Jeff Chang: It’s Bigger Than Politics, the Real Shift is Cultural

Jeff Chang: It’s Bigger Than Politics, the Real Shift is Cultural
by Jamilah King

In the wake of this week’s election, we talked to scholar and ColorLines co-founder Jeff Chang about what to make of the country’s big shifts and shakedowns. The author of “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation” and “Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop”, Chang’s used to looking at the bigger picture. He’s got two new books due out next year, one of which, “Who We Be: The Colorization of America” takes a look at how culture impacts, and often precedes, political change. Here, he sheds some much needed light on what’s happening politically, and where we’re headed in the future.

First, let’s get some historical context. What makes this political moment so potentially galvanizing for young voters of color? Aren’t we supposed to be “post-racial”?

The culture wars are back, and they have targeted a new generation. To me, Sharron Angle’s “you look Asian to me” moment was a perfect example. Pundits and bloggers focused on the stupidity of her comment, but the discussion was prompted by a Chicano student who was calling her out on her anti-immigration commercials that featured criminalized brown youths. Angle’s defense—I’m so colorblind, I can’t even tell what race you are—was not just hilarious, it was brutal in its dishonesty. The ads that the students objected to were far from colorblind.

For the right, this election proved—from Rand Paul to Jan Brewer—that racialized appeals to older white voters still mobilize, that the culture wars still work. The upside is that in Nevada, Chicano and Latino voters and young voters flipped the race for Reid, who had been several points down in the days leading up to the election.

Young voters, particularly those of color, really rallied behind Obama in 2008. There’s been a lot of talk of how that support is quickly eroding. What needs to be done to once again strengthen that electoral base?

Obama did fairly well by youth. He passed an outstanding student loan overhaul package that will immediately help access to higher education, especially in this era of skyrocketing public school tuition. Perhaps he could have sold it better. But his communications failure was a sign of a larger failure. Going on MTV was good. Barnstorming college campuses was good. Sending a message of “Vote or die” in 2010 was not good. What Obama failed to do for young people was what he failed to do for his base, because youths are now definitively seen as his base: offer a positive progressive vision for the next 2 years.

Read the Full Essay @ Colorlines

Commentary: Michael Eric Dyson to President Obama, "You've got to be more like George W. Bush"

The Voters Have Spoken-- The Nightmare Continues for America’s Poor

special to NewBlackMan

The Voters Have Spoken--The Nightmare Continues for America’s Poor
by Mark Naison

The results of the election are in, and they offer nothing but bad news for America’s poor. Even before this election, the United States was the most unequal nation in the advanced world, with the highest percentage of income going to the top one percent of its population, and the largest percentage of its population living in poverty; but the results November 2 assure that this will continue for many years to come

The Republicans who swept into power in State governorships and the House of Representatives are determined to resist all tax policies which redistribute income; cut subsidies to beleaguered state governments, and reduce outlays for programs – from food stamps to housing to health care- which provide a safety net to poor workers and families. While they will not achieve all they set out to do in cutting federal entitlements, they have the power to prevent any moves toward progressive taxation by the federal government and to institute austerity plans at the state level which lead to layoffs of state workers and cuts in vital services that working class and poor people depend on

Since there is no chance that the private sector will generate enough jobs to funnel income into poor neighborhoods any time soon, much less compensate for the services about to be lost, we can expect to see an increase in the Recession generated misery that is already wreaking havoc with poor workers and families

As someone who works closely with schools and community organizations in the Bronx and spends a good deal of time driving through and walking through Bronx neighborhoods, I have already been receiving alarming reports about the fraying of the social fabric and growing desperation among the people

Here are some of the things I have been hearing , none of which give me cause for optimism about where we are heading.

More and more people being forced into homelessness by foreclosures on apartment buildings and homes and by rising rents and declining services in public housing.

Rising levels of violence in families and neighborhoods, resulting in a sharp increase in the murder rate and the return of “mugging” as a form of income acquisition for desperate young men and women, making everyone less safe on streets and subways.

More fights and violent incidents in schools, and more abusive behavior toward teachers, as young people feel stress of the economic crisis on their families and caretakers

Young mothers turning to prostitution to help them and their children stay in apartments whose rents they can barely afford.

More vicious attacks on vulnerable groups- particularly gays and recent immigrants- by groups of young men and women.

The average middle class or wealthy New Yorker, who lives in neighborhoods segregated by income if not race, doesn’t see these signs of a frayed social fabric, unless they work or do business in a poor neighborhood, but it is only a matter of time before the violence and desperation being spawned will spill over into the entire city.

Humanitarian considerations, and a sense of justice, dictate that we try to do something about rising levels of desperation among poor New Yorkers, and poor Americans generally, but we will find out soon enough that if we continue to beat our poorer citizens down, it will lead to patterns of behavior that will not be o easily contained, and will undermine our own sense of security, and our safety in public places

We are all about to reap what we have sown.

***

Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham's Urban Studies Program. He is the author of three books and over 100 articles on African-American History, urban history, and the history of sports. His most recent book is White Boy: A Memoir.

Pop & Politics Radio: New Voters, New Challenges

New Voters, New Challenges

Farai Chideya and team go to Arizona to look at immigration and jobs, and check in with new voters to see if they’re getting involved. With the passage of the state’s controversial immigration bill in April, Arizona is at the center of the nation’s immigration debate. From Phoenix to border regions of the Tohono O’odham Nation and Yuma, Chideya talks with people about their hopes, fears, and anxiety.

Listen HERE

Where's Young Jeezy's Anthem for the Mid-Term Elections?

Young Voters Must Transition into an Engaged Electorate

Where’s Young Jeezy’s Anthem for the Midterm Elections?
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21

Back in the fall of 2008, to be young and voting age in America, meant that you were on the verge of something extraordinary. To vote for Barack Obama was the epitome of cutting edge cool. No one wanted to be on the wrong-side of history. Obama wasn’t simply going to be the first Black president, he was the first President branded for a generation for which branding (and perhaps hip-hop) was their lingua franca—their shared language across race, ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality.

And everybody got in the act from Will.I.Am to crack rapper Young Jeezy, whose “My President is Black” had everyone—from Big Mama to Pookie and ‘dem—singing and rapping for change. Two years later there are no more anthem, Barack Obama is fighting for his political life and there’s little guarantee that those same young voters that energized the electorate will find their way to the voting booth next month.

It is perhaps easy to suggest that young voters—and quite few others—were caught up in the allure of a candidate, who in comparison to the forty-three men who held the office before him really did look like change. No doubt Barack Obama the campaigner was an open signifier able to look like everything that the electorate desired whether they were independents, the fringe Left or first time voters.

Obama’s chameleon ways have been so successful that even his political enemies believe that he’s Leftist radical; Forbes Magazine publisher and failed Presidential candidate Steve Forbes manages to describe Obama’s economic policies as “soft Socialism” in every other paragraph of the magazine.

Many times throughout the last 18 months there were more than enough opportunities for young voters to provide political pressure on President Obama—the proverbial phone calls, emails, letters to House Representatives, Senators, committee heads, and even the White House—to weigh in on every thing from the environmental crisis in the Gulf region, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his choice for Secretary of Treasury, his tepid Healthcare legislation, to the (un)forced resignation of Green Jobs Guru Van Jones and the sad and embarrassing dismissal of Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod. Yet young voters seemed content to stay on the sidelines and let Obama, stand in as proxy for their concerns relieving them of rightful responsibility to hold elected officials accountable for their decisions.

Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21

If Young People Don’t Wake Up Before The November Election: “Change” Is Dead In the Water

special to NewBlackMan

If Young People Don’t Wake Up Before The November Election:
“Change” Is Dead In the Water
by Mark Naison

One of the most amazing things about Barack Obama’s improbable run to the Presidency was the role of young people in energizing his campaign and persuading their skeptical elders that Obama was the best candidate in the field

I was one of those skeptics. So convinced was I that Barack Obama could never win a Presidential election that I supported an effort to draft Al Gore as the Democratic Presidential nominee and actually printed up stickers that said, Gore/Obama in 2008. My colleagues, most of them African American, were equally wary of an Obama nomination, fearful that it might bring a powerful undercurrent of white racism to the surface with a new intensity.

It was my students, and former students, most of them white and female, who convinced me, not only that Obama was the best candidate in the field, but that he could win, because he had inspired a wave of youthful idealism that I had not seen since the 60’s. These young women didn’t reach me primarily with their arguments, but with their passion and hard work. They were tireless in convincing their parents, classmates and neighbors to vote for Barack Obama, putting their friendships and family ties on the line to bring a great new day in the nation that would end the embarrassment of the Bush years and make America respected once again among the nations of the world.

This passion carried through the primaries and the general election, moving a mountain once thought unbridgeable in American politics and led to the election of our first Black president. I still remember the call I got from my former student Jenn Watts, who in her mid twenties was placed in charge of organizing Southern Indiana for the Obama campaign, telling me “ Dr Naison, we are going to paint this red state blue” and didn’t you know it, Indiana went for Obama by a small margin

Now, two years later, I wonder of that explosion of youth activism was a dream. With critical mid term elections coming up in November, what I get from the young people in my circle is indifference and apathy. Not one of my students or former students has sent a message to my email list urging them to vote in November. Not one has posted a message on Facebook pointing out the powerful issues at stake in the coming elections. Not one has handed me campaign literature, asked me to donate money to a candidate, or even brought the elections up as a subject worth discussing.

To me, given the issues at stake in the November election, this is both disturbing and astonishing. If young people voted for “Change” in 2008, what they are going to assure, by not voting in 2010, is complete Political Gridlock.

If Republicans win control of Congress in 2010, here is what it is likely to mean:

*No major investments in infrastructure repairs

*No national commitment to developing alternative energy sources or providing incentives to drivers, homeowners and businesses to become more energy efficient

*No construction of a high speed rail system comparable to those that exist in Europe and Asia

*An end to unemployment benefits for people experiencing long term joblessness

*No pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, even those who have been working and paying taxes for years

*No expansion of rights for gay workers and families

To put the issue more bluntly, the Obama administration, in its first two years, helped prevent a Depression, and created a health care plan which began to extend coverage to the nation’s more than 45 million uninsured people. What it was not able to do was begin to modernize the nation’s roads, rails and electrical grid, and make the investments in wind and solar energy necessary to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and retard Global Warming.

These are precisely the programs that are needed if our economy is going to be able to compete with other advanced nations and if we are going to be able to maintain our standard of living without putting intolerable pressure on the world’s resources.

In short, what is at stake in November is precisely the issues that young people ought to be getting excited about, as it is THEIR futures that are going to be compromised if progressive infrastructure policies, environmental policies, immigration policies and human rights policies are not introduced

So my students and former students, it’s time to get the fever for change back and make sure you vote in the November elections.

You still have a month left. The game isn’t over

Get off your butts and get everyone you know to join you at the polls.

The future you save may be your own.

***

Mark Naison is a political activist who was a member of CORE and SDS in the 1960s. He is a graduate of Columbia University and holds a Ph. D. in American History. Naison is a professor at Fordham University in New York. He is the author of 'White Boy, A Memoir'.