1) Fasting from alcohol
2) Fasting from additional sugar and sweets
3) Reading Joy James’ “Imprisoned Intellectuals”
4) Leading and participating in a weekly study group for male identified friends on “uprooting patriarchy”
5) Connecting with and building with justice oriented sociologists

There are a million ways to become better and to take inventory of what you’ve done over the past year. In a year where we’ve seen 551 people killed by police, there is much work to be done. In a time when the Black child poverty rate has remained steady while all other groups have declined, there is much work to be done. I’m proud to have such amazing comrades who join me in this month and work daily for liberation. One such person is Marc Lamont Hill. If you haven’t done so already, pick up his new book Nobody: Causalities of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond. It’s a powerful read about where we are, how we got here, and what it’s going to take to move us forward!

Since seeing the video last night, it looks like the title has been changed from “Morehouse College Dubois Divas” to “The Du Bois Dance Team.” According to the description, this was a performance at 2015-2016 Mr. Freshman Pageant. The video was shared with ire in a Morehouse fb group I’m in. Brothers raised questions about damaging the brand of Morehouse, why these young folks should not attend our alma mater, and comments were laced with a host of homo and femmephobic rhetoric. I was glad to see the video and to see the four young cats work it out and turn up the crowd. Why you ask? Give my piece for 2010 a read and you’ll understand a bit more. [i uploaded a pdf so it doesn’t get washed away in url scraping].

Too often, people see folks like the ones in this video and write them off as “deviant”, “damaging” and “not-men” without knowing anything of their identification, character or constitution. The Morehouse we should be is one where diversities of gender expression, as well as sexual expression, are welcomed as long as you are doing your best to meet the crown that is placed above your head.

“Whenever you define who are legitimate in suburbs, black residents are excluded. For black families that means the suburbs will not save them. The issues that they have been dealing with in terms of racial profiling will follow them,”

To read the full article click here.

I’ve been thinking about the costs and the processes of getting to unity of late. In a political moment when our nation continues to grapple with police brutality as well as the fall of Bill Cosby from grace– I wonder how we become unified and maintain unity. The simplest form of unity I often observe comes from folks who take a singular social identity and coalesce around its significance for power. For example, someone who is staunchly Black nationalist or Communist will see the aforementioned issues and stress the role of White media in besmirching a Black patriarch or the continued imposition of the state’s power (the enforcer of capitalism) over oppressed (minority) peoples. Either way, the emphasis as on a singularity of issue makes for neat solutions and resolutions around what is being faced and possible responses. As the Last Poets said, “I can’t dig them actions.”

The more seriously I consider the things that are affecting our communities, the more an intersectional framework matters to how I think about its roots and possible responses. Many moons ago, Jelani Cobb wrote (and I paraphrase) that Black folks are no more or no less unified or dysfunctional than any other group of folks on this earth. I believed it when it he wrote it and believe it now. The catch is we can, like all people, become seduced by reductionist thinking. Whether its at a mass march where we start chanting and yelling, “hands up! don’t shoot!” in the face of an unrepentant police force or double clicking a meme on Instagram that suggesting our brothers and sisters are being distracted by the hot topic rather than thinking through politics–quick responses are valued, but they’re not what’s needed. Instead, I see folks like Imani Perry, Tamara Nopper, and Eddie Glaude raise questions (they’re on social media twitter – you should follow them) that make you think about what you intend to accomplish? What are the means? What are likely to the ends? Their questions make people uncomfortable and rightfully so. Too much emphasis on unity of action without complexity of thought is why moments that could be movements often just remain flashpoints (well that and COINTELPRO ain’t too shabby at killing stuff).

For more than 4 months there has been an emerging national dialogue about police violence–one that people have been working on having for years, but this moment was the time that it ripened and expanded. In this moment we have to do things that keep people engaged, but even more so, we’ve got to ask–Why are you here? If you believe Black lives matter, who does not? Which Black lives matter? Does the trans sister in Chicago who is sexually assaulted by a member of her family get covered? Does the conservative brother who stands with NYPD receive your cover? If the government fails to respond to what we demand, what will we do? Are we really demanding the same thing? Are you talking reform or revolution? Which type of revolution are you talking? These may seem to show where we disagree but only by grappling with them will we have a unity worth fighting for, claiming and living with.

On June 10th, a Superior Court judge in California struck down California’s teacher tenure laws. While you may not be a California resident, I can tell you this is going to matter for your state, your children and your schools. In the national debate on educational reform, one of the most vilified terms is “tenure.” The Vergara case on its face appears to be about increasing student opportunities, but in reality it is all about weakening both the diversity of the teaching force and teachers’ labor protections. This is not a case of students’ interests winning out over teachers’: there are no victors in this decision.

What is tenure? First, tenure is different at the K-12 level and the higher education level. As a college professor, tenure is a property interest in one’s job, roughly the equivalent of becoming a partner at a law firm or medical practice. It makes the person with tenure a long-term part of the management of the business or institution.

But this is not the meaning of tenure in K-12 education—tenured teachers are not like law firm partners (if you don’t believe me ask a teacher to see their paycheck stub!) For educators of the nation’s youth, tenure means the right to due process.

Read more at EBONY

While cameras follow Idris and Seun, the film is more about their parents’ educational and social negotiations than the boys’. Idris’s parents (Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson) double as central subjects and filmmakers. A moment that stood out to me was Michele Stephenson’s commentary on their choice to send Idris to a historically and predominantly White private school. “Initially I didn’t want to even go to the interview at Dalton. I didn’t want Idris to be part of this elite school that didn’t give him any sense of grounding or sense of self. You know? A bunch of rich white kids disconnected from the larger world that [are] self-involved etc., etc. But going to the school, experiencing commitment to diversity and comparing it to the other schools that I went to, I finally gave in. I can’t say that I regret it. It’s going to hopefully allow him to compete at the top level with his peers.”  Stephenson’s analysis is like many Black parents who seek high quality education for their children but simultaneously recognize that schools are often alienating to students of color, at best, and devaluing of them, at worst. Seun’s parents share similar concerns about the issues that they face as they steward young Black males through school.

Both families’ initial reservations seem to be well placed, but when we look at Idris’s and Seun’s paths through Dalton their parental concern didn’t necessarily lead to better outcomes. Seun and Idris were the only two Black boys in the class in primary school and soon were referred to special tutoring services to which none of their classmates were referred. As time passed, both families encountered pressure from the school administration to evaluate their sons for learning disabilities and behavioral problems, and both struggled with peer acceptance. Early on in the film Seun is diagnosed with dyslexia and eventually struggles to stay afloat academically at Dalton, leading him to leave Dalton and attend Benjamin Banneker Academy in Brooklyn for high school (a predominantly Black school with an African-centered school philosophy).

Idris remained at Dalton through high school and had a very different educational experience than Seun.  Throughout the film Idris’s parents question the ways Dalton characterizes their son: disruptive, unfocused, hard to manage. His parents highlight his academic acumen but also question his lack of follow through and drive when it comes to academic matters. The school pressures Idris’s parents to test him for ADHD but they resist (it should be noted that Idris’s father is a psychiatrist). In contrast to his parents, Idris wants to be diagnosed because he believes if medicated his test scores may improve, a pattern that he believes has occurred with his classmates. Ultimately he gets assessed and is excited to receive an ADHD diagnosis.

Both Idris and Seun’s experiences reminded me of my educational journey. During my freshman year (and first year) at a similarly elite private school in Connecticut, school administrators encouraged my parents to have me screened for learning issues. Faculty of color at the school privately pulled my parents to the side and informed them that there was a pattern of over-diagnosis of students of color. My parents, excited to have me in such a renowned school, heeded the school administration’s advice to undergo evaluation and ultimately, they were told I had a “learning disability” though no type was ever specified. This led to ” academic accommodations” but also led to teachers treating me differently in the classroom.

The over-diagnosis of Black boys (and to a lesser extent Black girls) with learning disabilities occurs across educational and economic settings. In Inequality in the Promised Land I discuss how parental desires and school staff desires often clash—and what can be done to change that. For many Black parents in well-resourced schools, these dynamics often meant begrudgingly accepting diagnoses they didn’t agree with or being coerced by school cultures that seemed to devalue their children but potentially provided strong academic foundations. This type of trade-off is too common.

In American Promise, we see two families attempt to get the best education for their sons while still dealing with the hazards of race (and to some degree class). The promise of American opportunity will remain unrealized until Black families, as well as poor families, have equal opportunities to reap the benefits of well-resourced schools without suffering pyscho-social consequences along the way.

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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I have to admit, until recently I didn’t really know who Chief Keef was. I recognized his name from the hit “I Don’t Like,” but not much else. I starting inquiring about him more as he feuded with Lupe Fiasco, Lil Jojo got killed, and people started telling me, “Chief Keef is a problem.” The more I learn about him, the more I feel endeared to and concerned for him, as with many of our young Black males. As the rapper gets more and more attention, we have to realize that he is only one person. And like many of our youth, he is trapped in crises of identity, community and opportunity. Until we start to shift those things we can expect to see more loss in Chicago, Philadelphia, and other metropolitan cities.

Identity Crisis

“Know thyself”— two words that can be as simple or complex as we make them. The process of self-discovery is one fraught with benefit and consequences; nonetheless, it is a journey that all must undergo. While we spend a great deal of time telling our young people what to do and socializing them into what to consume, we often miss the chances to help them discover themselves and help them figure out what their role on the planet is, not just what they can make money doing.

Chief Keef, entrenched in a heavy gang culture, is a prime example. To him, Chicago’s Black Disciples is central to who he is and who he should be. Each of his tweets carries #300, a reference to the gang, and he’s been known to only state his age as “300.” A gang, for many, meets a craving for community; however, as this bleeds into an all-consuming sense of identity, the consequences can be large. Gangs are not likely to leave today or tomorrow. Chicago is no stranger to gangs; in fact, they are so much a part of the city’s history that there have been numerous attempts to organize them for progressive social action and governmental intervention to destabilize political alliances.

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Tips 1 and 2: Strong Summers/After-School Times and Clear Communication with Teachers

Tips 3 and 4: Understand the School’s Behavioral System and Identify Gaps Early

Tip 5: Foster an Intellectual Environment

I hope this creates a dialogue and space for nurturing Black boys to success.

Photo by Karl Ferguson

As I was saying, in a Sunday morning Ebony.com pulled together a diverse group of brothas at B. Braxton’s in Harlem (real nice spot, check it out if you want upscale professional barber experience … this is not a paid endorsement). On that morning we talked for about two hours on subject ranging from when we believed we became a man to the significance of the “black head nod.” It was an amazing experience that I pray we will replicate and I know many of you would have loved to be there … now you have a chance. Part 1: Manhood and Fatherhood is here and Part 2: Women and Relationships is here.

As a child, I used to look forward to the fabled moments in recess and gym class when we would play “girls versus boys.” While rare, it was a chance to go head-to-head with my classmates for gender supremacy. The stakes in gym class were bragging rights at best, but when we look at the current educational landscape, the competition between boys and girls is a bit more complicated. In recent years, we have seen the gender gap—the gap in average scores between males and females—reverse with girls surpassing boys in academic subjects like science and reading. This, not surprisingly, has led to a reincarnation of the battle of boys versus girls. But this time, school culture and societal inequality will be up for grabs.

Recently, David Brooks penned an editorial in the New York Times on the gender gap in our schools. Brooks cited research evidence to suggest that schools are geared towards female students, leaving boys at a disadvantage. This is not a wholly original argument, and the response from Soraya Chemalay suggests that any disadvantages that males face in school are but a microcosm of the larger gender inequities that females face in the world-at-large. While both Brooks and Chemalay are rightfully concerned, we must be careful to ensure that the education of children will not be taken as a zero-sum game, where one gender must win and one gender must lose.

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America has entered

From President Obama’s landmark announcement that he supports same sex marriage to Beenie Man posting a video asking for forgiveness of his past homophobic songs, tolerance is in! However, tolerance is not justice. In fact, tolerance basically boils down to finding something unobjectionable. Tolerance is the lowest form of acceptance because it allows one to support in words but not follow up with actions. If we are not careful, our tolerance will only serve to maintain the status quo. If we want to move from tolerance towards justice, it will take more than not objecting to same-sex marriage, it’s going to take a commitment to fight injustice and create safer communities for all. Read More

As I climbed the subway stairs

“I’ll beat the shit out of you, b*tch. You think I won’t. Keep talking slick to me!” My heart sunk and the heat of the day intensified. The young woman stood leaning against the wall as her companion berated her. He then demanded her phone and said he’d call whomever she had been speaking to “speak to them.” She refused. The more he yelled, the less she engaged him. Enraged by her silence he continued on, “Oh, so you think you’re smart? You think you’re a woman now? You ain’t no real woman! You’re immature. You’re a little girl. You spend your money on dumb things like clothes and red bottoms [the popular and expensive Christian Louboutin heels]  You ain’t not woman, I’m a man. I take care of myself. I get money. I put a roof over my head. I’m in school.”

As he barked, I then noticed something: I was the only one watching. We were on 145th and Saint Nicholas in Harlem at one of the busiest train stations in New York City and the corner was well populated. But no one, besides me, was paying attention. Read More.

I remember growing up

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Over the past few years

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“Black male success”. These three words are elusive in the press and too rarely associated with the brothers in our everyday lives. A recent report, however, may prove to be the game changer we so desperately deserve.

Dr. Shaun R. Harper, Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, recently released results from a comprehensive study of Black males who have excelled at college and beyond. The report, “Black Male Student Success in Higher Education” is the first research report released by the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education (CSREE). In the study’s pages we get an all too rare glimpse into what enables success for Black males. Read More

In days past, a canary in a coal mine was critical for safety. Miners would keep a caged canary in a mine and as long as they heard the canary singing they knew they were safe from the noxious gases that they were exposed to. If the canary stopped singing and/or dropped dead, miners also knew the mine was no longer safe to work in. Our neighborhoods are our mines and street harassment is a noxious gas that threatens our community safety and stability but goes unacknowledged. The time has come to notice the canary is no longer singing, our communities are getting less and less safe and if we don’t take notice, no one will.

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In fact, I wonder, are we even talking to boys and men about sexual violence? We need to engage boys and men in conversations not just about the mechanics of sex, but the responsibilities that accompany it (beyond pregnancy and STIs). While sex and sexuality are often discussed as private, in a puritanical sense, sex and sexuality are all around us. Youth are inundated with messages about sex, violence and power. Most boys have watched a pornographic film by the age of 11. You can chose not to talk about sex and sexual violence but they’ve likely already witnessed it.

Anytime one thinks about adolescents or children, the role of peer group looms large. As an adolescent I knew which friends had access to “adult materials” and also which friends or family were having (or so I thought) sex so they could tell me what I wanted to know. It was in this private context that I was taught about “running trains.” For those not familiar, that’s a colloquial reference to multiple men having sex with a single woman in succession. I was taught that if you found a real freak, everybody could participate. When I heard Snoop’s album and they sang, “It ain’t no fun, if the homies can’t have none” that was my reference and the image that came to mind. I was casually socialized into thinking that there was no gang rape, instead there were only gang bangs. Whether it’s Kid Cudi saying “me first” on I Poke Her Face or Wale ending his verse referencing “a train” on No Hands, our boys continue to learn gang rape is just a casual part of partying and growing up.

Some scholars estimate that between 10 to 33 percent of sexual assaults are multiple assailant (gang rape). Psychologically most common to these occurrences is an emphasis on power, displaying heterosexuality to other men, and drifting – where people commit crime that they may not agree with following others in a group. In short, gang rape is a group problem that makes clear we have to collectively change how we think about what it means to be a man and the role of power in our lives. At the core of the heinous act is often an attempt to validate one’s masculinity to others. Non-participation could mean being pushed out of the group or being “outed” (read: labeled as gay and this ‘not a real man’). If we don’t teach our boys to think differently about what it means to be a man, we will continue to be plagued by this issue.

This however is not simply an issue of peers. I can recall uncles saying, “you ain’t no real man till you’ve had some” or have seen parents questioning if children “have sugar in the tank” in attempts to legislate what it means to be “a real man.” When you couple these types of messages with misinformed sexual commentary, it creates a dangerous brew. As we are teaching boys about their journey into manhood, we often start with the ideas of power and control. I can’t recall how many times I’ve been in households where a 10 year old is referred to as “the man of the house” and told to “protect his mother and sisters” (I’m not even going into family structure here, just bear with me). This gives boys the idea, from an early age, that manhood is about power over women and about protect of girls and women from dangers. What if we pushed our boys to think about power sharing with girls and women? What if we restructured journeys into manhood to emphasize that best qualities of adults are neither masculine or feminine, they transcend both? What if we actually began to listen to our kids and talk to our kids about what we want our communities to look like? What if we envisioned spaces that were safe for girls and boys and women and men?

While I spend most days trying to crack the achievement gap, I cannot help but think the same questions of how do we shape peer influence and build individual personalities that can buffer against negative messages play out in sexual violence as well. In the case of education, we haven’t figured out how to transform peer influence and that’s with a million messages saying “stay in school” and “school pays.” But education has the advantage of being on the radars of millions. In the case of sexual violence, adults suffer from a lack of communication. The teenage years are guided by adults suggesting that youth not “follow the crowd” when it comes to drinking, drugs, and other speakable maladies, but sexual violence remains silent and untouched.

If we are going to provide a safe environment for boys and girls as well as men and women, we cannot afford to be silent. We cannot afford to flinch and/or turn away when they are honest about what they’ve learned about sex, relationships, and power – even if when we hear  our “messed up” messages that we’ve passed echoing back at us. We have to stand and have real conversations about gender violence and its severe consequences for all involved. This summer, I’m Program Coordinator of the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.S. (Boys Rising Organizing to Help End Racism and Sexism) where we will be working with adolescent males to become allies against sexism and gender based violence. Sexual violence is a collective issue and one that is sadly often framed solely as a “women’s issue.” I hope this post helps to highlight the extreme need of men and boys to be allies against sexual violence, if not we’ll find our boys and men being allies against it.

For resources on coping with and ending sexual violence:

A Long Walk Home

Men Can Stop Rape

RAINN

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

Hat tip to E. Mari Morales-Williams for sharing this with me.

– M1 of Dead Prez on the song “Malcolm, Garvey, Huey”

This week I’ve been peeking in on Ta-Nehisi Coates‘ musings as he re-reads the autobiography of Malcolm X. Coates has done us a great service by sharing his reading of Malcolm’s life as told by Alex Haley, but this service can easily slip into a disservice. Malcolm on one hand has been deified and on the other hand demonized. We must humanize Malcolm, like all the figures in the African Diasporic canon, but we must do it with a particular degree of care and context.

Thus far Coates has posted three entries: “Black Men are Watching Every Move I Make“, “She Had Broken the Spirits of Three Husbands” and “Confronting Valhalla’s Humanity” all of which I received with resonation and reservation. This post is to illuminate my reservations. Most of us are familiar with figures like Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, and Marcus Garvey as icons. In our history, each of them has become flattened, polished, and made rigid caricatures. Ironically, this is something all three would deeply object to, but this is often the consequence of canonizing. In breaking apart these images though, we must go deeper than just problematizing these brothers, we have to contextualize them.

In “Black Men are Watching Every Move I Make” in the closing Coates states, “I don’t say that to clean Malcolm X. I don’t buy the image of him as a complete convert to integration–nor do I need it, anymore than I needed it for Grant or Lincoln.” When I read this sentence my first thought was, “Malcolm as an integrationist isn’t cleaning it a pure whitewashing.” Coates, like many revisionists of Shabazz’s legacy, passively suggests that integration became a part of his worldview after returning from Mecca (Hajj). Of the many lies perpetrated about/against Malcolm, this is probably one of the most consistent.

Hajj served to reorient Malcolm’s thinking about race, but it did not make him an advocate of integration. He remained steadfast in his non-support of integration. On the day he was assassinated he was to deliver a speech on the OAAU that included him saying, “We consider the word “integration” a misleading, false term. It carries with it certain implications to which Afro-Americans cannot subscribe. This terminology has been applied to the current regulation projects which are supposedly “acceptable” to some classes of society. This very “acceptable” implies some inherent superiority or inferiority instead of acknowledging the true source of the inequalities involved.” X was not an integrationist. X died a Pan-Africanist. X died a nationalist. His travels throughout Africa and the “Middle East” in 1959 and his Hajj in 1964 were watershed moments, but were not 180 degree turns. While many suggest that he created great distance from the Nation of Islam and their beliefs around the racial order of the world, careful students will come to a different conclusion.

The second piece that Coates offers is “She Had Broken the Spirits of Three Husbands.” In this post, Coates takes Malcolm to task on his discussion of and attitudes towards women. Undoubtedly informed from his misogynistic hustling past, the excerpts presented show a cold and shameful side of Malcolm. I can recall just last year re-reading the Autobiography and many of the passages Coates selects stood out to me as well. I wondered, “If Malcolm is our model of Black masculinity and this is perspective on Black women, where does that leave us?” As someone who is very serious about the operation of gender oppression and privilege within the Black community, I too struggled to understand where Malcolm was. While the Autobiography represents a summative work, it is not a complete story. In fact, if we look at Shabazz’s work in with the Organization for Afro-American Unity (OAAU) you see a man who was growing and struggling around gender. In William Sales’ book “From civil rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity” we find Malcolm pushing to systematize and expand the role of women within the OAAU. He felt concerned that the gender oppression popular in his other organization Muslim Mosque Inc. was unduly sabotaging the liberatory work of OAAU. He began to make statements like, “Africa will not be free until it frees its women.” Yet these sentiments were nestled along side a profound distrust for women, which Coates captures in his excerpts. Between the popular image, Coates’ excerpts, and Sales’ analysis we get a fuller and better Malcolm, one that we can look to critically and lovingly.

Malcolm X is undoubtedly one of the most profoundly debated people of the African Diaspora (Sidebar- I’m anxiously awaiting Manning Marable’s book on X). Numerous volumes have attempted to capture that man in various stages, but not surprisingly all falling short. After all, who can truly capture human life in a few pages, a play or a film? But what I learned from reading the Autobiography, from reading beyond the autobiography, and being blessed to sit at the feet of elders who knew and worked with X is that there is a danger in simplifying the complex.

When Dead Prez says, “study Malcolm, Garvey, Huey their life is like a movie” I almost feel as if they’re reeling us in to find a deeper level of truth. The movies that depict all three of these men are often too narrow and too clean to capture their fullness. This fullness includes good, bad, and ugly. If you study them your learn strains of misogyny and feminism run through them all. They were not perfect; they were people. People who brilliantly taught us how to help our people rise while simultaneously showing us their personal limitations. Their vilification in mainstream media has led many to deify them within Black culture. Beginning the process of re-reading Malcolm, and I believe this applies to most known Black political figures, must come from a place of information if it is to lead to transformation.  If we are not informed and transformed, our people get no better. And after all, isn’t that what Malcolm was about?

For some evidence of the percolated conversations, check out this clip of brothers on the yard discussing the article and the greater community.

If you cannot see the video, please click here.

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

p.s. I’ll be awaiting some angry comments … I said awaiting, not necessarily replying to them ;)

I have said before and will say again, Tupac was a living metaphor for the Black man in America. Brilliant and Ignorant. Powerless and Powerful. Loving and Abused. Oppressed and Oppressor. Tragedy and Triumph in real time. To many, Pac’s approach was hypocritical, dissonant, even schizo. But if you listened with love, then you understood Pac was truly the rose from concrete. There was/is much to be learned from our brother Tupac Amaru Shakur.

Beneath is a video of one of Pac’s speeches at the Atlanta banquet of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Free the Land! Rest in Power and thank you for your honesty and the lessons that you’ve left behind Pac.

Originally published at The Atlanta Post

The internet is a funny thing and Twitter is a funny place. I find myself on there getting all sorts of information, as do many Black folks given that the Pew center says that 26% of Twitter users identify as African-American. At best, it is a fast paced way to share information and at worst a fast paced way to spread pain. One Friday night, comedian Lil Duval decided to get a subject going called “it aint rape.” He started out with “It ain’t rape if you order from the entrée side of the menu.” Essentially, it was a fill-in-the-blank festival that, for some, led to laughs and that, for many others, led to pain. Lil Duval’s tweeting falls squarely during Sexual Assault Awareness Month, demonstrating that too many in our community take sexual assault as a joke.

Lil Duval’s quickly took a step back and said, “Rape ain’t funny but women putting theyselves [sic] in [expletive] up positions is.” By saying rape doesn’t exist and that rape is based on poor decisions, Duval joined a line of Black comedians who have found humor and sadly greater acceptance in our community.

The first time I ever heard my mother disagreeing with my father in front of me was when my father was arguing that Chris Rock was hilarious. My mother stopped, stared at him and said, “I do not think Chris Rock is funny. Rape is not funny.” My mother continued to express her pain and frustration while my father remained oblivious to her hurt. Chris Rock had gone on Arsenio Hall and told a “date rape” joke which polarized the audience, causing Hall to apologize the next day. Later Rock admitted telling the joke helped, not hurt his career. We, as a community, are in a strange place when our community embraces someone more for joking about heinous crimes than when we repudiate the joke and seek healing for the survivors.

The reality is that sexual violence is one of those issues that ends up being so wrapped up in our families and communities that dealing with it necessitates an investment in others lives that many of us have grown accustomed to not having. Off the stage, when issues of rape come up in our community, I often hear, “we don’t know all the facts”, “I wasn’t there, so I don’t know,” or the most dangerous of them all, “well what if she wasn’t a victim.” Despite this disavowal of ability to judge, we are able to maintain a level of comedic commentary. That’s part of the problem. It’s easier to laugh at something than to deal with it. The lengths we go to laugh at and justify sexual assault, particularly violence again women, is painful, disheartening, and does a disservice to providing the space for our community to heal.

There are many things about sexual assault that are not easy to joke about. Among those who report it, we know that one in four Black women have suffered from sexual assault and one in six Black men have. We know the bulk of cases actually reported are of people under 18, our children, and sadly, Dr. Gail Wyatt’s research has shown us that nearly 50 percent of Black women living with HIV were sexually assaulted as children. There is nothing funny about that. From childhood to adulthood, there is a continuum of hurt that we continue to turn a blind eye to, except when it’s comedy time.

While many of us dog pile onto jokes about rape, incest, and other abuse, we’re likely ignoring our loved ones who are dealing with the scars right next to us. However, comedy is not the only culprit in silencing sexual assault. When “Precious” debuted there were many conversations about race, body image, and representations of Blackness, but too few commentaries that seriously dealt with the role of sexual assault in our community. Are we alone in having sexual assault in our community? No. But do we have a special responsibility to engaging this malady for the health of us all? Yes!

While those suffering from sexual assault should seek the help of a professional, we non-professionals can help by creating an environment ripe for healing. While there is the old saying “laughter is the best medicine” unfortunately when I look around, I see we use our laughter to silence the pain of sexual assault and miss out on the medicine.

Visit the anti-sexual assault organization Rainn.org for more information.

If you’re interested in not just being reactive but also proactive in combatting sexual assault in our community please support Girl/Friends: Adolescent Girls Preventing and Healing from Sexual Assault. It’s a dynamic new program run by A Long Walk Home, an organization founded by my scholar sister Salamishah Tillet.

“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.

Introduction with remarks from Dr. Obie Clayton (Sociology), President of Morehouse College Robert Franklin, and Dr. David Wall Rice (Psychology)

Dr. Horace L. Griffin‘s ( Pacific School of Religion) talks on The Black Church and Black Macho. Griffin goes in depth and breaks down his passage through Morehouse as a religious fundamentalist and arrival to a deeper and more rich spirituality. Griffin breaks down his misogynist and homophobic views and his development into a more equity driven gay Episcopal minister. He is author of Their Own Receive Them Not: African American Lesbians and Gays in Black Church.

Dr. Michael J. Strambler (Yale School of Medicine) breaks down questions of educational motivation among African-American males. He reviews and challenges the current set of explanations which assume low motivation and anti-academic attitudes of Black youth. He then identifies some promising practices for reforming schools to positively affect Black male student experience and performance.

Dr. Shani Harris Peterson (Spelman College) presents on sex, media, and its implications for health. She challenges the audience to interrogate videos, including Snoop Dogg’s “Beautiful.” She also masterfully negotiates a set of questions that essentialize Black women as golddiggers and Black men as African royalty.

This is my talk and I’ll be offering more comments tomorrow in a post on Black Male Privilege (BMP) which includes the link. Also, check out Sister Toldja’s salute to my talk (blushing) and more importantly the subject matter of BMP.

Lastly, the panel closes with a question and answer session where a number of issues are clarified and challenging thoughts offered.

“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

I remember the first time I saw that clip I was stopped in my tracks. I didn’t know what to say. Of course the scholar in me says, if you like violence in one context, why not expect it in another one? I was hurt as I watched Pun pistol whip Liza Rios and then fail to make it up the stairs to continue his onslaught. In sick irony, in the most classical sense, Liza’s life was saved by Pun’s own nemesis of poor health, which would eventually take his life.  When I hear folks say, “Hip-Hop is entertainment. Movies are violent, but you don’t see anyone coming down on them.” I’m reminded of the words of Liza Rios who talked about the evolution of her husband, “I knew him as Chris. And as he became Pun, he actually became Punisher. That wasn’t just a stage name, that was his way of being.” Cinematic violence, whether on screen or in our headphones, often requires us to suspend reality but with the visual evidence of Pun’s violence, my suspension of reality shattered.

I must be honest with myself and recognize that many of my rap idols like Biggie were domestic abusers, they just never had the camera rolling. To many, domestic violence is unconsciousable. But as a man, I have to grapple with the fact that we, Black, Brown, White, Asian men are the purveyors of the violence and must develop the tools to stop it. I’ve been in a number of conversations with sisters who do sexual abuse work over the years and when I ask them earnestly, “What should be done with brothers that abuse, rape or enact violence on women?” Sadly a number have responded, “jail”, “death penalty”, “let the community have their way with him.” From some of the most progressive sisters I know, this hurt me too. What is the cost of not acknowledging domestic violence? What is the cost of not making space for healing for the abused and abuser? This is complicated work, but the work that a community must do if it wants to be sustained. The reality is that violence remains a serious issue in our community and we cannot afford to turn a blind eye to punishment or healing.

*Part of my denial of violence as central to my definition of Hip-Hop is rooted in my understanding that many rappers are spewing perverse fantasy, and my black male privilege which puts me in precarious location of the potential purveyor and victim of violence. This would take a whole book to really go into, but had to offer that caveat.

“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

For more than a year, I’ve entertained way too many conversations about the shortage of Black men and Black women who remain hopelessly single. I tend to avoid these conversations, because it seems little can come of them other than hurt feelings and finger pointing. Well while reflecting on Ujima, I wondered how the principle could help this discussion given my inbox and twitter feed was abuzz with a recent story on the “crisis” in the Black community. I am certain that the blame game that comes around from discussions of relationships nor is it something that is unique to Black folks. I however realize it can come into special relief when we begin to talk about the numbers of Black women and men that are not married or the number of “out-of-wedlock” births that we have. The “crisis” of the Black family is not new, the placing of blame on Black women is not new, blaming men is not new, but the repackaging of it continues to draw attention and the opposite of productive discussion, mainly it ends up being a new opportunity for us to sidestep personal work, overlook progress, and undermine community work.

The principle of Ujima asks that we all acknowledge our role in the current condition and collectively work to repair it, this seldom happens in the current discourse. The recent Washington Post profile of Helena Andrews and the Nightline segment on unmarried Black women have kept us consumed with chatter. The Nightline segment features a number of sisters talking about the dilemma of being single and successful and then they’re joined by relationship guru comedian (who is asked to speak on a serious social issue) Steve Harvey. Harvey offers some commentary on the women’s aesthetic beauty, says older men failed to socialize younger males, and then tells the sisters to date older men to fulfill what the story purports as “missing.” The story created quite a buzz and part of it, I’d say, is due to the way the piece is framed. The piece highlights an ever declining population of marriagable men and high achieving women, pitting men against women in a zero sum game which results in a decaying Black family. When I saw the piece I didn’t get bent out of shape about it and reach for a lighter to reignite the battle of the sexes,  instead I saw a more promising narrative on mate selection, accomplishment, and community. This was, in part, because I listened to the voices of the sisters, rather than the voice that framed the piece. If you listen to the women’s testimonies they articulate clear expectations, a desire to settle down, but not the desire to settle. Quite the opposite of what is popularly emphasized where sisters have unrealistic standards, are hungry to trap men, and emasculate the men in their lives. Their voices and stories, like so many that I’ve read or watched on the topic, get twisted and are used to suggest there is more space for discontent and disunity than for collective work and responsibility.

The reality, as I see it, is that the changing forms of family, gender, and community mandate that we not look at each other and assume we will replicate the systems of the past. This doesn’t mean a total disavowal of what we had, but it often means me must acknowledge what we used in the past may not work today. In order to begin collective work we have to agree upon a problem or set of problems, which I’m not sure we do. What if what one called a problem another saw as an evolution and a success? Too often we assume marriage is the bedrock for a strong community, however family is much more-so. And family, for African-Americans and people of African descent has been defined in many ways that clash the mythos of the nuclear family. Are we ready to begin the work of collective uplift be acknowledging we may not be all shooting at the same target of family? Are we ready to acknowledge the role that emotional scars hold for men and women in choosing partners? Are we ready to move beyond discussions of “baby mama” drama and enter the work of  co-parenting? These are some of the questions and topics I’d love to see tackled so that we may truly begin to see our brothers and sisters problems as our own, as well as, our brothers and sisters strengths as our own. From there we can begin to do the work of collective work and responsibility for the Black community.

From the moment of the opening credits when the viewer beings to read phonetic words, you are forced inside the life of Precious. I found the narrative was powerfully weaved. The viewer gets to see the compounding hazardous factors that assault Precious on the daily: failing schools, inadequate academic preparation, lack of healthy food options, substandard housing, negotiating the social welfare system, domestic violence, sexual assault, just to name a few. These hazards, for me, fall into two categories, the former are normative of many families mired in poverty and the latter two are often more prevalent in families mired in poverty but are not necessary conditions of poverty. Put another way, the first are features of what it usually means to grow up in a poor neighborhood and household. For the last two, the odds of them occurring are increased by being in poverty but that does not mean they happen in most poor homes. Poverty, like most social forces, has a way of making bad things worse and Precious illustrates this painful circumstance. The movies portraiture of the mid 1980s New York scene is disturbing and rings with a tenor of truth and fantasy. I expect nothing less from a film about urban issues and youth.

The character Precious’ agency, her ability to make independent choices that affect her life, is wonderfully represented in the face of the social maladies she encounters (yes, I know most have an opposite take on this and I’m likely setting myself up for a battle but it’s all good). For those of us who have committed many hours to working with urban Black poor communities, we know that success or transcendence is not always or even often the outcome. You begin to look for the small victories that some would not see as minor, but are nonetheless steps to persevering with the goals of thriving. Our communities are resilient and I think the film captures this and puts context on that resilience. For example, in the movie, the decision to speak up in the welfare office knowing she would compromise her safety, housing, and potentially her life was beyond brave. While sitting in an arm chair and suggesting such a decision is the “obvious” one or one that is “unhelpful” is too narrow a perspective on the faces at the bottom of the well.

I was moved by the film and the story because it represented, in many ways, the lives of the students who I could not touch in New Haven, Atlanta, Detroit and New York. The children who moved, by force and by choice, from the classrooms and schools which I’ve visited, taught in, or spoke at. All too often their agency becomes rendered invisible while their transgressions such as imprisonment, welfare receipt, and deaths are hyper-visible in the public sphere. For this reason, I appreciated the voices and lives the film narrated. There are a number of excellent reviews on what the film missed and some issues that deserve serious consideration. Both The Root and Racialicious do an excellent job of taking these on and I won’t rehash them so please do read them!!! This is not so much a review but rather a reflection and endorsement of stepping out to see the film for yourself. I am excited by the debates and conversations that are erupting for the film and hope they lead us to new ground in transforming communities.

I’ve been trying to avoid writing this for some time now. As an alumnus of the institution, it’s hard for me to see you in such condition. Many of my fellow alumni complained of your disrepair and your besmirched image when they heard about students being beaten for their sexuality, shooters graduating, and cross-dressing, but I have bigger concerns. While all these things mattered to me, they did not disturb me because of what was being done to the image of our institution; they disturbed me because they demonstrated that Dear Old Morehouse was terribly unequipped to deal with the realities and lives that Black men in America live now. In fact, it is the Old Morehouse that is more dangerous to me than any student with a gun, sagged pants, or high heels would ever be. Let me explain.

When I visited Morehouse for the first time, it was about 1994, I remember seeing hanging banners and brochures that talked about the development of leaders, community servants, and caring connected brothers. The culmination of these developments was to be the Morehouse Man. I remember reading about the crown that Morehouse held up for its students so that one day they too would embody the Morehouse Mystique. I was sold. I was ready to be in that number. I was ready to be at the only institution of higher education dedicated fully to the education of men of African descent in the United States. But like most things, I soon found out all that glittered was not gold.

courtesy of nyleharris flckr stream

When I arrived, I remember hearing brothers commonly refer to the Morehouse Mistake, not Mystique. I remember seeing Samuel L. Jackson toted out as a shining alumnus, only to learn he was actually kicked out while he was there. I was there when I realized Morehouse students had no trouble admitting rape happened, but sadly refused to admit that Morehouse students could or would rape their Spelman sisters. I know, now I’m airing dirty laundry, in your eyes, but hear me out. Morehouse, if you are committed to Black men, then you’ve got to do better. You, no WE, have got to work to make better men for the 21^st century, not the 20^th. It often feels like each time I hear about your “new moves” and “plans” you’re becoming more committed to making a middle class Black man who would exist in the 1950s or 60s, not in 2009. From clothing to interviews, Dear Old Morehouse, there is much more happening with and to Black men than you’re equipped to handle.

See, in the past, Morehouse was about accepting and graduating the “cream of the crop” amongst the Black bourgeoisie and claiming the production of the Black intelligentsia. We all know, at least at the House, that Martin Luther King, Jr. — our most well known alumnus– came from a relatively well-to-do background and he wasn’t the most stunning student. But it would be on the red clay hills of Georgia that he got a deeper social, spiritual, and political education which would lead him to change the world. It is that image that you fed us and feed young brothers who come to the gates these days. You celebrate your role as one of the top feeders to graduate schools and Fortune 500 companies among institutions of higher education.  You highlight that our alumni are Rhodes Scholars, former surgeon generals and are changing the world around the globe, as many institutions do. The problem is, those men are the ones who made it, and it is likely that they still would have made it without Morehouse. Sometimes I think you point to exceptional success from the past in an effort to keep people from noticing what you are doing wrong or simply not doing it the present. So many who come to our campus, who desire to be better men, are not given what they need because you are asking them to trade themselves for your idea of success. Dear Old Morehouse, success does not look, sound, or feel the same for all.

I almost feel like you’re in denial; we can’t keep living a lie. I’ve got to tell you five things that you seem to deny too often. First, Affirmative Action did change you and who attended you. Affirmative Action allowed a number of the brothers who would have attended HBCUs in the past to attend traditional Ivys. We have to recognize that we don’t have the economic resources to compete with the Harvards, Yales or even smaller liberal arts schools. Many brothers get drawn to these schools because they have a financial safety net and set of offerings that make it difficult for them to sign on Morehouse’s dotted line. Second, the day of male breadwinner and unquestioned male leadership is done. While the sisters at Spelman were over there involved in the freedom struggle with us, they were also noticing we were often working on “liberation for half a race.” While we spend copious amounts of time sitting in orientations and Crown Forums that convince us that we’ve “made it” because so many brothers didn’t, we’re falsely inflating ourselves and using these bloated egos to plot the path towards a wayward progress. Third, style is one of hallmarks of Blackness. Spending time trying to reduce and refashion style is like harnessing youth, a noble thought but likely to leave you more embarrassed than successful. Hip-Hop culture is here to stay and reflects a lot of what we face as a people and what many in our community aspire to emulate. Hip-Hop culture is art and yes, art and life do imitate one another. Hip-Hop is, was, and shall be anti-establishment; the more you regulate it, the more it will battle you. Fourth, gay men are Morehouse Men and they should no longer be silent and covering. For too long, Morehouse treated gay and queer brothers like the Loch Ness monster, often talked about but never fully confirmed. News flash: being non-heterosexual is neither a psychological nor a social deviance. It’s reality! Fifth, Black boys are in crisis and you have to adapt to this crisis as well. With 50% of Black boys who begin high school in the inner-city not graduating with their classmates on time, you must realize your pool of applicants and admits is going to look different. These brothers mostly come with 4.0 potential, not 4.0 GPA’s. The question becomes, what can we do to move potential to reality?! What are the supports we’re putting in place for the brothers who beat the odds and make it to the House? I am honestly not sure if you are ignorant or simply ignoring, but either way, we’ve got to do better. I seriously think that if you start to deal with these five facts, you can move from being Dear Old Morehouse to a Dear New Morehouse.

Oh I can hear you now, “Brother, we are getting ‘new’!” Unfortunately your “new” is old. With each passing year, I swear you move a step backwards towards your former self… or at least an image that you believed yourself to be. From interviews to dress codes, you’re trying to create a brand of respectable middle class black males that went out with the last sputters of the Civil Rights Movement. Yes, alumni get excited when they hear, “we will no longer tolerate…” because we all have a narrative about how Morehouse was and how it has changed. Don’t be surprised if people co-sign on your reversal of the clock without seeing the bigger picture. They’ll support more assemblies, more Crown Forums, more rules, less braids, less sagging, less gays… oops, just kidding on the last one. I know that subject is touchy in our community. Have you forgotten, it was not what was outside that made the Morehouse Man it was what was inside? The most valuable lessons are those learned collectively through struggle, failure and success.  Not from imposition, dress codes, or dress policies. College is one of the few times that Black men may be able to explore fuller and truer selves and your hallowed halls are the ideal place to do so. Instead, you threaten to lock down and narrow those very halls. I want to hear that you’re developing new models of manhood, ones that are not patriarchal, ones that deal with the needs of Black men and boys who need healing, ones that let boys become the Men of their choosing and of their community’s wanting. Few of the rules that you are implementing are creating a healthier pathway for Black men, they’re simply polishing the same “broken” brothas and yet you wonder why it is not working.

Quite regularly now, I receive emails asking “What is Morehouse doing?” Some come in agreement, some come in disagreement, but the ones I value most are the those that come from a place of love for the development of all Black men. The individual policies that you have drawn up are just echoes of the world that Black males now create and inhabit. If Dear Old Morehouse is truly interested in living up to its missions and declarations, the ones that got me to attend, the ones that got me to link up and sing, the ones that got me to love my institution enough to critique its actions, then we’ve got to begin from a point of understanding and expansion, not from a point of rigidity and constriction. Unless we acknowledge that Dear Old Morehouse must become Dear New Morehouse to serve the whole of our community, we’ll be doing this sad dance every 8 months. I look forward to your response and hope WE can grow to meet that crown of which Howard Thurman so eloquently made us aware.

In humility and community,

Dr. R. L’Heureux Lewis

Ndugu Dumi Eyi di yiye

Class of 2000

We, the concerned, the tired, and the committed have a rare opportunity to join not just in frustration, but in production. This week, at the Think Tank for African American Progress’ meeting in Memphis, Tennessee entitled: “What is the future of Black Boys?” While the media, and by admission in many of our community, suggest there is little being done to combat the conditions that black male youth face, there is work, there is opportunity, and there is the need for your voice and energy.

The Think Tank for African American Progress is a young organization birthed from the Brothers of the Academy with a unique mission and method of operation. This meeting marks the 4th in a series of ongoing discussions and actions surrounding the conditions that African Americans face and create. The think tank uniquely does the work of on problems as well as solutions! When conditions are detrimental, the question is asked, “What can be done to create change?” When conditions are producing the results we desire the question is asked, “What can be done to replicate this success?” Another of its unique features is the structure and value of collaboration. All participants, whether a concerned community member or renowned scholar have input in the structure and solutions offered by the Think Tank. Under the model, differing experiences lead to differing expertises, which lead to the diverse collaborations. Our community is certainly in need of diverse solutions to common challenges.

While not everyone will be able to make it to Memphis this week, there is much that can be gained and contributed to this ongoing work. Soon after the meeting, presentations and documents that emerge from the meeting will be made available via the Think Tank’s website. While so much time is spent on concentrating on what is “going wrong” with our community, Black males in particular, this is a unique opportunity to move from a discussion of Black men as endangered and disconnected to a conversation where care, concern and community lie at the center. On this 14th annivesary of the Million Man March, let’s put in the work to move the condition of Black boys from crisis and construct a new future for Black boys and more healthy Black community overall.

I believe in living,

I believe in the spectrum

of Beta days and Gamma people.

I believe in sunshine.

In windmills and waterfalls,

tricycles and rocking chairs.

And i believe that seeds grow into sprouts.

And sprouts grow into trees.

I believe in the magic of the hands.

And in the wisdom of the eyes.

I beleive in race and tears.

And in the blood of infinity.

I believe in life.

And i have seen the death parade

march through the torso of the earth,

sculpting mud bodies in its path.

I have seen the destruction of the daylight,

and see bloodthirsty maggots

prayed to and saluted.

I have seen the kind become the blind

and the blind become the bind

in one easy lesson.

I have walked on cut glass.

I have eaten crow and blunder bread

and breathed the stench of indifference.

I have been locked by the lawless.

Handcuffed by the haters.

Gagged by the greedy.

And, if i know any thing at all,

it’s that a wall is just a wall

and nothing more at all.

It can be broken down.

I believe in living.

I believe in birth.

I believe in the sweat of love

and in the fire of truth.

And i believe that a lost ship,

steered by tired, seasick sailors,

can still be guided home

to port.

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.

Over the past few days, I’ve seen some rather public discussions of the possible (what could happen) and the probable (what will likely happen). There are 2 recent occurrences that made me write this: 1) the Cassie nude photo(s) leak and 2) the Brooks Op-Ed on the Promise Academy. Well, given the folks who read my blog, I’m pretty sure you’ll be expecting a deep discussion of the Promise Academy and schooling, but for now you’ll have to sit through my discussion of Cassie :)  (Promise Academy discussion and high poverty schooling discussion coming in The Possible and the Probable Part Two).

When the pictures of Cassie were “leaked” onto the internet and she offered a public response via twitter and her blog de-emphasizing them. Many on the internet and radio began to chorus like Jay-Z and say, “We don’t believe you, you need more people.” Behind this incredulous response to Cassie was another discussion that I heard stated squarely by Phonte from Little Brother (while Phonte said it, I know a number of brothas have expressed the same sentiment to me many times over). Phonte tweeted, “So next time you hear someone talk about how unfair the industry is for women, look em in the eyes and say THE DEVIL IS A MUTHAFUCKIN LIAR.” He continued on to tweet, “Female singers play the ho role because they want to, not cause they HAVE to. Minnie Riperton aint neva had 2 show a titty for me 2 buy a CD” and “Neither has Chrisette Michele for that matter (for all you “BUT MINNIE’S HEYDAY WAS 30 YEARS AGO” ass niggas).”

So the argument goes, that women “in the industry” don’t have to  “ho themselves out” they make a choice to do it. Now I want to distinguish between a sistah engaging her sexuality on her own terms (or as much of her own terms are possible) and an A&R or label engineering her image to something hyper sexualized and fetishized. The line can be thin, but 9 time out of 10, the industry (in this case music) actively pushes women into the latter.

I know, many are saying, “But wait, they have a choice! It’s not the industry, it’s them.” Duly noted, but all choices are subject to available options.  Phonte points out Minnie Riperton and Chrisette Michelle, whom I both love, are successful (well relatively successful) and that they made it or are making in the industry without exposing themselves. While this is true, the reality is that they are the exception to the rules or norms of the music industry. If you are participating in the mainstream music industry companies want units moved and profits more than they desire “quality” music. As a result, creativity is compromised, images are engineered, and people are shoved into niches for marketing purposes. You can easily see the same tired archetypes and tropes being repeated in Hip-Hop, R&B, and in most genres of music. The idea is “people buy what they know” and essentially if they know these hyper feminine and hyper masculine images, profits will be made so they keep feeding and forcing people into those categories to “make it” in the music industry.

But what about the exceptions? What about the folks who are themselves? The ones who don’t buy-in or sell-out? You know, Minnie Riperton, Chrisette Michelle, Erykah Badu, etc. Yes, there are always exceptions but those exceptions do little to disprove the rule. Remember for every Riperton, Michelle or Badu there are hundreds of women who equally have fought of these hyper-stereotyped images and go double wood (the opposite of double platinum).  Pointing to the exception does not negate the rule. Throughout history of Black America we could point to the exception or  “exceptional negro” and say their advancement indicated the openness of opportunity, but that would be short-sighted.

As others have said, it’s like saying, “Madame CJ Walker was a millionaire in the early 1900s. Which shows Black women can make it in business if they work hard and have their stuff together.” Yes, a Black woman was a millionaire then, but that can tell us little about the lives and experiences that most Black women had. In fact, I doubt that most Black women in the 1900s didn’t have drive, perseverance, and all the other things attributed to Walker as exceptional qualities. Ultimately Walker’s achievements didn’t mean that most Black women wouldn’t be circumscribed to domestic labor where they would accrue pennies in comparision to her millions. It’s like pointing to Barack Obama and saying, “See the Black man can make it out of poverty in America to be President of the United States of America.” Yes, Barack Obama is a phenomenal example and case, but highlighting his life ignores the fact that 50% of Black men in New York City are unemployed. If you keep pointing to the possible, then you will miss the probable and the reality is that most of us live in the probable and are seeking the possible, not the other way around.

Our community is much like a rose garden with millions of roses. When people ask about our garden we pick the most beautiful rose from the healthiest bush and we show it to everyone. We highlight that rose as indicative of our gardening ability and smile to collect accolades. But the sad reality is that the prize rose is only so beautiful because there were so many that grew with it, but did not make it.

We concentrate on the exceptional because it can be too hard acknowledge the probable and the majority of roses that aren’t award winning, aren’t beautiful, and are subject to the harsh conditions of the world. We must be cautious in pointing to the possible and mistaking it for the probable. In the past, many from outside our community did that and we served as a corrective to this faulty logic, today, I hear all too many within our community endorse this same fallacy.

Imagine the terror of a mother frantically trying to cut down her child seconds after finding him hanging from an extension cord in his bedroom. Picture the trauma of a 10-year-old girl desperately trying to hold up her older brother after finding him hanging from a noose in an upstairs closet.

These tragic scenes unfolded in the past several weeks as two beautiful 11-year-old black boys, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover of Springfield, Massachusetts and Jaheem Herrera of DeKalb, Georgia, chose to end their lives rather than endure another day of being bullied in their schools.

According to reports, the parents of both children had repeatedly warned school officials about the daily torment and torture that their children were subjected to during school. However, neither parents nor educators were able to intervene in time.

While most acts of bullying do not lead to traumatic acts of suicide, bullying happens to young people all the time. Studies indicate that 65% of teens have been verbally or physically harassed or assaulted during the past year. 39% of teens report that students in their school are frequently harassed because of their physical appearance and another 33% report that students in their school are frequently harassed because of their perceived or actual sexual orientation.

But why are our kids killing themselves? Is there something different about bullying today that makes facing the daily onslaught more painful than life itself for some of our youth? Questions like these beckon to adults reeling from the shock of these events, in part because many think that that bullying is just a part of life–something that everyone has to deal with when they are growing up. Many adults are also puzzled by the impact of bullying on children who are targeted as “gay” because they assume that being gay, lesbian, and or bi-sexual is more acceptable today than in the past.

Click here to read full article

Sexual assault remains one of the most taboo and silenced experiences globally and particularly in the Black community. Through SOARS, A Long Walk Home is not only raising awareness but also creating spaces for solutions and healing. The final portion of the 2 hour production is a “speak out” (in the tradition of Take Back the Night) where audience members can ask questions of the cast and speak out about their experiences. At first, questions were sparse and audience members sat quietly waiting for someone to break the silence, then finally it was broken. From the audience came a flood of experiences with sexual assault from childhood to adulthood. More than just a question and answer the session, it was one of mutual sharing and support. In a group so large, one shouldn’t expect such a sacred space for sharing, but it makes perfect sense once you realize the audience is taken on an painfully intimate, triumphant and bonding journey of a survivor in the production. Multiple audience members said the story on the stage was their own story. The fourth wall was shattered! The spirit that SOARS created in the audience reminded me of a proverb that one of my baba’s once gave me. He said, “Live your life as if it is an open book, for you never know from which page someone will have to learn.” I was glad to learn from the page of Salamishah, SOARS, and the audience.

In a society defined by so much difficulty and silence around crimes such as rape, the process of not only surviving but healing is opened in a powerful way. This week, a number of my friends and those who I admire were at the Men Can Stop Rape conference. I am glad that venues that conference and SOARS exist to open dialogue and continue the work of fighting sexual violence, surviving and healing.

A Long Walk Home is beginning a preventative and healing peer-centered approach to sexual assault named Girl/Friends which will equip young women with the tools to help themselves and their community. The SOARS season for the year has closed, but when they go on tour again, I’ll make sure to post dates and tour location. In the meantime, visit their website and get a “Got Consent” tee-shirt to support their work (available in both men and women’s)!

A few years ago I wrote a post entitled “Playing the Rape Card” inspired by the tensions happening between Morehouse and Spelman around student rape. As I talked to brothers I went to school with and looked at comments on facebook about rape between Morehouse and Spelman I was disappointed. I was at first disgusted with our “knee jerk” reaction to allegations and our emphasis on “alleged rapes” when many of us have damn well known for years these issues plague our schools, communities and families. My post was well received by sisters who read it and commented, but very few from brothas. When I looked at my hit counter it was one of my “most popular” posts and when I asked brothas who read it their thoughts they said things like, “I agree.” But men weren’t really ready to “stand up and stand out” against the growing wall of ” Black male solidarity” with Morehouse. I found that brothers were silently consenting to my argument that rape is not fiction as well as silently consenting to rape. It’s time to break that silent consent as well. While I’m sure my post didn’t do much, I have high hopes that this film will begin to re-open that dialogue. I intended to just post the video quickly, but too many things came to mind. Thank you Laura Rahman for breaking the social contracts and I’ll continue to try to break silent consent.

Hattip to Byron Hurt for the video trailer.

What is the enduring legacy of Sarah Palin for men after the 2008 presidential elections? It seems like a reasonable question to ask, given how important men were to the success of Palin.

According to CNN, more men than women believed that the Alaska governor was qualified to be president, and more men than women felt like questions raised about the governor’s experiences were unfair. In fact, contrary to the enormous media attention directed at Palin’s likely impact on women voters — what became commonly referred to as the “Palin Effect” — we now know that it was the positive reaction among men within the electorate that drove the governor’s initial popularity and propelled her to the superstar status that she enjoys today!

The truth is that Palin owes a lot to men. Men influenced her message, her method and certainly how she was marketed to the American public.

However, if you follow the media’s continuing coverage of Palin — which it is almost impossible not to, considering the legions of articles that are still being written about her — you probably would not know anything about how men’s reactions to her signal important demographic and cultural changes occurring in men’s lives.

Read the whole article here.

I have to be honest…

Over the last couple of days I have been deeply disturbed…

On Sunday night we all learned that Chris Brown and Rihanna would be absent from the Grammy’s due to an alleged episode of domestic violence.

As the days followed, those rumors have been confirmed, with details that described Rihanna’s injuries as horrific.

So what followed? An outcry from the community against the devastation that domestic violence causes in all of our lives? A denunciation of Brown’s heinous acts and calls to boycott his music? Or even… a small expression of concern for the health and safety of this young woman?

Not at all…

Read the rest here!!!!

When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong… – For more of the funniest videos, click here

“Rosa sat so Martin could walk, Martin walked so Obama could run, Obama ran so our children can fly!”**

This message, while inspirational, demonstrates the ways that one of the most historic and powerful presidential runs ever gets looked over, if not just downright ignored. In 1972, the campaign of Shirley Chisholm broke both the gender and race barrier in American presidential politics, but her campaign is still relatively unknown. Let me start this with an admission, I knew that Chisholm ran in 1972 but I had no idea about the discourse she pushed, assassination attempts, and what was certainly more than a symbolic run. At the close of the summer, I got to watch the documentary Chisholm 72- Unbought & Unbossed at Sundae Sermon. As I sat on a hill watching Shirley Chisholm challenge historical figures like George Wallace, George McGovern, and Hubert Humphrey, I was amazed at her vision, inspired by her bravery, and humbled by the ways we leave her out of history. That is a living example of why we need herstory, particularly within the Black community.

The film, by Shola Lynch, brilliantly transports the viewer into the political terrain and turmoil of 1972 politics. Watching primary footage of candidates eerily disturbed me as I heard the same rhetoric batted around 36 years later. In fact, while John McCain was still a P.O.W., Chisholm was the original maverick. She was the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Chisholm was the first serious female presidential candidate and she had a platform that explicitly spoke to the interests of Black people throughout the United States. Born to Bajan parents and raised in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn, Chisholm formed political alliances with the Black Panther Party, National Organization for Women, pushed the Democratic party to the left as they grappled with the development of splitting factions, and was founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus (though the CBC couldn’t get their act together to endorse her… gender politics as usual).

Chisholm’s campaign was absent from our discussions of Black presidential candidacies as we deferred to Jackson’s runs as the foundation for Obama’s run. In reality, had Chisholm not ran, neither Jackson nor Obama’s campaigns would have been able to achieve what they did. As we celebrate the historic election of Barack Obama, I pray that we do not wash the memory of Chisholm from our already tattered ledger. Her run, her work, and her vision laid the foundation, and her words still are relevant,

Prejudice and hatred built the nation’s slums, maintains them and profits by them …. Unless we start to fight and defeat the enemies in our country, poverty and racism, and make our talk of equality and opportunity ring true, we are exposed in the eyes of the world as hypocrites when we talk about making people free.

*The title of this post is an adaptation of a line from Biz Markie in “Nobody beats the Biz.” He said, “Reagan is the pres, but I voted for Shirley Chisholm.”

**The first variation of this I heard was at the 2008 Black State of the Union by Rep. Cleo Fields. There is a lot of internet debate about its origins, so I thought I’d link to the youtube here.

Hear Ye!

Hear Ye!
Let it be known that November 5th is now the Michelle Obama Federal Holiday!

You both have inspired me and given me new hope in my community, in my people, in my humanity, and undoubtedly in my blackness!!

Sisters and Brothers, the true gift of this election is validation and vindication of Black Womanhood!!
Everyone take note:

Barack has done himself and us a great service by marrying Michelle Obama.
Thank you Michelle for being strong and not diluting your strength.
Thank you Michelle for being highly intelligent and not dumbing down yourself.
Thank you for not starving yourself and not lipo’ing your curves away to fit “standards” that are not authentically yours.
Thank you Michelle for helping to make a great Man Greater.
Thank you Michelle for showing us that intelligence is the True Sexy– bling and oiled biceps can’t compete!
Thank you Michelle for speaking your mind and not allowing that ugly “bitch/angry black woman” label to fertilize itself– thanks for killing it on the vine.
Thank you Michelle for keeping your South Side flavor & roots while upgrading yourself and your community.
Thank you Michelle for showing us that we can have it all– maybe not all the same way or at the same time– but we can indeed have it all.
Thank you Michelle for showing my nieces, female cousins, and all of us women who are trying to do our part in our own skin– that we are more than fine, we are Excellent people who shouldn’t settle and deserve the BEST that life has to offer– unapologetically. We are wothy. Period.

Thank you Barack for recognizing these wonderful qualities in Michelle and crowning them with love, a ring, and a vow– not intimidation and blame!

The above line played on my ipod as I arrived to Grand Central. Each time I’ve heard this line and changed the “but I’d” to “nor.” This is strange practice I developed as an adolescent when I heard lyrics I didn’t want to repeat or feared repeating them in front of my parents. I’d change niggas to brothas, you know the drill. It sort of provides a psychological space for me to relate to the sentiment of the artist, but put my own spin on it. Well, when I was revising Kanye’s lyric in my head this time something rung about the danger of the line. Earlier in the day I was talking to one of my best friends about another close friend who has anger issues, particularly towards women. I concluded the topic by telling friend, “I’m gonna have to ask my boy who is a domestic violence expert, I just don’t know.” My conclusion was much less a solution than a throw away, since I’d reached that same conclusion before but never followed through. How do we truly begin to break cycles of domestic violence? I’m not sure, and listening to Kanye didn’t move me closer to figuring that painful issue out.

As I arrived to my train platform I turned the lyric over and over in my mind and then suddenly I witnessed a man leap and nearly tackle an accompanying female onto the train track which was occupied by a trash train. I, nor the 30 some odd people on the platform, could seem to believe our eyes. We all froze in confusion. The offender then fell to the ground with the woman to hug her, almost as if to make sure she was alright.  As we stood on the platform, none of us spoke, none of us voiced concern, none of us queried the woman still down, we all sat there paralyzed. When she stood up to all our looking eyes it was almost as if we diverted our eyes in unison. Almost like we were ashamed to be looking. I remained locked on the couple, but said nothing. Most of the rest of the platform turned their attention to the arriving train. Old school Chicago sociologists used to write about the malaise that befell city residents. An indifference to stimuli small and large, an even keelness that may be a necessary adaptation to living in a city of millions in such close proximity. In my time in NYC, I’ve joked about the arrival of this malaise with friends, but I fully saw the veil fall before me when I boarded the train with the other witnesses.

As I rode to the next stop, a million rationalizations flashed through my head for what I saw and justifications for my silence. I thought of the million conversations I’ve had about compromising my safety and being told not to do so. I thought, “maybe he has PTSD and when he heard the clang of trash bags being thrown on the train he had a flashback.” All sorts of far out things ran through my mind, still none of these things quailed my stomach.

As we arrived at the next stop I couldn’t take my/our inaction, so I decided to return to see if they were still there. I steeled myself for my return. I had no idea if they would still be there and if they were there what I would do or say. I ran across the platform to a train to reverse my trip. I returned to the platform at Grand Central to find them boarding the train into another car than the one that I was exiting. I hopped out and as they got on, she saw me. We made eye contact and I mouthed “are you okay?” While his back was turned she nodded her head and mouthed “yeah.”

This is no tale of heroism. In fact, I don’t even know what would have happened if she said “no” or anything else. In a way, I feel like the answer she provided was for both of our comforts. I know domestic violence is often a long process fraught with personal, financial, and social issues. The disconnection that I felt fall between her and I when I watched her get tackled is still disturbing me. It only reminds me of the conversations I’ve had with close friends, women who I consider sisters, that have suffered in both emotionally and physically abusive relationships. Facing oppression in a moment often makes a person feel powerless, sadly I felt that way tonight.  This post has no solutions, no conclusion, it’s just a painful reflection on the world we live in and the one we must confront if we want to make it a better place to be for all.

What you know about the title to this post????

Since my last post, I’ve been very busy. For the first time in a while, I’ve been making good progress on my academic scholarship. Looking forward to getting a couple of things out there real soon. Also, my classes have started to take a really good turn and I’m excited about their potential. Okay, now to a short yet important post.

This past weekend, aside from battling a cold, I got a chance to go check out the African American Day Parade. There were so many beautiful Black folks out in Harlem it was site to behold. I was only at the Parade for a short time, but it was great to see Red Black and Green flying everywhere. While I was excited to see the UNIA flag, I was quickly brought back to reality by the sight of a brotha with the flag in one hand and a handful of passing strangers buttocks in the other. Can we truly be thinking about Black Liberation if we continue to oppress and degrade women? As we as people strive for greater power, a greater community, we as Black men, must interrogate our position in society. Recently brother Jewel Woods put out a Black Male Privileges Checklist.

What do you find yourself answering yes to?
Do you think as a Black man in America you have privilege?
What are you willing to do to change your privilege?

On a separate but related note, when traveling home post parade and post movie, I saw cops everywhere in Harlem. This may be some of the explanation.

The Daily Show recently did a great segment on GOP/RNC double speak. Some pretty amazing footage in here. Who knew that Harvey Dent was a Republican Strategist!

What you don’t trust the Daily Show as a reputable news source … fine, fine, fine, here is an AP article on the GOPs contradictions around Palin and her family.

Shout out to JF and AMB for the links!

For those who don’t know, Morehouse is my alma mater and I hold her near and dear to my heart. I have always wished that Morehouse offered a freshman year course like Spelman College’s African Diaspora and the World, but one that focused on issues of gender privilege, sexuality, and leadership. Maybe we will get there someday… hopefully soon.

I decided to write the review after traveling to Boca Chica, Dominican Republic and seeing many of the things that Woods wrote about come to life. I think that the book can open a dialogue that we are seriously in need of around Black middle class men and the lack of accountability that we are allowed to operate with. Yes Virginia, Black male privilege does exist and we need to uncover it, discuss it, and act upon it. Give my piece a read here. No doubt that many of the responses will try to compartmentalize the actions of these “prostituting” brothas, or claim it’s just like sex tourism from other groups, but I think even if it’s like processes that happen in other groups, we really need to begin to address it with care, because it’s having serious effects.

Mark Sawyer, a scholar I respect very much, does a great job of discussing the relationship between “developed” and “developing” nations and characterizations of women. While Sawyer pans Woods and Hunter’s book, he then goes on to suggest there is something that makes Westerners look upon Brazilian women, and others, as mere sexual objects. I’d contend that thing is male privilege coupled with financial capital … which are central to Woods and Hunter’s book. Additionally, Sawyer brings up a question that was troubling me as I read “Don’t Blame it on Rio,” who are Black women? It is likely that many of the women that these Black male tourists are cavorting with are of African descent, but this Diasporic connection becomes dissolved into sex. By saying being with women from Brazil, DR, Cuba, etc is weakening the Black community, are we too narrowly defining the Diaspora? And before you say it, yes I do know men who have traveled abroad, met women, married them, though they are fewer in number then the ones I know who have just slept with women and returned to the US.

A little while back I wrote, “what if everyone knew Black was beautiful?” it was triggered by some deep conversations I had with brothas and sisters in the DR about Blackness and its negativity. Will we ever truly forge a Diaspora? I wonder how do we, as African-Americans, contribute to these negative images as we transverse borders. Alright, that’s enough of me opening cans of worms, I’ll have to revisit some of this later. Thoughts?

Many commentators within the black community argued that it was “inevitable” that Senator Obama would have to give a speech on “race”. Not only in light of the comments by Rev. Wright, but also because of pressure within the black community by opinion-framers like Tavis Smiley to have him address issues like Katrina, unemployment, education, incarceration, and other issues that have disproportionately impacted Black America in the past, and continue to impact Black America in the present.

However, was it ever “inevitable” that Senator Clinton would have to give a speech on gender? And is it inevitable now that Senator Clinton will respond to the comments of her surrogates or the demands within the women’s/feminist movement that insist she talk about issues of gender the way that constituents within the black community have consistently called for Senator Obama to address issues of race?

Woods, who recently authored Don’t Blame Rio, is the founder and Executive Director of the Renaissance Male Project is an emergent voice on masculinty, gender, and race. Catch his star as it rises.

Real talk, why is it so hard to resist a UGK song? I was listening to that new Ear Drum and Talib’s collabo with UGK immediately pulled me in. And it’s not just me, one of my homegirls recently commented when she gets to the pearly gates they were gonna be like, “Wait, you’re a feminist and you listen to UGK! They had a song call Pregnant Pussy.” The fact is that no matter where most of our morals stand, there’s something about these folks’ music. I’ve never been a big Quik fan, but I know a lot of headwrapped, vegan, third-eye concentrating, backpack wearing, Quik fans. Why? I’m not sure at all. His and Short’s music really fall in the clasical etymological definition of miscogyny. My favorite of them all is MOP. Since I first heard them, I’ve been down to rob the bodega and yap fools. Why, I don’t know, but their material is so ill to me. For some their guilty pleasures, but to me they’re as much a part of Hip-Hop as break beats and BDP. I guess this will help motivate me to retype my long post on Hip-Hop and Accountability that got lost in cyber space.
There is no true point to this post other than to say out loud that these groups are transcendent and wonder why. Why could they easily be categorized as exploitative and harmful, but still draw me and others in. Is it there content, their flow, or something beyond that. You feel me? And for the all the UGK Kast fans this is my joint!