For all my folks who remember Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out on Nintendo and for those of use who watched “Epic Beard Man” whoop up on ol’ boy on the bus.
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“Fire Toure!” is a call being made from many corners these days, but I’m not sure I can go that far. This is not just about Toure and his degrading tweets about Black women; this is about our whole community. My ethics demand that Toure be held accountable for the foolishness that he says, but not that he be removed from his job as a result of his opinion, no matter how warped it is. This may seem contradictory, but I think what we call for in our protests has tremendous ramifications on free speech, the presence of our voices on the national stage, and most importantly how we build and maintain community.
For those not familiar, Toure is a journalist who rose to prominence through hip-hop journalism and now is a featured media commentator on MSNBC, Vh1, Fuse and a host of other networks. For all his success, Toure has also accumulated quite a bit of enemies, and rightly so! Recently on twitter, Toure went into a tweet tirade about enslaved African women, rape, and liberation via bartering sex to White slave owners. Yeah, sounds like dangerous territory to step into, right? And trust me, Toure mis-stepped!
I’ve been running around so much for the past week I forgot to post my reaction to the NAACP Image Awards that I wrote for Centric’s Culture List Blog. Well, after watching the show, @sedat30 and I decided we need a moratorium on these shows until we can do better. Just kidding … not really. Join the Do Better Movement (shout out to on.us.tees who stay on the vanguard of the DBM).
I’ve had it! I can’t take it any more. I cannot bear to have one more Black Awards show go on like this. That’s right, this is a cease and desist notice to: The NAACP Image Awards, The BET Awards, The Soul Train Awards, The Vh1 Hip-Hop Honors, The Source Awards, The You’re a Person of Color Awards, (okay you caught me—I made the last one up). However the point remains, the more Black Award shows we seem to have, the lower quality they seem to get!
A few days ago, my talk at the 143rd Morehouse Founder’s Day Symposium went up on the web. The talk was entitled, “Shadowboxing the Self: Confronting Black Male Privilege.” I was very excited to give the talk because I knew that it would ruffle some feathers, but I viewed it as a labor of love. My goal is to speak truth that inspires thoughts and actions. While not everyone will agree with me, this is not a surprise, I do think the conversations that Black Male Privilege (BMP) has generated thus far are good. The responses have been overwhelmingly positive and many are asking for clarification. I’ve decided to respond to three thematic questions I’ve received, most often from incredulous Black men. I highly recommend that you watch the video of the talk below. This is an emergent area of research for me, though I’ve been living Black male privilege (BMP) for some time now. There are a number of great talks from the Founder’s Day symposium with was a 4 hour plus affair (My talk was only 35 minutes). Please do check them out.
Response:
1) What is Black Male Privilege? Is that like irregardless?*
I got this question a bunch. I think its because, on its face, the placement of the words Black male and privilege close together appears contradictory. Indeed, I want you to think about the juxtaposition and open up to the possibility of its existence. While most of us are used to the crisis narrative of Black men in America, we continue to overlook the ways that male privilege is experienced and leveraged by Black men in our everyday lives. While most folks who asked this question didn’t watch the video (all you have to do is click play). I’ll write out the working definition I gave during the talk, “a system of built in and often overlooked systematic advantages that center the experience and concerns of Black men while minimizing the power that Black males hold.”**
On February 10th, I had the pleasure of joining an esteemed set of scholars for the 143rd Founder’s Day Symposium at Morehouse College. The symposium title was, “Black Men in the 21st Century: Myths, Data and Realty.” This post has the links to all the talks, each one was uniquely insightful and I provide brief synopsis above each talk. If you’re concerned about Black men, this is the set of videos to watch. Special thanks to Dr. David Wall Rice and Dr. Obie Clayton for organizing and executing a stellar opportunity to build better Black men.
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.
I’ve recently penned a piece for Centric’s new Culture List blog on the Pants on the Ground video. While the song is still getting downloaded en masse on itunes and used as a rolling joke, we’re missing an important political message and issue within the Black community.
“Pants on the ground, pants on the ground, looking like a fool with your pants on the ground!” This refrain was made famous by General Larry Platt on the opening of another season of American Idol. While I’ve long stopped watching the show and “stunts” to get on the opening shows are known, this performance was important because it captured the political complexities of contemporary Black struggle and the significance of generational divides to the Black community. WHAT!?! Okay, before you think I’ve jumped off the deep end, hear me out. If you look and listen closely to Platt, you would notice he used his exposure to draw attention to Troy Davis on death row, the National Action Network, and lastly told young men to pull their pants up. While many took the performance as all about laughs, we should have taken it as all about politics.
“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
This morning I woke to #RIPBIGPUN as a trending topic on twitter and was conflicted about bigging up Pun. Pun was a lyrical mastermind, a Boricua emcee who indelibly marked the game, and a domestic abuser. Now it may seem strange for me to highlight the last portion, given Hip-Hop is known to many as a space of misogyny and violence, but to me that’s never what defined hip-hop.* The reality is that Big Pun may too powerful of example of Hip-Hop for me or us to face all he brought. Over the past few years getting a chance to meet and work with Hip-Hop legends, I’m reminded of the adage “never meet your heroes.” While there is a natural distortion upon meeting ones favorite celebrities, Hip-Hop’s unmasking has a particular timber. In Hip-Hop we depend so heavily on rappers presenting themselves with a certain mask. The mask that rappers, and we all wear, provides protection as well as blind spots. The reality is that we are all imperfect, but we as consumers highlight what we like and ignore what we don’t. In a twisted way the question becomes, “What violence is acceptable and what violence do we not accept?” Sadly the answer tends to be that within Hip-Hop domestic violence is one of the lowest priority violences.
For Hip Hop News & Entertainment at DimeWars.Com
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Today’s BHC (Black History-Contemporary) speaks to the position of Women, leadership, and racial uplift. Undoutedbly we are accustomed to hearing Black HIStory but there is equal and sometimes greater value in hearing Black HERstory.
“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
I love hip-hop, love some reggaetón too, I love the youth, but I’m pretty sure I don’t love this!
How many things can you count wrong with this video?
This ignorance brought to you by 2dopeboyz!
N.B. Uptown Notes does not support the exploitation of children, but it does support laughing at them under certain circumstances.
