Are we asking the right questions?

Spring semester comes to an end, but the struggles continue. Some finals-period reading and sights:

Is hip hop promoting racism and sexism? Or is capitalism promoting racist and sexist music? My favorite (paraphrased) questions from a great piece over on salon.com which I think highlights the importance of the questions we pose (and how we pose them) in shaping debate.

Is rap racist?

Don Imus' shocking comments about the Rutger's women's basketball team were problematic enough on their own, but after the shock jock was fired from both of his jobs, the conversation has evolved -- on talk radio, cable TV and water coolers the world over -- into a discussion of hip-hop culture and rap. The I-Man defended himself by saying that rappers "routinely defame and demean women" and slander them "worse than I ever did." So now, a controversy centered around one man's bad judgment has turned into a public debate about the possible harmful effects of rap music, and whether it is to blame for keeping racist and misogynist imagery and language alive in the public sphere.

We surveyed the cultural commentators we most wanted to hear from to answer the question everyone suddenly wants to ask: Is rap music responsible for promoting racist imagery -- and if so, should there be consequences?

Here's what they had to say.

-- David Marchese

Read On...

And the lovely Lauryn Hill performing "Motives and Thought" on Def Poetry Jam:

Food for thought.

The Study-Yourself Department

Dear White Student,

I'm glad to see you taking African American and oh hell, Other People courses (third world/women/queers/class conscious) here at Yale. We welcome you into this strange world of self-reflexivity. We welcome you into historical reformation, to a legacy of revelation that necessitates revolution. We welcome you into the remarkability, yes the miracle that is our continued voices of protests in spite of systematic decimations of our memory of ourselves. Breaking it down, we welcome you into our homes that don't figure on official maps.

You'll encounter the language of our self-definition: what is blackness, who defines it, why do we need define it, what is black leadership, what is the culture of poverty, who determines that a culture of success must oppose blackness, who is the diaspora, who tells our story, and what, in fact, is our story.

Watch our attempts to convert race trauma into literary analyses to contribute to the oft unsung legacy of the Black Intellect. We are leaving trails of resistance and self-assertion for generations to come, the way those before us did. Learn how we do this for our children so they know how to fight a hidden system that we nevertheless know is as real as the gaze of that certain individual when we walk into a classroom, a lab, a library.

But dear White student, when writing that paper or two on Black identity, consider that maybe your studies of blackness are not just a function of your liberal/progressive/leftist/PC/etc capacity to understand race, but consider that your interest is also a function of a system which places our blackness under a limelight while your whiteness remains the illusive norm escaping all notice. Are we a curious, fetishistic foray into the language of race for you? Tell me, what is the function of black studies for you? Don't paternistically presume we enjoy your attention to the styles of speech, styles of dress, struggles of preservation. It does no system of injustice any use when the perpetrators place undue, feverish attention on the survivors without internally reflecting how it has come to be.

When you told me the other day that you felt so much for race struggles, you were going to write another essay on the question of blackness, this time on brothers Fanon and Garvey, I felt this tightening in my chest. How far we've come that you were so willing to emerse yourself in my reality. But I wondered why you never wrote about whiteness, about the fiction that is American identity which many in powerful channels would claim is "everybody's culture". "The great melting pot". Why is your own body never an original point of analysis? What does it mean that Abercrombie & Fitch has a code of hairstyles forbidding dreadlocks/braids? Does that YPU format seem a little more 18th century Europe and a little less Haitian cooperative, what does it mean to teach a New Haven 2nd grader to "speak proper" or teach Malaysian students how to read Shakespeare, why do you play 50 cent's 'Get Rich or Die Tryin' at your parties when you've never read ellison, soyinka, west? is it strange listening to talib kweli as you cross the street when a 13 year old Black boy is riding a bike?
Will you turn your own curious gaze onto yourself? Write the hidden narrative of constructed whiteness and tell yourself the story of how you came to be white, because as much as my blackness is its own end, that blackness you see is in part a function of your persistent gaze.


See you in class.

bite your tongue!

beloved thinker, activist and friend, camille over at the hippo blog just posted about russell simmons' encouragement of music industry bigwigs to stop using words like "bitch," "ho," and the n-word.

peep her words here and comment while the north star hits a dry spell.

it would seem that during this finals period, all of our blog contributors are remembering why our families and communities sent us to yale in the first place.

ah, yes, to learn.

and then go back.

"Whatcha Think Is Gonna Happen Here?" Oh wow, we already know. Dang.

From Dangerous Minds to Freedom Writers, we're all used to glorified white savior movies. Kids of color who just cannot seem to get their act together until, blinded by the white, they are given a new vision of promise, courage, and success.

Sometimes, I feel as if my white friends blankly nod along when I rage against movies like these. I suspect they don't understand my critique or they feel compelled to hide their secret desire to change the world one Vanilla Ice impersonation at a time. Honestly though, I am not against white helpers. While a white person will not escape my loving critiques when helping out people of color, I will still respect him or her for identifying a need and responding to the call (not anymore than a person of color though; no more white privilege for you!). However, movies like these perpetuate the stereotype that black uplift always needs white strings attached.

It's a shame movies like Akeelah and the Bee are rare events while a film like Freedom Writers is so trite that even MadTV takes advantage of its foolishness. Yet, Freedom almost doubled the box office gross of Akeelah. Like usual, we cannot just point at a black status symbol and be content with some form of progress. The studio system needs to change by hiring more black talent behind the scenes to change the stories that get told. Doug Atchison, the white writer of Akeelah, is great, but we need to share our visions with each other while asserting ourselves and our stories into the dominant framework with the hope that we can becoming an original source of transformative energy for a broken system.

On the side note tip, the Yale community has been subject to some really poor attempts at satire this past year. As a result, a lot of these "humorists" are convinced that people of color don't have a sense of humor or hypocritically indulge in satirical humor privately. I think this sketch is an example of responsible satire, a term I'd define as "explosive with a ready made clean up crew." You've got to be ready to heal the hurt you're about to expose (not necessarily cause, there's a difference). There are devices for this effort, and I think this sketch uses them wisely. Note the African-American woman who fleshes out the problem in her monologue to the "nice white lady." Or even the fact that although she introduces herself, her whiteness is what we are supposed to notice; therefore, it is her title as well. Besides the creepy and lingering domestic violence "joke," the sketch did a good job at presenting the problem and allowing us to laugh at it while not disparaging the students of color or even the white teacher. I had been sleeping on MadTV. Not anymore.

Edit: After Naima wisely tempered my excitment, I'll keep one eye opened, one eye closed. Good lookin' out.

the sins of our fathers

it's good to be a haitian.
there are a few things of which you can be certain, the least of which is knowing you'll be punished two centuries later for having been the first successful establishment of an all-black republic against french supremacy.
for this act of black rebellion by "ungrateful and rebellious Africans", a haitian bonhomme will have the double-honor of paying his white masters for his freedom for over one-hundred years: first in the form of direct enslaving costs to the ravenous french empire, then for economic sanctions which crudely equates a suffering people for american-supported predatory leaders.

and now, now to our struggling diaspora attempting to contribute to the fabric of american culture but can't catch a break on grounds that 101 haitian immigrants attempting to build a life for themselves in the united states will be interchangeable with the word "terrorists". their cuban counterparts though? they will be welcomed into this great, wide land with arms wide-open - to encourage views of cuba as the devil's own land. haitians will be massacred if not by illegal american intervention (1911, 2004), wild insurrectionary armies - if not by these then by starvation which comes from the us govt's refusal to give haiti temporary protected status (TPS). countries such as honduras and nicaragua, more economically established, have been given this blessing.

a haitian-american man in florida (a US army veteran ironically) henri petithomme is saying enough. he's on a hunger strike until the united states department of immigration services releases the refugees from these prisons to their families in the US so that they can meet with law representatives to build a case for self-defense, self-assertion in this land (founded on slashing black esteem).

where did i first get this news? from a korean newspaper. the nytimes article covered this story once, four weeks ago. the local gainsville, florida newspaper is the only paper covering his strike.

so weeks from now when his death is consigned to the infamous moniker, 'here dies another black human on the conscience of US', i'll be praying for the diaspora. for the day our struggle isn't a black blip on someone's radar in korea or gainseville, fl.

ale ale revolutyon-a.
an ale, yon ayiti pou ayisen.*

Bring 'Em Out

Bring who out? All you white people that say nigga when you’re singing along to your favorite hip hop artist. And by favorite artist I mean you can recognize the song when you hear it and know the chorus.

Let’s make this clear right now. It’s not okay for white people to say the word nigga. Will I try to fight you if I hear you say it while you’re attempting to rap along with the song? No. Mostly because I would rather not sully my record over some dummy’s ignorance. So when TI comes and performs on campus I’m sure I will hear nigga slip from a few belligerent white mouths. And though I may give you the evil eye, I will most likely not address you nor let your dumbass ruin my experience. Singing along and saying the word nigga does not make you a racist. It just means you lack common sense.

There is no white colloquialism that compares to the way black people, myself included, use the word nigga. But for the sake of argument let’s say black people up and decide to enslave, demean, deny political power to, and rape white people for a few hundred years. You know…all that stuff that would in no way affect your cultural identity or hinder a race for years to come. And in the midst of this favor…because that’s what slavery was…a favor. Oh, this wouldn’t be a favor? Oh…it’s only a favor if you’re taken from a derelict continent like Africa…because Africa was in no way running things. It wasn’t like Africans were providing Europeans with a bunch of stuff they needed in exchange for clothes and what not to make them look fly. And that is in no way somewhat parallel to black people today. Point being black people started calling white people crackers during this hypothetical slavery period. Leading to this:

cracka:nigga::white:black

If this happened, I would not call white people crackas. Even if it was in a song I absolutely loved to sing because it’s by this really really hot white guy. Like, oh my God. So do us all a favor and self censor. I don't buy that whole I was drunk, I didn't know bull. If you're drinking to a point that you can't control yourself then I'm going to go with something way out on a limb here...way out there...something no one could ever imagine doing...I mean insane. Stop drinking so damn much stupid.

I am not interested in arguing with anyone about the appropriateness of this word, its uses, or any of that. I say nigga. White people can’t. Period.

And I’m talking about nigga. Not nigger. Don’t get it twisted.

In a Time of Tragedy, President Levin Essentializes and Dehumanizes

This was the letter first sent by President Levin to the President of Virginia Tech, a campus now in a state of shock and despair after yesterday's shooting tragedy, and later forwarded to the entire Yale community:

Dear President Steger:

The entire world looks on with compassion for the terrible ordeal that your campus suffered today. Those of us in universities feel most especially the fragility of our communities, and their vulnerability to those who do not live by our values of civility and respect for others. I send you personally my warmest sympathy, and I hasten to offer any help that I or Yale University might provide.

With deepest condolences for those you have lost,

Rick Levin
President, Yale University

Thank you for employing such neo-con rhetoric, President Levin - that same type of distorted Manichean language that has allowed for intellectual defenses of horrific, historic crimes against the Other (colonization, invasion of Iraq). Certainly, it is "our values" - unique to the rest of the World - that lead us to condemn murder so strongly.

Thank you also for dehumanizing an individual who obviously had some sort of problem. Here, we have a man whose daily interactions with people must have made him felt as if he were not of this world, and, even in his death, you feel the need to posit him as an aberration to all that is decent. As no culture condones the slaughter of innocent people, such comments are really necessary...

This attack should tell us nothing other than that a crazed foreigner went on a rampage. It is certainly not indicative of the need for gun regulation. Clearly, it is not symptomatic of a culture that glorifies violent masculinity. After all, the gunment isn't like "us"; he's not human. Only with such disgusting logic would it be acceptable for the New York Times, which yesterday was stating 33 people had been killed, to write that 32 people and the gunman had been killed . A human life lost, but, inexplicably, to the New York Times and President Levin, it is as if he were not a victim.