A few days before Christmas 2011, Nike re-released the Concord Jordans to wild fanfare. As a rash of people lined up to scoop a pair or two, if they were lucky, the media swooped in to spin narratives of Black consumerism, irresponsibility and violence. In this piece on Ebony.com I talk about why myths like the Tyreek Amir Jacobs death emerged and why if we’re talking just about the shoes, we’re missing the big picture…

Like many young brothers growing up in the 1990s, I had a serious love affair with Jordans. I can recall getting my first pair (the IV’s for my sneaker heads) and wearing them sparingly, jumping over every puddle, and feeling like MJ himself when I stepped on the court with them (too bad my skills were more like Sam Bowie’s). My adolescent fascination with sneakers was at first looked upon strangely by my family and then frowned upon as news reports of young people being robbed or worse for the big-ticket shoes began to circulate. Since the 1980s there has been concern about violence, the high price of Jordans, and Black youth (and now adult) obsession with the shoes. While the sneaker madness may seem like an area for special concern, in reality, it’s hardly a unique expression of the all-too-familiar American consumerism. Read More

The recent buzz around education reform is growing, but silenced in this buzz is race. The amazingly taboo yet significant social phenomena is giving way to colorblind policy makers and educational activists. Can we truly transform an educational system if we don’t take account of one of its most enduring cleavages? Check out my thoughts on Atlanta Post.

Silver screens across the nation will soon be buzzing with “Waiting for Superman” directed by Davis Guggenheim and the team that brought us “An Inconvenient Truth.” Backed by media powerhouses like Oprah, the film has the potential to change the nation’s perspective of education and what needs to be done. While this is promising, conspicuously absent from these bubbling discussions on changing education is the issue of race. The absence of race is not just a pitfall of the film; race as a taboo topic permeates most of the education reforms being considered.

Read more here.

Last week a firestorm surrounding Shirley Sherrod erupted. A spliced video of her speech ended in her force resignation from the USDA and condemnation by the NAACP. Following the debacle, there were multiple editorials and comments about the failures of the NAACP. While I completely agree the NAACP and USDA failed to respond appropriately to Sherrod, I don’t think the picture that has been painted of the NAACP is accurate or contemporary. Beneath I offer some reasons why and what it means for movement building.

It’s time that we as Black folks come to address our NAACP problem. As we’ve watched the news coverage of the Tea Party declaration and the Shirley Sherrod debacle, many of us have been thoroughly disappointed by the NAACP. However, even with this disappointment, we should be equally enraged by our response to the missteps made by the NAACP.
Read more of the full article at the Atlanta Post.

On Tuesday, the New York Times published a story entitled “As Population Shifts in Harlem, Blacks Lose Their Majority.” The article started a firestorm of commentary on listservs and in my twitter feed so I thought I’d throw a couple of things out there. Many are treating this article as if it’s a formal obituary reading R.I.P. Black Harlem. Before we inscribe Rest In Peace, what if it meant Rise in Power Black Harlem? Not following me yet, I think the article missed at least 5 key things.

1) Captain Obvious to the rescue

If you have walked around Harlem in the last ten years, this story should not or does not surprise you. Everyone I passed the link or story around to who has lived here for a while responded with amusement, confirmation, and continuing with their day. Why? In part because demographic shifts get picked up by the census after people experience it in their everyday lives. The standard “quick and dirty” test of racial segregation within NYC that I give my students is the “train test.” I ask them, “Where do you get on? Where do you get off? What type of people (ethnicity) get off at your stop? When can you get a seat?” These questions lead them to think about demographic change in terms of race, ethnicity, economy, and space. In short, ride a train and you’d know that non-”Black” folks have been streaming uptown for a while now.

2) The Great White Fear

The article features a lovely picture of a White man, Joshua Buachner and his 2 year old daughter. It’s amazing how a docile picture of brownstone can create such a panic. The responses I saw highlighted the booming White surge in Harlem. Well kids, look at the numbers! First, the article plainly states Central Harlem has received a boom, doubling so now that means 1 in 10 residents in Central Harlem are White! Whoa! One in 10 … yeah, that’s right let it marinate … oh wait, not running scared? Right! The percentage of White residents was so low that a doubling lead to 1 in 10. If you look at the graphs provided, you’ll see there is a significant uptick but not one many are concentrating on. And trust me, 1 in 10 should make you think when you get of at 125th that you got off in the Upper East Side. Perspective is everything.

From IRAAS Harlem History Photo Essay

3) Urban Amnesia

The article pretty much steps over the entire history of redlining and other forms of systematic depreciation of Harlem properties and shuffling of the Black population into Harlem. Redlining served to keep people from buying property, served to make folks who had property sell instead of “riding the tide”, served to limit commerce in Harlem, and even carried a premium for services used by residents. Yes, there was significant outmigration, but this outmigration operated in concert with the “invisible hand” of financial incentives for some and disincentives for others. In reality, Black Harlem has really been leased space. A significant number of Black folks were able to buy, but many if not most Black folks in Harlem did not own; they rented. The result is that the owners left, the renters stayed, and Harlem’s economic depression continued for far too long. The out-migration and in-migration (depends on who you ask also known as gentrification) is not happenstance. Yes, everyone has individual agency and choices, but one’s choices are shaped by larger forces.

4) Black is, Black ain’t?

The article stresses the decrease in “Black” families, which the author never defines but we can take to mean largely African-American families. In passing the article mentions the increasing numbers of Black residents who are not African-American such as West Indian and Continental African immigrants. This expansion of the African diasporic presence can be seen in food choices, neighborhood institutions, and has undoubtedly added to the flavor of Harlem… but what about the “other” folks? You know, the ones the article gives short sell to? The most rapidly increasing groups in Harlem according to the chart are the “other(s).” And I’d bet, though I don’t have the data, this is an increase in Latinos, particularly Afro-Latinos. The article quickly mentions that the Latino population is at an all time high in Central Harlem and Harlem at large. It seems that that for the past 30 plus years, Latinos have been moving in and occupying neighborhoods throughout Harlem without large alarm and cover stories. Uptown has a bustling Afro-Latino population which should not continue to be overlooked. If you are a student of Harlem, you know there has been tension but also very fertile ground around race and ethnic solidarity between African-Americans, Continental Africans,  Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, etc. This could represent a greater Pan African possibility … or panic, it’s up to us to decide.

5) Whose/Who’s Harlem?

The next steps for Harlem are in motion. Yes, there is an increasing White presence, but to me the more important part is that there is an increasing Latino presence, particularly Afro-Latino population. These are the moments when Harlem residents have a chance to redefine what it means to be Black Harlem. While in the 20th century Harlem witnessed the extreme flight of Whites and its Blackening, the process does not have to be reversed. Everyday when I walk around Harlem and the Heights I see the beauty of the Diaspora. A key to maintaining our stake and status in this historic “capital of Black America” is looking for links of solidarity around affordable housing, living wages, and community. Black Harlem has always been what its residents made it out to be. Ownership has never been the bedrock of the community, instead its vibrance of our people creating beauty in the midst of struggle.

I just watched Precious, Lee Daniel’s film based on the novel Push by Sapphire, and the only way I can find to describe it is extraordinary in the superlative and literal sense. Extraordinary, in the superlative sense, for its craftsmanship in visually and textually telling a narrative of the composite character Precious. It is extra-ordinary (beyond ordinary), in the literal sense, in that it concentrates on a particular set of lives ravished by sexual abuse, physical abuse, and poverty. This is not the tale of all in poverty, but it is a tale that exists. I’m only at the computer writing this because the debate about Precious seems to catapult between a discussion of poverty porn, a Winfrey and Perry produced fetish film to being called a diamond or the Audacity of Precious (a play on Obama’s autobiography). I read the reviews, watched the film and come down somewhere inside and outside of these takes. I did not read the book, I am not a cultural critic, heck I even took a group of friends to see the wrong movie, despite these things I came to Precious open to what it had to offer and enjoyed what I received.

From the moment of the opening credits when the viewer beings to read phonetic words, you are forced inside the life of Precious. I found the narrative was powerfully weaved. The viewer gets to see the compounding hazardous factors that assault Precious on the daily: failing schools, inadequate academic preparation, lack of healthy food options, substandard housing, negotiating the social welfare system, domestic violence, sexual assault, just to name a few. These hazards, for me, fall into two categories, the former are normative of many families mired in poverty and the latter two are often more prevalent in families mired in poverty but are not necessary conditions of poverty. Put another way, the first are features of what it usually means to grow up in a poor neighborhood and household. For the last two, the odds of them occurring are increased by being in poverty but that does not mean they happen in most poor homes. Poverty, like most social forces, has a way of making bad things worse and Precious illustrates this painful circumstance. The movies portraiture of the mid 1980s New York scene is disturbing and rings with a tenor of truth and fantasy. I expect nothing less from a film about urban issues and youth.

The character Precious’ agency, her ability to make independent choices that affect her life, is wonderfully represented in the face of the social maladies she encounters (yes, I know most have an opposite take on this and I’m likely setting myself up for a battle but it’s all good). For those of us who have committed many hours to working with urban Black poor communities, we know that success or transcendence is not always or even often the outcome. You begin to look for the small victories that some would not see as minor, but are nonetheless steps to persevering with the goals of thriving. Our communities are resilient and I think the film captures this and puts context on that resilience. For example, in the movie, the decision to speak up in the welfare office knowing she would compromise her safety, housing, and potentially her life was beyond brave. While sitting in an arm chair and suggesting such a decision is the “obvious” one or one that is “unhelpful” is too narrow a perspective on the faces at the bottom of the well.

I was moved by the film and the story because it represented, in many ways, the lives of the students who I could not touch in New Haven, Atlanta, Detroit and New York. The children who moved, by force and by choice, from the classrooms and schools which I’ve visited, taught in, or spoke at. All too often their agency becomes rendered invisible while their transgressions such as imprisonment, welfare receipt, and deaths are hyper-visible in the public sphere. For this reason, I appreciated the voices and lives the film narrated. There are a number of excellent reviews on what the film missed and some issues that deserve serious consideration. Both The Root and Racialicious do an excellent job of taking these on and I won’t rehash them so please do read them!!! This is not so much a review but rather a reflection and endorsement of stepping out to see the film for yourself. I am excited by the debates and conversations that are erupting for the film and hope they lead us to new ground in transforming communities.

On Sunday night, Kanye West once again burst into the limelight with his interruption of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at MTV’s video music awards. His interruption and hyperbolic declaration of Beyonce’s video as the best of the decade caused the twitterverse, facebook, and likely nights and weekends minutes to explode. The cries of  “he’s so”:  foul, without class, self-centered, ______ (fill in your blank) rang out. These cries are the same ones that we’ve all made about West in the past. Despite these cries, somehow he remains at the center of the music universe and Black America and almost universally recognized as spoiled. I began to think, “how can a man that is so disliked remain in that position?”  Well, I think the reason he remains is that he reflects a perfectly spoiled Black middle class identity. That’s right, you can’t disavow Kanye anymore than you can disavow yourself or the folks you went to school with or your fellow readers of this blog.

In a strange way, Kanye represents the dreams of many from the suburban and urban fringe who grew up listening to Hip-Hop but never spent a night in the South Bronx or stepped over crack viles on their daily path to the schoolhouse. Instead, West flaunts his emergent middle class style, penchant for the preppy, and his difference as a positive identity in a hyper-masculine performatively hood-centric rap industry. Whether it’s a glow in the dark or a shag, he uses his late bloomer status to demand all the attention that he thinks he deserves, but was not afforded earlier in his life. Whether he’s talking about his hard times when he moved North when he had to put his Ikea bed together “by himself” or repudiation of formal education/reading, his arrogance publicly displays the markings at a child who had enough, but not all he wanted. Now Kanye is out to have it all and on his own terms. Kanye’s roots capture the new Black middle class, his late mother Donda West, held a PhD and was a college professor and his father, who was non-custodial, is a photojournalist. I’m always amused and repulsed at watching West’s antics, much like watching teen angst … kind of with “contempt and pity”. West insists that he and comrades are being overlooked and rendered invisible within the music world, despite their contributions. Never mind that Kanye and his imagined damsel in distress Beyonce, are hyper-visible. His outbursts and conversations about his class, race, and sexuality could be pulled straight from a Beverly Tatum book. For so long, the Black middle class has been at the margins of our discourse of Blackness and America at large, Kanye wants to set the record straight (pun intended) though in classic fashion,  he’ll start with making himself known.

After his outburst, West apologized via his blog (mind you in all capitals, which was later revised) which resulted in so many hits his site was temporarily shut down. The blog, a arguably middle class tech tool, allowed him to reach out to his fans and foes who wanted to know what the outspoken artist had to say about his outspokenness. The blog, when not home to apologies, is the locale of conspicuous consumption and the flaunting of extravagant cars, shoes, design projects and other aesthetic porn. The blog itself has a huge following because we too understand West’s concern for the material and the exclusive but dually want some form of legitimacy among the larger Black population. Whether blogging, publicly guzzling Hennessey or battling paparazzi Kanye represents what many feel and desire, but simple don’t enact. His brash mockery of the traditional education route, which is a luxury of having highly educated parents, allows us “college kids” to get out of out angst of following the straight and narrow. His outbursts about his greatness, which are laden with overtones of self-doubt, remind us that we too are something special even if we aren’t the rose that grew from concrete. Kanye West is not a person, he is a verb and a metaphor for the lives of the clamoring Black middle class. I feel like the day that we’re ready to deal with our own issues around race, class, and identity will be the same day we’re ready to tell Kanye “ENOUGH!” and mean it. Until then, I’ll expect more tweets, more album sales, and more tragic outbursts that result from a life of living betwixt and between the color and class lines.

I was recently sent a clip from This American Life from 2007 that covers “The Weiner Circle” in Chicago, a local late night eatery on the north side. The story begins benignly discussing the “insult culture” of the late night destination for post-bar drunken attendees. The story of course gets interesting when the racial reality of the place is covered. The employees, almost exclusively all Black and the clientele, exclusively all White. And yes, the owners of the shop are White men. Chicago’s notorious hyper-segregation meets in the little diner and results in epithet slinging and even request for  a “chocolate milk shake.” I’ll let you watch the story to find out what this all means.

If it’s not embedded for you, click here.

I am undoubtedly late to this, but I am most interested in what happens when the “rules of engagement” are lifted and people “speak freely.” In a society where so much is corked and coded around race and gender, does it really help to uncork these sentiments?

Hat tip to  SW via FSL

Finally a skit on Gates that made me laugh.

Hat tip to ZM

For the past few weeks, my inbox has been inundated with references to Whites Only swimming pools in Philadelphia, the arrest of Henry Louis Gates and things of the like. With each subsequent email, I’ve been reminded “this is post-racial America” 1, 2. The type of tongue-in-cheek commentary, I imagine, is meant to elucidate the continued significance of race in America. Unfortunately, I see three issues with this: 1) these emails and posts tend to go to the choir (this is not a new point so I won’t go into it), 2) these cases are extreme examples of racism and exclusion in contemporary United States, which makes them easy to dismiss for everyday people and 3) they don’t demonstrate the ways that race operates perniciously beneath the surface to include some and exclude many.  I do think these cases need to be highlighted so pool owners, police, and everyday people can be aware certain behaviors will not be tolerated, but they’re also all to easy to disassociate from for the majority of Americans who identify with the idea of “postraciality.” They’re rationalized away as the actions of “a few bad apples” rather than be seen as symptoms of the national disease of racism. These incidents become flash points in the media and even talking points in our commentary on race and reality, but the issue with a flash point is that it is the lowest level at which our sensibilities around race will flare brightly, but then they quickly dim. Unfortunately, inequalities of race have not dimmed, nor should our fire to expose and fight them.

Now this is not going to be a “complain and blame” post, instead, I’d like to offer some humble suggestions (or as humble as one can be if they’re writing on a blog which is kinda an egotistical thing to start with, but ya’ll know what I’m saying). It is critical that we begin to talk about race in ways that expose the subtle fabric of inequality. While it’s easy to explain why Skip Gates’ harassment and subsequent arrest were wrong and wrongheaded, it’s more difficult to explain how policies leave many innocent men and women sitting in jail or on death row due to false accusations and procedural bureaucracy. It’s easy to point on the wrongness of exclusion from the Valley Swim club but it’s more difficult to explain why suburban schools are almost as and sometimes more unequal than urban schools, in part due to their exclusion of Blacks from equal educational resources. It’s easy to suggest that race matters when Sotomayor is berated in her confirmation hearings, but it is more difficult to explain the significance of critical race theory to understanding and interpreting the law. As scholars, as activists, and as citizens we’ve give up the project of relaying the complex conditions to the masses who need to be reminded not that race still matters, but the various ways that it still matters and what role all can play in racial justice.

I think it is wholly possible to take the flash point moments and deepen dialogue, but its rare that it happens. Instead, we recycle old dialogues on race and its significance when more complex racism(s) exist. The reality is that we’ve got to get equally complex in our discussions of the intersections of race, class, gender and sexuality (to name a few). If we are serious about “justice for all” we must update our discourse and activism. Because as Brother Malcolm said, “The White power structure is just as much interested in maintaining slavery as it was 100 years ago. Only now they use modern methods of doing so.” Let’s expose the modern methods as well as the old!

*footnote if you’ve never seen the dialogue between Malcolm X, Wyatt Tee Walker James Farmer, and Alan Morrison do yourself a favor and watch it!

**Shout out to Native Notes for being on the same page with that quote!

Tonight, Harlem Stage courtesy of Revolution books will host a dialogue between Cornel West and Carl Dix at Aaron Davis Hall at the City College of New York (CCNY). West, who is internationally renowned as a philosopher and Dix who is also renowned as a founder of the Revolutionary Community Party and is their current spokesperson. The topic is “The Ascendancy of Obama … and the Continued Need for Resistance and Liberation” which should definitely get the juices flowing. These are two very prolific brothers, so I suggest you bring your dictionaries and your “earmuffs” because the conversation has the potential to get heavy and into “the muck and mire.” The talk costs 20 dollars if you are a community member and 10 dollars if you are student. Beneath there is a video of Carl Dix talking about the event and a video of Cornel West talking about Obama.

Update: The event looks to be sold out. There is an overflow room that will accommodate maybe 50 people. If you can’t make it, the event is supposed to be broadcast on WBAI which you can stream from here.

This morning on Good Morning America, I was greeted with a disturbing story on a “gang” murder in suburbia, but I was less disturbed by the details of the death, which are sad, but more disturbed by the way it was reported. GMA went through great lengths to paint a portrait of perfect suburbia being impinged upon by a deadly gang force. Without using the words, the story signaled and screamed race. The practice of not talking about race explicitly but talking about race is common, but particularly dangerous in this case. The loss of Chris Jones’ life is one matter, but the underhanded sentencing of the lives of the boys who are alleged to have committed the crime is another.

The segment opens trying to draw viewers in by introducing the silent danger in suburbs … gangs!

“We have an interesting story for you. Many of us believe that gang violence is old news, you know about it, it’s in the inner cities, it’s about drugs. That’s not true, that’s not accurate, there’s a whole world of violence out there that puts kids in suburbs at risk. We want to tell you of this one mother in Maryland who did everything she could to protect her child from bullies, turned out they were gang members. And just a block from their home her son met a fate that even his mother had never imagined …”

Voice overs to the story give you information like townhouses in the area cost “350,000 dollars” and that Chris was an  “all American boy” who loved things like baseball, hockey, and wanted to be a police officer. The way the story is framed and unpacks it is meant to scream whiteness, suburban safety, and crisis. Chris’ death is discussed and eventually the “suspects” are splashed across the screen, they are Black youth. While the story doesn’t discuss it, the boys alleged in the attack attended the same school and presumably lived in the same community as Chris. The reality is that suburban Crofton, Maryland is like many areas, it is not all White and likely has not dealt well with the incorporation of non-Whites (in this case Black) into its community. While suburbia is painted as perfect, the reality is that suburbs are engineered spaces that have been used to “escape” some urban hazards and buffer their residents from the social world around them. Regardless of Crofton’s public image and its besmirchment, I am most disturbed that the reporting of Chris Jones’ murder serves exacerbate racial tensions; rather than open for spaces of dialogue.

A couple months back, the Atlantic published an article entitled “American Murder Mystery” about Memphis, Tennessee that discussed the issue of crime. The piece, which features the research of Richard Janikowski and Phyllis Betts who “crack” the mystery of American murder by uncomfortably suggesting residents who relocated from public housing to scattered site and mixed-income housing travelled to new areas and carried their “old ways” of violence and gangs. Recently, I sat in a GIS mapping workshop where approximately 1/3 of the participants were law enforcement agents from suburban areas who were interested in using mapping to find “crime hot spots” so they could more “effectively” patrol neighborhoods and groups. It reminded me of the sad reality that a little bit of social science knowledge can be a dangerous thing, particularly for those who are unjustly and unnecessarily targeted.

The overtone in GMA piece and the Atlantic piece suggest that neighborhoods that are “well off” will soon be over-run by dark violent, inner-city forces. Rather than open a dialogue about communities and responsibly dealing with difference, they feed into racial paranoia. Rather than explore the ways that policy can mitigate some of the tensions between communities, we receive more fodder for race conflict carried out using non-racial language but overt racial signals. Rather than look seriously at the lives of all people in suburban communities, both Black and White, right and poor, we get conviction on young Black boys in the public eye. Don’t believe me, read the comments on the piece.

I am no journalist, but I think I that the implications of pieces like these are huge. America is arguably more on “racial alert” now than it has been in the past. The arrival of an African American president has not been without impact in both positive and negative ways. We need to be informed about what is happening in the nation, but we also must be critical consumers. Having lived through the Central Park Five case and recognizing the railroading that young Black men have historically received in the American Judicial system, I cannot help but wonder, what was the goal of the piece: information or inflammation?

This week, my dear friend Yusef Ramelize, took on the issue of homelessness. No, he didn’t decide to volunteer at a soup kitchen. No he didn’t decide to give out change to someone he saw as he was exiting the train. No he didn’t email his friends and tell them they should join a “homelessness sucks” cause on facebook. He decided to raise awareness about the issue of homelessness by getting first person experience. Yusef is going homeless for one week.

Yusef’s challenge to himself is paired with raising funds for the Coalition for the Homeless. His site contains all the information you could want to know and great personal reflections on the experience before he began the week. He will continue to update the site when he returns from his stay. I wanted to shout him out for taking action, learning, and pushing us all to contribute not just money but serious thoughts to one of the world’s most pressing issues. If you can, please do donate to the campaign. While he will only remain homeless until Saturday, most people do not have a choice in when they receive shelter again. So he will continue until May 1st or until he reaches his goal of 5000 dollars to donate. Please spread the word!!!!

You know that there is a lot of great art happening these days, but you should move something to check out the short entitled “G-trification” by Karra Duncan screening today at the Harlem International Film Festival. G-Trification takes on the issue of gentrification,  something all too common to those uptown, but takes it to another level by involving issues of race, morality and age to pull viewers into the complicated choices our community often has to make.

The short recently screened to rave reviews at the Pan African Film Festival, San Diego Black Film Festival and continues to make waves and ripples on its tour around the country. Let’s welcome Karra and G-Trification back uptown with some love. Check out the trailer here. It screens for free at 5:30pm at the Harlem School of the Arts (645 St. Nicholas @ 141st)

In an age when grassroots Black leadership has become distilled, sanitized, and all too often co-opted, we are often left looking backwards to our ancestors for guidance on our future. Today, December 4th, marks the 39th anniversary of the assassination of Fred Hampton by the United States Government. Chairman Fred Hampton was a dynamic leader in Illinois who was committed to the transformation of poor communities and did some of the original bridging work between Black, Brown, and White folks. As a Black Panther, he galvanized the grassroots activists across race lines, negotiated truces between street gangs, and raised the conscious among the proletariat to take control of their communities and push for transformation. I often look back at figures like Fred Hampton and wonder, where are the Freds now? In reality, we have many unknown Fred Hamptons who struggle everyday to make something better out of communities and fight the inequality that has been embedded in generations before them, but that they still must deal with. To the young brothers and sisters who struggle to make it, we must draw on Hampton’s words, at the end of the day say, “I am a Revolutionary!” Give the videos (first one has some hiccups) and other links beneath a watch, they still resonate in 2008.

Check out some other reflections on Fred Hampton beneath:

Voxunion

Black Agenda Report

This weekend, the City College campus will be filled with fresh young and old minds grappling with issues of inequality and access. I’m proud to say that City College is hosting the first CUNY Social Forum. The event will take place October 17th – 19th and will feature a great range of presentations, workshops, and organizations. If you’re not familiar with the significance of Social Forums click here. If you’re a activist, come out. If you’re an aspiring activist, come out. If you’re concerned, come out. If you’re not concerned, you’re not paying attention! And for that reason you should come out. The organizers have really gotten a number of issues on the table for discussion and action. Whether it’s increases in tuition, changing of standards for admission, or health care there will be a venue and voice for it this weekend. So hop on the train and get informed and active with the best of em.

That’s what people want to boil it down to. This morning the Root is running two pieces on “sex tourism” to Brazil and other “third world” locales. I pen a direct review of Jewel Woods and Karen Hunter’s book “Don’t Blame it on Rio” and Mark Sawyer does a indirect review of the book as he discusses the representation of Brazilian women in American popular imagination and scholarship.

I decided to write the review after traveling to Boca Chica, Dominican Republic and seeing many of the things that Woods wrote about come to life. I think that the book can open a dialogue that we are seriously in need of around Black middle class men and the lack of accountability that we are allowed to operate with. Yes Virginia, Black male privilege does exist and we need to uncover it, discuss it, and act upon it. Give my piece a read here. No doubt that many of the responses will try to compartmentalize the actions of these “prostituting” brothas, or claim it’s just like sex tourism from other groups, but I think even if it’s like processes that happen in other groups, we really need to begin to address it with care, because it’s having serious effects.

Mark Sawyer, a scholar I respect very much, does a great job of discussing the relationship between “developed” and “developing” nations and characterizations of women. While Sawyer pans Woods and Hunter’s book, he then goes on to suggest there is something that makes Westerners look upon Brazilian women, and others, as mere sexual objects. I’d contend that thing is male privilege coupled with financial capital … which are central to Woods and Hunter’s book. Additionally, Sawyer brings up a question that was troubling me as I read “Don’t Blame it on Rio,” who are Black women? It is likely that many of the women that these Black male tourists are cavorting with are of African descent, but this Diasporic connection becomes dissolved into sex. By saying being with women from Brazil, DR, Cuba, etc is weakening the Black community, are we too narrowly defining the Diaspora? And before you say it, yes I do know men who have traveled abroad, met women, married them, though they are fewer in number then the ones I know who have just slept with women and returned to the US.

A little while back I wrote, “what if everyone knew Black was beautiful?” it was triggered by some deep conversations I had with brothas and sisters in the DR about Blackness and its negativity. Will we ever truly forge a Diaspora? I wonder how do we, as African-Americans, contribute to these negative images as we transverse borders. Alright, that’s enough of me opening cans of worms, I’ll have to revisit some of this later. Thoughts?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. One of the most striking images I’ve ever encountered and occasionally have on my desktop is “The Soiling of Old Glory.” For me, the image captured the complex (albeit negative) emotions that surrounded busing as a solution to school segregation. While we often think of racial antagonisms as rooted in the South, these tensions were present all over the nation. The stain of racism is sometimes deepest in the parts of the country where White and Black live near, but not always next to, where we compete for resources, and where the things to be gained from hatred are the smallest. Boston, in the case of this photo, typifies that reality. Recently Slate ran a slideshow series on the image to accompany the new book on it. I don’t have the book, but I wonder could words ever capture the meanings and magnitude of this photo. I surely know I couldn’t.