Howard Zinn: 1922-2010

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Howard Zinn: 1922-2010, Civil Rights, Anti-War, A People's History of the United States, Author, Acting White

#2 Blacks and Bluetooth

I think whoever invented Bluetooth, the technology that allows cellular gizmos to extend their wireless-ness, knows Black people in a scary way. Maybe it was Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

Starting from years back, when Motorola came out with the first $200+ versions, Black people have bought these things like hot wings. Something about not missing that call from that special lady/man just seemed to capture folks. But then, it got out of hand. I’m in a restaurant, grocery store, bank, movie, and blam! - someone is talking into his ear and interrupting the flow of everything around them. Now I understand if you are Jay-Z or Russ Simmons and you have been waiting for a call on a multi-million dollar deal, but please people, not during Avatar! If you listen in, it often goes like this, ‘whasup?, where you at?’, ‘what you eat’in? Really! Damn! Bring me some.’

Do people think that Bluetooth can make their average lives look more interesting, than if they were talking between two used soup cans, connected with a string? I was at the ATM the other day and a women was going on loudly into her 'tooth' about who she was sleeping with and whose business it was and wasn’t. It certainly was not my business, but she was making sure I knew every last, nasty, skanky detail. When she finished her banking she turned around to glare at me, whereupon I gave her my best Stevie Wonder imitation, as I don’t know how to feign deafness.

Deep-down, I blame talk-shows and reality television. This is where Hollywood placed a commercial value on people’s below-average, raggedy-ass, lives. With this, too many Black people lost all reserve for letting others see their self-jacked-up day-to-day struggles. Before that, people kept their business in the closet, like a special Uncle, and spent their evenings trying to clean it up. Today, everybody is looking for the chance to show their Jerry Springer ‘drawls’ to whoever will pay them two-cents, however shameless.

What really gets me is when folks are somewhere that forbids cell phone usage, like hospitals. Their retort, when approached by the staff is to say, “I’m not talking on my cell phone, this is Bluetooth (expletive optional)!” I just shake my head and do my Stevie – I didn’t see it, and I don’t want to hear it.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: #2 Blacks and Bluetooth, Uhuru, Star Trek, Manners, Cell Phones, Acting White

J.D. Salinger: 1919-2010

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: J.D. Salinger: 1919-2010, The Catcher In The Rye, Classic, Holden Caulfield, Author, Acting White

A Theory of Black Racism

A gay person can be homophobic. A Jew can be Anti-Semitic. But a Black person can’t be racist, either against others and certainly not against Blacks? Why does this belief exist? What is going on here? I have heard this time and again from all levels of educated Blacks, as well as some Whites. Does Black history make Blacks immune to racist behavior/accusation? Or is such behavior fair turn-around for the past?

Black racism is rarely discussed in the open, except to say it does not exist or that it is the dominion of Uncle Tom imitators. I submit that this is central to what holds back Black progress. Some people call it self-hate, but Black racism is the invisible ball and chain around the ankle. Granted, acquiescence to Whites, or anyone, because of their perceived race-based superiority is racism, not to be lessened. But, detrimental attitudes and behavior to one’s own ethnicity, because of race/ethnicity, is racism of equal depth. Whether Blacks discourage advancing behavior due to a belief that they are incapable, or that the group is best served, culturally, by preferring something less/different, the results are the same – loss of freedom and advancement.

Earlier, when Whites prohibited Blacks from advancing activities considered as ‘acting white’ (i.e. education), via Jim Crow laws, blacks had no trouble calling this behavior as racist. But when today’s Black students prohibit their fellow students from pursuing academics, via ‘acting white’ bullying, the racism tag is nowhere in sight. In the S. Carolina case (here), the school staff and district administration were culpable in denying a safe learning environment to the Black students in want of academic excellence. Similar events are brewing in Philly, with Asian students catching hell from Black students (here).

Interestingly, Black racism was not always so elusive, as displayed in Graham's "Our Kind Of People" (pictured). When Black social organizations like The Links and sororities excluded members, in the past and in part, because they were too dark, Blacks were able to ultimately see the intra-group racism at work. But when the former exclusion becomes cultural expulsion, via ostracizing, threats, and assault, it somehow ceases to be racism. Couple this thinking with the overall Black education results, including drop-out rates, and reduce levels of achievement, and we have a cause-effect scenario describing a permanent underclass.

Just as there are homophobic gays and anti-Semitic Jews, there are racist Blacks. They are not Uncle Tom’s, but rather a significant, un-policed group who give racist providence to certain behaviors of non-blacks, to the point of ostracizing their own who have the audacity to pursue those behaviors. This insidious racism is hiding. It is protected by school administrators, like those in S. Carolina, and by those who blindly attack even the thought that Blacks should question themselves.

It is tragically ironic that those same Black girls, in places like S.Carolina, who press their hair to look more attractive, would reject and assault their black schoolmate, as acting White, because of the books in her hands and a desire to learn.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: A Theory of Black Racism, Uncle Tom, Title VI, Kobrovksy, Hate, Acting White

#1 Blacks and Cocked Hats

Today, most people associate sideways hat wearing with rappers, counter-culture, and Black males in general, but where does it come from – and please don’t say Will Smith, Mr. Fresh Prince? It’s an important question because the style is also utilized by some authorities to profile certain ‘persons of interest’ – White-speak for Blacks and Latinos dressed like they’re getting ready to start something.

To be fair, I too have noticed that Black males, women too, like to wear their hats crooked, so I believe the fashion stereotype is true, but so what. My dad, who would be in his eighties, use to wear his hat cocked like another man, whom he was not fond of, Ronald Reagan. My dad and ‘the Gipper’, as well as others of that day, including Gene Kelly and Jackie Robinson, would tilt their hats to the side, but pops never allowed me to copy him. He said I couldn’t cock my hat until I was grown. There’s the clue.

If we back it up, hundreds of years ago in an all-White galaxy, far-far away, a cocked hat had two or three corners (bicorn/tricorn), resulting from the brims being folded upward toward the crown. When properly cocked, or placed, one corner had to align over the nose of the wearer, or in the case of the bicorn, the two corners could be exactly opposite the nose (Napoleon-style). Half-cocked, or cockeyed (lopsided) was the term for when the angle of placement moved the corner (the bill) out of alignment with the nose. Over time half-cocked became just plain ‘cocked’. Yep, you heard right, White men started this fashion move that is now getting brothers hassled – the irony sucks.

The key to this hat ‘cocked-ness’ was summed up by late crooner Frank Sinatra, who said, ‘angle is attitude’. Frank had it, Ronnie had it, Snoop Dogg has it, and Goober Pyle (pictured on the left) definitely is missing it. You see too much cocking of the hat says, ‘I’m a doofus’. Are you listening Flava?

So the next time you see a Black guy, with his Negro League baseball cap going all which-a-ways, getting detained by the cops for no valid reason, just for kicks yell at him to stop ‘acting so White’ – which will confuse the hell out of him and police too, hopefully giving them all pause to consider themselves.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: #1 Blacks and Cocked Hats, Snoop, Frank Sinatra, Goober, Flava, Acting White

Black-on-Black Racism: Part II

Recently, I wrote about the two black kids in S. Carolina that sued their school for racial harassment (here), at the hands of fellow black kids. The school district settled out-of-court for $150,000. In that post, I placed emphasis for the award on the retaliation taken by the school administrators against the family. The school initiated an investigation by DSS (Department of Social Services), as to the fitness of the mother/caretaker of the two girls, and one boy. Said investigation included false claims of beatings and pimping of the girls.

As it turns outs, the uncle who testified (as reported) on behalf of the girls is the ‘boy’ mentioned above. He was a 15 year old student in the same district as the younger girls and was also subjected to verbal and physical abuse by the black kids. The attorney for the family, Lawrence C. Kobrovksy, read my post and sent me the full transcript of the boy’s testimony. Suffice to say, it was heart-wrenching and amazing testimony. The treatment of the family, both by students and administrators, can only be characterized as brutal.

The name-calling and assaults were, without doubt, racism, but the kind that is allowed to remain protected within the black community. The offending black students saw the three black kids as white, and treated them with all the hate one could muster for someone of another color. The label of ‘acting White’, preceded constant threats, assaults, and finally, the attempt to break-up the family by the district. After my reading, the $150,000 settlement seemed a pittance of punishment to the school district.

The boy’s testimony presented a transference of hate for whites and their behaviors, in this S. Carolina community, onto any blacks who are perceived to ‘act White’, by (in his words) pursuing academics, rather than using/selling drugs, getting into trouble with the law, and other 'acceptable' behaviors. He described that there were no whites in the public schools, as they would suffer a similar, but worst, abuse. The boy’s description of his stand against these people and their abuse is compelling.

Inasmuch as the ‘Black Belt’, that concentration of Blacks across southern states, remains intact, the experience of these kids in S. Carolina is probable. Addressing Black racism, be it against whites, or against blacks, needs to come out of the closet. It should be no more acceptable than white-on-black abuse, or vice-versa. This is the only way Blacks can gain a foothold in getting at those of the group left behind in the shadow of advancement.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Black-on-Black Racism: Part II, S. Carolina, Title VI, Kobrovksy, Hate, Acting White

Haiti: Orphan of West

Rushing to the aid of earthquake devastated Haiti is a no-brainer. The out-pouring of grief and support for the poorest of the poor in the western world is as it should be. It is only right, despite what the ilk of Pat Robertson or Rush Limbaugh might say. But what happens after we have delivered water, food, and medical help during this emergency? How do we really help them long-term? Is it possible? The knee-jerk answer is yes, but what do we rebuild, and for what reason, really? This is a much more difficult question.

Haiti represents the worse of all that went wrong with the Atlantic Slave Trade. Displacing these people from their African birthplace a continent away, enslaving them under a sketchy government – the French – only to abandon them to their own limitations on a tiny island. And finally, saddling them with a cost of their freedom which guaranteed a bad start and no-win future. This is Haiti.

At the base of the country’s economic tale of woe is a population size that slams its diminishing agricultural base. The population density of the country is 10X that of the US. Ten million is too many people, half of them illiterate! Haiti is a prime example of ‘ecoside’, or suicide by a plunder of one’s living environment. The country has been deforested, over the past 200 years, to the point where living off the land is impossible, and they have no other means of trade. With no exports to trade for petroleum as fuel, they have consumed their forest for heating and cooking, and left themselves no escape route.

So, the world can respond to the current devastation, but only via an indefinite emergency-type aid scenario, where we provide the basics year after year. They are wards of the industrial world, orphans. There is no infrastructure to rebuild, no economy to repair, no confidence to bolster. If the reparations-extracting French had any moral backbone, or true patriotism, they should be ashamed for this mess of a country created in the wake of their colonial exploits. But hey, they are the French.

Anyway, what to do? Our thinking needs to get crazy. Haiti needs to be recognized for what it is, a malnourished ecological/economic/political orphan of colonial Europe and the west. The G7/8 need to collectively take it over, install a provisional government, tear it down and build it back, as if they were freed just yesterday. The French and US - those who blockaded the fledge-ling nation for nearly 60 years, owe them and need to pay up first, and pay big, including paying French-speaking Africa to accept, voluntarily, as many of the ‘too-many’ inhabitants as possible. The population density must be reduced immediately. This may all seem heavy and nut-zo, but drastic is called for, otherwise we should get ready to continue witnessing, from our top-side front-row seat, their annual devastation, punctuated by disaster, accompanied by expensive, high-tech, band-aid rescues.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Haiti: Orphan of West, France, Slavery, Population, Disaster, Acting White

Teddy Pendergrass: 1950-2010

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Teddy Pendergrass: 1950-2010, R&B, Harold Melvin, Paralyzed, Ballad, Acting White

Berkeley HS Knuckleheads

When I first heard about this I did not pay it much attention, as the person ranting about it sounded like a ‘sky is falling’ alarmist, but I was wrong. Indeed, dropping science classes, deemed ‘too hard’ by some at Berkeley HS, is the plan. This effort, which would also eliminate science teachers, is part of a remedy to academic disparities between Whites and Blacks/Latinos (here), and is just as stupid as trying making ‘ebonics’ a recognized language in the Oakland School System, back in 1996.

So, let’s get this straight, Berkeley wants to close the gap by holding back the high achieving students, who happen to be disproportionately White/Asian. Of course the Black AP students will also get held back, so in the end all high achievement takes a hit so that the trailing ‘train-load’ of kids can ‘look’ smarter. And this is not a competition for education resources, as the science labs in question are funded separately from special bond monies vote in for music, art, and science.

The R-word is appropriate here (as with Bill), because what we have are racist liberals who do not think Blacks/Latinos can/should be expected to stretch themselves, in the same manner as Whites/Asians. Let’s lower the bar for excellence and punish the brightest, most diligent students, and send a strong signal to rest of the kids that school is all about mediocrity and the PC ‘show’.

So, after they have kicked the White/Asian kids and the voters in the teeth, they will punch the hardest working, highest achieving, Blacks and Latinos squarely in the eye, and say there is no support for them and they need to stop ‘acting White’, ‘acting Asian’, or whatever other knucklehead-descriptor there is for trying to do your best.

Finally the less-achieving kids, the needy throngs, will get tutors to help them turn off their video games, pull-up their pants, show-up to class, pay attention to the teachers, turn-in assignments, and otherwise act like they are in school to get an education. Go Berkeley!

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Berkeley HS Knuckleheads, Science Lab, Layoff, Advanced Placement, Disparity, Acting White

Stupidity + Race ≠ Racism

In the interest of helping us bridge the divide of race, we need to clear something up. We are burying ourselves in racism accusations. Just because someone says or does something stupid, related to race, a racist does not this make. This is important because there is much more stupidity in the world, than racism.

In ethnically diverse surroundings such as ours, the probability of a person of one race saying or doing something stupid concerning race, which in turn is seen, heard, or felt, by someone of that or another race is pretty good - nearly a sure thing. Many comments about race can be either true or false, and stupid, but not racist. People – we really need to resemble this difference.

Being Black, and growing up around Black people has allowed me to hear stupid comments about race from Blacks, but without concluding the people or the comments are racist – perhaps just stupid. I assume many non-Blacks have experienced the same. As well, I have experienced Whites discussing race and spouting tremendous silliness, but with no honest call to use the R-word against them.

So whether we are talking about KFC soccer ads in Australia, or Nevada Senator Harry Reid talking about a ‘light-skinned Obama who speaks ‘Negro’ when he chooses’, or millions of others we interact with each day, we need to become more discerning about what is racism and what is just good old honest stupidity. Oh yeah, sometimes comments about race (that some might not like) aren’t even stupid, but hey, baby steps.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Stupidity + Race ≠ Racism, Harry Reid, Obama, Racism, Apologies, Acting White

Acting White: TWA (Tiger With Attitude)

The February edition of Vanity Fair features Woods on the cover (pictured) looking, perhaps, more like an angry Black man straight out of Compton, rather than a We-Are-The-World Caliblasian. Anyway, given the troubling marital and professional spot he has placed himself, the timing of the cover is bound to create controversy – and this is exactly what VF is counting on.

They know that some vocal, hyper-sensitive, misguided souls will claim racist intentions, just like with that murdering OJ Simpson on the cover of Time (here). But, does the media really owe Tiger any accommodation? I think not – there’s been too much of this already. Besides, people who will jump to the all-Black-men-are-bad conclusion will do so regardless of whether Tiger or OJ claim, or are depicted as, Black and/or angry. Fear of the PC police should not dictate that any celebrity gets a fish-bowl pass.

The upcoming controversy reminds me of how after actress/singer Vanessa Williams won Miss America in 1984, pornographic photos of her showed up (here), forcing her out. Some called it racism, but it was clear that the pictures became immensely more valuable because she won the title, at all, not because she was the first Black woman to do so. Serial philanderers are not nice people, so why should we not expect people, even photogs of Annie Leibovitz’s caliber, to dig out their just-waiting-for-him-to-show-his-behind pictures.

Digressing one more level - in high school, certain white classmates were known for ‘aiming’ racist newbies at me, by falsely telling the marks that I, the near singular 'docile' Black, had disparaged white people. My denials would generally go unheard, forcing me to fight my way out of these ‘race-honor duals’. I never thought my white friends were racists for these set ups, rather they just got their juvenile ‘jollies’ from inciting a ‘can of whup-ass’ on their willing and gullible white peers.

Vanity Fair is not racist, just opportunistic and sleazy. And yes, I stopped playing that ‘whup-ass’ game a long time ago, and got some better friends.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Acting White: TWA (Tiger With Attitude), Vanity Fair, Tiger Woods, Racism, Philandering, Acting White

Acting White: Black-On-Black Racism

I wanted to do a little extra digging into this case before commenting. The headlines seem a bit far fetched. Two Black kids, in S. Carolina, get $150,000 for being accused of ‘acting white’ by other Black kids? I certainly believe it happens, and there can be damage, but what role does the school play in policing this behavior, and how did they get to monetary compensation.

Well, as I suspected, there is more to the story than the headlines. At the heart, this is a case where Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, barring racial discrimination in programs that receive federal funding, was applied against the behavior of Black students and administrators, in an all-black Williamsburg County elementary school/district, who abused or allowed the abuse of the plaintiffs for ‘acting white’, or displaying academically advancing behavior. Story here.

The uncle of one of the plaintiffs seems to have delivered credible testimony as to life in rural S. Carolina and how the races live separately under different rules. "You see, it's a crime to act white, or it's a crime to be white," the uncle testified. Harassment, he testified, made him feel that "we are just dumb, we're just not people, we're undergraded [sic], we're degraded, and we're not even supposed to be in this world."

The complaining students were subject to verbal and physical abuse to a point where they had to be home-schooled. But the twist in the saga was an additional complaint of retaliation against the family by school administrators, whereby the County Department of Social Services (DSS) was asked to investigate the home of the plaintiffs.

So in the end, the $150,000 settlement was a way for the school system to cut their losses after first not protecting these kids from an intra-racially hostile learning environment, and then making matters worse by calling in DSS to look for bad parenting in their home. Quite a commentary on what can happen inside a Black community when families are aggressive at getting an education.

I’m only sorry that the settlement released the offending Black students and administrators from the official charge and finding of racism, as they certainly looked and acted guilty from this distance.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Acting White: Black-On-Black Racism, South Carolina, Title VI, Racism, Intra, Acting White