Vision Circle

Somebody else beat you to it

Prometheus utters the battle cry: Fuck George Will!

Too late. Check out Will's marital record.

Idiocy rings in the new year

I am sure that according to the Chinese New Year we aren't living in the Year of the Idiot. But if you read the news you wouldn't believe it.

So the black welfare queen meme starts with Reagan. Reagan's Republican Party is trying to figure out a way to neuter strong support for welfare policies in general. Charles Murray (who later argues that blacks are genetically inferior to whites in The Bell Curve) makes an argument in Losing Ground that poverty policies actually increase poverty rather than hurt it. The urban poor have more kids to actually increase their welfare checks. When this idea is attached specifically to images of black women, the deal is pretty much done. By the mid nineties, you could give two groups of white Americans the exact same story about welfare, manipulate the race of the victim, and the groups would exhibit support for two very different policy preferences.

Now back to Murray real quick. The central argument is that women are making a rational decision to have more kids in order to make more money. The logic here is straightforward....unless you are a parent. Or someone who studies birthing trends. Or someone who studies migration trends. Or someone who believes that the poor are not much different than the rest of us. Or someone who believes that black people aren't deviant.

You believe any one of those propositions...and the argument crumbles on its face.

Now what the hell does the decision to cut the NSF budget have to do with welfare?

Three words--reality based community.

The conservatives do not believe that knowledge can be gained by scientific endeavor.

No. This is not quite right.

By their DEEDS, the Republican conservatives running the government don't believe that knowledge can be gained by scientific endeavor. In as much as they were able to change the way that folks think about welfare without science the first, what is happening with NSF is part of a larger plan to make the US a third world state.

George Will: Unchanged by Welfare Reform

George Will wrote a piece about welfare reform.

A small piece of it...

After the liberalization of welfare in the mid-1960s, the percentage of black children born to unmarried mothers reached 50 by 1976 (it is almost 70 today), and within a generation the welfare rolls quadrupled. But DeParle says people mistakenly thought people like Jobe were organizing their lives around having babies to get a check. Actually, he says, their lives were too disorganized for that.

P6 responds in a manner that's appropriate, I think. So, here's a quote from him:

You cannot read this paragraph without coming away feeling Mr. Will is implying the entire quadrupling of welfare rolls was due to the increase in Black children born out of wedlock. If asked was this his intent I'm sure he would say no. And yet you cannot read this paragraph without coming away feeling Mr. Will is implying the entire quadrupling of welfare rolls was due to the increase in Black children born out of wedlock.

Selected Quotes: Jesse Lee Peterson

These quotes come from listening to his show:

"Most Black people are not honest and don't like to work."

"Most Black preachers aren't called by God, they are called by their mommas."

"Most Black preachers teach hatred of Israel."

"Most Black people, not all, but most, like lies over truth."

"A lot of Christians aren't really Christians, especially Black ones."

"When it comes to sex, you can't trust a Black preacher."

"Blacks who complain should be put back onto the plantation so that they would know how to work."

"Most Black men are not worth anything."

"Black preachers are racists".

Future Warriors

Earlier this year the question came up about fast-tracking the citizenship papers of immigrants on green cards or student visas who decide to join the armed forces. I stood behind the effort and still do. What I didn't realize at the time that this particular deal has been seen before. Apparently Werner Von Braun wasn't the only immigrant to come over here in support of our war effort.

I imagine that there are a significant number of German Jews and others who managed to get over here in time to turn against their own former taskmasters with the appropriate vengeance, and American combat gear. I wonder if there are any bloggers who might admit that their parents were such individuals. I haven't looke for, or presumed anything about a Jewish angle on support for the war in Iraq, but I think somebody has an honest opinion about such matters out there.

Consdering how many people flee oppression to find a new home in the US, I suspect that this route to citizenship will be an important avenue for generations to come.

All Quiet on the Fallujah Front

Given the jarring blackout of progress reportage on Fallujah, this supersize me screed at Cobb begged some questions. Didn't take much backchannel searching to come up with fair and balanced coverage in the south asian press

Against the most heavily armed opponent in the history of War, Fallujah has still not let itself be "taken" to date. The mightiest military machine in history has met its match. A turning point in military affairs? The end of warfare, as practiced by the Americans - the application of overwhelming force to obtain a victory?

No wonder it's gotten so quiet on the Fallujah front.....,

Acting Like A Public School System

This move by the Archdiocese Of Baltimore would tick me off. This may be an example that voucher opponents may use in the future.

There is no freedom of movement here.

Transfer edict angers parents Catholic education chief bans midyear enrollment; Three schools merging into one; Decision made to prevent 'mass exodus' by pupils

By Lynn Anderson
Sun Staff

December 27, 2004

Plans by the Archdiocese Of Baltimore to combine three Catholic schools next fall to cut costs and boost enrollment are angering some parents of children who attend.

They are particularly upset about an edict by the Catholic school system's superintendent prohibiting other schools in the archdiocese from accepting midyear transfers from the affected schools - St. Anthony of Padua, St. Dominic and Shrine of the Little Flower schools - for fear of a mass exodus.

Parents who don't want their children to attend the new combined school are calling Superintendent Ronald J. Valenti's decree - issued in a letter to principals shortly after the Nov. 17 merger announcement - unfair. They worry that if they wait too long to change where they enroll their children, all the open seats will be taken.

"He wants everyone to give the new school a chance, and so he is strong-arming everyone and not allowing them to transfer in the middle of the school year," said Lilly Santmyer, the mother of a third-grader at St. Dominic School in Hamilton. "It is unheard-of. I don't get it."

Parents say they are concerned that the new school - housed at St. Anthony's in Gardenville and named after Mother Mary Lange, a Haitian who became a nun after opening the first Catholic school for black children in Baltimore in 1828 - will offer a different curriculum and larger class sizes. They say detailed information, including preschool schedules, has been slow to come out.

Merry Christmas

And a Happy New Year.

Bling Bling

I had heard about a new way to make synthetic diamonds that were literally indistinguishable from the "real thing" (which is soaked in DeBeers blood). Today in Salon the cover story deals with the move to get synthetic diamonds on the market.

Given the assumptions about black consumption patterns--which actually aren't born out by the data but I digress--I think that black Americans could probably do a pretty good job of putting the DeBeers on their back for good. The first person who can meld black nationalist rhetoric/realities to the sale of synthetic diamonds is going to have a diamond mine at their feet.

Meaningful Practice -----> Meaningful Change

SOCIAL ANATOMY OF RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISPARITIES IN VIOLENCE

"The public health of the United States has long been compromised by inequality in the burden of personal violence. African Americans are six times more likely to be murdered than whites, a crime that is overwhelmingly intra-racial in nature. Homicide also is the leading cause of death among young African Americans, and both police records and self-reported surveys show disproportionate involvement in serious violence among blacks. Surprisingly, however, Latinos experience lower rates of violence overall than blacks despite being generally poorer, and Latino rates have been converging with those of whites in recent years."

"Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that African Americans are segregated by neighborhoods and thus differentially exposed to key risk and protective factors, an essential ingredient to understanding the black-white disparity in violence. The race-related neighborhood features predicting violence are percent professional/managerial workers, moral/legal cynicism, and the concentration of immigration. We found no systematic evidence that neighborhood- or individual-level predictors of violence interacted with race/ethnicity. The relationships we observed thus appeared to be generally robust across racial/ethnic groups. We also found no significant racial or ethnic disparities in trajectories of change in violence."

Humans have evolved two fundamental syndromes of survival, guardian and commerce. Guardian and commerce are fundamentally different. The guardian is slow, it’s serious; it cares about group welfare. It reserves the right to kill. It will go to war if you threaten it. It reserves the right to be duplicitous, and it shuns commerce.

Commerce, on the other hand, is quick, effective, highly creative, and it’s honest - because you can’t do business with somebody for very long unless you’re honest. When you get the two together, you get a hybrid. From our perspective, if you get commerce into the guardian, you corrupt it. If you get the guardian into commerce, you slow it down. As a social collective, Blacks in America have completely surrendered the guardian syndrome and have consequently been productized by and in the pursuit of commerce. Because commerce knows no boundaries and eschews the guardian - the one-sided process driven by commerce has spiralled out of control causing ever increasing damage to the black social collective.

Unless black managerial and professional workers move back into the hood in droves, and, reinstall a stabilizing guardian syndrome within our social collective that provides moral, legal, educational and commercial impetus for the whole - the hood is for all intents and purposes, a collective lost cause incapable of bootstrapping itself out of its present plight.

Does Cosby Help?

Booker Rising gets a big hat tip from me.

From MSNBC:

At some point Cosby's crusade either reaches the level of the street, of people like Kenny and Tate, or it will come to be seen as little more than sound and fury signifying nothing more than the power of an outspoken celebrity to get people talking.

It's wonderful Cosby has involved himself in a war that has consumed so many young lives. But this war's most meaningful battles will not be fought from floodlit stages. They will be fought in inner-city streets, and in schools and clubs, where souls are saved one at a time, and where the applause of a star-struck crowd is rarely to be found.

=============

More at that link...

See, this is what I've been saying. Talking all the negative doesn't mean jack unless you show off the positive. He doesn't mean a damn thing unless you show what's being done.

I'm about to get real foul.

From my view, "Black conservatives" do nothing but say, essentially, "Look at the niggers, they ain't doing shit right!"

Why don't they show the groups doing positive things?

And the "Black liberals" do nothing but say, essentially, "Niggers can't get ahead because of the system!"

Why don't they show more of the people who are getting ahead? Why aren't they spotlighting more of the groups that help?

Two peas in the same pod, at the opposite ends of the same pod, talking smack and not doing much of a damn thing.

Why didn't I receive so much as a form letter from the NAACP when I sent this note?

Why didn't I receive so much as a form letter from Project 21 when I sent this note?

Polls -- Revisiting 9/11

After 9/11, there was a poll done that "showed" that Blacks favored profiling of "Arabs".

PROFILING OF ARABS
Polls say blacks tend to favor checks
By Ann Scales, Globe Staff, 9/30/2001

WASHINGTON - African-Americans, whose treatment by the criminal
justice system gave rise to the phrase ''racial profiling,'' are more
likely than other racial groups to favor profiling and stringent
airport security checks for Arabs and Arab-Americans in the wake of
this month's terrorist attacks, two separate polls indicate.
The findings by the Gallup Organization and Zogby International were
met with varying degrees of disappointment and disbelief by black
activists and intellectuals, who struggled with explanations.
Roger Wilkins, a historian at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and the author of a new book on black patriotism, said he was
surprised and disappointed. ''I do not think that you beat people who
are trying to tear America down by turning your back on one of
America's core principles - the presumption of innocence,'' Wilkins
said.

Arab-American leaders said the poll results may reflect the nation's
need to find a scapegoat, and said they didn't blame blacks for
harboring attitudes that are part of the fabric of this nation.
''I don't think it's in any way hostility'' by blacks, said John
Zogby, an Arab-American who conducted the Zogby poll. ''I think what
they are saying is, `We get profiled all the time and we survived.
Maybe they ought to, too.'''

Around Thanksgiving, I saw the Larry Elder Show where he referenced these numbers. Then, I shook my head and said to myself that I bet he knows the numbers don't add up.

How did I know the numbers didn't add up?

After reading that article in September, I decided to contact Zogby and Gallup to determine the internals of the poll: when it was taken, how many people were sampled, where the samples were taken, what were the questions, etc.

Zogby never returned my request for information, but I did get a response from the Gallup Organization.

Here are the numbers:

Because I this while Googling the USENET archives.

Boohabian Slamdance Revisited

It has been a while since I have focused on anti-racist politics or ethics in particular, but I recently stumbled across a section of my website that was dedicated to repurposing and reviving some of that spirit: The Boohabian Slamdance.

It turned out that I ran out of steam fairly quickly as I started out on those tangents, but I think that the site works fairly well as a resource. I'd like to remind VC readers of it.

Q: Who's Afraid of the Big Black Man

A: The same folk afraid of uplifting interpersonal communion.

I've been struggling for the past several days with the problem of collapsing a huge number of (to me) interwoven threads on identity and authenticity. This morning, I chanced upon a critique of Stanley Crouch's "The Artificial White Man - Essay's on Authenticity" and the orchestrated objective reduction of these disparate threads finally jelled.

In my opinion, what Crouch and other deeply frustrated old school black public personae have been struggling to say about the tectonic shift in Black identity and nationalism in America - has been paralleled for centuries in the schism separating the authentic Church from the western catholic, protestant, and evangelical sickness.

Looking at the critique of kwanzaa and the threat of an apologetic for the so-called Christian Christmas as it is desecrated in America, only increased my sense of urgency for driving out the common theme which ties these disparate quests for authenticity together.

I believe the itch that the frustrated old-schoolers cannot scratch is rooted in nostalgia for a lost sense of interpersonal communion which formerly characterized segregated black communities. THAT is the secret *vitality* which formerly endowed black communities with a specialness which produced a distinctively black sensibility and aesthetic. It was also, I believe, a byproduct of the heroic collective interpersonal defence black folks maintained in the face of enforced and overt racist oppression. I'd go so far as to say that socio-economic necessity fused blacks in America into a therapeutic bond of interpersonal communion that has its closest socio-historic parallel in the orthodox Christian Church as an intentional therapeutic bond of interpersonal communion.

To get past the surface of identity and authenticity issues, it's fundamental to understand that racism is far more than simple ideological difference. In practice, it is a neurobiological weapon of mass destruction used by one human collective to sicken and parasitize another. Organization to defend oneself against racism is a biological imperative.

It is not my intention to argue the merits of one brand of Christian writing and preaching over another. Those arguments need not be recreated here, as they've been conclusively engaged on numerous scholarly fora. Not only that, but I believe that any such doctrinal argument here would be the equivalent of enacting the type of politicomedic theatre that Jon Stewart so aptly lampooned on Crossfire, IOW - the rhetorical posturings of public personae would quickly overshadow the possibility of serious and substantive exegetical engagement.

Any genuinely interested student of Christianity can easily explore the [hidden in plain sight] history and substance of Orthodox Christianity to their heart's content beginning at orthodoxinfo.com and make their very own determination of the respective doctrinal merits for themselves. No point misdirecting, anathematizing, or punditizing around doctrines that can be readily compared without the distraction of personal advocacy.

The other overarching influence for this collapse - is Earl Dunovant's piquant serialized essay on The Care and Feeding of White Folks. While I don't know whether Earl is familiar with the fiery writings of Fr. John Romanides who calls western Christianity a neurobiological sickness;

"The sickness of religion is caused by a short-circuit between the heart and the brain. This is what causes fantasies which distort the imagination and in varying degrees cuts one off from reality. The cure of this short-circuit has three stages which will occupy us in some detail later. They are: 1) the purification of the heart, 2) the illumination of the heart, which repairs this short-circuit which produces fantasies, of which both religion and criminality are by products, and 3) glorification, which makes one uncreated by grace and by which one sees the uncreated ruling power of God which is a simple energy which divides itself without division and saturates all of creation being everywhere present, though not by nature, and ruling all of creation. The Bible calls this the "glory" and "rule" of God and those who reach glorification "prophets" and "sent ones (apostles)."

Romanides and Dunovant share many themes in common.

My strong assertion is that the niggerati and negrotarian objective during the Harlem Renaissance was to ignite a separate, secular, and aesthetic mode of interpersonal communion using cultural production as the framework for glueing it all together. I would not be the first to make such a claim, Jon Woodson made a similar claim in his book To Make a New Race Gurdjieff, Toomer, and the Harlem Renaissance - and while his claims are on the right track, had he gone to the Orthodox root of Gurdjieff's teaching, he might have seen the deeper taproots undergirding the complete enterprise.

As time permits, I'll attempt to explore that in much greater detail over at niggerati.net.

Postnatal health disparities

Even when controlled for education and wealth, black babies are more likely to die than white babies. Oakland County is one of the wealthiest counties in Michigan, with a wealthy black population. Black babies there die more often than they do in Detroit.

Story here.

Social Security

Is it just me, or is all of the talk about Social Security reform missing commentary about survior and disability benefits?

Kwanzaa Madness

LaShawn Barber is commenting on Kwanzaa. She isn't the only one and this is not a direct response to her, except in one instance.

Every year around this time, there are a flurry of comments about Kwanzaa, what it is, it's origins, etc. And each year, there are the same comments made about it.

So, let me "respond" to a few of the more common comments.

"It's a made up holiday."

Correct. It is a made up holiday. So what? Name one holiday that isn't made up.

"Karenga is a felon."

Correct. If you can show he is still doing illegal activities, then you will have a point. Otherwise, it doesn't matter. If you think it matters, here are some names for you: Don King, G. Gordon Liddy, and Oliver North.

Don King killed a man, but he was good enough to be used as a Bush backer, wasn't he? Liddy was a central figure in Watergate. He helped plan the break in. Oliver North was convicted for his part with the Iran-Contra scandal. Does it matter for them?

"Kwanzaa is not an African celebration".

True. But Karenga never said it was a genuine African celebration. He said he made it up. So, duh.

However, this last one, concerning Christians celebrating Kwanzaa, is one that has the greatest merit. This one comes from LaShawn.

[Kwanzaa] attempts to spiritualize [Black] history, replacing Christ-centered theology with pagan principles. For Christians, the only principles by which to live are found in God’s word, the Bible.

That is truth. That is firm ground.

To "respond" to this, all I can say is there needs to be more consistancy in speaking out against other celebrations. For example, Mardi Gras is straight debauchery. It's a celebration before the period of Lent. The over indulgence of alcohol, food, and foolishness should be called what it's is.

Then there is the current celebration of Christmas with the idols of Santa (and the forgotton Moor Pete), Rudolph, "The Grinch", etc. I'm not a wordsmith by a long shot, but I used the world "idol" for a reason. Then, to add on this, is the commercialism of gift giving. The commercialism so important that it is said that many businesses do not make a profit for the year if they don't make money during the time between Thanksgiving and the end of the year.

So, how about some consistency in the criticism?

Booker Rising gives another view.

Tom Joyner and Morris Brown

Morris Brown College ponders a sale to Tom Joyner’s Co.

Date: Thursday, December 16, 2004
By: C. JEMAL HORTON, BlackAmericaWeb.com

After initially rebuffing Tom Joyner’s efforts to purchase Morris Brown College, school officials said they are now having “conversations” with the syndicated radio personality about a deal for the troubled historically black college.

On Tuesday, Joyner’s sons, Oscar and Tom Jr., were among a contingent that met with Morris Brown leaders, including trustee chairman James Young.

“We’re just talking; we’re not going together yet,” Oscar Joyner., President & Chief Operating Officer of REACH Media Inc., told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

The younger Joyners did not provide further details, adding only that Morris Brown officials had gotten several e-mails and phone calls expressing frustration at why the school wasn’t seriously considering his father’s offer.

How To Date A Black Man

How To Date A Black Man

I called her the next day and left a message. She called me back two days later, which wasn’t a problem when she explained that she was out of town.

Our second conversation started off well. She wanted to get to know me and began asking what I like. I asked the same of her and was feeling pretty good until she went there.

She began to express some negative sentiments about Black men.

I didn’t see it coming, but sadly, I was prepared. I stay ready because like all too many Black men, I frequently hear negativity about Black men from Black women.

The question is asked: “If you hear these things frequently, doesn’t that mean they ring of truth?” Well, the answer is the same as when white racists speak of Black men and women in the negative: “Just because something is popular does not mean that it is either true or good.”

McDonald’s is popular, but anyone who cares about their health realizes that it’s popularity doesn’t mean that it is good for the body.

Negativity is no different.

Coppin State University (HBCU) Adopts Elementary School

This is good news for Coppin State University, an HBCU in Baltimore.

From the Baltimore Afro.

Six years ago, the 'big, bad' State was coming to get this West Baltimore school. Failing test scores and low attendance created a seemingly insurmountable challenge for Rosemont's administration, students and the surrounding community. Since 1998, however, Coppin State University has taken Rosemont under its guidance and forged a flourishing partnership with a school that was once on the State's infamous 'take-over' list.

Coppin, the first and only university in Maryland to manage a public school, has "set the standard for community outreach for any institution of higher learning" said Ashe. During this relationship, Coppin State has launched several support initiatives that include: free college courses geared to meet the needs of Rosemont teachers, administrators, and staff persons; mentorship programs with Coppin State students like the 'Reading Explosion'; and science-oriented partnerships with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NASA Goddard Space Flight.

Rosemont, now in the top 10 percent of Baltimore City schools, has experienced dramatic improvements in its reading and mathematic scores -- topping the city and state average for each grade level. The percentage of advanced third grade readers has surpassed that of the entire State average by 12.5 percent.

According to the Maryland State Board of Education's Maryland School Assessments, Rosemont is well above the proficiency standard levels of Baltimore City in math for grades three and five.

This Is A Big Bridge

Now, this is some bridge.

My first thought was that I would like to cross this. My second thought was that the fog on that bridge must be constant.

My wife's first thought was that it's another terrorist target.

This is some bridge.

Ho Ho Ho....

You want know why it is that Bush's economic advisers can consistently wax optimistic about the economy? For them it is going swimmingly. It isn't so much that we live in the real world and they don't...they live in a different world entirely. One in which their theories about the world are actually borne out by their direct personal experience. (Thanks to Paul Younghouse for the link.)

An Open Letter to Joe Watkins

This letter that appeared on Black Electorate.COM, to me hits it almost squarely on the head.

This is just a SMALL section of the open letter that really resonated with me.

The immediate challenge for the Black conservative is to find a way to make their ideology and partisan relationship serve the Black community at least as much as it serves the White Conservative establishment and the bank account of a relatively small group of opinion leaders who have commercialized their expression of conservative thought in a growing communications niche and business model. The Black conservative, if sincere, in my view, must do so in a way that does not misrepresent the Black community to those outside of it.

The Black conservative opinion leader has to balance the power and influence they have, largely derived from a platform provided them by Whites, with finding a way to engage the Black community in a meaningful dialogue that results in positive change on the ground. Many Black conservatives fall into the trap of painting an unrealistic picture of the community overstating the influence that political liberalism has on Blacks and exaggerating the potential that political conservatism has to "save" the Black community. It appears, too often to me, that Black opinion leaders on the right revel too much in the one-variable approach of explaining to overwhelmingly White audiences what is wrong with the Black community rather than building bridges or expanding their influence within Black America. This does not mean that the truth should not be told. It should. But I think, in a way that establishes it, not just in the minds of White listeners and readers, but within the community around which the discussion revolves - Black America. I have often found it peculiar that many Black conservative writers and talk show hosts seem to believe that they are changing Black America by almost exclusively communicating in media outlets majority controlled and read by White Americans.

And this one...

To me it is simple, a Black conservative should care more passionately about what is going on in the Black community than what is happening at the Heritage Foundation, Republican Party, CATO Institute, or Conservative talk-radio. And they should be mindful that they do not further the Black inferiority-White supremacy complex in how they personally relate to their non-Black peers, when the subject is money and intellectual ideas.

This isn't a 100% agreement on my part, but I get where Cedric Muhammad is coming from.

Big hat tip to Angela Winters.

Social Security

All changes to social security means that current and "near retirees" are probably in good shape. Other people are screwed.

Taxes will go up, most likely by ending the income level cap. Benefits will be "revised", probably by means testing.

I'm writing to the congress-criters who "represent" me. No matter what change, I want all caps on 401(K)s, 403(B)s, IRAs, SEP-IRAs, etc, lifted. AND I want a percentage of the money I've already paid in social security taxes, returned to me. I want all of it returned, but I'll "settle" for 10-20%.

Just Because

http://www.reason.com/0411/co.cy.defending.shtml

It is useful, too, to remember that defending the indefensible has long been a popular sport on the left, whose own revisionist historians are busy trying to sugarcoat not McCarthyism but Stalinism. (See "Fools for Communism," April 2004.)

Also at work, however, is the dark side of modern American conservatism. The left�s obsession with America�s allegedly unique evilness, and in particular with real or imagined racism, has prompted a fully justified backlash. But that backlash can morph into an ugly and disturbing mind-set -- one that regards all efforts to confront America�s past wrongs as the province of sissy liberals and wild-eyed lefties.

As the revisionists plow ahead, sometimes one wants to ask, "Have you no sense of decency, folks, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

http://www.reason.com/0410/fe.ls.no.shtml

Since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, less than 2 percent of parents nationwide have transferred their children to other public schools. Teachers unions, school administrators, and journalists have argued that the low transfer rates prove parents do not want more choices and that they prefer their local schools. But while parents have more information than ever about the quality of their children�s schools, in most cases they still have no way out of a failing institution.

Districts have not made a good-faith effort to implement public school choice. Sometimes parents are not notified of their option to change schools at all; other times they�re told only after the school year is well under way. Some districts send parents letters discouraging them from transferring their kids. The choices themselves are limited to marginally better schools, with superior institutions often refusing to accept low-performing students.

In the end, though, the problem is not the parents but the law itself. Under NCLB, Title I federal funding -- money used to provide extra educational services to disadvantaged students in high-poverty schools -- does not follow children to better-performing, non-Title I schools. The result is that better-performing schools have no financial incentive to admit low-performing children.

In practice, children are offered transfers only to other Title I schools. Since most Title I schools are mediocre performers at best, parents have a choice of schools that are only marginally better. Furthermore, the school districts decide which schools parents will be allowed to "choose"; often they offer only one or two alternatives.

Many parents are offered "choice" schools that are just as low-performing as the failing school they are trying to break away from. In the words of school choice advocate Angel Cordero of the New Jersey-based Education Excellence for Everyone, "Camden children are transferred from one bad school to another bad school."

For Safer World, Legalize Drugs

As the failed policies of the War on Drugs tread a furious 11th hour conflationary path into the failing policies of the War on Terror, Stanley Crouch - taking a long overdue queue from the former mayor of Baltimore Kurt Schmoke - drops a little common sense.

"For safer world, legalize drugs....,

The recent reduction of the harsh mandatory sentencing once common to New York drug laws makes an interesting combination when thought of with the concept of legalized, taxable gambling. I say that because the real solution to the drug problem this country faces has little to do with how much time some lightweight drug pusher or user is sentenced to spend behind bars. It is not about finding better ways to get the big guys and put them where they belong. That's all a waste of time.

What we need to do is legalize all the drugs and face the consequences. That's right. With drug dealers put out of business, I am sure those consequences would be much less dangerous - and much less expensive - to our society. Legalization could not even begin to approach the downside in the illegal dope world - torture, murder, beatings and sexual exploitation.

Drug money is very nearly the petroleum of the most violent criminal world. It is the fuel that keeps the destructive engine running. Drug violence dramatically influences the nature of public health. The violence perpetuated by drug gangs fighting over turf is one of the bloody burdens the lower class must bear. The health costs of treating those with gunshot wounds, whether actual members of the trade or innocent bystanders, must amount to hundreds of millions over the last 30 years. All those bandages, all of those operations, all of that rehabilitation, all of those crutches, prescriptions, painkillers and wheelchairs.

None of it is free.

So while states, including this one, are considering legal gambling as a way to raise their tax revenues and provide better services for their citizens, I believe that they should start thinking about the same thing in the area of illegal drugs. The taxes from drugs alone would greatly deepen the resources necessary to fight the educational shortages in this nation, for one.

The impact on crime would be enormous because young men seeking the fast track to wealth through illegal drug trafficking would have to calm down. We would save thousands of kids. Who knows? They might even have to take school seriously. At least they wouldn't be found gunned down on a streetcorner or in an alley or some dilapidated apartment. Legalizing drugs would end that. The big drug companies would be quite happy once they were able to take over the kinds of drugs that have made billions for dope lords.

The other advantage with the big drug companies like Lilly and Pfizer is that they would be the only ones able to sustain a fight against the enormous lobby that illegal drug profiteers would underwrite to keep their product in the shadow world.

We have to face the fact that recreational drugs have made their appearance and are part of the colossal market of modern entertainment. They are going nowhere, and it is time for our nation to look at things as they are. When we do, we can take some giant steps that must be taken.

Originally published on December 13, 2004

Hearts and Minds

Changing ideology without changing the culture that creates ideology changes little. In those rare moments that it happens, the content of a specific brain may be modified ever so slightly. Unfortunately, the context that produced the content is unaffected by that moment.

For the past week or so, P6 has exemplified black sensibility like Spence channelling Rudyard Kipling spoke to last week. I watched this thread with the same fascination I experienced as a boy growing crystals. At any moment, the delicate balance he was working might break. I'm afraid a bull came stomping through the lab this morning and broke the balance in the promethean crucible.

Inspired by this tableau, I wrote a few notes about crystallisation and the difficulty of genuine change.

Foundations Curtail Aid to Communities of Color

I'd been hearing that brothers and sisters of various backgrounds had been leaving organizations like the Ford Foundation in droves, largely because these institutions became unwilling to fund research and programs dedicated to dealing with the problems of black and brown communities. Melvin Oliver who co-authored Black Wealth White Wealth for example, used to be a Vice-President at the Ford Foundation, and now he's an academic Dean in the UC system (either Santa Barbara or Santa Cruz, I forget which).

Turns out people aren't just blowing in the wind.

The report "Short Changed: Foundation Giving and Communities of Color" has been made available by the kind people of the Applied Research Center.

Request of the NAACP

I sent the following request to the NAACP in July of 2004 via snail mail.

For the record, I've sent them a similar request 2 times in the past. And, I am a life member of the NAACP. I joined my first year in college.

NAACP
4805 Mount Hope Drive
Baltimore, Maryland 21215

Such an effort by your organization would go a long way as to aiding Blacks to do something within the community besides criticizing the actions of a few within the community.

Request of Project 21

I sent the following request to Project 21 in July of 2004 via email and snail mail. (The email address bounced). I also sent an email to members of the Conservative Brotherhood containing this request. One member of Project 21 said that he will make sure that it was seen but he offered nothing more. To him, I said thank you. I trust him on his word.

To date, Project 21 has not replied. Make of it what you will. But, for the record, I've made a similar request of Project 21 two previous times.

Project 21
The National Center for Policy Research
777 N. Capitol Street, N.E.
Suite 803
Washington, D.C. 20002-4239

Such an effort by your organization would go a long way as to aiding Blacks to do something within the community besides criticizing the actions of a few within the community.

Parents On Strike? WT...

What is this mess about parents going on strike against their kids?

Ummm... Have they tried?

Revoking privileges?
No allowance?
Kicking the 17 year old son out of the house?
Not washing their clothes so that they have to go dirty or clean their clothes?

"We've tried reverse psychology, upside down psychology, spiral psychology and nothing has motivated them for any length of time," said Cat Barnard, 45, as she sat in a lawn chair at an umbrella-covered table.

How about spanking their kids?

How about kicking THEM out of the house!

I'm paying the mortgate and I'M OUTSIDE!?!?!?!?

And to top it off, the parent's aren't ashamed!

Posted by at 05:35 PM | TrackBack

Serena

Someone with too much time on their hands, too concerned about other people's biznizz instead of their biznizz, decided to create a story and send it out on the internet to generate something. Maybe to make a social-racial-political statement.

I don't care who she dates/loves/sexes/whatever.

What I DO care about is how she is presenting herself.

It's bad enough that when you go to the mall, or walk down the street, you see young Black girls/women, dressed in a manner that says, "All I have to present to you is a nice rack and phat ass". (Of course, it's not just Black women/girls doing it).

And then you see Serena playing tennis in a Black "cat" outfit that had boys/men, of all races, drooling and breaking out the vasaline. Or, you see pictures of her on the internet, and she's in "evening wear" displaying "the twins" for all to see.

She doesn't have to do that. Frankly, only hookers "have" to do that. And even then, they don't have to do what they do.

If someone wants to make a social-racial-political statement, start with that situation, not dating habits.

Or better yet, mind your own business and find something more worthwhile to get involved in.

My Soul?

The quiz was too short and definitely should be multiple choice. Many fit for the same question.

I'm not too sure about this one at all.

You Are an Old Soul

You are an experience soul who appreciates tradition. Mellow and wise, you like to be with others but also to be alone. Down to earth, you are sensible and impatient. A creature of habit, it takes you a while to warm up to new people. You hate injustice, and you're very protective of family and friends A bit demanding, you expect proper behavior from others. Extremely independent you don't mind living or being alone. But when you find love, you tend to want marriage right away. Souls you are most compatible with: Warrior Soul and Visionary Soul

The White Elephant in the Room - Race and Election 2004

Last night, Michael Savage was on about his usual hindbrain ravings, when lo and behold he said, "we need to step up the racist propaganda and images of arabs so that we can better crystallize our hatred and more effectively kill these enemies of our freedom...just like during WWII"

So today, when I received the link to this strong article in my inbox, I was primed to pass it along for your consideration and comment. Primary payload excerpted below;

"Racism – at home and abroad – is a central element of the Republican "moral values" and strategy. And racism is conciliated if not actively promoted by the Democratic focus on winning more white voters by moving to the right while taking voters of color virtually for granted..........This is not just rhetoric. The future of our country and the well-being of the world depend on us. We cannot stop the right's incessant drive to dominate the world's resources and to steamroll all opposition to that program unless we pose a clear alternative. A powerful vision of peace, jobs and justice is our only chance to mobilize the democratic sentiments and courage of all the people of our country."

Where does "hip" come from?

John Leland in his book on "hip" notes that the term derives from Africa. In this piece Jesse Sheidlower argues that this is bunk.

He's most likely right.

Now I believe there are a variety of loan words and concepts that do come from Africa. If you check out Sheidlower TODAY for example, you'd see a picture of Miles Davis blowing. If you listen to Kind of Blue, you can hear a distinct African influence. Miles was trying to capture a very specific kind of sound that he'd heard there.

But the type of sensibility that makes African American culture special should be understood as a thing that has roots that stem back to Africa...but as a distinctly American enterprise.

More on NAACP Rift

Now THIS would've given me something to put my teeth into. Turns out that there was a rift between Mfume and Bond over strategic choices. Armstrong Williams applauds Mfume and has the following to say:

The rift grew as Mfume continued to reach out to the Republican Party. Mfume realized that by reflexively voting Democrat in every election, the black voting populace has given away most of their political bartering power. After all, what incentive is there for either party to go out on a limb for blacks, if it is taken for granted that blacks will automatically vote Democrat? In effect, the black voting populace has created conditions that make it very easy for both parties to take them for granted. Mfume rightly reasoned that by reaching out to the Republican Party on issues that they already agree with -- like empowering faith based charities, supporting school vouchers, etc. -- the black voting populace can send the message that they’re no longer willing to blindly support the Democrats.

One of my younger chapter brothers is friends with Williams. I hear he's a good man. I wish there were something more between his ears. Find me an evangelical arguing at any point within the last thirty years that the evangelical Christians should split their vote.

But the bottom line really doesn't change here. The NAACP has the same things to deal with no matter who is running the show. An interesting comparison though could be made between this battle and the one that is brewing between Howard Dean and the DLC'ers.

Tavis

Let me see if I understand this correctly.

You sign a deal with an organization that you know is "people of color" challenged. You know the audience matches the people heading the organization. Then, you quit after your first contract is up?

We had agreed on the destination we were to arrive at, but somewhere along the line NPR wavered in the journey. Our show is the most multiracial in NPR's entire history, it has the youngest demographic of any show in NPR's history, so progress was being made. My concern was the pace the network was moving at-- it wasn't fast enough.

Uhhh....
Kneee. Grow. Please.

Respect on what he did at NPR.

Because I wanted to hear the show, I tuned in to WEAA. It is Morgan University's radio station. I knew it had jazz, but I was unfamiliar with it's talk programming.

They have some decent talk shows. Instead of listening to the jazz every now and then, I became hooked on the station's evening programming. Now I contribute money to the station.

I wonder how the end of Tavis' show will affect WEAA.

The Black Slate and the NAACP

Today's version of The Black Slate deals with the NAACP of course. To be honest, I wanted to deal with Pell Grants, but I will get to that next time around. A news event like this is where the rubber meets the road if you're black, write a column on black politics, and publish that column on a website that speaks to black issues.

So even though to be honest I think jacking Mfume (if he indeed got jacked) is a non-issue, I had to write about it. For another take, you can read Star Parker's version (thanks to cn). Or you can read Jelani's version. I probably should've known Jelani was going to deal with it.

I got word today that a good friend of mine got jacked in a professional deal that should've been a slam dunk. I can't say much more without divulging private details. But it's becoming clearer and clearer to me that in order for us to move forward some of us are going to have to move "backward". And some of that entails taking over moribund organizations like the NAACP. A lot of folks are going to get hurt in that battle--people who can't get props from any other place.

36 Chambers of Not Having It!

China has banned a Nike television commercial showing U.S. basketball star LeBron James in a battle with an animated cartoon kung fu master. The ad insults Chinese national dignity, it says.

Full monty here;

Video here;

Inner-resting control of images....,

Golden Chance for NAACP

Golden chance for churches under faith-based initiatives?

Golden moment of punditry for Star Parker?

Or golden chance for NAACP to get RIGHT, and "abandon the destructive politics of hate and guilt and start getting out the truth that life is defined by struggle, and the principles that form the foundation of freedom transcend race. With this message and real work, we can again move our community forward."?

Full monty here;

Vote Splitting

Let's be real for a moment.

No group has made the conscience decision to split their vote so that they will be a factor in both parties.

Groups of people have aligned themselves with a political party because that party was deemed to fit their values.

Dixiecrats left the Democratic party because of civil rights issues.

The "religious right" went to the Republican party because of "moral" issues.

Sure, the Black vote should not be in one basket, but stop acting as though others haven't heavily aligned themselves with one party.

Enough of the silliness.

Family Reunions & Funerals

I've attended 2 funerals in the past 3 weeks. One was a cousin in NY and the other was my wife's uncle.

I found out about my cousin 2 days before the funeral. In short order, I determined I had to go. My uncle went with me. I drove up I-95/N.J. Turnpike/I-95 to the wake and funeral. The next day was the burial. I drove straight back from that.

During the repass, I "caught up" with some of the NY family and got the family history from the "NY branch" side of things.

The family was part of the Northern Migration. My great aunts and uncles came with their parents from S. Carolina to Baltimore. One great-great uncle didn't like Baltimore, (or maybe being so close to so much family), and went on to New York. He found work then sent for his family.

I heard some nice stories concerning going to church, singing in the choir, and general living in NY.

After the burial, email addresses and telephone numbers were exchanged. There's a family reunion being planned so that they younger members of the family get to know each other outside of funerals.

It was being planned before the death but it didn't happen.

Back down I-95/N.J. Turnpike/I-95 my uncle and I went. It was the first time my uncle and I spent that much extended time together.

On Thanksgiving, while over my sister-in-laws house, we got a telephone call saying that her uncle had passed. The funeral was the other day and it was intense. But the gathering of the family for the days afterwards was fun.

In both cases I wondered why funerals can make some of the best family reunions.

Are We Awake?

HOW can we prove to ourselves at any given moment that we are not asleep and dreaming? Life circumstances are sometimes as fantastic as dream circumstances; and change with the same rapidity. What if we should wake up and find waking life a dream, and our present sleep and dream merely dreams within a dream?

A. R. Orage Are we Awake Copyright © Psychology Magazine 1925

There is a traditional doctrine, usually associated with religion, but now and then invading great literature, that our present waking state is not really being awake at all. It is not night-sleep certainly, nor is it the ordinary somnambulism or sleep-walking; but it is, the tradition says, a special form of sleep comparable to a hypnotic trance in which, however, there is no hypnotist but only suggestion or auto-suggestion.

In the first instance, from the moment of birth and before, we are under the suggestion that we are not fully awake; and it is universally suggested to our consciousness that we must dream the dream of this world—as our parents and friends dream it. Young children, it is notorious, find it hard at first to distinguish between this fancy, that is to say, their other day-dreams, and the dream their parents live in. Later in childhood, when the original suggestion has taken, auto-suggestion keeps us in the state more or less continuously. Our friends and neighbours, and all the objects we perceive, act as soporifics and dream-suggestions. We no longer, as in early childhood, rub our eyes in doubt of the reality of this world. We are fully convinced not only that it is real, but that there is no other. We dream but we do not doubt that we are awake.

Religion, it is obvious, presupposes that mortal life is a mode of sleep from which it is possible to wake up to eternal life. The New Testament, for example, constantly makes use of the imagery of sleep and waking. According to the Gospels and the Epistles we sleep with Adam and wake with Christ; and the refrain of the Doctrine is that we should strive to wake up from our present waking state and to be 'born again'. In recent literature the idea has been exploited by Ibsen and H. G. Wells among other writers. Ibsen's play, When We Dead Awaken, and Wells' novel, The Sleeper Wakes, assume in their very titles that we humans are asleep but can wake.

It is naturally difficult, of course, to convince ourselves that we are asleep. A sleeping person, in the midst of a dream, cannot usually wake himself up. The dream may be so unpleasant that it wakes him; or he awakes naturally; or he may be shaken into waking. Very seldom can one voluntarily wake oneself. It is even more difficult to wake voluntarily from hypnotic sleep. And if from these relatively light states of sleep it is hard for us to wake of our own accord, we can imagine the difficulty of waking voluntarily from the profounder sleep and dream of our waking state.

But how can we convince ourselves that we are really in a form of sleep when, as it appears to us, we are really awake? By comparing the two chief states of consciousness known to us and observing their strikingly common features. What, for instance, are the outstanding features of our ordinary sleep as known to us through our recollected dreams? The dream happens, that is to say, we neither deliberately initiate it nor do we create its figures and events. And in this respect it resembles waking life, in that we do not predetermine our experiences, nor do we create or invent the figures and events we meet from day to day.

Another common element of our sleeping and waking modes of life is the variability of our conduct. We are sometimes horrified, sometimes gratified, to recall how we have behaved in a dream situation. It is true that whatever our conduct may have been, humiliating or flattering to our pride, we couldn't have made it otherwise. Our disquiet or satisfaction is solely an account of the presumed revelation of our unconscious selves. But how, at bottom, do these facts differ from the facts of our waking life-dreams? In life-dreams also we cut a sorry or a good figure, not by pre-determined design but as it happens; and our regret or satisfaction is equally contingent on the effect the episode has upon our self-pride. But can we truthfully say, beforehand, that, whatever happens, we shall behave ourselves thus and thus and not otherwise? Are we not subject to the suggestion of the moment and liable to be carried away from our resolution by anger, greed, enthusiasm? Exactly as in sleep-dream, our waking life is always taking us by surprise; and we are constantly behaving as we should not have imagined we could behave. Nor, in retrospect, can we truthfully say that we could have done better or worse in yesterday's situation. If it were repeated exactly, no doubt we could. But, taking it as and when it was, with ourselves as we then were, it could no more have been different than any night-dreams we have experienced.

Serious examination of the parallelism between the two states of sleeping and waking reveals many other similarities. One more only need be mentioned here—the close resemblance of our memory as regards the experience of the two states. It is true that of our waking life we preserve a more or less continuous recollection, whereas our dream-life is a series of discontinuous memories. But apart from this specific difference our actual memory-faculty appears to behave much the same in relation to both forms of experience. We know how difficult it is to recall at will a dream of the night before; the dream was vivid, and all its details were in our mind on awaking; but in an instant the whole of it has vanished, leaving not a wrack behind. Memory of yesterday's life-dream is not so treacherous, or capricious as regards its main features; but where today is the vivid detail of yesterday? We saw clearly a thousand and one objects, we even attended to them. We listened to conversation, we spoke, we watched men and things in the street, we read books or newspapers, we read and wrote letters, we ate and drank and did or perceived a host, that no man can number, of objects and actions. That was only yesterday, yesterday's vivid waking dream. How many of those details remain in our memory today; or how many could we by any effort recall? As completely as the dreams of the night, the mass of our life-dreams of yesterday fade into the oblivion of our unconsciousness.

It may be feared that there is something morbid in the foregoing speculations; and that an effort to see our waking life as merely a special form of sleep must diminish its importance for us and ours for it. But this attitude towards a possible and probable fact is itself morbidly timid. The truth is that just as in night-dreams the first symptom of waking is to suspect that one is dreaming, the first symptom of waking from the waking state—the second awaking of religion—is the suspicion that our present waking state is dreaming likewise. To be aware that we are asleep is to be on the point of waking; and to be aware that we are only partially awake is the first condition of becoming and making ourselves more fully awake.

Interpersonal Communion

With the "market" as the dominant representation of our material interdependence, I take it as an historical and practical fact that human commodification is a material and cultural inevitability. I expect that with a little effort, something verging on a thermodynamic law could be assserted to rigorously describe commodification as a phenomenon of cultural degeneracy.

Disaffection and dispossession are hallmarks of a control system implemented historically to maintain governance of commodified humans (blacks) not only in their material, but also in their psychological particulars. It is in the psychological realm that I believe jim crow produced unanticipated results.

IMO - cultural aesthetics were/are epiphenomenal to the interpersonal *strategies* implemented by blacks as psychological countermeasures to racialist governance and market predation. I believe that the interpersonal praxis arising within certain of our segregated communities gave rise to the intrapersonal epistemic genius that undergirds the cultural aesthetic for which I and old school others may correctly be accused of feeling nostalgic.

For me, the question is not one of getting back to a retro aesthetic, so much as, getting back to an interpersonal praxis of self-worth and exceptional valuation (with which you don't take issue) that served as a potent countermeasure to outgroup psychological oppression. My opinion is that the interpersonal praxis, or forced psychological interdependence gave rise to the aesthetic and developmental genius for which the old school feels nostalgic.

As you say, in the market, negro, colored, or black represents conspicuous commodification of a people. However, a people compressed into an interpersonal communion will adaptively begin to exhibit emergent properties neither anticipated by themselves, or, by those who viewed them as commodified prey. It is in the market that *black* connotes *commodity*. Since our communities are no longer compressed as they once were, the transformative powers of our previously unnaturally compressed interpersonal communion are no longer active. It is as if - post integration - the community has lost its leaven.

Bereft as we now all are of our compressed and alchemically transformative communities of yesteryear, we are all of us merely *men in black*. Some of us free of material and psychological constraints, others of us labo