If you missed it, here’s a quick summary: with the words  “Hood Disease” emblazoned next to her head, Wendy Tokuda of the San Francisco Bay area’s CBS affiliate KPIX delivered the following, “Even the Centers for Disease control says that these kids often live in virtual war zones and doctors at Harvard say they actually suffer from a more complex form of PTSD, some call it ‘hood disease.’” The story then began to discuss the set of complex issues that many youth of color in high poverty areas experience daily and some of their consequences on academic engagement.Tokuda’s reporting made it appear as if Harvard scholars coined and were studying “hood disease” which set off a firestorm and multiple questions about research, Harvard, and the sources of the story. A trip to Tokuda’s personal Facebook page reveals that she derived the term “hood disease” from Mark Beasley. Who is Mark Beasley you ask? Beasley is one of Tokuda’s Facebook friends.

The jokes should write themselves here, but this is the sort of propaganda that reinforces dangerous stereotypes about people of color, especially those with economic challenges. Even if you dismiss the ill-fated term,  the report is still framed in a way that makes it seem that the issues that youth in urban high poverty neighborhoods face are actually a disorder that they co-create.

Within the social sciences there is a long history of suggesting that problems among Black and impoverished communities are a function of their own practices and beliefs and divorced from larger social problems. In 1965, the Moynihan Report famously popularized the concept of “tangle of pathology” that argued Black female headed households perpetuated poverty, not lack of access to jobs and economic resources. Later arguments about the “culture of poverty” came to dominate academic and social policy circles resulting in divestments from communities of color and the belief that Black culture was the issue and the role of social structure was minimal, if meaningful at all.

Essentially, Blackness is the disease—or so the narrative goes.

Read more at EBONY

On December 5th, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, affectionately known as Tata Madiba to some, transitioned to the ancestral realm. His name rings in many corners of the globe and on Tuesday he was memorialized in South Africa, but his relevance and importance to global and local freedom struggles cannot be underestimated. In the past few days, many accounts have sought to paint him as both revolutionary and peaceful, anti-establishment, as well as establishmentarian—the truth is that in 95 his years Mandela was all of these things. Through my own lens as an African-American with Pan-Africanist sensibilities, his diverse personas lent me insight into what “a long walk to freedom” looked like and why we all must engage in the process of creating, not only more just communities, but a more just world.

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First things first, I am a Quentin Tarantino fan. This should not be interpreted to mean I stan for the guy. I remember seeing Pulp Fiction in high school and falling in love with it. Subsequently I went out and to dig up Reservoir Dogs and have since followed most of his catalog. I have to admit he’s an excellent film maker with some deeply problematic politics around race and gender. I can analytically separate the two, but figuring out if I really can or do like Tarantino is a whole ‘nother conversation.

Second, Self-Determination is probably one of the most important things to me. When asked my politics I often simply respond, “self-determination.” The classic definition associated with the Kujichagulia is, “To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.” I think that what you are called matters (don’t believe me? just say Dumi “isn’t your real name” and see what my response is). I believe that defining our condition, our responses to oppression, and creating our path is the height of our political and spiritual potentials.

So now onto Django Unchained.

When I first heard of Django Unchained I thought two things, “ugh oh, Spike Lee’s not gonna like this” and “I loved Inglorious Bastards, I wonder will it be like that?” Well on both cases I was right. With good reason, Spike Lee is concerned that Tarantino’s portrayal of slavery will be off-mark and that Tarantino’s general regard for Black people is questionable. After all, for hundreds of years when White men have loved the word Nigger or Nigga so much we’ve been right to question their affinity for Blackness, today is no different. I think Django Unchained was much like Inglorious Bastards, comical, gory, and decontextualized enough to be watchable by all without the pesky feelings of guilt or animus.

The major problem is that Tarantino is Tarantino. Witty, irreverent, violent, and hyper-masculine in a film that could (note that I said could not should) be treated with more care. Tarantino has never been interested in carefully addressing an issue, instead he’s an over the top film maker (in my non-film critic opinion). He has been heavily influenced by Westerns and Blaxploitation and Django Unchained is just that – a Western Blaxploitation film. I think its strength and weakness lie in this fact.

I love a number of Blaxploitation films (Coffy is my favorite) but I have to acknowledge as potentially liberating as they could be, they fall far from the mark of actually letting us speak for ourselves, determine our path, and create the world that we want. In classic Blaxploitation fashion Django is a bad nigger and is almost a bad nigga (word to R.A.T. Judy). In all senses of the word he is spoiled property, lawless, dangerous to the order around him, but still held in by that world. When Django draws his gun someone White is gonna die, it’s just that we know it’s only going to be “the bad” White folks. While Django is the best shot in the West you never think he’s going to shoot his white partner Dr. Shultz and Tarantino writes the other Black characters as too stupid to shoot anyone but who they are told to shoot (I’m sure one of those brothas on that chain gang would’ve freed themselves and Django from the jump).

I have seen a split response (though definitely not 50/50) on Django among my friends in looking over facebook, twitter, and in casual discussions. There are a lot of folks who saw Django and loved it! Some of my more radical leaning comrades said it was brilliant and sweet song of revenge for our enslaved ancestors (yeah, some folks were that dramatic! I’m sure subsequent discussions will likely drag them back from these hyperbolic reflections). Another cadre has decidedly said the film was unfulfilling, obsessed with “the n word”, and another liberal White fantasy about slavery and its (dis)contents.

I think both are equally right and wrong. The first group misses that Django is as programmed and scripted as any “Black liberator” in a Blaxploitation film. He does nothing that is beyond his own personal interests and has no connection to his community other than saving his and his wife’s butt. Look at Django’s dialogue with others who who are enslaved, sparse yet telling (even in the final two scenes). When Django speaks white folks listen because of the gun and Black folks listen because they’re (in Tarantino’s imagination) too dumb to do anything else. Django Unchained is not about creation of maroon colonies, it’s not David Walker’s call to arms, it’s not Harriett Tubman’s “freeing a thousand slaves and could have freed a thousand more if they knew they were slaves.” It’s a portrait of a super human bad nigger who gets revenge and his prize (yes, women are prizes in this tale).

Django however is a tale about manumission, about breaking Southern race rules, and limited-justice being served. The film is written in such a way that in 2 hours and 20 minutes the audience rarely has to contemplate the ills of slavery as connected to their legacy or inheritance. Instead, you get the “privilege” of a far out tale without the icky feelings of contemporary inequities. I didn’t expect Tarantino to really do “the peculiar institution” justice, but I was amazed at how he could deal with many elements of slavery without making viewers grapple with racial memory or reconciliation (the dog scene largely being the exception).

All in all, Django is a good movie, but it’s not a movie about actual self-determination. Django “settles some scores” but never really “rights the wrongs” of the institution of slavery. Admittedly that’s a tall task for a movie, but don’t we go to movies to see the impossible if not the improbable? Django Unchained is so important because as Salamishah Tillet pointed out there are so few popular movies that wrestle with slavery and in a moment of racial amnesia we can identify with Black individual success but collective Black progress is left unturned.

In fact, I think there will be more Djangos–good films with kick ass characters that speak to a racial past– but I dream of the day that we (Black folks) are able to write ourselves into the pages of slavery’s past with the vibrance, diversity, genius, and power that we actually exhibited. As Anna Julia Cooper told us, “Only the BLACK WOMAN can say “when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.” We need more griots who understand our lives across gender, class and sexuality. Telling our stories is difficult work, but people of African descent has specialized in the impossible and done it against all odds. I guess we’re simply being called to create ourselves anew, but more fuller whether in movies or in our daily lives.

At the close of each

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My blackberry buzzed and I looked at the message, “Do you want to see a play about the Scottsboro boys?” I replied, “yeah.” Then the second message came in: “It’s a musical.” At that moment I wondered, who and why would someone make a musical out of tragedy of the railroading of nine Black men for the alleged rape of two White women in Alabama … after watching it I had more questions and even more anger.

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“Fire Toure!” is a call being made from many corners these days, but I’m not sure I can go that far. This is not just about Toure and his degrading tweets about Black women; this is about our whole community. My ethics demand that Toure be held accountable for the foolishness that he says, but not that he be removed from his job as a result of his opinion, no matter how warped it is. This may seem contradictory, but I think what we call for in our protests has tremendous ramifications on free speech, the presence of our voices on the national stage, and most importantly how we build and maintain community.

For those not familiar, Toure is a journalist who rose to prominence through hip-hop journalism and now is a featured media commentator on MSNBC, Vh1, Fuse and a host of other networks. For all his success, Toure has also accumulated quite a bit of enemies, and rightly so! Recently on twitter, Toure went into a tweet tirade about enslaved African women, rape, and liberation via bartering sex to White slave owners. Yeah, sounds like dangerous territory to step into, right? And trust me, Toure mis-stepped!

After posting the aforementioned tweets, he proceeded to blame his cousin for “stealing his blackberry” and tweeting from it. Almost en masse the twitterverse replied, as Jay-Z said, “We don’t believe you, you need more people.” Rather than stop the train wreck there, Toure continued to keep up the rouse that his cousin tweeted from his account, but soon admitted that he, in a fit of having a bad day had penned the tweets. There after, he deleted the tweets. To err is human, to lie about your err and cover your tracks is ridiculous. As a result, sites like What About Our Daughters are calling for MSNBC, where Toure is a paid contributor, to address Toure. They’ve created a phone in campaign as a way to put MSNBC on notice about Toure’s antics. They smartly have not called for a direct outcome, just an address, but I’m worried that MSNBC’s only paths will be: a) ignore the call in campaign or b) fire Toure. Neither of which are getting Toure any closer to being held accountable for what he said. WAOD aptly points out that MSNBC admonished David Shuster for his inappropriate twitter use on an MSNBC sponsored page. But there are a few key differences between Toure and Shuster. Toure is a “hired gun” who provides periodic commentary. Shuster is a MSNBC personality who reports daily and is really a part of the Brand of MSNBC. I wouldn’t have thought about the difference had I not noticed Toure’s case is dangerously analogous to that of Marc Lamont Hill’s issues with Fox News last year.

A few months ago, David Horowitz went on a chase to get Marc Lamont Hill, a Columbia Professor and paid Fox contributor off the air for his support of Assata Shakur. Horowitz started beating his propaganda drum to suggest Hill was supporting a cop killer, rather than acknowledge Shakur’s case was largely a miscarriage of justice and her guilt has been under question by many. As a result, Hill was dismissed from his position at Fox. Hill, while a regular contributor on the channel was “expendable” in the eyes of Fox News. See, news channels hire people to make commentary. They hire them because they want their perspective, but they’re not invested in the “contributors” and will fire them at first opportunity. Unlike Schuster, Toure is affiliated with MSNBC but is not one of their key personalities and holds a role akin to Hill. I certainly think that having one’s own perspective is what networks want, but we shouldn’t encourage corporations to chastise when we don’t agree with a person’s perspective. I believe in protest, I believe in taking action, but I also believe you must consider what you want as an outcome.

Many point to the dismissal of Imus as a great moment on in contemporary Black protest, which it ALMOST was. The reason Imus was dropped wasn’t because of his comments, rather he was dropped because the dollars attached to his show were in question. As my grandfather who grew up in Selma, Alabama told me, “Protest don’t mean nothing until you hit them in their pockets.” Advertisers dropped, Imus was dropped. Fast forward a couple years and Imus is back on the air, receiving a healthy paycheck (I’ll assume), and most of us barely bristled at his return to air. Kind of seems like he got sent to the adult version of “timeout.” Did he learn a lesson, maybe… but then again, what was the lesson we wanted him or others to learn?

If we want to “teach Toure a lesson” what is it? Networks are more into policing free speech than holding people accountable; it’s easier for them to do the former. After all, what does accountability look like for a corporation? Over the years I’ve heard some egregiously offensive commentary on air by personalities ranging from Former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett on aborting Black babies to Pat Buchanan arguing White people built the United States, but at no point did I think their removal would leave us in a better place as a people. I’d rather have Bennett and Buchanan babble themselves into the point of irrelevancy or at least would organize to demonstrate their flawed perspectives and their consequences. And these are folks who are outside of my community. In community, couldn’t this be an ideal time to re-invest in dialogues about race, gender, violence? No I mean literally, grapple with and push those who carry quieted biases out of the closest into open engagement. I don’t expect corporations to have an interest in making my community better.  When it comes to MSNBC, the stakes are low for them but high for Toure … and even higher for us as a community. To me the issue is much bigger than Toure. This situation made me think: As a Black community, what do we do when someone offends, assaults, or contributes negatively to our community? What does meaningful dialogue and action on gender and race sound and look like?  How do we heal as a community when we are affected? Is there a way to handle matters “in house” –deciding what is to be done among the Black community without involving non-community members? Is there even such as thing as “in house” anymore? These are questions we need to think about beyond Toure’s tweets, because they set the stage for our activism and the standards of our community.

“Traditionally, in American society, it is the members of the oppressed, objectified groups who are expected to stretch out and bridge the gap between the actualities of our lives and the consciousness of our oppressor. For in order to survive, those of us for whom oppression is as American as apple pie have always had to be watchers, to become familiar with the language and manners of the oppressor, even sometimes adopting them for some illusion of protection. Whenever the need for some pretense of communication arises, those who profit from our oppression call upon us to share our knowledge with them. In other words, it is the responsibility of the oppressed to teach the oppressors their mistakes. I am responsible for educating teachers who dismiss my children’s culture in school. Black and Third-World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy, which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.”

-Audre Lorde

“We are tired of hearing Negro men say, “There is a better day coming,” while they do nothing to usher in the day. We are becoming so impatient that we are getting in the front ranks, and serve notice on the world that we will brush aside the halting, cowardly Negro men, and with prayer on our lips and arms prepared for any fray, we will press on and on until victory is over.

Africa must be for Africans, and Negroes everywhere must be independent, God being our guide. Mr. Black man, watch your step! Ethiopia’s queens will reign again, and her Amazons protect her shores and people. Strengthen your shaking knees, and move forward, or we will displace you and lean on to victory and glory.”

-Amy Jacques Garvey 1927

“Pro-Black like Craig Hodges but my dashiki’s in the cleaners.” – Common

Being Pan-African is a weird thing. To many folks it means wearing dashikis, avoiding swine, and shouting ase at every opportunity. I, however, realize that you aren’t going to do that. For most Black folks, the holiday of Kwanzaa is one tied to Pan-Africanism and thus gets mentioned more in their living rooms on TV commercials than at family gatherings. I’ve decided we’ve been frontin’ on Kwanzaa for no real good reason. So here are some pre-emptive responses to questions and concerns.

Read more of why you should Quit Frontin on Kwanzaa here

“If you ever think about me and you ain’t gonna do no revolutionary act, forget about me. I don’t want myself on your mind if you’re not going to work for the people. If you’re asked to make a commitment at the age of twenty, and you say I don’t want to make a commitment at the age of twenty, only because of the reason that I’m too young to die, I want to live a little longer, then you’re dead already. You have to understand that people have to pay a price for peace. If you dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle then damn it, you don’t deserve to win. Let me say peace to you if you’re willing to fight for it.”

-Fred Hampton

If you can’t see the video, click here.

hat tip AM and KK

p.s. BHC stands for Black History-Contemporary, check the explanation here.

A couple of months ago, I got a chance to see Reverend Jeremiah Wright who became infamous during the 2008 presidential campaign. Wright is the Pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and a long time fixture in Black Chicago. Obama’s candidacy brought large amounts of attention to Trinity and Wright’s leadership while he was pastor. Despite the copious attempts to destroy Obama via Wright, Barack Obama was able to be elected, but Wright and many other contemporary Black leaders were thrown to the sidelines and even under the bus.

The lecture I attended by Wright was on a Saturday and was for multiple Brooklyn congregations. The subject was the African influence on “mainline Western religion.” Wright beautifully presented the significance and relevance of African culture not just historically but contemporarily. Bouncing between topics and disciplines, he really demonstrated his ability to see the struggle of Black people and the struggles of Bible as analogous if not synonmous. While this has been a long standing tradition of Black religion, he did this while highlighting the small and large ways that people of the African Diaspora sometimes run away from our culture in an attempt to assimilate into some Western ideal of culture and religious practice. His commitment to challenging “Western logic” and individual-centered philosophy with more African-oriented epsitomologies was inspiring. Watching Wright speak, I could not help but think of the energy, vitality and truth that Black leaders exhibit when they are free on confines.

We remain in a moment where people are beginning to realize that the election of Barack Obama does not mean a Black political agenda, one in which race is central, will continue to be pushed into the public sphere. So the question becomes, who advances the concerns of the faces at the bottom of the well? Most of the aforementioned leaders held little allegiance to mainstream insitutions and thus took serious the task of “bringing voice to the voiceless.” While this often left them at odds with groups, media conglomerates and activists, in reality, it may be what we need now more than ever before. While Black leaders not being attached to traditional institutions holds its harzards, it also further opens up dialogues in the black public sphere. The challenge of Black radical leaders is to go head up with “liberal” and “conservative” figures, but still remain true to a project of representing the interests of Black people, not simply their own interests. The double edged sword can often be the downfall of leaders, but its the thing that makes me most hopeful that a Black political agenda will continue to exist in the era of  Black president.

A libation for Brother Malcolm

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44 years ago to the day, Malcolm X also known as El Hajj Malik El Shabazz and Omowale, was ushered into the ancestors by assassins bullets. There are many ways to honor an ancestor but I thought it important that I honor the legacy of Brother Malcolm by calling on some of his most important lessons in the names of three recent ancestors lost: Oscar Grant, Adolph Grimes, and Robbie Tolan who were all recently assassinated.

Self-Determination
Spiritual Exploration
Voice

This week, on Thursday the 12th, I will be a featured panelist at New York University’s Gallatin School. I will be on a panel discussing Black and Jewish Relations as part of their Black History Month Programming. From the look of the panelist it’s going to be a lively and engaging discussion. More information is provided beneath. Also, they are asking people to RSVP, which I believe is so they have an approximate head count. Details below:

“I have been dismayed at the degree to which abysmal ignorance seems to prevail among state, city and even Federal officals on the whole question of racial justice and injustice… But this white failure to comprehend the depth and dimension of the Negro Problem is far from being peculiar to Government officials…. It seems to be a malady even among those whites who like to regard themselves as “enlightened.” … I wonder at [persons] who dare to feel that they have some paternalistic right to set the timetable for another [person’s] liberation. Over the past several years, I must say, I have been gravely disappointed with such white “moderates.” I am inclined to think that they are more of a stumbling block to Negro’s progress than the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner.”

-Martin Luther King Jr.

July 1965

If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.  ~Malcolm X

Yesterday and today, some of the most violent attacks on the Palestinian people in decades were launched by the Israeli military. As I write this, the death toll is approximately 280, and the number of innocent lives that will continue to be lost are unknown. I value human life and really have dreamed about a peaceful middle east, but now, more than ever, I’m concerned that my wishes may be nothing more than a dream. The question of Zionism remains one of the most politically contentious among global citizens today, but for me it’s not a question of politics, it’s a question of human life and rights. Beneath you will find two videos from the great Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), who left the earth in 1998, speaking on the distinction between Judaism and Zionism and his position on imperialism. Please listen, I’m sure you won’t agree with all, but there is much to be learned from here. I am amazed at the freedom with which Kwame Ture spoke, you’ll likely never see another Black leader be this unfettered on these matters.

Hattip to Rosa Clemente on the speeches and to Mombe Banga for cajoling me to bring BHC back