Eating and Pooping

If you're angry, disillusioned, disappointed, or just plain unhappy that President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Price recently, I want you to raise your hand.

Lift it a little higher please.

Okay, now that I've got your measure, I want to refer you to two of my favorite Jay-Z lyrics of all time.

"Nigga respect the game, that should be it
What you eat don't make me shit - where's the love?"

"You don't even know me and you mad, how it feel to be a hater.
Now I know exactly how it feel to be a Laker"

And, since I don't really listen to rap like that anymore, and I'm trying to be a better Christian, I'm also going to refer to the parable of The Workers in the Vineyard.

Now, some of y'all might be a little upset at my flippancy. Truth be told, I had planned on avoiding this entire topic cause y'all know I don't do politics like that over here any more. I've got a hands off policy on all this political wrangling, plus I'm more interested in other stuff.

With that said, I felt like I had to speak on this thing. Not because I wasn't surprised that Obama won, I was. In fact, my initial reaction was "Well, what did he do?"

Nah, I felt like speaking now because while my initial reaction was without rancor, it was based in ignorance. It seems that Obama has done more than enough to qualify for the award given the standards set forth by the Nobel committee.

We can debate whether there were other qualified candidates, but I refuse to entertain the idea that Obama was wholly unqualified. And, given this fact, for anyone to still question whether Obama "deserved" what he got, or to be upset that he got it, well that's crossing over into some unsavory territory.

That's Hater Land.

And, when folks cross over into Hater Land, I think of those Jay-Z lyrics and that parable. The lyrics are easily understandable, but everybody might not be familiar with the parable. It's about a master who hires some workers to do a job, and they all agree to get paid the same amount.

However, the master hires each worker at different times of the day, so they all work different periods in the vineyard. So, one worker might have agreed to work 10 hours for $100, while another only worked 1 hour for his $100. At the end of the parable, the owner of the vineyard chastises those workers who are upset that some folks basically got paid $100 an hour. He notes that it's his money and he can do what he wants.

The parable is designed to discuss salvation and the fact that God bestows salvation on whom he chooses, when he chooses. But, it also works in this President Obama issue. The simple truth is that most people in the world are completely unaffected by the president's victory. It has no impact on their lives, and they are still getting everything they were getting before.

Yet, for some folks it's unacceptable that somebody else can get something they think that person doesn't deserve. It's ironic that these feelings seem to be most prevalent among the media and Republicans. Obama's succes irks them to no end. Not because it affects their lives, but because it affects their sense of fair play. Guess what?

Ain't no fair play.

Fairness is a concept created by humans to justify their attempts to make the world work the way they want it to work. Justice is a concept created by God to explain why the world works the way it does. God doesn't care about what you think is fair.

There is no reason for most people to be upset at President Obama's good fortune. None. So I feel justified in labeling those folks who are upset "haters."


What do y'all think?



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Oooh, Y'all So Wrong

Outside of President Barack Obama's recent Nobel Prize, one of the biggest stories floating around the cable news networks and the web has been Harry Connick Jr.'s comments about blackface while guest judging an Australian variety show.

Based on the clip I saw, Connick was serving as a guest judge on an Austrailian variety show when an act called "The Jackson Jive" performed. The group was comprised of several white doctors who reprised their previous performance from 30 years ago mimicking the Jackson Five while wearing blackface.

Yep, blackface.

Connick has become an even bigger star because after the group's performance he awarded them a big fat zero for their score, and later talked to the crowd about the way blackface is viewed in America.

Connick added that if he had known he was going to be asked to judge a blackface act, he wouldn't have even come on the show. His response has been lauded by most folks, who also have been blasting the Aussies for the their insensitivity.

So, I'm going to talk about something else.

First, it was quite interesting to watch the response of the Australian audience to the performance, and look at the attitudes of the other folks on the show. From what I could tell, most of them had no problem with a blackface performance and found it to be a smashing success. Hell, the host of the show was damn near giddy with amusement, and one of the other judges awarded the act a 7 out of 10. However, to be fair, another judge did give the group a score of 1.

It was funny watching Connick try to discuss blackface, while attempting to avoid being "the bad guy." Any one who has discussed racism and bigotry knows that the first thing that happens when you call out people for their idiocy, is that they turn on you. They label you a downer or too sensitive, and generally come up with plenty of reasons why you should be ignored.

Connick worked hard to introduce a serious subject on a show that seems built around silliness. It was a daunting task and one I'm sure he wasn't prepared for when he rolled out of bed. So, given the circumstances, I think he did a decent job.

However, it was still galling to watch the contortions he had to make to discuss the topic. I know about Brits and their spoonful of sugar, but it was damn near ridiculous. And his attempts to avoid angering the crowd led to him saying something stupid like "We Americans have worked for years not to make African Americans look like buffoons..."

Like a friend of mine said, it was obvious what he meant. But the way he said it implied that black folks naturally look like buffoons and white people have been carefully working behind the scenes to keep this a secret. As if the problem hasn't been white people selectively portraying black folks, it's really been their inability to hide our egregious faults. Connick's phrasing was just off.

But, what really got me miffed, was how the mainstream media was falling over themselves to congratulate Connick and wag their collective fingers at the British. You would have thought Connick saved a black baby from a burning building, instead of just doing the decent thing. I mean, when you see people making racist jokes it is your job to say something no matter what color you are. It's kind of like that joke Chris Rock said about people wanting congratulations for stuff they're supposed to do. So what if you take care of your kids, you're their damn father, that's your job!

Plus, it was funny how easily the American media could decide that blackface was bad in this instance, but in other instances we get these tepid reports trying to show how the folks in blackface were really trying to make a point. The headlines were like "Connick snuffs out racism" and we know damn sure if he had said the same thing to some college kids in South Carolina, nobody would have thrown around the dreaded "R" word so easily. I guess it's much more comfortable talking about the failures of Australians than discussing our own foibles.

But, I always learned that when you point a finger at someone else, you really point three at yourself.



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Storm Season

Wind blow, tree bend.

Bend, but don't break.

Break, but don't splinter.

Splinter and suffer.

Rain fall, ground drink.

Drink, but don't gulp.

Gulp, but don't drown.

Drown and suffer.

Trouble come, man cry.

Cry, but don't wail.

Wail, but don't despair.

Despair, but don't succumb.

Succumb and suffer forever.



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Word Power

Urban Terrorism.

That catchphrase has been floating around the internet and the mainstream media for a few years now, but it recently gained prominence with the brutal death of Derrion Albert in Chicago last week. I avoided writing about Albert's death partially because I couldn't think of anything profound or worthy to say about this tragedy. I also kept quiet because I felt my opinion on what happened was so far outside of the mainstream opinion that it would only stir up trouble, and I wasn't interested in that path.

But, now I have something to say.

A good friend of mine recently described what happened to Albert as "urban terrorism." In fact, she described most of the black criminals who threaten and harm folks in the hood as terrorists. She said given their actions and the trauma they inflict on their communities she feels perfectly comfortable labeling them as such.

Obviously, we disagree.

First, I want to say that what happened to Albert was a tragedy. He seemed like a young man doing the right thing and trying to make it in a tough situation. It's horrible that his life was cut short. However, I think that the way this incident was categorized, the way the men responsible were labeled and vilified was ridiculous. Yes, they are caught on camera apparently killing Albert. But, this didn't happen in a vacuum, we must consider context.

The beating happened during a massive brawl. I don't know about most of y'all, but I've seen violent brawls with weapons up close, and nobody is really checking to see if the person they are beating is a good kid or a bad kid. Pretty much people are hitting and beating anybody they don't recognize as one of their friends. I'm not saying this is right, just saying it's normal for a brawl.

With that in mind, I'm not surprised that Albert got beaten. I'm not surprised that the men were particularly vicious. I would be surprised if the opposite occurred. This young man stumbled into a very bad situation and he was killed because of that. Not because the men who beat him were soulless humans, but because they viewed him as a potential enemy and threat due to the prevailing circumstances and they responded with force. Unfortunately, they were wrong and an innocent died.

Now, about the terrorism aspect.

I pay attention to words. It's my business and a hobby to understand how people use words and what they convey through their word choice. I have to be familiar with their denotation and connotation. In this case, I'm worried about connotation.

Terrorist and terrorism are loaded terms in today's world. Hell, they've always been loaded terms since mainstream society selectively decides who they get applied to, regardless of actions.

In the Israeli and Palestinian conflict have any of you ever heard of an Israeli group routinely labeled a "terrorist organization?" Hell, for decades the KKK and other groups behaved exactly like so-called "terrorists" but weren't given that label until very recently.

It means something to be called a terrorist. It connotes a certain evilness and unworthiness. There is no nuance to terrorists, they are just people to be feared, then hated and ultimately eliminated.

Is that really what we want the mainstream media calling folks in the hood?

It reminds of how we got such disparate laws regarding crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't some diabolical plot of "The Man." Nope. We got those laws because African Americans lobbied for their creation in response to the crack epidemic that was destroying our communities. That's right, we ASKED the government to treat us unfairly to solve a problem that the government helped to create.

Mindboggling.

I see the same thing with this urban terrorism issue. Clearly violence is a massive problem in black communities. I see it all the time, I know how bad it is. I also understand that most folks outside the hood ignore the ripple effect of that violence, how it damages the minds of young and old.

It's hard to study for a test when you're worried about a drive-by shooting on your street. It's way too easy to view 21 as "old age" when you can't think of a single man on your block who lived too far past it. It's more than the lives lost to death and prison, there are also lives lost to the conditions that violence creates.

The reason why the term "urban terrorism" was created was because black folks were crying out for some attention and assistance for our crime-ridden neighborhoods. The problems are so massive, so ingrained, that we know it's unlikely we can solve them all alone. Hell, we didn't create them all alone. But, in our rush to get assistance I feel we're inviting a response that will only exacerbate things.

Just like the government has used the crack cocaine laws to finance and populate the for-profit prison system, I can see them using "urban terrorism" to justify all manner of evil in black communities. Like I said, terrorists have no rights and neither do their neighborhoods. We see how our government treats "terrorists" in other countries, do we really think they'd hesitate to do that to black folks?

I think the hood needs help. I think it needs attention. I think it needs a lot. But what I don't think it needs is a new label that only invites trouble.

Remember the power of words.

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