Cobb

Bohannan's Boulder

A cat named Reginald Bohannan is on a parallel track to my Old School Movement. We should know each other:

Reginald Bohannon: Well, for one, 90-95% of blacks vote for the Democratic Party and my mom was -- and still is -- active with the Democratic Party in Lexington, North Carolina. If I..came out and told her that I was a Republican, she would...get (called names) and so would I -- Uncle Tom, sell-out, Oreo and things of that nature.

So, once I did find out that I was conservative ...I didn't want the name calling and I hadn't gotten up the courage to come out of the closet at that time. Once I learned more about conservatism and educated myself through talk radio, columns, and books, that gave me the courage to say, "Yes, I am conservative and I do vote for Republicans."

John Hawkins: Over the years, I've seen a lot of polling data and I think that at least a third of black Americans should probably be voting Republican based on their views. Would you agree with that estimate? Do you think it's high, low?

Reginald Bohannon: I think it's much higher because blacks by and large are conservative, but what happens is that we automatically jump to the Democratic Party...without even determining whether we are conservative or liberal. That's what I did. I basically went with the Democratic Party because that's who my mom is with.

The majority of blacks are conservative, but they're not aware of it. When I talk to people who are running for office or blacks in general, I tell them that I'm not necessarily trying to get them to change into Republicans, I just want them to see who they really are.

Theres a lot of disambiguation that needs to happen as far as I'm concerned, but I think he's basically right. We're pushing the same boulder up the hill. Neo Neo has an interesting take, vis a vis 'change of life':

As you all no doubt know, "coming out" is a phrase that previously had been used primarily to describe the experience of gays who'd been hiding their sexual identities for fear of discrimination and recrimination, and who finally decide they can no longer live the secret life. They tell the truth, and let the chips fall where they may; sometimes they fall hard and painfully.

Before my own change experience, I would not have believed in any possible comparison to the experience of gays; I actually might even have considered it preposterous if someone had asserted discrimination from liberals because of "turning" in a conservative--or a neocon--direction.

Whoa.

Sounds like the Baldwin Edict again.  ..you have to decide who you are, and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you...

The Blackness Problem More Concisely Stated

Now that I've slept on the idea I have found a more concise way of expressing it:

The import of black unity being dead is that there is no national program necessary for black leadership and it is an error to assert racial solidarity. It's like herding cats.

The import of not second-guessing blackfolks is that the fundaments of values born in black nationalism remain in operation whether or not any leadership is expressed or attempted. African America is indeed a nation, and thus behaves like every other nation. Consequently what works for any nation works for African America, most importantly what doesn't work for any nation won't work for African America.

The consequences of these two axioms is that Socialist projects of any sort arranged for the benefit of African Americans are doomed to failure, firstly because any political effort to unify them on behalf of getting them will fail, and secondly because socialism itself will fail and thirdly because in the context of a multi-racial republic, a unique distribution of benefits is problematic. Therefore African Americans, like any other free people are best dealt with in the context of free actors in free markets.

Blackness, therefore is a bourgie cultural construct of free will, and conflicts between visions of blackness, just like any other fungible commodity, will be subject to market forces.

From the Old School perspective the realization that blackness itself is a commodity comes as a shock. The impulse is to regulate it. The question then becomes who will retain the energy to employ this commodity to their benefit and thereby own it. And so I see a clash between classes of African Americans over its prospects which may yet be outdone by a third set of actor: everybody who has no dog in the blackness fight.

I believe that the only way to recover any lasting meaning is to side with black elites in their struggles for social power in America, as exemplified by the coaltion that purchased the King Papers. This will simultaneously give encouragement to ordinary and dysfunctional blackfolks should they sign on to any idea of blackness. If this doesn't happen, the meaning of blackness will suffer and be degraded back to the level of Negro. A) because of racism of the non-African Americans or B) because of the degeneracy of those African Americans not signed onto American middle class values.

Ugency is attached to this because it is the fault of black liberation that black anti-sociability and anti-Americanism gained currency in the first place.

Prospects for Blackness: Masses vs Elites

It's refreshing to consider that I may have no more daunting critics worth minding that the coterie at P6. While I have difficulty getting an argument through the repartee there, it is more or less clear that I can express my direction in my head. I think I'll take a moment to summarize what I see to be the core of our differences.

I seem to recall encountering some resistance for my elitism, but I think I have good company in my insistence that there is, and must be a discoverable black ideal towards which African Americans must comport themselves to attain the freedom which is their stated imperative. I argue that within that thing I call the Old School are practical ways and means of maintaining the discipline required of that accomplishment. Furthermore I contend that within the scope of 'black' there are competing and divergent, if not mutually exclusive, trends within African America. The underlying assumption is that a task of black mental liberation and political agitation are fundamental components of this liberation. We have inherited various schools of thought on mental liberation and political agitation, and are engaged in a somewhat wooly corner of debate about which set of ideas is superior in effecting the desired change in blackfolk.

Where I think I depart from the now fracturing mainstream of black political thought is that I don't see that the prospects of this project are attainable at a national scope. Two axioms of that belief are: 1. Black Unity is dead. 2. Don't second-guess blackfolks.

I came to the first conclusion after serving as the National Finance Officer of NSBE. I was elected twice by the national body. It was my job to arrange for the funding of the organization's activities. I came to the rather stunning realization that there would always be fundamental conflicts between blacks along class and educational lines, and that any organization founded to overcome those barriers for the sake of racial unity was doomed to strife and failure. I lived through the strife and it racked my brain for several years. I found theoretical comfort in recognizing the parallels between my struggle and that of Japanese poet & playwrite Yukio Mishima who ultimately committed dramatic suicide in anguish over a lack of national unity of the Japanese people in the post-war era.

I wasn't relieved of this anguish until I read Gwaltney's 'Drylongso' several years later. In that tome I discovered within African America an institutionally unexpressed yet very cogent nationalist self-awareness. I came to the realization that all of the benefits of Black Nationalism could be retained without an actual organization. While I had long abandoned any conciet that as part of the Talented Tenth, I might facilitate leadership in some such organization, this was the final nail in the coffin of my belief in national black leadership.

And so there were but two projects remaining from my perspective in reconciling our generation to the aspirations of our forebears. The first was one of simple socio-economic progress and the other was the steady improvement, conservation and melioration of the best of black culture. For me that meant literature and music. I intended on taking a highbrow route, with flavor. In the grip of this ambition during the early 90s I saw two poles of aspiration in the books of Greg Tate and Stanley Crouch. And driving to work this morning I found that if I ever wrote a book, I would love to be mentioned in their company, specifically 'Flyboy in the Buttermilk' and 'Notes of a Hanging Judge'.

But I digress.

There is no quick and easy way to summarize my growth from that period. But I'll try. I'd say that at the end of the road for a philosopher-king like DuBois there is nothing but that anguish. One simply cannot harness the ambitions and prospects for even a semi-self aware nation in any great scheme. The more you love blackfolks and want only the best for them, the harder it is to face this fact. It was very difficult for me, in my Japanese days in '86 at the end of college. And yet retaining a great love and respect for blackfolks, how could one do nothing? In the end it was only Conservatism that made sense of all of the greatest problems I tried to address. I was pushed towards it in a variety of ways.

If there was only one lesson of Conservatism I would retain, abandoning all other trappings including the Republican Party and the USA itself it would be something like this about Hayek.

Fritz Machlup* (Economics, Princeton)

"One of the most original and most important ideas advanced by Hayek is the role of the 'division of knowledge' in economic society . . [But if] I had to single out the area in which Hayek's contributions were the most fundamental and pathbreaking, I would cast my vote for the theory of capital. As I said before, when I reviewed Hayek's book on The Pure Theory of Capital, it is 'my sincere conviction that this work contains some of the most penetrating thoughts on the subject that have ever been published.' If two achievements may be named, I would add Hayek's contributions to the the theory of economic planning. Most of what has been written on systems analysis, computerized data processing, simulation of market processes, and other techniques of decision-making without the aid of competitive markets, appears shallow and superficial in the light of Hayek's analysis of the 'division of knowledge', its dispersion among masses of people. Information in the minds of millions of people is not available to any central body or any group of decision-makers who have to determine prices, employment, production, and investment but do not have the signals provided by a competitive market mechanism. Most plans for economic reform in the socialist countries seem to be coming closer to the realization that increasing decentralization of decision-making is needed to solve the problems of rational economic planning." (Fritz Machlup, "Hayek's Contribution to Economics", Swedish Journal of Economics, Vol. 76, Dec. 1974.)

It is this overarching understanding expressed in political and sociological terms that guides my understanding of the prospects for African America. And it underscores the axioms I have learned from my own practical experiences.

So what remains is the cultural project, which is ultimately about flavor and ethics. And yet with this fundamental understanding that there is no shepherd or master plan for blackfolks, what do we do with the blackness created in the wake of solving of the Negro Problem? If you can take it as a given that the Black Man was the first truly mentally, politically and economically liberated African American, that the American promise of liberty has finally been realized then you are at square one. Then you can say that Blackness was a success. I think most people do indeed believe that, that when they speak of Malcolm and Martin in heroic terms that they believe them not to be compromised Negroes in any way, that their very success means they achieved what could not have been before. I think their world fame and celebration quite unassailably makes the case. What then is the future purpose of blackness? It is a basic lesson to be replicated to bring all below to the level of the American middle class, or is it a cultural and philosophical thing to be conserved and refined?

I believe very strongly that it is the latter. Moreover I believe that blackfolks, well-established in the middle class of America face additional challenges not long considered in prior generations as they rise in society. I would argue that ethicists like Ellis Cose and Stephen L. Carter offer us well grounded organic lessons from black life that will serve that fraction of African America that continues upward mobility. And I believe that these are shared lessons for all emergent Americans, black or otherwise, who look to the future in hopes of improving their lot. It is a singular set of middle-class oriented values for which there is no concept of 'selling out'. Furthermore I assert that particular errors of black liberation movements must be corrected and a fresh look at Black be made because those movements interjected a reason to question American success which has degenerated into excuses for not trying and rejecting too much.

It is entirely possible, although I think not self-evident that the evolution of black families into 'old money' positions of power and influence will be no different in any way from that of any other emergent American minority. But I doubt it. I believe that the influence of black culture on the nation is to strong and that certain values and the very bearing of successful African Americans and their families is as indelible as that of the WASP. I would suggest very strongly that a cursory overview of the Norton Anthology of African American Literature or Stephen Barbosa's African American Book of Values is an excellent starting point to recognize. I say that with my own particular interest in literature, but I would say there are equally if not greater profundities to be found in the African American influence on Christian liturgy, music and evangelism. In short, we cannot be faded.

However one cannot trumpet the enormity of such positive contributions by thoughtful and strong blackfolks to this society and world without also facing the depravity of the ingorant and weak among us. What indeed does Colin Powell share with John Allen Muhammad? Clearly the way Colin Powell paved for his son Michael is superior to the way Muhammad led his charge, the young Lee Malvo. One to head the FCC, the other to cold-blooded murder. Can we wall John Allen Muhammad a Black Man the same way we call Colin Powell a Black Man? But even in lesser degrees of difference African Americans run the risk of re-inscribing racial essentialism by assuming brotherhood where none truly exists. If we were to assign 'black' no more meaning than race, the very same racial evaluation slave traders assessed 20 generations ago then we'd be insane. Furthermore we would be false to the intellectual work inherent in liberation struggle. We would deny the very basis upon which we judge Martin and Malcolm to be great, their transformative leadership that made recognize we were more than part of the Negro Problem.

And so ultimately we must reconcile what Black has been looking back with what it needs to be looking forward. My lessons tell me that since there will be no racial unity, and that there will be liberty that we ought to assert as our birthright in this era, that we are free all of us African Americans to make of it what we will. We cannot be second-guessed. We have no national leadership because we require none beyond what any other free people require. We assert the establishment of our human rights. We are not and will never again be slaves. We assert the establishment of our civil rights. We are not and will never again be second-class citizens. We now must assert the establishment of our social power, we will embody and enrich the power of America itself. That is to say, if we agree that Black moves forward from here.

But this is decidedly not the agenda for those African Americans who struggle with the daily business of living. Before them and all of us lies a simple question. Are they to take blackness in a different direction? I say no, and that they have no right to. For if we are to celebrate that which has and yet may further enrich the nation, then our prospects for blackness must be uplifting. That is a daunting responsibility. I reject the idea that 'it is what it is'. It's about Black Lions writing history.

I believe my critics at P6 find that the elitism of a cultural nationalism that is not about establishing a broader middle class standard of living for the masses of blackfolks in The Struggle objectionable. I also believe that they would question the evidence of freedom I assume at square one of the completion of the Civil Rights Movement. And so by that I interpret they argue that no future Black project should move ahead of the African American masses. That the very purpose of black consciousness is indeed arrested at that level of development and needn't go upscale or be informed by greater powers and capacities.

It seems to me that if there is to be any cohesion in an cultural appreciation of Black, then it must retain the essential quality of an elite, but that is very different from saying that other African Americans must be led. Indeed I am saying that the entire project is voluntary and as such various groups will interpret the legacies of blackness in different ways, none of which is absolutely required.  Again, in an era of social power for middle class blackfolks, blackness needn't be emphasized at all. The Black Church needn't be mentioned. Everybody could just assimilate from ground zero with no black cultural priorities. But so long as people will desire to claim black cultural priorities, in other words so long as people want to represent some black cultural nationalism, then the essential class conflict is inevitable, and perhaps irreconcilable. It will always be Oprah vs Ice Cube. Cosby vs ghetto blackfolks. Who owns black?

I believe that if black Progressives and Lefties have their way, then Black will remain a sort of socialist project - that no Cosby gets to be Black until all of his baggy pants rivals get their living wage jobs and there is no inherent black underclass complaint in America. I have sympathy for this vision. If Black doesn't go upscale, I think it's self-evident that African Americans who are upscale will need it less than their struggling brothers. But I think that a class-stagnant blackness is very little more than the Negro caste of old, and the attraction of themes of blackness remains irresistable to my generation. So I want Black to go in my direction, and by the same token that a powerless Negro Church was excoriated 50 years ago by college educated black Progressives, a backsliding fraction of African America deserves flack on top of ordinary middle class browbeating. "Holding up their end of the bargain", as Cosby put it, is a requirement of the blackness of social power.

It is not fair to expect all African Americans to represent black social power. Not everyone desires to or is capable of conducting themselves in an uppity manner. But in today's America not everyone needs to hold up this mantle of black cultural nationalism. It's OK not to be Sidney Poitier. Ultimately the question remains. Who owns black, and politically what is the import of owning it? Will it be a relatively small and relatively powerful black elite of the sort who would be doing things like raising 34 million dollars to conserve the King Papers? Or will it be the black masses still struggling to make ends meet in an America looking past them towards gays and Latinos? Either group of African Americans will struggle with the term as it applies to them, how America interprets blackness and the very necessity of it.

Whose Multiculturalism?

Ellis Cose writes that all is not well in Black & Brown. It's especially true here in LA:

As Latinos increasingly become the ethnic majority in once proudly black venues (including Compton, a hip-hop capital, and Watts, formerly L.A.'s black mecca), and as headlines tout them as America's hot, and largest, minority group, many blacks share Smith's fear of being "shut out." Earl Ofari Hutchinson, an L.A.-based writer and activist, recalls the bitter reaction he got for writing a series of articles sympathetic to Latino immigrants: "I have never received so much hate mail from blacks. It touched a nerve among black folks, a raw nerve."

I saw this coming, and it has not even peaked yet. To me, the reasons are clear. It's a matter of thoughtless appropriation of the political struggles of the blacks of yesteryear. Everybody thinks they have their own 'civil rights movement' style concessions to get from the Man. Except few are willing or able to take the long, hard and high road. It's funny, I never thought I'd hear myself using the term 'racial spoils system', but that's basically how these low-rent politics are working. There is no consistent principle being applied here. It's just a gold rush.

The proper pluralism is not being attempted and the promise of multiculturalism has degenerated into political correctness and simple-minded ethnic chauvinism. When people take heart that real hope is at hand by feeding a black man with a taco, I think we've lost all concept of institution building, not to mention the capacity.

There were days in the 90s when I expected the NAACP to revise itself and exemplify the potential benefits of the term 'people of color'. Instead of the possible impact it might have had with regard to whiteness being transformed by positive example, the NAACP remained a largely black 'get whitey' organization, befuddled and befouled with scandal. From what I can see, 'people of color' is in decline as a useful term.

My expectations? That people are going to follow their class interests until somebody gives them an excuse to be more ignorant and follow their percieved racial interests. To the extent that black and latino uplift organizations are not self-sufficient, they will believe that they stand to gain by piling on whitefolks. That's how I percieve joint statements lamenting the failures of Affirmative Action. It's useful, it works marginally, but it is nowhere near liberating and nothing sustainable. It's the old attempt to turn the alternative into a majority. It doesn't aggregate.

As for the friction we are currently witnessing in California. There will be no end to that until the political majority is satisfied with some adjudication on matters of border security and immigration policy. Black leftists and those seeking to retain the representation of (now) traditional majority minority voting districts will be in a particularly difficult bind as blacks slowly move out and latinos quickly move in. Hypersegregation will have one new dimension, the Forty Percent may end up represented by Latinos in a bilingual electorate. I think it will be enough to make many blackfolks want to move back to Alabama. "Urban" won't mean them.

I'm talking about the inner cities of course. In the integrated suburbs, a different picture arises of a great deal less focus on race and a shared youth culture that is at ease with a lighthearted sense of diversity. This is not any rigorous sort. It might even be considered to be a 'happens to be' flavor of ethnicity. That is because the American suburb is emerging, in my view, to be a community of choice rather than one of default. People don't choose to live in poor black communities so much as they choose to live in black-friendly suburbs, and non-white suburbia is on the rise.

However my outlook is bleak for those in the underserved communities. They'll endure wasteful and dangerous ethnic strife unless they surprise us with a new kind of politics. I don't think it will be as shallow as the film 'Crash' portays it, but the bold vision of Multicultural Literacy has failed. Aztlan and Afrocentrics may not be rising, but it's significant that they emerged in the multicultural 90s instead of the people of color coalition we were all expecting. It seems like only those of us outside of the ghettos and barrios learned those lessons.

De La Day

I'm chillin' at the office with 60GB of MP3s on the La Cie. Today it's wall to wall De La Soul on the headset. Again as I engage with the Progressives over at P6 in search of some referenceable blackness, I'm taking up cudgels. I'm going to use a bit of De La to make part of a point that I'm attempting to make. Who are the Committees?

To the Lyrics from 'Held Down' off Bionix:

[Cee-Lo]
Allow me.. to break it down.. ah yea yea yea yea yeahh..
Life.. {*humming*}

[Pos]
This is dedicated to all my folks
Diagnosed with a bad case of that proper upbringin
And never took the time to fall in line or follow
or swallow the thoughts
Of the recognized committees who lurk throughout ya cities
Ya hood, ya town, no matter which type
You from the same type of people try to hold you down
Just because you tailor made for bigger and better things
Never missed a chance to move ahead of things
And what does it bring?  I tell you for me
it brought jealousy in back wounds from all the stabbin
Cats posin as my fan just to get grabbin what's mine
I'm livin in times where my daughters are found around
kids who can't afford thinkin caps
But always found drinkin raps and eatin off beats
Claimin laws of the streets - but who made the laws?
Everybody playin +Rebel+ with no sign of a +Cause+

[Chorus: Cee-Lo]
Well I, feel the world around me
I've found, that others, will bring you down, just to be down
You've got to make up your mind, where you wanna be
Where you wanna go with your life
With your life..

[Pos]
Yo, I'm never singin the blues but findin the clues to maintain
And I been blessed to reign supreme over nearly every dream
I had, and I made it come true
I'm an imperfect man and I'm holdin the clue
to perfection, it doesn't seem to matter what direction I look
I find people settin traps
Tryin to find the goal - without havin any maps
Even friends of mine, jumped on line, just to become my adversary
They felt they were entitled to the dairy I made
They don't come to chill or behave
And they got, toast ready to burn
Not learnin to live, but they yearnin to take what you earn

[Chorus: Cee-Lo]
Well I, feel the world around me
I've found, that others, will bring you down, just to be down
You see - you've got to make up your mind, where you wanna be
And where you wanna go with your life
With your life..

[Pos]
So quick to place blame.. and deny the shame we bring upon ourselves
So many names held accountable for my own account
When a large amount was weight - that I made and shaped
When I climbed I found
It was hard to find others around to point my fingers at
Which made me realize the truth
The biggest supressor could be your own ego lookin for an excuse
to plant roots, in a field of self-sorrow
to sprout and follow the first thing you feel
Nourishes your hunger to be respected, it gets hectic
And when I'm watchin the news, and my daughter walks in
and choose to ask, "Why were all those people on the floor
sleepin, covered in red?"  I told her
that they were lookin for God, but found religion instead

[Chorus: Cee-Lo]
Well I, feel the world around me
I've found, that others, will bring you down; just to be down
You see, you've got to make up yo' mind, where you wanna be
And where you wanna go with yo' life
With your life, with your life..

{*Cee-Lo harmonizes and ad libs with choir*}

[Cee-Lo]
I need my SPAAAACE, to live..

Well I, feel the world around me
I've found, that others, will bring you down; just to be down
You see, you've got to make up yo' mind, where you wanna be
And where you wanna go with yo' life
With your life, with your life..

Pos says just about everything that needs to be said in the first stanza...

On Flag Raising & Burning

I was never a Boy Scout but I did get to raise the American flag at my elementary school. It was, in those days, considered the premier honor a student could get. I can still remember with pride learning how to fold the flag into a triangle with the stars facing outward.

I don't know if kids still look up to the flag, but I do know talk radio is going ape about the Mexican flag here in California. The cat subbing in for Michael Savage last night was livid. But what surprised me a little was that he didn't really know the official reasons and protocols for flying the flags of foreign nations. Still, there's plenty bad recent history over here on the West Coast about Mexican flags at public and political events. I get pretty angry about it myself. It seems to me that there are some laws that ought to be enforced around this matter.

As for a Constitutional Amendment, I say no. We seem to be on the verge of doing a lot of Constitutional Amending these days. First on hetro marriage, which I'm all for, just not Constitutionally and against flag burning, which I also find pretty heinous, but in fact I defend. I think there's no better way to symbolize protest and disgust with a nation than to publically burn it's flag.

Hmm. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Where can I get me a Mexican flag?

Some of His Best Friends Are White

Stop the presses!! Michael Steele accepts money from white people! He even accepts campaign money from white people who have offended black people. Who you might ask? Well the big bomb is that his Senate campaign has accepted money from Floyd Brown's Citizens United Political Victory Fund and from Alex Castellanos.

Who?

I'm not going to tell you until right away. But chances are that you've heard of the things they've done to offend blackfolks. But the interesting note is that none of them, until this very moment, have made names for themselves big enough to merit the attention of blackfolks. I think I'm pretty informed and I've never heard of them before. Have you? No you haven't.

Now let's just consider the nature of the digging you have to do to make an enemy of and smear Michael Steele. I mean we've seen this before.

In July of 2005, Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich, a Republican, came under criticism for hosting a $1,000-a-head golf outing at a white-only golf club. Doug Duncan, Ehrlich's potential Democratic opponent in the 2006 gubernatorial elections, accused Ehrlich of "trying to divide us" and called for him to publicly apologize "for holding this event at a club that discriminates."[9] Lt. Governor Steele responded to the outcry by saying, "I don't know that much about the club, the membership, nor do I care, quite frankly, because I don't play golf." Adrienne A. Jones, Speaker Pro Tempore of the Maryland House of Delegates, called Steele's dismissal of the controversy "a slap in the face of those of us who are African Americans." [10] After two weeks, the controversy still persisted, leading Steele to say that his "initial reaction to this was a little more flippant than it should have been." [11]

Basically, enemies of black republicans are at it again, trying to make all black candidates for office hew to a singular leftist political agenda and suggest that any black candidate who doesn't is a friend to racism. It pays to recall that these are the same people who find Bill Bennett to be a racist of the highest order.

What's the bottom line? What exactly do these political contributors want Steele to do? What's the quid pro quo? Well, let's just assume the worst. Let's assume that they want Senator Steele to back some racist agenda against blackfolks. Could those bringing up these names be onto something? Is there an actual hidden racist agenda? It seems to me that if we can find out the NSA's secret weapons against enemies of the nation, it shouldn't be too hard to find a black racist in public office. But there is no such thing to be found and Steele contributors have no such agenda, nor does Steele. What they really want to do is beat the Democrat.

On the other hand, if these contributors really actually want to offend blackfolks, how might they do that by putting a black man in the Senate? Following the logic of those who are opposed to the black Republican idea, that's basically all they have to do. The very fact of having yet another black individual representing the Republican party in a position of power in the US is the worst thing. Consider how they hate Secretary Rice. Isn't that why this 'issue' is being raised?

Well that's already done. Steele has already been kidnapped from the Democrats. He's already a GOP functionary, raising money, soliciting votes, playing partisan politics and following the GOP leadership. The 'race treachery' is a fait accomplit. So what could possibly be worse? 

What could really be worse is that Steele himself makes racial claims - that he himself is a bigot and wants to use his power and influence for racist aims. He might be so incredibly clever that he's able to keep his racist agenda hidden even better than the NSA's wiretaps. So maybe, despite the presence of evidence, Steele's enemies might claim it to be true anyway. But you'll not find anyone who would make such a bold suggestion. Merely that he hangs around whitefolks who have been offensive to blackfolks in the past. This, ladies and gentlemen, is their case.

So now it's time to open up Pandora's Box and let the truth be known. Floyd Brown's guys were behind the Willie Horton ad, and Castellanos was behind Strom Thurmond's 'white hands' ad. If you are of the persuasion that Steele is a sellout, then this only fuels your fire. Burn baby burn.

What should satisfy those who complain the loudest would be a list of contributors to Steele's campaign by race. Obviously, some Democrats already have that, and have decided to get some mileage out of these two in particular. Given that, Steele would merely have to disclaim these which appear to be perfectly legal contributions to avoid the appearance of "selling out". But the problem here is not racism as I have shown. The problem is that Steele is a black man with Republican backing at the highest levels of the party, which is, by definition "selling out".

Boo hoo.

His returning the money would be a capitulation to this mealy-mouthed smear. If he does that would be the first evidence I'd accept of him being a sell-out.

An Administrative Note

I've added FeedBlitz's doodad to the right column. If it works you should be able to get Cobb email sent to you. With any luck, my better stuff can get forwarded to various Kwaku networks, just like the Willie Lynch letter. You know what I'm talking about.

July is going to be a publicity blitz for Cobb, and I welcome all suggestions.

Today I tried something right off the top of my head spontaneously. I wrote to Kos, Glenn Reynolds and Atrios a one-line letter about something I just invented, National Adopt-A-Black-Blog Day. I also sent my letter to the Washington Post to David Brooks at the NYT.  We'll see what comes of that.

Right now I'm thinking of what makes sense for a blogad. Right now it's going to be my face and something like, 'Can you believe what this guy is talking about?'. Also I'm very likely to appropriate the old cliche, of 'Your worst nightmare, an educated black man', or better yet, A black republican, your worst nightmare'. Something  like that.

Sorry American Soccer Excuses

I play soccer and I speak French, so there.

Every four years about this time, people with no clue about the game of soccer go to great lengths to explain and justify their ignorance. Oddly enough, it's often done in the context of geopolitics. Since the civilized world is actively engaged in the business of the thrills of the FIFA World Cup and the United States is not merely on the sidelines but largely uninterested, there must be some great import. No there isn't. We're simply losers when it comes to soccer on the world stage.

However, like most loser nations, there are bright spots of hope within the population. Just as in every Communist dictatorship there are those who yearn for political freedom, there are in America people who actually, play, understand and are excited by the game of soccer. And by the way, we don't call it 'futbol' we call it soccer. As Sam Jackson tried to explain to John Travolta, in France they call a Quarter Pounder 'Le Royale'. It is what it is, no translation necessary.

My history with the game is short and sweet. I played in high school. I caught the fever late in my sophomore year and spent countless hours learning to dribble the ball on my feet, knees and head. I bought my own ball, I played every day at lunchtime. I captained an intramural team and my team won the school championship. I couldn't play on the school's team because I was already captain of the diving team and the seasons ran concurrently. Besides, I was a junior at the time and playing anything but varsity was beneath me.

What people don't understand about soccer is that it makes no sense as a spectator sport in the same way baseball does. If you don't understand what creates the drama of the sport, you're at a loss. In that regard baseball requires that you understand the very complicated rules for scoring, but soccer is more like hockey and basketball. It's all about the flow and the interaction between players. It's about speed and breaking away and slick manipulation of the ball. But that's really neither here nor there. Soccer is an incredibly great game to play. If you don't play the game, it's difficult to understand what you're seeing. But you don't have to play well to get it.

What many of the clueless don't get is how incompetent most people are in the sport. I'm talking about fans and players alike. If you've ever gone fishing with rednecks whom you thought were practically born in hip waders and nobody catches a fish, you may finally understand. Most people are intimidated by the obscurity (to them) of the whole thing. But you just have to get out there and do it.  There's plenty of fun to be had even if you can't do the first trick. And yes this is an invitation to get out there with that chubby Mexican dude and his little boy when they're kicking back and forth at the Fourth of July picnic. You'll run out of breath first, just like you'd do in a pickup basketball or football game. You suck at soccer; everybody sucks at soccer. You'll look ridiculous and yet in two minutes you'll get it.

Of course, you're not actually going to embarrass yourself in front of that chubby Mexican dude. You're going to sit at your picnic table like a pale girl with glasses and athsma and mutter about how stupid and pointless the whole thing is. Or worse, you'll start talking about golf.

It might not be a bad idea to talk about golf though. As everyone knows who talks sports, golf is one of those games in which the ordinary Joe can do what the pros do. I mean nobody is going to drive a car faster than 175, and nobody is going to hit a 100mph fastball, but you have a good chance of sinking a 30 foot put, or pitching out of the trap to within 2 feet of the pin. And when you play soccer with your friends, you have as good a chance as any in the pros to make a goal. In fact, unless you play on a regulation sized pitch, your teams will very likely score many goals. But that's when you really can get an appreciation of the sport. Go to a regulation sized soccer field. It seems enormous. But if you try playing with 11 players per team on a regulation field, then you'll realize how much of a double black diamond you're up against. No ordinary player would last a minute with the pros.

As you watch the pros, it will take you a moment, but soon you'll recognize the scale of the game. These guys are sprinting at incredible speeds with the ball and colliding in mid-air and leaping huge distances at the goal. And they go for 45 minutes without a break. Look how far the goalie will kick the ball. It's phenomenal. And on the penalty kicks, the defenders protect their 'nads for good reason.

I'm not going to babble on about how great the game is. I understand that many folks just don't get it. But really, there's not a lot to get. If you're too old to get out and kick a ball around yourself, you can always check out some incredible video highlights. Or you can just be a whiney librarian about it..

BTW, Do check out these videos.

• This style of dribbling has a very breakdance feel to it.
• I have a hard time believing this guy is dangerous on the field, but he does have a sort of freaky Christy Brown My Left Foot thing going on.
• Here's a classic bicycle kick, which is about as rare in tournament soccer as breaking the glass in a slam dunk, (but still legal).

Volokh has good stuff too.

 

Freedom of the Press?

I'm not back up to my usual level of writing. I expect that will happen within the next month as I start reading more serious history and get rid of this client that is making us curse and spit. I began writing this three weeks ago, way before the Times broke their stories and their faith with patriots. I don't want to bother cleaning it up.. I'll just be prescient in retrospect...mb

Why should we assume that there is any need for a free press in a democracy? I say that not as a swipe against the theory but the current practice.

The first thing that seems very clear to me is that there is nothing I personally really need from most print journalists and any broadcast journalists any longer other than the background info-soup into which most of our interactive online writers are immersed. I mean firstly there is the sort who go out for this thing that makes me believe that it is an inherently biased business. Something about 'speaking truth to power'. It is that very notion that separates the journalist from the writer. The fact of the matter is that if writers were to go about the business of writing about current events, then perhaps journalism would cease to exist. For many years now, I have gotten news and opinion quite reliably from online writers. If all we had to follow were AP news reports, we would have had plenty enough to sustain the discourse we now have.

If you think about modern journalism as a the result of the invention of this thing called 'mass communications' then you get an idea of why the entire notions of professionalism are necessary. The idea that somehow delivering more information to more people improves the functioning of democracy is a notion I think that has been disproven. The Republic operates quite well without mass media, and the alert and astute class of citizens who are capable of tapping Senators on their shoulder do just fine without reading the popular press. So evolves the blogosphere which is populated by writers less so than journalists.

More than a decade ago, a great deal of the publicity surrounding the Internet was fueled by a coterie of journalists on The Well. Without their influence, all 'net writing would probably been set back five years. But that thing which has evolved into the blogosphere was initiated by Dave Winer, who is not a journalist. So I think it is reasonable to believe that the challenge to the Press would be inevitable, not simply because some section of the Press was living in both worlds. Online magazines like Salon and Slate nurtured serious online discussion as did Cafe Utne, but I assure you it would have happened anyway, since it was already happening in private forums and on USENET.

The kind of journalists I think we need are the best of them, which is to say in my book those who end up writing books. That thing that makes for an extraordinary non-fiction book is just that thing that journalists do on a piecemeal basis. I am thinking of writers like David Halberstam, John McPhee or Michael Pollan. So this criticism is not a real criticism of journalism, so much as it is a questioning of our expectations of journalistic istitutions and the privileges, indeed rights we may confer upon them. What are we to expect of journalistic institutions?

It occurs to me that what these instutions obviously have are the resources to go after a story, wherever that story might be, with some tenacity. But to what extent are professional journalists agents of those institutions? And to what extent are those institutions self-confident in their role of adjusting the view of the public by uncovering facts which are percieved by that institution to be against the public interest? In other words, how does a large news organization arrogate itself to be an arbiter of what the public needs to know?

I would think that most of the time that a common sense understanding of the public interest is sufficient. But it is the border conditions that concern me. In reviewing matters of national security from the perspective of someone informed by information theory, I'm of the opinion that the public interest is not necessarily served by transparency. A large news organization doesn't necessarily understand nor care about national security. Rather they are motivated by providing their best shot at exposing the political actors on the domestic scene, for example. If it's a battle between Nixon and Kennedy, for example, what difference does Turkey make? So if in the course of researching both of them you reveal some details about a trip to Turkey by Nixon in the interest of describing him as a candidate, a newspaper might unknowingly reveal some geopolitical fact. A picture with Nixon and some individual unknown to the staff photographer in the background might indicate a great deal to the right (or wrong) party. And so the newspaper says in its own defense, "The American People have a right to know everything about their presidential candidates." And where they might decide to censor personal characteristics of the candidates - say sexual appetites or personality tics, they necessarily paint an incomplete picture. In the end, you never really know, unless you set off with a specific purpose in mind, how your writing is going to effect your readers. Newspapers write very unlike lawyers or technical writers, a great deal can be successfully implied.  I guess I am making a case for domestic propaganda.

Harking back to Chomsky, I can recall swallowing fully the idea that the CIA would be involved in planting certain stories into the mainstream press, ie having moles at the NYT. I don't think they would need to do that, but I don't doubt that they have ways and means of getting their spin into the realm of public debate.

My underlying theme is that Truth does not serve Man. People will be motivated to act no matter what the facts are.

Farewell Acidman

The Acidman is dead.

A moment of silence is in order for the caustic redneck who called 'em like he saw 'em, and to hell with anybody who didn't like it. He's one of the few folks who was massively delinked by the 'sphere over some incorrect verbiage. We've known for a while that he had some inoperable cancer of some sort - at least that's what I recall. But basically the guy didn't seem long for this world and took a caustic view of it.

I like people who say, love me hate me but don't ignore me. There's your role model.

Bowling Alone NOT: The Virtual Generation

I haven't met more than half of my circle of friends.

I have known Lester Spence for about 10 years and we've talked about a whole lot of things. But I only met him last year, and we spent no more than 3 hours together. I've known Ed Brown as long if not longer, and I've never met him face to face. I've been on my job for about 18 months and I've only met my boss two or three times. You see, I'm living the virtual life.

Ed and Les are two examples of people I consider myself relatively close to that I've interacted with primarily through computer mediated communications. In fact, the consulting partnership I work for is also a virtual company - we do most of our intercompany business via email. There is no Los Angeles office for this national business of 700 employees. We work from home offices. We get an email and a phone call and we are sent to work at a customer site.

CBS tells this story:

While the survey didn't determine why there's been such a change in our discussion networks, the researchers have a few ideas.

They speculate the increase in the number of hours people work keeps them from interacting with their community.

The growth of the Internet as a communication tool also may be to blame. While the Internet might keep us connected to friends, family and neighbors, it also may diminish the need for us to actually see each other to make closer connections, the researchers say.

They also say the way survey participants answered the questions in 1985 and 2004 might be different, the researchers say. These days, people might not consider instant messaging or e-mail true "discussion."

Duh.

Index This!

Does Technorati suck or is it just me?

For the life of my I cannot understand why Technorati does not index my blog. I've had the widget on here for two months, and according to Technorati, I haven't updated my blog in 35 days. It's insane. You would think that Typepad and Technorati would have gotten that little piece of pinging business figured out by now. I even went to Pingoat to goose the process along. Nothing.

What gives?

Liberty City Losers

Here is a land that never gave a damn
About a brother like me and myself because they never did
I wasn't with it, and then that very minute it
Occurred to me, the suckers had authority.
-- Chuck D

You've heard it before. 'Dredlock soldiers' standing in a 'cypher' spitting venom at 'Babylon'. Now some of that same overheated and empty headed anti-Americanism has landed radical black muslims in the pokey. The FBI and other intelligence agencies have busted the conspirators who planned to destroy the Sears Tower. Good work and yay for our side. With any luck this will flush more radical fools into the open.

Several weeks ago, I started writing about the foolishness (with hindsight) of much of Public Enemy's lyricism. I basically didn't get much past Black Steel, and then I ran out of ideas and patience:

Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos
If you ask me, this has to be their signature song. It comes straight from the rhetoric of black militancy and I think it's time to look at it with the benefit of hindsight. Somewhere on the web is evidence of a strident opposition by scared skinny white music critics to the strident opposition of arrogant fist pumping black rap fans. Ah yes the days of 'Do the Right Thing'. But what ever became of all that musical energy. Did it turn into any kind of political action, or just the posturing of 'cool pose'? The latter of course. There is no politics of hiphop, there are only hiphop producers, most of whom are more interested in the marketing of Cristal than the prospects for democracy.

And yet there persists this looney idea that the underground of hiphop, perhaps best personified in the tenuous links between Tupac and his radical auntie Chesimard, might be the spark of a radical political vanguard among urban youth.  Naaah. They ain't using political aim to shoot.

But apparently some were after the 'crazy baldheads' of American authority. Now who are the suckers?

I haven't heard much around the 'sphere about black reaction to these arrests. My fault for not reading. But now that I am getting referrals from BlackElectorate, and I'm upping my marketing presence, I'm paying more attention to other writers and blogs. Now that we've got some facts and names, I want to see who might be defending them from a 'black' perspective. Here are the facts:

The seven men who were arrested – Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin, Lyblenson Lemorin and Rothschild Augustine – were named in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Miami. The indictment charges four counts:

conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, namely al Qaeda; conspiracy to provide material support and resources to terrorists; conspiracy to maliciously damage and destroy buildings by means of an explosive device; and conspiracy to levy war against the Government of the United States.

These individuals wished to wage a, quote, “full ground war” against the United States.  That quote is from the investigation of these individuals, who also allegedly stated the desire to, quote, “kill all the devils we can.”  They hoped for their attacks to be, quote, “just as good or greater than 9/11.”

Not much to question about that, pre-lawyer that is. But I expect the Coalition of the Damned to make an appearance. Many folks might be surprised that the Congressional Black Caucus tried to defend Rep. Jefferson, but that wasn't so surprising. Wait until you hear charges of echoes of COINTELPRO. You see, black organizations in the US are about as well infiltrated as it is possible to do. I myself have known more than a few narcs and FBI agents on a mission. There have been plenty of thwarted attacks against blacks by fools because of black agents stopping that nonsense before it became deadly. That's why I dismiss most criticisms against Louis Farrakhan. He cannot, repeat, cannot break the law. And every one of his hothead splinter groups gets theirs in the end. Tony Mohammed is next.

But that doesn't stop cell-level conspiracies from taking place. While you've got to give the FBI its props for finding a group so small, it's not surprising that Liberty City might generate this kind of rabble. At the moment, we maight say that wider black involvement is speculative, but let's put the speculation in context, as was done on CNN:

On June 13, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, put out a call, an informational bulletin, "Black Separatism a Volatile Movement of Node -- Node of Domestic Radicalization."

You know, I'm hearing from my sources that the seven arrests were made in Florida and here in Atlanta, Georgia. Now, as we know, Atlanta, Georgia, has been a hotbed of black separatist movement for a number of years.

And I find it very interesting that those two cities were involved. But, again, to say that there are 1,000 of these people that are al Qaeda sympathizers, I think that's maybe going out on a limb. Some of these groups that they mentioned in this particular report, Nation of Islam, New Black Panther Party, based in Detroit, the New Black Panther Nation, and Five Percenters, those are the ones that law enforcement right now are basically concerned with.

My sources will not say whether or not, at this point, because it is still sealed, whether or not these seven people had anything to do with any of these groups. And I will be very, very interested in the morning, Anderson, to find out whether or not the -- any of these groups do surface.

On a note of obligatory seriousness, I have just about zero tolerance for this kind of madness appropriating 'Black', and it's part of my mission in the Old School to recover the proper spirit of black consciousness and nationalism from these radical nutcases. I hope against hope that the beautiful assocations with black will survive and prosper. Nevertheless, the way things work in this country is that you can stand up and call your knucklehead self a New Black Panther and gain some national recognition. Whereas you can be a sensible essayist with an order of magnitude more sense and probity and remain an anonymous and obscure blogger for years. Such are things in a videogame society.

And so we now have Liberty City Stories for real, but the Feds are busting up the would-be masterminds before they got their hands on the goods. Good.

Now let us see who complains.

King's Papers at Morehouse

When I first came onto the internet and started writing, I wanted to be able to quote extensively from MLK. It wasn't until several years later that small dribs and drabs were available from Stanford. But there has never been a substantial amount of King's actual work that has made it to the 'net. My my reckoning he is probably the most oft-quoted out of context person in history.

Now that it's official that Morehouse has got the King Papers, there seems to be some promise that they will be made available. Online? Maybe. We'll see.

I don't expect that public debate will be substantially changed by the publication of King's actual words, but there will come moments when a critical inflection can be resolved by public access. I think most notably back to the passage of Proposition 209 in California, which I was resolved against.  That initiative, known as the CCRI or California Civil Rights Initiative was sponsored by Republicans, notably posterboy Ward Connorly. A good deal of rhetorical appropriation was par for the course by both parties. All claimed to be fulfilling the dream of MLK. There were several problems with this, of course. Most notably that King wasn't able to speak for himselves, and all we had were 'experts' testifying as to his intent. Not good enough.

Whether or not King actually believed in colorblindness as a principle is unclear to me. Even if he did, no one can say that King was the Movement or that he had anything close to the final word on matters of black liberation. As far as I'm concerned, his emphasis on non-violence and racial integration was a prefect recipe for black middle class success. The problem of course was that all African American ambition does not and did not end at middle class success.

The ability to decrypt and discern the actual motivations of the people, the actualizations of black movements, and the words and deeds of King will be an ongoing project. We can only hope that some of us out here in the real (internet) world get to see some original material.

Be that as it may, I am quite pleased that the appropriate millions were found and that this important set of documents will have a secure institutional home. We can only hope that when my kids are old enough to read them, the spiderwebs will have been kept at bay, which was a bit much to ask of their previous caretakers.

A Letter To The Washington Post

I realized, somewhat late, that the Washington Post is linking via Technorati to blogs commenting on its latest anthropological study on the rare and wiley 'Black Man'. And so I am writing in general response:

The most significant problem with being a black man in America is very relevant to this series. It is that no matter who you are as a black man, your image is not under your control. Any time some university study, or major media report, or controversial court case arises, everyone in America is ready, willing and able to change their (shallow) opinions of black men.

Rather than maintain some decent and stable communications with black men, or black people, Americans are always hoping for some willing proxy. And so we have a series of a few black men, and a few ideas about black men, always and forever subusititing for real relationships with real black men.

It doesn't matter if the proxy is positive or negative. It doesn't matter if it's Mike Tyson or Tiger Woods, Cornel West or Tookie Williams, OJ Simpson or Colin Powell, Michael Jordan or Michael Jackson. There's a constant lottery going on about who is black and who is a black man, and what that 'thing' represents or is all about.

And so it is true in 2006 what was true when James Baldwin said it two generations ago:

All you are ever told in this country about being black is that it is a terrible, terrible thing to be. Now, in order to survive this, you have to really dig down into yourself and re-create yourself, really, according to no image which yet exists in America. You have to impose, in fact - this may sound very strange - you have to decide who you are, and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.

So I would suggest that everyone who has dropped by for a moment to update their black man image software try to get out to blogs and find out what it's like to read what a real black man is thinking and writing EVERY DAY. After all, we are the source. And no newspaper or university study is ever going to know as much about us as we know about ourselves.

All of your abstractions are worthless. We are what we are.

I am going to make some serious effort to bump up my traffic here, through more disciplined use of Technorati and better re-routing of all of the stuff that goes to the original Cobb site. I'll also do some advertising. Meanwhile, it is encouraging to see that Google is double listing many of my archives as I continue to get about 1500 page-views a day between both sites.

Aside from all that, this is a perennial rehash of the fundamental gripe of 'Mystery of the Black Blogger'. Who gets to represent?

TMI: Media Spying

Well, our fine journalists have done it again. Loose lips sink ships and they're blabbing it up. The monitoring of SWIFT has been disclosed by the media spies who are spying on our intelligence agencies. Now everybody who knows nothing now thinks they know something and among the people who actually know something the news is all bad for our good guys. One of the best things we have ever done in the War on Terror has now had its secrecy compromised.

For my colleagues who have been skeptical of the U.S. Government’s efforts in terrorist financing, this program, the cooperation with other financial providers, such as First Data Corporation and Western Union, contributed significantly to the A- grade given the Government for Terrorist Financing by the 9/11 Commission. Many of the successes achieved in terrorist financing have not reached the public domain. The anonymity afforded, up until this point, has provided the interagency community the opportunity to continue to exploit terrorists through their financial vulnerabilities.

As more information becomes known and as subject matter experts and the media assess the program, they should not lose sight of the fact that the program was strictly monitored and audited. The field of information actually reviewed was quite minimal in comparison to the universe of SWIFT records that exist. SWIFT records were provided to the Treasury Department in accordance with Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) subpoenas. This initiative was operated in accordance to the law. Before rushing to judgment, critics should appreciate the level of scrutiny and accountability that was put in place to ensure SWIFT information was used solely for terrorist investigative purposes. In addition, assertions that the information reviewed did not lead to positive results would be wrong.

Now anybody who was thinking about it, back in beginning when muslim remittance businesses were first being investigated, should have known that this sort of monitoring would eventually be established. But it takes a lot of nerve to bubble this specific news up.

I think there is really an active conspiracy of normalcy going on. It is a basic refusal to believe that there is anything legitimate about our government taking action against terrorist networks, and that a peacetime populace are best informed about such 'questionable' actions. It's going to get the media in trouble, and if Congress doesn't defend the intelligence agencies properly, they are going to get defensive. That could spell big trouble.

Christians and Muslims Full of Themselves

I got it going and coming this morning. Two obviously thoughtful individuals suggested I comment on two subjects that I see coincidently as of the same piece. First came Patrick Hynes:

I'm hoping you would be willing to link to my most recent blog post
regardind Andrew Sullivan's "Christianist" nonsense, in which I reference
information in my forthcoming book, In Defense of the Religious Right to
demonstrate that conservative Christians are actually closer to mainstream
Americans than the political Left is, or Andrew, for that matter.

Then came Errol Phillips

With the startling developments leading to arrests in Toronto and just yesterday in Miami, I have to confess that I am now predisposed in considering any Muslim to be a terrorist or a terrorist supporter or a terrorist sympathizer.

I'm a Christian and full red-blooded member of the 'Christian West', but not part of that political group known as the Christian Right. In fact I have some very particular strong feelings and some pretty clear lines across which I think many Protestant Fundamentalists are crossing, thus crossing me. Basically, I see the Christian Right as a loud, annoying minority that is taking common sense to extremes. Anybody who is calling for the Kingdom of Christ on Earth is not only missing the picture, but both apostate and an enemy of the State.

Likewise I have a healthy appreciation for my estimation of of Islam seems to be. As a monotheist, and one from the very practical side of things, I like its discipline and simplicity. I admire the ritual process of Islam. But I also think that Islamicists, those who would call for a return of the Caliphate, essentially a Kingdom of Islam on Earth, is a religious pervert. Furthermore I strongly believe that there is very little moral distance from the exploitation of religious students in Madrassas against the US and the West and the recruitment of child soldiers in Africa. It's an enormous stain upon humanity and it must be stopped.

I think my observations should be fairly obvious to any concerned individual and are not particularly insightful. Because of that I think most people are likely to get caught up in these debates along the same lines as I've outlined. However I think most folks are not so likely to recognize, as I might be, the limit of the scope and influence of these groups as authoritative given the amount they dominate conversation. I may be too succinct in saying that for it to sink in, so I'll repeat an old story.

After Rodney King, most blackfolks in LA could very well remember seeing an episode in which cops had pulled over some black motorist who sat hancuffed on the curb, or tossed onto the hood of a patrol car. As you read this, you probably have a very clear mental image of such an act. So I went hunting with my videocamera for weeks afterward and I never saw it once. The size of the insult outweighs the frequency. It might be big in your head, but it's just a small part of reality.

And so I've always been suspicious of Karl Rove's appeals to the Christian Right in the 'big tent' business, and think his partisan opponents give Rove and the Christian Right too much credit when it comes to what happened in 2000 and 2004. In fact, I have reason to believe that more sinister forces are at work in America at night.

Because I am a modernist, I believe that basically every soul is capable of every human endeavor. It is this breakthrough in Western thought that has created the great engines of corporations and multinationals and multi-ethnic armies. (Think about that last one for a minute.) And when you consider those things that mark this planet as the greatest wonders of mankind's creation, like the Panama Canal, the atom bomb, the GPS system, the Centers for Disease Control, you'll find that all of them required people from all over to collaborate under secular authority. I say there will be few such efforts in the future like the Great Wall of China where some ethnic or religious minority owns, establishes and operates anything great in this world. And so all particularists need to get right and recognize that while they may trip the wires on the margins, they are not the main show.

Progess in human society is made at the fringes, but not by the fringe groups. It is made through open collaboration in mainstreams through enablement of the masses. Christians and Muslims are not what this is all about and those who have political dogs in fights are not to be trusted. Ordinary Christians and Muslims do not need to be radicalized by pundits and we really need to stop confusing their protestations with the common sense morality we are all endowed with by our Creator.

One more analogy and I'm out.

Y'all know the Curse of Ham and various other excuses for the enslavement of Africans in America. Following such racism is the idiot argument that blacks ought to be eternally greatful for Jefferson, for without his concepts of freedom and liberty, those poor benighted and illiterate Negroes wouldn't even be able to know the value of freedom. There are several snappy answers to this stupid premise, but the one that comes to mind here is "Have you ever smothered a baby?".  We all innately struggle and fight for freedom. It is a basic human attribute. Whether you choose to give that glory to God or the emergent behavior of molecules, it is an undeniable fact. Humans want to breathe free.

So as various Christian sects and Muslim sects seem bent on domination of politics, they need to get over themselves, as do their critics.

Talking to Gnod

When I was at Webnoize and was actually intimidated by Mark Cuban and Charlie Rose as well as disgusted by those fawning over Fanning, there was something technically dramatic that I thought was pretty cool. it was a graph of music association. Now I see it on the web for free at Gnod. Plus now, the guy does books and movies too. Not bad.

Gnod is my experiment in the field of artificial intelligence. Its a self-adapting system, living on this server and 'talking' to everyone who comes along. Gnods intention is to learn about the outer world and to learn 'understanding' its visitors. This enables gnod to share all its wisdom with you in an intuitive and efficient way. You might call it a search-engine to find things you don't know about.

Check it out.

Net Neutrality: Demand It

I think I finally understand all this Net Neutrality stuff. And now that I do, it's very simple for me. I want it. If there's anybody who ought to be clear on the principle, it's Tim Berners-Lee, and I'm signing on to his position:

Net neutrality is this:

  If I pay to connect to the Net with  a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that  or greater quality of service, then we can communicate at that level.

That's all.  Its up to the ISPs to make sure they interoperate so that that happens.

Net Neutrality is NOT asking for the internet for free.

Net Neutrality is NOT saying that one shouldn't pay more money for high quality of service. We always have, and we always will.

There have been suggestions that we don't need legislation because we haven't had it. These are nonsense, because in fact we have had net neutrality in the past -- it is only recently that real explicit threats have occurred.

Quite simple really. So what kind of crap is clouding up the picture? Well, you could start by reading the Wikipedia entry, but I guarantee it will give you a headache.

Fzample:

Opponents argue that (1) Network neutrality regulations severely limit the Internet's usefulness; (2) network neutrality regulations pose a danger to become the basis for even more intrusive regulation of the Internet; (3) imposing such regulation will chill investment in competitive networks (e.g., wireless broadband) and deny network providers the ability to differentiate their services; and (4) that network neutrality regulations confuse the unregulated Internet with the highly regulated telecom lines that it's shared with voice and cable customers for most of its history.

#1 is silly. The internet is plenty useful just as it is. We never even needed Web 2.0 for the Web to be extraordinarily useful. If there was not another drop of innovation and we froze web technology in place where it is, it would still be extraordinarily useful.

#2 is just a fallacious inversion. ISPs are always going to be regulated to some extent. The way to insure that the commons is facilitated is through regulation. Regulation in and of itself is not a problem, bad regulation is a problem. We heard this shill argument for unabashed deregulation before, remember? That was Enron talking. We in California are not going to forget that anytime soon.

#3 Competitive networks need to innovate in their own way. For example, I think of XBox Live as an innovative network. It uses the Internet but it's not necessarily http traffic. If we had to wait for wireless broadband before we got XBox Live, that would have been fine. It could have existed as a network completely outside of the scope of the internet, just like all the cellphone traffic on the planet. Wireless broadband can exist separate and distinct and doesn't need to crowd the internet or change the rules of the internet. Apple could, for example, invent a wireless iPod that could communicate with the iTunes Store completely independent of the internet. If the applications are that killer, then they can deserve their own networks, like HDNet which also doesn't use the Internet. Don't pollute the Internet just because you want to innovate. Innovate your damned self.

#4 I'm not clear on how it is that this is a problem other than for Telcos who are mad because they didn't get it the first time. ISPs are profitable. Telcos could be profitable moving internet traffic too.  If this were so impossible, then I don't think Michael Powell would support Net Neutrality. He's seen the big picture. I bet that Cisco could, starting from scratch today, build a network that would be profitable on a completely different protocol than telcos and ISPs carry.

In short, I like my Internet just the way it is, pure peer to peer with no tiered services or discrimination. If I want something more than that for some specialized service, then let it be over some other network, like cable or satellite or wireless.

Angling Towards Slime

I'm starting to pay more attention to blogging and the blogosphere these days. I'm almost to the point where I'm commenting on the the meme of the day within a day. Not like when I was posting 3 and 4 times a day but in the same order of magnitude. And so it occurs to me that as the top bloggers get full of themselves, they are starting to sound more like professionals.. that is to say the story is the story and who tells the story first is more exciting.

So it's a little weird to hear backstories about backchannels and backstories coming from people whom I thought were trying to be a little bit better than all that.

So instead of fisking, we're seeing anti-fisking, or in otherwords a conspiracy of silence. Kos and others evidently don't want to talk about something substantial and so the other side of the 'sphere wants to insinuate something false or insubstantial about Kos.

Sheesh.

Where Blackness Goes From Here

Several years ago before blogging existed in any significant form, I was getting my writing fix from Amazon.com. Even there I rose in the critical sphere to an appreciable level, and doing so, I indulged in several exercises in intellectual blackness. They were Black Mental Liberation and For the Race Man. Wow. That seems so long ago.

Today it seems we must be reminded that blackness is an intellectual construct. If it becomes anything other than that, it will essentially be racial, and there is no good to come from that degeneration. I wonder (out loud) if the bulk of African Americans, looking at them as an ethnic group, wish blackness to go in that direction. If they don't, then there are great challenges to get that intellectual spark going again.

Just the other day, in reading the mixed bag story about black maleness in the Washington Post, I was reminded that the Civil Rights Movment is not about to be repeated. The US would have to accomplish half a century of racial backsliding, and all of the evidence points in the other direction. (cf Booker Rising) Despite the fact that a significant number of African Americans call themselves 'black' we should all be reminded (in a limited way) by Cosby's critique that every brother aint a brother. And so while there is a great deal of blacker than thou that often gets in the way of a modicum of civility, there is still a place for some rigorous debate on the current and future state of black politics which doesn't get bogged down in the existentials. That is to say there is some black politics that isn't identity politics, and it remains interesting. However, I do make a distinction between rigorous political debate and progress for African Americans. They take place in isolation because there is no reliable mechanism that translates the energy of debate into real, sustainable uplift. That's a subject for discussion that I'm noodling now. In the meantime what is more clear is the past.

As I've said before, the Civil Rights Movement is done. There is not going to be another level of minds involved in fights against racism in this country a the level of Thurgood Marshall in our lifetimes. As time goes foreward and progress is achieved and maintained in this society, the number and quality of people debating the subjects of racism declines. You're not going to get the interest of the best and brightest in the affairs of the everyday tribulations of the average black soul. There's nothing so uniquely black about that soul any longer. The story has been told so many times that it's All American now. Even the line from Grandmaster Flash's 'The Message': "..and everybody knows what you've been through" is over 20 years old.

It isn't quite enough, I think, to assert that 'we' are a richly diverse 'community'. When you really study the diversity of African America, you get little more than divergence itself. There is no single black community and that's what my generation has been shouting for two decades. And yet despite this, we tend to assume that there should be and eventually will be some politics that unites us.

So the question of black intellectual production revolves around whether or not there is something unique and useful about the somewhat post-modern movement of blacks to transcend race and class. See, Black Nationalism wasn't accomplished in a strictly democratic sense, and while it arose out of conditions of oppression and suppression there was some truth and beauty that came out of it too. It is the romance with that truth and beauty that still attracts progressives to 'The Struggle'. It certainly cannot be triumph within 'The Struggle' itself because actual organic black nationalist successes are few and far between. In fact it is the very pedestrian nature of class & social climbing that gives Progressives fits, because there is nothing so embarrassing to the doyennes of black truth and beauty than the fact that they can't command the salary, influence and community support of your average suburban orthodontist.

I should make one more clarifying note, which is that I find there to be a future only for those inheritors of the Black Nationalist mantle who aren't playing the liberal-left game of using lower class blacks as human shields. The entire leader/follower dynamic of enlightened leaders showing the poor black masses the way to the promised land is dead and debunked. Even the poorest African Americans have too much agency for that. All of these qualifications make it sound as if there isn't much left to be done in the name of blackness. It's true, there isn't, but it's enough to keep at least five universities and 5000 artists, writers, composers, philosophers, theologians and pundits busy for another 20 years. Who knows, we might even give Outkast a job.

In other words, I'm saying that the Black Aesthetic needs an overhaul. It needs to be updated from the days of Baldwin and Wright and it needs to be reality based. Parallel to writing this, I'm listening to De La Soul's latest album 'The Grind Date'. In the title cut they are explicitly talking about a strong blue collar ethic. De La holds up one of the only poles that keeps the big tent of hiphop above crotch level.

So if you ask me where all of this is going, I think that it's going back to Lorraine Hansberry's 'Raisin in the Sun', without the flaming spear. I'm going to re-evaluate that play in light of where I think blackfolks are at today, and I believe the answer is going to be solid, not-so-integrated, but certainly not radical black middle class on the blue collar side. America will do well to heed the update.

Mark Anthony Neal on LBGTT Marriage

Neal has a new blurble up on NPR. It's kinda wack because it sounds like it was cut and paste together. But I could see why a college professor would have to do so. I would expect that someone in his position is considerably smarter than his sound-sandwich makes him sound. Then again, it is an NPR sound-blurble. Nobody expects it to be scholarly material.

Still, it hurts my head to hear the term 'civil rights' bandied about so readily and often. So whenever I hear the term, I try to immediately think of Judge Johnson and all of the case law around race. This reminds me, much to my delight, of the wisdom of relying on 'activist judges' in making the case for civil liberty - that it was not all sit-ins and marches and shouting and throwing bricks that made the difference. That very fact, which is so often elided when we talk about 'The Struggle', is what give me comfort. The American system changed within the framework of the republic by demonstration in case after case that denial of civil rights to any fragment of its population was corrosive to liberty.

You would think that this real judicial example would be enough. So why does Mark Anthony Neal care whether or not 'the black community' supports the agenda for every sexual perversion to be considered equal? I don't know. The burble doesn't get that specific. But I have my suspicions. They are as they always have been, which is that we become accepting of the lifestyle of the sexual smorgasborg. It's a typical liberal overproduction. It's not about civil rights, it's about social power. I haven't followed this up, for one because the entire subject annoys me. But I'd bet a nickel that judges are, by and large perfectly happy to determine that within the scope of the Civil Rights laws of this country that discrimination against people because of their sexual proclivities is out of bounds. Or simply stated, all the freaks *have* all their rights. When they go to court, they win. I welcome any activist for the gay cause to prove me wrong. If you ask me, there *is* no equivalent of the Dred Scott or Plessy decisions as far as gays are concerned. Gay Americans are not legally oppressed, they are socially oppressed, and they can't stand it.

Legal oppression is not what this activism is all about. It is about appropriating the moral figleaf of the rhetoric of 'Civil Rights'. If there's anything made perfectly clear about Neal's burble, it is that everybody appropriates rhetoric and street tactics. So why not the lesbians, gays, transsexuals and transgenders? Who's stopping them? They already have. The thing they can't appropriate is Marriage, and the majority of Americans (this time) wisely has put its collective foot down.

Do we need a Constitutional Amendment sized foot in the ass of the politics of gay appropriation? I don't think so. I'm against using the Supreme Court for such matters. So I think Rove is just as off his nut for his suggestion to abuse the court system as the gay blades are for downplaying their equality in standing before it. But if this kind of sabre-rattling is what's necessary to get a rise out of bloggers such as myself, it's working.

How about this? Why don't we mandate that gays get a rainbow flag tatooed on their foreheads? That way we know and can properly adjust our gaydar. Then we can actually demonstrate our political correctness correctly. I mean if you're here and you're queer, why not let us all know, for real? On the other hand, why don't all gays just buy wedding rings and pretend that they're married anyway? Then we can actually demonstrate our respect for marriage correctly. You see? Either way there's a lie, and the lie is that Marriage is the same and LBGTT folks are all about the same values - something any halfway honest two minute conversation would disabuse.

I think the bottom line in any case is honesty and not symbolism and appropriation. We know some huge fragment of the population is gay and we know that any red blooded fraction of that fragment is ready willing and able to fight for what they rightly deserve in a free and open society. So let's just stop pretending that everybody is the same and that all these relationships are based on the same premises as Holy Matrimony. I say stand up in court for your rights, and stop bragging about your sexual exploits in the process. Nobody wants to hear it. Or if you must, then say somebody smacked you upside the head because you're a felcher, or that somebody refused to rent to you because you said you're a bottom boy on the application. But stop trying to get on board a movement whose motion has already moved. Write your own letter from a Birmingham jail.

Or maybe it is that you really have no new ideas whatsoever.

Shoot It!

After I think about it a moment, just what is the reason for the DPRK to have ICBMs? Let's have Bush walk the walk on pre-emption. I'm in agreement with Aston & Perry. We should shoot down the T-Dong missle right where it stands. There is no question that it is a WMD. There's no question that North Korea is in the Axis of Evil. There's no question that this missle test is provocative.

Actually, it should have a nasty little accident. Shooting it down with a cruise missle is much more provocative than hitting it post-launch with ABM (if it works). The better option is to sabotage it on the ground. Do we have spies in N. Korea? Hmm. It's likely that we are going to let it launch, the better to check out they have done with their repurposed Scud. But my advice would be to nip it in the bud, deniably.

The Think on Affirmative Action

There's a new blog in town called The Think. Check it out. It's written by a young overachiever out of Houston. He's got an interesting perspective on Affirmative Action and throws a few spitballs. I'm going to take a whack at one of them and see if I get a reaction.

In one nice graf, he says:

Did Princeton not accept a 1500 SAT student ranked 3rd in his class with an extremely solid work ethic and over 30 hours of AP credit (equal to an entire year of college courses) because I did not check “African-American”? I will never know the answer to that question. My best friend likes to say that I didn’t get into Princeton because I left the race option blank — I wanted to prove to myself that I could get into any Ivy on my own merit, not, well you know what I’m trying to say. I will never know why I did not get into Princeton. In essence, for all they knew I was just another white boy named Philip Arthur Moore who loved his calculator. Or maybe I was too boring for them? Not likely, but maybe I just wasn’t for them, regardless of my race. I will never know.

Then he turns around and says:

No one should deny the lasting effects that America’s history has had on people of color. Dating all the way back to slavery and even in more recent times during the Civil Rights Era, America has had a rich history of discrimination. What “compassionate conservatives” won’t tell you while they are throwing darts at anyone in favor of affirmative action in higher education is that they probably found their cheap mortgage rate through the exact same process of discrimination found in affirmative action.

For a smart guy, he makes a lot of dumb arguments. It should be obvious to smart people that whitefolks don't go around thinking about being whitefolks all the time, and the same honesty he gives about the reason he might not have gotten into Princeton, is blatantly missing from his assessment of racism in the housing market. 

I thought that would be the only nit to tangle with and then he blows hard on LaShawn's "ilk". Feh. I'm not going to go there. He's just wrong. If he wants to be right, he'll find the answers around here somewhere.

His final paragraph is telling, and gives me some hope that the next generation has a bit going on for itself:

If affirmative action is bad, then we as a nation must find a better solution. But pretending like a 14-year-old child has complete control over their academic future, environment, and opportunities in life is idiotic. Merit only works in the suburbs, where the good houses are.

There is a reason for that. It's because the people who want to play by the rules try to locate themselves with other people who want to play by the same rules. That's where merit makes sense and where folks try hard to continue that.

The thing that no student or graduate wants to hear, I'm about to say. Brains are a cheap commodity in the US. Universities are suppliers of moderately priced labor, just as Mexico is a supplier of cheap labor. There isn't a university on this planet which is as well organized and disciplined as a sharp corporation or a halfway decent army, and that's the thing you don't learn until you've spent a couple decades out in the world of work, where people aren't protected like students and faculty are. The beefs with Affirmative Action pale in significance to the ranches of conflict out here where people with tens of millions of dollars compete with people with hundreds of millions of dollars. But that's nothing you can learn while colleges are teaching what they teach. Perhaps the only people who actually do learn that from the brainy side of the equation are those guys who figure out how to build a better medical treatment in school and cash in by building a company around it.

So when it comes down to a black thing, getting into university is just the first step into the American middle class, and quite frankly it doesn't pay as well as learning construction. I wish somebody would have told me when I was in college that I could get 500k in revenue just making and selling plastic water tanks, like the neighbor of an associate of mine is doing. Oh, excuse me. 500k in revenue per month in a 5 person company. I would have avoided white collar, upscale corporate life like the plague.

The real hardball problem is that Affirmative Action's benefits and detractions don't amount to a hill of beans in the big old world. But there are still at least a couple million people who don't much care about the big old world and are just focused on the Affirmative Action world, where SAT scores, skin color and grade point averages make all the difference. I never thought Grutter and Hopwood were worthy of the Supreme Court, so I don't get my briefs in a bunch like our old pal at Discriminations. And I suspect that LaShawn Barber's lack of concern for the veneration so many blackfolks have for those two hallowed words is why she gets verbally dissed. I don't give much of a rat's any longer. Then again, living on the nice side of the six figure glass ceiling for a decade does give this black man a bit of perspective.

Malcolm X was never impressed by Affirmative Action, and as loathe as I am to compare his vision to what we can see 40 years later, he's a good reference point for those still running the OS of Black Nationalism 1.0 on their brain pan. Malcolm could see right through the honeydripping for what it was. A job. A job you get because you symbolically represent 400 years of something irresistable to white liberal guilt. Yeah well, I suppose people get what they deserve.

Meanwhile, I'm perfectly content to see undergrads get whatever Affirmative Action the polity can stomach. Undergrads don't change much. They still get entry level jobs at big employers, and none of them have the brains, experience or guts to get much more. Fine. But I say make the graduates, specifically the professionally certified graduate programs get colorblind. The last thing we need are our experts racially codified.

The better solution for 14 year olds whose parents raised them in those parts of America where merit doesn't work, is to get them to the parts where it does. That means not tying them to legacies of this, that and the other, so they won't learn the hard way how deep that racial rabbit hole really goes. If anybody gets the idea that Affirmative Action for undergraduate admissions is nudging us towards a (oh man do I love that NPR advertisement) "just, equitable and sustainable society", they need to get LASIK and take off the multi-colored glasses.

National Sports Symbols

I'm a nationalist. Always have been. Always will be. Sure I believe in globalism, and I like soccer, but when it comes right down to it, I'm for the home team. It might not be apple pie and hotdogs, actually it's BBQ ribs, corn on the cob, potato salad and watermelon with fresh squeezed lemonade that I eat on the Fourth of July, but you get the picture.

As I just posted the picture of Wayne Rooney that has so many dainty people mouthing off (I was going to say 'up in arms' but they don't do that, do they?), it occured to me how serious Americans actually are when it comes to sports. It's a nationalist phenomenon, and we ought to remember that.
I like England and I'm glad they're winning in their group. I've always been a fan of the Premiership and I've been fortunate enough to be in the UK during the playoffs. There isn't a fine line between fandom and hooliganism, and like so many other sensible people, I really like to slap about those folks who have a snarly disdain for sports and sports fans, thinking us all barbaric.

Here's the thing that really got me thinking. What if, instead of the WTC, AQ had decided to bomb the Statue of Liberty or the Brooklyn Bridge? How many of us would be Bush Deranged then? But even more than that, what if they targeted and killed Michael Jordan? Oh My God. I can't imagine that there would be a pacifist bone in any American body if Osama Bin Laden had agreed with us that the most American of Americans, our sports heroes, are the heart and soul of our country. Instead, he thought we were all about Wall Street and the Pentagon. Wrong! If those hijacked planes would have crashed into Fenway Park or Soldier Field or Indy, we'd be warring in four countries instead of two.

Think about it.

Wayne Rooney

I like it. And I like Nike too.

Historical Significance of African American Education

Historical Significance of African American Education (Through the Eyes of an African American Educator)

Raymond C. Bowen II
June 14, 2006

Before beginning my address, I want to thank Dr. Cortez Williams for inviting me to this symposium. I get a warm feeling whenever I return to the “Land of Enchantment.” This warmness is internal….. But in the summer… it’s external. When I first came to Albuquerque almost 50 years ago, I was a young soldier stationed at Sandia Base. Being from the northeastern part of the United States, the only sand I ever encountered was on the beach. It didn’t take me long to know why the base was called Sandia. Because of the sand storms I had to replace the windshield in my 1954 Pontiac about every two years. This atmospheric condition must not bother many people because the population of Albuquerque continues to grow.

Following my discharge from the army, I enrolled in the graduate school at UNM. By then I had married and was fortunate to get on-campus housing because it was difficult for African Americans to find rentals near the university. On campus, African American students were not allowed in the university’s fraternities or sororities. But that was 50 years ago. To you young people in the audience, let me put 50 years in perspective. Shortly after enrolling at the university, I met my good friend, Cortez Williams…who at that time was a freshman…..so you know that 50 years was a long time ago. Today Albuquerque as well as the university, has grown tremendously and is beginning to be recognized as a multicultural rather than a bi or tricultural community…And this is attributed to the exciting research that is occurring that documents the historical influence of African Americans in this region the United States.

My talk today will focus on my odyssey as I traveled through the various stages of the American educational systems. The timetable of this journey will take you from the 1940’s to this present century. I will not attempt to cover the significance of all aspects of African American education during that 60 year period, only the limited experiences of one individual.

Born in the mid 1930s, I grew up in the “projects” in New Haven, Connecticut in the 1940s, a New Deal kid conditioned by the rigors of the depression era. Most African Americans with whom I attended public schools in New Haven from about 1940 through the early 1950s did so without ever being taught by a black teacher. Many African American teachers throughout the United States in those days were educated in predominantly black colleges in the south. The Board of Education in my hometown did not deem those teachers “qualified” to teach in our public school system…a discriminatory practice that I wasn’t aware of until many years later. Ironically, black teachers from northern colleges also had similar difficulties within that system. In spite of that overt and covert discrimination, a large percentage of the black graduates from my high school eventually attended college. This happened without having black teachers as role models. Although we would have preferred educational role models that looked like us, our quest for an education was not impaired by their absence. Unlike many urban areas today, students in the public schools in Connecticut were fully integrated. The public housing project where I spent my early years was a diverse neighborhood with many racial and ethnic groups. However, the  project itself was segregated. African Americans, Latinos, and Asians lived in one section and whites in another. Because no public school teachers in my schools were African American, the people I looked up to came from outside the educational system.

Many of our parents worked in businesses and industries within or near the city. They were employed in companies such as Winchester Repeating Arms, Armstrong Tires, Sikorsky Helicopters, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and others.  With very few black “professionals” in the neighborhood, many kids considered the few African Americans employed by Yale University as the models to emulate. In those days, the men who weren’t in maintenance or custodial positions at Yale, worked in the fraternity houses located on campus. They were the stewards, waiters, bartenders and busboys. They left home wearing suits, white shirts and ties and were proud and let it be known that they worked at the University. These men became our role models because they were a part of Yale University. Thus at an early age, many African Americans in my hometown began to relish this higher educational institution. Although most of us would never see the inside of Yale’s ivy-league classrooms we, at a young age, believed that through associations with colleges or universities our socioeconomic status within our community would be elevated.

If I Were King of Hiphop

This morning I listened to, for the second time in a week, 'The Real Roxanne'. The second thing that popped into my head was the question I posed to the Spousal Unit. "Do you now or did you ever know the difference between Roxanne Shante and The Real Roxanne?" The more I search the confusededer I become. I only know the mp3 song which I didn't buy.

The first thing that popped into my head was that the reason there are no female rap stars in America is because Roxanne put such a devastating headshot to the dome of UTFO. Listening to her dis from 1984 still stings to this very day. "The only operating that you do is ripping off cars in a minute or two".

What hiphop needs is more like homegirl. Telling tales out of school like Shorty No Mass. Women hiphop couldn't handle, aside from Latifa and the hyper-hos, were the sweet, smart-mouthed ones that simply weren't impressed. So the Real Roxanne (if that's her) fits for sure. Also Patra, who was all that. I liked Oaktown's 357 no matter what anybody says, but hey, I was in my 20s.

And if I were the King of Hiphop the second thing I would do is assemble a marching band. I'm sure I mentioned this before - a hiphop chorus something like a hyped up drill team. At the very least it would revolutionize idiot protest march chants. See, the way I look at it, there hasn't been anything like Self-Destruction since Self-Destruction. Not that we need any lessons, but the coolness was the variety of voices.

'Scenario' right now, has to be the grand champion of mixing voices and styles in a single rap title. If I remember correctly, this was the one that debuted Busta Rhymes' then brand new style - the one that put him over the top.

That's all folks.

Fun But Scary

I think Mark Cuban is going over the edge. The latest things he has been writing on his blog convince me he's coming unhinged.

Now anyone in America can get a rise out of people by using most of Carlin’s 7 Dirty Words.  I know I get a rise out of my wife. I cant think of anything funnier than a 3 year old cursing.  I mean come on, does it really matter if we say Poo Poo or shit ?  Of course not. Unless of course your married and your wife tells you it matters. She doesnt want to be the one who gets phone calls from teachers and other parents getting blamed for all the 3 year olds in the little gym class screaming “Kiss My Ass you Mo Fo”... Me, i couldnt think of anything i would rather see and hear. but thats me.

If this guy wins the NBA finals he's going completely off the chain.

We are starting a website that focuses on uncovering corporate crime. I have every intention of trading on the information uncover, and disclosing exactly what i do. The ultimate transparency.
A journalism professor was quoted as “not being able to get his mind around it ” Others have criticized me for having a good idea but “ruining” it by trading on the information.

HDNet is talking to Dan Rather and we hope to do a deal where he produces  a show that uncovers news. Information with a payoff. Some people have already decided that working with Dan alone defines positions we will take in our programming. Of course we have a 5 year history of news features already with World Report, but why let that get in the way.

Next thing he'll be playing Michael Jackson's 'Invincible'.

But I still like him, and I think we need him, but exactly one Mark Cuban per country please. I want to see how ape he's going to go over this Dan Rather thing and his promise to reveal corporate corruption... If he keeps on this tangent, he's going to run into a new level of tough customers. Should be interesting.

The Joys of Fatherhood

Drummin'

Dinin'

Not Vietnam

Talking point of the day from Sirius Sir, a commenter at Tigerhawk.

My perception is that Ho Chi Minh was never interested in attacking America, nor trying to discredit or destroy our way of life. He wanted independence for Vietnam, and very early in his struggle petitioned both President Wilson and Truman for help with his cause and only later turned to the communists when it became obvious that help from our quarter would never be forthcoming.

The point being, Vietnam was never going to result in any kind of meaningful 'blowback' for us--either as a result of our entering or not entering into a war over there.

Al Qaeda represents a different threat. I think 9/11 showed us--or should have shown us--that we risk 'blowback' in the current struggle no matter what we do. 9/11 was, in fact, blowback for our having the temerity to exist and function in the world. There is no safe way or distance we can ever retreat to or from that kind of threat.

This enemy came looking for us, wanting to do as much direct damage to us as possible, unlike the Ho Chi Minh-led Vietnamese who (as much as we despise what they became) really wanted nothing more than to be left alone. Leave them alone and they would leave us alone. I doubt even at the end Ho Chi Minh ever had any thought of trying to destroy us, in contrast to what seems to have been bin Laden's intention from the start.

Bloody brilliant.

What I Want for Father's Day

Nothing.

I was hanging out with Y down in San Pedro and reflecting on the things I have to do in order to help my daughters marry the right man. The answer was pretty simple. Be the right man.

F11 came to me the other day worried about the time she will be too old to be my baby girl. So I'm buying her an En Vogue CD to remind her what young ladies can be. She still has my picture on her wall, alongside those of slumber party friends, Bratz, puppies and school achievement certificates. And her gmail account is still my baby nickname for her. But I know the day will come when she won't be able to sit on my lap when we're watching TV and she'll stop asking me to tuck her in and start off a story for her to finish in her dreams. She knows the day will come when the poker and the other fire accessories between the fireplace and the front door will be used for boyfriend intimidation.

This is just all part of the great fun of being Dad, which has all been made easy because of Dad. So I'm just going to my father's house and celebrating him, instead of worrying about how people are celebrating me.

The Ultimate Lazy Dad's Gift

If life gets any more convenient, we'll have to import chaos for our sanity. Here is a remote control for your iPod. Wait. Isn't the iPod a portable device? Why would you need a remote control for something you can take with you? Because you have another device that allows you to plug your iPod into the home stereo, and now that you're sitting down...

Kids & Multimedia

As part of my continual bashing of people who don't get it with respect to technology and kids, I offer yet another thought provoking moment...

Seriously though, I just completed burning a CD for my daughter's 3rd grade book report. The heck you say? Yes, she's going to do a presentation for the class about McGrowl, the detective dog, but her presentation will have a soundtrack. In fact, she's dressing up like a Jamaican Chef and pretending to do a cooking show. Huh? What? F9 is a genius like that. After my announcer voiceover intro and the reggae music fades, she's going to kick it up a notch, Bam!

For props she has a large orange mixing bowl. "If you like dogs and puppies, ya put 'em in", she'll say in her pretty good patois. "If you like superheroes, ya put 'em in, mon". She'll mix it up with a wooden mixing spoon and then pull out the McGrowl book. Neat huh?

There's more, but I'll spare you the details, except for this. She even made me record one of those speeded up voice disclaimers at the end of the soundtrack. I tried to convince her that I could just change the tempo and leave the pitch alone, but she thinks it's cute that I sound like a squirrel. Sheesh. But that's her creative vision and I really want to work with her again. You know how it is in this town...

Now that I think about it, this isn't the first time. Boy did a complete radio program complete with traffic report and a special bulletin. Not long before that, he put together a powerpoint presentation on China that had at least 50 slides. F11 put together a commercial spot for a cereal complete with a custom soundtrack I burned onto CD. And here I'm thinking how special I felt when I got to be the kid that advanced the filmstrip. I didn't know it but my kid's middle school has a daily news video show they produce on campus. Something's up in education, and it sounds all good to me.

I'll take more swiping swing though. I'm not sure if I'm repeating myself though. Almost any interactive videogame that's not completely boring or vulgar is better than watching television.

Parents who dismiss the gaming industry today are just as bad as parents of yesteryear who dismissed MTV. That is to say that a lack of informed opinion and experience with the medium will only lead to a complete inability to offer constructed criticism. The market will be overwhelming soon enough and all people with no contextually relevant critical skills will be just as lost with gaming tomorrow as they are with hiphop music today. You'll never control it with a V-Chip, you can only offer mature guidance. And while there isn't global convergence today, the same skills are applicable across all these media, and it all involves interactive critical discernment.

If you don't know what makes a game credible, or a program credible, or a powerpoint credible or a website credible, you're going to be the victim of scams. You and/or your kids will be owned, phished and namejacked and otherwise doomed to the fate of the clueless newbs of the 21st century. If only your kids have online friends, and you cannot believe that responsible adults can be, then you are abandoning that one place kids are free to be totally expressive and free - online.

In a neighborhood like mine, there are only two activities that aren't micromanaged and adult-supervised. That is skateboarding and online. And the panic that is sweeping through PTAs over sites like MySpace is really only the beginning. When legislators start to legislate and wags start to pontificate, we're going to lose more folks to uninformed blather, and the creative and responsible people like me who have no fear of the domain are going to get squeezed out of the conversation by paranoia.

I'm going to continue to write about online, games and gaming. This is where some of the most interesting creative and intellectual productions in our society are happening. If it becomes vulgarized by abandonment of thoughtful criticism, it will go the way of hiphop. And some of you forget that Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock were making hiphop in the 80s. Think about it.

Lashley Destroys Cube

And I pile on.

For some reason, I have never read Robert Lashley. I should, because it's clear that he has some actual jazz flowing through his head. So now his blog has a new fan. You should check it out. What turned me on to him was Shay Riley's quote of his dismantling of Ice Cube vis a vis his recent beef with Oprah. I can just see Cube's petulant snarl. Not so much the 'Don Mega' now are you 'Cube?

I've always liked Ice Cube in retrospect and never with whatever he's doing today. He has obviously had the smarts and wherewithal to survive in his career for a decade, while others have basically gotten fired and laid off. It seems like a great accomplishment until you compare it to ordinary folks with ordinary careers. Plus, he hasn't gotten any better. Somebody had to do the wish-fulfillment of the light loafer crowd of Hollywood writers, why not Ice Cube? I'm not going to go into the depths of ranting that has been done better about the aesthetic atrocity that is the trend to cast rappers in films; you get the picture. But everybody knows that Ice Cube at his best was Death Certificate and Lethal Injection, when he was an ugly, snarling ghetto monster, romping and stomping in his big black boots. Good stuff for when you are driving alone across the desert at 90 mph, but turn it down when you return to civilization. It's a curiosity of history that puts his ranting at the crossroads of LA political history, but Cube was far, far from a voice of the people. He was, and is, one of those fortunate few who get to say nothing and talk loud through the apparatus of mass market media. Could he hold his own as a talkshow host? No. So we only have to listen to him 3 minutes at a time.

It ought to be crystal that Cube's audience does not mix in any fashion with Oprah's, except I suppose, on those occasions when her show is about mothers losing control of their wayward teens. But he's spoiled, as most Hollywood types envetually become, and he needs fame. That's understandable, but while Oprah is clearly about redemption Cube is about destruction. Nobody could possibly take his 'rags to riches' story seriously. And quite frankly, nobody would miss Ice Cube if he self-destructed. Compare him to Whitney Houston, whose redition of the national anthem still stands as one of the greats. Her downfall is a tragedy. If Ice Cube ate a bullet, the chorus would be, "I told you so", if not "what took them so long?"

As I think of Whitney's best singing and consider Lashley's POV, I am embarrassed to not know enough of Leontyne Price, but I'm on my way in that direction. She's still alive, you know.

Woot.com

Woot.com has the coolest marketing FAQ blather since Winamp. The web still has spirit. What's even more amazing is that they're using ASP and not Java or PHP. I like 'em.

I want to talk to a live person there, can I call you?

No. We are busy sourcing new products and shipping orders. You can post a comment to our community board, but we don't guarantee we'll respond. You should Google for the manufacturer contact to get product answers – we suggest a dating service, magic 8 ball, or ouija board for general life solutions.

Will I receive customer support like I'm used to?

No. Well, not really. If you buy something you don't end up liking or you have what marketing people call "buyer's remorse," sell it on eBay. It's likely you'll make money doing this and save everyone a hassle. If the item doesn't work, find out what you're doing wrong. Yes, we know you think the item is bad, but it's probably your fault. Google your problem, or come back to that product discussion in our community and ask other people if they know. Try to call the manufacturer and ask if they know. If you give up and must return it to us, then follow on to the next FAQ entry.

Gimme That Anchor, Globe & Eagle

If you've never heard it before, here's your chance to hear some Marine Corps cadences. It's a good reminder of the guys who are on our side.

Download usmc_marine_corps_usmc_marine_corps_cadence.mp3

The Expansion of South Central

Anybody who considers themselves as one to be taken seriously about the political affairs of Los Angeles has some familiarity with Mike Davis' 'City of Quartz'. It was a good book, but Davis, like many other Lefites was hoping for Los Angeles to degenerate into chaos. It hasn't, but that's not just a matter of luck. Los Angeles hasn't degenerated because Davis, like so many other 'experts' get publicity by ignoring the fact that people are basically good and seek to avoid danger and pain. Lefties on the other hand, seek to find exquisite pain and exhort disaffected people to bring cosmic suffering and affliction upon those of us who get paid to keep things running. They call that 'social justice', but it's a crock.

The one thing that Mike Davis did that worked its way into the lexicon permanently was to coin the term 'South Central'. In his book he runs the words together in that silly way pomo scholars like to play with the English language. You know like 'Amerikka' or 'blk'. He called it southcentral. So basically it's a political term for 'powder keg'. Nothing quite solidified that image as those filmed by John Singleton in his breakthrough bodewash 'Boyz N The Hood' (notice the pomo spelling). By the time the 3 day LA Riot arrived, everybody was ready for the apocalypse. People have become so attracted to the term South Central and the association is so minority and  poor and ignorant and violent that folks tend to forget that there were riots all over the country when those cops got off. Local radio stations, as well as people from 90042 and 90016 where I grew up have done work to try to distinguish themselves and their neighborhoods from 'South Central'. Now it's fairly common to hear South LA, and especially folks around Crenshaw are saying 'Crenshaw' or South West LA.

When I was a kid in Catholic school, I would often snobbishly say that I don't go south of Manchester or east of USC. Socially speaking, even if you take the Crips' word for it, everything east of the 110 freeway is the Eastside. Everything west of it is the Westside. There is no 'Central LA'. There is 'Mid City' but that's basically everything north of the 10 Freeway and east of Fairfax all the way to Downtown, so long as you're south of say... Melrose. But let's be fair and say that Central LA should extend a couple miles on both sides of say.. Central Avenue. Socially, you're really not in South LA until you cross Slauson which is only a mile and a half south of the Coliseum. Technically speaking South begins where the streets go from north to south, but that's Beverly Bl. So I suppose it's fair to say South of the 10 is South LA. But when people from Crenshaw, the Dons, View Park and Baldwin Hills consider the south part south of Slauson and the Central part east of Arlington.

Maybe it's my Crenshaw prejudice showing up but nobody considers anything east of the Harbor Freeway anything but the Eastside. It might sound ironic, but Central Avenue is really the Eastside the way I see it. So how the hell did that ''urban garden" which is two miles east of the  Harbor Freeway suddenly become the 'South Central Farm'? This is a transparent political gerrymandering of the.. ok maybe not highest order, but it sure rubs me the wrong way. This is nowhere near the place we socially consider South Central to be. It's East LA, in the industrial district, three quarters of a mile from the geographical center of Vernon.

This LAT real estate map puts the geography in technical terms. See that inflection in the 10 in the northwest corner, and the angle down? That's the offramp to Alameda Blvd. Everything east of Alameda is strictly industrial. Long Beach Avenue is on the west side of the property. Even by those terms, the property is on the very eastern edge of 'South Central'. Who lives there? Make no doubt, it's non-middle class, non-white, non-upwardly mobile, likely non-citizens. Ok. Throw them in the South Central pile.

Now I happen to have spent some time right over in that area. One of my old customers, a solar panel manufacturer, has their main office and factory just north, adjacent to the property. It's also directly bordering the Alameda Corridor. The freights go rumbling by all the time. The whole place is surrounded by chain link and there's nothing inviting about it at all. You cannot see the gardens from the street, at least I never did with the tarps flapping against the chainlink. You'd never get the impression that it's public at all. I'm not one of those people who cringe at urban decay, I'm not afraid to walk in the streets at night, but there's nothing appealing about that joint. It looks like a very badly run nursery, right in an industrial district.

Check out this Google Earth picture of the joint. All I can see is one tree. Now interestingly enough, just two blocks west is a real park with real trees, tennis court, swimming pool, baseball diamond and three soccer fields.  That's the Ross Snyder Rec Center. (Note that it's for 'Central' LA, not South Central) I've never been there, but I've heard of it. Do you wonder why one of those pitches is so green? It's astroturf! The City put in an astroturf soccer pitch for the community. You can't beat that. So explain to me how adding this space is supposed to do anything. There's nothing there to visit, it's a patchwork of gardens - you can't play in there. And if this garden is like any I've seen, you can bet that the gardeners are squabbling between themselves all the time.

The City is not going to buy the property and put it to good use. We already know that. If you ask me, I'd say a good public garden is like a pyramid. If you build it, they will come. Obviously, the City doesn't want to build it, and why would anyone build it here? You've obviously pissed off the owner. This whole entitlement for squatters mentality is wearing on my nerves.

I want to put one more picture up here which gives you an idea. The property is at 41st and Alameda. You can find Florence & Normandie on the map easily. This should put most of what I'm saying in geographical context. Really, I think of South Central going to the border of Gardena, but putting that on the map would take the property off the map.

Wednesday Fragments

Sheehan's Idiot Tears
Yesterday on the Michael Medved radio show, a soldier called in and thumped Sheehan with the perfect epithet. He said that she didn't bury a child, that she buried a man, but she keeps acting as if she had sent a boy off to summer camp. I like that the meme is coming around that soldiers are soldiers and to hell with those people who don't understand and recognize what serious business is making war.

One Hundred Hours
I have spent over 100 hours playing Oblivion and the title of the game is not lost on me. I'm finally deciding to settle down in one town and take it over. I'm split between Anvil and Cheydinhal, but it will probably be Anvil. I've closed about 5 portals and they still give me the creeps.

Yesterday I got really pissed at Laura Ingraham for not 'getting it' with regard to the positive aspects of gaming. I'm going to write about that at length.

Oh.
It turns out that the congresscritter with 90 thousand bucks in his freezer, William Jefferson, is black. I didn't know that.

Chasing DuBois
The next big essay I'm noodling (and I'm tending to noodle before I write these days as blogging is coming a distant fifth from gaming, exercise, my kids' final projects for school and actually reading the books and manuscripts I promised to read) is a real throwdown on the institutional state of black politics. My basic premise reinforces what Sowell has been saying about a peoples' choice between political and economic advancement.

Coulter Pile-On

I think Ann Coulter is trying to be a scourge of the first degree, and as such, tweaks my tits every time. Her volume speaks volumes. I think she's shrill to the point of accentuating ridiculous points in her barrages that essentially distort. I cannot agree with Coulter without misjudging people's intentions. Sure she gets the facts right, but it is hard to imagine anyone so desparately devious among her ideological foes. The fact that she has a large audience is proof that a good deal of our polity has lost a measure of restrain and probity.

Either she's putting on this act to maintain her media presense, or she is really like the loud guy in the Dilbert comic who doesn't realize how loud he is. Either way, I tune her out, and I feel really sorry for her children if she has any.

90016 Reunion

Deet has had this plan in mind for some time now. This time it's going to happen. We're going to have an informal reunion and picnic at Virginia Road School on Saturday June 24th starting at Noon. If you grew up around Crenshaw and Jefferson in the 70s, you'll want to join us there. Even if you didn't. Come around. We're going to bang on doors in the old neighborhood and see who's still around.

Puritans I Like

I was quite amused by this take on gaming by a cat named Rabbit. He essentially says that games make him work and that's not what games are supposed to do. They're supposed to allow you to have fun, so why keep some large portion of what's distributed undiscovered and unplayed simply because a gamer hasn't gone through the ardor of levelling up. It's a complaint I've felt but it never really itched me enough to scratch in public. Now after some thought, I think there something else to be said. First, to wit:

"I play games to escape. To go somewhere else. But our industry has so ingrained this concept of 'earning' our fun that the best is somehow always saved for last. Like modern day Puritans, we've convinced ourselves that we are not worthy of that for which we've already paid. Sinners in the hands of an angry god, we don't deserve our fun until we pay in blood."

Like Rabbit, I'm a gamer with a job, which is to say specifically, I am not one of those strange individuals whose 'life' consists of levelling up and destroying other online players and mouthing off about it. Like in any competitive endeavor gaming has its share or people who make a point of addressing the humanity of others strictly through the prism of the game itself. If you've ever been to a bank teller who looks at you differently depending upon how much money you have in your account, you know what I mean.

So I'm thinking about Rabbit's gripe and then I think about kids online who spend half their time using cheat codes, glitching and modding. Sure it might be the programmer's fault for allowing cheats, glitches and mods, but the gamer who hacks the game is destructive of the spirit of the game. These are not the kinds of people I want to game with or spend any time with in real life. I prefer folks who enjoy playing by the rules, even if, and probably especially if that means work.

I just learned, for example, in Oblivion, that there is a cheat. You essentially can kill a particular individual in such a way that his pocket never empties of gold. He has about 50 pieces of gold, and so if you kill him 1000 times, you can 'earn' 50,000 in gold, which is enough to buy weapons of mass destruction and beat the game in no time. BTW, I've spent about 95 hours in the game and I'm level 25. I've finished about 38 quests and generally had a ball doing so.

What makes Oblivion in particular an interesting game vis a vis its hewing to the Puritan standard is how well its challenges match your skills all through the game. In a way the game is learning along with you. If you go to Black Dog Camp when you are level 1, there will probably be a wolf there to challenge you. You can beat a wolf with an ordinary iron sword. If you return to the same place in the game at level 20, there will probably be 2 bears and an evil wizard.

What I can't stand, I say repeating myself, is listening to knuckleheads bragging about how they breezed through Black Dog Camp by jumping up and down in the fire three times so that the bad guys disappear through a glitch in the softwear. See what I'm saying?

Now there is a game that has made good sense of Rabbit's complaint - since surely it has occurred to game developers before. That game is my other favorite, Project Gotham Racing 3. In the prior version, you essentially had to beat every AI driven car in every race on every track to get the fastest car in the game. At the time it was the Cerbera Speed Twelve. This time around every track is unlocked and you can buy the fastest car in short order. The trade off is apparent. In this case it's the Ferrari F50GT. Like the Cerbera, it has got quirky power and speed, so it takes some time to learn how to control it. In other words, newbs will crash it into every wall as will cheaters. In the first version, there was a way to purchase a download of the Cerbera. When we witnessed people crashing it, we knew they were newbs.

The point is simply this, in sophisticated games, you can tell who has earned their way up and who has cheated their way up. For single player games I might concur with Rabbit's sentiment, but online as in real life, I prefer playing with people who work.

Starbucks to the Rescue

I've always known that Leimert Park is the perfect place for a Borders Books & Music. One of these days Ruth Galanter or Mark Ridley-Thomas is going to pretend that they were the first person to think so and cut the ribbon. In the meantime all my homies who live up on the hill will drive to The Bridge which is basically where the money went. I have some sad thoughts occasionally about the direction my old neighborhood has gone with regard to the failure of aggregation, but there is some very good commercial news. That is that Starbucks has restored the Sakiba Lounge at the old Holiday Bowl. I haven't been there in a couple weeks, but it should be done about now.

It's interesting now that I think about it how things have worked out. I mean right there on Crenshaw, a dozen good sized businesses have opened up new shops. I'm prepared to say that Crenshaw is in about the best shape it has been since the car dealers left. In the meantime Bad Ito has put up some cool pictures & commentary.

Does Google Know Your Password?

I've gone through a bunch of crap recently with Bank of America. Apparently they are yet another in the line of dupes who have been namejacked. I hereby invent the meme, namejack, btw. 'Identity Theft' is so legalese. And so, about a month ago I discover that all of my cards have been locked and I suddenly was trasported back to 1982 when there were no ATMs and on Friday you had to get to the bank with your checkbook in hand so that you'd have enough cash to get through the weekend. The problem was that nobody told me about it until I was running late for work one day trying to get my car out of the shop.

The guy runs my ATM and it rejects. What? Admittedly 900 bucks isn't peanuts, but I had more than double that when I checked the account by phone just before the Spousal Unit dropped me off. I can't explain it, I don't know what's going on, I'm just standing there like a putz in front of the guy with greasy hands. And quite frankly, let me tell you something, I'd trade places with homeboy in a heartbeat. Think about it, he's got a parking lot full of Benzs and BMWs right on Pacific Coast Highway in Manhattan Beach. He doesn't work weekends, and it took him a day to turn around my 900 dollar job, netting him some 400 odd in labor. It's like being a ski instructor in Vail. Anyway, I decide to use the company expense card which has no ceiling, and then I get by butt chewed out for that one month later.

Bank of America was at least being proactive, the problem was that they got to the Spousal Unit before they got to me. Now we're enrolled in some scam that cost us 200 bucks. She, like millions of others, forgot to opt out. So I had to spend an hour on the phone getting my online banking running again. So today they hit me again, proactively, and force me to change my password.

I did so, using one generated by Schneier's PasswordSafe, which is one of the best pieces of software on Windows. Just to make sure, I thought of a cool idea. I wobbled over to another machine (thinking about caches here) and entered the password into Google Search. I figure if Google never heard of it, I'm probably pretty safe, considering that every published password cracklist is on the web, and Google has likely seen it.

You may remember the old George Carlin joke. He said, "I'm going to say a combination of words that you've never, ever heard before. Listen. You've never heard anybody say this: I'm going to take this red hot iron poker and stick it up my ass." It's true of course. Before that moment at the comedy club, I'd never heard anyone say that. But it's a good way to remember that if you're going to use non-generated passwords,  you should at least Googlewhack it to be on the safe side. BUT. Don't do it on a machine that you own, or at least wipe the local cache on your browser.

Then again, if you're a glutton for punishment and want to get namejacked, go ahead and stick that hot iron poker of a stupid password.. Nobody is safe.

Joseph C. Phillips: Black Man Talking

I'm old enough to remember when cigarette ads were on television. One of the most famous of the ads was a semantic debate over whether Winston tastes good like a cigarette should or as a cigarette should. It really doesn't matter because either way cigarettes are bad for you. Joseph C. Phillips'  new book is entitled "He Talk Like a White Boy". I was tempted to name this post "He Speaks Like a Black Man Should" but it doesn't really matter because either way, Phillips' book is good for the soul.

'He Talk Like A White Boy' is a personal collection of essays and reflections on life in America for a man who ought to be your best buddy. I say ought to be because in a righteous world, you ought to have righteous buddies. In a dangerous or devolved world, you ought to have them even more. Joseph C. Phillips probably would be your best buddy, except that because of a certain attitude of his, he is presumed to be unknowable. You see, Phillips is a Republican and he is black. And while this might be one small step for any black man it is one giant leap against the grain of mainstream black politics. Having made that leap he has entered forbidden territory and from that territory he speaks as an outsider. But is he an outsider, really? Reading his book proves that he is not, but in order to achieve what he has become he had to review all his values and experiences to see where it led him, and where it might land us.

Of course you may know Phillips as a TV star, but I came to know him in a different way. We crossed paths a few years back in local LA political circles and hit it off. We're frat and developed an email correspondance, and he decided to join as member of the Conservative Brotherhood. We're both married raising three kids in LA and devoted to doing that most of all. Importantly, we are witness to the reality of what was promised by the triumph of Civil Rights guarantees in this country and we're doing our damnedest to take advantage of that. And so we reckon with the fact that at the time we were born, our career paths weren't likely on the radar. And so we've arrived at this juncture in American life at which point personal and public struggle has paid off - we're a little bit isolated from the pack. We're the kind of blackfolks you know and we spend a great deal of energy just proving that because of this one difference of political affiliation, we haven't completely lost our minds. In fact, we have found them, and exercised them in ways that are extraordinary. Despite the fact that we shouldn't have to justify this, we're always explaining, and that in and of itself is an interesting, if annoying tale. It is partly because I'm not ever sure what to make of such existential matters that it has taken me so long to write this review. Knowing so many others will write about the book, in the end I felt it necessary to bring up this angle.

Joseph C. Phillips is a square in all the best ways. In that, I find just the right amount of confidence which suggest in many important ways that he is an important representative of our generation of African American men. As often as we read about this or that dysfunction in black men, we don't hear enough from men like Phillips. It is important to note, celebrity aside, that Phillips is not rolling in bling. He has not achieved the level of stardom that means that he can buy his way out of the tough decisions that face ordinary American parents. And so it can be said that like most of us, he is uppity, and still ascendant - trying to occupy a space in America that nobody expected that he might achieve. That may be a place that you don't read about in the papers everyday, but it is what binds so many African Americans psychologically. We all have our eyes on the prize. And yet Joseph does it with a difference and it is one we must recognize.

Black ambition in America is nothing new, but as soon as you start talking to him, as many did at a book signing here in LA a couple weeks ago, several things emerge. They help you see how it is that Phillips is confidently his own man.

All of us blackfolks know that there is a goodly set of assumptions and shortcuts invested and involved with our subcode. Once upon a time when we were Negroes, you could go quite a long way in that argot without breaking ranks. Which is to say that when blackfolks were just plain folks, you could cover the length and breadth of our experience in a parlance which was the same from Jamaica Plain to Compton and from Hyde Park to Little Five Points. All the black neighborhoods in America in the years just post Jim Crow were all pretty much the same. All the black radio stations played the same black songs, and all the schools used the same outdated books, and all the votes were Democrat. All the grandparents' living rooms had three portraits, Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr and JFK. That old-time religion was good enough for us.

But as we all know, all the legal fetters were gradually released from the American Negro over the course of the a decade or so as well as many of the social restrictions. We raised our own expectations and began the Bogard. Old Joe and Aunt Jemima, our humble and righteous forebears shed a tear as we flew that old Negro coop. Right about that time, one of the clarions of the New Black Race, James Baldwin wrote these prophetic words:

All you are ever told in this country about being black is that it is a terrible, terrible thing to be. Now, in order to survive this, you have to really dig down into yourself and re-create yourself, really, according to no image which yet exists in America. You have to impose, in fact - this may sound very strange - you have to decide who you are, and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.

.. Then the pressure of being black or white is robbed of its power. You can, of course, still be beaten up on the South Side by anybody. I mean, the social menace doesn't lessen. The world perhaps can destroy you physically. The danger of destroying yourself doesn't vanish, but it is minimized.

Right off the bat, Joseph grew up in white suburban Denver and grew up loving Western movies, and he's still a die-hard fan. (That's why I'm going to start calling him 'JC' next time I see him). So you know that somewhere along the line, the Phillips family busted down some old barriers and he is the product of that success. Phillips forces you to reckon with the fact that you and he might not share all that we assume that black men everywhere share, like a ghetto upbringing. I witnessed a whole lot lot of grief about the fact that you can't just start a..'Hey brah..' conversation with him. We're fraternity brothers and even when we greet, he gives me the strict formal fraternity handshake. You can't simply walk off the street and be intimate with this man. It is that presumption of black men that he defies - that we are all at root, at bottom and essentially the same in how we think. Not because he's trying to be anything special or different from everybody else, but that he and all of us must be true to ourselves. And it is on that note that Joseph C. Phillips defies political essentialism. He is his own man, his own creation, and for that he demands respect. Sound familiar? Any readers of Ralph Ellison out there? The consequences of this are fundamentally important for America. Because he can, we can, with respect.

His title is indeed prophetic. Just as many blacks may decide that their flavor of English is deserving of special recognition, it's nothing more or less than English. And Republicanism is nothing more or less that American politics. While today there may be millions who will swear up and down that they are black, but not American, they'll do that swearing in English. It is a distinction without much of a difference and yet it is a difference many would seek to capitalize. Phillips agonizes about what we make of such facile, surface distinctions - that we let it go when people are dismissive about the rationality of those who defy commonly held beliefs. We are supposed to defy simplicity. That's why God gave us brains; to think our way forward.

'He Talk Like A White Boy' is not a poltiical book so much as it is a staement of values and the revelations of a life well-lived. It shows how a faith in God, family, marriage, hard work and self-reliance can work in a puzzling and challenging world. It shows how six words spoken in elementary school can signify a struggle fraught with complications and destabilize a growing identity. And it shows the triumph of living in truth, despite sometimes losing faith and confidence, over the comfort of settling for those restrictions others would have for us.  As much as the political wonk in all of us would like it to be some treatise, JC has no ideological throwing down to do. Rather it is the confident spinning of tales worthy of fireside reading. In the end he descripes a set of deeply held convictions that are in no way alien to the values that have kept African Americans moving forward throughout generations. Most importantly, they are his. He proved them by living right.

His is a unique but very useful tale of redemption. He has not lived a lie or overcome some tawdry addiction. He was accused of trying to be odd out the bunch when he was just trying to be himself. He stands accused of not being black enough and dismissed. But Phillips doesn't get caught up in the madness, he writes exactly where he is coming from, on a dare from Tavis Smiley. And so now everyone has to say of his struggle, now that it's in print, oh - I didn't know. But this is not a game of gotcha, it's about real authenticity, not the kind sketched in pencil, recorded on DAT, sold to a record label, broadcast on radio networks, sold in stores and then taught in seminars by Michael Eric Dyson.

Phillips is, in many ways, the future of our people. He understands the pain of living in a world where any assumptions of race cannot be defining and he has struggled with that from all sides. He reached into himself, his family, his values and his experiences, all illustrated in the book, and come up with real answers to get him and his family through it all. He has done so on his own just as Baldwin proposed we should. His path is assured not because he reached into some mytical African past, nor some fantasy radical future. This is something we all must do if we haven't yet.

There is no black shelf upon which our dreams await. It has to be built, by you. There is no program into which we will especially fit that will make up for the gross errors and heinous sins of the past. We must find a way around that stumbling block. There is no special legacy from which we alone can draw lessons. History is what it is, and it only applies usefully to those who research it. When it comes to being black, essentially all we have that is truly and uniquely our own is our parents, ourselves, our children. To make something of that requires that we travel the road Joseph C. Phillips has travelled and see where it leads us. It has landed him a special place in my heart and in my mind, and I hope it will for you as well.

Iraqi Holocaust Denial: Part Two

Let me take a moment to remind us of the long arc of history. The Bangers of Whiz have found some new and interesting tools to ratchet back some of the anti-war complaints.

Back in the day, I looked at the ugly details of Saddam's butchery and came to the conclusion that no matter how bad Bush might be rushing into war, he wasn't rushing to judgement. WMD or no, Saddam had to go. Now it looks like I may have more company,  years late, but welcome anyway.

BTW. Here are the old tools:

• Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds - Human Rights Watch
• Anfal: The Kurdish Genocide in Iraq - Khaled Salih
• Case Study: The Anfal Campaign - Gendercide.org
• ISG Newsletter #31 - Institute for the Study of Genocide

In the spirit of I-told-you-so, I'll quote Whizbang.

For those who say pointing to Saddam's atrocities as a reason for the invasion of Iraq is an attempt to change the rationale for the war after the fact, I must conclude that they are either dishonest or did not read a newspaper or watch any television in the year leading up to the invasion. I vividly recall the references to "rape rooms" and other forms of torture included in both the President's speech to the UN and in the State of the Union. I also recall the revelation from CNN's Eason Jordan, after the invasion, that he was aware of atrocities taking place in Saddam's Iraq, but did not report them for fear, at least partly, of losing their Baghdad bureau. Of course, for those who choose to believe the rosy picture of kite-flying children in Michael Moore's vision of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, there is not much room for reality and everyone in Iraq was happier with Saddam in power.

And my own favorite quote (of myself):

Several weeks ago, I asked the rhetorical question whether or not the world will accept this imperial show. I wondered out loud if Saddam, of all the nasty bastards on the planet, and Iraq of all the gawdawful spots in the world, were the right targets for our first venture. Perhaps I am waiting for the right person to do the right thing in consideration of the fact the GWBush is wrong for just about everything which calls for an intelligent command of the oratory worthy of free world leadership. I want my emperor to be kingly, and why oh why did I get GW? Do you hear me pissing and moaning?

Yet if I could stop for a minute and start dealing with the hideous facts of the matter on the ground in Iraq (and probably a half dozen other horrible places), I wonder if I would mind so much if my president is Shrek instead of a Handsome Prince. I'm a policy snob in the face of Saddam's clear and present danger. Not to me, to Iraqis. It's not about me.

Since it is not about me, and a busybody neighbor is better than an abusive parent, I have to concede the fact that an ugly rescue is better than benign neglect. I feel that our geopolitical snobbery and posing are pretty worthless right about now, and the fact that we have to wheedle our way around the diplomatic chicanery of the UN and everyplace else is only necessitated by a failure of brotherhood and an ignoble squeamishness which is not rescued by our well-meant outrage at Bush's mendacity. I do believe in class warfare.That means noblesse on our part and revolt by the Shi'a.

References:

• Why Did You Support the War, Daddy?
• Murder By Numbers

 

The Marginal Utility of Karl Rove

It's at times like these when Libertarians and Independents have their greatest halos. What a halo is or what it is worth in politics may not add up to much, but it is more than Republicans have these days.

We heard that Karl Rove (as of this moment still unindicted) was going to take a turn and come up with new strategies for the Party a couple weeks ago. And today we are witnesses the utter desperation of the Republican political situation in trying to re-energize the base. Gay Marriage Amendment? Are you kidding me? Obviously they didn't hear us the first time.

I am thinking about this in the context of the three races that are so critical at this juncture. Lynn Swann, Michael Steele and Ken Blackwell. At the moment when the Party is desparate for traction chances are that two of these gents could go down in flames, perhaps all three, but I think Blackwell has got a lock. Still, with this being the time that the Republican leadership is fumbling around around on its hands and knees looking for its heart and soul, the success or failure of these three black candidates is going to make a serious dent in the party one way or another. None of them are Christian Right candidates, they all very mainstream Old School and they each are perfectly representative of guys like me. I say guys like me ought to be the future of the GOP so here is a make or break moment. And really, that's just about all I care about the Party today - are guys like me gaining ground or not?

The President is and always has been domestically clueless. He demonstrates all the grace and charisma of a crippled crab. It's painful and pathetic to watch the GOP scuttle sideways. And so let me say it now plainly. It's time for Karl Rove's head.

In retrospect, all of the most odious Republicans I've had issues with over the years have gotten the boot. Tom DeLay, full of himself, the strongarm is gone. I've heard that Doug Feith is the stupidest most powerful man in history. He's gone. Ashcroft turned out to be not nearly as slippery as I suspected he might be and left office with the Bill of Rights intact. That leaves only Karl Rove, master of untraceable dirty tricks, cobbler of unthinkable coalitions and myrmidon of  Fundamentalist pieholes everywhere.

Give him the boot, George.

My Kid Can Beat Up Your Kid

Alan Carl  bleats:

But when people start using their babies as status statements, that’s where I get irritated. The point of a baby isn’t to show off how phenomenally rich and stylish you are. I can’t help but think that parents who turn their children into accessories are fundamentally selfish. I wonder, does the parent care more about how they look than how their baby is doing? Maybe not. Maybe you can be fully fashion conscious and fully baby conscious at the same time.

But this growing trend sends an awful message: that parenting is about the parent—that you don’t have to sacrifice anything, that you can go-on being the stylish rich kid who everyone admires. That’s not how it works. When you become a parent, you must give up a lot of your own wants. That’s not to say you can’t be fashionable. But that is to say that fulfilling selfish desires can no longer be your top priority.

The essential problem with being bourgie is that you don't get to kick anyone's ass and get away with it. We're all so very polite and we kind of whine our way into each other's business. I mean when is the last time in your life you really had to worry about a punch in the nose? And because so many of us in the chatting class don't worry about being punched in the nose, we accept such equations like 'the rich get richer'. So really, if you don't want to give up advantage to Brent & Layla's new dumpling in Prada Baby, you're going to have to teach your kid to kick the other kid's ass. There's no way around it.

I spent a lovely afternoon at the University of Chicago today. And I was a close-up witness to exactly the situation Alan laments. Except it included dogs and vacation spots as well. Couple One comes up with baby in the Aprica. Man from Couple Two sends his dog to sniff out the baby (which is 20 months old and still being pushed about). The conversation wanders around to what a wonderful breed of Portuguese Water Dog (no poodles those). Enter woman from Couple Two with infant in a frontal papoose arrangement who is swaddled in alpaca. Yes alpaca.  You've heard this kind of jousting before, just think about it. If you can even admit to knowing that such a place as Nevis exists, you're already one of them, deuling bourgie banjo players. Have you played Pebble? Have you skiied Banff? Have you fished Cabo?

Of course it is ridiculous to fret over this most basic of human instincts, oneupmanship. It's not as if East Coast Rappers are going to shoot West Coast Rappers about some silly.. oh wait. Nevermind.

But you know I do it too, and yeah my kids are smarter and better looking than your kids. And they're going to all get scholarships so I can have more money to spend on my cooler-than-thine hobby. No matter what it is, I will turn it into social currency - be it the precise color of the curtains (never say drapes) in my parlor, the thickness of the glaze on my barbecue beans,  the story about my dinner at the captain's table, the number of cooling fins on my overclocked dual core AGP, or the shape of the chick I danced with at Ibiza.

This is what we do.

But sooner or later, unfortunately, it all comes down to kicking ass. I mean all of the above social uppityness is metaphorical ass kicking, but the combat is always the same and we always appreciate it. Even when we successfully identify ourselves as pacifists, we want to be the best pacifists we can be and engage in a battle of wits against those we find most uncool. We want to be assured that our way is meaningful, and so we bump up against others to assure that we're not suspended in solopsistic universe. And we make allies, OK Cabo is cool, but me I'm strickly Orbis & Montana. It's not about poundage of yellowtail, but the slickness catching the wiley trout. We become the fraternity of elite fishermen against those crude duck & deer hunters. And so it goes. Oh except you, right? You only appreciate Seurat and French Impressionists right?

But I digress.

The cool thing about the University of Chicago is that there are Laboratory Schools there too. You can educate a kid from cradle to grave there if you are so outfitted in bucks. So the idea of this hermetic universe where ideas are served up for your elucidation by gnomish men and women called 'professors' is rather suave, n'est-ce pas? I mean you have to have the appropriate background; hopefully your parents prammed you properly and set you up in the proper residence to keep your mind off mundane issues of survival and focused on the lecture du jour.

Does this annoy you? Do you hate the idea that there are very well understood rules for success? Do you hate the idea that there are kids born months ago that will have in 18 years 10 times as much as you've ever made? Do you hate the idea that you can see it in their fat little baby cheeks and Baby Guess? It's OK. It's only human. BTW. You can bet that what they feel about you over in Peshawar. Just stand your ground and kick a little ass. It's what everybody does.

Southside Disambiguated

Bee Jiggity is a real gentleman and a great host. I spent about 5 hours with my leaguemate Wednesday evening in Chicago and learned more about the city in that time than I have in an entirely previous life. As some Cobb readers may know, I'm a flippin' fool about cultural geography and B showed me all five sections of the black classes from Projects to Ghetto to Hood to Burb to Hill all around the southside of Chicago.

We started at my hotel, the Allegro and before you could say 'Hoop Dreams' we were face to face with the remaining ruins of Cabrini Green. I recognized them almost immediately, and what's odd about them, is that they look worse in person than they ever did on any Frontline documentary. I see what the appeal must be for ghetto anthropologists, or rather I should say projects anthropologists. The building is literally crusty and there is a tangle of cables and electrical wires that go up the outside of the structure that somehow adds to the feeling of chaos you get when looking. As we headed away B reminded me of all the new housing developments that have sprung up as the old projects were torn down. Five minutes later we were right on the edge of Lincoln Park.

Now Lincoln Park is my kinda burb, and we kicked it at a tapas restaurand on Weed Street. I had no idea that dates wrapped in bacon could be so delicious. We had goat cheese, octopus, shrimp, beef empanadas, and quite enough alcohol to mellow out the always strange feeling of meeting someone in person that you've only barely known from online encounters. I must be getting mature because I've finally stopped being jealous of black men whose heads are smoother shaved than mine. B reminds me a lot of my own brother, mellow, cool and quite opinionated under the surface. He had an impressive feel for the city and its politics, so I learned a lot.

We cruised around after dinner down throught the Southside which is in many ways treated with the same contempt as South Central LA. There's a big myth of it being 'the' black community, but even an outsider like me could clearly see the differences between the old brownstones on King and the huge brick highrises across from the Museum of Science and Industry, those houses adjacent to the burned out areas off 63rd street and the houses in Hyde Park. The streets were largely empty that Wednesday night but we were witness to a quick shakedown as the cops rolled up and put one young man into the position on the hood. The larger 'hood is much cleaned up, according to B. I could clearly see, that even in blocks with boarded up old buildings, the gutters were clean.

We cruised by the Rosewood Cemetary that one of his relatives integrated, by Washington Park as he taught me about the Bud Billiken Parade and  by half a dozen jazz, blues and R&B nightspots. This was such a welcome break from the crowd of trust funders and goths at Rush Street that I suffered last year.

Last night I got out to the Sox game. This time the host was another friend of mine from work, my favorite sales shark. It was a bouncy time and the italian sausage was perfect. We had good seats and I got a good taste of another crowd of Chicagoans. The Sox lost to the Rangers of all people, but we got on the Red Line before the lead changed hands at the bottom of the 9th. I picked up a cap so as to blend in with the background and add one more item to my Suburban Dad collection. The ballpark was beautiful, and I think I like it better than any other stadium (of the 4 I've been to). It has the right mix of amusement park freshness, like the ballparks in Denver and SF, and Old Schoolish charm.

Today I got out to the University on an absolutely gorgeous day. Today is the 57th Street Art Fair. And so I got a snoot full of a completely different crowd than the other two. I parked on 59th and walked across the Midway where some kids were practicing cricket. My, this is a big city. My favorite artist at the fair was a cat named Harold Pikern whose sharp acrylics are just screaming for a huge white wall under a sunny 20 foot cieling. There were an unusually different and yet oddly familiar mix of the sandals & bangles crew browsing slowly and luxuriating in the fartsy atmosphere. These Chicago lefties are a good deal more sensible seeming than those in Cali, but the way they fawn over their dogs is identical. I quickly tired of the art and got into people watching, while making sure that people were watching me as well. Old habit I guess.  I'm now kind of weary of siteseeing and walking the streets. I could use a good nap before I head out for the evening again. I've already had a couple fat slices of stuffed mushroom & spinach pizza.

There's a lot to like about Chicago an inkling of which I got last year. It's a very urban joint, and in many ways feels moreso than NYC. Here the people tend to rule the city whereas in NY the city rules over people. Folks here seem a lot more in charge of their paths and destinies whereas in NY you're just another of a million footsteps wearing down the pavement. Then again, this is a perfect summer day.