Has Obama Ushered in a New Trend in Intelligent Black People?

Mark Anthony Neal, aka "New Black Man," weighs in on the latest trend of smart, educated, and articulate black folks who are suddenly appearing as "talking heads" (think of political analyst Melissa Harris-Lacewell of Princeton University appearing on Bill Moyers' Journal or on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now, in which she wiped the floor with Gloria Steinem when discussing issues of race and gender in the current political climate). Thanks to the presence of ... Barack Obama?

Here is an excerpt:

Wanted! Smart Negroes

Washington PostNewsweek Interactive recently launched the interactive site The Root. Ostensibly a partnership with Henry Louis "Skip" Gates to promote the latest incarnation of his black "celebrity DNA" project, the site features a virtual cavalcade (literally) of smart Negroes. We can thank our man Barack for this.

With the Illinois Senator confounding pundit expectations about the legitimacy of his candidacy and the perceived capacity for non-blacks to support his campaign, there's suddenly a need for highly articulate Negroes, who are actually armed with some quantitative and qualitative data. So unlike the Don Imus, Michael Richards or even the Jena 6 controversies--where the clear desire seemed to be to create spectacles around racist transgressions and Negroes who love to agitate--the Barack moment actually demands some sophisticated political analysis (read: Civil Rights Leaders need not apply). For example, in recent weeks political scientists such as Melissa Harris Lacewell and Paula McClain have weighed in thoughtfully on the issues of race, gender and white supremacy with regards to the barbed exchanges between the Clinton and Obama camps, in venues as diverse as Democracy Now! and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees. Such opportunities did not consistently exist prior to the Barack moment.

Read Further.

If Only We Had Invested in a "Black Women for Edwards" Campaign (Sigh)

Perhaps it was inevitable, but I truly believed that John Edwards would stay in the Democratic presidential race until Super Tuesday. So, I find myself truly stunned when I learned today that he decided to drop out of the race.

Surely, we can say we saw it coming since he kept placing third, but I suspect something much more sinister. Who twisted his arm behind the scenes to get him out of the way? And here's why my suspicious mind is running over time:

1. I certainly had not missed that, during the Iowa caucus vote, Edwards came in SECOND, not a distant third. The man beat out Clinton, which means that he was a viable candidate and someone worth considering.
2. Had the Billary team not zeroed in on Obama as the one to beat and, thus, relied on gender politics (e.g. pulling out the "near tears" to mobilize the older white women vote in New Hampshire), we might have seen more of a formidable opponent in Edwards.
3. Edwards happens to be one of the only Democratic candidates to identify corporations (of which Big Media is apart) as a real problem that needs to be tackled. Curiously enough, Big Media did everything in its power to ignore Edwards and render him irrelevant in the race. We really need to think about this: when earlier candidates dropped out of the race because they couldn't compete with "superstars" or get any media attention, then what exactly is the agenda here? What "choices" are being presented here to the average voter, and how much of a choice is this, really?

Had I known Edwards was going to have such a tough time competing with the "novelties" presented via Clinton and Obama, I wish I had paid more attention to his campaign and volunteered. Not because I made up my mind about any of the three candidates, but I like fairness, to be frank. When I hear regular voting-age U.S. Citizens making unsubstantiated statements like "I would vote for Edwards if he were electable," I want to know where they got that impression and what, pray tell, makes them think either Clinton or Obama are going to have it any easier by the time this race goes national.

Just yesterday, after the brouhaha over on Bossip when that blog called Maya Angelou a "ho" for endorsing Hilary Clinton (i.e. - how dare she betray her race!), I found it remarkable that no one thought to have an intelligent conversation about what it meant for Angelou to endorse the female candidate around the same time that another respected author, Toni Morrison, endorsed the black candidate (for me, I'm not at all surprised about Angelou's endorsement - have we all forgotten that she and Bill are fellow Arkansas natives and that she recited her poetry during his first-term inauguration?). But, of course, we're not having those conversations. Sadly, we have reduced our voting choices to identity politics, and I, albeit misguidedly, was hoping that some other respected black female author of renown would come out and endorse Edwards to make this a fair game. Sigh.

Who knows? Maybe because Alice Walker didn't come out to endorse Edwards, he decided to call it a wrap.

What a pity. Especially after the asinine report from CNN, in which black women voters were reduced to a group who had such a "conflicting" choice between race and gender (as if no other voter would face similar issues). I also say what a pity because John Edwards has outlined a concrete political platform that I could get on board with, in terms of adequate healthcare, the economy, a specific timetable to get soldiers out of Iraq, etc. If only Big Media gave him adequate air time (and yes, I do wonder why they chose to render him "unelectable").

In the meantime, I encourage all of you to not vote on the basis of your reproductive organs (as NOW-New York would have you) or your skin color (as some African Americans are advocating, even to the point of branding non-Obama supporters as "sellouts" and "Uncle Toms"). Instead, I will direct you to Professor Black Woman's list of what to look for in a candidate. Interestingly, no where does she add on her list the criteria that the candidate "must look like me" (but for those of you who are black and female and would add that as a criteria, please let me point you to Cynthia McKinney, vying for the Green Party ticket - but of course, she's not getting much airtime either).

And now that the so-called dilemma of choosing between race and gender has been further heightened with Edwards' elimination, such a message of "sticking to the issues, not identity politics," bears repeating.

Toni Morrison Finally Breaks Her Silence...And Endorses Obama

After so many foolish news reporters have erroneously taken out of context the statement she had written back in 1998, in which she described President Bill Clinton as the "first black president," here is Toni Morrison now officially telling everyone to stop misquoting her and, while she's at it, she'll make an endorsement of her own.

As always, her statement is so eloquently written and on point (below is a report from the Associated Press).

WASHINGTON (AP) — The woman who famously labeled Bill Clinton as the "first
black president" is backing Barack Obama to be the second.

Author Toni Morrison said her endorsement of the Democratic presidential candidate has little to do with Obama's race — he is the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas — but rather his personal gifts.

Writing with the touch of a poet in a letter to the Illinois senator, Morrison explained why she chose Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton for her first public presidential
endorsement.

Morrison, whose acclaimed novels usually concentrate of the lives of black women, said she has admired Clinton for years because of her knowledge and mastery of politics, but then dismissed that experience in favor of Obama's vision.

"In addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates," Morrison wrote. "That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in
the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it.

"Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace — that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom," Morrison wrote.

In 1998, Morrison wrote a column for the New Yorker magazine in which she wrote of Bill Clinton: "White skin notwithstanding, this is our first black president. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."

Obama responded to Morrison's endorsement with a written statement: "Toni Morrison has touched a nation with the grace and beauty of her words, and I was deeply moved and honored by the letter she wrote and the support she is giving our campaign."

Guilt by Association?

After being swamped with the first week of classes (which seemed a long time coming), I thought to take some down time to tend to my blog once more. And, it's great to see many of you lurking and posting comments even when I'm not around. :)

Events that unfolded this week have been on my mind, apart from the terrified look on my students' faces when I went over the syllabus since they were shocked at the work load that I have planned for them (I merely looked back at them with an innocuous What? Is there a problem? expression on my face). As I prepare to teach another semester of a course on the subject of racism and its intersections with sexism and classism, I've also been thinking about the complex ways that associations work. I'm thinking specifically of "guilt" by association.

Take the Obama-Clinton fiasco, for example. How bizarre is it to ask (in all seriousness!) in a Presidential Debate if President Bill Clinton was the first black president. Um....What????!!! Give me a break! First, I take great exception that because Toni Morrison once waxed poetic in a New Yorker article about Slick Willy being our "first black president" (she was being facetious, people!!), we should now, somehow, take the description literally. That's like taking literally the various jokes about how you can tell if Bill Clinton is really black.

e.g. "How can you tell that Bill Clinton is really black?" Punchline: "He eats barbecue ribs, was raised by a single mom, and dates ugly white women."

See? The punchline is dependent upon a set of racial stereotypes (all negative) about black men, and there is more than a tinge of classism embedded in the moniker of President Clinton being a "black man" because it's easier to use "guilt by association" rather than to simply call him a country bumpkin. Either way, it's not a literal description. It's a metaphor! An analogy! What is wrong with the media, and how in hell did we quickly descend from the great optimism that started the new year with Obama's successful win in Iowa to this unbelievably backward discussion about racism (granted, this optimism was one that I did not share, and gee, I really hate to be proven right at this point)? No wonder my students are terrified about my class. They have no clue how to talk intelligently (let alone intellectually) about such issues, and their grade is contingent upon this ability!

I'm also very concerned, with this attention to RACE, now that the campaign has moved down South, that this is going to mess up Obama's chances once and for all. Big Media has now turned Obama into the "Black Presidential Candidate" in a way that he was not when he won the Iowa Caucus. The more they show "us" fully supporting him, the more all those wary white voters are going to back away. See? Once again, "guilt by association"; this time, for Obama (who was able to "transcend" race early in his campaign), the race wars have completely tainted him, and I'm not so sure how well he will recover from this.

On another topic, based on another event that unfolded this week, is the sad and tragic death of Heath Ledger (1979-2008), a young actor I had come to view, first, as a "cutie" (10 Things I Hate about You), then a "hottie" (A Knight's Tale), and, finally, a "revelation" (Brokeback Mountain). After the shock of learning about his sudden passing, I watched my DVD copy of Brokeback Mountain (I'm sentimental like that) and have a newfound appreciation for the subtle, nuanced, and - indeed - heartbreaking performance that he delivered as Ennis del Mar. I'm sure this film alone will transform him into a legend on par with James Dean or River Phoenix.

Heath, baby, you will be missed! :(

So, imagine my surprise to learn of the incredibly inane and just downright stupid developments of late when, because of his iconic portrayal as a "gay cowboy," a radio talk show DJ, John Gibson on Fox News, took the opportunity of his death to make tasteless jokes about Heath Ledger (including choice soundbites from the movie). Worse, some other insane "church" out in Kansas plans on protesting a memorial service in honor of the actor because he portrayed said gay cowboy. Again, what is with this ridiculous literalist interpretation? How did this allegedly straight actor become a target of homophobic rhetoric and hate speech? Just because he portrayed a gay character? What, pray tell, is this madness? Yet another case of "guilt by association?"

This may seem to be just examples of the dumbing down of our once proud and intelligent media and public, but knowing that I've encountered individuals who've experienced hate crimes just because they lived next door to a gay couple (one of my students once shared a story about how her car was vandalized and covered with homophobic slurs because it was mistaken for her neighbor's) or even that, in more alarming cases, like the Brandon Teena story, a straight friend of a transgender victim can also be targeted for murder, or as what had once occurred on a Morehouse campus, a guy can get his head bashed in with a baseball bat just for seeming to be gay in a dorm shower room, "guilt by association" obviously has dyer circumstances.

He Said, She Said, and a Third Wheel in the Corner

Well, at least CNN's Democratic Debate in S.C. made for great television.

Today is a Holiday...

"What can we do?," more than one white audience member asked me yesterday when I gave a talk in honor of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. They strangely sounded like my students, who always ask, "what can we do?" whenever we have discussions about race relations in America.

So, I did what any responsible black person does when confronted by a white person who expects me to give them complete and full instruction on what they must do to behave like human beings when they interact with black people: I borrowed a line from Toni Morrison, who responded to the same question thrust at her when she gave a reading from Paradise some years ago.

"I don't know! I'm just the patient, not the doctor."

I mean, after expanding on Dr. King's concept of the "Beloved Community," after drawing from great thinkers like James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldua, even Vandana Shiva's concept of the "Living Commons," after hearing all of our dreams and visions, which come out of our experiences, why - pray tell - are certain people still asking that unimaginative, unproductive, indeed lazy question: "What can we do?"

If "love one another" isn't enough of an instructional manual (and King wasn't the first to say so, of course), then I don't know what else is there to say.

Maybe because that radical message has been so coopted, so appropriated, so commercialized, that we've forgotten what it means.

So, in the interest of celebrating the King holiday today, I thought I would include here a different speech from him, which does not have the words "I have a dream."

This speech is titled "Why I am Opposed to the Vietnam War," which, had we been listening to this more than we've been listening to "I Have a Dream," we might have had a different response to the wars that we've been engaged in for the 21st century.



And anyone else who still asks the question, "what can we do?," I will say this: listen to this profound insight by another great figure from King's generation: James Baldwin. Happy MLK Day!

Pet Peeve: Gross Animations in TV Commercials

Today, while relaxing in front of my TV screen on a Sunday afternoon, I was subjected to - yet again - another gross animation. This time, the animation involved the whiskers on a man's face; the product being advertised was some new electric shaver. Who knows what the brand is. All I know is I am totally grossed out and really resent having to brace myself, lest I see some nasty thing pop up on my screen in some 30-second advertisement.

It's bad enough South Park came up with singing poop, but why did advertisers (whom I'm assuming are the kind of men who used to gross out us sensitive girls in junior high) think it was necessary to create an animated version of toe fungus and mucus? Disgusting! Do I now need to be subjected to talking whiskers on a guy's face! Whiskers are gross enough, why animate them?!

I know I'm acting very girlie right now, but it's times like these when I wish some female advertiser would show up at one of these meetings and present an animated version of menstrual flow. Can you imagine what the sight of a bunch of smiling red blobs bouncing down the halls (read: fallopian tubes) in a tampon commercial would do to a room full of men?

We'd so be done with this trend in grossness!

"You're Making Me Feel Like Daniel Plainview!": Movie Review (Spoilers)

Before I offer my review of There Will Be Blood, which I saw yesterday, I thought I would give a preamble. After complaining to a friend over the phone about how sick and tired I am of movies of late (including the above mentioned by director Paul Thomas Anderson, starring the great Daniel Day-Lewis) not having any real point besides to say, the world is an evil place filled with evil bastards, and how I think movies that don't show any kind of redemption are just not worth seeing - no matter how critically acclaimed - I then launched into a discussion about how I was invited by a church to give a talk for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday celebration. I talked about how I was still putting my speech together and thought how nice and generous the church was (despite their small budget, they were kind enough to offer me a small honorarium). Then my friend said to me: "Wait a minute! You're accepting money from a church! I hope you're planning to give a huge chunk of it back!"

Only among church-raised and church-going friends could such a statement fill me with complete guilt and shame. Granted, my friend is Catholic (versus my Protestant background where we take up collections for guest preachers and speakers all the time). Still, my friend presented me with a moral dilemma between accepting an honorarium from a church that was trying to do community outreach on a tight budget through a speakers series or taking the opportunity, when I attend their church, to give some, half, or all of it back when I make my church offering. It was during this debate, in which I was feeling my self-interest give way to the guilt of being greedy, to which I finally responded to my friend: "Gosh, you're making me feel like Daniel Plainview!"

So, who is Daniel Plainview? In There Will Be Blood, he is played by the truly impressive, sure to be nominated (if not crowned the winner of an Academy Award) Daniel Day-Lewis, who gives a haunting, demented portrayal of a self-made billionaire oil man. When we first see him at the film's opening, he is deep down in the underbelly of the earth, digging away in solitude, maniacally driven in his search for gold and silver. Covered in dirt, possessed with greed, with a reptilian look in his eyes, he breaks his leg in an accident. He literally gets himself out of his hole and later accepts his first check for the silver that he found. This is just the beginning. Soon, he will find oil and, with single-minded purpose, will go on to pillage and conquer, pillage and conquer, buying out other people's property, drilling oil wells, setting up pipes, until, finally he has it all. Wealth and everything that money can buy.

We've seen this story play out before: the solitary man who works hard, acquires a massive fortune, then alienates everybody so that he ends up a lonely, pathetic, ruinous old man. What had left me in disgust was the way the film ended. Without ruining too much for you, I will say that it's an important final showdown between Daniel Plainview, the archetypal icon of materialism and capitalism-gone-out-of-control, and Eli Sunday (played by an equally impressive Paul Dano), the archetypal icon of spiritual backwardness and religious fundamentalism. It's an awful scene in which "spirituality" loses its battle to "materialism," and Daniel Plainview seems downright Satanic in the way he claims that lost man's soul. After the fade-out and the closing credits began, I said to my movie companion: "That's not cool! He still wins in the end! Where is the redemption in that?"

This movie, based on Upton Sinclair's novel, Oil!, interestingly plays like the literary tradition of American naturalism, in which stories provided no romanticism and moved beyond realism, presenting instead the basic, guttural instincts of characterization. Daniel Plainview is very much a primal man. He is a complete predator. There were glimpses of redemption offered in his relationship with his "son" H.W., who is orphaned when his real father was killed in one of Daniel's oil wells. He also established a relationship with a man who claims to be his half-brother (until he later betrays him, and Daniel reacts as a predator who trusts no one will act - he murders him). It won't be the last time "there will be blood" in this movie epic, and despite Daniel Plainview's ability to "love," his greed and ambition far outweigh these redemptive qualities. In the end, he amasses an enormous mansion - cold, dark, and filled with useless amusements like a bowling alley (in short, it's quite preposterous and obscene the way he spends his money) - but alienates everything that's important - his family and even his sense of decency. His final showdown with Eli Sunday was a necessary one, for it was not enough to portray a man who would forgo love and family if someone (like your beloved son) presents himself as a threat, a "competitor" to his own business interests. It is also important to portray a man who has lost and given up everything that keeps you connected to humanity: he defies God and the codes of moral conduct. He becomes evil incarnate because he has nothing else left to lose. His ominous final words in the film, "I'm finished," are a strange mockery of those other famous words: "It is finished."

There is no redemption offered in this film, and perhaps - considering the way our nation has lost its moral compass through the battles between oil and religious fundamentalism of late - that is the moral of the story after all. Indeed, if after being so disgusted by a Daniel Plainview, that a friend can shame me into feeling like I am a Daniel Plainview, maybe that is the point of the movie.

Is the Criminal Justice System a Black Feminist Issue?

As much as I'm enjoying reading the posts and comments over at Black Women Vote!, I'm always amazed when black women get into disputes over certain issues. It's like, when we're all in agreement, we're singing each other's praises, high-fiving, doing the whole "you go-girl" thing, but the minute there is some disagreement, you get accused of betraying your loyalty to the Black Woman or, worse, get accused of "coddling criminals." Come again?

This time around, I gave a dissenting opinion in response to an assertion that, among many pressing issues, black women are "not losing sleep over the rising incarceration of black men" and that, in actuality, black women advocated that more perpetrators be locked up. I won't dispute the issue of sexual predators because, yes, we want to be safe from domestic and sexual violence, but I wasn't sure that we were not losing sleep over the high incarceration of black men AND women. The racial injustice perpetuated by our criminal justice system is a problem, and I do believe it's a black feminist issue precisely because this blatant racism has tremendous repercussions in the way our concerns, as black women, get dealt with, not to mention that a considerable number of black women who are behind bars are there because they have been victimized by sexual violence.

Is it in our best interest to argue that, in order to end sexual violence in our communities, this requires more prisons and more police on our streets? I'm not saying let's let loose all the predators out onto our streets, but I am saying that there must be a way that we, as black women, can fight the racial injustice of our criminal justice system alongside our fight for sexual justice in the streets and in our homes. Why must any hesitation to support the prison industrial complex be seen as some "misguided" support for black rapists and criminals? I ask this question because I know this much: Statistics show that black people comprise 13 percent of the national population, but 30 percent of people arrested, 41 percent of people in jail, and 49 percent of those in prison.

These statistics alone make us assume that there is something innately wrong and criminal about African Americans.

I, personally, do not believe that black people are more criminally minded than any other group in this country. I do believe, however, that black people are being targeted more than any other group in this country for incarceration.

Having said that, I also know that black communities - like every other community in this country and across this planet - condone various forms of sexual violence, which is why this specific feminist issue must be addressed at all times.

I believe our challenge, as black women, is to consider what it means to try and receive sexual justice in a criminal justice system that shows us no mercy on the racial justice front. These are not mutually exclusive issues, and our intersectional analysis of race and gender is key in theorizing and strategizing on the kinds of actions and policies needed. And as far as I'm concerned, this requires fighting both racial and sexual injustice if we are to stay sane and rise up as free and whole people.

Image: Betye Saar, Watching, 1995.

I Found My Signature Song for 2008!

After coming home from work, feeling irritated and stressed, Mary J. Blige's "Just Fine" played on the car radio and completely transformed my mood today! I was bobbing my head and zipping away in the fast lane, and now I have a whole new outlook on my work for the new semester.

Oh, the joys and the power of music! From its old-school, Michael Jackson-Off the Wall/Don't Stop Till You Get Enough vibe to its double-dutch, ring-game hand-clapping syncopation, and of course, the empowering "feminist" lyrics, I think I just found my signature song for the new year! Here's the video. Enjoy! :)

"Our Weapon Is Our Nakedness": Film in Production about African Women's Resistance

For those interested, I learned from Black Looks about a documentary film in progress, The Naked Option: A Last Resort, a film by Candace Schermerhorn, which will document the collective struggle of women in the Niger Delta, who threatened to strip naked in their protests against globalization back in 2002. This is the infamous battle between African women and Chevron-Texaco.

2002, from what memory serves, was an important year for the global visibility of the female body. First, in March that year, the French Senate FINALLY voted to return Saartjie Baartman (aka "Hottentot Venus") to South Africa, her remains having spent centuries hanging in the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, France (while her genitalia and brains were preserved in jars filled with formaldehyde fluid and on public display as late as 1985). Later in August, she was finally buried on South Africa's National Women's Day at a commemorative ceremony attended by thousands. In December that year, several Miss World contestants boycotted the pageant because it was held in Nigeria, where a much publicized trial involved a Nigerian Muslim woman, Amina Lawal, who was in danger of being stoned to death for giving birth to an illegitimate child. Of course, while the "Western" women protested such "Third World backwardness," and while locals eventually began rioting against the "Western decadence" exemplified by the Miss World pageant - which resulted in hundreds being killed and the pageant relocating to England in a misguided attempt to continue exploiting the commodified female body at the expense of others - that same year, the women of the Niger Delta began their stand-off against globalization as they chose to use their very bodies to fight multinational oil companies. They put their lives on the line and chose to disrobe - a local strategy used throughout the African continent - to remind the world that this body is where life began, and you will have to go through this body to destroy life. Their movement received international attention and even inspired some copycat demonstrations.

I am pleased to learn that a documentary film is now in production to keep this important feminist history alive. Not just to remind us of the power of women - and nations in general - who come together to resist oppression in the 21st century, but also of the power of the naked black female body, reclaimed for resistance in a world that continues to commodify and flatten the power of such bodies in unimaginative and anti-erotic music videos and pornography.

Here is the official website, which invites you to make a donation to support this sure to be incredibly moving film.

A Sad MLK Day (From The Nation)

Here is an excerpt:

This is a sad Martin Luther King Day for American politics, thanks to Hillary
Clinton's Presidential Campaign. President Clinton was confronted today by
Roland Martin, a black radio host and CNN contributor, for the racially charged
attack against Barack Obama at a Hillary Clinton event this weekend. The Clinton
Campaign has repeatedly attacked Obama, through surrogates and supporters tasked with introducing Hillary Clinton at events, so Martin pressed President Clinton on his claim that the latest attacks from Bob Johnson were not "part of any planned strategy." Referring to the innuendo about Obama's prior admitted drug use, Martin said: "When you listen to that tone and the inflection, he was not talking about community organizing. It seemed to be very clear what he was implying."
The former president continued to defend the remark, saying "nobody knew" it was coming. (Nobody apologized for it, either.) Yet as all political observers know, presidential campaigns carefully select and coach every supporter who introduces the candidate at major events. Just last week, in fact, a supporter introduced Hillary Clinton by referencing political assassinations and Barack Obama, (which the Clinton campaign had to disavow). And while Johnson's drug remarks are garnering the most attention -- he was forced to issue a statement explaining them -- he also launched another racially charged attack, saying Obama was a "reasonable, likable" figure like "Sidney Poitier [in] Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."

Read Further.

After Steinem's "Achola Obama," Surely We Knew Things Would Get Worse

Some choice soundbites:

1. Senator Hillary Clinton suggests that President Lyndon B. Johnson deserves more credit for passing the Civil Rights Act than the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (I suppose in light of all the comparisons between King and Obama, she might've just settled for: "Senator Obama, you are no Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." Silly, isn't she?).

2. Bob Johnson, founder of BET (and, yes, I just had to make fun of his TV network - via McGruder's Boondocks episode - in my earlier post), came out in support of Senator Clinton and then disparagingly remarked about Senator Obama: "To me, as an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood — and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book — when they have been involved.” (Wow! Nice to know where the loyalties of sellout brothers, in bed with Viacom, lie.)

3. From a Clinton adviser: "If you have a social need, you're with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool." (That one was from a story in the UK's Guardian, and no, I can't make stuff like that up.)

4. Roseanne Barr, according to Fox News (and where I first learned about it on What About Our Daughters), said this about Oprah: "Oprah has given us Swartzenegger [sic] and Dr. Phil...If that was not offensive enough to decent thinking people, now she brings us Obama...You [referring to Oprah] are a closeted republican and chose Barak [sic] Obama because you do not like other women who actually stand for something to working American Women besides glamour, angels, Hollywood and dieting!” (Lovely! Tell us how you really feel!)

Well, at least she didn't use the pretense of being concerned about "Achola Obama's" chances at winning the presidency...But, who needs a black female president when America already has (gasp!) Oprah to blame for our cultural and political decline!

For an intelligent critique on race and gender politics, see this post by Tenured Radical.

In Light of Bob Johnson, BET Founder, Playing Politics, Here's Boondocks to Put Things in Perspective

Whatever Happened to the "Triple Threat"? The Problem of Today's Movie Musicals (Spoilers)

So, I took a break from thinking about this year's presidential race and went to see the movie Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street last night. Oi! What a mess of a movie!

Going in to see one of my favorite actors right now - Johnny Depp (yes, I was curious about how well he could sing) - and also because I've always liked Tim Burton's kooky cinematic visions since Edward Scissorhands (has it been that long since I've had my Johnny Depp crush, which actually started with 21 Jump Street?), I had high hopes for this latest movie adaptation of a Broadway musical. Sigh. Why does Hollywood even bother?

Well, let me put the question another way: if they are that interested in reviving a classic movie genre, why don't they start reviving or churning out a certain kind of movie musical star that's required? I'm talking about the "Triple Threat." You know: Gene Kelly, Julie Andrews, Rita Moreno, Angela Lansbury, Barbara Streisand, Judy Garland. The stars who knew how to 1) sing, 2) act, and 3) dance (if required).

Obviously, you might be thinking one thing from this review: that I've concluded that Johnny Depp can't sing. Well, that' s not exactly what I'm saying. He can carry a tune. The problem is: he can't sing extraordinarily. And, I'm sorry, if this movie was going to work as a movie musical, Mr. Depp needed to have been this incredible baritone (as "villains" must sing in a deep, haunting voice) who makes me feel some kind of compassion for his evil, macabre serial-killing barber. Oh, did my heart break when baritone-tenor Michael Crawford sang "Music of the Night" in the original Broadway show, Phantom of the Opera. And, oh how I wanted to throw something at my TV screen when I watched the mediocre version of the movie musical on HBO, featuring a far less talented Gerard Butler attempting to fill his shoes. Sacrilege!

Helena Bonham Carter was the worst. Her voice was so shrill and so thin, I really couldn't get into the nuances of her character, Mrs. Lovett, who colludes in a grotesque plot with Sweeney Todd (played by Johnny) to make meat pies out of the victims whose throats he slashes in his barber shop above her restaurant. While the art direction, cinematography, costuming, and score were all pitch-perfect, sadly the performances were not. Only the young child actor, Ed Sanders, who portrays Toby impressed (God, what a beautiful voice with great acting to match Johnny and Helena) - if Hollywood wants to do another movie musical, I hope they do Oliver! with him in mind. Or maybe feature him as the young boy (forgetting the character's name) in Les Miserable. Then again, unless they can find a "triple threat," they might need to leave Les Miz alone, because if I hear a craptastic version of Jean Valjean's "Bring Him Home," I might be tempted to burn the movie house down (that's not a real threat).

Why is it so hard for movie musicals to find appropriate casting these days? Is it really that hard to find multi-talented performers? I mean, I understand why Burton would stick to the tried and true when it comes to fabulous actors like Depp and Bonham Carter, and had this movie played straight - without sticking to its musical origins - this film might have been brilliant. As it is, it felt quite uneven, for the movie begun in a rather cartoonish display of its violence before the crescendo (or "descendo"?) to its utterly dark and tragic climax at the end. Considering the vengeful, dark theme, I kept getting the impression that, had the director worked with some masterful vocalists, this musical would have played out like a gut-wrenching opera. And, somehow, Depp, who's always so capable and so complex in his performances, never brought a three-dimensional aspect to his cardboard villain. In musicals, it's not in delivery or facial expressions. It's all in the voice and the melody.

I'll give my favorite movie boy a pass, though. It was daring of him to sing lead in a movie musical when one is not a recognized tenor or baritone, and especially to do so as a demented mad man out for revenge. However, his performance merely reminded me that the movie musical is not quite ready for its revival today. From Chicago, which required its stars to do amazing choreographic tricks (and were merely competent or, at the least, edited to appear that way), to Dreamgirls, which had great singers but not great actors (as much as I'm proud of your Oscar, J-Hud, you've still got a long way to go to prove that you can be the next "triple threat"), all these latest productions have done for me is to make me long for the good old days. Fortunately, we've got cable and Netflix for this.

Did the Tears Work? And Other Silly Discussions about Politics

Although my doubts haven't been completely removed about the wisdom in gambling (yes, it's still a gamble) on either a black male or white female candidate for the Democratic presidential ticket, I must say these different victories from state to state has made this year's presidential race an exciting one to watch. And, I'm inclined to agree with Shecodes over at Black Women Vote! that this really is an opportunity for us voters to be listened to, now that it's such a tight race. The question of course is, will our votes be catered to and counted, and how might we use our blogs to get heard? (Let's not pretend those same presidential candidates don't have people scanning the blogosphere at this minute to get a feel for where the "people" are at.)

Meanwhile, I think the "tears" situation is quite overblown (that various media pundits are weighing in to suggest that they may have helped Senator Clinton win New Hampshire is embarrassingly retrograde and unbelievably sexist). Of course, perhaps it's safest to argue that Clinton played on her "feminine wiles" (including the display of emotion) rather than consider that maybe, just maybe, the subtle racism her husband displayed by suggesting that anyone voting for Obama is throwing their vote away on "fairy tales" (I know I suggested something similar in an earlier post, but hearing it put this way made me flinch - and to think I voted for that man twice!!), or that was displayed in Steinem's New York Times op-ed, which was designed to publicly lash her white female cohorts for betraying their loyalties by voting for a black man, might have had some influence in the results. That plus the fact that Clinton was playing in familiar territory, and her staff pulled off an effective campaign (and yes, New England tends to be more conservative and traditionalist than places like Iowa - ask any of us who are people of color who have ever gone to school or lived there).

I'm not sure it's any less of a "fairy tale" to assume Clinton has a better chance to be elected to the White House than Obama, but if one is invested in whiteness, one would think so.

On top of these interesting developments, I had the misfortune of tuning into a current heated debate unfolding on the National Women's Studies listserv (which is presently discussing "female genital mutilation" in the Third World and the problems of using "euphemisms" like "female genital surgeries" - I KID YOU NOT!!) and was so disgusted at the white supremacist, Western imperialist constructions of this discussion that I am seriously considering apologizing to any woman of color who has ever disavowed the label "feminist" and suddenly realized that I wouldn't consider it tragic if Women's Studies dismantled after all (even though I teach and was educated in the discipline). Well, almost.

All of these things made me realize something crucial: we as women of color have got to emerge with a strong voice and get heard and counted. Whether it's in the esteemed halls of academe or in this current presidential race. Now that race and gender issues are being pitted against each other, and since we are inextricably linked to both those issues, I am inclined to believe that we have the power to tip the scales in our favor. So, this week and throughout this month, I urge all of you to start putting together a political agenda to make sure we don't get squeezed out of the discussions ... yet again! Without our input, myopic editorials, immature media speculations, and pointless listserv conversations will prevail. Somehow, we must find a way to turn our weakness of "marginalization" into a strength.

Since We All Need a History Lesson: Hillary Clinton is NOT the First Woman to Run for the U.S. Presidency

I was planning to devote my blog next month to a series of history lessons called Black Herstory Month (now that I've mentioned this, I guess I am committing myself to it!), but in light of different comments and opinions that have inevitably pitted the black male presidential candidate against the white female presidential candidate in some "Oppression Olympics" about which has the harder struggle, I thought it was time to remind everyone that there is nothing "novel" about either scenario; the only thing that's different is that they seem like real contenders in 2008 and not just a "symbolic" gesture (at least, time will reveal this to us come November).

First, in 1872, Victoria Woodhull became the first woman ever to run for the U.S. Presidency. She ran on the Equal Rights Party ticket, with Frederick Douglass as her running mate (though, to be honest, I don't think Douglass ever consented to this!). So, obviously, Americans have been known to go all out on a whim and demonstrate their dreams for progress and radicalism. However, Woodhull wasn't much of a politician. She had already been arrested for trying to vote in an election as a woman, and during her campaign, she wrote various editorials in her newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin Weekly, about free love and was eventually arrested again, this time for publishing obscene material (on Election Day no less!). Of course, because she had alienated Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, her name was not included in their history of women's suffrage, which is perhaps why few of us have heard of her (and why many of us are still acting as if Hillary is the first woman to ever run for president).

One hundred years later, in 1972, Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to be elected to Congress, threw down the gauntlet and became the first African American (of either sex) to run for the U.S. Presidency (see this informative site on Chisholm '72). She ran with the hopes of winning the Democratic ticket, and boldly stated:

I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the
Presidency of the United States of America... I am not the candidate of black
America, although I am black and proud...I am not the candidate of the women’s
movement of this country, although I am a woman, and I am equally proud of
that...I am not the candidate of any political bosses or fat cats or special
interest...I stand here now without endorsements from many big name politicians
or celebrities or any other kind of prop. I do not intend to offer to you the
tired and glib clichés, which for too long have been an accepted part of our
political life. I am the candidate of the people of America. And my presence
before you now symbolizes a new era in American political history.

I can't help but wonder, in light of Steinem's recent op-ed: if Chisholm were born at a later period and had run her campaign in 2008, and not 1972, would she have stood a chance? Or, would gender hold her back (considering that "racism no longer matters," as some have been saying of late)?

Arguments Over Race and Gender: Or Why Feminists Need a New Analysis, or Simply "Intersectionality"

In her New York Times op-ed piece, "Women Are Never Frontrunners," Gloria Steinem weighs in on why she thinks Senator Hillary Clinton is suddenly trailing behind Senator Barack Obama. As is typical of second-wave liberal feminists, she blames sexism and sexism alone and even suggests that sexism is a the harder barrier to overcome than racism.

Look, I'll be the first to admit that gender politics shapes this presidential race as much as racial politics. I have not overlooked some of the extreme chauvinism and sheer misogyny that have been expressed by the anti-Hillary camp. But, I take issue with Steinem using, as her historical analogy, the 14th Amendment - which granted black men the right to vote long before white women did - to suggest that "race" trumps "gender" every time! Considering the way the women's suffrage movement was immediately divided over this amendment - and then encouraged white supremacist women to argue that, to ensure white supremacy, white men must support the right of white women to vote - we may want to complicate our analysis of race and gender in this presidential race.

Could it be that Hillary has run out of steam or never had a real shot at the presidency? That it has been her white male opponents who have been opposing her and exposing her faults more than Obama (OK, I just realized that I called the woman by her first name and the man by his last name - oh the challenges of internalized sexism!)? Could it be that, years ago, Senator Clinton might have had a real shot (i.e. she should have run against Bush Jr. in 2004) but now, she represents the "old guard" (from the Clinton years, which gave us NAFTA, Welfare Reform, and the 1996 Telecommunications act, which have allowed for multinational corporations to be stronger than ever) and has betrayed many in New York state when she voted in Congress in ways that suprised us? That yesterday, when she came close to tears, was the first time she appeared sincere during her presidential campaign?

How do we weigh all these issues alongside the issues of race and gender so that we don't get caught up in the "Oppression Olympics" (i.e. who's got it harder: black men or white women? As a black woman, all I can tell you is "some of us are brave")?

Here is an excerpt from Gloria Steinem's op-ed, and decide for yourself:

THE woman in question became a lawyer after some years as a community
organizer, married a corporate lawyer and is the mother of two little girls,
ages 9 and 6. Herself the daughter of a white American mother and a black
African father — in this race-conscious country, she is considered black — she
served as a state legislator for eight years, and became an inspirational voice
for national unity.

Be honest: Do you think this is the biography of someone who could be
elected to the United States Senate? After less than one term there, do you
believe she could be a viable candidate to head the most powerful nation on
earth?

If you answered no to either question, you’re not alone. Gender is probably
the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be
in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the
list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes
gender roles more than the average democracy.

That’s why the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of
making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any
race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of
power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible
exception of obedient family members in the latter).

If the lawyer described above had been just as charismatic but named,
say, Achola Obama instead of Barack Obama, her goose would have been cooked long
ago. Indeed, neither she nor Hillary Clinton could have used Mr. Obama’s public
style — or Bill Clinton’s either — without being considered too emotional by
Washington pundits.

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The
reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused
with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as
more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human
race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so
men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a
powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so
long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as
long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right”
way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

Read further.

I Speak For Myself: Please Don't View Me as "Representative"

Lest anyone else think to link to my Open Letter to Michelle Obama to support their own opinions about the current presidential race, please keep in mind that it is my own opinion and reflections. I do not aim to speak for anyone - African Americans, Black Women, etc. - but myself.

I would hate for anyone to use my words to support their own angst with regards to Obama's position in the presidential race for the Democratic ticket - for or against.

Keep in mind also that it is precisely this use of a black woman's words to help substantiate certain positions (without being accused of racism since, of course, my words as a black woman can be quoted to camouflage any possible anti-black-male sentiments) that has caused me to doubt the readiness of this race-oriented country of ours in the first place.

On the flip side, can I say how already disgusted I am that so many are so quick to claim that "racism is dead" because of Obama's Iowa caucus victory?

I imagine they will expect us to shut up forever on the subject if he actually wins the White House.

My Review of The Great Debaters (Spoilers)

Until today, Dead Poets Society stood as my all-time favorite "Hollywood teacher" movie. Then I saw The Great Debaters, which includes among its first scenes Denzel Washington's character, the poet and radical professor-activist, Melvin B. Tolson, paying loose cinematic homage to Robin Williams's Mr. Keating - boldly standing on the desk in front of the room to belt out a poem. It's the same message of the revolutionary power of poetry and great words, but in The Great Debaters, we get the African American perspective and a specialized African American literary canon as movie audiences are treated to a recitation of Langston Hughes's "I Too Sing America."

If it's not already clear from my opening paragraph, then let me be more blunt. I loved this movie! It's been quite some time since I watched a film on an intellectual level while simultaneously getting carried away with my emotions - crying at various scenes and applauding at the end when their debate team defeated Harvard (as fictional and "feel-good" as this is; that's the beauty of creative license, especially coming after some realistic and sobering moments that capture the "truth" and essence of the black experience in early twentieth-century America).

Having already been disappointed by Oprah Winfrey's movie productions of two novels that have impacted my life - Toni Morrison's Beloved (I will never forgive her for the sacrilege in getting this haunting, complex piece of literature SO WRONG) and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (the sin was mostly in casting Halle Berry as Janie Crawford - Oi!! - when the more capable actress Thandie Newton, with whom she worked previously in Beloved, should have been a more sensible option) and not caring much for Denzel Washington's directorial debut with Antoine Fisher, The Great Debaters rose above and beyond my expectations.

Despite suffering through the indignities of movie trailers for such buffoonery fare like the latest Martin Lawrence comedy and some Ice Cube vehicle called First Sunday, it was beyond jarring to then watch the opening montage that unfolded to the blues soundtrack, "My Soul is a Witness." Better yet was the reveal of the "running fugitive/outlaw" in the woods as none other than the respectable professor, Melvin B. Tolson, who soon rescues (and it will not be the last time) one of his students from life's troubles. Fully immersing the audience in the landscape of 1930s Texas, and illuminating for us what "havens" HBCUs like Wiley College really were, this film certainly did more than offer an alternative to the prevailing "negative images" of black folk in cinema. It told our story and told it "truthfully" (this is not the same as "factually," which this film has already been criticized for in its historical inaccuracies).

But in the grand scheme of things, is it more important to depict Wiley College defeating the University of South Carolina (which I believe is the "factual" account) or defeating Harvard, the most prestigious university in the land? Isn't the symbolic battle presented between these two academic teams far more appropriate to convey the sense of accomplishment and greatness that this "victory" represents? Is it important if the actual debaters, on their way to Prairie View University, really did narrowly escape a lynching? Do we care if this event actually occurred?

Or, is it more important for audiences in 2007/2008 to witness that scene, in the wake of Jena, Louisiana, and understand, truly understand what those nooses mean and what their purposes were? Is it important if the film included certain anachronisms (they alluded to Gandhi and Hitler at a time when both men were still on the rise before they made their major impact on the world), including a reference to the urban legend of Willie Lynch (which, to be honest, who cares if this is based on "fact" when the message of that legend is what's at stake)? Is it important if he caught the gender relations accurately with the inclusion of Samantha Booke (who is based on a real woman, Henrietta Wells - thank you for this info, Professor Black Woman), or is it more important to capture the possibilities of black women's inclusion in the struggle for racial and gender equality in education and the professional world? While I wish her character was more fully developed beyond the conventional love triangle (I was curious, in particular, about the effects of the lynching on her - for we know its impact on the two black men on the debate team), I was particularly moved by her speeches and also in the way she dealt with the betrayal of Henry Lowe.

If I'm asked what's most important about this movie, I would say its vision for "Revolution," the word written boldly and in tall, capital letters on the blackboard of Professor Tolson's classroom on the first day of class. (I think I will borrow this bit of pedagogy on the first day of my own class on the subject of racism this spring semester - and see how many of my students recognize the "cinematic homage" that I'm paying). For Tolson models PRAXIS - the bridging of "theory" and "practice." From teaching about "Revolution" to starting one in his involvement with an interracial sharecroppers union. From providing his students on the debate team with "canned speeches" to his then radically severing the umbilical chords in which he sent them out into the world on their own (to their biggest challenge yet), having to improvise and stand on their own two feet. The biggest test yet is how well they are able to put into practice the theories he has taught. And, as in all good "Hollywood teaching" movies, students discover their wings and just FLY.

Every now and then, even in real life, some students manage to get off the ground, but in cinema, it's a marvel to have that vision of what good teaching could be like and what real learning means. If anyone thinks this is too much of a romantic vision, then I will simply ask you to compare The Great Debaters to a movie like Freedom Writers, in which Hilary Swank's white liberal teacher ventures into a post-LA riots inner city high school and teaches her black and brown students to develop complete dependence on her messianic role as the "only teacher" who cares about them (no flying on their own wings for these young students!). Or, worse, compare it to Half-Nelson, in which Ryan Gosling's white liberal teacher in that movie is all talk, all theory (he discusses revolutions in his history classes but has no impetus for carrying it out) and no action (the flip side in this movie is that students of color - in this case, a young black girl who witnesses her teacher getting high on crack-cocaine - are now the caretakers as pathetic teachers come to depend on them to support their bad habits).

Compare The Great Debaters to such "teacher" films, and maybe then you will appreciate its vision.

Thanks for the Historical Perspective

Here is a quote (from The New York Times comments section) that has finally given me a fresh new perspective on Iowa and how we should view the promise and the possibility:

As a 72 year old African American, one whose family served in WWII and could not
eat at a lunch counter, one who could not get on a bus to go to my home port in
Norfolk, Virginia back in 1952, one who served in two of the nation’s conflicts,
Korea and Vietnam, one who has witnessed America at it’s worst and best, one who
retired from the US Navy and went on to retire again…. one who never believed
that an African American statesman as he will surely become, Obama, would ever
achieve what he did in Iowa. I pray that God will protect this young man and
give him the strength to go on and show the world that America, with its many
faults is as close to a true democracy as it is possible. God bless Iowa.
—
Posted by Herman Gardner

Still anxious and doubtful but hopeful... (yes, it's possible to possess doubt and hope simultaneously - what else has the black experience been about but this "double consciousness"?)

Interesting Review of The Great Debaters

Mark Anthony Neal has reviewed the movie I've been planning to see and still haven't gotten around to since my weekend plans keep getting pushed back. Hopefully I'll see it this weekend and give my own review. From the sound of it, it just might restore the optimism I seem to be lacking compared to my family, friends, and colleagues (and even certain "white liberals" who remind me that they don't see the "black" in a black man, but I digress).

In his review, "Debating the Great Debaters," Neal argues as I have in a recent post I did last month on "positive" vs. "negative" images, that it is time for all of us to recognize the complexities of black characters (on and off screen, I might add). Here is an excerpt:

I recently weighed in on the significance of Denzel Washington's performances as Frank Lucas in American Gangster and Melvin B. Tolson in The Great Debaters. There are many who want to make critical distinctions between a Harlem drug lord--or dope dealer as Bomani Jones so eloquently asserts--and a celebrated modernist poet who happened to coach one of the most accomplished college debate teams in the 1930s. I argue though that both men, and the worlds they inhabited, provide a rich entrée into the nuanced and complicated lives that everyday black folk lead--lives that rarely get depicted via Hollywood Cinema. That said, The Great Debaters takes liberties with historical realities, often solely for the effect of creating a classic Hollywood tale. In this regard the film--despite the earnest intents of the director (Washington) and the film's producer Oprah Winfrey--does a disservice, by being dismissive of the real political struggles engaged by those depicted in the film.

In his own right Melvin B. Tolson is a figure deserving closer examination. Throughout The Great Debaters though, Tolson's story was too often dwarfed by the need for his character to power the "little engine that could." Thus in the name of adhering to "feel good movie of year" clichés, The Great Debaters offers little with regards to Tolson's significant reputation as a black modernist poet. More alarming was the way Tolson's involvement with southern tenant farmers was employed in the film to elevate his--and by extension Washington's--race man status, providing little detail to how deadly and under-appreciated labor and farmer organizing was in the South, particularly when such organizing aimed to bring together farmers and workers across the color-line. Tolson's truly engaged political work wasn't simply about instructing black college students (largely drawn from the middle class) in the fine art of debate or in producing a body of literature that ranked with the best of his more celebrated Harlem Renaissance peers, but rather the more concrete, roll-up-your-sleeves, labor that he did on behalf of the tenant farming movement. But of course the reality of that struggle is not as exciting as a group of students from a tiny historically black college in Texas successfully competing against students from the very paragon of American higher education, Harvard University.

Read Further.

Open Letter to Michelle Obama

Dear Mrs. Obama:

First, let me commend you and your husband for a tremendous campaign leading up to the Iowa Caucus. Having just looked at the recent polls, it appears that victory is yours.

My heart is very heavy, as I have been pondering one of your latest speeches in which you targeted African American voters and urged us to stop doubting our abilities for greatness, our abilities to lead great and powerful nations, our abilities to, indeed, become President of the United States. I think about this, as I react to the polls, for somewhere deep inside of me, I am still doubting. My reaction to this Iowa Caucus victory is not "Imagine that! We might actually have our first black president," but instead, "What? Are the Democrats trying to lose the presidential elections? How short-sighted!"

Yes, I, who often dream big and who always urge my students - especially my students of color - to dream big, had that reaction. And I have to deal with where that's coming from. For you see, Mrs. Obama, I don't doubt your husband's ability to lead (well, actually, I would've preferred if he had waited to run in 2016). What I doubt is that my fellow Americans (and you know which Americans I mean) will be able to respect that kind of leadership. That's where my doubt lies. Not with African Americans but with Americans in general who have been known to undermine, destroy, and render meaningless our authority.

I say this as a U.S. citizen with a long memory. I say this as someone with sufficient historical knowledge of the ways that government leaders who supported civil rights were either gunned down or undermined in public office (and those are the white leaders!). And I don't have to dig up ancient history; I can refer to the present day. I say this as a college professor and recent administrator, who constantly battles against students who first mistake me as another student, teaching assistant, department secretary, or custodial worker, before they can see me as what I am: a college professor. I say this as someone who constantly deals with the way my colleagues undermine my authority through subterfuge, subtle insults, and general lack of support. I say this as a daughter who listens to her mother, a healthcare professional who is ready to retire because she's sick and tired of dealing with subordinates, coworkers, and superiors who undercut her goals and objectives at every corner because of those covert racist expectations that we will subjugate our will and place white people center and first before us. The complaints are the same. I say this as someone who has hours-long conversations with her various black friends about the same struggles in the workplace and elsewhere.

I say this as someone who read news report after news report last year about noose hangings, blackface costume parties, and vicious hate crimes, which the FBI reported as on the rise. Surely, in such an environment, don't tell me to stop doubting your husband's ability to become president. I cannot help but think: if my own students and colleagues have trouble respecting my authority as a black professor, how are they going to respect the authority of a black president? What various covert operations, even coups d'etat, is he going to have to worry about? How effective will he be with all the backbiting? (And that's just projecting the "best" possible scenario!)

And, as always, there is the tokenism of giving us the representational illusion that, if a black man is elected president, then all is right with the world, and racism does not exist.

I've been trying to be politically neutral since I've started my blog, but after today's results at the Iowa Caucus, I feel it is now time for me to break my silence and express my deep concerns about where we are headed politically and globally. Because this is what I know:

• Our civil rights have been eroded in the past 7 years.
• Our economy is in a frightening position as it continues to decline, and when I run into British and even Canadian citizens on the streets of Manhattan, who are here to shop for bargain prices - taking advantage of our weakened dollar while they come to America WITH EMPTY SUITCASES! - I start to worry.
• I see China, the European Union, India, and other nations positioning themselves to be the next superpower as if they're waiting for the Roman Empire - ahem, America - to fall.
• Our foreign policy has placed us in a much more vulnerable state than ever before.
• Our approaches to issues like the War in Iraq and immigration are so myopically skewed, it scares me that so many Americans lack basic global sophistication of our world and, worse, that our mass media can blind us into thinking certain ways about certain issues.
• Our presidential candidates are completely dependent on multinational corporations who fund their campaigns, and since the 2000 elections, little has changed to ensure that our voting will still be fair and representative of the people.

With such concerns, I'm going to be frank: I don't need "change" to come to us wrapped up in some young black/biracial eloquent speaker (or a white woman for that matter). I want my "change" to come from someone who's got the savvy and the courage to face the shambles that our government has become in the past 7 years and actually rally support to reverse those policies. It is best to elect a Democrat who can offer some balance, after the Republican reign of terror. But now we are facing the prospect of a democratic candidate who is a gamble (and I don't care how politically incorrect it is for me to say so). Just think what it would mean to have another eight years of a Republican president! Why is it that Democrats never think in the long term when it comes to planning and strategizing our presidential campaigns?

The white liberals who voted for the Obama ticket, I'm sure, feel pretty progressive and hopeful and that there really is "change" in the air. But, white liberals, unlike their conservative counterparts, are woefully shortsighted, have a pathetic record for measuring the pulse of racism in America (e.g. they can't even recognize it in themselves), and tend to vote myopically with no real worldview and sense of the kind of power they wish to obtain. They have been known to vote with their "hearts" and not with any savvy. The primary vote is the time to vote for someone who is sure to deliver victory come November, and most importantly, who is sure to effect some immediate reversals of the many devastating policies of the last 7 years which have sunk us into this sorry state. Whether Obama is the man to do this, the jury is still out for me.

Congratulations, but please don't tell me, a black woman, who is all too aware of the real existence of racism in America in 2008, to stop doubting.

Black Women at War: Striking at Enemies, Taking Names, and Planning Political Strategies

I find myself immersed in a fascinating discussion with fellow black women bloggers over at Black Women Vote! We have started the new year with the realization that there is a full-fledged war against black women and the resolve that we must strategically position ourselves to win. Of course, this has meant getting into some debates with each other, for curiously, many of us have identified the Media as one of our main enemies and, naturally, there is much dissension about whether or not to include "lost women" (read: the infamous "video ho" and others of her ilk) as we rally a critical mass on our side. I have included here an excerpt of my rather long post, which I figured I should include here on my own blog. It's my response to someone who felt that we have been "weakening" our position by engaging in dialogue with such "traitors" and "sellouts," and it's high time we withdraw the communication lines in order to be more like those in power who don't waste their time engaging in dialogue since they're more concerned about maintaining their power. The argument suggests that we should thus emulate some of their own strategies to access power. This is what I had to say:

When you say we need to borrow the same tactics, I think we need to have a vision about which of the "master's tools" we wish to use for our own gains and which will simply set us back. And how, exactly, are we in a position to be "exclusive" when we're not nearly at the same level of power for others to FEEL the power of our exclusion of others? I think we should also realize that, for those of us committed to a Revolution (long-term goal) that the short-term goals of borrowing their strategies will only be one way of beating them at their own game (temporarily) but not really changing the "terrain," to use one of Shecodes' lessons.

As the late poet Audre Lorde once wrote: "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. It may allow us to temporarily defeat him at his own game, but it will never bring about real change." And that's the real issue, isn't it? What exactly is our long term goal here? Is it simply to ensure that black women have a seat at the table of power? One of us is already there (always looking at you, Condi!) yet here we are, pretty much in agreement that black women collectively are in a sad state when it comes to our political power. So, what has such tokenism done for us? Should our goal be to include as many of us at that table (which is why I'm all about how we can increase our numbers to begin with and why I would even bother with meaningful dialogue to raise the consciousness of those whose consciousness needs raising)? Or do we need to set up a different kind of table?

Let's remember: part of Shecodes' first lesson was to "know your foes," and when I think what that means, I find myself looking at the bigger picture (rather than focus on the personal level in which certain individuals fit the bill). In a global context, I would say that, as a black woman, my enemies include Blackwater (a secretive private army made of some of the scariest international rebel forces who've done their damage in Iraq and establishing themselves in cities like New Orleans in the interests of Homeland Security), Halliburton (need I say more?), Viacom (we've already documented the ways), certain members of higher education (who continue to see my existence as a black female professor as a viable threat in the Ivory Tower), and a various assortment of racists and misogynists, all of whom are either working diligently or remaining indifferent to my annihilation and/or subjugation as a woman of color.

Out of that list of "enemies," I have no room to put the black woman who shakes her booty in a rap music video on BET. Is she helping my situation as a black woman? No, she is not. However, to define her as an enemy is much like someone who is against the war in Iraq identifying as her enemy, not the leaders and merchants of war, but the soldiers (many of whom are young men and women of color, I might add) enlisted to carry out the warfare.

Like the soldier, the "video ho" is enlisted to carry out the symbolic warfare against black women. Like the body of the soldier, the body of the video vixen is crucial in securing victories and conquests for those in power. Moreover, those who are enlisted to carry out these warfares have various motives for participating. But should the antiwar activist be strategizing against the U.S. soldier or against the policies and corporate interests that have created the NEED for that soldier in the first place? Likewise, should we be strategizing against some video dancer or model or against the policies and corporate interests that have created the NEED for that video girl in the first place?

In the grand scheme of things, if you were to ask me to identify which black woman has done far more damage to black women collectively - the "video ho" or Condoleeza Rice, who once famously shopped for shoes when a great number of black women and children were drowning in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina - I'm not sure I'd be quick to point my finger at Buffie the Body (who quite frankly is representing the sexy for the big-butted among us).

Confronting Whiteness and White Privilege Head On?

Imagine my surprise, this second day of the new year, to receive an announcement in my inbox, inviting me to a White History Week celebration, sponsored by a progressive community group in New Mexico, Out ch'YondA.

Of course, had it been any other group, I might have bristled, thinking this event was sponsored by a white supremacist group, but knowing from Professor Black Woman's blog last month that Out ch'YondA had encountered some problems from the so-called liberal and "feminist" white groups in the area, simply because they offered yoga classes exclusively to women of color, perhaps this is A.) a reconciliation of sorts or B.) an opportunity for these same groups, who don't understand the need that marginalized people have for "safe spaces," to address some of their "unearned privileges," to quote from Peggy McIntosh.

Whatever the motivation, I think this is a brilliant strategy, and I'd be interested in knowing if the white community, who is targeted for this event, will actually show up and actually LEARN. That this event should come before we celebrate the MLK holiday and Black History Month next month is even more clever. The event is titled: "There Goes the Neighborhood: Airing Dirty Laundry." Some of the planned activities include workshops on antiracism and whiteness & healing. Hmmmm... Wonder if we should have more of these?

Of course, my concerns are always (just as with Whiteness Studies in the Academy) that such events manage to place white people AT THE CENTER ONCE AGAIN, where they have always been.

Happy New Year!

Peace and blessings for 2008, everyone! I thought a nice way to start off the new year is to do so with this joyful song and video of Stevie Wonder's "Free." Let us all keep the faith and the vision!