Despondency...

Marion Jones is likely going to serve nominal time and pay a fine, forfeit endorsement skrilla, forfeit her soul. Now, some of you might howl, seeing that George W. Bush and the CEO of Blackwater are still roaming free, but this is the such is the world we have made. Notice I didn't say the world as it is, I said the world we have made. It's a world where we pedestal'd Barack Obama as our new winged Mercury, our new school brown JFK...and he's proven to be an utter lightweight. Yeah, I said it!
A prominent writer is upset that I plan to make a comic book hero out one of his relatives. I say we need heroes now. Is it any wonder that our kids and teens and twentysomethings--African Americans or in the general public--read the garbage books they read, listen to garbage music they listen to, have the attitudes they display?
Marion was supposed to be a soldier in the fight against this crap. She was the real deal. She had the added bonus of having a husband who was Da White Man's/Mr. Charlie's/Our Favorite Hobgoblin the Man's wet dream. He was dark skinned, big, scary. She dumped him. He was a "liability" so likely said the white PR flacks. What hay was made over that, folks. What a true "universal" (e.g., for the masses on The Today Show ) heroine she became for kicking that evil scary spook to the curb, eh? Now she's the female Mike Vick in some folk's eyes.

But hell, even opprobrium is more bullshit showbiz now. Imagine if Shoeless Joe Jackson were (1) black and/or (2) living in the media-rich (media with a lower case "m") late 20th/early 21st century?
We live in a culture where turds like Lebron James roll into a Cleveland Indians playoff game wearing a New York Yankee lid--then tells the fans...his "home" fans...to f- off. Like he's entitled to do whatever he likes because he's getting paid. Getting paid makes him the hero in his mind, and in the mind of too many kids. I'm not picking on sports, I'm just saying such is the world we have made.

I want heroes. They are all around us but there are a few I want to elevate into a new Legion of Superheroes--beyond what Gary Phillips and I are gving you in The Darker Mask soon enough. Beyond whatI am doing with this writer's family member. Not "flawed." Just human. What Marion did was human in a way. The bullshit comes when the fame started flowing in. I'm sick of giving Mr. Charlie or disturbed individuals like Clarence Thomas (and his wife) more ammo. want to put my foot deeply and wetly into Mr. Charlie's fundament. I will. Despite my flaws, despite Marion's and a whole host of other black folks who are more concerned with bullshit than reality...

Mixed Up Mixed Folk? Or Clueless Literati

"After the literary critic Anatole Broyard died in 1990, his family arranged a memorial reception at a suburban Connecticut yacht club. It was a club that claimed to have no black members until, after Mr. Broyard’s death, his mixed racial lineage was made known. After that, the club cited him as evidence of integration." Don't you love the many levels of racial commentary and irony rife in this passage from Janet Maslin's review of Bliss Broyard's One Drop? That's in the NYC glamour millieu, between Sex and the City's Kristin Davis (who is an honorary sista owing to her ample butt) and Ethan Hawke (who became an honorary negro in Training Day). ;-) The perfidity of the club in that quote is truly inspiring. However, if you're "black," then the club's response is also carries a whiff of well, banality. Some white folks would shrug and say "Huh? How is that banal?" I wonder what mixed folk would say? Would it be an ambivelant tug: confusion, yet mixed with an uncomfortable, knowing twinge?

Switch gears with me on my offense rant-mobile for a sec. See, one thing more annoying than snooty insouciance, limousine liberalism, hypocrisy and smarmy tribalism of Hollywood is the snooty insouciance, limousine liberalism, hypocrisy and smarmy tribalism of the book world.

Bliss Broyard is a critic and used to be an editor at the New York Times Book Review. The NYT Book Review is Mt. Olympus, Asgaarde, The Happy Hunting Grounds for lit types; oh to have wink or nod or blurb directed at you as an author you've truly arrived. Might not translate into sales from the sweat pants and flip flop crowd who now make up the book buying market at Costco, but it'll get you noticed by the insiders. Bliss's colleague, Jant Maslin, truly bites cheese: "[Anatole Broyard's] smart, tough-minded daughter, Bliss Broyard, [wrote] “One Drop,” an investigative memoir about her father’s life. (Mr. Broyard was a longtime book critic and editor for The New York Times and an essayist for its Book Review.) As this fascinating, insightful book makes clear, Mr. Broyard left a legacy of racial confusion and great autobiographical material, not necessarily in that order..."

I wish I had friends like that, enabling my manufactured self-examination and family hypocrisy and allowing me to make some bucks off of it. See, her daddy was a sorta mean, sorta siddity fellow who passed for white and sprinkled his family with the best the elitist literati millieu the Manhattan-Hamptons-Connecticut axis could offer. Here's what Bliss says, now she's a sista, fo' sho': "At first, I felt a lot of pressure to give the 'right' answer. Now I think there is more than one way of being black. Look at Barack Obama." Jesus Christ! Of course then she goes on to say she's actually "mixed." And in interviews she does the usual "mixed is exotically cool...but race doesn't matter anymore" dance. Sort of the way Halle Berry does, or crazy-ass Mariah Carey, or ambiguous Jessica Alba.

Well then, if it doesn't matter, Bliss, then why'd daddy try so damn hard to squelch it? Y'all weren't living in Tennessee in 1898 and tried to ride the white car on train with Mr. Plessy, after all! If the blackness part is uncool and unexciting, then why write a book and promote that dark (hahaha) angle? White folks are buying it so there must still be something to this black thing despite it being passe or not important anymore. Like Halle's thing. Oh this race thing doesn't matter, she says on Oprah to the applause of the chunky white housewives in the audience. Yet in the same breath she says producers never think of casting her first. She always has to come in and audition while a dingbat blonde Cameron Diaz type gets the part automatically. Oh yeah, the blackness thing.

Look, we're all mixed with something. And according to the genetic history of the human race, if you trace our mitochondrial DNA back far enough all homo sapiens are more or less cousins. Screw science. Let's talk real life. I'm the last person to begrudge or bemoan bi- or multi-racial people...despite what I say above hahahaha. I clearly don't look black (to a lot of silly whitefolks); I am thus mixed as you can get. "Light-skin-ded wid dat Good hair" as Richard Pryor's "Mudfoot" once expounded. And I'm proud uncle and second cousin to a whole slew of our family's own little brood of kids who carry the blood of many cultures--my sister in law is white, as is my cousin's hubby. But this makes me cringe: people who to prattle on about their mixedhood, or identify themselves, disingenuously or selfdelusionally (n.b. Tiger Woods) so to a cloying degree. Indeed Tiger and may of these folk often play into the hands of racists: not black folks who are insance, but old fashioned white right wing clowns with agendas. And don't tell me blackness doesn't matter when you loak yourself in the profits and attention you get by exploiting this thing that supposedly doesn't matter. Tiger'd just be a phenom if he wasn't BLACK. Now he has that extra dimension that made him the stuff of ratings and readership. In the film Things We Lost in The Fire, why couldn't Halle have beenmarried to a successful BLACK man. Why my Princeton classmate (who snarkily missed our big Reunion) David Duchovny? Oh, because race does matter. Then it would be a Tyler Perry-bamma-esque flava'd romp that just happened to include Benicio Del Toro and we in Hollywood, just like we in the book world, have a marketing and stereotype template for that, so let's NOT mix it up. I can see the producers eeting over soy lattes now: Let's fit Halle in somehow but still keep it a white movie. Ahhhhhhh. Now I see...

Okay, so I cringe at that. I FALL-OUT at folk like Bliss who says she's an "Obama" negro. I wonder what Barack's saying to that?I guess he feels a little less "black" and more mixed based on that analysis. Outside of Hollywood and the hip hop world run by white institutional investors by the way, or the literatti orbits in Manhattan, it's still a burden to be black. if you're mixed I can understand the allure of not totally commiting to the bruvahs. Yes, there is history, both brutal and beautiful. There is heritage, both inspiring and horrid, or in some instances utterly embarassing. We have our dirty laundry in that vein and thus it becomes YOUR dirty laundry too, mixed folks. By declaring and profiting off you mixedhood, that doesn't erase the history and the heritage, or you obligation to clean the dirty laundry. Indeed, you ARE part of the dirty laundry when you point out, as Bliss does, that her father's folk were "Creoles" a la Jellyroll Morton, and thus had this paperbag test disdain for the evil blueblack liver-lipped crowd, I suppose. Well even as flawed as he was, Jelly contributed to his peeps' (where they then, is peeps? This is soooooo confusing!) culture and in the process gave black folks and in turn the world, the only truly American art form: Jazz. And back to my thesis--then you turn around and make money off of it? Jelly made a living not from running away from or minimizing or exploiting his "black" blood. He embraced it. It drove him nuts, but he did it. He tried to understand what it meant to be the descendant of slaves in the New World. It was reflected in his passion and pain. I just want Bliss to immerse herself in that passion and pain...yes and conflict, ambivalence...just for a little while. Then go call yourself whatever you wish and I'll buy your book and applaud you.

I dunno...now's about the time you should really be calling me an asshole. But isn't it better to get folks to stop bullshitting each other or themselves--even if that bullshit is accompanied by a wink and nudge? And please don't show me true temerity by getting PAID for this bullshit. Don't softball your colleague, as Janet Maslin did for Bliss. Hell, I say let "Skip" (Prof. Henry Louis) Gates, who "outted" (and that's the term Bliss and white folks use) Bliss's daddy and God bless him for it, write the review! Yeah, a BLACK person, or someone who identifies him/herself as so in their hearts, if not in their blood. Think of the insights. The debate. The passion. But alas, most of these essays on race are not truly written with "blacks" in mind as the audience. After all, it's the New York Times Book Review. Us niggahs don't read no New York Times! Wez snatching The Source off the newstand with that copy of King whut got dat bitch Megan Goode's titties 'n ass on the muvf*ckin' cover, and then we gonna play HALO all muvf*ckin' night till we roll out to da club...and then go to church on Sunday...

Be yourself. Know yourself. Just don't play. Don't believe one thing, hide behind those beliefs, then create a whole 'nother ethos that you profit from. That's just plain Mixed Up...

Thanks a lot, brother...

As if brothers don't have enough to answer for.
Yes, answer for. We've been hiding behind this "woe is me, the Man's marked me for genocide and sisters diss us" crap. Oh yeah, folks what us hung and flayed like a prize elk. But have we been stepping up? Of course. Millions of us. But millions more emulate clowns like Isiah. Or Diddy for Godssakes. Or rappers and athletes and others who literally either buy into or get paid by the gatekeepers of this white ethos that we are dumb brutes, loud slicksters. Carnal beasts. Urban thugs. Dirty ol' Fred Sanfords. Cheating, snarky smarmy Buppies. Wave-cap headed bammas. "Money Over Bitches." That is what's portrayed because that is what we reflect back to these people, rather than bust the mirror.

So Madison Square Garden's going to have to pay MILLIONS for Isiah's nonsense. My boy Steve Mills, a Princeton brother, should have reined this little bastard in. I hope the Knicks fire Isiah. Yeah I know this sounds like the get Vick rant, but folks, we need another body on the pyre to show all of our men to stop the bullshit. Mr. Charlie can get away with it. We can't, we shouldn't. Games must end. There's no reason why Halle Berry, crazy as she is, shouldn't be having a beautiful African American baby rather than the spawn of her pet white prettyboy who "understands" her. For too many brothers, "understanding" our women, our mates, means "let's have a Christ-centered life," or "let's have a crack centered life." Jesus or crack, we need some sort of external force to help us focus and relate. I don't need Jesus to do that. I don't need drugs or macho or some vampire preacher or some made up mumbo jumbo from a Motherland that treats women worse than America does. I need a shared spirit with my black woman. That comes from inside.

The reverse, the other side, can be truly scary. While the vast majority of couples consisting of brothers with non-black females (or males, hey) are based on mutuality, love, respect. You have some fools who still like to avid sisters based on the notion that white women won't sweat you. Or that sisters are cruel and demanding or are golddigging tricks. Hmmm. Many white women will dump you in a nanosecond for reasons ranging from banal and ridiculous to deep seated fear. And yeah, many of them are crazy, too. Look at Clarence Thomas's spouse. She is a right wing lunatic who likely edited the manuscript of his already insane memoir. She was especially hard on Professor Anita Hill, who's done nothing but call Clarence the liar he is. Read between the lines. Stay away from my sick-head blackman, you black women! Well, we may come to a point when sisters say: "Go ahead and have his lame, crazy ass!" They may be nuts themselves, but sisters have hung in there despite our immaturity and public clowning. How long, though. How long? Don't give aid and comfort to the enemy, brothers.

So Steve--pay that women her damage award and cut Isiah loose. Please...

Headline News

Flower is dead. Forget the thousands of children...human children, not meerkat pups...who die each day of bullets, bacteria or beatings. No, you are not a real American unless you shed a tear for this tiny dynamo. What about Burma? What the heck's a Burma? Flower is dead and that's all we can handle. Oh and Notre Dame is 0-4.

Flower is the matriach of a gang of meerkats that is the focus of Animal Planet's "documentary cum soap opera" Meerkat Manor. Filmed in t he Kalahari Desert (most viewers have no clue where that is), the show's narrated by Sean Astin for the okey-dokey middle American audience and Bill Nighy (Squid-faced "Davey Jones" in Pirates of the Caribbean) for the Canucks and Brits used to less boring or hyped fare. See my next post on the sad difference between chef Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares-BBC and Kitchen Nightmares-ABC, by the way.

Was Flower murdered by a dark-skinned hip hop addled vervet monkey? Did she die of breast cancer? No. A cobra bit Flower. I don't think the cobra was al Qaeda, but I'm sure it was at least a Muslim. ;-) Seriously, this shit happens in the wild. No politics. No personality. No bullshit. You stomp a bug. You kill a few million microbes. See, even you can be God. Now, do the bugs hire pr flacks and engage network hypemasters? I guess they would if they are--what's the new nomenclature?--a "brand" or "franchise" in the eyes of the suits in charge.

The producers endeavored to cover up Flower's death, as well as her son Shakespeare's (bitten up by a rival clan) to keep the cutesy nature of this show and string naive viewers along and keep ratings (and sponsor money) high. But check this crap out: "Flower's courage and strength in life was mirrored in her passing," said senior executive producer Mick Kaczorowski. "Viewer and fans have become attached to Flower because she exemplified the qualities of a true hero and a veritable leader."

WTF? This animal didn't exemply anything. The film editors and our own stupidity did that. Is it any wonder that George Bush is President, Fred Thompson might BE President and Bill Clinton might BE back in the White House when we have a population obsessed with horseshit like this? There are counter-examples of real news stories, from the environment to crime, and true human heroism and tragedy. These stories are legion. There is no liberal bias in the media or Hollywood. Wake the hell up, assclowns. The the wingnuts and Jesus Freaks have the right fight, but the wrong enemy. There is a least common denominator-ignorance bias. This nonsense is a wonderful example.

Aren't finished vomiting? " 'Flower was larger than life,' said Marjorie Kaplan, general manager of Animal Planet and Discovery Kids Media. "'She stood tall against her foes, readily and regularly faced conflict and was a pillar of strength for her family.
'The circle of life is very much a reality in the animal kingdom. We at Animal Planet are devastated by the loss of Flower and recognize that her death will have a deep impact on our viewers. Life in the Kalahari will never be the same.'"

There's even a movie in the works. No lie. Hate on me if you wish. Call me crass or obsessive about nothing. But think folks--I suppose we'd even make a hero or reality show star out of a hemorrhoid if someone smells a buck. When will we wake up from this manipulation. Jesus Lord in Heaven. Read a book or something, and please teach your kids not to get sucked in by this. Do it before we are drowned in a sea of stupid people. I hear the President of that wacky Islamic Republic of Iran and The View's Liz Hasselback both love Meerkat Manor. Nuff said.

Read MORE Books, m-fs

Ok, here it is again, leading off some top tips, especially if you're in the Baltimore-to-Northern Va. metroplex. And to you parents who thought this thing was offensive...it's called SATIRE, dumbasses! It's SUPPOSED to be offensive because it's using the sharp humor and images to attack the very thing it's luridly portraying. The lyrics and subject are examples of...class?...Bueller, Ferris Bueller? Anybody? IRONY, niggahs...oops. Should have said that, but even that word's a useful tool, says brother Jabari Asim, and speaking of Jabari Asim:

• He'll be at the annual Capital Bookfest, Saturday October 6th in andaround Borders at the Blvd @ Cap Centre, Fest is all day, 10 to 7pm. I'll be there too with everyone from actress Victoria Rowell, to former NBA star John Amaechi and a host of bestselling authors, journalists and poets of color. I'm even hosting a few panels. Drop by. Bring the kiddies.
• Check me out on WKYS and MAJIC 102.5 FM Washington DC tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at 9:30am talking about the importance of GOOD books, reading and the Capital Bookfest with Poet Kwame Anthony. Yeah--KYS...what, no Lil' John?
• Memoirist Stacey Patton will be at the Congressional Black Caucus Author's Pavilion (conference registration needed), and at Karibu Wednesday at 6:30pm, Pentagon City and Saturday 9/29, Books A Million, Dupont Circle. That Mean Old Yesterday makes Antwan Fisher look like a Disney story...
• The National Book Festival's on the National Mall this Saturday toward the Washington Monument. Sad that Laura Bush and my wife share the same vocation--librarians. Sadder still that a librarian's married to Dubya, but hey. Check out my girl Lalita Tademy (one of the few black authors doing amazing historical fiction other than David Anthony Durham) at 11:2oam, Pulitzer winner Edward P Jones, whom I had the honor of panel-hosting at last year's Cap Bookfest follows at 12:40pm; Victoria Rowell's around again at 10a, in the Home & Family tent. Uber-nerd Stephen L Carter's in the Mystery Tent at 12:40pm. But please don't miss Jan Gilchrest and Sheila Moses in the Kids' and Teen's Tents: 1:25pm and 1:30 respectively.
• The Baltimore Book Festival's this weekend around the other Washington Monument--the original one, at Mt. Vernon and N. Charles Streets, Baltimore, Maryland. Friday-Sunday. Sunday at 5pm yours truly's giving a Q & A with Washington Post reporters Mike Fletcher and Kevin Merida (Donna Britt's hubby) on their very timely bio of Clarence Thomas Supreme Discomfort (yep--you heard them here first, fans!) They'll also discuss the acclaimed "To Be Black Man" series of pieces in the Post. As usual all of your usual HBO's The Wire folk'll be there; seems like all of them, even "Snoop" has written something. The Video Vixen Karen Steffans makes an appearance as do a myriad of your favorite authors, poets and pundits from Felicia Pride and Karen Quinones Miller to Nikki Giovanni.

One thing from Week Three

Yesterday, amidst the pagentry and bullcrap of an NFL Sunday night game (in which the Bears proved yet again that the NFC is a joke...sorry 'Skins fans), Troy Aikman et al expressed dismay that Tank Johnson, formerly of Da Bearz, is joining the Dallas organization. This is compliments of uber rich turd owner Jerry Jones who scooped up Terrel Owens. Pacman's flaws are legion and legend; he's but one posterchild for the thugification of professional sports.

Yet, one of my favorite gadflies, my boy Shannon Sharp, formely of Denver and then the World Champion Baltimore Ravens, asked why Aikman and crew didn't say the same thing about Michael Irvin and so many other jacked up Cowboys back in t he day. And let's be clear, this stuff indeed extended way back to Staubach and the supposedly all-American, cold and calculated Tom Landry days. Back evento...gulp...the mid 1960s and Dandy Don Meredith!!! Do you think Pete Gent just invented all that stuff in his novel North Dallas Forty (made into a mediocre, stupid film starring Nick Nolte)? Shannon wasn't shy about commenting on former teammate Raven LB Ray Lewis (who I worship, I must disclose) and the niggahshit Ray initiated during that Super Bowl killing in Buckhead, Altanta.

Politicians and preachers can do hypocrisy well. Look at Dubya on TV this morning talking utter crap and weasel-slinking when referring to the Childrens Health Insurance Program and money (borrowing cheap Chinese cash as with a massive credit card, and runaway spending on war and pet projects...hmmm...I dunno...sounds like wasting American families' money to me). Former QBs etc. should just keep their mouths shut now, especially when they didn't voice any opinions to having scumbags on their teams back when they were playing. There is no difference between old school scumbags and newjack thugs, just as this myth that somehow the Cosa Nostra was more stylish and kinder and gentler than the brothers out there, or the Mexican Mafia, or the Russians or South American cartels,Cuban mob, Chinese Triads or the Yazuka. Evil is evil. Troy, get over yourself. Shannon, keep talking...

Jena: Now that the Marching's done

To the left, if HG Wells phased Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes (and their humunculi Sean Hannity, O'Reilly et al) back in time--well, you see the result. To the right, a sad reality and mirror of life in the present. Which is the truth? Elements of both. Allow me to elaborate...

The marching in Jena's done. The DA's still defiant as ever, the sole defendant's been denied bail. The US Attorney for the West District of Lousiana--a brother--is "monitoring" the situation; Congress is promising hearings "eventually." And strangely, the same folk who demanded Mike Nifong's head (the Durham-Duke lacrosse DA), aren't showing solidarity with the Jena 6. Okay, I'm being facetious with that one. The pundits, right wing sword rattlers and patrons of Reade Seligman & team are in fact, they are gung ho in support for this peckerwood prosecutor; on NPR recently one author of a book making broad, general cries against "cultural bias" and "prosecutorial misconduct" snarkily labeled the Jena rally as "feel-good political correctness." Where's the love? ;-) Soon it will be time for Congressional Black Caucus party weekend...celebs, rappers, actresses. Big fun. And we will all celebrate the milestone, seminal moment of Ethernet nirvana. Banding together to save the Jena 6. Digital grasssroots. As we invented the civil rights tactics now stolen by others, I guess they will borrow this paradigm of the Jena March...Whew!!!

Now Jena's "back to normal." And I stil see ignorance. I see nihilism. I see cruel emptiness. In Jena still? Or in Glenarlow Wilson's town? Yes. But more so in my own backyard. Thousands of young black men assaulting and murdering other black men. Folk who think crime is just something to be tolerated or even something to get a piece of. Warped cultural sensibilities and priorities. Garish, insipid entertainment masquarding as the best we're expected to offer. Riches sought but wealth squandered. Today on a college campus in Delaware--a college campus--let me frigging repeat...A COLLEGE CAMPUS...the pinnacle of a dream our people DIED for...somebody shoots two people over tifling ghettoish nonesense and one of the kids wounded doesn't want to SNITCH. Huh? I'm left with this mean reality: We can't march against white thugs and then tolerate thugs and fools in our own back yard who make it so very easy for these crackers to shrug off the truth, to point the finger right back at us and smirk. Ignore us, let us marginalize ourselves in the real economy, in education, in the real world...

Will the Ethernet buzz to life again in a march of the mind, of culture, of not tolerating the self-destructive, the ghettocracy and ghettofab? Holding a inane funeral for the word "nigger" is nice opera, and Lord we and our self-aggrandizing leaders, from politics to the pulpit are better at opera than Placido Domingo. But we need more than marching here. There's more at stake than six idiots who decided to beat the shit outof some white boy who may or may not have hung those nooses. There were other ways of making a stand, beating your chest in everyone's face till they retreat or notice you. Time for that bravery now. Or else there will be more of the same. More insouciance from these white people who can use our own dirt against us. And there's no marching on camera that can fight that...

Tall tees and the Forbes 1-2-3 remix

I heard some nonsense on the radio last night. Fiddy, Diddy and Jay-Z collaborating (sort-of) on a mediocre tune titled to dish on their rankings among the Forbes magazine music/hip hop top cash cows. The song arrived amongst much DJ fanfare and text, email and calls almost shutting down the station's communications! What shock and awe!

Two weeks before, at a school in District Heights, Maryland--an area that is the very definition of the "new" "suburban" ghetto, a little boy among dozens who qualify for free tutoring, lunches and God knows what else asked me if I was "rich." I was there as part of a parents' night which included introductions to these new services under the No Child Left Behind Act. The school's already on the Act's shit list and no wonder. But this little boy figured if I was wearing a suit, I must be rich, and asked me if I worked for...yes-Jay-Z. He was only five and accompanying his mom and two sisters who were enrolled at the elementary school; he was telling me he watches TV a lot with his older cousins who babysit and they said Jay-Z was rich and a white magazine(I guess Forbes) confirmed that. "Mr. Charlie's" imprimatur thus conferred, it must be good!

Well, I said no to the child. I wasn't rich. Far from it. He asked me what I did and I said I am a writer I teach some college classes and then readied for the explanation I usually give kids under 8 when they aske what I do. He scrunched up his little nose as his mother shouted for him to come (they'd picked up some free goodies as well as a brochure for the free tutoring) and said: "Then why you got them clothes on? Are you white?" Like I said, he was only five. I laughed and his mother who was about 21 years old yet who looked much older, apologized. Not a biggie, I assured her, but I said her daughters should look in the media center (that's what they call libraries now...and you wonder why kids rich or poor can't friggin read) for references to people like Kenneth Chenault, or the late Reginald Lewis, even Bob Johnson (based ONLY on his current endeavors and f*ck BET!) or any number of black scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs in all sorts of product and service areas OTHER than hip hop. Or Osceola Davis, a maid who saved and invested her money such that she was able to donate $2million to charity. This lady then scrunched up her nose at me. "Well they ain't got time for that. G'night sir."

Bye. And on top of this, we have a study by the Washington Post that black kids going to private schools or "good" public schools, and otherwise from middle class backgrounds, are consistently being outscored on PSAT and SATs and many are failing to explore AP classes or other means of enrichment and access to college. Flash to today. I'm in a "gucci" Safeway. School's out at 3pm. I'm talking to a bunch of young brothers who attend a nearby "good," actually "great" public school in Montgomery County, Maryland. Their parents are professionals, including a physician, an associate general counsel at a local defense contractor, a high school prinicipal, a colonel in the US Air Force and a manager at the GSA. All are wearing "Tall Tees." The long tee shirts you see covering the baggies. After the baggy pants/exposed undies banning fever in some towns subsided, now folks are shrugging off the "racist fashion police" mantle and decrying tall tees. Now, many folks say only thugs and criminals wear this stuff and on a radio talk show the point was made, then a calls flooded the hosts saying that's not true...and then literally EACH caller chuckled and described the type of shady shit they were into when they weren't at work or school. No lie. Two of the young fellows had yanked wave caps over their heads. They said their parents either didn't care or didn't know. I'd just up and asked them; maybe they thought I was a cop or a some old gay perv? Who knows--I told them I was a writer and I think i showed them my expired NABJ card and my current Mystery Writers of America card so possibly I had some credibility. I said why do you dress this way. People say it's thugware. Criminals' uniforms. They laughed again and said it's cool that I asked in an intellectuall curious rather than disdainful way but it's really none of my business. But then there was the obligatory nods to certain rappers and the cool comment segued into the notion that yeah, the could were regular pants, a collared shirt or polo, nothing on their heads, but that would make them too much like everyone else. So would studying TOO much. Their parents push them, but in some pro forma, usual way. No passion, no direction. One kid said his mom bought a new luxury car helped by the proceeds of a house re-fi (no mean feat these days) yet bitched and moaned when he suggested she spend $350 on SAT review course materials and two hours of one on one test prep. Notice I said new luxury car. The old one was a luxury SUV model and gas guzzler. The new one's a sedan. He's got the low-rent form of test prep but says...and, here's the tie-in, fanboys and girls, Jay-Z's on the Forbes magazine list and's got Beyonce naked in the bed each night, so he's thinking he'd like to go into music production (sound engineering?) and event planning. His white classmates think that's the tightest career aspiration in the class. Of course most of them are going to college and beyond, but hey...soon their "wigger" compatriots arrive and are all tight in their tees and baggies and "yo thisand that" and they're flirting with the bevy of loud and round sistas coming in whilst my black quasi-thugs are feening for the giggly gaunt WHITE girls coming in (and a few Middle-Eastern looking teen queens too). Everyone loses interest in me and only one of them says "Yeah seeya, Mister Sir." Mister Sir being a snarky label I'd say.

When I say black people need to sit back and re-assess everything as a race...a national day of reassessment and repose...I'm only half kidding. I didn't have time to tell those kids that it's better to use Malcolm Forbes and then nerdy-ass Steve Forbes as models, rather than Fiddy. Maybe they've heard that. Maybe they could use their own parents as models, yet their parents appear bound and determined not to let that happen. Paying bills and keeping up with the Joneses and Mr. Charlies can do that. But not when it comes to the only resource we have, the only trump card we have. Our kids. And yet even that card's stained and spoiled and grubby. Make me want to cry sometimes. Or...just try to get rich and forget about it...

Be patient...

Oh yeah, be patient...more posts, y'all. I have deadlines. I'm teaching. Get off my back. Stop the emails! I got the message. I didn't know I was missed!

Okay...so tomorrow it's OJ. No novelist could beat this stuff, on the heels of the Goldman family's perfidity.

Plus, I'll give you the reflection of Jena--when will young black men stop killing young black men? Also "Tall Tees" and the Thugocracy. And of course over the next month and a half: Peter Schmidt, author of Color and Money: How Rich White Kids Are Winning the War over College Affirmative Action (Hardcover). Just in time for college hunting and alumni interviews. Nathan McCall author of Makes Me Wanna Holler and the upcoming novel about gentrification and how coloredfolk and whitefolks are more alike then both would like to admit: Them. Stacey Patton, author of the memoir That Mean Old Yesterday And Tananarive Due, Steve Barnes and Blair Underwood, on the future of the Casanegra series and the interplay of books and film.

Baltimore Book Festival's coming 9/29-9/30, as well as The Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Weekend (Author Pavilion) 9/27-9/29. At the BFF on Sunday 9/30 I'll be moderating a discussion with Washington Post reporters Mike Fletcher and Kevin Merida on Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas. I interviewed these fellows on this blog. If you're coming to the Festival, check out the interview and come armed with your questions...

A hint as to who I'm NOT supporting...

AP story: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign said Monday it will return $850,000 in donations raised by Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu, who is under federal investigation for allegedly violating election laws.
Clinton, D-N.Y., previously had planned only to give to charity $23,000 she received from Hsu for her presidential and senatorial campaigns and to her political action committee, HillPac.
The FBI is investigating whether Hsu paid so-called straw donors to send campaign contributions to Clinton and other candidates, a law enforcement official said Monday.
"In light of recent events and allegations that Mr. Norman Hsu engaged in an illegal investment scheme, we have decided out of an abundance of caution to return the money he raised for our campaign," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said in a statement Monday night. "An estimated 260 donors this week will receive refunds totaling approximately $850,000 from the campaign."
Wolfson said the Clinton campaign also will vigorously review its fundraisers, including thorough criminal background checks, in the future. "In any instances where a source of a bundler's income is in question, the campaign will take affirmative steps to verify its origin," he said.
The amount that the campaign identified as raised by Hsu would make him one of her top fundraisers. During the first six months of this year, her presidential campaign raised $52 million from individual contributors, second to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who raised $58.5 million.

Coming Attractions!!!

More author interviews. Are you ready for this?

• Peter Schmidt, author of Color and Money: How Rich White Kids Are Winning the War over College Affirmative Action (Hardcover).
• Nathan McCall author of Makes Me Wanna Holler and the upcoming novel about gentrification and how coloredfolk and whitefolks are more alike then both would like to admit: Them
• Stacey Patton, author of the memoir That Mean Old Yesterday
• And Tananarive Due, Steve Barnes and gulp for the ladies, Blair Underwood, on the future of the Casanegra series and the interplay of books and film.

More rants: What I really think about Ivy League Soldier Gen. David Petraeus. What I really think should happen to the Jena 6, and the conflicting almost schizophrenic ethos showing how the violent crime issue withon the black community can, as Chris Rock says, "turn Rosie O'Donnell into Ted Nugent." Will a real American sculpt the MLK Monument or will the Chinese get their quid pro quo from corporate America (watch for more $10 jeans and Thomas the Train toys to disappear from the shelves, folks). More nude photos of Vanessa Hudgens and the hypocrisy of the media.

And...my endorsements for GOP and Democratic presidential nominees. Hmmm...

"I gave no orders for murder and plunder for murder and plunder's sake. Or for revenge. That is your province--visited on we, on the Red Indian, on your own brothers. I said only that under cover of shock and fear may we slip away and ride to our freedom as men. For that pronouncement I shall face my punishment from our Lord Jesus Christ. But I shall not answer to you for any of it!"

--Nat, 1831

Disneyfornication

A few years ago I taught an advertising class at a small liberal arts college in NC. I showed a brilliant expose on the manipulation of our teens by Viacom/MTV/BET and (and by extrapolation, our kids and "tweens" by Disney, "Big Food"--everyone from cereal to candy to juices-- "Big Fast Food" and "Big Toy," in cahoots with other Net, broadcast, cable and gamer media outlets). It was a DVD called The Merchants of Cool, produced by Frontline/PBS (which is why many Republicans hate it). Now, when you manufacture stars from normal flawed 18 year olds in THIS culture to market your products to 8-11 year old girls, make goo gobs of cash, and thus mollify your private equity fund shareholders, debtholders and the financial markets overall (and thus get a bonus that would provide four poor families health coverage for two years), I'd think you'd want some fail-safe mechanism to guard against miscues like theone evidenced in the lovely photo above, authenticated as High School Musical 1, 2 mega-kiddie star Vanessa Hudgens. The scoop now is that she took this photo for her co-star and somehow it got on the Net. See, this "romance" with said other mega-kiddie star from the show, Zac Ephron, was manufactured as a PR gimmick and then became a real teen hormone and money/fame-induced hook-up. What else are two 18 year olds making five grand a week going to do on vacation? hahaha. Yes it is as smarmily calculated as HSM 1 &2 co-star Corbin Blu's racial ambiguity, or Whoopi's statements and Rosie's before that on "The View," the radio jock "Mancow" going "squeaky clean," or anything Karl Rove cooked up for Dubya, or Vick's "apology" or the "outrage" over the OJ and Anna Nicole books...

...yet backfire, yes things often fall apart no matter how much corporations try to control nature, either Mother Earth or humanity. So little Vanessa's now shown to be a typical clueless American teen, as was Lindsay Lohan. Now the Lolita factor carefully calculated by Disney to get the DADS AND OLDER BROTHERS OF THE TWEENS WHO WATCH has literally been "laid bare."

If this photo offends you, GOOD. It should offend you not for me including nudity on this blog, because I blog about culture and politics, etc. no less than books,and this is of public concern. It should offend you for the allegory (my FAVORITE WORD again) of the hypocrisy, greed, manipulation that is the hallmark of our America in this new century, from the White House to Wall Street, from the police to the pulpit, within families and within whole comunities. Interesting how it's utterly appropriate to dress this girl in short shorts and minis and tanks tops for her 11 year old fans, but it's offensive when she's nude. Think on it...

RIP, Luciano

The big man reversed generations of blue-collar bias against opera. Opera became something for everyone. Opera became ...gulp...cool? Well, where do you think they get the term "soap opera" from? Seriously, put an Eric Jerome Dickey book to music (called the libretto), translate it into Italian and dress the characters in 19th Century peasant garb, or Egyptian robes or Spanish cavalry breeches and you'd have the formula for almost all of the biggest operas of the last 200 years. The stories aren't very original, but the passion literally can race you through four different emotions in one aria. This dude brought that notion down to earth. Now we're left with Robin Thicke. Oh well

Luciano, Bravo!!!

Proving yet again...

The photos here should tell it all. I'm taking a break from ranting on the craven, deplorable and neo-colonial state of black fiction, nonfiction, TV and film-writing. Here, we see what's going on in Mr. Charlie and Missy Anne's world, and it begs the question whether I should be so sanctimonious about what we culud folk are doing, I suppose.

First, zoftig reporter (I guess I have to call her a TV journalist in this millieu) Rita Cosby has penned a new comprehensive book on...urgh...Anna Nicole called In Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death. Yes, there's my favorite word again: Allegory. It and the stories orbiting like dead moons is allegory for our nation in this 21st Century. Our Dark Ages of utter intellectual stagnation, luridness, polarization, excess. Of course Rita doesn't know what the word means or cares. The thrust? Surprise!!! Larry Birkhead and Howard K Stern cut secret side deals and neither give damn about the baby, "Little Danny-whatever" (I heard it so many times this past winter that I forgot it...there's irony for ya!).

Second "revelation": Stern and Birkhead are queer. Digression here: I wonder if just plain ordinary gayfolk sit back and suck their teeth at the flamboyant queen and gruff dyke images on TV and film, the closet-DL perversion of these right wing GOP senators and Congressmen, etc. and say: "What the hell--that ain't us!" the same way regular black folks check out images of us, often by us, in books, music, film, etc? Oh well.

Supposedly Stern even used Birkhead's closet fondness for sausage as a hammer and shield to begin the alleged secret side deal talks that ultimately set up both assholes on easy street for life, and nevermind taking care of that chill. It's all about the bucks and a big con act, according to Rita. Bravo Hachette (the publisher), bravo Rita, and bravo boys, See, Stern and Birkhead are threatening defamation suits and Hachette's ready to bring out the big gun firms to defend. Hell I could do it in my sleep; quid pro quo for a book deal, Hachette honchos! How any defamation plaintiff wins in this no news, only infotainment and Hannity punditry word is beyond me! Look, Stern and Birkhead are public figures. Can you say "Malice/Reckless disregard for the truth?" That is almost as high a burden in civil law as you can go--almost up there with criminal law's beyond a reasonable doubt. And you have to show damages. Birkhead has a better claim there, having snookered everyone--hell a whole country (the Bahamas) into thinking he's some sort of blond knight. Stern, hell--you gotta a reputation to begin with in order to prove it's damaged! Case closed.

Then again, you get the stinky feeling that even THIS controversy's scripted. Ah, Bush's America! Ah, the book industry! What the hell did they have against Clifford Irving, in retrospect? ;-)

As if that doesn't make you want to shower, guess what Barnes & Noble is doing! Gasp! So it ain't so! They are stocking the OJ book. You remember that book that Judith Regan was canned over ? That Rubert Murdoch (who owns Fox News, Fair and Balanced..Seig Heil!) put the kibosh on? That the Goldman Family said was utterly disgusting?

Well...this is America, folks. Bush's America, 2007. B & N's seen the rush of advance orders at Borders, Amazon and it's own website. It's the same rationale that keeps the Chinese dictating our economy and Wal-Mart the store of last recourse for too many families. The Long Green. The Goldmans have affirmed every sick stereotype of Jews, "Ari Gold" in HBO's Entourage style and are so, so enthused about this "disgusting" book as a means to satisfy their old...OLD judgment against the Juice. Juice is riding high on the attention. We're all still wondering about the Jena 6, or Ted Nugent threatening Obama, or when Obama is going to come out swinging with some concrete and innovative domestic and foreign policies, or Vick and DMX's canine troubles, or wondering why despite Jay-Z and Diddy's success (hahahaha) we remain at society's bottom income rung (even the illegal aliens with no health insurance are doing a bit better)...all the while the bullshit factory runs day and night on these raw materials. Lawd Lawd Lawd...maybe I should be a LaHaye book fan and pray for the Rapture. I couldn't come sooner...

I'm baaaack

Fanboys & girls, I'm back from the balmly and beautiful coast of Delaware, ready to tell it loud and proud. Sadly, no rest for the wicked. Hundreds of emails. Syllabi to make (due very soon). Manuscripts due a month ago to finish. Bills due. Y'all other writers know what a lovely sine-wave graph our income level resembles. Nuff said.

So let's begin. What makes you angry/sad/happy this Labor Day? What are looking forward to doing this Autumn?