One more take on the Sargeant, the Professore and the President. Stanley Crouch is honet, smart, and blunt.
Nothing brings out more American madness than race and nothing is more available for exaggeration than the “plight” of black people, especially black men, most especially those now behind bars. They are the most authentic because real black men always run afoul of the law or are forced by poverty to murder, rape, and brutalize other black people when not selling them drugs. Authentic black men are not academic milquetoasts. They wake up angry, they go to bed angry, and they sleep in anger.
But if one listens to conservative race-baiters like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh — professionals who are loons on demand and for pay — one notices that they also live inside of shared toxic exaggerations. Or at least spout them. As they speak of Barack Obama’s supposed hatred of white people, the red seems to grow from their necks and rise under the skin on the backs of their heads until continuing to their faces which then take on the kind of purple white people call “wine stain.” I doubt a brew will calm them down. Nor will a pain killer.
This is a weird moment.
All three beer drinkers have Irish blood in their ancestry.
This moment of ethnic trivia made molten by our media but also unavoidably high profile by Obama’s choosing to answer an inappropriate question about the arrest at the end of a press conference on health care! His choice showed the President to be far more vulnerable to lack of discipline than at nearly any moment during his long, long march to election.
The public confessions of “me and my gal on the side” made by Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. John Ensign have pulled us closer to a formerly secret Washington, D.C., prayer group on C Street. The Christian group is called, like Charles Manson’s followers, The Family. It has an ominous philosophy that transcends morality with a small first letter in favor of a heavenly Morality out of which God chooses men for the execution of power rather than to act by the standards used to assess men with lesser positions of authority. According to Malcolm X in his Autobiography, this was the explanation Elijah Muhammad gave him to explain having impregnated a few of his young secretaries. As it was once said in the streets, “Either it is what it is, or it ain’t what it ain’t.”
Sgt. Crowley will have been happy every second that he was there. Arresting a Negro doesn’t always get you to the White House.
Both Sanford and Ensign pray—or some would say prey—with those men who gather on C Street. They have been counseled by the group in matters of the spirit and the booty—I mean the body.
Ishmael Reed’s extended diatribe in Counter Punch lays out all of the black complaints most often made about Gates behind his back. Like most academics, the black ones are distinguished more by their cowardice than any dedication to intellectual rigor. Gates has long been under attack for being trendish, for selling out to feminists, to homosexual liberation, and to whatever point of view comes up if aligning himself with it will guarantee his further success. A disreputable brother, mostly because he makes so much goddamn money and is on television more than his mediocre colleagues.
Where Reed’s logic veers into ethnic solidarity rather than substantial ideas or opinions is very obvious, but his charges are much more common than those reading about the Gates arrest would assume because he is so often referred to as “America’s top black intellectual.” Reed correctly asks just who might be the most prominent white intellectual. Hmm. No answer. Silent night.
Now, there we go, a very good point. Who is the smartest white guy? George Will? By Yahweh, no!
Showing posts with label African Americans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label African Americans. Show all posts
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Colin Powell on Gates-gate
This one is not going away soon. Good to get different perspectives.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday that he has been the victim of racial profiling but believes Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. could have been more patient with the police officer who arrested him.
At the same time, Powell also faulted the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Police Department for escalating the situation beyond a reasonable level.
"I think Skip [Gates], perhaps in this instance, might have waited a while, come outside, talked to the officer and that might have been the end of it," Powell said in an interview with CNN's Larry King.
"I think he should have reflected on whether or not this was the time to make that big a deal.
"I think in this case the situation was made much more difficult on the part of the Cambridge Police Department," Powell said. "Once they felt they had to bring Dr. Gates out of the house and to handcuff him, I would've thought at that point, some adult supervision would have stepped in and said 'OK look, it is his house. Let's not take this any further, take the handcuffs off, good night Dr. Gates.' "
Right on both counts.
The former secretary of state said he has been racially profiled "many times," including an incident that took place while he was the national security adviser to President Reagan.
"Nobody thought I could possibly be the national security adviser to the president. I was just a black guy at Reagan National Airport," Powell said. "And it was only when I went to the counter and said, 'Is my guest here waiting for me?' that someone said, 'Oh, you're Gen. Powell.' It was inconceivable to him that a black guy could be the national security adviser."
Interesting interview.
Watch what Powell would advise Gates »
Watch Powell talk about Limbaugh and the GOP »
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday that he has been the victim of racial profiling but believes Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. could have been more patient with the police officer who arrested him.
At the same time, Powell also faulted the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Police Department for escalating the situation beyond a reasonable level.
"I think Skip [Gates], perhaps in this instance, might have waited a while, come outside, talked to the officer and that might have been the end of it," Powell said in an interview with CNN's Larry King.
"I think he should have reflected on whether or not this was the time to make that big a deal.
"I think in this case the situation was made much more difficult on the part of the Cambridge Police Department," Powell said. "Once they felt they had to bring Dr. Gates out of the house and to handcuff him, I would've thought at that point, some adult supervision would have stepped in and said 'OK look, it is his house. Let's not take this any further, take the handcuffs off, good night Dr. Gates.' "
Right on both counts.
The former secretary of state said he has been racially profiled "many times," including an incident that took place while he was the national security adviser to President Reagan.
"Nobody thought I could possibly be the national security adviser to the president. I was just a black guy at Reagan National Airport," Powell said. "And it was only when I went to the counter and said, 'Is my guest here waiting for me?' that someone said, 'Oh, you're Gen. Powell.' It was inconceivable to him that a black guy could be the national security adviser."
Interesting interview.
Watch what Powell would advise Gates » Watch Powell talk about Limbaugh and the GOP »Saturday, July 25, 2009
Welcome to the "Club"
He spoke yesterday with Chris Matthews on Hardball, and I found him impressive. BTW, Matthews seems a changed man: he is allowing others to talk at length without interruptions.
A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last July asked: “Have you ever felt you were stopped by the police just because of your race or ethnic background?” Sixty-six percent of black men said yes. Only 9 percent of white men said the same.
These views are not without merit. A series of racial-profiling studies across the country have found that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be stopped and searched than whites.
In fact, last year the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York law firm specializing in human rights, released a damning study of the racial-profiling practices of the New York Police Department. It found that more than 80 percent of those stopped and frisked were black or Hispanic. The report also said that when stopped, 45 percent of blacks and Hispanics were frisked, compared with 29 percent of whites, even though white suspects were 70 percent more likely than black suspects to have a weapon.
It’s such a sensitive issue for black men that even the Black Man in Chief dove into the fray on Wednesday, reiterating that the issue of racial profiling “still haunts us.” So passionate was his empathy that it caused him to err. His comment that the police behaved “stupidly” was not very smart. On Friday, he acknowledged as much.
He describes his own racial profiling incident, when he was in college.
I committed myself to breaking this cycle when I had my own kids. That became impossible the day after Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. A white police officer stopped me when I was in the car with my children. He said that I was using my cellphone while driving. In fact, I had answered a call at a stoplight. When the light turned green, I put the phone away. I thought this was a case that could be debated, so I debated it. That didn’t sit well with the officer. He went back to his car to write up a ticket. When he returned, he had two tickets. The second one, he told me, was for not wearing a seat belt, that he believed I had only put it on as I was being pulled over. That was not true. My kids were flabbergasted. They knew the officer was wrong, so they began to protest. I quieted them. When the officer drove off, I had a frank talk with them.
I told them that although most officers are brave and honorable men and women doing their best to protect and serve, there were, unfortunately, some bad seeds. Although I could not be sure that race had had any bearing on what the officer had done, I felt the need to tell my boys that as black men, we may sometimes take more of the brunt of those bad officers’ actions. As I spoke, my heart sank. Despite my best efforts to prevent it, the cycle of suspicion and mutual mistrust was tumbling forward into yet another generation. My children were one step closer to joining the “club.”
I invite you to visit my blog, By the Numbers. Please also join me on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter, or e-mail me at chblow@nytimes.com.
A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last July asked: “Have you ever felt you were stopped by the police just because of your race or ethnic background?” Sixty-six percent of black men said yes. Only 9 percent of white men said the same.
These views are not without merit. A series of racial-profiling studies across the country have found that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be stopped and searched than whites.
In fact, last year the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York law firm specializing in human rights, released a damning study of the racial-profiling practices of the New York Police Department. It found that more than 80 percent of those stopped and frisked were black or Hispanic. The report also said that when stopped, 45 percent of blacks and Hispanics were frisked, compared with 29 percent of whites, even though white suspects were 70 percent more likely than black suspects to have a weapon.
It’s such a sensitive issue for black men that even the Black Man in Chief dove into the fray on Wednesday, reiterating that the issue of racial profiling “still haunts us.” So passionate was his empathy that it caused him to err. His comment that the police behaved “stupidly” was not very smart. On Friday, he acknowledged as much.
He describes his own racial profiling incident, when he was in college.
I committed myself to breaking this cycle when I had my own kids. That became impossible the day after Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. A white police officer stopped me when I was in the car with my children. He said that I was using my cellphone while driving. In fact, I had answered a call at a stoplight. When the light turned green, I put the phone away. I thought this was a case that could be debated, so I debated it. That didn’t sit well with the officer. He went back to his car to write up a ticket. When he returned, he had two tickets. The second one, he told me, was for not wearing a seat belt, that he believed I had only put it on as I was being pulled over. That was not true. My kids were flabbergasted. They knew the officer was wrong, so they began to protest. I quieted them. When the officer drove off, I had a frank talk with them.
I told them that although most officers are brave and honorable men and women doing their best to protect and serve, there were, unfortunately, some bad seeds. Although I could not be sure that race had had any bearing on what the officer had done, I felt the need to tell my boys that as black men, we may sometimes take more of the brunt of those bad officers’ actions. As I spoke, my heart sank. Despite my best efforts to prevent it, the cycle of suspicion and mutual mistrust was tumbling forward into yet another generation. My children were one step closer to joining the “club.”
I invite you to visit my blog, By the Numbers. Please also join me on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter, or e-mail me at chblow@nytimes.com.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Obama regrets remarks in racially charged case
President Barack Obama backed down on Friday from a statement that police had "acted stupidly" in arresting a black scholar in a racially charged case that was rapidly becoming a distraction for Obama.
This is proof of the savvy and political smarts of the Obama team. He should not have characterized any aspect of the incident, and he knew it: in his press conference he stated that he did "not know all the facts." Yet he went on to characterize the behavior of Cambridge police as "stupid." Aside from giving fodder to the right-wing nuts, and those people bray all the time, the incident was getting legs. So he defused it.
The president made a surprise appearance in the White House press briefing room shortly after he spoke by phone to Cambridge, Massachusetts, police Sgt. James Crowley, who had arrested Henry Louis Gates, a prominent scholar of African-American studies at Harvard, last week.
"Because this has been ratcheting up and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up, I wanted to make clear in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically," Obama said. "And I could have calibrated those words differently."
Just as the wise Latina, Judge Sotomayor, recalibrated her own words.
Crowley suggested Obama invite him and Gates, to the White House for a peace-making beer, and a plan was in the works to do so, Obama said.
For Obama, who took office as the first U.S. black president in January. the incident was a distraction when his signature legislative priority, a healthcare overhaul, was stalling in the U.S. Congress. Obama said he hoped the event would end up being a "teachable moment, where all of us instead of pumping up the volume spend a little more time listening to each other" and improve race relations "instead of flinging accusations."
Indeed.
"Lord knows we need it right now -- because over the last two days as we've discussed this issue, I don't know if you've noticed, but nobody has been paying much attention to health care," he said.
They noticed at the White House, too. This defuses the incident, makes the President look good, and refocuses the discussion,
This is proof of the savvy and political smarts of the Obama team. He should not have characterized any aspect of the incident, and he knew it: in his press conference he stated that he did "not know all the facts." Yet he went on to characterize the behavior of Cambridge police as "stupid." Aside from giving fodder to the right-wing nuts, and those people bray all the time, the incident was getting legs. So he defused it.
The president made a surprise appearance in the White House press briefing room shortly after he spoke by phone to Cambridge, Massachusetts, police Sgt. James Crowley, who had arrested Henry Louis Gates, a prominent scholar of African-American studies at Harvard, last week.
"Because this has been ratcheting up and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up, I wanted to make clear in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically," Obama said. "And I could have calibrated those words differently."
Just as the wise Latina, Judge Sotomayor, recalibrated her own words.
Crowley suggested Obama invite him and Gates, to the White House for a peace-making beer, and a plan was in the works to do so, Obama said.
For Obama, who took office as the first U.S. black president in January. the incident was a distraction when his signature legislative priority, a healthcare overhaul, was stalling in the U.S. Congress. Obama said he hoped the event would end up being a "teachable moment, where all of us instead of pumping up the volume spend a little more time listening to each other" and improve race relations "instead of flinging accusations."
Indeed.
"Lord knows we need it right now -- because over the last two days as we've discussed this issue, I don't know if you've noticed, but nobody has been paying much attention to health care," he said.
They noticed at the White House, too. This defuses the incident, makes the President look good, and refocuses the discussion,
Intellectuals
Watching the PBS News Hour, Hardball and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC last night, and enjoying the entire thing, these people impressed me:
Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor at Princeton U., who talked politics and race with Ms. Maddow. His intellect impressed.
Antwi Akom, a professor at San Francisco State U., who talked about racial profiling in connection with the Dr. Henry Louis Gates jr. imbroglio (himself racially profiled and arrested). His intellect impressed. He spoke clearly, factually, reasonably.
Barton Gellman, a Washington Post reporter who wrote the book Angler : the Cheney vice presidency, spoke with Ms. Maddow about the current Cheney imbroglio. His exactness and care in answering questions factually, and making sure whatever matters and details they were considering as they discussed Cheney, Scooter Libby and ther pardon that President Bush did not issue to the latter were correct.
Charles P. Pierce, a Boston Globe journalist who wrote the book Idiot America : how stupidity became a virtue in the Land of the Free, and had a contentious exchange with David Shuster while they talked about Liz Cheney and her father. Shuster was looking for an answer to the question of why Ms. Cheney will not simply say that the right-wing-nut contention that Barack Obama is not a native-born US citizen is a silly conspiracy theory (never mind so much barely disguised racism). Pierce cynically riposted that Ms. Cheney is a leader of the Republican Party, as Shuster contended and wondered about, because media outlets provide her a platform to speak her views.
Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor at Princeton U., who talked politics and race with Ms. Maddow. His intellect impressed.
Antwi Akom, a professor at San Francisco State U., who talked about racial profiling in connection with the Dr. Henry Louis Gates jr. imbroglio (himself racially profiled and arrested). His intellect impressed. He spoke clearly, factually, reasonably.
Barton Gellman, a Washington Post reporter who wrote the book Angler : the Cheney vice presidency, spoke with Ms. Maddow about the current Cheney imbroglio. His exactness and care in answering questions factually, and making sure whatever matters and details they were considering as they discussed Cheney, Scooter Libby and ther pardon that President Bush did not issue to the latter were correct.
Charles P. Pierce, a Boston Globe journalist who wrote the book Idiot America : how stupidity became a virtue in the Land of the Free, and had a contentious exchange with David Shuster while they talked about Liz Cheney and her father. Shuster was looking for an answer to the question of why Ms. Cheney will not simply say that the right-wing-nut contention that Barack Obama is not a native-born US citizen is a silly conspiracy theory (never mind so much barely disguised racism). Pierce cynically riposted that Ms. Cheney is a leader of the Republican Party, as Shuster contended and wondered about, because media outlets provide her a platform to speak her views.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Obama: ‘No Excuses’ for Any Failure
President Obama addressed the N.A.A.C.P. convention on the organization's 100th anniversary in New York on Thursday.
Obama Tells Fellow Blacks: ‘No Excuses’ for Any Failure - I don't know that I would say 'fellow blacks.' But it was a rousing speech; he almost preached several times, leaning down into the microphones. It was inspiring to see him, even if he could not resist detailing policy.
President Obama delivered a fiery sermon to black America on Thursday night, warning black parents that they must accept their own responsibilities by “putting away the Xbox and putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour,” and telling black children that growing up poor is no reason to get bad grades.
Fiery sermon it was.
“No one has written your destiny for you,” he said, directing his remarks to “all the other Barack Obamas out there” who might one day grow up to be president. “Your destiny is in your hands, and don’t you forget that. That’s what we have to teach all of our children! No excuses! No excuses!”
He was one part politician and one part black preacher as he spoke in lilting cadences, his voice quiet at times, thundering at others, in unusually personal terms. At one point, when his audience shouted back at him, repeating his words, he threw back his head and laughed, saying, “I’ve got an amen corner back there.”
It was an unusual moment for a president who has sought to transcend race and has only reluctantly embraced his unique place in history. Six months into his presidency, Mr. Obama has seemed more comfortable embracing his identity as the first black American president overseas than at home, as was the case during his trip to Ghana last week, when he declared, “I have the blood of Africa within me.”
He did, several times, say United States of America, and it was clear he was trying to reconcile both the black audience and the nation: being black is not unAmerican, and being patriotic is not uncool.
Obama Tells Fellow Blacks: ‘No Excuses’ for Any Failure - I don't know that I would say 'fellow blacks.' But it was a rousing speech; he almost preached several times, leaning down into the microphones. It was inspiring to see him, even if he could not resist detailing policy.
President Obama delivered a fiery sermon to black America on Thursday night, warning black parents that they must accept their own responsibilities by “putting away the Xbox and putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour,” and telling black children that growing up poor is no reason to get bad grades.
Fiery sermon it was.
“No one has written your destiny for you,” he said, directing his remarks to “all the other Barack Obamas out there” who might one day grow up to be president. “Your destiny is in your hands, and don’t you forget that. That’s what we have to teach all of our children! No excuses! No excuses!”
He was one part politician and one part black preacher as he spoke in lilting cadences, his voice quiet at times, thundering at others, in unusually personal terms. At one point, when his audience shouted back at him, repeating his words, he threw back his head and laughed, saying, “I’ve got an amen corner back there.”
It was an unusual moment for a president who has sought to transcend race and has only reluctantly embraced his unique place in history. Six months into his presidency, Mr. Obama has seemed more comfortable embracing his identity as the first black American president overseas than at home, as was the case during his trip to Ghana last week, when he declared, “I have the blood of Africa within me.”
He did, several times, say United States of America, and it was clear he was trying to reconcile both the black audience and the nation: being black is not unAmerican, and being patriotic is not uncool.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
King of Pop
Quincy Jones on How Jackson Did It
"Off the Wall" and "Thriller" solidified Michael Jackson's status as the "King of Pop." Jim Fusilli talks to Quincy Jones, the producer behind these two recordings.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow
It's a simple bracelet -- a string of white plastic beads. Every time Mary Etta Madison puts it on, she recalls her days as a young student at a black college in Alabama, and the German-Jewish professor who gave it to her as a gift 57 years ago. Mrs. Madison, 78, a retired school teacher, says the Talladega College professor, Lore Rasmussen, gave her the confidence to pursue her own teaching career.
"I felt very close to her through the years," Mrs. Madison says.
Friendships like these had a cost in the segregated South. One night in 1942, Prof. Rasmussen and her husband were arrested for dining with an African-American in a blacks-only cafe.
There wasn't just segregation that kept blacks apart from whites; it was illegal for the races to mix.
Two jail receipts for $28 each from that night, along with Mrs. Madison's bracelet and dozens of other artifacts, photographs, documents, and paintings are part of an exhibit set to open next week at the Museum of Jewish Heritage -- A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York's Battery Park City. The exhibit illuminates a period during and after World War II when scores of German-Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany found havens teaching in small black colleges throughout the South.
The Jewish scholars who had fled the Nazis and the young black students facing the hardships of the segregated South forged bonds that in many cases lasted long after the students had graduated and the professors had left the South for other posts.
A bond forged out of being victims of hatred.
The exhibit, called "Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow: Jewish Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges," draws on a book of the same name published in 1993 by a German-Jewish refugee, Gabrielle Edgcomb, as well as on research by the museum. A documentary based on the book aired on PBS in 2000.
[Google Books shows: From swastika to Jim Crow : refugee scholars at Black colleges
By Gabrielle Simon Edgcomb.Edition: illustrated. Published by Krieger Pub. Co., 1993
Original from the University of Michigan.Digitized Nov 5, 2008
ISBN 089464775X, 9780894647758. 144 pages]
The exhibit includes a couple valuable artworks, such as "The Gleaners," a large canvas painted in 1943 by John Biggers, showing a group of African-American men and women foraging for coal on a railroad track. Mr. Biggers, a black painter, had an influential German-Jewish mentor, the art educator Viktor Lowenfeld, with whom he studied in the early 1940s at the Hampton Institute, a black college in Virginia.
HWPL owns two books on John Biggers:
Black art in Houston : the Texas Southern University experience : presenting the art of Biggers, Simms and their students. [ART] Q 700.8996 B
Biggers, John Thomas, 1924-
College Station : Texas A & M University Press, c1978. 106 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 29 cm.
The art of John Biggers : view from the upper room. [Art] Q 759.13 Biggers W
Wardlaw, Alvia J. Houston : Museum of Fine Arts, in association with Harry N. Abrams, 1995.
184 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 29 cm.
A centerpiece of the exhibit chronicles the extraordinarily close bond forged by a former German-Jewish judge and professor, Ernst Borinski, with his students at Tougaloo College , a historic black college in Jackson, Miss. Dr. Borinski had worked as a magistrate in Germany, but fled in 1938. He joined Tougaloo as a sociology professor in 1947, and remained there until his death in 1983. One of his students was Donald Cunnigen, now a sociology professor at the University of Rhode Island. He recalls how Dr. Borinski once penned 27 letters of recommendation to help him obtain a place in a prestigious graduate program.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)