Ta-Nehisi Coates

Different than mine. But perhaps more perceptive. I keep vacillating on this one. I am sooooo down with the whole "Fatherhood At All Costs" deal. In fact, on an individual level, I think poverty is simply not an excuse for potentially screwing up a kids life. But that's not a "public policy" point of view--the sort of perspective that looks at the behavior of a mass group of people. It's like something I'd want to hear in a church (yes, I know) or something my own Pops dropped on me. It's tough to know whether Barack is sincere or running a very subtle Sista Souljah move. I suspect it's both. He understands that the images of black folks are so distorted that he can say some pretty rudimentary shit (Be a father to your child) that sits firmly within the mainstream of black thinking (hell human thinking), and be lauded for his courage because there's this idea that black people, you know, spend their days cursing the white man for everything from bad credit to getting caught in the rain. It's actually quite smart, politically, at least.

Commenter Nate writes:

You know, for a blog that claims black people don't always sit around thinking about what white people think of them, there is an awful lot of complaining about about what white people think and say about black people. I mean, Barack Obama gives a speech about black fatherhood, and instead of a discussion of black fatherhood, we get a discussion of how stupid white people are to think Obama is saying something novel.

Yeah, and see that's the problem. Never confuse the ramblings of a pinko, commie who happens to be black, with all, or even most, of black America. As I've said before, the musings of those who think for a living are quite different from those who work for a living. I learned this many years ago when in my 10th grade Social Studies class, at my predominantly black high school, I made the mistake of defending welfare. I was immediately shouted down. The lesson of that early ideological smack-down? "Traditional values" run as strongly through my neck of the woods, as through the rest of the country.

There is no West Village for black people. If you're gonna live in the neighborhood, you're gonna be exposed to all ranges of opinion. In fact once we finally win and all this craziness is over, I'm sure I'm gonna miss the evangelical lady downstairs who keeps trying to convert me from my heathen ways.

Because I spend much of my time here talking about race, obsessing over white people is what this blog--at least partially--is all about. But confusing that talk with the views of "mainstream black folks" isn't any more intelligent than confusing the views of some white blogger with "mainstream white folks." Watch that Obama video again. Those are black people cheering for him.

Insightful comment from Friend of the Room, and former po-po Peter Moskos:

Yeah, I'm a reformed nerd so you'd think I'd be really into Zooey Deschanel, and maybe I will be after I rock this album a few more times. Anyway, this morning, in between writing stints, I was scrolling through emusic, checking out some of the recommendations from the music thread below. Somehow I winded up listening to this album by this group She & Him. Liked what I heard, and downloaded. So I'm listening thinking, Man this chick can blow, lemme do some research. Turns out she's Zooey Deschnal! Sorry, I'm kind of sick of actors trying to sing, especially when they haven't mastered acting. Anyway, I don't know how I feel about the album--I'm still straight of the Juice Crew and the Bomb Squad--but even a formerly troubled black youth, like me, can see that it's a game attempt. Here's the standout track

EDIT: I flubbed Battiata's name little ways down in the post. Nothing deflates your point like misspelling the name of the person you're going after. I try guys. But I'm human. Sloppy, but human.

This is why Obama's Father's Day speech leaves me ultimately cold. To see people whose understanding of hip-hop doesn't extend past a few random viewings of BET,  or their disgust at the handful of black boys they happen to notice on the street or on the train, proffering this idea that Obama will civilize the blacks makes me retch:

Lately I've been wondering what an Obama White House might mean for the future of bling. For the fate of heavy gold, medallions, below-the-butt denim, the whole hip-hop gangsta fashion habit. What if January 20, 2009 turned out to be not just a cultural and clothing pivot point for adults -- a return to the minimalism of sleek, 60s-era sharkskin suits, the containment of golf-ball sized Barbara Bush costume pearls -- but a watershed fashion moment for teenaged boys?

That's Mary Battiata whose ignorance of black kids is revealed by the fact that she's still using the word "bling." The "racial resentment" in her statement is like level 12 on the "Arrogance of Whiteness" scale. I could almost hear the Pat Boone rocking in the background. Battiata then launches into a predictable argument that hip-hop fashion is the real problem in the black community, and that Obama's aspect may create some of sort cultural transition in which black kids think it's cool to walk around in business suits, because everyone knows hip-hop fashion can be summed up in gold teeth, wife-beaters and gaudy jewels. No one in hip-hop wears suits.

Listen man, I don't busy myself perusing the fashions of teenage white boys, but I'm quite certain if I did, I could find some pretty objectionable outfits (ones not ripped off from black people). But black people are the stand-in for poor people in this era, and poor people are always held to a higher moral standard. Battiata seems completely ignorant of the fact that hip-hop's sales have been tumbling for a few years now, that part of that tumbling is the disgust that black youth themselves have expressed with the music. A few key-strokes of google or, heaven forbid, some actual reporting with real live black kids would have given Battiata some grounding. But nuts to that. Better to sit on one's ass and hold forth on the finer points of black youth culture, because, you know, it's only black people.

I'm not suprised to see Mickey Kaus jumping in on this. Kaus can only think of three things when it comes to the blacks--welfare, affirmative action and sista souljah. He isn't even worth a block quote. I'm a little more bothered by Andrew Sullivan (anyone who reads this blog knows I'm a fan) pushing this dumb-ass notion that black kids don't call Obama "'nigger" out of some sort of sign of respect:

Random anecdote: walking the beagles the other day, I bumped into a neighbor who told me that she noticed one word that the young black teens and boys she knows in the neighborhood don't use about Obama. The n-word. Or as Battiata puts it: the suit next time.

First, I'm almost certain that isn't true. I know in moments of levity in my home, I've definitely heard an Obama speech and issued a "Nigger, please."  I know some of you agree with Andrew. You know how I feel. But, more generally, I hate this idea that ALL black teens are somehow interchangable with what a few white bloggers find most objectionable in hip-hop. When you have actual black teens in your family, when you are raising them yourself, when you were one at some point in your life, you understand how this need to make us smaller,  this desire to turn the most troubled amongst us, into all of us, is the cousin of welfare queens and Willie Horton.

A quick aside: I've spent most of my life learning this great craft from two sources--rappers and professional writers, most of them white.  I've been reading The New Republic, The Atlantic, and the New Yorker for most of my life, steady banging Wu-Tang Forever, or Reasonable Doubt the whole time. My Black Panther father put me on to Wall Street Journal when I was in high school, and the New York Observer when I was in college. My heroes in this business are virtually all white (how many black people are doing long-form journalism these days? I'm still stuck on Baldwin) and when I read shit like this and this, I'm left humbled wishing I was smarter and worked harder. And yet so often, these same writers (not literally the ones I linked) whose minds are so nimble and nuanced, go rigor mortis when it comes to black people. I don't get it.

There are many, many tribes of whiteness in America which I don't particularly understand. I didn't get how some white people go off to expensive colleges and then spend their friday nights, french-kissing a keg of the world's cheapest beer, until they're rendered unconscious. I remember the first white parties I went to, in my early twenties, and I was shocked to see people standing around clutching plastic cups, music playing, but no one dancing. It took some time for me to get blue-collar comedy. I'm still not up on cucumber sandwiches--but judging by the diabetes rates here in Harlem, maybe I should be.

We all have our prejudice, but every time I've ever mistaked that prejudice for some sort of insight, I've paid for it. I learned to like going to parties standing around at actually "talking"--I didn't have to worry about some dude forming a Soul Train and forcing me to do my pitiful rendition of the Reebok or the Cabbage Patch. I still don't get the "keg party" shit, but I can be found on Saturdays in September, at half-time, standing on the sidelines, my hand on my son's face-mask, telling him "Get'r done."

Before, I started reading Andrew, I thought all gay people liked the HRC, sort of how a lot of white writers think all black people like the NAACP or Al Sharpton. You live and you learn I guess. I want writers to stop assuming that they know who we are, that black people are so simple as to be summed up in the latest Henry Louis Gates's missive (or Ta-Nehisi Coates missive, for that matter). I want writers to stop wishing that Barack Obama will teach us how to act. As in most things, when discussing us, they've got it exactly backwards.

Via Matt. Turns out that among McCain's former Hillary supporter is some idiot who insists that Thomas Jefferson never had relations with that woman, Sally Hemmings. There's a great comment on Matt's page about this sort of thing backfires and that, in the real world, Dogs aren't the only ones who hear dog-whistles. I don't think McCain is a racist. But this is like the street. You hang out on the corner long enough and you will end up in the company of drug-dealers. Ditto for the GOP, and McCain Democrats. Move among them enough, and you will find yourself in the company of racists. That said, Kathy G made a great point in comments today. A lot of these "Clinton supporters" could well be plants.

Copped Santagold and Radiohead off emusic yesterday. Don't know what I think yet. The Radiohead joint is the new one, In Rainbows. It's almost too accessible for me. I know that sounds strange. Anyway, anyone got any thoughts? I know I posted about Santogold before, but this is the first time I've listened to the whole album.

UPDATE: Guys lets open this up and make it a general music thread. These are some great comments. I'm interested in what else folks are listening to. I'm a huge TV on the Radio fan. Any thoughts on what I should be vibing off of? As for Santagold, I haven't decided yet. Like CeezDiem, I love L.E.S. Artistes. But my better half made a similar point to Ceez, noting that if she was 17 she would be in love with her. It's interesting.

Also, anyone here with kids? I had a nice discussion with my eight-year-old son about Lil Wayne's "Lollipop." Fun! Fun! Gotta talk about it though. Don't want him getting his facts from his idiot friends.

Matt mentions Hanna Rosin's brilliant investigation into Section 8. Rosin, who I've never met, is a friend of the room, not only because of piece's like this but because of her marriage to fellow Wash CP alum David Plotz. But I digress. Essentially Rosin shows that Section 8, which was created to disperse poverty and destroy the projects as centralized castles of despair, has also dispersed criminals and caused crime to rise in suburbs and medium-sized cities. In response, Matt writes:

I'm not 100 percent sure where that leaves us. Housing vouchers still seem like a better idea than "the projects" for various reasons related to economic efficiency and choice. And as far as crime goes, we seem to mostly still know what we know -- higher wages for low-skill workers, higher educational attainment, the presence of more police officers patrolling the street, throwing enormous quantities of young men in prison, fewer drug addicts, and reductions in the amount of lead poisoning all seem to lower crime.

I agree with much of this, but there was a subtle point in Rosin's piece which I think deserves more attention--all black poor people aren't the same. The real problem is that the poor attract more than their share of violent crime. Perhaps the most heartbreaking portion of Rosin's article was where she showed how Section 8 basically was destabilizing poor/working class communities where people weren't rich, but were basically handling their business.

I came away from reading that piece disturbed on so many levels, and it probably didn't help that I'd just finished reading an equally skeptical book, The Promised Land, which looked at the War on Poverty. A couple things emerged from reading both those pieces.

1.) Problems bloom when you look at the black poor--or the poor of any color--as this big mass of people who can't do shit, and thus don't ask anything of them. It seems insane, to me, to hand-out Section 8 vouchers with little to no screening, and little to no follow-up by caseworkers. To turn large numbers of poor people on communities which are the least equipped to handle them (stable working class/poor black communities) just seems morally wrong.

2.) Our criminal justice shit is an absolute mess. Let me talk about the velvet glove first. We have to change our approach to nonviolent drug offenses. Jail sentences for marijuana have got to go, and maybe even for crack-cocaine. But here's the catch--we have to bring the hammer down on violent crime. There is an utterly depressing story about a kid who's basically doing the right thing and is set upon by some gang members because he won't join there outfit. Perhaps because of my own story, I empathized deeply with that kid. We have to learn that there is a difference between a guy selling a crack on the corner, and a guy who's harassing  innocent people because they won't help him sell crack on the corner. I know that those two people are sometimes the same, and in that case bang them on the head for the violence, not for the sale. I have no problem with you moving your product on my corner. But you don't have the right to pull out guns and endanger the life of my son. I don't accept that one necessarily leads to the other.

3.) We are looking for a short-cut "magic bullet" approach to fighting poverty, which cost us nothing and ask virtually nothing of tax-payers. If you're going to relocate people out of the projects, you've got to have staff to track them. You've got to have rules. You've got to give them the support they need. Furthermore, you can't allow them all to move into otherwise stable working-class communities. Some of the more upper-income neighborhoods are going to have to carry some of the weight. And this has to be a partnership. Section 8 will likely now be targeted as another failed liberal social program. But it looks to me like lazy thinking, and lazier stewardship.

4.) The piece is a superior work of journalism, and I'll take it over 100 diatribes by "public intellectuals" who are only public if by public you mean "think tank" or "university. Writers who want to tackle race need to stop jacking off in the office, doing NPR interviews and go out and do some field-work.

Have only heard a snippet of it, but I am sure its great. Here is my beef with how this is already being reported. Barack Obama is basically touting a message that you will hear coming from any serious black person in any black community. Louis Farrakhan was saying this shit thirteen years ago, but I didn't hear anything about Louis Farrakhan offering "a strong rebuke" to absent black fathers. That's because this isn't really about black fathers, or black families. It's about Barack giving voice to white frustration. That's not a reason for Barack not to say what he's saying. He did it in front of a black crowd, and it was the right thing to say. But reporters need to stop acting like this dude is the only civilized black man in the world. I just came from the beautiful Real Men Cook event here in Harlem. This thing has been going for almost twenty years now, celebrating fathers who are doing right, and serving as rebuke (if I may) to the ones that are ghost. We don't need Barack Obama to tell us to be fathers, though I'm glad he's doing it. We need reporters to actively engage the people they claim to cover.

UPDATE: I thought some more about this speech, and I figured out what bothers me. I don't think anyone disagrees with the content of it. In fact, I've maintained that Obama is spitting rhetoric that's old hat in the black community. But when this stuff is reported, it's written as if it's the first time anyone's said this. The basic rule seems to be among white media--if we haven't heard it, it didn't happen. It's the Elvis shit all over again. Elvis knew black music well. Rumors of his racism were the "whitey tape" of his day. In fact he had great affection and much praise for black performers. But that still didn't stop white music writers and white fans from acting like this dude had the original Blue Suede Shoes.

Likewise, I don't know think Barack is presenting himself as the first dude to say what he's saying, so I don't really blame him. But these reporters who are trying to write about "race in America" are a joke. It's also a myth to imply that Obama is saying something that white politicians are somehow barred by the Gods of PC from saying. Break me a fucking give. No less than MITT ROMNEY made the same point in debate when asked about black America. Anyway, below is Barack Obama--but first Ed O.G. who gave Obama game (props to commenter dwhite on that).

Oh, I'm sorry. I meant people who simply "resent black people racially." Because there are no more racists. We know this because Geraldine "not a racist" Ferraro told us so. McCain hosted a bunch of Hillary supporters, according to Ben Smith, and among them was the most famous "Not A  Racist" of our time, sucking up her 15 minutes:

McCain's staff extended the last-minute invitation to Clinton die-hards, including a founder of a group called "Party Unity, My Ass" (PUMA), and substantial numbers came from Washington and New York. They represented passionate campaign volunteers and supporters, but they're essentially a marginal group in Clinton's orbit, including no one with a prominent campaign role, public office or close relationship with the candidate.

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina stayed to mingle with the crowd, whose members also included Clinton backer Harriet Christian, made momentarily famous on YouTube for getting ejected from the Rules & Bylaws press area.

Yeah, that would be the same Harriet Christian who called Barack Obama "an inadequate black male" and then defended it on Fox. The same Harriet Christian who said "99 percent of the blacks don't know what they're doing." But she's not a racist. Because racism is no longer acceptable in America, so it's fine that McCain is courting her. This is when you see that a feminism which has no use for Sojurner Truth, which sees Shirley Chisolhm only as a steroid in the oppression olympics, which has at its core, a disbelief in the very existence of black women is really just White Power in a bad Halloween mask. Stop insulting us and acting like you stand for anything more than right of white women to join in in a collective smack-down of uppity, inadequate nigras. Play your position. That's black people talk for "Less Susan B. Anthony; More hoods and sheets, please."

...my right hand, Pappa Doc I see. More me. Writing in the Washington Post about my Dad, in honor of Father's Day, which he doesn't celebrate:

When I think of my father, I think of a dynamic, tyrannical consistency. He cut his children off at every pass, and his message was terrifying: "I am bigger than you, stronger than you and smarter than you. I will win." We felt a constant pressure, a pervading sense that ending up as a nothing corner-boy was not an option. We lived by a kind of Bushido that simply held: Be somebody or die.

So much has changed since those days. The streets are, as they always were, marked by peril. But the murder rate has fallen, and Magic Johnson is still alive. And yet in the homes of so many black children, the father remains invisible. I don't want to slip into the lazy mythology of Ward Cleaver and the vanishing nuclear family. What's done is done, and as we move forward, families will no longer be what they were. So many fathers -- unable to be breadwinners, frustrated with the mothers of their children -- simply check out. But in these times, we must remember the core of fatherhood: that it is nasty work, that it is the dark art of manipulating children into striving for their higher selves, and that it will be many years before the children themselves see that this was best.

For those of you in the NYC area, I'll be at Real Men Cook up here in Harlem, celebrating the brothers who are living right. Come through, if you have a moment. Buy a book, while you're at it.

Haha. Via Andrew. Wish it was better mixed. Next time, call my man Ricardo.

This basically sums up my feeling on Tim Russert's death. I didn't know how to say this yesterday without feeling disgusting.

I'm in shock. I don't think I have much to say.  Please come with it, if you've got something substantial to  add.

Oh come on. You knew this was coming. Half of Chicago knows this dude likes the youngins, but they couldn't nail him. What can I say? Old girl said it wasn't her...

Me, today with Brain Lehrer. Speaking on the book. Have a listen.

Heh, from the great Troy Patterson:

In one episode, Grenier chills with a dude—obviously a douche bag, just a biodegradable one—who is constructing an eco-friendly pleasure dome in the hills of Los Angeles, a Playboy Mansion with organic bunny feed. We're told that the water from the showers will be treated and reused to water the garden, and also that the shower in the master bath will be spacious enough to accommodate 19 honeys. Elsewhere, some of the crew goes to an organic wine tasting, where they swill in a most obnoxious fashion. There are "great little tips" for exercising greenly, such as doing pull-ups on the limb of a tree. People seeking material gain are exhorted to "make that cheddar." It's impossible to say whether the show's smug superiority is more grating than its anorexic thinness of content, but seeing them in combination may fill you with a kind of retributive rage. I for one want to go out and kill a dolphin.

Fascinating:

Mrs. Clinton may have begun that discussion in her concession speech on Saturday when she said that women deserve equal respect, along with equal pay, and that “there are no acceptable prejudices in the 21st century in our country.” She was referring to what emerged as conventional wisdom during the campaign that racism is no longer tolerated in America, but sexism is.

Heh, yeah because a structure run and controlled by white people, has ALWAYS recognized racism as a huge problem and done everything it can to rid the world of it. The very fact that "sexism is still a problem" is always followed by the "but racism isn't" line, shows you that race is still, to this day, the biggest dividing line in this country. Of course there's not a single black person quoted in the piece--just white people ruminating among themselves. Hillary is the same woman whose husband equated Obama dismissively with Jesse Jackson, the same woman who defined her base--and the base of the Democratic part no less!--as "hard working white people," whose supporters go on national TV and claim that 99 percent of black voters don't know what they're doing. Don't tell about how Harriet Christian is just some nutjob--so were the "Iron my shirt" dudes, and they weren't even Obama supporters.

Michelle Obama, an Ivy educated lawyer, is dismissed as "a baby's mama," someone is hawking a Barack Obama monkey doll, Sean Bell daughter is without a father, but racism is dead. Break me a fucking give. Tell you what white women. I won't pretend to be an authority on what it feels like to be sexually objectified, and you don't try to be an authority on what's it's like to be considered the progeny of knuckle-draggers. In fact why don't we all shut up and listen to some black women for a change. Oh, I keep forgetting. There are none.

Over at Slate Richard Thompson Ford argues that racism is an insufficient explanation for why some white Dems may support McCain:

Maybe some Democrats for McCain really buy into the experience line; maybe some voted for Clinton mainly due to gender solidarity and actually prefer many of McCain’s policy positions. Personally, I suspect most Democrats for McCain are driven not by racism but a much more widespread, simpler, and more primal motivation: spite.  

I suspect a lot of the reason Obama supporters want to tar every Democrat gone over to McCain as a racist is that they suspect that some unsavory motivation underlies this strange shift in political alliances and jump to the most uncharitable conclusion: racism. Juries are apt to do this in discrimination cases, too: If the employer is acting out of favoritism, vindictiveness, or spite, they figure he’s probably a racist, too. But in fact the likelihood of another unsavory motivation, sufficient in itself to explain the decision, cuts against the inference of racism: If Clintonites could be motivated to support McCain by spite alone, then we have less of a reason to suspect them of racism.  

Ford's more general position, from which this argument originates, is that racism has increasingly become the tool of the demagogue. He's probably right about that, except so is patriotism, classism, elitism, and isolationism. This idea that the charge of racism, lobbed in a country whose congress invented "Freedom Fries," would somehow remain pure is literally inhumane--it robs black people of their god-given right to reach for ad hominem, change the subject, and employ all sorts of non-sequiters. Meanwhile, I've yet to see anyone claim that the right-wing's shameless jingoism, somehow endangers the cause of patriotism at large.

But to the argument at hand. The trouble with this "spite" thesis is Ford offers no real evidence that it's anymore plausible than the "racism" thesis. Most likely, like all subjective pondering, there is no one answer. But there is sufficiently evidence that racism is part of the mix. We need not lean on the anecdotal, and cite the racism of windbags like Geraldine Ferraro and Harriet Christian, or their internet supporters. Let us for the moment dismiss them as mere anomalies. Let us also dismiss the minority of West Virginia and Kentucky citizens who saw no problem claiming--on the record--that while they'd vote Democratic if Hillary won, they simply couldn't vote for a black man. Surely this is not only a minority of Democrats, but a small, small minority of Democrats in those states, who in fact, just felt ornery on that particular morning.

But shall we also dismiss the stats in this Newsweek story:

NEWSWEEK pollsters recently created a "Racial Resentment Index" to measure the impact of race on the 2008 election. White voters were asked a series of 10 questions about a variety of race-related topics, including racial preferences in hiring, interracial marriage—and what they have "in common" with African-Americans. About a third of these voters scored "high" on this index; 29 percent of all white Democrats did. Overwhelmingly, these Democrats are the ones most likely to defect to John McCain in the fall. (Among "High RR" white Democratic voters, according to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, Clinton leads McCain by 77 percent to 18 percent, while you win by only 51 percent to 33 percent.) Many Democratic voters in West Virginia interviewed by a NEWSWEEK reporter on primary night, May 13, did not hide their animus toward you as a kind of exotic alien. Menina Parsons, 45, said she will not vote for Obama in the general election because "I don't think he's real. I don't think he's American.

Heh, don't you just love how they're no racists anymore? They're just people who score "high" on the "Racial Resentment Index." Sort of like how Jeremiah Wright high on the "Land Of The Free Index." Well not really. More like how Farrakhan scores high on the "Death To Jewish Blood-Suckers Index." Be that as it may, a third of white Dems would evidently feel uneasy, if I moved next door. But they wouldn't be racist, they'd just resent how people of my race play loud music, can't hold jobs, and tend to eye their daughters (ooohh!! white women!!). Of that group, a large number would support McCain.

Truthfully, I take two things from those stats--and from this whole Obama campaign. People, we've come a long frickin way. You have to note that even among those Dems that give Obama the creeps, he still wins. Of course you also have to note that there seem to be a lot of Dems who Obama gives the creeps, and if that's the case for the liberal party, then I don't even want to see the GOP numbers. My point, though, is that just as it's foolish to dismiss everyone who chooses McCain over Obama as a racist, it's equally foolish--in fact I'd say more foolish--to act like racism isn't a credible factor. I say more because historically it has been a factor. In 1980, 1988, 1992, and 2000, every winning candidate--at some point--either played the "I'm not a nigger-lover" card, or the "My opponent is a nigger-lover card" And there were no actual niggers in the respective races.

It's good to be counterintuitive, and no one finds the site simple-minded, reductive explanations more boring and irritating than me. But let's not overstate things. Just because the Sharptonites routinely use the race-card as a billy-club, doesn't mean that racism isn't a potent factor in our lives.

Guys, I'm sorry the posting frequency is slowing down. Damn book is overunning me. I have some thoughts that'll be up later today. Meantime, for the Mos Def fans out there, this old school joint sums up how I'm feeling these days,  minus the "bout to blow, ya'll" part. lol.