to think that videotape of a cuckoo-ball at a polling station wielding a club and screaming cuckoo-ball stuff was going to topple the Obama Presidency. As fas as I could see, no one seemed intimidated. They just avoided homeboy and gave him some serious side-eyes. If you are a regular Fox News watcher though, this guy was the Scary Black Man made of nightmares. The jack boot wearing, revolutionary spouting boogeyman whose mission in life was frighten the poo out of good ol’ Americans.

Gimme a break, will you? The New Black Panther Party is a joke. They get no love. In fact the only time anyone pays attention to them is when one of them goes on Fox News. But we’re supposed to believe they are in cahoots with the Obama Administration to suppress voting rights? I know this requires a bit of attention, but the NBPP doesn’t care for Obama too much either. Actually they don’t care for anyone who doesn’t adhere to their separatist ideology.  That pretty much includes about 99.9% of the Black population in this country. But to The Right, it doesn’t matter. They fit right nicely into the Scary Black Man meme. Unfortunately, folks were eating it up.

Until the facts came out. See, it was the Bush administration that chose not to pursue Voter intimidation and suppression charges against the NBPP. In fact, they banned them from appearing at polling places until 2012. They were quite satisfied with the response of the local authorities who escorted the members from the polling place and took away their big stick. No muss, no fuss. No need to worry about a big, black, beret wearing Negro jumping behind a voter and screaming, “Boo!” before the lever is pulled.

Too bad the Faux pundits got their knickers all in a twist about it. Poor Megyn Kelly blew a gasket at the mere mention that all this was much ado about nothing. “It’s not about race!”, she cried. “It’s about the law!”. Uh, okay. I don’t remember her being that upset when the Bush led Department of Justice sought to destroy ACORN and purged members from the department when they didn’t cooperate. I know, they weren’t Scary and Black though.

Good thing that all the baiting will probably lead to nothing. Fox News will have to find another Scary Negro to prop up in front of its viewers because Scary Negro Number 1, President Obama just isn’t doing the trick anymore.

Stay tuned.

waiting for the hammer to drop

For the past 18 months or so, R&B singer Chris Brown has been criticized, shunned, ignored, called out, critiqued, and laughed at because of his conviction for physically assaulting his girlfriend, Pop music star Rhianna. Rightly so, I say. He did it, people didn’t appreciate it, and he served his punishment (what little they gave him). With many stumbles along the way, he’s trying to repair his reputation. Not to rub salt, but remember the public outcry and the incessant attention his case generated? You couldn’t turn on the television or get on the internet without having some headline blare at you about it.

Fast forward and another celebrity is involved in a domestic dispute. Movie star Mel Gibson has been accused of attacking his girlfriend and abusing her over the phone. About a week ago, a transcript of the phone conversation was leaked and good lord almighty was it awful. Sprinkled in with some old-fashioned crazy hate, Mel managed to spice up things with some racism, violence, and all around psychopathology. He was already in career crisis after he was arrested for drunk driving  in 2006 and abused the officers with anti-Semitic rants and sexually inappropriate comments. Just yesterday, the audio of his lovely conversation with his child’s mother was released and it was even worse than the transcript. One would think that the calls for his head would be heard far and wide…

Well, his talent agency dropped him. “Showbiz Tonight ” talked about it a bit,  Some interviews with people on the street were done by the local news and some of them said they would boycott his movies, but where is the serious condemnation? None of his peers have said anything, not even Danny Glover. Looking..looking..where’s the outrage folks?

This guy is a megastar. His movies have made millions of dollars. He’s won an Academy Award. He was one of “People’s Sexiest Men Alive”. He doesn’t get the same treatment as Chris Brown? Is he getting a pass because of his past success? If he is, let me remind you all that abuse is abuse. I don’t care how many gold statues you have won. Any man who puts his hands on a woman, or threatens her with bodily harm should be put to task, and arrested!

Oh and the racism..Remember Michael Richards being hounded and pummeled for his rant at a comedy club that was caught on tape? He had to give a tearful apology and we haven’t heard from that mofo since. Will the Hollywood establishment speak out against one of their own? Will they publicly disavow his statements? Black folks buy movie tickets too. They might want to remember that.

I’m still no fan of Chris Brown and I never will be, but I can understand if he isn’t saying to himself, “Wait just a damn minute here!”

crimes of the black elite

As the reports come in of the murder of Derrion Albert, an honors student from Chicago who was beaten to death in the street, discussions of gang violence are once again cropping up among the media and the black intelligista. It’s always the same: poverty and lack of educational opportunities in blighted communities breeds violence. Lack of parental guidance compounds the problem, along with disparate sentencing, racial profiling, and a dearth of rehabilitation services available. Yada. Yada. Yada. They talk amongst themselves. They debate on CNN and then the discussion dies down and people move on the next incident. However, little seems to change in the lives of these young people living day-to-day in these communities. Rarely do you hear about one of these talking heads actually making a trip down to one of these neighborhoods and engaging these children face to face. If they do, they make sure there are a lot of cameras around. They’ll make a fiery speech about personal responsibility, blame some random white menace, shake a few hands, then hop right back on the plane.

The few who choose to stay and try to help are faced with apathy, lack of funds for programs, and endless red tape coupled with empty promises from local and state governments. Then what happens, more kids fall through the cracks and the violence continues. My point is this, black youth violence is a home grown problem and we are going to have to be the ones to try to solve it. Not with fancy words and PSAs, but with real action and real money. How sick am I of hearing about a black academic traveling somewhere on a book tour, bemoaning the fact that they don’t often see other people of color come out in support. How tired am I of seeing another rapper or sports figure launch a clothing and handbag line, making a grand appearance at Fashion Week or some shi shi boutique in Los Angeles.

The very people they claim to write these books and make this clothing for are the very people who can’t afford it. These kids are killing each other over status items they can’t pay for and for blocks of concrete they don’t own. They are repping housing projects that contain asbestos that give them asthma and lead that gives them cancer. They are willing to die for the right to brag that they live on trash strewn streets, littered with liquor and payday loan stores. The so called leaders of the African American community rage at the fact that things need to change and they are demanding that our black President do something.

But what are they doing? Hosting fight night on the WWF, selling everything but their souls to Wells Fargo, making hip hop albums, and planning speaking tours based on the fact that some white cop got rowdy in their house. That’s what they are doing. They’ll pontificate and theorize. They’ll do specials for Cable News, but they won’t go into the trenches because well you know, it’s not really their job. I’ll give them that. They can’t save everyone. They can’t make people listen who don’t want to listen, but their inaction aint helping either. And sorry, if they want to be to the “go to” people for blackness, a little bit more is expected of them.

It’s too late for poor Derrion though.

final thoughts

It all started with a question during President Obama’s prime time press conference on Wednesday. Lynne Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times asked him about his thoughts concerning the highly publicized arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. PBO said he thought that the Cambridge police officers acted “stupidly”. The ensuing uproar over that one word was so ridiculous and unnecessary that by Friday when the President asked Gates and the arresting officer to the White House for a beer, I was already through.

For one, I knew that in the end no one was going to be satisfied because within the black/white dichotomy of race in this country, people rarely if ever are satisfied. African Americans were upset with the President’s perceived capitulation and Whites were upset that he bothered to get involved in the fray in the first place. Everyone’s wrong as far as I’m concerned. The President has his own mind and no matter the occasion, he should feel free to express his thoughts as he wishes. African Americans need to understand that the President cannot suddenly don a Malcolm X T-shirt and walk down Pennsylvania Avenue with Spike Lee shouting, “Fight The Power” whenever there is racial incident. And white folks, *sigh* they just need to get a clue. Let me break it down real simple like, African Americans and other minorities have a very different view of the police than you. To many of us, the police aren’t always right, their motives sometimes lay outside the boundaries of law and order, and they often posses the same prejudices that the general population do. We’ve seen the video from Los Angeles, Oakland, and Houston. Many of our brothers have shared stories of being stopped for no reason, handcuffed, beaten, illegally searched, arrested, and sometimes killed.

There was a moment during PBO’s press conference that clearly illustrated this difference in attitude. The President joked about getting shot while trying to get into his own home and the crowd of mostly white journalists roared with laughter. For African Americans and Hispanics however, his statement was no laughing matter. That was the real “teachable” moment in my opinion, that even the President of the United States knows that sometimes justice isn’t for all.

so lemme get this straight

We are supposed to assume that a cartoon in the New York Post about a crazy chimp getting shot by police who say, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” isn’t a racist knock against the current president? We’re to think that it was just a humorous view of politics tied to a tragic event? Well then, dammit, we’re just too sensitive for our own good. I mean, people can’t take a joke anymore?

No we can’t.  We can’t see the humor of the association between a mad chimpanzee that nearly  mauled a woman to death and the President of the United States. And we are making that association because the New York Post saw fit to print a picture of President Obama signing the stimulus bill on the very next page. What are rational thinking adults supposed to conclude other than that two random events inextricably linked together by some buffoon isn’t racist, stupid, and mean?

And please don’t give me that tired excuse that this cartoon is meant to be provocative and humorous.  It’s neither. Don’t rail at me about free speech because everyone knows that free speech isn’t free. Just as anything that’s put out in the universe, you get what you give. If one is prepared to engage in this type of hateful communication, then one should be prepared to get called to the carpet for it. Wrapping racism in humor is still racism. If that’s the real intent-then have the cajones to say so. Don’t brush it off and attack those who bring that intent to light.

Just in case there are some readers out there who aren’t clear: Associating black people with monkeys and apes is dehumanizing. I post all over the net under different names. One particular place I frequent is a tennis fan board. Recently, the player with whom the message board was dedicated to played someone of African descent. I was shocked to see several posters refer to the player of color as a “gorilla”. When confronted, these posters begged off saying that they didn’t mean any harm. They weren’t racist. It was just that the player had, “gorilla-like tendencies” because he would hit his fist against his chest after winning a point. Even after me giving a mini history lesson, they still didn’t get it. Instead, I got an apology and a high five because Obama was elected. Strangely enough, a few days after that incident, the OTHER player was described as an “ape” in a British newspaper and a damn riot broke out on the board. So yeah, it’s okay to refer to a one player with dark skin as a gorilla but it’s not okay for another player with white skin to be called an ape.

See how uneven the playing field is? And it never will be even. I wasn’t one of those progressives who likened the former President to a chimp, because for one-it was stupid, and two-I knew that by doing it would give those on the other side an excuse to say whatever they wanted to about opponents. All they had to do is say, “Hey, you called Bush ’Chimp In Chief’, why can’t we say that about Obama or anyone else?”.  A white person calling another white person  a chimp simply doesn’t carry the same weight as when a white person calls a black person one, because calling a white guy a chimp connotes bad manners. Calling a black guy a chimp connotes Jim Crow, lynchings, Eugenics, police brutality, fire hoses, vicious dogs, gerrymandering, redlining, and minstrel shows.

Obviously the cartoonist and the editors of the New York Post just didn’t understand that fact of life in 21st century America. Or worse yet, they just didn’t give a damn.  And no one’s smiling.

dummy of the day

Richard Williamson, formally ex-communicated Catholic bishop and Holocaust denier, has defied orders from the Pope to see reason and keep his mouth shut. Instead, Bishop Williamson still asserts that only 200,000 to 300,000 people of the Jewish faith died as opposed to the 6 million that have been documented , and that he needed more proof that they were actually gassed. When he was invited to go to the remains of Auschwitz he refused.

So he really isn’t interested in proof. Then, the Pope shouldn’t be interested keeping him communicated and the rest of the world shouldn’t be interested in anything else this nutbag has to say.

the devil made you do it?

When word got out that Chris Saltsman, a candidate for Chairman of the Republican National Committee distributed a CD full of songs poking fun at liberals including the smash hit, “Barack the Magic Negro”, reaction from the left was expectantly angry. Reaction from the right, especially from conservative African Americans has been unexpectedly quiet. In fact Ken Blackwell, an African American candidate for the top RNC post, came out with a statement defending Chris Saltman’s actions:

“Unfortunately, there is hypersensitivity in the press regarding matters of race. This is in large measure due to President-Elect Obama being the first African-American elected president,” said Blackwell, who would be the first black RNC chairman, in a statement forwarded to Politico by an aide. “I don’t think any of the concerns that have been expressed in the media about any of the other candidates for RNC chairman should disqualify them. When looked at in the proper context, these concerns are minimal. All of my competitors for this leadership post are fine people.”

Come again? Sending out a racist song first heard on the Rush Limbaugh radio show to your fellow Republicans for a laugh is an example of being a fine person? I and others are being “hypersensitive” because we fail to see the joke? What the hell is going here? Did I miss the memo that says because the first Black President has been elected, racism is over and African Americans have no reason to complain?

Look, I know that the Republican Party has had the pause knocked into them during this electoral year. The majority of American voters finally decided to reject the politics of division that had been the foundation for the modern Republican Party. Thank goodness for that. What has been so disheartening is the willingness of conservative African Americans to excuse and even participate in that type of politics. From Blackwell’s defense of the distribution of that awful song, to a black Denver talk host begging John McCain to “go after” Barack Obama during the campaign, to Alan Keyes filing suit to block Obama’s electoral votes in a challenge to his natural born citizenship status, to the rampant silence of prominent African American voices in condemning the actions, makes me wonder what is really going through their minds.

Don’t tell me that the principles of conservatism trump race, because that’s just a bunch of bull. Simple human decency should trump race, and class, and gender. It seems to me that in order to be a Black Republican, one has to completely forget about the black part. If the liberals take African Americans for granted, what do Conservatives have to offer in light of this? Another song? More shouts of “terrorist” and “socialist”? How about more mocking of African American culture? Some ruminations over the lack of a moral core in African American society, perhaps?

If the goal of African American conservatives is to bring more African Americans into the Republican Party, their silent acceptance of this blatant kind of racism is not the way to do it.  As for me, I’m not a Democrat, but better to stick with the devil you do know than the devil you don’t. I challenge any African American conservative to convince me that this kind of behavior is something that I should embrace. Please tell me how unimportant race is when Republican leaders belong to all white country clubs, move into all white enclaves, encourage their voters to express their ugliest thoughts and fears for the masses.

I think I’m in for more silence….

UPDATE

Dr. Ada Fisher, and African American senior member of the Republican National Committee wrote an open letter to Saltsman and it was published in the Charlotte News Observer:

It is time we all grew up and exhibited some sophistication in how we act as it relates to this Republican party we supposedly love and support. Racist actions and deeds have no place in the party. The lack of sensitivity in understanding the historical election we just had and the challenges this nation faces as we must bind our wounds as well as bring our people together requires that we set aside our biases and search out those constitutional principles inherent in our nation’s foundings and our parties operation which must undergrid us as we move forward.

This is the party of Lincoln and it was founded on the backs of the oppression of blacks. If we are to be the leading party we had better understand that and act responsibly in addressing the needs of all of the citizens as we strive for more inclusiveness.

Ada M. Fisher, MD
NC Republican National Committee Woman

Now, I hate to be picky, but this is the same Ada Fisher who defended Kanton Dawson, another RNC chair candidate who was the center of controversy recently for once belonging to an all white country club.

So, is Dr. Fisher speaking out because she is truly offended or because if Saltsman is excluded, then her main man Dawson has a better chance of winning the chairmanship?

 

reflections on 1979 and today

A couple of nights ago, I watched a documentary on the Klux Klan on the History Channel and in one segment they documented the shoot out between members of the local Klan and the Communist Worker’s Party on November 3rd, 1979 in Greensboro, N.C. That segment held particular interest for me because I am from Greensboro and the shootout happened not too far from my childhood home. Until then, I had not thought much of that day. It was one of those memories long buried under more traumatic ones. Now I am reminded of how on the chilly, sunny day in November, a part of my innocence was lost.

Greensboro is an interesting city to grow up in.  A mix of urbane industriousness and small southern town values, it was the place of famous sit ins during the civil rights era and yearly  downtown marches by the Klan. I attended church with some of the most prominent African Americans in the community and went to school with some of the most prominent Whites , and yet there was a clear line of demarcation between Black and White and Rich and Poor. Blacks lived mainly on one side of town; Whites on the other. We worshipped in different churches, ate a different restaurants, and were buried in separate cemeteries.

In 1979, I was a very young girl and I lived wth my grandmother and aunt in a quiet black neighborhood on the south side of town. Just across the highway and over the bridge were the Morningside Projects, the scene of the shooting. On that day, my grandmother, aunt, and I were coming back from an outing. From the outside of our car we could see police cars and stunned bystanders meandering in and out of the entrance as we drove by. At that particular time, the Morningside neighborhood wasn’t the safest of places even before the shooting, so we hastily made our way home without stopping. By the time we got home, we heard the news from our neighbors that there had been a huge shootout at Morningside and several people had been killed.  My grandmother was a formidable woman; someone not easily frightened but on that day, she was as scared as I had ever seen her. I was forbidden to leave the house and by the time the local news came on, we were all in a state of shock.  It was the first time I had ever seen anyone killed. How could something like this have happened? Were the Klan planning on more attacks? Was anyone safe anymore?

Due to my young age, I was not aware of the simmering conflicts between the Communists, the Nazi Party, and the Klan. I knew nothing of the planned marches or protests. All I knew is that my small world of neighborhood, family, and friends was invaded by racial hatred and violence. For months afterward, I couldn’t go anywhere unaccompanied. My playmates and I would scare each other by saying, “Better watch out or the Klan will shoot you!” My boogeymen were no longer dark beasts that lived in my closet, instead they wore white sheets, carried guns, and shot people in broad daylight. My hometown seemed so safe. Divisions aside, it was a good place to raise children, have a good meal, worship God, and show love for your country. But in just 88 seconds, all that changed.  88 seconds was all it took for five people to be cut down in hail of bullets.

Being older and somewhat wiser, I now know that the most terrible things can happen in the best of places. No matter where you are, you can’t always avoid being caught up in irrational hate and bloodshed. These days, the Ku Klux Klan and other White Supremacist organizations are seeing a surge in interest and membership due to the recent election. My reaction to that is one of sadness.

But deep inside there is still a little girl’s hope that no other children will have their innocence ripped away by another act of violence.