Barack “ET” Obama

Unemployment drops to 9.4%.....can hear the GOP spin now....”See...we told you tax cuts for the rich and famous would make for more jobs!” Nevermind that it's been steadily improving since Obama took over when he unleashed the GOP crafted stimulous. Wonder if the new majority will suddenly start taking credit for “their “stimulus” and “their” health care bill...anyone who keeps up with the goings on on Capital Hill knows that most of what is in the Health Care Bill originated with the Republicans...They were all for it, until the Black guy decided to get it passed into law..

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Ted “I'm straight with issues” Haggard is getting his own “reality show,” on TLC. I'll be TIVOing that right after I set the timer to catch Sarah Palin's Alaska and The Jersey Shore or whatever it's called....You know, the one that stars the fake Italian with the totally fake skin color named Snooki. Based on her sprayed on palor, I'd call her baby Boehner.

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Speaking of Big Bad John, can't seem to distinguish between the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Thought all those teabag/GOP folks had both comitted to memory...

And as for the Bullshit symbolism of reading the Constitution....if it's so perfect....why didn't they read the parts about black people being only worth 3/5ths of a white man?

Today, congress is taking up repeal of the 14^th amendment....you know the one that grants citizenship to anybody born in America...Anyone ask "anchor babies" Alberto Gonzales, Michelle Malkin or Bobby Jindal about the proposed repeal?

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Major bigot Steve King is hyperventilating overtime to try and get President Obama's citizenship revoked. Doesn't like the Black man and really doesn't like the fact that his middle name is Hussein...Well, oh my, Steve ARNOLD King......any relation to the guy named Benedict Arnold? Is he hiding in your ancestral closet? I guess you'd be all right with that considering that despite being a traitor to America he was an all white American traitor right? Okay to be named after him, huh..

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While we're on the subject of citizenship and the Constitution.....Birthers need to get a grip...They keep arguing Obama was born in Africa.....SO WHAT!.....His very lilly white Momma was born in Kansas...she could have given birth on the moon and made his name Barack ET Obama to commemorate the event...and he would still be an American citizen...Daddy was taken out of the equation back around the 1620's.

The bigots are choking on a system they created...It spawns from the “one drop rule.” In other words, back in the day...if you had one drop of black blood in you, then you were considered black regardless of the brightness of your skin tone...heritage was changed to be charted through the mother....not the father...to keep all those magnificent plantations from legally falling into the hands of their secret, dusky off spring....Now that one of the dusky relations has made it to the White House...the Birthers want to change the game yet gain...White people created the system...Black people survived it....Now it's coming back to haunt you...

Another result of this “system” is that Black Americans have more white blood in them than African, and sometimes many whites in general...the term African American should be put to rest....It was useful at one time, back in the days of "I'm black and I'm proud." But we are Americans, period. The term implies that we emigrated to this country instead of being born here or brought here in chains.

We were considered chattel and bred like cattle...bought and sold to enrich whites...you can't run away from that no matter how many times you excise the word “nigger” from your history or literature books.

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Wonder how Arizona Gov Jan is sleeping these days....I know there is a special place in hell for people like her...

For Want of a Statesman

Is there not one principled man or woman within the Republican Party willing to step forward and take responsibility for the rabid and violent masses running roughshod over our country? Is there not one person in the GOP who found the uncivil actions of the mob this past weekend, reprehensible and worthy of condemnation?

Or is this what politics and public discourse have become, foul name calling, spit hurled amid threats of violence against those who harbor differing opinions?

Is America just one violent incident away from an attempt to tip over the melting pot that we sorta celebrate as the foundation of the American Dream? Is the dream dead? Or perhaps I should say, are the dreams dead, the American one and Martin's vision of America? Has it died, too?

No one of a certain age in this country is surprised at hearing the words nigger and faggot thrown at us, just because. The only thing missing this past weekend, were the angry police, attacking dogs and fire hoses. Maybe that's progress, ya think? This kind of behavior was at one time codified in law, and continues to be taught as gospel in huge segments of the population. This behavior, if you can get close enough to talk to some of them view it as their god given first amendment right to exercise against us or our ideas. They have a right to say anything and in any way they choose because they were born to this right.

But this is not first amendment. This behavior is not written into the Constitution. This is not protected speech under the law. What happened this past weekend was the exercise of white privilege and the inherent belief that Black and Native Americans are inferior and are therefore subject to the whims of the perceived majority.

The perceived majority, (and I use that term only to reflect that white people are disappearing as quickly as real Black people), has never apologized for anything. The perceived majority has never acknowledged the actions of the past. It refuses to recognize that what this country is today is built on a foundation created from the blood, sweat, tears and determination to survive of people of color. Oh yes, the majority apologized to the Japanese, even paid them to be quiet-reparations for unjust internment that lasted what, five or six years at the most?

Native Americans have never really been absorbed into the fabric while Black people, well we stand out on the fabric like sequins on a party dress, impossible to hide or blend in. Other ethnicities have come to America, and been met with the same vicious discrimination, but with a difference. These other ethnicities, the Irish, and the Italians and the Polish and Slavs, all have white skin, a natural camouflage that eventually allowed them access. So they stepped up and over us, and joined in the “coon-hunt” because we can't blend in, ever.

Anyone who has ever looked at pictures of the 4000 some lynchings that took place in this country and wondered how could so called good people take part, need look at what happened in DC this past weekend at the Tea Party rallies and understand. And for the record, lynching has never been outlawed in America. People simply stepped up to stop it. But who is stepping forward now?

What was different about the past, is that there were people who were willing to come forward, to take the reins and say “enough.” There were people who were willing to lead by both word and example out loud, reminding their mob that we are all children of somebody's god.

There were men who were willing to say “I'm sorry” and know innately that “I'm sorry” would not diminish their character or statesmanship, but would, on the contrary, enhance it. They were not perfect men, by any stretch of the imagination and usually took part in some of the foolishness themselves. However, they were decent men and principled men, tempered in the fires of morality and justice. They knew when they crossed the line and when to step back.

These men didn't stand in the well of the Peoples' House and rant, attempting to substitute lies and profanities for truths and statesmanship. True statesman don't catcall their fellows or verbally attack Presidents, nor condone the cretinous actions of the mob toward the so called opposition.

Real statesmen don't employ a blame the victim mentality, hiding behind hollow words and excuses. At least in sports, the players still shake hands after the game is contested and a winner has been declared. After the game the players and coaches go on television to talk about what went wrong, but not to blames or to castigate the other team. The coach takes responsibility. The players take responsibility for their actions.

Why are there no coaches in politics? Why are there no statesmen or women stepping forward to squelch the ugliness of their followers? Thuggery should not be tolerated in the halls of congress or on the streets of America, especially when directed at other Americans, because in this game, we are all American.

This country is not your country, it is not my country, it is our country. Like or not, we will live and we will die together.

Smitherman vs the LGBT Community

I want to say up front that I am a "johnny-come-lately to this topic, basically because I have problems with both the LGBT community and the Black Community for the very reasons being debated, racism and homophobia.

I also have a problem with Mr. Smitherman...When he talks, I turn off, because I have yet to find him credible on any topic. I am mystified by his election to head the NAACP. I am mystified that so many others apparently find him to be a man worth following.

I found Jill Benavides comments after the meeting at City Hall to be patronizing, and condescendingly PC with regard to Smitherman. It was as if she were talking about a child. In other words..."let him have his temper tantrum, we love him anyway."

Having said all that......Let’s go there...shall we...

Nowhere on either side of this clueless conversation has the Black LGBT community been talked about or included in the conversation. Smitherman talked about his one white gay male NAACP member, as if having one represents all. That is the same way the white LGBT community talks about Blacks...you know..."some of my best friends are....."

The conversation that took place at City Hall obscures the fact that Black gays and lesbians are totally invisible in Cincinnati. And it’s like that across the country. Much of it due to the queer hatred within the Black community, in addition to the racism in the LGBT community

As Black people..we spend most of our lives being beaten up because of the color of our skin. It’s been a very difficult road to electing our first Black president. We have been killed for simply wanting to be treated equally. Laws were passed to make that happen, yet it’s still a problem in 2009, and you have only to look at two recent incidents of men, white men, killing their families and police for fear of a Black man in the White House.

You’ve got white governors talking of secession...that has got to be the ultimate in white flight..think about it...the same thing happens when a black family moves into a previously all white neighborhood...still....that’s not past history...that’s last week....

Now compound skin color with being gay or lesbian and you go from being beaten down on a national level to somebody, maybe your own brother, sister, mother, father, neighborhood, kicking your ass because you’re a sissy or you’re a bulldagger. You get tired of being a target, you get tired of being called names....for Black gays and lesbians...being called a nigger is not much different than being called queer or fag or bulldagger.

Trust me, you’re not going to run out and join the very community organizations that want you dead...

The white LGBT community doesn’t feel it’s racist, but it is no different, really than liberal whites who like using that.."some of my best friends are....." phrase. Blacks are not taken seriously within the LGBT community, usually being dismissed with a patronizing pat on the top of our fuzzy little heads, with a "thank you for coming...but we know better, what’s good for you..."

The prop 8 vote in California exposed the LGBT racism, when it was erroneously reported that Blacks were the reason it passed....Blacks gays and lesbians who took to the streets to protest the vote, were attacked by white gays and lesbians.....called niggers among other things....The white LGBT community has yet to apologize for their assumptions during that time...

Being Black gay and lesbian means you’re caught up between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Not feeling accepted by anyone can be a very lonely way to grow up and to live.

Smitherman and the NAACP need to realize that there have always been Black gays and lesbians active within his organization and the civil rights movement. What they need to do is to recognize that the NAACP and other Black organizations are also not inclusive organizations working for all Blacks.

There is no mention of the devastation of HIV/AIDS on the Black Community. In fact Smitherman as a straight man is probably more susceptible to getting the virus than any gay black man at this stage, not because he is gay or down-lo, but because Black straight women are the ones being infected at record breaking rates.

Black women are sleeping with down-lo men and taking the germ back to their straight boyfriends...

And why are men down-lo...because they stand to be judged not men, if they come out..being labeled soft is worse than being called a nigger in the Black community. Witness the death a couple of weeks ago of a 12 year old Black youth, who hanged himself, after being repeatedly called a fag at school.

Why was he called a fag, or labeled soft.....he liked school and his mother taught him to comport himself like a gentleman...he was not gay, by the way....just a clean cut little boy...dead...

It is killing our community...yet....I hear nothing from the NAACP about this massive problem. If the women die...who is going to bear your sons? Or will any white or J-Lo looking Latina woman do?

It is no proof of your so called inclusive tendencies if all you can talk about is one gay white boy as a member. Remember, he can always go back to his community in which by birth he is a master of the universe.

Black gays and lesbians must go home to the same hate that they suffer from in the streets.

The entire Smitherman statement left women out the conversation, altogether. That is typical of the misogyny that also permeates the Black Community.

So, to put an end to this ramble.....

NAACP....you need to talk to Black gays and lesbians first.....you need to address the number one killer of Black people in this country and the world....second only to gun violence...which is another problem in and of itself...

Opening the tent to include all Black people will send a bigger message than a useless conversation with white gay and lesbian organizations with issues of their own to deal with..

It doesn’t matter who turns out to support what....until we recognize the problem within our own community, we will be having this worthless conversation in 2010, 2011, 2012.....

Morality Plays

Yesterday, the NAACP buried the “N” word...literally. The organization held a funeral for the word, duplicating it’s actions of a couple of decades ago, when it buried Jim Crow.

Burying Jim Crow will prove to be the easier entombment, I think. That’s because so many of us use the “N” word when talking to each other. We only have a problem with it when white people use it.

It’s always been considered a bad word. I come from the generation where parents didn’t curse in front of the kids. And, we never, ever used the “N” word for any reason to refer to anyone else. It was a term of disrespect with the obvious racist connotations. We were taught not to denigrate ourselves because we would get enough of that when we stepped into the white professional world. Trust me, as someone who has spent her entire life being the “first black this and only female that,” there are actually hundreds of ways somebody can call you a nigger without using the word itself.

Nowadays, kids toss the word around like a water balloon and people have become desensitized to it. The problem with using it so freely is that people with no sense of history or anything else for that matter, think they can use it like we do. That’s when it becomes offensive.

As blacks we can’t be so hypocritical. If we’re going to use it, we must expect that others will too. We need to get over ourselves and really, really make the word inoffensive, much like gay and lesbians did with the word “Queer.” The LGBT community owns that word, having taken possession of it a long time ago. You can’t hurt us with it anymore. Blacks need to do the same with the “N” word. If we intend to use it, then we have to stop reacting to its use by others. Once it loses it’s shock value, then it is buried for real, not symbolically like the NAACP tried to do yesterday.

The NAACP would do better recapturing its relevance if it would go after the things that are killing our communities, like AIDS, Poverty, black on black violence, out of wedlock children, and the school dropout rate.

Remember, the old nursery rhyme....”sticks and stones can break my bones...but words will never hurt me..”

Good words to live by..

Shock and Disgust

Four years later and the “shock and awe” of the assault on Iraq has turned to anger and disgust. Those of us who were alive during Vietnam can rightfully say “we told ya so.” This latest quagmire was never about liberation, freedom or the war on terror. It was about politics, religion and rich men’s dreams of getting richer at the expense of the rest of us.

The war platform was built on lies which were shaped by cherry picked intelligence to bolster the prevarications that we needed to liberate the Iraqi people in order to protect our country from terrorism. The war platform was shaped by right wing religious fervor of spreading Christianity to the “heathens.” Bring them to “our” god and making the world a “safer” place. The war was the method that some thought could bring control of the oil rich territories to the west, insuring our energy supplies.

We now know by looking backward that this administration sent our troops over there without proper equipment, armor, and in some cases, training. This administration sent our national guard troops to fight and die in an illegal conflagration that left this country exposed to the elements. Helpless when it came to fighting the natural disasters that have ravaged us in the past few years. There was no one to help those victimized by Katrina except an inept, uncaring group of political hacks appointed by this White House, in order to fulfill campaign promises. There is no one, now, to dig out from under the series of tornadoes and storms that have cut wide paths of destruction across much of the southern half of this country.

Iraq is mired in a religious civil war. We are caught in the middle. Our president is sending more troops while Congress stands around with its thumb up its ass.

3200 dead. We’re running out of troops. The war goes on...........

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“Another N**** Dead, “ So What!

When I was about 11 years old, a three year old cousin of mine, who was named after my mother, was hit and killed by a car. It was her fault. She ran into the street, chasing a cat. She didn’t see the car. The driver didn’t see her. She died instantly.

Three days later she was buried. The funeral was held in Cleveland and while the procession wound down Euclid Avenue, I remember looking out a window as my father drove and seeing a young, skinny white dude, jumping up and down and clapping his hands singing a made up song; “another nigger dead, another nigger dead, another nigger dead.” He didn’t stop until all the cars had past him. It didn’t make any difference that we were burying a little girl who just wanted to play with her kitty cat.

This memory came back to me as I watched the news conference about the indictments of the police officers who executed Sean Bell on his wedding day. They were indicted for first and second degree manslaughter. Serious charges, if they are convicted.

But I wanted to hear the word “murder” somewhere in the official reckoning. This was an execution, plain and simple. There was no equivocation. One cop shot 50 rounds. He had to reload at least once. He knew what he was doing.

Another nigger dead, another nigger dead, another nigger dead. So what.

45 years later and I still can’t get that phrase out of my head.

My N******

There’s a saying among black folks about white folks....”Never get drunk with your white friends.” Because doing that is guaranteed to bring the word “nigger” into the conversation.

In my case, it was “come kiss me with those big nigger lips.” This, from someone I called friend. Someone I thought was color blind. There was no reason to bring out that word. We were celebrating our birthdays, which were one day apart.

Actually, we weren’t even to the point of drunken stupidity, The party had just begun. There was no indication that this racial lightning bolt was about to strike. We were a multi colored party. A little this, a little that, nothing special. Just a diverse group of friends out for the evening.

My friend didn’t even know that she had done anything wrong. No clue. She thought she was making a joke. She felt safe within the group, I guess, and when I look back at the situation, I can understand her comfort level. I was comfortable, too.

I kept my cool, preferring not to react. We partied on. But the friendship changed. Never the same after that night. She exposed a wound and I never trusted her again.

I’ve seen the Michael Richards tape. He lost his cool. He didn’t fight fair when heckled by two audience members. He actually stooped pretty low by resorting to the ugliest of name calling. He’s grown up in America and knows that the best way to hurt a black person is to use the term nigger. But is he a bigot? One thing is certain, the world now perceives him differently. He is no longer trusted.

But is he any more bigoted than the rest of us who lose our cools during a heated moment and resort to name calling?

I fault him for losing his cool. He is, after all, a professional comedian who should be used to dealing with hecklers. Heckling is normal in comedy clubs. The situation should have been business as usual for a man who makes his living telling jokes from a stage.

Am I surprised that he would use the word nigger? No. Not at all.

In America, the word nigger is always just below the surface with all of us. We blacks have tried to claim the word and make it benign. It hasn’t worked. White people hear us using it and wonder why they can’t use it, when we use it to refer to ourselves, friends and families.

Whites don’t understand the nuance between “nigger” and “nigga.” They think it’s just a spelling change, a hip hop word. While blacks are too emotionally tied to the word, past and present, to explain it to them, without wanting to kick their ass when they say it.

The fact of the matter is, nigger has too many negative connotations, bad memories and bad history for anyone, black or white to continue to use this word.

We have nigger, niggard, niggardly, nigra, and my personal favorite, nigger-rig, as in “I nigger-rigged it to make it work.” I grew up knowing that word as gerry-rig. I do know that gerry-rig comes from the name of the man who’s name also gave us the term gerrymander, as in to change something.

I don’t know when gerry-rig became nigger-rig, but I’ve heard it a lot over the years, usually from blue collared white guys who didn’t realize I was within hearing distance.

The word needs to go. I’m not saying go back and erase it from our history or burn books because the word is used. We’d lose many good books and a lot of history, if we did that. What I am saying is that we, as Americans should stop using it for any reason what so ever.

All people, both black, white, Hispanic, whatever, need to stop using the word, period.

Yes, I use the word, in conversation, and in my writings. I was taken to task one time when I was quoted in an interview as using the word. Since I said it, I owned it. My words. My responsibility.

But, being a writer and practitioner of the spoken word, I know the damage that words can do. I know how dangerous language can be. I like being able to use any word I choose in order to get my point across.

But if I don’t start change with me, how can I ask someone else, black or non black to change, too?

As Spock said, “the needs of the many, sometimes out weigh the needs of the one.”

Change, and we all live long and prosper.

‘Nough said.