The American Race

From 'Ni-&-%-er' to 'Dude' In One Election Cycle

Yes, this video is more Obama campaign propaganda, the stuff that's being so expertly deployed on the web. It's even got that meta thing going with the students at this Bronx high school, fired up by the ideals of the obama campaign, talking about becoming glued to political news on Yahoo or YouTube. Which, of course, is the prime medium distributing this video.

But I'm not spreading this virus for the politics, but the the first blush of the deeper promise of the Obama candidacy. I'm talking about what I heard Michelle Obama call "the change within us."  Some months ago a called this thing "The Revival," and you can see a half dozen posts in this vein here, or on the category link below.

(Big my bad: Somehow the three pages under "Why We Are Here"— The Revival, The Mission, The Vision—have disappeared. I'll take that to mean the pages got on the Enemy's radar; they will be restored soon!)

Do check this touching video for a taste of what might result when Obama's call for renewal beyond petty politics of self-interest and division—especially race identity politics—falls open minds and hearts.

Check especially  from 3:51 to 4:42. A  Latina student talks about banning the insidious 'N' word from  use in her presence.  Dude!
 

Beyond the "Hot Ghetto" Mess

Time to lift our eyes beyond the "Hot Ghetto Mess" horizon, and get some bearings.
A post on BlackInformant.com about a new movie whose opening  (apparently deservedly) flew under the radar last weekend, got me thinking: who's the enemy, and what's the objective. It begins:

From the commercials, it looked like Soul Plane 2. I kept saying to myself during Hot Ghetto Mess “Man, it looks like folks picked the wrong thing to protest against. Anyway,here is blacktalentnews.com’s take on the movie “Who’s Your Caddy?”

The link to the blacktalentnews.com piece is well worth following. Beyond the review it has a quick Q&A with Tracey Edmonds, whose Our Stories Films produced the movie that is so "full of crass racial stereotypes including crude, lewd and wantonly irresponsible black characters, fart jokes, midget jokes and never-ending slapstick humor, [that] if this demeaning movie had been made by mainstream Hollywood, it would be courting charges of racism," according to blacktalentnews.com. There was also, reportedly, enough misogyny to merit scrutiny from WhatAboutOurDaughters, who led the Hot Ghetto Mess charge.

A representative review, from Guidelive.com, is here.

"Who's Your Caddy" is the first, strange (but not entirely unpredictable) fruit of Our Stories, a partnership between B.E.T. founder Robert Johnson and the Weinsteins (founders of Miramax). I'll resist all jokes about the unholy alliance between some of the (admittedly) more ruthless players in late 20th century media. Let's just say that with the billions he made building B.E.T. with ideas like Hot Ghetto Mess and then selling it to Viacom, Johnson is proving to be a gift that just keeps on giving to America, in the name of black America.

The good news: almost nobody went to see it. But the bad news is that they could have, in droves, if the timing was right, and it had been marketed better. And, other than wag fingers of "shame on you" there's not a thing we have much right to do about it. Not quite the same as going after advertisers on an objectionable TV show.

Though he may deserve it, Bob Johnson is not the enemy. If he wants to throw his money (and some of the Weinstein's) away like this, fine. And if he get's it right, with another 'wrong' movie next time, God bless him; this is P.T. (never give a sucker a break) Barnum's America. No, the enemy, as the cartoon Pogo said, is us. All of us, from the suburbs to the hood and everything in between.  It's the hardness of our hearts to our own pain when we see it inflicted on our brothers and especially on our sisters, and yet don't feel it ourselves.

So it seems to me that the objective is to duplicate the feat of the Rutgers women's basketball team (remember them?). We have to do more to identify the victims of the "Whose Your Caddie?" entertainment to come. We have to make this kind of literature unfunny, unsexy and unhip. Ultimately, we have to create a market that redefines funny, sexy and hip in a way that's also affirming of black humanity and a positive relationship with each other and society as a whole.

It's not about changing Bob Johnson (or anyone else's) profit motive. It's all about challenging our consumption motives.

Revival Updates: Truth Still On Its Way

Nothing like an idea whose time has come.

Here's an update on the Revival, from the corners of the blogsphere that I try to patrol:

Kudos to self-described  "ex-Black Panther, ex-convict, Blackosphere advocate for the accused (and) Christian community organizer" Eddie Griffin. (He's definitely not the comedic actor seen most recently in the regrettable Norbit.) Last Saturday he put himself in the path of  the cultural violence directed against African-Americans by other African-Americans by joining a civil protest at a show featuring comedian D.L. Hughley.

Griffin feels Hughley should be held accountable for twisting the knife in the wound to the Rutgers women's basketball team. (No, the iMuss has NOT gone the way of  media business as usual yet)

Check the Hughley U-Tubed appearance in question on the Tonight show last month.

So Griffin joined a group of religious and other leaders in a protest at Fort Worth's Bass Hall theater. While protesters outside chanted "D.L Hughley: No Double Standard," Griffin was one of a number who took seats inside the venue to perform some guerrilla theater. He got arrested, but the blow-by-blow in his blog says it was more than worth it.

A big hat tip for this news to the AfroSpear group of online activists. Check their post on this here, especially links at bottom to the coverage the Revival in Cowtown. That's where I found the following quote from protester Rev. Kyev Tatum. In what's become a running verbal gunfight, Hughley,  called the faith-based protesters "clowns."

Said The Rev. Tatum:

We were called clowns, well, I'd rather be a "Clown 4 Christ" than to Degrade 4 Dollars.

Right said, Rev.

Obama and Renewal

 Mr. Keyes announced towards the end of the campaign that, "Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama... because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved."

...I was urged by some of my liberal supporters not to take this statement seriously...But what they didn't understand, however, was that I had to take Mr. Keyes seriously, for he claimed to speak for my religion, and my God.

 —Barack Obama, Call to Renewal Keynote, June 2006

Besides keeping an eye on the battle to take back our culture (I'll deal with who 'our' is another time) I'm also trying to get my hands around the throat of the Obama-rama. Not to choke it, but just to feel that carotid pulse thump what may be the American heartbeat.

There's too much stuff out there to even count: 6,400 del.icio.us tags, 17,000 Google hits, etc. His net roots seem to go deeper by the day, as does his mainstream institutional cred  (see today's WSJ on pulling even with Hilary in the polls.)

But let me narrow this to the subject of the core of Obama's undeniable (and poll verified) appeal. People invest him with all their intangible hopes for genuine change. Call it uplift, reform, progress, reconciliation (racial, but also multinational). He's being cast as the perfect vessel for whatever oil people feel will soothe our strained relationship with each other and with the world.

As one Obama-maniac I recently met put it, "He's JFK meets MLK."

I'm no better than anyone else feeling Barry. I want to see him as part of what I've been calling the Revival. Through this lens, Obama's  address  to a diverse conference of religious groups calling for a Covenant for a New America last summer is must reading.

Help, Don't Hate

Just a quick hit on two developments.
Russell Simmons has called for banning 'b@%ch', the 'n-word' and that well known garden implement from rap in radio play.

Immediate reactions from some quarters in the AP story: Russell can only be a part of the problem.

My take: Even if it's pure CYA  in a press release from Simmons and his Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (consigliere Ben Chavis) the brother should be engaged, taken at his word, and then held accountable to it for results.

And when we're done, let's somehow find some tough (very tough) love for the rapper Cam'ron, recently photographed pointing an automatic weapon  at the camera (life imitating my metaphor at bottom of preceding post  life)  for a Daily News piece. (Hat tip: Bold As Love)

As the V-Tech slayings dominated the headlines, Cam'ron made news by declaring he'd never help the police, even if he knew a serial killer was right next door. Yes, once again, rappers keep it real--real ignorant--for money. Stupid, with a bullet, literally.

Russell, put your mouth where your money is and talk to this young man, please!

Just As I Feared

Thanks to Racialicious for staying "on it" about what's shaking in race/identity/anti-racism. Two recent posts highlight the starting line for the  opportunity in the iMuss to begin addressing the sickness in our culture that keeps us apart as the American people. And, inevitably, the dithering has begun.

One points to a round table at Salon on "Is Rap Racist." It features such estimable thinkers as Nelson George, Bakari Kitwanna, Juan Williams, Margo Jefferson and Michael Eric Dyson. The exquisitely windy Prof. Dyson best represented the worst early tendency of this discussion: worrying more about who most deserves blame than the case for action itself.

Yes, greedy corporate masters call the ultimate shots in the pop culture industries. Yes, the so called "white media" has been hypocritical, duplicitous, complicit and just plain stupid in discharging it's responsibilities to us as consumers and citizens.
And yes, muzzling every guilty gangsta will not pull misogyny and racial self-hatred out at the roots.

But neither will failing to admit the truth without qualification: the music that pours 24-7 from every orifice in some communities of culture is not part of the solution. And (as the neo-60's-revolutionary Prof. Dyson must know) that means it's part of the problem. A big part. Because, even if it's only a symptom of  the accumulated racism/violence/misogyny and rapacious capitalism that makes us who we are, it's a symptom that validates the disease. 24-7. And loud, usually to the exclusion of all competing information. Even Prof. Dyson can't get through to someone with an iPod on max in their ears.

The Revival, Pt. 1

First, my deepest condolences and prayers for the families and loved ones touched by the Virginia Tech slaying. My prayers especially extend to seeing something good come from the outpouring of national attention to something so bad. We will never really know the truth about why it happened. But, once again, we do know how it happened: easy legal access to guns that have no other purpose but killing people.

I'd like to see this tragedy reopen the discussion about effective national gun control. But meanwhile, let's focus on the good that is coming out of the iMuss bad. It's not about Leon, but I was very proud to talk this possibility up last weekend when I was interviewed on NPR's "On The Media." I was pleased right down to the outtro music, a  bit of instrumental from Stevie Wonder's "I Wish".

Lookin' back on when I/was a little nappy-headed boy.
Then my only worry/ was for Christmas what would be my toy...
I wish those days/would/come back once more...

You could call the choice ironic, but I choose to take it as Stevie Wonder, in his genius and love for black and all peoples, intended it: inspirational and prophetic. I wish the iMuss will morph into a spirit leading a movement to turn the heart of our common culture to loving and building each other up, and away from tearing each other down for money. Every movement needs a name: I'm calling it The Revival.

This is not, repeat, not a nostalgia trip.

I don't mean to get Pentecostal on you (I'm not) but here's where I've seen the spirit moving: