American Round up

Hello it is good to be back.  After a brief hiatus and a few riots in London, The Only African American Guy in London has returned.  Oh, I have so much to share with you.  My thoughts on the London Riots are forthcoming, I am still processing information.

In the meantime lets take a look at some Atlantic issues.  Cornell West and Travis, er, Tavis Smily are on a National Poverty tour on a posh bus.  Dr. West has a thorn in his craw about the American President and things are not going well for our beloved doctor.  Joan Walsh reports on his tiny tempa tantrums.

Next the Afri-Blog teaches us a new word, Afropolitan (that’s me) and Racialous provide a sound discussion on interracial dating in America. Enjoy.

From Joan Walsh at Salon.com

A few fair complaints about Obama drown in a sea of personal racial attacks. Is this how identity politics ends?

Cornel West's tragic meltdown - Joan Walsh - Salon.com

From the wonderful Afri-Blog


The concept of being Afropolitan, I feel like I am living it.


"Going back to the "meaning" of the word, "African" + "cosmopolitan" = "Afropolitan." Nowhere in that make-up is a specification about just where those cosmopolitan locations are."
Is there any use for the term "Afropolitan"? - Afri-love

From Racialicious, a blog about the intersection of race and pop culture. 

On Interracial Dating – The Asian Panel (1 of 3)

On Interracial Dating – The Black Panel (2 of 4)

On Interracial Dating – The Black Panel (3 of 4)

How do we Handle the Post-Modern Other in the Multicultural Era?

In the continuing chronicle of how race and conceptions of identity are malleable and so different in America and the United Kingdom I am continually astonished how such similar societies have constructed utterly different realities in the post modern era.  While it is acceptable in both countries to critique multiculturalism along the lines of religion, in the UK it is politically incorrect to critique along lines of color.  In the United States that is not the case.

In the American blog Public Policy Polling Tom Jenson posted an article entitled Barbour, Bryant lead in Mississippi.  In the article Jenson provides some insight into not only the  highly coded language of American political discourse, but also a reality check of how antiquated attitudes on race are a significant vestige of the American body politic. 

He writes,
We asked voters on this poll whether they think interracial marriage should be legal or illegal- 46% of Mississippi Republicans said it should be illegal to just 40% who think it should be legal. For the most part there aren't any huge divides in how voters view the candidates or who they support for the nomination based on their attitudes about interracial marriage but there are a few exceptions.


I would even venture to speculate that the reported attitude on race would hold true for both blacks and whites in Mississippi.  However far right politics is riddled with coded language on race and supporters seem to cluster around candidates and policy that support socially conservative or racially conservative ideology.  Jenson continues to state,


[Sarah]Palin's net favorability with folks who think interracial marriage should be illegal (+55 at 74/19) is 17 points higher than it is with folks who think interracial marriage should be legal (+38 at 64/26.) Meanwhile Romney's favorability numbers see the opposite trend. He's at +23 (53/30) with voters who think interracial marriage should be legal but 19 points worse at +4 (44/40) with those who think it should be illegal. Tells you something about the kinds of folks who like each of those candidates.


I would contend that the Cloward-Piven conspiracy crowd would rally around Palin supporters and the racially conservative.  There has been a recycling of far right John Birtch Society style ideology in mainstream political discourse, High profile candidates like Palin who ride the crest of lassie faire media ethics and practice, give new life to the ghosts of conservative racial ideology. 
Web 2.0 fueled reader comments may or may not tell a different story of exorcism of evil spirits. 

Rosie Q said...

It's a question that shouldn't HAVE to be asked. But clearly, there is a need to expose the truth about these so called "small government" hypocrites.

APRIL 7, 2011 10:30 AM

Anonymous said...

Zack,

The poll covered the legality of marriage, not dating. I could not immediately find data via Google that was specific to Mississippi or to Democrats, but regional data for the South (Altman & Klinker*) indicates that, even ten years ago, 86% of whites and 98% of non-whites supported legal interracial marriage. If that's representative of MS, too, and only 40% of MS 'Pubicans support it, ISTM the percentage of Dem supporters probably approaches 85-90%. Which makes it uninformative to poll it.

What's your point?

*http://maltman.hmdc.harvard.edu/papers/MeasuringRacialDiffs.pdf

APRIL 7, 2011 12:31 PM

Dustin Ingalls said...

BTW, we did ask this interracial marriage question of everyone, not just Republicans, but we'll be releasing the full results on that at a later date.

APRIL 7, 2011 1:42 PM

Anonymous said...

UNETHICAL POLLING. This is a cynical poll conducted by a Democratic polling organization to smear the Republican Party. PPP asked this poll with motive and knowing the response they would get. Democratic operatives will use this poll to frame a racial narrative to the upcoming election and scare minority voters and urban educated voters away from the GOP. It's pure cynical politics.

APRIL 7, 2011 2:50 PM

Take a look for yourself.. Link

Later that day 

This gem appears...Link

The argument against interracial marriage

Black People Moving to Suburbs as White People Move to Cities

Black Flight in America

Black People Moving to Suburbs as White People Move to Cities

Black consciousness (South Africa): The debate starts

From the self proclaimed, "unashamedly elitist website", The Daily Maverick, Sipho Hlongwane offers his perspective on black  consciousness, a South African perspective.  He questions how social justice brings the debate on consciousness to the fore.

Happy Independence Day

Tuggstar the Poet:

Happy Independence day Ghana.  Please construct your own meaning in the post-colonial, global era.

Fear and Hope in the UK

Searchlight Educational Trust commissioned the polling organisation Populus to explore the issues of English identity, faith and race. TheFear and HOPE survey gives a snapshot of current attitudes in society today. It explores the level of fear, hate and hope. It details what pulls us apart and what brings us together. With 5,054 respondents and 91 questions it is one of the largest and most comprehensive surveys into attitude, identity and extremism in the UK to date.

Miscegenation Ball by The Atlantic's Ta Nehisi Coates

TA-NEHISI COATES on what we here in England call mixed-race:

link: http://www.theatlantic.com/miscegenation-ball

The following Postbourgie podcast entitled 

The Beijing of America.  is a great follow up to the article.

The Elephant In the Room Post Update

Further updates to the update....... Frances Piven is tough.  From NANCY GOLDSTEIN at the american Prospect.

Frances Fox Piven: Still Tougher Than Glenn Beck

Update to the update:

Spotlight From Glenn Beck Brings a CUNY Professor Threats

and from the excellent blog "We are are respectable Negroes",

Reflections on the Use and Abuse of Eliminationist Speech: Do Conservatives Really Want to Kill Liberals and Progressives?

Glenn Beck continues to rattle on about Frances Piven.  The coded language, thinly veiled bigotry and class-ism is palpable.   See the original Elephant in the Room post below for further clarification on the Cloward–Piven strategy. 


P.S.
The linked video from youtube contains wing-nut banter

Getting to the seminal point

The Huffington Post described the above comments as "eye brow raising".   Beyond eyebrow raising Rick Santorum's comment,

"Well if that human life is not a person then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say 'now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.'"


This comment is indicative of a deeper psychological rift that has bifurcated the American psyche.  The chasm exists between Americans who are willing to have a person of color leading their country and those who tightly cling to a vestigial white supremacist ideology.  Santorum's unveiled bigotry serves as dog whistle politics for many on the right who trade in the politics of fear.  However, the brand of fear Santourum is peddling is white supremacy.  


The comment is forked.  On one prong, Rick states that, "it is remarkable for a black man to say WE are going to decide who are people."..  Left tacit in that phrase is the concept that black people are not human.  This is a founding theme in the American apartheid system.  The 3/5 compromise was not only a canard for census data but it is also a pillar of racist ideology, it promotes the idea that Africans do not have the stature, intellect or indeed the characteristics of human beings.  The other prong is the personal pronoun we, it connotes a group of people in America who are fundamentally unlike the standing President of the United States.  This has been a theme of the right, The President is not like "us" or "we" or "we want our country back".  Again Rick is alluding to the fact that Barak Obama does not have two white parents and is not of the social or perhaps mental status of the unnamed "we". This group of individuals called we is a group Santourum seemingly claims membership of.  Is this a social group or a cultural group?  


Clearly Santourum is borrowing a page from politics from past centuries, sadly much of the critique from the right revolves around the politics of bigotry.  Santourum likely understands and supports the ignorance of his message.


Perhaps Elon James White frames the discourse more effectively  
Video Update:

The Power of Nightmares

Continuing with the Adam Curtis cavalcade of video, The Power of Nightmares, subtitled The Rise of the Politics of Fear, is a BBC documentary film series; the films compare the rise of the Neo-Conservative movement in the United States and the radical Islamist movement, making comparisons on their origins and claiming similarities between the two. Take note of the role of Frantz Fannon. (Ilink; http://tinyurl.com/24nzrxr)

A reason for leaks.....?

The Rise and fall of Tee Vee Journalism........  Adam Curtis



link: http://tinyurl.com/3xrxx8y


A funny but sadly true update...
From Gawker

The Elephant In the Room

Article Review:

Richard Kim; The Nation

The Mad Tea Party

What makes a statement like the following plausible in America and not in the United Kingdom?

It was Cloward and Piven's article that gave ACORN the idea to start peddling subprime mortgages to poor minorities in the 1980s, knowingly laying the groundwork for a global economic meltdown nearly thirty years later.

The movement of the new right in America differs greatly from the resurgence of the new right in The United Kingdom.  While The Conservatives in England have molded the new Tory from Canadian, compassionate conservatism and American image crafting, the American conservatives have chosen a path of disinformation and fear.  The new Torys have also partnered with The Liberal Democratic party to form a collation government in England.  In stark contrast to their British colleagues, The Republican Party aligned with various Tea party organisations,  have returned to the “southern strategy” that was responsible for the defection of the Dixiecrats of years past.

The southern strategy was born under Nixon to recruit southern supporters of segregation. Disillusioned by the eras civil  rights acts Dixiecrats shifted republican. Republicans under Regan with his “welfare queens” quote  perfected its implementation and it continued to even haunt John MCcain in his GOP primary run against George W. Bush.

This article, helps to explain why race is still the elephant in the room in American politics.

link->

Post Update:

Glenn Beck Targets Frances Fox Piven

The Spin:

Glenn Beck 

Andrew Breitbart

American Thinker

Can you detect the coded language? 


How to use Cloward Piven to interpret current events and drudge up fears from the 1960's.  A thinly veiled Cloward Piven inspired rant.


Link

And now a Word from the BBC, perhaps..

The amazing Reggie Watts...

Adam Curtis The Century of the self

Adam Curtis on the Self.  The Century of the Self shows how psychoanalysis has shaped, corporations and Politics.  How to make one happy and thus docile...

James Baldwin

James Baldwin's words in this interview are applicable and relevant today as much as they were over 40 years ago.  He discusses critical consciousness, gentrification and identity.   

The Trap, Freedom

Adam Curtis is a writer and producer of compelling documentaries.  This series is called the Trap.  The trap that binds today is our post-modern concept of freedom.  He writes;

The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom

This series consists of three one-hour programmes which explore the concept and definition of freedom, specifically, "how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom."


This series can be found at The Internet Archive.  This is a truly interesting, critical and informative take on our western selves, enjoy..

The Black Elephant in the Room; Incarceration

Michelle Alexander and her book, The New Jim Crow exposes, the drug wars,  how the black  incarcerated population is a clear parallel to the American caste system. 
Get comfy and be ready to be disturbed.
Video:

Audio:
Incarceration As Social Control, an interview on KPFA 94.1 FM and KFCF 88.1 FM in Northern and Central California


Further food for thought:


The New Jim Crow | Mother Jones

TWIB is funny but if you have any questions, please read DuBois, Fanon or hooks instead.

The bell hooks critical conciousness review

bell hooks along with El Hajj Malik El Shabazz and my grandfather Ed Cooper are my cultural heroes.  They have sharpened my critical consciousness and instilled pride and humility.  In reading Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow, I am astonished by the laissez faire attitude that many Americans employ in regards to consciousness and state of being.  bell hooks provides a gentle reminder of how perception and reality are often at odds with one another.

Sign -o-the times

Welcome back to the southern strategy. It worked for Nixon, Regan and Poppy Bush. Resurrect the Black demon, make them fearful and then justify their slaughter, remember the war on drugs (NWA the concept of gangsta,, boyz in da hood and menace to society? Awesome propaganda) 2 million people in jail, 70% African (many labour for free and do not have civil rights, Jim Crow anyone?). Prison in America is another thread we will investigate in later posts.


The southern stratagem.  Is that not Fox news' raison d'etre? Van Jones, ACORN, the new black panther party (all 3 members) do you see a pattern emerging? This tactic is strengthened by projection. Project your flaws onto another and accuse them of stated flaw in order to remove them from positions of power. The worst part is that the majority of Americans are so accustomed to accepting biases that support the American caste system projection is not recognized and identified, rather it is tacitly accepted. Case in point, American de facto segregation in public schools neighborhoods and in religious establishments.  D.W. Griffith's  film, Birth of a Nation, was the highest grossing silent film.  It is also seemingly, what people mean when they declare I want my country back.







(this is the movie in its entirety )







Further food for thought:
Justice Department - Black Panther | Video | Megyn Kelly | Mediaite

Further;
Fox News, the Black Panthers, and the same old pattern | Media Matters for America

Right-Wing Groups Use Decline of White Birthrates to Stoke Fear of Homosexuality, Feminism and Abortion | Belief | AlterNet

How Republicans inadvertently made the case for confirming Elena Kagan. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine

Republicans Let Their Racism Show in Attack On Thurgood Marshall | Mirror On America

The Root: Playing The Race Card With Elena Kagan : NPR