Daily Archive

I think once McCain is out of office he will finally come out of the liberal closet.

Two new graphic novels that deal with race.

The first is Incognegro by Mat Johnson about a young man in the 1930’s who can pass for white, which he does in order to battle white supremacy.  Excellent review with SFGate.

The second is called Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine.  His story is about an Asian male whose Asian girlfriend accuses him of being attracted to white women.  Hear the NPR interview here.

According to a new survey by Random House Children’s Books most British parents feel that childhood ends by the time a child goes off to secondary school (junior high).

“I think children act like adults at an alarmingly early age,” Dame Jacqueline Wilson said.  Wilson is a British author whose latest book My Sister Jodie will be released in early spring.  ”I know girls are desperate to look cool but I wish they didn’t all want to wear very high heels and inappropriately tight trendy clothes. I’m not saying all under-12s should wear puff-sleeved dresses and little white socks and tee-strap sandals, but at least you could run about and play properly in them.”

But is this a new phenomenon of trying to hurry a child to adolescence or a resurgence of an old notion?  Until the nineteenth century children were thought of as mini-adults and in lower class homes the wives and children were expected to help make ends meet.  It was in the early 1800s that a shift came.

“… A new conception of childhood arose that looked at children not as little adults, but as special creatures who needed attention, love, and time to mature,” Historian Steven Mintz wrote in his article “Does the American Family Have a History”  in Magazine of History Summer 2001.  “Parents began to keep their children home longer than in the past.  The new urban middle class defined itself by a strict segregation of sexual spheres, intense mother-child bonds, and the idea that children needed to be protected from the corruptions of the outside world.”

The children of today aren’t returning to a yesteryear of work and drudgery.   The children are pestering their parents into buying them more mature clothes and lenient household rules.  In the survey three-quarters of the parents admitted they held not authority over their children and many allowed their children to drink alcohol at home before they turned 18.  Although Britain has the highest teen pregnancy rate of Europe 45% of parents allow their teens to have sexual relationships in the home.

Wilson urges parents not to give in. 

“Parents need to take a stand, to tell their children ‘I don’t care if everyone else in the class is allowed to do this or that. You’re not,’” she said.

Since I last reported on the war between the genders last fall there has been a few battles of note: national coverage, more embedded correspondents (here and here) and an informer coming out the of the fray but the biggest battle is gearing up.  It is now time to hit the opponent with some of their own fire.

Trice Hickman has a new book called Unexpected Interruptions.  The story is about a young woman who must decide between two lovers, one black and one white.  Hickman explores interracial dating, the schisms among different classes of black and the colorline in the black community.

Presenting black females with a dating option that is something other than a black male will take a lot of getting used to for some women.  This one will be a long battle.

I’ve been so caught up in following the primaries I have forgotten that there is a war going on.  The war between black women and black men will not be marginalized because we must remember there are lives at risk, black babies not being born and women teetering dangerously on the verge of Old Maidenhood.  If this terroristic war is going to be won it’s going to be with the help of some good people on both sides who believe in truth and freedom for black women and black men to marry.

So ladies, we have a mole

Comedian, filmmaker and lecturer Rajen Persaud has a new book called “Why Black Men Love White Women: Going Beyond Sexual Politics to the Heart of the Matter“.  Now, I know what you are thinking and no, it’s not like Randall Kennedy’s “Interracial Intimacies“.  Unlike that 600+ tome, Persaud’s book has just 275 pages and is lighter on the footnotes.  Persaud’s book is also lighter on facts; his book is laden with first person accounts, observations and on-the-fly interviews he does with friends or people he sees on the streets.  

But the book is funny.  With chapter titles such as “The Ultimate Blow Job”, “Making Pretty Baby” and “Black Women are Gold Diggers” I was expecting a shorter book filled with repetition but it isn’t.  Although not researched his book is well written and gives insightful.  He gives examples and tells stories that I am sure a lot of black women have experience.  One story he tells is of the black male ownership of his white girlfriend.

“A girlfriend and I were at a party launching a magazine tht my childhood friend was publishing.  There was a variety of young, black up-and-comers at the opening and quite a few Brothers with their female better halves.  I like boots, and a white girl had on a pair that I complimented.  She immediately begun talking to me intensely.  No more than a minute later a young Brother flew across the room and planted a big kiss on the girl, sat on her lap, and instantly began playing in her hair.  As we drove home my girlfriend told me that the Brother was staking claim on the white woman.  He saw me as a direct threat andhad to drive home that this was his woman.  I learned two things that night: One was that you can have a whole lot of fun talking to white women who are dating black men by observing the latter’s reaction; and the second is that you should never compliment a woman on her shoes unless you want a lengthy conversation.” pg 162

I can see this book getting picked up by a lot of black book clubs.  For a lot of black women who are tired of the black male IR double standard this is a must read.  I found the book entertaining although I probably could have answered the title question in less than one page: because the he loves  her.  It’s probably why I don’t have a book deal now.