It Was Racist

I was reluctant about today's class going in.
.
We read Mary Waters Ethnic Options and her book Black Identity. I reviewed
Black Identity which focuses on the process of West Indian Americans
coming to identify

or avoiding identifying as Black.

The book contained lot's of qualitative interview's with West Indian
folks talking about why they don't like African Americans,
why they are Black, but not like Black Americans, that Black Americans
are lazy, expect handouts etc.

I had no idea how the class was going to react to this.

Fascinating stuff, though, right?

Especially when you look at the presence of African Americans vs. West
Indian Americans on four year college campuses and in graduate,
law and business school in the Northeast.

The book is awesome in how it gets at how first generation verses second
generation West Indian immigrants deal with assimilation, with proving
that they are not Black and also with identifying as Black. The most
fascinating part for me was learning that women who worked as teachers
and nurses in Jamaica, came to the Brooklyn, worked as teacher and
nurses yet, class wise their lives were not the same.

The material difference is the on their salary in Jamaica, they were middle class,
so they could afford nannies and house keepers, and their housing was more
spacious and safer. In the US, housing was more expensive, there was more
opportunity for jobs and education for their children but the housing dollar
didn't go very far.

Which brings me to my classmate.

Jamaica's system is based on the British system, which means that children
are tested and tracked at a very young age. They either go into vocational
track or academic track.

Apparently Germany and much of Europe is the same way.

My Black classmate said, that he agrees with this.

I responded saying that standardized tests are measures of familial wealth
not student aptitude. And the aptitude of a four year old cannot be measured
because they have only been on the earth 48 months. He responded saying
that the British system is better because it separates the students early
and that there are some who shouldn't be in school and college.

I said that this was racist. We do not know what children are capable of at 4.

They responded saying that it wasn't racist.

I said, it was both racist AND classist because of the disparate
impact that the same policy has on Black boys in the US. Ann Fergusons
Bad Boys talks about this at length, if you want to read more about it. It's
an awesome study on a public elementary school in Berkeley,
hones in on the ways in which school policy and teacher subjectivity
impact how Black boys are disproportionately disciplined and placed
in special ed classes.

I asked him how he reconciled his approval of early testing and prediction
with the fact that standardized tests measure familial wealth not student
aptitude.

He responded saying "Yeah, tests are culturally biased but math isn't."

My eyes rolled. That did NOT refute nor address my argument.

Another classmate, a white woman who is in marketing asked, "Isn't it
better for us to asses the children at 4 rather than at 12 so that they
don't languish in the system?"

I responded no. The issue isn't when they are assessed the issue is
creating a system that serves their interests not the interests of school
administrators or corporations. We need to move out of binary
modes of thinking and ask ourselves whose interests are served by
that.

She said aren't all children about the same at four? I said no, all children are not the
same. Each child's education attainment is related to how much money her parents
earn and how much social capital her parents have and lastly how much
intergenerational wealth a family has.

I only wish that I asked them, "What would you do if your child
tests into the vocational track at 4?" I imagine, I hope the responses
would have been more compassionate.

It isn't lost on me that these people will be future professors,
bureaucrats, marketers, political advisers, researchers etc.

I see it as my job to say something.

I was proud of myself for calling a spade a spade, at least I was earlier,
this evening. As the night has warn on I am tired. School is awesome,
but in some ways the more I learn the more it appears that
racism is manifested on a civilizational level.

In some ways, this experience showed me the racism runs on
a deep civilization level. I take this term from the paper "Coloring
Epistemologies: Are Our Research Epistemologies Racially Biased?"

In the paper, James Sheurich and Michelle Young lay out three levels of racism.
I list them below:

The first is institutional racism, which exists when instituitons or ogranizations
have standard operating procedures, intended or unintended, hurt members
of one or more races in relation to members of the dominant race.

The second is societal racism exist when prevailing societal or cultural assumptions
or norms, concepts or habits favor on race over one or more other races. For
example, the OJ trial revealed societal racism.

The third is epistemologoical racism comes from or emerges out of
what we have labeled the civilizational level, the deepest, most primary level
of a culture of people. The civilizational level is the the level that emcompasses he
deepest, most primary assumptions about the nature of reality (ontology)...

On one level these experiences remind me of just how privilaged
I am, and have been, on another it reminds me of how other children
get screwed by bureaucrats on the regular.

It reminds me of how the teachers who stepped into my life when my city,
Oakland, and my family were both submerged by the crack epidemic.

It reminds me of how these angels saved my academic life.

I hope I can be an angel for someone else.

The social costs of being a model minority, of being a Black women are taxing.

I hope I don't go crazy trying to make sense of it all.

Pray for me.

Gangsta Rap is Black People's and America's Dirty Laundry.

Yesterday I was going at it over at Gotty's site.

And. Someone called me a hypocrite. Nothing new.

As a card carrying, Clipse loving feminist, I have been called worse things.

The argument stemmed from the fact that someone cited Jason Witlock and his argument that Jesse and Al are too scared to go after companies that promote and benefit from Gangsta rap. So I say go ahead and ban/regulate gangsta rap.

But.

Once you ban gangsta rap.
What are you going to put back?



And let me ask you this, is the real issue the music or the lives of of the people that the music represents?

Because banning/regulating g-rap sounds like a cosmetic change to me.
My man Roland Martin at CNN hit the nail on the head when he said,

America, we have a problem with sexism. Don't try to make this whole matter about the ridiculous rants made by rappers. I deplore what's in a lot of their music and videos, but hip-hop is only 30 years old. So you mean to tell me that sexism in America only started in 1977?

Now is the time for this nation to undergo a direct examination of the depths of sexism. My media colleagues shouldn't go just for the easy target ­ rap lyrics. That is no doubt a logical next step, but sexism is so much deeper. It is embedded in our churches, synagogues, mosques, schools, Fortune 500 companies and in the political arena. We should target our resources to this issue and raise the consciousness of people, and expose the reality.

Don Imus should not be the period. He can be the comma. Civil rights organizations, media entities, women's groups and others have an opportunity that they can't pass up. We have the chance to seize the moment to begin a conversation ­-- an in-depth one ­-- that has the opportunity to redefine America along the lines of race and sex.

Thinking about writing this, I pondered, what led to gangsta rap in the first place?

Well.

1.Mix Black Flight + White Flight + The Burning Bronx + Quasi functional public urban education = You get the conditions that percepitated gangsta rap.

Everyone is aware of the education/quality of of life connection. In fact, Imus's audience was highly coveted because they were affluent and highly educated.



And I ask again, once you ban gangsta rap, what are you going to put back.

For these folks who want to ban/regulate gangsta rap, I would like to know whether they live in the hood?

Do they want to live in the hood?

Would they send their kids to schools in the hood. Prolly not.

And Why? Because the schools are horrible.

Now lets assume that we don't have gangsta rap, how would the world even know what was going down in the hood?



Bear in mind that I am aware that this statement presumes that one is even interested in what is going on in the hood. LOL.

So lets imagine a world w/o gangsta rap.

Will dudes still hustle crack?

Will little Black girls still, disporportionality, want to grow up
and be video vixens?

Will dudes still be hustling loosie's on 125th and Lenox?


Will the Rockefeller drug laws still apply?

Will more black fathers pay child support?

Will OPD still conduct unconstitutional stop and searches?

Will Katrina get fixed?

Will cats cease getting murked on the reg in Oakland, New Orleans and Philly?

Will there be more than 3 GOOD high schools in New York City?

Will No Child Left Behind STILL be leaving mad brown/black kids in the dust?

Go head ban it.

Probably will just mean better mix tapes anyway.

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Know I made some ENEMIES w/ this post.

I put zora on mines so I KNOWS Im good.

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Obama, Cosby & All Star Weekend

Obama and Cosby don't have anything to do w/ Allstar weekend, at least on its face. Give me a couple of days I will come up with a link. lol!

Dope article in the TIMES OF ALL PLACES on racism and how the Allstar weekend is being portrayed in the media.

Stain of Racism Feeds N.B.A.'s Renegade Image HARVEY ARATON

My wife and two sons were with me at the recent N.B.A. All-Star weekend in Las Vegas. The crowds made us feel more claustrophobic than threatened, but maybe that was because we weren't roaming the nightspots any more than we would have in Los Angeles or New York.

Look for trouble in any densely populated city, and especially where people consume alcohol, and chances are you'll find it, with or without America's usual sports suspects -- the N.B.A. and its alleged army of hip-hop followers -- to blame it on. Rather than stay out into the wee hours, we went to a legends brunch to hear Magic Johnson and John Havlicek speak, to catch glimpses of Kareem and Dr. J.

Contrary to what you might have heard, All-Star weekend was not confined to a strip club or even the Strip.

You can argue that Las Vegas was not the ideal site for an event that traditionally attracts thrill seekers hoping to attach themselves to celebrities and their posses. But the casting of the weekend as a lawless referendum on the N.B.A. product has become exaggerated to the point of being imbecilic and has left Commissioner David Stern in a delicate position, between a Pacman and a hard place.

In an e-mail message, Stern said he was inclined to let the Vegas storm pass, move on as the regular season hits the homestretch. He also said he was ''not necessarily a majority among N.B.A. management,'' meaning the strategy is ''subject to change.''

He may yet ask why nobody blamed Nascar for the death of a motorist who was shot in a road-rage encounter during a traffic jam after leaving the Daytona 500.

He may have to point out again that no N.B.A. player was involved in any Las Vegas transgression, compared with a number of N.F.L. players who over the years have turned Super Bowl week into episodes of ''Miami Vice.''

He may crunch crime statistics relative to other sports events and large gatherings like New Year's Eve that, he said, would prove that All-Star weekend was no behavioral aberration.

Opening an offensive may also be subject to critical interpretation, Stern acknowledged, writing: ''It sounds so damn defensive to throw other numbers out there to defend what has to be acknowledged as bad behavior, although of the 400-plus arrests in Vegas, almost 200 were for prostitution -- there I go again.''

Without question, there were people in Las Vegas you wouldn't have hired as the baby sitter or wanted to run into at the wrong time and place. But check the newspaper clippings and broadcasts from the actual weekend: Nobody raised the terror alert to red, at least not until waking up Monday and hearing about an ugly incident that involved the Tennessee Titans' Pacman Jones hours after All-Star weekend formally concluded.

Hindsight is 20-20, but a troubled football player accused of inciting a triple shooting -- how, exactly, is this a reflection of Stern's league?

A few hundred arrests over several days, roughly half for prostitution in a city that is the home office for Hookers R Us -- how does this qualify as an indictment of a certain (read: African-American) element now said to have been running rampant everywhere but between Dick Bavetta and Charles Barkley during their charity race?

Isn't it possible that a fair percentage of those arrested included some from among the tens of thousands in town for conventions unrelated to the N.B.A. or to celebrate the Chinese New Year? Or are only black people vulnerable to the seductions of Las Vegas?

''The subject is just so delicious that everyone from Imus to Letterman thinks it's just hilarious to dump on the 'hip-hoppers,' '' Stern wrote. ''Of course, race plays a part in the perceptions. Do you doubt that there were more African-Americans in Las Vegas last week than at any time in its history, and some people felt threatened by that simply as a matter of culture?''

It must be noted that Jason Whitlock, an African-American columnist for The Kansas City Star and America Online, initiated the criticism of All-Star weekend. But his perceptions represent only one of the hundreds of journalists in Las Vegas and ultimately have become less the issue for Stern than the latest round of mostly uninformed N.B.A. bashing it triggered on Talk Show America.

We know Stern's league has issues. But, once again, pro football players and their entourages have been on a criminal rampage for years while a majority of the news media ignored the sobering reality on the way to another Super Bowl buffet.

Maybe it was the relative anonymity of the average player in a team-first league, compared with the N.B.A.'s individual marketing strategy, that has wrought a more flamboyant and inflammatory product. And maybe, as the Dallas Mavericks' owner, Mark Cuban, argued via e-mail: ''Football pays the bills for the sports media in every N.F.L. city and some non-N.F.L. cities. It's that simple.''

Americans respect selling power, benevolent or not, and no athlete wielded more in the 1990s than Sheriff Michael Jordan. But not long after the Bulls' dynasty crumbled, the N.B.A. was being characterized as too young, too edgy, too scary -- code for too black -- as it was said to be in the late 1970s, pre-Magic and Bird.

Now it's also the hip-hop capital of America, Thugs R Us. As if what was possibly the worst N.B.A. disturbance ever, the Pistons-Pacers brawl in November 2004, wasn't at least half the responsibility of a largely white crowd at the suburban Palace of Auburn Hills.

Talk about drunk, about lawless. And in that case, we do have the video to prove it.

• So the verdict is that negros are ignorant and don't know how to act BUT, violence in the NFL is not worth mentioning, nor does it constitute news.

• Witlocks article gave me the impression that he does not Like Black People, and the Vegas activities gave the the green light to tell the world about it.

• I never thought of how many people EAT off football, and consequently have an incentive to keep mum about football related violence.

• Too young, too edgy, too scary, code for being black. That is a dope t-shirt idea.
  

Somebody send me his address so I can send him a thank you card.

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I love what Koch means to hip hop.

It forces cats to crunch the numbers.

As record sales keep sliding, the rise of Koch coincides with the lowering of rappers’ expectations. Five years ago, no self-respecting rapper — certainly no self-respecting New York rapper — would ever have bragged about selling 400,000 records. But if you’re not going to sell a million CDs with a major label, you may well be better off at Koch, accepting a lower recording and promotional budget in exchange for a higher royalty rate. That’s why rappers are so ambivalent about Koch: signing there means giving up the dream of pop stardom, or, at any rate, deferring it.

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Sports serves as a wonderful platform for racialicious ponderings. God Bless America.

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Go See East Of Havana or You Ain't Hip Hop.

I slept yall. I saw this movie almost a month ago and I have been meaning to tell you about it. East of Havana is about Hip Hip in Cuba.

The filmmakers — who are Cuban-American themselves — zero in on a collective called El Cartel, composed of the charismatic Mikki (a flirt who raises pigeons), a poetic woman named Magyori (a street huckster who's as tough as any guy) and the group's political firebrand, Soandry, who laments the marginalization of politically tinged rap since its heyday in the United States in the early 1990s. ("I live trapped in that time," he admits.)

Although the film is set in 2004 during the weeklong run-up to the International Festival of Rap Cubano and in the shadow of Hurricane Charley, there's no phony urgency. The filmmakers are mainly interested in hearing the music and learning about the musicians' compelling personal stories. (Soandry, for instance, longs to be reunited with his older brother, who fled to the United States a decade earlier.)

And trust. You WILL be a different person after you watch it. I know, my back pack readers, b-girls/boys, and the mtv jawns, might think, here she go with this sh*t again.

Following Magyori and fellow rappers as they prepare for an international hip-hop festival taking place in Havana in 2004, East of Havana sets their individual stories against the bitter, resilient landscape of Cuba's political history. For the youth in the film, music doesn't just have a purpose, it is a purpose, and the artists find in hip-hop a "mental freedom," a lyrical and ideological purity that recalls American hip-hop before it crusted over with diamonds and demagogues.

But please believe there is nothing like seeing fools rap, JUST FOR THE SAKE OF RAPPIN.

Seeing a dude in Cuba, live near the beach, not really have a lot of paper, BUT has crazy love for hip hop.

NEW WORLD WATER

2 of the three characters had to go outside to get water either from a pump or from a cooler.

THAT SH*T was bananas. The female character in the documentary HUSTLES USED CLOTHES TO MAKE PAPER. The IDEA of Get Rich or Die Trying, or Bling, Or Coming Up, is foreign to them. I swear, for these cats, hip hop is like breathing. And it makes my 89-92 loving heart smile.

While it may not come to your local theaters.

Netflix it.

IMDB it.

Myspace it.

Get that sh*t into ya life.

Trust.

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Hi Blog fam.

Has anyone else seen it?

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