Cobb

Equal Time

Ode to Daddy Freddy

If you never heard Daddy Freddy, you missed something special. Daddy Freddy represented an alternative future for the hiphop of the early 1990s. I listen to his music today with an air of regret and resignation. We could have been here.

Ode to Daddy Freddy

If you never heard Daddy Freddy, you missed something special. Daddy Freddy represented an alternative future for the hiphop of the early 1990s. I listen to his music today with an air of regret and resignation. We could have been here.

Nowhere in Africa

The wife and I watched 'Nowhere in Africa' on Tivo last night. It was the story of a family of three German Jews who found their way to freedom from Nazi atocities by leaving Germany for Kenya. It portrays their adjustments to this reality as the war progresses and their child grows. There's a lot to this excellent story, but this is not a review of that film. This is a question about racial integration in America.

Over at K Street Friend and here provocative questions are raised about the success of residential integration. Questions like these:

Are many members of black America adopting the values, standards and ideals of the white middle class, and are trying to distance themselves from the black poor?

In the 1960s, federal entitlement programs, civil rights legislation, equal opportunity statutes and affirmative action programs broke the open barriers of legal segregation. The path to universities and corporations for some blacks was now wide open. More blacks than ever did what their parents only dreamed of – they fled blighted inner-city areas in droves. The new frontier, business where the dollar is made and where significant wealth and resources are at stake.

But, is there a widening rift between the black haves and the black have-nots that has been blurred by racism, ignored by blacks and hidden from white society?

Is black wealth, like white wealth, now concentrated in fewer hands?

Yes. Everyone wants to distance themselves from the black poor. Even you don't want to hang around your poor cousin. So? The answers are all yes. And while it would be interesting to engage in all of the questions presumed by the presence of these questions, we really don't have a forum for that anywhere do we? I mean I could build one in a week but I really don't have the patience (nor the budget at the moment) to do the marketing. It'll happen, don't worry.

It occurred to me yesterday while I was cleaning up the garage to find my football to go on a walk with my son, that I don't trust blackfolks who refer to whitefolks in the abstract or vice versa. If you don't have the social skills to make a lie of all the stupid stereotypes we put up with, you really are a social failure. I think a goodly number of Americans have to admit to themselves that they lack the skills to take their own personal relationships beyond the state of the races, circa 1950. That's just too bad.

Families are trying to do right by their own values. But how often are they really questioned? Sometimes living outside of your comfort zone means having to listen to other people talk about the way you raise your children. How many times have we heard about the village it takes to raise a kid? Yeah all well and good when the village of folks is just like you. But have you ever dealt with a village of strangers?

I'm going to take it personal for a hot moment. You see one of my children is a superstar. That child has always been a straight-A scholar athlete, popular leader in school. Also one of my children is a ball of absent-minded energy with a penchant for boo boo jokes. So I know what it's like as a black parent at a predominantly white school to watch other parents as they push their children to being friends or pull their children from being friends with one or another child from my family. I leave most of those matters to the spousal unit, and am not particularly sensitive to them, but I recognize the dynamic.

So what am I saying? I'm saying that I could make mountains of these molehills in self-righteous black anger. I don't because living in the predominantly white 'burbs is not the holy grail. It's just another place to live. And until more and more legions of blackfolks get over that hump, we are going to continue to hear moans in anticipation that the answer to all those questions is "Yeah, so?"

It's hard living in rural Kenya if you are a German Jewish refugee during WW2. It's not hard living in Euro-American suburbs if you are an Afro-American in 2005. So when I ask people about whether or not the legendary dysfunctions of the ghetto are worth suffering, I do so with that in mind.

One cannot deny the historical fact of the Great Migration. The South Side of Chicago is black because blacks fled north in the wake of the failure of Reconstruction. This is why the Urban League was formed. Millions of African-Americans got sick of sharecropping and left the rural South for the urban North. And today millions of African-Americans are abandoning the urban centers for the suburbs. That's the effect of the aggregate progress of thousands of families who have, one by one, made their decision to leave the old ways behind - as was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. We should expect new Urban Leagues formed in support of this new migration.

If there are any scholars out there, I would be interested to know how the politics of the new urban dwellers evolved.

Nowhere in Africa

The wife and I watched 'Nowhere in Africa' on Tivo last night. It was the story of a family of three German Jews who found their way to freedom from Nazi atocities by leaving Germany for Kenya. It portrays their adjustments to this reality as the war progresses and their child grows. There's a lot to this excellent story, but this is not a review of that film. This is a question about racial integration in America.

Over at K Street Friend and here provocative questions are raised about the success of residential integration. Questions like these:

Are many members of black America adopting the values, standards and ideals of the white middle class, and are trying to distance themselves from the black poor?

In the 1960s, federal entitlement programs, civil rights legislation, equal opportunity statutes and affirmative action programs broke the open barriers of legal segregation. The path to universities and corporations for some blacks was now wide open. More blacks than ever did what their parents only dreamed of – they fled blighted inner-city areas in droves. The new frontier, business where the dollar is made and where significant wealth and resources are at stake.

But, is there a widening rift between the black haves and the black have-nots that has been blurred by racism, ignored by blacks and hidden from white society?

Is black wealth, like white wealth, now concentrated in fewer hands?

Yes. Everyone wants to distance themselves from the black poor. Even you don't want to hang around your poor cousin. So? The answers are all yes. And while it would be interesting to engage in all of the questions presumed by the presence of these questions, we really don't have a forum for that anywhere do we? I mean I could build one in a week but I really don't have the patience (nor the budget at the moment) to do the marketing. It'll happen, don't worry.

It occurred to me yesterday while I was cleaning up the garage to find my football to go on a walk with my son, that I don't trust blackfolks who refer to whitefolks in the abstract or vice versa. If you don't have the social skills to make a lie of all the stupid stereotypes we put up with, you really are a social failure. I think a goodly number of Americans have to admit to themselves that they lack the skills to take their own personal relationships beyond the state of the races, circa 1950. That's just too bad.

Families are trying to do right by their own values. But how often are they really questioned? Sometimes living outside of your comfort zone means having to listen to other people talk about the way you raise your children. How many times have we heard about the village it takes to raise a kid? Yeah all well and good when the village of folks is just like you. But have you ever dealt with a village of strangers?

I'm going to take it personal for a hot moment. You see one of my children is a superstar. That child has always been a straight-A scholar athlete, popular leader in school. Also one of my children is a ball of absent-minded energy with a penchant for boo boo jokes. So I know what it's like as a black parent at a predominantly white school to watch other parents as they push their children to being friends or pull their children from being friends with one or another child from my family. I leave most of those matters to the spousal unit, and am not particularly sensitive to them, but I recognize the dynamic.

So what am I saying? I'm saying that I could make mountains of these molehills in self-righteous black anger. I don't because living in the predominantly white 'burbs is not the holy grail. It's just another place to live. And until more and more legions of blackfolks get over that hump, we are going to continue to hear moans in anticipation that the answer to all those questions is "Yeah, so?"

It's hard living in rural Kenya if you are a German Jewish refugee during WW2. It's not hard living in Euro-American suburbs if you are an Afro-American in 2005. So when I ask people about whether or not the legendary dysfunctions of the ghetto are worth suffering, I do so with that in mind.

One cannot deny the historical fact of the Great Migration. The South Side of Chicago is black because blacks fled north in the wake of the failure of Reconstruction. This is why the Urban League was formed. Millions of African-Americans got sick of sharecropping and left the rural South for the urban North. And today millions of African-Americans are abandoning the urban centers for the suburbs. That's the effect of the aggregate progress of thousands of families who have, one by one, made their decision to leave the old ways behind - as was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. We should expect new Urban Leagues formed in support of this new migration.

If there are any scholars out there, I would be interested to know how the politics of the new urban dwellers evolved.

Gluckert's Hot

A Black Summit

Something important happened this weekend. It wasn't the Oscars though, it was something called the State of the Black Union. It was moderated by Tavis Smiley, whom I thought would disappear after leaving his NPR show. It starred George Fraser, Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Lee Petersen, Jesse Jackson, Michael Eric Dyson and a host of others.

I missed it entirely.

But Deet, my brother, says there's going to be a DVD. That's good. I wonder if the bootleg of that will get around to as many black barbershops as the rest of the Hollywood hits. We'll see.

What the LA Times says of this event is that the participants seem to be split on ideological lines. This is to me, a surprise. When I had retired from the top ranks of national black campus leadership in the late 80s, our dilemma was one of class. We saw black unity failing because, although many of us were pretty much aligned on ideological grounds, we had serious problems with reconciling the needs and desires of those further ahead on the road to destiny with those straggling behind. Who could be authentically black suckling on the proper corporate, educational or government teat? Was it the Cosby kid or the Boyz from the Hood?

The idea that we would be choosing between Democrats and Republicans never occurred to us in 1988. We were still trying to get Jesse into the White House. This year Jesse Jackson sealed his own doom by saying that blacks have an agenda, precisely the one that Martin Luther King left us. Martin Luther King is dead.

Sooner or later, some explicit criticism will careen around the 'sphere on these matters. I'm a bit disappointed to take it all in second-hand. But if anything great was said, we'll see it on DVD.

A Black Summit

Something important happened this weekend. It wasn't the Oscars though, it was something called the State of the Black Union. It was moderated by Tavis Smiley, whom I thought would disappear after leaving his NPR show. It starred George Fraser, Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Lee Petersen, Jesse Jackson, Michael Eric Dyson and a host of others.

I missed it entirely.

But Deet, my brother, says there's going to be a DVD. That's good. I wonder if the bootleg of that will get around to as many black barbershops as the rest of the Hollywood hits. We'll see.

What the LA Times says of this event is that the participants seem to be split on ideological lines. This is to me, a surprise. When I had retired from the top ranks of national black campus leadership in the late 80s, our dilemma was one of class. We saw black unity failing because, although many of us were pretty much aligned on ideological grounds, we had serious problems with reconciling the needs and desires of those further ahead on the road to destiny with those straggling behind. Who could be authentically black suckling on the proper corporate, educational or government teat? Was it the Cosby kid or the Boyz from the Hood?

The idea that we would be choosing between Democrats and Republicans never occurred to us in 1988. We were still trying to get Jesse into the White House. This year Jesse Jackson sealed his own doom by saying that blacks have an agenda, precisely the one that Martin Luther King left us. Martin Luther King is dead.

Sooner or later, some explicit criticism will careen around the 'sphere on these matters. I'm a bit disappointed to take it all in second-hand. But if anything great was said, we'll see it on DVD.

Sideways

Hollywood Shuffle

"The difference between a nigger and a black man is that the nigger believes he's a nigger."

All I know at this moment is that Morgan Freeman won best supporting actor. Good on him. But I imagine that there's going to be a lot of pontificating tomorrow morning and I decided to get a few words out there first.

As I've said before, speaking on behalf of the Old School, we don't play the 'positive images' game around here. So it's not particularly interesting whether or not 'Ray' is a true black film. One of these days I'm going to check it out though. I hear it's very good. On billboards all over the city is Halle Berry. She's to star in the upcoming feature, 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'. It's an Oprah Winfrey production, and as such has all the earmarks of what I would imagine to be the perfect black on black on black film. As well, I hear that 'Diary of a Mad Black Woman' is due to hit the theatres soon, and it will be co-starring none other than the legendary Cicely Tyson. Quite frankly, I thought Cicely was dead - you see I saw some of her scenes in a special preview of Eddie Murphy's 'Life' several years ago and none of them made it to the theatres. Last time I checked 'Tuvok' had a cast role on ER, showing he survived the passing of his Star Trek role. And there are probably a dozen other examples I could give to show that blackfolks are alive and well in Hollywood.

Of course it will never be enough.

I think the sooner people realize that there is no satisfying blackfolks, they'll stop trying. And that will be a good thing. Because then blackfolks will stop thinking that everything they do is progressive and they'll start being conservative. Some of us already are, of course. When I read Cane by Jean Toomer, it hit me in a unique way. Suddenly I understood that what I needed to move forward as a human being was already done. It wasn't about what Hollywood had or had not produced for me, but what I hadn't done to deal with myself. The book had collected dust on my father's bookshelves since before I was born, and had been mentioned in a thousand anthologies, but I had not reached out and read it. My bad. Not Hollywood's.

Chris Rock is right, you know. The very idea of handing out awards for art is ridiculous. Craftsmanship? Sure. So to think of the Oscars as that makes perfect sense in that context. But the very idea that the peer recognition of professional filmmakers should resonate socially with people who have the same skin color as the recipient is an error.

It is inevitable that blackfolks will win Oscars. But they will always be different from the average black person hungry for existential validation. And here's where it gets deep.

Life keeps moving. African American life keeps moving. They are the same. But black stays still. It is a historical moment in time, the end of which is coming soon. There will soon come a day in American history when it will be clear that everything blacks promised each other and the world will come to pass and simultaneously become irrelevant. There will soon come a day when the actual Negro Problem will be forgotten. It will be renamed and redefined of course. Some minority within the minority will claim the stage and continue to shout while the overwhelming majority will have gone home. But all of the symbols and signs of struggle will seem odd, clunky and distant - like what fingers look like after a day of picking cotton. Like the adjective 'cotton-picking'.

When that day comes, the ability for people to represent black desire will be indistinguishable from their ability to represent human desire. It will be the day everyone recognizes blackfolks as humans. Today, there are lots of folks on both sides of the color line who can't, because that fixed thing that is Black, that Negro Problem, still substitutes for the actual real complexities of actual real people.

So today people can still jump up and down and claim that Nelly's videos really do set the black race back 50 years. And people can still jump up and down and claim that Condi Rice's success means goodness and light for all blackfolks. And people can claim that Morgan Freeman winning something for his work means something to black you and black me, or that Jamie Foxx stands for more than just Jamie Foxx, or Halle Berry, or Oprah or Denzel or whomever...

They don't. They're just people who are good at what they do.

I think I represent some of the best that Black Nationalism has to offer. I think I learned most all of its lessons. I'm very proud of where I come from, and I know that to be a very real Black place. I catch crap for it every Kwanzaa. Such is life. But I also know a hundred ways that Black Nationalism, Black Consciousness and Black Arts did not prepare me for the large life I have. People don't speak much about 'Black Macho & The Myth of the Superwoman' much any longer. In fact, I'd bet the name recognition ratio of Malcolm X to Michele Wallace is 100 to 1. I know the Black Nation was a Man's nation where women were allowed to have larger afros, but that's about all.

So how can I explain it other than to simply and flatly state that in a million years, no Hollywood writer is ever going to get Queen Latifah to that level? Don't expect it. All the static theories are going to come up short. All the limits of concepts and ideas and thoughts and literatures and arts are going to fail to represent life faithfully. The images simply cannot be real and perfectable. Choose one.

The Black Problem, the Negro Problem, all of those things we think we know, become outdated and passe. All the performances cannot be abstracted to symbolize anything that applies to all of us, or even most of us, nor even some of us. I say the symbolism stops pretty much at the red carpet. To be inside that room on that stage getting that award is what those lives are dedicated to. Anybody who believes much more than that is a liar or a fool or both.

If I remember correctly, Nell Carter died in her plush livingroom somewhere in Beverly Hills. It happens every day, you know. Somebody with a star on the walk of fame, or three dozen episodes to their credit, kicks the bucket. Do like I did. Take a walk at dusk in Beverly Hills. Search the eyes of the men bent over their walking sticks or the women with the small dogs and arthritis. They were somebody once - maybe she was the voice of Betty Rubble or he was the guy who came up with the slogan "Where's the Beef?". Maybe he headlined in Vegas. Maybe she was the second wife of a studio mogul. They all had their parts to play.

I know without a doubt that I'm a human being and there is nothing extraordinary about that. I also know that in three generations the entire film industry cannot and will not ever adequately describe much about the human condition. On the other hand, if I thought I was just a nigger, or just a Negro, or just Black, then I suppose there might someday come around the perfect symbol for me. I might even wait patiently for it, but life keeps moving on.

Hollywood Shuffle

"The difference between a nigger and a black man is that the nigger believes he's a nigger."

All I know at this moment is that Morgan Freeman won best supporting actor. Good on him. But I imagine that there's going to be a lot of pontificating tomorrow morning and I decided to get a few words out there first.

As I've said before, speaking on behalf of the Old School, we don't play the 'positive images' game around here. So it's not particularly interesting whether or not 'Ray' is a true black film. One of these days I'm going to check it out though. I hear it's very good. On billboards all over the city is Halle Berry. She's to star in the upcoming feature, 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'. It's an Oprah Winfrey production, and as such has all the earmarks of what I would imagine to be the perfect black on black on black film. As well, I hear that 'Diary of a Mad Black Woman' is due to hit the theatres soon, and it will be co-starring none other than the legendary Cicely Tyson. Quite frankly, I thought Cicely was dead - you see I saw some of her scenes in a special preview of Eddie Murphy's 'Life' several years ago and none of them made it to the theatres. Last time I checked 'Tuvok' had a cast role on ER, showing he survived the passing of his Star Trek role. And there are probably a dozen other examples I could give to show that blackfolks are alive and well in Hollywood.

Of course it will never be enough.

I think the sooner people realize that there is no satisfying blackfolks, they'll stop trying. And that will be a good thing. Because then blackfolks will stop thinking that everything they do is progressive and they'll start being conservative. Some of us already are, of course. When I read Cane by Jean Toomer, it hit me in a unique way. Suddenly I understood that what I needed to move forward as a human being was already done. It wasn't about what Hollywood had or had not produced for me, but what I hadn't done to deal with myself. The book had collected dust on my father's bookshelves since before I was born, and had been mentioned in a thousand anthologies, but I had not reached out and read it. My bad. Not Hollywood's.

Chris Rock is right, you know. The very idea of handing out awards for art is ridiculous. Craftsmanship? Sure. So to think of the Oscars as that makes perfect sense in that context. But the very idea that the peer recognition of professional filmmakers should resonate socially with people who have the same skin color as the recipient is an error.

It is inevitable that blackfolks will win Oscars. But they will always be different from the average black person hungry for existential validation. And here's where it gets deep.

Life keeps moving. African American life keeps moving. They are the same. But black stays still. It is a historical moment in time, the end of which is coming soon. There will soon come a day in American history when it will be clear that everything blacks promised each other and the world will come to pass and simultaneously become irrelevant. There will soon come a day when the actual Negro Problem will be forgotten. It will be renamed and redefined of course. Some minority within the minority will claim the stage and continue to shout while the overwhelming majority will have gone home. But all of the symbols and signs of struggle will seem odd, clunky and distant - like what fingers look like after a day of picking cotton. Like the adjective 'cotton-picking'.

When that day comes, the ability for people to represent black desire will be indistinguishable from their ability to represent human desire. It will be the day everyone recognizes blackfolks as humans. Today, there are lots of folks on both sides of the color line who can't, because that fixed thing that is Black, that Negro Problem, still substitutes for the actual real complexities of actual real people.

So today people can still jump up and down and claim that Nelly's videos really do set the black race back 50 years. And people can still jump up and down and claim that Condi Rice's success means goodness and light for all blackfolks. And people can claim that Morgan Freeman winning something for his work means something to black you and black me, or that Jamie Foxx stands for more than just Jamie Foxx, or Halle Berry, or Oprah or Denzel or whomever...

They don't. They're just people who are good at what they do.

I think I represent some of the best that Black Nationalism has to offer. I think I learned most all of its lessons. I'm very proud of where I come from, and I know that to be a very real Black place. I catch crap for it every Kwanzaa. Such is life. But I also know a hundred ways that Black Nationalism, Black Consciousness and Black Arts did not prepare me for the large life I have. People don't speak much about 'Black Macho & The Myth of the Superwoman' much any longer. In fact, I'd bet the name recognition ratio of Malcolm X to Michele Wallace is 100 to 1. I know the Black Nation was a Man's nation where women were allowed to have larger afros, but that's about all.

So how can I explain it other than to simply and flatly state that in a million years, no Hollywood writer is ever going to get Queen Latifah to that level? Don't expect it. All the static theories are going to come up short. All the limits of concepts and ideas and thoughts and literatures and arts are going to fail to represent life faithfully. The images simply cannot be real and perfectable. Choose one.

The Black Problem, the Negro Problem, all of those things we think we know, become outdated and passe. All the performances cannot be abstracted to symbolize anything that applies to all of us, or even most of us, nor even some of us. I say the symbolism stops pretty much at the red carpet. To be inside that room on that stage getting that award is what those lives are dedicated to. Anybody who believes much more than that is a liar or a fool or both.

If I remember correctly, Nell Carter died in her plush livingroom somewhere in Beverly Hills. It happens every day, you know. Somebody with a star on the walk of fame, or three dozen episodes to their credit, kicks the bucket. Do like I did. Take a walk at dusk in Beverly Hills. Search the eyes of the men bent over their walking sticks or the women with the small dogs and arthritis. They were somebody once - maybe she was the voice of Betty Rubble or he was the guy who came up with the slogan "Where's the Beef?". Maybe he headlined in Vegas. Maybe she was the second wife of a studio mogul. They all had their parts to play.

I know without a doubt that I'm a human being and there is nothing extraordinary about that. I also know that in three generations the entire film industry cannot and will not ever adequately describe much about the human condition. On the other hand, if I thought I was just a nigger, or just a Negro, or just Black, then I suppose there might someday come around the perfect symbol for me. I might even wait patiently for it, but life keeps moving on.

Buttermilk

Cyclotrimethylene Trinitramine

Every once in a while I wonder for a hot moment, whether or not America has lost its gonads. Then I remember that guys like me are not so rare, and that we get pot bellies because we're safe. It is not a trivial thing, our safety.

I think of my brother the cop in his righteous indignation against moonbats who say we're the bad guys. Doc is right on, and what he says is what we should know: it takes a non-trivial amount of brainwashing and/or evil intent to do really wrong.

It has been a while since I ranted about the foolishness of the militias in rebellion in Iraq. That's because we've handed them their asses for the most part. Yet and still there's a daily kaboom over that way, and it takes its macabre toll. There is no great mystery to bomb making. In fact, it's surprising just how many different ways there are to make explosive devices. It's not a wonder that there are so many IEDs going off in Iraq, the technology is not the problem. It is a wonder that people can be so wrong as to engage in anarchic destruction.

Today I've been reorganizing my files and came across 'pranks.txt'. Really hilarious stuff can be done with a bucket of liquid nitrogen, a hacksaw and a can of Barbasol. So as I was browsing through it, I found a couple formulae for stink bombs. The best one seems to take several weeks to bake, so I let loose the Google hounds to find a better one. Instead I found... well, let's just say I found some fairly obscene recipies. So I read a bunch of stuff, including how I could make C-4, the plastic explosive.

I remember the early days of the 'net when most every law enforcement agency in the country was deathly afraid of Loompanics and other anarchist cookbooks online. Anybody could get this stuff. And it's true, there are so many step by step manuals on the internet, you could arm... well an entire insurgency.

There aren't insurgencies or armed militias in the US aiming to do major damage to the republic. That is the province of the cowards whose most potent weapons are the adjectives of disgust. None of them has the courage to mix a batch of chemicals which might stain their carpets, much less the temerity explode them in a police station. So today I am giving thanks for dissent, even and perhaps especially that of ridiculous extremism. Because whatever we have over here, we have a civil society which is a great distance from turmoil.

Today in the news is the arrest of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti I am reminded how unlikely it is for some American dissident to leave the US and try to direct a militant campaign from abroad. We're doing OK here. We're doing OK.

Cyclotrimethylene Trinitramine

Every once in a while I wonder for a hot moment, whether or not America has lost its gonads. Then I remember that guys like me are not so rare, and that we get pot bellies because we're safe. It is not a trivial thing, our safety.

I think of my brother the cop in his righteous indignation against moonbats who say we're the bad guys. Doc is right on, and what he says is what we should know: it takes a non-trivial amount of brainwashing and/or evil intent to do really wrong.

It has been a while since I ranted about the foolishness of the militias in rebellion in Iraq. That's because we've handed them their asses for the most part. Yet and still there's a daily kaboom over that way, and it takes its macabre toll. There is no great mystery to bomb making. In fact, it's surprising just how many different ways there are to make explosive devices. It's not a wonder that there are so many IEDs going off in Iraq, the technology is not the problem. It is a wonder that people can be so wrong as to engage in anarchic destruction.

Today I've been reorganizing my files and came across 'pranks.txt'. Really hilarious stuff can be done with a bucket of liquid nitrogen, a hacksaw and a can of Barbasol. So as I was browsing through it, I found a couple formulae for stink bombs. The best one seems to take several weeks to bake, so I let loose the Google hounds to find a better one. Instead I found... well, let's just say I found some fairly obscene recipies. So I read a bunch of stuff, including how I could make C-4, the plastic explosive.

I remember the early days of the 'net when most every law enforcement agency in the country was deathly afraid of Loompanics and other anarchist cookbooks online. Anybody could get this stuff. And it's true, there are so many step by step manuals on the internet, you could arm... well an entire insurgency.

There aren't insurgencies or armed militias in the US aiming to do major damage to the republic. That is the province of the cowards whose most potent weapons are the adjectives of disgust. None of them has the courage to mix a batch of chemicals which might stain their carpets, much less the temerity explode them in a police station. So today I am giving thanks for dissent, even and perhaps especially that of ridiculous extremism. Because whatever we have over here, we have a civil society which is a great distance from turmoil.

Today in the news is the arrest of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti I am reminded how unlikely it is for some American dissident to leave the US and try to direct a militant campaign from abroad. We're doing OK here. We're doing OK.

Beantown

Don't Hate

Pick a Subject, Any Subject

Max Gordon sounds as if he's paid by the word, and rants in about seven directions at once in his massive rambling broadside against the usual suspects. Any one of these could have been brilliant, but taken together they are, in the immortal words of Rodney Allen Rippy, "too big 'a eat".

Let's see. There's the trauma of great-grandmother's bones:

My great-grandmother was educated in rural South Carolina through the sixth grade, when racist whites burned her school to the ground. Several children were still inside. As the story is told in my family, she went back to the school and searched the ashes for the charred bones of her classmates, some of which she kept and placed on a mantle piece. My grandmother grew up with those bones as a reminder of what education means in America for a black person, what it has sometimes cost.

There's the lowly entry-level peon's-eye-view of Godless Corporation:

If you are a black employee of an American corporation and have decided to file a complaint about racism, you may be dismayed to find that the entire human resources department is black (with the exception of one white supervisor). Having to face this black army you are immediately disarmed. To have to tell a black face, with your black face, that you've been passed over for a promotion or raise, or that you're underpaid and you think it is because of your race, seems more than a little odd.

There's some Queen Latifa:

What I want to shield the child from is not sex-talk or naked bodies; it's the contempt the movie has for her, for humanity. It's never the sex in pornography that eats away at us, nor is it just the sexual contact of incest that ultimately destroys; it's the cynicism, the overwhelming psychological burden of despair that an adult pours into a child's body and mind.

How is that about Queen Latifa, you ask? Unfair question. Meanwhile, Max takes us to some Affirmative Action in what must be the longest single sentence this side of the Nuyorican Reverse Poetry Slam:

However, for the working-class black student who may come from a community with inferior schools, inadequate money for materials and no advanced placement classes; whose relatives have taken out loans to get her a place to live on campus; who has to barter at the financial-aid department, filling out scholarship applications and concentrating this year on how she's going to pay for next year; who feels isolated on a predominantly white college campus and has to guard herself against the potential racist epithet uttered by the white person on her dormitory hall, or by her professor under the guise of "intellectual discourse"; who wants to stay in bed all semester, overwhelmed with the anxiety of trying to prove to herself and everyone else that she is there because of her achievements and not a number; by the time this student sits in a classroom at an American university, believe me, she's earned it.

Then Death Row (not thankfully not Suge Knight's Death Row):

In his Atlantic Monthly article of July 2003, Alan Berlow described how Alberto Gonzales, legal counsel to then Texas Governor Bush, helped in deciding the fate of prisoners on death row. (It is estimated by the ACLU that of the more than 2,000 people on "death row" virtually all are poor, a significant number are mentally retarded or otherwise mentally disabled, and more than 40 percent are African American, a disproportionate number Native American, Latino, or Asian.)

OK you get the picture. Or maybe you don't. Somebody needs to focus. Slow down. Chew your food, Max. You have a whole blog to get your points out. Try pieces that lend themselves to critical dissection because right now they're falling apart under their own weight. You can't go from Alabama to World Peace in 11 paragraphs, which is about as long as this monstrosity about Condoleeza Rice(!) made sense.

I paid attention because Professor Kim did. Then again she has the saintly patience that has to grade bad papers. Me, I hope that Max stays around long enough for me to play rope-a-dope Ali to his firebreathing (and ugly) George Foreman.

Pick a Subject, Any Subject

Max Gordon sounds as if he's paid by the word, and rants in about seven directions at once in his massive rambling broadside against the usual suspects. Any one of these could have been brilliant, but taken together they are, in the immortal words of Rodney Allen Rippy, "too big 'a eat".

Let's see. There's the trauma of great-grandmother's bones:

My great-grandmother was educated in rural South Carolina through the sixth grade, when racist whites burned her school to the ground. Several children were still inside. As the story is told in my family, she went back to the school and searched the ashes for the charred bones of her classmates, some of which she kept and placed on a mantle piece. My grandmother grew up with those bones as a reminder of what education means in America for a black person, what it has sometimes cost.

There's the lowly entry-level peon's-eye-view of Godless Corporation:

If you are a black employee of an American corporation and have decided to file a complaint about racism, you may be dismayed to find that the entire human resources department is black (with the exception of one white supervisor). Having to face this black army you are immediately disarmed. To have to tell a black face, with your black face, that you've been passed over for a promotion or raise, or that you're underpaid and you think it is because of your race, seems more than a little odd.

There's some Queen Latifa:

What I want to shield the child from is not sex-talk or naked bodies; it's the contempt the movie has for her, for humanity. It's never the sex in pornography that eats away at us, nor is it just the sexual contact of incest that ultimately destroys; it's the cynicism, the overwhelming psychological burden of despair that an adult pours into a child's body and mind.

How is that about Queen Latifa, you ask? Unfair question. Meanwhile, Max takes us to some Affirmative Action in what must be the longest single sentence this side of the Nuyorican Reverse Poetry Slam:

However, for the working-class black student who may come from a community with inferior schools, inadequate money for materials and no advanced placement classes; whose relatives have taken out loans to get her a place to live on campus; who has to barter at the financial-aid department, filling out scholarship applications and concentrating this year on how she's going to pay for next year; who feels isolated on a predominantly white college campus and has to guard herself against the potential racist epithet uttered by the white person on her dormitory hall, or by her professor under the guise of "intellectual discourse"; who wants to stay in bed all semester, overwhelmed with the anxiety of trying to prove to herself and everyone else that she is there because of her achievements and not a number; by the time this student sits in a classroom at an American university, believe me, she's earned it.

Then Death Row (not thankfully not Suge Knight's Death Row):

In his Atlantic Monthly article of July 2003, Alan Berlow described how Alberto Gonzales, legal counsel to then Texas Governor Bush, helped in deciding the fate of prisoners on death row. (It is estimated by the ACLU that of the more than 2,000 people on "death row" virtually all are poor, a significant number are mentally retarded or otherwise mentally disabled, and more than 40 percent are African American, a disproportionate number Native American, Latino, or Asian.)

OK you get the picture. Or maybe you don't. Somebody needs to focus. Slow down. Chew your food, Max. You have a whole blog to get your points out. Try pieces that lend themselves to critical dissection because right now they're falling apart under their own weight. You can't go from Alabama to World Peace in 11 paragraphs, which is about as long as this monstrosity about Condoleeza Rice(!) made sense.

I paid attention because Professor Kim did. Then again she has the saintly patience that has to grade bad papers. Me, I hope that Max stays around long enough for me to play rope-a-dope Ali to his firebreathing (and ugly) George Foreman.

Pick a Ho, Any Ho

Since I have a bad attitude, and I'm going to try to maintain this bad attitude for a while to see what it yeilds creatively, I've decided to let you know how little I care about HIV and AIDS.

Still, it hit my usual prohibitions when my knee jerked at some factoid about HIV and African Americans. My gut reaction was, I don't have HIV and I don't even *know* anybody with HIV, so why do I care about HIV? The fact is that I don't. I don't think about HIV, hell I don't even think about sex. How do you think I get so much blogging done?

Sooner or later I'll need to see a number however. In the case of HIV alarm, P6 has provided the number I needed to see.

In the 2001 survey, out of about 5,500 people examined, 32 were HIV-positive. Of that group, 23 were African American. The overall prevalence of HIV was 0.43 percent, up slightly from 0.33 percent a decade earlier.

On the one hand, that's a disturbingly high rate for a deadly illness, regardless of the selection criteria used to decide who to ask. On the other hand, 32 infections out of 5,500 people means it's not too late for you to be safe.

Also, "18 to 59" is a pretty broad swath. In this age of focus group marketing I can't think of a demographic defined that broadly. There's a a finer tuned result in the middle of the article.

It's not disturbingly high, unless you're one of those people who are easily disturbed. Considering the disturbingly high number of juvenile delinquent black auto theives who try to run over cops at 4 in the morning who get shot in the head by the LAPD, maybe HIV infection is distrubingly high. I don't know why such sensitive people aren't disturbed by needle-sharing butt buddies, but then again what do I know?

Now there are a lot of details to be aware of in the P6 article and commentary, which is why I cite it. The pleasant thing about being an ass is that you can be an intelligent ass. And so as an intelligent ass, I am privileged to make jokes about serious material (stay tuned for more cartoons).

If I went to meatmarket bars every weekend for a three months, that would put me in contact with about 5500 packages of potential meat product. Out of those 5500 about 32 would be HIV positive. I think I can pick the hos out of that bunch. What guarantee would I have that they weren't the dirty two and two/thirds dozen? Not much, but the odds are pretty good in my favor. Aren't syphillus and gonnorhea more prevalent than HIV anyway? Well that's a damned hard question to answer because the paperpushers at the CDC have decided against a Fisher-Price interface for us layfolks. Somebody show me were HIV/AIDS morbitity stats are published in the same damned table with other STDs and you get a medal from me. Fricken hype and hysteria.

Just scanning this monstrosity was enough to send my brain into siezures. It's enough to make you think that thetruth.com is probably not such a bad idea after all.

Aldous Huxley said an intellectual is somebody who has found something more interesting than sex. Athough I doubt that he meant football, he was certainly onto something. In the meantime, I think Nancy Reagan said it best. On the other hand, let's ask ourselves some interestingly provocative questions about our friend the bling rapper. Do rappers have HIV? On the other hand, let's not go there.

What's the bottom line? Getting information in context about HIV from the CDC is a lot more difficult than keeping your pants on. Unless you're a ho.

Whiteheads

Shasta McNasty goes racial. I'm going racial so let's all go racial. It's all about the moral posturing of reading controversial books in public. Lot's of fun, especially if you look like either Alistaire Cook or Dr. Dre.

But seriously, I thought the issue of white identity was generally accepted and understood, and since I just posted about that, I figure that I would bring forth some more from the archives.

I contend that the most telling aspect of racism latent and present in American life is existence of what I call white citizenship. The problem is that many Americans may strive for it without giving it much thought. it probably will take a bit of doing for one to recognize this concept because white citizenship is, for the most part, considered to be neutral and the default of the American mainstream. To be able to remove what is actually racial and cultural from the concept of citizenship, we become better citizens. Constitutionally, our citizenship should have nothing to do with our race or creed.

I must admit that I have had some difficulty in formulating this argument for presentation. It seems overly harsh to say that Americans who consider themselves 'white' might be 'natural' candidates for racist ideas. Yet what, if anything, must the purported neutrality of whiteness entail which is racist? Why indeed would anyone call themselves 'white'? White as compared to what?

My own interest goes beyond some shallow vilification of the term 'white', although I believe that to be a good pedagogical device. African Americans have certainly had to wrestle with the idea of being 'Negro' or 'colored' or 'black' even in the complete absence of racial discrimination. This is part and parcel of our being. For the sake of slavery in which none of us alive has taken part we African Americans deal with that question of identity. That living white folk too, have had no participation in that institution should not exempt them from self-examination. But beyond that, I am curious to know what if any influence can be made on people who consider themselves white which works in racist ways.

In short, how are ordinary white folks who have no pathological reason to be racist, taken in by racist appeals to their identity as Americans? In doing so, I am not suggesting that there is some mysterious force visible only to the proper race man which stealthily infects only white people, but I point to racist appeals we have all seen work, such as the Willie Horton ad crafted by lee Atwater and the presidential campaign of David Duke.

M. Bowen, 1996

BTW, I can remember that BTD Steve was a bit upset with me for not going racial about 18 months ago. Some time since then I've decided that it is better not to pre-determine whether not you are going to comment on something racial or not. Just go when the conversation goes.

Whiteheads

Shasta McNasty goes racial. I'm going racial so let's all go racial. It's all about the moral posturing of reading controversial books in public. Lot's of fun, especially if you look like either Alistaire Cook or Dr. Dre.

But seriously, I thought the issue of white identity was generally accepted and understood, and since I just posted about that, I figure that I would bring forth some more from the archives.

I contend that the most telling aspect of racism latent and present in American life is existence of what I call white citizenship. The problem is that many Americans may strive for it without giving it much thought. it probably will take a bit of doing for one to recognize this concept because white citizenship is, for the most part, considered to be neutral and the default of the American mainstream. To be able to remove what is actually racial and cultural from the concept of citizenship, we become better citizens. Constitutionally, our citizenship should have nothing to do with our race or creed.

I must admit that I have had some difficulty in formulating this argument for presentation. It seems overly harsh to say that Americans who consider themselves 'white' might be 'natural' candidates for racist ideas. Yet what, if anything, must the purported neutrality of whiteness entail which is racist? Why indeed would anyone call themselves 'white'? White as compared to what?

My own interest goes beyond some shallow vilification of the term 'white', although I believe that to be a good pedagogical device. African Americans have certainly had to wrestle with the idea of being 'Negro' or 'colored' or 'black' even in the complete absence of racial discrimination. This is part and parcel of our being. For the sake of slavery in which none of us alive has taken part we African Americans deal with that question of identity. That living white folk too, have had no participation in that institution should not exempt them from self-examination. But beyond that, I am curious to know what if any influence can be made on people who consider themselves white which works in racist ways.

In short, how are ordinary white folks who have no pathological reason to be racist, taken in by racist appeals to their identity as Americans? In doing so, I am not suggesting that there is some mysterious force visible only to the proper race man which stealthily infects only white people, but I point to racist appeals we have all seen work, such as the Willie Horton ad crafted by lee Atwater and the presidential campaign of David Duke.

M. Bowen, 1996

BTW, I can remember that BTD Steve was a bit upset with me for not going racial about 18 months ago. Some time since then I've decided that it is better not to pre-determine whether not you are going to comment on something racial or not. Just go when the conversation goes.

Racial Identity vs Racial Consciousness

(from the boohabian archives)

June 1996
Boohabian Provocation:
disempersoned ideas! humbug!

someone asked about the observations of those to whom race is a non-issue.

on this question, i make the general assertion that in a racist society, colorblindness is the moral equivalent of racism. if a judge declares integration the rule of law and all the white kids leave the city school, it is immoral to say 'all i see are children going to private school'. but even in situations which are not so drastic, the specificity of racial consciousness must be considered.

one's own individual experience does not take place in a vacuum. to 'objectify' one's experience is to deny individuality. to disembody experience is to dehumanize. if i say 'i am x and i feel this way', to create a forum in which x cannot be discussed is to take away a part of an individual's weight. it also cheats from the observers point of view. if an observer only hears 'i feel this way' and has no experience with an individual who claims to be 'x', the observer can deny the fact that being 'x' can lead to that feeling.

fill in the blanks. i pursued a phD in engineering because when i was 15 and black in highschool, my white counselor told me that black folks can't do engineering. so every time i hear 'black folks can't do engineering' i know that somewhere people who don't want to hear about blackness are denying black individuals who are enigneers to say 'im black and im proud and that's why i am an engineer'.

sure you can say that race is a non issue regarding what an engineer does, but in effect you are using the passive voice. it's like saying 'the hoover dam got built' without a whit spoken about *who* built it or why. 'the civil rights bill passed', 'the revolutionary war was fought', 'some churches burned', 'shit happens'...

hmph again i say.

how is it that when we shed race and gender we become pure? what a farce! this experiment of pure revelation has already been done. it's a failure in general and has grave consequences for civil society.

you can take note of my black identity in cmc page and take special note of heidegger's observation in the 'it could happen' section.

Response:

I find it interesting that you can make the argument that one's racial consciousness is somehow intrinsic to one's identity, while this Jamaican fellow i know (and an awful lot of Indian people, African people, and Muslims i've met) of the same "race" laughs at your suggestions. Seems to me that there are an awful lot of people in the world (even with the same color of skin as you) who consider "race" to be nothing more than an exotic quality. For them, "race" is primarily an aesthetic issue -- except when they hafta deal with racists.

I find your idea that "racial identity" is somehow intrinsic to one's character insulting. Furthermore, it is "racist" (in the sense that "racist" simply means "one who believes in/supports the ideology of 'race'). I am not a racist, and i think those who are are silly, dangerous people. I have a father who is French/Amerindian, and a mother who's English/Scottish. What am i?

Who are you to tell me?

Noone has ever suggested that with the shedding of race and gender one becomes "pure." The suggestion has been made, however, that perhaps the idea of eliminating the names from these posts would be an interesting experiment. I agree. Not because it would negate anyone's sex/gender -- all would still be free to say, "i am a black american, and my experience here is...." Rather, it would eliminate the ego that goes with seeing one's name in print, while making distinctions between who is saying what unclear. Thus a conversation could be carried by four different entries, four different people, but still give the illusion of a "dialogue." It would be an attempt to see a sequential process of thought be supported through vastly separated, different minds.

I totally agree with your second paragraph. It has, however, no bearing on this conversation. The only way i know that you're a "black" man is because you say so. And noone has ever suggested that we take that power away from you.

Boohabian Followup Answer & Snark:
well, i am not saying what i think you are saying that i'm saying. but let me say it in another more basic way.

Schiavo

I Don't Care About You

This is the essay where I express my frustration at your inability to understand me, and my willingness to abstract that what I know to be true for the sake of the public good. In so doing, I will wrap up three itches in my head, although it probably won't buck up my spirits.

First of all, there's the abject cynicism of my compadres over at Vision Circle. I was going to try to be serious about the Black Progress Net:

Many years ago I read 'The Black Power Imperative' by Theodore Cross. This was the book that single-handedly proved to me that there remained a great deal of work to do in continuing the progress and reform brought about by the Civil Rights Movement. That imperative, of real representation and political power, became my imperative.

And make the distinction between those who publish books and those like me who read 'em and critique 'em. Point being I'm never going to try to be a paid policy wonk or policy analyst. Leave it to the professionals.

Then I read Lynn Johnson's resume and realized that she and George will be doing all the black thangs at SXSW. I don't get to represent. So I'm never going to fly around the nation speaking on panels with journalists about all this yada either.

This morning I read Faye Anderson with despair. Niger Innis and Jesse Lee Petersen? Yike. I know this isn't the best that conservative blacks can do.

I know where I am. I am in the bubble ahead of things. My mind and my brain run too fast, and I'm never going to slow down long enough and write enough non-caustic syllables to profit from what I know. It's inevitable, I think, that I am destined to be alone with my keyboard.

In 1993 I spoke out at Harvard and watched the stars of black academia shrug off the entire internet. And I had bothered to wear my email address on a backwards baseball cap, because as anyone who knew could see, that was the coolest of all possible worlds.

For the next week or so I'm going to be digging up stuff from the archives, because at this particular moment, the past is more interesting than the present, and the present just doesn't seem worth the effort of seriousness. That means the cartoons are about to jump off. But I don't care.

I just don't care.

I Don't Care About You

This is the essay where I express my frustration at your inability to understand me, and my willingness to abstract that what I know to be true for the sake of the public good. In so doing, I will wrap up three itches in my head, although it probably won't buck up my spirits.

First of all, there's the abject cynicism of my compadres over at Vision Circle. I was going to try to be serious about the Black Progress Net:

Many years ago I read 'The Black Power Imperative' by Theodore Cross. This was the book that single-handedly proved to me that there remained a great deal of work to do in continuing the progress and reform brought about by the Civil Rights Movement. That imperative, of real representation and political power, became my imperative.

And make the distinction between those who publish books and those like me who read 'em and critique 'em. Point being I'm never going to try to be a paid policy wonk or policy analyst. Leave it to the professionals.

Then I read Lynn Johnson's resume and realized that she and George will be doing all the black thangs at SXSW. I don't get to represent. So I'm never going to fly around the nation speaking on panels with journalists about all this yada either.

This morning I read Faye Anderson with despair. Niger Innis and Jesse Lee Petersen? Yike. I know this isn't the best that conservative blacks can do.

I know where I am. I am in the bubble ahead of things. My mind and my brain run too fast, and I'm never going to slow down long enough and write enough non-caustic syllables to profit from what I know. It's inevitable, I think, that I am destined to be alone with my keyboard.

In 1993 I spoke out at Harvard and watched the stars of black academia shrug off the entire internet. And I had bothered to wear my email address on a backwards baseball cap, because as anyone who knew could see, that was the coolest of all possible worlds.

For the next week or so I'm going to be digging up stuff from the archives, because at this particular moment, the past is more interesting than the present, and the present just doesn't seem worth the effort of seriousness. That means the cartoons are about to jump off. But I don't care.

I just don't care.

Coma

The End Of My Blackness: 1997

(from the archives)

every four years or so, i pierce a barrier and find that i am no longer the black man i was that many years ago. the existential issues that i found most pressing then, at the moment of clarity, have been resolved.

the good side is that this end has always signalled a demonstrative progress. secondly, i have always discovered a new way of being black that fits me more comfortably. the bad side is that it always presents a new set of problems, and i often grow weary of the 'black' discussions i have had over the previous period.

i have not yet reached the end of my current period, but it's coming shortly. it is signalled by my imminent return to los angeles, the publication of 'critical white studies' shown in the link, the denoument of 209, the waning of bandwidth in webchat in my favorite racial fora, the relative completion of 'boohabs factotum', and my periodic readings of the norton anthology of african american literature.

on that last note, i have found myself utterly stymied by the phraseology and syntax of the brer rabbit stories. written in the o.g. dialect, it is almost as foreign to me as the faerie queen and the canterbury tales. i try to read it to my (light skin, good haired) children, and i feel foolish. i call them the 'old time stories', and try my best uncle remus accent. we all end up confused, me as i stumble over the text trying to make sense of the original meaning, and translating it into pre-school english, they as they try to reconcile this different storytime voice. at least it's about a rabbit, sorta.

along with the compilation by delgado & stefanic, i recently purchased massey and denton's 'american apartheid'. i gather it will give me all the beef behind my own 'originated' theory which i based on a snippet here and there. i have been arguing for the past 5 black years that the single most unifying thing black people have is geography, and that essentially all black dysfunction stems from the ills of living in ghettoes - that our human and civil rights battles are mostly won and what we need most is to actually move to the level playing field. that without white boogie men in our heads, triumph is inevitable, as long as we are living next door to the (white) competition. unfortunately 80% of us ain't residentially integrated, and so we are mired in unique battles that outsiders do not comprehend. massey and denton have the specs.

the last political sea changes of any note were the stacking of the supreme court by reagan, and before that the failure of the rainbow coalition. 209 by comparison is actually less severe, but more indicative of the kind of dismissal 'we' can expect in the future. it portends, in my view, the death of subtle politics, and the political meaninglessness of black middle class struggles in the eyes of the political majority. the black part of me which was dedicated to being engaged as a political progressive is ended. i am resigned to my own elitist understanding - let others negotiate. combined with my reading of nathan glazer's latest, and the relative silence greeting his well reasoned refutation of his earlier rejection of affirmative action, i will be content to be even more hardnosed. the public is wrong, the public be damned.

all this leaves some question as to the fate of my website, which never actually got the attention i thought it deserved. maybe it was the lower case, but i'm not certain that i have the will to continue building 'the race man's home companion'. its biggest dilemma, the question of whiteness, has be adequately answered. i know where self-identified whitefolks are coming from, for the most part, and i know how far they have to come in order to make the kind of political impact the home companion sought to aid. i think ignatiev is appropriately radical and anything short of that will be ineffective (as is glazer). as for the rest of the factotum - well, now it's just something to do.

at this end, i am walking through bookstores and record shops not quite sure what i want to buy. i'm sick of my previous tastes. despite the fact that i am who i am - irrevocably a gut-level cultural nationalist who grew up in the roughest black neighborhood that still could be called lower middle class - i don't care about what all of that has meant thus far.

The End Of My Blackness: 1997

(from the archives)

every four years or so, i pierce a barrier and find that i am no longer the black man i was that many years ago. the existential issues that i found most pressing then, at the moment of clarity, have been resolved.

the good side is that this end has always signalled a demonstrative progress. secondly, i have always discovered a new way of being black that fits me more comfortably. the bad side is that it always presents a new set of problems, and i often grow weary of the 'black' discussions i have had over the previous period.

i have not yet reached the end of my current period, but it's coming shortly. it is signalled by my imminent return to los angeles, the publication of 'critical white studies' shown in the link, the denoument of 209, the waning of bandwidth in webchat in my favorite racial fora, the relative completion of 'boohabs factotum', and my periodic readings of the norton anthology of african american literature.

on that last note, i have found myself utterly stymied by the phraseology and syntax of the brer rabbit stories. written in the o.g. dialect, it is almost as foreign to me as the faerie queen and the canterbury tales. i try to read it to my (light skin, good haired) children, and i feel foolish. i call them the 'old time stories', and try my best uncle remus accent. we all end up confused, me as i stumble over the text trying to make sense of the original meaning, and translating it into pre-school english, they as they try to reconcile this different storytime voice. at least it's about a rabbit, sorta.

along with the compilation by delgado & stefanic, i recently purchased massey and denton's 'american apartheid'. i gather it will give me all the beef behind my own 'originated' theory which i based on a snippet here and there. i have been arguing for the past 5 black years that the single most unifying thing black people have is geography, and that essentially all black dysfunction stems from the ills of living in ghettoes - that our human and civil rights battles are mostly won and what we need most is to actually move to the level playing field. that without white boogie men in our heads, triumph is inevitable, as long as we are living next door to the (white) competition. unfortunately 80% of us ain't residentially integrated, and so we are mired in unique battles that outsiders do not comprehend. massey and denton have the specs.

the last political sea changes of any note were the stacking of the supreme court by reagan, and before that the failure of the rainbow coalition. 209 by comparison is actually less severe, but more indicative of the kind of dismissal 'we' can expect in the future. it portends, in my view, the death of subtle politics, and the political meaninglessness of black middle class struggles in the eyes of the political majority. the black part of me which was dedicated to being engaged as a political progressive is ended. i am resigned to my own elitist understanding - let others negotiate. combined with my reading of nathan glazer's latest, and the relative silence greeting his well reasoned refutation of his earlier rejection of affirmative action, i will be content to be even more hardnosed. the public is wrong, the public be damned.

all this leaves some question as to the fate of my website, which never actually got the attention i thought it deserved. maybe it was the lower case, but i'm not certain that i have the will to continue building 'the race man's home companion'. its biggest dilemma, the question of whiteness, has be adequately answered. i know where self-identified whitefolks are coming from, for the most part, and i know how far they have to come in order to make the kind of political impact the home companion sought to aid. i think ignatiev is appropriately radical and anything short of that will be ineffective (as is glazer). as for the rest of the factotum - well, now it's just something to do.

at this end, i am walking through bookstores and record shops not quite sure what i want to buy. i'm sick of my previous tastes. despite the fact that i am who i am - irrevocably a gut-level cultural nationalist who grew up in the roughest black neighborhood that still could be called lower middle class - i don't care about what all of that has meant thus far.

Envoy

Upon Reading The Recently Released Writings of Dr. King

(from the archives)
19970627.1805 – OKC to ATL

“Upon Reading The Recently Released Writings of Dr. King”
postmoderen, post-soul reflections written at 32 thousand feet.

In 2014, it will have been 50 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act and as I reflect on the release of Hong Kong and the fall of the Raj in 1997 I am curious about what will be asked. Today I am not certain I am asked to do anything more than vent – my feeling in the long understood of and devalued currency of Black Rage is what all expect to hear. I am tired of that dialog.

I am like many a gangsta rapper – my allegiances to the dollar and my own power echoes in the vacuum of slain forefathers. Nothing is above mockery, in silence stand sentinels of order. I find in their quiet dignity only the simplicity and humility of those overwhelmed. I keep trying to jump – like a prophetic frog sitting in slowly boiling water. I don’t want to want to suffocate blindly, yet I don’t know what really lies beyond. So we are jumping and shouting half-afraid and half longing to be slapped into a place we know we don’t belong. Is this self-destructive? I don’t know.

The problem with living for affluence in America is that you struggle for privilege and prominence amongst those who struggle for survival. Yet survival is so easy here – no one lives in fear of dysentery or starvation of malaria – that survivors are easily dismissed. Everyone’s suffering seems equally shallow – no one is oppressed, merely disadvantaged, disillusioned and socially dysfunctional. Yet if there are those who truly suffer, they are so out of reach – so far from our striving arena that their very existence is mythology. We conjure up the spirits of carjackers and rapists and embody them into the faces of those who are sufficiently distant. Our voodoo consciousness is so pervasive that none seem content to simply rob passersby for supper money. Crimes are outsized, spectacular and deranged. The disadvantaged watch television dramas written by paranoid millionaires, take lessons and plot.

So there often seems no morality clear enough to grasp and shepherd the suppressed and oppressed – its all varying degrees of the same ethics of white collar crime. Smart greed and danger and brutality are the signifiers of poverty.

In this uncivil society what are Civil Rights for? When all politics are bought and paid for, what is the purpose of free speech? I sometimes believe that our nation is too large for movements – the airwaves too full of mixed signals to maintain any significant message for any significant group. So when they ask me in 17 years, my story will sound nothing like anyone else’s I fear. I will have become a disembodied individual, subject to the same dissonance and greed as everyone else.

Upon Reading The Recently Released Writings of Dr. King

(from the archives)
19970627.1805 – OKC to ATL

“Upon Reading The Recently Released Writings of Dr. King”
postmoderen, post-soul reflections written at 32 thousand feet.

In 2014, it will have been 50 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act and as I reflect on the release of Hong Kong and the fall of the Raj in 1997 I am curious about what will be asked. Today I am not certain I am asked to do anything more than vent – my feeling in the long understood of and devalued currency of Black Rage is what all expect to hear. I am tired of that dialog.

I am like many a gangsta rapper – my allegiances to the dollar and my own power echoes in the vacuum of slain forefathers. Nothing is above mockery, in silence stand sentinels of order. I find in their quiet dignity only the simplicity and humility of those overwhelmed. I keep trying to jump – like a prophetic frog sitting in slowly boiling water. I don’t want to want to suffocate blindly, yet I don’t know what really lies beyond. So we are jumping and shouting half-afraid and half longing to be slapped into a place we know we don’t belong. Is this self-destructive? I don’t know.

The problem with living for affluence in America is that you struggle for privilege and prominence amongst those who struggle for survival. Yet survival is so easy here – no one lives in fear of dysentery or starvation of malaria – that survivors are easily dismissed. Everyone’s suffering seems equally shallow – no one is oppressed, merely disadvantaged, disillusioned and socially dysfunctional. Yet if there are those who truly suffer, they are so out of reach – so far from our striving arena that their very existence is mythology. We conjure up the spirits of carjackers and rapists and embody them into the faces of those who are sufficiently distant. Our voodoo consciousness is so pervasive that none seem content to simply rob passersby for supper money. Crimes are outsized, spectacular and deranged. The disadvantaged watch television dramas written by paranoid millionaires, take lessons and plot.

So there often seems no morality clear enough to grasp and shepherd the suppressed and oppressed – its all varying degrees of the same ethics of white collar crime. Smart greed and danger and brutality are the signifiers of poverty.

In this uncivil society what are Civil Rights for? When all politics are bought and paid for, what is the purpose of free speech? I sometimes believe that our nation is too large for movements – the airwaves too full of mixed signals to maintain any significant message for any significant group. So when they ask me in 17 years, my story will sound nothing like anyone else’s I fear. I will have become a disembodied individual, subject to the same dissonance and greed as everyone else.

Everything Worth Having

'Everything worth having' is a snappy answer to the stupid question 'What do black people want?'.

In thinking about the role of black public intellectuals and female public intellectuals, I have to ask how much time they spend lambasting 'the opposition'. Call me sheltered but I am convinced of the essential beauty of creation, and I mean man's creation. To paraphrase Devo, it's a beautiful world we live in. And I know the kick line to that is 'for you, but not for me'. The question is whether we use our skills to move in or burn down the house.

But sometimes the question is not so stupid. And as I look towards discussion and debate over Estrich v Kinsey and the black left vs the black right, I want to keep that in mind. I admire people who challenge for the crown, but not those who say the castle is irredeemable, especially those who cannot build their own when there are still plenty rocks around.

The European

Hunter S. Thompson, Eclexia & The Alternative Mainstream

I hate suicides and lushes. So a suicidal lush gets no props from me. I also have no experience whatsoever with Hunter S. Thompson's actual work. All I knew yesterday is that one of the Doonesbury characters (which I don't read) is supposed to be vaguely based on this guy. He was certainly influential.

I am given to believe that people in search of alternate realities are generally desparate. Of course I was educated in the sciences, I have to believe that. Still, no desparation speaks louder than that of extreme excess. A supernal desire to blot out reality says to me, 'I don't know how to get my life to make sense given what I see'. That's an understandable problem, which is why there are 500 religions in the world. The religion of drug abuse, I reckon, has its global devotees. And so they've lost a prophet of rage. But what have we lost? What has humanity lost? Someone who dealt with reality? Are we so convinced by the fact that he wrote non-fiction?

In reading much of what people had to say about Thompson, I sense an anti-authoritarian resonance. Hunter S. Thompson is the man everybody wanted Michael Moore to be. Most are convinced he had actual genius and sustained his inspiration long enough to be considered one. I think rather that he was a creature of his day and marked its boundaries by his extremity. In admiring Thompson, like admiring Leroy Neiman, we are admitting to loving a moment in time. A crazy time.

Back in 1978, when I was a freshman at USC, I was transfixed by the cryptic language of the Reader, LA's original alternative weekly. I'm sure that was the psychedelic reality of gonzo.

What was a secret was that I wanted to live in 'The Swamp' which was filled to the brim with wise-cracking, subversive, geeky whiteboys. In 1978 I registered to vote and later cast my ballot for John Anderson. I was only 17 but the student who registered me said it didn't matter, nobody ever checked other than him. What was most fascinating to me were the classified and political sections of the L.A. Reader. It was the most cantankerous thing I had ever read. Here was a newspaper with curse words and rambling cryptic messages in the back pages, rants against the system, my great introduction to the world of snark. I wanted to be in there. I wanted to play Moog synthesizers, program computers and repair pinball machines. I wanted to figure out a way to hack the timesharing system.

Being charitable, I recognize that there are few temptations as appealing as having the power to invert somebody's world. To generate the act which is so perverse and mind-altering that some individual or group is forever marked. What could be more gratifying than conversion, to seduce the meek beauty, to decorate the soldier's gun with flowers, to show with implacable logic and inimitable style that the core beliefs of your opponent are dead wrong and stop them in their tracks. These are the head swelling rewards of conversion and it must be that which lies at the heart of the devotees of the alternative.

Witness Charles Monroe-Kane. His is the story of an impetuous youth determined to pull off a moral stunt.

I have struggled mightily over the past several months to find something upon which to hang my thoughts about the 'alternative mainstream' and this must be it. It explains the the sin of Eclexia. I think I have broken through, excuse me while I absorb the import.

It's ironic and perhaps only appropriate that taking seriously someone I was bound to disrespect cued up this insight.

Part One: The Sin of Eclexia

"A little bit of everything adds up to a whole lot of nothing."
-- Cobb's Rule #1

There is probably no such word as 'eclexia', I just made it up, but the sin is real. It is the fatal attraction to novelty and change. It is the mindless sacrifice of tradition at the alter of the new. It is the inability to find satisfaction in the settled.

Eclexia is characterized by a restless antipathy to the established and an overweening desire to get away from it. The eclexic is eclectic to a fault. Their fatal flaw is that once the novelty of the thing has worn off, once it becomes established, their interest and respect fades rapidly.

Eclexia is a sin because it is fundamentally disrespectful of the efforts made by people who bother to study something specific. It acts against collaboration in solving standing problems. It refuses to focus. Thus the eclexic requires some outre personality which allows him to eschew the 'mundane' tasks that are faced by all of us. In that regard, eclexics are dependent on an established alternative subculture - something that allows them to easily be understood as 'cutting edge' or 'radical' even if they are not talented or committed in any way.

Part Two: The Alternative Mainstream
I don't believe that the world operates singularly in zero sum terms, but that a cultural win-win is possible. Still there is a certain cost to alternative culture which isn't countercultural. It's the cost of dissonance.

I'm trying to guage what is transient about American culture. It has to do with my conservatism and also with a better understanding of class. It's particularly compelling for me to gain this understanding since I expect to be doing a bit of business with some Chinese folks.

I am convinced more than ever that society advances through adherence and conflict. At all levels there are power struggles - people follow their desires and adhere to what gets them what they want. But of course a lot of people opt out. Some opt out loudly. This loud dissent is sometimes the very stuff of which progress is born, but sometimes it's simply noise. We have so many competing versions of what happened in the 60s that it's often difficult to distinguish between the useful dissent and simply dropping out.

But we have survived all of that era intact and a great deal wealthier. The alternative has become substantial. Today you could be a billion dollar business selling music and clothes for tongue pierced youth. The alternative is established. The good news is that the social pressure towards conformity has dropped below the suppressive, although I'd rather not be queer. The bad news is that we must often share the social stage with people whose lifestyle, indeed their lives, make no sense.

Eclexics and noisy alternatives often mistake their differences for sentient dissent. Indeed we even have a 'politics of difference' as if such a thing were consistently ethical. While I'm not certain Hunter S. Thompson was a creature existentially tied to such madness, he certainly seems to have inspired those who are to devotion.

I have just been arguing that the good thing about the blogosphere is that it can serve to counteract the cults of personality surrounding broadcast media stars in the category of 'news'. What was Thompson but a media personality who 'reported' the facts?

Thompson belonged on the fringe, in the alternative scene, and was part of the movement of the 70s that altered the landscape of pop culture. Now that we have an alternative culture in the US that is at least as big as Catholicism, it seems appropriate to honor the Gonzo. It's part of our correctness.

Harumph!

I take a small bit of comfort in knowing that eclexics will bore of Thompson reverence within a week.

When Cosby Becomes Farrakhan

I think if I hear another word about Bill Cosby, I'm going to projectile vomit green spew like some animated monster on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He has become encrusted into the Fungibles like the curls of George Washington's Rushmore rock locks. Everywhere you go, you cannot talk about black anything without the interminable conflict raising it's ugly empty head: Cosby vs 'Real'.

What has happened here? The same thing that always happens. Americans have locked on to a proxy exactly in tune with the Isbell Theory. There are no black leaders, so we invent them so as to better understand those faceless nameless masses, and place them into the appropriate compartment.

We Americans are so good at doing this because too much of our culture is pop culture, and hardly anyone recognizes the power of organic traditions any longer. We think that there's a spokesmodel for our every value. So that's what Cosby has become over the past year, the Bill Bennett of his day, a pop representation of a set of values. The problem is that it becomes all about Cosby and whether he's a worthy character, rather than whether what he is contributing to the ongoing dialog will stand the test of time.

It's still to early to tell if Cosby will continue to respond and engage in such a way that minimizes the damage. The more he talks, the more he's going to distinguish himself from others who address the subjects. However if he goes on tour and its his new version of the Cosby Show, then he will be no different than Farrakhan. Cosby must share the stage and take his knocks. We've got to see Cosby vs Michael Eric Dyson and Cosby vs Abagail Thernstrom and Cosby vs JC Watts and Cosby vs Oprah for him to merit the oxygen he's sucking out of the atmosphere.

It's not a bad thing that Cosby is too large to ignore, but can we have some context please?

When Cosby Becomes Farrakhan

I think if I hear another word about Bill Cosby, I'm going to projectile vomit green spew like some animated monster on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He has become encrusted into the Fungibles like the curls of George Washington's Rushmore rock locks. Everywhere you go, you cannot talk about black anything without the interminable conflict raising it's ugly empty head: Cosby vs 'Real'.

What has happened here? The same thing that always happens. Americans have locked on to a proxy exactly in tune with the Isbell Theory. There are no black leaders, so we invent them so as to better understand those faceless nameless masses, and place them into the appropriate compartment.

We Americans are so good at doing this because too much of our culture is pop culture, and hardly anyone recognizes the power of organic traditions any longer. We think that there's a spokesmodel for our every value. So that's what Cosby has become over the past year, the Bill Bennett of his day, a pop representation of a set of values. The problem is that it becomes all about Cosby and whether he's a worthy character, rather than whether what he is contributing to the ongoing dialog will stand the test of time.

It's still to early to tell if Cosby will continue to respond and engage in such a way that minimizes the damage. The more he talks, the more he's going to distinguish himself from others who address the subjects. However if he goes on tour and its his new version of the Cosby Show, then he will be no different than Farrakhan. Cosby must share the stage and take his knocks. We've got to see Cosby vs Michael Eric Dyson and Cosby vs Abagail Thernstrom and Cosby vs JC Watts and Cosby vs Oprah for him to merit the oxygen he's sucking out of the atmosphere.

It's not a bad thing that Cosby is too large to ignore, but can we have some context please?

Hotties

Gone Zo

Hard To Get

Your Seduction Style: The Coquette

You are a pro at playing the age old game of hard to get. Your flirting style runs hot and cold, giving just enough to keep them chasing you. Independent and self-sufficient, you don't need any one person to make you compelte. And that independence is exactly what makes people pursue you.

What Is Your Seduction Style?

A Weird Mood

I'm in a weird funky mood right about now. I know exactly what's bothering me but I really can't talk about it. It has an aspect of if I coulda woulda shoulda, but it's really not my fault. Sounds obscure? Yeah. Well I'll tell you later. It's huge.

Secondly, I'm really pissed with iTunes because it's not smart enough to review all of the tunes in the library and see if they really exist on the disk. That's no so bad; the bigger problem is that I lost so much music in my disk crash. Now all those stupid exclamation points are a sick reminder.

What else? Actually I positively love this extreme weather. I stopped yesterday morning on the way to the office at some cement tributary on the border of Cerritos. It was a big chocolate rush of muddy water. I am enchanted by rivers in ways I can't explain. I think I'll go out today and look.

Doc is going to Brazil next week for a month. Must be nice. I'll try to get him to write a bunch about it.

I've got SMS spam on my cellphone.

I can't get Darwin to boot on my old Red Hat machine. I want to roll with OS X but I can't afford a Mac Mini right now. So for the moment I've got an old copy of Mandrake (9.2) on it. I like Mandrake better than Red Hat. It's working for me. What I really want out of this is a secure machine and to start learning Kerberos and LDAP, so the next step is to get GPG working. Which brings up the annoying question: Is PGP hacked?

The rain has my kids inside. They're driving me nuts. Do other parents play with their children? I mean how much playing are kids supposed to do anyway? I'm an order of magnitude closer to my kids than my parents were to me. Rain rain go a friken way.

What else is on my nerves? There's nothing in the blogosphere worth writing about today. I'm over on the technical side, doing a lot of commenting over at Slashdot, and with my old private online community.

Blaah...

Oh, and one more thing, if Hunter S. Thompson was so friken important, than we would all immediately know the blogger that most resembles him. I think him killing himself showed exactly... I'm uncharitable about this guy. BFD.

And another thing, I was really feeling angry last night and I found that it really destroyed my virtual killing. I think this the first time where I really desired to hurt people by shooting their avatars in Halo2 to take out my real world frustrations. It absolutely destroyed my game, I dropped rank.

A Weird Mood

I'm in a weird funky mood right about now. I know exactly what's bothering me but I really can't talk about it. It has an aspect of if I coulda woulda shoulda, but it's really not my fault. Sounds obscure? Yeah. Well I'll tell you later. It's huge.

Secondly, I'm really pissed with iTunes because it's not smart enough to review all of the tunes in the library and see if they really exist on the disk. That's no so bad; the bigger problem is that I lost so much music in my disk crash. Now all those stupid exclamation points are a sick reminder.

What else? Actually I positively love this extreme weather. I stopped yesterday morning on the way to the office at some cement tributary on the border of Cerritos. It was a big chocolate rush of muddy water. I am enchanted by rivers in ways I can't explain. I think I'll go out today and look.

Doc is going to Brazil next week for a month. Must be nice. I'll try to get him to write a bunch about it.

I've got SMS spam on my cellphone.

I can't get Darwin to boot on my old Red Hat machine. I want to roll with OS X but I can't afford a Mac Mini right now. So for the moment I've got an old copy of Mandrake (9.2) on it. I like Mandrake better than Red Hat. It's working for me. What I really want out of this is a secure machine and to start learning Kerberos and LDAP, so the next step is to get GPG working. Which brings up the annoying question: Is PGP hacked?

The rain has my kids inside. They're driving me nuts. Do other parents play with their children? I mean how much playing are kids supposed to do anyway? I'm an order of magnitude closer to my kids than my parents were to me. Rain rain go a friken way.

What else is on my nerves? There's nothing in the blogosphere worth writing about today. I'm over on the technical side, doing a lot of commenting over at Slashdot, and with my old private online community.

Blaah...

Oh, and one more thing, if Hunter S. Thompson was so friken important, than we would all immediately know the blogger that most resembles him. I think him killing himself showed exactly... I'm uncharitable about this guy. BFD.

And another thing, I was really feeling angry last night and I found that it really destroyed my virtual killing. I think this the first time where I really desired to hurt people by shooting their avatars in Halo2 to take out my real world frustrations. It absolutely destroyed my game, I dropped rank.

Affirmative Action

Gannon

Back v Reeves

"The ability for a straw to break a camel's back always depends upon how much baggage that camel is already carrying."
-- Michael Bowen

Ed Brown has raised an interesting question over at Vision Circle. It arises over the question of Michael Steele's ability and willingness to deal with a controversy that arose several years ago in the California Republican Party. Apparently one cat named Bill Back offended a cat named Shannon Reeves. Back's white, Reeves is black. Back was provocative, Reeves was offended. Therefore the legitimacy of black Republicans is suspect.

I have a problem with this controversy for a number of reasons, primarily over the proxy given one white voice to speak for whitefolks and one black voice for blackfolks. If the controversy is to be believed, the disagreement between Back and Reeves is and should set the tone for blacks and whites over the fate of the Republican Party. I think this is exactly what leftists say when they say 'the personal is political', it is the hearty investment in identity politics. The fact is, there is no issue.

I have come to discover that Reeves and Back were bucking for the same office in the party, and I am content to leave the spitting match at that level. But I remain a bit upset for such boogabears to disrupt the ambitions of others. In otherwords, this is nasty campaigning and infighting masquerading as racial politics. Or maybe that's all racial politics is. Who knows? All I can see is a wiffle bat war that makes a lot of noise and slander. You'd think something was actually at stake.

When I asked for the document over at Vision Circle, I had no idea that such a tiny bit of empty-headed speculation would support such a vitriolic hodload of innuendo, but let me allow you to be the judge. Here is the original and opening paragraph of 'What if the South Won the Civil War?' by William S. Lind, the document quoted by Bill Back.

If the South had won the Civil War, where might our two countries be today? It is of course impossible to know, and as someone who proudly wears his great-grandfather's G.A.R. ring-he served in the 88th and 177th Ohio Volunteers, and his diary records the monitors bombarding Fort Fisher as he watched from a Union transport-I'm not entirely comfortable asking the question. But given how bad things have gotten in the old U.S.A., it's not hard to believe that history might have taken a better turn. Slavery of course would be long gone, for economic reasons. Race relations today in the Old South, in rural areas and cities such as Charleston, South Carolina, are generally better than they are in northern cities, so we might have done all right on that score. When southerners say they have a special relationship with blacks based on many generations of living together at close quarters, they have a point. The real damage to race relations in the south came not from slavery, but from Reconstruction, which would not have occurred if the South had won. And since the North would have been a separate nation, the vast black migration to northern cities that took place during World War II might not have happened.

Now here is the opening paragraph of Shannon Reeves' open letter to the California Republicans:

Dear Colleagues: As many of us have learned in recent media reports, Vice Chairman Bill Back distributed an article entitled, ''What if the South had Won the Civil War?'' -- an article that concludes that problems with race relations in America are the result of slaves being freed through Reconstruction, and black migration out of the south as a result of desegregation. This article trivialized slavery and it trivialized the impacts of slavery on my ancestors and people of African decent. The notion that this country would be better off if my ancestors had remained enslaved, and considered less than whole people, is personally offensive, abhorrent, and vile.

It may be clear to Reeves that Lind and Back are both neo-confederates, but this is not clear to me. Whereas Reeves goes on in his letter specifically to the heart of race-relations and its attendant symbols, Lind goes on to talk about Federalism, WW2, "Western culture, Christianity and an appreciation of the differences between ladies and gentlemen." which is a hell of a lot of speculation for 525 words in 5 paragraphs.

I don't really have any questions. Somebody might link Lind's paltry speculation to some more thoughtful expression which reflect honest to goodness Neo-Confederate thought. Somebody might show how Back really only wanted the racial aspect of Lind's writing to be his message - the upshot of which is that the most threatening aspect of Reconstruction - black economic independence and political enfranchisement is what Back hates. But I doubt anybody cares that much. If they do, then they should go a few yards further than I do here. But my conclusion was that both players played a race card.

Who won? Well, that really depends on whose sensitivities are shared the widest. But this was assymetrical war to begin with. I mean Back could have done a whole lot better if he wanted to use racial code words - it could have been somebody black people have heard about, but who the hell is William S. Lind? That's why I tend to believe that Reeves played himself. Nevertheless, if Back was trying to be as subtle as possible in goading Reeves to explode, he's a cunning master of the new racism..

I've been a Republican in California for almost two years, and while I've met a few party officials and activists, I've not met either Reeves nor Back. I'm not that deeply connected. Who knows how deep this emnity goes? Certainly not me. What I do know is that this war of words is a distraction. I'm inclined to give both parties in this dispute the benefit of the doubt with one important understanding. If it is true that Back v Reeves is all about the party's real feelings about race then what's true of one is true of the other: both Reeves and Back are window dressing.

My advice to Michael Steele? Don't ever utter their names.

Back v Reeves

"The ability for a straw to break a camel's back always depends upon how much baggage that camel is already carrying."
-- Michael Bowen

Ed Brown has raised an interesting question over at Vision Circle. It arises over the question of Michael Steele's ability and willingness to deal with a controversy that arose several years ago in the California Republican Party. Apparently one cat named Bill Back offended a cat named Shannon Reeves. Back's white, Reeves is black. Back was provocative, Reeves was offended. Therefore the legitimacy of black Republicans is suspect.

I have a problem with this controversy for a number of reasons, primarily over the proxy given one white voice to speak for whitefolks and one black voice for blackfolks. If the controversy is to be believed, the disagreement between Back and Reeves is and should set the tone for blacks and whites over the fate of the Republican Party. I think this is exactly what leftists say when they say 'the personal is political', it is the hearty investment in identity politics. The fact is, there is no issue.

I have come to discover that Reeves and Back were bucking for the same office in the party, and I am content to leave the spitting match at that level. But I remain a bit upset for such boogabears to disrupt the ambitions of others. In otherwords, this is nasty campaigning and infighting masquerading as racial politics. Or maybe that's all racial politics is. Who knows? All I can see is a wiffle bat war that makes a lot of noise and slander. You'd think something was actually at stake.

When I asked for the document over at Vision Circle, I had no idea that such a tiny bit of empty-headed speculation would support such a vitriolic hodload of innuendo, but let me allow you to be the judge. Here is the original and opening paragraph of 'What if the South Won the Civil War?' by William S. Lind, the document quoted by Bill Back.

If the South had won the Civil War, where might our two countries be today? It is of course impossible to know, and as someone who proudly wears his great-grandfather's G.A.R. ring-he served in the 88th and 177th Ohio Volunteers, and his diary records the monitors bombarding Fort Fisher as he watched from a Union transport-I'm not entirely comfortable asking the question. But given how bad things have gotten in the old U.S.A., it's not hard to believe that history might have taken a better turn. Slavery of course would be long gone, for economic reasons. Race relations today in the Old South, in rural areas and cities such as Charleston, South Carolina, are generally better than they are in northern cities, so we might have done all right on that score. When southerners say they have a special relationship with blacks based on many generations of living together at close quarters, they have a point. The real damage to race relations in the south came not from slavery, but from Reconstruction, which would not have occurred if the South had won. And since the North would have been a separate nation, the vast black migration to northern cities that took place during World War II might not have happened.

Now here is the opening paragraph of Shannon Reeves' open letter to the California Republicans:

Dear Colleagues: As many of us have learned in recent media reports, Vice Chairman Bill Back distributed an article entitled, ''What if the South had Won the Civil War?'' -- an article that concludes that problems with race relations in America are the result of slaves being freed through Reconstruction, and black migration out of the south as a result of desegregation. This article trivialized slavery and it trivialized the impacts of slavery on my ancestors and people of African decent. The notion that this country would be better off if my ancestors had remained enslaved, and considered less than whole people, is personally offensive, abhorrent, and vile.

It may be clear to Reeves that Lind and Back are both neo-confederates, but this is not clear to me. Whereas Reeves goes on in his letter specifically to the heart of race-relations and its attendant symbols, Lind goes on to talk about Federalism, WW2, "Western culture, Christianity and an appreciation of the differences between ladies and gentlemen." which is a hell of a lot of speculation for 525 words in 5 paragraphs.

I don't really have any questions. Somebody might link Lind's paltry speculation to some more thoughtful expression which reflect honest to goodness Neo-Confederate thought. Somebody might show how Back really only wanted the racial aspect of Lind's writing to be his message - the upshot of which is that the most threatening aspect of Reconstruction - black economic independence and political enfranchisement is what Back hates. But I doubt anybody cares that much. If they do, then they should go a few yards further than I do here. But my conclusion was that both players played a race card.

Who won? Well, that really depends on whose sensitivities are shared the widest. But this was assymetrical war to begin with. I mean Back could have done a whole lot better if he wanted to use racial code words - it could have been somebody black people have heard about, but who the hell is William S. Lind? That's why I tend to believe that Reeves played himself. Nevertheless, if Back was trying to be as subtle as possible in goading Reeves to explode, he's a cunning master of the new racism..

I've been a Republican in California for almost two years, and while I've met a few party officials and activists, I've not met either Reeves nor Back. I'm not that deeply connected. Who knows how deep this emnity goes? Certainly not me. What I do know is that this war of words is a distraction. I'm inclined to give both parties in this dispute the benefit of the doubt with one important understanding. If it is true that Back v Reeves is all about the party's real feelings about race then what's true of one is true of the other: both Reeves and Back are window dressing.

My advice to Michael Steele? Don't ever utter their names.

Ekranoplanes

The kids are soaking an unusual amount of Japanimation today. I notice that one called DICE featured a futuristic flying boat. Hey, wait a minute, I've seen that before. It's an ekranoplane. I'd love to see one of these badboys built, get the coast guard a couple dozen good sized ekranos and we'd radically tilt the balance of power on the seas in the WOT.

Check out the whole story.

The important quality of speed was, in all times, the object of the steadfast attention of ship-builders. But the increase of speed for ships was limited by quickly growing hydrodynamic resistance in the case of an insufficient capacity sail and oar movement.

This restriction was removed with the introduction on ships of mechanical engines in the middle or the end of the superstructure, but the situation did not change , even for ships at the beginning of the Nineteenth century. But speed could only go so far in any case, and even nuclear powered ships of the Twentieth century concede little to steamships. The trick in speed was connected to idea to lift the keel of a vessel from water to air, an environment 840 times less dense. The main obstacle, growth of resistance of water, disappeared.

Ekranoplanes

The kids are soaking an unusual amount of Japanimation today. I notice that one called DICE featured a futuristic flying boat. Hey, wait a minute, I've seen that before. It's an ekranoplane. I'd love to see one of these badboys built, get the coast guard a couple dozen good sized ekranos and we'd radically tilt the balance of power on the seas in the WOT.

Check out the whole story.

The important quality of speed was, in all times, the object of the steadfast attention of ship-builders. But the increase of speed for ships was limited by quickly growing hydrodynamic resistance in the case of an insufficient capacity sail and oar movement.

This restriction was removed with the introduction on ships of mechanical engines in the middle or the end of the superstructure, but the situation did not change , even for ships at the beginning of the Nineteenth century. But speed could only go so far in any case, and even nuclear powered ships of the Twentieth century concede little to steamships. The trick in speed was connected to idea to lift the keel of a vessel from water to air, an environment 840 times less dense. The main obstacle, growth of resistance of water, disappeared.

The American BBC

"Humankind still lives in prehistory everywhere, indeed everything awaits the creation of the world as a genuine one... if human beings have grasped themselves, and what is theirs, without depersonalization and alienation, founded in real democracy, then something comes into being in the world that shines into everyone's childhood and where no one has yet been -- home."
--Ernest Bloch

The big crack is too large to pass over and small ones are appearing all over. Major media are approaching a crisis. Michael Kinsley may be the next casualty, not that I'm quite sure he'd bother to fight back, Check out Slates'

And before I go, I'd like to second Susan Estrich, who has attacked Michael Kinsley on the charges of sexual discrimination, which he feebly attempts to repel. In his long, miserable chauvinist career, Kinsley has done more to block women, their views, and their professional aspirations than any journalist I know. Just ask Dorothy Wickenden, Ann Hulbert, Jamie Baylis, Emily Yoffe, Helen Rogan, Suzanne Lessard, Jodie Allen, Judith Shulevitz, Jodi Kantor, Margaret Carlson, Dahlia Lithwick, Kathleen Kincaid, Lakshmi Gopalkrishnan, June Thomas, and others. They'll fill you in. Send e-mail to [email protected]. (E-mail may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

My speculation about where this might end could have a happy ending in my book, and here's the idea I'd like to percolate. Let's move the American press in the direction of Brian Lamb and have journalists in the major organizations become anonymous voices of restraint. Part of the reason that so much of mainstream punditry is under attack from the blogosphere is because there are far too many columnists who, in the final analysis, are hardly worthy of the level of influence they possess.

Let's take a peak at the group who I think is going to get axed by bloggers. Ironically, you'll find them listed prominently at the site of one of the first iconoclasts of this war: Matt Drudge. From the 3 AM Girls through Harry Knowles down to Bill Zwecker. These opinion-makers are soon to face the question of interactivity. If they don't face audiences with the same bravery and skill as top bloggers, they'll find themselves increasingly marginalized.

But there is a big qualification on this, which is even more significant, and incidently something I've been concerned about for quite some time. There is a question of whether those people who come to replace them will in actuality be subject matter experts or just good writers. All of the Drudge-Era columnists are good writers whom I think could survive a good long time based on common sense and style alone. (Not incidentally why I think Cobb can survive). But at the level of the national spotlight, they'll have to be more than that. This means essentially that academics are going to have to speak out of school. It will be the nuance and insight of experts that will rule the day.

The American BBC

"Humankind still lives in prehistory everywhere, indeed everything awaits the creation of the world as a genuine one... if human beings have grasped themselves, and what is theirs, without depersonalization and alienation, founded in real democracy, then something comes into being in the world that shines into everyone's childhood and where no one has yet been -- home."
--Ernest Bloch

The big crack is too large to pass over and small ones are appearing all over. Major media are approaching a crisis. Michael Kinsley may be the next casualty, not that I'm quite sure he'd bother to fight back, Check out Slates'

And before I go, I'd like to second Susan Estrich, who has attacked Michael Kinsley on the charges of sexual discrimination, which he feebly attempts to repel. In his long, miserable chauvinist career, Kinsley has done more to block women, their views, and their professional aspirations than any journalist I know. Just ask Dorothy Wickenden, Ann Hulbert, Jamie Baylis, Emily Yoffe, Helen Rogan, Suzanne Lessard, Jodie Allen, Judith Shulevitz, Jodi Kantor, Margaret Carlson, Dahlia Lithwick, Kathleen Kincaid, Lakshmi Gopalkrishnan, June Thomas, and others. They'll fill you in. Send e-mail to [email protected]. (E-mail may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

My speculation about where this might end could have a happy ending in my book, and here's the idea I'd like to percolate. Let's move the American press in the direction of Brian Lamb and have journalists in the major organizations become anonymous voices of restraint. Part of the reason that so much of mainstream punditry is under attack from the blogosphere is because there are far too many columnists who, in the final analysis, are hardly worthy of the level of influence they possess.

Let's take a peak at the group who I think is going to get axed by bloggers. Ironically, you'll find them listed prominently at the site of one of the first iconoclasts of this war: Matt Drudge. From the 3 AM Girls through Harry Knowles down to Bill Zwecker. These opinion-makers are soon to face the question of interactivity. If they don't face audiences with the same bravery and skill as top bloggers, they'll find themselves increasingly marginalized.

But there is a big qualification on this, which is even more significant, and incidently something I've been concerned about for quite some time. There is a question of whether those people who come to replace them will in actuality be subject matter experts or just good writers. All of the Drudge-Era columnists are good writers whom I think could survive a good long time based on common sense and style alone. (Not incidentally why I think Cobb can survive). But at the level of the national spotlight, they'll have to be more than that. This means essentially that academics are going to have to speak out of school. It will be the nuance and insight of experts that will rule the day.

Poverty