From ESPN:

Saudi Arabia 0-4 Ukraine

Andriy Shevchenko scored his first World Cup goal as Ukraine put their dismal display against Spain firmly behind them in Hamburg with a comprehensive 4-0 win over Saudi Arabia.

Oleg Blokhin’s team had lost their opener 4-0 to the Spaniards but bounced back to take a comfortable three points against the outclassed Asians, whose uncertainty at set-pieces was ruthlessly exposed.

When did Saudi Arabia become “Asia” and Saudi Arabians, “Asians?” And even if they were Asian, how racist is it to call them out like this?! Maybe I’m tripping.

From my Tennis.Com article:

“Dr. J didn’t like me and looking back, I can’t blame him. He’d begun the American Tennis Association’s Junior Development Program back in the late 1940’s to train talented Negro players. Before Nick Bollettieri and the other post-modern tennis academies of our day, there was a small town doctor with a homemade court who, as a hobby, coached several generations of the best black tennis players this country ever produced. His goal was to create tennis champions who could break down the segregated doors of the country club tennis set. He did just that. I had my own prepubescent plans, which is why Dr. J and I didn’t see eye to eye. My idea of fun didn’t include a pro tennis career or a boot camp training regimen, at least, not as a toddler.”

Follow the link below to the published article:

http://www.tennis.com/features/general/features.aspx?id=1412

I had these aspirations to be a leader, a big-time activist, an elected official. Life taught me by this or that process, experience, or roadblock that none of that was meant for me. I’m a writer; what kind remains to be seen. But that’s my calling and I’m going for it.

I still want to change the world but new information that’s come to me suggests that I’ve been going about it all wrong. Like many, I look ‘out there,’ see reflections or projections of myself in others and maddened by my image exposed, I lash out and try to convert or change them.

This is a hurdle that it will take time to clear. Projection is so easy; disowning the unpleasant aspects of me and handing them over to you is convenient but wrong. If I tried, when I felt anger and resentment rising in me towards another, to see what qualities I shared with the person who I let get under my skin (or who was already in it to begin with) I’d probably reduce my stress level by 50%.

“Living and jiving and digging the skin I’m in…”

As a person in recovery, I’ve seen how few people who come in get it, get sober; I know what it was like to be a drunk who couldn’t be told or taught ANYTHING, a child impervious to information beyond validating “I want/what I want/when I want it!” Preaching to folks without ears is an exercise in stupidity. Few want the knowledge that could save their lives - until they want it. So why keep trying to force feed people on a spiritual, intellectual or emotional hunger strike?

Maybe the task, as Gandhi put it is to “be the change” you want to see in the world; and through example, folks can come - through their own observation or thirst - to whatever part of it they need, when and if they ever need it.

What the Racial Realist’s and Shannon’s of the world forget, is that while they are heaping scorn (which on a personal, level don’t mean shit to me) on people as black as they are, for coupling with white people, they fail to recognize the manifestation of “self-hate” evidenced by their idiotic witch hunt. Black people ARE and have dated every color in the spectrum. (We also PRODUCE every color in the spectrum, which means we are not part of everyone; we ARE everyone)

It is the white man who took to creating rigid, (racist) immovable categories for human beings, proscribing their movement and behavior, the better to mis-use them; people who stepped out of line were castigated, chastised and often killed.

So who is the real “white oriented black person?” It is the RR’s and Shannon’s, who mimic the white racist, who categorize and judge on the thinnest evidence, who verbally excommunicate those who represent the best in our race.

Let me break it down into language YOU can understand: REAL black people are loving, open, intelligent, wise, courageous, flexible, sensitive, adaptable, humble, strong, broadminded human beings. These two self-hyped ‘real black folk,’ represent the worst in white folk minstrelsy: shallow, compartmentalized, fearful, tyrannical, vindictive, hateful, intellectually stunted and petty.

Racism has frozen them in perpetual rage and terminal scorn. I feel so sorry for them; they are sad as hell. This is their choice however, wounded or not, to cry “wahhhhhhhhh” in their red, black and green cribs, militant racial solidarity Cleo’s, phony soothsayers staring into the hearts of black folk and reading their lives like tea leaves. What they’re really trafficking in is an un-sophisticated “Poor-ME-Nobody-Wants-to-Date-ME-Pity-Party” set to the music of ‘How much I hate black men who date outside the race?!’

IS IT ANY WONDER?

These white oriented-black folks are talkin’ blackness out the side of their neck, while on the real its another case of the “toilet calling the sink - white.”

So, I was having this discussion/debate with this very young sistah about interracial relationships. Her position (both implied and stated) is that brothas who date white women are eternal sellouts who hate black women and themselves. (Who and what black women are who do the same is left unsaid. I suspect “justified” would be one term she might use)

By the end of the conversation, I was “insultingly trying to come on her blog and “justify” the fact that I was married to a white woman/dated white women in the past. (Point of information: I have now learned that for some sistahs, there is fo’sho’, no statute of limitations on Jungle Fever. A nigga must wear a large, white “W” on their dome piece, signifying their racial treachery. A leper colony is being converted to house these racial rejects.

Now, I’ve never said I dated white women exclusively, because I never have and that I married a white woman because I don’t like this or that about black women, because that’s not how I roll. I have dated far more black women than white women, have loved far more black women than white - and MUCH PREFER black women to white.

But to my young friend, ‘letting the facts get in the way of a good rant is unthinkable.’ There is one reason and one reason ONLY for a black man to date a white woman. However, I would like to add an additional reason why a man might consider “going to the other side”: the terminal, hysterical, full-bodied anger and concomitant irrationality evidenced by a certain someone.

Exactly who finds THAT appealing?! I’m an angry black MF, too, but I don’t live in it 24/7. I’ve spoken openly about my experience - an experience that ended FOUR years ago in July - and I’ve got folks coming at me like I’m a real-time “Chester The Molester,” like I’m in the middle of a “Jungle Fever” moment. But it is these Vietnam Vet/PTSD acting chicks who are having the firefight flashback. The fact that I am loving a BEAUTIFUL, BROWN, SISTAH/A BLACK WOMAN RIGHT NOW - means NADA. Who or what I’m dating now is immaterial, cuz I have sinned before the Church of the Self-Righteous/Sanctified/Justified Rage-aholoics.

Well let me be clear, as I have failed to provide the proper transparency:

I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT ANY INFANTILE, WHINY, BINKY-SUCKING WOMAN-GURL THINKS ABOUT ANYTHING - CUZ SHE DON’T THINK!!! ALL SHE DOES AND PROBABLY CAN DO, IS ACT-OUT. THAT HAS ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NO APPEAL WHATSOEVER. ANY MAN WHO FITS THAT DESCRIPTION - DITTO MUTHAFUCKA!!!

What I DO care about is having conversations with people who can have conversations and NOT “self-righteous, my shit don’t stink” rants. So, baby-gurl, (and you know who you are), we can’t talk cuz you can’t talk and your anger has shortcircuited your fucking young noodle. I don’t care what color you are - that shit AIN’T sexy at all.

More commentary on my increasingly notorious “interracial dating” post. From Egotistical Whining:

Saturday, June 10, 2006

At the freeslave, there is some discussion of interracial dating between black men and white women. My take is this. What reason do you have for dating white women? Did you just meet some girl and find that she was totally amazing and the one that totally completed you,etc? Did she just have a nice ass and you wanted to get some? That’s ok too- just make sure everyone agrees that you’re just there for the panties. Or are you doing it because you think black girls are ugly, or insert stereotype here? The first is fine. Love is love and do what makes you happy. But if it’s the second, you’re a terrible person. You have to think to yourself- how did you get this stupid idea? How can all black girls be X way? You know all white girls aren’t Y way. And if you have to resort to the whole “I’m just not attracted to black women, it’s just like not liking redheads” crap- shoot yourself. Maybe you need intensive fucking therapy to see why you want to lump a bunch of women who all look different in one box, you dumb fuck*. So to keep it simple, liking white women because of actual traits individual white women may have, yes! Disliking black women because of crap somebody made up, no!

*This rationale is more common among whites, who when they use it seem equally as dumb.

posted by shannon @ 6/10/2006 10:08:00 PM links to this post
Comments (3) |

My retort:

I agree our beauty standards are influenced by our culture; all of our standards are influenced by something or someone outside ourselves. To become human AND an individual, one must act in the world in accord with and in contradiction or opposition to externally imposed standards. How else does a person figure out what THEIR standards are?

People have to act, do, experiment, observe, think, feel, assess and re-assess. Then they figure out what makes sense, figure out what THEIR standards are. And then the process repeats itself, or not.

Robots are programmed to move in a certain way. People who are programmed to think certain ways about themselves and others and act accordingly are robots.
MaxJulian | Homepage

Dear RR,

I apologize for disparaging you on my blog. As you know, I felt and a part of me is struggling with continuing to feel justified due to the things you said about me on yours. But I’m at least willing to try to be sorry.

Onward…

Sadly, as black people, we have been placed at odds, “Willie Lynched,”divided and conquered for 400 years and counting. The methods used have varied: light skin versus dark skin, house nigger versus field nigger, bougie versus blue collar, nationalist versus integrationist, black talking versus white talking, black oriented versus white oriented, straight versus gay - and on and on.

If we as black people continue to merely step into the shoes produced for us in the global white racist sweatshop, without careful reflection (or checking the factory or the fit), then we will continue to play the game the white man wants us to play. We will continue to play Pinnochio to HIS Gepetto.

I know that there is comfort derived from hate, contempt, condemnation, “I’m blacker than thou” and “us versus them” attitudes. Its all about self-control, trying to manage that tender place within us that the world constantly stomps on. I know; I’ve been there/will continue on some level to be there; I’ve received the cheap high that a snort or two from that bottle brings. But its a short-term upper with a low-bottom; the price is a hangover rooted in fear, cowardice and a misplaced bitterness. I only think I’m projecting it outward, but in reality, its chewing my insides up, even as I feel taller/better/blacker than my ‘inferiors.’

I reacted to your post about me and lashed out and used a nasty term. That was wrong and I apologize. I’m human and I often react to the surface pin prick before looking at the deeper meaning of things. Part of that deeper meaning is that we are all dislocated people living in the black diaspora, under the conditions of racism/white supremacy, half-breeds, quadroons, octaroons, niggas.

This disease of R/WS is a chameleon - it has common features and yet it has local characteristics born of the soil it was planted on. Brazillian racism is different from that which formed in the US; Haiti suffered indignities that perhaps African people in Grenada or Barbados, London or Liverpool did not. We cannot superimpose our local experience onto others living far different lives and confronting markedly different conditions.

What must it be like to be black AND gay and how do racism and homophobia converge and diverge? I don’t really know, but its worth knowing, isn’t it?

Another feature of the disease of racism/white supremacy is the creation of hard and fast categories for people to facilitate the racist agenda. It was important to know who a nigga was back in the day because nigga meant ‘property’ and ‘product.’ (It still means that, but in a much more sophisticated way) Who was and wasn’t a nigga determined whether you slept in the bowels of the slaveship, or up on the deck. The white man kept it crudely simple in order to maximize profit.

I submit that we can’t afford, as Audre Lord has said, “to use the Master’s tools to dismantle his house.”

We have to be smarter, wiser, more deliberate, more intentional, as our multiplicity of colors, experiences, geographic locations and intersections are incredibly complex. The fact that the white man’s sperm flows through so many of us in so many different proportions, the fact that we are no longer truly African but a new race of people - means that much more thought and care is necessary in attempting to comprehend, strategize and enact solutions to our conditions.

We don’t know who we are. By that I mean, we have yet to satisfactorily define who we are as a people (in the 21st Century), through crafting a definition that incorporates ALL of us. I have asked you to put forth a definition of blackness or pro-blackness. Silence. Its not enough to assert, or imply that, “those who know don’t (or won’t) say.” That is truly treating blackness as an exclusive clique that only the “in-crowd” knows about or can enter. Its also the fruit of that “blue-blooded” exclusionary mentality initially found on the plantation, among the high-yella-handkerchief-heads who did the “One UP/one down Watusi” with their black brothers and sisters.

A transparent discussion - within and among our people - of who and what we are, the intersections of various other “Isms and Schizms,” how do we create the ‘beloved black community,’ (and all the other shit we need to deal with) is a requirement for elevating this conversation and perhaps pointing us toward liberation.

We can delete unpleasant posts or threads from our blogs; however, the mind and spirit do not delete so easily. As human beings we must confront our demons or they will be our masters. Running from the racist-virus injected into our bloodstream contributes to our horrific mortality in every country on the Planet. We must heal ourselves as individuals, availing ourselves of all of the services dedicated to self-discovery and healing and then we must heal our communities and the planet. We are the only ones who can, and I believe the focused, concentrated brilliance of black people on liberation will mean liberation for all.

So, here is my olive branch to the Racial Realist and anyone who’ve I’ve ripped or slandered. Let’s get together and talk it out.

CNN thought that Nicholas Berg’s father would co-sign the bloody murder of another Iraqi “terrorist” by the “terrorist” US forces. They were wrong:

Beheaded man’s father: Revenge breeds revenge
Michael Berg talks about the death of his son and al-Zarqawi

Thursday, June 8, 2006; Posted: 11:19 p.m. EDT (03:19 GMT)

(CNN) — The U.S.-led coalition’s No. 1 wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — who conducted a campaign of insurgency bombings, beheadings and killings of Americans and Iraqi civilians — was killed in a U.S. airstrike.

A gruesome video was posted on Islamic Web sites in May, 2004, depicting a man believed to be al-Zarqawi beheading Nicholas Berg, an American businessman who was working in Iraq.

CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien talks to Nicholas Berg’s father, Michael Berg, by phone from Wilmington, Delaware, for his reaction to the news.

O’BRIEN: Mr. Berg, thank you for talking with us again. It’s nice to have an opportunity to talk to you. Of course, I’m curious to know your reaction, as it is now confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who is widely credited and blamed for killing your son, Nicholas, is dead.

MICHAEL BERG: Well, my reaction is I’m sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that.

I feel doubly bad, though, because Zarqawi is also a political figure, and his death will re-ignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something that I do not follow, that I do want ask for, that I do not wish for against anybody. And it can’t end the cycle. As long as people use violence to combat violence, we will always have violence.

O’BRIEN: I have to say, sir, I’m surprised. I know how devastated you and your family were, frankly, when Nick was killed in such a horrible, and brutal and public way.

BERG: Well, you shouldn’t be surprised, because I have never indicated anything but forgiveness and peace in any interview on the air.

O’BRIEN: No, no. And we have spoken before, and I’m well aware of that. But at some point, one would think, is there a moment when you say, ‘I’m glad he’s dead, the man who killed my son’?

BERG: No. How can a human being be glad that another human being is dead?

O’BRIEN: There have been family members who have weighed in, victims, who’ve said that they don’t think he’s a martyr in heaven, that they think, frankly, he went straight to hell …

You know, you talked about the fact that he’s become a political figure. Are you concerned that he becomes a martyr and a hero and, in fact, invigorates the insurgency in Iraq?

BERG: Of course. When Nick was killed, I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I’m a pacifist, so I wasn’t going out murdering people. But I am — was not a risk-taking person, and yet now I’ve done things that have endangered me tremendously.

I’ve been shot at. I’ve been showed horrible pictures. I’ve been called all kinds of names and threatened by all kinds of people, and yet I feel that I have nothing left to lose, so I do those things.

Now, take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5-years-old or 10-years-old. And then if I were that person, might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?

That’s what is happening every time we kill an Iraqi, every time we kill anyone, we are creating a large number of people who are going to want vengeance. And, you know, when are we ever going to learn that that doesn’t work?

O’BRIEN: There’s an alternate reading, which would say at some point, Iraqis will say the insurgency is not OK — that they’ll be inspired by the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the sense of he was turned in, for example, we believe by his own No. 2, No. 3 leadership in his ranks.

And, that’s actually them saying we do not want this kind of violence in our country. Experts whom we’ve spoken to this morning have said this is a critical moment where Iraqis need to figure out which direction the country is going to go. That would be an alternate reading to the scenario you’re pointing to. (Watch how Iraqi leaders cheered after learning about al-Zarqawi’s death — ){This is CNN attempting to brainwash people into celebrating murder}

BERG: Yes, well, I don’t believe that scenario, because every time news of new atrocities committed by Americans in Iraq becomes public, more and more of the everyday Iraqi people who tried to hold out, who tried to be peaceful people lose it and join — what we call the insurgency, and what I call the resistance, against the occupation of one sovereign nation.

O’BRIEN: There’s a theory that a struggle for democracy, you know…

BERG: Democracy? Come on, you can’t really believe that that’s a democracy there when the people who are running the elections are holding guns. That’s not democracy.

O’BRIEN: There’s a theory that as they try to form some kind of government, that it’s going to be brutal, it’s going to be bloody, there’s going to be loss, and that’s the history of many countries — and that’s just what a lot of people pay for what they believe will be better than what they had under Saddam Hussein.

BERG: Well, you know, I’m not saying Saddam Hussein was a good man, but he’s no worse than George Bush. Saddam Hussein didn’t pull the trigger, didn’t commit the rapes. Neither did George Bush. But both men are responsible for them under their reigns of terror.

I don’t buy that. Iraq did not have al Qaeda in it. Al Qaeda supposedly killed my son.

Under Saddam Hussein, no al Qaeda. Under George Bush, al Qaeda.

Under Saddam Hussein, relative stability. Under George Bush, instability.

Under Saddam Hussein, about 30,000 deaths a year. Under George Bush, about 60,000 deaths a year. I don’t get it. Why is it better to have George Bush the king of Iraq rather than Saddam Hussein?

O’BRIEN: Michael Berg is the father of Nicholas Berg, the young man, the young businessman who was beheaded so brutally in Iraq back in May of 2004.

The Prisoner’s Wife Said: i personally don’t understand how a man/woman can be pro-black & sleep with, carry on relationships with, and marry a non-black person. not saying you have to hate whitey, but inviting them into your bed seems a bit hypocritical to me (note:”your” is being used in a general way here).

{I appreciate your clarity here; one doesn’t necessarily have to understand or accept anything. I think that’s honest of you. But, PW, can you do me a favor and define what”pro-black” means and what the criteria for being pro-black are?}

PW Said: btw: your example of someone being pro-woman & still sleeping with men isn’t the same, considering that would bring the question of sexualty into play, which is a totally different animal.

{People are people. Black people fucking white folks ain’t like humans having sex with sheep; we can reproduce. We’re human beings with big fucking problems. And one of those is a universal, racist assumption that we aren’t all people, some of us are more human than others. My example above is absurd, because its true, the whole issue is absurd, though highly rationale on a whole nother level. Racism/White supremacay is an absurdist, fear-based, yet highly rationale system; not everyone who benefits from it or who is subjugated by it responds like a marionette. I’m pro-people. I love people, in spite of being fucked by them - blacks, whites and ‘others’. I hate what’s being done to us and I do my part to try to stop it. And, I really think we as black folks look foolish when we fashion our own “fear-based” etiquette for ‘REAL BLACKNESS.’

Now, I tried to “fit-in” and conform for years. And I hated it. What I learned is, if I’m trying to be black, or be Muhammed Ali, I’m being phony; and if I’m trying to be white I’m a bigger phony. Plus, both sides will judge and belittle you no matter what you do, so you’re better off being your fucking self and learning to love it. So I learned.

One of my favorite musicians, Lee Morgan, has this (paraphrased) quote that I’ve never forgotten: “You learn the technical devices of the instrument, you live and experience your life and then you play yourself on the horn.” I’m trying to play MY self on MY horn. That’s one reason why I love jazz - the best players don’t sound deriative, they sound like themselves. I ain’t playin’ your stereotype of the black man, UnReals, or some white man’s. I’m playin’ me, which ain’t you, or anyone else. You may not understand my music, but I didn’t understand Eric Dolpy’s music either, for years, until I grew and learned “how to listen, how to approach” his music.

The schools we went to introduced us to a variety of people and my family’s values never put us on ‘racial lockdown.’ And I must say, as someone who has dated many different women, the “EXPERIENCE” of doing so has been amazing.

Some of us are so positioned or, perhaps, have to trod that zigzag path. I did and I don’t regret it}

PW Said: whomever you choose to carry on relationships is your business, however…if you were out there beating a red, black and green drum with your fist in the air preaching about black love, black people, and the black community…all while you’re sleeping with Becky, i’d HAVE to look at you sidewaysv(no?).

{Well, sister, I’ve never beat any drum, and I don’t generally wear red, black and green jumpsuits, nor do I shout through bullhorns how much I “luvs black people” though I do. And you can look at me sideways when I’m hangin’ with Becky, though I ain’t dating her right now. I married a white woman (burn me at the stake) and had a kid with her. I have a black girlfriend and I want to marry her. I’ve made mistakes in picking women and most of those mistakes were cuz I was doing the picking. But how many exclusively-black-dating-people could say the same?

The life I was given and the experiences I’ve had probably aren’t anything like yours; I just don’t believe in making folks fit my nigga cookie cutter and I’m not gonna fit theirs. And in spite of how racist “Whitey” is, I can’t for the life of me see them ALL as beasts, as racial lepers, as untouchables…I can’t do it. I can’t hate them ALL - though I have days where I feel like I do. Hate and contempt sometimes feel almost as good as sex, especially when its directed at the one whose directed the same at you. I try really hard to avoid soaking in that shit for long, cuz I do more harm to me than I do to them.

Whites are human, highly flawed/highly racist, but human. I can’t forget how, when I was getting sober, several of them saved my fucking life. For that reason, I will not do to them what they have done to us: put them in a neat box and file it away. Fuck that. I have to stay open; I don’t trust most of them, but I have to stay open in order to stay human. I’ve seen what being closed has done for and to most of them; why would I Saran-wrap my soul in the same manner? Some of us already have.}

PW Said: that’s like being a minister & preaching family values, but sleeping sleeping with someone on the side.

feel me?

{What you’re saying there, it seems to me, is my so-called pro-black values are negated by my “dabblings with Debbie.” Look, Sis, I got cousins who are Debbies, a great, great grandfather who was one, too. Shall I just delete them from my memory bank and call it George? Most niggas have white blood curdling in their militant/integrationist/non-aligned ass veins. The real hypocrisy to me is denying that and then trying to go the white man one better and becoming SUPER Segregationist Ascetic Fools. I believe in justice for all people on the planet, but for black people in particular because I am one. I want freedom for us - and not merely the freedom to self segregate, but the freedom to do whatever the fuck we wanna do. I want us to be able to step into our full humanity, which includes fucking up, fucking white, Chinese or Latinas, or studying Chinese philosphy or French cuisine - if that’s their path, its their path. And if you can’t abide their “dabblings” outside your idiosyncratic racial comfort zone, who’s problem truly is that?

I believe in reparations. I’ve read too much black and white US history to know that we’ve been fucked HARD! I just don’t see how we draw these hard and fast lines when so many of us have white/Red mothers, fathers, nieces, nephews, cousins. The UnRealists own mother is white; what kind of backflips does she have to do in order to be a white hating/black man hating nationalist?” Talk about a contortionist.

I’m black (and human above that) whether anybody likes it or not. Black is not a color alone, or a “code of conduct” in the context of our identity; Black is who I was born AND what I identify with. But what I consider to constitute blackness is far broader than what I’m hearing elsewhere. And like I said, if who one USED to fuck gets one banished from the race, so long Malcolm!}

PW Said: if it works for you, let it work for you. but i would have to take your “conscious” words with a grain of salt.

{You should take everybody’s words with a grain of salt, shouldn’t you? That is an indicator of what I mean; some charlatan wearing the propa militant clothes, talking the right “right-on” talk can get away with murder with us, AND HAS, cuz many of us have the most shallow, inconsequential, symbolic criteria for what blackness/pro-blackness is. Any con-man can read that shit.

Hell, Co-IntelPro succeeded precisely because the FBI infiltrated numerous black organizations with black nationalist “actors” who duped their “brethren” into murdering each other; and when they wouldn’t kill each other, these real traitors drew up floorplans and spiked the drinks of people like Fred Hampton so that the Po-Po could machine gun them in their sleep. And guess what? That nigga - William O’Neal - to my knowledge, still walks the earth, while I have people sniping at me cuz I been with a white girl. Puhleaze!

Complexity, nor complex truth has ever has sold well in this world. I say we’re all black who say we are until PROVEN otherwise; what say you, PW?}

Back in the day, there was the “Paper-Bag Test” in which Negroes darker than a convenience store satchel were barred entry to Knee-Grow society parties.

Then, there was the “Comb Test,” where a potential party attendee would be met on the house stoop by a phalanx of blue-blooded, transluscent lawn jockeys who’d run a comb through the unkempt locks of the nervous nellie; if the comb navigated an untroubled pathway through wavy locks - entry was granted. But if the comb was met by a briar patch that locked down, or, God forbid, broke off comb teeth, the rejected was advised to head straight for the conk kit, Wooly!

Nigga-lore tells it that in the distant past, the hi-yaller fraternity and sorority - Alpha’s and the AKA’s - were quadroon or octaroon exclusive; anything ‘the dark side of Alfre Woodard’ had to git with Delta Sigma Theta or the Que’s. My own grandfather was a “Q” Dog, which really meant he was “too” dark and thus got Jim Crow’d by his own “kind.”

WE’VE COME A LONG WAY BABY!

LIKE HELL WE HAVE!!!

Whether we call ourselves Africans, African-Americans, blacks or the “name du jour” or whether we wear Kente or Hilnigger, ain’t much changed since the slave ship.
Willie Lynch Lives!

And it’s “Payback time for the psychic ancestors of the Spooks who couldn’t get past the door.”

Like ‘crabs in a barrel,’ they jockey - in 2006 - to prove that they are blacker than the next broke back nigga; their shaky identities depend on authenticating their “blackness” through devaluing, backbiting, undercutting and maligning another nigga victim of Racism/White Supremacy, the same disease that they are subject to. Blackness as privilege, rather than birthright. Interpreting the requirement’s these SUPERBLACK gatekeepers of racial conformity espouse in order to be accepted as black are similiar to the qualifications necessary to join ‘Skull and Bones:’ A Mystery, Wrapped In a Riddle!

When I hung out at the playground in my hood, I would occasionally hear the epithet, “you talk like a white boy.” Not from white folks mind you; they’d typically say, ‘my, aren’t you articulate,’ as if I were a well trained chimp. No. My righteous brethren would taunt me with this noxious, hand-me-down brew. This filtered beverage served by these lil’ knuckleheads was spoonfed them by the white man. I was only being my own black self, a black child, from a black family, educated, proud. But how I spoke troubled these black kids. And their response began to trouble me. It created a consciousness in me that I have never lost.

Fastforward to today:

I was “shocked, shocked” to find my name in the mouth of an online, odiferous {adjective deleted} who calls herself the “Racial Realist.” She dissected my post about having had a child with a white woman. Here’s what she wrote:

Can you be pro-black and have a preference for white partners?

I just stumbled on what I regard as a hugely problematic post in a blog - on the surface this black guy appeared to be black oriented - he had one post about the black holocaust and was pointing out that while the media does a lot of coverage on the Jewish holocaust, the Black holocaust has been given virtually no attention…looking further down his blog I notice he has a picture of his mixed race daughter (she is about 2 years old) - first he states that while she is half white, she is 100% black; he also says that he has to compensate for the fact that his daughter has a white mother…he then goes on to mention his son who is also mixed race and it seems that his son has a different white mother - the black guy complains that his son is living with the white mother plus her white boyfriend….my response is simply, if you have a preference for white women/ white looking women and like the idea of fathering children with them, why are you complaining? …I also find it hypocritical that he is proclaiming that his children are 100% black while at the same time being so obssessed by white women (Ok I am technically half white and I am seen as/ see myself as black) but I just find this guy’s attitude to be disconcerting in terms of having such contradictory views and also with regard to the phoniness of it…Additionally I feel that the people who “collude” with men like this are themselves very phony; ie the white woman or white looking woman who revels in the fact that this man loves her whiteness but at the same time pays lip service to anti racism…(will have to do a post on this topic some time lol).

Now, let’s deal with the factual inaccuracies first. I don’t have a son, never claimed to have one, in the post that “The Un-Realist” is referring to, or at any other time or place. An aside: her fabrication of this was, I’m sure, due to her zeal in playing “NIGGAGOTCHA!” ‘Ima break me off another perpetrator.’

The fact that she “created” a second mixed race child and ANOTHER white mother for me strongly supports her thesis of my hypocrisy. But subtracting this delusional family of mine…Well, let’s see how that affects things.

“On the surface this black guy appeared to be black oriented…” What exactly does this mean to be, “black oriented?” She cites subjects such as the black holocaust that I have written about as indicators of my “alleged” black orientation. But, alas, I have “an obsession with white women,” evidence of which is the white woman I married (and the one Un-Real blinked into existence), plus the two little zebras that I have running around here somewhere.

I cannot be pro-black and sleep white, according to the Un-Realist. I cannot love black people, or myself AND love a white woman; I cannot learn, know or speak the truth about Racism/White Supremacy because - who I’m layin’ up with negates all and renders my blackness/black consciousness null and void. She chides me for “loving her (my ex’s) whiteness and paying lip service to anti-racism.” So, I can’t wish or work for social justice, nor could I be a sincere anti-racist freedom fighter because I’m having sex with a white woman.

By that logic, the white slavemaster would be considered a pro-black militant nationalist because he was gettin’ more black pussy than I’ve ever seen.

I have no right to complain that my ex has issues/problems/racism/dandruff, because what? Because you get what you pay for? Does the fact that I divorced the chick count for nothing?

Ok I am technically half white and I am seen as/ see myself as black but I just find this guy’s attitude to be disconcerting in terms of having such contradictory views…”

Now, I find this to be the most meaningful moment of Un-Realist’s entire posting. She admits that she in fact is a “Zebra,” a “Checkerboard Chick.” She’s half and half. And here’s where my inner therapist asserts himself: “…I am TECHNICALLY half WHITE and I am SEEN as/see myself as black but I just find this guy’s attitude to be disconcerting in terms of having such contradictory views…”

How ‘you are seen’ is given primacy, at least in terms of the construction of your thoughts, over, ‘how you see yourself’. You are what they tell you you are. First. It appears that you are saying that you see yourself through their lense, through their white gaze and do what? Act/think/behave accordingly?

Is it any wonder that you would adopt a similarly limited, fear-based schema of racial identification as the white man?

Stay with me now, UnReal. Being “technically half white” would have to be difficult, particularly with the philosphy that you espouse. To have a white mother and NOT to be able to receive the benefit of white or light skinned privilege would have to be difficult. You must hate your father for muddying the water just enough to leave you clearly and recognizeably - a nigga. And I bet you can’t stand it.

But, you’re no mere “technicality;” why, you’re no technicality at all - you really are a full-fledged half-white woman. Say WORD! I mean, if your momma is white - aren’t you half-white for real? (I am not half-white, by the way, tho’ I’m a little yella) Often, people who are “OTHER”, are so pained by their limbo/’in-between’ status that they become militant arbiters of the very domain that wounded and left them reeling/feeling insecure in the first place. Their racial definition.

Now, I still believe that people are people, just as the Wampanoags did and all the other indigeneous people and tribes who welcomed white people to various shores. But I’ve tried to and had to learn from some BIG mistakes that I’ve made. Its like that line in the Godfather Part II: “Your father did business with Hyman Roth. Your father respected Hyman Roth. But your father never trusted Hyman Roth…” Like Michael Corleone, I’ve stupidly, at times, put my faith in white people and gotten burned. I’m sure you have as well. But several have saved my life. And, coincidentally, one gave you yours. (How do you reconcile your politics with that, Un-Real?)

You indict me for dating, marrying, having a baby with a white woman. And I’m again hypocritical for saying my baby is 100% black. But curiously, you can assert your blackness, in spite of the fact that you are the product, the seed of the SAME kind of union as my daughter. I mean, what is the definition of a hypocrite in England?

Who’s black-oriented versus actually feeling or BEING black in their own skin - and on their own terms?

Could we be a little less white in our “summary execution and ex-communication of black folks” on the basis of sins lorded over by the self appointed Black Politburo - or what?! (Thank you, Christiann A.!)

UnRealist, your so-called blackness is as much a construct as mine, if you wanna go there. You know me as a blogger, not as a person. I’m an archetype; hell, I’m your DADDY! Are you blacker than me because you’ve passed the “Nigga SAT?” Or the “Racial Authenticity Test,” as author Jake Lamar terms it? When black folks get mired in this kind of cesspool, the racism they pretend to decry has WON!!!!

Either we’re black or we aren’t. Certainly, you can disagree and dislike my politics and past - cuz I ain’t dating no white girl now. I got a pretty brown sistah and I’m lovin’ it. Who and what are you now, or have you ever dated? Swear on a stack of Bibles? (You cannot take the fifth. Amendment that is, American thing, cheerio!)

And yes, as a black person in this culture, I have struggled with confusion, self-hate, self condemnation, shame, pride, self-love, etc. But, HELLO - I live in America; WTF do you think its gonna be like here, Nirvana? And any nigga that plays holier than thou, as if their shit don’t stink, who acts like they’ve overcome all of that self hate stank, or never had to deal with it - is full of shit. This culture pumps HATE at us every day like a 24/7 sprinkler system - everybody’s at least a little damp and most are soaking wet. And I’m not talking about keeping your “message” or “rhetoric” consistent, sucka! I’m talking about that depleted uranium potent self-hate traversing the nooks and crannies of your muthafuckin’ marrow!!!!

When niggas in the diaspora can accept each other for the diverse people and populace that we are and stop our ‘trifling ass-Willie Lynching’ of each other - maybe we’ll have some Black Unity and move on the external oppressor who dropped the ‘Race-Rape’ drug in our coconut in the first place, you know, the one who’s still stirring the drink.

And yo’ baby girl, if the criteria for membership in the black race is sleeping black - I gotta shovel; we can go dig up Strom Thurmond’s spindly carcass and mount him on your dasboard.
____________________________________________________________________________________

A PostScript: What’s maddening about US is our adoption of simpleminded, global prescriptions to salve our wounds. “You can’t love a white woman and love yourself or black people,” even if your life’s work is helping black people. This is comfort food for those in deep pain. Complexity sucks when your soul hurts. Blanket indictments and responding tit-for-obtuse-tat provides a certain boozy glow, a revenge cut crack-high. I know that some people MUST “Keep it Stupid, Simple” in order to feel mastery/control over that unwieldy emotion, that deep cut of racism. I feel it, felt it, struggle with it daily. And I understand why folks have to use that crutch. But, I would urge folks, to remember what is best in us and not allow racism to destroy it. Its the white man who conditions/ed this narrow, inhumane thought: you’re either with us or against us. What if we’re for humanity? What if we are pro-human AND pro-black? Is that hypocritical, too? What if we care about imperialism and racism? Am I a bad black, deserving of ex-communication?

A critic of mine on UnReal’s blog talked about how hypocritical I was for having married a white woman; then, I read on her blog, her ravings about her move to Canada! I mean, “what’s wrong with Africa?” When niggas keep pissing on each other over trivia, responses conditioned by and implanted like a computer chip in their cranium - by the white man - they cut off their noses to spite their face. Complexity IS, whether we want to believe it or not. And when we maintain these “take no prisoners”, racial hierarchical - “you got to act this way or that way to be a REAL black man” - we debase ourselves and our humanity, we debase what made us great, and reduce ourselves to white minstrels in blackface. We are better than that. I think. We are the parents of ALL people - from A-Z. Just because one of your offspring often acts like a devil doesn’t mean you need to get down in the trough with him. Wake the FUCK UP, PEOPLE!!

Lord Vegan posted this on his site:

When AWOL Is the Only Way Out
By Peter Laufer, AlterNet
June 4, 2006
The following text is an excerpt from Peter Laufer’s new book, “Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq” (Chelsea Green, 2006).

“We was going along the Euphrates River,” says Joshua Key, a 27-year-old former U.S. soldier from Oklahoma, detailing a recurring nightmare — a scene he stumbled on shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. “It’s a road right in the city of Ramadi. We turned a real sharp right and all I seen was decapitated bodies. The heads laying over here and the bodies over here and U.S. troops in between them. I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, what in the hell happened here? What’s caused this? Why in the hell did this happen?’ We get out and somebody was screaming, ‘We fucking lost it here!’ I’m thinking, ‘Oh, yes, somebody definitely lost it here.’”

Joshua says he was ordered to look around for evidence of a firefight, for something to rationalize the beheaded Iraqis. “I look around just for a few seconds and I don’t see anything.” But then he noticed the sight that now triggers his nightmares. “I see two soldiers kicking the heads around like a soccer ball. I just shut my mouth, walked back, got inside the tank, shut the door, and it was like, I can’t be no part of this. This is crazy. I came here to fight and be prepared for war but this is outrageous. Why did it happen? That’s just my question: Why did that happen?”

He’s convinced there was no firefight that led to the beheading orgy — there were no spent shells to indicate a battle. “A lot of my friends stayed on the ground, looking to see if there was any shells. There was never no shells, except for what we shot. I’m thinking, Okay, so they just did that because they wanted to do it. They got trigger happy and they did it. That’s what made me mad in Iraq. You can take human lives at a fast rate and all you have to say is, say, ‘Oh, I thought they threw a grenade. I thought I seen this, I thought I seen that.’ You could mow down 20 people each time and nobody’s going to ask you, ‘Are you sure?’ They’re going to give you a high five and tell you that you was doing a good job.”

He still cannot get the scene out of his head. “You just see heads everywhere,” he says. “You wake up, you’ll just be sitting there, like you’re in a foxhole. I can still see Iraq just as clearly as it was the day I was there. You’ll just be on the side of a little river running through the city, trash piled up, filled with dead. Heads and stuff like that. I don’t sleep that much, you might say. I don’t sleep that much.”

His wife, Brandi, nods in agreement and says he cries in his sleep.

We’re sitting in the waning summer light on the back porch of the Toronto house where Joshua and his wife and their four little children have been living in exile since Joshua deserted to Canada. They’ve settled in a rent-free basement apartment, courtesy of a landlord sympathetic to their plight. Joshua smokes cigarettes and drinks coffee while we talk. He’s wearing a T-shirt promoting a 2002 peace rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. There’s a scraggly beard on his still-boyish face; his eyes look weary.

Sleep deprivation while on duty, first in Kuwait and then in Iraq, was routine, Joshua says, and he thinks exhaustion was generated intentionally by his commanders. “You’ll do whatever the hell they say just to get that sleep. That’s the way they controlled us. You ain’t had no sleep and you got shitty food all the time. I got to call my wife once every month, maybe once every two weeks if I was lucky. Mail, shitty, if it even came.” Food and water were inadequate, he says.

“When we first got to Kuwait we were rationed to two bottles of water a day and one MRE [meals ready to eat]. In the middle of the desert, you’re supposed to have six bottles of water a day and three MREs. They tell us they don’t have it. I’m thinking ‘How in the hell can the most powerfullest nation, the most powerfullest military in the world, be in the middle of a damn desert and they don’t even have no food to feed us?’”

Joshua rejects the U.S. government line that the Iraqis fighting the occupation are terrorists. “I’m thinking: What the hell? I mean, that’s not a terrorist. That’s the man’s home we killed. That’s his son, that’s the father, that’s the mother, that’s the sister. Houses are destroyed. Husbands are detained and wives don’t even know where they’re at. I mean, them are pissed-off people, and they have a reason to be pissed off. I would never wish this upon myself or my family, so why would I do it upon them?”

Pulling security duty in the Iraqi streets, Joshua found himself talking to the locals. He was surprised by how many spoke English, and he was frustrated by the military regulations that forbade his accepting dinner invitations to join Iraqis for social evenings in their homes. “I’m not your perfect killing machine,” he admits. “That’s where I broke the rules. I broke the rules by having a conscience.”

And the conscience developed further the more time he spent in Iraq. “I was trained to be a total killer. I was trained in booby-traps, explosives, landmines, and how to counterresolve everything.” He pauses. “Hell, if you want to get technical about it, I was made to be an American terrorist. I was trained in everything a terrorist is trained to do.” In case I might have missed his point, he says it again. “I mean terrorist.”

Deserting to Canada seemed the only viable alternative, Joshua says. He did it, he insists, because he was lied to “by my president.” Iraq — it was obvious to him — was no threat to the United States. He says he followed his orders while he was in Iraq, and so no one can call him a coward for deserting. “I was not a piece of shit. I always did everything I was told and I did it to the highest standards. They can never say, ‘Oh, he was a piece of shit soldier.’ No bullshit.”

Joshua doesn’t mind telling his war stories again and again. He readily agrees to talk about the horrors he experienced in Iraq, his life AWOL and underground in the States, and his new life as a deserter in Canada.

Telling the stories helps him deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), he says, and he apologizes in advance if his narrative is not linear or if he has trouble expressing himself. In fact, his scattered approach to his timeline and his machine gun-like delivery set the scene for his troubled memories — there is nothing smooth or simple or easy to understand here.

Attention Racists/White Supremacist Trolls Spoiling for a Fight:

You can comment here….

….BUT, only if you have something honest and substantive to say. If I sense that you are here to chuck your bullshit rhetoric, muck up the works, use language that I feel is abusive…SEE YA!

You have no rights on my blog; you comment at my pleasure and if I don’t like your comments, my displeasure will rear its head and exile your white ass to web purgatory.

It is already well known (as other non-white bloggers have noted elsewhere) that there is an organized effort by YOU to disrupt, confuse, muddy the waters, stank up serious discussions of Racism/White Supremacy on progressive blogs. Ain’t gonna happen’ captain.

Take that shit back to the country, son.

Racism, is, like, totally over, it is, like, all good, you blacks need to, like, stop complaining.

Thank you, Average White Person. Why haven’t I gotten that until now? I now see the error of my ways. God Bless You!

I guess I’ll dive into dissecting this (Laurie P’s responses in the post below). (Visible Man’s responses in bold type)

LP: ‘people of color’ is a rhetorical phrase designed to project the illusion of a non-white ‘rainbow coilition’.

Translation: Divide and conquer.

I am motivated not to help, but to share my perspective with the few American blacks left with the grit to fight for the basic liberties that are the right of every human being; and so are helping themselves. Consider my input as a document that you have come across. My input would/will not be ‘help’ unless you analyze it, so you will be the one ‘helping’; yourself.

Translation: I don’t like other black people but you….you’re better than they are. “Why, when I talk to you, I hardly notice that you’re black!”

Further translation: people that don’t ‘help themselves’ are undeserving and therefore I am not capable of feeling any sympathy for those I can categorize in this manner.

It is you who equate racism with wickedness.

Translation: I think that you are dysfunctional for noticing the toxic stench of my bigotry reeking across the globe and bothering to point it out.

See ‘redefining racism to feel good’ later.

I am racist inasmuch as I believe the every race has the right to exist, set up a closed society (if they please) and organize on the basis of race(if they please).

Translation: I am redefining what racism means in order to feel better about myself.

Further Translation: I will instantly feel different about ‘racism’ as I have misdefined it when one of these differently organized societies actually has something that I want.

If you and I were walking down a path in the mountains and we came across a cliff, and saw a child hanging off of it by one hand, would we not rush to their aid, regardless of their race?

Translation: I need to bring in an unrelated issue in order to try and obscure what differences exist.

LP: I don’t think that I can be better than a person, only luckier.

Translation: By saying that it is only luck that matters, not the choices that people make, I eliminate the possibility that there is something that I am doing to someone else that gets them pissed off at me, and therefore don’t have to consider changing anything.

If we lived in Zimbabwe, You would be the oppressor and I would the oppressed.

Translation: I am willing to drop historical context to bring up that before Zimbabwe was Zimbabwe, it was “Southern Rhodesia” until the civil war happened and it was just as much of a bigot-state as apartheid South Africa and America.

Further Translation: I will imply that oppression is a universality in order to minimize having to know about the society I live in.

In 400 years, for all I know my children’s children’s childrens’s children’s children might be oppressed by yours.

Translation: “It’s not so bad…maybe someday in the future, you’ll be ‘on top’.”

Further translation: My fear of you is justified because you could turn around and treat me the way I treat you.

It is important that all of us develop techniques against oppression. Who knows what the future will bring.

I am your political enemy, not your personal enemy.

As politics go, race relations is nothing but the allocation of resources and privileges based on power and I entertain no illusions regarding the moral value of equality.

Translation: I consider questions of morality separate from the issue of equality.

Visible, you got a blog yet?

From a conversation with “Laurie P’s Ghost:

MJ:’what is your motivation’ to “help us” people of color?

LP: ‘people of color’ is a rhetorical phrase designed to project the illusion of a non-white ‘rainbow coilition’.

I am motivated not to help, but to share my perspective with the few American blacks left with the grit to fight for the basic liberties that are the right of every human being; and so are helping themselves. Consider my input as a document that you have come across. My input would/will not be ‘help’ unless you analyze it, so you will be the one ‘helping’; yourself.

MJ:” If you are as you say, a racist, should you not be trying to do us ill, confuse us?”

It is you who equate racism with wickedness. I am racist inasmuch as I believe the every race has the right to exist, set up a closed society (if they please) and organize on the basis of race(if they please).

If you and I were walking down a path in the mountains and we came across a cliff, and saw a child hanging off of it by one hand, would we not rush to their aid, regardless of their race?

MJ: “What do you mean that you aren’t racist on a personal level? Also, if you are my enemy, why are you sharing thoughts about the true nature of racism? Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it; I’m just very, very curious. Thanks”

LP: I don’t think that I can be better than a person, only luckier.

If we lived in Zimbabwe, You would be the oppressor and I would the oppressed.

In 400 years, for all I know my children’s children’s childrens’s children’s children might be oppressed by yours.

It is important that all of us develop techniques against oppression. Who knows what the future will bring.

I am your political enemy, not your personal enemy.

As politics go, race relations is nothing but the allocation of resources and privileges based on power and I entertain no illusions regarding the moral value of equality.