80's Soul Robotica Music: Santogold, M.I.A and Amanda Blank

I don't know if MIA or Santogold are emcees
in the rigid sense of the word.
However, I am warm to the idea of them getting
love and being able to live as artists.

You all know how I feel about having more than the
Rhianna prototype represent who women are in pop music.

We are thick, petit, dark, light, nappy, curly,
bone straight, angry AND content.
Our music should reflect this.

There was an article in The Times this Sunday
about women in hip hop which mentioned
M.I.A, Santogold, Kid Sister and Amanda Blank.

I have a hard time placing them square into
the throws of hip hop. I think they are doing
something a little different.

But this is Post Party like a Rock Star,
Post Yeye + Daft Punk. So it makes sense.

In a way, I feel the more weird and boundary
pusing the music is, the more license I have to
be weird and push the boundaries.

Its a vicious, vicious cycle.

Perhaps they are part of their own genre
of 80's-Soul-Robotica. But then that phrase
doesn't even capture M.I.A's global tension.

Even thought the article mention's most of
the women discussed in this post I couldn't help
but feel that the article was missing something,

“There is a reason why these artists are having so much early traction online,” said Josh Deutsch, chief executive of Downtown Records, which will release albums by Amanda Blank and Santogold this spring. “And it’s because they have such strong voices and strong points of view. There’s nothing remotely manufactured about them.”

How many times do I have have to hear
"These girls have something to offer" or
"they are saying something different"?



Perhaps we can talk about what it means to
be outside the boundaries and what it means to
be a female in POP music and go against the grain.

What's really going on?

Which reminds me that I need to netlfix that Dixie Chick
documentary.

The notion of making different music reminds me
of Gregs Tate's latest rumination on Black
Rockers in this year Pazz and Jopp Poll. He writes,

That said, Black Rockers (or Negroes Who Rock) need our own Pazz & Jop, and really our own Village Voice and our own Grammies, and of course our own extraterrestrial galaxy far, far away. If only because I'd love to show and tell the good news to all those other Black people who don't rock, but are maybe open to hearing something musical from American-raised coloured folk other than Beyonce, Rihanna, Jay-Z, or Soulja Boy. Because such folk need�nay, deserve�to know how stupendously, consistently genius MeShell Ndegeocello's The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams is....

Every since my "I Can't Listen to Nas" post,
I have been trying to figure out what I am going to run to.

As of late, it seems like the Stars are lining up.
I just discovered Ken Starr, NERD is coming out
with a new album and M.I.A. is showing some
running potential.

So, I think I will start with M.I.A.

Tomorrow.

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Listened to any new genre pushing
music lately?

Is the Black Rop-Rock recognition a
long time coming? Where Kelis at?

She the main one in all this.

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Martini Moratorium

This weekend I had a martini moratorium.

I mentioned in the Credit is the Devil post that
my two favorite hot momma items are dirty martini's
and vintage dresses.

I like the martini's with four or five olives.
I like the dresses sheer.

The Saturday of MLK weekend, I had too many 'tini's
and it was all Ghostface's fault.

See, earlier in the day I was talking to our dear friend Sweet Jesus
and it was one of those intractable conversations, where
I just wanna be like love me or leave me alone.

Don't get me wrong. I go hard for dude.
He has taught me about humility, he appreciates
the fact that I am a dreamer and he has never hated on my
greasiness.

But, the conversation was beginning to make
me wonder if he would just prefer to be my
friend instead. Would that actually be better for us?

Why did I say that?

It was one of those moments where you say
something, and you don't realize the gravity of it.

We decided to think about it and talk about it
later.

That evening I was listening to my pod. It was the new
Ghostface in fact. The more I listened to it, the more
"ignorant" encouragement I received, the more
I was willing to "to go hard in the paint".
It accelerated my anger. Eventually,
I got to the point where "I didn't need a date,
I got Ghost face".

I mumbled to myself, forget that fool if he just
wanna be friends.

I know, it looks pitiful reading it, but those thoughts
actually ran through my head.

Suffice it is to say I went out, ran into a new lounge owner
who saw my ID said Brooklyn and we wound up
chatting about Smith Street and Bedstuy and
the Martini's kept coming.

Here is the rub, the next morning I woke up feeling like
crap and I can go pretty hard. But I figured, maybe I
am a light weight now. So, I thought was just paying the price.

The following day I felt worse, like runny eggs in a cold iron skillet.
It finally dawned on me on Monday afternoon that
I had caught Strep.

ALL bad. There is nothing more humbling then getting sick.

I was calling the doctors, trying to get an appointment.
They were not trying to see me.

Dr. Lopez is not accepting new clients.
Dr. Greenberg can see you in March.

What. But I'm SICK TODAY!

Hence the moratorium.

To top it all off. On Sunday, my favorite,
vintage store, which is open every other Wednesday
from 1:00-1:30pm was open.
So I bought a new dress.
At least it will last longer than the olives in a dirty-flirty.



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When was the last time you told someone
that you wanted to be just friends?

Or for that matter someone told you?

Why do we underestimate the emotional impact
of some of the things we say?

Do you think hip hop has the capacity to accelerate our
ignorance?

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Sometimes the House Game Remind Me of the Crack Game

Once upon a time there were low interest rates.
Because of this, banks decided to make loans to people.
These people turned around and bought $400K houses
when they could only afford $200K houses.

The banks major justification for signing off on these loans,
"everyone else was doing it."

Did I mention that they did not check pay stubs on
those stated income loans?

Now the government is set to give folks a "stimulus

Wasn't the government complicit in these loans being
made in the first place?

Isn't it fraud to benefit from folks being confused by exactly
Is this class action worthy seeing as the predominant
number of people who lost were Black and Latino?

I don't know. That's a question for the government,
the US Attorneys office and the NAACP.

Now I just found an article discussing how a
disproportionate number of people who are losing their
homes to foreclosure are Black and Latino, and in Baltimore
they are Black, single mommas.

At Vixxen Hair Salon, the main topic of conversation has always been money. But since last August, Anjanette Booker, the owner, has noticed a new focus. “Now it’s money and foreclosures,” Miss Booker said.

For each of the last four years, more than half of the foreclosures in this neighborhood have been homes owned primarily by women, according to an analysis of public records by the Reinvestment Fund, a nonprofit community development organization.

The foreclosures threaten the neighborhood’s fragile stability. And they highlight a broader dimension of the housing meltdown: subprime mortgages, which are driving the foreclosure rate, have gone disproportionately to women.

Single women have been among the fastest-growing groups of homeowners in recent years, and in Baltimore they accounted for 40 percent of home sales in 2006, twice the national average, according to the National Association of Realtors. Nearly half of these mortgages were subprime, National Community Reinvestment Coalition found.

On one hand I feel that you know that when you borrow
from the Dope Man/Banks you have to pay him back.
No if, ands or buts. So, if you borrowed
more than you could afford. Then tough.

Remember my credit is the devil post. We talk about
credit and its perils here all the time at Model Minority.

On another level, I know that there is a connection between
the home ownership gap, the achievement gap, the savings gap
and ultimately the wealth gap.

Add this to what we all know about 40 acres and a mule,
Katrina and Urban Renewal and completely I get what
would compel someone to buy a house with an ARM loan.

Houses involve the law, emotion, family and identity.

“When I bought my house, it was the American Dream,” said Kue McIntyre, 33, a single mother of three who is scrambling to avoid losing her row house, on which she defaulted after losing her job. “Now I need to save it for my boys. If it was just me, O.K., I’d have to give up my first home. But it’s different when you have it for the kids. When they turn 18, I want this to be theirs.”

She hit the nail on the head when she said, I just wanted to have
something to leave to her sons, who can blame her?

Owning property is significant, in a way that I can't describe,
to people who have once BEEN property.

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What would you do if your house was being foreclosed?

Are the mommas wrong?

The banks?

All of us for not anticipating it?

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Prisons are the New Steel Mills

I am obsessed with poverty pimps.
Once Filithy told me that Prisons are the new Steel Mills, I folded prisons into my poverty pimp theory.

Remember in American Gangster when Russel Crowe mentioned
that many people would be out of work if the drug war
was ended and implicitly that was a major incentive to keep
it going.

I had this in mind when I read an article last night in the Times
about how impact that the closing of prisons in upstate NY is
having on rural communities.

As rural economies across the country crumbled in the 1980s and the population of prison inmates swelled, largely because of tougher drug laws, states pushed prison construction as an economic escape route of sorts. Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, an average of four prisons were built each year in rural America; the rate quadrupled in the 1980s and reached 24 a year in the 1990s, according to the federal Agriculture Department’s economic research service.

The boom, experts say, provided employment, but it also fostered a cycle of dependency. Depressed rural communities came to rely on the prisons as a source of jobs, economic sustenance and services, with little effort devoted to attracting other viable businesses.

“What we’ve seen in New York and other states is that one prison led to another prison and led to another prison, creating the notion that there’s no other economic development option than to build prisons to foster stability in rural areas,” said Tracy Huling, an independent consultant in New York who has done extensive research on the role of prisons in rural economies.

Cycle of dependence is an understatement.

The article is out of pocket because it lacks in its criticism an economy
that depends on one group of desperate people going to jail to provide jobs
to another desperate group of people.

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Sean Bells daughter, Jada.

Detectives in the Sean Bell case will waive a jury trial.

The move comes a day after a setback to the detectives, when an appeals court denied their request to move the trial out of New York City. If granted, the move promises to cool the tenor of the proceedings.

Defense lawyers have long seen bench trials as a means of removing emotion from the trial, with the hope of an analysis of the testimony steeped more in a professional’s legal training than a peer’s judgment.

Last week the word was that they were trying to get a change of
venue, this week, they are waiving their right to a jury trial.

Interesting.

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Police officers killed a 23 Black Off duty plain clothes officer
in White Plains.

Race may or may not be a factor.

The off-duty Mount Vernon police officer who was shot and killed by Westchester County police officers on Friday tried to break up a fight between two men and was trying to arrest one of them when he was fatally wounded, the authorities and two witnesses said on Saturday.

The officer who was killed, Christopher A. Ridley, 23, was off duty and not in uniform when he witnessed a “violent, aggravated assault” shortly before 5 p.m. near Court Street and Martine Avenue in downtown White Plains, outside the district offices of the Westchester County Department of Social Services, said Frank G. Straub, the commissioner of public safety in White Plains.

Wow.

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Have you visited a jail lately?

Do you know anyone who works in corrections?
Are you ever worry about them not coming home at night?

My brother in law is a cop and my cousin
works at juvey.

Let me tell you. People treat you different when they know you
have a cop in the family. It's weird tho, because even tho' he fam,
"he still po-po" as Dig Dug says.

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Model Minority LOVES GOOGLE READER.

Image from Stripper Polaroid Set on Flicker

Thanks to Rafi, my google reader game is
bananas. I have always had a knack for finding news links,
but scrolling through google reader gives me the
same feeling I had in that dream where everything
in the March Jacobs store was $3.99.

Ok. Not quite. But similar.

Peep the range of articles, yet how snugly they fit
into our corner of the internet.

I found a blog about working girls.

I became a "working girl" because an odd confluence of events in my life. First, my fiance left me, quite abruptly, for a stripper. I was, of course, traumatized. I needed to get my mind off him, and entering a series of forbidden encounters with relatively anonymous men seemed like the only thing immersing enough to do the job. It was perhaps a way to punish him (he knew what I was doing, and felt awful about it), and was also a strange way to remain attached to him. Additionally, I was fascinated by the stripper he'd left me for. We'd had lunch. By Western Beauty Standards, she was much less beautiful than I (although her body was pretty fucking fantastic). But there was this certain way that she was sexual: she felt powerful, in control, confidant, like she knew every crevice of her sexual being. She was, quite obviously, a professional. I was an amateur then. I didn't know a thing. I wanted to be a professional too.

While reading this I couldn't help but think,
isn't this why cats love the Vixens or at least the IDEA
of the vixens. The notion of a woman knowing every crevice
must be appealing.

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Top 5 Folkey Covers of Rap Songs. I have seen the other videos
but this one is new, to me.



That's actually NOT that bad. In a laid back, sedated
almost depressed way.

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These fools have analyzed Rappers reading levels based
on song lyrics. Somehow, I feel like there is a better
use for this tool.

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And Finally the 9 most Racist Disney characters.



I am so glad they mentioned the crows from Dumbo.
Even as a little kid I knew something was hella outta pocket
about them.

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LA is opening weed vending machines.
I am going to have to see that to believe it.

Holy crap, what country is LA in? I mean, last time I was there I was surprised enough at the billboards offering medicinal marijuana cards, but this is insane. Starting on Monday, people who have medical conditions such as glaucoma, cancer, and the deadly not-stoned-enough virus can start getting their fat buds from special "AVMs." These electronic drug dealers won't be out on the street next to a Pepsi machine, of course. No, they'll be "housed in standalone rooms, abutting two dispensaries and protected by round-the-clock security guards.

I imagine that they will be in The Bay by next Tuesday.

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Your favorite rappers government name is up at Whudat.com

Clipse Malice--------Gene Thornton Jr.
Clipse Pusha T-----Terrence Thorton
Flavor Flav-----------William Jonathan Drayton, Jr
Freeway--------------- Leslie Pridgen
Killah Priest---------- Walter Reed
KRS One-------------- Lawrence Krisna Parker
Masta Ace------------ Duval Clear

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Elliott Spiter is trying to TAX COCAINE. He is a fool.
Guess the subprime fall out has folks looking into
some creative revenue streams.

Among the hundreds of proposals contained in Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s second executive budget, which he unveiled on Tuesday in Albany, is a provision that would impose a $3.50-a-gram tax on marijuana and a $200-a-gram tax on other illegal drugs, like cocaine.

We took a look at the fine print to better understand the details of this legislative proposal — which, incidentally, is very similar to a proposal that Mayor Edward I. Koch put forward in 1988. (That proposal, to tax illegal drugs in New York City, also at a rate of $200 a gram, did not come to fruition.)

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Internet links are such a time suck.

When was the last time you got online "just to check your
e-mail" and you looked up and an hour and a half went by?

What are your favorite sites to peruse? Post links por favor.

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Model Minority: 5 Movies, 2 Days, 3 Abortions

I watched 5 movies this weekend.

It wasn't on purpose. I got sick. They
were here. So I figured I should watch them.

The movies were, Palindromes, Planet Brooklyn
Short Cuts and Juno and The Eye 2 (Hong Kong version).

Ok, so I didn't really watch ALL of Short Cuts.
Altman is interesting. But. Lets not and say that
I did.

I am not a 3 hour movie person.
My nick name is humminbyrd for a reason,
I keeps it moving.

Ironically, three of the the five movies had
abortion as a meaningful aspect of the plot.

That was kind of creepy to say the least.

In Palindromes and The Eye 2, the characters struggled
with it. In Palindromes, cats GOT murked BECAUSE
they conducted abortions.

Juno, was unapologetically witty and smart lead.
Her character that reminded me of how rare it is
that we NEVER get to see smart lead teenage characters.

However, her response to her pregnancy was underwhelming.

I think the clincher was the lack of anger from either
one of the parents. Or the fact that there was too much
snark and not enough anger.

I mean. You don't have to condemn the child, but dude, you
walk in the house, pregnant and 16, sparks are gonna fly.
Voices will be raised.

Somethings getting broken. A lamp.
A chair. Something.

Trust, I know how hard I ride for mommas, so I am not
saying that Juno should have been vilified.

I was just expected a different kind of tone.

Especially after how the nuance and darknesses associated
with the adopted parents was treated. The script nailed
that 'ish.

For me, it came down to the fact that, when the women
I know, married or not, wealthy or struggling,
or in between for that matter, get the news, they ALL struggle
with the decision, even if it is for a day or two.

Juno. I just couldn't believe her. She needed more people.

It was almost like the problem that I had with Knocked
Up. The tone that should come with the internal searching
that a pregnant woman goes through just wasn't reflected
in the movie.

Did I enjoy myself. Of course. I laughed out loud.
I just felt that it was worth noting that these three
movies touched on the same subject and handled it
in a different way.

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You seen any of the above movies?

Palindromes was weird is hell.
Todd MAKES ME harder then I would
like to when I am sick with a fever and sore throat
and my mind is pretty freaking fast.

Whats up with folks making these
movies about pregnancy with the tone about
abortion thats akin to a tampon commercial?

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President Bush and Retroactive Immunity for War Crimes

Retroactive Immunity.

I want want retroactive immunity for my mistakes.

Sign.
Me.
Up.
Too.

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Are you going to vote in the primary?

Does hearing stories like this make you mad, motivated
or both?

That some Real American Gangster type 'ish.

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Why Do Black Folks Love Bill Clinton?

Obama Fairytale comment at 51 seconds

One of he great things about being blogger is that people
send you stuff that they know you will really like.

That was the case earlier this week when Jonzey
sent me a copy of Ishmael Reed's latest piece
on the Clinton's.
Welfare Reform, Lani Guiner, Rwanda, Mass Incarceration
of Black men. Reed lays it all out.

Writing in The Baltimore Sun, I was the first to identify Clinton as a black president as a result of his mimicking a black style. (I said he was the second, since Warren G. Harding never denied the rumors about his black ancestry.) As a result of his ability to imitate the black preaching style, Clinton was able to seduce black audiences, who ignored some of his actions that were unfriendly, even hostile to blacks. His interrupting his campaign to get a mentally disabled black man, Ricky Ray Rector executed. (Did Mrs. Clinton tear up about this act?) His humiliation of Jesse Jackson. His humiliation of Jocelyn Elders and Lani Gunier.

And he continues, writing,

The welfare reform bill that has left thousands of women black, white, yellow and brown destitute, prompting Robert Scheer to write in the San Francisco Chronicle, "To his everlasting shame as president, Clinton supported and signed welfare legislation that shredded the federal safety net for the poor from which he personally had benefited." (Has Ms. Clinton shed a tear for these women, or did she oppose her husband's endorsement of this legislation?) His administration saw a high rate of black incarceration as a result of Draconian drug laws that occurred during his regime. He advocated trade agreements that sent thousands of jobs overseas. (Did Mrs. Clinton, with misty eyes, beg him to assess how such trade deals would effect the livelihood of thousands of families, black, white, brown, red and yellow?) He refused to intervene to rescue thousands of Rwandans from genocide. (Did Mrs. Clinton tearfully beseech her husband to intervene on behalf of her African sisters

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Do you think that Black folks are going to take kindly to
Obama's candidacy being called a fairy tale?

Doesn't it come across like Bill sees Obama as someone
who is "getting out of his place"?

Why do Black Folks Love Bill Clinton?

Why don't we remember the things that happened on his clock
that have harmed us?

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5 Years for $90 Worth of Crack

I love words. Depending on how you use them you
can alienate people, draw them in, repulse them
or endear them to you.

I had this in mind when Filthy Dubois pointed out that
most of the non violent offenders in jail for selling crack are users
as well. They sell just enough to support their habit and make
a living. I began to reflect on the fact that NONE of the
articles on the crack cocaine sentencing disparity
actually mentioned the street value of 5 grams of crack.

So I set out to find out how much 5 grams of crack was worth,
I turned to my resident reformed d-boy.

MM: How much is 5 grams of crack?
Dig Dug: Well there are 28 grams in a ounce, which is about $500.
Did the math, divided 500/28 which came to 17.8x5= $89.5.
MM:Are you serious? So people are getting 5 years for roughly
$90 dollars worth of crack? And then that still depends on
whether there is a markup.
DD: Why you wanna know?
MM: I have been following the crack/coke sentencing disparity
cases.
DD: I heard about that. They were talking about it on the radio.
MM: One of my homies pointed out that a lot of people in jail
for selling crack, are primarily users, so I am trying to figure out
the street value of 5 grams. Besides, folks are lobbying the
the sentencing commission to revise the crack sentencing rules.
DD: Is this a new law?
MM: Nah, its not a new law, its just that a couple of judges have decided two
cases that would impact the way other judges give out sentences.
Congress would have to change the law, which is highly unlikely.
DD: Will that affect me, I have probation left?
MM: I dunno. I can check. What is the street value or cost of 500
grams of cocaine.
DD: Man.{sighs} A whole lot of money.

That's when I realized, no one has pointed out the dollar
amount. Grams and ounces don't resonate with the average
everyday citizen, but dollars do.

The anti-drug war folks missed a critical opportunity to
change the way the public perceived the war on drugs.

They could have used the language to pull the folks
in by describing it in terms that were readily accessible.

I am this close, **hold up two fingers, to becoming a crack
and rehabilitation lobbyist, trill talk.

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Did you know that it took only $90 worth of crack to get you 5 years?

What do you think of that?

Why doesn't anyone talk about this issue in those terms?

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Breihan on Prodigy's 25 Hour

It's hard to think about exactly what you would do right before
you are set to got to jail for three years. But, that is precisely
what Breihan did in his piece on Prodigy last week,

It's hard to imagine what I'd do if I only had a few weeks before I had to go upstate to start serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence. But I know some things that I probably wouldn't do. I probably wouldn't film a YouTube rap video where creepy demon-kids sing the alphabet and I smash a cop's head in with a broken TV. I probably wouldn't launch an ungainly social-networking website to promote an album that wouldn't be in stores until I was behind bars, and even if I did, I probably wouldn't use that social-networking website to write long all-caps blog-posts about how tough I am. I probably wouldn't even bother with recording a Koch-rap album in the first place. I'd probably just curl into a ball and wait for my life to effectively end, which just means that I'm not Prodigy.

I keep forgetting that P is about to go to jail, and Breihan
just goes ahead and reminds me.

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F-ck an apology give me the cash. I learned THAT from Japanese folks.

See, the rule is the same when it comes to slavery, injustice, or rappers
trying to atone for their past mistakes.

Speak with them benji's or HUSH.

David Banner knows that I am talking about , He gets right to the
point when he when he speaks on Master
P and his new found, ahem awareness,

It's crazy to become a multi-millionaire off the backs of people and then turn around and attack the way that you made that money. If you really sorry, then give some of that money back. If you made eighty million dollars, give forty back if you really sorry.

How does the saying go, put up or shut up?

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I am not feeling the buzz for the new Clipse mix tape.

I bugged Gotty for 8 months for We Got it for Cheap II.
That sh-t was so uninspired. And trust. I am not another writer
just talking yack out my @ss.

I KNOW THAT Making tangible art is hard.

The fact that I have been trying to churn out short stories for
the past month has re-acquainted me with the challenges
associated with trying to make something tangible.

I think I am the biggest Clipse fan I know.
I adored Hell Hath No Fury. It got me through some uber rough times.

However, I am not looking forward the We Got it for Cheap III Mixtape.
The thing about The Clipse is that those Skateboard beats
mesh lovely with their rhymes.

It just sounds tired hearing them over other people's beats.

I guess I can ride for optimism and look forward to a
second quarter Clipse album.

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Flo-Rida is so ignorant and good. On Gotta Eat, he sings,

Dammit Im proud to by my own bag of weed,
find me a ho', to help plant my seed
I got bail money they f*ck with me,
'Cuz, in my hood, erry n-gga gotta eat.

Funny. In 4 bars he covers weed, his girl, his baby, popo
and the fact that n-ggas gotta eat. God Bless Amerruca.

Any body who sings proudly about "having they own
weed" is egregious in my book. Breihan put wrote
about Mr. Rida last late last year saying,

Flo Rida is from Florida and he rides flows, see?) "Birthday" found its way to a few mp3 blogs and scraped the lower end of Billboard's R&B charts, which seems about right. But "Low" is practically the same song, except with T-Pain doing the chorus instead of Rick Ross (a tremendous improvement, admittedly), and now all of a sudden it's huge. Judging by those two tracks, Flo Rida is a decent enough technical rapper who knows how to ornament a beat without getting in its way, but he shows basically zero personality on both tracks, and I'm not sure I could pick him out of a lineup. I hadn't even heard "Low" before its massive iTunes debut. So how does this happen? How does an indistinct, relatively unknown rapper suddenly end up with the best-selling song in the country?

The simple answer is T-Pain, whose pop-charts dominance is getting scary.

T-Pain's dominance isn't scary, in fact its directly connected to
Roger of I Wanna be Your Man fame. Roger never
had to opportunity to sing hooks on a years worth of Hip Hop
singles. Yet, T-pain has and consequently is a branch
on the Roger meets Nate Dogg tree.



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Why they always play " I Wanna be Your Man" at the end of the party?

Why do mixtapes suck?

Flo-Rida, ye or ney?

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Calling Obama the Great White Hope is the Same as Calling him a N-gga.

The word N-gga means something only because Jamestown
means something.

Because because the fact that Black Wall Street got torched
means something.

Because 1968 means something.

Because acting white means something.

Because 40 acres and a mule means something.

Because Black WWII veterans got systematically robbed
and nothing has been done about it.

In 2008, I have become particularly attuned to the notion of burden sharing.
For instance, if you and I decide to go to dinner, but want me to drive
out to the boondocks because you don't want to pay for gas, or don't
want to drive, or because it is your favorite restaurant, then that
would constitute me shouldering the majority of the burden for this dinner.

In this dinner called ethnicity/race taking '08 Presidential elections,
the burden of being a n-gga or even the great white hope, based on this
article, has been shifted clearly to Black folks.

In this piece Mr. Greenberg, is trying to clown Obama for
playing the hand he was dealt. It's as if he resents the fact that
Obama can be so slick and to have the audacity to try and WIN.

At the same time, Obama doesn't threaten or discomfort whites. He doesn't strike them as wronged or impatient, or as the spokesman of a long-subjugated minority group or even as someone particularly culturally different from themselves. As much Kansan as Kenyan, Obama does not descend from families who suffered American slavery or Jim Crow. His family tree has fewer slaves than slaveholders, fewer chains than Cheneys.

There would be NO NEED for a great white hope if the
Great Negro Stereotype weren't on the other side of the coin.
Willie Horton anyone?



I am all for a critique of Obama, or any of the candidates. Wasn't
I talking about Huckabee last week? But please, don't bring out
the magnify glass and forget your mirror. Not this year.
Last year, I wrote a lot about that fact that there is a thin
line between resentment and love and I think that is at work here.

That people want to cheer for you, but simultaneously resent
you when you win. It's tiring.

Americans (infer garden variety White voters) are NOT going to
for him if he hammers race down their throats.

Americans, get uncomfortable if you talk about race at
happy hour, the lunch hour, or too loudly on the train.

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Is David Greenberg simply just hating or does
he have a point?

Obama, the Great White Hope, or the Negro that Hate Produced?
^^^^thats so good and egregious I just surprised MYSELF.

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Blacks and Women, What if I am Both?

By Wang Xiao Song

You can always tell when my personal life is in turmoil because
there will be very few posts. But then again, I blog through crisis as well.

I guess it cuts both ways. First, my internet was down last weekend.
Then, the Barnes and Noble didn't have lap top plug. Finally, on Sunday,

SJ told me he got (post holiday) cold feet.

Then I started trippin' off the fact that my sister, for some reason,
thought that because we were living in the same state that I should
feel obligated to to kick it with her on Christmas. Did i mention
that I have not rocked with her since Clinton was president. Man.

That girl needs a 12 step program and Jesus before I f*ck with her.
She and our momma got funk that predates my existence on earth.
I am not touching that with a ten foot pole.

The good news is that my old school homie, d-shot contacted me
and we ironed some '03 funk out and have re-connected.
It's weird with those historical friendships. Its like, you want
to be cool with the person again, but sometimes the moment has passed.
With her, I feel like I made the right choice. She sounded the same,
and seemed happy to hear from me.


I felt compelled to post this morning, before I went to Glide, when I read this
article in The Times about Race and Gender in the presidential election.
Sentences like this, on the history of Voting Rights for White women and
Black people, make me feel so invisible it ain't even funny.
Of course the authors have no idea.

“The movements have been so deeply linked, and usually in harmony,” said Sara Evans, author of “Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left” and a historian at the University of Minnesota. “But there will always be points of tension, too,” Ms. Evans said, especially when the broad ideals that blacks and women have typically shared — in their fight for the vote, non-discrimination and economic equality — give way to the nitty-gritty of reaching consensus, setting policy, passing legislation and, in the case of elections, making choices

What the highlighted fragment really means is WHITE women and
Black people, but they expect us to make the inference.
The problem that I have with it is that language reflects
the accepted notion that this issue is ABOUT Black men
and White women, that is if you let the media and the academic's
tell it, it is. I can't help but read that and think,
well what if I am apart of both groups?
According to this article, that overlap is irrelevant.


The article does a interesting job contextualizing this history of
the abolitionist movement/Voters rights movement.
Peep the dialog between Candy Stanton and Fredrick Douglas.

During a heated meeting in New York City’s Steinway Hall in 1869, Stanton wondered, “Shall American statesmen ... so amend their constitutions as to make their wives and mothers the political inferiors of unlettered and unwashed ditch-diggers, bootblacks, butchers and barbers, fresh from the slave plantations of the South?” At which point, Douglass rose, paid tribute to Stanton’s years of work on civil rights for all, and replied, “When women, because they are women, are hunted down through the cities of New York and New Orleans; when they are dragged from their houses and hung from lampposts; when their children are torn from their arms and their brains dashed out upon the pavement; when they are objects of insult and rage at every turn; when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down... then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot equal to our own.”

Fredrick Douglas, go hard, hunh?

How come the two movements were unable to see that it was
only together that they would win?

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When you fall out with your old school homies,
do you leave the door for re-entry wide open or a little cracked?

Why do n*ggas get cold feet?

Why didn't the abolitionist and the womens rights cats continue to
work together?
Did they not receive the Willie Lynch memo?

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If I Were President

When I first conceived of this post, errr, 6 hours ago,
I was going to skip the article that Steinem wrote in
The Times and go for the gusto with the comments section.

The article is about voting based on race or gender.
The commenter's write,

10.

January 8th, 2008 7:18 amLink

Thank you, very well said. Watching the beating Senator Clinton is getting has made me realize that this country was broken at the foundation, when the Constitution did not include women. And why are the young women so anxious to throw away all the gains the prior generations bled for? Is there any hope for our nation?

— SP, North Carolina

Uhhhhh. The same reason why White Women
protest AGAINST AFFIRMATIVE action.

Out.For.Self.

16

January 8th, 2008 7:18 amLink

I think the more appropriate conclusion is that those who are both female AND black would have a difficult time reaching to highest heights in politics. If Hillary Clinton was black she wouldn't have a shot. Her whiteness, like Obama's maleness, then, provides them with this shot at the White House. Perhaps Ms. Steinem could have discussed the advantages that Senator Clinton, a white woman, would have over a similarly situated black woman.

— Rob, Washington, DC

Dude. If Hillary Clinton were Black, Bill Clinton would have major
f*cking problems. It would be more like Bill wh?

9.

January 8th, 2008 7:18 amLink

"So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one?" Could it be because white women in this country have always had a degree of agency that has exceeded that of black men and black women by an order of magnitude? Univeral human emancipation is, or should be, our goal. Your diatribe against Mr. Obama is uncalled for. Moreover, I believe it can only turn voters against Ms. Clinton if she does not repudiate it.

— malnicore, nyc

You know whats cute? I know, based on the writing, that this
person is a lawyer.

3.

January 8th, 2008 7:12 amLink

"But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex."

So what you're saying is.....the last 41 WHITE presidents were chosen because of their ability to bring all factions together? I wonder if this case would hold up in, let's say, Isreal? Hillary is divisive because a majority of people view her as a fake, and haven't liked her from day one. It has nothing to do with her gender. Maybe it has to do with the fact that we're sick and tired of seeing the same political family in office again. Change would be ending the dynasty.

— Jazzence, Los Angeles

Yeah. That same family sh*t is kinda real ya'll.

Tonight, I came across an article by Timothy Noah in Slate,
pointing out the fallacy in Steinem's article and I realized
that I was at a loss. because I knew I needed to include
it as well. Here is what Timothy has to say about
Steinem going to bat for Hillary,

"Gender," writes Gloria Steinem on the op-ed page of the
Jan. 8 New York Times, "is probably the most restricting
force in American life." That is incorrect. Poverty is the
most restricting force in American life. It's become
somewhat unfashionable to point this out, but I don't see
how it could be otherwise. Given the choice between being
born poor and being born female, which would you choose?

How about, a White Man?

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If you could come back as someone else,
who would it be? Fridah? Jay-Z? Dre?
Bill Gates, lol! Mrs. Bill Gates <<<

Man, if poverty is the most
restricting force in American Life,
then what can we do about it? I think on that sh*t every day,
and my conclusion is that you have to go directly to the
mommas and the dads to provide the support they they
arn't getting else where.

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Kennedy was as Real as 'Pac: Bobby Kennedy Part II

I am naming my son Bobby Kennedy.

I have always had a fascination with '68 but
something has brought it to the surface again.

My new found interest stems from learning, courtesy
of BMC, that the seeds of disrespect for life circa the '88 crack era
were sewn in the disrespect for life during the '68 era.
'68, the era of protests, national guard shooting to kill,
urban riots, King/Kennedy assassination era.

In the movie Bobby, they used footage of his actual historical
speeches in the film.

This man was so sincere, warm and compelling, I was floored.

Birkhold put it lovely when he said that Kennedy
spoke the truest sh*t, just like 'Pac.



Here was a dude, from MONEY, but totally rode
for the impoverished. I mean, who in our current political
arena could conceivably TRY and come close?

What was so moving about just seeing him
on a old crusty video was that his sincerity was so compelling.
This sincerity jumped off the screen.

I mentioned my new fascination with him to my dad,
asking, "Where is the Bobby Kennedy?" He responded saying,
that "they only come once a lifetime."

Sensing my disappointment, he caught himself, saying,
"that there was one probably being made right now."

I couldn't help but feel let down by his response.

At the end of the day, like 'Pac, its great to know that he even lived
for the short time that he did.

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What do you know about Bobby Kennedy? '68?

Why doesn't anyone make the connection
between '68 and '88?

Do you agree that there is in fact a connection?

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Obama Might Get Murked: Bobby Kennedy Part I

I came to this conclusion while watching the film Bobby
over holiday's. If you have been a long time reader, you
already know that I have long contended that guns and
entrenched racism don't bode well for Black
Presidential candidates.

Watching the movie Bobby further confirmed this for me.

Back to Obama.

If I hear one more person say its not about race, I am going
to mail them a chit'in Popsicle. Real talk.

But there’s no doubt that for one night, in one state, Americans
dramatically changed the subject. Race didn’t matter — even
though Mr. Obama was an African-American running in a nearly
all-white state — but talk of unity and common ground did,
as Mr. Obama galvanized his supporters by promising to
toss historical and political division aside.

It would be better stated if Kirk stated that
White Iowans voted for him INSPITE of him being Black,

I mean. The VERY fact that HE IS BLACK, makes his win
in Ohio meaningful and substantial.

If he were a white man, he would be just another white dude
that won in Iowa, Kirk.

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======

I wonder whats going through Oprah's head right now.

Why do folks INSIST on saying its not about race
when it is all day?

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Huckabee is a Hood Republican

I have been wondering about who exactly is Mike Huckabee?
No one has been able to explain it to me until today.
He is one of those hood Republicans. Not a regular republican.
But one of those down home, chicken, ribs and raccoon Republicans.

Few of Huckabee’s critics have actually come out and said what many of them think. The language is coded, as it usually is with class and race in this country. The Wall Street Journal, the anti-tax jihadists at the Club For Growth, the National Review – these pillars of Old School Republicanism have signaled that Huckabee is Not One of Ours. But they’re careful to say it’s not about class, because, of course – it is!

Class war is forbidden in the Republican playbook. But Huckabee, despite an inept last week of campaigning, has forced the Republican party to face the Wal-Mart shoppers that they have long taken advantage of. He’s here. He’s Gomer. And he’s not going away.

Not none of that fake Bush 41/43 Texas by the way of Connecticut. But. Huckabee has actually LIVED in a trailer Park AND has eaten raccoon.

He said he used to eat squirrels, cooking them up in his popcorn popper. Ewwwwhhh!

Ewwwww.

The word on the street is that the people feel him,

Huckabee has been telling people in Iowa that Republican higher-ups would never let him become the nominee because he “has a hick last name.” Wow. I’d like to be in on that focus group.

I find it interesting that he brings class diversity,
albeit, by default, to the forefront presidential debate.

Romney has his work cut out for him.

I suspect that the evil ads will start flying in about TWO seconds.

I wonder what is going through Hillary's head right now.
Oh. Perhaps it won't be Obama/ Gore '08 but

Obama Bloomberg '08.

Imagine the history books.

A Jewish Dude and a Black dude, in The White House.

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Nas Likes Himself and His Fans as well.

"I'm hyped right now," the usually laid-back MC told MTV News backstage approximately an hour before showtime. He was itching to get onstage, especially since he was trying a couple of new additions to his show: a small live band, and legendary producer Marley Marl backing him as the show DJ.

"We've been practicing out in California," Marley — showing no sign of having suffered a heart attack earlier this year — said as he waited to get behind the ones and twos.

As showtime grew closer, Nas revealed he wanted to do a very short run of venues across the country — he's performing New Year's Eve in L.A. — because he did not put out an album this year as promised. He didn't want to leave his fans with nothing.

As the show started, Marley Marl cued up the classic record he made with MC Shan, "The Bridge." Nas walked out wearing shades, a white T-shirt with a peace sign on his back, a gold rope chain and a New York Mets hat that he quickly threw into the crowd. Marl and the band also all wore white tops and Mets hats.

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Chuck D wants to run Def Jam.
They would let Flavor Run it before they let him.
"After 10 years looking on the collapsing of the record industry, and upon hearing the news of Jay-Z stepping down from Def Jam, I would throw my name into the hat of somebody who understands how the hell Universal should establish the name-brands they acquire with stockholders money," Chuck D told AllHipHop.com

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I ain't stupid. I noticed how CLEMENS is getting the
UBER PASS on the steroid allegations. Here are the
results when you google Clemens and Steroids.
Here the Bonds and Steroids results. They appear, gp, to be similar.

But I noticed one major difference.

Where is the Clemens expose book?

Why aren't journalist clamoring to write and
cash in on this story?

Hmmp. Look like a little baseball Elvis going on to me.

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Only on MM do you get Huckabee, Steroids and Chuck D.
God Bless America.

Obama surprised you, hunh?

What would be your move if you were Hillary?

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