Welcome To The Terror-dome...

As unfortunate as last week's tragic events in the Boston area were, there's one inescapable conclusion that shouldn't be ignored.  White America has another opportunity to empathize with Black America experiencing the veil of terror that it lives under as a matter of existence.  9/11 was the first time in recent memory that the nation as a whole began to wrestle the irrationality of hatred that couldn't be understood even though there were many reasons that could be uncovered without much effort.  The fact remained that for most of our White brethren, they simply couldn't come to grips with a notion of being hated for hatred sake. In the weeks and months to come there will be much made of the psychology of enmity that led the two Chechen brothers to act so violently towards people that they didn't know but the reality is that African Americans live under this cloud of sudden terror.

From the long history of lynchings and Klan attacks to every time there's a Charles Byrd dragged to death in Texas or James Craig Anderson being beaten and fatally run over or Marco McMillian being beaten, dragged, and set afire in Mississippi, every Black person lives under the threat of death from unknown persons who may strike out of an unfounded and irrational hatred.  This is the same insanity that White America struggled to understand in the aftermath of 9/11.  Going forward there was a tendency to allow the threat level to diminish in their minds as time caused the impact of the event to fade from memory.  Fast-forward to the Boston 2013 Marathon and the emotional scar was reopened.  Can this be an opening for America to at least dialog about the need to address the cancer that is racist hatred for Black America?  If so, welcome to the terror-dome and let's destroy it while we still can.  We were all Americans for a few weeks after 9/11 so hopefully, since these two "terrorists" who are the very definition of White as in from the Caucasus region that gave us the term Caucasian have been identified as the perpetrators, we can unite to face the truth that the threat from without is great enough to make us remove the madness of imagined threats  from within based on ethnicities...

The "Race" Conundrum...

Hello, all, it's been a while since we last communicated (over a year - how the time flies).  We've seen many things: Obama re-elected, Tiger Woods re-ascension to golfing heights, Bin Laden's comeuppance, Newtown, a freakish natural disaster - a hurricane (Sandy) in the northeast, and most of all - the slow but steady creeping insanity of the rank-and-file dominant white male psyche.  Now, my grandfather used to say, "It doesn't take all day to do nothing" and "You can't tell it all in one sitting" so I'm not about to try and relate everything that I've experienced or been thinking over the last year!  I, for one, am glad that memory mercifully deletes enough experiences and storage-locks others so that we can get on with the business of living.  Therefore I'm not tempted to live in the past except as it relates to the future.  So allow me to share these few thoughts:

1. Race in my title is in quotes because I read and saw a fascinating article and PBS program that made a coherently cohesive logical argument for why human beings come in ethnicities and not races.  The primary point being that there are not enough physiological differences at the cellular level for us to be considered different from each other racially.  Basically, the fact that we can mate successfully producing normally functioning offspring makes our differences more about geographic adaptation than those of evolved races like Cro-Magnon, Neanderthal, and Java people of the homo-sapien variety...
2. Obama's reelection has sent the white male dominated establishment over the collective edge and they are grasping desperately for fantasies.  Actions that mark the behaviors of the clinically insane.  Witness their combined efforts to embrace anything that opposes the prospect of the President succeeding on any front: the economy, jobs, the crumbling infrastructure, the environment, education, and even their own personal safety regarding gun control when the will of 91% of the population to have stricter gun control laws in the form of universal background checks is overridden by the gun manufacturers lobby known as the nra... 
3. The republicons have allowed a fringe element of not even comically cloaked racists calling themselves the tea party to control the thought capital, or lack thereof, of their efforts even after seeing their political efforts go up in flames in massive and historic proportions.  This isn't unexpected because any party that has seen newt gingrick (no mispelling, that's his given spelling before he changed it for political nuance), david duke, bob bauer, sarah palin, michelle bachman, sheriff joe apaio, and george allen on it's national stage can't be faulted for longing for the good ol' days of slavery, Jim Crow, and separate-but-equal.  Why they were willing to invoke the wrath of GOD on this Christian nation (NOT!) by having a non-Christian mormon in the White House!  Side Point: Christianity teaches that there is only One GOD and one Path to Him, and that's Through JESUS CHRIST.  So exactly how does a nation founded on freedom to worship any god you choose or none at all qualify as Christian?  Short answer - it doesn't...
4. The demicrats are little better.  You certainly have to ask yourself why the party that initially held a substantial Congressional majority in both houses didn't get more done in the first two years of the President's term and then willingly proved themselves so ineffectual as to get routed in the 2010 elections ceding majority power in the House in a landslide and maintaining only a slim majority in the Senate.  Couple that with the remaining question of why after a 5M vote squashing of willard mitt romney last year, they still haven't closed ranks behind the President to force-feed this country the medicine it needs to get back on track?  Of course, you'll hear them talk about filibusters and veto proof majorities but where was that same talk and political stalemating they when bush-cheyney occupied the Oval Office with unearned and unwarranted dictatorial-like powers that allowed them to shove two unfunded wars and stomp on countless freedoms while fostering usury for most of America that bankrupted the nation while creating a new oligarchical class of the top 2%?

This insanity proposition submitted by me is based on the fact that there isn't a single logical defense that's been offered by otherwise thoughtful people with the capacity for rational thought.  They ramble on, shouting down simple questions that infer and imply both truth and common sense because their minds have been unable to cope with the fact that their worldview has been turned upside down, inside out, topsy-turvy.  This brings us back to President Obama and Tiger Woods.  The White House and the golf course were symbolic of the clung-to created illusion of permanent white male world dominance.  Both of these institutions were supposedly the forever domain of white male superiority and both have been taken over by of all things -- two opposite-white men!  And not just once but now twice (Oh, the horror, the horror of it all!)

You see, as traumatic as the first incarnation of the Tiger & Barack show was, it was presumed to be only a temporary condition that once the good white power structure worshiped their god properly, the almighty dollar, and pressed the issue by training and recruiting successors to take back their rightful places; all would again be right with the world.  Why there was even glee in the tumultuous state of Tiger's marital woes, and more in the chance to see a non-Christian white prove that even he was a better alternative than a Christian man of color.  This is a Christian nation, is it not? (Again NOT!)  Funny thing happened on the way to the past.  Tiger began to right his ship and reassert himself as golf's dominant force and Barack -- well, you know the rest...

That's when the combined intellect of the white male dominant power structure began to implode and lose its grip on reality.  A second term at the top makes them both legit even in the eyes of the white power structure.  The birther message finally lost its steam.  The secret Muslim rantings even subsided.  The nonsense didn't work and now the harsh reality has set in.  Even though the good of all America is good for the white male establishment too, they'd rather commit the treason that leads to national suicide than to rescue the country.  Even when figuratively, actually, and ultimately this is a good, if not great, thing for them too!  If a black man is going to get the credit then he may be somehow seen as a success paving the way for other minorities to someday usurp their divine right to sit in these two highest representations of their lost philosophy of the white male being entitled to rule the world.

So, be very careful, my friends, because there is a heightening sense of this irrationality that is becoming increasingly evident.  Have you noted the number of white officials who have allowed hateful racial epithets to drip confidently from their lips only to offer up a terse apology when called on it but then refusing to step aside, resign, or receive reprimands for their behaviors?  You see, this has regressed from the poorly concealed racist emails, cartoons, and jokes that popped up during the first term.  These comments are now being verbalized in public forums and the speakers are sure enough of themselves to have resisted calls and actions calling for their removal.  This indicates a graduated infection that will only get worse without proper treatment.  It began with Sen. john mccain's infamous "that one over there" in one of the 2008 presidential debates, US Rep-SC joe wilson's "You lie!" at Obama's 1st State of the Union address, and AZ gov jan brewer's wagging her finger disrespectfully while seemingly scolding the leader of the free world.  Unfortunately, the President didn't understand the menacing cancer that was about to metastasize onto the American consciousness and thus he didn't act aggressively and assertively to eradicate it at the source by using the might of the highest office in the land.  Since then, there's been an opening of Pandora's taboo box of not approaching the third rail of incendiary comments.

Remember the days of Jimmy the Greek, Al Campanis, Howard Cosell, Sen. robert byrd, and others who were summarily dismissed or reprimanded for broaching these same areas without nearly the bravado of these latest forays.  Well, my friends, this has all led me to the following inescapable questions: if we've backslid this far toward the good 'ol days, where will it end?  Can lynchings and Jim Crow be far behind?  Gerrymandering and emergency managers in predominantly black cities in Michigan, are these the wave of the future?  When voting rights are considered by a sitting Supreme Court justice to be a racial entitlement (without so much as a peep from the handkerchief head justice who sits next to him), what do you think they'll come for next?  We're not different races just different ethnicities.  That has to make some kind of difference!  I'm just sayin' because it had to be said...    

What Does President Obama Owe The Black Community?

Here's the thing; blind loyalty is a dangerous prescription that usually ends up with the type of abject betrayal that finds the most vulnerable being exploited. There is far too much information available in this day and age to subject ourselves to such a fate. I fully support Obama as opposed to the quacker-factory clowns that make up the right but I'm angry that he seems to take us, black African Americans, his strongest supporters, for granted. While he has made it clear that he supports gay rights, the military, Wall Street, the healthcare insurance industry, and immigration reform by taking bold steps to meet and strategize with the leadership and rank-and-file of those movements resulting in bold initiatives; we of his own ethnicity are dropping further behind when a simple acknowledgement from our Commander-in-Chief could lift our entire community. Let us know, Mr. President, that you're aware of our pain as we lag in everything from income and wealth to real estate and business ownership while we lead in incarceration, HIV-AIDS, unemployment, lowest mortality rates, and violent crime.

There's a pretty significant dispute happening in our community regarding the President and talk-show host Tavis Smiley and by extension those who support either side even though they need not be mutually exclusive. Unfortunately for Tavis and his supporters, the basic disagreement with the President stems from an egotistical "sword" fight between the two men over who's the most popular intellectual leader in the black African American community. When then-candidate Obama refused to change his schedule to accommodate an appearance on Tavis' show even though he volunteered Michelle as his surrogate, the die was cast. Due to that tiff, Tavis continues to be seen as a self-serving petty individual by a large portion of the AA community, me included, and even aligning himself with a respected academic such as Cornel West has done little to quell the furor and moreover led many people, but not me, to derogate Prof. West for the association.

But those are reals problems that exist in crippling the black AA community and loudmouths like Steve Harvey who represent the worst in bully-pulpiteering attempting to brand anyone an "Uncle Tom" (better said as "Uncle Clarence" as in Thomas & Pendleton) who dares question why a president who hales from a population that supported him 99% would treat his own so cavalierly while constantly cow-towing and capitulating to the far right who have figuratively spat in his face and called him-- well, you know...

There was an old idiom that used to speak to the notion of the "bigger man" that would expect that if President Obama can bring in Prof. Gates and the Cambridge policeman to talk about their differences over a beer; to state that he was going to keep floating ideas out there until #1 Teabag bigot, "eric cantor finds something that he likes"; then I'm old-fashioned enough to believe he can quietly outside the spotlight address the rift between Tavis, Cornel, and himself to settle it for the good of all. The last thing our community can afford is another turf war especially when the stakes in this one are so high. And in this election year, this President is going to need us 110% because I'm of a mind to believe that racism both subtle and overt are going to negatively impact the European vote this time around. No one likes to be taken for granted and I dare posit that there's already been significant damage done to a sizable part of the black AA population when the President rather churlishly admonishes us to 'stop complaining, take off out bedroom shoes and put on our marching boots' or some such nonsense he uttered at a NAACP gathering that I dared not bother rehashing lest I get even angrier all over again...

So count me in as a defender of both responsibility and accountability because if the President doesn't wake up to the reality that we're drowning in our own tears, then he will indeed find himself going down with us...

Black History Month?

An old saying in essence goes, "I'm laughing to keep from crying!" which reminds me of the conflicting sentiments that arise over the notion of a Black History Month. There are supporters who make jokes about the fact that the shortest month of the year is devoted to Black History while opponents get rankled over the fact that there is a month designated to a single ethnic group. Well, this may come as a surprise but I think they're both right!

Black History in the USA is the history of this nation. Without us there would be no nation. The early settlers needed the Natives to help them learn to survive and they were ill-equip to do much more than that. Their next move was to try and enslave these indigenous peoples to perform the herculean task of building an infrastructure for a fledgling nation but that proved to be a "peace pipe" dream. It's awfully hard to beat a man on his home turf playing by his rules.

So, along came option number two. Let's dehumanize and bring in a new group that will make us the home team and we can create our own rules. It was indeed a successful strategy for a couple of hundred years and it illustrates why Black History is American History. From agriculture to the industrial revolution to the advent of modern technology, we have been an irreplaceable part of the story not only as labor but just as importantly as inventors and innovators. Yes, without a Black History Month perhaps all of our contributions would quickly become obscure and forgotten but that's because we, all Americans, don't demand that all ethnicities be given their rightful place in the history books of this nation.

You may have noticed that I denote ethnicity and not race. That's because race as a fictionalized frequently redefined term is the primary underlying factor in the process of keeping people divided. Here's how the American Anthropological Association (AAA) stated it in its recommendation to the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the 2010 Census:

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) recommended that OMB combine the "race" and "ethnicity" categories into one question to appear as "race/ethnicity" for the 2010 US Census. The Interagency Committee agrees, stating that “"race" and "ethnicity” were not sufficiently defined and “that many respondents conceptualize "race" and "ethnicity" as one in the same underscor[ing] the need to consolidate these terms into one category, using a term that is more meaningful to the American people.”^[4]

The AAA also stated,

"The American Anthropological Association recommends the elimination of the term "race" from OMB Directive 15 during the planning for the 2010 Census. During the past 50 years, "race" has been scientifically proven to not be a real, natural phenomenon. More specific, social categories such as "ethnicity" or "ethnic group" are more salient for scientific purposes and have fewer of the negative, racist connotations for which the concept of race was developed."

"Yet the concept of race has become thoroughly--and perniciously--woven into the cultural and political fabric of the United States. It has become an essential element of both individual identity and government policy. Because so much harm has been based on "racial" distinctions over the years, correctives for such harm must also acknowledge the impact of "racial" consciousness among the U.S. populace, regardless of the fact that "race" has no scientific justification in human biology. Eventually, however, these classifications must be transcended and replaced by more non-racist and accurate ways of representing the diversity of the U.S. population."

The bottom line here is that race is a made-up term that is used to classify people in ways that make it possible to discriminate based on artificial attention to perceptions about physical differences. Biologists have long acknowledged that there is one race of humans with many different surface characteristics but underneath we all possess the same physiology influenced only by our ancestral location origins. These are ethnic differences. Race is a better term for animal types. There are races of birds, monkeys, fishes, etc. because they can have physiologies that are not interchangeable.

So with that backdrop, let's use Black History Month to launch a more ethnic friendly version of history for all people. Otherwise, we may be forced to call attention to the fact that all humans can trace their ancestry beyond Europe, Asia, and the Americas to Africa meaning that ultimately we're all simply displaced Africans...

Another Take on Bill Cosby...

Recently, a good friend sent me a copy of the Bill Cosby speech that addressed his views on the plight of Black America back in 2004. Here's alink to the speech text: http://www.necessaryprose.com/billcosby.htm. This was a white hot topic then, and everyday it appears to be more relevant for discussion but like everything else in the MTV/SportsCenter age, our attention span just isn't long enough to retain it as a subject of conversation much less importance, especially when the media is exceptionally busy keeping our focus away from salient issues like this by feeding us a steady diet of Anna Nicole Smith and Paris Hilton. But it is a vitally important, critical matter worthy of our devoted energy that should be at the forefront of our thinking and actions everyday.
This is an ongoing debate that doesn't have any really clear answers other than trust in the LORD to Make it right because there aren't any absolutes as in our society because as human beings we rarely are either totally good or totally evil all the time. Therefore it's impossible to identify the single good or bad source of the problem. Bill Cosby is right when he says that we are the problem but he's dead wrong when and if he says that we're the only problem or that white folks aren't to blame for the problem. This is an issue with more than enough culpability to go around. Yes, we should and could be doing more to redeem our kids, our homes, and our communities but the sad reality is that this country has been designed and is run by white powers that 1) aren't interested in a system in which everybody can succeed because a truly capitalist system relies on the need to have a distinction between groups/classes of people based on wealth; and 2) this leads the white power structure to dis-incent, place obstacles in the path of, and cut off access to both educational outlets and good-paying jobs while simultaneously creating and funding the motivational tools (hip hop, street cred, gangs, drugs, crime, and sex) that keep us from seeing the real problem and that is that this power base continues to enrich itself at the expense of us and everyone else...