Monthly Archive

Around the globe the value of the dollar is dropping, but what we really want to know is:

“Will they take food stamps?”

In today’s NYT it is projected that 28 million Americans will be receiving food stamps this year which is the highest level of aid since the program began in the 1960s.

The article cites economic conditions, eligibility rules, enlistment drives and natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina for the spike.

One in eight residents now receive food stamps in Michigan.  Ohio and Illinois are also reaching new highs.  Other states that have seen a rise are Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, North Dakota and Rhode Island. 

A few weeks ago, before the whole Jeremiah Wright blow up, a friend of mine (a rabid H. Clinton supporter) claimed that little is known about Obama and worried that he was a jihadist in disguise because of his odd sounding/foreign name and his African father (sad to say this friend is black).  I did what any good friend would do to assuage another friend’s fears: I told her to shut the hell up and stop talking smack.  She sent me a barrage of questions: Where was Obama born?  What church did he attend?  What was his race?  What was his religion?

I answered her: Hawaii, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chi-Town, he’s biracial: black Kenyan Father, white American mother and he’s a Christian.

I emailed her back: where was H. Clinton born?  What church does she attend?  What is her racial background?  What is her religion?  I also asked why she thought H. Clinton pursued the Senate seat in NY instead of her home state?

She ignored my letter so I sent it to her twice more.  She said that I was being belligerent.

Since the Jeremiah Wright debacle Clinton has made sure to point out that she would never attend a church with such a man at the helm?  But what church does she attend?  We know where Obama stands and what McCain thinks on religion (this election cycle anyway) but where does Hillary Clinton go to get spiritually fed?

Writer and activist Barbara Ehrenreich thinks that is an excellent question and she has the answer.  In her March 19 article on the Huffington Post, Ehrenreich writes about the secretive bible study and prayer group that H. Clinton attends which is called “The Fellowship”. 

“The Family’s most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington,” writes Ehrenreich.   ”But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes — knitting together international networks of rightwing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian. In the 1940s, The Family  reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolph Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs.”

A more in-depth look at H. Clinton’s affiliation with the family can be read in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones magazine.

Should we more concerned about H. Clinton’s religious affiliation than Obama’s?  Whereas Obama’s minister went on a jeremiad with his religious speech, Rev Wright has no political power because he doesn’t hold office.  But H. Clinton is attending services with Sam Brownback, John Ashcroft, and Rick Santorum and has aligned herself with some conservatives issues such as flag burning and religion in the workplace.  This isn’t the first time some have wondered if H. Clinton wasn’t a dl Republican and in her earlier years she worked on the Goldwater campaign. 

Also, in trying to curry favor with the John Edward to get his support Clinton said she would take up his cause for the American poor.  But can someone who doesn’t worship the Jesus of the but feels, as Ehrenreich writes, “believes… only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God’s “dominion” on earth”, will Clinton really look out for those in need?

But was she really going to look out for anyone who couldn’t afford to buy a night in the White House, anyway?

It’s a mini documentary but it’s still interesting.  Our Pride: the Spirits of Black Japanese in Georgia is a 32 minute movie by Yohei Suzuki about the offspring of African American fathers and Japanese mothers and how the individuals deal with being biracial/bicultural.

“We need to know how to deal with the issues and how to socialize with individuals of other ethnicities.  This documentary will uncover the existence of Blackanese and their ethnic pride,” Suzuki said in an interview with his college newsletter.  Suzuki realizes there are racial tensions between Japanese Americans and African Americans and hopes his documentary will bring “new culture into both communities”.

To view the video click on the link here.

(Thanks to Black-Asian Families with Children for the heads up)

Izora must be rolling over in her grave. 

His administration may be as harmonious as their singing.

This story is the talk of the Asian-Black community right now.

Tiffany Rubin has been battling over custody with her ex-husband Jeffrey Sako for a few years now.  They shared joint custody although Sako was facing up to six months in jail for non-payment of child support.  He decided to get out of it by returning to his home country of Korea and taking his child with him.

Rubin hacked into her ex’s email account and found out where he had gone.  With an anonymous tip to her MySpace page and the help of her new sister-in-law hooking her up with the American Association for Lost Children, Rubin found her son living in Gamsil, a town near Seoul.  She immediately went to Korea to retrieve her son.  She went to the school he was attending and told the teacher she needed to speak with him.  Once in the hallway, Rubin put a wig on her son and along with the representative for Lost Children they went to the American Embassy. 

Salko is still in South Korea.

This story man not have all of the intrigue as “Not Without My Daughter” but I would love to see a Lifetime or WEmovie of the week on it.  They did one for the Buttafuco’s they can do one for this.

Sources for this story are Yahoo News and New York Daily News. 

For the Fox News video click here

Although John Edwards has pulled his bid for president, his candidacy has helped to put the spotlight on poverty in the United States.  Right now everyone is buzzing about race but we can’t really have a true dialogue about race without also looking at social/economic status because the two are inextricably linked. 

To see how linked they are please check you local PBS listing to catch the four-part series called “Unnatural Causes… Is Inequality Making  Us Sick?“.  The first show is called “In Sickness and in Wealth” and looks at health disparity among people of different economic classes in Louisville, Kentucky. 

Four people represent different segments of society and three of them work in the same hospital in different positions.  The first person is a white male who is the CEO of the hospital; he has a high life expectancy and although a stressful job it makes less of an impact on his health than for the other three.  The second is a black female engaged to an Asian male who is on an economic rung lower than the first guy.  She is a supervisor at the hospital.  The next is a black male who works in custodial and last is a white female who is at the bottom of the economic ladder.  The white female doesn’t work at all and along with caring for her children she has to take care of her husband who is disabled along.  The show points out that, contrary to the stereotypical black face of poverty, more whites than blacks in the U.S. are poor.

Next week’s episode is equally intriguing.  That show will discuss why black babies have the highest infant mortality weight regardless of the mother’s economic status.

So, while we are arguing over who has the better health care plan and looking at matters of race perhaps we need to look at it through an economic prism and figure it out.  It costs us all, whether we know it or not.

Well, for this hour I’m on that music tip so I want to pass along that Dionne Farris’ latest cd is now available for purchase.  Her last cd, “Wild Seed, Wild Flower” came out 14 years ago and is a neosoul classic.

So yay!

But –you can only purchase it from her MySpace website.

Say what?!

Mmm-hm.  Man, I still have my daughter walk me through the downloading on my 1stGen iPod shuffle (I usually listen to music on my iRiver mp3 player –easier to download music to) and she wants me to buy her music from there?  

Well… 

I guess I better get my daughter to walk me through it one mo ‘gin.  But Farris is worth it.

Well, I thought that Brown Eyed Soul referred to the music put out by Latinos/Chicanos that had a soul flavor but, according to an article I found on Reika no rakuen, it also refers to Korean Soul music because of their eye color.

Black folks have brown eyes, too.  But I guess since we are the progenitors of the music the point is kind of moot.

But anyway, the Korean soul group “Brown Eyed Soul” and their latest album dropped late last year.  If you like it you can pick it up on YesAsia.com

Everyone is wondering about what the allure is of a certain presidential candidate.  Some are thinking that many are getting wrapped up in his sonorous speeches and not really questioning the politics behind it.

But I disagree.  Of course I disagree. 

I think this time is for the burgeoning cosmopolitans that Americans should be.  Big business keeps saying we live in a world economy.  Our government keeps dispatching our brothers/sisters over to lands that we can’t pronounce the names of nor do we know what type of sovereignty they might be under.  What pollutants we use here may have repercussions for a child in a far off country.  So for those of us who want to stand not just as Americans but also as earthlings who share one globe we can’t be discounted as Hippie Flower Children Reduxed for the New Millennium.

Okay, perhaps we can, but then you are missing the point.

We aren’t alone, we don’t want to be alone and if we are going to lead then we should decide where we are going so others will want to follow.

I snatched the following from over on Roslyn Holcomb’s website.  I’m not sure where she got it from (and neither is she) but I think it best sums up how we as Americans can be world leaders as well as world citizens.

Ghetto Lit is a quickly growing genre, but will I be able to complete one book of it? 

Currently there is a popular saying that has been gaining more and more popularity at the ends of emails and on black radio talk shows.  “If you want to hide something from black people, put it in a book.” People feel that it has been said so much that it has to be true.  Most Americans don’t read so it isn’t as if black people are an exception.  But I will say this; if you really want to hide it from African Americans don’t put it into a book of Urban Literature. Urban literature, also known as ghetto lit, gangsta fiction, urban novels, whatever you want to call it, is popular with a lot of African Americans today, young and old.  I was first introduced to the genre years ago when two of my coworkers were discussing what books they were going to read next.“Don’t you like to read?” she asked me, holding out a book.  I took it from her and read the inside cover, my brow furrowing a bit.  I handed it back to her and said,

This is an odd election year.

Not just because the Democratic nomination has been running longer than usual –which, I have to admit, I like.  It has never been fair that a few early voting states get to decide who the nominee should be.

It’s also odd because we have two candidates who seem confused at times what party they are running for.  One candidate may be a wolf in Democrats clothing and the other candidates past keeps creeping up on him.

Because all eyes (and ears) are on Obama for his speech on race, Clinton and McCain are being ignored like Brittney Spears on prozac.  But really, we shouldn’t.  The New York Times ran a piece yesterday about two events John McCain would like everyone (especially the far left conservatives) to forget.

The first event is that he courted or was courted by Democrats to jump the fence and play for the other side.  He was still ticked from being slammed and defamed by GWB’s team during the 2000 primaries and supposedly thought of changing sides.  So some Democrats say.  He says they asked him and he turned them down.

The second event is the rumor that McCain was going to be John Kerry’s V.P. in 2004.  Again, each side is claiming to be the pursued, not the pursuer and it’s odd that within a span of four years McCain could be a Democrat tease in that way.

But now, in order to shore up his base, McCain has decided to align himself with those he rebuked back in 2000.  A Salon.com article has even gone as far as to say that McCain is Bush.

When John McCain went to the White House last week, President Bush seemed to be offering him an out. Bush “welcomed” McCain as “the Republican nominee” in his official statement, but didn’t initially use the word “endorse.” It was McCain who leapt for the e-word. “Well, I’m very honored and humbled,” said McCain, “to have the opportunity to receive the endorsement of the President of the United States, a man who I have great admiration, respect and affection [for].”

McCain, perhaps, is not the same man who Independents fell for 8 years ago.  Maybe he feels he can’t be, because he didn’t get the nomination with Independent support back then and perhaps he’s afraid he either won’t get enough of them if Obama should happen to get the nomination.  So now, he’s banging the gong to get his base geared up and excited, in hopes that he can slide through in November on the strength of those votes because the Democrat contender will be limping from this prolonged brawl.

Or maybe McCain is just doing the old bait and switch and will turn back to the old John once he’s in.  But if the Democrats should win the White House, I’m sure McCain won’t have a problem with it.  Like McCain said in 2004, “the Democratic Party is a fine party“.

When J and I first started dating, William Hung was riding high from his short appearace on American Idol and making the morning radio rounds. J hated him immensely, referring to him as a blight on the image of Asian American men.

“It’s like that movie when I was in school,” J recalled of the Long Duk Dong character from the John Hughes Gen X smash “Sixteen Candles”.  He remembers getting into a fight with whomever tried to refer to him as the character.

The character of Long Duk Dong has been noted in NPR’s series “In Character” which takes a look at American characters from books and movies that have made an impression on the culture.

Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong, the founders of the magazine Giant Robot agree about how bad the Long Duk Wong stereotype is.  They spoke with NPR.

“If you’re being called Long Duk Dong,” Wong explains, “you’re comic relief amongst a sea of people unlike you.”

Worse, says Nakamura: “You’re being portrayed as a guy who just came off a boat and who’s out of control. It’s like every bad stereotype possible, loaded into one character.”

Listen to the full NPR story here.  Not to be left out, the series also examined the characters of Rasputia and Medea and the black female dichotomy.

I’m not a fan of BET.  It might be Black and Television, but there is nothing entertaining about the degradation of black people. 

Obviously those who are working on The Boondocks aren’t feeling too enamored of the who either.  The last two episodes of this season skewered BET so badly that the Cartoon Network pulled the episodes (they said they weren’t asked to although other reports are saying BET threatened to sue).

To see the full episodes then go here and here.

Within a week we’ve hit two landmarks with the war in Iraq.

Last week marked the fifth year anniversary of the war and today we reached the milestone of 4,000 dead Americans who have given their lives to this war for our country.  (Not many seem to be paying attention to the 90,000 civilian Iraqi deaths since the war began.)  And there seems to be no end in sight. Does it really matter who we elect in November?  Can they really get us out of this quagmire?

I remember the talk leading up to the war and how a few righteous people went around pointing the finger at those who thought brought this upon us.  It was the gays and our acceptance of their lifestyle that brought this to our door.  It was because we turned away from God or let other people worship the way the want to that 9/11 happened to us.  It’s because women want equal rights and aren’t in the home when the children return from school that bombers flew into the Twin Towers.

And where are these harbingers now that we are deep into a never ending war and slipping precipitously toward a recession?  We were so hypocritical then, we wanted it both ways.  We wanted to be out in the New World economy but swore we could make this war work on our own.  And we have gone it mostly alone, perhaps that’s why our money is no good anywhere anymore.  Not even in England, our staunches allies, even they want to gauge us.

Are homosexuality and the ACLU really our biggest sins?  Perhaps what got us into this situation and this war was our avarice, our bloodlust and unforgiving vengeance, weren’t those specific things that Jesus came to preach against?

But then I sit and think, perhaps those religious pundits were right, I am the cause for this war.  I didn’t vote for Bush, nor did I serve in congress but I didn’t do more.  I spoke up, but I have never carried a sign against the war.  I didn’t write my congressperson to inform them that I disagreed with their vote.  I didn’t write letters to the newspaper when I doubted the veracity of their stories.  I was in the silent majority; against the war but afraid to stand up and be noticed because I was afraid I’d be standing alone. 

I am not for this war.  But I am not against those who decided to take a stand for what they believe and this country that we love.  I pray that we can have our soldiers home before the casualties double in number.  I pray for the families who have lost loved ones. 

I got this video from Reappropriate.  I think it sums it up.

One of the bad things about Cincinnati is that people think in terms of race as if we were still living in the 1950s.One of the good things about Cincinnati is that people think in terms of race as if we were still living in the 1950s.  If you are a person of color but not black you can basically live under the radar in Cincinnati.  Black and white Cincinnatians are so consumed with arguing over Jim Crow laws that we don’t even notice the growing Hispanic and Asian communities in and outside of the city. 

Except my friend Lonnie.  She lives in on the westside of town and about five years ago she began complaining about the growing numbers of Hispanics moving into her neighborhood.

 ”The group of Hispanics that is living there now are so much better than the folks who were living there before,” Lonnie said.  Before the house was rented by a woman Lonnie described as a welfare Queen.  Lonnie complained about the neighbor not watching her children or keeping the front yard queen but the Welfare Queen’s biggest transgression was letting her herd encroach upon Lonnie’s mother’s garden.  Lonnie bought the house for her and her mother to live in and although fences make good neighbors it also becomes an object to get around for unsupervised children.  Sometimes the kids would hurl things over the wall or just walk in through unlocked gates.  The front yard, which wasn’t fenced in, was a free for all area.  You would think three black women, with the shared commonality of race, would have been able to come to an agreement but it wasn’t the case.  Lonnie just saw the other woman as an enemy to her investment (especially her hydrangeas) and the other woman saw Lonnie as that bougie bitch.

Lonnie was very happy when she was evicted.

At first Lonnie was unsure about the Hispanics living next door.  It was all adults; some single males, a few married couples.  She suspected they weren’t anymore or less educated than the previous tenant, but like herself they were gone to work during the day and sometimes a lot of them didn’t come home till late at night.   Being a friendly person by nature she eventually became friends with them and began evolution from the quotidian greetings of “Hi Neighbor, how are you today?” to the socializing of, “What are you doing tonight?”

From there socializing lead to romancing and Lonnie fell in love with one of the guys who lived in the house.  They became a couple and eventually married, with the guy moving into the home with her and her mother.  Last week they celebrated the birth of their second child.

So now, the community where Lonnie is living has gone from all black to mostly Latino.  I’m sure the 2010 census will note the change.   Even though the love of her life is South American with probably no black heritage (at least none that is discernable to my ‘Spot-a-Brother eyes’) Lonnie is now lamenting that there are hardly any African Americans around.

“I mean, I can go into the store and never see anyone who looks like us,” she said.

“Does that bother you?” I ask.

“No, but sometimes you just want to see us,” Lonnie said decisively.   “We used to everywhere over here when I first moved in, but now it’s a lot of Hispanics.  They’re opening up stores, they’re moving into houses and apartment, and they’re playing their music…”

“They’re knocking you up…”

“It’s just…” Lonnie goes on as if I hadn’t made a snide comment, but she generally ignores most of what I say.  “It’s just now I want to see more of us.”

With the brisk rise of Hispanics (and a few Asians) into primarily black and white communities there hasn’t been any backlash.  In other cities with more established Hispanic and Asian communities I read about the tension with African Americans that leads to violence among the groups.   The current presidential race is helping to solidify enmity between the two groups with the Clintons expounding the notion that Hispanics constituents won’t vote for a Black candidate.

Last week, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson threw his super delegate vote to Barack Obama because of Obama’s speech on race.

“I just believe Senator Obama brings in a new breed of leadership, new breed of advisers, new breed of constituency, younger people, people that have been out of politics,” Richardson said.  “That is very attractive, not just to the Democratic Party, but for the country.”

Perhaps Obama’s message will also reach outside the black/white dichotomy.  In the Fresno Bee, Visalia lawyer Victor Moheno said the speech was “very honest in relating how the races in the United States have come to where we are in 2008.”  Moheno is a lawyer who traveled to Texas to help with the Obama campaign and felt that the speech also related to Hispanics.  ”…The message was the same,” Moheno said.  That Latinos get pitted against whites, and whites and Latinos get pitted against blacks, when all the children are suffering.”

So far, in my part of the world there hasn’t been a problem with Black-Hispanic clashes as there have been in other parts of the country and I hope we remain that lucky.  I doubt it.  The city is slow to change but change does come, not matter how many decades late.  But as we wait Lonnie’s first son is learning to speak Spanish as well as English and he will eat empanadas along with his collard greens so when the culture war hits hopefully he can be a diplomat to both sides.

Or be branded a traitor.  You never know.

You knew it had to be different. 

Lebron James is the third man to grace the cover of Vogue magazine.   With photos from Guanbee.com, when Richard Gere and George Clooney have their beautiful mugs snapped for Vogue we get this:

But when Lebron poses we get this:

Which really is a rip off of this:

Very artistic.  Very creative indeed.  To think of a black male as an big money.  How original.

Yeah.

Photograph by Leibovitz, reinterpretation of the black male image courtesy of society.

Enka is a form of Japanese music that was popular in the country from 1868 to 1989.  It’s still popular with the older Japanese population but young listeners prefer J-Pop.

African American singer Jero (born Jerome White Jr) may bring it back.  He’s the first black Enka singer in Japanese music history.  He pursued that singing style because he promised his maternal Japanese grandmother that he would sing in the genre. 

Here is his video:

If you aren’t aware who Rinku Sen is then please check out Colorlines.org .   She’s one of the publishers of the magazine and also the editor of the Applied Research Center.

A couple of years ago an ex-coworker and I had a moment.

It was his last day of work and the previous 3 years had been… verbally combative shall we say.   He is white; I am black.  He is conservative; I am oh so liberal.  He is stodgy and I am fabulous on many different planes.  He is a Leo; I am an Aquarius.  We are polar opposites that may be why we were attracted to one another.  But it was exactly those opposites that kept us from getting together.

We argued over everything but mostly politics and race relations.   Those debates could become really heated and sometimes other coworkers had to intervene and send us to our cubicles to cool off.   Race was the one thing we couldn’t see eye to eye on, no matter how much we fussed, discussed, and argued. 

His side: it’s not a perfect country, we aren’t perfect people, but dividing ourselves up by race and leaning on things that happened in the past will only further divide us.  African Americans should drop the modifier and just be Americans.  We should also forget multiculturalism and just go by what every other immigrant (white immigrant, I say) has done and try to assimilate into the greater culture.  To him, this is what divided whites from blacks.

My side: whites have divided blacks from them since the day we stepped into this country.  I could no more forget my cultural heritage than I can my name because it is something I carry with me everyday I step into the white world.  My being African American is a nod to the culture that was taken from me, which I gladly reclaim because before it was shameful to identify with Africa.  If I still had what was lost I could claim that I was Nigerian American or Ibo-Jola mix but I can’t so I claim the whole continent and it was presumptuous of someone who can say they were of German/English extraction to tell me to let go of my lost past.  Multiculturalism, I posited, was not in place of Americanism or anti-American.  On the contrary, multiculturalism enhanced American culture.

We were at a stalemate.

Today, in the aftermath of Obama’s more perfect union speech I sit and wonder what he thinks of it and what he makes of Obama (although I am sure he is a McCain supporter).  As I read and listen to the discussions surrounding Obama, his pastor, and the racial divide I find it interesting about where people fall.  Most praise the speech as being bold and clearly what needed to be said and then people fall into camps: the first camp: he didn’t do enough to condemn the black minister; second camp: he didn’t do enough to stress to whites their complicity in racism and the straits it has put black people in; third camp: Obama was on point, so now where do we go from here?

Those who don’t feel he went far enough to condemn the black minister are mostly white Americans who aren’t aware of the underlying sentiments of the black community (although I am sure there are some blacks who feel this way, too).  To get a full dose of what a lot of African Americans say among ourselves one should listen to black radio or read black literary thinkers (a good book to start with is Debra Dickerson’s “The End of Blackness“).  Whether we want to get reparations or we want to just move forward, most African Americans hold the white racist infrastructure accountable for the worst of what is happening in the black communities.  African Americans aren’t separatists, but history has taught us to be wary of white America. 

The second camp feels that Obama should draw the line on race and let white America have it.  Everything that we have been feeling and building up we would like Obama to say on a national stage.  This is why Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton do so well in the black community.  To many African Americans they are crusaders (although well paid professional boy-cotters at time) and to have someone like Obama point out what the egregious wrongs that have been long foisted and still plague African Americans.

I fall in the last camp.  Being African American, of course I am going to lean more towards the black sentiment, but I have often taken what some deem “the white side” in speaking with African Americans.  Just like I can’t be held accountable for what someone who is close to me does, it’s wrong to hold modern day white Americans accountable for their ancestors.  Some of them aren’t even their ancestors; some whites are only two or three generations deep in America.  Rich white Americans have long exploited race to get the underclasses arguing over crumbs instead of trying to get a piece of the pie.  During slavery it was blacks against poor whites.  In the antebellum south it was the Chinese vs. Blacks vs. poor whites.  In today economy we have Hispanic Americans thrown in to fight over the scraps.  Americans need to get beyond race and see what the real debate is, what is really holding us down and keeping us back.  Race is easily used to divide and conquer when poor whites are told that people of color are unfairly getting what should be rightfully there because of their skin color.   

I think we need a racial summit, something akin to South Africa’s race and reconciliation commission.  We need to get past race to see what are really the underlying causes of the race divide in America.

So, I know all this and I have felt all this for a long time.  And when looking into my coworker’s eyes, I thought he knew some of it, but he couldn’t understand all and he would never accept my position on things.  I knew I could never get over that he couldn’t see where I was coming from (I could see myself bleaching sheets and telling him I was getting them ready for his midnight meeting –yeah, I’m hateful).

So, instead of a kiss, which I had been anticipating for weeks on end for that exact moment, I opted for the hug instead.

“Good luck,” I said.  “I’m really going to miss you.” 

And I meant it.

Instead of waiting for his political opponents to ferret out the information, newly sworn in New York Governor David Paterson and his wife come clean about their extra-marital dalliances.

“This was a marriage that appeared to be going sour at one point,” Paterson told the Daily News. “But I went to counseling and we decided we wanted to make it work. Michelle is well aware of what went on.”

I am sure the couple did this to disarm anyone who may want to use the information against them, but I’m curious how the American public will handle it.  To be suspected of something is one thing and to be caught red handed is something else, but to come out and admit to something before you were asked.

Oh no, something more is going on under the surface.   For a repressed country the American imagination quickly runs wild.  He totally effed up the protocol.  Before we would just suspect some hanky panky but I can hear the rumors flying now.  He’s an admitted freak, there’s going to be all kind of swing-a-dings up in the New York Governor’s mansion.  Oh, cause you know he cheated and she cheated, too, and they forgave each other.  Tcccht.  What kind of mess is that?  You forgive each other.  Who forgives each other, Christians?  No, people who are into the same mess.   Oh, Lord it’s freaknic up in the manse! 

Please, please, please, please, please, please, puh-leeeeze can we keep people’s sexual proclivities out of the news.  Larry Craig’s toe tapping and Spitzer’s ho-hoppin’ –unless they are paying people with government money or spending more time in between someone’s thighs and less time pouring over the government legislature then I could really care less who does what with whom. 

But if Joe Francis really wants to make some money, he should leave those underage tarts alone and go videotape the action in Washington.  “Politicians Gone Wild: EZ, Sleazy Politicians Grease DC”.

I know I’ve been feeling pretty screwed for the last 8 years.

Videotapes from Senator Obama’s minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, have made the news and in response Obama has condemned the racially charged sermons.

In a speech from Christmas 2007, Rev. Wright says, “Barack knows what it means, living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a [N-word]!”

And in a speech similar to Malcolm X’s chicken’s come to roost comment, Rev Wright said in response to 9/11, “We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York, and we never batted an eye.   We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is brought right back in our own front yards.”

Obama has released a statement condemning the Reverends words and stated that Wright was his minister, not his political advisor.

“I strongly condemn” Wright’s statements, but “I would not repudiate the man,” Obama said. “He’s been preaching for 30 years. He’s a man who was a former Marine, a biblical scholar, someone who’s spoken at theological schools all over the country.

The Reverend has left Obama’s campaign.

On the Mother Jones website, writer David Corn writes an article about how Sen. John McCain has accepted an endorsement from Columbus, Ohio Reverend Rod Parsley.  McCain called Parsley his “spiritual adviser”.  Parsley has been known to be anti-islamic.

“In a chapter titled “Islam: The Deception of Allah,” Parsley warns there is a “war between Islam and Christian civilization.” He continues:

I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”

From Mother Jones March 12, 2008

Writer Corn also noted that in the 2000 election McCain called Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell agents of intolerence but has now taken back the remark.

I’m not sure what got the heads of VH-1 to change their minds but they have finally decided to give a green light to the reality show where a white guy goes in search of his Black Queen.

No, it’s not a show for Tailor Made!

Check out his MySpace page and if you think he might be the man for you send an email to one of the following people along with your photos and videos detailing how you can be the Nubian Queen for this European King.

Email for casting:

jim.ackerman@vh1staff.com
jeff.olde@vh1staff.com
zuri.rice@vh1staff.com
sspence_something_new_ent@yahoo.com

VH-1 nixed the idea last summer because they felt the show wasn’t (rauchy enough) for their audience.  It did have to contend with high class acts like Flava of Love and I Love New York. 

On Keith Boykin’s new website The Daily Voice it has been reported that Senator Obama has let go of another staffer because of public remarks made against Senator Clinton.

In an email sent out by LGBT Leadership Council staffer Maxim Thorne he accused Clinton of lying and called her a disaster.

In response to her 3am tv commercial he questions,  “At 3am, Hillary said she and Bill were in bed and she knows of all the calls a President gets at different times of the day and night. Really? So much involvement - so much togetherness. Where was she when Monica was having sex with Bill?”

He also writes, “35 years of experience? When he was intimidating Katherine Wiley and Paula Jones? Where was the judgment on the cattle futures and white water. Do we forget Mark and Denise Rich? This was an impeached President who lost his licence [sic] to practice law. He committed perjury. They settled with Paula Jones for the full amount of her lawsuit. I haven’t forgotten and none of us should.”

(insert cat growl, claws exposed)

I say we put Obama’s staff and H. Clinton’s staff on American Gladiator and let them go at each other.  But props to Obama for dispatching the staffer quickly instead of waiting for people to demand it.

Maybe it’s because I’m not in school anymore but I don’t really pay much attention to months that are dedicated to different groups.  Not even Black History Month, which has been reduced to trivia questions and spotlights on current entertainers as opposed to 21st century African American critical thinkers and activists.

Except for Obama… but then… well…

But today is Pi day (I can hear all the math nerds rattling off 3.14159… in their heads) which means we are basically halfway through with March and I don’t recall hearing too much hype about the fact it’s Women’s History Month.

Yep.  Women’s History Month.  Our month.  Our history.

I think we need an anthem.  Something that we have to learn the words to but hopefully easier to grasp than the Black National Anthem and especially better than the National Anthem (Oh, say can you see that I don’t know these words).

Here are my selections for a Woman’s Anthem:

But by far this one is my favorite:

If you are a woman with your own suggestions post them below.

So on the Stuff White People Like I agree with a lot of things and I got worried.  Did that mean I’m a self-hating negro who aspires to be white?

But then I found Stuff Educated Black People Like and I calmed down.  I like all the stuff on there, too, so it shows that it isn’t racial abnegation.

 I’m just egregiously classist.

Carry on. 

From the CNN Political Ticker Blog:

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, the House Speaker reiterated comments she made earlier in the week that the two presidential candidates will not end up sharing a ticket.

“I do think we will have a dream team, it just won’t be those two names,” She said. “Whoever our nominee is and whoever he or she is and whoever he or she chooses, will be a dream team as the Democrats go forward.”

When pressed further about the possibility of a joint ticket, Pelosi stated flatly, “Take it from me, that won’t be the ticket.”

On Tuesday she made the statement that she thinks it would be virtually impossible to have the two names share a ticket because Clinton claimed that McCain would make a better president than Obama.

Is it me or is Pelosi feeling a bit irked by H. Clinton, too?

This is another tidbit for BW who are in a relationship with Asian men.  I got this off of the BlAsian Exchange website:

Question: have any of you in BlAsian relationships met your partner online?

It has probably dawned on H. Clinton that she is what many have been accusing her of: a divider.   So she did what she probably doesn’t do a lot.  She apologized.

“I want to put that in context. You know I am sorry if anyone was offended. It was certainly not meant in any way to be offensive,” Hillary Clinton said.  “Anyone who has followed my husband’s public life or my public life know very well where we have stood and what we have stood for and who we have stood with.”

And she made her apology in front of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a group of more than 200 black community newspapers across the country.

Does this mean that she will apologize to everyone else they’ve offended in the last few weeks: educated white people, non-feminist/womanist women, independent voters, space aliens…. Okay, maybe not the space aliens, they are still backing Kucinich, but she and her crew have pretty much tried to lay waste to everyone who stood in her way of the presidency. I’m unsure if she has pissed off Hispanics, Asians, and poor whites but everyone else she pretty much insulted.

 I feel she was sincere in her apology.  And even if it’s strategical, it still means something.

Yet,  in the party, there is still a rift…

By trying to change the focus that she felt the media had on Obama she made race the issue and she played up her gender more by saying that the media was more fascinated with an intelligent black man who wasn’t saying much than they were with a rational woman.  She has kept repeating that her gender is a liability whereas Obama’s race is a plus.  It’s not really the case, though.  Her liability is her personality which has nothing to do with being a woman, it’s about her being who she is as a person that turns a lot of people off.  It’s the pushiness, the hardheadedness, the arrogance and the smarminess.  

It’s not a good look.

People say, well oh, it works for men why can’t it work for women.  It doesn’t always work for men.  Obama doesn’t seem to be affected with it.  Her husband, the charmer, didn’t come off that way in ‘92 and ‘96 (although its sure looking like him now, but then we become different people when we are fighting for something for our family than when we humbly ask for something for ourselves). 

The attitude she is affecting is the same one GWB threw at us in 2000 and then again in 2004.  It worked for him against milquetoasts Al Gore and John Kerry (who foolishly thought intelligence and experience were on their side) but for a party who selected Gore and Kerry as their representatives, those tactics don’t necessarily draw them in. 

H. Clinton needs to lay aside her gender; it should never factor in as a deficit or credit and she shouldn’t allow the media to bait her in doing so.  She was going well in that vein back in December but as the race has gone on she succumbed to whining about her gender.  Her campaign, which could have been a triumph for women of any color no matter what the outcome of the race, has now become a lodestone for us.  Her vision of womanhood is not the way I see it.  I didn’t think it was the way she saw it until she started hiding behind her sex and throwing out accusations of misogyny.  The ideas of feminism/womanism/womanhood are in an inter-generational clash.  That is another problem that her campaign seems to have, an inability to reach out to women born after the movement.  Just like Obama can’t win in November on the votes of African Americans alone neither can H. Clinton win with a female crowd hopped up on Geritol backing her up.

Or am I a self hating woman for saying that?

Last week I got jammed up, first by my husband and then by my close friend Blue.  They wanted to know if I would vote the Democratic ticket, regardless of who wins the nomination.

“You know you are truly a Republican at heart,” my husband says snidely.

“You’ve voted for McCain before, so why won’t you vote for him again?” Blue accused me.  “You at least voted Democratic in the primaries, right?  Right?”

They feel like they have to keep an eye on me.  Uh oh, renegade Independent sending us all to hell by voting her conscience.

I hold to no party.  The Democrats treat us like an errant lover who only comes around during election season but then the rest of the time goes about his merry way.  And the Republicans treat us like a step child and (except for GWB  –which is the only good thing I can say about him) act like we don’t exist.  This is why so many African Americans feel as if their voice doesn’t really count.  Because we have gotten screwed around and messed around, ignored and treated ignorant on both sides so finally you are like damn, why vote?  Why vote?!

I used to have an answer.  I would say, its because our ancestors were beaten and died for this right.  Because this is our country and its the responsibility of every citizen to stand up and be counted –even if your opinion goes against my own.  It’s because for a democracy to work every one who can needs to go out there and punch the ballot.

But now —

If any African American had any questions about why we  should be on both sides or straight go Independent I think Geraldine Ferraro solidified that yesterday.  If the Clintons hadn’t already done it when they were playing the race card down in SC.

Check it. Geraldine Ferraro says she’s not backing down from what she said about Obama last week.  She’s defending her comments and claining everyone else is sexist and racist against her.

 ’Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let’s address reality and the problems we’re facing in this world, you’re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up,’ Ferraro said. ‘Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?’…

 ’In all honesty, do you think that if he were a white male, there would be a reason for the black community to get excited for a historic first?’ Ferraro said. ‘Am I pointing out something that doesn’t exist?’ …”

<sigh  deep long sigh>

You know, in a race such as this I can see the person running a bit behind using what they can to catch up.  If this were two white males (oh God how I wish it were two white males) then what would be going on would come out different.  But now you have two represented groups (African Americans and women –in case you didn’t know) who are going at it and women are using victimhood as the reason their candidate isn’t in the lead.  Nevermind that they are running neck and neck and Obama is barely edging her out.  I’m sure if Obama was behind then some of his supporters might be making the statement it’s because of his race that makes it so (although here I would like to point out it probably wouldn’t be him or anyone on his team because they have so vehemently tried to make race a non-issue).

I’m wondering how all this would go down if it were two black men or two women (of the same hue)?  Would a presidential race play out like Sharp James and Corey Booker in the national media?  Would a presidential bid between two women become a political version of Working Girl? 

For the last six or seven months I have been hearing from everyone about how America isn’t ready for a black president.  We haven’t had one before, ergo we aren’t ready.  But they forget the fact that back in 1998, 1999 people were rumbling about how Colin Powell should run for president.  Conservatives were kicking the idea around, not liberals.  Now we have a democratic candidate who is a black man and can possibly get the job done.  Its not because he is a black man that he is in contention to be pres, it’s because he is who he is and he just happens to be a black man.

And I have also heard that America might not be ready for a woman president, but we have Nancy Pelosi who is speaker of the house.  And we have Condoleeza Rice, the Secretary of State.  She is the 2nd black in the position (after Colin Powell) and the second woman (after Madeleine Albright) but after Powell, she is probably the most high profile person in the position since Kissinger (because to tell the truth, I paid no attention to Albright).  With Pelosi and Rice, two bad ass women in Washington, one black and one white, and you want to tell me America isn’t ready for a woman to lead the country?

Puh-lease.  Most people were saying Hillary was running the country during the first Clinton administration.  Now she wants to do it in her own name.

So, breaking this down to the common denominator and making it a black and white thing is a complete turn off and as I said yesterday, divisive to the party.  If Obama should get the nomination the women who feel that H. Clinton was cheated won’t come out to vote for him and may stay at home.

And if H. Clinton gets the nomination does she really think she can rally the party together?  The Clintons have pandered to the worst in Americans.  They’ve played race issues (blacks vs poor whites vs Latinos); they’ve played class issues (a la Bill Clinton’s the rich don’t need a president and Hillary’s quip that rich white folks want to vote for Barack) and they are playing gender issues (oh woe is me i’m a poor woman getting beat out by a man!)  And the press who keeps beating up on Hillary oddly enough doesn’t call her out on all that.  For all their sexism and the cartoonists drawing the size of her hips it’s oddly ignored.  They’ve done her the favor for not calling her out because as long as she can call the media (what media?) sexist she can bring out her base of old feminists who love to man bash and all the while McCain is taking notes.

And I hope everyone else is, too.  Especially blacks.  Remember what Sharpton said at the 2004 Democratic convention?

“Mr. President, as I close, Mr. President, I heard you say Friday that you had questions for voters, particularly African- American voters. And you asked the question: Did the Democratic Party take us for granted? Well, I have raised questions. But let me answer your question. You said the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. That’s where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres. We didn’t get the mule. So we decided we’d ride this donkey as far as it would take us.

There is no more pulling the donkey, no more beating on the donkey because the beast is dead and it’s time to find other means of transportation. 

The more the Obama team tries to downplay the issues of race the more H. Clinton’s supporters try to bring it up.

Now it’s Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to be on a presidential ticket for president.  Last week she told the Daily Breeze,”If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.  And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept “

Obama can’t possibly have ideas that the American people have cottoned to.  He can’t be a great speaker who have moved people to vote for him.  It has to be that he is black and he’s getting a pity vote, right?

Where was this vote when Jesse Jackson was running for Pres, then?

Ferraro also disdains that Obama will be able to work with people on both sides of the aisle.

 ”I was reading an article that said young Republicans are out there campaigning for Obama because they believe he’s going to be able to put an end to partisanship. Dear God! Anyone that has worked in the Congress knows that for over 200 years this country has had partisanship - that’s the way our country is.”

But does that mean it’s the way it should stay?

I can understand how some women are trying to re-contextualize the debate and make it more about race over gender instead of who the candidates are.  But then they should also realize that by creating a riff like this can turn off voters, no matter who gets the nomination.  Perhaps we should have just given an old white dude the nomination, instead.

But an old white dude can still win in November.

A friend sent me and email with a photograph and the question:  Who is this black actor?  I studied the photo, putting my face within inches of the computer screen. The face looked familiar but I couldn’t place it.   After a few minutes of scrutinizing it I finally gave up and scrolled down for the page for the answer.

“STFU! No!  For real?  Nooooooooo!”

“Yeah, that was a really good make up job,” she emailed back.  “Who would have guessed that it was Robert Downey Jr under that makeup?”

Who would have thought it was make up?  

In the movie, Downey plays the character Kirk Lazarus, a white man cast to play a black soldier. Downey says the intent was to satire over-the-top actors, not African Americans.

“If it’s done right, it could be the type of role you called Peter Sellers to do 35 years ago,” Downey told Entertainment Weekly magazine. “If you don’t do it right, we’re going to hell.”

Black actors like Eddie Murphy and the Wayans brothers can don white make up and portray white males and females on screen for laughs but white performers can’t do the same without African Americans looking for subtext. The caricatures that have been perpetrated on African American’s image by whites as minstrelsy from vaudeville to radio to movies through the 1950s has made many blacks brace themselves when whites decide to tackle African American characters. Viewing our history through the white lens has never been good.

I examined the photo again and I sure hope the makeup artist wins an Oscar for this work next year. From the picture he looks like an African American male circa 1975.  The thing that really sold me was the lips; the lips look real.   They have the two tone brown-pinkness that African Americans have around the outline, the color was captured perfectly (he has the Bobby Brown ashyness, though) It’s something subtle but it added to the authenticity.    He looks like a black man and, because he’s a really good actor, he could probably act like a black man.  Then I caught myself.

“Act like a black man.”

If race is just a social construct (so chant the 21st Century race deconstructionists) then perhaps we should begin to reattribute behaviors and attitudes that we take for granted as being racially linked. Instead, we see still see certain actions and instantly say, oh, a black person would never behave like that or white people always do that.  To some a person’s comportment is tied to the genetic makeup that they share with others in their group.

Following the line of those who see race as social construct there are those who view race as performance art.  A few years ago Asian American artist Nikki S. Lee had a series of art shows that deconstructed American culture and race.  Her 2001 book “The Project” showed Lee posing in different situations, made up to blend end with her racial surroundings.  In the Ohio project she donned a blonde wig and spread herself lackadaisically across a Chevy while a white guy stood beside her and smile for the camera.  Among a bevy of African Americans she puts on a different blonde wig and brown body makeup for the Hip Hop project.  In yet another picture she wears a school girl outfit amidst a group of young Asian girls also in uniform.  In each photo she challenges you to pick her out and cut her from the pack but she is part of the landscape, blended in with attitude, dress and looks as those surrounding her.

Lee practices positive racial art but there are those who exploit black images for the worst. Charles Knipp is one of whose performances deny African Americans their full humanity by skewing black womanhood to buffoonery. But to be fair, some African Americans have become the Bert Williams of today. Some rap artists have also began to exploit the negative stereotypes in the black community and try to elevate it as “black culture”.

African Americans aren’t the only ones who are susceptible to their own exploiting stereotypes of black images to make a buck. Last fall actor/comedian Rob Schneider came under fire for his portrayal of an Asian minister in the movie Chuck and Larry.

I’m willing to view Downey’s movie before making a snap judgment. In a new century of racial politics and performance it’s not what you are born with but what you do with it that really counts.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Warning

“Hey, umm… I told this woman that you have a lot of J-Pop and K-Pop,” I said to my daughter two weeks ago.  “So, could you make her daughter a mix CD?”

She looked at me with wide eyes and her mouth flew open. “What?!”  she gasped.  She told me she didn’t have any music at all, just a song here and there.

“You’re always listening to it,” I said.  “Just hook her up with something you only need an hour’s worth of music.  You’ll do fine.”

A week later while driving in the car she took out her iPod and hooked it up to the stereo. 

“This is my new favorite group,” she said while playing a song from Big Bang.   

“They’re Asian?” I was surprised because the guy rapping sounded pretty black to me. 

With the rising popularity of Anime and Manga, J-Pop and K-Pop music has been getting a lot of interest from American teens, which is interesting since it’s hard to find over here in the states.  The popularity of Youtube and music sharing site like Limewire has enabled foreign artists to reach out to stateside Asians and others who are looking for new sounds.  Because of this the artist Bi(Rain) was named one of People Magazines most Beautiful People in the Word for 2007 and last month Ai Carina Uemura performed to a near sellout crowd in LA.

So then what is it going to take for an Asian American to get radio play?

That’s what AsAms have been asking for years.  Harlemm Lee wins the reality TV show Fame and can’t get airplay.  Rap artist Jin comes on 106 and Park and wrecks everyone and he can’t get airplay.  The only AsAms who get regular rotation are blasians like Amerie and Cassie and ex-Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger.  Unlike their biracial brethren, a lot of mono-racial Asians have been told the Asian thing is holding them back.

Paul Kim, one of the first people to be eliminated on the 2007 season of American Idol wrote on his Myspace page, “I was told over and over again by countless label execs that if it weren’t for me being Asian, I would’ve been signed yesterday.”  On that season Sanjaya Malakar advanced to 7th place because he was being buoyed by the website Vote for the Worst.

On this season of American Idol some are hoping that Filipina singer Ramiele Malubay can be the first Asian American to win the coveted title. 

After one week my daughter made a mix CD of J-Pop/K-Pop music with artists such as Utada Hikaru and Wonder Girls.  On the back of the CD she wrote the note, “I hope you enjoy the CD.  I had fun making it.”

I wonder how she will react if I ask her to compile a mix CD of Asian American artist?  I already bought the Blue Scholars’ Bayani and next month I’ll get her Lyrics Born’s latest. 

Hmmmm….

If you have any favorite Asian American, J-Pop, or K-Pop artist please list them below.

According to the Associated Press, H. Clinton floats the idea that her name with Obama’s could be an option on the November Presidential ballot.

“That may be where this is headed,” she told CBS News this morning.  “But of course we have to decide who is on the top of ticket. I think the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me.”

I went on a discourse about this last night. I take this as a hint from H. Clinton that it might be best for them to end it now and work towards a Democrat win in November as opposed to continuing and making the race ugly.  Because if it continues it will get ugly because H. Clinton wants the nomination badly. 

So now the ball is in Obama’s court and he has to decide how he wants to play it.  If he continues he could get the nomination but chances are it will be an ugly win and he may get reduced to going where he had no intention of ever being (love and hope can get you only so far with a bloodlusting electorate).  If he al