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

Graduate School vs. Law School

American Gothic by Gordon Parks

I have started school.

There are three material things that I see as being different
from grad school than law school.

In law school, I had to read material that was abstract
and philosophical, and rarely dealt with race, class or gender.

Now I get to read material that is abstract, philosophical,
and that deals with race, class and gender.

I wake up reading. I go to sleep reading. In law school, it took me
a year to engage with the material this way. This is a problem,
seeing that your first year grades in law school play a huge
role in your employment options after you graduate.

The second thing is that I have started school with the
understanding that it is my job to build community. To that
extent I have met with folks, to get institutional history so
that I can understand the lay of the land, who to stay away
from, who I must be in contact with, where the axis of power lies, etc.

The third material difference is being around men and women
who do not automatically presume that others are heterosexual.

I was kind of taken by surprise when talking to a colleague, who was
giving me the lowdown on a professor whom she suspects is homophobic
who said, "I don't know if you are LGBTQ identified but, this professor..."

I thought to myself, wow, that was cool and really progressive of her
to not only think but to say that.

I read all the time. In fact, had I not taken a train to see Birkhold
I never would have realized that I needed to (re)learn how to read
anywhere at anytime.

Last week, I had been telling myself, if I sit down to read, I need at least two
or three hours. FAGET THAT! Give me 1 hour and I am knocking out
at least one twenty page article with reading notes. ALL TIME IS VALUABLE.

Right now, I have estimated that I have 22 hours a week of reading.

Yup. 22. No joke, eh.

The school work isn't the hardest part of this. It's hard
but it's manageable. So long as you eat, sleep, don't party and
not have some tragic 'ish happen in an intimate relationship.

Oh, and a willingness to sit down and engage with the material. No
internet. No phone. No tv. Just you and the paper.

The most challenging part is engaging with humans, managing relationships,
keeping track of deadlines and simply just showing up on time.

Have you started school?

How is it going?

Any questions for me?

20 Questions Monday

1. What would have happened if, instead of resigning Van Jones
forced the White House to fire him?

2. Have you seen this 2009 Van Jones/Willie Hortonesque video
put out by Meg Whitmans opponent?

2. Will I be able to write a blog post in two weeks? Hopefully yes.

3. Why has my research interest shifted?

4. Did ya'll see the Law and Order marathon on last night, good clean fun?

5. Would you volunteer, 8 hours a months at a year around farmers market
in your neighborhood?

6. Would you like to read a little bit about the origins of Labor Day?

7. What were you doing this time last year?

8. Did you know that I have a special connection to the song, Here Comes
the Hammer?

9. Are you going to one of the Erykah Badu concerts?

10. Do you even care about "journalism" anymore?

11. Doesn't hurt when you go to another city/state and the groceries
are twenty to thirty percent cheaper?

12. Did you know that Black, Women's and Chicano studies exist on
college campuses because folks took over campuses, sometimes with guns,
and demanded to be included?

13. [Statement] I have come to the conclusion that everything that we
have as a benefit, has been fought for. Everything. And if we are to achieve
anything else. We will have to fight for that too.

14. What is the last movie you saw?

15. Why is it so hard to look at my part in disagreements, rather
then just tell other people they are wrong? [Lols]

16. Where is the album that will narrate my fall?

17. Would you be interested in helping me choose the blog posts that
I published in book form?

18. Cook anything good lately? [Send me a recipe and a photo and I will
put it on Brooklyn Magic].

19. Did you know that much of my work on gender is rooted in the desire
to make a better world for my sweet, sweet, nephew, Baby Chris?

20. Why people more interested in analyzing racial oppression than gender
oppression?

20 Questions Mercury in Retrograde Edition

1. Why don't we just run out of the grocery store with all of our
groceries instead of standing in those long assed lines, houngary?

2. What are you reading?

3. Do you have healthcare?

4. Why granola cost so much?

5. Will Jay Z still rap about selling crack when he is a 50 year
old hundred-millionaire?

6. Why is it so hard to admit that we have allowed the white
consumption of Black masculinity to define the terms of Black,
mainstream masculinity?

7. Why do I feel like I am morphing into a community organizer?

8. Why am I being forced, because of Saul Alinsky, to see that
no person, or non profit is all bad or all good?

9. Why I go to a Black wedding reception with Filthy, and was
reminded of how race is lived?

10. When will I have time to write blog essays again?

11. What are you procrastinating on doing right now?

12. What was the last sacrifice you made for someone you love?

13. When was the last time you forgave someone for hurting you?

14. How do you deal with friends you owe money to?

15. What do you think of how some of the Buddhist view pain?

16. How do you ease out of someone else's life?

17. How do you leave the door open for them to come back?

18. Why do I look at some of my old posts and totally disagree
with my previous statements?

19. Why is my lunch already made for tomorrow?

20. When am I going to learn to drink more water?

Twenty Question 's Monday

Via Post Secret

1. How you feel?

2. When was the last time you were caught reading something you
had no business?

3. Why am I just now watching the Chappelle show?

4. Why have I made headway with my anger by replacing vulnerability
with anger?

5. Why ya'll never told me spinach artichoke dip went so hard?

6. When is the new Jay Electronica coming out?

7. If Black men were lynched to deter us from voting, then doesn't
angry white folk showing up to town hall meetings with guns make
sense?

8. Why is South Central one of the realest shows I have ever seen?

9. Why do I get the sense that if folks read more, they would
speak and write less?

10. Why does waking up in your own apartment feel so good?

11. Will I grow some green onions this fall?

12. Why is D.C. a big,' small city?

13. How many Law and Order episodes can you watch in a row?

14. How long will the liberals boycott of Whole Foods last?

15. What impact would having indoor year around farmers markets
have on the 'hood?

16. What would happen if the Congressional proponents said that
THEY were signing up for the new healthcare plan they were advocating?

17. Why Black men look at me crazy, when I am walking on the street
with a white man, but they refuse to give the same look to dope dealers
on the block?

18. Why Saul Alinsky gave me the wiggles and forced me to rethink
waaaaay too much?

19. What are your three favorite blogs about news, art, books or music?

20. Cook anything good lately?

I have questions. You have answers.

Capitalism is for Suckas: or, How Constructive Capitalism is our Future

Note: This post grew out of two things. One is a post that I wrote
last week on how the Crack Epidemic was in its essence pure capitalism
and my personal transformation from a person who wanted to be an
investment banker to someone who aspires to be a scholar and community
organizer. The second thing was a kind of crowd sourcing that happened last
week. After I wrote the post Rafi and I went back and forth on Twitter about
constructive capitalism. I suggested that we have a conversation about it.
Two people, @professorf and @chartreuseb, suggested that we continue
the conversation publicly, which would provide a transcript and give Umair
(@umairh) a chance to respond. The blog seemed like a good space to
do this, so, here it is.

Renina Jarmon: How do you expect for constructive capitalism to survive
in a system where profits at all costs have been the mandate
since the late 70's when corporations mutated into multinationals?

Rafi Kam: First I should say that you really should do a thorough reading
of Umair's blogs because he lays these things down every
week, I'm just going to do my best to explain what I've taken
away from there.

I think your question has it backwards because if you look in the
news for the past few years it's the short term profits at all costs
approach that cannot be expected to survive. Destroying the world's
resources only works for so long, having interests in opposition to
your customers only works for so long. Companies that don't solve
problems or offer any real value to the world have now been paying
the price in the marketplace, and (bailouts aside!) that will continue.

Detroit failed because they ignored the fact that they needed to make
better cars and tried to make all their profits with creative financing
tricks. If they had spent the money and effort to make economical
cars to solve the world's problem that everybody knew about decades
ago, they'd be fine right now. Instead they tried to make their business
be about financing. Ok, so good riddance Detroit! May the next
generation of American car makers hopefully learn from your mistakes.

The mortgage crisis grew out of banks screwing people. The lesson
people are beginning to learn is that this is never truly sustainable. If
your business is based on fucking over your customer you are ultimately
screwing yourself too. I mean this was particularly true with mortgages
where the stakes were so high. I expect sustainability to be the focus
for companies instead of short term profits because that is the landscape
we are looking at today. So you see a new lending model in a company
like Kiva, which is creating this healthy system of trade and tackling the
problem of global poverty. The company enables participation and
benefits on all sides instead of being there to just suck value from the
world.

And these changes in theory will come about mostly because
they are the best means to compete, as Umair says "there is nothing
more asymmetrical than an ideal" meaning having an ideal to base
your company on is actually this insanely huge business advantage.
I believe in that very strongly and we have all witnessed it in action. It
trounces our traditional notions of positioning or economic advantages.

We've seen in our lifetime the disruption of so many things, just in the
past ten years. So too this notion of old school capitalism. It will
change because it needs to and the shift has already started.

Renina Jarmon: I have taken the time to re-read some of Umairs posts,
The Generation M Manifesto, The Case for Constructive Capitalism,
(one of my all time fav's) Michael Jackson and the Zombie Economy,
What Would a Fair Labor Ipod Cost and The Niche Paper Manifesto.

The central premise of capitalism is the endless accumulation of
capital, at all costs. It appears that what Umair is describing isn't
capitalism at all.

For example, in the Generation M Manifesto, Umair says, "You wanted
to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, and McFood. We want
to humanize life."

Humanizing life is antithetical to capitalism.

Capitalism turns on the expendability of workers and treating people
like property.

If he has to call it Constructive Capitalism to sell it, than I can see the
benefits of that, as I am more concerned with building local sustainable
communities than I am with arguing over the semantics of a naming of
our new economy.

I am excited that Umair is talking about a change in what institutions
value. In the the essay, "A Time to Break Silence", Martin Luther
Kind jr. talked about the need for a radical revolution of values in
our society. Perhaps the changes he is arguing for in our institutions
will also be mirrored in us individually. The possibility for this happening
is why I write, work, and in the near future, will teach.

As a Black woman and a feminist who is interested in sustainable
economies my general contention is that the crisis that our
American institutions are facing around labor and our economy
is rooted in the United State's primary contradiction, which is the
forced free labor of millions of enslaved Africans.

U.S. Capitalism is rooted in U.S. slavery.

It is brutal, bloody and treats workers like they are expendable,
when the workers are the ones creating value. The notion of the
founding fathers and the planter class taking what it needed, in this
case, the forced free labor of enslaved Africans, for the purpose of
sustaining a new nation, while simultaneously declaring its freedom
from Britain has never been both acknowledged and dealt with.

Perhaps the sustainable, local economies of the future can be an
opportunity to address this primary contradiction.

Renina Jarmon: What are some examples of business that employ
constructive capitalism?

Rafi Kam: As I said on Twitter, the most disruptive example is Google.
It was created to solve a pressing problem "organize the world's information",
it became a powerhouse of wealth because it solved another huge problem
to make advertising more relevant and accountable. This offered a solution to

a real problem for advertisers and web publishers. It stated a list of core
values about itself and how it thinks the web should work most famously
"Don't Be Evil".

That isn't to say I'm comfortable with the amount of power Google has but
by stating that as their constitutional value they themselves created that
dialog/standard and asked to be judged accordingly. They've
stressed innovation and open-ness. Employees are required to spend
a big chunk of time creating their own projects. Google's free APIs and
free apps have changed the game, provided a foundation for developers
and forced competitors to change their models. And referencing your
first question, quite clearly, they don't act according to a profits at all
cost approach.

Some Umair favorites: Kiva, Etsy, Threadless, Flickr, Twitter, Netflix, Zipcar

I think there's a connection here between Umair's ideas on Constructive
Capitalism or Capitalism 2.0 and so many things that are currently part
of the Zeitgeist: web 2.0, open source, local farming, local economies,
purpose-driven marketing, collaboration over competition, empowering
people, small is the new big and so on. People seem more aware than
ever of how destructive business as usual is, so I think these trends
and ideas rise in response to that.

Renina Jarmon: I agree, with regard to the new companies that have come
along with a different model that acknowledges the community and
human dimension of business. I am all for artisanal, robust, sustainable,
small, if you will, slow communities.

However, if this crisis has taught us anything, it the importance of
considering the global implications of our actions.

Capital is incredibly flexible. I see that it is quite possible for our U.S.
economy to become more green, local and sustainable while the
economy of the Gobal South is turned into one populated by a
"permanent untouchables" class.

The way of life of folks in the Global North is subsidized by folks in
the Global South. While I know that you hated the video that I
sent you last April, The Story of Stuff about consumption, I found
it to be useful in demonstrating the ways in which the products
that we consume start someone where, and end up somewhere else.

What I am getting it is that it is quit possible for Capitalism 1.0 to
absorb our sustainable "Green Economy" by making it profitable
at the expense of the "Third" World.

The first example that comes to mind is the Tabacoo industry. Big
Tobacco was sued in the 80's over whether they lied about knowing
that cigarettes was inherently addictive. In the 90's teen anti smoking
advocates pushed for and Big Tobacco supported underwriting,
anti-teen smoking campaigns. Teen smoking went down in the US,
but it went up in Vietnam, China and arguably other places as well.

I ask you, what is to stop this from happening?
Wouldn't businesses have to be willing to operate from a minimal
to zero profits perspective in order for this to avoid this happening?

Renina Jarmon: If as you say, we are in the beginings of a new era,
how does your notion of constructive capitalism take the fact that we
are moving towards an automated jobless society into consideration?

Rafi Kam: That's a loaded question! I don't know that we're moving towards
an automated jobless society and don't even really understand what that
means. Industries rise and fall, and automation and outsourcing have
replaced many jobs but I don't see how we are moving to a jobless society.
It's not cost-effective to replace every job with automation and it's downright
impossible for some. But speaking to low-skill manufacturing or service jobs
that may have been replaced by automation, there's different possible
answers I suppose. You have initiatives like the one Obama campaigned
on to create "green" manufacturing jobs. Ideally you'd want to see a world
where we're creating better jobs and preparing more people for them.

But it's sort of this two-sided thing where having a whole bunch of people
in need of jobs is a problem for society to solve and also a potential
resource for people with capital. In a perfect world you would have
someone looking at the labor pool both those ways at the same time.
Maybe that's too optimistic. How's that for a perfect closing line to this Q&A.

Renina Jarmon: We are in fact moving towards an automated society.
My thinking about this comes out of a reading of James Bogg's The
American Revolution, pages from a Negro Workers Notebook. The
book, was written in 1963. His general contention is that based on
advances in technology, our society will become one in which automation
will force us to think about how to organize society based on our needs
instead of our wants. I wrote about his book in a blog post last month
titled, The Coming Jobless Society.

The notion of an automated society is a hard one to swallow, however
it is coming. For every place that you see a machine replacing a
human a job has been eliminated. The further technology advances,
the more automated our society will become, the fewer jobs will be
available. Every time you use a computer, instead of working with a human,
a process has been automated and job has been lost. For instance,
in Detroit, the assembly line was automated in the '50's. Our current wars are
becoming automated via unmanned land and aerial vehicles.

For the most part email has eliminated both the need for receptionists
and the USPS. Garbage trucks are automated. Pay kiosks at
businesses, such as AT&T, the grocery store, the airport and Target,
have eliminated the need for customer service agents. Where there
was once 4 human employees you only need 2, or 1.

Taking all this into consideration, I come away from this Q & A with,
in many ways trying to reconcile the world that Boggs is talking about
with the world that Umair is advocating for.

The Term, Woman of Color: Race is Hard

via Zinc Plate Press

Last week, I was watching a sex scene involving
three nude men in the film Short Bus and said to my friend,
who is white, "Wow, white folks have called us colored but they have a
variety of skin tones as well."

He nodded, and said "Yes, you do have a point" and we continued
to watch the film. Of course there are different skin hues and tones
amongst white folks, but it is the kind of the thing that is really
apparent when watching folks, nude, on a screen.

I struggle with the notion of being inclusive. As you may have noticed, I don't
use the term woman of color on my blog, at least not on a regular
basis. I usually write Black, Latina and Asian.

Back in January, Latoya put me on to a thread on My Ecdysis
about women of color and radical women of color on the internet.

So, today, I was on on The My Ecdysis blog, as I am starting a site
about Black feminism, so I was looking for the names of folks who
may be interested in contributing. I noticed that Nadia responded
to a comment that I wrote, (where I mentioned the phrase, Black
Asian and Latina women). Her comment, in part, was that using
Black, Asian and Latina, erases Arab and Native Women.

She is right.

But I was also like, this is getting to be a little much. Then I was like, damn,
I might have to use women of color, or perhaps even non-white
women, in order to talk about Black, Asian, Latina, Native and Arab
women.

It was then that I saw the usefulness of the term Woman of Color.

The jury is out.

I am thinking about what it means to be inclusive.

I am thinking about the ways in which our language not only reflects but
also shapes our reality and the futures that we envision.

Twenty Questions Saturdays 8.15.09

1. Why they make the Asian dude in The Hangover act like
a stereotypical, loud, Black, drag queen?

2. What would Black bloggers write about if there was no
more (institutional) white racism?

3. Why do I find myself nodding in agreement, laughing and
thinking about blog post ideas every time I read Michelle Wallace's blog?

4. Did you see the article about the nearly 8 thousand people who
lined up for free health care last week in Inglewood, CA?

5. Why did I send out my babies v. dreams questions and Moya
quickly let me know that the issue isn't parenting or policy
but thinking within the nuclear and not an extended family framework?

6. Often times, when I hear people complain about the government,
I simply think or respond, what are you going to do about it?

7. Why he bring me a pound of Peerless coffee back from Cali and
I became a little less angry?

8. Why salmon teriyaki and black beans w/ salsa taste so good together?

9. When is Wordpress going to be customizable like Blogger?

10. Is the fact that the white folks are boycotting Whole Foods an
indication of the contradiction sharpening?

11. What are you currently reading?

12. How different would our would be if we looked at people as
humans first, then racial/gendered beings second?

13. Did you see the last episode of Roseanne?

14. Why am I excited about visiting the largest Buffalo Exchange
in the country in Las Vegas (so I have heard)?

15. The year is almost over, has it been a good one?

16. When am I going to have the courage to press publish on
my critique of the Black blogosphere?

17. Why am I just not rediscovering that I have been trying to
impress Adrienne Rich all along?

18. Why am I really excited about this Q & A with Rafi about
the sustainable of "constructive capitalism"?

19. What would republicans complain about if they made Gay
marriage and abortion permanently illegal?

20. Why are there so many similarities in how both
The Black Power Movement and Hip Hop treats women?

Me. Questions. You Answers.

Wanted: Your Short Essays

I am currently reading Adrienne Rich's essay "Teaching
Open Language in Admissions" and I have decided
to run a series of short essays or posts on my educational
experience.

I have come to the conclusion that I have had a very unique one,
and I would like to use this space to share our experiences.

For instance, as a first year student at Mills, I tried to test
out of English 1. Not only did I not test out, but I was recommended
to take the grad student led reading/writing workshop along
with first year English. I was not amused.

I still remember the topic of my final essay for that class,
which was about how Adrienne Rich and Ntozake Shange were
creating a new language, in order to say new things that never
had been said.

I remember the professor telling the rest of the class that I had submitted
one of the best final papers. I was proud of myself.

The irony that I could NOT test out of English, was placed in the "support
workshop" but wrote one of the best essays, was never lost on me.

If you have similar experiences, please send them to me at
m.dotwrites()gmail.

Musing on War Money and Art Money In the University

via Ican

Have public and private universities decided to trade arts education
for nuclear weapons?

While writing about the white and Black consumption of Black death
in hip hop last May, I came across Chomsky's argument, that the
U.S. is moving towards a "Third" world model.

Meaning that, we are evolving to have two classes of folks in this country,
the elite and the people who serve them. This is clearly taking root in
California and New York City. Meanwhile in the heartlands, the economies in
the factory and mining towns have been gutted, and been replaced
with the Walmart, prison and meth economies. Neither of these are sustainable,
just or democratic.

A fundamental thread of the American experience has been that the next
generation will have a better life then the current generation. Given the economies,
listed above, this simply isn't feasible.

Which brings me to the arts education article that I came across in the
New York Times today. Patricia Cohen writes,

If you are looking for a sign of how strapped the University of California, Los Angeles, is for cash, consider that its arts and architecture school may resort to holding a bake sale to raise money. California’s severe financial crisis has left its higher-education system — which serves nearly a fifth of the nation’s college students — in particularly bad straits. But tens of thousands of students at public and private colleges and universities around the country will find arts programs, courses and teachers missing — victims of piercing budget cuts — when they descend on campuses this month and next.

The comments on the article were interesting because
of both what they said, and what they didn't say. One commenter
focused on liberal arts and moms. She writes,

Cathy

ME

August 10th, 2009

10:23 am

Is this about jobs? Do these administrators think, like so many ignorant Americans, that college degrees in the arts or liberal arts don't lead to jobs? College is not vocational training, let me make that clear. But I also can't help but notice that almost every single mother I know with a degree in art is a stay-at-home mother who is also self-employed. Whether they be painters or art gallery owners, private art teachers or web-page designers, commercial artists or wedding photographers, as I enter my middle thirties I'm surprised by how many women I know who have used their art degrees to spend most of their days with their children and make money at the same time. Facebook has made this even more apparent to me as I reconnect with women I haven't seen in 15 or 20 years.

Make cuts in these programs, and you further reduce mothers' (and probably fathers') options for employment. You will also create more latch-key kids at the same time that you usher babies and toddlers into daycare centers as their parents wish it could be otherwise.

Another focused on how the arts are important to trained artists and engineers
on campus. A commenter writes,

10.

Dave

SC

August 10th, 2009

10:58 am

I work in engineering and science but regard reduced emphasis on the arts as short-sighted. Scientists and engineers are more creative and productive when they also have education and experiences in the arts. Life-long learning and an appreciation for abstract thought-and tolerance-are also positive outcomes. Arts programs add much to campus life. Spending cuts may be necessary but should be done equitably to all programs so that educational balance is maintained.

In his new book, the Empire of Illusion, Chris Hedges discusses the
relationship between the war economy and the American University.

His general thesis is that the university has used both private money from
corporations and public tax dollars from the Pentagon and the Department
of Defense to build weapons to supply, advance and sustain our permanent
war economy.

For the record, historically, when I have encountered anti war activists, I
typically, glazed over with a blank stare. It didn't seem like what they were
talking about was relevant to me, what I was passionate about, or what I
was interested in. But, given the expense of war and the expense of
higher education, the relationship of critical thinkers to a sustaining a
Democracy it is an important issue to consider as we move forward.

In reading bell hooks, Chris Hedges and Chomsky recently, it has become
clear that there is a connection between the arts and the ability to make
sense of ones life. Be it reading a novel, seeing a play, watching a movie
or a tv show, attending a concert or writing a blog.

There is something to be said for a culture that derives its meaning from
art rather than war.

I am also seeing that there is a connection between a war economy
and our boys being raised to think that being destructive, rageful
and violent is the only and most appropraite way of being. Bob Herbert
wrote recently about how the murders of the women at The LA Fitness
in Pennsylvania last week the was an act of hate against women. A
commenter wrote back saying,

To the Editor:

While I greatly appreciate Bob Herbert’s focus on violence toward women, as a psychologist looking for possible causes and solutions, I see a bigger problem. Boys and young men in most of the world are brought up to admire violence through fantasy, media and sports and in preparation for the army and war. They are taught that being a successful man requires physical power, weapons and often violence.

This has to be addressed in our child rearing and in our culture and values, beginning with childhood games and culminating in our emphasis on physical force to solve global problems and sustain our “world supremacy.”

Vivien D. Wolsk
New York, Aug. 8, 2009

Given the connection between how boys are socialized and war, and the
connection between our two wars, our schools and the dismantling of liberal arts,
I have a few questions.

What happens when a country treats it higher education like vocational/
trade schools?

When are we going to have a conversation about the fact that universities
are a billion dollar business and, given the fact that we are moving
towards an automated jobless society, what will we do with our young people
once they have graduated, if they make it that far?

If the arts programs have to sale cookies in order to survive,
do the engineering and physics departments have to as well?
If not, then why not?

Will the only jobs left be service jobs (waitresses, janitors, nurses)
or servicing the elite/corporations (finance, advertising) or joining the armed
forces?

If private corporations provide some funds to science and engineering
departments, (in return for the right of any novel discoveries) the schools
receive research grants/our tax dollars from the department of defense,
what do the students receive?

How are the interest's of both the students and the public served by this?

Lets Discuss.

Sponsorship and Biases: Musing on The Crack Game and Investment Banking

The crack game, in it's essence, is pure capitalism.

Profit, over people, at all costs.
Eliminate enemies at all costs.
Take out the dominant political regime or competition at all costs.
Endless accumulation of property and capital, at all costs.
Domination through coercion, violence and if necessary legal
means at all costs.

People, human beings, babies, addicts and quite simply,
the human toll, are all irrelevant.

This evening I was reading a piece on the Newsweek site
titled, The Fatal Flaw of Obamacare. By the bottom of the first
page, I decided to Google the author because the derisiveness of
his tone suggested that he was getting conservative think tank money.
I found out he that he was a writer, and in fact conservative cat, who
is down with the National Review.

I was half right. It also became clear that his money is tied up with his
agenda. To be fair, there are left think tanks and "liberal" writers at Newsweek
who are pushing their own agendas.

My issue is with the lack of disclosure. The asymmetry of information
pisses me off, and when I sniff it out, I stay on it until my point is made.

The asymmetry tends to work in favor of he person who has more info.
Which brings me to Twitter. A few weeks ago, I learned that Oprah,
Puffy, Shaq and arguably others receive Twitter stock shares, in
exchange for tweeting.

That's cool, but there was something that struck me about the fact that
this simply was never mentioned, in all of the articles in the mainstream press
about the popularity of the site. It became clear to me that everything is
for sale. (I know. Naive bear. Hang in there with me for 90 seconds. I will
explain.)

I hadn't really thought about the notion of everything being for sale
as a strict truth since 1986, which is the year that the pure capitalism
of the crack game seeped into the streets corners and blocks of
East Oakland.

With the notion of everything being for sale, this afternoon I tweeted
that when you seperate your money from your art you are free.

This is material because I was once neutral regarding corporations.

There was a time when I thought that if I learned how corporations worked,
I could work for one, make my money, get in and get out. Never being one
short on ambition, I wanted to work at Merrill or Goldman Sachs. I
began to leverage my relationships, to the extent that I could try and
obtain such a position. I reached out to the men that I knew who worked
in the field and asked them to help me.

With this experience in the back of my mind, I read Matt Taibbi's piece on
Goldman Sachs. In many ways it represents the convergence of art,
sponsorship and the essence of the crack game as pure capitalism.

Taibbi writes like he is independent. The piece reminded me of
Gary Webb.

Moreover, he has done, what very few people have done, which
is criticize politicians, investment banking and implicitly,
capitalism in the mainstream press which in this case is Rolling Stone
Magazine. What is material is that the story was NOT buried on arrival.

In the article, The Great American Bubble Machine, Taibbi writes,

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.

By now, most of us know the major players. As George Bush's last Treasury secretary, former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson was the architect of the bailout, a suspiciously self-serving plan to funnel trillions of Your Dollars to a handful of his old friends on Wall Street. Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton's former Treasury secretary, spent 26 years at Goldman before becoming chairman of Citigroup — which in turn got a $300 billion taxpayer bailout from Paulson. There's John Thain, the asshole chief of Merrill Lynch who bought an $87,000 area rug for his office as his company was imploding; a former Goldman banker, Thain enjoyed a multibilliondollar handout from Paulson, who used billions in taxpayer funds to help Bank of America rescue Thain's sorry company.

What is interesting about the piece is both his passion, nerve and
the fact that he isn't a finance reporter, per se.

Furthermore, the article, gives me hope for the day in which
Black writers will themselves to write with similar fierceness,
criticism and vision.

On Alternet, Dean Starkman talks about the ways in which Taibbi's
piece works, doesn't work, and its merits as an article as a whole.
For the most part the mainstream press has dismissed it, yet and
still folks are talking about the company, Wall Street and whether
his assertions in the article are in fact true. They can't rebut his arguement,
they are just opting to not take it seriously because he called Goldman a
"great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly
jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." Say word?

Ezra Klein offers a great sum up, of Starkman's piece when he writes,

writing that "the weakness of the piece is where others might find strength, its polemical nature and its hyperbole." In particular, he says that "when you call Goldman a 'great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money,' you’re in a sense offering a big fat disclaimer—this piece is not to be taken literally and perhaps not even seriously."

I am thinking about Goldman, I am thinking about Democracy
and I am thinking about the Crack game.

To create another future, one of the contradictions that many of us
who came up in the 80's will have to face, is the conflict that arises when
we are faced with choosing money over people.

Take the d-boy for instance. I am mindful of our willingness to love or
respecting a dope dealer who sends children in the hood to college.
Yes, the d-boy sent the children to school, but the d-boy still sold crack,
that has to recognized and accounted for as well. Let me be clear.
I understand that cats in the hood didn't fly cocaine, Tech-9's nor AK's
into the hood. I get that. And that isn't the issue at hand. I am
more interested in who and what we respect and why.

I once thought that I could work at an investment bank, stack a little
cheese, pay off some school debt and move on.

I now realize that this is like saying, I will just sell crack for a few years,
make my money, and get out. It doesn't work. I have known since I was
ten that how an adult makes their money influences what they say and
how you say it.

When I saw, one, two and then three women be murdered
because they were either addicted to drugs or were dating drug dealers
and subsequently murdered in double homicides, it became clear to
me then that the notion of who I hung around with and or how I got money
DID and WOULD have an impact on my life.

As an artist, today, I realize as a person who operates in that murky
space of not being a journalist, of writing and soon to be, as a
lecturer and teacher, deciding to not marry my art to my income is a
scary, loaded and freeing act.

As a Black woman, I am particularly attuned to, and have a criticism
for human beings and corporations who make their mortgages
trafficking in the disparity of Black women, Black men and Black
children.

We see what Black people, who have been given a little bit money,
some job titles, but no real power have done. They have pursued their
individual gain at the expense of pursuing our collective advancement.

My preference is for the children to learn from these Black folks and
to do something different. What that something is, I am not sure.

Throwing folks under a bus for investment banking money or crack
money isn't sustainable, just, nor Democratic.

I believe, today, that to be effective, our new pursuit must be along the lines for
pursuing the collective good over the individual gain. Perhaps we
can discover what that looks like together.

Lets Discuss.

Health Care's Perfect Storm Brewing

See Cartoons by Cartoon by R.J. Matson - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

Frank Rich wrote about President Obama, and the battle
over health care here.

The most insightful comments that I saw was this one:

20.

Diana

New York

August 9th, 2009

8:50 am

There’s a perfect storm brewing: a government that (but for a few ethical souls) only advances the interests of the monied class; a monied class that owns the media; and a media that exploits and advances the fears of millions--millions who are angry and growing desperate over an economy that is short on jobs and big on rewarding the monied class.

Where’s the way out? I've always taken pride in being a conscientious, informed citizen, but the last few months have forced me to finally face the fact that our government is beyond repair, beyond redemption. If I had money and a job to go to, I would leave.

This commenter was interesting, in that it became clear to
me how some of us are beginning to analyze what was promised
and what has occurred.

The surefire way to ensure that you have learned
something, is to try and teach it to someone.

Where is the website showing, in a ten point plan, what the
healthcare plan is and is not?

We can not list or teach, what we do not know.

The following comment resonated with me because of
the honesty but also the willingness to still expect politicians
to solve our problems, when it has been made clear that
there is no apparent incentive to do so.

Anya

NC

August 9th, 2009

8:50 am

Until there is universal health care, everyone is set up for failure. If you get sick or even just become one of the millions of people in a car accident, you can lose your finances. Assuming you have good insurance, they can decide to ditch you after they say they won't pay for an illness.

Say your neighbor has melanoma. Well this neighbor's insurance will only cover $10k of the cost of treatment, but that treatment can be five to ten times the maximum the insurance company will pay. The hospital wants their money, so you are on the hook for it. What are you going to do? Refuse treatment? But the doctors want to save your life! The insurance company wants to destroy it.

No matter what Suzie Orman says, you can't prepare yourself for $100,000 in medical bills. The median income for a family of four is around $40000 per year! We expect people to have three years gross salary saved in case they get sick?

That also assumes that once you get so sick, you'll be able to continue working. Now if you're on chemo, it's a lot harder to sit at a desk and answer the phone. It's even harder if you have a job in a service sector where it is vital that employees stay whole and healthy. You can't get hours if you're too sick to stand for eight hours a day. If you can't get hours, then you'll have no income. If you have no income, how are you supposed to pay for medical care in addition to the expenses we all have like rent/mortgage, car payment, utilities for the home, and food?

We, the members of the middle class (or what's left of it), have all been set up. I wish there were a politician out there who would admit it and fix it. However, he or she would face such opposition from much mightier forces than voters that they'd probably never make it to an office of any consequence. It's why change is easy to promise: we all want a change. It's probably going to be impossible to deliver a true change. I voted for Obama because I didn't want to see someone like John McCain who put women's health in air quotation marks running the country and making decisions that would affect my life.

I'm in my 20s and I don't have health insurance. I may get some when I go to grad school in a few weeks. I may even be able to get my teeth cleaned after two years of not seeing a dentist. Why have we been abandoned in the last 40 years by our government, and why did people buy Reagan's nonsense that the government was the problem? My generation is going to be paying for all of it. We're going to have to work longer, harder, and for less. What we've sacrificed is our standard of living to lobbyists.

It's enough to make me want to move to another country, and I'm lucky enough to speak Spanish. I have my pick of about 25 places to go! I could probably get my teeth cleaned in Cuba for free!

I wish there were a politician out there who would admit it and fix it.
I wish there were a politician out there who would admit it and fix it.
I wish there were a politician out there who would admit it and fix it.

Our coming new way of life will demand that we understand
that it will be our responsibility to solve our own problems.

Thoughts?