Never Give Up: A Personal Story

In the spring of 2010, I received an email from Dr. Rachel Griffin, who is an assistant professor of Speech Communication and my amazing mentor. The email read: MURAP SUMMER FELLOWSHIP FOR MINORITY UNDEGRADUATES. At first glance, I was ecstatic, and in the nerdiest voice I said, “OMG another research opportunity? I opened the email up (yes, I was elated before actually reading the email) and I read the email, then I saw this “Please pass along this information about the MURAP summer fellowship to any of your minority undergraduate students who are interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in the arts, humanities, or social sciences.” If you know me, you can probably conjecture that I was screaming for joy… “this is perfect, OMG!!!...I am going to apply” and a bunch of other expletives that shall remain unwritten. Then, as I neared the end of the email, I read this: “Each summer, the program brings a cohort of 18-22 undergraduates (rising juniors and seniors) from colleges and universities in the U.S. to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus for an intensive, ten-week research experience.” That was it, I went crazy, I called everyone I knew,—my exact words to them were “I think I am going to apply to this summer program, it WAS meant for me.” Mind you, anything that has to do with research is meant for me, at least in my world. I am a NERD.

At this point, I was convinced that I was going to apply to the program. I began to frequent the website to do some extensive reading about the Moore Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (MURAP), and frankly, I fell in love! However, there were a couple of issues, one, as a Ronald E. McNair Scholar, I was on track to complete research the same summer that MURAP was scheduled, here at my home institution. So, of course, I freaked out, because I had a perfervid interest in MURAP, more importantly, the University of North Carolina (UNC). Nevertheless, being the tenacious and ardent person that I am, I set up an appointment with the director of the McNair Scholars program to discuss the possibility of becoming a visiting researcher at UNC, if I got into MURAP. Are ya’ll ready for the good news? She (director) said yes, she informed me that it wouldn’t hurt to apply—and that if I got in she would allow me to substitute my McNair research with my MURAP research. My heart began to pound—I began to fervidly thank her and of course, the almighty God.

Jumping ahead, I applied to MURAP; however, during the application process, I sporadically began to doubt my abilities and intellect, more sadly, I thought to myself, I am not good enough to study at UNC. I took a break away from the application and just really had a self-reflective moment of my life. During that moment, I was reminded of where I had come from and where I was trying to go, I made a promise that I wouldn’t allow anything to preclude me from reaching my goal (at least that’s how I felt in that moment, LOL). Nevertheless, I went back and completed the application and after a couple weeks, I sent everything off. WAIT, I am not done, remember I mentioned I was a tenacious an ardent person? Well, I am, I looked online at other similar programs, and I ran across the Leadership Alliance Summer Research Early Identification Program (SR-EIP). This program is very similar to MURAP, the difference between the two programs are that SR-EIP allows you to apply to three schools with only one application.

Yes, I reckon I had another NERD moment! The three schools I applied to were Cornell, Howard, and Brown, to be candid; I really thought I had no shot into either of those schools. After an exhausting and vexatious month of waiting to hear back from all four programs, I received decisions. Cornell accepted me into their program; Howard accepted me into their program; Brown said because I was accepted into my first two, they decided not to send an offer (As a note, during the application, you’re asked to rank the schools you are most interested in, I ranked Brown as #3). After a month of torturing myself mentally and physically about these programs, constantly underestimating myself—I was finally able to breathe and truly reflect on the goodness of God and my abilities to excel. Shortly after, I received an email from the MURAP program and got the best news of my life; I was accepted into the program. Out of 300+ applications, I was chosen to be a part of a cohort of 23 students from around the U.S.; this was truly a humbling and emotionally moment for me. So much so that I cried (yes, I am a black man and I cried).

Moreover, I was accepted to three out of the four programs (Cornell, Howard, and University of North Carolina), now…I had a very arduous decision to make. After a fastidious and onerous couple of days of contemplating the most fitting option, I chose MURAP, where I studied at The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill for ten weeks. I must say it was the most amazing ten weeks of my life, I unequivocally believe that it has changed my life in insurmountable ways. I am now confident in myself and in the work that I produce; it’s a constant struggle.

This entry is for all of my brothers and sisters out there who are struggling to find who they are or questioning their abilities, as I did. This is especially for young Black men like me who are/were unsure of which route to take and what to do with their life; I am speaking to and with you all. I know what it feels like to think that everyone is against you or what it feels like to feel incapable of achieving your goals. This entry is also a struggle to find my voice and to help others and finding their voice; together we must create a space for the voiceless to give voice. Please brothers and sisters, never underestimate your talents, intellect, or abilities. If there is one piece of advice to give before I exit this piece it is, always be persistent, set a goal, and do whatever it takes to get there. Stay MOTIVATED. Stay DEDICATED.

Peace & Blessings,

The New Black Public Intellectuals

by Imani Perry

I entered graduate school in the mid-1990s, a period marked by the rise of the black public intellectual: Michael Eric Dyson, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Cornel West, and a host of other prominent scholars who became household names. Suddenly newspapers, popular magazines, and even television shows featured black intellectuals. The reaction was bifurcated. Some celebrated this development as an opportunity to elevate the discourse on social policy, especially on issues of race. But there were also complaints that this new crop of intellectuals talked too much and did too little. And some felt that by talking so much to the public, the black intellectuals risked diminishing their scholarly legitimacy.

At the time, the conversations among black students at elite graduate programs were framed around whether to become public intellectuals. But did we have the charisma or conversational skills to do this kind of work? Such a question was rarely raised. Instead we debated what kind of intellectual we wanted to be: one who sat in the ivory tower? Or one who talked to the people? There was a general skepticism that both roles could be successfully played simultaneously.

Becoming a public intellectual appealed to many of us because it seemed to provide a way of making one's scholarship more meaningful. Our ideas would be available to people in our home communities who might not ever set foot inside a university. Such a prospect was affirming. In a career where labor and education often don't lead to economic gains, it is easy to feel diminished by society. Being seen on television could cut against that nagging sense of devaluation.

Although there was a slight ebb in the amount of attention paid to black public intellectuals in the early years of this century, the limelight shines once again: The democratizing power of new digital forms of communication and 24-hour cable television news networks has renewed the role of the black public intellectual. Additionally, President Obama's election drew particular attention to the community of formally educated and politically engaged African-Americans to which he and Michelle Obama belong, a community that includes many scholars. It is at this moment of renewal that we need to rethink what it means to be a public intellectual.

I recently spent an afternoon with girls at an urban high school in Philadelphia that serves a largely black, poor, and working-class community. I am frequently invited to speak to young people, usually girls. I talk to them about academic success and offer some words of motivation. This group of girls had a stunning combination of brilliance and need. I spoke about my personal history and we discussed their interests, and our mutual inspirations. It was a different kind of public-intellectual experience. Around the same time, I gave interviews that were quoted in newspapers in the United States and Britain. Guess which "public intellectual" work felt more meaningful? I'm not suggesting that everyone would take teenagers over The New York Times,but if I had to choose, I certainly would.

For me, it's a matter of tradition. From the late-19th until the mid-20th century, it was a matter of course that African-American intellectuals engaged in public life in a multitude of ways. They developed school curriculums, worked in and for civil-rights organizations like the NAACP, and participated in civic organizations, churches, and professional societies. James Weldon Johnson, for example, author of the poem "Lift Every Voice and Sing," which was later set to music and became known as the Negro national anthem, was a principal, lawyer, ambassador, secretary of the NAACP, and one of the founders of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers—which helped establish modern copyright law.

Read more @The Chronicle of Higher Education

Do We REALLY Want A New Kind of Black Man?

by phillisremastered

Tonight, I listened to an extraordinary podcast on Black Male Privilege featuring a round table with brother-scholarsR. L’Heureux Lewis, Marc Lamont Hill, Byron Hurt, and Mark Anthony Neal. The full title of the round table was “Esther Armah presents AFROLICIOUS Part 1: TROUBLE MAN: BLACK MALE PRIVILEGE. A Contradiction? An Illusion? A Reality?” Sister Armah has started a recurring forum on emotional justice, and this was the first fabulous forum in that series.

I am not playing when I say “extraordinary.” Frankly, I’ve been waiting for the last 25 years for a group of Black men to challenge other Black men on their privilege in the community—and really meant it. What was so wonderful about this forum is that none of the men expected a pat on the head for having a public conversation that Black women have been having for several decades, in public and private.

These brothers also shared their difficulties about confronting Black Male Privilege in their own lives and in their families. For example, documentary filmmaker Byron Hurt talks about when he and his wife had their first baby, a little girl, they quickly moved into traditional male and female gender roles, much to his concern.

Hurt said that he became aware of how much more mobility he had than his wife, because she was breastfeeding their daughter. He could come and go if he wanted, while his wife could not. He said he had to really make sure that he was spending just as much time with their baby, and to keep track of whether his personal behavior was in sync with his public proclamations of gender equity.

Mark Anthony Neal talked about how the bar for Black male behavior is set so low and so any small thing that Black men do is greeted with congratulatory remarks. Neal said that expectations for Black male patriarchal behavior—you know, the man as the head of the family—create impossible standards. First, in this economy, it’s not possible for most Black men to make all the money to keep a household going. And, further, he said that patriarchy just doesn’t work for the Black community. It’s like we’ve been trying to fit ourselves in a model that is destructive, but most folks in our community won’t believe it and keep trying to make this bad model work.

Read more @Gender, Politics, Writing, Race

Abandon Detroit, Abandon Black America

by R. L’Heureux Lewis

Detroit: The city that represents the prospects and failures of American industry.The city that is the punch line of a million jokes. The city that is Blacker than nearly any other in this country. Detroit is under intense scrutiny as of late and the flashing lights of attention may have served to take the life of seven year old Aiyana Jones as a TV crew filmed a home-raid by the Detroit SWAT.

With all the fascination with Detroit around the nation we get the problems of the city beamed into our homes via satellite, but it makes me wonder, is there more there than what we normally see? What responsibility do we bear to Detroit? And what opportunities are there for us to contribute?

Detroit is a microcosm of Black America. I believe if you cannot love Detroit, you cannot fully love Black people. The Detroit Metropolitan area represents the best and the worst that Black folks in this country have to offer. The Black middle class was solidified in and around Detroit with steady unionized blue collar labor in the auto industry.

The middle class expanded as more Black folks with college educations occupied managerial positions. Detroiters experienced and vigilantly fought the racisms of housing redlining, riots, as well as White and Black flight. Detroit has benefited and suffered at the hands of White and Black leadership. If there is a city that tells us about the promise and perils of Blackness, it’s Detroit. I’m so interested in what happens in Detroit because if we can turn it around, we can turn around the rest of our cities.

We will soon reach the one-year anniversary of Time Inc. buying a house and settling up a field office in Detroit to document the city. When Time dedicated dollars and staff to exploring the city, I felt both hope and concern.

As a representative of the news media, I knew that Time would have a huge audience, given that it owns over 100 media outlets. At the same time, I knew they would likely take a traditional perspective and try to document the “tragedy of Detroit.” You know, run stories about a crumbling governance structure, emotive pieces on poverty, and the city-suburb divide which has crippled collaboration and deepened racial tensions.

Read more @AtlantaPost

Finding Tea Cake: An Imagined Black Feminist Manhood

Finding Tea Cake: An Imagined Black Feminist Manhood
by Mark Anthony Neal

Vergible Wood aka Tea Cake is one of the most endearing Black male characters in African-American literature. Tea Cake was the third husband of Janie, the heroine of Zora Neale Hurston’s classic novelTheir Eyes Were Watching God (1937) Readers identify with Tea Cake, in part because he was an everyday man—willing to put in a hard day’s work, playful, thoughtful and at times tender with Janie. I suppose there are many who saw a little of Tea Cake in their Black fathers and may even see Tea Cake in the working class men who struggle in contemporary Black America. I’d like to argue though that there was much more to Tea Cake—that perhaps Tea Cake was a metaphor, a Black folk hero really, for an imagined Black feminist manhood.

In the introduction to the volume Traps: African-American Men on Gender and Sexuality, co-editor Rudolph Byrd (with Beverly Guy Sheftall), identifies High John de Conqueror, a black folklore hero, as a model for Black masculinity. Specifically Byrd is drawn to Zora Neale Hurston’s conceptualization of High John De Conquer, originally published in 1943 and collected in the book The Sanctified Church (1981). According to Byrd, High John serves as an “example of courage, hope, the regenerative powers of song, love and the spirit…a powerful figure who symbolizes the potentialities of Black people and the potentialities of a liberated and liberating Black masculinity.” (5) As Hurston describes him, “Old John, High John could beat the unbeatable. He was top-superior to the whole mess of sorrow. He could beat it all, and what made it so cool, finish it off with a laugh…Distance and the impossible had no power over High John de Conquer.” (70) High John was a mythical figure—“there is no established picture of what sort of looking-man this High John de Conquer was”—“who done teached the black folks so they knowed a hundred years ahead of time that freedom was coming.” The importance of a figure like High John de Conqueror resides in the belief, as Byrd writes, that “it is out of this rich field of Black expression that we have fashioned not only a theory of African American literary tradition (signifying) as well as a theory of Black feminism (womanism), but also many of the art forms and life-sustaining traditions of African-American culture.” (3)

Byrd’s use of folklore to highlight the contemporary crisis of black masculinity—“a progressive mode of Black masculinity is needed to counter what is nothing less than the new species of slavery that shackles so many of us”—raises the question of what other folk heroes might be recovered in the service of creating progressive models of Black masculinity. Perhaps such a figure exists—again in the work of Zora Neale Hurston—with the character of Tea Cake, a twenty-something, working-class, happy-go lucky Black man, whose literary presence takes into account the realities of working class life for many Black men.

Janie meets Tea Cake after the death of her second husband Jody Starks, a local businessman in Eatonville, Fl, who left her with a relative fortune for a Black woman in the early 20th century. Tea Cake literally drifts into Janie’s general store (left to her by her dead husband) and immediately becomes a curiosity to her despite their age difference: Janie is in her early 40s and Tea Cake is in his mid-20s. Janie and Teacake’s love affair—and how bold of Hurston capture such (Black) passion and eroticism in the 1930s—becomes a town controversy, less because of their age difference and more so because of Tea Cake’s stature, or rather, lack of social standing. Most of Janie’s friends and acquaintances dismissed Tea Cake as little more than an interloper, desiring access to Janie’s money (“Dat long-legged Tea cake ain’t got doodley squat”). But Janie saw beyond Tea Cake’s youth, lack of money and cavalier attitude (perhaps best captured by his gambling addiction or hustle, depending on your vantage), in large part because of Tea Cake’s ability to be attentive—not simply in the way that one is attentive to someone that they are attracted to—but attentive to the womanist reality that was Janie’s life. To that point there’s a simply lovely passage in the novel where Janie wakes from a nap as Tea Cake combs her hair and she ask “Whut good do combin’ mah hair do you?” and Tea Cake responds “It’s mine too…it feels jus’ lak underneath uh dove’s wing next to mah face” (103)

Read More @NewBlackMan

Students at University of Puerto Rico 28th Day on Strike

Similar to the issues that universities in the mainland United States are facing, University of Puerto Rico (UPR) are, too. However, they have taken more severe actions and seem to be much more tenacious than that of students in the United States. In addition, students at UPR are getting support from other universities around the world (Spain, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, UC Berkeley, and CUNY), nonetheless, UPR is receiving little media attention on this issue from the U.S. This can be related to the colonial history of Puerto Rico.

Visit here for more info: @Democracy Now

Or @New York Times

No Shade, My Obama: Musings in Postracialism II

By: Regina N. Barnett

After a nearly three year drought, Aaron McGruder blessed the masses with a fresh season of The Boondocks. While hilarity ensued – “Dick Riding Obama” is what’s hot in them streets! – one has to look past the comedy and question the severity of numerous issues McGruder raises about yet another postracial “moment” in American history – the 2008 election of President Barack Obama. “Ehh.”



The show opens with an introduction by German filmmaker Werner Herzog (who makes a cameo appearance). Herzog visits Woodcrest in hopes of documenting the campaign of Barack Obama. He gathers the “usual suspects” – Huey, Riley, Granddad, Tom and Sara DuBois, and Thugnificent – to discuss the impact of Obama’s presidential campaign on race relations and America. What is most peculiar about the framing of this episode is Herzog’s covering of an American historical moment.

While it is no question that Obama is a global icon, I find it fascinating that McGruder selected a controversial German filmmaker to help construct the episode’s intent. Herzog’s presence in the show embodies the underlying social-political charges against Obama to be a communist, an outsider, and a threat to American democracy and life. Even more intrusive in our attempts to deconstruct this opening installment is the idea of foreign spectatorship and its (often presumptuous) racial associations based upon social trends and media imagery. Herzog’s questioning speaks on two levels – the cynicism of a foreign spectator towards not only American racial politics but black American politics andthe aloofness of the African American community in their associations with Obama strictly based on his skin color. This is made (painfully) obvious with Thugnificent’s inability to name the three branches of government while being interviewed by Bill Maher. In similar fashion to his interview with Herzog, Thugnificent discusses his social awakening and fervent support of Obama because of his blackness. While Herzog subtly points to his aloofness, Maher blatantly speaks to his political detachment and, pulling from his own intellect and white privilege, snobbishly remarks “if you are what black leadership is, I’m glad I’m a white man.”


It’s Barry, Bitch: Respectability, Responsibility, and Manhood
President Obama’s electoral campaign and his struggle with black masculinity are well documented in both social and academic circles. What is intriguing and, to an extent, refreshing, is McGruder’s willingness to push the envelope about Obama’s reputation and representation in America. McGruder satirizes Obama to embody the numerous intersections of black manhood and Americanism – the buck, the uncle tom, the token politician for a major party, the problem solver, and the pop culture icon. McGruder removes Obama from the bubble of respectability and fetishizing that he occupies within the black public spectrum. Sarah DuBois, the white wife of Tom DuBois, speaks about Obama from a strictly sexual lens, reducing him to a sexualized black body. Tom, who could be Obama’s foil, is threatened by Sarah’s attraction to Obama and desperately attempts to trump him to keep his wife in lust of his masculinity.

Read more @RED Clay Scholar

Aiyana Jones Not Even Safe In Her Dreams

By: Saida Grundy

Little Black girls go to sleep to dream, not to die. Radiant flashes of whimsical light should have lit the vivid imagination of a slumbering 7-year-old Detroit girl. Instead, a flash-bang bomb -- the handheld stun grenade most commonly used in active combat by the United States military -- exploded blinding light into her room, and from the accounts of her father and the family's attorney, gravely burned her before she was fatally shot in the neck by the Detroit police officers raiding her home.

This is what it means to go to sleep when you're Aiyana Stanley Jones, and Black, and innocent, and your bedroom is a battleground in the so-called "War-on-Crime" in one of America's poorest cities. After all, the police who raided Aiyana's home were on the hunt for a murder suspect wanted for the shooting of a 17-year-oldDetroit boy.

In this business-as-usual state of extreme police militarism, dangerous Black suspects are somehow more dangerous than other dangerous suspects. And innocent Black citizens are somehow less innocent than other innocent citizens. Never mind the yet-to-be confirmed details of the incident report that the police were at the wrong apartment in a multi-family building. Never mind that no one in Aiyana's household has been conclusively linked with the wanted suspect, because when the War-on-Crime in America becomes a war on the Black and Brown urban poor, it's a war on you. What does it care that you're only seven?


Read more: @Essence

Rand Paul and Segregation

By: Blair LM Kelley

It seems as though Rand Paul, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate from Kentucky, son of Texas congressman Ron Paul, and self-proclaimed representative of the Tea Party movement, has some serious difficulty explaining his approach to questions of race and civil rights. During an appearance on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, Paul started by saying that he liked civil rights and opposed discrimination; he even claimed he would have marched with Martin Luther King had he been old enough. However, he suggested that he would seek to end the parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that required privately-owned businesses that served the public to desegregate. Just as Paul was misrepresenting his ability to join the 1963 March on Washington (he was born in 1963), he was also attempting the impossible feat of appropriating King’s legacy while arguing for dismantling one of the movement’s most substantive victories.

When pushed by Maddow to explain comments he had made to The Louisville Courier-Journal , Paul argued that the parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that require private businesses serving the general public to serve all customers without regards to their race, gender, religion, or national origin need further “discussion.” He insisted that he agreed with the parts of the Act that required publicly owned facilities like public transportation to serve everyone regardless of race, but that private businesses should have been exempt. He asserted that the government shouldn’t “want to harbor in on private businesses and their policies” and that by forcing businesses to integrate, the Civil Rights Act was deciding “that restaurants are publicly owned rather than privately owned.” According to Paul, the historic battle to be served at lunch counters at Woolworth’s or Kress stores, or to use the public restrooms or water fountains in those stores was, in fact, an intrusion. For Paul, the desegregation of these businesses was a kind of “government takeover” that infringed on the First Amendment rights of segregationist business owners to say “abhorrent things.”

Paul’s comments echo with the arguments made to advocate for segregation in his state before the turn of the twentieth century. In 1891 it was State Senator Tipton Miller from rural Calloway County, Kentucky, who proposed a new law requiring railroads “to furnish separate coaches or cars for the travel or transportation of the white and colored passengers.” It detailed an efficient and cost effective means for privately owned railroad lines to divide passengers that left blacks jammed behind uncomfortable partitions marked with “appropriate words in plain letters indicating the race for which it is set apart.” Segregation was favored by businesses in Kentucky and the new law was a way to codify the preferences of white passengers throughout the state.

In response, a group of black educators, ministers, and businesspeople from Kentucky organized the Anti-Separate Coach movement. They attempted to halt the passage of the separate coach law, organizing mass meetings, drawing up protest documents, and presenting petitions to the governor and the state legislators. They called their campaign “moral warfare” and insisted that they deserved “true and just recognition” in every part of their society. Their battle continued even after the law was passed, and they organized a test case to challenge the new law. However, the Federal court upheld Kentucky’s segregation law as constitutional, arguing that integration would make African Americans “the special favorite of the laws.”

Based on the idea that businesses should have a right to chose whom they would serve, within the next two decades there would be no places for black travelers to ride without unjust treatment, no places where they could eat while traveling, and no hotels where they could stay overnight. The first law that offered substantive relief to millions of black southerners was the hard fought for 1964 Civil Rights Act, which defined public accommodations as hotels, stores, gas stations, and restaurants that serve the general public. Paul’s argument that he is “for civil rights” yet against this “intrusion” in private business, strikes at the heart of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and attacks the legacy of protest in his state and our nation.

This article is crossposted at Salon.com.

Blair L. M. Kelley is associate professor of history at North Carolina State University and author of Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson.

Kem Releases Single "Why Would You Stay", from Intimacy

For all you folk that like great and soulful music, you will love this new song by Kem. His latest song "Why Would You Stay?" is truly moving and intimate, as Kem tells us in his promo video, Intimacy is what separates the "boys" from the "men". His song truly does some separating, I have been listening to Kem for quite some time (thanks to my mom), he is now one of my favorite musician/singer, truly engaging with his music bringing nothing but the greatest sounds. If one is to judge from his new song we can only expect the new CD to be amazing. For the TRUE Kem lovers, the new CD is expected to drop in July. You can purchase the song on Amazon or iTunes for .99 cents, you can't beat that.

Check out CD promo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5UveeASpmo

Check out new song: http://www.singersroom.com/music/Kem/Why-Would-You-Stay/2312

Yes We Did

"Yes We Did," and of course, "This is a big fucking deal" at least in the words of Vice President Biden. Those are the phrases that are going through my head right now. After almost a year of debating on whether or not to pass the health care reform (HCR) bill, after all the childish and stall tactics by the Republicans--it passed. At this moment, I am reminded of why I voted for Obama, I had faith and still have faith, I believed that he would move this country forward, despite all the challenges, he is. These are the moments when citizens of the United States should say, thank you, President Barack Obama! Obama is focused, his eyes are set on a goal, and he will let nothing get in the way--regardless of the disrespect from the Republican party, he is resilient.

In addition, we cannot forget the honorable, most distinguished, Nancy Pelosi, who worked furiously to make sure this bill passed. More importantly, she didn't allow the Republican party to get under her skin; she is truly the speaker of the house! As fellow friend, Dr. Soyini Madison said, " being a woman is no longer a precondition," Pelosi deserves the utmost respect. For without her constant push of speaking and negotiating with congressmen/women, this historic bill wouldn't have passed. Pelosi, thank you for your hard-work and dedication!

As an asthmatic, thus, having a precondition--without this healthcare bill, I would be otherwise disadvantaged and turned away. This was not only important to me, but to other members of family and network of friends. The African American communities are filled with illnesses that are considered "preconditions," and most are uninsured. This bill will benefit all of them and the families who are struggling to pay hospital bills. Despite the polls, Obama is doing exactly what he said he would do, and I am very proud.

This is the first step, I do hope that the administration follow through with the fixes. I believe that the public option should be a part of the health care bill, for some it would be very beneficial. As an African American male, pro-feminist, pro-choice; I believe that women, all women, should have the right to safely terminate unwanted pregnancies. It is my sincere hope that the American people would see the benefits of this historic and amazing bill.

In the words of VP Biden, "THIS IS A BIG F***ING DEAL!!"

Dave Chappelle Show: A Critical Response

So, I know I haven't blogged in quite some time--mostly due to my busy semester. Nonetheless, I'm back to respond to a discussion that I engaged in this evening. A little about the group, the name is Progressive Mens Masculinities, we are a group of progressive men that are to strive for quality for all people--including our brothers and sisters of the GLBTQ community. We actively engage in candid discourse on how to deconstruct masculinity, male privilege, Whiteness, homophobia, misogyny, and other forms of oppression or violence. We have presented at several different Men's conferences in which we discussed the focus, main goal of our group. It is important to mention that we are not a group to force change nor put pressure on anyone, we are only here for those who may be interested in challenging the patriarchal norms of society. Thus, we understand that we are humans, and as human beings, we are constantly changing thru time and space--understanding that we do not have the answers and are constantly growing and working on "us". So, with that said, now on to the good part.

This evening one of our Black professors from Radio-Television gave a talk on The Dave Chappelle Show, pointing out its flaws while recognizing some of the positive (constructive) aspects of the show. Dr. Novotny Lawrence made it very clear at th outset that he likes some of Chappelle's shows, however, as scholar, he cannot not criticize the sexist, misogynistic, and homophobic views Chappelle depicts in his shows. In addition, Dr. Lawrence points out that Chappelle made no mention of Black women; unless, perhaps if it was in negative light. After pondering over the comments and short video clips Dr. Lawrence presented, I began realizing the truths behind Dr. Lawrence claims. As a progressive, pro-feminist, Black male, I personally and scholarly began to critically look at the work of Chappelle's show. In The Comedy of Dave Chappelle: Critical Essays, Novotny Lawrence contends, "He [Dave Chappelle] also takes his insults further by alluding to gay sexual relations between men, which he openly admitted that he felt was gross during a Chappelle's Show monologue." Such comment is blatantly homophobic, and such claim is only perpetuating the oppression we have been trying to move away from, at least as it relates to race. I find it intriguing that at times, the Dave Chappelle Show can present good social commentary, however, when it comes to discussing issues of sexism and homophobia, the tables are turned. Perhaps, it has a lot to do with the ways in which this society is socialized and protected by patriarchy. It is like we have the oppressed, oppressing others, specifically women and members of the GLBTQ community. Finally, to end, in Can You Hear Me Now: The Inspiration, Wisdom, and Insight of Michael Eric Dyson, Dyson posit, "We don't have to stop being black to be saved. We don't have to stop being women to be saved. We don't have to stop being poor to be saved. And we don't have to stop being gay or lesbian to be saved." With that, I urge our people to challenge the hegemony that has dominated most of our society; we don't have to adhere to what appears to be the "norm". I call for a generation that will challenge and not reproduce these absurd beliefs, ideals, norms, and other forms of oppression. We must move forward and men, let us not stand behind women, but let us stand beside them! What I left the discussion is that we need to engage in more discourse about these issues.

On Reid and Racism

By: Melissa Harris-Lacewell

Joe Biden once remarked that Barack Obama was "clean" and "articulate." He is now Vice President. During the Democratic primaries Hillary Clinton invoked Robert Kennedy in a way that implied Barack Obama's assassination was imminent. She is now the Secretary of State. It is foolish to suggest Senator Harry Reid should step down as Senate majority leader because of his 2008 assessment that Barack Obama's election was more likely because he is "light-skinned" and free from "Negro dialect."

If President Obama has demonstrated anything at all, it is that he is unperturbed by the racially awkward outbursts of his fellow Democrats.

Republicans hope that reports of Reid's old gaffe might derail his leadership of the health care reform package. But watching Michael Steele go after Reid is more bizarre than convincing. Steele seems to pride himself on the liberal use of black discursive patterns. It's hard to take seriously the moral outrage of a self-professed "hip-hop Republican" who explains his tenure as GOP chairman saying "brother still here."

President Obama may be unconcerned and the GOP may be transparently race baiting, but Reid's comments did create a legitimate queasiness among many Americans that is worth exploring.

President Obama is a forgiving, beer summit kind of leader, but I am less likely to give Democrats a free pass on issues of racial bias. As I wrote a few months ago here on The Notion, any implication that racism is the sole purview of the Right obscures the continuing and troubling realities of racism within the Democratic Party and progressive political movements.

Still, I remain entirely uninterested in a racial McCarthyism that plays "gotcha politics" with elected officials' public utterances. Yes, public officials should be particularly careful when talking about race to media (on or off the record). The opportunities for misunderstanding, divisiveness and assumption of ill intent are heightened in this area of political discussion.

But let's be honest, if we weeded out every public official guilty of racial insensitivity, the halls of Congress would echo with utter emptiness. The point is not so much public gaffes as it is the creation, support, and maintenance of systemic and structural inequalities. This is why Trent Lott's wistfulness about a Strom Thurmond presidency is in a different class than Reid's comments. Lott was longing for a bygone era when structural barriers and entrenched inequality were the norm. Reid was enthusiastic that the same barriers were lessening and that America was ready, albeit with caveats, for a new racial reality.

Rather than being worked up about Reid's awkward assessment of these barriers, we should be asking whether these structural biases actually make academic and political accomplishments easier for light-skinned African Americans. NC State University historian Blair LM Kelley makes this argument in her piece on Salon.com. She points out skin color bias in the 21st century should alarm us. It shouldn't be a matter of breezy acceptance, as many Sunday morning pundits seemed to suggest. "Accepting this as a matter of course degrades the quality of our democracy."

Reid's assertions about "Negro dialect" also should raise structural justice questions far more important than his offensive use of an antiquated term for black Americans. Because of generations of lower class status and legal barriers to quality education, black children are far more likely than their white counterparts to be raised by parents with inadequate literacy skills. But rather than acting as a leveling ground, many public schools only reinforce these disadvantages. These are the same children relegated to schools with fewer expert teachers, larger classroom sizes, fewer educational resources, and fewer literacy support tools.

This is the racism that should worry us: millions of black American children attend and graduate from public schools that leave them utterly unqualified for public office for their entire lives. As adults these children will always be second-class citizens, unable to participate as rule makers rather than simply rule followers in their own country. Not only does this deprive a whole group from full participation in government, it also deprives our country of the skills, talents, and ideas that these citizens might have offered, had we not initially deprived them of the capacity to communicate their ideas effectively in the public realm.

Political theorist Nancy Fraser imagines justice as "a difference-friendly world, where assimilation to majority or dominant cultural norms is no longer the price for equal respect." Creating that world is an important task for combating racism.

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, an associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, is completing her latest book, Sister Citizen: A Text for Colored Girls Who've Considered Politics When Being Strong Isn't Enough.

Why Reid's words rankle

I can't just shrug at the notion that a light-skinned candidate is more electable in the 21st century

BY BLAIR LM KELLEY

As part of Joan Walsh's "colorful" Twitter stream, I agree with 90 percent of her post. I am glad that Harry Reid has apologized for his off the record comments about President Obama. I agree that it is disingenuous for the Republican Party to suddenly jump in the fray protecting African Americans from racist assaults.

But politics aside—if that is allowed—I was most concerned about the flip way that many commentators dismissed the Reid statement as unimportant. There is a reason why so many people were put off by his statements. I think that his words tap into a very old history shaped around questions of color and respectability and its meaning in American politics.

As historian, this debate makes me think of older arguments about African American citizenship. During Reconstruction there were well-meaning people who debated whether or not the freed slaves were ready for citizenship. Perhaps they needed more time, more education. By the turn of the twentieth century, black citizenship was being systematically destroyed by disfranchisement, lynching, and racial segregation. African Americans had made dramatic gains in education, and yet their opportunities were eroding. Many had banked on respectability as a political tool and were left disappointed.

I know that politics is an ugly game, that we make quick judgments about candidates based on their height, their looks, and their families. I know that black candidates that look and sound more like a racially neutral “norm” are more easily accepted by white voters. But I am concerned that accepting this as a matter of course degrades the quality of our democracy.

When we privilege a certain set of behaviors and let them serve as springboards for some, they are barriers for others. As an educator, I know that polished language opens doors, but I cringe at the idea that they close doors for others. As an African American historian, I find it horrifying that fair-skinned blacks are seen as more acceptable candidates in the 21st century, and it's considered just savvy politics to say so.

I do want us to move on from Reid’s comments. It is crucial to get moving on an important political agenda this year. But I also hope that we as Americans move away from narrow, racialized notions about whose voice is valuable and deserves to be heard.

Blair LM Kelley is an associate professor of History at North Carolina State University. Her book "Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson" will be published by UNC Press this spring.

Is Harlem No Longer Black?

By: Les Payne

The Negro invasion must be vigilantly fought, fought until it is permanently checked, or the invaders will slowly but surely drive the whites out of Harlem.

Harlem Home News, July 1911

Along the boulevards of Harlem these days, hands are wringing over the shifting demographics of the two races that still matter in this republic.

“No Longer Majority Black; Harlem is in Transition” teased the headline from the New York Times. A profound and accelerating shift has gripped the neighborhood that for nearly a century has been synonymous with black urban America. The hometown paper then conceded, without apology, that this reported loss of Harlem’s black majority trumpeted in Tuesday paper actually occurred a decade ago, but was largely overlooked. Others are not so sure it has occurred even now. You can’t get agreement on the boundaries of Harlem, so it’s nearly impossible to gauge the shift, said Randy Daniels, the former New York Secretary of State, who lived in the hamlet for some two decades.

Harlem, of course, has not always been black. The virtually all-white hamlet first took on color in 1900 as Negroes from the Lower West Side moved north. After a show of resistance, backed by churches, newspapers and the stout-hearted, the mostly German inhabitants packed in their singing clubs, zithers,and Weinstuben and headed for the hills.

By the onset of the Harlem Renaissance in 1930, the hamlet was a brown new bag.

As designated by previous occupants, this New Harlem was still bordered on the South by 110th Street, north by 155th Street, on the east by the river, and on the west by St. Nicholas Avenue and Morningside Drive. As the population exploded, however, the borders of this black Promised Land crept across Morningside and St. Nicholas toward the Hudson, and even north toward Washington Heights.

Beyond the grounding of its real estate, Harlem had become a state of mind. New York was heaven to me, Malcolm X wrote in his autobiography, upon first touching down. And Harlem was seventh heaven! With its jazz, hustle and mesmerizing art and church music, Harlem was identified as any terrain across 110th Street where blacks settled en masse.

Ralph Ellison, the author of Invisible Man, made this very point about Harlem’s floating boundaries in a 1966 appearance before Congress. I live on Riverside Drive at 150th Street, he said. It isn’t exactly Harlem, but Harlem has a way of expanding. It goes where Negroes go, or where we go in certain numbers. So, some of us think of it as Harlem, though it is really Washington Heights.

The boundaries still seem to float depending upon who’s chalking the lines.

The Times explained its racial population shift with an accordion-like slide between central and greater Harlem. The larger unit where blacks supposedly dropped to 41 percent in 2008—was described as running river to river, and from East 96th Street and West 106th Street to West 155th Street. Long-time dwellers disagree.

Instead, they say, the boundaries of Harlem traditionally start at 110th Street and run to 155th, river to river, minus the terrain east of 5th Avenue, running from 96th Street roughly to 125th Street. This multi-block parcel has long been considered East Harlem, and occupied over the years by Spanish and other ethnic whites with never much of a black presence.

By adding East Harlem as a component of the shift, the Times appears to pad its non-black population ledgers and thus distort the overall demographics. Further, the paper’s description of central Harlem, which reportedly dropped from 98 percent black in 1950 to 62 percent in 2008, is confusing to long-time residents.

Born in Harlem Hospital and reared on its mean streets, Sherman Edmiston was perplexed by the Times’ boundaries that would, among other markers, exclude from central Harlem the Essie Green Art Gallery that he owns and manages at 419 Convent Avenue. The impression the Times gave is that Harlem is becoming predominantly white, Edmiston said. The larger demographics shift is Latino, not white. And if you walk your dogs around the corners up here, you’ll also see a lot of Asians.

The demographic shifting of Harlem, whatever the precise boundary and numbers, is occurring at a time of evolving patterns in other boroughs of the city. At less than 40 percent, white Americans, for example, find themselves no longer constituting the majority of the overall population of New York City. This fact has not yet been reflected by the demographics of those running things both public and private.

In the November mayoral election, exit polling showed for the first time in the city’s history that white votes tallied less than 50 percent of the count. Some 46 percent of voters clocked in as whites; with blacks at 23 percent; Hispanics at 21 percent; and Asians at 7 percent. Key questions are raised about the meaning of the demographics shift, not just in Harlem but also in the city and nationwide.

When renting a room, G. K. Chesterton once remarked, one should not simply inquire about the furniture, the linen, or even the rent. One should instead fix the landlady with an unstaring eye and ask: Madam, what is your total view of the universe? The Times gentrification story settled for an inquiry about the linen. Quite beyond mere furniture and linen, that elusive Harlem of the universe remains much more a state of mind.

Harlem, indeed, has not always been black; but, as Yogi Berra might say, it always will be.

Les Payne, a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter, owns a home in Harlem and is writing a biography of Malcolm X.

Who Are You Calling Crazy?

Madness was a recurring theme in American politics last year. I received daily calls, emails, texts, and tweets from folks on the Left declaring "these Republicans are crazy," "the GOP has gone mad," or simply, "this county is nuts." "Wingnuts" became a common way to describe vehement, political opponents on the Right.

Americans have an interesting history of conflating our political disagreements with diagnosis of mental illness. In a terrific new book, psychiatrist and historian Jonathan Metzl tells one of these fascinating stories. Metzl's book, The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease is exceptional and unexpected.

The text's central argument is that mental illness is not solely (or even primarily) a biological or medical reality; it is largely a social construct. Madness is often diagnosed in those who do not conform to social norms, especially norms governed by identities like race, gender, and class. Illustrating this point, Metzl reminds readers that in the 1850s, American psychiatrists believed enslaved blacks who ran away from white enslavers were suffering from a mental illness called drapetomania. This illness, psychiatrists maintained, could be cured by excessive whipping.

Lest we snicker at the obviously racist and primitive assumptions of 19th century mental health professionals, Metzl spends the rest of the text tracing the 20th century story of schizophrenia.

At the turn of the 20th century schizophrenia was a diagnosis typically given to middle-class, white women whose behavior was deemed embarrassing, distressing, and inappropriate by their husbands and families. This disease of the double-mind was often attributed to white, intellectual geniuses as well. (Think of the popular book and film A Beautiful Mind) Throughout the first half of the 20th century, medical professionals diagnosed white patients as schizophrenic and typically described these patients as docile, non-threatening, and in need of therapuetic nurturing.

A dramatic change occured in the 1960s. During this era schizophrenia was increasingly diagnosed in "Negro men." As black men were more firmly associated with the disease, psychiatric communities and popular culture came to understand schizophrenia as a disease marked by violence, hostility, aggression, and requiring powerful psychotropic medication.

Metzl draws his book title from a 1968 article in the Archives of General Psychiatry where leading physicians describe "protest psychosis" as a condition where black men develop hostility, aggression, and delusional anti-whiteness after listening to Malcolm X, joining the black Muslims, or engaging in Civil Rights protests.In short, when African Americans experienced anger, distress, and disillusionment when faced with the crushing realities of Jim Crow and second-class citizenship, the medical establishment labeled them crazy and dangerous.

In the 1850s slaves seeking freedom were described as mad. In the 1920s women unwilling to conform to the constraints of domesticity were treated as insane. In the 1970s black people who wanted equality were thought to be nuts.

Metzl writes, "the transition of schizophrenia from a disease of white, feminie docility to one of black, male hostility resulted from a confluence of social and medical forces."

This insight is a powerful intervention at this historic moment. It forces us to reexamine our beliefs about the nature of disease, the process of medical diagnosis, and the influence of the political world on our racial ideas. Implicitly, it also cautions us about the consequences of deploying "madness" as a description of our political adversaries.

Metzl is a practicing psychiatrist. He intimately understands how people with mental illnesses suffer. He is a physician who prescribes medication, and acknowledges the dramatic, positive effects biomedical intervention can have to alleviate that suffering. But he is also a historian and a political theorist, keenly aware that the dramatic changes in definition and diagnoses of mental illness are as political as they are medical.

On nearly all matters of policy and politics I disagree with the birthers, the deathers, the tea baggers, most GOP office holders, a significant number of Southern Democrats, and more than a few members of my own academic department. While I judge them to be stunningly wrong-thinking, I am hesitant about labeling my adversaries "crazy."

Red-faced screaming at town halls, audacious lies about President Obama's citizenship, and incomprehensible obstruction tactics by legislators might be symptomatic of mental instability, and they are clearly indicative of deep human suffering, but the "crazy" label does more to obscure our understanding of our differences than to illuminate them.

Metzl's book is a reminder that diagnosing individuals encourages blindness to the social structures in which these individuals operate. Slavery was the madness, not the escaping slave. Racial inequality is the illness, not the Civil Rights Movement.

We learn more and can more effectively influence social change when we consider the situation of our conservative opponents. Their "craziness" might seem more reasonable when we consider the tactics of fear-mongering and race-baiting that have long characterized American politics. A decade of unaccountable government might explain some of the paranoia. Shouting matches that pass as nightly news are implicated in the lack of civility with which they engage. It may not be our opponents who are insane, but instead the zero-sum, winner-take-all approach to politics, which is truly crazy.

Let's be careful as we diagnosis the problems.

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, an associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, is completing her latest book, Sister Citizen: A Text for Colored Girls Who've Considered Politics When Being Strong Isn't Enough