This is brilliant. Some people are blacker than others.
In the The New York Times last Sunday, Jill Nelson dismissed the idea that black people ever really wondered whether Sen. Barack Obama was "black enough." My memory of how Obama was being discussed a year ago is different from Nelson's. Today, however, black people who question Obama's authenticity are indeed a fringe.
So what's that all about? Well, with Obama, it was whether he was committed to the black community's concerns. He was--as a black community organizer in Chicago. And he is, in his commitment to programs on prisoner re-entry and responsible fatherhood.
However, when the question of whether someone is "really black" comes up outside the realm of politics, we tend to lapse into a kind of doubletalk. One ploy is to swat away the issue of blackness as a real quantity. In that case, "What's that all about?" is not so much a query as a rebuke that the question is inappropriate, illogical, or even underhanded.
When Michelle Obama dismissed the question about her husband as "silliness," that was sensible: Barack Obama has proven that he understands black concerns. Too often, though, we are taught that it is "silly" to address blackness as a gradient at all. But this is evasive. We're tiptoeing around something, and it's black culture. Some people are more rooted in it than others – and there isn't a thing wrong with that.
Some say that blackness is simply a matter of color. By this analysis, anyone who raises the larger questions about black identity is apparently visually impaired. Last year, Gwen Ifill, for example, dismissed the question of whether Obama is black enough because someone who, like her, is a child of immigrant blacks might not be considered "black." But I think we all know it's not that simple. The brown-skinned person implying their skin color renders the whole issue moot is leveling a coded challenge: "Are you saying that all black people talk like rappers and eat fried chicken?"
.
.
EDUCATION
.
In Bronx School, Culture Shock, Then Revival
Junior High School 22, in the South Bronx, had run through six principals in just over two years when Shimon Waronker was named the seventh.
A Bronx School Revives On his first visit, in October 2004, he found a police officer arresting a student and calling for backup to handle the swelling crowd. Students roamed the hallways with abandon; in one class of 30, only 5 students had bothered to show up. "It was chaos," Mr. Waronker recalled. "I was like, this can’t be real."
Teachers, parents and students at the school, which is mostly Hispanic and black, were equally taken aback by the sight of their new leader: A member of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect of Hasidic Judaism with a beard, a black hat and a velvet yarmulke.
"The talk was, ‘You’re not going to believe who’s running the show,’ " said Lisa DeBonis, now an assistant principal. At a time when the Bloomberg administration has put principals at the center of its efforts to overhaul schools, making the search for great school leaders more pressing than ever, the tale of Mr. Waronker shows that sometimes, the most unlikely of candidates can produce surprising results.
Despite warnings from some in the school system that Mr. Waronker was a cultural mismatch for a predominantly minority school, he has outlasted his predecessors, and test scores have risen enough to earn J.H.S. 22 an A on its new school report card. The school, once on the city’s list of the 12 most dangerous, has since been removed.
.
.
CULTURE
.
This is a link to a podcast at Ebonyjet.com.
Rapper With A Conscious: Talib Kweli
Known for his thoughtful lyrics and never ending flow, Talib Kweli is an example of what hip hop can and should be.
.
.
POLITICS
.
The Nation Magazine gives the tip of it's hat to the Blackroots. My only quibble is that we are PART of the Netroots not a separate entity. The Blackroots' Edwards Victory
Donna Edwards' victory over Congressman Al Wynn in this week's Maryland primary is not only a triumph for progressives and prominent bloggers. It is also the most successful web-powered challenge to the Congressional Black Caucus in the history of the "Blackroots," a less hyped but increasingly effective network of bloggers, activists and groups that are using online and traditional activism to advance a new type of open, transparent and progressive politics.
One of the largest Blackroots organizations is ColorofChange, led by James Rucker, a 36-year-old former MoveOn official who helped stymie the proposed Fox News Democratic Presidential Debate last year. His group does not typically issue endorsements, favoring a focus on activism campaigns, but it made the first endorsement in its history to back Edwards. "We believe she embodies the accountability that citizens should come to expect from their elected representative," explained ColorofChange's Mervyn Marcano, who touted her positions on mortgage oversight, education and healthcare. "CBC incumbents should take notice of a Black electorate that is increasingly diverse and engaged. They no longer have a free pass. It's a new day for Black leadership in Washington and we're proud to have supported Donna throughout her campaign," he told The Nation.
.
.
This is a great bit of analysis by blogger Eric Deggans.Why Are So Many Bigshot Political Reporters Apologizing Now? The presence of a black man and woman as important presidential candidates is forcing these guys to rethink how they talk about politics. And some of them are failing miserably.
When I first heard about this exchange yesterday, I wondered about the journalism end of it. If Halperin heard Edwards call Obama the p-word, shouldn't he have reported it in Time? If Edwards said the word to him off the record, why did Halperin recount the exchange in public?
And if Edwards didn't use the p-word, why did Halperin tell the story to make it look as if he had -- putting the worst sort of profanity in the mouth of a guy he presumably is still covering?
But it struck me this morning, after reading the apology, that there is more going on here. The rules have changed a bit for political reporters, especially those with high profiles, and some players haven't realized it yet.
Already, MSNBC anchors Chris Matthews and David Shuster have had to apologize publicly for using language that was particularly insulting to women on their shows. Matthews basically said Clinton's career as an elected official came courtesy of sympathy generated by her husband's philandering and Shuster wondered if daughter Chelsea was being "pimped out" by her parents in making calls to celebrities and superdelegates.
In all three instances, you have people making boneheaded statements using inappropriate language. On one level, all these guys seemed to forget that they weren't bellied up to the bar with their fellow reporters after a deadline, but speaking to national audiences on professional broadcasts.
.
.
INTERNATIONAL
.
I'm not sure what to think about this article. As a Caribbean-American I can tell you that slavery IS dealt with differently there. I'm not quite sure it's swept under th erug to the degree this article thinks though.
Barbados begins to revisit its past
The dining room of the Sunbury Plantation great house, its varnished mahogany table glittering with china, crystal, candles and silver, looks to be awaiting a banquet to celebrate a man of letters who has sailed in from the English mainland.
In the cellar of the stately 300-year-old home, hand-tooled leather saddles, wrought iron carriages, horseshoes and buggy whips speak to yesteryears of wealthy white planters being squired about the island.
What isn't preserved at Sunbury, the most popular tourist site in this former British colony, is the underbelly of its history. There is no trace of the gnarled black hands that cooked the feasts and polished the silver, drove the traps to cotillions and on social calls and worked the plantation.
Although descendants of slaves control the governments in the English-speaking Caribbean, prosper in business and define the image portrayed to the millions who visit the tropical splendor each year, the vestiges of three centuries of bondage are few, as if no one here wants to be reminded.
Doralene Lashley, 43, puts up her hands to halt the conversation when asked whether she or the plantation's two dozen other employees, most, like her, descended from enslaved Africans brought here during the colonial era, mind that so little of their forebears' labor and craftsmanship is acknowledged in heritage houses presented to visitors as replicas of the past.
"I personally try not to talk about it. 'This one did this and that one did that,' " Lashley, the catering manager, says distractedly as she checks on the serving trays for a luncheon. "Talking about the past just has a negative impact on the present."
.
.
Kenya’s Middle Class Feeling Sting of Violence
George G. Mbugua is a 42-year-old executive with two cars, a closet full of suits and a good job as the chief financial officer of a growing company. His life has all the trappings of a professional anywhere. He recently joined a country club and has taken up golf.
But unlike anywhere else, this executive has to keep his eyes peeled on the daily commute for stone-throwing mobs. When he gets home after a long day, he has to explain to his daughters why people from different ethnic groups are hacking one another to death. Even his own affluent neighborhood has been affected. Some of the Mbuguas’ neighbors recently fled their five-bedroom homes because of the violence that has exploded in Kenya since a disputed election in December turned this promising African country upside down.
"Nobody’s untouched," Mr. Mbugua said. Of all the election-related conflicts that have cracked open in Kenya — Luos versus Kikuyus (two big ethnic groups), The Orange Democratic Movement versus the Party of National Unity (the leading political parties), police versus protesters — none may be more crucial than the struggle between those who seem to have nothing to lose, like the mobs in the slums who burn down their own neighborhoods, and those who are deeply invested in this country’s stability.
The well-established middle class here is thought to be one of the most important factors that separate Kenya from other African countries that have been consumed by ethnic conflict. Millions of Kenyans identify as much with what they do or where they went to college as who their ancestors are. They have overcome ethnic differences, dating between groups and sometimes intermarrying, living in mixed neighborhoods, and sending their children to the best schools they can afford, regardless of who else goes there.
.
.
We are not the only country dealing with the issue of immigration. Immigration and Racism in Western Europe: When the Colonies Return
All over Europe immigration from former colonies has driven a profound shift in the discussions about race, politics and the future of a Europe that is "European." Those debates parallel the arguments about Mexican migration in the United States and show how many people, despite growing racial diversity in the West, still think of their nations as racially homogenous entities.
Europe was once a place where African Americans like W.E. B. DuBois, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Miles Davis and others went to escape the sting of Jim Crow in the United States and found a Europe that allowed them a freedom of movement unprecedented in the United States. Further, African American soldiers in Europe during WWI and WWII enjoyed a freedom of movement denied to them in the U.S. But many mistakenly believed that meant Europe was immune to racism.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The "civilized" Europe, though devoid of Jim Crow laws, always depended upon keeping the natives in their colonies and not allowing them to come to the homeland in any large numbers. In fact, the experiences of Jews and the Roma (a.k.a. "gypsies") chronicle the long history of racism in Western Europe. For the last few centuries, Europe has existed in a delicate balance by keeping racial and ethnic minorities at bay or oppressed by systems in the colonies that made Jim Crow look mild, while developing a notion of a homogenous national identity at home.
.
.
I hope someone takes this clown out in the upcoming election.
Rival Says He Will Defeat Mugabe by Landslide
A former ruling party stalwart opened his presidential campaign Wednesday by saying he would defeat President Robert Mugabe in a landslide in Zimbabwe's March 29 election, but he offered few hints on how.
Simba Makoni's hour-long news conference, followed by the release of a nine-page policy document titled "Elements of the Manifesto," amounted to his most detailed comments since he announced last week that he intended to challenge Mugabe's nearly 28 years in power.
Yet Makoni, a former finance minister and member of the ruling party's most elite body, did not announce a campaign strategy or offer a diagnosis of what is ailing a nation that over the past decade has plunged from one of Africa's most prosperous countries to one of its poorest. He suggested few potential solutions beyond vows to improve services and attract foreign investment.
.
.
I'm not holding my breath but I'm trying to be hopefull.Violence Adds New Focus to Bush’s Africa Trip
On the eve of a planned trip to Africa, President Bush thrust himself into the role of peacemaker on Thursday, as his plans to promote American efforts against poverty and disease gave way to a more pressing imperative: addressing the violence and turmoil on the continent.
Mr. Bush injected his administration directly into the political crisis in Kenya, calling for a "full return to democracy" and announcing that he would send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice there to "deliver a message directly to Kenya’s leaders." Ms. Rice will not have far to go; she and the president will be right next door, in Tanzania.
.
.
DIARIES OF NOTE
.
Dumb did dum, DUMB
Obama Plays Racial Divide from Day 1 by
Palladio
.
Maybe we haven't transcended...No Country for Old (Black) Men by Goldie Taylor
.
Black History Month by Robinswing
.
This was a great story I missed!The "Rosa Parks Act" in Florida by meowmissy
.
I have to agree Rep. Cohen (D-TN) has done NOTHING to deserve the hatred sent his way. Rep. Cohen (D-TN) faces antisemitism and racism in re-election by Frederik
.
Worse Than Darfur: U.S. Proxy War in Somalia by Valtin