yeah right

photo originally found in diversity inc magazine.

abercrombie "cares" about diversity, and they couldn't have found two more racially ambiguous models to prove it. i really hate all of the corporate pandering to people of color through flimsy, lazy campaigns like this one. ew.

will nas be hanes' newest spokesperson?

h/t to nsekuye's google reader and racewire for giving the heads up on these new hanes ads.

yes, they are disturbing and badly conceived. my biggest question, though, is where the hell do they run? where can you put up that ad? and what does it have to do with underwear? who the hell is your ad firm? why can't you be more like fruit of the loom and feature singing men in fruit costumes? what's wrong with you?

there's a lot going on in this post: on mlk and blackness and wanting

jalylah over at hello, babar/she real cool is always teaching me shit. this morning is no exception. her post commemorating dr. king and discussing her own body politic is insightful and feels painfully familiar. the way black women's bodies are simultaneously hyper- and in-visible is one of the most painful aspects of my personal struggle against oppression- sometimes it just feels impossible to change the way people (can't) see you.
anyway, beyond providing an incredible chance for reflection, jb's post also sent me to this link on the kerner report by bill moyers. it's worth a watch. structural racism lives on.
***
on another note, i want to say something about the theorizing blackness conference put on by the africana studies group at the cuny graduate center yesterday. finding the words, though, is the hard part.

i'll start by saying that the 12 pages of notes i wrote speak to the absolute profundity of many of the presentations yesterday. mark anthony neal is amazing. there were two concepts that stand out amongst the many quotes of his that i scribbled during his keynote, and i'll share them here:

1) we need to, when we think about "blackness" in 21st century USA and in the diaspora, think about the distinction between african-american and black.

we cannot continue to assume a shared history around the civil rights movement in the US if we hope to truly galvanize movement toward dismantling structural oppression. our blacknesses are distinct though connected and we have to learn to be comfortable with learning the topography of our differences, not just those between our race and others.

this idea leads to the second i can't really let go of:

2) "unity is a myth. solidarity is a strategy." ~m.a.n.

i think this is so deep. deep! and obvious. and true. but it is also something i think we often forget. standing in solidarity with one another has always been the strategy of successful civil rights movement. there was nothing unified about the american black community in the 50's- there has always been and always will be class/color/location stratification. we never have been and never will be a monolithic, homogeneous group. we have to choose to stand up with one another to make change. solidarity, though, begins with knowledge of one another and ourselves. you have to know who the other is in order to trust her.

as i try to wrap up this post i find myself at a loss. i want to talk about the paper on lauryn hill and madness, the one about transnational translation of black feminism in english, the one minstrelsy and madea, the one on something new and cheryl dunye, the one on racial uplift in the 21st century. i want to talk about bill cosby and oprah winfrey and how they are irrevocably human and how they are rich and how they've been rich for a really long time and how that means they don't know much about the reality of the lived experience of poor black people in the 21st century at all. i want to talk about the ways that tokenism (and the inability for wealthy black people to remember how difficult finding success can really be) works to make solidarity across class lines in the black community almost impossible.

i also want to talk about black women's literature and the importance of our voices. i want to talk about the cute boy i met who i also saw at the black feminism conference. i want to talk about my own ignorance that led me to question the "blackness" of a black man who didn't strike me as being "black enough" at first glance.

i want to talk. to you. and to my former students. and to my family. i want to hear what blackness means to us, and start a conversation about its power.

i want to start a school where visiting scholars come and speak to young students of color about these issues. i want to build the ties between and among black people so we can then start talking with our other allies with confidence.

iwantiwantiwantithinkiwantiheariwantihopeiwant.

that was my day off :).


**funny last note- i google image-searched for "black enough?" and the first twenty images were all barack obama (dr. nassey-brown of hunter college had some awesome things to say about barry at the closing plenary yesterday, btw. keep your eye out for the journal of af-am studies, because some of the papers from the conference will be published there?)! oh wait, you're not surprised :).

bowling=white?

from shakesville:

Sweet Jesus, I Still Hate Chris Matthews

| posted by Melissa McEwan | Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Chris "Paleface" Matthews, on yesterday's Hardball, discussing with Howard Fineman and Michelle Bernard the very, very newsworthy and important fact that presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama isn't a fantabulous bowler (about which Spudsy posted yesterday):

FINEMAN: … He definitely needs some bowling lessons. He should do what we used to do in Pittsburgh, which is all-night bowling for a dollar, you know, really work on your game. I think he did get [former Pittsburgh Steelers football players] Franco Harris and he did get Jerome Bettis, the Bus, to endorse him. And he's traveling around on the bus with the Bus. But if you can't do something like that, you shouldn't do it. He should have stuck to shooting hoops—

MATTHEWS: Yeah, I know.

FINEMAN: —which he's very, very good at, by the way, and which translates racially, too, especially during the NCAA basketball tournament. Don't do something you've never tried before in front of a national television audience, OK?

MATTHEWS: You know, Michelle—and this gets very ethnic, but the fact that he's good at basketball doesn't surprise anybody, but the fact that he's that terrible at bowling does make you wonder—

FINEMAN: That doesn't surprise anybody either.

BERNARD: Well, it certainly doesn't surprise anybody black, I can tell you that.

…MATTHEWS: [Watching video.] This is a killer. Look at this killer. Because it isn't the most macho form there, I must say, but who knows?

But how does he smell, Chris? HOW DOES HE SMELL???!!!

to finish the posting frenzy, another women's history month poem

loving the carnival. this entry was posted over at women's space:



The Other Woman

The ancient lines
Drawn
The ancient dust
Settles the storm
Arriving

On the eve of the revolution

Blood flows red
Into the gutter.
Sites of ancient women’s power
Buried
In the dirt
In the dust

I want this more
Each day I flounder
With the words left unsaid

I am not
As white as you
I am not
As rich as you

Still I bleed red
In darkness

While you shine
With your golden hair
And your beautiful words

And I hate you

But really, deep-down
You are everything
I wish to be

With your confidence
Your grace

I know
You will be a leader
Women will love you
Women will follow you

While I lie
Here in the background
With the other
Lost and buried
Women

Because my hair
Does not shine gold
My voice
Does not sing sweetly
You are everything
That I am not

And I hate you
Even though
I know I shouldn’t
Even though
I want to love you
Even though

Everything in you screams
‘I am a fucked thing
Just like you
I hate you too
Shut the fuck up shut the fuck up shutthefuckup

SHUT THE FUCK UP’

And everything in me
Screams back
Until
We can not hear each other
We can not hear ourselves

So

I ask you
To join me here
On the eve of the revolution

Round the kitchen table
In the garden
Round the tribal fire
In those ancient sacred sites

Believe that there is a
A place
Where women are free
To love ourselves
And each other

That place
Is in my heart
When I reach out a hand
And call you sister

That place is in you
When you reach back

–by Dani/allecto, who is a 26 year old radical feminist lesbian, a descendant of a First Nations people, an activist, vegetarian, child-care worker; a creative, passionate, alive, inspired woman. She believes that Sisterhood is the most powerful force in the Universe.

i <3 color of change, so...

Dear Friends,

The so-called "war on drugs" has created a national disaster: 1 in 15 Black adults in America are now behind bars. It's not because they commit more crime but because of unfair sentencing rules that treat 5 grams of crack cocaine, the kind found in poor Black communities, the same as 500 grams of powder cocaine the kind found in White and wealthier communities.

These sentencing laws are destroying communities across the country and have done almost nothing to reduce the level of drug use and crime.

Senator Joe Biden is one of the original creators of these laws and is now trying to fix the problem. But some of his colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee are standing in the way. I've signed on with ColorOfChange.org to tell them to stand with Joe Biden and undo this disaster once and for all. Will you join me? It just takes a moment and you can start by clicking on the link below:

http://www.colorofchange.org/crackpowder/?id=1903-451771

Thanks.

a damn shame

have you heard about this? an entire school district is on the verge of losing its accreditation? is anyone surprised that the district is "predominantly black"?

choice quotes-

"For the county's nearly 53,000 public school students, loss of accreditation would mean they would not be eligible for state scholarships or be accepted at many universities. They also would have difficulty transferring to other high schools."

"According to the report, Clayton County Public Schools' nine-member school board is so "dysfunctional" that it has had difficulty recruiting a superintendent, teachers and bus drivers. It accuses board members of nepotism, conflicts of interest, micromanagement, lax fiscal responsibility and failure to audit school attendance."

so nine people can take away 53,000 black students' chances at higher education, but we don't hear about it in the nightly news. we don't read about it on blogs. it's tucked away in the LA Times Education section and swept away in the midst of election frenzy. if this country were to do right, these would be front-page stories.

and geraldine ferraro refuses to be sorry for suggesting that barack obama is lucky to be a black man.

does anyone want to go start a quilombo with me? anyone?

the ferraro controversy

h/t to too sense on this clip.

if you jump ahead to 4:02, you'll see barack's response to the silliness that is geraldine ferraro, and then, soon after you'll get a taste of eugene robinson's genius.

one note to msnbc: throughout the second half of the clip y'all have ferraro's name egregiously misspelled. egregiously. i mean, come on now.

"ethnic dress for success tips"

completely idiotic thoughts from my (least) favorite "diversity" website, diversity inc.

for this month's electronic issue, yoji cole, diversity inc's token black guy (this is the site, by the way, that features a "ask the white guy" column), goes to town on giving some suggestions to ethnic women in the workplace on toning down (or up, if they're asian) their looks. some choice "this is how you've been seen "historically" and the only way to get away from that is to assimilate" stereotypes:

"For example, many Latinas prefer bright colors, low-cut tops and short skirts..."

really, now? and do many professional Latinas (who, culturally of course, prefer skimpy clothing) wear those clothes to the office?! because when i think of low-cut tops and short skirts in the workplace i think of samantha on sex and the city or ally mcbeal. last time i checked, they were both white.

"Black women tend to wear big earrings, she notes."

i'm sorry, but WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?! what. the. fuck. i tried to laugh at this shit, but i started to get tears in my eyes. if this is what corporate america thinks "we" need, i need to move to a different fucking universe.

the rest of the article is available here to subscribers.

and if that isn't enough, check out diversity inc's article on "7 things not to say to your LGBT coworkers." this shit is so laughable, i'm surprised they don't list tina fey as a fucking source.

argh.

the academy fails us again

and denies an incredible scholar and activist, who happens to be a woman of color, tenure. the women's studies @ univ. of michigan is the offending party here. if you know of prof. andrea smith's work and are interested in supporting her with your words, find information after the link.

why is education in this country so treacherous?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 25, 2008
Statement of University of Michigan Students and Faculty in Support of Andrea Smith’s Tenure Case
CONTACT: TenureForAndreaSmith@gmail.com

On February 22nd, 2008, University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) issued a negative tenure recommendation for Assistant Professor Andrea Lee Smith. Jointly appointed in the Program in American Culture and the Department of Women’s Studies, Dr. Smith’s body of scholarship exemplifies scholarly excellence with widely circulated articles in peer-reviewed journals and numerous books in both university and independent presses including Native Americans and the Christian Right published this year by Duke University Press. Dr. Smith is one of the greatest indigenous feminist intellectuals of our time. A nominee for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Smith has an outstanding academic and community record of service that is internationally and nationally recognized. She is a dedicated professor and mentor and she is an integral member of the University of Michigan (UM) intellectual community. Her reputation and pedagogical practices draw undergraduate and graduate students from all over campus and the nation.

Dr. Smith received the news about her tenure case while participating in the United States’ hearings before the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Ironically, during those very same hearings, the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decisions that restricted affirmative action policies at UM specifically were cited as violations of international law. At the same time, there is an undeniable link between the Department of Women’s Studies and LSA’s current tenure recommendations and the long history of institutional restrictions against faculty of color. In 2008, students of color are coming together to protest the way UM’s administration has fostered an environment wherein faculty of color are few and far between, Ethnic Studies course offerings have little financial and institutional support, and student services for students of color are decreasing each year.

To Support Professor Andrea Smith: The Provost must hear our responses! Write letters in support of Andrea Smith’s tenure case. Address email letters to ALL of the following:

* Teresa Sullivan, Provost and Executive VP for Academic Affairs, LSA, tsull@umich.edu
* Lester Monts, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, LSA, lmonts@umich.edu
* Mary Sue Coleman, President, PresOff@umich.edu
* TenureForAndreaSmith@gmail.com

Voice your ideas on the web forum at http://www.woclockdown.org/

To Support Women of Color at Michigan and the Crisis of Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies:

Attend the student organized March 15th Conference at UM!!!!

Campus Lockdown: Women of Color Negotiating the Academic Industrial Complex is free and open to the public.

Speakers include renowned activists and scholars Piya Chatterjee, Angela Davis, Rosa Linda Fregoso, Ruthie Gilmore, Fred Moten, Clarissa Rojas, and Haunani-Kay Trask. For more information and to register, visit: http://www.woclockdown.org/.

TALKING POINTS YOU CAN USE IN YOUR SUPPORT LETTER:
• Smith is author of the following books:
o Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide
o Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely
Alliances
o Sacred Sites, Sacred Rites
• Smith is editor and/or co-editor of the following anthologies:
o Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology
o The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial
Complex
o Native Feminisms Without Apology
o Forthcoming on theorizing Indigenous Studies
• She has published 15 peer reviewed articles in widely circulated academic journals
including American Quarterly, Feminist Studies, National Women’s Studies
Association Journal, Hypatia, Meridians, and the Journal of Feminist Studies in
Religion
• Smith is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards from organizations such as the Lannan Foundation, University of Illinois, Gustavus Myers Foundation, Ford
Foundation
• Smith was cited in the U.S. Non-Governmental Organization Consolidated Shadow
Report to the United Nations
• A co-founder of Incite! Women of Color Against Violence and the Chicago chapter
of Women of All Red Nations, she has been a key thinker behind large-scale national
and international efforts to develop remedies for ending violence against women
beyond the criminal justice system. As a result of her work, scholars, social service
providers, and community-based organizations throughout the United States have
shifted from state-focused efforts to more systemic approaches for addressing
violence against women. In recognition of her contributions, Smith was nominated
for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.
• As of June 2007, Professor Smith’s book, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American
Indian Genocide (2005) had sold over 8,000 copies. Three-fourths of these sales
have gone to college and university courses. In addition, the leading Native studies
organization, Native American and Indigenous Studies Association organized a
special panel about this book at their last annual conference (2007). The international impact of Conquest is evidenced by its reprinting in Sami (Sweden) and in Maori Institutions in New Zealand; by Professor Smith’s invitation to participate in an academic workshop in Germany based on the book; and by the book’s frequent use in Native Studies classrooms in Canada.
• She has also played a key role in contributing social-justice based research, teaching, and community building at the University of Michigan.
• Under Andrea Smith’s mentorship, a large number of undergraduate and graduate
students have grown as intellectual members of the UM’s campus community.

FACTS FOR DR. ANDREA SMITH’S TENURE CASE
• Her intellectual work contributes to the fields of Native American Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, Religious Studies, and American Studies.
• Smith is jointly appointed in the Program in American Culture and the Department of Women’s Studies at Michigan.
• The Program in American Culture gave a positive recommendation for Smith’s tenure, while the Department of Women’s Studies gave a negative recommendation. After the tenure recommendations were released from the two departments, the College of Literature, Sciences, and the Arts reviewed the tenure file and also gave a negative tenure recommendation.
• She is currently the Director of Native American Studies at Michigan.

letter and info courtesy of la chola.

how much does a hit on a black fetus cost?

h/t to feministing on this one.

i don't know, but i guess we can ask Autumn Kersey, Vice President of Development and Marketing at Planned Parenthood of Ohio.

She agreed to take funds from a donor earmarking his/her funds for the aborting of black fetuses. According to the article below, Kersey "chuckles nervously."

i feel nauseous right now.

Article here, along with transcript of phone call.

this is definitely an interesting spin to the "pro-choice" movement...

the comments on this article hurt my feelings

article here, on the need to increase faculty and grad student diversity @ stanford.

racist, dismissive comments here.

maybe i don't want to go to stanford after all.

um have campus newspapers always been hotbeds of racist bullshit?

well, maybe.

this very astute young man apparently is interested in teaching his asian peers a lesson. satire can be funny, sometimes. sarcasm can be funny, sometimes. plain stupidity is never really funny.

"if it's war the asians want..."

good ol' max actually shares his email address at the end of the article. feel free to share your thoughts.

school's response/statement...

a few thoughts on cuba (kinda)

i grew up in miami, florida in a section of town called carol city. carol city was mostly black. some caribbean, but lots of african-americans too. carol city sat right next to opa-locka and hialeah. opa-locka was mostly black as well, while hialeah was known to be largely latino (i didn't know the term latino at the time, and the assumption, at least in my family, was that most, if not all, latinos were cuban, so we said hialeah was cuban. i have no idea if that is actually true.)

i went to school in two major areas, neither of which was my own neighborhood. i went to school first in aventura, a section of north miami beach about 20 minutes from my house. the school i attended had a gifted program. in order to get permission to attend the school, i took an i.q. test at the age of four and then had to go in for a one-on-one interview. i had to prove my worth to a very kind woman named ms. hagan, who told me i was very bright and helpful, and buzzed around like a little bee. that interview sealed my fate. if i had not impressed ms. hagan, i don't think i would be where i am today.

i then went on to win a scholarship to a prestigious private school in 6th grade. throughout my middle school and high school years, i was surrounded by the cuban privileged, people who chanted "castro no, cuba si!" in p.e. i heard stories of houses seized and midnight flights to new york city from havana, tales of jewels left behind.

it wasn't until i was in college that i realized that cubans could be black, too. this was not from a lack of understanding of the caribbean, mind you. but there was something about the way that cuban rafters were always allowed to stay, and haitian rafters were always sent back, that suggested to me that cubans were always lighter and "righter" than people like me. my family was lucky-- our relatives lived in the bahamas, and coming to america always seemed easy enough, as long as they went back to nassau eventually and only spent their time here scrubbing floors/laying concrete/curling hair. my cousins would come through for year or two, sleep in an extra room, on the couch, convert the garage, while they made some money, and then they would head back, never to really be seen again.

i went to college in california. it was there that i learned that all latinos are not cuban or brasilian or ecuadorian or puerto rican or colombian. not all latinos ate black beans and white rice and danced samba and merengue and hicieron lechones in the backyard. it was in california that i ate my first tortilla and had homemade salsa for the first time. these were not things "we" did. it was in california that i got the crazy (according to my family and friends back home) idea to study abroad in cuba. i decided to see if things were really as bad as everyone said they were.

what i learned in cuba changed my way of seeing. i don't agree with everything fidel castro has done, or, even, the length of his rule. there is also something to be said about the people that remain in a country that has been neglected by the rest of the world for so long as a result of our american bullying. there was structural inequity in the capitalist cuban state that, as a matter of course, transferred into the revolutionary state in certain ways. there was no mistake about who was left behind to suffer at the hands of a capitalist, cold-war usa. i will only say that more current cuban nationals look like me than did any of the kids i knew back in miami.

i wrote my grandma a postcard from havana. it pictured three cuban girls in school uniforms. i told my grandma that i couldn't believe what i saw.

"cuba could be our country, grandma," i said. "i see you and me all around."

cuba could my country. and for that reason more than any other, i hope this transfer of power is simple and sound. i hope my friend yordis is released from prison, and that the embargo is lifted. i hope that the capitalist world will not take advantage of a country of young people that are so naive in so many ways. i hope those people who could be my people survive.

si se puede?

"rapping" presidents (sad face)

this is so stupid i'm annoyed that it even exists. presidents with "rappers'" hands rapping about a car deal. funny this is being launched in the midst of black history month. arrrrgh. all they need is the presidents in blackface to more clearly marry BHM and president's day. i guess i'm just thankful that they poo-pooed that idea.

i know i rip off jezebel way too often, but

their montage on whoopi on the view this week is TOO GOOD!

i haven't loved whoopi this much since jumping jack flash!

i can't embed the video, so you have to click through.

enjoy!

can we talk about intersectionality for a moment?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

hmmm. was bill clinton the first black junkie president?

cuz he's talking like his brain's on drugs. you know, like those saturday morning commercials with the egg in the frying pan? i mean, straight crack talk. what is this?

"At the Greenville event, Bill brought up Obama’s joking reference to him in the debate, about how Obama would have to see whether Bill was a good dancer before deciding whether he was the first black president.

Bill, naturally, turned it into a competition. 'I would be willing to engage in a dancing competition with him, even though he’s much younger and thinner than I am,' he said. 'If I’m going to get in one of these brother contests,' he added, 'at least I should be entitled to an age allowance.'"
- from Maureen Dowd's 1.23 op-ed in the Times, emphasis mine

Okay, so, granted, Obama's "joking reference" was a little silly, as it really relies on a sort of critical consciousness that we can't take for granted in America's voters. I mean, why set people up to potentially think you mean what you say? That's a quick way to end up Dave Chappelle-like, running off in a frenzy of self-loathing and getting lumped in with Mariah Carey's really crazy ass.

So Obama has been a little silly and given a setup, but what does Bill say? Bill's response to this "joke" is a suggestion that he is, in fact, at least as black as Barack-- now he as a white man is eligible for a "brother contest"-- go fuckin' figure! And I was sitting here thinking that a white man that goes through his life with all the privileges of white supremacy at his back, and who has SERVED AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES would have to acknowledge that there's really no way for his dumb ass to be black, literally or figuratively. You would think that he would acknowledge the assertions of the completely idiotic black leaders that feel the need to open their mouths every G-D day and then modestly back away. You would think he would intelligently point out the differences in his experiences and that of a black person, and express a sense of flattery, but that the assertions minimize the reality of racism and discrimination in this country. You would think.

Basically, it would be hoped that he would put down the crack pipe, if only for a minute. Bill, as we "blacks" often say to each other, you've GOT to do better.

this american life: post-9/11 truth

listening to last week's "this american life" episode brought me to tears this morning on the train.

"shouting across the divide" is a set of stories about muslim-non-muslim relations, and act 1 (which is as far as I got between 125th and 34th streets) is the story of a young girl whose family is ripped apart post-9/11 by the unbelievable power ignorance and blind faith can have in a culture that discourages critical thought. i won't be silly enough to suggest that our culture is the only one that fits that description, but i will be bold enough to say that we are a part of that sad, sad group.

Stream it, and know this young girl's story.

OH MY GOD, HE TOOK IOWA?!

wow. i went to bed early last night, just randomly got up to pee and thought i'd stop by my comp on the way to relief. but when i saw the nytimes.com headline about barack winning iowa, um, i started to freak out. like, freak. out. on the toilet i'm gesticulating wildly, staring at the mirror with this pride, like, "A BLACK MAN TOOK IOWA!!!!!!!!!" and i'm kind of crying right now.

the funny thing is, i didn't know i was such an obama supporter. i didn't know. i thought i was torn between barack and hillary. but i've never felt anything like this insane flurry of giddy disbelief/pride/happiness. do i think he'll win? i don't know. do i think there are no flaws in his campaign, or that his triumph will make discussions of race in this country move in a new, more positive direction? not necessarily. but am i going to start believing in the "audacity of hope"? hell yes. i am going to hope the HELL out of barack obama's ability to change our country, even if just a little bit, for the better.

now i need to squeeze in my last half hour of rest.

p.s. DUDE i've always been one of those fairweather friends, haven't i? i think i just didn't want to get my hopes up with barack. but he got me, he got me good. :)