Miriam Makeba RIP

Another loss. Mama Afrika. You saw a dream realized in South Africa (with notable deficiencies and inequalities still). You saw the U.S. elect Barack. I'm sure you're singing. But why're we loosing so many like you? Can't just be age, as there are plenty of old, souless, stupid people running around.

Requiem for the "Hip Hop Mayor"...or, Kick the Bum(s) Out

I wanted to keep this short and sweet, but I've failed. Kwame Kilpatrick, Mayor of that town that oscillates between unbridled potential energy and a sinkhole of inertia and everything ghetto, De-troit, has got to go. Whether the bastard goes to jail or not, he must resign. His presence is, in the words of Terrance Howard to Ludacris in the Oscar winning film Crash (and Obama to Ludacris for that matter) "You're an EMBARASSMENT!!!" His momma barely survived a primary run off. Such is the mold, breaking. I mean, an incumbent black politician, entrenched and powerful, almost loosing an election to an energetic newcomer without all the damn baggage and corrupt cronyism, pandering to mega-pastors and hoodlums alike? Wha' th' Fudge? Well, I'm PROUD to say we did it in Maryland first, knocking out yet another self-serving Congressional Black Caucus knucklehead, Albert Wynn, and putting in Donna Edwards. This despite Wynn's eleventh hour conversion to Obama. Now, should Barack be the litmus test? No, but reality makes things shake out that way. Almost all of the US and state/local black democrat incumbents who supported Hillary Clinton most certainly held the immutable genetic trait of being entrenched, surrounded by cronies, in bed with developers, mega-pastors, lunatic cliques within powerful unions, and all sorts of other such foolishness. living in the time of 19th Cenutry machine politics. Trust me, such tribalism with the polity and through interest groups is likewise historically entrenched. Centuries now. But Barack is the hammer of change (pardon the 1966 Mao Cultural revolution prose). Seriously, just as the Barack-Ludacris interchange is metaphor for the new world vs. old ghettofab culture war, Kwame's demise is allegory for a younger generation that's eager to copy the fatuousness and power politics of his mom's. Thus his age doesn't immunize him from tsunami that will hopefully sweep away old tools like Major Owens or even Maxine Waters and insert more folk like Donna, like Kevin Powell, or, on the local level, leaders like our very own DC Hercules of buppy nerds, Adrian Fenty (the anti-matter Marion Barry). Oh look--lemme keep it simple. Kwame's a crook, an embarassment. I could care less how many bammas and rappers think he's cool. He's done. An embarassment. Can we start using that word again? The Black Arts folk scared it out of our vocabulary in the late 60s, for the meaning for which it was intended. I'm happy to see it making a comeback. Now if it would only trickle into the book biz! Even if Barack loses to McCain, at least this revolution, of quiet cool, of polish, education and getting things done, has been fomented. Rent Crash and drink in the metaphor...

Why R. Kelly is better for white America than Obama

I'd posited the comment 'round the net and among friends, colleagues (borrowing from Chris Rock) that whilst black people are scratching their heads--even outraged--by the R Kelly verdict, niggahs are jumping for joy. White folks are, too. Quietly.

Poor, poor black people in Chicago. Your boy's running for president and subject to a coordinated denigration campaign, and Fr. Tim Phleger's removed from the largest, oldest and most loyal black Catholic church in the city, St. Sabina (after Poles, Irish Italians et al abandoned many parishes). Yes, Tim's white, and he spoke truth on whites and power. Not good to do even though this is the 21st Century. Niggahs certainly don't care about that, and white folks are feelng that goodness and righteousness was vindicated. (n.b. I met Fr. Tim through my ex-mother in law and he's a wonderful priest who, unlike the cardinal, cares about his flock). YET Mr. Kelly gets major counts against him dismissed based on uncooperative witnesses and shoddy investigatory protocols and clowning in Cook Co DA's office...now's acquitted of the lesser charges.

But think on this. People like Barack...and white people like Phleger...upset the applecart. I don't need to go into any more detail than that; those you who don't have your heads up your coo-looes know what I mean. The natural order. R Kelly, well, he makes $$$ for Mr. Charlie. He keeps niggahs entertained and dancing. And best of all he's a convenient prop-bogeyman who doesn't need to be paraded around. You just know he's there, hidin' in da closet. Being nasty, carnal, crazy looking. And aren't they all like that Missy Anne says to Mr. Charlie? Especially the ones with money. Fame. Jay-Z? oh let our kids listen to him. And yo, son...we younger whitefolks talk like niggahs, dress so, act "black." Yeah thats my swag...and I'll have our black friends who make me seem cool--and I know they can't compete with me at work, school, so no harm. Now if Obama was more like Jay-Z, he'd be cool. As long as he wasn't trying to be my boss, or my president. Ironic, isn't it? Rappers, hip hop moguls, ballers, singers, comedians--hell even criminals--as harmless?! Hey even Jay Z is a small planetoid in the entertainment-telecom ownership universe. Just feeding stereotypes, keeping the world in balance. Keeping the applecart just the way it is. A gift that keeps on giving. Please--give him a guest pundit spot on Fox...

RAFBN-Week 4

I know a rabid Obama fan who nonetheless comments that Barack's story is more a "downtrodden immigrant makes good" saga rather than the pyramid-crown of the African American experience (from slavery, through Jim Crow and oppression, etc.) Smarter folk and writers than I have opined that this makes something so outworldly as his candidacy palatable for Joe and Josephine Whiteperson. Perhaps Andrea Levy offers some commonality, if not co-sanguintity, in my RAFBN summer series choice for you, Small Island (published in the US by Picador). The solution involves pain, as does any growth, and we all know white folks are pain adverse when it comes to our Original Sin. But let's try it. First person narrative is eminates from the lips of three main characters; the story paces you through Jamaican immigration to England during and after World War Two. Meaningful for me, given my own heritage, and will resonated for any other person having some blood orginating in de islands, dem. Levy even gives us a sneak peak at well, herself, in the person of an unborn mixed race baby in the womb of one her principal narrators, a white boarding house landlady named Queenie. The human heart really isn't much different or weaker or stronger, whether beating in the lush yet improverished hills of Jamaica or the grim brick tenements of London, barely repaired years after the German Blitz of 1940-41 or the V-2 rocket attacks of 1944. Indeed, Levy's thesis is packed into the the title. Small island. Which one? Both, actually. This is a 2004 Whitbread Award winner and a bestseller in England, Canada and the Caribbean. Would love to see more books by American women of color...sorry "colour" ...like this one showcased, but alas...um...er...you know the story, you snobs, you elitists!!!

Read and learn. Small Island, by Andrea Levy.

Friday Funnies

From today's Washington Post, A section (following -up from another quote last week):

Christopher Chambers, a Georgetown University professor and Obama supporter, said a woman
tracked down his cellphone number, dialed it and called him a race traitor after
he said Wright's performance would doom the senator's presidential run if he did
not act decisively. Obama denounced Wright's appearance later that day.

Probably an ex. They all shriek alike, so it's hard to tell which one it was...

The First Black Superhero

I want to thank all the fanboys and girls for their many comments, calls, both supportive and rabid, on my three word quote in today Washington Post re: Obama and Rev. Wright. Huh? That's news? What Obama and Rev. Wright issue? hahahaha. Precisely. The Daily Show put the satirical icing on that cake--thank god for John Stewart. We've seen the distruction, the utter craven whoredom, of a once venerated US television news universe. As you watch Glen Beck or The Today Show, or George Forman as pundit yearning to "eat" Jeremiah Wright on Fox News, you can hear Edward R Murrow weeping if you put your ear to ground.
So I wonder if Barack, as our putative hero--as contemplative as Batman when he was running against The Penguin for mayor of Gotham City, could channel heroes of the past for strength? No not Douglass or King. Superheroes. Who was the most powerful, the most pervasive? Fanboys and geeks will argue, duel, slap each other, cajole. But I know who was and is mine. He came about in at a time when riot-scarred neighborhoods still smouldered. When any notion of diversity was still scoffed at--especially on TV. Yeah, he wasn't a comic book hero. Indeed, he was likely een by more Caucasian eyes than the powers-that-had-been would have liked. He didn't have a name like "Luke Cage," or "Black Lightening," or "Falcon," or "Storm" or "T'Chala."
No, his very name meant action. Literally. And he changed the world when I was a kid. We beheld someone who looked like us, who taught us, who made us proud! And thousands of white children who'd never had never imagined such a hero or a world saw him too...much to their parents' dismay or puzzlement...

Regard:

And yet another mirror...Bill Maher?

Bill Maher is a douchebag(or is it scumbag?), but at least he admits it. And sometimes, not often, he hits things right on the nose. This is from his HBO show this week. Now, if you want to annotate this hilarious solo with a socio-economic-political history of the US from the Revolution to the election of 1800 (Jefferson becomes Prez over Adams...also on HBO!), to Jackson, to the rise of the Know-Nothings to 1860 to the death of Recontruction to the pre-emption of the Populists to the death of the Frontier and the election of 1898 to on and on...whew...go back to college. But, for the quick and dirty as of 2008, regard (and advance to about 2 minutes in if you want the bare, nitty gritty):