Academic Capitalism: Moving from Talking to Doing/Being

Last Thursday, while I was doing a presentation on Academic Capitalism
in class, 600 students, mostly Black, conducted a march protesting
the firing of the associate provost of equity and diversity, Dr. Cordell Black.

In addition to this, not only are the departments and offices serving
marginalized folks facing merger, but The Classics and The Chemical
and Life Sciences andComputer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences
are as well.

The question for me is who is cutting, what is the unstated
and stated rationale behind it and to what extent is this process
democratic.

It was only slightly ironic that this erupted on the day in which
I did this presentation.

I have found myself in the middle of struggle and in creating a democratic
process. There appears to be a desire on behalf of my campuses
administration to scalpel out the Negros and the "low earning" programs.

I suspect that there is a desire to raise the profile of the school, by
reducing the number of Black students enrolled in the University. There
is a connection between US News and world report ranking and SAT and
GPA's of students.

Been there, done that, seen it coming a mile away. This process is both
scary and liberating.

Scary because a friend saw a facebook comment about academic
capitalism and sent me a message saying that I may want to reword
my comment because employers lurk on face book. Its liberating
because I feel that I am an active participant in changing the world in real time.

The way that I keep my mind right, if I have to go to zero, again, and I am forced
to leave school I will move back upstate and waitress or move to Vegas and waitress.

It is hard to keep the fear of repercussions in check.

But my only option is to walk timidly, and I didn't survive the crack epidemic,
law school and now grad school to walk timid. I am a child of God.

This process is forcing me to respect people who have done this work before.
I was hella smug about the pride march in DC because I didn't see
sufficient evidence that the white gay movement did substantial base
building with the LGBTQ movement of color in California and nationally,
to be having ANOTHER march.

Now that I am in the middle of doing base building, I am far more
humbled. If I am learning anything about basebuilding, it is that you never
know what you will learn, who will be useful. I am learning that I just have to
be honest, let people know what I am doing, and that folks will either join or
not.

I am learning to start small. Small is good, because small is how everything
starts. It's hard. It continually means meeting people where they are. I have to
meet with people, send emails to folks I don't know and do know
check my ego at the door, listen, wait for emails, disagree with folks. Stay
continually TRYING to meet with people, ask questions and continually check
the desire to be bossy.

I am an old head. I sent and email to a professor saying that "I don't march"
but I want to be useful, not just complaining on the sidelines waiting for someone
to advocate for me. However, it seems like young folks seem to want to march
and meet with the administration.

She responded saying,

What does a march achieve and are those necessary goals at this point? For example, media attention, shame as a persuasive line of argumentation, personal release of anger etc. Is a march an effective strategy in relation to the nature of the administration? Is the march the beginning and the end of political activity? What other types of activity should immediately be on the table to supplement the march.

In other words I think that this is important because it politicizes the
student population, it shows the admin. that students are alert, it can
potentially build alliances through media attention. If it fizzles out without
any additional work e.g. teach in, petitions etc. then it becomes easy for the administration to wait it out. So it's not everything but its also not nothing.

I was relieved when I read her words, because she articulated my
concerns.

I am more interested in seeing how power is laid out how, how has this process
has worked in the past, who has resisted this kind of thing successfully, and what
are peoples frame of reference?

We all have a stake in how this plays out. The University is a microcosm
of society.

Thoughts? You been apart of a struggle before? Any suggestions or kind words will be appreciated.

It Was Racist

I was reluctant about today's class going in.
.
We read Mary Waters Ethnic Options and her book Black Identity. I reviewed
Black Identity which focuses on the process of West Indian Americans
coming to identify or avoiding identifying as Black.

The book contained lot's of qualitative interview's with West Indian
folks talking about why they don't like African Americans,
why they are Black, but not like Black Americans, that Black Americans
are lazy, expect handouts etc.

I had no idea how the class was going to react to this.

Fascinating stuff, though, right?

Especially when you look at the presence of African Americans vs. West
Indian Americans on four year college campuses and in graduate,
law and business school in the Northeast.

The book is awesome in how it gets at how first generation verses second
generation West Indian immigrants deal with assimilation, with proving
that they are not Black and also with identifying as Black. The most
fascinating part for me was learning that women who worked as teachers
and nurses in Jamaica, came to the Brooklyn, worked as teacher and
nurses yet, class wise their lives were not the same.

The material difference is the on their salary in Jamaica, they were middle class,
so they could afford nannies and house keepers, and their housing was more
spacious and safer. In the US, housing was more expensive, there was more
opportunity for jobs and education for their children but the housing dollar
didn't go very far.

Which brings me to my classmate.

Jamaica's system is based on the British system, which means that children
are tested and tracked at a very young age. They either go into vocational
track or academic track.

Apparently Germany and much of Europe is the same way.

My Black classmate said, that he agrees with this.

I responded saying that standardized tests are measures of familial wealth
not student aptitude. And the aptitude of a four year old cannot be measured
because they have only been on the earth 48 months. He responded saying
that the British system is better because it separates the students early
and that there are some who shouldn't be in school and college.

I said that this was racist. We do not know what children are capable of at 4.

They responded saying that it wasn't racist.

I said, it was both racist AND classist because of the disparate
impact that the same policy has on Black boys in the US. Ann Fergusons
Bad Boys talks about this at length, if you want to read more about it. It's
an awesome study on a public elementary school in Berkeley,
hones in on the ways in which school policy and teacher subjectivity
impact how Black boys are disproportionately disciplined and placed
in special ed classes.

I asked him how he reconciled his approval of early testing and prediction
with the fact that standardized tests measure familial wealth not student
aptitude.

He responded saying "Yeah, tests are culturally biased but math isn't."

My eyes rolled. That did NOT refute nor address my argument.

Another classmate, a white woman who is in marketing asked, "Isn't it
better for us to asses the children at 4 rather than at 12 so that they
don't languish in the system?"

I responded no. The issue isn't when they are assessed the issue is
creating a system that serves their interests not the interests of school
administrators or corporations. We need to move out of binary
modes of thinking and ask ourselves whose interests are served by
that.

She said aren't all children about the same at four? I said no, all children are not the
same. Each child's education attainment is related to how much money her parents
earn and how much social capital her parents have and lastly how much
intergenerational wealth a family has.

I only wish that I asked them, "What would you do if your child
tests into the vocational track at 4?" I imagine, I hope the responses
would have been more compassionate.

It isn't lost on me that these people will be future professors,
bureaucrats, marketers, political advisers, researchers etc.

I see it as my job to say something.

I was proud of myself for calling a spade a spade, at least I was earlier,
this evening. As the night has warn on I am tired. School is awesome,
but in some ways the more I learn the more it appears that
racism is manifested on a civilizational level.

In some ways, this experience showed me the racism runs on
a deep civilization level. I take this term from the paper "Coloring
Epistemologies: Are Our Research Epistemologies Racially Biased?"

In the paper, James Sheurich and Michelle Young lay out three levels of racism.
I list them below:

The first is institutional racism, which exists when instituitons or ogranizations
have standard operating procedures, intended or unintended, hurt members
of one or more races in relation to members of the dominant race.

The second is societal racism exist when prevailing societal or cultural assumptions
or norms, concepts or habits favor on race over one or more other races. For
example, the OJ trial revealed societal racism.

The third is epistemologoical racism comes from or emerges out of
what we have labeled the civilizational level, the deepest, most primary level
of a culture of people. The civilizational level is the the level that emcompasses he
deepest, most primary assumptions about the nature of reality (ontology)...

On one level these experiences remind me of just how privilaged
I am, and have been, on another it reminds me of how other children
get screwed by bureaucrats on the regular.

It reminds me of how the teachers who stepped into my life when my city,
Oakland, and my family were both submerged by the crack epidemic.

It reminds me of how these angels saved my academic life.

I hope I can be an angel for someone else.

The social costs of being a model minority, of being a Black women are taxing.

I hope I don't go crazy trying to make sense of it all.

Pray for me.

Tyler Perry x Morehouse x Real Black Men

Speaking to my homie Jonzey the other night, I was trying to convince
her to go see Good Hair, she refused. I said you must go to see
Sharpton's clear disdain for and anger towards Black women
and our budgetary practices around our hair.

She mentioned that she wasn't going for precisely that reason. That she is
not interested in seeing something where Black women get trashed.
I was silent because I have been there, in fact I live there.

She is a filmmaker and she said that she is tired of other filmmakers projecting
their issues onto Black people and Black women, Tyler Perry specifically.
Here is the line that got me,

"If Tyler Perry is more comfortable walking around wearing dresses then
he should make a movie about THAT, instead of projecting his shit onto us."

She believes that White filmmakers project their issues on to Black people
and Black male filmmakers project their issues onto Black women.

I had one of those blog synergy moments and asked her, well have you seen
what has happened at Moreouse this week with regard to their dress code?

Morehouse announced a dress code this week that was pretty much
no do rags, no sagging, then the last rule,states no pumps, no dresses,
no tunics.

I instantly thought of Tyler Perry and how Morehouse's reaction to
how some men dress, as evidence of why he won't make that movie.

Simply stated, Tyler Perry will not make that movie because the women who
pay to see him dress up like a Black grandmommas would not support a film
where he talks about why he feels most comfortable dressing up like a
Black Grandmomma. I then decided, after looking at the Sandra Rose
site and reading the comments that I needed to have a conversation
with Moya, because this represented a great teaching moment.

Tyler Perry's movies make Black women and White people feel comfortable,
oh, don't trip, we aren't the only ones in the movie theater. If he makes a movie
about why he feels most comfortable with in dress, this would make many
Black women and White folks incredibly uncomfortable.

Below is the interview with Moya, who runs Quirky Black Girls
and is a fellow Women Studies colleague and an incredible gender
theorist.

Renina Jarmon: Why is it acceptable for a Black school to heavily
regulate the gendered nature of clothing?

Moya Bailey: I don't think its acceptable though I do believe in a dress code
(sometimes). I think for k-12 and I could even say in college, a dress code
that's designed to counteract the hypersexualization of youth and to limit the
expression of certain exclusionary class markers makes a lot of sense to me.
Dress codes don't have to be gender specific and students could be able to
wear a range of clothing across genders regardless of their perceived sex.
Unfortunately, this Morehouse dress code is being used to reinforce a very
classed and heteronormative idea of what a black man should look like.

RJ:Does this have to do with the origins of the school as a place rooted
educating and grooming Black civil society?

MB: I definitely think this policy is connected to some old school politics of
respectability. Black people have historically tried to model the norms
of dominate culture, hoping that this mimicry would afford equal treatment
as opposed to subjugation. "Good" black men don't wear high heels or
sagging pants. There's been a lot of talk about how heels or sagging
pants won't fly in corporate America, as if to say the ultimate goal for
Morehouse men is to become black versions of the CEO's and capitalists
that are destroying communities of color with unliveable wages, gentrification,
environmental racism, and hazardous working conditions. That said, a lot
of work has been done to ensure that folks can wear what they want to
wear in corporate America. Non-discrimination policies, while not
indicative of the work climate necessarily, provide employees rights
to dress as they see fit and if employers have a problem, provide legal
means through which employees can act.

RJ:Are the people on Sandrarose.com aware that they sound like white
folks who didn't want their children to attend integrated schools in the
1950's? [Sandra Rose's statement"A man can’t lead other men wearing a dress",
sounds like some of the birthers, denying the presidents right to BE the
president.]

"buttercup24 Says:

I’m glad they are taking a stand. I’ve said numerous times I don’t have a problem with other people’s lifestyles but some people take it too far. If you are a gay man keyword is MAN. Act like one and the same thing with women. The saggy pants thing too. Save that for the knuckleheads on the street who aren’t going anywhere."

Dhoward1913 Says:

They should withdraw!!!! Why the hell would you go to Morehouse with that tomfoolery? These folks are out of control. Gay is one thing, but dressing like a woman…..and to the point that the school has to give guidelines. Damn, if you going to Morehouse you obviously want to get a degree and work in the public sector. You can’t dress like that in the public sector. Only hairsylist can do that.

MB: "A man can't lead another man wearing a dress." this quote is so deep and so
problematic to me. I'll break it down.
1. What constitutes appropriate dress for men and women is always shifting.
What's masculine one day can be feminine the next. Don't folks know the
history of high heels?
2. Read Bailey's Cafe by Gloria Naylor. Tell me then if a man can't lead
another man wearing a dress.
3. There's an assumption that for a man to be taking seriously he needs
to be marked as such. There's something silly about a man in women's
clothing. Why? Is it because men don't take women seriously? If we
change the phrase to " A woman can't lead another woman wearing pants,"
the statement very obviously breaks down.

What is it about masculinity that is so fragile that it becomes
questionable when cloaked in a dress?

RJ: Why do we assume that just because Black men weren't visibly gay
on Morehouse's campus that they, haven't been there historically?

MB: Girl, I don't know! And this is the thing about all black institutions, the
church, school, family, community, etc. There is an understanding that
there are queer black folks in these spaces but traditionally folks have
tried to argue via politics of respectability, "Hide yourself." Black queer
people can be present just not visibly so or at least not so visible as to
call attention to themselves. We have this false notion that hiding queerness
will some how make us more respectable more deserving of being
treated like human beings if we don't deviate from the norms that mainstream
(read: white) society created for us.

RJ: Is the subtext in the conversation that some hetero sexual black women
attend Spelman with the intent of finding a husband and a visible Black
gay male population stifles this possibility?

MB:Maybe but I don't think this is about heterosexual black women as much
as it is about making the homosocial nature of a school like Morehouse
not be read as homoerotic. What I mean is that Morehouse as a school
that wishes to claim a majority heterosexual student body, has anxiety
around the visible presence of gay students. What will people think if they
see black men rocking the latest jimmy cho's or sporting saggin' pants
etc. What is so interesting is that the dress code slices both ways.
They want to rid themselves of a working class hypermasculinity that is
expressed through baggy clothing as well as a feminine (read: queer)
aesthetic that also troubles a more conventional mainstream black
middle class masculinity. It seems much more prudent to begin to
have conversations about black masculinity and all that could be
rather than create a reactionary policy that brings attention to
the conservative and no-liberatory vision of the school.

RJ:What are Black people scared of?

MB: I think black people are afraid of their own queer desires. It's so
interesting that homosexuality is so threatening in our communities
that we'd rather institute draconian policies that limit all that we are or
who we could be out of fear. Homosexaulity and heterosexaulity are
recent concepts that don't effectively convey the diversity of human
sexuality, gender or biological sex. We hold tight to the notion that two
sexes, produce two genders which lead to two orientations but history
and our current world refute this at every turn. but we hold on. We hold
to these notions that ultimately imprison us and do nothing to transform
the world into what it could be. It's our desire to hold onto values, that
were never ours by the way, that keep us locked in a push/pull that is
not transformational or edifying.

RJ: Any other thoughts?

MB: I think Morehouse has a lot more to be concerned about than the
5 gay students who may or may not be wearing heels. How about
the number of sexual assaults that involve Morehouse students
and women in the Atlanta University Center? I can tell you it's way
more than five. How about the virulent homophobia and sexism that
goes unquestioned in the student body and in the administration?

As a feminist, I also want to call high heels into question as not
necessarily being indicative of a liberatory politic. Heels hurt your feet
and can even destroy them over a long period of time. I think it's interesting
that this ultra feminine footwear can be reclaimed as transgressive when
in some ways I think it can be the epitome of a hegemonic hetero-patriarchal state.

For more reading:
The difference between gender and sex
Elizabeth Gates's article in The Daily Beast: Morehouse College's Gay Tragedy
Article in the Paper Tiger, Morehouses newspaper: Is Gay the Way?
Latoya Peterson article at Racialicious: LA Times Explores Being Gay at Morehouse
Jason Harrell on Keith Boykin.com: Black and Gay at Morehouse

Interesting?

What does it mean that this is what Morehouse chooses to focus on?

Why Black folks sound like white 1950's or 2009 birther racist?

Did you know that Black MBA students can't wear locks or cornrows at Hampton?
This is material because they have a 5 year undergrad/MBA program.

What are we scared of?

Thoughts?

The Classroom is a Political Space

Over the last few weeks, one of the hardest things, for me
to navigate has been deciding when to talk and when to shut
up. This has been an issue in all of my classes.

Yet, it has manifest itself differently because of my familiarity
with the material, my willingness to be vulnerable and ask
questions and my willingness to be passively rather than
actively engaged.

In life and in the classroom it is much easier to complain about how
the class is ran rather than to do something about how it is ran.

It's much easier to complain about health care, rather than going
down to your local senators office, with a few of your friends
and getting in their faces about how they are voting.

Its much easier to complain than to elect that new.

Today, I rode for that new.

The classroom is political because whose voice is or isn't heard,
who does or doesn't speak and whether a space is made for historically
marginalized voices all impacts the way that we learn in the classroom.

Today, I entered the classroom with the expressed intent of not only
participating but moving the conversation towards one on focused
on providing a systemic critique, not simply focusing on the individual.

Because we read Killing the Black Body, which is about the Black
female body throughout history, from slavery to forced sterilization,
eugenics, modern reproductive rights arguments, moms addicted
to crack, adoption and surrogate parents, I knew that it was going
to be a class ripe with emotional landmines.

At one point we were discussing the coercive element involved with the
government forcing low income Black women to be sterilized if they
received public assistance.

The notion that reproductive autonomy as a human right simply wasn't
on the table.

Because of my Twitter interaction with Phonte last week about the ways
in which both men and women are socialized to hate women, I have been
emboldened. What I took from that interaction was, to the extent that I can
ask folks questions, I know that I can take them somewhere else.

A classmate, a Black male classmate who self identified as conservative,
mentioned that if a woman is on welfare with several children, then the government
can tell her what to get sterilized. He rested his case on the individual and personal
responsibility.

He went on to say that we are all here, in this classroom, we are given equal
opportunities

This is material given the fact that the number one predictor of poverty,
in this country, is childbirth.

That rugged individualism runs so thick both in our academic and
mainstream media discourse that not only am no longer surprised
when I hear it, in fact, I anticipate it.

So, in order to get him to think about the system in which these women
lived in I asked him where he was from, and whether he felt that the ways
in which Black men are disproportionally sentenced for crack cocaine
rests on Black men or the system that they were in.

He was consistent, he answered that it was up to the individual, who got
caught up in the system.

I then said, if you are riding for individual responsibility answer me this.

Our country no longer produces products, we live in a service economy.
Walmart is the second largest employer behind the government.
We are a nation of people, where the majority of us, earn minimum wage
or work in service jobs.
Minimum wage guarantees that you will live in poverty.

How do you reconcile the need for individual responsibility with this economic
reality?

I didn't tell him was wrong, because doing that is not helpful.

I asked him questions to get him, and other students to think about other
factors.

It makes me wonder what it will take, and what will happen when we stop thinking
the individual, and start thinking about the group?

It felt good because I realized what Zora meant by "Speak,
so that you can speak again." I always thought that that statement was
over the top and corny, but today, it has real life meaning in my
world.

What will it take to think about the group, rather than the individual?
Has the classroom been a political space for you?
Why is it so hard to claim my voice?
Is it possible that there is a connection between the writing voice and
the speaking voice?

Single Ladies, Nasty Bitches and Interracial Hoes

The sexual contradiction in American culture is both pervasive
and powerful.

While doing research on Latina teen pregnancy last week, I came
across a narrative where a young woman said, "I heard that, If my
boyfriend smoked weed before we had sex, then I wouldn't get pregnant."

I thought, wow, she is really serious. We have very little healthy, teen based
sex ed, yet our pop culture land is dominated by songs about sex.

I Wanna Fuck Every Girl in the World
Birthday Sex
Lol Smiley Face

The contradiction is interesting and dangerous.

It's dangerous because, the combination of little teen sex ed,
pervasive pop songs about sex, and abstinence ONLY funded
sex ed in the schools systems leaves our young men and women
with limited information. Limited informed people make awful choices.
(<<<-- I sound like a sex ed expert, no?)
Which brings me to my Black Sexual Politics class. On Monday some students
did a presentation on Pat Hill Collins' book of the same title.

For the class we also read Audre Lorde's The Uses of the Erotic.

The student presenters also played a Lil Kim video for the song
How Many Licks.

In the video, Kim is pussy, dick, female orgasms etc.

My professor pointed out that in comparison to little Kim's
video, Beyonce's Single Ladies video looks tame. So I checked
out her VMA performance, and it was confirmed.

3 women, dancing in a leotard, not that risque. The most provocative aspect
of her performance is the costume. Tight and sprayed on. It looks like
she is doing Black Broadway Showgirls routine, which I imagine is
what she intended.

Historically, Black women were not allowed to BE Ladies. Jezebels,
Mammies, Men, Welfare Queens, yes, but ladies. No. So given
that this is a part of the title of the song isn't lost on me.

Lets take the Ciara video posted above. This video moved me largley
because of the element of female desire that is present.

The whole time I was watching it I thought, what is this woman
going to do next?

Ciara licks Justin's ear, 30 seconds in. When was the last time you
saw a Black woman do something sexual TO someone else in a music video?

We don't.

Audre Lorde says that,

"Pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic,for
it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes
sensation without feeling."

Online Black folks had a fit about the Ciara video. The fact that Justin was white,
bothered them. They thought she was being a hoe. The chain also bothered them
and in some ways took them back to slavery.

Folks over at Soul Bounce had an interesting roundtable discussion
about the video. They initially wrote a post titled, "How Can Justin Timberlake
Continue to Get Away with Fetishizing Black Women?" Implicit in this
line of thought is that it is permissible for Black artist who work for White
corporations to do this, but not a White artist.

My response to this line of thought is a few questions:

1. Where is Ciara's agency in this line of thought?
2. What happens when we stop seeing Ciara as a victim?
3. Where is the critique of rappers and they "50 million hoe's" in music
videos?

Then they came back and did a roundtable with had a more
nuanced discussion.

Peep the comments section.

Its interesting to see people struggle with race, sex and capitalism.

In some ways, what wasn't explicitly stated is that the video is powerful
because we see a Black woman being sexual, and because this is so rare
we don't know what to do with the feelings that arise when we see it.

Black heterosexual sex is everywhere and nowhere in pop culture.

According to the dominant Black narrative, it is okay for us to
walk around asking for *patriarchal fulfillment, (putting a ring on it)
but for us to express sexual desire, or even the erotic, we are automatic
hoe's.

Sounds familiar? It is. The difference today is that WE are making a connections
and pushing back.

*No, all marriages do not constitute patriarchal fulfillment, however
her body of work is about getting men to do shit for her, pay bills, be a solider
etc. We all know that, in that this notion of Black male masculinity is
patriarchal and limiting. A man, a person, is more than their paycheck.

Katie Blancita, this one is for you Little boo.

Black Sex?

Single Ladies?

Sex Culture with no Sex Ed? Thoughts?

The Futility or Perhaps the Profoundness of Whiteness

I searched for a Black and White image. I found Bobby K.
You know I LOVE Bobby.

Blackness can only be understood in terms of Whiteness.

I came to this conclusion after reading Elsa Barkley Brown's

"What Has Happended Here."

She writes,

We are likely to acknowledge that white middle class women
have had a different experience from African American, Latina,
Asian American,and native American women; but the relation, the fact that
these histories exist simultaneously, in dialogue with each other, is
seldom apparent in the studies we do, not even in those studies that perceive
themselves as dealing with the diverse experiences of women. The overwhelming
tendency now, it appears to me, is to acknowledge then ignore the differences among women.

Barkley Browns general argument is that we can only
understand Black women's history if we look at White women's

history because the two require each other to work.

Whiteness ONLY works in relationship to Blackness.

This kinda shook me up.

Because I believe this to be true, I am struggling with

the Sociology readings that I have. Shit, its even hard for me
to read news paper articles or even to have conversations

with people about race.

Because a conversation about Blackness without mentioning Whiteness can

only be half right.

In the same way that a conversation about Hip Hop without mentioning capitalism

can only be half right.

Much of the discourse around race treats Male Heterosexual Whiteness

as the norm and everything else deviates from that.

Part of my ideas around the futility of Whiteness stems from reading work

by Black people, about race, that either implicitly or explicitly ask's

for White folks to see our humanity, to include us.

I arrived as an intact human in East Oakland over 30 years ago.

Whether or not a group of people SEE or validate my humanity is none

of my business.

I haven't always been this way. Growing up in East Oakland, it was difficult

to remain an intact human being, especially after the crack epidemic.

Having just started graduate school, it has become clear to me the

ways in which my education has played a role in my ability to remain

intact because many of us don't make it and we simply charge it to the game.

Its difficult for any one who isn't a White Heterosexual Male (WHM) to remain intact,

because both our laws and our mainstream culture presume that WHM is

the norm.

This norm in our society is reflected by the need to have a Civil Rights Movement,
a Women's Rights Movement, a Gay Rights Movement, an Equal Opportunities
Council Commission, a Civil Rights Bill and Health Care Reform.

All of this brings me to a conversation I had on Twitter Friday with, @BlackNerds

about saving hip hop.

Normally I don't respond to these statements, because most likely

they prove to be futile. But I engaged and I am glad I did because I made a

connection that I hadn't seen before.

I asked him:

Saving hip hop from what?

Why is there such an investment in it?

What does it mean to "save hip hop" when most artist want

Black kids respect and white kids money?

As a result of our conversation, I then tweeted and this the important
connection that I made. The tweet said, "In some ways, I think our
desire to like hip hop is connected to our need to have White folks
recognize our humanity."

I am still working this out. What I do see today, is that both instances
involve looking for validation in places that have clearly stated they it
has not, and will not be offered. It can be struggled for, but it will
not be handed over. To struggle for it, would mean a new society.

You see the connection between Blackness and Whiteness?

Why is it so hard to accept that Rap music is now a tool to sell

products?

Why do we want to save it so badly?

It feels good to be back. Thank you for reading.

I Miss Y'all

Things have been busy.

Even if I don't write as much, I still think about
you all, about writing, about the essays, the conversations.

Being in school has reminded me just how special it is to
have a community to discuss ideas with. To talk about them,
even in their infancy.

In some ways the blog is an incubator.

Right now I am working on a Van Jones/Jeff Chang/Glen Beck
post. I know go figure. I have been encouraged, from my colleagues
about Beyonce and R & B rather than Lil Kim.

I still may post the Kim post here. I am trying to figure out how
to talk about Tyler Perry and how an artist CANNOT buy
their way onto varsity. Oh. And Chris Hedges.

If you do not read anything that I have recommended this year,
or shit, for that matter EVER on this blog. Read the new
Chris Hedges. He writes with a ferocity that I can only
aspire to. He calls out names, he stops short of talking about
peoples mommas. My only critique of his book is that it is
heavy on the critique and light on solutions. However,
the ways in which he talks about reality TV, Pornography, the
Military industrial complex and the Ivy League and Wall Street
is really quite remarkable.

***Waves.

I will be back.

I promise.

~R