Can’t we all be American???

I had take a break from the news and I admit that I am a cable news junky. I am trying to avoid the demons of CNN, MSNBC and even FOX NEWS. I got tired of all the much ado about nothing, but I had to watch the candidates on the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King. John McCain started his speech admitting that he fought the holiday in his home state of Arizona, the last state to actually institute the holiday. Of course this elicited boos from the crowd, who had assembled in the rain at Lorraine Motel. After this statement he did not discuss how he changed, he stated he was just slow. I  thought that how McCain  came to see King as a national hero who  gave his life in the fight to make America to accept that Negroes deserved constitutional rights would have made a great speech. But nah, he did not do that. He delivered a message on how Christian King was. It began to rise to the level of a sermon and some of the folks began to respond in the black church tradition of call and response. McCain seemed so  rattled by the audience participation that he rushed the  speech. He had a chance to make an inroad into the black community, but he said nothing about the “peculiar institutions” of slavery, Jim Crow or institutional racism. It was just bizarre. If the fact that Martin Luther King was a good Christian, was all McCain could dredge up then he is still very very slow.

Barack Obama hit one one out of the park. He did not dredge up the the footage of the 1963 “I have a Dream Speech.” Obama evoked the King who was assassinated, a man who had spoke out against the Vietnam war, and was fighting for economic parity. He talked about a man who was tired and hated by the country he wanted to bring closer to the “more perfect union.”

Tonight is the Pennsylvania primary and I have stayed away from the news for the past two weeks. I lived in Philadelphia  for eight years and I cannot recognize the state I lived in. Eight years of compassionate conservativism had take a large toll on the state, black and white alike. Those who want to continue this era are the true elitists. It will take government intervention to improve our schools, create alternate fuel sources, retrain those who have suffered because of the deindustrialization of America and those who continue to be victimized by the war on drugs. It will take a government who is dedicated to the people who elected  it and not the corporate interests which have run amok since the Regan administration. China is nipping at our heals and the answer will no be to attack and kill Asian Americans like in the 1980’s. We  must create a better educated, independent country for everyone no matter what their ancestry. If we do not come together as a country we will no longer be the world power we love to brag about.

Bitter???? Barack Obama spoke the truth aka Welcome to Southern Illinois.

I have been laying off the news because it has been annoying me. I broke my fast today and came back to my addiction. I live in Southern Illinois. A place that has been decimated. The usable coal that was the main source of economic stability in this area has dried up. The manufacturing sector not exist any more. The biggest employer in this area is the prison system. The two other economic bulwarks in this area are a decaying state college and a health system that us getting too expensive for most of population to use. The farms are corporate ventures and some of the chemicals used by the dwindling family farms are ending up fueling meth labs. The smaller surrounding towns are in much worse shape. Meth is becoming the main economy in many of these places. Make no mistake, living in this area of the midwest can make you bitter, loosing your home, increasing crime, incarceration rates and drug addiction is making Southern Illinois bitter. This is Obama country and he is telling the truth.

Are the majority of mainstream Americans going to hide behind excessive patriotism and an out dated view that America only has one approved religion, gender, gun policy or ethnicity? I have a question. Can whites in this country admit that rural white communities in America are sliding into poverty at an alarming rate and African Americans and the other regular targets of disdain have nothing to do with it? We are suffering right along with you. Whether you have issues about religion and guns, the fact remains that another community of Americans have been written off by this government a position that African Americans are acutely aware of. African Americans did not dismantle the industrial economy of this country. We did not move jobs to other countries. We did not have a hand in on the meth epidemic that his tearing these rural communities apart. We do not hire immigrants because hiring Americans would effect the bottom line. We did not create the conditions are forcing people out of their homes. We did not approve NAFTA. We did not bankrupt family farms in the 1980’s and 90’s. Believe it or not we are not the cause of the recent increase in demand for welfare benefits. We are in a recession and we are all hurting. The world is slipping into a great food crisis that will is already touching our shore. Food and energy prices are already eating a bigger whole in our pockets. Either all Americans will rise to these challenges or we will all fall. These communities cannot deny that the American Dream is dissipating. America, love it or leave it will not solve the problems that poor whites are now sharing with an increasing proportion of African Americans.

I have many concerns, I will only list a few. We have to reinvest in this country and stop acting like people of color are draining America. Our public school systems is a international disgrace. There are not enough math and science teachers in America to educate our children. We have to educate our children, all children. If black and brown people students are subject to a segregated system with little resources, poor whites cannot be far behind. A lot of people who live in this area cannot afford college. Those in college are finding it harder to stay there, no matter what they look like. When I watch the local news criminal court cases are usually the lead story. It was not like that when I moved here. We have reinvest in our public infrastructure, the county roads in many areas are falling apart. We have to find a way to become energy independent in a manner that creates jobs. Call it global warming, the hole in the ozone layer or acid rain, I don’t care so can we come to some agreement that we are damaging our own ecosystem? The main fishing area in this area was used as a toxic waste dump. Martin Luther King Jr was loathed by mainstream America when he was assassinated. King was against the Vietnam War and working for economic opportunities for all in poverty through The Poor People’s Campaign. Can we pick up his banner, respecting the diversity and similarities of America in order to make this country greater?

I May Not Get There with you……Reflections on Ethnicity, Identity and Nationality. Pt. 1

I have been under the weather lately and indulging my cable news habit waaaay to much. I have watched everything form MSNBC to FOXNEWS, I realize I gotta cut my news consumption and find a way to cope with my addiction while I live this pitiful burg. I feel like Reilly at the end of the first season of the Boondocks “is their anything worth watching on TV?” I have always taken social issues seriously and I am not around many people who feel that way I do on a regular basis. I am also not in a position to continue the kind of social or educational action that use to be my life’s blood.

As I have said many times before, I am of West Indian heritage so fighting is in my history. Granny Nancy and the Maroons terrorized the English colonials so much they gave them a piece of Jamaica. They still did not stop fighting. On the my other side, Julian Fedon, a mulatto plantation owner held the Island of Grenada against the British for four months, Fedon recalled the native Grenadians who leapt off a mountain top instead of face slavery at the hands of the English centuries before him. If you have wondered why West Indians are so damn prideful, now ya know.

Ignoring my news addiction will be hard. It is the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. CNN is going to spend the day and the month of July talking about the racial divide with a start at 1-4 and 8-12 today. I am listening to their documentary on Dr. King’s assassination as I write. I did not want to move to America as a child because he was killed years before my migration. II was taught that he was a hero. I also did not want to move because America killed Asian folks that looked like my classmates in Canada.

My connection to African America began listening to my father and his cohorts discuss the end of the dying revolution in America. By the time we moved to America I already had a connection to people of color. It has been shaken, it has always remained strong. By the time I left Canada I had read King, Wright, Baldwin, and Ellison thinking that African Americans my age would have also. It was hard to go from being a proud black Canadian who fighting kids who had just realized the my blackness was bad to my first day at school in the Bronx where I was threatened because I was acting too white! I ended the valedictorian of my 6th grade class and everyone loved me! By the time I got to high school I had it with both ideas, and was simply me. Unapologetically Black no mater what.! To know what that means you have to know me…. well.

It is hard as a person who has spent my life as a iconoclast, to be happy living in the “heartland” of America, where the most have incredibly ridiculous ideas about ethnicity. I use the word ethnicity because the word race does not apply. If people of African ancestry were black, they would be dead from an inability to absorb Vitamin D through their skin. People of African descent have European and Native ancestry, and DNA proves it. In my educated opinion, the only things that keep us together is our ancestors survival of the horrific Middle Passage, acknowledgment of our colonial and enslaved past and the continuation struggle to keep our American citizenship. The history and cultures arising from this histories are as multitudinous as they are similar. Geography, class and immigration history within and to America plays a great deal in what one sees their African American identity.

I became American because it was my parents wish, I stay American because they are buried here. I could have stayed English or Canadian for the rest of my life with no problem. I was lucky to continue grow up in the Bronx and after my intimal tiff. I never had a big issue about my identity, because I grew up around immigrants and African Americans who were making to jump into our middle class. The shock of living in Little Rock, Arkansas and Carbondale, Illinois has made me realize how those differences have made me feel alien, recalling the words to Oh, Canada, and watching way too much English TV.

The Midwest is a place of ignorance for me, I have been astounded at how people have tried to treat me both black and white based on the color of my skin and other superficial factors. I mean ignorance in Webster dictionary way - “uneducated in the fundamentals of a given art or branch of learning; lacking knowledge of a specific field.” The field is the history and feelings of all ethnic groups in America.

We have a man running for President did who is unashamedly black and can represent all others. He could take “transcendent” road and not be black, instead he took on African American ancestry like I did. For the first time the African American stuggle to free themselves of slavery is part of a campaign victory speech. The nausea I get when I hear that the slave owners who wrote the Constitution as supported freedom abated. He made me tearfully proud. But the so called conversation on race that he called for has still not happened and it is because we are ignorant, White talking heads on FOX NEWS , CNN and MSNBC couch their nonsense in the term “I am not racist but,,,, ” and then hear an equally dumbass remark coming from a black person. They are both ignorant and do not represent me. Like my soror Fannie Lou Hamer “I am sick of being sick and tired.” I cannot rev up the enthusiasm I just heard from my Sorors Senators Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Eleanor Holes Norton on CNN. If the facts and feelings of black and white are not truthfully exchanged, we will be doing the same dance weather or not Barack Obama wins or not.

We are in no way ready or a conversation on race, because it would include the vistages of Native America, the growing Hispanic/Latino America, the Immigrant African American population and Asian Americans including the folks who are a bit of them all. America must have room for all our stories. Accept that African Americans do not celebrate the 4th of July and Thanksgiving the way whites do. They are family gatherings nothing more, accept it. Accept that Asian Americans can be just as loud and obnoxious as any other American. That Native Americans do not consider the term “redskins’ a complement, accept that calling someone Latino who has spent their life as Hispanic may get you slapped. Just like I wanna slap someone who makes a uniformed derogatory remark about Caribbean folks. Will we ever stop so ignorant??? I choose the words Dr. King “I may not get there with you…..” and those of Arron McGuder “I am going to Canada(or England or Jamaica)”

Part Two in a few

The Unbeareable Whiteness of Being American

African Americans are the most visible reminder of fact that America has not always been the land of the free. The recent criticism of Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright and Clinton surrogate Geraldine Ferraro points out that there an ideological and political gulf between African America and mainstream America. Today Barack Obama gave a speech in which he repudiated his pastor and stated he will not turn his back on Africa America. To condemn a pastor because of four sound bites culled out of a thirty year career is ludicrous. Imus is back on the air, Dog the bounty hunter will be back on A&E soon, Geraldine Ferraro is now a Fox News contributor, both President Bushes visited Bob Jones University and never apologized for their connection with school that was segregated, Trent Lott has a best selling book out despite the fact he wanted Jessie Helms to be president and refused to sign on the a ceremonial anti-lynching bill last year. I could list another 20 incidents of bigoted statements far more incendiary the Reverend Wright two minute edited tirade, like the comment of former Secretary of Education and gambling addict, William Bennett who stated that black fetuses should be aborted to cut down the crime rate. Jeremiah Wright’s hyperbole was inappropriate and over the top, but it has roots in the African American community. The fact that African Americans are are angry and frustrated with this country should not be a big surprise.

Let’s break down the sound bites: When the Reverend pointed out the fact that Hillary Clinton has never had the experienced life as a black man he spoke the truth. When he said this country is run by rich white men, it is an unequivocal fact that mainstream and conservative Americans do not enjoy being reminded about. Last night the federal government bailed out the Wall Street investment firm that was owned by rich white men, while ordinary Americans cannot afford to keep their homes.

I am from New York. I almost lost a cousin in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and it took days before I knew that all those that I cared about where safe during the 2001 attack. I was lucky, but one of my sorority sisters lost her husband. That Sunday, my priest talked about America’s foreign policy, the biblical edict of loving thy neighbor and the idea that innocents had died because our leaders believe that profit at all costs is next to godliness. American foreign policy that forces idea that American capitalist democracy is the only acceptable form of government for other countries is arrogant to say the least. Innocents died on 9/11, but we cannot deny that centuries of American and European foreign policy in the Middle East helped to fester the psychotic anger exploded that day. My family is from Grenada, so I know first hand how America supported a leader that was totally corrupt and overturned a lawful election to keep this despot in power. America did support apartheid in South Africa when the rest of the world condemned it. America supports Israel as colonialist country that has treats Palestinians like this country treated Native Americans. The fact that we invaded Iraq should be proof enough that Wright’s bluster may have some truth.

The U.S. did not create the AIDS virus, but did very little about the condition for years. The American government’s policy around AIDS was similar to the way scientific racism held as truth for centuries. African slaves were used for surgical practices when they were no longer profitable, hundreds of “scientific experiments” have been conducted in order to prove the “inferiority “of African Americans and the superiority of whites. One of geneticists who discovered DNA, John Watson, recently indicated Africans are genetically inferior, before he found out that he had 20% his genome contained “African genes.” Charles Drew, the scientist who discovered the properties of blood plasma died because there the local white hospital would not treat him. The Tuskegee Experiment was a federal program in which over 500 black men were allowed to suffer and with die when cure for syphilis was readily available. If the government supported these inhuman practices, are African Americans unreasonable to pose that government would do it again? We would be so much further in eliminating the AIDS virus, if it was not seen a gay disease. Saying nothing about the AIDS crisis for years was louder than words.

Drugs are not just a black problem, but mainstream culture sees it as such. The government policies around the criminalization of cocaine are racist. A person caught with crack cocaine (largely black) will be sentenced much more harshly than one who is caught with powdered cocaine (largely white). When someone is arrested for drunken driving, his sentence is not dependent on what alcoholic product he imbibed. Drug use is seen as a disease in white communities, but as criminal and immoral in the black community.  Millions more is spent on the incarceration of African American addicts and small time dealers, than is spent on educating black children so that they do not follow in the footsteps of their incarcerated siblings. Obama’s campaign platform notes this discrepancy and as President he would equalize this race based practice.

I hope that his speech will be the beginning of a real dialogue about race and ethnicity. If whites can see that our experiences in the U.S. are real and authentic, perhaps we can hear their resentments  without astonishment. White Americans must acknowledge that African American views are legitimate even if they make them uncomfortable. African Americans have only experienced citizenship for forty years and have a different view of this country than those who have always seen the American Dream as their birthright. Simply labeling our lived experience as racist and un-American is the height of arrogance and the nadir of ignorance. Can we take this conversation a little higher?

BAR Report: There is no Such Thing as a Black KKK

The Black Agenda Report is a website run by black trade unionists. They pull no punches about being of African descent in America or the war on the union movement that has been going before  Ronald Reagan decided that we did not need experienced people in the flight towers across America. Reagan supported legislation that made it easy to import jobs out of this country what we now call downsizing. I do not agree with everything they write, but in an age where the practice of blackface is the rise, conservative media pundits casually call for the lynching of the wife of a presidential candidate and any mention of the fact that the black experience in America has been marked with oppression is deemed racist BAR makes treats this recent racial faux pas with insight.

There’s No Such Thing as a Black KKK
African America - Black History - U.S.
Wednesday, 05 December 2007
by BAR contributing editor Mel Reeves

Blacks that bash the rest of The Race are richly rewarded, even - or maybe especially - when their slanders are blatant nonsense. So it is with Jason Whitlock, a sports writer for the Kansas City Star and Foxsports.com, who blathered that murdered Washington Redskins player Sean Taylor was the victim of a “Black Ku Klux Klan” - equating Black-on-Black crime with the depredations of white supremacist nightriders. The effect of this exercise in “moral equivalence” is to absolve the historical KKK of its crimes, since, Whitlock seems to be saying, the Klan treated Blacks no worse than Blacks treat each other. Past and present reality is thus mangled beyond recognition.

There’s No Such Thing as a Black KKK
by BAR contributing editor Mel Reeves

“There is a difference between racist violence and violence aimed at one’s self.”

Immediately after the death of former Washington Redskins Safety, Sean Taylor, Jason Whitlock, a sports columnist for the Kansas City Star and FOXSPORTS.com wrote an article entitled, “Tailor’s death a grim reminder for us all.”

In the article Whitlock says that Taylor was “another victim” of what he calls the “Black KKK.” By Black KKK Whitlock means the crimes committed by blacks against blacks. Now to be fair, every sane black person is pained by the amount of crime in our communities, but that does not give us reason to confuse racist violence consciously aimed at the destruction of our race, with street crime born of desperation and self hatred.

But that is exactly what Whitlock has done. He writes, “…the traditional, white KKK lynched, terrorized and intimidated black folks at a slower rate than its modern-day dark-skinned replacement.” Dark skinned replacement? My first response was to question Whitlock’s sanity. But then I realized that maybe he does know what he is doing; it sure got my attention. Whitlock is guaranteeing himself a job and notoriety as a modern day Negro basher. Black folks who publicly denigrate the race have always been popular in this country and it’s always been a well paid position.

“Black folks who publicly denigrate the race have always been popular in this country.”

W. E. B Dubois had a saying that probably best fits Whitlock and some of our more conservative black pundits, when he called them, “ignorant social climbers, whose sole claim to fame was the ability to kick Negroes when they are down.” Whitlock has been trotted out before. He was on CNN denouncing Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton for their involvement with the Don Imus flap. Now, many of us have problems with Sharpton, Jackson and that ilk, but they didn’t create the problems that they respond to.

Now Whitlock is at again, alluding to a fictitious black KKK. We have to jump on this term with all the outrage we can muster. We must not let this live - as they say in church, we have to kill this “Black KKK” devil. There is no such thing and the metaphor is inappropriate. It is as inappropriate as the characterization of the real life phenomenon of institutional and personal racism, as a fictitious “race card.” And you know how much we hate that expression.

White folks are already beginning to eat this term (Black KKK) up and some misled and self hating black folks are as well. If you don’t believe me, look at right wing and conservative websites. A black woman on My-space, who continually posts self hating and black folk bashing blogs, posted Whitlock’s article and this is how one white guy responded: “I wish you were the spokeswoman for the black community, instead we have to put up with seeing racism continue due to characters like Jesse Jackson.”

“As they say in church, we have to kill this ‘Black KKK’ devil.”

What Whitlock has done is dangerous, because most of our a fellow citizens either don’t know, or barely know, the role the KKK has played in the oppression of black people in this country. The Ku Klux Klan is a White Supremacist and terrorist organization formed immediately following the Civil War, with the express aim of re-enslaving the newly freed slave. The group was organized around the hatred and destruction of everything black: black culture, black hopes, black progress and ultimately black people.

Later, the Klan amended its program. When they realized that they couldn’t eliminate blacks, or send them all back to Africa, they sought to disenfranchise them and make them easy prey to the new slave masters, the capitalist industrialists.

The Klan and its cousins the White Citizens Council and others - with a wink and nod from the federal government - sought to keep blacks from voting and enjoying other rights of a free citizen of this country. These racist groups particularly made it their business to terrorize blacks and keep them marginalized, segregated and in inferior status.

White Supremacist organizations helped push back the gains of the Reconstruction era. The KKK was responsible for thousands of deaths and the displacement of thousands of black households during that very important time following the Civil War. The Klan even had the backing, in many instances, of the power structure, or the State. They set the stage for the passing of Jim Crow laws in the South and de facto segregation in the North.

The Klan and its kind were instrumental in fomenting race riots, especially around the early 1900’s and later during and after World War I. These riots, we have more recently discovered, had a much more sinister purpose than initially thought. As was the case in Rosewood, Florida and other small communities, when blacks were terrorized and run off, the land that was left behind was stolen.

The Klan was allowed to carry out their program of lynching, rape, torture, murder, thievery and mayhem for over one hundred years and only a concerted effort by the victims themselves, along with allies, put an end to it. The federal government never saw fit to outlaw the Klan, or put them on a “list” even though their stated aim was racist violence and intolerance. The existence of this group and groups like them threaten the very existence of blacks in this country, even to this day.

“The federal government never saw fit to outlaw the Klan.”

Yet Whitlock wants to compare the Klan to street crime, which at bottom is an external manifestation of the internalized oppression we still know and feel in this country. Please!!

There is a difference between racist violence and violence aimed at one’s self. Blacks who commit crimes are like any others who commit crimes; they don’t discriminate in who they victimize. Blacks kill other blacks because they are in closer proximity and because of self hatred. I think it was Paolo Friere who said that the oppressed kill one another because they see the oppressor in one another’s eyes.

Black crime and random violence simply can’t be compared to the systematic, “on purpose” attempt to destroy us as a people. There simply aren’t any Black Supremacists in this country. There are groups, no doubt, who have and continue to sell “wolf tickets” about eliminating “whitey.” But we know what there chance of success would be, so it amounts to aimless chest pounding.

So please don’t use this term or take it seriously. Crimes by black people against other black people are not committed by any so-called Black KKK, but are rather a symptom of what’s wrong not just in the black community, but in the US. The truth be told, if there had never been a KKK and its racist underpinnings, and if this society didn’t still assign - overtly and subtly - second class status to the black population, then there would be a whole lot less of this violent acting out.

Mel Reeves is a journalist and activist living in Miami, Florida. He can be contacted at mellaneous19@yahoo.com

Disappointed in Obama

Barack Obama is denouncing his pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. I have heard nothing in Rev. Wright sermons that are remotely bigoted. Obama does know what it is like to be a black man in a country controlled by rich whites. How can anyone deny that???? Who could look at the Fortune 500, look at Congress or the Supreme Court???? LOOK AT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!!!!!!! These institutions are full of rich white people. Gee, I don’t think that it is a big stretch to state that Hillary Clinton has never being called a n*gg*r.

America has a long history of dehumanizing people of color. The idea that Native Americans were ungodly savages was a primary justification behind Manifest Destiny. Books touting the biological, moral or intellectual deficiencies of African Americans still top the New York Times best sellers list.

The media is spinning that Reverend Wright’s comments about Hiroshima and Nagasaki as anti-American and anti-Semitic. The Japanese did use ruthless brutality in an effort to establish an empire, but Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets. Footage of the aftermath of these attacks was censored for decades. I saw them recently and it was one of the most horrific things I have ever seen. Even Robert Oppenheimer, the creator of the nuclear bomb, denounced its use. Why were Japanese Americans were forced to give up their homes, business and land when we were also at war with Italy and Germany???

The state of Israel does have the right to exist but so does the state of Palestine. American foreign policy is very biased in this area. The patron saint of the conservatives, Ronald Regan supported the apartheid government in South Africa. The President who turned the Southern Strategy into an American patriotism saw nothing wrong with racist Afrikaans government. No federal sanctions were put in place against South Africa while millions of American dollars were spent to enforce Palestinian displacement.

Reverend Wright did not impugn the victims of 9/11. He questioned the fact that American foreign policy has alienated us from the rest of the world. American and Russia used countries in the Middle East, Africa, Caribbean and South America to fight the so called “cold war.” For people who lived in countries where the American government supported one side again against each other (Iran-Contra Scandal, anyone???) the cold war was very, very hot.

We put the guns into the hands of the pre-cursor to the Taliban when they were fighting the Soviets. Afghanistan has been target of colonization for centuries. We knew that the Mujahadeen were religious fundamentalists who had no desire for Soviet communism or American capitalism/democracy. The culprits that attacked my beloved home town were from Saudi Arabia, so why are we in Iran????

An hour ago I watched Keith Boykin of BET-J and a Republican strategist, Cheri Jacobus debated this topic on MSNBC. Mr. Boykin indicated that Reverend Wright’s comments are not that different than what is said in most black churches every Sunday and that a large proportion of African Americans would agree with what he said. This woman stated with absolute conviction that this was not the opinion of the majority of African Americans. Could she be more arrogant??? Has she ever been to a black church??? Has she ever been to the South Side of Chicago? What gives her the right to define the experiences of millions of people in one flippant statement???

African Americans are the one of the most potent reminders that this country has had a shaky history as the home of the free. How can mainstream America be shocked by Reverend Wright’s rhetoric when so much of our story is not included American myth making. Someone may read this and call me Anti-American. I would say to them people who look like me have only had constitutional rights for 44 years and they have been chipped away since 1964. I thought that we had free speech in this country, even when we point out that America has not always been beautiful or the fact American has damned people that within it’s confines with centuries of non-citizenship.

Negro Intellegence = Negro Genitalia. Will this ever end??????

There are still scientists that believe that IQ tests are the only true measure of intelligence, therefore people of color have less brain power than whites. This racist pseudoscience has come up again. IQ tests are used to track black and hispanic/latinos students and used to place them in the largest classes ( up to 45 instead of 25 students) that have the least resources and the least experienced teachers. Malcolm Gladwell follows in footsteps of the late physicist Jay Stephen Jay Gould in debunking this white privilege garbage. You can reach the whole article on Gladwell’s book, None of the Above at http://www.gladwell.com/2007/2007_12_17_c_iq.html

Excerpt from NONE OF THE ABOVE

James Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA, meant when he told an English newspaper recently that he was “inherently gloomy” about the prospects for Africa. From the perspective of an I.Q. fundamentalist, the fact that Africans score lower than Europeans on I.Q. tests suggests an ineradicable cognitive disability. In the controversy that followed, Watson was defended by the journalist William Saletan, in a three-part series for the online magazine Slate.

Drawing heavily on the work of J. Philippe Rushton—a psychologist who specializes in comparing the circumference of what he calls the Negroid brain with the length of the Negroid penis—Saletan took the fundamentalist position to its logical conclusion. To erase the difference between blacks and whites, Saletan wrote, would probably require vigorous interbreeding between the races, or some kind of corrective genetic engineering aimed at upgrading African stock.

“Economic and cultural theories have failed to explain most of the pattern,” Saletan declared, claiming to have been “soaking [his] head in each ’s computations and arguments.” One argument that Saletan never soaked his head in, however, was Flynn’s, because what Flynn discovered in his mailbox upsets the certainties upon which I.Q. fundamentalism rests. If whatever the thing is that I.Q. tests measure can jump so much in a generation, it can’t be all that immutable and it doesn’t look all that innate.

Read more of None of the Above at http://www.gladwell.com/2007/2007_12_17_c_iq.html

“I’m not a Racist” Shuffle # 1 Geraldine Ferraro

Thanks to youtube I can now track the acceleration of bigoted comments in the media. The candidacy of Barack Obama has led to an increase in this behavior. The pattern is thus: An individual makes an astoundingly ignorant generalizations in an arrogant. self-important manner which makes its way to the media. The individual reacts immediately states “I’m not racist” and either attacks, minimizes, denies or apologizes for the comments. Usually the individual will make some kind convoluted statement in an attempt to explain the comment while their contemporaries and competitors make regular appearances in the media to denounce or support the comments. It is a big dance that never produces any meaningful discourse about racial/ethnic privilege and oppression After an appropriate period self-flagellation, bluster or silence the individual is accepted back into mainstream fold a little more careful about what they say or a little more angry about so called “political correctness”

I voted for this Geraldine Ferraro when I lived in New York. I anguished over the fact that she was treated like dirt when she ran for Vice President. I am no big fan of the Nation of Islam for several reasons. It is an extremely sexist institution and they no longer a relevant force in our communities. Lastly, as a person extremely proud of my Caribbean heritage, I don’t like the fact that Farrakhan has hid his background. Malcolm X was proud of his Grenadian backgroud why wasn’t it good  enough for Lou?

Most African Americans know that Louis Farrakhan time has come and gone. When was the last time you were were entreated to buy a Final Call or seen a bean pie stand much less a black Muslim restaurant? What happened to the Fruit of Islam patrols in the ‘hood? At this point in my life all the African American Muslims I know are Sunni or members of a sects that split off the Nation decades ago. New mosques are being built African immigrants, where are the new temples?

Farrakhan is paper tiger that was taken out of moth balls by the media when he endorsed Obama. Even though that man has not been in the public eye for years the mainstream loves to pull him out as evidence of “black racism.” Obama has to distance himself from the African American community and “transcend his race” to win the presidential nomination. I fear that Obama will not fulfill his promises around civil rights, educational and criminal justice reforms, even though other ethnic groups and white women could benefit from Obama’s civil rights and judical platforms, these reforms will be labeled “black.”He has had to “reject and denounce” Farrakhan over and over again while comments by bigoted harridans associated with Hillary Clinton’s campaign have been ignored or minimized. WTF???

A Global African American Woman

I am not from the Midwest, but the question of where I am from is pretty complicated. I have lived on two continents, three countries and five cities. I have a unique way of looking at African descended communities. My nuclear family were always taking about what Caribbean country would declare independence next. My mum was from Jamaica (independence 1962) dad was from Grenada (which became independent in 1974 and was Invaded by the US in 1983 ). My dad owned a black book shop.I was raised in England, Canada, and the Bronx. I crave real Philly cheesestakes.I am part in the first of hip hop generation and Jamaican enough to know that hip hop was not created in the United States. Nuff a that…. I just want folks to know why I have such a different view of race than mostly……. everybody. African descended cultures are my passion. As
Dr. Na’im Akbar  when he spoke at my university ….”just because I want better for mine, does not mean I hate you.”

Black is still beautiful but it is also incredibly diverse. You can be African American and live in Brazil or Alaska. The only thing we have in common is a culture based on the largest forced migration in written history. Coming from a close knit extended Caribbean family I never understood why I knew more of the history of United States Blacks than most born here.

From my prospective, If I don’t know where I have come from I can possibly know myself. I really think that that it is one of the keys to being liberated and actually know what is going on besides music. We have no communication system that goes between Africa, North and South American, the Caribbean and Europe, so we can’t really talk to each other. The internet was once hailed as a liberating force, but know I am now writing on a this site which is owned by the same folks who also owns BET and Fox News! Well I need to take a little of it back!

VOTE, Damn IT!!! And stop the FOOLISHNESS!!

I am a English-Canadian-Caribbean-New Yorker who grew up after most West Indian islands had gained independence after fighting for centuries. The conversation around the dinner table was frequently about what would happen now that so many countries had freed themselves from slavery and colonial oppression. So many conversation ended with what was going to happen to our brothers and sisters in the United States? All countries that were wired for television and radio thought the same thing. What will happen to the Americans who had finally secured their constitutional rights?? It truly angers me that after all that blood, pain and struggle, foolish folks are stuck at “is he black enough?” Have y’all lost your minds??????????

I began learning about people who gave their lives for the freedom of people of color before I started grade school. It was in the records my parents played, the Caribbean newspapers that found us in England and Canada, in the revolution that my dad’s Canadian and American friends prayed would continue. I read books that told me I was strong, beautiful and powerful while I read Shakespeare’s racial slurs in Titus, Othello and the Tempest . I am forced to ask the title of a 1970’s old school song by Billy Paul that questioned “AM I BLACK ENOUGH FOR YA?” Are we still on that?

I cannot believe that there are African American adults out there who feel Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is not black enough!!! In the words of Malcolm X (also by Sen. Obama) you have been hoodwinked. Is it coincidence that conservative talk radio and cable television made that assumption months ago! Why are you agreeing with known racist-drug addicts like Rush Limbaugh, racist degenerate gamblers like Bill Bennett and his ilk who have called Obama a “Halfican?” Do you agree with Democratic Senator Joe Biden who said “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy?” What exactly do you see when you at African Americans, JOE???? Are you going to let someone who knows nothing about our history, culture and DIVERSITY define what is “black???”

People of African decent have an incredible amount of diversity. That is a WONDERFUL thing. Our multitudinous cultural characteristics seems to be forgotten in the parts of Chicagoland area and sadly other areas of this country. Many have also forgot what poverty looks like! Being black and poor is awful in America, but to a lesser extent being poor in America sucks no matter who you are (although many may find comfort that they are not black!)

I get tired of hearing about the endangered black men when black woman are now going to jail 666% more than the last decade. There are no more paper bag clubs or churches {look it up}.W, E, B, Du Bois kidded that Walter White was 1/64th black, But White joined the KKK undercover in the 1930’s and headed the decades long anti-lynching campaign as the president of the NAACP. Is he black enough for ya?

The definitions that Europeans slavers and traders gave Africans at the start of the slave trade seem to be the same as some African American’s ideas of what is “authentically black.” If you want to read the some of 15th Century European “insights” to see how close they are to what some feel today I will be happy to send you an article.

GET THIS:
POVERTY IS NOT A BLACK CHARACTERISTIC!!!
CRIMINALITY IS NOT A BLACK CHARACTERISTIC!!!!
HAVING A CHILD OUT OF WEDLOCK OR NOT PAYING YOUR BABYMAMA ON TIME IS NOT A BLACK CHARACTERISTIC!!!!!
BEING A GANG MEMBER IS NOT A BLACK CHARACTERISTIC!!!
BEING A CRACK HEAD IS NOT A BLACK CHARACTERISTIC!!!!
BEING UNEDUCATION IS NOT A BLACK CHARACTERISTIC!!!!
BEING VIOLENT IS NOT A BLACK CHARACTERISTIC!!!!

Americans of all shapes, sizes, religion and ethnic groups do all these things! Open your eyes! Saying and believing these things puts a smile on every conservative neo-racists face.

I could go on and on (ask those who know me will attest to that I will) but if you think that the term African American have one specific meaning, you help the same conservative agenda that has stood since President Nixon was elected in 1968 by courting white southerners and all those who think that blacks had received way too many privileges in America. They have had 40 years of triumph are you going to give them more???

I am not in any way tell you who to vote for, but go out and VOTE. Your grandparents can give you better reasons than I, they lived in a world we can only imagine. If this is still confusing take a class, read a book, go to a Black History Month presentation and stop defining African Americans by the same definitions that have been used by racists for centuries!!!!!