the Change I Wish to See

Sorry Peru, but we don't want your "dog."

Obama was elected to bring change, some color, some style and maybe even a little Mr. Smith to Washington.  Not rats - not even culturally significant ones.  We have rats.  Obama is not some adapted version of the Pied Piper.  And we will not stand for him luring such creatures into the White House.

It was clever of you to offer so publicly, making his answer a cog in your international relations ploy.  If he says "yes" he affirms the validity of your claim that the animal is a canine (a claim repudiated by almost 2 out of every 5 non-biologists); if he says "no," well, that's an affront to your people and heritage.  Nice try.  But this will not be Obama's Bay of Pigs and we will not be manipulated.  We will Hugh Grant your Billy Bob Thornton and then Dance Dance Revolution to the Pointer Sisters.


It's not that we don't like you and your non-dog, we're just not ready for that kind of commitment right now, Peru.  We just got out of a really unhealthy relationship.  Give us some time; or at least a less hideous pet.

The press loves to talk about this loneliness.  I thought this picture captured it.  A lot of people want to be the president.  But how many really want to be arguably the most powerful person in the world?  How many people want to know that some of their foreign policy decisions will, at best, cost thousands of young lives?  Who wants to be assured that the job description includes domestic policy decisions that result in even just one more family being homeless or another child gone missing?

Bush is not Obama.  And I voted believing Obama wouldn't recreate the Bush era.  That stroll they're taking doesn't mean their differences are a charade (interestingly, Obama steps forward with his left foot as Bush leads with his right).  It also doesn't mean I forgive Bush for anything.  But they're members of a club of 44 - that's 44 presidents over 219 years.  That's pretty much the definition of "exclusive."  And it shows: in accelerated graying and shadow-laden walks.

I don't sleep well worrying about bar results, career goals, and a one-person budget.  I talk about wanting to make a difference, a significant change.  But as of yet, I want no part of being remembered for failing, and the odds are pretty solid that that cowardice will go overlooked and unnoticed.  The memory of everything these two have done and will do, however - from falling off a couch while eating a pretzel to the invasion of Iraq, and from saying Nancy Reagan holds seances to universal healthcare ambitions - will be eternal, success or not.

So, at least for today, I'm looking at all presidents differently.  Because we all have opinions about what they're supposed to be when the politics kick in.  But what about when that whole "being human" thing does?

It's in the way Anderson Cooper says "There we go" (at the :10 mark).

It's this kind of outward excitement...




... coupled with this kind of intensity...



... tempered by the remnants of an internal appeal to this kind of "Network" integrity



And it's probably why the heir apparent to Wolf Blitzer's reign over the nothing if not humble "Best Political Team on Television" considered refreshing his resume.  Not since Star Trek's debut in 1966 have we seen such impressive visual manipulation, complete with replica silver-fuzzy-static fade-in and complete dependency on the suspension of disbelief.

But even if Anderson is over the been-there-done-that-itude of the idea and the poverty of its execution, he's still waking up today shamed by the egregiousness of its lack of necessity.  CNN has cameras; lots of them; and mosaic mural walls of TVs; and fully interactive iPhone-like screens that with a touch and a squeeze can show you who my New Jersey county voted for in the 2000 presidential election and whether I poured my milk in before or after my cereal on the morning of that November 7.  Yet, on arguably the most significant day in American history, CNN hologrammed will.i.am.  Can a cable news network jump the shark?

every moment is a once in a lifetime
not because tomorrow's not promised
but because even if it was
right now is exactly what tomorrow could never be:
this very moment.

but instead of living life like we own it
we've lived life like we've been loaned it -
like we're seat-fillers at the Oscars
only to shine after commercial breaks,
or anxious temporary cardholders
awaiting an expiration date -
we trudged through the motions
as if soon it would all be over
and we'd see the other side.

we've lived in the tiniest corners of our minds
unable to share close encounters of the human kind
figuring any extra terrestrial
must be an extra-terrestrial
and that no body on Earth
could be as heavenly as the celestials...
but we're all stars in the dopest show in the universe,
so why do we act like understudies?

we're all headliners
and though the only act we know
is in these costumes,
the only stage we're on is this one
and though we can't guarantee an encore performance next week
when the only future we can grab belongs to yesterday,
why do we hold on for dear life
like living's worth not wanting more?

and when we do get a glimpse of tomorrow,
why do we assume it's beyond our control?
like on the right hand of God sits Jesus
and on the left sits a deistic puppet master
whose strings hide from sight
as imitation silver linings in clouds,
strings that guide us
to waltz through years like ballrooms,
light on our feet
mid-dance, anxious of our judge's scores;
we get caught up
assuming destinies
awaiting hand-me-down fates...

but when we assume that we're only,
that we're second, that we're barely
we assert selfish superstition upon malleable experience;
like when the politics of hope are broken into fantasy
and the pieces show their cracks
jagged and unseemly;
or when the power of our faith,
one a god could never have,
is traded in for short-term gains
and our souls sugar-crash.

yet with our power to assume
comes power to engage -
to move from cleaning off the table
to eating off the plates,
from being victims of the law
to deciding how it's made,
from meaning "dark," "feared" and "unknown"
to shining on the brightest stage.

we won't be kings like kings once were
we won't be queens, or even dukes;
we won't get rich off reparations
it's 2008, we don't need mules;
our homes will still be measured in feet
not in acres, not draped in jewels;
we won't strike back with vengeful hearts
'cause we know what it's like to lose.

what we will be is the promise
that our parents made to us:
finally embraced
with more than arms-length transactional hugs.

an apology (postdated 01.24.09).


We are really, really sorry.

It's not you; it's us. See, it all started early in 2000. We fell asleep, let our system of government be appropriated and yadda, yadda, yadda, we woke up bruised and confused. It wasn't until about a year ago that we realized what we'd done. We had a plan; we really did. We were going to elect a dream ticket to the White House. Barack and Hillary were going to change the world!

But then it all went so wrong. Hillary started crying. Then she campaigned in a state she shouldn't have. Her husband channeled Dick Cheney (which, here, means subversively attacking those who only want to trust you). Then she campaigned in a state she shouldn't have. She started publicly calling Barack less than a republican (which, believe it or not, in this country is almost an ethnic slur to a lot of people). Then one of Hillary's advisers channeled Dick Cheney. Then her husband questioned Barack's patriotism... Barack tried to rise above it all. He really did. But his associates were less than competent and lead him headfirst into quicksand. In the end, our dream convention was a brokered nightmare and Barack emerged too politically drained to win the general election. In fact, John McCain, his VP Steve Forbes, and a slew of 512 agencies (they are like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz) used many of Hillary's remarks about Barack to tear him down.

So we gave the world John McCain. And just as John McCain thought Iran was adopting and training al-Qaeda operatives from Iraq, he also mistook your country for Iran and bombed you preemptively. He's 72. It was late at night. Even you admit your names sound similar (*Oman* - *Iran*). Your people have the same brownness. And on the White House map of Asia, both of your countries are the same color. And we're sure at one time, someone, somewhere mistook you for a nation encouraging US-targeted terrorism. So there's that.

We will try to impeach him, but we're about as influential here as you are. And without a Republican Congress and a president who's a democrat, impeachments happen about as often as same-sexed conception around here. So the best we can offer is that if you consider changing your name to something more American, like that Georgia over there (maybe you could try "Rhode Island"), we will work on heeding the words of Chuck Norris the next time he speaks.

Our condolences.
Rationally Liberal Citizens of the United States of America. (RLCUSA)

P.S. Tell Azerbaijan to duck. Thanks.

Dedicated to Dick Cheney and that sales associate from Banana Republic.

Ooh I love it when you call me Big Sloppy. Forgive me for my
indiscretions like you actually know what they are. Tell me again how
stupid I look with this brain. You make me feel like a natural moron.

Dumb it down. Make it good sense to me. Better yet, don't waste your
time. Prey on me like I'm at the bottom of your food chain. I feel
unsafe when I'm important. I don't like to think. It makes my tummy
hurt. I'm short on food for thought.

You are so wise you see problems that don't exist. I am too slow to
invent such cause for alarm. And I could certainly never keep up if
reason is a moving target. But you... You have eyes in the back of
your head. You are like a surveillance camera.

Remind me to thank you for your service. For I may not appreciate the
true gift it has been to make your acquaintance without being coached.

Sent via iPhone.

Late tonight, huddled at my computer screen, I met Barack Obama. I liked him. We still have a lot to talk about before we're pushing a baby in a baby carriage, but at least we're finally sitting in a tree.

He seems different exposed. Maybe we all do. Maybe our truest moments come only when we're naked, moments at which we reveal the difference between being honest and being candid. Why do we roll up our pant leg to show you that scar we got when we were 6? Probably because it makes the story we tell about it more real.

Now, before you chastise me for having multiple personalities, and choosing today's persona because it has a shiny new convertible bandwagon...

I'm still not in love with Barack. So much of me wants to be. I want him to wear the air of my aspirations and a suit whose lapel is cut to the style of my conviction. Not because I am what he should be, but because I want what he is to include me. I want my words to resound in his voice. I want my ideals to shape his endeavors. Most of all, I want my passion to drive his spirit.

Today he made it possible to love him. But we still have work to do in this relationship. I can forget Rev. Wright's name by tomorrow. The name of his church already escapes me. I was never supposed to commit to Rev. Wright. No 2008 election outcome put the stability of the world, the fate of our economy, or the dreams of my parents in his hands. But I'm supposed to trust Barack with at least that, if not more.

And so we should be greatly excited at the opportunity Barack reminds us is waiting to be actualized. But we can still ask why it took so long. He has been the candidate of hope, change, dreams, faith, and everything between. We've crowned him the facilitator, if not the bringer, of the cure for what ails us. But listen to what he said today: we cannot move forward infected by anger. Yet until today, he never bothered to fearlessly identify what is arguably our most viral disease. Until there was a crisis, he offered no management.

It is critical that you understand I do not consider him an opportunist. What we witnessed was not mere political calculation. He was knocked down. He stood up. He brushed his shoulders off. He took huge strides. He was impressive. He was complete. And I thank him.

He was aware this morning. But my calendar shows more than just today. Today, Barack admitted what we all at least suspected he knew. Race is more than an issue in America. It is its own institution. I know Barack didn't learn this by watching the pundits last week. I know he's lived it. I know he and Michelle have told their children allegories, if not stories, about it. He had to know this was a speech he'd have to give, even if he imagined it never included his pastor's name. JFK had to. Romney tried to. Barack has more vision than he previously displayed. He should not have been surprised here.

I know he walks a fine line. Forget thin ice. It must be more like he's skating on a meniscus, in a glass half-full. He has to convince a nation that Cornell is as right as he is wrong: that his race matters as much as it doesn't. Don't tell me it has been unfair to expect that he found a way to deliver that message flawlessly, though. He did it today. And you should've expected it before now at least as much I did. We owe that sense of inquiry to ourselves.

And we owe both our ancestors and our children more than static reincarnations of the past. That's the subtext of Barack's speech today. That obviously means answering a call to arms to erase inequality. I understand your point: that perhaps the issue wasn't ripe, that we weren't yet ready to receive until controversy arose. It's frightening how true that may be (we too often ignore leaks until they're floods). You might even say that I had no reason to have doubts in the first place. You may be right, but only because calling my hesitation "doubt" misses the mark. You've seen it: two black men pass each other on the street, make eye contact, and nod. True, maybe neither one of them has lived anything like the life of the other. But they nod silently anyway. They believe there's a great chance they share something. They have to believe it. It soothes. All I've ever said is that the man who will be president has to do more than nod. He has to open his mouth. He has to speak.

And so my anger in my posts about Barack should be measured not as blame, but as the weight of great expectations. I want him to be great because we simply cannot survive any less. I want him to be great because he can be. And I am not afraid to ask it of him.

I am a bundle of all of the contradictions he acknowledged today. It's comforting to know he is, too.

Somebody should tell Barack Obama that it's ok that he's black.

It's ok that he went to a primarily black church, with a black pastor, who often spoke to issues specific to the black community. It's not a validly categorized "political liability."

But by aggressively distancing himself from a man who was willing to acknowledge this, it makes me wonder if despite all of the energy and passion this campaign season holds, Tupac is still right: we're not ready to see a black president.

I don't know what Wright is about. Most of me doesn't care. The issue here isn't about Wright as he was en toto, but Wright as he offered the critique of "God damn America." Because that's what all the fallout is about. Truth is, his - perhaps poorly articulated - notion that global politics are integrated and we are a contributing member is neither original nor outlandish and isn't getting press. The idea that the anger we face is in part due to the disdain and ignorance we present and share, isn't offensive to me as long as it doesn't forgive other players their blame for, at best, being led to a river of poison and choosing to drink.

That said, I've written too many dissertations in the last several days, so let me be brief. Some of us are not just black, but black in America. We have parents who had their school buses stoned on integration day; we have grandparents who weren't allowed to have more than a fifth grade education; we have great-grandparents who were slaves. More frighteningly, we have siblings and children who are profiled, denied jobs and denied education.

So we have days where America isn't that great. We have days when we remember what America has done to us. And we have nights on which we go to sleep, praying America doesn't do it all over again in the morning. We will not apologize for our view of America. It's been imputed and it's empirical. Every day we walk out of our homes, we are on stage for America. We are told to behave and not react to micro-aggressions. We are told we've had long enough to assimilate and blend. We are told America is working for us better than it is for others and as well as it ever will. We are told to forget what we are.

We're not ready to see a black president. Because if we were, we'd be ready to see him or her as representative of what so many of us are. Instead, America is rallying behind a black candidate who has chosen not to believe our truth or to only silently embody it.

I'm aware of the risk of essentialism here. I really am. But at one point, it was ok to think there was supposed to be something special about a black presidential candidate. And that "something" was allowed to be more than his audacity to hope. We're not all the same. We don't all have the same history. But for a lot of us, I hope, a black president unwilling to publicly admit that America has given us as black Americans both the best and worst of times, doesn't have whatever that special something we dreamed about is.

I like to think I too have the audacity to hope. And what I hope is that a President Obama understands what gets lost in translation when "God damn America" is uttered.

I've been silent for a long time. From the beginning, actually. I didn't vote in my primary. There were a lot of concerns to balance: my ego over a thoroughly deluded ex-dream of being the first black president; a hearty distrust of a vote approving "the use of force..."

The sum of those parts: I am mortified that I might not vote for the first black president.

But if I'm buying disingenuousness, maybe I want it to at least be predictable? Doesn't that smooth the edge of misleading rhetoric -- the "comfort" in knowing what the speaker really means? And isn't that especially true if the meaning between the lines, or behind the scenes, is really the best option anyway?

All Barack has to do is just be impenetrably straight forward. He's more charming, has a wider base, is more responsive and welcomely less salty. But, via his advisers, he has made it quite clear that he may mean little of what he says. His online "Plan for Ending the War in Iraq" never mentions the realism a recently-former senior adviser offered this week. And his current senior foreign policy adviser doesn't think he's ready to answer that infamous 3am call. Not to mention, there's that non-vote Barack never made. He constantly reminds us that he didn't vote for the use of force when he couldn't have even if he had a constituency asking him to. I guess that means that if, in the future, there's an issue he's constitutionally-prohibited from voting on, trust that his judgment won't let him vote the wrong way. I have no idea what solace that's supposed to offer. So if that's the case, why shouldn't I choose the candidate with the b-side I know? Our country's future should not be left to the element of surprise better reserved for albums with hidden tracks. Not all secrets are bonuses.

Though, of course, not all Old Faithfuls live up to their namesake. And so I don't buy nearly enough of what Hillary spews to fall head over heels for her either. She escaped way too readily from her husband's overhanded indiscretions in South Carolina. She's been given a flat-out pass for her adviser's Obama-Ken Starr comparison. And why would I ever walk into a relationship with someone who I knew couldn't admit she was wrong? Since when was it flirtatious to say you cling to mistakes like static to a fleece?

And so here I am. I'm in the place I said I hoped I wouldn't be: sandwiched between options that feel scarily incomplete. I'm tired of canvassing singles' bars. Wasn't this supposed to be the election where I found Mr. or Ms. Right? I want to be on the right side of history, but I want history to meet me in the middle. And I want you to stop telling me I'm asking for too much.

When do I get to love America? It's almost like I've been molested. I don't claim to understand or be able to relate to the lived severity of being raped or touched by your mom's boyfriend. But there's something at least remotely similar here figuratively. During my most vulnerable political years (the dating years) -- 18-25 -- George W. Bush is the only president I've seen. I've watched him "win" despite Florida and repeat despite Ohio. I've watched us let him. During my critically formative stage, I have lived and witnessed perhaps the most mismanaged and morally bankrupt administration in this nation's history. So yeah, I hope. But in a land where it takes "more than coupons to get us saved / like it takes a lot more than du-rags to get you waves," it's gonna take a lot more than promise to make me praise.

I don't want to do the best thing "given the circumstances." I want to do the right thing. At all times when it comes to politics. Because it defines struggle, achievement, life and death. And I want someone to explain to me why there is seemingly no right thing to be found and only compromise. I don't want to settle. Our system of politics is one where a nation of imperfect persons are told to make the best with what they've got because, after all, even the best of us are little more than the rest of us. But if I told you today that the law says you have to marry someone you knew but didn't love, even though you knew you'd have the option of divorce, hopefully at least some of you would tell me no one should dictate your private choices; that you're not making a serious commitment to an acquaintance, or that who you bring children into the world with matters. So why do you take handouts at their face value when in this relationship your partner is a leading decider in whether you can decide to have children, whether those kids go to war, what taxes you pay, and whether or not your job supports the very family you insist must be preserved? Is it really just because you hate being single? That the other fish in the sea are rotten?

There's no coming back from this. Am I really the only citizen who wants a soulmate?

Blogged with Flock

Reporting live from the basement auditorium at the National Archives as a panel discusses primary reform.

I don't know that there's much of a story here. I suppose I just thought you should know. There are, of course, the tell-tale signs of grassroots political theater: old men asleep, middle-aged men in fanny packs, men of all ages in beards and overalls, rants via mic abductions (rants without mics for that matter), blind assertions, seemingly wilful blind assertions... Standard operating procedure. Oh right: and scattered laughter at "jokes" for no other discernable reason than to have the room acknowledge you were cool enough to show up at an event (aka the rat-bastard-masturgiggle).

And so, somewhat sadly, nothing new here. Politics as usual, in some ways.


Sent via iPhone.

I'm standing next to a guy wearing a Blackwater baseball cap.
It wasn't a guy in a three-piece suit, wearing the hat because he was on his way to a board meeting. It was a guy in a polo and khakis reading a newspaper with a Blackwater cap on. An actual display of Blackwater love? Really? An emblem on his sleeve, or a super-imposed logo on the American flag pin on his lapel wouldn't have been enough? He really needed to show his appreciation like a fan?

Anyway, I wonder if he's on his way to Capitol Hill. But I'm on the redline headed west, so maybe he's doing reconnaissance (badly, which would make sense). Maybe my train is a threat to national security because too many people are reading The Onion. Or maybe there have been reports that menacing kids on their way to one of DC's public schools are causing havoc (they can be pretty threatening). Those reports, of course, would be unconfirmed because who has time to fact check?

I'd just blend into the shadows... But that's where all of the metro's creepy underbelly already lies. And standing next to that guy who rubs up against women with his "happy face" on, probably only increases my chances of becoming an "unfortunate incident." So maybe I'll -

Oh. He's gone now.

Sent via iPhone.

So I walked past Paul Wolfowitz this morning.
We were less than a foot from each other.
And I kinda wanted to punch him in the face.
That's it.

Here we go again;
it's not the first time
the "news" left us
with wounds to mend.

It's really as simple as Pulitzer wrote in 1904:
"Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself."

Today is, apparently, that time. We are, apparently, those people. And Joe Scarborough is, it seems, one of those mercenaries.

On Friday, Scarborough, broadcast on the newly-designated mecca of misogyny, joined by Craig Crawford, made sexist inferences about the nature of former Senator Fred Thompson's marriage. The two asked and then mutually "confirmed" that Jeri Thompson "works the pole."

I've watched the clip several times now. I've read MSNBC's knee-jerk reaction: put it in context. I tried to do so. I shouldn't have; but I did. I failed of course, because at best the remark was crass and I don't consider the pursuit of crudity an achievement of any real aspiration.

The basic gist: two shrivelled phalli walk onto a cable news set. The first one spots a woman he deems out of his reach. So he's bitter; naturally, he feels shafted. The second one is much less advanced in his shrivelling, but if there's one thing a diminishing phallus hates, it's standing alone. So the second one pokes his head in, feigning an interest. Wrinkled and past their primes, they begin flopping around, lashing out at the man this unattainable woman does care about: how could he "get" her? She's so attractive, they long for the days when they weren't mere wrinkles in time; when they were each something with some longevity, some sense of purpose, and had the tools with which to achieve it. Those days are gone. But these two don't cut and... excuse me, that word is in bad taste here. These two don't tuck and run. Instead, they prematurely spit assertions. They don't really know what they're talking about; they're inexperienced. So what happens next comes fast: "You think she works the pole?"

The breakdown:

Aside from the clearly offensive nature of the remark, more pressing for at least Scarborough (since I know neither Crawford's attraction nor relationship status) is that he has to explain to his wife his drooling envy.

But both men suffer from exactly what so many shrivelling phalli do: a lack of fore... sight. They have a complete inability to get the big picture and drown in their moment. They also can't see behind them since their dumb asses get in the way; hence, they have no hindsight. So neither could remember what the word "Imus" means this summer nor anticipate what fallout would follow.

I don't think, from the clip I've seen (my opinion may change if I see more), that they were calling Jeri Thompson a stripper per se. I don't. I realize that the use of the word "works" allows other conclusions. I don't think such conclusions are wrong, but I think these two were actually referring to the exercise technique, albeit offensively. But by no means should that be read as an excuse. What they still did is objectify Jeri Thompson. They still reduced her to an exclusively sexual being. I don't know why she, at 39, chooses to be with Thompson, at 64. But perhaps she was so sophisticated -- be it emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, some combination... -- that her maturity could only be matched by someone who had lived enough to develop similarly. The truth is, it doesn't really matter why she chose him. She chose him. And Scarborough and Crawford blatantly dishonored her choice by implying that her partner's decision to be with her was less than credible.

Reducing Jeri Thompson was not an anomaly. This morning on ESPN2, Mike Golic "joked" to Mike Greenberg that he "might as well be a woman" for not being able to bench 185 lbs. He quickly noted that he meant the inability to lift, not the remark, was the real insult to women. Huh, what? Exactly. I have no idea how he thought that put the dirt back in the hole he was digging. I'd be insane to suggest any woman reading this right now can't think of ten times she's already been "indirectly" insulted today. These insults are not indirect; they're assaults; they're micro-aggressions. Beauvoir was right: women are not born, they become. In so far as gender, as distinct from sex, is about otherization, these assaults and their underlying normative assumptions operate to subordinate females (as well as males since implying males display attributes we've assigned to females is understood as demeaning). If we don't stop them now, then when?

Again, our civic duty includes not just exercising our right to speak, but managing said exercise. Here, these two have to be held responsible for, at the very least, not realizing that suggesting a woman "works the pole" was going to be inflammatory, certainly if done so without clear, contextual qualification. I grant that structuring such a proviso would be a formidable challenge, if not impossible. Nonetheless, I'm tired of excusing the obliviousness of the ignorant. We should be informing the ignorant, not ignoring them. "Ignorant" and "ignoring" have the same root word. Take that theory a step further: how could we possibly fix the problem with more of the same?

And to come full circle, I don't know why Jeri Thompson was even dragged into this. In what newsworthy context is she relevant, let alone her exercise routine and how said routine may or may not affect her sex life? She is the spouse of a man who is bumbling through the initial steps of a campaign. I get it. But what does her attractiveness have to do with his ability to run/serve or her ability to lead his support from his side if he does so?

There's only one real "attractiveness" element of this story: you can find some of the ugliest things under the nails of pointed fingers.

They asked for it so here it is.

"Don Imus is only doing what rap has done for decades."
There's your gauntlet; its suggestion synonymous with absurd. But if America really wants to have this debate, let's have it.

The claim:
Rappers use the same language Imus used and no one holds them accountable or vociferously demands change - certainly not with the ferocity that the cries against Imus display.

(Sigh.) Where do I begin?
I don't want to make the mistake of being trite, so let's first clarify the nature of the comments Imus made.

He, and notably his whole staff, referred to black female athletes as "nappy-headed." Ok. We live in a society, and as black Americans have ALWAYS lived in a society, that doesn't merely undervalue our beauty, but aggressively seeks to legally desecrate it. Black women have uniquely felt this sting. So to call our women "nappy-headed" in a derogatory fashion is to reify that division and to restate the hateful categorization of "black" as deplorable, disgusting... Maybe you haven't checked lately, but go open your dictionary. Any dictionary; the editor doesn't matter. Note how "black" is defined as dirty, dark, bad, etc. while "white" is quite the opposite. In short, Imus poured salt in a wound that we, quite frankly, are tired of having to mend. And we are tired of having to do the mending ourselves while the majority and its empathizers tell us "the cut isn't that bad." It's ours. We bite our lips and bear it. And so only we will determine its pain.

Then he called them "hos." Along the same lines as above, the hypersexualization of black women and their reduction to sexual chattel is precisely why his "joke" crossed the line. These Rutgers women, and black women across the globe, are human beings. They are doctors, lawyers, presidents, nation-leaders, mothers, daughters and sisters... No definition of "ho" allows for those identities. In fact, the word strips them, leaving them as exposed and vulnerable as the days we were dragged here.

But remember: more was said. An assistant said watching the Rutgers/Tennessee game was like watching the jigaboos play the wannabees. He and Imus laughed about how the women from Rutgers looked rough, especially as compared to the more attractive Tennessee players. The jigaboo/wannabee reference is directly tied to "School Daze," a Spike Lee joint, but more indirectly tied to the ever-present issue of the attractiveness of black skin. To suggest that the Rutgers women, on average with darker complexions, were rough and unattractive jigaboos, while remarking that the Tennessee women, on average with lighter complexions, were more attractive wannabees is indicative of a battle our women and men have been fighting for a time too long to count. And we seemed to all have missed that being a wannabee is nothing to be proud of. It suggests that the lighter-skinned Tennessee players preferred their complexion because it allowed them to pass or at least distance themselves from the darker Rutgers women. When is someone going to remember that Tennesee's women were insulted as well?

Nonetheless, my focus here is on the counter-argument that hip hop brought this all about... That the very word "ho" is rap construction... That no one is up in arms over the misogyny in rap...

"Ho" as rap construction: really? David Gregory et al.: really? The word is undeniably linked to "whore." So your argument is what, that black artists invented misogyny? Well here's some earth-shattering, breaking news: white men were beating, raping, killing, and verbally abusing women long before they ever encountered us. This isn't to say white men are singularly responsible for sex-based stratification. Men as a whole are responsible. Yet you ignore not just modern realities but the evidence of history in its entirety insofar as it is contrary to your own assertion. But, to be fair, I suppose that is what they call responsible journalism these days (while Pulitzer rolls in his grave).

No one is up in arms: Let me be so much later than the first to disagree. I want misogyny out of our culture. That includes a specific desire to see its end and remedy in hip hop. Has no one seen "Hip Hop: Beyond the Beats and Rhymes" by Byron Hurt? Has no one heard of the Take Back the Music campaign led by Essence? Has no one seen Def Poetry? Has no one heard the COUNTLESS underground and commercial artists whose songs cry for change? Was Jay-Z right: do you listen to music, or do you just skim through it? Oh no wait: you have been listening. When Nas released "Hip Hop is Dead" the nation was up in arms. But you saw that as black artists turning on themselves, not as black artists pushing for difference. So you don't remember. Let me remind you: people are CLAMORING for change. Real change, substantive difference. If you haven't been listening whose fault is that? If you've believed the distant critiques from outside the genre, don't displace your failure on us.

The truth is, this "argument" ignores the lesson our 4 year olds are able to learn: two wrongs don't make a right. Even if you don't buy that rap's change is inevitable because of internal criticism, your argument can't really be: "but everybody else does it." Can it? Is that your idea of intellectualism? The issue is not whether derogatory use by one group can be punished or otherwise treated differently than that by another. That approach has nothing to do with independent evaluations of wrongdoing. You don't get moral points for, you don't get to create an appropriate balance by, saying non-blacks should be able to degrade blacks in the same ways many of us already do to ourselves. Even if I was to concede, and this would be a large concession, that you're then treating people "equally", you're forgetting the point: YOU'RE NOT ACTUALLY SOLVING THE PROBLEM. The problem is not the imbalance in degradation; it's that the degradation exists at all. And so perpetuating such aggression could never be a band-aid, let alone a cure. In other words, black people realize that acquiring the respect we deserve is significantly tied to the dignity we portray. But even if we drop the ball... Even if we create derisions among ourselves with hateful rhetoric, what makes you think that's a legitimate reason for the majority to do the same?

I just find it SO interesting that when the issue is SO clear.. When it's so clear that the real issue is whether Imus, a rich white man with broadcast power, should be able to use such derogatory language, within days the topic has shifted. Now the national dialogue is a referendum on black music. Funny. Of course we all need to change. But once, just once: could we please, PLEASE maintain focus? Rap needs to change. Rap WILL change. But the necessity of creative speech to alter its message is not parallel to the necessity of political speech to alter its own. At least not today.

So my focus has been on the promise of equality as one meant to guarantee chance or results. Current legal structure, with its concerns - both rational and absurd, accurate and incomplete - of reverse discrimination lends itself to this allegory:

A king hears of a land he recognizes as unacquired. He sends a ship, instructing its captain to stop miles shy of its shore. The captain's orders: throw a naked white man and a naked black man into the ocean. The goal? The first to make it to shore gets to lead a new nation. If there's a tie, they both lead. But there's a catch. The white man is dropped into a boat with an oar. The black man is dropped with a boulder chained to his ankles.

The winner should be obvious. The white man, though stranded in the middle of the ocean without fresh water or food, paddles his way to shore. There he finds all the resources he needs for survival. But overwhelmed with his new power, he claims all he sees as his own, confusing leadership with ownership, and stamps his mark upon the landscape with ash and mortar. As leader, the white man decides the new regime is to begin immediately. He doesn't wait for the black man to surface.

The black man is in a paradox. He can choose to quit and drown, realizing his escape would most likely require superhuman strength or transcendent mental ability; his success nothing short of a miracle. If he is blessed enough to be armed with either, his arrival at shore will be met with hierarchy; he will not be the ruling class.

Somehow, the black man makes it to shore. The miraculousness of his perseverance is ignored, and so he soon forgets it himself. He is late, so he's slow. He couldn't figure out how to win the race, so he's stupid. And he is still naked, dripping wet, so he's a raw, sexual being. He is treated accordingly. Who wants a slow, stupid, sex fiend to have power over anything or anyone?

Eventually, the nation is confronted with the notion that its past of oppressing the black man and his descendants was erroneous. Some say it's because benevolent whites sympathized. Some say the blacks demanded it. Some say both possibilities are true and incomplete. Nevertheless, the nation promises "from now on, things will be done differently."

But the black man still carries his boulder.

---

An ever-present problem with current legal structure is its literalism. It forgets that even if the black man survives and makes it to shore, the boulder is his existence. It is the evidence that he arrived late; that his power is determined by the white man's, whose arrival was timely; it is his mark of ineffectual intelligence, if any; it is the reason why he should be grateful to have been included at all. Perhaps most telling, it is suggestion that some great power intended him to have lost. And he wears these ideas on his skin (an indicator as much for those who see him as a personal reminder). If he keeps this facade, he is Stokely Carmichael. If he sheds it, he is Michael Jackson.

What is the promise of only looking forward if that gaze is affixed with old eyes? Eyes that remember the black man's arrival as late, invasive, at best functionally necessary... One could perhaps argue we could return to that original beach. But when we draw a line in that sand, and say, "The race for opportunity starts here," whether there is at that point a false start is not the sole issue. We must also note that one is still latched, dragging a weight the other does not.

How can we run beside you if our legs are tied?

A bunch of us flocked to Busboys to see Byron Hurt's "Hip Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes."

At the tables were mini-questionnaires about the film, the experience, etc. One of the questions was about what we wanted the film to do, or what it didn't do, something like that. I took that as an invitation to tell whoever the reader would be what I really thought.

In Beats & Rhymes, Hurt presents a state of the union for hip-hop, questioning the misogyny and commodification, but also looks back at the roots and forward with an eye somewhat on the goals. I think he closed the comprehension gap well. So often, there's a generational schism and he did a great job of using language a span of ages can understand.

But I couldn't help but notice that the film is missing the "what do we do" component. It reminded me of "Traffic." I guess it was near the end of high school when it was released. It presented what was thought to be a revealing portrayal of the various strands of a web of drug-trafficking. The problem with Traffic, as here, is that for those of us at the core of the depiction - this generation, these kids - so many of us already get it. We were as unsurprised seven years ago that the daughter of the nation's drug czar could be holed up in a crack house as we are that today 17 year olds are killing each other to effectuate battle rhymes.

If you didn't know, then I suppose you'd have rated B&R the five out of five the questionnaire allowed. But I felt incomplete; I gave it a 4. I felt like Hurt led the ones of us who just aren't sure how to drink, to a bowl of water we'd already found. I've kept telling myself, "You can't assign Hurt the responsibility of single-handedly lifting us from the predicament he notes." Maybe his only job is to illustrate.

But what if it isn't? What if it's more? What if what holds us - and by that I mean all of us - back is that we keep limiting our duty? It's so easy to say, "My role stretches but so far." Maybe it's too easy. We've all heard that story about Everybody, Somebody, and Nobody. The gist is that when Everybody thought Somebody was going to do something, Nobody ever did anything. I guess I think of awareness as an ocean. If there's a kid who's never seen it, then I've done something great by taking her to the beach, walking her down the coastline... But if I just push her off the boardwalk, if I totally immerse her in the water, what does she do when she realizes she can't swim? When she drowns, does the fact that I at least opened her eyes serve as any consolation? And how many kids like her do I strand before I realize I have to start giving swimming lessons and that maybe I need to be the lifeguard too?

m.e:

while discussing South Carolina's Black Code: a set of 'laws' purporting to give blacks a list of rights post 'emancipation' as servants. At the point in the picture, I am again struck by the fundamental flaw in the 'benevolence' of South Carolina's offer: blacks in 1865 couldn't read by rule and virtually without exception. Less than three years before its enactment, it was a crime to teach blacks to do so. This law promised to treat blacks fairly by putting the right to contract in their hands. It occurs to me that I spent a year learning contract law without actually learning it. The idea that South Carolina could somehow remedy what Tocqueville suggested was a perfect legal atrocity with its own version of a perfect legal remedy is so logically suspect it would be laughable if it didn't cost people their lives.

should probably just be shot and dumped in a watery grave.

Reason #328,374,891,263,4...


[Uh, this is not solicitation. Thanks for playing, though.]

The heading says enough. A rant may follow later, but for now the heading's self-sufficient. Truth is, I shouldn't have to make the statement, which is why its simplicity is so compelling. All I'll say for now is that it seems fair to say that what I deny is much more like what I'm afraid I'm running from.

What Olbermann did last night should be history. I say that without exaggeration, but-for-qualifications, or hesitation (as I realize I sound like Jesse Jackson). Anyway... For all of those who insist the revolution won't be televised, this should be the point at which you begin to question where you went wrong in retrospect 10 years from now. It should be a moment that I can tell generations to come I witnessed live. Why live? Because the day after Cheney's first visit in office to the what was then Ronald Reagan Hospital, Bush held a conference in which he said the executive branch interpreted the law. Don't remember? Probably because it didn't make news and hasn't been covered since. But it is kind of odd that that "slip" is exactly what White House policy hinges on: signing statements.

we're stuck in a fate so deep we can hardly breathe
strangled by the schemes of the powers that be
and as the youth make strides to write the same scenes
with haste, we're enslaved by propaganda machines;
in a place where truth is only what you believe
nothing's as it is and everything's as it seems
we try to shut our eyes, blindly follow the lead
of men who rend us free on the end of a leash.

It was fulfilling to hear someone illustrate it as it should be. It's why aijuswanawrite. You need both links: the video, and the transcript. Share them both.