Do We Have Any Rights Whites Are Bound to Respect?: State of Georgia vs John McNeil

Even when we're unarmed, you can "justifiably" defend yourself against us. Other the other hand, even as you threaten us and our families and ignore our warning to back-off, we can't "justifiably" defend ourselves against you! Race isn't an issue my ass! I don't see the NRA clamoring to protect John McNeil's "2nd amendment" rights!

When “Stand Your Ground” Fails

by Rania Khalek

John McNeil killed a white man who assaulted him on his property. But, unlike George Zimmerman, he's serving life.

Trayvon Martin's tragic murder has brought much-needed scrutiny to "Stand Your Ground" laws. If you read or hear about a local "Stand Your Ground" case that isn't getting much national press, blog about it on Open Salon.

"The Help": the True Story

What is needed is a book by a maid or a group of maids on the white people they work for.

I know, right! I came across this via the sncc listserve:

No thanks Kathryn Stockett, I don't want to be "The Help"

I was a maid in high school. I cleaned white peoples houses on Saturdays and after school. I cleaned, washed and ironed clothes and waxed the kitchen floor for $3.00 and twenty cents, the latter being for bus fare. I came from a family of nine children so this was the only way I could make spending money. There were no fast food places like McDonald's during the fifties for had they existed I would have had a part-time job at one of them to get spending money.

There is nothing glorious about cleaning up after dirty people and nothing like being exploited by people who don't give a damn about you. I have written about this in my memoir that I am almost finished writing. Maids are invisible and their lives are invisible to their white employers. When I was fourteen, I quit a job when the white girl who was my age DEMANDED that I wash her blood stained underwear from her menstrual period. When her mother came home from work she told her that I refused to do so and her Mother lit into me saying I thought I was too good to wash these clothes. Before I left that day I made sure that the pancakes Jo Lee demanded that I make for her included dirty dishwater instead of water or milk, and I fried them with the ring of grease around their nasty kitchen sink instead of lard. Jo Lee praised me for making what she described as the best pancakes she'd ever eaten.

As I stood there and watched her eat, I felt vindicated because I had gotten her back in the only way I felt I could. Had I verbally lashed out at her in a tit for tat her mother could have had me arrested for being uppity or she could have done so on some trumped up charges. It was not inconceivable that her mother could have had some mean men torch our home. I never took pride in what I did but as I held back my salty tears that Saturday morning I couldn't think of any other way to fight back for being called a Nigger and being told that I "had" to wash her soiled underwear. "Who do you think you are?" she had demanded. "You think you too good to wash my clothes? You're just a Nigger!" she shouted. My regret that day was that I couldn't tell her that I had fed her dirty dishwater and grease from the sink.

A year later when Jo Lee and I were fifteen years old , I heard from my neighbor who sent me to work at Jo Lee's home that she had gotten married because she was pregnant. She and her high school drop-out husband were living in a shotgun house in the white people's poor section of town. Can you imagine Jo Lee writing a book about me, my feelings, dreams, thoughts, aspirations and goals? Can you imagine Jo Lee being able to step out of her role of racial superiority long enough to give voice to me and my family? Could Jo Lee ever be interested in where and how I lived, went to school, who my friends were, what we did for recreation, what I studied in school, etc.? Absolutely not. The culture did not allow for a bi-lateral relationship in which this could have occurred. Therefore, how can Kathryn Stockett get inside the head of her characters and truly understand them except from her unilateral and imaginary perspective? She said as much when she said she didn't know anything about her family's maid outside the work environment when she was growing up, and she didn't question it.

It was a rare white employer who had enough humane interest to know the backgrounds and interests of their maids and other black employees. My grandmother was a case in point. For as long as I can remember she worked for a white family. They owned a furniture store. The woman stayed at home and the man operated the furniture store. My grandmother cooked, cleaned, and raised their son and daughter. I was so humiliated as a child when my grandmother went to the daughter's wedding and was seated alone in the balcony. She bought a new dress, hat, purse, shoes and gloves for this occasion and was as proud as a biological mother because she had been the mother to these two children--Joann and Johnny. I remember telling her that I was going to college so I wouldn't have to be a maid. I loved my grandmother very much and I respected her. She was a kind, decent, caring and giving woman to all of us kids and to everyone else.

But my grandmother was stuck in the role of maid because that was the only kind of work she could get. She made $3.00 a day plus bus fare. I was astounded to learn that from this small salary she saved enough money for my cousin that she raised to attend nursing school at Dillard in New Orleans. My grandmother was very disappointed and sad when my cousin chose marriage over college. You see, my grandmother wanted my cousin to achieve what she hadn't been able to accomplish. She wanted to have the vicarious satisfaction of achievement and she wanted my cousin to have a better life than her own. I always regretted that she was denied this because of my cousin's personal choice. So many of our forebears sacrificed so that we could be nurses and teachers instead of maids. Which brings me back to Jo Lee and her racist mother, who called me a Nigger when she got home from work because Jo Lee told her I refused to wash her underwear. She threatened to fire me but that was unnecessary because I had no intention of going back to that job. Although their words stung but didn't break me. I knew I was not a Nigger and I knew that they were one step up from being poor white trash even though the mother was a secretary for a lawyer. She was also his paramour. If anything, their actions caused me to have a stronger resolve to go to college so that I would not have to be a maid.

As I read Kathryn Stockett's book, I was reminded that I knew a lot about Jo Lee and her divorced mother and they knew nothing about me because their white skin privilege made them view me as invisible, a non entity, and if they had to consider me at all, they saw me as inferior, as a nobody. All the maids I knew were familiar with the intimate details of the families for whom they worked. This has been the case since slavery when black women worked in the houses of white people....cooked, cleaned their houses, wet nursed their babies...then their employers turned around and called them dirty and lazy. How can you entrust someone with cooking your food and raising your children and then, like a schizophrenic, make a 180 degree turn and look on them as inferior, alien, and not worthy of knowing anything about them, or humanizing them? This is the history of black people in America... it is the history of black domestic workers. It is why my father told my mother that she would never work for white people. He saw how his mother's employers tried to dehumanize her by commission and omission.

What is needed is a book by a maid or a group of maids on the white people they work for. Now that's a book that would probably be a lot more accurate and insightful, and the dialect would be correct too. Every time I read one of Kathryn Stockett's "I'm on" instead of Imma, or I'm gonna" I got irritated. I hated it when she spelled "Eula Mae" as "Yule Mae". I got downright angry when she described the husbands of at least three maids as no count men who had gone off and left their families. At the same time, the white men in Stockett's world aren't absent or "no count" because they have professional jobs, leisure time, and they have enough money to build separate toilets for their maids. God forbid that a black maid who cooks their food would ever be allowed to use the same toilet the white people use. I guess this explains the fixation segregationists had with toilets.... for in so many public places there were four. One each for black women, black men, white women, and white men. It's no wonder they didn't have money for libraries and good schools. It was all spent making sure that no black person would ever sit on the same toilet a white behind had graced.

I have thought about my conflict with Jo Lee over the years. I have never taken pride in watching her eat pancakes made with dirty dishwater. It was not my finest young hour but racism had a way of dehumanizing everyone. In the absence of racism she and I could have been equals and friends. But discrimination allowed me to be exploited and her to behave in the worst way. I was too young to be a maid and she was too young to be giving me orders. Kathryn Stockett didn't deal with the dirty and raw outcome of discrimination. The people who populate her book and movie are viewed through rose colored glasses where everyone gets along.

Stockett's book has sold millions of copies and made her a very wealthy woman. The movie will make her even more wealthy and will bring her greater status. However, Hollywood would never have given this opportunity to a black author who wrote about black maids in white households especially in the turbulent South during the struggle for civil rights. Moreover, there is no reason to rejoice in the good old times black servants and white employers. The national marketing frenzy for The Help movie has gone wild. It even includes a full day of marketing products on the Home Shopping Network (HSN). The New Orleans chef Emeril has a new line of cooking pots and pans in honor of The Help. Think of how silly this is: to celebrate maid-ing and maid-hood when women made $3.00 a day toiling over pots and pans on hot stoves. No thanks Miz Stockett. I refuse to go back there.

An Open Letter to Fans of The Help (Updated)

Update - Here's another explanation of how I feel: “The Help,” a feel-good movie for white people.

Like the novel on which it’s based, the movie adaptation of “The Help” will likely be a huge hit with white audiences. But for black viewers it is condescending and frequently insulting, despite admirable performances by Davis and Spencer, who bring a measure of complexity — actual flesh and blood — to the characters of Aibileen and Minny. It speaks volumes about the ongoing racial chasm in this country that a feel-good movie for white people will leave many black filmgoers feeling sad — and pessimistic that America can ever become anything more than “a nation of cowards.”

Thank you, Valerie Boyd.

Extra, Extra! It's Not So Bad When White People Do It

Here what you need to know:

Upper classes are marrying late, while poorer women are deciding that they’re better off single.

You can read the article analyzing a recent Census report yourself.  But the basic gist is this: due to a changing economy, middle- and upper-class individuals are marrying later than before while working- and lower-class singles may not marry at all.

It's good that people are marrying later, and indeed, the divorce rate has gone down. These are people who're taking the time to establish themselves financially before marriage and children.

The changes of the last quarter century indicate that marriage is increasingly becoming a marker of class — the delayed marriages of the middle class produce steadily lower divorce rates, very few non-marital births, and substantial resources to invest in a falling number of children. For the rest of the country, the statistics may simply confirm a greater move away from marriage altogether.

What about everybody else? The working- and lower-classes?

Working class women, however, have become more likely to have children without marrying. If the father is chronically unemployed, uncommitted to the relationship, immature or simply unreliable, young mothers may decide that they are better off on their own.

Let's Not Forget All the Confederate Memorials

Sorry. Not to big on the Confederate soldier statue at the old county courthouse, now museum. Yankees all the way!

h/t Tim Wise

Monuments and Mosques: The debate over what’s sacred (an American Indian's perspective)

So the controversy – for the moment – is over the mosque slated to be built near the site of the World Trade Center bombings in New York City. Don’t you worry, though. We’ll get back to that ugly immigration debate momentarily.

The Right is "Taking Back" the Civil Rights Movement, Remember?

Black Power's Gonna Get You Sucka:
Right-Wing Paranoia and the Rhetoric of Modern Racism
By Tim Wise

July 10, 2010

Prominent white conservatives are angry about racism.

Forget all that talk about a post-racial society. They know better than to believe in such a thing, and they’re hopping mad.

Who in Hell Left the Gates Open?! [Updated}

Update: This is the most recent info I could find. Now. There are several out there who feel the whole ordeal was Gates's fault, that had he just complied with the police and been polite, he wouldn't have been arrested - police don't like to be shown up no matter what the other person's race is. All that junk, you'll have to google on your own.


Smooth Criminal (Radio Edit) - Michael Jackson

Me? I hope this finally convinces those individuals who believe that it's not about race as much as class that race does indeed trump class. I personally don't believe the police account that Gates became combative and accused the police of racial bias - mostly because Gates doesn't believe in the overarching construct and impact of racism. But assuming Gates did become belligerent, do the cops really arrest every person who becomes belligerent. Are there no white people who became belligerent with cops and didn't get arrested? I know that's not the case because I've already read a few personal accounts to the contrary.

And it's widely documented that white people accept more disrespect or combativeness from other white people than from people of color. It's also widely known, amongst black people at least, that any sign of resistance will be met with a billy-club and handcuffs. Like I said, I can hardly imagine Gates being belligerent. And the plain truth is he could've done everything the police asked and been as perfectly polite as Emily Post instructs, that does not mean that a request for the cops name and badge would not be met with handcuffs. Or maybe, considering all the cases of police brutality that I've seen and heard, I just think a black person has to give 110% effort at demonstrating their cooperation and respect for the police. Including but not limited to keeping your hands visible at all times. I mean for real. I know of a 19-year-old black guy who was the passenger in a car driven by a white person, and the black guy ends up dead. I'm not even sure the white driver was arrested. I know of a situation where a woman was in some kind of state of medical emergency, I can't remember if she had overdosed on some drug or was in a diabetic shock, but she was shot several times by the police and killed even though, and the police say because, from start to finish she did not move.

The other issue that convinces me this was about race is the neighbor. I mean, why was it necessary to describe the possible thieves as "black?" Whatever it may be and whatever the race of the neighbor, there are racial implications and reason for describing a suspect as "black." Maybe you didn't know you had any black neighbors and you're using the descriptor to indicate the people you're calling about don't belong there. Or, maybe you know that saying "dangerous black male" will get a quicker response. And just who is this neighbor and how long has she been living there? Maybe it's because I've lived in the same neighborhood all my life, or because my eyes are wonderfully healthy, but I'd be able to recognize my neighbors across the street even if it were just by their silhouette.

But there's another issue to address, and this no matter how racism-deniers (You know, like holocaust-deniers? My term, my term.) respond to this, is what it says to black kids and maybe even all kids of color. White people don't know it, but within the black community, adults do stress the importance of education. Work hard, go to college, be the best "you" you can be. We tell our young people that the sky is the limit, they can become whatever they want to become, racism is an obstacle but it has been, can and will be, overcome. In fact, I go as far as to say one of the many strategies of assault on racism is to use education to learn how the "system" works and be able to manipulate it, whether from the inside as a lawmaker criminalizing racial profiling or from the outside as a community activist. But here's the hard-hitting truth, the part of Pres. Obama recent speech to the NAACP that mainstream media ignores: at the end of the day, no amount of education or success can shield you from racism. And especially if it's coming from US senators during your confirmation hearing on your nomination to the Supreme Court and you're a wise Latina woman.
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I just heard about this. Just heard about this. Here's what racismreview has to say . . . my thoughts, and a Michael Jackson song, later.

Racism in Cambridge: Harvard Prof. Gates Arrested
Posted by admin on Jul 21st, 2009 2009
Jul 21Arriving home after a recent trip to China and struggling to get into his own home in Cambridge because of a jammed door, esteemed scholar of African American Studies and Harvard Professor, Henry Louis (”Skip”) Gates, Jr., was arrested by police. According to one report (h/t @BlackInformant for a couple of these links), this incident began when someone alerted police:

A witness, 40-year-old Lucia Whalen of Malden, had alerted the cops that a man was “wedging his shoulder into the front door” at Gates’ house “as to pry the door open,” police reported.

None of the reports I’ve read online describe Ms. Whalen’s race, or why someone from Malden was doing calling the cops about a man entering his own home in Cambridge, but apparently it was her call that began this series of events. Here’s what happened next, according to several reports, this one from HuffingtonPost:

By the time police arrived, Gates was already inside. Police say he refused to come outside to speak with an officer, who told him he was investigating a report of a break-in.

“Why, because I’m a black man in America?” Gates said, according to a police report written by Sgt. James Crowley. The Cambridge police refused to comment on the arrest Monday.

Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to tell me that I had not heard the last of him,” the officer wrote.

Gates said he turned over his driver’s license and Harvard ID – both with his photos – and repeatedly asked for the name and badge number of the officer, who refused. He said he then followed the officer as he left his house onto his front porch, where he was handcuffed in front of other officers, Gates said in a statement released by his attorney, fellow Harvard scholar Charles Ogletree, on a Web site Gates oversees, TheRoot.com.

As this story has begun to get out on the web in the last 12-24 hours, it seems to be touching off a tsunami of outrage at the persistence of racial inequality in the U.S., even for one of the most well-known and accomplished scholars. If this could happen to Skip Gates, at his home in Cambridge, Mass., it does not speak well for the state of racial progress in the country as a whole. As Rev. Al Sharpton said, “If this can happen at Harvard, what does it say about the rest of the country?”

But, make no mistake, this outrage is not universally shared. Almost as soon as this story broke, the undertow of white backlash to the reality of racism began to counter the outrage. For example, Bruce Maiman, writing at The Examiner, contends that the Cambridge police were just doing their job, responding to a call about a break-in to a home, and that Prof. Gates escalated the situation. Here’s Maiman:

So I ask you: Who’s the person who caused this encounter? Professor Gates is now being represented by another distinguished law professor from Harvard, Charles Ogletree, and they’re going to claim that this cop was racist and mishandled this situation because the fact that a black male was involved.

I don’t see any racism, do you? Tell me where? No names were called. Nobody was hassled or pushed around. Legitimate requests were made and cooperation was not forthcoming from a man, Henry Louis Gates, who know better than most people on this planet what happens when you escalate a confrontation with the police. But he does it anyway.

Is there racial profiling in America? Sure there is. But if you justify the behavior of Henry Louis Gates because other black men have been hassled by other police officers unfairly and thus you assume every black man has a right to a chip on his shoulder every time he meets a cop, you are asking for trouble.

This doesn’t appear to be racism. It sounds to me like a colossal case of extraordinarily bad judgment on the part of a distinguished African American historian who happens to teach at Harvard, and who certainly should’ve known better.

Here, Maiman’s interpretation of these events is completely steeped in the white racial frame. He says, “I don’t see any racism” and, of course, he can’t from the WRF. He only sees a black man “with a chip on his shoulder,” not the racist behavior of the cop. Maiman further diminishes Gates by referring to him as someone “who happens to teach at Harvard” and questions his judgment because he “certainly should’ve known better.” Known better than to what, try and enter his own home? Maiman is simply wrong on the facts here, and wrong on his interpretation of the events. Maiman is like other whites, as philosopher Charles W. Mills writes, “unable to see the world he has created,” unable to see how his not-seeing-racism contributes to the problem of racial inequality.

The research on the racial inequality in policing, arrest, and incarceration in the U.S. is starkly clear (as we’ve recounted on this blog hundreds of times): those who are black or brown, particularly men, are much more likely to be stopped, frisked, harrassed, arrested and convicted than whites. And, this inequality in criminal ‘justice’ is part of a larger pattern of racial inequality that operates systematically throughout U.S. institutions. The irony, for those that have followed Gates’ scholarship closely, is that he has tended to downplay the significance of institutional racism in the contemporary U.S. Reports are that Gates’ is “shaken” by this experience, as anyone would be. This is a horrifying, and yet all too common, experience for black men in this country. Perhaps Gates’ next volume will be called “Harvard Professor, Still a Suspect.”

More good sociological analysis on this case (and others) from City College Prof. Dumi Lewis, here.
________________________________________________

As a history student, and nerd, I know Gates and hold him in fairly high regard. However, I've always been disappointed in his views, or maybe his lack of outspokenness, on systemic racism. I wonder if this will do anything to change his thinking. Though, regardless, whatever it matters and to the extent that I can, I got his back like black.

Ruling from Ideology

I've been around the last week. I'm up on everything. Can't get over Michael. He was just an incredible, once in ever artist. I'll never reach his level on music heights. And I wonder what would've come had he gone into acting. Or, if he had gotten some help. I won't even lie, I even wonder if the man was just a musical savant and a little diminished in other areas.

But I do hope that I can have the same impact when it comes to humanitarianism and people's lives in the area of social justice.

So, I've been watching the lastest, and the latest from the Supreme Court has me even more determined to help bring about justice and righteousness. And you know it was 5-4. Stank Kennedy. He must've been one of those other Kennedy's, you know? (Listen, if you don't understand the snide comment I'm making, please ask about it before you assume something stupid.) And for my white readers or any one of y'all just passing through, this is why Uncle Clarence gets his own title.

I swear! Just read the article and let me know what you think. And if you got something smart to say but didn't read the article, oh, I will be drawing blood. Make no mistake about it. And just so we're clear, yes, I'm saying this decision is racist. Yes, I'm saying the fact that we have so many "empathetic" white male judges not only influenced the outcome; but, at least 3 of'em are racist. Plain and tall.

I'm Forced to Ask . . .

You know, I haven't really heard of anyone from the pro-choice camp murdering anybody for, I don't know, preventing women from having abortions. If you have, please drop a line. But how anyone can murder in the name of "pro-life" is beyond me, even if you argue they're ultimately saving lives.

By the by, has anyone heard anything for Gloria Steinem or Geraldine Ferrarro responding to the racist and sexist attacks against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor? I mean, I know they didn't defend Michelle Obama much when she was being called an "angry black woman" or Pres. Obama's "baby mama," so I guess their silence here is par for the course. A little disappointing, though. A little disappointing. You know. They come across as only being interested in making white women the equal of white men, not in equality for all. Of course, I already thought Ferrarro was racist, but Steinem? I'm disappointed. Maybe they'll say something by the time Judge Sotomayor is confirmed.

And oh, yeah. I'm sure you've heard all the "colorblind" talk about how Sotomayor's race and gender shouldn't play a role in the decision to confirm and deny her. Which is odd. I mean, you never hear that about white men. Don't get me wrong, I know that's because white men are held as the "norm" and everything else is a deviation from the "norm." But, it just bothers me because the people making all the "colorblind" talk are conservatives who, you know, aren't exactly thrilled to have a more diverse court. They want to argue that her race and gender shouldn't matter in that they don't necessarily make her a better judge; they have more sense than to argue her race and gender make her a worse judge. But, with all the talk that she's too focused on her race and how she's an anti-white racist based on all of one phrase and her membership in the National Council of La Raza, the largest Latino civil rights group, I kinda get they feeling they'd like to if they could.

What really gets me is how they argue that a court of 9 white men can make just as good decisions as a court of 9 Latinas. To prove this, they point out that a court of 9 white men decided Brown vs Board of Education which overturned Plessy vs Ferguson, as though it wasn't 9 white men who decided Plessy vs Ferguson in the first place.

But, every time I hear someone say Sotomayor's race and gender shouldn't matter, it's like a cloud floats by right out of my reach. I can't quite get my mind to figure out why it bothers me. I guess because conservatives want to pretend that you don't have to take race and/or gender into consideration in order to reach a fair decision in choosing who to place on the Supreme Court. They call her an "affirmative action" pick, which is ironic in itself. They, of course, mean that she was chosen just because of her race and gender and nothing else. As if excusing her race and gender, she doesn't have any other qualifications. They question her depth of intelligence as though graduating in the top 2 of Princeton University is so easy a caveman could do. As though Bush did it. They question if she's smart enough to be on the court, as though she hasn't spent the past 17 years as a judge in the federal courts. They question her temperament, which actually doesn't bother me accept they use the word "temperament" as a euphemism for "she may not always decide for the rich, the white, or the corporations."

But, of course, affirmative action means we just made sure her race and gender didn't hold her back. I guess what conservatives don't want to publicly acknowledge is that due to historical and recent racism, if you just reach into a pool of judges "color-blindly" you'll probably pull out a white guy. I'm guess they would disagree, and Clarence Thomas would be their example, but according to their rhetoric, the only way to choose someone without regard to their race or gender would be to choose a white man. And that, of course, only furthers the cause of white male dominance, of patriarchy and racism. I guess that's what bothers me about the whole argument that Sotomayor's race and gender shouldn't matter. For conservatives, it seems like the only time race and gender don't matter, which probably means as much as anything else that it's the only time they don't notice, is when a white man is involved. And that's just plain racist and sexist and I wish I knew how to scream this to them and put a stop to it. If only, if only.

If only I could further crystallize my thoughts! We'll see in the coming days. I'll keep trying to think this out. Enough for tonight, though.

Here's a Thought: Section 5 Should Apply to All States Equally

Here's an article on slate.com summarizing the arguments, from both the principle parties and the justicies, in the most recent challenge to protecting minority voting rights. Here's a NY Times op-ed explaining things.

When Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, they wrote Section 5 of the act which singled out Southern states for special federal oversight. Now, conservatives, including the conservative justices, are arguing that it should maybe overturned for unfairly attacking states' rights. Even though Congress just recently reauthorized Section 5 in 2006, and according to conservatives it's not the job of judges to "legislate from the bench," if proponents of voting rights can't sway Justice Kennedy to their perspective, Section 5 just might be overturned. What makes Section 5 particularly insulting to Dixie is that there're are northern states who track much worse than they do. (I have to add here that that's an odd, historical argument - that Dixie should not be judged because there are places in the north that are much more virulently racist.) At least, that's how I understand it.

I have a suggestion. Why not place all 50 states under Section 5?

Oh My Lord!

Some people are apparently pissy because in his inaugural speech, Pres. Barack Obama mentioned "non believers." People, get over it. We live in a nation the protects religious freedom, including the freedom to not be religious, and has protected this freedom since it's founding. The idea of religious freedom wasn't that people are free to choose whatever form of Christianity they wish; it's that people are free to choose or not choose whatever belief-system they wish. This whole idea that the USA has been and must always be "Christian" is nonsense. Many of the founders weren't believers themselves. Get over it.

Now that that's clear, there's another issue I have with the news. Melinda Hennenberger points out, ". . . some of the stiff criticism about Obama’s religious inclusiveness is coming from African-American Christians who maintain that no, all faiths were actually not created equal." It leaves me wondering what her point was. Is she surprised that some blacks aren't "hopeful" about Obama? Why? Not every single black voter actually voted for Obama. Granted, well over 90% did, but 90% ain't everybody.

Or is it this false notion among whites that black people should be the most tolerant of all, considering our past. Well guess what! There are those among us who don't "tolerate" any and everything. And here's the racism in this myth among white people that black people are the most tolerant of any people: it denies black people the same humanity as everybody else to the extent that black people can never be wrong. Listen, that's an old trick played against African Americans since someone realized that dark-skinned servants couldn't just mix in with the crowd and run away. The idea has been that in order for whites to give blacks social equality, all blacks have to be absolutely perfect. The few blacks who aren't ruin everything for everyone else. Right? Can't let any black person move in the neighborhood because some don't keep up their property value. Can't let any black person vote because some don't know how to read.

I mean for the past few centuries, any excuse to deny black people equality has been used. The recent excuse is that since some black people deny equality to others, the entire black community most be held at fault and denied equality. Which, of course, is odd because white folks in general just pick and choose who is worthy of equal rights and who isn't all the time. But, we already know that some white people are bigots, so it's no big deal. Except that it is. To err is human, and to deny some people other human rights because they err is, well, inhumane.

Kinda like the big to do over black people being the force behind the passage of California's proposition 8. The whole interest is that black people would deny other's equality. But the whole point is that, "See? Darkies just can't get it together. That's why we don't have to treat them equal." Right? Because in the end, the fact is that black people weren't the driving force behind the passage of prop 8. But pointing out some perceive wrong by the black community is just all too profitable. And sadly, easy.

Keep in an out for my diatribe about the LGBTQ community racism. It should be coming very soon.

Oh, Shut Up!

If you've read a good number of my posts, you know I support gay rights, including same-sex marriage or at least some legal approximation. (There is a credible argument to be made that throughout history, even Greek history when philosophers were sleeping with their male protegees, marriage has always and only applied to the covenant between a man and a woman.)

If you've read a good number of my posts, you know I have little respect for the so-called Christians Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. I have referred to them as "gellies" and "fundies." I think they're wrong to focus so much attention on things they have no right to control, like women's bodies and other people's sexuality, while they dismiss and even aggravate the need for racial and economic justice. They ignore the growing prison industrial complex that is ravaging communities and making use of legalized slavery. They ignore our over reliance on the military. They ignore the growing military industrial complex. They ignore the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghans who have died in our ill-conceived "war on terror." They can make no credible claim to concern for "life." Not while the vote against S-CHIP and other attempts to make healthcare affordable and accessible. Not while they sit complacently as our schools return to a pre-integration state in the disparity of money spent per child and children in integrated schools end up racially segregated.

Don't get me wrong. I've read Purpose Driven Life. But I'm a much bigger fan of Rachel Maddow than I am of Rick Warren.

Having said that, I wish the gay community would stop with their whining and crying over Rick Warren giving the invocation at the inauguration. They claim that his presence is a slap in the face and a signal that the LGBT community won't have a seat at the table during Barack Obama's administration. But the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who supports gay rights, including gay marriage, is giving the benediction. What does that mean? Does Rick Warren's presence make anything Joseph Lowery represents as far as gay rights null and void? And if so, why? Cause I know you wouldn't be acting as if Lowery's presence means nothing just because Warren is white and Lowery is black. (Of course, I'm being facetious.)

And quit crying about your social status! You're not at the back of the bus; and if you are, you're certainly not their alone. When you move into a community, people don't rush to move out! The property doesn't go down, it goes up! So shut up with you're whining.

You make the same mistake the gellies and fundies make: you act like your issue is the only one that exists. It's not, and you're both wrong. You act like racism and sexism and economic justice no longer exist. You're both wrong. You act like that only people who matter are white people. You act like only the concerns of white people should be addressed. Again, you're both wrong.

And what's more, shut up complaining like Obama owes you something! All he owes you is living up to his campaign promises. He's been doing that. What I find most especially disturbing is this sense that a group of people beyond Obama's choosing is going to control what he does. I mean, really. Do you think that you're supposed to order him around or something? That he's your White House negro? Come on! I've seen this show before. A black person reaches some position of influence and power, and the white people below and around him/her act as though they're still going to tell him/her what to do. I'm sorry. Try as I might, I can't separate the way the LGBT community is carrying on from race.

Not that Rick Warren is great on issues of race. From what I can see, he'd vote against affirmative action. And still, you don't see people of color carrying on like the sky is falling.

For goodness sake people, it's just an invocation! Some of you don't even believe in God. What do you care who gives the invocation?

It's just an invocation! He's not righting a bill for Obama to sign. Obama's not "pandering" to the evangelical community. How can he be when he has someone who supports gay rights doing the benediction? Or am I missing something.

Yeah, I don't think I'm missing anything. Now, I know the entire LGBT community includes people of color. So, I'll admit, it's really the white LGBT community I find aggravating. Just like their pout-fest over Donnie McClurkin, someone they probably had never heard of, singing at a gospel concert aimed at the black community reeked of white privilege, this whole outcry against Rick Warren stinks, too.

Now again. Don't get me wrong. I disagree with Warren's position on proposition 8. Personally, I'm wrestling with whether to understand homosexuality as a sin or not. I certainly understand it is beyond the person's control. If a person is sexually attracted to people of the opposite, I don't know if there's much to gain from "choosing" to be gay. Or, at least, I don't think many if any heterosexuals "chose" to be straight; it just so happens that they are. So, I reject the exclusionary language a lot of professed Christians use.

But, I also reject the apparent exclusionary track the gay community is taking in regards to Rick Warren. I mean really. He's apparently removed the most offensive language from his website. That's as far as you're going to get. I doubt you'll succeed at changing his mind in regards to the question of whether or not homosexuality is a sin. So, stop the pouting about Rick Warren and move on to something more substantive like "don't ask, don't tell."

Sorry if this post seems even less lucid than usual. My head is foggy, and I'm just really fed up.