Brand Black

NitroMed has asserted..,

An FDA Advisory Panel has approved their assertion..,

both contrary to known genetic fact, and baseline ethical understanding..,

that blackness is substantially more than shared cultural identity - and they're intent on telling you what you think. Cause it's an equally well-established fact that if you repeat a lie often enough and for long enough, it becomes a truth in consensus reality...,

Comments

[Temple3]

request for clarification...are you saying that the biological linkages between and among Africans in essential - and by extension more important than the various ways in which we be?? or are you simply saying there is substantially more (biological, chemical?, neurological?) than shared cultural identity? or both?

[cnulan]

I haven't changed my opinion concerning the nature of blackness at all....,

My little riff off Ways of Being is entirely complimentary to what you expressed. Time permitting, what say you re-read Brand Black and the last of the three links a bit more carefully and I promise it'll all be right as rain.

If at first I seem unclear, you might even consider the following, not always, but on those occasions where I initially seem unclear...,

Read each of my written expositions thrice:

Firstly—at least as you have already become mechanized to read all contemporary books and newspapers.
Secondly—as if you were reading aloud to another person.
And only thirdly—try and fathom the gist of my writings.'

Only then will you be able to count upon forming your own impartial judgment, proper to yourself alone, on my writings. And only then can my hope be actualized that according to your understanding you will obtain the specific benefit for yourself which I anticipate, and which I wish for you with all my being.

[cnulan]

If what Cobb said

and what young negrorage so desperately wants to believe was actually true,

then pseudo-scientific horseshit like what Nitromed is pulling with preliminary FDA approval - would not and could not exist.

I love it when reality sharply intrudes on delicate bubbles of integrationist fantasy.

[Temple3]

The 2004 piece is on the money. I thought that was your meaning - and it is consistent with your posts - but I thought I missed something...What's interesting about all of this is that the Continental African and Caribbean African and Brazilian African experience is different the American African experience - and still, we are not strangers to one another. And it is precisely this cultural, spatial and (necessarily, genetic) diversity that makes blackness compelling for me and other old school heads.

I love hip hop, but there was a parting of the ways back in the early 90's - what I consider to be the first Golden Age of the art form. I say that even though I grew up in the Harlem and South Bronx of the 1970's and 1980's - went to the Rooftop and the LQ and Harlem World and the street jams - pluggin' Technics into street lamps - the whole 9.

My lament during the late 80's/early 90's was that at a time when the music was at its most robust, message-filled, and culturally-rooted, older Black folk were turning away from it - based on a rejection of the style - not just the lyrics. In fact, the dominant themes during that era were neither misogyny nor nihilism. It seems to me that generations of Black folks have wasted time discussing the music of our children, critiquing the music of our children, rejecting the music of our children - while not investing in the music of our children. Black people do not make trendy music. Our music is enduring and moves from new and contemptable to classic and irreplaceable.

When Jaguar sees fit to use Etta James as a means to sell seduction, sophistication and accomplishment, we should know those who lambasted Ms. James for going too far in her day were wrong - financially. The same will be said in a generation about those who spend their time pissing in the wind rejecting 50 and others. No generation has every lost their soul to their musicians. The music is an organic expression of the group - or some appealing sub-set of the group - kinda like James Dean, Marlon Brando and leather!!

Anyway, the illogic of integrationist fantasy will persist because it is just as natural for individuals to reject or accept the dictates of an imposing hegemon. I reject it. Attending prep school could not make me accept it. Nor could attending "selective" universities or earning XXX salary. The integrationist path never stood the logic test - it certainly passes the practicality-suck it up test, but that has never been sufficient for most black folk - and that is why the integrationists have required such tremendous subsidies to even remain a part of this conversation.

Historically, integrationists and other conservatives have garnered the lionshare of support from $$$ interests. All the while, arguing their patrons are hardly to blame for conditions only they have the institutional levers to remedy. It's a sweet cushy deal.

[Cobb]

I've been told that blackfolks have higher incidences of heart attack, stroke and diabetes. I assume that if you substitute poor and poorly nourished, the results will be the same.

Believe it or not, I can surf, waterski and play a pretty good game of two man beach volleyball. Futhermore I have a layman's understanding that such strenuous aerobic activities are good for my heart and health. I wonder if it is fair to suggest that a layman's understanding of 'black culture' as say sitting on a front porch eating hog maws is the same one that says those sports are 'white'. Perhaps that was what the folks at NitroMed were thinking. Hard to say for sure. I wish I could have a medical doctor explain their logic.

I'll be charitable and assume that this is all about marketing - that's it's Blackface Capitalism.

I don't expect to hear a multidimensional explanation in the marketing of this drug / regimen. Surely there is one behind it. I'm hoping that this document makes it perfectly clear that there are circumstances which are odd enough to make any black person think, maybe this doesn't automatically mean me.

Are blackfolks credulous enough to slurp up any ethnic marketing? I hope not for all of our sakes, but I know better than to hope against hope. There is absolutely no reason for blackfolks to smoke Kools beside the fact that they are a 'black' brand. I'd like to believe that if we can survive marketing from tobacco companies, surely we can survive marketing by big pharma. I'm not so sure.

I have to take my family over the wall because that's my attitude. So critical facilities and healthy skepticism are on the table over here. Even so, I have to head to the NMA for advice. I also happen to be a subscriber to the online version of the New England Journal of Medicine. This ain't easy. People who are not well served by doctors and hospitals aren't going to get a second opinion. So NitroMed had better be careful.