"Hot sauce Hillary" and the politics of pandering.

    Man that Hillary is really working hard for the black and minority vote. First she sits down for a game of bones,  in Harlem, and then she tells some folks on urban radio that she always travels with some "hot sauce".

Bernie is pushing that poor woman so far left that she is going to claim to have a secret black lover before this is all over. But it's all good.  Hot sauce or no hot sauce, us black folks have seen enough of Hillary and her husband to know exactly what we are going to get with them.

Not to be outdone, Bernie was giving some serious dap to some young buck in South Carolina. Nice. It's no wonder the young black folks have so much love for Bernie. They don't sense  that he is a phony. Plus, I am sure that his message of making college free  for all doesn't hurt. No more student loans! Yeah! 

Call it pandering if you will, but at least the democratic candidates are trying to reach out to us and hear our concerns for the future of the country.

Contrast that to the guy leading the field on the republican side and you kind of get the picture. I mean they are selling confederate themed shirts at his rallies for crying out loud! (h/t Shaun King) 

 Donald Trump has 99 problems, and race is definitely one of them. 

And don't even get me started on Ted Cruz. When he made his infamous New York values comments I think we all knew exactly what (or who) he was talking about: Their values aren't like our values. They actually embrace diversity and shit.  They welcome foreigners and different people to their city.

I just wish that the republicans were coming to my city and not Cleveland this summer for their convention. We would roll out the red carpet for them and show them some brotherly love. We can do it. Did you see how nice we were to the Pope?

Anyway, we are going to have the democrats.

Sadly, though, I suspect that their convention is going to be a lot more boring.

 Unless, of course. Hillary all of a sudden loses her love for hot sauce.

  





   

Field Negro 101.

A friend of mine who happens to be a fine attorney has a radio program here in Philly.

This past Saturday I was on with her and her wonderful crew talking about this election season, and after the show I started chopping it up with the host and a couple of her producers.

Anyway, something one of the younger producers said made me realize that I haven't done my Field Negro 101 post in some time.

So here goes:

*(Note. I  posted this back in 2006.)

I am always amused at how sensitive some blacks----particularly black conservatives get when you talk about the house Negro field Negro dichotomy among black folks. Black conservatives are always quick to lash out at the house Negro moniker as if it's directed at them. They see it as a straw  man and red herring set up to distract from the real issues confronting black America.

Well it's not. The moniker is one that was created by Malcolm X in one of his more famous speeches to make a point about certain blacks not giving their all to the movement because of their so called stake in America. That speech is so inspiring and so on point, that it is from where I find the inspiration- not to mention the name- for this blog. I use it because I think it's still relevant for today's discourse in matters of race, as well as the black political movement in this country.

When I post on other blogs I always use the handle The Field-Negro, and the vitriolic responses I get for my handle alone -from whites and blacks- is at times frightening. "Why must you use that handle?It's so degrading to blacks."Shame on you for such a despicable handle". "You embarrass yourself and all self respecting black people by using such a handle". And on and on it goes. This is just from the black folks. You can imagine what I get from my fellow white bloggers on the web; or, for that matter, the fringes of the web. 

But, once again, I would like to set the record straight about this house Negro field Negro metaphor(and yes it's just a metaphor) and where I stand on this issue. Think of this post as Field Negro 101 for your self improvement.

First, being a house Negro has nothing to do with how you look, how much money you have, where you live, or, for that matter, where you work. The same can be said about being a field Negro. It's not about how radical you think you are or how militant or African you may appear in your features.

It's why I explain my background in detail to all who come to my blog. It's important to understand that in spite of my upbringing and background, I am firmly entrenched in the fields. It's not about my credentials or how I grew up, or even what privileges were afforded to me. Rather, it's about my state of mind at this point in time, and how I choose to engage in the struggle to uplift black people in modern day America.

For instance, I consider wealthy people such as Bill Cosby and Denzel Washington field Negroes. On the other hand, I consider some not so wealthy people, such as Jessie Lee Peterson and La Shawn Barber; house Negroes. I consider certain sports icons such as Jim Brown, Magic Johnson, and Muhammad Ali, field Negroes. But I consider icons such as Michael Jordon, O.J. Simpson, and George Foreman, house Negroes. Oprah Winfrey, in my book, is a house Negro; while her good friend, Maya Angelo, belongs in the fields. Jessie Jackson (yes, that Jessie Jackson) is a house Negro, but John Lewis, the congressman from Georgia, is a field Negro. In terms of appearance, the very dark Clarence Thomas should have his picture in the dictionary beside house Negro, while the fairer skinned Thurgood Marhsall was a big time field Negro. Get the point? It's all about who I think is contributing to the cause of advancing black issues in the right way.

Now let's look at this phenomenon literally for a moment: I have no problem with someone living in the house, and wanting the things the house offers for his or her family: The better schools; the safer neighborhoods; and a better quality of life. Only a fool would think otherwise. I don't even have a problem with the house Negro running to put out the fire if massa's house catches on fire, or, for that matter, if he tries to save massa's life. After all, if massa and his house are gone, where is the house Negro going to live, and who is going to hire him to work? On the other hand, I do have a problem if the house Negro tries to save massa before his own. That type of house Negro is a problem, and he is the one I speak so disparagingly of when I make fun of the house Negro.

Unfortunately, as Malcolm said, there are still a lot of house Negroes like the latter around today. They are the ones who write the books for massa's ears only, kicking black folks harder than massa would ever kick us by telling us how bad we are. They are the ones -insert Thomas Sowell here- who write about America and her problems, as if the white man is blameless, and we, black folks, brought all the problems on ourselves. They are the ones-insert Clarence Thomas here- who are not only too happy to work in the house with massa, but wish that they were a part of massa's family as well. That is the dangerous house Negro; the self hater, the one  who will do anything to be more white than the white person himself, because just working and living in the house is not good enough for him. That house Negro wants a stake in massa's house, and he will sell the rest of us out to get it.

I will give you an example: I have a black colleague who does very well for himself and his family. He recently purchased a home in a very affluent predominantly white neighborhood, and has from time to time bragged of being the only black in his development. Now this individual is a classic house Negro. And living in his all white subdivision didn't make him one, but being proud that he is the only black in said subdivision does. Like the "house nigger" in Malcolm X' s speech, he was proud to be the only Negro living among the whites. This is the inclination and fixed way of thinking of an individual who has fled from his people and would not mind if he never sees a black neighborhood or anything associated with black people again. This Negro didn't flee to white suburbia for better schools, safer neighborhoods, and cost effectiveness. Nope, this Negro fled to white suburbia because he wanted to be around massa and his house. This house Negro is the one I refer to when I make my lists, and speak of when I try to point out the Negroes that are holding us back by projecting to white folks-insert Oprah here- a false image of what black folks are going through. The field Negro, given the same circumstances, would find himself going back to the old neighborhood, volunteering his time, and helping when and where he can. He would not care about how many other Negroes lived in his development, as long as his family was receiving the benefits I outlined above.

So for all of you who see the handle, and wonder why The Field Negro, think about that for a minute. Think about what makes a field Negro: Hard worker, cares about his family and his race, always with the masses so he knows what it will take to improve our plight, understands that it will take more than just talk to make things happen. And finally, that the house is not his, and ultimately he will have to build his own.

That, my friends, is the essence of the field Negro, and that is who every Negro should strive to become.

*Watch the speech here.

CAPTION SATURDAY.

I need a caption for this pic.

Example: Why do you fight for America?

Not exactly Uncle Tom.

 *I just read the story about the young brother at Williams College, who believes that he Is being ostracized by his own race and labeled a sell out and Uncle Tom because he supports allowing a racist to conduct a lecture on his campus.

He believes that we have to debate each other openly and allow people with differing views (no matter how despicable) to be able to openly express themselves without the fear of reprisals.

This might surprise a lot of you (and maybe not) but I actually agree with the young man. I believe that we should try to better understand what goes on in the mind of  racists before we can confront them. Debate is important to a civil society, and, quite frankly, I welcome it.

I believe that colleges and universities are making a mistake when they ban certain types of speech on campus.

"In response, I’ve said that my goal has always been to muster the courage to think critically for myself, even if that means going against the grain. For me, arguing with a racist and exposing the flaws in their argument is about gaining a better understanding of views that offend you; it’s about improving your ability to argue and defend your opinion.

Emotions are always involved in discussions of sensitive issues like race, but learning is not just about how we feel. It’s about thinking and trying to understand complicated issues that affect our lives. Thinking about racism from multiple perspectives – separated from the emotion of it — has enhanced my understanding of race and of humanity."

Well, I am not sure that I would call racists humans, but I get the point; we still have to learn to understand them.

Finally, there are two high profile individuals in America who could really use some intervention right about now.

Their lives are unraveling in a very public way right before our eyes. It's a shame, because both men are talented individuals, Kat still has some of the best standup material I have heard over the past few years, and Johnny Football can still work magic with a football in his hands.

Sadly, though, I am afraid that if we don't get help for Katt Williams and Johnny Manziel , we will wake up one day and see a sad headline with some tragic news about both men.

*Pic from the library of congress.

Donald Trump and the alternative right.

Tonight's guest post comes to us from Cathy Young.

"Who’d have thought that in 2016, we would be discussing whether mainstream Republicans and conservatives should be nicer to white nationalists? Yet here we are.
 

The debate is, of course, about the “alternative right,” suddenly propelled into visibility by its fervent embrace of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy. Recently, it was the subject of a long, sympathetic article by Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulos at Breitbart.com, the Trump-loving site that some, including ex-Breitbart writer Brian Cates, have long accused of courting the alt-right. (For the record, I have had a cordial professional relationship with both authors, have been on a panel with both of them and have appeared twice on Yiannopoulos’s webcast.)

In a nutshell, the article argues that, while the alt-right does have some actual—but, worry not, utterly irrelevant!—white supremacists and neo-Nazis in its ranks, it is mostly a loose alliance of maverick intellectuals, traditionalists who feel unrepresented in the mainstream political establishment, and cheeky young rebels who post racist slurs and memes just to annoy the pearl-clutching guardians of political correctness.

While this taxonomy of the alt-right is interesting, it is ultimately—as it were—a whitewash, full of far-fetched arguments and misleading claims that consistently downplay this movement’s ugly bigotry.

Take the article’s section on the “intellectuals” behind the alt-right, which offers a respectful account of the movement’s online hubs such as Richard Spencer’s AlternativeRight.com and Steve Sailer’s VDARE. Sailer is credited with having “helped spark the ‘human biodiversity’ movement, a group of bloggers and researchers who strode eagerly into the minefield of scientific race differences—in a much less measured tone than former New York Times science editor Nicholas Wade.”

A caption also notes that “Razib Khan, who lost an opportunity at the New York Times over his views on human biodiversity, now writes for the alt-right Unz Review.” We are clearly meant to get the impression that the alt-right web is a refuge for, as the authors put it, “dangerously bright” people unafraid of taboo topics. While Bokhari and Yiannopoulos acknowledge that “all of these websites have been accused of racism,” the unmistakable implication is that such accusations stem from P.C. hypersensitivity—and probably fear of the alt-right gurus’ outstanding intelligence.

Are there political taboos surrounding race-related genetic cognitive and behavioral differences? Of course (and for very understandable reasons, given historical experience). The controversy around Wade’s 2014 book, “A Troublesome Inheritance,” demonstrates how sensitive the subject is. It is very likely this sensitivity has deterred legitimate inquiry. Some people who have waded into this minefield have also been, in my view, unfairly tarred as racists—such as Charles Murray, with whom I disagree on a number of things but whom I am honored to know.
 

But let’s be clear: the authors populating the alt-right’s webzines are not just Wades and Murrays with less tone policing.....

But it does not follow that the alt-right deserves any sympathy or respect. This is a movement that counters the toxic culture of the left with a toxic brew of its own: a mix of old bigotries and new identity and victimhood politics adapted for the straight white male. Bokhari and Yiannopoulos try to connect it to “cultural libertarianism,” a concept coined by Bokhari last year and championed by both authors; but other than opposition to restrictions on “hate speech,” it’s hard to see what an ideology that explicitly subordinates the individual to the tribe could have in common with libertarianism of any kind.

Today, the excesses of the “social justice” movement have brought us to a point where reasonable conservatives, libertarians, and liberals are ready to join forces against quasi-totalitarian identity politics. We need to start reclaiming the principles of common humanity, freedom, and universal values, not put a positive spin on a different brand of divisive identitarianism. {Full article}

First, Charles Murray IS a racist, and to argue otherwise reveals a certain amount of naivety or maybe something worse.

And to compare the social justice movement to the alt-right movement in any way is, quite frankly, ludicrous.

Still, it was an interesting article, with some interesting insights into the alt-right movement , and the so called intellectuals who inhabit that world.  

*Pic from vice.com

 

 

 

 

Open thread.

Let's call this open thread Wednesday.

Field hands, please tell me what you think of this video.

And do you really believe that racism can actually kill you?

Negro PSA: Trump rally in progress, appraoch with caution.

"Once again a Donald Trump supporter has been caught on camera attacking a protester at one of the presidential candidate’s rallies.

The Daily Gazette‘s Kate Seckinger captured the incident as it happened Monday in Albany. In the video, a group of protesters can be seen clashing with rallygoers, when another man runs up and grabs the protester in the face. As he’s pulled away by the other rallygoers, the man slaps the protester across the face.

MSNBC caught up with the man afterwards, who said his name was Mike and explained his actions. “I have my personal rights and my personal space. They’re gonna start yelling about some bullshit, I’ll snatch your ass up. That’s all,” he explained.

“Hell yeah!” Mike responded when asked if he was a Trump supporter. “He’s no bullshit. All balls. Fuck you all balls. That’s what I'm about'"

 

You have to wonder what it is about "the blacks"  that sets off these trump supporters so much.

 

Since when is it illegal to yell about "some bullshit"? This is America, and the last time I checked political protest was perfectly legal.

 

But we can't put all the blame on a few knuckleheads who attend trump rallies to flex their racist muscles. Check out what has been happening on the republican news network, otherwise known as FOX.

 

Their number one host chose to say the following to trump about black people:

 

"While grilling Donald Trump on Monday evening about how he’d boost employment for black youth, Bill O'Reilly interrupted to make the truly bizarre claim that many black people are “ill-educated and have tattoos on their foreheads.”

 

....Trump declared he will sway the black vote with a purely economic message. “If you look at President Obama, he’s been a president for almost 8 years,” he said, “and with African-American youth, you have a 59 percent unemployment.”

 

And then seemingly invoking his long-running obsession with the fatuous idea that rappers represent the whole of the black community, O’Reilly asked: “But how are you going to get jobs for them? Many of them are ill-educated and have tattoos on their foreheads..."

Poor Bill really has a sick obsession with black folks. Maybe the man who his wife left him for is black. That would explain a lot.  

For the record, if you do a Google search of forehead tattoos you will find more white guys than black ones with face ink.  And then there is that "ill-educated" line he threw out there, which, quite frankly, I find laughable.

I would love to have Bill meet some of my friends and family sometime. I am sure that it would be a real eye opening experience for the bullheaded racist from Long Island.

Sadly, it's as if O'Reilly was trying to outdo trump in the racist department. Maybe he wanted to score political points for trump by comparing himself to him, which would only make trump seem more normal and less racist to the voting public.

Maybe he will select O'Reilly to be his running mate. 

*Pic from mediaite.com




 

 

  

 

 

 

A kinder, gentler war on drugs.

Good for President Obama to declare war on drug addiction. It's a war that we must fight, and one that we cannot afford to lose.

America is in the middle of a serious drug epidemic, and it is taking the lives of countless American children in places that we never expected to see drug addiction and dependency becoming a problem.

The sate of Vermont, for instance, has a serious heroin epidemic on its hands, and not even Bernie can stop it. It has gotten so bad in that state that the poor governor dedicated his entire State of the State address to the problem. And of course we all know that Vermont is not alone.

Contrast how president Obama is dealing with America's latest drug problem to how our government dealt with a similar problem having to do with drugs over 25 years ago. In fact, some would argue, the government actually created the problem for certain communities.

Back then it was incarceration and punishment. Now it's treatment and counseling. President Obama's war on drugs is gentler than previous ones, and I suspect that I know why.

Today's drug crises is being driven by heroin, and guess which demographic uses more heroin than everyone else? If you said young white kids, move to the head of the class. 

The following is from the New York Times:

"When the nation’s long-running war against drugs was defined by the crack epidemic and based in poor, predominantly black urban areas, the public response was defined by zero tolerance and stiff prison sentences. But today’s heroin crisis is different. While heroin use has climbed among all demographic groups, it has skyrocketed among whites; nearly 90 percent of those who tried heroin for the first time in the last decade were white.

And the growing army of families of those lost to heroin — many of them in the suburbs and small towns — are now using their influence, anger and grief to cushion the country’s approach to drugs, from altering the language around addiction to prodding government to treat it not as a crime, but as a disease." [Source] 

Of course it's not a "crime". Crime would mean that something wrong is being done. Remember, as is damn near everything else in America, not all drug addictions are created equal.  

So now we are collectively shocked that we have such a problem with drugs in our country. Now that drugs are in our children's bedrooms, and hidden in the back of the family mini vans, we are finally realizing that we have a problem. And we realize that it is a problem that can have a negative long lasting effect on society. You know, kind of like crack cocaine did with certain segments of the black population back in the day. 

Of course their families will never recover, because their family members are serving long jail times for possessing small amounts of drugs, and there was no treatment offered to those who got hooked and couldn't get off until they were dead. The remedy for the drug epidemic facing black America  then , was draconian punishment brought on by strict sentencing guidelines, and "tougher" law enforcement. 

Quite a few politicians bolstered their careers by telling white America that they would keep them safe from the drugs those blacks were using and the type of people peddling them. (I see you Bill and Hillary) Now, I suspect. politicians will use the opposite tact to gain brownie points with voters as well. (I see you President Obama)

"At Courtney’s funeral, they decided to acknowledge the reality that redefined their lives: Their bright, beautiful daughter, just 20, who played the French horn in high school and dreamed of living in Hawaii, had been kicked out of the Marines for drugs. Eventually, she overdosed at her boyfriend’s grandmother’s house, where she died alone."

There are a lot of sad and tragic stories like Courtney's out there. Hopefully we will be smarter with the new war on drugs than we were the old one.

*Pic from youtube.com

    

Politics and America's "race problem".

Tonight I feature an essay by Sam Fulwood III, which addresses racism and politics in America.

"After a career spent cataloguing and commenting on the American political scene—nearly 30 years as a newspaper journalist and, more recently, as a public policy observer—I am rarely personally offended by anything that politicians say or do.

But recently, two news stories exposed a level of political mendacity that set my heart racing and blood boiling.

Even now, my anger has yet to abate after reading journalist Dan Baum’s April cover story in Harper’s Magazine. In that article, Baum quoted John Ehrlichman—a former aide to President Richard Nixon who served a year and half prison sentence for his role in the Watergate scandal—as saying the Nixon administration’s war on drugs campaign was deliberately designed to target black Americans.

According to the story, in 1994 Ehrlichman told Baum that—as Nixon’s chief domestic adviser—he was aware that the administration was aiming to vilify black Americans by focusing the war on drugs in black communities. As Baum recalled:

“You want to know what this was really all about?” [Ehrlichman] asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?
“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.  

“Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

In a second maddening story, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) delivered a speech to a room full of interns in which he offered a mea culpa for his repeated comments vilifying poor people—or, as Ryan put it:

There was a time when I would talk about a difference between “makers” and “takers” in our country, referring to people who accepted government benefits. But as I spent more time listening, and really learning the root causes of poverty, I realized I was wrong.

“Takers” wasn’t how to refer to a single mom stuck in a poverty trap, just trying to take care of her family. Most people don’t want to be dependent. And to label a whole group of Americans that way was wrong. I shouldn’t castigate a large group of Americans to make a point.

These two stories, ostensibly unrelated, illustrate in bold strokes why the United States continues to suffer from a so-called race problem. And they help explain why so many people deny the root causes of contemporary and systemic racism—or even that racism exists at all.

Indeed, for a great number of Americans, the idea of racism is an objectionable act: Sending out offensive fliers on college campuses or firing an employee based on her race. Those are simple, easy-to-see cases. And though they are highly offensive to fair-minded people, they have also become relatively rare.

But the much more common yet harder-to-define forms of racism are invisibly embedded in our national culture, so subtly ingrained as to go unnoticed—to the extent that anyone who points them out is cast as a societal outlier or, worse, labeled a reverse racist for noticing what is occurring around them.

And that is why I am so outraged by what Erhlichman—who died in 1999—is reported to have said and done; ditto for Speaker Ryan’s too-late-for-me apologia. By spreading lies about black and economically distressed Americans, these public officials infected our national culture with vile catchphrases, imagery and attitudes that allowed others to propose, support and enact policies with real and damaging consequences.

This is how systemic racism lives, breeds and thrives.

To be specific, Nixon’s war on drugs pushed such measures as mandatory minimum sentencing laws; no-knock raid warrants; and more harsh law enforcement measures that were used disproportionately against black Americans.

And the makers versus takers rhetoric that Speaker Ryan popularized as a Tea Party darling during his 2012 vice presidential campaign is still a part of the conservative rants.

As The Atlantic ’s Derek Thompson pointed out, Speaker Ryan’s sweet words are not matched by sweeter policy prescriptions.

His penance has not been matched by a broader effort to change the substance beneath the words,” Thompson wrote in reaction to Ryan’s speech. “For years, he has put forth a budget that would provide the largest tax cuts in history for the wealthy while gutting income support and health care assistance for the middle-class and poor.

There really is something odious and damaging to the country’s culture when conservative leaders advance their careers and policies by denigrating black and poor people. Worse of all, the conflation of racism and privilege allows them to do so without bearing an appropriate reputational penalty or diminishing their standing in society.

Politics ain’t beanbag. I do understand how the game is played—which is to say that it usually does not bother me to hear political leaders pander to supportive audiences. But sometimes their hurtful words are more than sounds in the air. Sometimes they lie, and these lies cling to our culture, changing the way common folk think and react. Sometimes they knowingly harm wide swaths of our citizenry. That’s outrageously maddening and beyond the pale of politics that I can stomach.

Sam Fulwood III is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and director of the CAP Leadership Institute. His work with the Center’s Progress 2050 project examines the impact of policies on the nation when there will be no clear racial or ethnic majority by the year 2050." [Source]

Thoughts?

*Pic from youtube.com

CAPTION SATURDAY.

I need a caption for this pic.

Example: What's that smell?


*Pic courtesy of Peter van Agtmael/Magnum Photos for the Washington Post.

Things I learned this week.

 It's been an interesting week. And, as is always the case, I learned some interesting things in my Field Negro travels.

I learned that contrary to popular perception it's not only black men who are deadbeats, and that there are some irresponsible white dudes out here playing rolling stone to multiple kids that they can't afford as well. (14 kids by the age of 26 has to be some kind of record.)

I learned that not all mothers should be mothers. (How the hell do you get an octopus in a toddler's throat?!)

I learned that sex might be the key to a longer life.

I learned that Donald trump is a more horrible person than I thought. 

I learned that there is no such thing as non-lethal force when it comes to police and black people.  (Even black women.)

I learned that Bernie Sanders doesn't think that Hillary is qualified to be president. 

I learned that Bill Clinton let this being the first black president thing get to his head.

I learned that they don't like Donald trump in the Midwest.

I learned that they don't like Ted Cruz in New York.

I learned, after only a couple of games, that the Phillies will suck again this year.

I learned that the cop body slamming young girl craze is spreading.

I learned that there are still  a lot of young black kids out there who make me very proud.

I learned that in American you can get a life sentence for stealing candy.

Finally, I learned that there is no place like home.