The incredible nothingness of "whiteness"...

America's summer of white discontent reached its apex this past weekend, with Glenn Beck and the fearful at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech.  And while, in these United States, they certainly have a "right to assembly" on any day for which they can afford to pay - let's not pretend that no insult to Dr. King's memory, the civil rights movement and everyone "other" was intended - because that, is an even bigger insult. 

The presence of their "rainbow coalition" notwithstanding, the "system of reality" at work on Saturday was most definitely one of  "restoring honor" to white supremacy and white privilege in the face of what they perceive as an assault on their dream by Obama & Co. - a perception hilariously telling in that he's done nothing BUT cater to their idea of the "American Dream" (but for his brown face).

So as not to leave you hanging, the clip above was taken from the October 26, 1965, Baldwin v Buckley debate at England's, Cambridge University.  The topic was:  "Has the American Dream been achieved at the expense of the American Negro?"  You'll have to follow the link and fast-forward to the 24:01 click to hear Baldwin's "this" (along with the remainder of his response), as he is the third debater and Buckley, with some interesting references to "white people" and "racial narcissim," is the last.  If you have the time though, it's well worth watching from beginning to end - for a lot of reasons.  But what I found most instructive, is the fact that not much, if anything has changed - on either side of the debate!

Nate Beeler/Washington Examiner

From the revsionist history textbooks the Texas State Board of Education voted in; to Virginia's slavery-ignoring celebration of Confederate History Month and their attempted restoration of literacy tests; to Arizona's passage of SB 1070; to South Carolina's Lindsey Graham suggesting a repeal of the 14th Amendment because he's petrified of "anchor babies"; to National Review's white people summit; to the furor over the inaptly named, "Ground Zero mosque;" right on up to the Beck/Palin, "Restoring Honor" event - it's abundantly clear that there are a whole lot of white folk who (to borrow from my old buddy, Jimmy) don't like having "their certainties disturbed."  The only problem with that though, is there ARE no "certainties" about who they even are in this country - other than what they've created.  

In, "On Being White...And Other Lies" - his April 1984 essay, originally published in Essence magazine and recently republished in "The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings" (edited and with an introduction by Randall Kernan) - Baldwin makes that point quite forcefully:

The crisis of leadership in the white community is remarkable - and terrifying - because there is, in fact, no white community.

This may seem an enormous statement - and it is. I’m willing to be challenged. I’m also willing to attempt to spell it out.

My frame of reference is, of course, America, or that portion of the North American continent that calls itself America. And this means I am speaking essentially, of the European vision of the world - or more precisely, perhaps the European vision of the universe. It is a vision as remarkable for what it pretends to include as for what it remorselessly diminishes, demolishes or leaves totally out of account.

There is, for example - at least, in principle - an Irish community: here, there, anywhere, or more precisely, Belfast, Dublin and Boston. There is German community: Rome, Naples the Bank of the Holy Ghost, and Mulberry Street. And there is Jewish community, stretching from Jerusalem to California to New York. There are English communities. There are French communities. There are Swiss consortiums. There are Poles: In Warsaw (where they would like us to be friends) and in Chicago (where because they are white we are enemies). There are, for that matter Indian restaurants and Turkish baths. There is the underworld - the poor (to say nothing of those who intend to become rich) are always with us - but this does not describe a community. It bears terrifying witness to what happened to everyone who got here, and paid the price of the ticket. The price was to become “white.” No one was white before he/she came to America. It took generations, and a vast amount of coercion before this became a white country. (emphasis mine)

As relevant today as he was 45 years ago, Baldwin's, "Jeremiah" - with his clear, consistent and critical knowing - not only eloquently puts his finger on the pulse of being Black in America, but on how the moral price of being "white" affects, not only the humanity of those upon whose necks it would grind its heel - but on its own humanity as well.  And according to Kalefa Sanneh's interesting, "Beyond the Pale," it was this very essay which served as a catalyst for the emergence of others in the field of "whiteness studies":   

...a cohort of scholars took up Baldwin’s charge, popularizing a field of research that came to be known as whiteness studies.  In 1994, the white labor historian David R. Roediger published an incendiary volume, “Towards the Abolition of Whiteness.” Paying special attention to unions and strikes, he traced the unsteady growth of American whiteness, a category that eventually included many previous identities that had once been considered marginal: Irish, Italian, Polish, Jewish. “It is not merely that whiteness is oppressive and false; it is that whiteness is nothing but oppressive and false,” he wrote. “Whiteness describes, from Little Big Horn to Simi Valley, not a culture but precisely the absence of culture. It is the empty and therefore terrifying attempt to build an identity based on what one isn’t and on whom one can hold back.” (emphasis mine)

Not long ago, on the documentary channel (trying not to watch much mainstream TV these days), I watched, "Beyond Wiseguys: Italian Americans and the Movies" which featured comments such as Frank Sinatra saying, he was "not gonna be the House Wop" in the 1945 short film, "The House I Live In" (he made the title song of the same name, penned by "Strange Fruit" writer,  Abel Meeropol quite famous), as well as this - "Guinea, dago, wop bastard, came from the irish, who got here before us. We waited for the Puerto Ricans and we turned on them." - a perfect example of Roediger's, "...attempt to build an identity based on what one isn't and on whom one can hold back" observation.

Abbey Lincoln's, "People in Me" below, is quite possibly "white culture's" worst nightmare.  Despite her passing earlier this month, she's still sweetly and clearly "insisting" as she gives the lie to both the supremacy and the privilege by pointing out, as Baldwin did, the falsity of both of those constructs.
 
But don't hold your breath waiting for Beck and his fearful to wrap their brains around that little "inconvenient truth."  Most of them never will.  If they did, they'd have to look back and own a lifetime of who they'd allowed themselves to become - a people whose "moral lives have been destroyed by that plague called color," and whose "American sense of reality has been corrupted by it."

And the beat goes on...

What's the difference between Colored, Negro, Nigra, Nigger, Picaninny, Nigga, Black, African-American?

Answer:  Empowerment and Self-determination!  But white folk - so used to telling us who we are, labeling us like property for hundreds of years - just can't seem to wrap their brain around that concept. Here are a couple of them:



Despite the fact that there's a society-identified Black man in the Burning  White House (or maybe because of it?), old habits DO die hard don't they?  Especially when dealing with the predominantly white federal government and mainstream media.  Just the idea that white folk are no longer "The Deciders" in who we've determined ourselves to be, seems to make some people simply apoplectic! 

Beck and his Beckheads continue their "racism on parade" over the air waves. Their obvious disregard for the facts of our existence in this country at the alabaster hands of the ancestors who spawned them - is pitiable.  Beck comes out swinging in his usual over-the-top, bust-a-vein annoying voice:  "African-American is a bogus, PC, made-up term. I mean, that's not a race!" (emphasis mine)

Who says Glenn?  You and your ilk?  I bet what's really bothering you fellas is - How DARE "those people" think they could move purposefully forward from chattel to full personhood WITHOUT US SAYING THEY COULD?  And, WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE, banding together under the umbrella of that damned Civil Rights movement and, in solidarity, decide to no longer be defined by the labels we white folk have slapped on them since our ancestors brought them here in the belly of a slave ship?!  (Yeah, let's cut out that whole, "immigrated here" lie, m'kay?)

The reasons given for their reintroduction of the word "Negro" - on its face - sounds good, but I'm just not buying it. Sounds more like the Bureau's rather lame "excuse" for:

1. Not understanding, caring to understand, or having to understand what some statistics are about or,
2. Getting caught trying to pull some good, old-boy, "foot-on-neck" behavior on the down-low. 

What's really interesting to me, is not THAT they brought "Negro" back - but WHY NOW??  Feeling a little insecure? Feeling a little put-upon by the allegedly post-racial, alleged president, in this, our alleged, post-racial nation? Thought a little "throw-the-rock-and-hide-your-hand" would feel good? Tsk, tsk.

Here's an extended version of the "company line" from the San Jose Mercury-News:

Sonny Le, a regional spokesman for the Census Bureau, said the term "Negro" has been on the survey for at least 100 years. He said the form is reviewed and analyzed thoroughly by different offices and advisory groups before being finalized.

Le said the decision to keep the term "Negro" on the form was due principally to the fact some older African-Americans still identify themselves by that term. In fact, in the 2000 census, more than 50,000 people chose to write down explicitly that they identified themselves as "Negro" in a section where the census allows people to provide additional information. That number does not include those who checked the box "Black, African-Am., or Negro."

I don't know to which surveys, showing "Negro" going back at least a 100 years, Le is referring.  Based on my genealogical research to date, that's just not true - at least not in South Carolina.  And while I don't doubt, for one minute, there are those of us who still identify themselves by that term and chose to write it in on the 2000 Census, I'm sure, as evidenced by this conversation posted on You Tube, Mr. Le and plenty others (including some of our own younguns) haven't an inkling why that is.

Though I no longer identify with, nor have I ever written in, the term "Negro," on anything, I think I can still clear that whole "why thing" up with some definitions - none of which were written by Black folk:

From Merriam-Webster:  Colored - 1 : having color  2a : colorful  b : marked by exaggeration or bias  3a sometimes offensive : of a race other than the white; especially : black  2b b sometimes offensive : of mixed race  4 sometimes offensive : of or relating to persons of races other than the white or of mixed race

I remember when we were Colored. That's what white folk said we were (Toby! Kunta Kinte! Toby! Kunte Kinte! Lop off foot - Okay, I'm Toby.)! Far as I know, we weren't writing any copies of Merriam-Webster or classifying any races of people back then. We, along with Native Americans (separate census for them back then), WERE THE CLASSIFIED!

From Wikipedia:  The term "colored" appeared in North America during the colonial era. A "colored" man halted a runaway carriage that was carrying President John Tyler on March 4, 1844. In 1863, the War Department established the "Bureau of Colored Troops." The first twelve Census counts in the U.S. enumerated "colored" people, who totaled nine million in 1900. The Census counts of 1910–1960 enumerated "negroes."

 See, this is why linking to Wikipedia is not always a good thing.  Revisionist history sprinkled with a little fact, then becomes fact.  Now I definitely agree we were "colored" by white folk (pun intended) during the colonial era (no doubt a carry-over from that dandy European upbringing from which the "New World" settlers came).  And there was a Bureau of Colored Troops in 1863.  Not sure about the man and the carriage.  But the last two are just not true - at least not in South Carolina.

My grandmother's mother - born in 1876 and age 24 at the taking of the 12th Census in 1900 - was enumerated black, not colored according to original Census documents.  Back then, "Question 9" was "Question 12" and it read - "Race or Color."  The Census-taker recorded "B" for black  and "W" for white - No Negro OR Caucasian - just the colors, black and white.  By the 14th Census in 1920,  when my grandmother was about 10 or 11 (the family says she was born in 1909.  The Census says "abt 1910," listing her age as 10 at the taking of it), "Question 12" was still the same and she, too, was enumerated "black, not colored" (maybe the Wiki writer assumed - because the question asked was race or color - and the answer was a color - that the census enumerated "colored people.").

But by the 15th Census in 1930, something had changed.  "Question 12" was still the same but - we had magically become a race!  For the first time in South Carolina, for the purposes of the census - we were now enumerated, "Negro" by white folk (No ACORN to blame back then.  Come to think of it, that's probably the reason for the current, white uproar over ACORN!  Once we were given the keys to the census kingdom, the group figured out the kind of shit that had been pulled over all that time and thought they'd get in on it too - instead of doing the right damn thing!  Just sayin'). 

I've no doubt, the founding of the NAACP (by a group of people of "varying colors"), coupled with all that internalized race hatred of the Blue Veins or "Light, Brights," definitely brought some pressure to bear in the changing of labels at the time (We're not like them! We're like you! - sort of.). And my, how times haven't changed (remember "Pookie?)!

The term, "Light, Brights" is short for "light, bright, damned-near white" because their light skin and straighter, long hair were considered "the ideal" by whites (and unfortunately, plenty Blacks) who in turn, used their distinctly different, looking-like-them features to marginalize the darker and more nappy-headed of us - dividing and conquering as they continue to do so well.   But, as evidenced by the previously linked You Tube video of "the conversation" above, they're throwing the rock and hiding their hands again, telling the Light, Bright Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP - to his face (with a smile and smarmy congratulations) - that they're still "colored," just like the rest of us.  Imagine that!

Being enumerated "black" back in those days had EVERYTHING NEGATIVE to do with the COLOR of our skin, particularly for most of us born during the time when white folk first hung that moniker on us (Hell before I turned 13, if you called me black, that was an invitation for a beat down - for one of us!).  And the entire society acted accordingly, falling in line with the negative connotations.  White folk, through both word and deed, continuously guaranteed that being "enumerated black" was a vile, nappy-headed, stupid, nasty, lazy thing for a person to be!  And that's the reason I'm sure, that older Blacks chose to write-in "Negro" on their census forms.  But I'm sure nary a census-taker ever thought about that.

From The Free Dictionary: Piccaninny esp US, pickaninny - 1. Offensive a small Black or Aboriginal child.  2. (modifier) tiny a piccaninny fire won't last long

Now picaninny was always a favorite, white Southern piece of labeling.  And on my first volunteer trip to New Orleans in 2006, I found it still is! Just revised to - spicaninny - so as to be "inclusive" of my Latino brothers and sisters according to a white, St. Bernard Parish fire chief who spewed it at Latino roadway workers in my presence.

From Merriam-Webster:  Negro - Sometimes offensive : a member of a race of humankind native to Africa and classified according to physical features (as dark skin pigmentation).

Don't think they meant the "Light, Brights" when they penned this definition, but anyway. This is my original birth certificate (I altered it in paint to obscure the vital statistics).  My mother gave it to me when I went into the Navy and though I've gotten several, certified copies for official purposes, I've kept this to remind me that back then, we didn't even have the option to claim who we were.  We couldn't write-in a damned thing.  There was one birth certificate for whites, and one for us - pre-printed.  I don't personally know any Native-Americans in South Carolina but, I'll bet you a nickel there was a separate pre-printed birth certificate for them through the Bureau of Indian (NDN as my friend, Okasha over at Cinie's Place so graciously shared with me) Affairs.

And, in keeping with the derogatory pattern of labeling by whites - from the term "Negro," sprang the following pejoratives:

From Wikipedia:  Nigra - In American English, nigra is a euphemistic pronunciation of negro used in the American South to "politely" speak of black people in non-racist company.  In some dialects of English spoken in the American South, it may merely be the regional pronunciation of negro rather than a deliberately and distinctly pronounced separate word.

From Merriam-Webster:  Nigger - 1 usually offensive; see usage paragraph below : a black person  2 usually offensive; see usage paragraph below : a member of any dark-skinned race 3 : a member of a socially disadvantaged class of persons (it's time for somebody to lead all of America's niggers…all the people who feel left out of the political process — Ron Dellums) usage Nigger in senses 1 and 2 can be found in the works of such writers of the past as Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens, but it now ranks as perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English. Its use by and among blacks is not always intended or taken as offensive, but, except in sense 3, it is otherwise a word expressive of racial hatred and bigotry.

Now I know ya'll don't wanna hear me rant and rave about these two little gems!  And I won't - not enough room.  But I just have to say this - Wikipedia contributors crack me the hell up!  If they think being called "Nigra" in the American South was - POLITE! - then I'm just going to let Maxine here, tell them exactly how I feel about that.

"...may merely be..." - Please!  Can they just own their racist shit instead of always trying to justify it all?   Just once??

Speaking so much of home, I thought I'd go see what's being said "Down South" about this whole Census/Negro thing in one of the original "13s" where Black sensibilities are decidedly different given our proximity to the "plantation experience," and I found this - Use of word 'Negro' in 2010 census draws criticism.  It's a very short read and pretty much what I expected, but chock full of information if you're paying attention. For me, the two Black women interviewed made the most salient points of the piece, with the writer bringing up the rear with the - unbeknownst to him, I'm sure - slam dunk:

From 44-year-old Trudy Grant:

Its association with the Jim Crow era makes "Negro" a negative word, she said. It's also redundant. The form already includes the word "black."

From 42-year-old Cathy Heyward:

"It doesn't bother me at all," she said. "It's part of our heritage," though she said she understands why some people don't like the word.

From writer, Adam Parker:

Labels have long been problematic, especially in the black community. Not every black person is African-American (some are from, say, the Caribbean), and not every African-American is black (consider white South Africans). By the middle of the 20th century, the word "Negro" had replaced the offensive term "colored." (emphasis mine)

During the last part of the civil rights movement, in the late 1960s, the word "Negro," deemed derogatory because of its association with segregation and discrimination, was pushed aside in favor of "black" and later "African-American."

As Ms. Grant said above, the form already includes the word "Black."  That's why I think the U.S. Census Bureau is full of shit with their "explanation."  Let's say I bought their bullshit.  Tell me how adding "Negro" makes a tangible difference in the way census figures "benefit" us as a people.  Been to the 'hood lately?

Ms. Heyward hit the nail right on the head  (for me anyway) when she said the word is a part of our heritage (whether we like it or not).  I was born a "Negro," that will be a part of the official record - forever.  And though I've never had much for Stanley Crouch because I find his vitriolic attacks on hip-hop counter-productive, I do agree with some of the points made in this NY Daily News piece - Then & now, I'm a Negro: The people who used that word gave it majesty.  If you've been reading me at all, I'm sure you can figure out which ones.

And yes, young Adam, you win the "Slam Dunk" Contest.  Labels have long been problematic, especially in the black community - but that's because, with the exception of two, WE WEREN'T THE ONES DOING THE DAMN LABELING!  Pretty sure that's not what you meant though.

For me, the late 60s was my "dividing time."  When James Brown inspired my young generation with, "Say it Loud! I'm Black and I'm Proud!" - it forever changed me.  Though I still struggled with self-esteem issues borne out of being called and treated like every one of the negative words in the title of this post, I felt the shackles falling away ever so slightly.  We, in the form of James Brown, had come to our own rescue - labeling ourselves for the first time - and it fit ME perfectly!  I promise you, you have no idea how good that felt! 

We decided that Black was our race.  And that is the reason I will always capitalize it - no matter what the rules of journalism say (maddening for my former editor because he always had to change every occurrence of it in my columns before the paper went to bed)!  I didn't earlier in the post because I was talking about their "black as color label."  In my reality today, it's not "just a color" as the white folk had, for so long, decreed (and still do!) - it's who I am.  Whites specifically, and anyone else in general, no longer get to marginalize or diminish the importance of that.

I am a Black woman of African descent.  I never use the term African-American to describe myself.  And although I'm sure white folk searched long and hard to find an antidote to our deciding on African-American (I say this because every jackass I've heard talking about it, keeps using Charlize Theron as an example), they have a point. Back in 2000 when I lived in the Keys, a white South African couple used to attend my dialogues on race relations.  We had this "Who's an African-American?" conversation in depth and they made the same point.  I concur, they do have a point - as do all of the African immigrants/émigrés who look like me.  I was born here.  I am a non-hyphenated American.  But for those of us who choose to, or need to identify as African-American - have at it!  It ain't fuh me (as my grandmother used to say) to impinge on their right to self-determination.

Because he so captures the feeling of empowerment and self-determination that calling myself a Black woman brings - just the way I feel it - let me leave you with a little Smokey Robinson, puttin' it down on Def Poetry Jam - just in case I haven't been clear.  Enjoy!

"Beck-heads," and thoughts on how they get that way

Now that my little bout of schadenfreude is over, I want to go back to Van and some of Beck's narrative from that previously posted video wherein, peppered with long pauses and emphatic statements for effect, Glenn mightily whips adoring fans into a feeding frenzy of epic proportions:

"But let me go back to the czars...They don't answer to anybody, they don't go through a confirmation process - They are advising our president! Who are they? What do they believe?" (Read: We can't have that HNIC and his other lawn jockeys not answerable to - us white people!)

"...he showed up wearing combat boots and carrying a Black (short pause) Panther book bag" (O-o-oh! Who's afraid of the Big Black Man??? Didn't Charles Barkley write a book with that title?)

"The verdicts, which cleared the cops of beating Rodney King came down in April of that year....by August, I was a communist!! (Let's keep the "Red Scare" going! Time for a new and improved HCUA! Can't you just see Glenn clapping his hands while doing his impersonation of Eddy Murphy? (Hercules!! Hercules!! We got it in his own words!!)

"...trying to mobilize for the release of convicted COP KILLER." (Now we know that always works in our land of law and order!)  "He has since relinquished his nationalist views for ENVIRONMENTALIST issues (Like Van can't be an environmentalist! All feelings of betrayal aside - What?? I don't really know the damn man! - I think Van the Man may be way more dangerous from outside of the Changeling's little front fiefdom, than within.)

In an ominous tone, the narrator says, "He's still considers himself a revolutionary, just a more effective one." Then, Bam! Preying on their greatest fear of all - Blacks violently taking them over and making them pay for hundreds of years of mistreatment - he exposes the dreaded, "Plan" - in Van's own words:

Then, for the grand finale, he ties those fear panties up in all kinds of knots, ending with, "And Jones - Yep, still a revolutionary now just a more effective (pause for effect), and dare I say, (pause for effect) powerful one." (all emphases above courtesy of the narrator).

"We need to be about the Whup-A--. Somebody's F-ing up somewhere. They have names and job descriptions. You have to be creative about how you engage the enemy. Because if you do it on his terms, the outcome is already known." (That's the ticket! Raise the spectre of Nat Turner, planning and scheming to kill all their innocent selves in their sleep.)

And Ta-da!!! Instant Beck-head! Of course the foundation had to already have been laid - which it was - hundreds of years ago.

Let's just take a look at one example of some of Van's "Revolutionary-speak" in Video #1 below (you can listen to the others if you choose, but I'd advise against it. Glenn's Manson-esque indoctrinating tone is pretty creepy!):

It's stuff like this that's got the Beck-heads shaking in their boots. Well, not really. It's that accountability thing.  Beck-heads keep trying to act like Van was lying, when all it would take, is for them to Google the shit and READ the information readily available (here, for example) instead of letting Beck fill their heads with craziness - if they wanted to. They don't. Just read the comments after the video, you'll see.

When I entered, "dumping toxic waste in minority communities," this Michael Grunwald piece on CommonDreams.org (published in the The Post January 2002) was one of the results the search returned. It's about a small town only 25 miles from where I got my undergraduate degree in the late 70s - Anniston, Alabama: Monsanto Hid Decades Of Pollution, PCBs Drenched Ala. Town, But No One Was Ever Told.

Just a few lines - in defense of Van:

Monsanto enjoyed a lucrative four-decade monopoly on PCB production in the United States, and battled to protect that monopoly long after PCBs were confirmed as a global pollutant. "We can't afford to lose one dollar of business," one internal memo concluded. (emphasis mine)

The Anniston lawsuits have uncovered a voluminous paper trail, revealing an unusually detailed story of secret corporate machinations in the era before strict environmental regulations and right-to-know laws. The documents -- obtained by The Washington Post from plaintiffs' attorneys and the Environmental Working Group, a chemical industry watchdog -- date as far back as the 1930s, but they expose actions with consequences that are still unfolding today. (emphasis mine)

Opal Scruggs, 65, has spent her entire life in west Anniston..."Monsanto did a job on this city," she said. "They thought we were stupid and illiterate people, so nobody would notice what happens to us."

And people like the Beck-heads still seem to think exactly that.

A 40 - YEAR MONOPOLY folks! Now you know - Poor Pookie, and nobody else who looks like Pookie had a hand in "poisoning Black people" like Opal Scruggs who lived, and continue to live in Anniston, Alabama over those 40 years!

See, that's my main issue with white folks who would rather tell bold-faced lies in your face - and - in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, than own their shit!!! Just tell the damn truth!! Then, we can talk about where we go from there. But do not expect, I repeat, DO NOT EXPECT that after all the egregious, hateful, hate-filled, heartbreaking, soul-crushing, psyche-bending, self-esteem destroying experiences Blacks have suffered at the hands of our Eurocentric bretheren in the name of an "American way of life," that I will just get over it and be your new BFF just 'cause you said, "Sorry" - though that's definitely a start.

My grandmother always said, "It ain't what you say Debbie, it's what you do." That still works for me. I'm not suggesting you wear a hairshirt and ashes for the rest of your life (really, what purpose would that serve??). But, you damn sure need to try some of these suggestions - if you want me to believe you:

1.  Stop lying and own how we got to this place. (I don't know about Van or anybody else, but I'm done "wearing the mask").
2. Really not like being in this place now and commit to living something new and better (Just a warning, my bullshit meter is always on.)
3. Recognize that though, as Maya Angelou says, "We are more alike, than we are different" - we ARE different. Drop the whole melting pot thing. Try "tossed salad" instead. It's way more respectful of all our differences.
4. Abolish all the social constructs YOU put in place and let's ALL start over. (Now that's a biggie I know, but you can do it - if you try!)
5. Change the way you deal with other human beings. (It took most of a lifetime for most of you to get that way, I know it won't happen overnight).
6. Stop telling me to forget, get over it, or not hold grudges just so YOU can feel better. After having been our "Decider" for hundreds of years, give it a rest - you don't get to decide what, when or if I get over - anything. That process is singularly mine. Particularly since you've not been overly concerned with OUR feeling better since this country's inception (Sound like a grudge? Okay). It just seems a little forced (or lucrative) to me that now that the resident of the Big House has "skin of tan" versus alabaster and might make some substantial changes to your "American way of life" - all of a sudden you care. No worries on that whole changing your "American way of life thing though," he's not that guy! 

I know it'll be difficult for you, but for this to work, you just have to trust that I am an honest, honorable, intelligent and willing, grown woman with no malice in my heart - just like I had to.

My Unit of 28 3/4 years ---->

(My nephew just sent me this great photo from our visit to the hinterlands this summer for my niece's wedding. I thought it was right on time!)

Another one bites the dust...Van Jones, and chasing "treasure in Heaven"

I know, it's been a long time, but I've been busy gettin' full amid the clamor of restoring order in the new abode. So many things kept bogardin' their way into my consciousness over the last month, I thought my head would explode. I beg your indulgence as I go back and forth trying to get it all out.

What popped the proverbial cork this morning, was reading this HuffPo account of the "We-got-to-kick-your-ass-under-the-bus-my-brother" resignation of Van Jones, the Changeling's "Green Jobs' Czar" (what is it with this "Czar/Tsar" thing and the U.S. government??). And on Labor Day weekend no less!! Get it? Jobs' Czar - Labor Day? Never mind.

I just couldn't ignore all the shit that brought that one act to fruition (I tend to find interesting kernels in the distractions, what can I say). This is just a big ole Shepherd's Pie, bubbling with two dollops of "Karma's a b*tch" and "God don't like ugly," smothered with a thick, "For real, for real, I ain't your brotha, Brother" gravy and topped with a flaky, golden-brown crust of "The Struggle Continues!"

First of all, though I'd read and heard snippets of Glenn Beck's, "The Communist, Mr. Jones," I really wasn't paying close attention (his myopia just wears me the hell out). It wasn't until I made the ColorOfChange connection, that I was at once flooded with a wave of recognition followed closely by feelings of betrayal. Then, just as quickly, I was awash in what can only be described as schadenfreude. What? I'm human!

Okay, that might be a little melodramatic, but that's what it felt like. I absolutely loved the work Van Jones and James Rucker had been doing on behalf of Black people left to not only fend for themselves, being labeled as looters and refugees and then finally dropped off like a convict being released from prison with a few dollars and a see you later after Hurricane Katrina (nod to the 4th anniversary that just passed).

I absolutely loved how tirelessly they worked to try and help people get back home. As a matter of fact, it was following their site, their social activism in support of the voiceless, that inspired me to take my old ass down to New Orleans in 2006 to give the only thing I had to give to the effort (myself) -twice. Right is right and wrong is wrong - ColorOfChange was right on this one.

I fiercely supported them in this post, "Baisden & The Color of Change: Talk About Black-on-Black Crime!!!," back in November of 2007 when Michael Baisden tried to "re-route" Jena 6 donations to his own, hastily-formed-after-he-finally-got-a-damn-clue-about-exactly-what-happened-in-Jena organization by smearing ColorofChange with accusations of stealing previously collected money. Baisden was wrong on this one and ColorofChange had the proof - in black and white. I remember saying to myself, "Damn, for the first time in a long time, it seems we've got a Black non-profit actually doing non-profit work! No dippin' in the till or anything!" (I'm just playin')

But then, Jones and Rucker, et al spun the hell around, successfully bamboozling Black people into supporting the Florida & Michigan primary debacle - from supporting votes not being counted (mine being one of them), to strong-arming Black super delegates like John Lewis and members of the CBC to give us the damn Changeling! Yes, I felt betrayed.

I really coudn't wrap my brain around their support for this, "I'm-a-Black-man-only-when-I-need-to-be" candidate, particularly given both their very "for my people" track records. ColorOfChange was wrong on this one and since truth and the right thing is where I kinda like to hang my hat, I chalked it up to that First Black President Rapture and called it like I saw it in, Florida and Michigan Disenfranchisement, Super delegates - What's Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander back in February 2008. I've not looked their way since.

But then along comes Karma being the sho' nuf something else that it is, bringing the Changeling who - after having tried out his newly acquired, "quid-pro-quo" super powers by giving Jones a position in the "Big House" - unceremoniously showed his ass the door when it looked like, à la Rev. Wright, real trouble might be a brewin' as a result of this Brotha (and Jarrett protege) speakin' out like a, ahem, BROTHA, who can truly bear witness, would be speaking out! Priceless!