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ebogjonson's April 2007 archive

April 29, 2007

@ yale 004

Posted by ebogjonson in memoryrace and other identities at 7:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

@ yale 003

Posted by ebogjonson in memoryrace and other identities at 3:53 PM | Permalink

@ yale 002

Double-major Dayo wrote two senior theses this year. This stack is from #2.

Posted by ebogjonson in memoryrace and other identities at 2:40 PM | Permalink

@ yale

Posted by ebogjonson in memoryrace and other identities at 2:30 PM | Permalink

April 13, 2007

happy friday

It's hard being a black man in the working world! TGIF, indeed!

l8r!

Posted by ebogjonson in screened at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

April 7, 2007

is that you shirley?

WOW! It's a good week for posts generated by comments, because someone whose email suggests they might just be the honest-to-god Charles Knipp/Shirley Q Liquor wrote in to say:

I'm poor. If he would just give me money I'd be rich. I'm fat. If he would just never say I'm fat I'd be okay. I'm a woman. If he wouldn't look at pictures of beauty queens I'd be happy. I have a problem. If he would just...[the comment]

Now obviously, I have no way to know if that commenter is the IRL Knipp-Liquor, but what I have to say applies to such sentiments in general, so I think they're fair. To wit:

Give it a rest. This deep-thought, existential, misunderstood-victim act is as put on as Knipp's' blackface show (which, for the record, I researched when all this blew up because I was curious as to what the fuss was about.) No one is suggesting that if Shirley Q. Liquor went away the lives of black women would magically improve. What Jasmyne Cannick and other black gays and lesbians are arguing, though, is that the overwhelming embrace (and then defense) of Knipp's character makes them feel unwelcome among their purported (white) brothers and sisters in the LGBT community. This isn't about utopia, it's about deliberate and ongoing betrayal by people who pretend to be your friends and compatriots. It's exactly Jane Hamsher sitting up on a nationally-recognized, progressive high horse while simultaneously encouraging and abetting yahoo-racism on her website under the cover of fake "punk" rebelliousness. The adamant refusal of Knipp and other white folks to acknowledge the possibility that the character might legitimately insult members of their own community (their refusal aided and abetted by LGBT talking androids, of course) is the root of the problem here, not some insistence on blaming poor, innocent Charles Knipp for the problems of the world.

You know, when I do something that offends large numbers of people I claim to want to live in fellowship with, I stop doing it. But, considering that Knipp is making a buck here, I guess that option is off the table. I said earlier that I wasn't interested in boycotts, but comments like those above make me inclined to revise my position, as they fairly deliberately misstate exactly what someone like Knipp does for a living. The "he" in the above formulation isn't just some random guy that the "I'm poor" positionality is demanding "give me money." "He" is someone who is actually, actively profiting from the sale of yucked-up images of "I'm poor's" suffering. I mean, I can't even write the name "shirley q liquor" on my own blog without the google links directing people to sites selling SQL recordings, so not only does Knipp profit from SQL in general, he even profits from this specific controversy.

If my commenter actually lived in the real world, this is what they would have written instead:

I'm poor. If he would just stop making money off of images derived from my poverty, I wouldn't necessarily be rich, but I might feel less used.

I'm fat. If he would just stop leading a room full of people who aren't my gender or race in a hour-long laugh-off centered on re-enacting stereotyped images of my fatness, I'd be okay.

[ebog note: I'm not even going to come near the irony embedded in an obese, old-ish, white man becoming the toast of his notoriously body and age conscious scene by inducing people to laugh with him by laughing at, uh, a plus-sized black woman. I mean, if you think about the layers of displacement and substitution at work there too much, your head explodes.]

I'm a woman. If he would stop doing a show and making cds centering on contested images of my body, I'd be happier.

I have a problem. If he would just making a buck off of it and telling me he has nothing to do with my problem and really, truly loves me...

The argument that Knipp is an artist doing some kind of loving "work" around black womanhood is as much of a false pretense as Tyler Perry's claim that his buffoonish caricatures are an homage to (and I'm paraphrasing here) "big, powerful black women we all know and love." These men aren't artists, they're chitlin circuit hacks profiting off the low expectations of their given media ecology.

I'm not suggesting that it's impossible to do "good work" in these arenas. Although I'm increasingly known as "blackface guy," I generally subscribe to Eric Lott's analysis in Love and Theft where the history of blackface minstrelsy can be seen as encoding as much desire as hatred. My point, though, is that even with the dynamics of love and theft in mind SQL isn't half as interesting, timely or well-crafted as, say, Borat, Bruno, or Ali G.

Every marginalized group has artists whose materials are images that were previously used as weapons against them. I can't really speak for the black gay and lesbian community, but I think of artists like Issac Julien, or, more germane to this fracaso, Kalup Linzey, a sampling of whose occasionally NSFW work can be seen below:

Now compare any of those clips to this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or this.

By any possible measure - be it craft, or the live-wire buzz of connection produced by a particularly apt or deft reference, or the level of lived interiority that underscores the humor, or just plain kindness towards the character being embodied - Shirley Q. Liquor is nowhere near the same class as Linzey's or (going a little afield) Sasha Baron Cohen's work. (I don't want to start any kind of new squabbling, but all I keep hearing is "But RuPaul loves SQL!?" I'd be curious to know what Linzey or Cohen thinks.) When Knipp or Perry pull the "loving homage" card, they're referencing a methodology related to - but distinct from - their own practice, one that deals with similar questions of love and identity and hurt and safety and transgression and desire and theatrical embodiment and so on, but simultaneous has an explicit relationship to the tricky problems of audience, distribution and community that put Knipp's work in such an unsavory light.

Linzey doesn't get a pass in embodying black women just because he's black (although, let's be real: it helps) but because he deliberately estranges the work through editing and audio. Linzey also deliberately points his audience to the media contexts in which he operates - say, daytime television or the art market - while Knipp steadfastly denies any tie to his obvious tradition, i.e., blackface minstrelsy. Similarly, without getting into the whole "is it real?" debate around Cohen, Borat, Bruno and Ali G go for jugulars whereas SQL just aims for boozy laughs, the safety implicit in playing a black women in a room full of white gay men completely unrelated to the kinds of physical and spatial risk at the core of Cohen's practice. All of which is to say that the "loving homage" thing is a methodology developed by people who are artistically smarter and braver than Charles Knipp or Tyler Perry ever were. (Artistically! I'm not talking IQ, biography, or Tyler Perry crying to Essence about how he used to be homeless until god and drag saved his life.) And yet here we are allowing these gents to wrap their random, off the cuff, poorly constructed comedy in the mantle of deep and important things being said about the black female. It's bullshit, and said bullshit is the biggest reason don't think of Knipp in terms of racism. I just can't get past how corny and lame and full of shit he is. I mean, my brain shuts down before I even get to the r-word.

But Mr. Knipp, if that was you commenting above, here's a little challenge: I know you already do Betty Butterfield, but why not for the next year try only doing comedy about obese, Southern, white drag performers of a certain age? Heck: you can even do work about obese, Southern, white drag performers of a certain age who also love black women so much they wear blackface; I'm pretty easy. Instead of doing predictable riffs like "Ebonics airways," why don't you do comedy about the black people who accost "Charles Knipp" on flights to tell him how much they love/hate Shirley Q, or the bloggers you have never met who say mean things about you, this without ever pausing to think how poor "Charles Knipp" wears the mask, too, the one that laughs and cries and all that. If you tried my little experiment, I guarantee you that one of two things would happen at the end of your year interacting with audiences in the new mode: either you would regularly crash and burn on stage, thereby bringing you face-to-face with the fact that you have very little to say. (More kindly, you would realize that your previous success relied on your audience's racism.) Or, you would have the proverbial artistic rebirth, finding a more interesting, more truthful character to play that would had grown organically from the facts on your own identity. Either way, though, I think your understanding of the whole Shirley Q. Liquor controversy might be deepened.

But you're not going to do that, are you? You're going to claim that your refusal is bravery, that you don't intend to knuckle under to unfair, illegitimate attacks on your racial virtue. But the real reason will be that you're afraid. What if engaging this controversy with the one thing you and your defenders claim you are good at (i.e., comedy) puts you out of a job? Because we both know that at the end of the day nobody cares or wants to see Charles Knipp perform. What they all want is Shirley Q.

Posted by ebogjonson in race and other identities at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 6, 2007

black foot, white foot

Adbul-Jabbar (Go Terriers!) writes of the Congressional Black Caucus:

The CBC has also balked at making ANY statements about the 101 Haitians that recently washed up on South Florida's shores with an impending threat to be returned via the racist wet foot dry foot policy that would give Cuban immigrants in the same situation instant promise of residency in the U.S. [full comment]

For those who haven't been following, the last week of March 101 Haitians landed on a beach in South Florida, this after surviving 22 days in a homemade sailboat (the last 12 days without food, apparently). They were, of course, immediately rounded up by INS and are now being prepped for deportation back to Haiti. While deporting folks busted in flagrante non documentus is a fairly straight-forward maneuver in most of the country, this case has underscored the absurdity of immigration in Cuban-rich South Florida, and, by extension, in the rest of the country.

Basically, under a policy shorthanded as "wet foot, dry foot," Cubans snatched up on the high seas (wet) get sent back, while Cubans busted on land (dry) are not only allowed to stay, but fast-tracked for legal residency. Needless to say, all other migrants who are caught in the US without papers - wet, dry; fresh, not-so-fresh - get their asses shipped back with a quickness. Wet foot-dry foot puts the lie to the notion that the US has a rational, non-racist immigration policy, and yet I have yet to hear Lou Dobbs open his fat, doughy gob to complain about it.

The benefits associated with having a dry, Cuban foot in Florida have a long history, dating back to the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act:

In order to provide aid to recently arrived Cuban immigrants, the United States Congress passed the Cuban American Adjustment Act in 1966. The Cuban Refugee Program provided more than $1.2 billion of direct financial assistance. They also were eligible for public assistance, Medicare, free English courses, scholarships, and low interest college loans. Some banks even pioneered loans for exiles who did not have collateral or credit but received help in getting a business loan simply because they were of Cuban descent. These loans enabled many Cuban Americans to secure funds and create their own businesses. [full wikipedia]

$1.2 billion 1966 dollars is likely chump change in a world where we can literally lose a billion or so in Iraq, but, to understand the scope of this aid, keep in mind that Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty launched at around the same time for a pricetag of $3 billion dollars over two years. I appreciate that this is an apples and oranges comparison, mostly because the War on Poverty led to decades-long programs that ended up costing quite a bit. But there is a legitimate sense in which Cubans were allocated just a scootch less than half of what the US intended to spend on all of poor people, a class that was, of course, imagined as being pretty non-white and African American at the time.

What does this have to do with the Congressional Black Caucus?

The Congressional Black Caucus has long been Haiti's strongest advocate, urging more economic aid and criticizing the lack of U.S. support for former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ousted in 2004 amid a violent uprising. And after the elections last November, Democrats active on Haiti issues now hold key posts.

Michigan Rep. John Conyers heads the Judiciary Committee, giving him a key say on immigration and refugee matters. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York now chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, which steers U.S. trade policy, among other matters. One member of that committee is U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami, who is traveling to Haiti today to discuss immigration issues with President René Préval and the U.S. ambassador in Port-au-Prince. [full story]

The obvious gag embedded in the above item is if the CBC is your "strongest advocate," you are fucked. But, in fairness to the CBC, many of its members fought the good fight vis-a-vis Haiti during the 1990s, their simpatico pull with Bill Clinton helping get Jean-Bertrand Aristide restored after he was ousted in 1991. The problem is that CBC members are at the core politicians, and as a result see intrinsic value in making the right tactical moves even when said moves put them at odds with things like, well, the truth. In this case, tactical good involves propping up current Haitian president (and CBC fave) Rene Preval, this by refusing to underscore what a complete mess his country is in. As Adbul-Jabbar (Go Terriers!) explains:

The CBC has made statements in support of the Haitian community in the past, but it seems that they fear antagonizing the Preval administration by addressing the conditions in Haiti that have forced its poor to seek refuge on the shore's of South Florida. I think if this had occurred during the Latortue administration, Maxine Waters would be screaming for the return of Aristide at the top of her lungs. The CBC giveth and the CBC taketh away... [full comment]

This is the same capitulation to false realpolitik that had the CBC lining up behind William Jefferson, or allows Albert Wynn to walk the halls of Congress as if he's an honorable black leader, or lets the Congressional Black Caucus Institute think it can hold a debate with FOX News without seeming like utter hypocrites.

In the old era, where analysis didn't come with hyperlinks and political memory wasn't powered by google, it was possible for black leaders to adhere to a cyncial 80:20 rule. Their reputations rested safely on a 20 percent nugget of effectiveness and decency, this while 80 percent of their terms were spent indulging in the same-old-machine-politician-shit under the cover of darkness. Heck, forget 20 percent. If you figure that some of these empty suits have been cruising on that 10 percent presumption of progressive politics that attends all black Democrats, the split is more like 10:10:80.

10 percent is a terrible score by any measure. I believe there is still an important role for a caucus of African American legislators to serve, but if it all it has to offer is blackness and 10% it should at least disband the Institute. Just have a black-while-in-Congress merit badge or pin and pursue your politics - good, bad, or indifferent - without pretense or play-acting. Heck, you can even have a yearly breakfast, but don't get up on the high horse and act like being a CBC member means anything, because it sure doesn't seem to mean much to those Haitians.

(The poster image above, BTW, is from the movie Popi, which, despite being borderline racist in a bunch of ways, was one of my favorite movies growing up. The way that the Puerto Rican kids in that movie are forced to enact a fantasy of Cuban-ness struck a chord with me, navigating Haitian, African American and white spaces as I was, each zone with its own risks and perks. Also, Popi's take on daddy love, a mighty under-theorized thing for straight dudes, always struck me as instructive and curious, Popi pairing that age when boys still crave physical intimacy with their fathers with a story about being stranded in the middle of the ocean by dad, this for your own good. Completely fascinating and tear-making!)

Posted by ebogjonson in race and other identities at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

April 5, 2007

why does the Congressional Black Caucus suck so much?

As you already know, I am not a fan of the CBC. As I wrote almost exactly a year ago:

The votes [by CBC members against net neutrality] throw a neatly illuminating light on the coming disconnect between the civil rights establishment and the overwhelmingly white "net-roots." It's fair to say both sides view each other with some distrust. We're living through a deeply contradictory time when black folks (and what's left of the unions) are the Dems only truly reliable voting block, and yet every other manifesto for Democratic revitalization is some kind of attenuated, okie-doke Souljah-moment retread. War or no war, that particular center will not hold, and when it comes finally undone the pressure will be on our black and Latino Democrats to articulate a vision of civil rights, diversity and community that intuitively understand issues of net neutrality as one of "our" issues. Performances like yesterday's make me a little nervous, though. [full me]

It's a common talking-android punk-move to gripe about black leadership, but jeez! Must we be so consistently let down by our so-called leaders? The decision by the Congressional Black Caucus Institute to partner with FOX News on presidental debates is just another crap move by an organization that increasingly seems to serve no real purpose. To (mis)quote a (white) man:

Have you no sense of decency, Congressional Black Caucus Institute, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? [the real quote]

Rather than repeat myself, I would instead like to turn the floor over to the folks at Color of Change:

Last Thursday, the Congressional Black Caucus Institute announced plans to partner with Fox News to host presidential debates--using the name and legacy of the Congressional Black Caucus to legitimize an organization that has shown nothing but hostility to Black Americans.

The announcement came after the Institute ignored more than 12,000 emails from [Colorofchange.org] members, and after 790 phone calls to CBC leaders asking them to denounce the deal were met with side-stepping and inaction.

The CBC and CBCI are betraying Black America, not just by partnering with Fox, but by willfully ignoring the people they claim to represent. It's a display of irresponsible representation and disconnected leadership.

Voices of protest from Black America and our allies are getting louder every day, but members of the CBC still haven't responded. Will you join us in demanding that they take a public stance, today?

Today, we're launching a campaign to ramp up pressure on the CBC. We have two goals: to force the CBC Institute to call off the Fox debates and to make it clear that Black elected leaders cannot act in our names while ignoring our voices.

Our first step is targeting members of the CBC. We know that some members of the CBC oppose a partnership with Fox, but none have spoken publicly. Their silence implies agreement and lends credibility to the Institute's decision. If we can force each member to publicly take a stance on this issue, we're confident some will come out against the partnership. Once there's dissension in the ranks, the Institute's leadership will not be able to maintain the legitimacy of their decision.

But getting there won't be easy. CBC offices have given our members the runaround for weeks--saying the Fox debates are an Institute issue that they can do nothing about and then referring our members to a CBC Institute voicemail box that was full for over two weeks. Members are clearly not trying to go on the record about this issue. But with enough pressure, they will have to speak, and if they continue to hide, we will broadcast their cowardice to Black America and voters in their district.

The pressure is already mounting. Following the lead of ColorOfChange.org members, Black bloggers, academics, and community newspapers have all taken bold stands. Now it's up to us. If we keep up the pressure, we can force voices of reason and conscience to arise from within the CBC, and help bring the CBC back in line with Black America. Please join us.

Thank You and Peace,

-- James, Van, Clarissa, Gabriel, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
April 5th, 2007

Resources:

ColorOfChange.org members taking a stand on this has helped it get plenty of coverage: in national news, blogs, online journals, and the Black press. Here are links to some of the posts and articles, as well as letters sent from ColorOfChange.org to CBC members and the CBC Institute.

Black blogs:

"Who will lead?" Afro-Netizen.com, April 4, 2007

"Update on CBC Fox Debates," Jack and Jill Politics, March 30, 2007

"Fox News sets debates with Congressional Black Caucus Institute???" Superspade.blogspot.com March 29, 2007

"Why is the Congressional Black Caucus Institute hopping in the sack with Faux News?" Pam's House Blend, March 30, 2007

"The CBC Needs to Learn From Us: Just Say No to FOX," CorrenteWire, March 14, 2007

Because the so-called netroots are currently, like, whiter than my graduating class at Yale, web outrage at a Democratic caucus getting in bed with FOX has been pretty much akin to the sound of your nutty Polish neighbor yelling at something across a backyard fence. You don't talk Polish, she don't speak English; who knows what the fuck old girl is going on about today.

The outrage of the white folks is meaningless to black incumbents sitting in safe districts. Until they feel pressure from black folks, the CBCI will continue to sell us out in order to get available pieces of the pie. It was telecom pie last year, FOX pie this year, who knows the year after that?

I was speaking to a pretty smart person yesterday who was like: well, it's not as if anyone is lining up to give the CBCI money. Sure, of course. I understand that no one is lining up to give the CBCI money. But an organization's values are best indicated by the hard choices it makes when the proverbial chips are down. I already know you're broke and that you wouldn't dream of taking money from the Klan; big deal. If you want to impress me, show me real character and vision. I don't give a fuck about your lengthy record of fundraising balls, invite-only morning legislative breakfasts, and yearly conventions; I have no interest in partying with Michael Eric Dyson. Lead, already, or get out of the way.

This is an aside, but if Obama becomes president, who do you think is going to have more room on his coat-tails: ColorofChange.org or the CBCI? Black-enuf, not-black-enuf isn't about race, it's about political power in a post-internet political context. There is a realignment coming, and when it does, these folks will not know what hit them. At that point, the CBCI will likely go running to Russell Simmons or maybe BET asking to be made relevant again "with the youth." I dunno about Viacom, but Russell will likely oblige, this as long as the CBCI agrees to partner with him on an educational program about "underbanking," this as a trojan horse to promote his crap, stored-value RushCard. You heard it here first!

Posted by ebogjonson in black presidentrace and other identitiestalking androids at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)