If Calling Him Hitler Doesn't Work, Just Call Him a Girl

Obama: Our First Female President

By Kathleen Parker

f Bill Clinton was our first black president, as Toni Morrison once proclaimed, then Barack Obama may be our first woman president.

Phew. That was fun. Now, if you'll just keep those hatchets holstered and hear me out.

No, I'm not calling Obama a girlie president. But . . . he may be suffering a rhetorical-testosterone deficit when it comes to dealing with crises, with which he has been richly endowed.

It isn't that he isn't "cowboy" enough, as others have suggested. Aren't we done with that? It is that his approach is feminine in a normative sense. That is, we perceive and appraise him according to cultural expectations, and he's not exactly causing anxiety in Alpha-maledom.

We've come a long way gender-wise. Not so long ago, women would be censured for speaking or writing in public. But cultural expectations are stickier and sludgier than oil. Our enlightened human selves may want to eliminate gender norms, but our lizard brains have a different agenda.

Women, inarguably, still are punished for failing to adhere to gender norms by acting "too masculine" or "not feminine enough." In her fascinating study about "Hating Hillary," Karlyn Kohrs Campbell details the ways our former first lady was chastised for the sin of talking like a lawyer and, by extension, "like a man."

Could it be that Obama is suffering from the inverse?

When Morrison wrote in the New Yorker about Bill Clinton's "blackness," she cited the characteristics he shared with the African American community:

"Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."

If we accept that premise, even if unseriously proffered, then we could say that Obama displays many tropes of femaleness. I say this in the nicest possible way. I don't think that doing things a woman's way is evidence of deficiency but, rather, suggests an evolutionary achievement.

Nevertheless, we still do have certain cultural expectations, especially related to leadership. When we ask questions about a politician's beliefs, family or hobbies, we're looking for familiarity, what we can cite as "normal" and therefore reassuring.

Generally speaking, men and women communicate differently. Women tend to be coalition builders rather than mavericks (with the occasional rogue exception). While men seek ways to measure themselves against others, for reasons requiring no elaboration, women form circles and talk it out.

Obama is a chatterbox who makes Alan Alda look like Genghis Khan.

Read the Full Essay @ The Washington Post

Stop Spreading Myths about Black Gay and Bisexual Men

from the National Black Justice Coalition

Dear Friends,

Last week, we heard once again that Black gay and bisexual men are responsible for the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the Black community, a dangerous stereotype repeated on ABC's "The View" by host Sherri Shepherd and guest host D. L. Hughley.

While discussing the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) ban that prevents gay and bisexual men from donating blood, Shepherd and Hughley communicated oft-repeated misinformation about the causes of increased HIV rates among Black women.

Here is an excerpt from the exchange on the June 22 broadcast:

Hughley: When you look at the prevalence of HIV in the African American Community, it's primarily young women who are getting it from men who are on the down low. That's the thing.

Shepherd: The down low is black men who've been going out. They are having sex with men and they're not telling their girlfriends or their wives that they're gay and they're husbands, as well. And it's very prevalent with African American women because they come home and have sex with their wives or their girlfriends. And they're not telling them that they're gay.

Shepherd: It's so big in the Black community with women because they're having unprotected sex with men who have been having sex with... with men.

Following this exchange, D.L. Hughley went on to express his support for gay marriage. While we applaud his support, we cannot ignore the need for responsible reporting of the facts, by Hughley, Shepherd, and others who have irresponsibly repeated this stereotype.

Last week, ABC refused to issue an on-air correction.

Dr. Kevin Fenton, Director of the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention told the National Newspaper Publisher's Association in October of 2009, the CDC "has looked to see what proportion of [HIV] infections is coming from male partners who are bisexual and found that there are actually relatively few." According to Dr. Fenton and the CDC's research, most HIV infections can be attributed to other factors including injecting drugs and drug use.

It is time that we have an informed dialogue around the truths about HIV/AIDS in the Black community, void of the stereotypes about Black LGBT people--engaging Shepherd, Hughley, and other celebrity voices.

NBJC joins the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) in calling for immediate action to correct these falsehoods that put our community in harm's way.

We refuse to stay silent, and we hope you will join us. Take action by:

1: Clicking here to read a transcript of the offending broadcast and sign the petition.

2: Posting a link of GLAAD's Action Alert to your Twitter feed, Facebook page, and any other social media you use to spread the word to your network.

It is all of our responsibility to correct the spreading of myths that contribute to hostility towards African-American LGBT people.

In solidarity,

Sharon J. Lettman

Executive Director

National Black Justice Coalition

Gun Violence and American Masculinity

Gun Violence and American Masculinity

by Mark Anthony Neal

The numbers are simply breathtaking; during a 60-hour period, over the weekend beginning June 18, 2010, more than fifty people were shot in the city of Chicago, seven of them fatally. Not coincidentally, two of those shootings occurred when shots were fired randomly at a crowd gathered for a Pride Weekend event in the city. More than 25 people were victims of shooting violence the following weekend, at least three of them fatally, adding to the city’s increasing homicide rate (more than 200 by mid June). Ironically, Chicago has had a handgun ban in place for nearly three decades. The ban was successfully challenged, in a Supreme Court decision that was handed down this week. Clearly something is not working in Chicago, as is the case in many American cities, towns and hamlets.

That a significant portion of the violence was gang-related and involved young black men, should surprise no one. Let’s not pretend, though, that this is a problem endemic only to large urban centers like Chicago or black youth for that matter; The level of violence we’ve witnessed has become all too ordinary in America, particularly as the nation wages two wars abroad (wars that Chicago based Barack Obama has expanded) and Tea-baggers casually insinuate the use of violence to reclaim “freedoms” they supposedly lost in the last Presidential election.

That we live in a culture of violence, notwithstanding, we do have to look starkly at the realities of that shape violence in the lives of black youth, particularly black males. According to recent Department of Justice figures (2008), black males aged 18-29 have the highest homicide rates in the country. Additionally this same age group of black males is the most likely to commit homicide—with their black male peers, accordingly being the most likely targets. These statistics give us some insight into the on-the-ground issues instigate such violence.

There are of course the usual suspects; the crippling effect of the erosion of the traditional nuclear family, and the absence of male adults—fathers—in the lives of these young men and boys. Still others will cites the usual scapegoat, rap music, as a primary culprit, as two of the genres most visible icons, T.I. and Little Wayne have been incarcerated on gun related charges. These are legitimate concerns to consider, but neither theory, gets at the everyday aspects of the black male experience where, respect creates hard-earned social capital and hypermasculine performance is a valuable commodity.

Hypermasculinity can best be described as behaviors or performances that amplify the already masculine aspects of male identity. Thus elevated forms of aggression and risk taking are part of the hypermasculine performance. In that manhood is often the only tangible source of power and respect available to young black men, particularly those in impoverished environments, hypermasculinity can be more palpable to their lives than their white male peers.

In the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, researchers Elaine F. Cassidy and Howard C. Stevenson, Jr. have argued that hypermasculinity among young black men really masks the hypervulnerability of their lives. In other words, there might be a direct correlation between the vulnerability felt by young black men within the realms of their schooling, economic status and safety that manifest itself in the image of the “hard” black man and forms of depression.

It would be easy to identify how public policy has failed to protect many of these young men from feeling vulnerable, or marginalized to cite the work of sociologist Alford Young, Jr., but I submit that it is the very idea of American masculinity that has failed them. Many men in this country have been sold a fake bill of goods regarding the concept of manhood, believing that maleness is the embodiment of power and domination.

Personal attributes such as vulnerability and thoughtfulness are seen as less than masculine or too women-like. As such young black men often respond to threats of violence or even simple acts of disrespect, by responding in kind because to negotiate or back-down is viewed as weakness. Within the political economy of masculinity in the United States, it’s either punk or get punked and even the current United States President understands that dynamic.

We absolutely need to be more vigilant about violence, particularly gun violence, in our communities and we need to hold law enforcement more accountable for incompetent and murderous behavior, like the shooting of Oscar Grant. We also need to develop more on-the-ground strategies to equip young black men to make better and life affirming choices in their lives. But, until we fundamentally dismantle the ways we think about manhood in this country, we will continually have to deal with levels of violence that we have, unfortunately, become insensitive to.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Public Intellectual

WUNC
The State of Things w/Frank Stasio

Meet Alexis Pauline Gumbs

The words of black feminist writers touched Alexis Pauline Gumbs at an early age. She connected deeply with the theories of Audre Lorde, a Carribbean-American author and activist, and embodied Lorde’s revolutionary spirit in college and into graduate school at Duke University where she concentrated on English, Women’s Studies and African-American Studies. Gumbs now operates the School of Our Lorde, a series of educational sessions for the Durham community on politics, social change and feminist theory. Gumbs can also be heard as the host of a podcast and public access TV program called “Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind” and she is currently traveling the country in an R.V. that she calls her “revolutionary vehicle” collecting personal stories from black homosexual communities. Gumbs joins host Frank Stasio to talk about how black spirituality, sexuality, motherhood and sisterhood play a role in the survival of our society.

Listen HERE

The Peculiar Case of African-American World Cup Watching

The Peculiar Case of African-American World Cup Watching
by R. L’Heureux Lewis

Every four years, I suffer from a condition. I feel confused, disconnected from friends and co-workers, yet strangely compelled to engage foreign matters. These feelings are brought on by the arrival of the World Cup. Through conversations with a number of my black American friends I’ve learned that I am not alone in this sentiment. While the World Cup represents one of the most important events to take place around the globe, it remains far from sacred to Americans; even less so to many black Americans.

I recognize that the World Cup is very significant to many of my brothers and sisters throughout the African diaspora, but I wonder if it will ever hold deep meaning for most of us. While it may just seem like a sporting event, mending our disconnection from the World Cup holds great promise for African-Americans; learning to appreciate it could usher in a new period of global citizenship.

As I recently sat watching the United States v. England match someone asked, “Who are you rooting for?” “Neither! I don’t like colonizers or oppressors,” I responded. Off the cuff, I quickly realized that my comment spoke to a dilemma the sport presents to many black people in this country. My disengagement with the World Cup wasn’t just about politics, it was also about how I was socialized.

In the United States soccer is an overwhelmingly middle class, suburban and predominantly white activity. Images of plush green fields, orange slices and minivans rush to my mind when I hear the word soccer.

By contrast, around the world, children mired in poverty find football, as the majority of the world calls it, an ideal athletic outlet. Whether it is played on the plush fields of London or the dusty expanses of Dakar, soccer is a language for communication and competition. Sadly, it is an international language from which many black Americans have been barred.

Read the Full Essay @ the Atlanta Post

New Book! In Search of Brightest Africa

from University of Georgia Press

In Search of Brightest Africa

Reimagining the Dark Continent in American Culture, 1884–1936

Jeannette Eileen Jones

A critical look at the American intellectual tradition of enthusiasm for Africa

Reviews

“Written in a lively and convincing style, In Search of Brightest Africa offers significant new insights derived from a close reading of primary materials. It will unquestionably be a major contribution to the study of African identity in America.”

—Graham Hodges, author of Root and Branch: African Americans in New York and East Jersey, 1613–1863

“With elegant prose, analytic precision, and archival depth, In Search of Brightest Africa forcefully pushes us beyond the enduring image of the Dark Continent. Jones persuasively demonstrates how little-known images and ideas about a ‘Brightest Africa’ were central to the American imagination as the country was making itself over as modern. The stories here of naturalists and environmentalists, Pan-Africanists and anti-imperialists, also tell us why Africa stays on our mind not just as a record of imperial pasts but also as a haunting yet hopeful recognition of possible global futures.”

—Davarian L. Baldwin, author of Chicago’s New Negroes

Description

In the decades between the Berlin Conference that partitioned Africa and the opening of the African Hall at the American Museum of Natural History, Americans in several fields and from many backgrounds argued that Africa had something to teach them. Jeannette Eileen Jones traces the history of the idea of Africa with an eye to recovering the emergence of a belief in “Brightest Africa”—a tradition that runs through American cultural and intellectual history with equal force to its “Dark Continent” counterpart.

Jones skillfully weaves disparate strands of turn-of-the-century society and culture to expose a vivid trend of cultural engagement that involved both critique and activism. Filmmakers spoke out against the depiction of “savage” Africa in the mass media while also initiating a countertradition of ethnographic documentaries. Early environmentalists celebrated Africa as a pristine continent while lamenting that its unsullied landscape was “vanishing.” New Negro political thinkers also wanted to “save” Africa but saw its fragility in terms of imperiled human promise. Jones illuminates both the optimism about Africa underlying these concerns and the racist and colonial interests these agents often nevertheless served. The book contributes to a growing literature on the ongoing role of global exchange in shaping the African American experience as well as debates about the cultural place of Africa in American thought.

***

Jeannette Eileen Jones is an associate professor of history and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Where Br'er Rabbit Meets Nas: Michael Jackson, the Lyrical Trickster

Michael Jackson: The Writings on the Wall

by Diana Ozemebhoya

The King of Pop’s greatest hits were penned by the King of Pop himself. On the one-year anniversary of his death, The Root takes a look at Jackson’s lyrical prowess.

Read the Full Essay @ The Root

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Moonwalkin' in the Briar Patch:

The Trickster Legacy of Michael Jackson

by Red Clay Scholar

The trickster figure in folklore uses his wits and cunning to remove himself from difficult situations, to teach a lesson, or instill awareness to those around him. (In this case) He was unable to be restricted to a rigid space and often found comfort (and identity) in difficult situations. The Br'er (Brother) stories/fables often showcased the antics of Br'er Rabbit, the original "one-upper." In slave stories, Br'er Rabbit not only outwitted his fellow animals but also the white farmer, whom he taunted consistently and fervently. In "Tar Baby," Br'er Rabbit is tricked by Farmer (or Brer Fox or Bear, depending on the adaptation) and gets stuck to a tar baby (doll made out of tar). Facing death, Br'er Rabbit begs and pleads for his captors not to throw him into the nearby thorny briar patch because it would be a tortuous demise. Pleased with the thought of (finally) harming Br'er Rabbit, Farmer throws him into the briar patch waiting to hear the sounds of Br'er Rabbit's slow death. Instead, Farmer hears Rabbit's laughter and taunting, stating his comfort in his birthplace, and escapes.

While the briar patch suggests a problematic, often impossible space to navigate, Br'er Rabbit signifies the ability to do so. Br'er Rabbit was a folk hero, able to do the impossible - get over on the white man. His creation and comfort to navigate those spaces speak to the black experience in white America and slaves desire to rebel against the social hierarchy that viewed them as inferior. Toni Morrison's Tar Baby (1981) stretches the Tar Baby plantation story to construct and contextualize black masculinity. Morrison creates her own Br'er Rabbit in Son, a young black man who manipulates both racial and gender spaces on a plantation on La Isles de Chevaliers and New York in order to progress and survive. Son performs whatever role is placed on him - charmer, bad nigger, buck, abuser, manchild.

Michael Jackson both aggrandized and fell victim to these spaces. Through one lens, Jackson transcended both his blackness and even genre to become the King of Pop Music. I guess King of R&B was being held hostage by Bobby Brown at the time of crowning. MJ's ability to blend and deconstruct musical genres to produce a new sound or concept only rivaled the genius of Prince. Jackson pushed the envelope, refusing to be restricted to static indicators of black music. Collaborations with artists ranging from Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney to Guns N' Roses Slash shook the spirit, captivated the mind, and left the listener breathless.

Read the Full Essay @ Red Clay Scholar

Race and the French Soccer Debacle

France's soccer empire in ruins?
by Laurent Dubois, Special to CNN

The world watched with awe and derision this past week as the French national soccer team, boasting a roster of star players, imploded on and off the field at the World Cup.

In case you missed it, here's the play-by-play. At half-time during the France-Mexico game, striker Nicolas Anelka insulted French coach Raymond Domenech in the locker room.

Such words, of course, are heard frequently in the half-time locker rooms of losing teams the world over -- though not so often spoken to a coach's face. They don't, however, usually decorate the covers of newspapers.

But there was a leak, and in a gesture that was extremely profitable (if of questionable journalistic integrity,) the French sports newspaper L'Equipe published Anelka's insults as their headline. Anelka refused to apologize for the outburst, and the player was sent home.

It might have ended there, except that the French players did what all self-respecting French workers would do in the situation: Led by team captain Patrice Evra, they went on strike, refusing to practice last Sunday.

Their action incited a wave of anger in France. President Nicolas Sarkozy rapidly criticized the players, and right-wing politicians did so even more harshly. Both Anelka and Evra are black, and there was racist vitriol hurled at them online.

The intellectual Alain Finkielkraut -- already well known for having derided the French team as being "black-black-black" in 2006 -- lambasted them on primetime television. The players, his argument went, were "hooligans," raised in the banlieues (French projects,) with no sense of dignity and no patriotism, and lacking proper respect for authority.

For years, many in France had stridently complained about the French coach, Raymond Domenech and the French Football Federation that kept him in his post through one failure after another. Suddenly, though, a surprising number of people seemed ready to scapegoat the "spoiled" and ungovernable players, particularly Anelka and Evra, for the failures of the French team.

Read the Full Essay @ CNN

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Laurent Dubois is the Marcello Lotti Professor of Romance Studies and History at Duke University. He recently published "Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France," and is founding editor of the Soccer Politics Blog.

The Game at Its Best: Beautiful Struggler Responds

A "Pause" for The Cause

by Sister Toldja

I got hip to The Boondocks comic strip when I was in high school. You know that feeling Roberta Flack described in “Killing Me Softly”, the whole “singing my life with his words” thing? Yeah, Aaron McGruder gave me alla that. I’d read the strip online daily, print it out and share it with my parents, hang it up in my locker. I bought every collection of strips that came out and totally obsessed over all things Boondocks. I was extremely hyped about the animated series…until it aired. It’s funny, where the strip was hilarious and smart, where the print comic was brilliant. I have some other complaints too, but overall, I just find the show to be decent.

But then you have this week’s episode, “Pause”. McGruder takes on both Tyler Perry and the “pause”/”no homo” phenomenon in one fell swoop. Brilliant. Hilarious. And, most of all, courageous. The writer isn’t hardly the first one to criticize Mr. Perry’s work publicly; Spike Lee has done it and lesser known writers go at him all the time. But McGruder goes in quite differently than anything I’ve seen or read thus far.

The plot: Granddad decides to audition for a “Winston Jerome” play. We learn through Huey’s narration that Jerome’s plays typically feature an educated, successful and virtuous Black woman trapped in an unhappy marriage to an abusive dark complexioned man, until she is saved by Jesus and the love of a light-skinned blue collar man. Granddad is chosen as the “light-skinned, good haired” leading man in “Ma’ Finds Herself A Man” because he’s Jerome’s type. He then finds himself forced to join the playwright’s “homo-erotic Christian theatre cult” (I TOLD YOU HE WENT IN!) and temporarily abandons his family for the chance at stardom.

McGruder nails the likely reason a lot of actors reduce themselves to the Perry factory via a brief appearance by Kadeem Hardison as himself. Sitting next to Grandpa at the audition, he quips “What, I’m supposed to wait for the next Akeelah And The Bee to pay my mortgage?” He also lampoons the way in which Perry seems to use his relationship with Jesus as his line of defense for any criticism of his work:” …(I) would never ever kiss a man. That would be homosexual and against my Christian faith. But Jesus wants us to be actors first and heterosexuals second…but when I go on stage, Jesus wants me to become (Ma’Dukes)…“, quoth Jerome in his attempt to convince Grandpa to kiss him on stage.

Read the Full Essay @ The Beautiful Struggler

The Love You Save: 40 Years of Jackson Mania

The Love You Save: 40 Years of Jackson Mania
by Mark Anthony Neal

This summer marks the anniversary of the Jackson 5’s first full-blown national tour as the signature act of the legendary Motown label. More to the point, it marks the beginnings of a phenomenon known as Jackson-Mania.

Read the Full Essay @ Soul Summer.com

William Jelani Cobb on the 'Angy Black Man'

Remembering Manute Bol

The Sudan-born player's 7-foot-7-inch frame and shot-blocking prowess weren't the only things that made him stand out from his NBA peers.

Manute Bol's Gigantic Heart

by Deron Snyder

Saying that Manute Bol stood out in the NBA is an understatement, like saying Gulliver stood out among the Lilliputians. Bol, who died Saturday at the age of 47 at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, definitely made a distinct impression during his 10-season NBA career (1985-95). But it wasn't just his rail-thin frame, prodigious wingspan and towering height. Although those physical characteristics made him an unusual player, they alone didn't make him different from others in basketball.

It was more than being a spindly 7 feet, 7 inches tall, with the ability to extend his hand above the rim while standing flat-footed. It was more than weighing a measly 190 pounds, with an arms-stretched-wide width measuring 8 feet, 6 inches from fingertip to fingertip. And it was more than his unique background as a Sudanese cattle-herder who once killed a lion with a spear, going from never playing basketball until his late teens, to setting the NBA rookie record for blocked shots in only 26 minutes per game.

What really separated Bol from his NBA peers -- and for that matter, most professional athletes -- was his humanitarian efforts, his willingness to spend his money and risk his life for the sake of others. He was among the rare athletes, such as Arthur Ashe and Dikembe Mutombo, who absolutely dedicate themselves to something bigger than sports and their personal well-being. In Bol's case, it was the plight of the people in his native Sudan, where civil war, poverty, sickness, crime and a lack of educational opportunities was the status quo.

Read the Full Essay @ The Root

Save The Schomburg!

Save The Schomburg

by Marc W. Polite

A mainstay of Harlem history is in danger of being dismantled. The collection of materials at the Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture may be partitioned and sent to various branches of the New York Public Library. This in addition to the possibility of the Center’s collections being sent off to another research library should be an issue of great concern for the Harlem community in particular, and those in the African Diaspora in general. There is even talk of renaming the facility.

The Schomburg is a world reknown research library, and to treat its collection like its of little consequence is a mistake. Originally created in 1926, the Center has been a beacon for scholars, activists, and historians studying and gathering information. With director Howard Dodson slated to leave in February of 2011, the future of the research library is very much in jeopardy.

It should also be widely known that Henry Louis Gates, who has some highly questionable notions about African history, will be co-chairing the search committee for the new curator of The Schomburg. Given his tendency to downplay the facts of history in regards to the African Slave Trade, there is little confidence in Gates willingness to preserve the cultural heritage that the Center has represented for over 80 years. As America’s foremost post-racial scholar, Henry Louis Gates does not share the concerns of the residents of Harlem for the retention of its Black culture and history.

Read the Full Essay @ PoliteSociety

Is R&B DOA?

from The Michael Eric Dyson Show(WEAA-FM)

As we continue our focus on Black Music Month, we turn our attention to R&B—rhythm and blues music. The genre, which started in the 1940s and includes everyone from Little Richard to The Supremes to Michael Jackson, continues to dominate popular music around the world, even in light of hip-hop’s mark on the musical landscape. Two well-known musicologists, Dr. Mark Anthony Neal from Duke University and Rashod Ollison, entertainment writer for The Virginian Pilot and music critic for Jet, join the show today to share their love for and criticism of the genre. (40 minutes in)

Listen HERE

The Media’s Obsession with Unmarried Black Women

The Media v. Black Women:
The Peculiar Case of the Media’s Obsession with Unmarried Black Women
by Diane Lucas

By now, everyone in the country with access to a television, the internet or a book store has gotten the memo that black women marry at a dismally low rate compared to women of other races. We’ve seen and read it in the Economist, The Washington Post, U.S. News, Essence Magazine, Ebony and on The View, Oprah, and Nightline, among others. We know that of the hetero-black male population, there are significant numbers of black men incarcerated, lower rates of higher education, and disproportionate numbers of black men marrying outside of their race, as compared to black women. We heard that even setting aside those factors, there are fewer black men than woman in the U.S. population. No one is denying that there is an issue. It’s been an issue for a while now. So why the New York Times recently published what seems like the millionth and one article on why black women can’t find a man is absolutely baffling.

I have been thinking a lot about this issue and discussing it with friends — black and white, male and female — to pinpoint precisely why these articles bother me so much. I, like many other black feminists/womanists, constantly call for more discussion of issues affecting black women and other women of color in the mainstream media. Black relationships and the black family are important mainstream topics. But the media is obsessed with unmarried black women. One black woman commenting on the ABC Nightline post put it best — she said she is waiting for the article about black women tripping down altars riddled with reporters and social scientists. The inundation of these articles, T.V. specials, and books is an attack on black women. The overall message conveyed is unproductive and harmful.

Specifically, here’s my beef (and bear with me, because I have a lot of it):

Blame Game

The media often places the blame on black women for their perceived inability to find successful black men, especially when black women become more educated and achieve greater success in their careers. Although some articles and T.V. specials acknowledge the disparate number of available black men vís a vís black women due to the racialization of the criminal justice system, the discussion rarely turns to how black men can improve their romantic interactions with black women. Rather, the media often focuses on black women and their “issues.” Many of these articles, T.V. specials and books are purposed to instruct black women on how to be more desirable to black men or how to lower their standards. A prime example is the book The Denzel Principle: Why a Black Woman Can’t Find a Good Black Man, which blames black women for setting their standards too high — they apparently only want Denzel Washington, not the mail man.

The Nightline multi-part special entitled “Why Can’t a Successful Black Woman Find a Man?” sent the message that, as the title implies, black women are to blame for many of their problems finding a man. The Nightline special posed questions that begged for “experts” (including Steve Harvey, a comedian, whose “expertise” on black women and relationships remains unclear) to figure out what is wrong with black women. Are they too strong? Too powerful? Too aggressive? Too demanding? Of course, these stereotypical characteristics of black women are the same traits often attributed to successful people generally, regardless of race or gender. So the take away to black women is that the very characteristics that made you successful are the same ones that will keep you single, lonely, and of course unhappy.

Instead of being asked to make a choice between being either strong and independent or married, black women would be better served if our strengths were celebrated and not demonized, and if we were recognized as individuals. Black women would fare better if writers, experts and social scientists would take a break from hyper-examining and over-analyzing us to figure out what our “problems” are.

Read the Full Essay @ Feministe

Diane Lucas is a Attorney in New York City

A Year Later, Jackson Estate Is Prospering

A Year Later, Jackson Estate Is Prospering
By BEN SISARIO

In death, Michael Jackson has had the comeback he always wanted. His estate, managed by two longtime associates, the entertainment lawyer John Branca and the music executive John McClain, has nearly settled his troubled finances by making a string of big deals: a record-contract extension with Sony, a new Jackson-themed video game, two Cirque du Soleil shows and a plethora of merchandise.

Over the last year, the Jackson brand has generated hundreds of millions of dollars, and experts in the management of celebrity estates say that in the long term it might very well equal or eclipse the value of what until now has been the ultimate entertainment estate: that of Elvis Presley, which earned $55 million last year, according to an estimate by Forbes magazine.

“Michael Jackson’s This Is It,” a film drawn from rehearsal tapes for the O2 arena shows in London that had been scheduled before he died a year ago, grossed $261 million around the world, according to boxofficemojo.com. And last year Jackson sold nearly 8.3 million albums in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan — far more than any other artist.

“What they’ve done brilliantly is that they’ve taken advantage of the emotion surrounding the tragic and unexpected passing of Michael Jackson, and done it in a way that’s tasteful yet profitable, and that’s challenging,” said Robert F. X. Sillerman, the financier who until recently was the chairman and chief executive of CKX, which controls the Presley estate. (Mr. Sillerman remains CKX’s largest shareholder.)

Before Jackson died on June 25 at the age of 50, he was on the brink of financial disaster, and he was about to embark on a risky move to return to performing after a 12-year absence. He was more than $400 million in debt, and bookmakers in London were placing bets that he would not appear for a planned series of 50 concerts at the O2 arena.

The change in public perception since Jackson’s death has been just as remarkable as his estate’s financial turnaround.

Although tickets to his London shows sold out in hours, the Jackson brand had been hurt by allegations of child abuse that had dogged him over the last two decades. (He settled a case in the 1990s, and was acquitted at a trial in 2005.) Last spring few fans turned out to view memorabilia at a planned auction in Beverly Hills, Calif. (it was canceled after Jackson objected), but when another Jackson auction opens in Las Vegas on Thursday, significantly bigger crowds — and higher prices — are expected.

Jackson’s executors were well aware that his public image needed tending.

“We felt we needed to restore Michael’s image, and the first building block of that was the movie,” Mr. Branca said in an interview on Tuesday. “People came away from that movie with a completely different view of Michael. Rather than being this out-of-control eccentric, they saw him as the ultimate artist, the ultimate perfectionist, but at the same time respectful of other people.”

But many cultural critics and estate managers say that the enormous, worldwide outpouring of emotion upon Jackson’s death — aided by an Internet-fueled news engine that has kept the issue in the public eye for the last year — established a momentum of its own.

“His sainthood began the moment that he died,” said David Reeder, vice president of GreenLight, a licensing agency that works with the estates of Johnny Cash, Steve McQueen and other celebrities. “That’s been beneficial for the estate. They haven’t had to overcome a lot of obstacles that might have made him less desirable commercially.”

Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of black popular culture at Duke University, said that death has changed the way Jackson is remembered and discussed, particularly among African-Americans. Last week Jackson was inducted into the Apollo Theater’s hall of fame, along with Aretha Franklin.

“Ultimately it comes down to the fact that the Michael Jackson story is such a sad story in the end,” Professor Neal said. “And in reading him that way, some of his humanity has been recovered. We don’t necessarily see Michael as the demon that some folks might have seen him as in those last couple years of his life.”

Read the Full Article @ The New York Times

What Happened to the Black Literary Canon?

What Happened to the Black Literary Canon?
by Thought Merchant

One of my fondest childhood memories was going into a closet in our home where my father kept some of his books. My Pop was an auto-mechanic, a blue collar guy, so you would think his reading selection would be limited to those five inch thick repair manuals that grease monkeys always kept handy for the latest technological change to a vehicle’s specs. That was not the case with my old man. From The Autobiography of Malcolm X to Sammy Davis, Jr.’s,Yes I Can, my Pop kept a wide variety of books at his disposal. Invariably many of these books dealt with either a Black figure or some issue of Black life. As a Haitian immigrant having lived less than a decade in the United States at that time, my fathers interest in such books was a testimony to the extent he placed importance on awareness of the plight of the Black community in his adopted homeland. There was also the assortment of old Time Magazine issues with pictures of Richard Nixon, Black Panthers, and global conflicts in that same literary treasure trove. So for me, reading books and magazines always had the connotation of something serious people should do. My Pop was a serious man, so for him to be spending time indulging in this material meant that this was an endeavor I needed to engage in.

Read the Full Essay @ The Thought Merchant

McGruder Goes in Hard on Tyler Perry? Not Really

McGruder Goes in Hard on Tyler Perry? Not Really
by Mark Anthony Neal

For more than a decade, Aaron McGruder has offered vibrant social commentary, perfectly pitched for contemporary urban culture. McGruder has functioned in the tradition of 20-century satirists such as cartoonist Ollie Harrington and Langston Hughes, who via his character of Jesse B. Semple, offered critical, though often offbeat, observations about everyday black life. McGruder’s criticism, has hit more often than it has missed—and the denseness that marked many of his Boondocks strips has been lost in the animated television series. Nevertheless McGruder’s critiques of Black Entertainment Television (BET), Bill Cosby, Whitney Houston, R. Kelly and Condoleeza Rice, as well as his challenges to romanticized views of Black life and culture, be it the Civil Rights Movement, Barack Obama’s election, or so-called Gangsta rap (see Gangstalicious and Thugnificent) have resonated for many Black audiences.

Given McGruder’s penchant for putting a mirror up to Blackness, it was only a matter of time before his critical scope would be targeted on Hollywood mogul Tyler Perry. With “Pause” (originally broadcast June 20, 2010), McGruder seemingly goes in hard on Perry, whose films, gospel plays and television shows have been regularly derided for their Aspartame quality with regards to contemporary Black culture. Some have simply called Perry, “the devil.”

In many regards Perry—whose most visible brand is his cross-dressing alter-ego Madea—is an easy target, even more so in McGruder’s hands via his thinly veiled character of Winston Jerome, who is depicted as the leader of an “homoerotic evangelical cult” hell bent on taking over Hollywood and defeating his primary adversary, gangster rapper-turned-family friendly filmmaker O’Shea Jackson (Ice Cube). The citing of Ice Cube in the episode is prescient, given the recent debut of Jackson’s own TBS sitcom Are We There Yet?.

McGruder’s Winston Jerome is in town to cast his new play, Ma Dukes Gets a Man, which Robert Freeman, chooses to audition for, to the obvious dismay of his grandchildren. Filled with laugh-out-loud moments—Robert meets actor Kadeem Hardison (voiced by Hardison himself) at the audition and Jerome recalls Jesus inspiring him to make movies for Black women featuring the most beautiful shirtless Black men in the world—there is virulent homophobia that runs throughout the episode. Indeed the episode’s title “Pause” is in reference to Riley’s utterings of “pause” whenever he needed to inform Robert that he said something that demanded a “no homo” retort.

As Perry is a man who has essentially built a career and empire on his cross-dressing alter ego, McGruder sloppily links Perry’s performance of Madea to rumors of his homosexuality. McGruder’s depiction of Winston Jerome as effeminate is demeaning and homophobic, in the suggestion that homosexuality is tethered to gender (i.e. gay men really want to be women or lesbians really want to be men). In that there is a rich comedic and literary tradition of cross-dressing by black men and women, there is nothing remarkable about Perry’s performance. What marks Perry’s performance as notable, is that his intent is quite different from earlier performances of cross-dressing—Flip Wilson, Moms Mabley, Grace Jones, to name just a few, which often employed gender bending to offer comment on middle class mores of respectability. In comparison, Perry deploys Aunt Madea to actually buttress those mores—Madea is little more than black patriarchy in drag, a doppelganger for the all the wannabe prosperity (pimps) preachers.

But even at his sloppiest, McGruder shrewdly highlights how Perry’s performance of Aunt Madea can never really pivot on notions of homosexuality; if Madea, a man in drag, were to ever be coupled with a man in one of Perry’s movies—as McGruder proposes with the fictional Ma Dukes Gets an Man—the narrative would be utterly rejected by Perry’s core audience, much the way Robert rejects Winston Jerome's sexual advances (his pants at his ankles). In the end we are left with a brilliantly funny episode, that offers little with regards to meaningful cultural criticism.

To go hard at Tyler Perry, is not to present him as some freak—as suggested in the camp nod to The Rocky Horror Picture Show midway through the episode—that is marginal to the mainstream of Black America. The reality is Perry’s success and influence is buttressed by a nation of millions, who buy upscale cars, beach-front time shares, worship in mega-churches and dutifully believe in heterosexual desire (at the very least the performance of it) or, perhaps most importantly, aspire to those things.

Tyler Perry doesn't occur in a vacuum--he is not driving demand for his product, but responding to an (always) already existing demand. Until we deal with the sources of the desire for Perry's product or accept that Perry's work is innocuous in the larger scope of things, demonizing him or the next "Tyler Perry" is a fruitless endgame.

Perhaps that might explain, why this is the last season of The Boondocks. To go hard at Perry is to go hard at us—and in that regard, McGruder didn’t even live up to his own reputation.

Memories of the Jackson 5ive Cartoon

Journey to the Sound of ‘Black’: Al Jarreau and George Duke

Journey to the Heart of ‘Black’:

Al Jarreau and George Duke

by Mark Anthony Neal

On the surface, the pairing of Al Jarreau and George Duke might seem odd; Jarreau is most well known as a jazz vocalist-turned pop singer-turned jazz vocalist again, while Duke has succeeded as jazz fusion keyboardist, a funkster and smooth jazz Svengali. But as Duke reminded audiences at the Carolina Theater in Durham, NC, where the two performed the day before Father’s Day, their connection goes back to their early days making names for themselves, performing together in the late 1960s at the Half Note in the San Francisco Bay area. Forty years later Jarreau and the George Duke Trio are touring the country and taking listeners on a excursion to a small piece of the history of 'Black' music in the country.

At seventy-years of age, the now frail looking Jarreau, is as vocally vibrant as he was during his commercial peak in the 1980s singing songs like the Top-30 pop hits “We’re in This Love Together” (1981), “Morning” (1983) and the “Moonlighting Theme” (1986). Vocally, Jarreau is a reminder that Dougie Fresh, Biz Markie, Dianne Reeves, Erykah Badu and yes, Lil’ Wayne did not occur in a vacuum, as Jarreau himself is indebted to Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Lambert (Dave), Hendricks (John) and Ross (Annie) and Louis Armstrong.

Duke, the consummate musician, has long accompanied vocalists like Rachelle Farrell and his cousin Dianne Reeves. Duke has also produced figures as diverse as Deniece Williams, Jeffrey Osborne, Anita Baker and Smokey Robinson. Surrounded by synthesizers, an electric keyboard, a piano and a laptop, Duke easily moved back and forth between his own sets and Jarreau’s. The George Duke Trio opened the show with some fusion tunes, including “500 Miles Ahead” (from his 1995 Illusions), paying brief homage to Miles Davis (“Milestones”) and his mentor Julian “Cannonball” Adderley (“74 Miles Away”).

Jarreau’s “hits” were treated as afterthoughts, as his attention was on the American Songbook. With Jarreau’s signature bleeps, blurts, cackles and hiccups, the American Songbook was transformed into this “other thing,” reminiscent of the ways that generations of Black musicians—both vocalists and instrumentalists—have used it as a skeleton or rubric to take audiences into the complexity of black humanity and to transform those songs in the process. When Jarreau sang “Bess, You My Woman Now” and “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess, it was a gesture to the Gershwin Brothers (George and Ira) and Dubose Heyward, but also a nod to the Black improvisational spirit.

During his two sets, Jarreau covered the music of lyricist Sammy Cahn (“Teach Me Tonight”), Lionel Hampton and Johnny Mercer (“Midnight Sun”), and Bill Evans—a fitting for Father’s Day version of “A Waltz for Debbie” which appears on Jarreau’s recent Accentuate the Positive (2004)—while also giving a nod to Brazil. The country of Brazil was also on Duke’s mind as he performed the title track to his popular Brazilian Love Affair (1979), which was inspired by the music of Milton Nascimento. Duke recalled how Cannonball Adderley introduced him to Nascimento’s music during Duke apprenticeship as Adderley’s keyboardist in the early 1970s.

Though the audience reacted well to Duke’s fusion instrumentals, something awakened in the audience during his performance (including vocals) of the smooth jazz classic “No Rhyme and Reason,” (1993) which became one of Duke’s best selling singles. The crowd was equally amped, when Duke finally played—at the urging of several audience members—his 1978 Funk classic “Dukey Stick.” The song was a subtle reminder of a time when the audiences for Black music were not so diverse—“Dukey Stick” was clearly a diversion for those audience who had come to see Jarreau and were unfamiliar with Duke’s forays into black pop. Nevertheless, Duke seamlessly transitioned from his blue lights-in-the-basement party groove to Jarreau’s more laid back style.

Fittingly, Jarreau and Duke closed the show with a rousing rendition of the traditional 12-bar Blues, “C.C. Rider,” a song that was first popularized in the 1920s by Gertrude “Ma” Rainey.

Marc Lamont Hill is ON FIRE!

Daddy's Record Collection

from NPR

I taped this commentary about my father's record collection in April of 2005, a month before his 70th Birthday. It was intended to be part of his birthday gift--along with digitized copies of many of the records I talk about in the commentary. NPR chose to broadcast fit or Father's Day of that year, which was just as well. And it's just as well that I share one of my last and favorite memories of my father as Father's day 2010 approaches.

Daddy's Record Collection
by Mark Anthony Neal

We Call These Projects Home

Public housing is in danger of extinction at a time when it is most needed.

Your Take: We Call These Projects Home

by Bill Quigley and Tony Romano

Public housing in this country is rapidly becoming endangered, and with it, the lives of low-income people. Public housing provides a safety net for the working poor and those on a fixed income, which is critical in today's housing market considering that as of 2008, there was no county in the United States where an individual working 40 hours a week at minimum wage could afford a one-bedroom apartment at fair market rent.

The state of public housing is the result of decades of bad policies, which has greatly impacted low-income communities, predominantly of color, throughout the country. This reality is uniquely portrayed in a recent report, We Call These Projects Home: Solving the Housing Crisis from the Ground Up, by the Right to the City Alliance (RTTC). RTTC is a national alli ance of community groups organizing to build a united response to gentrification and displacement.

The report documents the public housing crisis, how it affects residents, and how we can reverse bad policy, all by going straight to the source -- public-housing residents themselves. Through We Call These Projects Home, RTTC elevates the voices of residents across seven cities: Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, Oakland, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. What they say, what they find and what they recommend deserves our attention.

Decades of ineffective and misguided policies have fueled disinvestment, demolition and deregulation of public housing. The consequence has been mass displacement of residents, destroying critical community networks and scattering residents to the wind. Meanwhile, millions of low-income people still need the safety net that public housing provides -- in the cities studied in this report, there were more than 250,000 people on the waiting lists for public housing and almost 150,000 homeless.

Read the Full Article @ The Root

MAN & Blackademics Discuss Public Intellectuals, The Boondocks and Gumbo

from Blackademics.org

This Black Music Month our interview is with professor and public intellectual Dr. Mark Anthony Neal. We discuss the role of the public intellectual, Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks and Dr. Neal's contribution to Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas's Illmatic. Enjoy!