Sardonic Sistah Says

I’m always rather leery when we decide to take public programs and hand them over to the private sector.  The argument for it is that the investors have more of a stake in it and they will want to make sure that they get a good return on their investment.  Over the last 16 years in many states private groups have taken over what the government used to do: schools, public assistance, and jails.  The main the complaintwith the private groups taking over what was a government responsibility is that the businesses are more beholden to their stock holders and bottom line than for those they are helping.  It is why many charter schools have been shown to be just as effective or less than effective than the crumbling public school systems they came in to displace.  For profit prisons aren’t as cost effective as state owned prisons.  When public institutions become privately owned usually its the disenfranchised that pays the price and the checks and balances get out of whack.

So what does this have to do with the current election?  On Friday, the Boston Globepublished an article that examines the privately owned low-income housing units in Chicago.  They have roamed away far from their usual beat because Senator Obama is a proponent for privately owned low income housing and many of the apartments are beyond disrepair.

“a Globe review found that thousands of apartments across Chicago that had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies – including several hundred in Obama’s former district – deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable.”

The article goes on to discuss how housing developers like recently indicted Tony Rezkos have been contributors to Barack Obama’s campaign for the last 10 years. 

Tenants who lived in apartments run by Tony Rezkos’ company “Rezmar Corp” complained of rat infestations and apartments with poor insulation.  Although Rezmar mismanaged the properties they were still able to get a 3.1 million dollar loan from Chicago’s Mayor Daly administration.

Rezko’s former partner Daniel Mahru thinks that privately owned public housing is a bust.  “Affordable housing run by private companies just doesn’t work,” Mahru, who no longer works with Rezko, said in an interview with the Globe. “It’s difficult, if not impossible, for a private company to maintain affordable housing for low-income tenants.”

Since 1995 Rezko and Obama formed a bond with Rezko contributing to Obama’s campaign and helping the Obama’s pick out the house they now live in.  The buildings that are in disarray are in Obama’s district.  Obama says he didn’t know anything about the problems in Rezmar’s buildings.

Privately operated public housing is a pet cause for Obama.  As a state senator he co-sponsored a bill that increased state subsidies for private investors.  He also co-sponsored an annual fund to subsidized rents for extremely low-income tenants but that didn’t pass.  With the current housing crunch and the financial problems of Freddie Mac and Annie Mae, Obama wants to look out for those at the bottom of the economic rung.

 ”Our nation’s low-income families are facing an affordable housing crisis, and it is our responsibility to ensure this crisis does not get worse by ineffective replacement of existing public-housing units,” said Obama.

But if Obama truly feels this way then perhaps he should re-think his ideas on  privately operated public housing.  There are problems in most major inner city neighborhoods but adding deteriorating structures and unaccountable landlords shouldn’t be one of them.  I don’t know if corporations can do a better job than the government (both seem to suck at it, but at least the government kept the structures in somewhat good condition) but it seems to me that when someone’s main objective is getting money out of a venture then they are going to cut corners where they can in order to line their pockets.  If these are the people Obama wants to put in charge of public housing I’d hate to see who he’d have in his cabinet.

Some like to call the Koreans very ethnocentric while others think of them as being plain out racist.  Either way, a country that has long prided itself on being homogeneous is now contending with the very global problems of having a notable multicultural demographic.

Pick up the summer issue of Koreana Quarterlywhich has several articles discussing the foreign villages and how Koreans are dealing with becoming a multicultural society.  On quick perusal of the periodical I noted how mostly Western and Asian societies were mentioned although I did note a couple of faces that looked Blasian (Korean/Black). 

Maybe that’s an issue for Koreana at a future date.

The former HBCU professor, Chiman Rai, was found guilty of killing his daughter-in-law because of the color of her race.

Read the story in AJC.

So the talk around the blogosphere is that Michelle Obama allegedly used the word “whitey” against white people.

As soon as I heard it I had to laugh.

See, this is how disconnected racist white people are from black people.  Whitey?  Really?  Did Obama then come on stage and proclaim that boy was a white racist word a la Michael Evans then they both boogied off stage slapping fives only to be confronted by a gaggle of reporters whom they denounced as jive turkeys.

Whitey.  Yeah, right.  LOL

Now, I have been on some message boards and seen it written as y-t but that’s totally different than going around and peppering up your language with the term.  If she had used the term cracker I’d still be suspect but it’s closer to black vernacular.  If they had said she confronted a white female with the term Becky it would have given me pause but whitey just makes me laugh.  If someone can find a video with her using the word then I would be the first to say we should drum her and Barack back to the South Side of Chicago to get re-educated in the ways of black America.

And for those white people who wonder what we call you when you frustrate us?  We call you white folks.  How is that used exactly?  Well, let’s say its 10 degrees below zero and you see a a Becky in short skirt or a white guy running down the street in a t-shirt and running shorts like it’s July.  You will look at the other black person standing nearest to you.  It could be a stranger, it doesn’t matter, but both of you will shake your head as one of you utters, “White folks!”

Why isn’t there a more venomous euphemism than the term whitey?  Are white folks really insulted to see the term, does it really pack the same wallop as the N-word?  After centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, and lynching it would seem that black people would have been able to come up with a better, more hurtful epithet than that but we haven’t.  Maybe it’s because we are too busy picking ourselves apart that we haven’t come up with a word inflammatory enough to hurl at white people.

What’s I find more fascinating is not the fact that a certain segment of white people cooked up this inane story but that a small group is sitting there eating it up.  In referring to white people as “whitey” wouldn’t that appellation also apply to Barack’s mother, his grandparents and the rest of his extended white family?  If so, then Michelle Obama is not just prejudiced but also disrespectful.

It’s what some racist white people expect from black people because deep down in their heart of hearts they feel it’s what they deserve from us because if tables were turned they would be racist towards their past oppressors, ready to commit violent acts against them to show they were no longer downtrodden.  Hell, they committed violent acts against us through Jim Crow to let us know who had the upper hand.  I have heard political pundits and black (for white) apologists try to claim that white guilt is what buoys Affirmative Action and other public policies that take into consideration the long held state of Black America.  But actually, white guilt is what keeps America in a constant state of flux in white-Black relationships.  We have never really moved ahead because we have never moved on.  Slavery stopped but we put Jim Crow in its place which lasted until the 60s which was followed by white resentment and black distrust and here we are in 2008 with a black man running for president and white people afraid to vote for him because they fear that the retribution they feel have been long overdue may finally come home to hit him.  They’ve been waiting for it, expecting it, they know they deserve it so now they are scared.

And actually it’s kind of funny because it’s never been about payback and even if it was Obama is not that kind of person.  To make every white person pay for the sins of their forefathers has never been a major black agenda.  What they fail to recognize that their forefathers are our forefathers, too.  We’ve fought in every war and helped to build this country.  We should all be Americans, without the modifiers.  Whether directly or indirectly related, slave descendants, descendants of slaver holders, immigrants of all centuries: we are America.  We are a family, we are a nation.

So get over it.

The DeWolf family gets it.

Traces of the Trade is a documentary that follows the DeWolf descendents as they examine their family history of slave trade, how they benefited from it, and what they are willing to do to make a change. 

It was both hard and sad to watch.

It was hard to watch because it was something that effects people that look like me and it’s not easy to think about or see without it bringing up some emotion.  And then to see privileged white people examining it makes it uncomfortable, too.  It’s one thing to talk about something like this with other black folks because we are used to it, but to watch white people grappling with the idea of how they have benefitted from slavery is uneasy because it’s new.

It’s sad to watch because I wonder how long will it take before a good majority of white people come to the same conclusion that they have? 

If you get a chance, watch it.  Check your local PBS listings for showtimes.

All the talk about the absence of black models on the runway is accentuated by the abundance of black models in this month’s Vogue magazine from Italy.  In the July issue of Vogue Italia all of the models are black and the topics are Black women related. 

“I thought, it’s ridiculous, this discrimination,” Steven Meisel said to The New York Times.  Mr. Meisel gained recognition with the Madonna Sex book and has photographed this all black issue. “It’s so crazy to live in such a narrow, narrow place. Age, weight, sexuality, race — every kind of prejudice.”

The abundance of top black models in Vogue Italia only highlights the absence of black models from American fashion magazines and runways.  It’s a void that has been noticed by industry elites like Diane von Furstenberg, president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America who sent a memo to its members encouraging them to create fashion shows “that are truly multicultural.”

Speaking out about the dearth of work for black models Naomi Campbell said, “Women of color are not a trend. That’s the bottom line.”

Right now the trend is bending towards white and until designers decide to become more inclusive it’s not going to change.  The New York Times asks

What would finally move American designers to include more black models on their runways? That 30 percent of the country is nonwhite? That black women spend $20 billion a year on clothes? That an African-American is the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party?

Imaginably it may take the push of a black presidency to usher in another appreciation of black beauty.  With Michelle Obama as a first lady who imbibes all the elegance and class of the late Jacqueline Kennedy it should show fashion designers if Americans can welcome a black family in the White House we can surely accept a black face on Vogue (American).

I got this commercial/video from Jasmyne Cannick’s blog.  In the Telegraph online a Japanese editor is quoted as saying, “The commercial clearly is a parody of Barack Obama’s campaign… but I don’t feel that it reflects racist ideas about black people and monkeys. I doubt that most Japanese people would even understand how a pink-faced grey monkey native to Japan could be equated to African people.”

But hold up, isn’t Japan the country that Jesse Jackson was boycotting back in the late 80s for their caricatures of blacks on toothpaste and their racist attitude toward African foreign exchange students.

Give it up, y’all.  Ya know it’s racist.

When I told my friend Reesie that I was dating a Korean man she was a bit leery about it.

“Has he introduced you to his family?” she asked.  “Do they accept you?”

Yeah, we’re cool, I told her.  It helped that his family was white, I’m sure.  She was happy for me, but sad at the same time.  My story would be different from hers for which she was glad for me but sad for herself.

Reesie is a small five foot three inches chocolate brown black woman, about a size 2.  She has curly dark reddish brown hair and small features.  Most people find her attractive.  She met Kwan while she was out one night at a bar with some friends.  He flirted; she flirted back.  They exchanged numbers and began to date.  He was an engineer at a local company and she was still trying to figure out what an English degree was good for.  They both wanted to go to grad school, they both wanted kids, they both had the same values and morals.

“I’m going to marry him,” she told me after a month of seeing him. 

“Isn’t that rather soon?” I asked.  “It’s only been a few weeks–”

No, she didn’t believe it was too soon.  When you know, you know.  She dropped a few hints but he was slow on the pick-up until finally she spelled it out for him that if he wanted her to stick around he needed to make it permanent. 

“He never even told his family about her,” my friend Lynn told me years later.  Lynn told me Reesie would come into work lamenting how Kwan was hesitant to introduce her to his parents who lived in another city. 

“She told me he wanted her to meet his parents,” I said.  I had asked her during month five, when Kwan still hadn’t proposed anything to her except a trip to the Virgin Islands, his treat.  She was still thinking of marriage and when I asked if she had met his folks she said she wasn’t worried about it and Kwan would introduce her to them if she really wanted to meet them.  She wasn’t worried about that now, she said. 

Being introduced to the parents is the litmus test for many interracial couples, but it can be hairier when the couple is an Asian/Black couple.  In the interracial world such unions are a rare occurance and for black women and Asian men it’s smaller than that. In a SFGate article, writer Jeff Wang cites recent statistics that show the AM/BF combination to be  0.01 percent of all interracial marriages across the country.

There are many reasons for the low rate in coupling between the two groups.  Lack of attraction between AfAms and AsAms is the biggest reason, although the interest may be slightly higher for black females if any of the online groups are an indication.

Black member of Azn Lover Alicia Powell told Jeff Yang: “I think Asian men are brainwashed to want white women. And it’s too bad, because I’m attracted to Asian men, and I think black female / Asian male couples are beautiful. It’s messed up that many Asian American men dismiss women of other races. But they see stereotypes of black women in the media, and they see white women depicted as glamorous, so that’s what they think is right for them.”

For the few Asians who have decided to go black many cite problems with family acceptance.      According to a lighthearted on Asian-Nation if given a choice of mates for their children (an Asian gangter, a Caucasian, a black person, a gay person or a sloppy dresser) the black person would always be the worst choice.  “To them, dark skin=BAD while light skin=GOOD,” reasoned H. Tse, the quiz’s creator. “Therefore, according to this absurd reasoning, a Black person is the worst possible date. “

In many Asian/Black online communities both Asian men and women complain about becoming pariahs in their families because of their choice of mates, saying that the families have threatened to disown them if they didn’t drop their significant others.  In the Asian Men Who Love Black Women group two Asian males confessed that they stopped seeing the black women they were dating because their of their family, with one guy who ended up marrying a white female.  Some black/Asian couples have not only worried about being ostracized but have encountered threats of violence from Asian families when the families find out about black partners.

No story better illustrates that than the current news headline of Sparkle Reid Rai.  Sparkle met her husband Rajeev (Ricky) Rai when he hired her to work at the family hotel that he managed.  They fell in love, had a child and then married against his parents wishes.  Before the marriage he told his young bride and her family that his parents had died.  A family member of Sparkle’s found out that his parents were still living and called his parents told them about the wedding.  Sparkle’s parents confronted them with the news.

“We said, ‘Rick, isn’t there something you want to tell us about your parents being alive,’ ” said Donna Lowry, Sparkle’s stepmother and a reporter with WXIA-TV. “‘ Someone talked to your mom earlier today.’  He continued to deny it. We continued to press him and he finally admitted that his parents were still alive.”

On 26 April 2000, Ricky came home from work to find his wife stabbed to death.  After years of being filed as a cold case new evidence turned up that Ricky’s father, Chiman Rai, allegedly paid 10,000 for hitmen to kill his unapproved daughter-in-law.  It was said that the elder Rai, former math teacher at an HBCU located in Mississippi, disapproved because his daughter wasn’t Indian. 

A witness to the murder said that everything happened so fast that Sparkle didn’t have a chance to process it.  “She was gagging and blood started coming out of her mouth,” the witness said, noting that Sparkle reached out for her daughter as she was being murdered.

After Sparkle’s death, Ricky gave up custody of his daughter Analla to his in-laws.  He completed his degree in business at Northwestern University and is re-married to an Indian woman.

But back to my friend, Reesie.

After nearly a year and a half of dating, Kwan announced his intention to attend school in another state but he didn’t want to take her with him.  He loved her, he said, but he just couldn’t see how it could work out.  In trying to extricate himself as smoothly as he could from the relationship he offered her a couple of thousand dollars but no hint of his new phone number or address.

Reesie was furious.

“I should call the university and tell them he has a drug problem,” she fumed.  “I should call his parents and tell them about what he’s been up to.”

“Does he have a drug problem?” I asked.

“Yes, he does,” she said, although I highly doubted it.  If he had a serious drug problem she never would have stayed with him.   “Don’t make any phone call,” I said.  “You’re better than that.  If he’s not strong enough to defy his parents, then it’s not meant to be.  Just let him go.”

Slowly, she agreed I was right.  Then we wondered what she should do with the money.  Perhaps take a trip to Europe, Italy maybe, where it is rumored the Italian men love black women and no disapproving parents stand in the way.

South Africa has decided to categorize their citizens who are of Chinese descent as black.

Is that good news, bad news or no news?

In South Africa the term black is a designation for those who are native African, coloured (biracials/multiracials) and South East Indians.  Historically those of Chinese descent have been discriminated against in South Africa but in the early 70’s were made honorary whites because of the apartheid South African government’s connection to Taiwan. 

Chinese South Africans claimed they were still discriminated against.

Patric Chong, the chairman of Chinese Association of South Africa , said:  “As Chinese South Africans we were officially classified as ‘Coloured’ and suffered under the same discriminatory laws prior to 1994. The logical inference was thus that Chinese South Africans would automatically qualify for the same benefits as the ‘Coloured’ group, post1994. This was not the case and Chinese South Africans suffered a second round of unfair discrimination.”

So now they are black.

The sentiment from whites around the blogosphere is that of fear.

Andre Fouche wrote on timesonline.com, “I am white, I speak Afrikaans I am a male, and me and my family will be leaving for Perth soon… there is no place for me anymore in Africa!”

And on the Wall Street Journal blog an anonymous person quipped, “Wow. More discrimination against white people. Lets hear it for multiculturalism!!”

But hasn’t the world always been set up to be whites against people of color?  I thought that is what colonization was about.  But if people of color should link up and turn it around to People of Color vs. Whites it seems less empowering somehow.

I don’t know why…. hmmm…..?

Oh well, there’s always the racial draft and Vin Diesel’s a free agent.

I found a reference for this artist on the AsianWeek website.