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ebogjonson's November 2006 archive

November 30, 2006

the black agenda report is live

I forgot to mention that the Black Agenda Report has been up and running for some time. Click over and give them some eyeballs and general love!

Posted by ebogjonson in media at 10:08 AM | Permalink

November 28, 2006

fun with photoshop

EBOG PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS: KOSMO KRAMER KAPERS!
a JOHN RIDLEY and THE LEAGUE OF DISTINGUSHED FOREHEAD ANTI-RACIAL HYPOCRITES adventure!!!

Hat tip to Jenn at Reappropriate for the racial fairy idea.

to be continued....

Posted by ebogjonson in talking androids at 3:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

November 26, 2006

gone to croatoan

Not exacty, but I am going to be away most of December, so posting will be light for the rest of 2006. I'm also looking to refactor ebog.com a bit during the downtime, nothing major, just a few course corrections that will mostly have to do with how I go about updating and what I choose to update with.

Posted by ebogjonson in ebog housekeeping at 4:19 PM | Permalink

November 15, 2006

completely there and freaky

It's strange to think he is going to confess:

LOS ANGELES - In a new TV interview and book, O.J. Simpson discusses how he would have committed the slayings of his ex-wife and her friend "if I did it."

The two-part television interview, titled "O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here's How It Happened," will air Nov. 27 and Nov. 29 on Fox, the TV network said Tuesday.

"O.J. Simpson, in his own words, tells for the first time how he would have committed the murders if he were the one responsible for the crimes," the network said in a statement. "In the two-part event, Simpson describes how he would have carried out the murders he has vehemently denied committing for over a decade."

"This is an interview that no one thought would ever happen. Its the definitive last chapter in the Trial of the Century," Mike Darnell, executive vice president of alternative programming for Fox, said in a statement.

The interview, conducted with book publisher Judith Regan, will air days before Simpson's new book, "If I Did It," goes on sale Nov. 30. The book "hypothetically describes how the murders would have been committed," the network said.[full story]

I guess there are no double jeopardy issues here.

I don't recall celebrating the OJ verdict (anyone who was there can write in to correct me), although I do remember being amazed in a caffeinated, too-much-cable kind of way that he got off, and was also impressed by the skill Cochran and Co's displayed while getting the unlikely verdict. I think I might have tried to square various circles by declaring my belief in OJ's guilt while also pointing out that this was a highly anomalous outcome in terms of black men and the judicial system, talk that in retrospect strikes me as being in poor form. I definitely wasn't one of those people who vilified Cochran or his defense strategy. Those guys fulfilled the role given them to fulfill by the adversarial system; it's not their fault the prosecuters were chumps.

The most ignoble conversation I remember having about OJ was a drunken one wherein I polled people on the question of what they would do were they ever to wake up from a rage fugue covered in their blonde ex-trophy-wife's blood. Turn themselves in? What if they were reasonably sure it was a one-time lapse? What if they couldn't really remember what happened or how?

I don't really want to watch his confession, but I would be interested in looping extreme slow-mo of his face while he says or almost says or doesn't say "I did it," this just to track minute shifts in his facial expression and demeanor. I actually met OJ once in Las Vegas, bumped into him really in a doorway, and it turned out that one of my party had gone to school or something with his oldest son Jason. (Small black upper middle class + world.) OJ reached out to shake all our hands the way a father reaches out to shake the hand of any buddy of his son's, and us being (despite all appearances and later degeneracy) well-trained boys from nice homes, we all all instinctively reciprocated.

I wasn't the first to touch him but I remember him moving down our tiny little recieving line towards me and thinking: I'm about to shake the hand of a murderer. Was that the hand he used? Was that the one the bloody glove didn't fit on? The one he held up on television to the entire world? OJ's body was a wreck from what I imagined were football injuries, his shoulders and hip motion truncated and off, but the handshake was relatively firm and unembarrassed. He seemed excited at the chance to play the father running into (relative) kids in a foyer as opposed to his usual gig - racial footnote, punchline, double murderer. When I've told the story of "The OJ Handshake" I have on occasion claimed to have experienced Profiler-style flashes of the murder scene, but that's an exaggeration. What actually happened is that, while I had always claimed to believe he was guilty, I became finally and irrevocably sure of it when I touched him. His guilt was like a static discharge, completely there and freaky.

Posted by ebogjonson in mediamemory at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

don't call it a comeback, i've been racist for years

I guess the Republicans figured that since Corker's victory was their only bright spot on 11/7, that they had better get back to racist basics.

WASHINGTON -- Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, ousted from the top Senate Republican leadership job four years ago because of remarks considered racially insensitive, won election to the chamber's No. 2 GOP post Wednesday.

Asked whether he felt vindicated by the 25-24 secret ballot vote, Lott deferred to newly-elected party leader Mitch McConnell.

"The spotlight belongs on him," Lott said of his Kentucky colleague.

McConnell, who was uncontested and will succeed Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, predicted that he and the rest of the newly-elected GOP team will provide a muscular opposition to the new Democratic majority.

"We will be a robust minority, a vigorous minority, and, hopefully, a minority that is only in that condition for a couple of years," McConnell said.

Lott's comeback-kid victory was generating the most buzz in the Capitol hallways. Pressured to step down from the Senate's top spot over four years ago, Lott returned to the center of power by nosing out Sen. Lamar Alexander, who had made an 18-month bid for the post.

"I'm honored to be a part of this leadership team, to support Mitch McConnell and all of my colleagues and to do a job that I've really loved the most: count the votes," Lott said. "I'll do my very best in that effort."

For his part, Alexander was circumspect.

"Senators, like most Americans, like a comeback," Alexander said afterward, adding that he believes he lost three votes to Lott. [full story]

For those of you who don't recall, Lott got in trouble for saying of Strom Thurmond (h/t atrios):

I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.

That was in 2002. In 1980 he said:

You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today.

And what did Strom Thurmond run on that could have prevented "the mess we are in today?"? Here's his 1948 platform [via L/G/M]:

1. We believe that the Constitution of the United States is the greatest charter of human liberty ever conceived by the mind of man.

2. We oppose all efforts to invade or destroy the rights guaranteed by it to every citizen of this republic.

3. We stand for social and economic justice, which, we believe can be guaranteed to all citizens only by a strict adherence to our Constitution and the avoidance of any invasion or destruction of the constitutional rights of the states and individuals. We oppose the totallitaran, centralized bureaucratic government and the police nation called for by the platforms adopted by the Democratic and Republican Conventions.

4. We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race; the constitutional right to choose one's associates; to accept private employment without governmental interference, and to learn one's living in any lawful way. We oppose the elimination of segregation, the repeal of miscegenation statutes, the control of private employment by Federal bureaucrats called for by the misnamed civil rights program. We favor home-rule, local self-government and a minimum interference with individual rights.

5. We oppose and condemn the action of the Democratic Convention in sponsoring a civil rights program calling for the elimination of segregation, social equality by Federal fiat, regulations of private employment practices, voting, and local law enforcement.

6. We affirm that the effective enforcement of such a program would be utterly destructive of the social, economic and political life of the Southern people, and of other localities in which there may be differences in race, creed or national origin in appreciable numbers.

7. We stand for the check and balances provided by the three departments of our government. We oppose the usurpation of legislative functions by the executive and judicial departments. We unreservedly condemn the effort to establish in the United States a police nation that would destroy the last vestige of liberty enjoyed by a citizen.

8. We demand that there be returned to the people to whom of right they belong, those powers needed for the preservation of human rights and the discharge of our responsibility as democrats for human welfare. We oppose a denial of those by political parties, a barter or sale of those rights by a political convention, as well as any invasion or violation of those rights by the Federal Government. We call upon all Democrats and upon all other loyal Americans who are opposed to totalitarianism at home and abroad to unite with us in ignominiously defeating Harry S. Truman, Thomas E. Dewey and every other candidate for public office who would establish a Police Nation in the United States of America.

9. We, therefore, urge that this Convention endorse the candidacies of J. Strom Thurmond and Fielding H. Wright for the President and Vice-president, respectively, of the United States of America.

For those of you who don't believe that the above program was (in basic ways) about the right to kill black people with impunity, consider this language from one of Thurmond's offical campaign flyers:

A vote for Truman electors is a direct order to our Congressmen and Senators from Mississippi to vot for passage of Truman's so-called civil-rights program in the next Congress. This means the vicious FEPC - anti-poll tax - anti-lynching and anti-segregation proposals will become the law of the and our way of life in the South will be gone forever. [full flyer]

But I guess all you black conservatives out there who support a party that puts an apologist of lynching in a position of power are thinking: Hold on, now. No need to throw the baby out with the bath water. Those planks about judicial activism and individual rights are right up my alley!

Don't get me wrong about Lott. People change and maybe he has; who can say. But some beliefs and behaviors can put you permanently beyond the pale as far as I'm concerned, and persisting in your praise of the embodiments/avatars of those beliefs and behaviors is no way to come in out of the cold. The problem isn't Lott's friendship with Thurmond (I got a lot of fucked up friends), it's the specific nature of his praise for Thurmond's failed policies, his clearly articulated belief in those policies' enduring rightness, that makes him unacceptable as the whip of any legitimate American political party.

This is an aside, but I am fairly convinced that future generations will treat the GOP's current gay marriage obsession with the same scorn we treat the above segregationist language. I can just picture today's GOP toadies on TV in 30 years disavowing their gay-related bigotry as an artifact of their times, just as Lott whitewashes his longstanding racism today. I mean, who knew black folks were actually human in 1948? Who knew gay people had a right to marry the person of their choice just like any other human being in 2006? It's completely unfair to impose today's standards on the past.

Posted by ebogjonson in politricknal sciencesrace and other identitiestalking androids at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 13, 2006

happy beautiful ed and patricia

Haitian American blogger Alice Becker linked to my RIPS Ed Bradley post and points out that in 1993:

Bradley was not married then. Or at least not to his widow Patricia Blanchet, a Haitian-American filmmaker, whom he seems to have married in 2004. The Aspen Times has a great article and picture of the two.[full link]

A great article and picture indeed. It's a small Haitian-American world, but I don't know Blanchet. My kreole is too rusty to offer a proper condolence, so I'll just say my thoughts go out to her and her family.

You can find the Aspen Times article here.

Posted by ebogjonson in haitimemory at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 10, 2006

somebody has to do it

I just saw Bush on teevee cracking jokes and wrapping himself in the bloody rainment of a dead solider for Veterans Day. The young man he was eulogizing threw himself on a grenade to shield his buddies.

I've got all kinds of feelings about the Bush administration's awful policies, but I'm still a whiles away from being in any danger of getting killed as a result of their idiocy. Tens and tens and tens of Iraqis have not been so lucky, as well as 2800K and counting American soldiers. I actually agree with the young man in the linked CNN video: somebody does have to put on a uniform and serve, whether it's as cops, firemen, paramedics, nurses, doctors or soldiers. My thing, though, is that NOBODY needed to die for this bullshit war of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld's. People like those three shouldn't even be allowed to speak on Veterans Day.

Posted by ebogjonson in Iraq at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ed, some of us hardly knew ya

It's a little sad and curious to watch all the 60 Minutes and CBS News hands on TV memorializing Ed Bradley. I don't know much about the show's internal politics, but watching the talking heads yesterday and today you can tell who knew Bradley well, who didn't, who is genuinely remembering him and who seems most aware of being on camera.

Steve Kroft seems to have known him best, having known about Bradley's leukemia for over a year, while Bradley's boss, Don Hewitt, didn't know about the illness at all. (I've read reports of that Bradley and Hewitt had butted heads recently about his contract; hardly the time to inject a life-threatening illness.) That aside, though, Hewitt seems full of genuinely warm workplace memories, as does Andy Rooney. Rooney, as always, presents as a cranky oddball, but to his credit he's resisting the temptation to overclaim Bradley. He's upfront about knowing him in the office and chatting with him about food and sports and jazz, no giant shakes but a connection he seems to have appreciated.

Leslie Stahl had a great story about Bradley bringing all of them together during the show's self described darkest hour, when CBS caved to pressure and spiked Mike Wallace's 1995 skewering of a tobacco executive. Of all the 60 Minutes people, Wallace seems the most off. On Larry King he kept saying things about Bradley that needed to be corrected by Kroft, and even while eulogizing Bradley he seems to be policing the boundaries of his own legacy as 60 Minutes' greatest correspondent.

Most weird, though, is the fact that of all of them country cousin Bob Schieffer seems to be the only person talking about Bradley who has the slightest clue of the role race played in the man's life. Being black when and where he was obviously a key part of Bradley's life, but when the black dude on the news team dies that, by definition, leaves no one qualified to properly discuss the issue. Kroft seems to have known Bradley best, which might explain why, except for enthusing about Bradley's style, he knew to keep mum on the issue of race. That left it to corny old Schieffer to assert (in contradiction to the prevailing "he was a journalist first!" dodge) that being black was a key to understanding Bradley's work and personal life. Schieffer's line - "He didn't wear it on his sleeve, but it was always in his heart" - is a white cliche, but all things considered I think it was a fine thing for him to say.

Posted by ebogjonson in memory at 11:00 AM | Permalink

November 9, 2006

am I out of step with America?

Actually, I mean "Am I out of step with California?"

Although I was in perfect tune with the nation on almost all of the House and Senate races, I was down with more than a few losers in CA. The following is a review of California election results and how I voted.

Governor - Schwarzenegger , Arnold (i) - GOP - Wrong! I voted for the other guy. Having missed the recall fracaso that put him in office, I will confess to not minding the Governator as much as some, but still. Just on the general principle of state dignity, I can't believe that guy is governor.

I pretty much went party-line on the other statewide offices:

Lieutenant Governor - Garamendi , John - Dem - The Dem got my vote and won
Secretary of State - Bowen , Debra - Dem - ditto
Attorney General - Brown , Jerry - Dem - ditto on Gov. Moonbeam
Treasurer - Lockyer , Bill - Dem - ditto
Controller - Chiang , John - Dem - yes, my Asiatic brother

but then:

Insurance Commissioner - Poizner , Steve - GOP - Whoops! My straight party-line vote had me on the wrong side of this particular office. I should mention, though, that Dem candidate Cruz Bustamante came across to me as somewhat sleazy, so I can't complain about this outcome too much.

On propositions, my picks were a bit more off.

On the plus side, I lined up with the rest of the CA electorate on the following propositions allocating more money for education, transportation and housing infrastructure improvements: 1B (more funds for highway safety), 1C (more homeless shelters and emergency housing), 1D (a school infrastructure bond act), and 1E (fixing levees).(!)

I also lined up favorably on proposition 84, voting "yes" to increase money for parks, land preservation and the protection of water supplies. On the "No" side, I joined Californians in rejecting propositions 85 (the anti-choice "parental notification" act), 88, (a nice sounding education funding bill that increase the funding disparity between poor and rich districts), and, 90 (a lawyer-funding proposition masquerading as an anti-eminent domain protection.)

On the signature proposition of the election, though, the star-studded 87 alternative energy initiative, I voted with the minority that supported making CA the leader in alternative energy. (The $90+ million spent by the oil companies to defeat the bill apparently worked.) I also voted against proposition 83 and lost, meaning the number of people who can be defined as "sex offenders" will increase, and that those folks can now be monitored via GPS for, like, life. While I understand the emotional appeal of the prop., it also strikes me as both pointless and draconian given the number of laws already on the books to punish sex offenders and to insure they remain permanent, un-rehabiliated outcasts. I really can't imagine what more we can do to pervs who have already had the book thrown at them served their time, except maybe brand them, put their eyes out and inject a chip in their asses. (That was rhetorical; please save all the "well, why don't we?!" comments.)

Another one of my losers was 89, which would have diluted the impact of big money in elections by providing for public campaign financing. Curiously, this prop. went down even more resoundingly than the sex offender prop. went up, apparently making clean, publicly funded elections more hated by CA voters than child molesters:

Do you hate kiddie diddlers?
Yes! 4,673,124 70.49
No 1,956,225 29.51

Do you want clean, publicly financed elections?
No! 4,846,442 74.44
Yes 1,663,695 25.56

Before you guys think I'm trying to present myself as some kind of paragon of civic virtue, I will confess that I voted "no" on a proposition that I didn't fully understand - 1A, which guaranteed certain transportation funds had to be used only for transportation - this because some or another good government group told me it would hamstring the state during some future, unforeseen budget crisis.

I also voted for an increase of CA cigarette taxes - 86 - this even though I don't actually believe in them. The thing is that I used to smoke and recall my habit with great, sad fondness, so I know better than most that people will buy cigarettes no matter how much they cost. (At the end of my habit I was smoking Nat Shermans, which I think cost more than weed, so I would have been able to live with an $8 pack.) It also seems to me that (more abstractly) this kind of "sin tax" is regressive and tends to disproportionally punish the poor, precisely the same class of folks already being victimized by big tobacco.

In the end, though, I couldn't resist the call of do-gooderism and tough-love, in so much as it seems to me that if you are going to go and smoke, you might as well pay for your own medical care. So the ultimate outcome on all this was pretty much right by me: I did the right thing with my vote, but no one is going to pay for it. Cowardly, I know, but hey: it's like that sometimes.

In terms of California's wacky state judicial appointment/retention system, I voted for and against a whole bunch of people, and, except for the State Supreme Court justices, I had no idea whatsoever who the fuck any of them were. This being LalaLand, my ignorance was apparently both the statewide status quo and irrelevant, as everyone who "should" have won on 11/7 did:

Despite worries from some judges and legal commentators that California's judicial election process was in danger of becoming politicized, voters have soundly endorsed the status quo.

The electorate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to retain state Supreme Court Justices Joyce L. Kennard and Carol A. Corrigan, along with all 51 Court of Appeal justices on the ballot.

[...]

Critics have long bemoaned that most voters don't have a clue who any of the judges are when they go to vote -- and that many cast ballots anyway.[full story]

To tell the truth, I voted for people that had ethnic names (terrible, I know) and for people whose job descriptions I liked, the judicial ballots coming not with party affiliations but with short background / job description titles like "prosecutor" or "state attorney." Perversely, my knee-jerk, anti-prosecutor bias had me on the wrong side of the line yet again:

Election outcomes for four vacant seats on the Los Angeles County Superior Court bench were also without surprises. By large margins, voters picked four criminal prosecutors, traditional favorites, to ascend to the bench. [full story]

I'm really not sure how to end after that last note: Even when I'm wrong, I'm right? Even when I'm right, I'm wrong?

Posted by ebogjonson in city of angelspolitricknal sciences at 2:19 PM | Permalink

the pink elephant in harold's room

Prometheus 6 links link to this curious post on blackcon site Booker Rising regarding Harold Ford's white woman problem:

How Harold Ford's Impulsive Love For White Women Cost Him - And Black America - A U.S. Senate Seat

[...]

The controversial and later-pulled ad peaked with the white blonde claiming she met Junior at the Playboy party. Her image appeared again, as the last one to close the ad. All the other issues mentioned in the ad - guns, terrorism, North Korea, porn donors, etc. - were mere supporting characters to the ad's true intent, which was to code Rep. Harold Ford Jr. as a lover of white women.

I was surprised how most critics only focused on how this ad played to Tennessee white male fears of black male-white female unions. Booker Rising was one of the very, very few observers to note how the controversial ad also played to the anxieties of another group on this issue: black women, who comprise the majority of Tennessee's black voters. 81% of likely Tennessee voters, of all races, saw the ad, and undecided folks who saw the ad broke 2-1 in favor of Mr. Corker.

Let this be a lesson for other black men who seek higher political office: when you believe that you are too good for black women, don't be surprised if chasing after white women hurts your career with voters. Particularly in a tight political race. How many black women - who could have perhaps reversed that slim lead of 48,495 votes that Mr. Corker possessed at the end of this political race - did not turn out to vote (or left the ballot for this particular race blank) because they were turned off by what they saw in the ad? [full posting]

I don't buy Booker Rising's argument that the ad was a black-vote supression tool (if we were really that quick to reject every black man with a white woman on his arm, half of the black corporate, entertainment, political, literary and academic leadership class wouldn't be where they are) but I do find the notion interesting just for ambient and textural reasons.

Leaving right or wrong aside, the spirited discussion of the post on Prometheus 6's blog covers territory and gets at nuances that were absent from about 100% of the mainstream (read white) reporting and commentary on the purpose and impact of the Ford ad. I think there's a sense in which the discussion on P6 operates as a "private" or "inside" discussion, which is great, as it allows for racial nuances to percolate up that may not be blocked in a more open forum. But I do also wish there was a way for national discussions about race to reflect that inside expertise, as opposed to being so predictably impoverished.

Posted by ebogjonson in what is B.O.G.? at 1:25 PM | Permalink

rips ed

Easy Ed Bradley passed away today. I had a chance to stand a few people away from him at an event many, many years ago and I remember thinking with no small measure of admiration that that was one classically cool older cat. I think the event was that certain kind of borderline-fake party for some or another buppie coffee-table book, and I have to admit to feeling a little out of place there - too much facial hair, locks that I purposefully kept relatively un-manicured, prickly alternative ambitions. Bradley and I didn't exchange a word or even a real look, but I extracted a sense of soothing, well, permission just from his being in the room, a feeling of kinship, largely imagined by me, I know, but that nonetheless made the scene more open and friendly.

I have to confess that it wasn't the funny persistence of his earring that put me at ease, or even the charming, royal boredom with which he attended to his duties as the most famous person in the room, Bradley clearly having taken accurate measure of the folks around him and yet still finding the grace to share a genuine laugh and hello with all comers. No, it was the fact that he was a master flirt that got me, how Bradley seemed to be one of those powerful, married, older men (was Bradley married then? It had to have been '93) whose yen for women had not curdled into a creepy coveting of youth, but had instead ripened into a rakishly cool (that word again) playfulness - gently suggestive, sharp, expert, and completely harmless all at the same time. The way Bradley lived in his skin suggested to me that there were plenty of ways to go about being a successful and uncompromising black man in media, some of them great fun, some of them relevant to a nervous, yellow misfit like me.

Rips, Ed. I wish I'd come over and said hello and thank you that night.

Posted by ebogjonson in mediamemory at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 8, 2006

black republican and talking android massacre!

From the often wrong-about-race New Republic:

All three black Republicans vying for major statewide offices appear to have lost. J. Kenneth Blackwell conceded his race for governor of Ohio early in the evening, and Lynn Swann, running for the top seat in Pennsylvania, fell short by a double-digit margin. Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele appears to have lost in his quest for the Senate, and all of the black Republican House candidates have gone down in flames. And, while boatloads of exit polls and turnout reports will come out over the next few days, enough data is available to know that these candidates did not get substantially more black support, or create more excitement about the party nationally, than white Republicans normally do. (Steele did better than average, but his campaign consistently dissociated itself from the party, and materials distributed on election day claimed, falsely, that he was a Democrat and had support from key black Democratic leaders.) [full link]

Steve Gilliard agrees with TNR for likely the first time ever:

Dear Losers,

Did you think it would end any other way? Did you think it would end with the white folks hosting you on their shoulders and smiling at you? Did you think you were the special negro who would prove you weren't like us?

Ken Blackwell lost in a landslide, as did Lynn Swann. Steele lied and played on his skin color to make it far closer than his record had any right to make it.

You shame our forefathers, those who died in the Crater, on San Juan Hill, in the Argonne, in the Battle of the Bulge, in the streets of Alabama. They did not make their sacrifices so you could sell out your people for personal gain. They didn't survive bullets, poison gas and the deadliest winter in a century so you could preen and strut about for the people who have dedicated their lives to making our lives harder.

People did not flee from dogs so you could append your lips to the asses of your white patrons. [full ass-whipping]

It's worth pointing out that talking androids from both parties lost elections last night. Sure, there was Steele, Swann, and crazy Kenny Blackwell, but Democratic talking android Harold Ford went down to defeat, while crook talking android William Jefferson is heading to runoff in LA that he is likely to lose.

Corrupt talking android Albert Wynn held his seat, but given his heavily Democratic district, the main chance for unseating him was during the Dem primary, which, BTW, Wynn bragged of stealing from opponent Donna Edwards.

I have to confess to having developed mixed feeling about poor, little Harold Ford in defeat. While Blue Dog Democrat Ford is exactly the kind of talking android, Dem up-and-comer that rubs me the wrong way (think a Southern Cory Booker), and while his votes on war authorization, gay marriage, partial birth abortion, bankruptcy, faith-based initiatives, and flag burning suggest a mercenary eager to play to conservatives, it's always sad to see a proverbial brother run into the proverbial glass ceiling. If you took Harold Ford and, everything else remaining equal, made him white, he would have beaten the largely unknown Corker, especially on a night like last night. Instead Ford lost, largely because gents like this one turned out not to be able to see past his color:

COALMONT, Tenn. -- John Layne is a 57-year-old white Republican with a long gray beard, no job and advancing emphysema. He arrived an hour early to hear Harold Ford Jr. speak in this struggling mountain town.

"Oh, sure, there's some prejudice," Layne said as he contemplated casting a ballot for a black man. "I wouldn't want my daughter marrying one." But he's more concerned about rising medical costs: When it comes to voting, "you gotta look at the person, not the color." [full story][forwarded by the illhindu; thanks!]

Yeah, right. The idea that any amount of tacking right was going to sway racists like John Layne turned out to be a pipe-dream, and it's difficult for me to decide whether that dream was cynical or simply naive. For the moment, though, my feelings about Ford largely echo those of his (white) ex-girlfriend:

Just to clarify, I dated Harold more than three years ago, back when I was young and more than a little clueless slightly retarded. I certainly have impressions of him, but they have more to do with his lack of skiing ability than anything else. As I said in a previous interview, he's a politician. After living in DC for almost five years, I would contend that they're all douchebags, every one of them - Harold's no more douchebaggy or less douchebaggy than any of the others. I make an exception for Barack Obama, whom I worship slightly (how original, I know). [full confession]

No more douchebaggy or less douchebaggy, indeed!

This year was billed as the year of the black neo-douchebag, high-profile black GOP candidates and endorsements by the likes of Russell Simmons (or Mike Tyson) suggesting that an era of increased canoodling between black voters and Republicans was somehow underway. It turns out, however, that reports of black Republican rebirth were premature. Instead of rebirth, we get electoral reconfirmation that there is no national black conservative agenda, no constituency for black Republican candidates outside a handful of white folks.

The tired signature issue of most black neo-cons - echoing yap about "values" - turns not to play as well with black voters as the Republicans expected it to. While black Americans do poll as socially conservative on some issues, we also don't show much enthusiasm for using the electoral process to mind other peoples' business the way, say, white fundies do:

In an AP-AOL poll from late October, black voters thought that the most urgent problem facing their community was the economy, and more black voters ranked health care and Social Security as "extremely important" issues than they did anything else--including terrorism and the war in Iraq. (The general public, according to a Washington Post poll from last week, ranks Iraq a full ten points ahead of the economy.) And gay marriage barely mattered: Even though two-thirds of blacks oppose same-sex unions, well over half trust the Democrats more than the Republicans to "do a better job of handling" the issue. "On Election Day, African Americans tend to put their economic and social situation in perspective," says Donna Brazile, the Democratic consultant who ran Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. "Personal opposition to wedge issues like abortion and gay rights is not going to make anybody write home and say 'Wow, we need to vote Republican.'" [full, surprisingly astute TNR story]

The problem for black conservatives is that, while black Democratic politics still offer a distinct vision of the Democratic party and it's role in the nation's affairs (contrast the focus on race, income inequality, cities and multilateral foreign policy to the post identity netroots aesthetic or to DLC triangulation), there is no discernable black way of being a Republican. That's why black Republicans are so often accused of careerism, as, whether running from the GOP (as Steele did this year) or enthusiastically doing its dirty work (as Blackwell did in 2004), their politics regularly reduce to a mix of regurgitation, radical individualism and chiaroscuro, the optics of being black+Republican are 95% the already-limited game.

That lack of a distinct politic is also why yesterday's only legit black conservative victory was the one brought to you by a black man willing to get in bed with the most virulent white racism imaginable. Michigan's anti-affirmative action Civil Rights Initiative passed yesterday (this even as South Dakota's draconian anti-abortion law was deep-sixed) and the campaign's signature moment was the assertion by talking android Ward Connerly that he was willing to accept support for his cause from the Ku Klux Klan:

The man leading the effort to ban affirmative action in Michigan, Ward Connerly, welcomes the support of the Ku Klux Klan. Connerly said, "If the Ku Klux Klan thinks that equality is right, God bless them. Thank them for finally reaching the point where logic and reason are being applied, instead of hate."

Connerly, "defended his remark in a statement, saying he accepts support for banning affirmative action wherever he finds it." According to Mark Bernstein of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, the Ku Klux Klan is the "only large organization" to endorse Connerly's ballot measure.

Last month, Connerly was photographed shaking hands with John Raterink, chairman of the Michigan chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white separatist organization. The CCC "opposes most immigration and 'all efforts to mix the races of mankind.'"[full item]

The video in question can be viewed below.

Connerly's statement is a neat encapsulation of the only truly (and terrifyingly) unique thing black conservatives add to the national political landscape, i.e., their willingness to work with the most disgusting racists in politics. Like an American Jew opining that he or she is glad that the American Nazi Party has finally "moved beyond its ugly history" by supporting some or another ballot initiative, Connerly's comment is a form of derangement that seems somewhat common among minority Republicans. (Think of all the gay Republican staffers who came to light during the Foley scandal, men and women eagerly working for a Republican party whose number #2 go-to-gambit after terrorism is painting homosexuals as sub-humans.)

But all that is, today, just a lot of theorizing, and much of it has been rendered just a touch neither here nor there by the cumulative scale of yesterday's victories. Yes: the Michigan Initiative passed, and yes: it will be tied up in knots in the courts for years. With a Democratic-held Senate and House, our ability to fend off such attacks has been strengthened. The world turns out to be much smarter and more concise than I am: Out of office, fuckers, we've completely had enough. You lose.

Posted by ebogjonson in talking androids at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

November 7, 2006

can the IRS investigate this guy already?

It's late on election night (PST), but this item by Prometheus 6 caught my eye:

And now a message from Rev. Creflo Mammon

I have disliked this sucker since the first time I saw him on TV. I think this is grounds to pull his tax-exempt status.

Begin by making these confessions:

* In the name of Jesus, I declare that I will not allow any corrupt communication to proceed out of my mouth concerning President Bush or others in leadership (Ephesians 4:29).
* I declare that he is a man of wisdom, and he is strengthened and guided by the Holy Spirit. I wholeheartedly support the decisions he makes for this country (1 Timothy 2:1-2).
* I lift up every man and woman serving in the Armed Forces. I declare that they walk in favor, wisdom and safety and that their lives are redeemed from destruction (Psalm 91:7; Psalm 103:1-6).

If you have taken part in any protests or have allowed any corrupt communication to flow out of your mouth concerning the president, repent and begin to show your support for him by calling his name out before God. Pray for wisdom and wise counsel regarding the decisions he must make for this nation. Obey what the Word says in 1 Timothy 1-2 and 1 Peter 2:13 and: 1) continue to pray for those in authority over you; and 2) submit to that established authority. In doing so, you honor God, our president and thousands of service members. When the temptation comes to murmur or complain, rejoice that there is a man in the White House who walks and talks with God daily. Remember, united we stand, divided we fall (Matthew 12:25)!

--Dr. Creflo A. Dollar

[full item]

Prometheus 6 is referring to this statement put out by Dollar calling on his flock to fall in line or face the divine consequences.

For those who don't know, Dollar is a among the worst of the so-called prosperity ministers, who are basically neurolinguistic programmers with bibles - think it, say it, get it. From a freak theology perspective, the prosperity gospel has fairly interesting echoes of everything from gnosticism to various forms of magic to, like, the word-gun in Dune. It really is among the finest examples of whacked out Americana that you can find.

That said, though, it still kind of amazes me that people continue to treat individual prosperity ministers as if they're anything except the worst kind of self-help, snake-oil salesman. Creflo Dollar is basically a prayer-cloth-selling Armstrong Williams, which is to say he's a money-focused hustler posing as a religious authority. I respect genuine religious sentiment, but a hustler is a hustler is a hustler. In my mind, you give something like the prosperity gospel the same kind of respect as you give the plastic cylinder containing a stool sample: sure, expert analysis of either might shed critically important light on the health of a body or society, but that don't mean they're not both completely and literally full of shit.

Prometheus is right: Creflo Dollar's ministry should have its tax-exempt status yanked.

Posted by ebogjonson in politricknal sciencestalking androids at 6:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

i voted

Win or lose (and I am desperately hoping for win), I felt pretty good about voting this morning. My polling place was at a firehouse in Downtown LA, and although turnout was way thin, the motley assemblage of poll-workers filled me with a kind of warm, to-the-brim love for my whacked-out and fragile community. There was the older immigrant woman (Chinese?) who fumbled a bit but also beamed at everyone with what seemed to be a combination of grandmotherly love and pride at participating in the new country's rituals and procedures. There was the grizzled black retiree who was all brusque business, dude obviously taking his role in the democratic process very seriously. There was the 40-something-ish, jangly and desperately happy gent who seemed a week out of rehab or AA, his every word vibrating with the high enthusiasm of the recently sober, his body and mind still running a few cycles too fast, but what the heck - it's election day: there are things to do, ballot cards to stack. There was the pair of fireman murmuring and keeping their own counsel behind cups of coffee, maybe glad to be seeing all these voters upright in here instead of laid out and in need of rescuing out on the street. There was the young Latino dude text-messaging across the ether with a brand new Motorola slim-phone PDA, his generationally-endowed ease with techology winning him the job of ballot-card-machine-feeder, which besides being a place of futuristic honor also gave him a bit of private time with all the ladies coming in and voting, downtown hipsters behind shades at that hour, a category that including my girlfriend, to whom he offered "for you? Anything!" apropos of nothing as her ballot went whirring away to be counted. It all really made me quite grateful and proud.

Posted by ebogjonson in city of angelspolitricknal sciences at 2:36 PM | Permalink

November 1, 2006

lost in translation

All quotes 100% guaranteed cut and paste from Billmon comments about the Wolf Blizter blackfacing. Usernames have been deleted to protect the innocent.

Tangentially speaking (with regard to the illustration Billmon provides), I urge bar patrons to see Al Jolson's movie The Jazz Singer - the first time I saw this, I found the scene in which Jolson puts on blackface shocking and thought-provoking.

Translation: Oh, man! There is about to be some serious fussin' and fightin' up in this here piece!

Blitzer: "Ah-Sir Cheney!"

Cheney: "Yes, Sir Blitzer?"

Blitzer: "Would you care for a little dash of sherry?"

Cheney: "Yes, thank you so much!"

Blitzer: "Over the lips and past the gums ..."

Cheney: "Look out, abdomen -- here she comes!"

Translation: You know, this reminds me of when I was a kid and I'd watch Abbott and Costello, Amos and Andy, and Honeymooner's re-runs every Sunday morning instead of going to church. Those were good times, good times.

RUBBISH!

Billmon's comments are not 'racist'!

The Neocons are trying to turn this planet into one huge 'plantation'. Is that a racist comment?

I don't know what the RW blogs 'glom' onto... I don't go there...

Translation: Did I just give them the what for or what?

Note to Sunrunner and Nannette. Now, my roots are AShanti - sunburnt to ebony. Grandfather sat in the sun too loong.

I saw the image. Got the message and had to be helped off the floor,my sides busting with hillarity. Not. racist. at. all.

Billmon nailed Massa - the media geneflects. Time they be liberated.

Translation: Isn't diversity beautiful? It's like a eating a chocolate koala bear that melts in your mouth only to crap rainbows in your brain.

Sunrunner, how many different names did you use in this thread to raise you one 'voice'?

Not very kosher...

Translation: Beavis: You know how you make a sock-puppet? You take a sock and put your hand up its butt!

Butthead: You said "butt!"

can you think of a more apt analogy for blitzer - who apparently thought that he was safe because of his relationship, only to be surprised when lynn cheney pulls the same screeching harpie routine she uses to beat on the rest of the media?

Translation: Chillax, compeneros. It's not easy being Billmon and updating an A-list blog every day. If you think it's so easy, why don't you do it?

As one of mixed race I give my voice whole-heartedly to Billmon. What he did was very funny, and Wolf Blitzer deserved it.

There are light years between Hamsher's use of blackface and kow-towing Blitzer. (Oooh, a mixed race metaphor! Go tell it on the mountain.)

Translation: Isn't diversity beautiful? It's like a eating a chocolate koala bear that melts in your mouth only to crap rainbows in your brain.

in any case malcolm x was not beyond using the stereotype of the house & the field negro - in a inherently refined rhetorical gesture

i think you will find that there are those great man such as we dubois, marcus garvey - who were not naive in trangressing such stereotypes

billmon is a lot of things - some of which - we differ greatly - but he is not & could not be called a racist, to any degree & any such attempt to label him so is of such stultifying stupidity - it would be wiser counsel to honour yr silence

Translation: I reject your insinuation there, Ned. I will have you know that I marched with King in Selma, Ned. You can be an Al Sharpton Democrat if you want, but I'm proud of my civil rights record. The only K's in my biography stand for a King and two Kennedys. Hero K's.

i would have thought the context apallingly clear

i would also have thought that billmons trajectorie is open to one & all & his efforts to thwart the cheney bush junta are a matter of public record

the point being web dubois attacked the very pieties that mask white skin privilege, & malcolm made it perfectly clear that the real question was one of - social & economic relations

Translation: Why can't you people ever keep your minds focused for more than a minute on the bigger picture? Sheesh.

the image I would have used to portray blitzer would have been of Mr Hanky

Translation: Can't we all just get along?

Funny you should mention this "slavery" problem. Some people are of the opinion that:

• slavery is a bad thing
• people who claim that slavery is enjoyable are advocating more slavery
• political unfreedom is a pathway to real slavery (ask 2 million prisoners)
• we are losing our freedoms, such as habeas corpus and nine of the ten rights specified in the Bill of rights.

Whcih brings us full circle: slavery is bad and should be fought, loudly.

So fuck the people who pretend to love it, especially when they know that they themselves are on the edge of the abyss. I think that was the actual message. Is there something in this reading of Billmon's words and image you want your fellow citizens to disagree with?

I sympathize with the discomfort, but Billmon's reply seems about right. Yet, you have not replied to it. Would you agree that it is better to fight than to accept the already true loss of our freedoms? Have you noticed we're pre-Magna Carta these days? Or do you care about actual, existing slavery? I do, and I dislike it.

Translation: Oh god, mommy and Daddy can you please, please stop fighting? How do we expect to get this wagon train across the desert flats if we can't stop fighting amongst ourselves? How can we ever hope to be a family again?

get over yourself. every race has had its own members be slaves of others. black does not equal slave.

this is a tempest in a teacup, the target is the despicable blitzer not anyone else.

would you have had the same reaction if the photoshop had been that of a smarmy Arab? didn't think so.

Translation: You know, for almost an entire century the Irish subsisted entirely on a diet consisting largely of potatoes. You can look it up.

Also:

Translation: "Me, me, me," it's always about your problems and your feelings. What about the Arabs? Would you be all in an uproar if, for example, someone photoshopped a burka on a white woman? Thought not.

what a lot of fucking shit.

Translation: Oh, wow, sorry; that was just me. I had a bean pie for lunch.

was the epochal play by eugene o'neill,'the hairy ape' racist because there is no doubt transgression at play here

equally the souther sharecroppers of james agee are they too not a little stereotyped

are the americans described in dreiser, dos passos or sinclair inexistant fpr they too crossed boundaries

i have my quarrel with billmon & we have spoken of white skin privilege in relation to the war in iraq - but he is clearly even in his own terms not a racist

to paraphrase billmon - to be able to live with black cadavers filling the screen of your televisions during katrina & in nearly every city of those united states, to live with the stupefiant number of prisoners - nearly three million - who are generation after generation of black youth forever closed behind bars

no no - the racism of a people is a sensous & practical act it is the recognition & acceptance of your own privilege

let us be frank here if those united states did not rely so much on corrupt & venaal jurisprudence & an even more lethal system of incarceration - ther would have been a race war or a class war a long time ago

Translation: When I was a much younger man, I had occasion to spend a summer season cleaning hotels in the Polish mountain resort of Zakopane. It was the off-season and the Poles had in large measure retreated to their traditional summer haunts. It was there that I met a lovely young Peruvian girl of Indian extraction, a mere slip of womanhood who labored at the resort just as I did. Like a tender brown stalk stretching and bursting to moist maturity in the alien heat of the greenhouse, she had somehow found herself transplanted from the Andes to a harsh northern clime magically rendered temporarily more temperate and nurturing, this as if only for her.

We grew close, she and I, but as she was but a young mountain girl prone to flights of fancy, I found the strength to restrain my natural urges, thinking it best to preserve her from any heartbreak that an ill-advised affair might cause. I turned my full attention to her education, where I took great satisfaction in introducing her to a newer, broader world of arts and letters, to music and history, the words of great writers and thinkers. She, in turn, taught me of her people, of the great god VIRACOCHA who weeps eternally, and APU-PUNCHAU whose name can only be uttered silently. She taught me what it meant sit silent on a mountain peak, the moon and the indigenous fauna my only companions. We went on like this for several weeks, our give and take a veiled intimation of our shared desire, and on my last night she appeared at my door, grateful, naked and unashamed, eager and yet waiting for a sign that only I could give. I knew I would never see her again so I reached out to her, and I can say we shared pleasures that late summer evening unlike any other pleasure I have known, experienced things together that I only can recall at the risk of trembling.

Aymara. Not a day goes by that I don't think of her, that I don't weep at the hint of her name, so sweet and salty on the tip of my tongue.

I believe intent must come into making that determination. I do not believe Billmon's intent was to express ill will towards blacks. You may take it that way, but it and of itself that is meaningless, as there are countless examples in today's society of people being offended over countless things, real or not. We have lots of the professionally offended in the country these days, both on the Right and the Left. People choose to be offended; it is not a fixed standard.

Yes, I found Billmon's use of blackface to make a very clear point, a perfect description of Mr. Blitzer's role in the media, to be very telling and effective. From Billmon's honest portrayal of himself and his awareness of subliminal racist programming as a child, I don't consider his depiction a jab at anyone but Mr. Blitzer. Blackface minstels existed. There were horrible white men using the untold misery of helpless victims to make a buck. I don't think Billmon was promoting these horrible white men. You do believe that, and you believe that makes Billmon a racist. I don't think he was, and that it does not make him a racist. That gives us a difference of opinion. You are certainly entitled to that opinion, but please stop making pronouncements of racism as if it were a fixed standard of fact of which you are the sole arbiter.

Translation: C'mon! Cut a 'bro a deal. I think we can all agree that it really is the thought that counts.

So to make a longwinded comment shorter: the rascism (or sexism or classism or ageism) of a particular statement might depend on the listeners context instead of the speakers and thus make it bloody hard on the Internet.

Translation: I can't be bothered with this. I know it sounds harsh, but I have to say that ultimately this is your problem.

OK, you're getting onto me over the subjectivity of intent, and then in the VERY NEXT PARAGRAPH you speak of Billmon's "inner racist" as objective fact. You can't have it both ways. Just because Billmon is aware of his own psychological situation, you can't state as a fact (as you do) that this particular case is "his inner racist" leaking out. You can think that, and it's pretty clear you do think that, but you speak definitely of something you just admitted wasn't definitive. You think it's racist. Fine, that's great, we disagree. But lose the objective voice and stop playing Lord High Arbiter.

Translation: Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Watch where you point that thing, fella. It might be loaded.

Also:

Translation: I'm just going to keep saying it until you get it through your head: You are. Not. The Boss. Of Me.

Back during the initial weeks of post-Katrina news coverage, you all might recall that alot of rightwingers were up in arms about the possibility of the black community getting together and disparaging the shit out of Shrub. The vibe I got from all their rhetoric was, "This wasn't Bush's fault so you darkies bettah hesh up your mouth and know your place." This vibe was then later confirmed when news got out that a handful of armed Gretna police said to a bunch of predominately black Katrina survivors, "They be no Superdomes heah!"

At this point, I knew what the jig was. Growing up in a city with a lot of blacks and latinos, I know exactly how they're going to react and how justified those reactions will probably be ... and I mentioned it in another part of the internet. I said, "Watch out, folks. When black people hear shit like 'They be no Superdomes here', it's only a matter of time and opportunity when they'll stand up and shout back in defiance 'And they be no house niggahs here!' without caring one whit who it may offend."

I got raked over the coals for being a racist, race-bating, and the whole roasted chicken that Billmon is getting bludgeoned with right now but, as time unfolded, I ended up being right because the moment - that opportunity - when the black community shouted "They be no house niggahs heah!" in defiance to the Bushistas was during Coretta Scott King's funeral. Granted, nobody speaking at her funeral actually said those exact words ... but I sure as hell heard them loud and clear. Repeatedly, too. So did the majority of Americans. And so did Bush and the rest of the racist rightwing Bigotsphere, evidenced by their squirming and howling -- they had the audacity to act with fradulent shock and awe, caterwauling about how improper and rude it was for the black community to "get all uppity" and use CSK's funeral as a soapbox.

And now, Billmon used blackface to blast the hell out of the white, bearded, persistantly vegetative, corporate slave fruitbat commonly known as Wolf Blitzer and getting simular rations of shit from both sides of the sandbox. Clearly, too many Americans have just as many problems wrapping their heads around nuance and irony as they do with truth and reality.

Translation: It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

Also:

Translation: Why can't you people ever keep your minds focused for more than a minute on the bigger picture? Sheesh.

One thing which Billmon has acknowleged and which I think goes to the root of the problem is that he can "honestly" say that he has not been able to cross the divide and actually be friends with black people.

I really do not see how being friends with Black people proves anything.

I am informed of genocide against Armenians and I empathise to the deepest. But I have never met an Armenian and it would not change a thing even if had twenty Armenian friends.

Moreover, all peoples deserve respect, consideration & fairness regardless of race or group. Each individual must be recognized as such regardless of attribute.

So long as one treats each Black person (or Hispanic or Chinese or ...) as an individual and respects him/her and is fair, thats good enuff.

Translation: You know, just because I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one, doesn't mean that I won't give that Harold Ford a fair hearing. That's the least that boy deserves, is what I'm saying here.

Posted by ebogjonson in race and other identities at 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)