Really Mrs. Harris-Perry?

I, like a lot of people saw the article on Cornel West's confessional on Obama. For me the "Obama Deception" title made me first think of the famous YouTube video by Alex Jones of the same name. The piece read pretty tame to me and broke very little ground for anyone familiar wit West's positions on a variety of issues. About the only thing that was new for me was the "phone-gate" and "ticket-gate". Of course a lot of people on Twitter (which honestly is becoming the place where people talk shit and block/ignore people with opposing positions regardless of how well founded) who took to calling West's interview as "whining" and other appellations that they would surely not have made had the sitting president and object of West's ire was white. But I digress.

Having just been hit by Psychology Today's decision to run a blog entry that slandered black people in ways unheard of since possibly the days of Hitler, I saw that the famous former Princeton professor Harris-Perry posted a lengthy piece not on the assault on Black people by this so called "professional" magazine, but to post a very vitriolic piece on Cornel West. On the one hand it doesn't surprise me since Harris-Perry has been ride or die for Obama for a long time and I suppose that kicking this black man in public who has a different political ideology takes a higher priority than an assault on black folks as a collective by so called "academics". Go figure. I would only hope Mrs. Harris-Perry has a piece soon forthcoming to address the Psychology Today nonsense in ways far more academic than what I have seen from others. But I digress. Let me get at my problems with the piece Harris-Perry posted to The Nation.

In a self-aggrandizing, victimology sermon deceptively wrapped in the discourse of prophetic witness, Professor West offers thin criticism of President Obama and stunning insight into the delicate ego of the self-appointed black leadership class that has been largely supplanted in recent years.

Wow. dems big words there. "victimolgy"? You know, that sounds almost Republican. I've heard a lot of how black folk do the victimology thing, but that usually drops out the mouths of Republicans when black folks are "complaining". Is this a foreshadowing of the new direction the left is moving? I suppose it goes well with newly minted approval for wars of aggression. *shrug* I suppose Obama asking Belafonte why he doesn't "cut him some slack" doesn't count as "victimology" thinking either?

So when West says:

“I have to take some responsibility,” he admits of his support for Obama as we sit in his book-lined office. “I could have been reading into it more than was there.

“I was thinking maybe he has at least some progressive populist instincts that could become more manifest after the cautious policies of being a senator and working with [Sen. Joe] Lieberman as his mentor,”

That is victimology? If West is saying that he has to take some responsibility how is he sermonizing on victimology? Sure he goes on to list how he was deceived but he admits that he bears some of the responsibility. And no, he does not bear the full responsibility because there are things that Obama said straight out that he later has retracted (tax hikes for one).

As for the "thin critique". Do we really expect for a full dossier of West's positions in a 3 page interview when many people, self included, have written small novel's worth of material? Really? Moving along.

Harris-Perry writes:

West begins with a bit of historical revision. West suggests that the President discarded him without provocation after he offered the Obama for America campaign his loyal service and prayers. But anyone with a casual knowledge of this rift knows it began during the Democratic primary not after the election. It began, not with a puffed up President, but when Cornel West’s “dear brother” Tavis Smiley threw a public tantrum because Senator Obama refused to attend Smiley's annual State of Black America. Smiley repeatedly suggested that his forum was the necessary black vetting space for the Democratic nominees. He needed to ask Obama and Clinton tough questions so that black America could get the answers it needed. But black America was doing a fine job making up its own mind in the primaries and didn’t need Smiley’s blessing to determine their own electoral preferences. Indeed, when Smiley got a chance to hold candidate Clinton “accountable” he spent more time fawning over her than probing about her symbolic or substantive policy stances that impacted black communities.

Whoah! There's a lot of material to cover here to hang with me. Firstly let's address what West said himself:

“There is the personal level,” he says. “I used to call my dear brother [Obama] every two weeks. I said a prayer on the phone for him, especially before a debate. And I never got a call back. And when I ran into him in the state Capitol in South Carolina when I was down there campaigning for him he was very kind. The first thing he told me was, ‘Brother West, I feel so bad. I haven’t called you back. You been calling me so much. You been giving me so much love, so much support and what have you.’ And I said, ‘I know you’re busy.’ But then a month and half later I would run into other people on the campaign and he’s calling them all the time. I said, wow, this is kind of strange. He doesn’t have time, even two seconds, to say thank you or I’m glad you’re pulling for me and praying for me, but he’s calling these other people. I said, this is very interesting.

You'll note that Harris-Perry, instead of dealing precisely with West's actual issue of non-acknowledgment, goes after her other favorite punching bag Tavis Smiley hence betraying her own bias. This isn't about Tavis. Tavis isn't West and West isn't Tavis. I know negroes look alike but the hair ought to be a good give away. Now I certainly can see how one could say West is being petty. Obama is busy, etc. Fair critique. However; West's position is that other [unnamed] persons were receiving a number of calls (for undisclosed reasons) in the same time frame that West felt he was being disrespected. West's point appears to be that Obama (or his staffers) were communicating with people who were supporting him and West ought to have been given the courtesy of the same communication. Now perhaps he thinks too much of himself. Fair critique but on the other hand anyone who does networking knows the importance of following up with supporters who have been putting in work on your behalf.

Now since Harris-Perry brought up Tavis, let's address that issue. I suppose that Harris-Perry is one of those negroes who thinks that Black folk ought to sit down, shut up and hope shit comes their way. If that's her position she is certainly entitled to see herself to her seat. How ridiculous does that sound in the face of other groups who regularly put their interests front and center to all candidates? I have not seen Harris-Perry move her mouth to suggest that AIPAC should shut up and not make demands of candidates (or presidents or anyone else in govt.) Where was Harris-Perry's critique of Obama and Clinton and McCain going to AIPAC to discuss all the promises they would make to Israel which is not even a fuckin' state? I don't suggest holding your breath for that write up or TV appearance.




While every other organized group has put forth a concrete set of things they want done and have demanded that candidates (and presidents) address them, Black folk are the only ones apparently willing to sit on international TV and say "we don't ask anything, we'll take what we can get." The fact is that Tavis was right on the money to ask that candidates address a large gathering of African-Americans of varied political and religious stripes which is usually not the case for the Urban League or NAACP, the latter of which failed miserably to defend one of it's own from racist attack. Even IF one were to be opposed to Tavis being the convener of such an event why pooh-pooh such a meeting?

In any case I could make a remark about "black america making up it's own mind" but that is outside the purvue of this piece.

The Ticket to Nowhere

Harris-Perry then goes on to discuss "ticket-gate":

Furthermore, West’s sense of betrayal is clearly more personal than ideological. In Hedges's article West claims that a true progressive would always put love of the people above concern with the elite and privileged. Then he complains, “I couldn’t get a ticket [to the inauguration] with my mother and my brother. I said this is very strange. We drive into the hotel and the guy who picks up my bags from the hotel has a ticket to the inauguration... We had to watch the thing in the hotel.” Let me get this straight—the tenured, Princeton professor who collects five figures for public lectures was relegated to a hotel television while an anonymous hotel worker got tickets to the inauguration! What kind of crazy, mixed up class politics are these? Wait a minute…

Ahh..this would be the "Least of these Socialist" crying foul move. Again reading the original piece we find:

I said this is very strange. We drive into the hotel and the guy who picks up my bags from the hotel has a ticket to the inauguration. My mom says, ‘That’s something that this dear brother can get a ticket and you can’t get one, honey, all the work you did for him from Iowa.’ Beginning in Iowa to Ohio. We had to watch the thing in the hotel.

“What it said to me on a personal level,” he goes on, “was that brother Barack Obama had no sense of gratitude, no sense of loyalty, no sense of even courtesy, [no] sense of decency, just to say thank you. Is this the kind of manipulative, Machiavellian orientation we ought to get used to? That was on a personal level.”

So West's mother's position was that he felt that after having campaigned for Obama (in Iowa and I suppose elsewhere) that he ought to have at least gotten a ticket to the inauguration. West apparently thought that as well. Again the issue for West is the cumulative "disrespects" he received rather than just the individual slight. I was not privy to who decided who gets to go and sit where. I don't know how it was determined who got in and who did not. But networking says that if someone's done work on your behalf they ought to get some recognition for their work. West's position is that he did work but did not get the recognition he deserved. That's fair. We can disagree on whether his work was "important" but that's a different debate. Certainly West did more "work" than the doorman.

Harris-Perry states that she received her ticket from a Canadian news source and that she didn't expect anything from the Obama camp. That's her business. If she doesn't feel she earned (or deserved) whatever from Obama does not mean that others share her position. Nor does it mean that they are out of order to think they are. As Carter G. said; Negroes will make their own back door...

Harris then skips over a very important piece of West's interview perhaps because...I don't know....space issues, which I'll bring up here:

Obama and West’s last personal contact took place a year ago at a gathering of the Urban League when, he says, Obama “cussed me out.” Obama, after his address, which promoted his administration’s championing of charter schools, approached West, who was seated in the front row.

“He makes a bee line to me right after the talk, in front of everybody,” West says. “He just lets me have it. He says, ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, saying I’m not a progressive. Is that the best you can do? Who do you think you are?’ I smiled. I shook his hand. And a sister hollered in the back, ‘You can’t talk to professor West. That’s Dr. Cornel West. Who do you think you are?’ You can go to jail talking to the president like that. You got to watch yourself. I wanted to slap him on the side of his head.

“It was so disrespectful,” he went on, “that’s what I didn’t like. I’d already been called, along with all [other] leftists, a “F’ing retard” by Rahm Emanuel because we had critiques of the president.”

Now let's be clear here Obama was disrespectful to West in a public forum. As far as I know Joe Wilson, who disrespected Obama on international TV shouting "you lie" has had a better reception than West. If Obama felt that West was a "traitor" of some sort then why didn't he just decide to continue to ignore him as he had been doing? But I suppose that negroes who weren't upset when Obama told NY black folk to "chill out" when justice was denied for Sean Bell or who told Black folk it Texas about not eating so much fried chicken (yeah it happened) or Obama's attack on black men on father's day don't mind Obama showing West his ass.

Who you live with?

Lastly Harris-Perry gets in West's ass in regards to the claim by West that Obama is not a "free man" and Obama's comfort with white folk. I'm going to state outright that this particular issue was perhaps the weakest argument made by West. It was the most subjective argument. Indeed are there liberals from wealthy white upbringings and surroundings that do good work and perhaps even agree with West's positions? I'm sure there are. Their existence would serve to weaken West's argument. Wouldn't the existence of a Herman Cain who arguably grew up amongst black people but who is quite conservative also negate West's argument here? I believe so. So I have to in this instance give Harris-Perry leeway.

That said though, There is a certain legitimacy to West's position. If we take what happened to both Shirley Sherrod and Van Jones and reports of Obama's dismissive attitude towards black Greek Letter organizations during his campaign that there is in fact a disconnect between Obama and black America. I cannot see a black president with a deep black circle of advisers allowing the Sherrod firing or the resignation of Van-Jones, or for that matter the horrible handling of Skip Gate's arrest.


Lastly Harris-Perry really shows that she really isn't interested in the critiques that West has of Obama's policies as she writes the following:

I have many criticisms of the Obama administration. I wrote angrily about his choice of Rick Warren to deliver a prayer at the inauguration. I have spoken on television about my disagreement with drone attacks in Pakistan and been critical of the administration’s initial choice to prosecute DADT cases. I worked for more progressive health care reform legislation and supported organizations that resisted the reproductive rights “compromises” in the bill. I’ve been scathing in public remarks and writings about the President’s education policy

You'll note that none of these items are on the regular "black agenda". DADT, for me, is a minor side show and is actually a clear example of a group being uncompromising in it's positions and advocacy on behalf of their specific interests. In reference to the issue of "healthcare" the problem isn't the "reproductive rights" compromises but rather that the govt hands a private industry millions of customers under the IRS gun rather than take the obvious position of national single payer healthcare. But she like many in the Democratic camp surrendered that option from the go. So personally I'm not impressed by her "disagreements" with the Obama admin (or Democrats in general). Which is why we have policy arguments.

But lets keep it real here. Harris-Perry has never been "scathing" in her disagreements with the Obama administration anywhere near to what has been put out by the likes of West or the publishers of Black Agenda Report and certainly nowhere near as scathing as she has been to West and Tavis. And I say that having read her material for about a year now.


Ultimately though whether you think West is off the mark saying Obama is a puppet is highly dependent upon where you sit politically. Mentioning that Tavis was in league with Wells Fargo as if Tavis was actually writing the loans is silliness to the nth degree. That's like that school teacher's are the blame for acts of brutality by the NYPD just because they all work for the state.

I'm going to end this piece by saying that I watched with a heavy heart as black folk lined up in front of various white folk to yell and scream at each other and otherwise make asses of themselves in Public. Yes West that includes you and Sharpton. it is sad state of affairs harking back to the arguments between Dubois and Garvey. We all lose. We are all going to be in the wrong in our analysis from time to time. Time we grew up and admitted it. Fact is that in 2-6 years there will be no Obama to speak about or to and it's likely black folk will still have double the unemployment rate of whites. Will be dispossessed of more land and have police shooting them down in the street. And some magazine somewhere will write some racist bullshit about Black people and pass it off as objective science. I'm far more interested in seeing all Y'all deal with that stuff directly.

Strong Independent Black Woman

Hardcore.

Libyan Rebels Execute former govt. officials

From the NYTimes:

The killings, still unsolved, appeared to be rooted in revenge, the families said, and have raised the specter of a death squad stalking former Qaddafi officials in Benghazi, the opposition stronghold.

I'm certain that no one in the US who approved of the execution/assasination of Osama Bin Laden has a problem with this revelation. And certainly those same people are not going to wag fingers at these rebels for killing people they deem not "worth a trial" or whom a trial would be to "complicated".

Black women are objectively less physically attractive than other women

"Black women are objectively less physically attractive than other women"

-Satoshu Kanazawa writing for Psychology Today

It was the above quote that sent me over the edge today when I read the blog entry at Psychology Today originally found here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201105/why-are-black-women-rated-less-physically-attractive but later removed after a firestorm on Twitter and Facebook.

It's not that I am against science asking the question as to whether there is a perception of black women being unattractive or attractive relative to whomever. What I objected to, most strenuously, was the fact that this person tried to state his findings as "objective" when there was no evidence presented by him that shows that physical attractiveness as determined by the group was not subjective.

Understand that I am not disputing this person's actual findings. That is, I am not disputing that the group represented by Add Health did not in fact rate black women as "least attractive" as I am aware enough to know that such statistical findings are not anomalous. They are not representative of some Klan element or fringe elements of society but rather it is, I believe, an accurate representation of the general conscious or subconscious feelings of those sampled and is supported by evidence such as the Cirroc foolishnes, Ne-Yo's commentary that ""All the prettiest kids are light skinned". And if you'd like an international example we have the erasure of Black women in Brazil. And of course "our own" will regularly put black women away in the closet as they proclaim the future of black womanhood to be, well, not so black:



You can find the data on the Add Health group at the UNC Carolina population center website. It is generally a collection of people who have filled out questionnaires on a variety of subjects who have been followed over a number of years. I would be simple and easy to find a sample of brothers and sisters who would rate black women at the top of the attractiveness scale. However, that would not prove anything other than I know a set of people who hold physical black womanhood in high esteem. So there is no point in me or anyone else proclaiming that we think the data is faulty or our own affection for Black women. Rather we should look at the data and how it affirms what our great African thinkers have told us before.

In terms of censorship, which was suggested in a follow up piece by Psychology Today It is not that I or anyone else that I know wishes to censor this person but rather that his conclusions twice stated that black women were objectively the least attractive women coupled with his bizarre explanation were so far off the mark as to be a total insult to the intelligence of black people...yes...people. With that let's examine the piece.

The piece opened up with:

There are marked race differences in physical attractiveness
among women, but not among men. Why?

This is a fair question. For me it was more surprising to find that there was not a marked different in physical attractiveness among men of different races. But that can be explained by some of the possible conclusions discussed later in this post. Anyway, the "study" was described as follows:

Add Health measures the physical attractiveness of its
respondents both objectively and subjectively. At the end of
each interview, the interviewer rates the physical attractiveness
of the respondent objectively on the following five-point scale: 1
= very unattractive, 2 = unattractive, 3 = about average, 4 =
attractive, 5 = very attractive. The physical attractiveness of
each Add Health respondent is measured three times by three
different interviewers over seven years.

Black women are on average much heavier than nonblack women...Black women are still less physically attractive than nonblack women net of BMI and intelligence. Net of intelligence, black men are significantly more physically attractive than nonblack men.

What's important about the above quote is that the author claims that by removing intelligence or BMI as factors, black women were still considered unattractive relative to all other groups. This is important because if it's not body size or shape or apparent intelligence that is influencing perceptions of attractiveness of black women that leaves the following attributes:

Skin color
Nose shape
Hair texture

In other words it leaves the very things that make black women black women. This fact seems to have escaped this person as he went on to suggest that the "problem" vexing black women is that black women are more masculine due to their own genetic makeup!


Black Woman as masculine?

The only thing I can think of that might potentially explain the lower average level of physical attractiveness among black women is testosterone. Africans on average have higher levels of testosterone than other races, and testosterone, being an androgen (male hormone), affects the physical attractiveness of men and women differently. Men with higher levels of testosterone have more masculine features and are therefore more physically attractive. In contrast, women with higher levels of testosterone also have more masculine features and are therefore less physically attractive. The race differences in the level of testosterone can therefore potentially explain why black women are less physically attractive than women of other races, while (net of intelligence) black men are more physically attractive than men of other races.

Yes folks. This shit is actually being floated in 2011.



If this is "masculine" then call me gay.

This bullshit right here reminds me of stuff I read where white scientists determined, scientifically of course, that black women were "hyper-sexual" because they had "huge" buttocks and "huge" lips that were "obviously" and scientifically proven to be made expressly to enhance sexual relations. In fact a black woman was a feature at a zoo in America due to her "odd" so called "animalistic" features where white men (and their families) paid money to stare at (and possibly poke). I also recall how it was claimed that black women were so less human and less woman than other women (particularly white women) that doctors said that they did not even feel pain during child birth.

I kid you not.

I won't even get into the "science" of phrenology (Yeah, The Roots were trying to school us with that CD) where "scientists" tried to argue that the African was inherently less intelligent due to the shape of his head.

These are the kinds of things that leapt to mind when I read that explanation. How any so called "expert scientist" in 2011 could, with a a straight face add to such racist notions of black humanity and womanhood and still be employed at a so called "respectable" publication would boggle most minds. But in the interest of "science" let's run with it for a minute here because I think there is something to be gleaned from the conclusion reached by this fellow.

First off. The only way this fellow could show that his theory has any water would be for him to find people who have not been exposed to outsider cultures and present them with images of different men and women ask them to rate the attractiveness of each. If his theory is correct then he should see a similar pattern. No such study has been done and the Add Health group does not meet this requirement.

Secondly let's assume that this fellow is correct that the African has a higher level of testosterone and therefore more "masculine" than any other race of humans. Since one of the primary purposes of the male species is to be threatening in order to gain and protect his turf (and access to females) the African man is therefore, by this guy's conclusion more "threatening" to all other races of males. We already know that black males are perceived as threatening by white people even when they are not making a threatening face! How does that square with our good sister Dr. Welsing's observations as discussed in her collection of essays known as The Isis Papers?

To take Fuller's account a step further, it should be noted that , in the majority of instances, any neurotic drive for superiority usually is founded upon a deep and pervading sense of inadequacy and inferiority...more profoundly, is not "white" itself the very absence of any ability to produce color?

...The genocide of non-whites must be understood as a necessary tactic of a people (white) that is a minority of the world's population and that because it lacks the genetic capacity to produce significant levels of melanin, is genetically recessive in terms of skin coloration, compared to black, brown, red and yellow world majority...


...acutely aware of their inferior genetic ability to produce skin color, whites built the elaborate myth of white genetic superiority...

White males...fantasized identification with black males' capacity to give conceptual products of color to white females --something white females desperately desire but white males cannot fulfill.

...Even more significant is the fact that the white male could not abstain from making sexual aggressions towards the black female, Indeed some of the most important founding fathers of the so-called Unites States of America were involved actively and continuously in relationships with Black women....This pattern of sexual aggression of the white male towards the black female continues unabated to this day. Ultimately, it is little wonder that black stockings, black underwear and black sleepwear are items of sexual stimulation for the white male collective.

[my emphasis]


Doesn't the data that Kanazawa provides fit this theory better than the "testosterone" theory? It would explain why black men are seen as "attractive" across the board while the black woman is projected as being the least attractive? Wouldn't the apparent rejection of black women's physicality (their skin color and hair texture) be in stark contrast to the sexual fetishization of black by whites?

Clearly then, I don't buy the "testosterone" theory because of my understanding of the system of white supremacy. Let me be clear that I understand that in every society they see their women (and culture) generally as being superior to everyone else. This even happens within groups. For example when I was growing up, we claimed that Queens, NY had the best looking women, whereas Brooklynites always claimed theirs as the best. This underscores the social determinism of beauty standards. It's expected that whites would, as a consequence of setting up a global system under which they are at the top would place their women as the pinnacle of womanhood. If we look at what they produce in their popular media the ultimate woman is white, blue eyed and blond haired. Is not the popular Disney fairy tail that of Snow white? The white female with skin "white as snow"? Is it not the case that the story of Rapunzel as known in this society (USA) that of a white skinned "fair maiden" who has long blonde hair? Is it not the case that all children under white supremacy are fed this story at an early and impressionable age that the "mirror" has determined that the "white skinned" Snow White is "The fairest of them all"? That Rapunzel with her long flowing blonde hair is the "fair maiden" that "real brave men" will come to rescue? How does this so called "expert" on "evolutionary psychology" miss this plain as day evidence of the purposeful social engineering of the depreciation of black women?

How does this "expert" miss that the standard of beauty and physical femininity in "The West" is the exact opposite of the African woman? Is it of any surprise that the data shows attractiveness ratings in descending order directly related to apparent whiteness? White females being considered most attractive, Asians seen as second most attractive (or in the case of wave III women more attractive), Native American women (being brown) being next to last. What do all these women have in common? Straight hair (relatively). The evidence suggests that this is no accident.

No, rather than Kanazawa or Mikhail Lyubansky who came to the "defense" of Psychology Today, attacking the culture of White Supremacy as the basis for these subjective judgements which is the real deal reasons for the data. For them a "testosterone" explanation, on par with the pseudo-science of yesteryear, that black women are "objectively" the least attractive women on the planet is defensible. For them, and a great deal of people pointing out the culture of white supremacy is a no-no. It is perhaps worse than critiquing Israel.

Are we "holding" people who spew racist nonsense to "a higher standard" than other "bloggers". No, We expect that a so called "professional" publication would know better than to allow its contributors to spew yesteryear white supremacy theories about black people on their website. No Mr Lyubansky, this isn't about holding science to a "popular vote". This is about science. Kanazawa made an outrageous and insulting conclusion for which he had no "objective" data to support. End of story.

RE: Open Letter to "Critical" President Obama Supporters

You'll find the original post here. It contains a list of things Obama has done that have gone unspoken about or has received no support:

The recovery of the Dow Jones which almost doubled since its lows during the end of the Bush presidency and the start of the Bush recession (Dow gained 30% in one year)

If you are in the investor class this is a good thing. Of course, if you were in the investor class you were having a good time before the crash got a chance to buy VERY LOW and then recovered all your investments. If however you were the employee class and assuming you still have a job you did not see anything nearly as spectacular happen with your income. In addition the costs of various goods and services has eaten into wages and I'm not even discussing the cost of gasoline. Lets not even get into the fact that much of these corporate profits have occurred with a very high unemployment rate particularly for African-Americans.

The GDP contracted as much as 6.8% in the final quarter of the Bush Presidency to within A YEAR we had expanded 5% which is almost a 12% turnaround – the largest turnaround in such a short of a time frame in the history of this country

This is essentially the same argument as above. Again, this GDP growth has come at persistent high unemployment and under-employment (people working jobs they are overqualified for and for salaries that are far below what they commanded pre-crash.

We have created 2 million jobs in the past year with almost a third of those jobs coming from the first quarter of this year alone

I am a follower of Paul Craig Roberts who's reports on job creation often show up in Counterpunch. He has demonstrated over many years that the so called job creation are generally speaking not in manufacturing (which not a few politicians have been caught on record saying they expect to stay gone) but are in relatively low wage areas like services Here's an example from 2008 Here's a nice one on exporting "middle class" jobs from 2005. It's one thing to brag about job creation it is another one entirely to discuss what kind of employment is happening. Also we have to realize that the employment numbers are affected by those who get "dropped" from the records for various "official" statistical reasons. I will not discuss the fact that much of the job creation going on does not even begin to touch the new people coming into the job market.

Through it all TARP funds were almost all returned (have to give President Bush half the credit on this) and will only cost approximately $25 billion

This is an entirely philosophical issue. If you believe that the govt ought to have bailed out these institutions that were "too big to fail" then I suppose this is a good thing. If you are not of such an opinion, then this is not.

He signed the Lily Ledbetter Act for equal pay for women

I thought he was president of everybody not just one group of people....*snicker*

The drastic increase in investments in alternative energy that will finally decrease our dependence on foreign oil

That's kind of a future-cast. We certainly do not know what role this administration's "funding' is going to do about dependency on foreign oil. I'm neutral on this point.

He has issued the toughest ethics requirements for those working in his administration than any other previous President

Ethics are a relative thing. And loopholes are legendary across parties. I'll remain neutral on this one as well.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell…gone!

Don't care. Doesn't put a dime in my pocket. Besides...Isn't Obama the president of everybody?....*snicker*

He signed into law the State Children’s Health Insurance Program

Not entirely sure what this is (and too lazy at the time of this writing to look it up) but I live in a state that provides health insurance to children so excuse me if I'm not exactly impressed.

I'm going to combine the next two because they are related:

He enacted the largest reform in the history of this country of the student loan program through the Student Aid and Financial Responsibility Act (SAFRA) making college more affordable for those who wish to further their education (Dr. West…I assumed you would have loudly praised this as the banks lost billions of dollars on this legislation because they were previously the middle man in the transaction between the US Government and students….President Obama took them out of the equation. A clear example of you Dr. West highlighting how the banks profit under President Obama but disregarding discussing with as much assertiveness those instances that disprove your argument of his “selling out” to the oligarchs.)

He instituted the largest reform of oversight through the Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act in 2009 which also caused the banks to lose out on billions in revenue (Where was the praise from this Dr. West and Mr. Smiley? He certainly didn’t sell out to the oligarchs with this legislation.)

Lets understand that whatever the banks "lost" by not being able to be middlemen for govt. source student loans, they still make money off the non-govt. loans that many will require simply due to the ever increasing costs of education and the previously discussed stagnation in wages. But even better for the banks is that they no longer are restricted in the amount of interest they can charge on credit lines. Where 22% or so was the highest they could charge, banks are now hitting 30% or more. Remember that around 2001, credit card companies were steady offering 0,1 and 2% interest for their cards. Now, good luck with that. Anyone who thinks banks (or healthcare companies) are getting the proverbial shafts by recent legislation is still high on the kool-aid.

He was able to accomplish the most comprehensive nuclear arms treaty with the Russians making us more safe through smaller amounts of nuclear arms availability (START Treaty ratification)

How many of these treaties have their been? C'mon man this is not really all that special particularly since Russia is not the enemy du-jour.

He has improved America’s image and reputation abroad

Why it's American Idol....Worldwide.

He has started construction on a new high speed rail system

Well there are plans, the one in Florida appears to be off the table. Oh well.

He actually put $4.3 billion into the previously unfunded “No Child Left Behind” legislation to help schools improve their performance

Well NCLB was not loved by many educators (and none that I know personally). On top of that many of us are concerned about Charter Schools and the diversion of funds from already underfunded public schools to these schools. If this $4.3 billion is being used to further this nonsense then no, this is not a good thing.

Don’t forget about the negotiated rescue of the Americans from Somali pirates

Ahh it's always refreshing to see "black" folk join the imperial line now that a black face is in the big house. I pointed out in an earlier post that until Obama gave the OK to kill the Somalis, no one had ever been physically harmed during these piracy events. That was a line that no one appeared willing to cross. Of course, since then there have been more piracy so a lot of good that did. I wont even get into the discussion of the Somali complaints about the dumping going on in their waters. Again if you're doing the "patriot" thing, then I suppose killing a barely clothed "pirate" on a dingy is a positive thing, then this is positive. I do not.

He has made more major terrorist captures in two years than the entire 8 years of the Bush presidency including the most obvious Bin Laden

He has also taken drone warfare to a level unseen under an administration before him (mostly for technical reasons). I won't even begin to discuss the number of civilians who have been killed by these UAVs which had they happened under say "Ghaddafi's watch would be condemned worldwide as crimes. I've shared my concerns about "remote warfare" here: http://garveys-ghost.blogspot.com/2009/04/pw-singer-on-military-robots.html

He SAVED the Detroit automotive industry from collapse  through bailouts of Chrysler, GM, and GMAC which have largely been paid back (Don’t many of those in my home town who still have jobs count as assistance to working poor and the working class Dr. West?)

In full agreement here. I have been a long time advocate of this bail out and the savings of millions of manufacturing jobs not only in Detroit but around the country in companies that are either directly are indirectly affected by auto sales. No argument from my on this point.

He poured $18 billion in tax breaks for small businesses into a jobs bill through the HIRE Act to spur hiring and also gave $20 billion for transit and highways programs (Dr. West and Mr. Smiley…I do a lot of work in providing jobs for those in construction and many of these jobs are filled by people who would be considered “working poor”…doesn’t this count?)

In my opinion, small businesses have A LOT going for them already. My long time position in regards to business taxes is that if your ability to stay in business and produce a profit is dependent upon not paying taxes then there is something very wrong with your business.

He extended unemployment insurance again in the middle of one of the most productive lame duck sessions in the history of the country (More money given to the unemployed…aren’t they are part of the impoverished since they don’t have a job? Doesn’t assistance towards them count as help for the underserved? How much more tangible can you get outside of directly giving them a check and putting billions into community colleges and job readiness programs which our President has done?)

I'm one of those who said Obama caved when he allowed the tax cuts for "the wealthy" to be extended. Yes this may have put a hurt on a lot of people dependent upon unemployment benefits and yes, it's easy for me as someone not dependent upon that to make my claim, but I believe Obama was being tested by Republicans and I believed he failed that test. I believe that the last budget threat and the current one is a direct result of that cave in. Remember that Obama campaigned on this issue and by making him roll back on this issue in a very public manner, without even making Republicans make good on filibuster threats was a bad thing. And even though Obama is threatening once again to expire the tax cuts on the wealthy, I'm 70% certain that the Republicans will call his bluff on it by threatening some portion of the population.

Of course it is certainly "amusing" to see someone argue on the one hand about the high DOW and the "millions" of jobs created and then talk about the need for extending unemployment benefits. One could make the argument that they are not mutually exclusive but there are all kinds of arguments that could be made, which of course is the point of being a "critical supporter of president Obama".

Oh and for those wondering about the "snicker" comments I just want to point out that while black folk run around talking about how Obama's not the president of "just" black people but a president for "all America" it sure seems that other groups (two represented in this list) are more than willing to get this president to cater visibly and vocally to their concerns. Expecting a politician to cater to your group! Where they do that at?

AKA: Why are Black Women Not Attractive?

Psychology Today with an article entitled "Why Are Black Women Rated Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women, But Black Men Are Rated Better Looking Than Other Men?"

Can't make these things up.

[update] it appears that PT has taken down the piece. I have a PDF of it. They are SO NOT getting away with that.

Precisely The Problem

I very good article in Counterpunch on the legal issues with the killing of Osama Bin Laden and the whole concept of "terrorist":

It further means that it no longer matters whether they have actually carried out any terrorist acts; all that is required is that they are terrorists. In practice it means that they only need to be terrorist suspects.

...To repeat the point, in law enforcement you can’t kill suspects, and under the laws of war you can’t intentionally kill civilians. Under the new rules of the war on terror, you can kill civilians by labeling them suspected terrorists.

Terror, Legality and the New Rules of War

Kanye "Fashion" and the Black Manhood

I told y'all in 2009 that there was a serious hurt being put on the black male via the fashion industry (to name one). Today I stumbled across a piece where they come to the same conclusion (although kinda late):

Kanye Blouse
Somewhere between 2004′s College Dropout and last months Coachella festival (where Kanye thought it was cool for a man to wear A WOMEN’S FUCKING BLOUSE), hip-hop style became limp-wristed, sickeningly preppy and worst of all, nobody even bothers to walk around with mini-swords, anymore. Zzzzz.

Mind you I'm not sayin' that dudes need to be wearing fatigues and holding machetes a-la Jodeci but a fuckin' blouse? We already know that Kanye thinks that Black people can't dress so I suppose he thought that blouse move wouldn't be noticed 'cause you know, black people ain't lookin'.


Ha! Busted.

I've been complaining since late last year about the apparent "in" season for high water pants I've been seeing in fashion blogs. And I mean high water dress pants. I'm talkin' high water suit pants. And worse I saw a dude in capris. I kid you not. Of course with all the talk of so called "hyper-masculinity" none of this surprises me at all.


The fuck out of here.

Impact of Fatherless Homes

Watch this PSA:



Now ask yourself exactly what the "father" in this situation was supposed to be doing had he been there and watch again.

I believe there was a reference to a tie. There was a reference to "not being able to keep a decent relationship" Right...OK....Next. Watch it again.

No "provider". No protector. Nothing more than: "I feel bad."

Look, I grew up without my biological father in the house. I had a lot of questions. I had my moments of anger about it, but I did have a lot of men around who set examples for me. So if you're a single mother who's son hasn't learned how to tie a tie then exactly who's fault is that? If you as a single mother do not know any men who know how to tie a tie, I think that may be a part of the overall problem.

What about women who have children with no intention of having a father around? You know, because they haven't found Mr. Right yet ('cause they were busy or thought Denzel had a clone somewhere).

Where was the discussion of the financial impact of single parenting? I posted on this a long time ago, but it bears repeating that the median net worth of a black woman goes up dramatically simply by cohabiting with a man. And it works the other way too (though not to the same extent as men generally have a higher median net worth than women)

There are a lot of things that could be said here. While this piece surly pulls at the heartstrings I don't think it really gets to the heart of the matter. Not at all.

Bin Laden Daughter Claims Execution

[note: This is a repost because the original post apparently "disappeared" some time yesterday when blogger was doing "maintenance". Luckily I get an e-mail of every post I do]

Not sure how I missed this but:

OSAMA BIN LADEN'S 12-year-old daughter claims US Navy SEALs took the al-Qaeda leader into custody alive - then executed him.
Arabic news network Al-Arabiya reported yesterday that the girl told investigators she saw special forces troops shoot her father and drag his body to a helicopter.


From the Daily Record

Additional info here:Al Arabiya

Why Greece Should Reject the Euro or why Black Folks Should Speak Up

Yesterday I noticed that the NYT had posted an article on why Greece should reject the Euro. Of the many reasons for Greece making such a move we find the following:

This means increasing unemployment so much that wages fall enough to make the country more internationally competitive. The social costs of such a move, however, are extremely high and it rarely if ever works. Unemployment has doubled in Greece (to 14.7 percent), more than doubled in Spain (to 20.7 percent) and more than tripled in Ireland (to 14.7 percent). But recovery is still elusive.

These unemployment numbers struck me because I've seen them before. These 14.x% unemployment rates are the same as the current (and long term) unemployment rates for African-Americans. In fact in some places and among certain geographic areas the unemployment rate for black males are upwards of 50%.

One has to wonder that if such rates of unemployment are grounds to suggest that an entire country reject an entire currency, to reject institutions such as the IMF, then why is it not seen as a national emergency in the US that 13+ percent of it's population is seeing such "unacceptable" levels of unemployment? Let's understand that high levels of unemployment correlate with levels of crime. Persons who enter the prison system provide employment for small towns across America. Persons who enter prison also provide cheap labour for some companies (just as it did at the end of Reconstruction).

Hyper-What?

Of late, meaning over a couple of months, I have noticed the increased use of the term "hyper-masculine" or "hyper-masculinity" used by a few people discussion some gender related subject. Hyper-masculinity as used by these persons usually denotes "high aggression" perhaps "high sexuality" and some sort of implied destructive behaviors. This is very problematic.

The very first thing I do when people start to talk about so called "hyper-masculinity" is to ask them to define "normal masculinity". This often cannot be done. Never the less, talk of "hyper-masculinity" continues as if it is something akin to "obscene pornography": You know it when you see it, but we all can't exactly agree on what it is. lets look at it from a medical perspective. there is a range of blood pressure that is considered "normal" which is 120/80. The 120 is the systolic pressure (in mm mercury) when the heart contracts and the 80 is the diastolic pressure when the heart is relaxed. If your numbers are above this "optimal" normal then you have high blood pressure, otherwise known as "hyper-tension" That is too much pressure in your system. If your numbers fall below the norm then you have low blood pressure, otherwise known as hypo-tension. So we see that both hyper and hypo-tension are relative conditions and therefore mean little without a "normal" position.

You would think that academic people would take this science into account when speaking of things such as "hyper-masculinity". You cannot have "hyper-masculinity" without first defining "normal masculinity". Good luck with that. The latest thing I read that got me to write this is here:

But last night he was coon-ish, perpetuating nearly every stereotypical rendering of black masculinity with the exception of his hair. THAT looked like a job by Da Brat's "So Funkdafied" stylist. All black everything - jeans, wrist and arm bands...skin. Topped off with a white spray painted "What's Up?" on his ass. Classy.


On the one hand, R-Truth signifies the violent hypermasculine black body that is both commodifed and perpetuated in American (pop) culture. What becomes complicated, however, is how his particular hyperviolent and hyperaware black male body exists and is contextualized within a voyeuristic space of a few things - (homo)socialism and eroticism, violence, and whiteness. It's a murky undertaking to attempt sort out the discourse needed to properly discuss the implication of body and identity politics and blackness in a very white pro wrestling arena (pun intended).

Mind you I do not follow WWE so I didn't see the episode discussed and therefore have to rely on the author for an accurate description of events. But What is "stereotypical" about wearing "all black everything"? How is that playing a stereotype? Did the author ask this fellow why he wore what he wore? Was he told to wear it for show? Did he object? Are we assuming that he didn't know better and the all mighty white man(tm) had put it in his head to wear "all black everything" in order to "coon"? We don't know. Lets not even get in to the fact that much of WWE is show and EVERYBODY is "cooning" for the audience.

How does R-Truth "signify the violent hypermasculine black body" in an arena where being violent is the qualification for entry? How is it "hyper-masculine" when whatever level of 'masculinity", still not defined, is "normal" for this event? It would be one thing if no violence was expected of any of the players in this event but to discuss "hyper-violence" in the absence of, say, a murder, is, in my opinion, out of line. Taking it back to the medical example. As a runner, when I'm training or racing, my blood pressure is what would be considered "high". But for the circumstances such an "elevated" pressure is normal. If anything, if my blood pressure was at "normal" I'd likely be unable to perform. So in the context of WWE (or MMA) what is "hyper-violent" or "hypermasculine"?

Clearly these men are brainwashed by Eurocentric concepts of violent manhood and are cooning for the crowd. Why else would they be wrestling?

This is like a conversation I had where a fellow declared that violent sports such as Boxing, MMA and violent video games were European and of course "hyper-masculine". This statement pre-supposes a masculinity that does not involve physical combat. Of course the challenge to this is obvious in the form of Lacrosse. Lacrosse was created by Native Americans in some cases to toughen up young males for warriorhood and settle inter-tribal conflicts. That would be...warfare.

Let's not forget the warrior culture in Samoa that has given the NFL some of it's greatest players. Indeed so called "hypermasculinity" is not European (though I lay the creation of such a term at their feet, particularly the women). Nor is violence as sport limited to the imagination of the European (which I'm sure will dismay many an afri-centrist).

Certainly masculinity is in part socially determined in that it's signifiers change from culture to culture. A "masculine" male in Hindu India may wear what is considered in Western Europe to be a dress. Makeup may signify femininity in "western" cultures but in certain areas in Africa, it is the males who wear "make up". Let's underscore though the idea of "normal" masculinity by looking at the Meru of East Africa. I wrote a piece many years ago (before I started blogging) where I got my hands on a book entitled When We Began There Were Witchmen by Jeffery A Fadiman. He discussed a matter of Christian missionaries in a Meru village and the effects it had on gender relations:

Upon entering the stage of elder boyhood, however, it became increasingly difficult to be both Christian and Meru. As each boy moved through adolescence, warriorhood, courtship, and marriage, he found himself gradually engulfed by a rising tide of religious prohibitions, intended to isolate him not only from his "pagan" age-mates but also from the life of the entire tribe. Boys choosing to join either religious faith during elder boyhood, for example, faced two immediate decisions, intended to separate them instantly from members of their age sets. The first was to shave off their warrior braid, the mark of an emerging warrior....THe red ochre use to enhance the beauty of both women and warrior alike was scrubbed from hair and body. Beads, skins and every form of ornament were cast aside...

Faced with unrelenting mission opposition, males who reached the age of warriorhood often initially reacted by sneaking off to dance at night, expecting to return to their studies by dawn. It proved impossible. The converts' shaven hair, lack of weapons, and Western ways all worked to turn their age mates against them, sending them fleeing from a barrage of taunting songs in anger and humiliation. On occasion converts who attempted to rejoin their age-mates' courting rituals were met with curses and rocks, intended to remind them that "Meru women were reserved for Meru men".

So indeed we have an example of "normal" manhood constructed without input from Europeans that includes manner of dress, speaking and acting. Thus it is entirely possible and I would say desirable to construct a "normal masculinity" that does not take it's cue from europeans. So what if black men are aggressive. Who says that is bad? Who benefits from criminalizing and marginalizing aggressive manhood? I think when these questions are fully examined we'll probably find that the problem is not so much "hyper-masculinity" (whatever that is) but actually our own discomfort with masculinity in a society (US) that is increasingly less "masculine".

Robotic Warfare Again

A while back I posted a video on the use of drones in warfare. This is a follow up from Journeyman Pictures:

http://youtu.be/45yWLgI40wM

Some observations about the OBL killing

As more reports come in that contradict claims made late Sunday and early Monday. We should stop and examine a few things:

1) The initial reports that came out said that SEAL Team Six was engaged in a "firefight from beginning to end" NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/us/politics/05binladen.html?_r=1&ref=global-home). That account has now been changed to:

Administration officials said that the only shots fired by those in the compound came at the beginning of the operation, when Bin Ladin’s trusted courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, opened fire from behind the door of the guesthouse adjacent to the house where Bin Laden was hiding.

So the vivid animations shown by news outlet ABCNEWS featuring multiple persons in the compound windows firing on Seal Team Six were absolute fabrications.

2) The claims of the men in the compound using the women as human shields proved to be false:

. The administration’s reticence came after it was forced on Tuesday to correct parts of its initial account of the raid, including assertions that Bin Laden had used his wife as a “human shield.”

3) In examining the reports of the actual killing of OBL we find the following:

When the commandos reached the top floor, they entered a room and saw Osama bin Laden with an AK-47 and a Makarov pistol in arm’s reach. They shot and killed him, as well as wounding a woman with him

Now last night it was reported on ABC World News Tonight via an interview with Leon Panetta that unless OBL was naked he would have been killed. This essentially confirms my assertion that this was not a capture operation but a kill operation. Therefore, the excuses that OBL "may have had" a suicide vest or did anything threatening to the SEAL Team is now severely compromised. If OBL had both an AK and pistol within reach at the time that the team made it up too OBL's bedroom after the shooting, why did he not have the weapon(s) in hand pointing at the ONLY entrance ready to shoot at anything that moved? Does that make ANY SENSE TO YOU?

We're to believe that OBL put the AK and Makarov on the bed (or counter,they haven't gotten that part of the story set yet) in arms reach even while he KNOWS that somebody has broken into his "home" and has heard gunshots? REALLY? Let me ask the gun owners who may be reading this: Would you put your loaded weapon down "in arms reach" if you knew that someone broke into your home?

If OBL did in fact have the AK and Makarov on his bed (or counter or wherever "arms reach" means) rather than in his hands ready to go out like a soldier of the Mujahadeen then isn't it clear that he actually had surrendered and that reports that he "offered resistance" but so much bullshit?

4) Moving away from the raid, I want to ask some questions in regards to the person. Since 2001 we have been told that OBL had kidney problems. It was reported that he had some sort of portable dialysis machine. No one that I know who has knowledge of medicine will say that a person who is need of Kidney is going to be running around the mountains of Tora Bora for too long. So the questions here are

A) if OBL had a bad set of kidneys to the point that he needed a portable dialysis machine, where is the machine in the compound? If there was no machine in the compound where was he getting his dialysis done? Was one brought to the compound? If so by whom and supplied by whom? Wouldn't that be on some sort of watch list?

B) If OBL had kidney problems and had received a transplant then where and when did this happen? Does "the body" have the scars that show that a transplant has been done? If OBL had a transplant I understand that he must take anti-rejection medicine for the rest of his life were any anti-rejection drugs found in the compound?

If neither a portable dialysis machine or anti-rejection drugs were found in the compound then there are two possibilities:

a) The reports of OBL's kidney issues were lies fed to the public for some reason.
b) This person is not OBL.


5)In regards to the location. I already posted yesterday that it was known that OBL (or whomever) was in Abbottabad as of May 2005. Last night ABC World News Tonight reported that the Pakistanis had invaded that compound "prior to OBL moving in". If we know that OBL was in Abbottabad as of 2005, then when did this raid occur? The World News report did not say the date of that raid. Other reports are saying that the ISI informed the CIA of the compound in question in 2009.

So the ISI "told" the CIA in 2009 about a compound that was allegedly raided "prior to OBL moving in" and documents show OBL in Abbottabad in 2005? Anyone else confused here? If OBL was known to be in Abbottabad in 2005, then every US soldier killed or maimed in Afghanistan since then has been for no good reason. All these people talking about "support the troops" ought to be very concerned about this.

[update 1:55 PM EDT] from Counterpunch article "Was Osama Betrayed":

For the record, this property has been under ISI surveillance while it was under construction. It was first raided in 2003, and the ISI just missed capturing Al-Libby (he was later captured by the ISI close to Mardan in K-P Province). It has been raided on numerous occasions since.

So by this "new" information this compound was known by "our allies" Pakistan in 2003. the town was "known" by US military as of May 2005 and raided in May 2011.

OK.

[/update]

I'm sure that more "clarification" statements will be coming out.

US knew of UBL location in 2005

Saw this piece in CounterPunch this morning:

The unredacted Guantanamo files show clearly that the trail to Abbottabad was known to the US intelligence services at least since 2005, when al-Libi, another Abbottabad dweller, was captured.

Timing is everything. The US President announced killing of Osama bin Laden just as Wikileaks completed its publication of Guantanamo files. Was it coincidence? If not, what was the connection?

So being the skeptic that I am I went to look at the actual WIKILEAKS file that is here (http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/prisoner/10017.html) and found the following:

: forces on 13 November 2001. This was detainee’s last face to face meeting with UBL where UBL discussed the logistical details of moving fighters out of Kabul to a safe haven. Detainee fled to Kandahar in late December 2001 and met his wife who was residing there. Detainee traveled to Gardez, AF to assist between 100 and 200 fighters move from Gardez to Kandahar. He spent the next nine to ten months in hiding with his family in Pakistan.11

(S//NF) In October 2002, Nashwan Abd al-Razzaq Abd al-Baqi, aka (Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi), ISN US9IZ-010026DP (IZ-10026), contacted and asked detainee to work with him in Peshawar. Detainee accepted the offer and spent the next five to six months working under IZ-10026 organizing the purchase of supplies for fighters including medicine, lights, batteries, food, and clothing. In July 2003, detainee received a letter from UBL’s designated courier, Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan, requesting detainee take on the responsibility of collecting donations, organizing travel, and distributing funds to families in Pakistan. UBL stated detainee would be the official messenger between UBL and others in Pakistan.12 In mid-2003, detainee moved his family to Abbottabad, PK and worked between Abbottabad and Peshawar.13

Checking footnote number 12 we find:

12 TD-314/12435-06, TD-314/46042-05, TD-314/40102-05, Analyst Note: In TD-314/37025-05, detainee stated of early May 2005, he was responsible for facilitation within the settled areas of Pakistan, communication with UBL and external links. He was responsible for communicating with al-Qaida members abroad and obtaining funds and personnel from those al-Qaida members. In TD-314/54704-04, TD-314/54644-04, detainee met with Taliban Defense Minister Mullah Obaidallah to establish a formal chain for passing financial support to the Taliban.

My emphasis:

If that note is read the way I see it, then it says that OBL was in Pakistan and communicating with "external links" outside of Pakistan. If this guy was THE LINK between OBL and the outside and was KNOWN to be in Abbottabad and this is known in 2005 then......

Gaining Knowledge as a Form of Self-Deception…

An excellent piece that I had running in my head for a while but never put into an entry. It really hits on what I have observed over many years and also applies to those who I'll call "so called feminists":

I started this because I saw people using knowledge as a mask to cover up deeper level, personal issues (I was here for a long period of time myself).


I noticed a tendency for people – particularly in the conscious community – to learn a lot of interesting things but to use it as a facade… as a way of appearing to have self-esteem, personal progress and overall togetherness all while avoiding their real life problems.


I noticed people using knowledge in the same way many use television, sex, or drugs: to escape the reality of their situation.

Right dead on center.

Papers Poems

Two quick pieces from my Facebook page:

I.

Let me see your papers

lemmie see the stamp

given your ancestors

as they passed through

Ellis Island

'cause

I don't think you're a citizen

Yo'

momma aint' have no passport

word is she was illegal

claimin' people as relatives

when it wasn't so

changed her name

so she could fit in



lemmie see your papers

'cause I'm not convinced

your pappy didn't

overstay his visa

knocked up

a citizen to get that green card

that would make you

an Anchor baby

like them

puritans

and calvinists

who

weighed anchors

off this shore

and trespassed

on north American soil

where

they received free health care

welfare in the form of

this is how you grow food



lemmie see your papers

like America is

Smith

Adams

Johnsons

And Madison

but

Uche

Tunde

and Kojo

been here as long as you

Mohammed

beat you to these shores

and showed Columbus the way

and besides

weren't y'all

the same fools

who just a few

wanted to

change the constitution

so the terminator

could run?

We know the deal

if you're white

you're alllllllright

browns can stick around

so long as you

show me your papers.


II.

Jim Crow

done seen new light

you'd

think trump had an alter to that ancestor

musta

poured mad libations

in order to become a vessel

for that spirit

can't blame it on the alcohol

channeling old English stand by's

like

citizenship papers

soon

Obama's gonna have ta

read portions of the constitution

you know

the part that says

nigga you can't vote here

or

put your name on a ballot

unless

ol' jim crow

set him down

and confirm he

be that

responsible negro

he

must think this be

back when

negroes went

rented out by masters

to apprentice

papers in hand

like

black boys in NYC

where fugitive slave codes

called stop and frisk

rule the land

like

donations and philanthropy

can buy ones way outta

jack assery

but

niggas still

gonna roll up in Atlantic City

but hopefully

now that Obamas shown the papers

he'll back bone up

and make 'em show us

the taxes.

A Note About Obama's Birth Certificate

One of the interesting things about Obama's birth certificate is the designation "African" for the race of Obama Sr. Obama's birth certificate declares that Obama's father's race is "African" and his mother's as "Caucasian". I was kind of surprised that the "race" of the child was not noted but since I haven't seen birth certificates from that time I'll suppose they didn't keep that kind of records (at least in Hawaii).

It got me to thinking of a story that I believe Malcolm X would tell about an African diplomat going to a segregated restaurant and getting to sit in the white section because he "was not a Negro". Apparently the distinguishing feature being the head wrap this diplomat wore. But the certificate does shed a bit of light on the craziness of the American racial classification system. How is Obama's father NOT a Negro? Strictly speaking, Negro is spanish for black and is a reference to any African person with the features of Obama Sr. Did the American social system believe that there was a Negro race and also an African race? If so how exactly did that work? What was the science behind it? At what point did a person stop being an African and start being a Negro? Is it possible to be a Half Negro and Half African?

A cursory glance at American history shows that Africans themselves in Early America thought of themselves as Africans. Evidence being the African-Methodist Episcopal churches, The various "African Lodges" and other community organizations which often prominently announced their African origins. Even Africans who had immersed themselves in English society still considered themselves "African".

If the case was that Obama Sr's nation of birth was the deciding factor, why not designate him a "Kenyan"? It would be interesting to see how black people from the Caribbean were labelled on birth certificates. Strictly speaking they couldn't be "American Negroes" and they couldn't be "Africans" so exactly what racial designation would they have been given? Of course the very fact that one can read the title "American Negro" is testament to the idea that Negro really wasn't a special designation for Slave Trade Africans on the North American continent(tm).

Of course we are also left to ask this question: If Obama Sr. had married a down south woman with no known white ancestry and had a child with her, how would the birth certificate had read? African and Negro? And we would have to ask that given the child would be indistinguishable from two "American Negroes" with no known white ancestors, why should Obama Sr. be designated African and the hypothetical mother not be? Genetically they would both be Africans. By ancestry they would both be Africans. Furthermore, since that child would be indistinguishable from two "Africans" the same question applies: Would that child be considered African or Negro?

All of this to say that it is clear that the historical and current American social system of race makes no sense whatsoever and is really about designating and protecting whiteness (One Drop Rulism) than it is about phylogeny.

Big Bad Ghaddafi

Dissident Voice has an excellent piece discussing some of Ghaddafi's activities in Africa. As I've said to other people, I'm not saying Ghaddafi is a saint, but I know enough to not believe everything that comes out of 'official' channels. So how many of you knew about the following:

It began in 1992, when 45 African nations established RASCOM (Regional African Satellite Communication Organization) so that Africa would have its own satellite and slash communication costs in the continent. This was a time when phone calls to and from Africa were the most expensive in the world because of the annual US$500 million fee pocketed by Europe for the use of its satellites like Intelsat for phone conversations, including those within the same country.

An African satellite only cost a onetime payment of US$400 million and the continent no longer had to pay a US$500 million annual lease. Which banker wouldn’t finance such a project? But the problem remained – how can slaves,
seeking to free themselves from their master’s exploitation ask the master’s help to achieve that freedom? Not surprisingly, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the USA, Europe only made vague promises for 14 years. Gaddafi put an end to these futile pleas to the western ‘benefactors’ with their exorbitant interest rates. The Libyan guide put US$300 million on the table; the African Development Bank added US$50 million more and the West African Development Bank a further US$27 million – and that’s how Africa got its first communications satellite on 26 December 2007.

China and Russia followed suit and shared their technology and helped launch satellites for South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and a second African satellite was launched in July 2010. The first totally indigenously built satellite and manufactured on African soil, in Algeria, is set for 2020. This satellite is aimed at competing with the best in the world, but at ten times less the cost, a real challenge.

This is how a symbolic gesture of a mere US$300 million changed the life of an entire continent. Gaddafi’s Libya cost the West, not just depriving it of US$500 million per year but the billions of dollars in debt and interest that the initial loan would generate for years to come and in an exponential manner, thereby helping maintain an occult system in order to plunder the continent.

Interestin indeed.

Excerpt from Black Male Passivity from the Isis Papers (Written 1974)

I offer the below written 33 years ago. What is absolutely striking looking at this with the life experiences I have had is how relevant most of what was written then is today. Also striking is the "progression" of some of the issues brought up by Dr. Welsing in terms of black male alienation, the increasing number of black women who ascribe to white female liberation (as described by Welsing which can be debated I'm sure) either consciously or subconsciously and the attitudes of many black men who are now of age (I was 3 when this was written). I think that there ought to be an Isis Papers convention to re-look at this book 30+ years later.




The white female's liberation movement is another disturbing threat to the white male's sense of power and masculinity, helping push him to a weakened and homosexual stance. However. white females are reacting to the oppression imposed on them by white males. Feeling inferior to "non-white" males and females, the white male said to the white female, "well, at least I am going to be superior to you." The white female reaction in the form of women's liberation is contributing further to white male/female alienation, pushing white males further into the homosexual position and incidentally, pushing white females in that direction also.



The long-standing white male/female alienation in the white family has pushed the white female, perhaps unconsciously , to mold her sons to be more like herself than like their father. Thus she creates a female with a penis. Additionally, she proceeds to fight back at the male and finally achieves, symbolically, a penis for herself-resolving the white female's penis envy complex, a compensation for her sense of inferiority imposed by men. In a similar way, she fights back at the white male when she captures a Black male's penis and taunts the white male, who believes "her" black penis is stronger than his own....



Under the white supremacy slavery system, the identity of "sex machines" was imposed upon black males, especially as many hands were needed in the fields for toil and labor. The many babies that were produced gave Black males their most open avenue for at least a limited sense of manhood. Presently, with birth control pills and with the pressure for population-zero for all non-whites, this major ego-support also has been taken away. Without jobs, income, power or even babies, there is no proof of sexual functioning. When this reality is coupled with the awareness that many women can receive more from a welfare check than they can from their male partners, the reasons for women respecting men and staying with them steadily decline, and Black male/female alienation increases.



Recent statistics reveal that today (1974), 34% of Black families are headed by females as compared to 10% of white families, and this figure is increasing each year....



As black males and females become more and more alienated, as our current rate of separation and divorce indicate, and as Black females are being left to rear Black male children alone, the alienation, hate and disgust felt towards adult males are visited upon their sons subtly. A female alienated from males is hard pressed to reinforce patterns of conduct in a male child that remind her of unhappiness and pain. She in much more inclined to say "There you go looking and acting like that no good nigger father of yours." The Black female teacher at school who also may be experiencing alienation from her Black man, if not inclined to make the same statement, in such a direct manner, only says it more subtly, says nothing, or simply acts out her hate, disgust and distrust of Black males, achieving the same end result....



In childhood, male children learn -whether at home or at school -that they can make mothers and female teachers happy (and they will shower you with smiles and affection) when they act like "females" rather than like boys.



The dearth of adult Black males in the homes, schools and neighborhoods leaves Black male children no alternative models. Blindly they seek out one another as role models, and in their blindness end up in trouble....



One ex prisoner patient told me: It is easier to endure life on the inside than to try to put up with the pressures of being a man, a husband and a father in the street."...The intent of racism programming had been achieved: "Give up trying to be a Black man. Why not be a woman?"



Many Black males have answered unconsciously, "why not!" The braided and curled hair, the earring and bracelets, the midriff tops, the cinch waisted pants, the flowered underwear, the high heeled shoes with platforms and the pocketbooks are all behaviors to the above. They say in loud and clear language: "White man, I will never come after you . I cannot run in my high heels [or sagging pants-Mr Tunj]- you know that. And I may mess up my hair." The white-run clothing industry is all too pleased to provide the costumes of feminine disguise for Black male escape...



Television, which has become an important programmer of behavior in this social system and its culture, plays a further role in alienating Black males (especially children) from Black manhood. Flip Wilson, the highest paid Black male on television maintains his high rating by dressing in great detail as a tough and coarse Black female. One of my seven-year old Black male patients told me, "My Mommy liked Geraldine and I think Geraldine is cute". "Good Times" [a show I never cared for -Mr Tunji] the latest media fare for indoctrinating the Black oppressed, shows a pitiful adult Black male who never can seem to find an adequate job and a Black adolescent male who is a criminal shoplifter and a complete clown. All of this takes place in the presence of a strong and powerful Black female, who periodically drops down on her knees to pray to a white Jesus whose miracles save the situation.These weekly insults to Black manhood that we have been programmed to believe are entertainment and not direct racist warfare, further reinforce, perhaps in the unconscious thinking of Black people, a loss of respect for Black manhood while carrying that loss to ever deeper levels. One 12 year old Black male summer it up in this manner when I questioned him about working hard and studying in school: "No, I do not want to study so I can help Black people. If you try to help Black people, you will be killed. Look at Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and George Jackson. I don't want to die."

Banking or Revolution?

I saw this earlier on FaceBook but could not place a source. Finally have found it so here it is:

It seems that the rebels might actually be under the overall supervision of the international banking industry, rather than the oil majors. On March 19 they announced the “[d]esignation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.’”

CNBC senior editor John Carneyasked, “Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era.”

Has Moqtada Al Sadr created a central bank in Iraq? Nope the US is the one who created a new monetary policy in Iraq after deposing of it's leader. That deposed leader is the same one who posed a direct threat to Dollar Dominance (tm) when he sought to sell Iraqi oil in Euros rather than dollars. Why do I mention that? Read on:

“According to a Russian article titled “Bombing of Lybia – Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar,” Gadaffi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gadaffi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency. During the past year, the idea was approved by many Arab countries and most African countries. The only opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League of Arab States. The initiative was viewed negatively by the USA and the European Union, with French president Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Gaddafi was not swayed and continued his push for the creation of a united Africa.

“And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank. In an article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed: ‘One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned. . . . Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.’”

Now we start to see the real deal here. But if you want to still believe that this is about civilians, you go right ahead.

sources:

Counterpunch: What's Really Going on in Libya?

Where did the Weapons Come From?

How It's Done

Paul Craig Roberts breaks it down again:

One traditional means by which the US influences and controls a country is by training its military and government officers. The program is called International Military and Education Training (IMET). AFRICOM reports that “in 2009 approximately 900 military and civilian students from 44 African countries received education and training in the United States or their own countries. Many officers and enlisted IMET graduates go on to fill key positions in their militaries and governments.”

Before Obama Speaks

Before Obama speaks this evening I want to make a few things particularly clear:

1) Libya is not Rwanda. I was around when Rwanda happened. Rwanda was a clear ethnic conflict. It was not about government it was about two groups of people who were made to hate each other. It was about ordinary people doing un-ordinarily evil things to people they did not know and who had done nothing to them.

2) Obama's own military brass got on TV on Sunday and admitted that Libya posed absolutely no threat to the United States. Without this condition a US president cannot just up and put the military into the middle of a civil war without prior congressional approval. Even Ronald Regan was bright enough to declare that Libya was a threat to the US before he dropped bombs on Ghaddafi's kids.

3) Libya is in the middle of a civil war. Regardless of who you think is right, this is a civil war. It can be ended at any time by those trying to overthrow the government giving up and putting down their arms. I'm not saying that they should, I'm simply stating the facts here. Civil wars are violent bloody things and they are the internal matter of a sovereign state and unless there is verifiable evidence that a war crime is happening such as targeted ethnic cleansing, mass rape, etc. the UN, including the so called Security Council has no standing to interfere.

4) Declarations by the head of state in Libya to "show no mercy" is not evidence of ethnic cleansing anymore than someone saying I'll kill my boss" is indicative that a crime will actually happen.

5) Even IF the no fly zone was somehow legal, the bombing of ground troops is not "no fly zone" but it is in fact a bona fide act of war against the state of Libya and therefore requires the approval of Congress. Furthermore, bombing ground troops and the like is so NOT a part of a no-fly zone that is clearly outside the illegal UN mandate.

6) The UN decision making process does not pre-empt the US Constitution. One cannot make the case that if the UN says it's OK that it's OK under the Constitution.

7) The speed at which the conflict is concluded has no bearing on its legality.


Just want the readership to keep these points in mind when Obama starts talking this evening.

The End of Topeka

To my dismay I sat and read Bob Herbert's column entitled "Separate and Unequal" And I was forced to ask: How long are Negroes, who James Baldwin declared, only exist in America, going to keep on with the "Black kids need to sit next to white kids in order to learn" thing?

Bob is clear about his bias, stating:

I favor integration for integration’s sake. This society should be far more integrated in almost every way than it is now.

That's nice that he has such an opinion, but it is just that. Such a position has diddly squat to do with the potential educational achievement of negroes. And I want the reader to know that I am using "negro" on purpose.

You see if you read Bob Herbert's piece you will note that he does not deal with one very obvious question: If integration is so necessary for educational achievement, then why are white students in America doing so well academically with nary a negro in sight?

Ahh the answer soon shows up in the form of "oh this is about economics". Having affluent people around is what is needed for negro children to do better. Really.

Firstly lets address the whole "who's sitting next to who" question. You know what country has students who kick the tail out of the Affluent White Population(tm) that negroes are enamored with? China. How many white people are in China? How many of them are sitting in classes with Chinese students? I'd hazard to say very few if any at all.

You know another country who's students kick affluent white tail in education? India. How many white people are there in India? I could go on but seriously knowing full well that there are races of people who in the total absence of Affluent White People(tm) are somehow able to graduate engineers, doctors, etc. ought to make a laughing stock of any person who still seriously proposes that the fix for negro education is proximity to "affluent white people".

You know what else ought to make this line of thinking untenable? The huge number of negroes who graduate from HBCU's. Let me tell you that HBCU's are the most separated (segregation is a legal issue) places in America. on most HBCU's there are less white people on campus (if any) than there are black people on HWCUs. Seriously. Check it out. Still those students graduate and find employment and start companies just like their white counterparts. How is this even possible if it is the case that negro achievement is determined by proximity to Affluent White People(tm)?

So this brings me to why I'm using the term "negro" here. Negroes, that American invention as Baldwin pointed out, have this one trait that is mostly absent from other black people, particularly those who are in majority or all black surroundings: They need white folks. Negroes need white folk like Oreos need creme filling. Negroes simply cannot imagine their lives with the absence of the All Mighty White Person (tm). Negroes think that if white people are not involved there is a problem. For negroes white people represent the pinnacle of everything right with the world and whipping boy for anything that goes wrong. Negroes do not take responsibility for self and do for self. They complain when the All Mighty White Man(tm) doesn't give them a part of the All Mighty White World(tm). When the All Mighty White Man(tm) says that he doesn't like black women, negroes tweet about it. They lament and complain and vent in wrathful anger. They can do this for days. Negroes spend an awful lot of time and energy wondering why white people don't like them. Negroes will also complain if negroes act too much like the All Mighty White Man(tm) 'cause that's All Mighty White Man(tm) blasphemy. You wanna know when you're dealing with a negro, see how they deal with non-negroes. Negroes are quick to put non-negroes "in their place" when non-negroes do not show proper adoration of the All Mighty White Man(tm). You want to know when you're dealing with a negro, open a business, do something original. Negroes will pay you no mind. They will offer lip service but no business until or unless you get props from or support of the All Mighty White Man(tm). Then Negroes will talk about how they knew you back when and then negroes will come looking for a hook up. If your business fails, negroes will be talking about what you did wrong and how negroes are bad at business, but those same negroes won't have much to say while you were actually IN business that would help a non-negro stay in business.

I could go on and on about how negroes act but that would be beside the point. The point is that the race or economic background of the students in a school means nothing at all. The determining factors in the success of students are the involvement of parents (which includes feeding their kids, getting them into bed at a decent hour, etc.), the expectations of the schools and the quality of the teachers and the teaching tools. Nothing else matters. There are kids in Africa walking barefoot for miles to go to a one room school. They do that after morning chores which can include things like going to fetch water. They do homework by candlelight. Candle. Light. And negroes here are talking about how to get close to Affluent White People (tm).

Negroes; I tell you.