I can't keep giving them out to angry and violent white men, but that does give me an idea for an "Angry White Man Award of the Week". That will just get boring though. So....Dr. West gets the honors this week. Though he should be sharing it with Smiley and Dyson - which I'll get into below. This is for his penchant for wanting to spend time in the Crack House vs. the White House as per his statement via TWIB:
"That's not my calling. Yeah, brother, you find me in a crack house before you find me in the White House. I'll go into the crack house before I ever go that far inside.
Really?
Seriously.
Is this what an Ivy-League education produces....and reproduces? Like when does he actually travel without a car service and what does he know about standing on the corner in the 'hood? He'd rather immerse himself in a dangerous environment with people caught in the demonic throws of drug addiction instead of speaking to the President about possibly doing something that would eliminate the need for a crack house to exist?
Idiot!
This is why I was gently admonished by a reader for lamenting about why some Black female bloggers can't come to a consensus. Unless it's for some external cause like fighting the great white oppression many of us have absolutely nothing in common and we shouldn't expect to.
So he, Michael Eric Dyson and Tavis Smiley, whom I'll dub the "Triumvirate of Ego & Stupidity" keep harping on the President for the sake of being argumentative - not for any serious policy discussion. Just. Walk. Away. It's more pseudo-intelligentsia childish temper tantrums. I have yet to see any of these men spearhead one major campaign where they support or defend Black women on any issues of importance. They are the flip side of Reverend Co. (you know Sharpton, Jackson, et al) who have never met a Black male criminal they won't defend or rubber chicken dinner with money left under the plate they won't attend. Perhaps I'm being extra hard on Jackson, Sr.
No...don't think so!
Dr. Melissa Harris Lacewell took them to task for this last week in her piece, Don't Hold Obama Accountable to a Race Agenda" where she says:
On May 24, TV One aired the latest installment of Smiley's accountability campaign: a two-hour documentary titled "Stand." Recycling Spike Lee's Million Man March film, "Get On the Bus," Smiley assembled a group of prominent black male public figures for a bus ride through the South.
Ostensibly, this bus trip would provide Smiley, professors Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson, Dick Gregory and others an opportunity to reflect on the meaningful upheavals in American society and politics in the summer of 2008. "Stand" was an enormous disappointment.
Its low production value, wandering narrative, flat history and self-important egoism did little to reveal the shortcomings of the Obama phenomenon. Instead, the piece exposed and embodied the contemporary crisis of the black public intellectual in the age of Obama.
The film and its participants (two of them my senior colleagues at Princeton University) appropriated the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to implicitly claim that they, not Obama, are the authentic representatives of the political interests of African-Americans. They used King's images and speeches, gathered on the balcony where King was assassinated, and explicitly asserted their desire to play King to Obama's LBJ, and Frederick Douglass to Obama's Lincoln.
Seriously.
Shudder.
We've got a serious domestic terrorism problem brewing where a few angry white men are going to Set It Off and this is all these "esteemed" men can talk about? Perhaps that's the point. If they keep saying these childish and foolish things we'll keep talking about them. Not Obama. Which is just they way they'd like it. For that - they get the SLAP!!!!
4 comments:
Khadija: As usual you are razor sharp! Not many readers have actually linked over to the Harris-Lacewell to read it in its entirety. Yes I admire Dr. Harris-Lacewell for many things but her Obama crush is not one of them. Ah well. Symbolism is REALLY POWERFUL. That's why I only chose that segment. They're all either drinking the kool-aid or the haterade it seems.
Or we're somewhere in the middle. Or being very pragmatic.
I wonder how one man can dredge up so many emotions in other people that he's had little or no direct contact with.
That would make a great blog post that I'd love a sociologist and psychologist to write.
Now having said that I'm not completely on board with writing Obama off - yet. Dinkins I have some empathy for since I lived in NYC when he was elected and saw how he got dogged. Of course I knew nothing about politics back then.
It's interesting though because I've been on the boards at a Black political blog and to read them defending DOMA (when they haven't read it) and citing rule of law (when they don't know what that means) because it's about teh gays when Blacks have been victimized by laws since the day they brought the first stolen people here just kills me.
And the stubborness in not evaluating the big picture boggles my mind. It goes back to the earlier discussions of how Blacks don't really agree on much. We are so screwed collectively and people don't even see it.
We can't hold him to any agenda because 1) we can't agree on one 2) people have either gone overboard in unearned admiration or outright disdain 3) Bush & Co really wrecked the country and people just want the hardship to be OVER
I've learned more from observing how people act over this President than anything. I don't know where that leaves me, except I'm working with several predominantly white feminist advisory boards. I gotta milk something out of the "sacred cow"!!!
But on the other hand my vote was always about Michelle being First Lady so I guess I won't be too disappointed compared to others. On the other hand it's only been 4 months and the country is a MESS!!! But still people are clinging to their totems for dear life!!
I just remind myself that John & Sarah aren't there and I take comfort with that. I wish these men would stop acting like petulant babies and grow up though - then some things would actually change. They have an audience but they're squandering all currency.
Faith,
You said, "Yes I admire Dr. Harris-Lacewell for many things but her Obama crush is not one of them. Ah well."-
I agree. I've enjoyed Dr. Harris-Lacewell's input regarding topics other than Pres. Obama.
You said, "Symbolism is REALLY POWERFUL. That's why I only chose that segment. They're all either drinking the kool-aid or the haterade it seems.
Or we're somewhere in the middle. Or being very pragmatic.
I wonder how one man can dredge up so many emotions in other people that he's had little or no direct contact with."-
I've found this aspect of Pres. Obama's marketing strategy quite fascinating. From the beginning, he's been careful to present a blank slate for others to project their hopes and dreams onto him. I amazes me to watch his fervent supporters read so much into his careful, calculated, neutral statements. Which is the response these statements were designed to elicit.
In terms of substance, there's very little difference between him and Hilary Clinton. But you'd never know that from the way his deluded progressive supporters respond to him.
You said, "I just remind myself that John & Sarah aren't there and I take comfort with that."-
Oooh, yes. I praise God that He delivered us from that fate! Eight years of living through the movie Idiocracy was 8 years too many.
You said, "I've learned more from observing how people act over this President than anything. I don't know where that leaves me, except I'm working with several predominantly white feminist advisory boards. I gotta milk something out of the "sacred cow"!!!"-
Good luck! LOL! I admire your patience. I don't work well with groups anymore. Not unless they're pre-screened to ensure that everybody at the table is like-minded enough to be productive in group efforts.
Thanks for this post. Since I tune out the infotainment hustlers, I hadn't heard of any of this.
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
"Triumvirate of Ego & Stupidity" ...ha ha ha. I take it that you don't attend Tavis Smileys State of The Black Union...ha ha ha..
Citizen Ojo: Ah but if you check my blog archives I watched the entire.thing.on.C-Span and live blogged it. I refused to spend the money to go to Los Angeles and sign away all my contact info and give out free marketing info as required to attend Smiley's Negro SuperBowl but after a decade it's old hat now. I could do a blow by blow from memory now: intro/talking/clapping/book hawking/intermission/more product hawking/more talking/pats on the back/nothing actually done/rinse & repeat the following year. The only difference now is bash Obama at least twice.
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