Cobb

The Longhair Speaks of Beer

It has been such a long time since I have been at Michel and Jimi's Barbershop that I'm starting to feel guilty about having their icon on my page. I have been tied up in the business of making ducats for myself and my feudal masters at a Fortune 50 corporation (and I still say that with pride). Consequently, I have had to reluctantly decline kind offers to appear on the radio. But I'm feeling like I want to mix it up with my partners, so mebbe I will. Starting today.

Speaking of Obama's Beer Summit.
The definition of a blockbuster is any event that has people lined up around the block and then some. But in Russia and Poland they were called breadlines. Try to get into a Neil Diamond concert. Go ahead, I dare ya. Anytime people really want something badly, they'll line up for it. But that doesn't mean what they get at the front of the line is all that valuable. Sometimes it's just rare, and people think they ought to have it with more frequency. Then you get it, and look at all the suckers still in line behind you and you laugh derisively. Suckers!

So it, this is one of those occasions where people are lined up in droves to hear any scrap of racial wisdom, reconciliation, fisticuffs whatever. I find it difficult not to piss on the entire situation as really beneath the three of them, none of whom serve the situation well. You see America has yet to find its 24/7 raceman, its Dr. Phil of race relations. And it's always some fool like Rodney King or George Allen who gets put in the spotlight, has their moment and then disappears. And still people line up because they're not satisfied.

Remember Ice Cube? Three years ago he convinced the guys at Fox, yeah Fox, to air a show he produced called Black White. This show did a riff off an old Eddie Murphy joke which was to put a black man in whiteface and a white man in blackface - actually whole families, and engage them in an extended game of bait and switch. Prime sociological experimentation, like post-modern performance poetry. You will note that this program was canceled due to a lack of ratings.

Why?

Because once you get your bread at the head of the line, you're not hungry any more. And in the end, most Americans are not hungry for race. They just want to rage a little bit, have somebody say, yeah right on, and then get on with their lives.

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Anyway I'm much more inclined to consider the comic ramifications of the beers deployed at the summit. According to my sources, the menu had:

Biden: non-alcoholic Buckler beer
Crowley: Blue Moon
Gates: Sam Adams Light
Obama: Bud Light

Not surprisingly, the only man there with a nickel's worth of taste was Gates himself. But that Gates has some taste in beer at all is a bit surprising. I'm going to have to ask my man if this is Gates' regular brew or if he did a little research before ordering. Quite frankly, it's probably the ideal beer to order at the White House, if you must have a light beer. I am a personal fan of Sam Adams Light and I say that without question it is the best America light beer, period. Big thumbs up for Skip.

Blue Moon? What the heck is that?  A new beer out of the Coors factory that I've never heard of. Their marketing makes it sound, well, way more sophisticated than Coors. But since I haven't tasted it, I really can't say. I give Crowley a 'meh'. I should have expected a Rolling Rock, a righteous East Coast blue collar cop beer.

Biden does more to poison whatever scrap of dignity he has at every opportunity. I find it difficult to subvert the impression that he's a recovering alcoholic and has made this point to drink the near beer to squelch any idea that he's backsliding. But my information tells me that he's a somewhat moralistic teetotaller. He had drunks in the family and swore off the stuff completely. Either way, when invited to a beer summit you drink beer, you ballless wonder. 

Obama is doing what Obama does. Meticulously crafting his image. I'm sure that he polled his staff to figure out what beer to drink, and they told him it should be Bud Light. When he went on the trail last year he drank Pabst Blue Ribbon. Pure political craft.

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Wait. This just in. As I look around there is conflicting reports about Skip's regular beer. I'm hearing Red Stripe and I'm thinking yep, that sounds more like the Skip Gates I think I know.

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As for me I've changed my brands over time. When I first started drinking beer in my late 20s, I basically drank Bud in a Bottle and Coronas. Then I tried to get sophisticated with my beers, first going Mexican to Tecate and Dos Equis, and then going European with Becks and Grolsch. By the time I was 30, I was pretty much only ordering Grolsch and Red Stripe, beers for BAPs and Bohos the world over. When I moved to Brooklyn I started in with the Rolling Rock and Ginger Beer and Heineken, doing that bohemian culture vulture thing. Then when I moved to Boston I was all about Sam Adams and Bass Ale. By the time I was 35 and living in Atlanta, I was pretty much back to Coronas. But I also did Mike's Hard Lemonade and Red Dog. But I did spend some time in the UK and developed a taste for Tetley bitters and Hooch. I couldn't find either in the South so I did Mike's instead.  People couldn't believe I liked Red Dog, but I did. It was a good beer. When I moved back to Cali in my late 30s, I picked up on Tequiza for a hot minute, kept up with the Mike's. But Corona was the mainstay. These days when I find myself at a bar that has Newcastle, I always get it. Other than that it's Sam Adams Light.

Now. to put all of this in perspective, I buy probably one six pack a month. I prefer bourbon and y'all should know that. But I find myself having a lot more Bombay these days.  Tonight I'm hanging out in Redondo Beach at Kinkaid's. I'm going to have a bourbon summit there at 7:30pm. Now that will be worth checking out.

'Natural' Constituencies

The center of gravity of my concern today on Farai's show was radicalization.

When the producers called me last week and gave the list of topics, I was somewhat disappointed to hear that we were going to talk about two (more) black men who were shot by police. It's a tired old story. One took place in Bellaire, TX which was incorrectly identified by one of the other guests as an 'all white suburb' and the other in Oakland. I went to Bellaire a couple years ago and it's a largely Asian suburb - a malltown looking very much like those in Southern California's Inland Empire. But you can't stop the old black vs white idea when we run these stories.

The germ of my idea against this assumption of radicalization began when I was listening to Hugh Hewitt take on one of the writers from Slate. Greenwald I think was his name. Anyway he went on about how the residents of Gaza were 'obviously' and 'naturally' going to be radicalized by the excesses of the Israelis. And sure enough this morning, one of the other guests started in with explanations about how this is to be expected in the black community.

But radicalization is not a natural phenomenon. It requires intellectual discipline and leadership. It requires, quite frankly, radicals. These are the ex parte individuals who often call themselves 'community activists' who organize protests and hire people with bullhorns to chant 'no justice no peace'. There is always some leader somewhere with a political agenda, fuzzy and ill-informed as it might be, that is behind these riots. I don't want to sound like Richard Nixon, but he was right when he said that there is a silent majority who are always for law and order and they don't ever want to be parts of the mob.  Even giving these radicals the benefit of the doubt as to their peaceful intentions, how do you square their leadership and responsibility to the community when you get stuff like this:

The mob smashed the windows at Creative African Braids on 14th Street, and a woman walked out of the shop holding a baby in her arms.

"This is our business," shouted Leemu Topka, the black owner of the salon she started four years ago. "This is our shop. This is what you call a protest?"

Wednesday night's vandalism victims had nothing to do with the shooting death by a BART police officer of Oscar Grant on New Year's Day - but that did little to sway the mob.

"I feel like the night is going great," said Nia Sykes, 24, of San Francisco, one of the demonstrators. "I feel like Oakland should make some noise. This is how we need to fight back. It's for the murder of a black male."

Sykes, who is black, had little sympathy for the owner of Creative African Braids.

"She should be glad she just lost her business and not her life," Sykes said. She added that she did have one worry for the night: "I just hope nobody gets shot or killed."

The chances that Nia Sykes is going to vote in favor of candidates who would spend more money on police is slim, but the circumstances around the shooting indicate more money for training is just what's needed to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. But whether or not police improvement of that particular nature is needed, there is some definite responsibility I think writers and journalists need to take when discussing the reactions of people who assemble into mobs.

I think a number of writers irresponsibly contribute to the radicalization of people through their injudicious use of terms like 'oppression' and their arbitrary recognition as legitimate anybody behind a protest or grievance movement.

This idea follows up the slight opportunity for people to take seriously the idea that Obama changes things. I recognize that people are now giving themselves license to believe things about black people that they never did before. When you get words like this:

He continues his commentary: "We are so comfortable defining black in certain ways, in restricting it to the politics of grievance and lament, that we sometimes do not recognize it when it takes other forms. One is reminded how people used to say 'The Cosby Show' was not black enough and never mind all those cultural signifiers, never mind the anti-apartheid sign on Theo's wall, Cliff's penchant for sweaters from historically-black colleges, all those guest appearances from elder statesmen of jazz and R&B, that episode saluting the 1963 March on Washington. Not black? No, what they meant was, this is not the kind of black we expect, not the black of violence, ignorance, poverty and clownishness."

Booker Rising response: As others and I across the ideological spectrum have commented, it's long overdue. The promotion of thuggishness, ignorance, and clownishness as "authentic" blackness is out. Authentic blackness promotes positive culture, about progress and education and staying connected with your family. Stragglers, get in where you fit in and show some class. Oh yeah, young uns, pull up those pants and put on some clothes.

You want to say 'yay' maybe they finally get it. But I think so many Americans have been so pessimistic about race for so long that they forgot what the entire point of change was all about. They kept arguing that black could only be as much as 'subtle racism' would let it be, and completely forgot about the human spirit. So I am likely, when I hear 'how can it be in 2009 that we still have this kind of racism', I'm going to turn that around on the spot. For how can it be 2009 and people still feel limited by it? It is a reductive co-dependence.

Several years ago when I started this blog, one of my axioms was that the Civil Rights Movement is over and the good guys won and nobody is about to turn back the clock. Y'all didn't believe I was serious.

Technical Difficulties

Today's Barbershop had problems with the mic. This is the second time this week I had to get up at 5 in the morning. Damn!

Anyway, I tried to get in some words edgewise, but didn't do a good job this time. Hard to say what's going to make it to air and what won't. Basically, my colleagues were busting on McCain's 'robo-calls' pushing the Ayers hotbutton, which is interesting because I was prepped to talk about the one by Rudy Giuliani saying Obama is soft on crime. A little bias in the agenda switcheroo, I'd say. Because nobody has been talking about crime and punishment and I think Obama has something to prove in that regard.

The spin of the day was that this was all racial. I was going to counterpunch with a hard right that went a little something like this. Sarah Palin is enormously popular with millions of Americans. So is NASCAR. So is hockey. But if you're not in that demographic why do you have to assume those Americans are hostile? You have to on Obama's behalf because he hasn't shown in any way that he's ready to lead those Americans. I think everybody has this scenario in their minds which is becoming more real every day, that although Obama talks one game, that if he loses, he's going to have to stand up on national TV and say 'Cool it baby!'

I'm a little bit frustrated with people trying to make Obama more than he is, but I understand that this is what happens when you come out of left field without any institutional backing. More on that later. Anyway, this was a flubbed Barbershop show, and I'm sorry that I didn't get a chance to say all that I wanted. Basically I did want to say that I'm down with the Phillies, because anybody who beats the Dodgers has to win it all, just to prove that the Dodgers might have won it all but only got beat by the best - not the second best.

The Danger Zone with Doctor Mo

Two hours of Black Republicans. If you can stand it.

In the Barbershop Today

Today's show was pretty fun and interesting. I said pretty much everything I wanted to. Any comments on the show?

Black Conservative Roundtable

Great roundtable discussion last night on Kevin Ross' BlogTalkRadio show. I think you've probably never heard anything like it.

A broad range of topics covered from a variety of perspectives. Some of us like Obama, some of us don't. Some of us like McCain, some of us don't.

The primary focus was on the role of black media in covering serious politics and news. What's to be done about that? What was very interesting about the whole of the discussion was the extent to which we have opinions about the content of free speech and how various people get outraged upon hearing a different perspective. This is really central to the problem of the New Yorker magazine cover, vs the content of the article; whether citizens should make political statements using the imagery of the 9/11 attacks, whether or not TV is a viable medium for thoughtful people, and the overall media presence of blacks who are conservative and/or Republican. Everybody seems to need their own spin.

A Black Conservative Coup

Today I sat with Kevin Ross and Christopher Bracey on News and Notes and had what I consider one of the most civilized, if not the first, good discussion about black conservatives on the radio. Farai and her producers did a great job in putting together the show under slightly adverse conditions. Ross is a Morehouse man who looks the part and we met in the hall outside of the studio. The segment we shared was the second. The first was the blogger's roundtable segment in which we covered the following.

A. Iraq and Oil
B. Barack & Flipflopping
C. Indigents in Hospitals.

It remains astounding to me how many people still pretend that there can only be one reason for a war. From now on, I'm going to bring a copy of the congressional joint resolution whenever I sense that I will be debating Iraq. They never get past that. I was hoping that some revelation of the facts about exactly how much (not much) oil is forthcoming that they would leaven their bile. No such luck. Starting 2013 the world can expect 1.5 million more barrels per day coming out of the six new fields. That will be split up how many ways? Who knows? But what's clear or should be clear to my opponents in this debate is that this amount, even if the US got 100% of it, would constitute less than 5% of our daily needs. I tried to inject mathematical logic into the discussion but that was very difficult to do. So I simply emphasized that for the first time the Iraqi people themselves get the money.

On Barack, I'm particularly interested to see how furious those whose audacious dreams he shattered will be. As I said the other day, Obama is now simply talking sense rather than crazy talk. There's only so much crazy talk he can spew, and now he has to placate people living in the world of reality, as opposed to such hard Afrocentrics characterized by Wright's version of liberation theology, ass-backwards generals like Wesley Clark and other associated donuts now being splattered under the Obama bus.

As for the poor woman who died at King's County, I really wanted to emphasize how it is that liberal sentiment has caused this situation. Whenever you have laws that assert an indigent person's right to sleep in public places, you deaden the public's ability to be outraged at the very idea. So you see somebody sprawled asleep (or comatose, who checks their pulse) on a subway or a sidewalk or a park bench, and you say that he has a right to be there, then you don't roust them or say 'somethings wrong here'. That's just exactly the kind of mentality that allows people to lay comatose on public hospital waiting room floors - somebody has defended their 'right' to.

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In the second segment, I joined Ross and Bracey, whom I still owe an apology for not reviewing his book here, to talk about black conservatism itself and how we are dealing with the current campaign's cards.

I dig McCain for several important reasons. Broadly speaking, you either have governors or Congresscritters running for President. When you have governors, you check out their state's budget and how well he ran the joint. Did education improve, did he balance the budget. No such luck with these two. With Critters, you focus on what their legislative history is like. Obama has none. Clinton's was all about moderation in Iraq and health care. A known quantity. McCain is practically legendary for resisting strong-arm party line politics. He actually forged bipartisan coalitions and passed significant legislation. He completely resisted earmarks, he killed the Borking practice of filibustering to stall judicial appointments via the Gang of 14, and he changed campaign finance law. This is a man who knows how to get things done in Congress, and he has said that he wants 'question time' following the British model in which the President answers hardball questions from Congress publicly broadcast. What's not to love? The choice for me is obvious.

Additionally, with regard to black political empowerment, McCain is old school, not evangelical Christian Right. This is the kind of candidate that would support men like Jack Kemp. All Cobb readers should know that's my kind of Republican.

I made the point, which I think we should all keep in mind, that the Republicans are not going to magically find some voodoo to appeal to black voters. When it comes to the ethnic vote, it is what it is, and policy be damned. The only way to get the ethnic black vote is to run ethnic black candidates. Call it the role-model vote, call it whatever. That's our job as black Republicans to energize that black base, and all it takes is the single right candidate. I think Michael Steele still has that capacity, but for me personally - well I don't vote for personalities. So I'm in an odd position of second guessing the black ethnic vote - I'm not part of it. But as soon as that hump is gotten over, it becomes no big deal and people will realize that the Southern Strategy will be as rhetorically dead as it is dead as policy. In other words, black voters need a black voice to say 'it's cool'.

Ross sees in Obama a stepping stone up which happens to have a left foot on it. Existentially, I think that is a big nothing, but again it is because I wouldn't pander to an ethnic vote. Still, Ross is probably right to triangulate Obama into the house that Powell built. Word is that Powell will support Obama, but I've lately had issues with old Colin. Quite frankly, I would have rather that it be Harold Ford, if I had my druthers, and I think that if Ford were in Obama's place that would be more of my nightmare come true. But knowing what Obama is, and has been makes me a great deal more comfortable voting for McCain who is standout in his own right. Obama could have been a blue dog, but instead has been flirting with Weather Underground types. No freaking way.

Anyway, the hookup with Ross could be profitable for The Raven Group.

Special Order 40

I just listened to the show, I think it went very well and gave a fair hearing to what is actually a bit more complicated than was let on. I think I did a pretty decent job.

What was not mentioned in the show was the extent to which there's a great deal of jurisdictional overlap and borders. I could not determine, for example, whose responsibility it is to make the call on whether a Mexican national convict is actually deported or released to the streets of LA. The deputy chief made it clear that LAPD marks the forms that notifies ICE, but not what percentage of those violent or gang criminals are actually deported. Clearly it's not the LAPD's responsibility.

So I'm sure lots of people can say that they're doing their part to share databases and have information, but whose head rolls today? Who should be voted out of office?

Ms Salas said that the LAPD should spend its time apprehending dangerous criminals instead of being advance men for the Migra. I agree. In fact, the thousands of Mexican nationals in California jails and prisons attest to the efficiency of the system in doing part of its job. But if these ex-cons are released back into the California population and then can hide under the cover of the political protections of 'latinos' when in fact they are Mexican nationals, then something is wrong. And I don't think that latinos should be on the hook for being part of that 'community'.

I think it's rather astounding, in retrospect, that the Chief and his deputy are bringing up the matter of arresting jurisdictions. The LAPD in the end can no better hide behind the border of Culver City than Jamiel Shaw could hide behind the US border. And the City Council is not going to be able to hide behind its jurisdictional borders either. All the borders are porous and the political effects of this are going to spill over in all different directions. I'm sure we would want it to be neat and compartmentalized, but it's not.

In the meantime, I'm still looking for a hero, but I don't see a lot of guts out there.

Jamiel's Law is a spirit that I think is going to go to the next level. It's not going to end with LAPD policy reform. I know a lot depends upon the willingness of the family to step beyond being a symbol. Who knows the chances of that. It's the worst way of all to become famous. But this is another chapter in the long history of failed immigration policy, a bloody and tragic chapter. The problem will not go away, neither will I.

Le Monde Interview

Is here. The thrust of what she took from my interview is that I like how McCain moderates the social conservatives.

Super Tuesday Barbershop

Cool beans.

A little irony noted in retrospect that Obama supporters think that racist Americans are more likely to take a shot a Obama because he's black, than AQ is going to take a shot at American because they are Americans.

 

The Last Radio Show of 2K7

Did a News & Notes with Farai yesterday.

Is R Kelly Our Kelly?
Hells no. Then again I'm not speaking for all of America, as much as I'd like to. What I would have liked to have said about R Kelly is that there is something emotionally crippled hanging onto him. The fact that he has not been tried has given people some reason to believe he is innocent. I don't believe he is. I didn't see The Tape and I'm not ever going to, on purpose. I'm not one in favor of media executions but the dude is hinky. You don't accidentally get accused of child pornography.

The thing I see explaining the phenomenon of R Kelly's continued support among some elements of  African America has to do with a sort of emotional underdevelopment. In my Big Mac analogy on the air, I suggested that folks who take fast food too seriously may do so because they don't know how to cook. If you are a good cook you can take the Big Mac or leave it. You can provide for yourself. Similarly if you could never express the emotions of "I Believe I Can Fly" on your own, then you need that song. If you cannot communicate your love to someone without the use of some commercial radio song then there's something wrong.

As I said on the air, there is implicitly something missing in the lives of any young girl that could call their relationship with R Kelly 'love'. That's real Daddy Love. More emotional cripples flocking together to call what they have...well who knows? What we do know is that justice delayed is justice denied and some kind of willful blindness has been keeping Kelly out of court for six years. It's not like he's up in Tora Bora. Get him in front of the jury. Now.

Additionally, I would note that I met Jasmyn Cannick and her family at the studio. Nice folks. I'm pretty sure I've had terse words for Cannick in the past basically about the aesthetics of her blog, but as usual, and I suppose it always bears repeating, I'm in a battle of ideas and aesthetics, and on that battleground I take few prisoners. But I'm always happy to meet people, because I love people. 

It turns out that aside from being a Kwanzaan, Cannick is Old School Hermosa Beach. I first moved there in '88, but I knew that back in the day Hermosa was something of a ghetto. Around WW2, oilfield workers made their primary residence in Hermosa where the houses were smaller and the rents cheaper. It was a primarily black and latino 'hood until it gentrified almost completely. Cannick's fam was there when there were about 3 black families in the whole of the joint. (I happen to know that the Martins where there in the 60s and 70s, and there's got to be at least one other family we don't know). Cannick is perseverance in my book.

Back in the Barbershop

A really good session for me. I got to say pretty much everything I wanted to.

Mitt Romney
Medved said today that the Mormon Moment went well and that it was the proper speech for the proper subject. I'll wait until I hear some waggier angle at it before I'm swayed. I did believe it was a make or break moment and the word is that he's not broken. That doesn't change the fact that he's all bloodied about the face and head over his 'sanctuary mansion', and takes an L for illegal immigration.

It's true that it's easier to talk about applying the spirit of the law than it is to actually follow the letter of the law, but you can't be a President in this season without having some initiative on immigration. Mitt did indeed drop the ball on this one. Twice. If some newspaper does a better job investigating his contractors than he does, that's a sorry endorsement of Mitt's leadership.

Sean Taylor
There is no such thing as black on black crime. Just put the perps under the jail and let's be done with this.

Omaha Shooter
Fortunately for all of us, this nutcase Hawkins turned the barrel on himself, and saved us the media hours, heartache and bloviation of his trial, incarceration and incineration. I don't know actually if Nebraska has the death penalty, but they'd be hard pressed to find a better candidate for execution. In a nation of 300 million, you're bound to step into the undergrowth and bogs swamp netherworlds of the minds of homicidal maniacs. This one was suicidal too.

Victoria's Secret
Porno. Yeah well there's not much else to say about it than what I said, and I repeat. When I was a kid, I couldn't imagine that nurses and teachers could be half naked. Now that I'm an adult I can't imagine that these half naked video hoes could be nurses or teachers.

Jesse vs Jesse
I'm with Jr on this one. Jackson is still trying to wrest power and glory from the next generation. Can't he just retire?

News & Notes

From Today's Recording:
Here are some of the points I didn't raise in today's forum. It was my first time back on the air in a while and I like Farai's format, so I wasn't going for the controversy as I do more often on Michel's show.

DNA
I remain rather skeptical about the utility of DNA testing to get folks in touch with their 'true' heritage.
Skip Gates complained that his testing lab didn't tell him about his results that put some European lineage in his actual background. Is it because we know that African Americans who do this really just want to hookup with Africa? Let's not forget Toni Morrison's Jazz. We're responsible for all of our families. That in and of itself is a scary prospect, but it's even scarier when you realize you have real Europeans in your family tree. Can we dismiss them so casually? There's your provocative question of the day. What if you actually do have white trash cousins?

Missing
As far as I can tell, this is a species of story that evokes my perverse question: What kind of whitefolks are we comparing ourselves to today. There might be some good that comes of it considering how many people go missing in the US. According to CourtTV, about 2300 folks are reported missing every day. That's more than can be handled by its own cable channel. Are we a society of dropouts? When it comes to children, this is a well of misery that seems to have no bottom. If our attention to that misery, starting with the racial comparison, can beget some good, then I'm all for it. But generally speaking, I like my black vs white comparisons done by Richard Pryor.

Vaccinated
It's tough all over, and the fact of the matter is that you simply can't get your kids in school unless and until you show those vaccination records. My back has been up against this wall personally and it ain't comfy. I don't see why a judge has to threaten jail, unless parents have been massively intransigent or someone has declared a public emergency. Just having kids miss school ought to be enough. I'm old enough to remember when the public health inspector would come to the neighborhood and declare a house under quarantine. It happened to my house when the lot of us came down with the measles. That would have been a more judicious use of power in my view.

Cobb Back on the Air

I did another Barbershop session. I'm a little rusty in getting my soundbite game on, but I did make a point or two. Interestingly enough, we were all in broad agreement.

Philly Cheese
My ongoing harangue against the Philadelphia Cheif of Police continues. This 10,000 man posse continues to be a big dumb and potentially dangerous idea. I am reminded of an old comedy bit by Robin Harris about the security guard at the shopping mall with a flashlight and a pair of house shoes. What's he going to do when a real gangbanger shows up. Shine a light? Like the gangbanger is Sir Nose and he's got the Bop Gun? These volunteers, if they show up, get a 90 minute sermon, an armband and a hat.

I tell you what's going to happen. Somebody with an armband and a hat is going to get shot or worse yet, shoot somebody. Then he's in front of the judge saying, but your honor, I got this armband. It takes a lot of training in law to be a law enforcement officer. These volunteers at best will get lessons on verbal judo, but they won't get anything as simple as a police radio so they can call. My nickel says the Philly 911 system couldn't handle an extra 10,000 phone calls.

But the worst idea is still bad. Today it's a cop shortage. Oh we'll get 10 thouand black men to handle it for free? What if the City of Philadelphia suddenly has a cotton shortage?

The only good thing that can possibly come out of this is that all of the men that show up will have the experience of walking the beat with a cop in their own neighborhoods. Three hours spent with a cop talking about crime in your own community is three hours of pure righteousness and I can only hope that makes a world of difference. But the problem still remains. Don't get 10 thousand volunteers, train, and equip 500 more police officers. Policework isn't easy and you can't get it cheap. The world will see very soon, as soon as a questionable shooting goes down. That's when the programs founders will get sued for every dime and that will be the end of these wasteful public experiments.

Experiments on the black community. Damn. I thought we learned our lesson in Tuskeegee.

America's Dad
America doesn't want Cosby as their dad, because he says mean things and that hurts America's self-esteem. But you and I both know that America needs a kick in the ass. Don't we get enough fake love from MTV?

Today's big point I took from a poster named Angie over at Booker Rising. She said something that I welcome hearing, which is that the black middle class needs to take center stage in American life again, and kick all that ghetto dysfunction to the curb. People might disagree with whether or not Cosby is saying the right thing to the black underclass, but what he is saying to the black middle class is loud and clear. We did the right thing, and maybe, just maybe we ought to puff our chests a little bit. Cosby emboldens the black middle class, and maybe that silent majority is about to get loud.

Sure Alvin Poussaint sounds just like the kind of fuddy duddy you'd expect to be named Alvin. They played the clip that was only 20 seconds long and I swear I was nodding off that quick. But he did say the words 'self-destruction' and it reminded me of that old rap video and song. Remember 'Yo Yo'? Yes you do. But we don't need another fake gangsta rapper to talk to our kids, we need boring college professors, and PWA, Parents With Attitude. As you can guess, we have plenty of attitude here in the Old School, and we're not afraid to say so. Neither is Cosby, so be careful who you hate on.

Everybody Freeze
Warren Ballentine suggests that all blackfolks freeze spending on November 2nd. Don't spend money and the world will notice. And so then what happens on November 3rd? Everybody will spend all of the money they didn't spend on the previous day and that won't make a difference either. This is one of those self-serving symbolic things like Global Orgasm Day. that only temporarily affects the habits of people in earshot and gives the originators a pat on the back. If Ballentine was smart he'd get Whoopi Goldberg and Chris Rock to host a variety show and call it Black Aid. But you know I'd be dissing that too, unless I had a percentage of the gate.

Vote for me and I'll set you free. Maybe I will get famous enough to make such bold and dynamic suggestions, but I'd be happy if you just subscribed to my RSS feed. It only takes a moment of your time and it would mean a great deal to me.

The last boycott that worked was when black voters completely dissed Michael Steele in last fall's election. I felt that one all the way over here on the West Coast and we're still talking about it. There's a clue.

In Other News
All of this gives me a bit of satisfaction. We need people to recognize that Black America is America and all that special boycott and social experiment stuff doesn't work on us. Why? Because those of us who are obsessed with race know exactly how things work for whitefolks. There doesn't need to be two sets of lessons.

I also shook hands with one of the black doctors on the cover of that new book. I can't remember the names of any of the brothers or the name of the book - I was in a rush to get into the studio. But I suspect you'll hear about them sooner or later - they're all taller than me and clean up pretty nicely. No doubt they will be in demand on TV. They were glad to hear that Hudson Booksellers features them prominently, maybe I'll even pick up a copy.

Additionally, I finally met Farai Chedeya face to face. I've known her online for damned near 20 years. Wow. She's in LA. We will definitely hang out.

News & Notes Today

I had something of a fumbly radio day today. I wasn't as prepared for today's segment as I should have been. My head was a little elsewhere are I actually blanked twice. Also, I kind of forget that Farai's show is a longer format than The Barbershop, which kills me because in fact I'd rather be elaborate. Next time I'll do a better job.

Fumbles
The first time I couldn't remember the name of Dan Quayle, and that was partially because I was trying to suppress the dirty joke about him in my head. So I was self-censoring at a million miles a minute in that brief few seconds. The second time I couldn't remember if John Burns was a reporter for the NYT or the Times of London. In fact he is with the NYTimes and based in London, although he spends a lot of time in Iraq.

Michael Vick & R. Kelly
Seeing as that I'm not the sort that watches much football or listens to anything but talk radio, I'm at something of a loss to see why either of these two mental midgets should be taken seriously by anyone but their defense lawyers. If they both vanished from the planet, I'd never miss them.

I'm at a crossroads at the moment at Cobb and asking myself whether or not it is still a good idea for me to craft some defense of blackness. I mean on one hand, I'd like to say of Black Culture, that it simply doesn't include these two. They don't rank, they don't merit. They are not righteous. So I want to say that Black Culture is only righteous and they get booted and we don't have to care, period. On the other hand, if they say they're black, who can deny that? Nobody really owns 'black'. The question is, should I try? I'm going to leave that on the back burner for a while because it gets tremendously involved.

In either case, objectively speaking, they have no class and I think can only be popular with people who have no class. The world will survive without their talent, and there's something to say about talent yes, however if they can't respect themselves, then why should I respect them or their talent?

Of the two, I agree with Jasmyn. Kelly is the greater culprit and he should go under the jail. As for NAACP defending Michael Vick. They are making themselves into the new N-word.

Surge
I expected a little more backtalk on the political matter of the War in Iraq, but nobody seemed to be paying that any mind. Cool. Simple. The Surge is working and Harry Reid has a lot of explaining to do. I still think that the impact of the OHanlon & Pollack report is still being felt. But not many folks are feeling it in the black blogosphere.

Obama vs Hillary
I think Obama should stick to his guns but I know if it came down to it, he'd kiss up to Hillary. It's too early to tell, either one of them could implode between now and the Democratic convention. But I want and expect Obama to get stiffer in his differentiation between himself and Clinton. I think it's happening gradually, and the difference in geopolitical thinking is becoming clearer. That's kind of unfortunate for Obama because he's making dorky statements. Meeting with Assad and with Castro, and now his new thing for a unilateral invasion of Pakistan. Huh? What? I mean is he trying to prove? We need to handle that in detail.

This Week's Barbershop

In this weeks show, we handle a few topics.

The Surge
I pub up Michael Yon's story on the 1920s and Abu Ali, the Iraqi militia who joined the Surge to fight AQ. The Surge is beginning to deliver some good results so let's let it happen. This is what counter-insurgency is all about and this is the war we should have been fighting. Now let's fight it; we know how. There is no better example of winning the battle for hearts and minds than this. Impatience in the Congress is deadly stupid.

N-Word
This time I want to give the NAACP a break. When they're not kissing corportate butt or R Kelly's for that matter, sometimes that squirrel finds a nut. Don't let them become the next N-Word. They need dramatic reform.

Baseball
Who wants to watch? I think Latinos. One of the things I couldn't speak to was the reality of going to a ball game means facing larger Latino crowds than ever, and what nobody wants to say in LA and Orange County is it's true that baseball doesn't seem 'All American' any more, if you catch my racial drift.

Radio Recap

As my media career is creeping forward, I have added this new category to keep track of the shows that I've been on. It's more than just a handful now and so this little bit of housekeeping should help me and Cobb readers to stay on top. My aim on radio is to be fairly straightforward and cracking wise on things from an Old School perspective, also to ad some stats and do the math as I usually do.

As I do shows, I'll post a recap of the topics and my angle, and respond to reader and listener comments. A radio show is always too short to go into detail, even when you talk fast. So I'll give a bit more of the theoretical and analytical stuff here.

Cobb on NPR: News & Views

Today's taping was with Farai Chedeya of NPR's News and Notes. I like the vibe in that house. Today's topics:

Burial of the N-Word
My take: NAACP has a publicity stunt. At least it's a positive thing but how often do people need to be reminded of all this? Is this like every generation has to have somebody to remind them of how to act civilized. Sheesh! The NAACP needs to get a better job, a more serious job.

Hot Ghetto Mess
BET is in trouble with advertisers Home Depot over their latest foray into self-deprecation or minstrelsy depending on your point of view.
My Take: It's not the end of the world. We did survive Soul Plane after all. But seriously, where is the home training?

Michael Moore's Bloviation
My Take: The white Jesse Jackson is at it again. Does anybody take him seriously? It's not as if he's smart enough to have any credible solutions. He's a fool to go against CNN, especially if they do take him seriously. Actually, this is a fight I'd like to see. Still, how can anyone in their right mind compare the USA to Cuba?

Emergence of the Black Blogosphere
And we talked about what's going on in our own little bloggy worlds.

Good show.

Cobb on the Warren Ballentine Show

I just had a sparkling conversation with Reverend Ed Mulraine at God Talk Now on the Warren Ballentine Show. I think we may have just inspired some men to get back home to church.

It was a good 30 minute segment where we talked about the dimensions of the crisis, and what excuses are made and what we might do to turn that around. It really got going when Reverend Ed came with the hardline about gays in church. You belong. I'm glad he said that exactly the way he said it which didn't include the phrase "hate the sin, love the sinner". We have no excuses to hate and he didn't give one. We all come heavily laden and we will be relieved.

What I wanted to say, I think I said well. In all the ways we often criticize America for not loving and respecting the black man, we cannot say that about church. When you come in, you get love, not only from God but from young people, old people, the whole church. And it's deeper than just a high five or a pound, or the nod on the street. It has to be. We all need the kind of affirmation that we give each other, and we need it on a regular basis. It's not going to happen unless we are ready to make that move. Don't wait for a crisis, man up and do it.

--
I welcome all new readers to Cobb. What I'm all about here is documenting the issues and ideas of my generation from an Old School perspective. I think the best of black culture is central to the American experience and that it is not only possible but necessary to recover and retain the strength and values that sustained us from the deprivations of chattel slavery to the very peaks of American society and the world stage.  We are all about the Old School Core Values.

We get on about heady issues, but we keep it straight up too. So jump into the conversation any time.

Today's Barbershop

A great show if I must say so myself. We talk about:

Dick Cheney's Tribulations
Ralph Nader's Trials
Video Game Addiction

It's a really tight show, funny and informative. Do check it out.

MDCB on NPR: Juneteenth

Today's Tell Me More show will feature yours truly. All about Juneteenth.

As I thought about the subject some more, again way overthinking what turned out to be about 30 seconds of airtime, my mind went in several interesting directions about the prospects for celebration. The interesting thing is that I brought about seven different examples of what I think the theme of Juneteenth implies, and for me that theme is ambition and freedom.

Douglass
I say that freedom is tied to ambition, without one you can't have the other. They reinforce each other. Start with Frederick Douglass who said "I didn't know I wasn't fee until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted." So there is total freedom and their is relative freedom. America, of course, has tons of cultural material and wisdom around the subjects of slavery and freedom. We could talk about it all year long.

Living Colour
This band had a song that many Americans will sing metaphorically in their quest for the American dream. Tell me how to get to your America. Or as the Isleys wrote (and my senior quote) half of us are satisfied, half of us in need. We African Americans have ritualized tropes of ambition and relative freedom in our history. The world is not enough, and we share that ambition with all sorts of emergent groups within American life.

Iraq
You gotta throw Iraq into the mix. Sometimes the desire for freedom isn't sustained. One of the things both Americans and Iraqis are going to have to face is the question of amnesty. In order for Iraq to have a functioning democracy, there is going to be a point at which a lot of combattants are going to have to get amnesty. That means our commanders are going to have to forgive Iraqis that killed our soldiers. It means Sunnis are going to have to forgive Shia, etc. Today, nobody is ready for that. But it will be a requirement for future freedom in Iraq.

A Visit To NPR

So my fledgling media career is up one more step as I was invited to participate in the new experimental radio show at NPR. You might know it as Rough Cuts or The Barbershop. It's Michel Martin's baby and we're trying to get it jumping off.

The NPR folks have a description for it, but it's the closest thing yet to a bunch of smart, interesting brothers getting together to rap about current events. Michel, with the velvety smooth voice, kicks off the session and we're off. Jimi Izrael is the ringleader on the air and we do a kind of round robin on topics of the day.

On my episode, we covered several subjects quickly and I think I got in a few soundbites edgewise. I was prepared for something a bit more raucous but we were pretty good. See in this case everything was virtual. Jimi was in KY, Q was in DC, I think, Naravette was in San Diego and Michel was.. I have no idea where. But I tell you this, I really like radio. I've done hundreds of conference calls and you have to use your voice to express things that you ordinarily would with your hands, so I have a bit of practice on that. But nothing could keep me from being extraordinarily nervous this time. Have you ever been in a situation where you think you have to pee and you know that you've already peed your last pee? That's what level of nerves I had. I was freakin'. But as soon as people started talking to me I was cool.

NPR West is a sweet little joint. As I cruised around to the men's room I passed offices of Alex Chadwick and a bunch of other famous people. That was fabulous, but I tried not to gawk. Well, Chadwick wasn't there anyway. Architecturally, it reminds me of Cars Direct which is probably just around the corner. You have your basic light industrial building with the open floor plan and rather up-to-date cubicles. All the folks in there were fashionably casual.

On my way out guess who I bump into? Karen Grigsby Bates. Am I allowed to say that? Aw, she's already famous and has hundreds of fans anyway. When I used to hang with my academic friends over at UCLA, we all agreed that she was the only reason to bother opening up the LA Times. So I tell her that the last time I saw her was at the Baldwin Public Library, but now that I think about it, I'm thinking that might not be correct. In fact it's way not correct. That was Erin Aubrey Kaplan and I know I like KGB way way better than I like EAK. We rapped about this and that.. uhm books we read, the topics in the discussion. It turns out that she has read Cobb from time to time. Lovely.

I'm embarrassed to confess that I can't remember the names of the other cool folks in the joint. The receptionist who used to be a plum farmer from Central California was a very charming lady and we rapped about a whole bunch of stuff. I was so jazzed up after the taping and none of the other folks were there so I had to just pour my little heart out and talk to be talking. She made me feel cool. I told her about my first severe sunburn which was part of my introduction to Central California that I got in Madera long ago when I was an AAU diver. AAU # 3323662. Dang, where was that buried in my head? N, was the sharp kid who had a copy of the new Modest Mouse CD and a thickish book about Independent Film in America. I hope he remembers it's Cobb and not DeKalb, but such is the media plug business.

I managed to break up the entire discussion with an offhand confession about my feelings towards Terry Gross which I think freaked everybody out. That I was able to freak out NPR folks, people who have a thing for David Sedaris, I take as sign of their true humanity, and I didn't even have to dig into the Conservative grab bag.

So in my next step toward famousity, you can check out the latest clip of Rough Cuts, Tell Me More over at NPR. They have my link wrong but that's cool for the time being. I'm sure they'll clean that up. Plus you're here so you know what's up with the blog. By the way if you want to skip right to our piece, it starts at minute 35.