Ferguson Speaks: A Communique from Ferguson

John Oliver on the Nazi-fication of the Police in the United States

I am so furious and horrified about what is happening in Ferguson, Missouri, that I can no longer bear to follow the news. But John Oliver got me to watch this 15-minute clip by reminding me that one can tell the truth, make the power visible, and speak the truth to that power, all while making those in power look just as insane as they really are.

Rest in Peace, Michael Brown

Labi Siffre tells us why those cut down in their youth by run-amok "authority" figures must not die in vain. He came out of self-imposed retirement in 1985 to write and perform this song after seeing a South African film clip of a White soldier shooting at Black children.

Get On Up!

I woke up this morning already knowing I was going to see "Get on Up", the new James Brown movie that opened this weekend ("in a theater near you!"). When I read the backlash on Facebook against the movie for being made by White folks to the exclusion of Black film-making professionals other than the actors, I dismissed it, frankly. I get it. Believe me, I know there are Black professionals who can do anything a White person can. And I know Black folks are sick unto death of White folks making money from exploiting them in one way or another. It's gone from slavery to private prisons with sports and entertainment folded in for good measure. And I make it a  point to buy books and films written and produced by talented Black creators for just that reason. But I'm not going to disrespect the Godfather of Soul for anybody. And that's all I'm gonna say about that.

Anyway, while I was thinking about all this, I came across an essay by Kevin Alexander Gray entitled "The Soul Will Find a Way" (re-posted after the page break below). It was published several years ago on Counterpunch and it's about James Brown, but in order to do proper justice to the subject, Gray had to go deep and stay long. He wrote about growing up in a rural county in South Carolina (where Brown was also from). He wrote about being poor and Black. He wrote about love and violence. He wrote about funk and pain and glory. And by the time he cut me lose, I was limp and sweaty and remembering my youth.

See, the thing is I was born on top of a mountain in Southeast Kentucky to a pretty young woman with a knockout body and the newly returned soldier she married for his allotment check. Eventually, she told me she thought he would never come back, but life disappointed her that way many times as the years went by. And between the two of them, they made my life strange and sometimes hellish and what doesn't kill you makes you strong, they say.

I learned early what women are for in Appalachia and the buried knowledge made me tough, as buried knowledge will. But I was too intelligent to be able to accept my lot in life and so I shut myself off from other people except on the most superficial levels. And in one way or another, I have spent most of my days on Earth in that space.

Though he was writing about Black folks, Gray's essay took me back to my roots because I'm a woman from Appalachia who discovered the Black community like an explorer looking for a land she had only heard of once in a lullaby. I've never understood it all. Why I felt so drawn to include and be included by those I was forbidden to know. Why I bulldozed the boundaries between us and walked out onto the dance floor with my Black partner in 1961 when I was barely more than a child. Why I felt more comfortable with Black folks than with "my own people." Why I wound up bearing a bi-racial child out of wedlock in my thirties. How and why I learned to cross the great divide DuBois called the Color Line until my soul belonged where my skin never could.

The cost has been great because I became one of the "regulars," and not always because I was wanted. Like the feral cat that keeps trying to run into the house when you open the door, I refused to take no for an answer. And I can't explain it.

"You're not really White," I've been told for decades. Black students tell me they come to sit in on my classes sometimes to "get in touch with their Blackness." Black student groups ask me to speak or sit on panels because, they tell me, "you say things that need to be said, but nobody else will say them." And my loneliness after accepting the hugs from one after another before I leave the building is palpable.

But I remember the moment in time when the lightening struck. I was seventeen and had been ushering for plays at the theater in our city so I could watch them for free. As a reward, we were offered the perk of ushering for the Dick Clark Show that was passing through town. The show was jam-packed with popular stars of the moment and as I sat in the dark mezzanine watching Paul and Paula, Gene Chandler, and The Ronettes, I was enjoying it all, but I was my usual reserved self. Until The Tymes, I think it was, came out and performed one of their hits and swung me out into the Universe never to return.

It wasn't their voices that did it. It was the dance routine. Four Black men moving in perfect synchronicity and from somewhere deep inside me, I suddenly felt a scream rip its way up through my body and burst from my open mouth. I lost my cool completely in a way that never happened again. I never forgot that moment and I never recovered from it. But I didn't really understand its significance until I read Gray's essay and then it all came together. Four men descended from Africa, down through four hundred years of pain and anguish that produced a strength so beautiful that it was grace incarnate in African-inspired choreography. And the spirit that brought them through the fire, bringing the music with them, reached out and touched the spirit in my soul.

Twenty years later, a Black woman I had just met told me she knew the minute she saw me that I had been "shocked by the culture." Today, as I read Gray's essay and watched Get On Up and reconnected with my own personal journey of music and dance, the celebration of life I felt encompassed all the kaleidoscope of feelings that take a human into the fullness of their being. I am grateful for whoever it is I am and I am endlessly grateful for the knowledge that I am not, after all, alone.

James Brown and Kevin Alexander Gray and millions of others living and dead walk with me. And I with them.

Anthony Hamilton: "Comin' From Where I'm From"

I'm posting this not because Anthony Hamilton is mega-talented (which he is) and not because all Black men have had exactly this experience (which they haven't necessarily) and not because I want to paint all women as disloyal and dysfunctional, with issues (which depends on a bunch of stuff, not the least of which is the patriarchal socialization with which we're all infected). I'm posting it because the emotions Hamilton is demonstrating here are about more and deeper than we want to think about.

White folks -- and even plenty Black folks -- want to bury this knowledge and pretend that "success" for Black men in America is just a matter of pulling their pants up and talking "proper" (White) English. It's way, way more complicated than that. And we all know it. Props to the Black men who keep on keepin' on. Somehow.

Change is constant. And nothing. lasts. forever.

Angela Davis on Palestine, G4S, and the Prison Industrial Complex

With Israel's aggression against Gaza currently demanding our daily attention, here is a YouTube video of Angela Davis speaking in Great Britain last year about Palestine, G4S (a hyper-security enterprise operating now in 120 countries), and how both relate to the treatment of undocumented immigrants and the prison industrial complex. It starts out slow, but hang in there. I promise you that you won't be sorry.

The department and university where I teach are bringing Angela Davis to our campus to speak this fall and I, for one, am very excited at the prospect. She is one of my heroes for a range of reasons, has been for a long time, and continues to raise the bar for me as the years go by. I give you Angela Davis.

Staceyann Chin: "All Oppression Is Connected"

Sunni Patterson: "We Made It!"

I have posted this before, but this needs to be viewed again and again. Because it's true. And true is as good as it gets.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: "We're Coming To Get Our Check."

This is a short clip that will help you to understand why Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot by an off-duty police officer to stop him from kicking off the Poor People's Campaign. At the time of this speech, the Campaign was gearing up to march poverty-stricken people -- of all skin tones -- across the country and right into Washington. The woman you see after the clip of MLK speaking is Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver adding her two cents worth.

Morris Dees: "We Should Call It What It Is"

From time to time, I read or hear about how some White people are perceived by some People of Color as having made a career out of fighting racism, benefiting economically or otherwise from their work which is seen as taking away from Black people who should be getting all the attention related to (and any benefits of) the struggle against White Supremacy. Indeed, Malcolm X once told a young White woman that there was "nothing" she could do to help his cause. But in his famous speech on "The Ballot or the Bullet" in 1964, he also said, "We will work with anybody, anywhere, at any time, who is genuinely interested in tackling the problem head-on." Later, that same year, in a speech at Oxford University in England, he said, "And I, for one, will join in with anyone -- I don’t care what color you are -- as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth."

I've been paying attention to and supporting the work of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, for decades. Today, Dees sent out the following statement related to the continual and continuing attacks on President Barack Obama because of his skin tone. I think it states the case succinctly and I'm re-posting it here.

Speaking Truth To Power

Melissa Harris-Perry presented a segment on her television program recently featuring Tianna Gaines-Turner, a young Black woman who testified before a Congressional Committee on the struggle of living in poverty. Folks like Harris-Perry and Congresswoman Barbara Lee -- who are Black women, y'all, in case you still think it can't be done -- use their position and voices to empower others. Here's to speaking truth to power, no matter who you are. And here's to Tianna Gaines-Turner for proving yet again that ordinary humans, given the opportunity to step into the limelight, can shine like stars.

"Shell Shocked"

A couple of months ago, I came across "Shell Shocked", a new documentary about African-American youth who are growing up -- and dying young -- in New Orleans. I checked out the trailer, ordered my copy immediately, and then sat on it for months while I was screwing up the courage to watch it.

I could tell by the trailer it had been well done. And I already knew what to expect since I live 45 miles from New Orleans and have taught literally hundreds of students who commute from there on a daily basis. I spend a good bit of time every semester, in fact, working my butt off to help shell shocked Black youth hang in there another day while they're trying to overcome the effects of their experiences, which are sometimes on-going.

Young men come into my office on a regular basis, shut the door, and weep as they wrestle with their pain and their feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and even terror that, despite their determination and their dreams, they won't live to graduate. Some, as they approach graduation, stress about younger brothers and sisters or come in to grieve the loss of yet another family member or friend.

Playing for Change: War/No More Trouble

A couple of weeks ago, a specialist put me on insulin injections four times a day. While the process of trying to stabilize this new reality is careening through my life on a physical, psychological, and emotional roller coaster, I'm often in odd states of one kind or another. It's making ordinary daily affairs (like blogging) a bit trickier than usual. In the meantime, one thing I'm clear on: there's too much injustice, too much cruelty, and way, way too much war. I'm gonna work at stayin' alive, y'all. Let's work together to make sure there's a world we can stay alive in. Shall we?

Mississippi Freedom Summer: Bob Moses on Reality Asserts Itself

Part 1

There's a new news source in Baltimore, Maryland, operating as The Real News. It appears to intend to become a formidable contender for our attention and they certainly got mine recently when they ran a series of film reports I knew immediately I must watch and share with you. The series is called "Mississippi Freedom Summer" and features Bob Moses, who was an organizer with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee back in the day, being interviewed by Paul Jay on his program "Reality Asserts Itself."

I waited until they were finished with the whole series so I could upload it all in one post. I don't know what you're going to do, but I had to watch all nine segments one after another because it's that good. It takes us back to 1964 and captures for us in the present a modicum of the tension the civil rights workers had to live in and with during those demanding times.

A Note To Flag Wavers On The 4th Of July

In case you haven't noticed, I'm not your typical "patriot." I don't believe this country has been Numero Uno in any particularly positive way for a long time, if ever. I know what the reality of our unvarnished history as a nation has been and it hasn't been pretty.

On the other hand, I don't want to live anywhere else at this point in time. I like my creature comforts. I just don't think they're more important than life -- my own or anybody else's. I'm happy to pay my taxes. I do wish the government would spend my share on things that meet the needs of the population and address issues of human sustainability instead of trying to bully other nations (because it never ultimately works) or funding local SWAT teams to kick people's doors down unnecessarily.

So I'm pretty low key on July 4th. I don't even own a flag. And I despair of folks who fly them after dark, in the rain, and when they're tattered (all of which are blatant breaches of flag etiquette). I'm grateful I'm a U.S. citizen, but maybe being born into a dysfunctional family teaches you early on how to love an institution you really can't celebrate. And, anyway, I'm clear as a bell that the government is not the nation.

But many U.S. citizens (a goodly portion of which will be in the streets in one way or the other today) don't feel the same way I do. They'll be wearing red, white and blue. They'll be flying plastic flags from their car antennas. And they'll be singing "God Bless America" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the top of their lungs (no matter how far off key). This post is for them.

For Tonight and Forever: American [R]evolutionary Grace Lee Boggs

Last night, I got the opportunity to preview a film that debuts on PBS stations nationally tonight. The title is "American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs" and it's only an hour and twenty minutes long, but it took me over two hours to watch it because I kept pausing the film to make sure I didn't miss a single minute while I was writing stuff down. Six pages of stuff. Not so much "notes" for this post as quotes I want to remember. "American Revolutionary" is more than a film; it's an experience. And Grace Lee Boggs is more than a 99-year-old revolutionary. She's a force of nature.

Rev. Osagyefo Sekou: "The Master's House Is Burning -- bell hooks, Cornel West, and the Tyranny of Neoliberalism"

I'm not sure why, but many intellectuals make a lot of people nervous. In my not so humble opinion, intellectuals are not necessarily more intelligent than other people. In fact, I've known some who were not even particularly bright, if you know how to tell the difference. They just use bigger words or more complicated sounding reasoning because they learned how to do that and, in the process, developed an exaggerated perception of their ability to prove it -- without, unfortunately having anything worth saying to add to the conversation.

On the other hand, some intellectuals -- no matter how much they intimidate their listeners -- are not trying to and truly do have some knowledge to drop. bell hooks and Cornel West are two such intellectuals. Nevertheless, from time to time, for whatever reason, somebody who either can't or simply doesn't want to understand what they're saying tries to take a pot shot at something they've said. Last month, Truthout.org ran an op-ed piece by the Rev. Osagyefo Sekou addressing some criticisms against them and, in the process, not only clarified their ideas, but added a few of his own. I give you:

"The Master's House Is Burning: bell hooks, Cornel West, and the Tyranny of Neoliberalism"
by Rev. Osagyefo Sekou

Dee-1 on Jay, 50 and Weezy

Music, literature, food, clothing, and language (including slang) are all part of our shared and very popular culture. Pop culture bobs and weaves, shifts and changes, adds and subtracts, reaches back and jumps forward in all directions and constantly. And in doing so, it continually spins our human tale of woe and glory. Here's one man who believes it's time for us to take a hard look at where we are and where we maybe need to be instead.

Diriye Osman: Why We Must Tell Our Own Stories

Somalia has appeared in the U.S. news often in the last year or so. When I read this essay by Diriye Osman, I knew immediately that my readers needed to see it, as well, to develop a better, more complicated, and more beautiful perspective on this culture and its diverse population and what at least one Somali writer has to share with us about the human condition there, here, and everywhere.

"Why We Must Tell Our Own Stories"
by Diriye Osman

Using Public Schools To Make Sure White Supremacy Continues

One of the things I pay a lot of attention to in the parish where I live is the fifty-year long process of refusing to racially integrate the public schools so that every student will get the same quality of education. By this I mean adequate books, libraries, equipment, fully trained culturally competent teachers and administrators representing all ethnic groups in the region, and school disciplinary policies that reflect a commitment to embracing all children to maximize their potential as future citizens. This is not currently happening and has at no point ever happened here, as 5th Circuit Judge Ivan Lemell will attest.

It's not reassuring to discover that we're not the only ones. And, unfortunately, it's not encouraging that we're hearing more about what is being called the "re-segregation" of the public school system nationally. I have long since realized that the public being aware of stupid, mean-spirited, classist, sexist, and White Supremacist practices and policies will do exactly nothing to fix social problems until that same public understands that these practices and policies are causing and will continue to cause problems for all of us in several ways.

If Black People Said The Stuff White People Say

I've been on hiatus for nearly two months now and y'all just sit patiently (as it were), knowing I'll be back, knowing this blog is my partner for life, knowing you're never far from my mind.

I crashed and burned again at the end of this semester. Worse than usual even. Depressed, exhausted, done, done, done. So bad I had to implement an actual campaign of recuperation. Reading novels. Watching Netflix. Taking afternoon naps. Talking to my therapist. Lying in the grass watching the clouds drift overhead. I even gave up coffee. And it still took weeks to begin to believe I might eventually return to the land of the living. (*shakes head ruefully*)

The good side to hitting bottom, though (and yes, Virginia, there is a good side to hitting bottom), is that it forces you to re-evaluate and even let go of some stuff, to change your perspective, to find a new level of self-acceptance, to embrace reality.

The subsequent problem, of course, is that when you begin to feel better, there is always the possibility -- if you're as OCD as I am after being raised with a performance standard that accepts nothing less than perfection -- you might pick up everything you let go of -- again. Hopefully -- this time -- I will not do that. Especially since, as was suggested to me the other day when I was getting a massage, if I don't learn to let go of the illusion that I must fix (and be in control of?) everything, I might have to come back and do this again to learn it (please, no!).

So, a couple of days ago, I posted the online Introduction to Sociology course I have to teach in July to pay my August rent. And I'm taking baby steps back to you today, hoping that I've learned my lesson. We'll see.

Muhammad Ali Recites A Poem For The Ages

This was part of an interview with Muhammad Ali on Cathal O'Shannon's television show in Ireland back in the day. The poem he recites (which is about the uprising at Attica Prison in New York in 1971) is beautiful and moving and I've never even heard it mentioned before today.

Notice how, after his recitation, The Champ took the opportunity to make clear that, while we have our own particular nightmares, the struggle for freedom crosses all boundaries. As a leader in the army of Black resistance, he was one of the first in the world (on any side) to publicly acknowledge this, catching hell from some for it and confusing others.

Many are only just now beginning to embrace this truth. Our situations are not the same, but we will never win without supporting each other fully in our struggles. In order to offer full support, we have to respect each other. And respect -- then -- gets respect. Black people are much better at this than White people are, by the way.

What constitutes respect? Well, Black Americans are still waiting for White folks to see them as whole human beings and full citizens in the land of their birth. Once that happens, a lot of other stuff is going to take care of itself. What gets in the way? White folks thinking that nobody deserves that but them. Sigh.

Terry Young, Jr.: "When Refusal to Worship Whiteness Is Called 'Racism'"

I really appreciate my Facebook connections -- the ones I know personally and even the ones I do not actually know, but who feed my intellectual and political soul as regularly as I eat my breakfast, which I assure you is daily. I make no apologies for this. I am not wasting my time. And while I have a subscription to the local daily newspaper produced in the little town where I live, I wouldn't think of skipping my Facebook feed for a day (especially now that I can check it on my phone).

The essay I'm re-posting today (which was originally posted on The Hampton Institute) is a perfect example of why.

Apparently, the writer, Terry Young, Jr., lives in Baton Rouge (which is not too far from me), so besides offering me an opportunity to re-post something with which I'm in complete agreement while showcasing what I consider to be a real critical writing talent, I've now been made aware of a person I want to contact to make a possible presentation on our campus. I'm a sucker for an unexpected "buy one/get two free" option. Not to mention the fact that Young turns us onto a fine YouTube video featuring Toni Morrison. Enjoy.

Lauryn Hill: "The Mystery of Iniquity"

An Open Letter To Chokwe Antar Lumumba

I know we're not connected in any personal sense, Mr. Lumumba, but writers sometimes feel compelled to wax eloquent or even intimate to and about humans they probably will never meet. I make no apology for butting into your business. I love you from a distance and I'm going to tell you why.

Albert Woodfox Speaks To The Experts

This past weekend, I visited Albert Woodfox for the umpteenth time in the last five years. All but one of the visits have been at the David Wade Correctional Center in Homer, Louisiana, five hours from where I live.  At the beginning, it was a grueling trip because I wasn't used to it and I have to go up on Saturday and come back the following day for a total of ten hours behind the wheel in one weekend. Sometimes it rains and once, it poured all the way up and all the way back.

I know I could take someone else along, but visiting somebody that's been in solitary confinement for what has now been forty-two years is emotionally draining and I don't want to have to be nicer than I really am for two solid days when I've been visiting people in prison since 1971 and every visit eats my lunch.

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, R.I.P.

"There are prisons made of brick, steel and mortar. And then there are prisons without visible walls, prisons of poverty, illiteracy and racism. All too often, the people condemned to these metaphorical prisons -- poverty, racism and illiteracy -- end up doing double time. That is, they wind up in the physical prisons, as well. Our task, as reasonable, healthy, intelligent human beings, is to recognize the interconnectedness and the sameness of all these prisons, and then do something about them." ~ Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

Trombone Shorty: "You and I (Outta This Place)"

I don't really like to post music that isn't accompanied by a kick-ass video. But I picked up this cd the other day and the second cut almost made me pull the car over so I could focus on the words.

Sometimes, when I'm trying to get through to people -- in a classroom, around a table in a restaurant, chilling with students at the library, standing around at a cocktail reception for a bunch of middle class writers and their upper class aficinados -- I look at the expressions on the faces around me and wonder how I wound up in this place. I don't mean Louisiana. I think I've figured that out. I mean this place where I seem to be speaking some language I brought with me from some former life or other planet. The troubled blankness in my listeners' eyes, the confused tilt of their heads as they try to decipher what the hell I could possibly be talking about, the wary caution of their demeanor if they happen to be Black around White people and I start doin' my thing -- I look from face to face to face and check the body language, all the time my mouth goin' a mile a minute while the oxygen leaves the room.

Then I read a post like Lindy West's or run across a film clip of a young Black woman owning her space or I hear a song like this one and I know for sure that I'm just one of millions of men and women of all body types and skin tones and nationalities and sexual orientations and religions (or lack of religion) that threaten the system by our very existence whether anybody gets us or not. Yeah.

Amnesty International: Free Albert Woodfox Now!

A billboard campaign to mark the 42-year commemoration launched in New Orleans yesterday. This statement was released yesterday by the Campaign to Free the Angola 3: As we mark the 42nd year since the tragic and as yet, unsolved murder of Angola correctional officer Brent Miller, and the 42nd year since Albert Woodfox was first put in solitary for a crime he didn't commit, we are confident that it will be the last.  We remain hopeful that the 5th Circuit will finally side with justice and affirm Judge Brady's second decision to throw out Albert's conviction once and for all.  Although he will then have to petition for bail and potentially face a retrial, freedom will not be far behind.  With the civil case only months from trial, thousands of others who languish in long-term solitary could soon have the necessary legal precedent to challenge their conditions as constitutionally cruel and unusual.

Loretta Ross: On the Origin of the Term "Women of Color"

So-called "White" people (whatever "White" is perceived to be) have a tendency to discount whatever People of Color say or even People of Color themselves before they open their mouths. Listen (really listen) to Loretta Ross for just three minutes and you'll see why that practice is stupid and even, quite possibly, dangerous. This woman obviously brings great intelligence, insight, and analysis to the table. She should be at the table more often and much, much more publicly.

Sharon Jones: "This Land Is Your Land"

I have no idea how I avoided hearing about Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings for so long. This woman is a musical force of nature and apparently has been for decades. Here, she uses her version of a famous Woody Guthrie song to remind us that just because White Supremacy is the ideology we've all been raised up under doesn't mean People of Color -- and many people who look like me -- don't know it's a lie, no matter how hard those with the power-to-define work to convince us otherwise.

Insofar as we're living on it, this land is your land and my land. In actual fact, the land (like the air and the oceans and the sky and all that is) belongs to all that lives. We just get to live on it, be sustained by it, and enjoy the privileged vocation of taking care of it together so it can receive, give birth to, and sustain future generations of life.

Hit it, Sharon.

Aamer Rahman's Take On "Reverse Racism"

Having trouble believing that the oppression is institutionalized? Well, let's try looking at it from a little different perspective...

Institutionalized Oppression: the American Way?

Having taken a fresh look at institutionalized oppression by re-posting Lindy West's essay on "hipster racism" a few days ago, I'm gonna release a flurry of body punches now on some more very touchy issues related to the socially-constructed, political notion of "race." Institutionalized oppression, by the way, occurs when one group holds another group (or even more than one group) in a position of reduced status for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation means taking advantage of people because you have the power to do so and the whole point of it is the range of benefits (especially economic benefits) that result from the arrangement. In other words, White Supremacy ensures that White people as a group get the most of the best and the least of the worst in the U.S., while People of Color wind up with the most of the worst and the least of the best in that society.

Does every member of the dominating group benefit equally and in all the same ways? Not necessarily. But they all benefit. Does every member of an oppressed group suffer equally and in all the same ways? Not necessarily. But they all feel the lash (pun intended) in ways the members of the dominating group don't typically like to and don't have to acknowledge.

Why don't oppressors have to acknowledge what's going on? Because the oppression is actually embedded in the social institutions: the systems we call family, education, religion, politics, and economics. So people who call themselves "White" can ignore it and pretend that, because they don't indiscriminately use the "n-word" in public (for example), they're not part of the problem. They're good people. How could they be "racist?" And because we're all -- Black and White -- socialized on the same page, People of Color are affected in a whole series of ways by the constant barrage of physical, psychological, emotional, social, and economic reinforcements that produce results used to "prove" their inferiority. (A phenomenon sociologists call "internalized oppression" exacerbated by the widespread practice of "blaming the victim.")

The social institutions keep the ideology of White Supremacy so firmly in place, we have come to view it as "natural." So, we think that whatever White people do is well-meaning and basically positive, while whatever People of Color (and especially Black people) do is unacceptable, embarrassing, and basically negative.

You might want to read these with a little space in between. The first two are pretty intense.

Lindy West: "A Complete Guide to 'Hipster Racism'"

After two solid months of reading nothing to speak of but Facebook and "Tales of the City" by Armistead Maupin because I moved from one apartment to another -- downsizing by half -- while I was working fifty hours per week on my day job and keeping my hand in on some political organizing and some more stuff...I read this today (which I thought would knock me out and it did). There's nothing to do but re-post it here and hope nobody gets mad at me.

I considered letting it kick off a new feature under the category title of "Wish I Wrote This." But -- obviously -- I wish I wrote this because I'm re-posting it. With almost 3000 comments on Jezebel (where this appeared on 4/26/12), West doesn't need my help to put this out in the blogosphere, but I just want to make sure My Faithful Readers (who keep coming back even when I'm hiding out), get to see it. You're gonna like it. And some of us might learn something.

Quotes To Live By

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva on Racism Without Racists

Just before the last Presidential election in 2012, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva -- Chair of the Sociology Department at Duke University and author of Racism Without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America -- was interviewed by Mark Anthony Neal on his show "Left of Black." What Dr. Bonilla-Silva has to say is probably even more important now than it was then.

Prison: The Not-So-Secret Industry

Source: Online-Paralegal-Degree.org

Montgomery, Alabama: Then and Now

Mural at Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial Center 

Another Martin Luther King, Jr., Day has come and gone. There was a time on this blog when I posted on every holiday or historical point of interest related to the socially-constructed political notion of "race." There was a time I just "had to" weigh in on every news story featuring a Black person, especially a Black person victimized by White Supremacy. But after 571 posts, it occurs to me now that I've pretty much said a lot of what I have to say. And the same shit keep happening over and over. Other people will cover that stuff and, by and large, I just comment on it on Facebook. Today, I have options. That doesn't mean I'm done as a blogger (obviously). It just means I've come to realize that this process has morphed (as everything does) and I have developed my own little niche in the blogosphere. Or at least that's the way I see it.

Sometimes, I'm busy (as most of us are). Sometimes, I'm going through something (as everybody does from time to time, some of us more often than others). Regardless, if you want to know what I think about some aspect of "race," a summary perusal of this site can help you find it on here somewhere.

But since I think about oppression rather a lot and oppression related to "race" more than most -- especially more than most folks that look like me -- I do still (and probably always will) find things I feel the urge to write about in this manner. Recently (January 18th, to be exact), I found myself in Montgomery, Alabama, and made it a point to tear myself away from the business at hand long enough to make my own little civil rights tour in honor of Martin and all the other predecessors in this on-going struggle for justice. This post is the result.

Akua Taylor: Approve

There's a difference between affirmation and denial. People that go around announcing statements they wish were true but that aren't are in denial. On the other hand, people that announce (to themselves or others, verbally or in writing) statements that are true release a power to make those truths visible. It's seeing the big picture. But it's work to learn the difference. You have to develop the ability to be honest with yourself. And that took me a while.

Take me, for example. If I say over and over that I'm in perfect physical health, knowing I have diabetes, I'm in denial. Yet, when my son died two weeks before his 23rd birthday, I wrote: "Every ending is a beautiful new beginning." Which is a true statement. And a completely different perspective than is the average way of looking at things.

Similarly, many of us have been infected with psychological viruses that make us believe we are worthless, ugly, and incapable. These destructive viruses keep us in denial about our true worth and our ability to recognize it. Year after year, layers of negativity form throughout our bodies, minds, souls, and spirits, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy of helplessness, hopelessness, and shame that hides what lies at the center of our being. Akua Taylor has an app for that.

Step Up! Be the Change!

Sniffing around on YouTube, I found this by Amir Bilal and the Pakistan Youth Parliament. The desire for a better world. It's everywhere. It's everywhere.

Hopeful Note #2: Guerilla Gardening

Creative thinkers like Ron Finley are prepared to lead us to a different world. A world I can hardly wait to see. Even if it's in another life.

Hopeful Note #1: The Election of Chokwe Lumumba

I'm opening my ninth year blogging on White Supremacy and the socially-constructed, political notion of "race," by referencing some truly hopeful notes at this point in our history. The first hopeful note is that Chokwe Lumumba, former Vice President of the Republic of New Afrika and co-founder of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, was elected Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, last June. The event registered not only nationally, but around the world. And The Jackson Plan is now capturing the interest of a wide range of knowledgeable people -- experts and otherwise -- who want to imagine the possibility of forward motion to a better community and a better world for everybody.

Posted above is a YouTube video of Larry Hales of the Workers World Party offering his take on the historical context and the importance of Lumumba winning the election and the possibilities inherent within the Jackson Plan.

28 Common Racist Attitudes and Behaviors

The handout on "28 Common Racist Attitudes and Behaviors" to which I'm linking here was developed and written by Debra Leigh, an organizer with the Community Anti-Racism Education Initiative at St Cloud State University in Minnesota. If you find yourself arguing with Leigh's list, saying (or even thinking) things such as appear on the bingo card above that shows us how White folks typically derail the conversation on White Supremacy, that's not good. In fact, if you are winning at Derailment Bingo, you're losing at life.

If the shoe fits, admit it. If it pinches, celebrate the fact that you noticed and take. the shoe. off.

Some Ducks Are Decoys

At first glance, this post may not seem to be about the socially-constructed, political notion of "race" at all. But I think it is. It's about the "Duck Dynasty" meltdown in recent weeks and the family behind the show. And what could be "Whiter" than "Duck Dynasty"?

Keep in mind that I was born in a house where White women in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky went to have their babies if they could afford it. My mother's family had lived on the same mountain for two hundred years and had owned most of the region for much of that period. I'm a bonafide, dyed-in-the-wool hillbilly. So when I moved to Louisiana six and one-half years ago, I understood immediately what I was looking at. The racist culture, the "good ole boys" driving trucks, the gun fetish, the local power being passed down in families from generation to generation, the rampant political corruption. The whole nine yards.

But another thing I understood was that "outsiders" think "rednecks" are stupid. And I know better.

We Can Make This World A Better Place

I don't know about you, but I could use a little musical interlude about now. I don't know what it is about Saturday mornings. Growing up under a capitalist economy, maybe, where most folks are beating their brains out Monday through Friday and those who aren't wish they were. But whatever it is, I feel like dancing. I posted this back in December of 2012. I loved it then (for all the same reasons) and I love it now. Come on, we can do this. Let's make the world a better place.

A Note to My Faithful Readers

As I prepare to enter my ninth year of blogging in this space, I decided to do an inventory of the site and discovered that half of the listings on my blog roll (to the right) were defunct or had not been posted on for quite a while. (Sorry about that.)

This prompted me to check on the list of permanent features I call "Some Basics" (also to the right) and (no surprise) I learned that some of them had disappeared, as well. Phooey.

So. I deleted the blog links that either didn't connect to a blog or connected to one that hadn't had a post in more than six months. And I deleted the "basics" links that went nowhere.

Then I added a bunch of cool new links to the blog roll after coming across them one way or the other (often on other bloggers' blog lists). A number of the new links are to blogs written by and addressing issues important to women of color and, therefore, important to women (and the human race), in general. Also represented among the new links are blogs I used to list but which changed to a different url and some blogs new to me that emanate from Africa.

I encourage you to scan down the new Blog Roll and take a look at what's there. I also welcome suggestions for other blogs you think I (and my Faithful Readers) should know about. After all, I am, whatever you may think, your humble servant.

A Conversation Between bell hooks and Melissa Harris-Perry

Old Guard meets New Guard. Crone embraces Vanguard. Intelligence and Spirit blends with Intelligence and Spirit. And we get to witness the result. Enjoy.

Rest in Power, Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka has passed to the other side. A brilliant writer and thinker, Baraka left much work behind him to guide and inspire those who will come after. Above, we hear him present an excerpt from his poem, "Why Is We American?" Below, we read another one.

Ka'Ba
by Amiri Baraka

A closed window looks down
on a dirty courtyard, and Black people
call across or scream across or walk across
defying physics in the stream of their will.

Our world is full of sound
Our world is more lovely than anyone's
tho we suffer, and kill each other
and sometimes fail to walk the air.

We are beautiful people
With African imaginations
full of masks and dances and swelling chants
with African eyes, and noses, and arms
tho we sprawl in gray chains in a place
full of winters, when what we want is sun.

We have been captured,
and we labor to make our getaway, into
the ancient image; into a new

Correspondence with ourselves
and our Black family. We need magic
now we need the spells, to raise up
return, destroy,and create. What will be

the sacred word?

SpectraSpeaks: "Straight Allies, White Anti-Racists, Male Feminists (and Other Labels That Mean Nothing to Me)"

I'm taking a risk here. I very much want to follow up yesterday's re-post of Shenita Ann McLean's essay on "Politics of Black Superwoman Otherness" with this piece by Spectra of SpectraSpeaks.com. But I haven't yet been able to reach her. So I'm going to do it anyway. If Spectra comes forward and is unhappy, I will apologize and replace this with a link to the original post on her blog. In fact, I think what Spectra has to say here is so important on several levels (and with a nod to intersectionality) related to several forms of oppression, that I'm going to link to this post on her blog as part of "Some Basics" on the right.

The term "ally" is not new, of course. As a general concept, it's been around since the formation of the English language, I guess. But since the 1960's and 1970's (ahhhh, I remember them fondly and well), the word has developed into such an amorphous concept that almost anyone with vaguely good intentions can wear it like a t-shirt bought off a rack at Goodwill. They don't have to have any real consciousness. They don't have to actually do anything to make change. They don't have to take any serious risks. And when challenged, they can get all huffy and wounded and claim that as an excuse to continue being disengaged from the process for social change that begins with and absolutely requires personal change.

Consequently, I give you Spectra, with delight. She's about to explain it to you.

Shenita Ann McLean: "Politics of Black Superwoman Otherness"

After focusing on the plight and struggle of Black men this past week, I'm going to spend the next few days focusing on Black women. This is not a topic I've addressed specifically on this blog as much. It's not because I don't think about and teach about it. I'm aware that Black women -- and women of color, in general -- have two burdens: White Supremacy and the patriarchy (the system that puts men in the dominant power position in the world on the premise that men deserve it). I teach entire separate courses in gender and sexuality, as well as race. And in doing that, I often bounce back and forth to demonstrate that oppression is oppression.

But the intersectionality that will ever bind race, class, gender, sexuality and all other forms of oppression makes the situation of women of color so painful and so nuanced and so close to my woman's heart that I haven't felt confident to present it as fully as it deserves to be presented. I have to change this and the way to do so is to give women of color and Black women, in particular, more regular and specific attention on this blog. The only way I feel able to adequately do this is by taking the opportunity to give Black women the space to make their own voices heard. This has been too long in coming and for that I apologize.

For starters, I'm re-posting (with permission) Shenita Ann McLean's essay entitled, "Politics of Black Superwoman Otherness." It was originally posted on January 1, 2014, at RedSociology.com. Buckle up. This one's gonna take you for a ride.

Justice for Albert Woodfox!

Couldn't resist posting this photo of just a few of the hundred or so supporters who packed the courtroom, spilling over into an overflow room yesterday for Albert Woodfox' appellate hearing. The yellow scarves read: "Stop solitary!" because our struggle and our commitment is much larger than the tragedy and travesty of one man's stolen life. It's about all the men and women anywhere in the world held in closed cells for long-term and indeterminate periods. This struggle will go on even after they free Albert Woodfox -- and they will. They freed Robert King. They freed Herman Wallace. And they will free Albert Woodfox.

Freedom? Now!

For the past few days, I've been examining how the criminal not-just, not-legal system is used against people of color, with special attention to how it targets young Black men. At 9:30 a.m. this morning, a panel of three judges will be hearing arguments related to the case of Albert "Shaka" Woodfox. Albert has been held in solitary confinement for 42 years because he was convicted of killing a White guard at Angola Prison in 1972.

He didn't do it. Prison administrators disappeared bloody footprint and fingerprint evidence so that the real killer wouldn't be identified, making it possible for them to railroad and persecute Albert and two other men, all of whom were active and effective members of the Black Panther Party. They are now world renowned as the Angola 3.

Robert King was released from prison in 2001. Herman Wallace died in October, shortly after being released as a result of a habeus corpus ruling. And Albert's conviction was overturned for the third time last year. He should have been released immediately, of course, but State's Attorney Buddy Caldwell has made it abundantly clear in the international mainstream media that he takes this case personally and will ride it to the bitter end.

Thus, the three judge panel must decide how things will unfold from here.

The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of The Parts

When I talk about what happens to Black boys and men in this country or how oppression works related to any group in the world (women of color? White women? poor people? immigrants? you name it...), I try to keep the focus on the system rather than "a few bad apples." Are there some crazed predators out there stalking about among us, individuals who would scare the pants off anybody? Oh, yeah. No question. Do I think they should be identified and isolated so they're not a threat to themselves or the rest of us? Absolutely.

But individuals are relatively easy to deal with once we recognize them if they're not given a get-out-of-jail-free card by a system that co-signs what they do because it maintains the system's power. That's where the rubber meets the road. Knowing that Black boys and men are being rounded up like cattle and herded into prisons (many of which are now privately-owned and solid investments on Wall Street) is one thing. Realizing that this is not the consequence of combining Black males' "natural" propensity for crime with the actions of a "few bad apples" in uniform is something else entirely. And it's systemic.

A Case In Point: Jamil Joyner

So society in the United States stereotypes young Black men from birth, constantly reinforcing those stereotypes with low expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies of their trajectory along the pipeline straight out of school and into prison. No matter how hard the young man works, no matter what he achieves, no matter how committed he is to living up to the best of his potential, the young Black man always knows he's just one chance encounter away from a cell. There are millions of such stories. One of them is Jamil Joyner.

Stop And Frisk Isn't A Program; It's A Pogram

Yesterday's video demonstrated that Black boys are presumed guilty until proven innocent (ass-backwards to the way the U.S. Constitution reads) and the part about being proven innocent is often given short shrift, if anyone bothers to consider the possibility at all. So a Black youth messing with a bicycle (or a world famous Black Harvard professor in his 70's like Henry Louis Gates trying to loosen his own front door when it's stuck) is likely to be arrested when a White youth wouldn't get a second look.

Today's YouTube video takes the subject one step farther, demonstrating that Black boys don't have to be doing anything except...well...being Black to get rousted repeatedly, terrorized without warning, roughed up (sometimes horrifically), or even accidentally(?) killed by officers of the law (as it were). What's a Black kid to do?
________________________________________________________
"Stop and Frisk," for those of you who have never been on the internet before today, is a policy abused in New York City for the past decade or so and more recently castigated for its style of implementation. Duh.

Where Are the Black Boys?

Yesterday, I posted a video of Cornel West talking about where Black people are. Today, I'm posting a photo. Just a photo. I don't think a post is necessary to make this point. In fact, I think a post would be inappropriate because it would take away the time we should spend just looking at the photo.

This photo of a young Black boy standing in a cell in Mississippi was taken by Richard Ross for his photo-survey entitled Juvenile-in-Justice published as a book in 2012 and turned into a project website more recently.

Do all young Black boys go to jail? Of course not. Do far, far too many wind up there? Absolutely. Why? I have looked at that many times on this blog and will continue to do so, including again tomorrow.

In the meantime, spend some time with this photo.

Cornel West: "Where Are All the Black People?"

On January 14, 2006, I sat down at a computer and wrote my first post on this blog. I was responding to the requests of students who were committed to wearing me out on the topic of race. They kept me after class for hours, standing under the street lights in the parking lot. They emailed me intense and complicated questions that could only be answered by lengthy and carefully thought out and constructed missives. And they begged me without pause to meet with them outside of class to talk about it more. So -- with the most cavalier possible lack of appropriate respect for the journey I was setting out on -- I embarked on a future endeavor I couldn't and didn't actually or fully imagine.

Eight years later, here I am, older, wiser, and much, much less cavalier. It occurred to me this morning, as another new year dawned, that this blog has been (as much as anything else) a process of my own continued learning about race. It has made me notice more, think more, struggle with issues more, and arm wrestle my own demons more relentlessly than I ever would have done without its overarching presence in my life, so that it has changed me and continues to change me into the deepest reaches of my very soul.

I would not be who I am if it wasn't for this blog. I could not stop writing it if I wanted to. It teaches me and hones me and crafts me and refines my thinking and my understanding and my perspectives as only a committed and long-standing writing project can. So, since it has turned out to be about my own learning so I could pass along what I have so newly discovered, I'm going to post something everyday until the 8th anniversary of Why Am I Not Surprised? The posts will consist primarily of items, articles, videos, and links I came across in the past year, learned from, and wanted to share, but didn't as yet.

To kick us off, I'm posting a three-part YouTube video featuring Cornel West delivering the keynote address at a conference last September. It's low key and casual and even irritating when someone in the audience asks a long question we can't hear. But West beguiles with references to music and literature and historical moments, dropping gems of wisdom delivered without fanfare, as if in conversation while waiting for a late-arriving bus. Don't be fooled by his folksy tone. He's a professor of philosophy and a man committed to consciousness-raising.

Happy New Year, faithful readers. Thank you for refusing to take no for an answer, for coming back again and again, so that I would feel compelled, as well, to come back again and again myself. Who knew we would become so bonded?