You been taking a lot of heat for your recent shenanigans in Rio but I wanted you to know that this angry black guy is not the least bit mad at you bro. In fact I kind of appreciate you and the rest of the bros going to Brazil and doing your bro thing. You really showed them what America white America is all about. You should be in the Broham Hall of fame for what you did before and after that encounter with that Brazilian gas station bathroom (that had the audacity to be closed when the bros needed it most) was more American White American than eating apple pie during the seventh inning stretch of a Boston Red Sox vs New Yankees game while some C-list celebrity sings Take me out to the Ball game (followed by God bless America).
Seriously bro–you dudes were on some certified American exceptionalism type shit and I applaud your high level of keeping it realness. Now you may think I’m being facetious for applauding you for keeping in real when it is crystal clear that you were lying through your Speedos when you claimed that you were robbed by some locals in Brazil but lets be real– You are not the first white dude that blamed a crime on some phantom colored person to escape the wrath of a society that sometimes forgets that with privilege comes an opt out clause when it comes to accountability. Their fault not yours bro, because this practice of evading responsibility for ones acts or inventing facts to coincide with a specific narrative is as old as the America (s)that Christopher Columbus “discovered”. I mean did Brain Williams & Hillary Clinton really come under sniper fire as they publicly claimed? All indications are they both lied– or as your boy Billy Bush would say embellished when speaking on their dalliances with war zones.
Brian is still passed off as one of the most trusted names in media and Hillary barring a catastrophic upset from an even more duplicitous white American is on her way to becoming the first female president of these United states. So why should you apologize for simply being a typical American white male with access to fame and fortune? And who is Al Roker to judge you? He of all people should understand that you were well within your rights to trash a bathroom in Brazil for not being open when you needed it; lie about the facts of the case before fleeing the country without giving your fellow bros a heads up. I mean they’re good ole American white boys too–not your fault that they were slow to play their white privilege card. Speaking of Al Roker word on the street (actually word from the NY Post) is that he was reprimanded for his public rebuke of yourself so ignore that brother–he obviously does not get the fact that you are a white dude fully cloaked in and protected by the umbrella of white supremacy/white privilege and that even though Tamir Rice (12), Trayvon Martin (17) and Mike Brown (18) were all considered men by the mainstream media that reported their justified murders, at 32 and in a third world nation full of scary brown people you and the bros are still just kids doing what kids do. And while Ralph Lauren and a few other sponsors dropped you for your “youthful” indiscretions thankfully Dancing with the Stars still honors your privilege card. So ignore all of the naysayers that say that you embarrassed America over in Brazil. You did not embarrass America you showed them the true America. Your actions in Brazil and subsequent non-plausible denials was the best representation of America put on display in the Olympics. At least the most accurate representation. Sure there was a whole lot of #blackgirlmagic on display over the course of the last few weeks in Rio but…
…none of the precious medal winning performances by Allyson Felix (track & field), Brianna Rollins (track & field) Claressa Shields (boxing), Gabby Douglas (gymnastics) Daliliah Muhammad (track & field), Kristi Castlin (track & field), Nia Ali (track & field) Michelle Carter (shot put) Ibtihaj Muhammad (fencing), Simone Biles (gymnastics) or Simone Manuel (swimming) at the end of the day matter. They do not hail from or represent the America that you do bro. You represent exactly what the median white id looks like. The Ryan Locthe ethose is what America Murica is made of. You are what all lives and blue lives matter is made of. You are who both Donald Trump and Hillary for that matter represent. You are America bro. And I ain’t mad at you one bit!
Signed,
The Angry Black guy (but not at you bro)
PS Al Roker keep on stirring your drink bruh. I get what you really mean to say 😉
Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Chess is a thinking persons game. It’s a long game–one in which you have to see past your next several moves in order to stay ahead and eventually win. Politics just like chess is a long game and one that if it is to be played to win must involve an actual strategy. Voting for the lesser of two evils is not a strategy–not even in checkers. So in this political game of chess how are we going to ever win if we keep on employing a strategy that’s not even helpful in a lesser game?
It’s high time we abandon the failed strategies of the past and disabuse the kind of expedient measures that continue to net undesirable results. It really is okay to NOT be with her OR him.
A vote for Jill Stein knowing that she stands no chance of winning is not just an emotional response from progressive minded voters disenchanted with the Clinton Machine and the dubious at best democratic primary process. It’s also a strategy. It’s far from a guaranteed strategy that will immediately pay dividends but if played correctly it’s a low risk high reward (even if it’s down the road) strategy that will only strengthen our collective hand in future elections and more importantly empower future generations that will be able to build on the strategic moves that we have in our power to make.
If you live in a deep red state like Alabama or Arkansas theoretically you’re throwing your vote away by voting for anyone but Trump because nobody not named Donald J Trump is going to win those two states and other similar states where Neanderthals comprise the median voting demographic. Similarly If you vote in a deep blue state like Connecticut, Maryland or Vermont you can as well afford to make more of a statement with a third party vote because if you vote for the only candidate that’s gonna win those respective states (Hillary) the exit polls will serve as consent for every policy initiative that comes across her desk. Good, bad, ugly and down right evil .
Elections today are 24/7/365 so the minute Hillary takes the oath of office she will be campaigning for 2020. If her internal pollsters find that the overwhelming majority of people in America who are not certified coons, jack asses or bigots (the typical Trump constituent) approve of not only her hawkish proclivities but also her her neo-liberal agenda guess what? It will be full steam ahead with the enactment of them. That is not winning. If on the other hand those exit polls reflect a sizable portion of the reliably democratic electorate that remains averse to her brand of politic she would be forced legislatively to the left in the same manner in which the Bernie Sanders run forced her campaign style to the left.
I get the fear of a Trump presidency. I’m in no way suggesting that everyone gamble on a Green party political novice to risk giving the white house to the greater evil (on paper and public perception wise). What I am suggesting is that you make your vote really count. As black people we are the most solid monolithic voting black in America yet we remain the most under represented sub groups in the country. That is primarily because we are not strategic in our voting or thinking.
We need and deserve a #blacklivesmatter approved candidate. They don’t necessarily have to be black but their policy positions and worldview needs to be aligned with the movement. The only way that we are ever going to see such a candidate like that see a viable route to a nomination is if we demand it. As a people we cannot throw 85 -90 percent of our vote to Hillary Clinton. That will in no way make her a better president and more importantly it will in no way improve the state of Black America. If you live in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada or any other swing state by all means–be with her! Vote for Hillary. But if you live in the south where Hillary stands no chance it is not a gamble to vote third party. If you live in a deep blue state there is no harm in not allowing her to run up the numbers on Trump. At the end of the day it is not about him so much as it is about keeping him out of office–but that can’t be the only goal and if it remains the only goal at best we are at a stalemate. At worst and more probable we lose.
As we say goodbye to the greatest for good we should also say goodbye for good to the term GOAT (save for conversations about Ali). Muhammad Ali embodied the term and it’s less than respectful to his legacy to bestow such a hollowed moniker on any other athlete or entertainer–especially those who have done little outside of their master craft to measure up to what the champ did outside of his day job. So in honor of the GOAT’s passing here are five (of many) reasons why no one should ever be refereed to as the greatest of all time ever again…
1. He created the term
On February 25, 1964 after the artist formally known as Cassius Clay stopped the heavily favored Sonny Liston in seven rounds he took to ring center and proclaimed that he was the greatest and that he shook up the world. Little did anyone know that this young brash 22 year old was not just smack talking and would go on to embody both the term “I Am the greatest” and the act of shaking up a world in need of shaking. Ali through the years had trials and tribulations that put to test his greatness and at every turn he would remind friend and foe alike that he was indeed the greatest of all time. You will be hard pressed to find an utterance of that verbatim prior to Ali saying so. Therefore he’s the standard bearer of what the GOAT should look, sound and act like.
2. His convictions were not compromised by public opinion, monetary gain or even peer pressure from his contemporaries
Muhammad Ali’s refusal to be drafted into the Army during the Vietnam war and the revocation of his title for it is well chronicled. One of the more poignant photos from that period of his life is the one where he is surrounded by some of his contemporary greats including Bill Russell, Jim Brown and Lew Alcinder. The misconception is that they were there to support Ali and his defiant stance against the war. The truth is they were actually there to do the opposite. The private meeting was to convince him to enlist and to assure him that he would not be going to war but instead would serve as an ambassador to it and a morale booster to the troops in much the same way that Joe Louis was used during World War II. Ali who was far less educated than all of the men in attendance (in a formal sense) had a rebuttal for each and every point they brought up. He went on an almost two hour filibuster going into great detail why he would not be supporting the Vietnam war or enlisting. He won over the well meaning yet naive greats and forced them to reexamine their tacit support of the war. So much so that Lew Alcindor followed the path of Cassius Clay and retired his slave name a couple years later.
3. Ali Spoke truth to power instead of seceding to the powers that be.
There has never been an athlete before or since Muhammad Ali that has had the courage to speak truth to power. He did not shrink, bow or take a back seat to white supremacy. He confronted the white supremacist construct with as much confidence and zeal as he confronted his opponents in the ring. His defiant stance in media gave a nation (within a larger more hostile nation) of millions courage and pride. It inspired protest and affirmed the fact that we as a people are great. He was not worried about endorsement dollars. In fact he knew that it would be more lucrative for him to go along to get along just as pretty much every athlete today does but he remained steadfast and fearless.
4. He was not trans-racial and did not transcend race. He was unapologetically Black.
Jackie Robinson, Joe Louis, and Jesse Owens were phenomenal athletes that paved the way for Muhammad and others to thrive in the sports arena. By extension they paved the way for black people to more equitably integrate in to all levels of sports, entertainment, business and academia because they humanized blacks in the minds of millions of white Americans that saw (and treated us) as less than. Jackie, Joe, and Jesse were not a black mans black man though. At least not publicly. They were the white mans black men and while I completely understand the precarious line that they had to walk they lacked the intestinal fortitude of Muhammad Ali who made the conscious decision to be the black mans black man. Before him on the national sports scene there was none and sadly no such an athlete has come after him. Muhammad Ali’s embrace of his blackness was so real and so authentic that white people loved and respected him for it (the ones that did not hate him for it).
Michael Jordan is widely considered the GOAT in basketballcentric conversations. However he was as bad off the court about being a strong black man that took strong black stances as he was good at dominating the league over the span of his playing career. Michael Jordan was arguably a greater basketball player on the court than Ali was a boxer in the ring but his sheer cowardice as it pertained being a black mans black man exempts him from legitimately holding the GOAT title. Micheal Jordan was famously asked in 1990 to endorse a black man running for the US Senate by the name of Harvey Gantt. Gantt at the time was trying to unseat one of the most rabidly racist and regressive US Senators since reconstruction by the name of Jesse Helms (NC). Michael Jordan’s response to the endorsement request was “Republicans buy sneakers too”. MJ was the closest athlete to reaching the world wide recognition as Ali. Black America could have really used from MJ in the 80’s and 90’s the kind of unapologetic blackness that Ali gave to black America during his prime. He chose to do the opposite therefore he’s much closer to being a goat than the GOAT.
5. He is the father of rap music and by extension the hip-hop culture
DJ Kool Herc is the father of hip-hop. Muhammad Ali however is the father of rap. The only thing missing from the punch lines, similes and analogies inherent in his prophetic and poetic proclamations were bars and hooks. The precocious and braggadocios rhymes that Ali spit was primordial hip-hop. In fact it was hip-hop (LL Cool Jay) that actually coined the acronym GOAT. And while LL is not the GOAT he is Ali. Jay Z is Ali, Ice Cube is Ali. Scar Face is Ali.Biggie was Ali, Tupac was Ali. Fuck being like Mike, Be like Ali. The one and ONLY GOAT.
I’m probably gonna ruffle a few feathers with this one but someone has to do it. It has to be said and overstated that The grieving mothers of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Jordan Davis, Dontre Hamilton and Mike Brown are nothing close to being the mothers of any kind of movement and to label them as such for the express purpose of getting Hillary Clinton elected president is as embarrassing as it is offensive. Offensive and embarrassing to the untold mothers who have had to bury their sons and daughters due to an encounter with an overzealous non-empathetic cop and offensive and embarrassing to the millions of people from all walks of life that have taken to the streets with myriad acts of civil defiance seeking redress for the long standing and ongoing grievance of state, local and federal police officers abusing their authority and murdering innocent unarmed black people with impunity.
When Hillary was not on the chitterling circuit with these mothers shoring up her southern firewall (also known as the black vote) she was in the homes of the other half of her southern constituency (Dixicrats) raising funds and talking about “the issues”
The two diametrically opposed dispositions by Hillary Clinton in the last two videos is rivaled in galling political pivots only by the great feat that her husband pulled off in June of 1992 while he himself was on the stump. During Bill Clinton’s first bid for the white house he played the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show to illustrate how down he was with the blacks and ten days later at a Rainbow Coalition event using Jesse Jackson as a backdrop he conflated an out of context a musing by Sister Souljah with some of the lyrics in one of her songs to build up a black radical boogey monster that he was there to destroy. He actually compared her to David Duke to an audience full of black people. Of course his true audience were not the black folks sitting in attendance.
June 3, 1992: Bill playing the sax on Arsenio Hall letting the good black voters of the 90’s know that he can shuck and jive with the best of themJune 13, 1992: Bill Clinton using his invitation to a Rainbow Coalition Convention to assure the soccer moms and NASCAR dads of America that he is willing ready and able to put black folks in their place as Jesse Jackson looks on in bemusement.
To be clear the movement that they are referring to as being the progeny of these women is the #blacklivesmatter movement. And to be even more clear it is a movement that the murders of the children of these women no doubt helped buoy and embolden. For that these women should be recognized for as having paid the ultimate sacrifice. No mother should have to endure what Sybrina Fulton, (mother Trayvon Martin), Lucia McBath, (mother of Jordan Davis), Geneva Reed-Veal, (mother of Sandra Bland), Gwen Carr, (mother of Eric Garner), Maria Hamilton( mother of Dontre Hamilton) Samaria Rice (mother of Tamir Rice) or Lesley McSpadden (mother of Mike Brown) have had to endure. All of these women are inextricably linked to the movement due to their involuntarily blood sacrifice, but to call these grieving mothers the mothers of the actual movement is to deeply discount the millions of black mothers before them that have lost their children to state sanctioned and/or white vigilante violence. Before these women there was Mammy Till, mother or Emmit Till, Eloise Glover, mother of Clifford Glover, Kaddiatou Diallo, mother of Amadou Diallo, Valarie Bell, mother of Sean Bell and hundreds and even thousands of other mothers in the last decade alone that walked the same precarious walk that these mothers have had to. For these women to sell out their share of the movement for the perks and pittance that only a Super Pack with tons of dark money can afford is unconscionable. And no, I don’t have proof that this group of grieving mothers were paid for their less than logical endorsement but I’m pretty sure that they were.
The true irony in the Stockholm like love that Hillary is getting from the “Mothers of the Movement” and the millions of other less than enlightened black politicos, pundits and voters that have her well on the way to the democratic presidential nomination is that she has successfully latched herself on to a movement created to abate a problem that she and her husband greatly exacerbated while Bill Clinton was president and she was the first lady touting his “tough on crime” legislative goals.
Mike Browns mother Lesley McSppaden encapsulates the kind of incongruity inherent in the logic of these mothers “I’m with her” proclamation with this ringing yet confusing endorsement.
Since August 9, 2014, I have wondered where do we go from here? I have made it this far by my faith, but we need more than faith. Our criminal justice system is broken and damaged, and it left broken hearts and damage in our communities. Fixing this will require time and commitment of someone who wants to make things better for us all. I want a leader who is willing to take the steps to reform a justice system that dehumanized my son. I want a leader who will now honor my son’s life and fights for our children’s futures. I want a justice system that is fundamentally based on fairness for everyone…This election season, we are at battle for the soul of our nation…if we want to continue to build on the progress made by our country, we need a president who is ready to lead–and I trust Hillary” ~ Lesley McSppaden
Ms. McSppaden seems to have a solid grasp on the kind of cultural construct in law enforcement that deems it prudent to dehumanize and over criminalize black people to justify their lethal method of policing but she seems totally oblivious to the not so hidden political forces that empower them. For every 100 police officers that have said “I feared for my life” or “he reached for my gun” to explain away them shooting to death an unarmed African-American there’s at least that many politicians on the local, state and national level pushing the kind of hyper-criminalized trope to create the space for these men to continue to get away with murder. It’s no coincidence that the super predator trope was used by Darren Wilson to escape justice after he murdered her son in cold blood. I mean he did not come out and call Mike Brown a Super Predator but you’d be hard pressed to argue that he was not inferring as much after reading the following quotes of his to the grand jury that ultimatley decided that he was justified in killing McSppaden’s son.
Darren Wilson on the initial confrontation at his car:
DW: I see them walking down the middle of the street. And first thing that struck me was they’re walking in the middle of the street. I had already seen a couple cars trying to pass, but they couldn’t have traffic normal because they were in the middle, so one had to stop to let the car go around and then another car would come. And the next thing I noticed was the size of the individuals because either the first one was really small or the second one was really big...
He then grabs my door again and shuts my door. At that time is when I saw him coming into my vehicle. His head was higher than the top of my car. And I see him ducking and as he is ducking, his hands are up and he is coming in my vehicle.
I had shielded myself in this type of manner and kind of locked away, so I don’t remember seeing him come at me, but I was hit right in the side of the face with a fist. I don’t think it was a full-on swing, I think it was a full-on swing, but not a full shot. I think my arm deflected some of it, but there was still a significant amount of contact that was made to my face.
And when I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan.
prosecutor/defense attorney*: Holding onto a what?
DW:Hulk Hogan, that’s just how big he felt and how small I felt just from grasping his arm.
Prosecutor/defense attorney*: And it was your opinion that you needed to pull out your weapon because why did you feel that way, I don’t want to put words in your mouth?
I felt that another one of those punches in my face could knock me out or worse. I mean it was, he’s obviously bigger than I was and stronger and the, I’ve already taken two to the face I didn’t think I would, the third one could be fatal if he hit me right.
He grabs my gun, says, “You are too much of a pussy to shoot me.” The gun goes down into my hip and at that point I thought I was getting shot. I can feel his fingers try to get inside the trigger guard with my finger and I distinctly remember envisioning a bullet going into my leg. I thought that was the next step.
Like I said, I was just so focused on getting the gun out of me. When I did get it up to this point, he is still holding onto it and I pulled the trigger and nothing happens, it just clicked. I pull it again, it just clicked again.
At this point I’m like why isn’t this working, this guy is going to kill me if he gets a hold of this gun. I pulled it a third time, it goes off. When it went off, it shot through my door panel and my window was down and glass flew out of my door panel. I think that kind of startled him and me at the same time.
Darren Wilson on what happened once he exited his vehicle:
DW: The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked. He comes back towards me again with his hands up.
When I look up after that, I see him start to run and I see a cloud of dust behind him. I then get out of my car. As I’m getting out of the car I tell dispatch, “shots fired, send me more cars.”
We start running, kind of the same direction that Johnson had pointed. Across the street like a diagonal towards this, kind of like where the parking lot came in for Copper Creek Court and Canfield, right at that intersection. And there is a light pole right there, I remember him running towards the light pole.
So when he stopped, I stopped. And then he starts to turn around, I tell him to get on the ground, get on the ground.
He turns, and when he looked at me, he made like a grunting, like aggravated sound and he starts, he turns and he’s coming back towards me. His first step is coming towards me, he kind of does like a stutter step to start running. When he does that, his left hand goes in a fist and goes to his side, his right one goes under his shirt in his waistband and he starts running at me.
At this point it looked like he was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that I’m shooting at him.
And the face that he had was looking straight through me, like I wasn’t even there, I wasn’t even anything in his way.
And when he gets about that 8 to 10 feet away, I look down, I remember looking at my sites and firing, all I see is his head and that’s what I shot.
I don’t know how many, I know at least once because I saw the last one go into him. And then when it went into him, the demeanor on his face went blank, the aggression was gone, it was gone, I mean I knew he stopped, the threat was stopped.
Again he did not call Mike Brown a super predator but he sure did describe him as such. He actually got away with telling a jury of HIS peers that Mike Brown who was unarmed and already wounded by at least one round from his .40 caliber pistol grunted at him and charged him head on before having to be put down for good with what was left in his clip. If only Mike Brown’s mother and the mothers of the other well chronicled victims of police abuse were enlightened enough to connect the dots they would know that Hillary is neither a leader or a visionary when in comes to truly understanding and rectifying the problem of our broken criminal justice system.
Hillary did not invent the Super Predator bathos and neither did Bill Clinton. They both however used it in the most insidious and political expedient ways to justify their means to an end. These mothers have every right to endorse who they wish but I don’t think that it’s too much to ask them to leave the movement out of such a dubious decision. They certainly cannot lay claim to the “Mothers of the Movement” moniker while bestowing undue praise on the very same people who helped necessitate the movement in the first place.
Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi are the creators of the #blacklivesmatter hashtag. A hashtag that has helped galvanize and inspire millions to fight back. If there is a mother to the movement these three women are it.
The NBA trade deadline came and left last week with little to no hoopla, fanfare, or late breaking news of any kind of three team swap changing the predictable balance of power in either conference. It’s been something of a downer for us fans of the game that like just a little bit of drama to go with our hoops. However, in lieu of Kevin Love not becoming a Celtic, Laker or Clipper; despite Carmelo having a no trade clause in his contract and irrespective of the fact that Dwight Howard & James Harden are married at the hip for at least the remainder of the season there still were some really block busting trades consummated at the 11th hour of last weeks NBA’s trade deadline. The NBA NRA (National Racial Association) quietly announced four huge trades.
The Fine Print
The NBA collective bargaining agreement states that in every trade the two parties being traded must be within 125% of each other salary wise. Since the NRA does not track the salaries of those on the trading block the formula that they use to remain in compliance with the collective bargaining agreement are the professions (or lack there of) of their trade prospects. So for an example if I was the sole arbiter of what was and was not a fair trade I would gladly trade Dr. Ben Carson for the Puppy Monkey Baby. Only problem with that is the fact that Dr. Ben Carson is a world renowned neurosurgeon and the Puppy Monkey baby a prop from a Super Bowl commercial. The Puppy Monkey Baby maybe a bit more cogent and capable of carrying on an adult conversation but it’s hardly enough to compete with a guy that has on his resume the separation of Siamese twins conjoined by the noggin-even if that guy is a certified loon. So it goes without saying that such a trade would not be approved by the Association. So much to the chagrin of the Black delegation Dr. Carson will remain a part of the black community for the foreseeable future. The good news for the black delegation however is they did find trading partners for four other blacks that have long been considered to overstayed their welcome in the community and in need of having their respective black cards revoked. I’m certain that most would agree with the following deals that were most recently agreed upon before the trade deadline.
NRA Trade Number One: Stacy Dash for Gary Owens
You don’t have to be the GM of the Lakers or Celtics or be the next coming of Jerry West for this deal to have been your brain child. This particular trade comes straight out of No Brainerville. Two B-C rated actors that are already comfortable in the others skin (figuratively and literally) and seamlessly able to traverse cultures and code switch their way right up into the family. Stacy Dash went from being a video vixen extraordinaire serving as eye candy to inner city generation X’ers with hip-hop proclivities to Fox News’s resident coonologist and eye candy for angry white ammo-sexual baby boomers. She’s been on the trading block since at least 2012at least 2012. Her decision to resurrect her faint relevance as one of the resident Fox News Coontributors specifically hired to assuage the guilt and placate the fragile feelings of the Networks Salty white Tear dripping viewership. Just did not sit well with the home team. The straw that broke the camels back though was her latest viral diatribe after being invited on the Fox & Freinds to opine on the #oscarssowhite controversy
STEVE DOOCY: What do you think about this?
STACEY DASH: I think it’s ludicrous.
STEVE DOOCY: Why??
STACEY DASH: We have to make up our minds. Either we want to have segregation or integration. And if we don’t want segregation, then we need to get rid of channels like BET and the BET Awards and the Image Awards where you’re only awarded if you’re black. If it were the other way around, we would be up in arms. It’s a double standard.
STEVE DOOCY (HOST): So you say there shouldn’t be a BET channel?
DASH: No, I don’t think so. No. Just like there shouldn’t be a Black History Month. You know? We’re Americans. Period. That’s it.
DOOCY: Are you saying there shouldn’t be a Black History Month because there isn’t a white history month?
DASH: Exactly. Exactly.
She could not be any more clearer about want g out off of Team Blackness with that mindless missive. Not since Latrell Spreewell choked PJ Carlisimo in practice way back in 1997 has a player been so undisguised about wanting to be traded.
For Gary’s part he celebrated being traded to the black community just as you would expect a black person to do. He took to the Gram…
Welcome to the fam G!
NRA Trade Number Two:Jason Whitlock for Dave Zirin
With such a huge dearth in black journalism and the black perspective being bantered in the ether to compete with and combat mainstream media bias and mind manipulation it’s a shame that we have to put one of the more successful and widely read and regarded black sports writers on the market. But when the opinions you posit present more poison to the problematic nature of post Fairness Doctrine specious and pernicious journalism as opposed to being an elixir to such a societal malady then you really have worn out your welcome and need to cease being a Journalist in Black Face. We are better off with you being on another team because a black face postulating white supremacist thoughts and codifying the inexplicable angst of a large swath of AmeriKKKa is actually worse than it is coming from your typical AM side of the dial angry white talk show host. . As a sports writer Jason Whitlock has been largely able to fly under the radar as it pertains to offering an opinion on the germane issues of the day. But on those rare occasions that he’s asked or tasked with taking on issues of equality, intersectionality, and/or oppression nine times out of ten he’s going to offer a convoluted quip that Ted Nugent would be proud to re-tweet.
Dave Zirin on the other hand has long used his pen as a sword for social justice and equality. Not just for black people but all oppressed, neglected and disaffected people around the globe. He’s penned several books that delve deep into the heart of the pertinent issues of the day from a high minded and holistic perspective. The John Carlos Story and Game Over are just two of the many books that he’s authored that I recommend as a great reads…
More recently these two contemporary sports writers had the prime opportunity to opine on the same issue tackling intersectionality in a sports related kind of way and their opinions could not have been any more divergent. By now everyone is aware of Beyonce’s Super Bowl Performance where homage was paid to The Black Panther Party, victims of police brutality and mis-conduct as well as the LGBT community. The overall message was one that was about love and they went to great lengths to say as much.
But…
…that obviously was not universally interpreted and understood and our latest trading partners could not have crystallized any better how differently the message in the music of the Super Bowl Half-Time show has been conveyed.
Jason Whitlock on Beyonce’s performance:
Beyonce, why are you bringing this rebellion to a sporting event? This is an event that all of America comes together, 100 million people around America and throw Super Bowl parties, we come together across economic and racial lines and it’s all just one good time and the players … represent all these great things in America. … Probably not appropriate for the Super Bowl. It’s just not that type of event.
If you want to send a message, if you want to pander to social media and Twitter, if you want to extend your brand by involving yourself in controversy, [then] what Beyonce did was absolutely brilliant. You listen to the song’s lyrics, there’s no real rebellion in it. None.
“So I can see how the NFL got fooled by this. They listened to the song, and there’s nothing to it. There’s no tribute to the Black Panther party or any real shots at Hurricane Katrina or anything like that in the actual lyrics of the song. You have to watch the video to get the rebellion. She didn’t release the video until the day before the Super Bowl. So I could see how the NFL got caught off-guard.
When you tie the whole thing together, Beyonce snuck in some subversiveness that has put her in the center of controversy and has enhance her and Jay-Z’s brand. They had been getting beaten up in social media by the Black Lives Matter movement, that ‘You don’t support us,’ ‘You’re not down with this movement,’ blah blah blah . . . Beyonce pulls off this publicity stunt and now she’s all good with the social-media crowd and the people involved with Black Lives Matters.
“It’s all just a game and a fun marketing tool for Beyonce. They’ll make more money out of this and enhance their brand. But they’ve also set off some divisiveness in America, and that’s what’s disappointing to me.” ~ Jason Whitlock
One thing we know for sure the homie Jason Whitlock has no qualms about telling us how he really feels. On the flipside neither does Dave Zirin as he penned a piece entitled In Defense of Beyonces Black Panther Tribute At the Super Bowl for The Nation. In it he goes on to say:
A whole hell of a lot of people on Fox News and in the right-wing sewers of the Internet have lost their damn minds. I am not going to link to the statements, ranging from the historically ignorant to the unabashedly racist, because that’s their game. But I will say that if you are comparing the Black Panthers to the KKK, like one police sergeant did on Facebook, you are only proving that the extent of your historical knowledge is what some asshole said on Twitter. It’s like “comparing Adolf Hitler to Richard Pryor because they both had mustaches.”
Yet despite the right-wing noise, Beyoncé’s performance has created space for a real conversation about the Black Panthers, beyond the caricature. It is a chance to get people to see the recent Stanley Nelson PBS documentaryVanguard of the Revolution or read The Black Panthers Speak or Seize The Time or any number of books. Just to give one example, the most illustrative, politically textured Panther memoir in my humble opinion is My People Are Rising by Seattle Black Panther Party founder Aaron Dixon. When Dixon’s book was released in 2012, I pushed people to read it on social media and among friends and was met with a tepid response. After Beyoncé’s performance, I went back and recommended it again. The reaction was off the chain.
Being in the Bay Area this week has also opened my eyes to another part of what made Beyoncé’s halftime performance matter. There are people here who have dedicated their lives to fighting police brutality—most recently in the form of the killing of Mario Woods—and for the rights of the homeless to not be treated like collateral damage of gentrification. They wanted the Super Bowl to be an opportunity to spotlight these issues for the country. Instead, they were met with a smothering police presence, indifferent media, and an NFL occupation that made swaths of their city resemble the Green Zone in Iraq. ~ Dave Zirin
It’s pretty clear from reading the thoughts of these two sports journalist that hearing more of the latter and less (a whole lot less) of the former would be sort of a good thing.
NRA Trade Number Three:Darnell Earley for Tim Wise
Most people don’t know who Darnell Earley is but I’m certain that they know his work. Darnell Earley is the Emergency City Manager that was put in place by Governor Rick Snyder to run the city of Flint. There’s really not much else to say about this son of a bitch ass coon. He played a major part in poisoning the drinking water of an entire city full of lower middle class, poor black, brown and white people. He was then promoted to head the Detroit Public Schools to put the final nails on that coffin before his previous dastardly deeds came back to haunt him and he was forced to resign due to the mess that he co-created in Flint. He was essentially a black face hired to push a white supremacist agenda and he did a stellar job at it.
Tim Wise on the other hand has been one of the more formidable and unabashed white voices against racism and prejudice in American society for the last 10 years. He’s nothing short of an ally in the fight against white supremacy so this one again was pretty much a no brainer.
NRA Trade number four:The Congressional Black Caucus for the Congressional Progressive Caucus
The CBC’s recent endorsement of Hillary for the democratic nomination over the much more progressive (and trustworthy) Bernie Sanders was rather disappointing. It however was not enough of a reason to put the CBC who has long been known as the conscience of the Congress on the trading block . The unconscionable and inexplicable reasons that the leadership gave for their endorsement is actually why they have been offered up for the kinder, gentler and much more socially aware Congressional Progressive Caucus. It’s hard to begrudge Congressmen John Lewis and Congressman James Clyburn for endorsing a person who has helped their PERSONAL ambitions in maintaining their congressional seats by allowing some of the unmitigated and untraceable big money that flows through their coffers to trickle into their own respective campaign war chests. However when they conflate someone being able to help them personally with actually doing the same for the black community, the masses the have supported them for the last 40 years have every right to take umbrage with their reckless word choice on their already questionable endorsement.
Now don’t get me wrong. Someone simply doing what was right in 1963 or whatever year it was that Bernie Sanders marched for equality or was arrested at a sit in does not automatically earn the black vote in 2016. However dismissing his involvement in the Civil Rights movement because you are supporting someone was on the opposite end of the historical and ongoing fight for justice is rather dubious.Take for instance John Lewis’s response to a reporter asking him about Bernie Sanders well documented dalliance with the Civil Rights movement during his college years:
Well, to be very frank, I’m going to cut you off, but I never saw him, I never met him. I’m a chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for three years, from 1963 to 1966. I was involved in the sit-ins, the freedom rides, the March on Washington, the march from Selma to Montgomery, and directed their voter education project for six years. But I met Hillary Clinton. I met President Clinton.”~ Congressman John Lewis
Lets parse that statement real quick. He is implying one of two things both of which are nonsensical.
A: he’s either implying that he knew Hillary and Bill from being supporters of Civil Rights some 50 years ago.
OR
He’s implying that he’s never in his life met Bernie Sanders. Both statements are patently false. His statement was a conflation of facts. When you have to resort to that kind of double speak to justify endorsing a person then you deserve all the back lash that comes your way (as it did) to force you to eat your errant word play (which he did). Quite naturally he took a lot of criticism from corners of the political and social movement world that are in most cases reticent when it comes to critiquing elders from the civil rights time period. Predictably he was compelled to walk back his aggressive response to the innocuous query:
I was responding to a reporter’s question who asked me to assess Sen. Sanders’ civil rights record. I said that when I was leading and was at the center of pivotal actions within the Civil Rights Movement, I did not meet Sen. Bernie Sanders at any time. The fact that I did not meet him in the movement does not mean I doubted that Sen. Sanders participated in the Civil Rights Movement, neither was I attempting to disparage his activism. Thousands sacrificed in the 1960s whose names we will never know, and I have always given honor to their contribution…If you take a look at a transcript of my statement, you will find I did not say that I met Hillary and Bill Clinton when I was chairman of SNCC in the 1960s. My point was that when I was doing the work of civil rights, led the Voter Education Project and organized voter registration in the South in the 1970s, I did cross paths with Hillary and Bill Clinton in the field. They were working in politics, and Bill Clinton became attorney general of Arkansas in the 1970s as well. That began a relationship with them that has lasted until today~ John Lewis (mea culpa)
The double speak did not end there. Both he and congressman Clyburn both denounced the idea of free college. They said that such a thing sends the wrong message. Here are two men particularly in the case of John Lewis that purport to carry the torch of Dr. Martin Luther King and his fight for economic equality sounding like Paul Ryan when it comes to evening the playing field in a most fundamental way. It was only 8 years ago that Clyburn was denouncing the race baiting of Bill and Hillary in their nomination fight against Obama. Now he can’t stop extolling her virtues. Collegiality over conviction is what that amounts to. It’s certainly not egregious enough of an offense for an individual trade so both John Lewis, James Clyburn and every other member of the CBC (not named Mia Love or Tim Scott) are all on Team Blackness for life but as an organization in congress boasting the teams color and logo it’s time that we trade them in for a more forward leaning body in the House and Senate. Even before the CBC bet their black card on Hillary Clinton they have been slowly but surely losing their way and subsequently the right to be called the Conscience of the Congress. Just to illustrate a few of their more incorrigible misdeeds as a caucus the following list serves as exhibit A.
In 2014 Rep Alan Grayson (of the Congressional Progressive Caucus) introduced a Bill to put an end to the Pentagon siphoning their military grade weapons and equipment off to America’s already overzealous police forces. The measure failed and only 7 of 41 members of the CBC voted to for it.
They have in increasing numbers started to capitulate to the Wall Streets demands on regulating their blood sucking hood predators like Pay Day Loan and Rent-to-Own companies
In 2008 the CBC Foundation which had raised over $55 million dollars from 2004-2008 spent more on a lavish banquet for ($700,000) than they did in scholarships that they awarded.
Again. As individuals the CBC members have little to worry about as far as being traded but as a collective the Black Delegation can do much better so…
2015 was another coontastic year full of black folks doing their latest and greatest “Shuck & Jive” routine to remain in the good graces of mainstream conservative white America. I could go on and on for days about the kind of self loathing self centered and selfish motivations that go into making certain black men and women suspend all manners of pride and common logic while spewing the most embarrassing rhetoric for the sole purpose of ingratiating themselves with the kind of dying breed of thought propagated on Fox news, but I don’t have all day and since we have already said farewell to 2015 I’m going to cut to the chase and share my top 10 Coons of the last 365 day cycle…
#10 Raven Symone
~ Now Raven is probably one of the more innocuous additions to this list because unlike the coons that will follow her she has not outwardly advocated for or co-signed the murder of black people, stumped for Trump or any of the more outlandish things that her brothers and sisters in coondumb are guilty of.
With that being said Raven is a black woman that has a national media platform and while The View to most serious people may be superficial day time programming in nature, Ravens words, thoughts and opinions reverberate and have wide spread resonance. With such a dearth in black voices in media she has a responsibility (whether she accepts this or not) to represent the overall interest of African-Americans as they portend to social uplift and all manners of equality. While Raven is far from the most egregious on air offender of black sensibilities I would be remiss not to coon-crown her for openly embracing discriminating against people with ethnic or as she puts it “ghetto sounding” names.
She received enough backlash for her banal brain musing that she did the unthinkable–at least for a coon. She actually apologized to black people and retracted her statement. And while there are other examples this year of her cooning we will not belabor the point because again, unlike the coons on the list that will follow her there is some hope. Let’s pray that she understands the error of her ways and does not make next year’s list.
#9 Jonathan Gentry
~ Now most don’t know this “Soul Glo” Negro. Hell, I barley know who he is. I just happened to pass one of his coonified productions on Facebook and could not help but to opine on the kind of chicanery chicoonery that he had on display. Of course the mostly all white people on his page that pats him on his greasy ass head for his Uncle Tom soliloquies rushed to defend their lawn jockey. My retort to his rabidly racist followers ended up getting me a 30 day ban from Facebook…
…so needless to say my number 9 selection was more personal in nature. Though the Coon-job that he’s pulling off is still worthy of mention.
#8 Rod Wheeler
~ Rod Wheeler is another lesser known coon (unless you are a Fox Newsbot) who deserves some recognition for his incessant coonery and failing of black people in media. The following clip speaks for itself. As a black man and former police officer he has totally abdicated his responsibilities to the community by co-signing the deaths of the innocent victims of racist policing in America. His answer to how to stop police killings of unarmed black people is to get out of their way and let them do their jobs. Oh and that there needs to be a change at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He really said that…
#7 Kevin Jackson
~ Kevin Jackson is one of the better known hired guns (against black progress) of Fox News. He makes a living being the attack dog for white supremacy on air. No matter how egregious the offense to black people are he will always side with whatever Sean Hannity’s opinion is. He is to Sean Hannity what Justice Clarence Thomas is to Justice Antoion Scalaia–a lap dog.
His answer about what ails black America will always default to liberal policies, the Democratic party and Al Sharpton & Jesse Jackson. No matter what the specific topic at hand is. I think we all know a coon or two like this guy.
#6 Diamond & Silk
~ Now these two coonettes were plucked from under the same rock of obscurity that the rest of Donald Trumps dangerously uneducated following crawled from under. The two of these women together can be described as nothing short of a minstrel act. The kind of cooning that they have on display would normally grant them a higher ranking but as I said earlier–2015 was quite the coontastic year and these birds have little to no influence on even the most guile among us so all this performance really amounts to is a modern day Amos and Andy skit.
Two extra mediocre ghetto birds with lace front weaves endorsing Donald Trump and his Mein Kampf style of politics amounts to being just a misdomeaner in comparison to the Trump endorsements coondorsements to follow…
#5 The Black Preachers that endorsed Trump
…because after all not even the average ghetto bird will follow these ghetto birds to the polls to vote for him. The Diamond and Silk coon combo at the end of the day will garner minimal (if any) black voters for Trump. Their purpose more than anything is to assuage white racist guilt and to allow Trump to keep on saying “The Blacks love me”. These black preachers stumping for Trump is a much more nefarious act of treason to the community because these men are literally paid to lead flocks of black people and they are knowingly leading their flock to vote for a man that overtly disdains them and is literally promising to increase their misery index. No matter what these men and women have done in their respective ministries in the past to uplift the community (if they’ve done that at all) they will now and forevermore be remembered for selling out the black and progressive cause for Donald Trumps chump change. They have reached the point of no return and are coons for life–the same holds true for their respective congregants. So yes, if you still sit in any of these house niggers pew on Sunday, you too are a coon for life.
Then there was this…
#4 Omorosa
Omorosa was the actual ring leader of the Black Preachers for Trump Coon Brigade. She’s higher on the list and singled out because in addition to being an ordained minister she’s a very accomplished woman and has enough merit and stripes that such cooning on her part for Donald Trump is wholly unnecessary. Her literally whoring for one of the most overtly racist men to run for president since Barry Goldwater should forever relegate her to being nothing more than a coon, bed wench, mammy (insert Uncle Tom pejorative of choice).
#3 Ben Carson
~Mr. Gifted Hands has anything but a gifted mind. His meteoric yet ephemeral rise to the top of the GOP presidential polls mirrors that of Herman Cains rise (and fall) four years ago. By now it’s pretty obvious that both men are the ultimate tokens of the Grand Ole Party’s fledgling nomination process whereby they serve as the ultimate cover for the most ignorant and bigoted voters (and pollsters that corral them) in the nation and allow them to opine in the most mind numbing racist ways only to claim that they are not racist because they are voting for a buffoon named Ben. Even the dolts that claim to be supporting this useful idiot know that come Super Tuesday his name will be no where near a ballot.
Ben Carson is the Rain Man of brain surgery–politics not so much. In the school of medicine the dude is genius extraordinaire. In the school of politics, common sense and all things unrelated to cutting open the medulla oblongata, he’s arrested in his development and suffering from an undiagnosed case of Asperger’s (no offense to anyone with a child on the autism spectrum). He’s more socially awkward, inept and out of place on the national political stage than a 3rd grader at the opera. The good news is that by this time next election cycle he will be the same faint and distant memory (and footnote in history) that Herman Cain is today because his useful idiocy will have long expired. Enjoy Corky while you can.
#2 Sheriff David Clarke
Sheriff David the Coon Clarke has never met a police shooting of an unarmed black person that he did not agree with or co-sign as great police work. His rise to notoriety (mostly via Fox and CNN) coincides with and is in direct correlation to the level of outrage generated by the myriad murders by police caught on tape. He’s paraded around the networks to basically explain away racist police policies and abuse of authority. This makes him one of the most dangerous men (for blacks) on television.
And oh yeah, his answer to what ails the black community is single black women.
#1 Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson
Allow me to drop this verbatim right here (Rev. Jesse Lee Patterson on the Black Lives Matter Movement)
“It’s a hate group, they’re no different than the skinheads or the KKK. They are people who have never been taught to love. From the beginning of their lives they were taught to hate, blame and become victims. They’re just spending a lifetime blaming white Americans, blaming slavery for their lack of good parents in the homes and their lack of love… If Black Lives Matter was a white radical group, doing exactly what these black people are doing, they would be shut down. America would not allow that to happen…white Americans feel helpless and they have fear and they allow black lives matter, and other groups, to destroy our country…I’ve done a lot of work in the prisons and jails, and juvenile detention centers over the years. They have taught, and are teaching black youth, both male and female now, that Christianity is the white man’s religion and that Islam is the black man’s religion…At one point, I was a liberal Democrat, and I had the same anger as Black Lives Matter have because my father wasn’t there for me. Instead of people helping me to forgive him, they told me it was white racism, so I had to same hatred for white people…But I went to God and asked him to show me what was wrong, he allowed me to see it was that anger that starts in the home.
Uncle Ruckus could not have said that any better (from the purview of a coon of course). And if that is not enough to justify his top billing as Coon of the year the following clip should cement his standing
When Sean Hannity has to tell you to dial back the coonery–you have officially earned the title Coon of the Year.
As someone that voted for you both in 2008 & 2012, supported your campaigns financially, volunteered my time and even played key stroke warrior on your behalf when undue criticism ,insults and racist diatribes were lobbed at you and your family, I feel that I’ve earned the right to express how disappointed I am at what I see as one of the lowest moments of your presidency. At least as it portends to the uplift of African-Americans (particularly the most vulnerable) and the continued fight against white supremacy in America (particularly law enforcement).
Question(s) for you Mr President:
Did you call George Zimmerman a thug for stalking, attacking and then shooting dead that unarmed kid that you claimed would look so eerily similar to your son if you had one? How about Darren Wilson–did you call him a thug for shooting Mike Brown as he had his hands raised–the universal sign for surrender? Timothy Loehmann shot and killed 12 year old Tamir Rice within 2.5 seconds of arriving at a park where he innocently played with his TOY gun–was that not an act of thuggery? Did you call him a thug? Walter Scott was shot 5 times in the back by a thug in uniform that sits in a jail cell as we speak–did you label him a thug yet?
I get it, they are all law enforcement (minus the wannabe) and American law enforcement are sensitive creatures so for whatever reason you feel that you must coddle them so I will forgive (for the moment with a dash of sarcasm) your reluctance to call a spade a spade vis-a-vis law enforcement. What about the guy who stormed an elementary school and murdered in cold blood over 20 babies? Did you call Adam Lanza or any of the plethora mass shooters that thugged out on your watch thugs for any of their thuggery?
What is a thug in the first place?
Now that we have a baseline to work with in the form of definitive means, let’s examine exactly what you could have meant by calling some of the poorest,most disaffected, and criminally mis-educated, boys from poorest end of one of the most impoverished cites in the country you lead a bunch of thugs. A thug is defined as acruelorviciousruffian,robber,ormurderer. Now I know they were rioting and throwing rocks but they did not kill anyone, nor were they particularly cruel. In fact one of those thugs even had his mom greet and beat his ass all the way home. Now I’ve listened to a lot of rap music in my life and at least according to the hip-hop doctrine that ain’t how a thug goes out.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that your flippant use of the term to describe these provoked, misguided and rightfully angry youth was more a generalization for what they were doing at the time (rioting) and not part of the American racial codec. Every year you host the winner of the Stanley Cup at the White House and almost every year that that cup in won and loss there’s rioting in the streets of the city that one or both teams represent. I never ever saw you or anyone in your administration or the mainstream media call them thugs or petition the team owner from the winning team to talk sense into their unruly (for no damn reason) fan base. Like everyone else in America you picked Kentucky to win the NCAA championship this year. There was a bunch of college students in Kentucky that took that loss way harder than you, I and most other Americans–funny how you nor anyone else in media labeled them thugs. What gives Mr. President? Why does black America get the Angry Obama Alter ego in real life concerning real issues and white America only gets to see that guy in a stand up routine talking about a bucket lists?
For someone who normally has his ear to the street and stays connected to the realities faced by many you sure let your radar down with that one reference. Either your code switching skills are slipping or there is at least a modicum of truth to the widely held belief propagated by many in the black community that you take our feelings, worth and even intelligence for granted. It’s not necessarily a belief that I subscribe to in fact I vehemently disagree with that notion. I’m still however having trouble wrapping my mind around why you called those boys a thugs and what exactly did you mean by it.
Your employ of such a dubious term to describe the Baltimore youth that rebelled at YOUR (I stress your because you have yet to denounce them) armed and shielded agent provocateurs better known as the BCPD (as well as the rest of them in America) was nothing short of heart breaking. While the totality of what you said was fair-minded and empathetic your use of the word thug to describe those kids does a great disservice to them and most black men in America. It over shadowed much of the good things that you said.
Baltimore councilman Carl Stokes perfectly summarized what the media and other irresponsible handlers of the bully pulpit (yourself included) mean when they call those disadvantaged kids thugs.
In case the memo has not made its way to 1600 Penn, let me be the first to break the news to you that “Thug” is euphemistic speak for nigger–ask Richard Sherman, Marshawn Lynch and Fox News. Hell, you’ve been called a thug numerous times–how could you not know it’s contemporary meaning? The first black president codifying such racist code speak is akin to giving up on black youth. As much as your use of the term thug disturbs me (and your lack of use of the word at other times) I know for a fact that that is not your aim so this letter is written with love. You established the My Brothers Keeper initiative and pledge to improve the lives and mitigate the hardships faced by black boys in urban America. One of the first steps in uplifting our black boys to manhood is to disabuse the notion that they are the embodiment of their worst acts–especially while mired in the doldrums of poverty.
My organization signed up to take your pledge. We are taking it very seriously and we aim to make a huge difference in the lives of some of Urban Americas least franchised. That would make us partners Mr President and as partners in this great and worthy endevor I hope you receive this letter of slight rebuke in love. Your words were disturbingly counter-productive. An apology and retraction of that very in-artful sound bite would be nice. A vow to never ascribe that term to the kind of kids that you did the other day would be even better. I’m not saying that you need to have a mock funeral for the word thug like that failed mock funeral they had for the word nigger a few years ago. We’d actually like to hear that word roll off your lips a little more often. First it would be nice to hear you ascribe that term to cops that murder innocent unarmed individuals. Second and more importantly we’d like to hear you mention all of the good work that our organization is doing with the youth. THUGS Inc is the organization (Together Helping Unite Gods Sons) and we are our brothers keepers. The kids that you refereed to as thugs are actually sons of God. Help us help you help them.
Privilege is defined as the special right, immunity or benefit that a single person or group enjoys over most others in society. Privilege manifest itself in myriad forms depending on the person and/or group and their relation to society at large. In most instances people who enjoy certain privileges prefer (for obvious reasons) not to give them up. And why would they? When a pretty woman is showered with compliments and gifts just for being born with a nice set of features that’s a privilege that she enjoys over women less aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Should she be expected to not accept the less than earned privilege? When the average man has to go to the mechanic and does not get taken to the bank, but is instead given a fair market price tag for the work being done on his vehicle, is that a privilege that he should be expected to forgo? Yes, said no man ever.
Depending on who you are on the proverbial chess board of life you’re going to fall in a pecking order with certain privileges in the balance. You will win some and lose some–some sceanrios have you being a king while pawn is your position in others. It’s one of those facts of life that you just have to deal with. No one should have to apologize for whatever undue perks in life that they were born with or had been bestowed upon them by random or systemic order. Furthermore, in a day and age when wealth inequality is almost an American brand, trying to convince poor and struggling middle class white families that their American Dream turned nightmarish reality includes special privileges represents an exercise in futility. Not to mention it all but kills the much needed and long overdue dialogue on race that this country keeps punting from generation to generation.
There are a lot of well intended people (black and white) that decry the inherent unfairness of ‘White Privilege’. My hope is that they heed this message and re-calibrate theirs to one that is instead anti white supremacy. White privilege is not the impetus, spring board or catalyst to the rich getting insanely richer off of the backs of an ever widening poor and working class. White Supremacy is the culprit for such a collective and communal cognitive dissonance.
Midterm malaise
Voting to take away your own healthcare, environmental protections, and much needed social safety net can be called a lot of things. A privilege however is not one of them.
It’s white supremacy that has so many white people walking around with cut noses and spited faces. Those very spiteful white voters rushed to the polls to usher in the most republican officeholders in this country since 1920–with the same bankrupting mentality and agenda. The 1920 GOP majority managed to bring the Great Depression to fruition after a decade of total power. This 2014 iteration promises to do the same but since that message was cloaked in a white supremacist codec catering to the white supremacist ethos–it was a winning strategy. They even had an exit poll in South Carolina that actually asked the question ‘are Blacks getting too demanding over equal rights?’.
The South Carolina exit poll question plays off the long ingrained white fear of blacks taking that which belongs to them. It’s a tried, tested and winning way to sway the median middle class electorate to vote in a manner that runs counter to their interest. Basically voting for laws that benefit billionaires.
The nascent black vote
As disappointed as I am about black America staying home from the polls this past mid-term it was and is a completely logical decision (not that I agree) that I find it hard to quibble with.
Here’s a president. The first black president–one that got many of them (white democrats) elected or re-elected in 2008 and 2012.
He averted a second Great Depression, got the unemployment rate from 10 percent to under 6 percent. The stock market is seeing record highs after being in the dumps from the disastrous Bush years. He killed the arch nemesis Osama. He even helped raise money for them to run against his accomplishments. Now I have my own issues with this president but by all mainstream partisan and non-partisan metrics this president has been the most successful of any in our lifetime, but the Democratic Party still ran away from him and his record.
In their defense their running from Obama was not personal and for the most part they ran from him more than his record or actions but what they were running from is something that they should all be embarrassed and a shamed of. They were running from his race because they coveted the anti-Black president/ pro-white supremacist vote much more than they coveted the black vote. Seems that there is some bi-partisanship in Washington. Unfortunately it’s the white supremacist worldview.
From the logical perspective of even the most astute black progressive voter, if they can so easily turn their back on the black man whose coattails they rode to power. A black man that occupies the highest office in the land, a black man that saved the American auto industry and the millions of jobs that depended on it, a black man who’s now the ONLY democratic voice of significance in Washington–How easy is it for them to turn their back on the average black man, woman and child that’s armed merely with single vote that’s at best only relied upon every two years (if at all)?
When black conservatives lament about blacks being used by the Democratic Party it’s almost always devoid of context and for the express purpose of getting more black people to become their partners in Coonery for their GOP puppet masters. However that does not mean that those broken clock minded professional shuckers and jivers are not correct to at least an extent. The relationship between black voters and the Democratic Party is indeed completely one sided and ineffectual. In the Senate Democrats quest to run away from the black guy they wholeheartedly embraced Hillary Clinton and the Clintonian political juggernaut (so they call it). It was widely rejected in large part do to the fact that black and brown folks were not impressed and stayed home. If the DNC has any foresight at all they will see that Mrs. Clinton is not the slam dunk nominee that they and their GOP rivals are hedging on. They too(the DNC) need to re-calibrate their message. They need to extricate the white supremacy from their ranks, stand up to bigotry in their states and come with a more inclusive agenda able to lift the tide for the American middle class. Anything less will lead to further demise of the party along with this nation.
So in summation, by all means white America. Keep all of the privilege you have for however much longer that your numerical majority and historical inaccuracies afford you. We from the black delegation would just prefer that you lose that false sense of superiority. If not for us, do it for your kids and their future because after all that is who your wayward voting patterns hurt the most.
I’ve often been told that I was angry. An angry black man to be exact. I used to vehemently reject that label until I took stock of all the things that pissed me off and/or truly had enough power over me to disrupt my mood. More things in this world, especially as it pertains to social justice and uplift anger me than I care to admit. For the sake of clarity I’m gonna give you 10 reasons why I’m an Angry Black Man.
To be a negro in this country and to be relativity conscious is to be in a rage almost all of the time ~ James Baldwin
1. The myth of Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was known as the “Great Communicator”. As with most labels, talking points and platitudes from the right, the moniker “Great Communicator” is euphemistic speak for something much more sinister. By great communicator they really mean to say that he was a great liar. One that is able to effectively articulate the dastardly deeds that his party had in store for the country by couching said message in between some innocuous sound bites with his signature evil grin. Our 40th president saved his best acting for his post Hollywood career because his emulating even a marginally effective sitting president was a more Oscar worthy performance than anything he ever had as the B list actor that he was.
I would have to dedicate an entire blog post to the guy recite all the ways in which Reagan was a foul and failed president, so for the sake of brevity I will provide a truncated list of infractions
All in all the dude sucked royally and the hero worship he receives today should be enough to drive any sane man mad–so yeah, I’m angry about that.
2. Fox News and the Corporate media conglomerates that purposely confuses the masses
The Fairness Doctrine was created in 1949 due to a rise in misinformation and outright propaganda being accepted as empirical fact by much of the public. For 50 years it for the most part succeeded in keeping the public informed when it came to matters germane to its interest. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1980 he immediately began chipping away at this law until it was finally abolished in 1987. So if you ever wondered why the Bill O’Reilly’s’, Sean Hannity’s and Rush Limbaugh’s of the world incessantly heap praise on one of the worst presidencies in the modern era, understand that these men would not have jobs in media were it not for Ronald Reagan doing away with a law that forbade them from being the lying talking heads that they are today–at least not unchallenged. Thus began the making of the anti-intellectual society that we currently suffer through today.
The idiot age that has finally come to fruition was not just the fault of Reagan and his right-wing party, it was a bi-partisan hit job on the American people because not even 10 years after the Fairness Doctrine was repealed by Reagan, Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (the very year that Fox News was born) which basically killed mom and pop ownership of local media and granted corporate owned media outlets carte blanche powers to consolidate media markets around the country. The end result is a lot more media voices with a whole lot less diversity in the perspective that powers those many voices. Fast forward to 2014 where millions of people hold steadfast to truths that have absolutely no basis in fact ,like where this president was born or what religion he claims or even more long standing and scientifically proven facts like the world being older than 6000 years. Either way it’s enough to drive any sane person mad. So for the sake of sanity Fox is a major reason why I’m an Angry Black Man!
3. The Ban the N-word movement
I’m personally offended that the word nigga has some how become the only word in the English lexicon that Americans ( black & white) feel need to be banned( regardless of the context). I’m not here to defend the words usage but I do question the logic being employed. What good is getting rid of the word nigga if you are doing nothing to abate the nigga condition? That’s sort of like putting on deodorant without taking a shower.
Several years ago I watched in sheer disgust as the NAACP conducted a mock funeral for the word. It was an utter spectacle and an all-time low for the organization that still calls itself colored. The only thing more ridiculous than the idea of trying to bury a word that has been an active part of the urban vernacular for most of the 20th century (and on into the new millennium) is the guy they choose to bury the word. They actually had Kwame Kilpatrick do the Eulogy.
How are you going to ask an n-word to bury the n-word?
If such a sad spectacle (and major fail) was not bad enough we now have the NFL commissioner stepping into the fray to give his unsolicited, unwanted and unworthy opinion on the matter (backed by punitive measures). Now mind you this is the same guy that has neither the empathy nor social awareness to lend a sympathetic ear to the concerns of the Native American population that take serious umbrage with the Redskin moniker. Now he wants to interject and legislate the speech of black men in the NFL– ain’t that some shit!?! Even more maddening is the fact that I hear so many black people co-sign this foolish and morally empty gesture. They act like he’s doing this out of sheer altruism and not because of the fact that two of his white players purposely used the word in its most offensive contexts. So basically he’s going to penalize the black players in the game because he has two white players who embarrassed the league this year. Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense.
4. Reality Television
I’m first and foremost mad at myself for knowing who many of the characters on these shows are in the first place. Unfortunately for me I tend to vicariously follow these shows via my Facebook timeline every time they come on. If it was as simple as blocking (or deleting) the people that watch these sort of programs and provide play-by-play details of the ratchet optics, believe me I would. But it’s not that easy because these shows have captivated people of all walks. From the projects to the pulpits these “reality” programs have become cult like hit shows– especially with black women. I even have sisters that religiously watch these wayward programs telling me that I should stop using the N-Word. The audacity niggacity of these particular women truly befuddle me. It’s wrong to say the word nigga but completely okay to act out the worst of nigga behavior for all the world to see and even worse, for young impressionable minds to think that such untoward behavior as exhibited on these shows are okay to emulate.
the more of this young girls see on TV…
The more of this we will all see on World star Hip Hop…
She Watch Channel Zero was song on Public Enemy’s ‘It takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back’ album that dropped way back in 1988. It no longer takes a nation of millions to hold black people back–Bravo is doing a pretty good job at it.
5. Black Conservatives and the house nigger mentality
The good Dr. Clarke said it all. Nothing left for me to add. Actually I have plenty to add but I have so much disdain to express vis-a-vis the house nigger mentality that it would take an entire blog post dedicated to the subject.
6. White Supremacy
White Supremacy is indeed one of the most wide spread un-diagnosed mental illnesses that exist today. It’s an affliction that transcends religion, race, creed, culture, and geographic boundaries. When white people in America finally get a grip on what an insidious force white supremacy is and begin to successfully combat it, the world as we know it will begin to move towards peace. The world would also begin to see a semblance of fairness as it pertains to how the wealth of the world is redistributed.
White supremacy is not just the enemy of black people and indigenous people across the globe, white supremacy is also an enemy to most white people. Why? Because it’s a facade. A mere false notion whereby the top 2-5 percent reap 85 percent of the benefits that the majority champion–under the guise of white privilege. It really is high time that White America collectively wake up and realize that the greatest problems that this country face were caused and co-signed by a white majority. The wayward white male voting patterns are to blame for all of the wars and strife that engulf this nation– almost 100 percent. From the countries two longest running wars in Afghanistan and Iraq all the way back to the Civil War (and before) where over 500,000 died quite literally in the name of preserving white supremacy (99 percent of the participants did NOT own slaves).
Congressman Paul Ryan recently made headlines for what could only be labeled a “blame it on the blacks” excuse (for pretty much all of the countries financial woes).
“there is a tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work…So there’s a real culture problem here…that has to be dealt with.” ~ Congress Paul Ryan
Now this is coming from a man that voted to go to war in Iraq (2 trillion plus tax dollars), he voted for the Afghan war (2 plus trillion tax dollars) and the Bush tax Cuts (1 trillion). Now that’s at least 5 trillion dollars alone that this man wasted since becoming a congressman. Then there’s the Medicare part D boondoggle that’s costing the tax payers 62 billion alone this year with the progressive scale that it’s on promising to raise that figure to 150 billion annually by 2019.
Now you don’t need to know algebra (or even a calculator) to come to the conclusion that congressman Paul Ryan’s proclivity for wasteful spending is far more responsible for the nations 16 trillion dollar debt than anything going on in the hood. Even he knows this. The quoted Paul Ryan musing is what you call a dog whistle. A sort of wink wink codec to white Americans to say, “once we get rid of our black problem all will be right in the country”–meanwhile he’s robbing them blind increasing their taxation while decreasing their representation in the form of tangible government benefits and services. This of course is not a new tactic. It’s a tried and true method of coalescing their base. This Southern Strategy that congressman Paul and others in his party actively employ is wholly dependent on the white supremacist worldview. Lyndon B Johnson best expressed this phenomena when he said:
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”~ LBJ
LBJ in appealing to the white Southerners common sense was able to help them help themselves by getting his Great Society programs off the ground–the very same Great Society programs that are under attack by Paul Ryan and others under the guise of fixing the countries black problem.
The presidency of Barack Obama has galvanized the dormant descendants of the Dixiecrat movement (think Tea Party) and got them reengaged in the political process and this is the fools gold that Ryan and others in his fledgling party are playing to. Lee Atwater who was a former Reagan Aide and former campaign manger for George H.W Bush is known as the modern day architect of the Nixon Strategy. He in very laymen terms explained to Ryan and others how to execute this strategy in 1981 when he said:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger” ~ Lee Atwater (as Reagan aide)
This lesson from Atwater has not been lost on anyone in today’s republican party. It however was not his last message to them or the masses. It is also one that is sadly lost on them all. Lee Atwater’s death bed mea culpa should serve as a stark and dire warning to the GOP that today employs the worst of what he had to offer the world and to the part of white america that still needs to feel a sense of ethnic and cultural superiority in order to vote for a given candidate.
“My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The ’80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn’t I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn’t I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don’t know who will lead us through the ’90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul”~ Lee Atwater (from his death bed)
Even those who have benefited the most form the white supremacist construct at the end of life regret harboring such a divisive and superficial worldview. Those in America that don’t actually benefit from such a worldview would be doing themselves (and the world around them) great justice by ridding themselves of such an ideology.
7. Stand Your Ground and The rise of the Zimmerman defense
The Zimmerman affect should be enough to raise the ire of every person of color who happens to be, or have love ones that are young black men. The gross injustice doled in the wake of the cold blooded murders of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis and the subsequent exoneration for the murderous intent that went into their killing is as frightening as it is maddening.
The George Zimmerman acquittal and his failure to initially be arrested for the crime of murder was about white supremacy. The fact that a mostly white jury could not bring themselves to convict Michael Dunn for the cold blooded premeditated murder of an unarmed 17 year old Jordan Davis despite mounds of evidence is because of white supremacy.
The sense of entitlement and the victim-hood displayed by both George Zimmerman and especially Michael Dunn is the most maddening aspect of their trials. The following quote by Michel Dunn in a conversation with his girlfriend sums up perfectly what’s wrong with his thought process
You know I was thinking about that today, I was like I’m the fucking victim here, I was the one who was victimized, I mean I don’t know how else to cut it, like they attacked me, I’m the victim. I’m the victor, but I was the victim too.”
Since the untimely and racially charged murders of Trayvonn Martin and Jordan Davis more innocent unarmed black people were inexplicably gunned down by white men. Robert Bruce Black, Brian Cloninger, Theodore Wafer and Claudius Smith all joined the ranks of “victims that needed to stand their ground by gunning down a defenseless black person. Apparently it’s a dream of many white men to gun down an unarmed black kid and beat the case. They want to be like George like we wanted to be like Mike. It’s disgusting and any black man that is not angry at this seemingly growing trend is devoid of both a brain and spinal cord.
8. Black bigotry, intolerance and overall lack of political astuteness
The opposite of white supremacy is progress. White supremacy on its face is regressive and reactionary politics/policy. Policies promoted to purposely divide the populous (divide and conquer) to foster a society more ripe for corrupt capitalist to exploit.
Far too many of my so called conscious brothers think that the answer to white supremacy and all of its affects is black unity in the form of huddling the black masses (all 13-15 percent of the country’s black population) and in Marcus Garvey like fashion building our own colony away from from the “evil white man”. What such a supposition fails to account for is the inherent good and evil that exists in all men. If you talk ALL black men with you to that colony of blackness you would no doubt be taking some inherently evil and flawed minded black men with you.
First and foremost our percentages in this country are such that we need other groups to vote along side us in order to maximize a progressive minded influence. As black people we must disabuse the notion that that we are this countries most aggrieved population (even if we are) and be able to look for enough past our own historical disenfranchisement to empathize with the contemporaneous disenfranchisement of others. Even if their current plight is is not nearly as bad as the reverberations of the disenfranchisement wrought on our ancestors. If we are not going to join or co-sign the movements of the LGBT community, the immigrant community or any of the other groups like the labor movement, or women’s suffrage movement then the least that we should be doing is NOT speaking ill of those movements or worse–joining the chorus of hate and misunderstanding as it pertains to those respective groups.
One of the biggest criticisms of Obama is his lack of a “black agenda”. In that critic I often hear black people bemoan the fact that this president has done so many things for gays an immigrants, but nothing for blacks. This is a critique often bantered about by some of the more politically astute blacks. What I often find myself explaining (to no avail) to the men and women that make these proclamations is that the measures that this administration took on behalf of the LGBT community and the immigrant community were low hanging fruit. He did what any person of conscious would have done in his position at this pivotal time in history. There is no such silver bullet to solve what ails inner city America. There is nothing to repeal with a mere pen stroke. Our issues are much more deeply rooted. Therefore the panacea requires much deeper thoughts and far less regurgitation of bygone era black separatist politics.
At best black people comprise 15 percent of the countries population but our contribution to what made America the first world power that she is in no less than 50 percent. This country literally moves to the beat of the African drum. Wear that as a sense of pride but disabuse the notion that we are superior and are best served by separation from territories that our ancestors helped to build. While in many ways it may seem that we are regressing but we are a long way from were we started. I would not want to live in the 40’s, 50’s or 60’s. We were doing far worse collectively. White supremacy has to continue to die out. It’s dying a slow death and whatever we can do to speed up that death would assist in moving not only the black community forward but this whole nation and the world as well. One final thought to ponder…
There could be no Michael Jordan if there were no James Naismith ~ Unknown
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9. Respectable Negros
The respectable Negro is not to be confused with the House Nigger and definitely not to be confused with the negro that simply shows respect to their fellow man.
If there was an aviator in the dictionary to represent the respectable negro it would probably be a picture of the HRNIC (head respectable negro in charge) himself Don Lemon. If you know Don Lemon and can identify his major malfunction than you know what i mean when I speak about the anguish that respectable Negroes world wide are able to illicit in you average angry black man. If you are unfamiliar with the antics of Don Lemon then I have to apprise you on what a respectable negro is in a future blog post. For now judge for yourself…
10. Today’s hip hop landscape
I was born in 1973, the same year that many historians of the genre credit Cool Herc with creating rap. I was also born and reared in Brooklyn NY which is arguably responsible for birthing the worlds greatest MC’s hailing from any single borough, city, county or municipal jurisdiction, so when I see what has become of the culture it makes me Mad Rapper type angry.
We went from this….
Big Daddy Kane & MC Lyte
to this…
I can’t be the only one mad at what has become of the culture.
The Angry Black Rant 
