Who's Got Next: Which Ethnic Minority Will Follow Obama In Office?

(The NY Mag feature on Wesley Yang's Asian-American identity crisis made me think about this old post on Who Will Be America's Next Minority President. Asian, Puerto Rican, Female, gay? And how will they express their authentic-assimilated brand of identity politics? I CAN'T WAIT. the best part is, IT HAS TO HAPPEN, because what cultural or ethnic minority can run for office without some "hi-signing" about their roots? It makes me think the GOP messed up back in the days by putting their devil[ed] eggs in the Steele/Palin basket. Now I think the only way they beat O is with a GOPecan-Rican. amirite?)

ORIGINAL:

I wonder what a "Puerto Rican Obama" would be like.

Would he/she charm America by dropping just enough español in the speeches? (he/she would have gone to Yale or some Ivy, obviously, so it's not like all he does is hablas español. Just saying, it's part of his charm.)

We've gotten a little spice this season con, "si se puede!" Now throw in a little "Ahora!!" o "me gusta el culo más grande!!!" and I'm confident we could get primed up for cambiar all over again.

But yeah, who's gonna get that Freedom-To-Dream USA Certification next?

Because, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that's what the superlative nature of the celebration seems to be about, right? The African-Americans have graduated! On their own merit! One got through the labyrinthine maze to power (a cool one we've been rooting for, like Ratatouille), and now we can really, truly look at them with the deep down respect they deserve. And that's so awesome!

And it's true. All you non African-American ethnics, let me tell you, it's pretty cool being official right now. I'm already drawing Obama's face on all my money, yo. Five Baracks gets me a macbook pro, cashmere hoodie, and an hipster chick that appreciates it ... And she expresses her love through comments on my blog.

If Obama Is The Joker, Who Is Batman?

The couple of posts I've seen with these Obama-as-Joker "socialist" pics all say the same thing: it's a striking image, that's making it way around not only on the internet, but in The Real World (so much as Los Angeles can be called The Real World), but no one knows or has any sense of what it means.

And to that I add: Ditto.




via: American Thinker, NRO

Dear Mayara Tavares

You opened my eyes yesterday. And not in the way everyone, including myself, who got suckered into O-Bum-a-Gate would imply.

I don't know. I just empathize with your position. And want to apologize for being part of the knee-jerk media monolith (an eensy-weensy small part that sells Snotsicles in the back of the mailroom) reaction.

Because when the picture came out that seemingly captured our President Barack Obama taking a peek at your tush (perhaps elevating you to "ass that changed america" status), some clowns made jokes, some crazies exclaimed how this meant our president was a pedophile, some skeptics skepticized it as a plant by conservatives. Still others wondered why anyone cared either way because guys look at girls behinds all the time.

But no one really wondered about Miss Tavares. No one, so far as i saw, was like: Hello??? Everyone?? Please everybody just shut the f up and think about this young socially conscious and proactive teenager getting to go on what is likely a once in a lifetime trip of her dreams to meet the president -- the new and improved *special* president who represents the face of a new world order -- and how everything is absolutely ruined when your ass ends up circulated around the planet as, uh, the butt of headlines, and now people are slow-frame analyzing your walk, and feeling free to comment on the power rankings of your booty, and every possible reaction you could have except for the one that empathizes with the little girl who just wanted to look nice when she met the president.

so, i don't know... for what it's worth (very little), i was guilty too, but sorry about that.

(uh, and you too, #1 megan fox fan.)

Sincerely,

TAN

Negropedia Brown: The Case of the World White Web

Negropedia Brown was pedaling furiously on his bike. He needed to return to his bodega office in fast order. His last case resulted in picketing, "Hell no, the negro must go!" the surly crowd chanted.

It was only hours after Negropedia had declared Slate's Jody Rosen to be in need of hip hop autotuning. And the crowd disappeared as quickly as they had arrived once the case files fell off the front page of the blog where he stashed his evidence, but the dank smell of defeat lingered.

Perhaps humbled by the angry mob, Negropedia was still undaunted. He knew he was the best -- in fact, only! -- Ethnocultural Blog Detective in town. More important: He knew the stately town of Mediaville needed someone to solve these mysteries of ethnocultural dissonance.

See, Negropedia felt strongly that people's perspective and choices were inevitably informed by their ethnic/cultural background. And often in Mediaville, despite no obvious ill intent, there were weird mysteries of slights, misinterpretations, and lack of sympathy resulting from what Negropedia's father called "culture gaps".

Negropedia found it odd how the folks in Mediaville loved to talk about how technology was changing the town, but never about how the face of the population was changing as well. It seemed to him that as long as America was a melting pot, someone would need to watch over mixing the ingredients to make sure things didn't get salty....

(click image above or link below to continue the story ...)

Negropedia Brown: The Case of Vanity Fair and the World White Web [Gawker]

JerusalemPass: Well If They Feel This Way About Obama...

I guess my oft-pondered, long-sought trip to Israel is on delay. The following video is offensive and NSFW. Here's the rest of the setup commentary from the source:

On the eve of President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world from Cairo, Egypt, I stepped out onto the streets of Jerusalem with my friend Joseph Dana to interview young Israelis and American Jews about their reaction to the speech. We encountered rowdy groups of beer sodden twenty-somethings, many from the United States, and all eager to vent their visceral, even violent hatred of Barack Obama and his policies towards Israel.



There's more commentary here, basically a questioning of why journalists are not following this story, and a note on how the sentiments and behavior seen in the video above are very much representative of American Jews in Israel.

Like Cajun's reaction, I'm just sort of shocked that these are educated folk. And the parallels to drunken fratboy delirium are striking. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men (and women), indeed.

In Case You Missed It: Obama, Orator Extraordinaire

Barack speaks to "A New Beginning" in delivering a speech that might be underrated for its ambition and direct approach to such internationally divisive issues: the American-Islamic culture gap, terrorism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and more. The speech given at Cairo University in Egypt clocks in at the 55-minute mark in the clip below, so he gets to touch on just about every problem in the world. About time we got a master "To Do" list.

Celebrating National Fist Bump Day!

TAN celebrates National Fist Bump Day on Slate: Black The Root today. Here's a teasing snippet:

... This mainstream outreach may seem warm and fuzzy now, but at the time, some writers wondered if white folks had even noticed the gesture. And oh, they did. (To the point of not even paying attention to the perhaps more dubious booty-love tap that followed right after.) For a fascinating few weeks, the fist bump, a functional, hyper-hygienic descendant of the handshake and high five, was the topic du jour around America's water coolers. First came the blogs and tabloids, both here and across the pond. Then came the satirical cover of The New Yorker depicting the first couple as a Muslim Constitution-burner and an Angela Davis wannabe. This controversial image inspired parodies of the parody. And of course, the conservative response to Hurricane Obama made the whole thing feel like a game of “telephone” gone wrong: Fox News host E.D. Hill asked on-air, with fevered eyes: “A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab?”

So why take us back there? If anything, the fist-jab furor represented a profound moment in interracial misunderstanding. For blacks, the salutation was nothing new. We wondered, were white folks really so ignorant, our worlds so segregated, that they couldn’t tell what a good old-fashioned dap looked like? ....

The Bump Heard 'Round The World [The Root]

A Bronx Tale: In Search of Sonia Sotomayor

Had fun in the South Bronx talking to people about Sonia Sotomayor. I guess I should mention, for those who stumble on here looking for "assimilated negro sonia from the bronx", Justice Sotomayor is originally from the Boogie Down, and Puerto Rican, and has made a lot of people proud via her rags-to-riches tale. Here's the video:

A Bronx Tale: In Search of Sonia Sotomayor from weekendvids on Vimeo.

ReBranding America: Liberty Gives Birth to Hope?

I like this one, can't front. There are other rebranding America sketches/ideas at Adweek, but i think this is my fav. I do love the provocative sensationalist stuff.

What you need is the black daddy in the background though...

This agenda began at Paper Magazine, see a lot more there.
via: Adweek

100 Days In the Year One of Our Lord Obama

Obama called me and was like, "yo, why do you not have some pictures up from my first 100 days? don't make me come down there!" So here we go ...

Lawson curates a nice set from the official White House flickr stream of the first 100 days of Mr. Obama's term as emperor pope and high priest. But honestly, most of the full gallery is awesome and worth peeping. And considering photos from election day, and inauguration day, and puppy day, it all makes you wonder if it's possible to take a picture of Mr. B and his family without it having emotional gravitas out the as (don't know how to code that for the full joke).

Makes me think of a new Parlor Game for the kids (do they still have those, parlors?): swap shots of the Obama family into the picture frames and albums of your family and friends and see if they care. They might think it's better! (They won't really, but it's telling that instead of calling you an asshole they'll chuckle and just put their pictures back. Maybe even let the Obamas ride for a few days before fixing.) All races can play!

PLEASE tell me Obama's about to start a clothing label

aww shit, someone done f'd up now. how often do we think this face come out?

how to be The Man (pt. 1)

Wow, that's a nice office in an airplane

still playing the hard shirt-tucked-in defense; obviously "change" has not spread to jump-shooting white folks yet

this image here is the one black people have been missing in their history

I have to help you move the couch? Like, me? Seriously? Isn't there—ok, fine

I got an office in a plane, but the entertainment center needs work

still feeling on the booty. notice guy in the background has to look away

so, um, i just get to walk into any room i please? is that how this works?

this gallery does a good job of making The White House feel accessible, they should do a Cribs

if you're a rock star you MUST have a hot-like-fire signature

Meet Larry Wilmore: Future Baron, Father to Black Paris Hilton

in case you missed it, we ran these outtakes from my interview with Larry Wilmore on Gawker over the weekend.

The original interview ran in support of Larry's book, I'd Rather We Got Casinos: And Other Black Thoughts, on The Daily Beast's book blog.

The hosting on gawker got messed up (that's what happens on the weekend), so I'm reposting here sans megaupload ads. it's a little small, but you can go peep on gawker if size matters.

cheers, enjoy!

The Four Horsemen of the Post-Racial Apocalypse

You don't need an old man farting in public to know how hot Black is at the moment. The melanin is straight up fire these days, son. Sometimes it feel like the whole United States of Obama is throwing up their hands to chorus: N to the izz-E, GR to the izz-O right now.

Grabbing the mic like, "We did it for our culture...".

Welcome to the Post-Racial Apocalypse, Now.

Yes, there's that post-buzzword buzzword that titillates the MultiCulturati. You read it in the newspapers, or while browsing the Post-Racial Porn section of your local video store. You see it in the blue-green-tangerine eyes of mixed-race-babies-with-the-pretty-hair on every urban professional street corner. At night you may spot it on the walls, capitalized in red horror-movie-blood italics: "POST-RACIAL!". Or maybe even on some girl's behind written in Juicy-Coutoure cursive. I have no links, but trust me, it's everywhere. A ten-letter reminder of the looming tectonic shift in the foundation of America's cultural infrastructure.

All signs point to Yes: the post-racial apocalypse is coming! It’s the end of racism. Or at least the end of abiding by a lot of White bullish! Either way: sound the alarm, and call out the exclamation points:

Look on yon horizon, the end is nigh! The signs are all around us, we are surrounded: Oprah controls media! Tiger has conquered sports! Will Smith charms the world via music and movies! And now, Obama, leads us all to the promised land! -- We hope! -- Using powers derived from their adamantium melanin-mutation they have become invincible; they are the four horsemen of the post-racial apocalypse!

Like the Great Pyramids, these four kings are less human and more force of nature; avatars of Black America's will to power. They are pillars on which a legacy of consequence and respect can be built. If life were a baseball game, they would be our Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle and DiMaggio.

So give them some love/dap if you're lucky enough to see them:

THE QUEEN

Name: Oprah

Horse: Media

Story:

Black Power: The Razor-Edged Sword of Black Cool.




+

THE WARRIOR

Name: Tiger Woods

Horse: Sports

Story: Tiger, due to his “Cablinasian” background, is more like an adopted brother to the cause, but he has played a critical role in bringing about this Post-Racial Apocalypse.



+

THE KING

Name: Barack Obama

Horse: Politics

Story:

The Final Seal: Only black guy who can smack his woman's ass on a national stage and make everyone love it and yell: Holla!



PROPHECY TOLD IN NEEEEEGRPOOOOOOPEEEEEEDIIIAAA

images:
black-and-sexy
Oprah
Will

Old White People Being Racist Is The New Farting In Public

Saw this post on Gawker about Larry King's recent run of ridiculous, uh, rhetoric, and, OMG, I do believe Barack Obama has made racism adorable!

I mean, listening to Larry getting worked up about how "Blacks are in!" and how even his son wants to be black (which he probably just misunderstood when the son mumbled, "I want to be anyone but Larry King's wack-ass anachronistic son ..." oh, I'm just kidding Dr. King, look at your hair over there on the right, WHEEEE!) and it's just sooooo cute.
(partial clip via Think Progress)



(Gawker has a better, i.e. more racist, clip with the audio from his other gaffe insinuating how Black Presidents are a gateway drug to Lesbian Presidents.)

See in an older more antiquated time, back when Larry could only interview dinosaurs (ha!), this type of thing would have put the whole Race Police SWAT Infantry A-Team on terror alert. Martin Luther King would have been mentioned, lawsuits would be filed, and Larry would have been sending mad black kids to broadcasting school, yo.

But these days we think WWOD. And Obama knows Larry means no harm. He'd laugh it off, or, if he was in Harlem, brush the dirt off his shoulders.

So now, faced with such silliness, instead of starting a riot, all you want to do is run over and pinch his jowls as hard as you can and ask him if the adorably racist old man can show me how old he is with his fingers *smiles and points at Larry* yessss, you, I"m talking to youuuu, how old are youuuuuu my racist shmookypants bummdy vooo viiivooovuuuveeegee....10, 20 ... mmm-hmmm, 30, 40, ... oooo you're old aren't you ... 50, 60 ...

*...still counting fingers.....*

Not that I'm overly familiar with this scenario, yet, but it strikes as an offense along the lines of an old man farting in public: Most people laugh. Some are embarrassed. Some might even get offended-- Just cause you're an old white guy doesn't mean you can go around farting in public, mister!

Awww, but I don't think that Larry. You go fart all you want. You ain't doin' nobody any real harm aside from stinking up the air a little bit.

Get Your Inauguration Day Started Right By Checking Out Donors Choose

I get to plug my favorite non-profit on The Daily Beast today:

For those looking to transform all the Obama-tonin coursing through their veins into real-life action, look no further than DonorsChoose.org....

I go on to mention Obama-ites, Stephen Colbert, and disadvantaged children... so you definitely want to check out the full blurb, it's bananas.

Then head on over to DC and do something good, and tell 'em the power of Obama, Colbert and TAN compelled you...



DonorsChoose.org Blog

Why Obama Might Drop A Freestyle On The Nation's Domepiece For Inauguration Day

This video is making the internet rounds. Specifically for the "Naw [homey], we straight [my niggy]" a little after the one minute mark. Also more dap at the end:



This was sent to me with the line "a study in code switching", and it's true, Obama does make a fascinating case. I have an old line in a rhyme somewhere, "writing for the man my vernacular switches, with my n's, I say n, more than Michael Richards..." The Barack slang/code switching reinforces the notion that, perhaps, the purpose of african-american identity politics is to help us all more easily reconcile the universal [existential] dilemma of having two selves. The "real" you, and the *you* in your brain. No one is more familiar with saying/doing something in their head, then having it manifest as something different than an Ethnic-American in the US. Eventually we'll all be spiritually calmer for it....

But speaking of rhymes, based on this coding analysis I think Barack must have some hot 16s. I suspect he's just young enough to have written some verses while he was in school. He's 47, which means when he was 25 (unofficially the age when you write your hottest lyrics, provided you've paid some dues to that point) it was about 1986. I would prob draw the age line at 45, i.e. every hip hop appreciating black person under 45 has at least one verse they wrote, but Obama is so precocious I bet he has a whole album and an array of aliases and a myspace page for his demos and all of that.

I'm not going to the Million Man Inauguration, but if Jay-Z or TI ask "The President" to grab the mic and spit something, and he does, remember you heard it here first.

The Chang Interview: Part 3. Advanced Hip Hop Diagnostics

Subject: Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop -- a book (currently $6 on amazon? cop it now, yo.), and a website -- long and short, he's one of the contemporary Professors of Hip Hop.

Backstory: In the final verse of this three-part interview we compare the crises in Hip Hop and Wall Street, and explore how crack paved the way for our 44th President.

Mission: To sprinkle some crack on Barack. Let's do this:

(Part 1 of interview is here)
(Part 2 of interview is here)

PART 3: Hip Hop Diagnostics Check

TAN: In thinking about the "Wall Street is dead" headlines of late, the "hip hop is dead" headlines come to mind. did hip hop experience the same market correction? were some rappers living in houses their freestyles couldn't afford? has there been a hip hop recession? can an art or creative form experience those highs and lows?

Jeff: i love this analogy, and i think the similarities are shockingly crazy. i talk about this all the time, but usually get glazed-over eyes and yawns, but let me try again here and hopefully not put anyone to sleep.

the reason wall street is slumping with us right now is because deregulation got it all coked up. follow me here. deregulation made it feel omnipotent, made it feel beyond risk, made the irrational seem rational. and for a while, it got everything it wanted--risk-free money-making for the exclusive customer based off of predatory lending masked as humane housing policy.

when the media companies got deregulation, the same thing happened. it got big money rappers who could make money for them across multiple platforms (not just music, but vitamin water!) and sell to the big dark world beyond american borders (where most of the young world is urban and of color). it was risk-free chip stacking for the exclusive--the universals, the viacoms, the clear channels--masked as progressive, desegregated pop culture.

that's the thing about capitalism. supposedly it celebrates competition, diversity and creativity but it really wants monopoly, homogeneity and conformity.

and eventually monopoly, homogeneity and conformity destroy the whole farm.

think of another analogy--the move from self-sufficient farms to corporate farms. used to be everyone grew something different--crops, animals, whatever, and everyone traded and everyone lived. then someone figured out you could mass-produce corn. so the corn now creates soft drinks, feeds the chickens and pigs and cows, and turns your biodiversity into one big cornfield. pretty soon everyone's fucking obese and lazy or steroided and crazy. cause you gotta take steroids to get those muscles you no longer get from working the field.

i know you are reading this now and saying wtf?

my point is that it's not a correction, it's the way capitalism goes in the 21st century. wall street is now paying the cost, and corporate rap--because hip-hop is most certainly alive if you leave out corporate rap--is too. nothing's shocking anymore. fools in that game are either fat and lazy or steroided and crazy, and while that may be a good look for some, it's definitely not for most. it gets pretty boring for the average fan also, which is always the next source of renewal.

having painted this wall-e world, i do want to say that i'm the eternal optimist. maybe hard times will make folks hungry again.

and one last tangent: i guess in the end i feel about the hip-hop is dead argument the way i feel about all these anguished 'irony is dead' articles. isn't it ironic how much ironists want to believe irony is dead?

TAN: the "?uest love thesis" (as termed in your bloggingheads vid), puts crack/the crack trade in a more positive light. to my warped mind, your logic allows me to formulate this equation: the crack trade helps form hip hop ----> hip hop helps pave the way for Obama ---> therefore Obama has evolved from the crack game. An evolved Marion Barry? funny cause it's true? maybe?

Jeff: funny cause it's true enough. crack sucked, and musicians on crack still mostly suck. i also don't want to romanticize the relationship between hard times and art, because good art doesn't always come from hard times and hard times aren't a prerequisite for good art. i myself prefer not to be unhappy and i think most artists feel the same way.

but it's also true that lots of great art came from the environment that crack created. one version holds that more white people paid attention to hardcore rap because of the media blowup over crack. that may be true, but who cares? to argue that the artists back then were making music strictly for those who didn't live in cracked-out neighborhoods is to rewrite history backwards--say, from the clipse to n.w.a., not the other way around. you'd have to be an idiot or a serious narcissist to try to pull that one off. besides, when hasn't there been a mass hysteria in american society that didn't involve notions of illegality and darker shade of skin than pale?

TAN: I like the notion of gangster rappers as Republicans. care to expound?

Jeff: ah, young jeezy proved us wrong tho!

TAN: a big part of hip hop's multicultural cachet is really legitimized/propagated by the asian/asian-american embracing of it. I recently saw Ballerina Who Loves B-Boy, basically some asian breakdance crews doing an all-dance West Side Storyesque production. Can you enlighten as to what makes hip hop and asians get along so good?

Jeff: the same thing that makes hip-hop and everyone get along so good. not that it always enlightens us all. i was at r16, the international b-boy competition hosted by the south koreans, who simply dominate breaking now. i interviewed russia's top b-boy, this blonde-haired blue-eyed boy named robin, a nasty breaker with that bronx-style chip-on-the-shoulder, who cited how much folks like bob marley and nas had shaped him. then, in competition against the south korean crew called rivers, really the inheritors of the zulu kings legacy, robin made slant-eyes at c-4, one of the rivers crew's top dancers.

wtf? in front of a korean crowd? the russian kid was all balls and no brain.

still, and this is what i love about asians and hip-hop--this dude c-4 went back at him three times as hard, literally castrated robin and left dude with his tongue wagging. the crowd went bananas. now, i know from asians and pacific islanders having swag--i grew up on an island full of em--but hip-hop took us to a whole new level. and for that, we say thanks.

TAN: No, no Jeff. It is I who says thanks.

Seriously, thanks for the interview!

~Fin

The Chang Interview: Part 2. Et tu, Obama? Then Fall, Hip Hop!

Subject: Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop -- a book (currently $6 on amazon? cop it now, yo.), and a website -- long and short, he's one of the contemporary Professors of Hip Hop.

Backstory: In part two of this three-part interview, we get into Obama and hip hop, and really the question that prompted me to get Jeff's opinion.

Mission: The two meatiest Q&A's in the interview are below. Let's peep the science:

(Part 1 of interview is here)
(Part 3 of interview is here)

PART 2: WILL OBAMA KILL HIP HOP???

TAN: I think this is the pea under my mattress that prompted all of this: in a recent slate article you used the phrase, “postracial-is-the-new-black.” It made me think, maybe Obama is the new hip hop...

Your book Can't Stop Won't Stop seems all the more relevant today, not because of hip hop, but because it's the story of our post-racial generation. In the current phrasing we’re swapping out hip hop semantics for new slang that's more inclusive/accessible.

Obama has personified this transition; the same way "hip hop" once served as a cultural uniter, Obama is now serving that role in a a more tangible way.

Looking back now, it seems hip hop, perhaps, had a certain misplaced ambition. In the 80s and 90s all we had was Hip Hop, so we needed it to be in politics and fashion and music and make cookies and do dishes and be transcendent. Now we know different. We can’t deny hip hop’s influence, but that no longer makes a given thing "hip hop" in that KRS-istential sense. Obama may brush the dirt off his shoulder, and show his love, but he's clearly not hip hop, right? He's bigger, badder, better.

All this makes me wonder: is hip hop still as relevant as it seemed to be, or at least aspired to be, a few years ago? if so, how? if not, didn't obama play a big role in killing it off?

Jeff: i think you're right on the mark in identifying right now as a moment in which everything is shifting. success--even partial success--always creates new tensions, new anxieties, new questions. obama is certainly a symbol of hip-hop's success in literally desegregating the popular culture. but without hip-hop, obama is unimaginable.

it's as simple as yz calling for 'a black president solution' back in 1989. i'm certain that against the backdrop of ronald reagan, nelson mandela, 'do the right thing', tawana brawley, and howard beach, he was imagining someone like a fela anikulapo-kuti/louis farrakhan figure--'black power's in the realm and the government's disagreeing'. now that we're in 2008, the first real black presidential candidate is, well, half white.

in a way, that's the difference between culture and politics. hip-hop is the art of the impossible. it imagined we could rule the world when we were clearly so far from actually doing so. politics is the art of the possible. democracy in theory reduces everything to the mean+1.

i'm as ambivalent about the idea of the 'post-racial' as you are, and not just because it denies an identity of blackness or brownness or yellowness--or an identity that sits somewhere between all of that--but it also denies an identity of whiteness. whiteness is an identity born of and linked to power, after all, and one that we thus have to understand as well.

hip-hop was the new black, and in that way, it created all kinds of avenues for people like me who aren't black to understand and value culture differently than it has been valued by society in the past. that, in turn, created ways of understanding what political power looks like in this country, and furthered desires to understand and value people and communities differently. so in the end, i'm for a movement whether in culture or politics that redistributes power, shares power, flips off authority and flips the given script.

if hip-hop would go back to being disadvantaged voices yelling loudly, that might solve the problem. but here's the problem--that's impossible now. too much has changed. the only realistic way forward is to admit that in some important ways we aren't the underdog anymore, that we fucking won. and then we have to get over our fear of 'what happens next'? what happens next is we take this shit over and run it.

TAN: A lot of your piece talks about the new multi-racial majority. reports have whites becoming minority in 2050. How do you see things changing once ethnics are running this piece?

Jeff: dude. now the census bureau says 2042. and the brookings institution says 18-29's hit that g-spot in 2028. 2028!!! i might even live that long.

so yeah, this is the big question now, right? this is where whiteness as the identity of power is crucial--i think of all the anti-black racism of my folks. it's pretty viscerally about both being higher up the food chain AND being lighter skinned. that, i think, was part of the real fear behind the 'is he black enough?' talk--but it was the Fear That Could Not Be Named, except perhaps by a cadre of folks who lived through COINTELPRO with a gun under their pillow. and generationally, some of us have been so eager to crash the party that those folks just sound really old. that's the flipside of 'post-racial' if you will.

the truth is probably somewhere in between--and my sympathies probably lie closer to the cadres than the david broders of the world, who are ready to call it a day for racism before driving home to their gated community.

lots of folks i spoke to this year, especially bun b and david banner, really wanted to emphasize that obama would be the president of america, not of non-white america, and that we needed to deal with that. which for me raised the obama and faith question. do we place our faith in him that he's gonna make things right? in this sense, 'yes we can' was a neat little rhetorical device--it allowed obama to wipe that dirt off his shoulder. it's not me, it's you. barack is getting ready to let us down easy. but then again, i truly buy his sincerity. i'm feeling that earnestness. after so many years of 'kick me please', it's nice to hear someone say, 'have it your way' and like really really mean it.

i guess my best hope is that the difficult conversations around race continue, that obama's presence puts a ceiling on the biliousness and the viciousness, and that the general arc gets pointed again in the direction of justice. as for the rest of it, i take his challenge seriously--if obama's in the office, then let's get it.

Saving the best for last in PART III: Which came first: The Death of Hip Hop or The Death of Wall Street... and, did crack pave the way for Barack?

image:
barack bigot

Obama Inaugural Song Submission: Common, Changes

I like this pitch/power move from Common, trying to make one of his singles the "hip hop inaugural song".

Honestly, that's what every emcee should be trying to do right now. Make that inaugural song. The inaugural jam is the new club joint, or somesuch. If hip hop gets skipped in the soundtracking of the Obama presidency, they will have lost a great -- possibly necessary -- opportunity.

As for Common's submission, it's not bad: happy groove, peaceful lyrics, solid performance. I wonder if the lyrics themselves are presidential enough. That said, with Common being from the Chi, and his whole brand being something along the lines of the hip hop version of hope, there's a lot of synergy potential there.

The lil kid at the end is a nice little underrated hip hop effect. If you add a cute-sounding child to the end of your hip hop song, you really can't lose. Also, whistling. Whistling on the track is another no-brainer. I'm surprised the market for good non-profit hip hop isn't a little larger. That's probably telling about something or other. Here's a youtube of Common's song:



You know, even better than the solo song would be to get one of these "We Are The World" records popping. They do them before, why not do it for the actual inaugural song. Everyone would want to be down. Prob get Kanye to engineer the whole thing. Him, JD (yes, respect JD please.), Dre, Andre, Em, Hov, Nas, GZA, Slick Rick, Chuck D, Common, a couple others ... obviously Black Thought and The Roots as the players. Oh, we need some women. Lil Kim doesn't seem right, though you know she'd drop the perfect PG-13 saccharin verse for the occasion. Maybe some Jean Grae. Oh I guess the songstresses can rhyme, so get those male emcees plus some Alicia Keys, Badu, Estelle, Mary J,etc. L Boogie if she's available. Beyonce and Sean can have a section to go back-and-forth on...

That song would be hot fire; the Black Music All Stars (pardon, hip hop all stars) making the Obama inaugural record. It's really the only way to do it.

Short of that, Common's song is fine; if everyone's going for dolo, Common is as good a choice as any.

Only caveat is if he comes in looking like the pic above right. With the background all fuzzy, and he's staring directly in your eyes and stuff....that means he's feeling the love too much. Abort the mission if that happens and wait for another day, that's not the Common we want.

Related:
Common Freestyles for Jeremiah Wright
Songs To Know: The Bitch In Yoo

Welcome To Post-Racial Fight Club!

Jewcy asked me to do a quick blog on one of these post-racial articles that are in mass abundance. In responding I discovered Post-Racial Fight Club. Here's a tease:

... I think the biggest ingredient missing from these stews of post-racial analysis are white people; this Post-Racial Identity crisis is not so much about Black identity as much as it is about White identity being scaled back down to size, thereby allowing everyone else to look a little more important. Perhaps even more than the Obama t-shirts we see everywhere, the book/blog Stuff White People Like is the prominent post-racial avatar that signals change is underway.

After all, we're somewhat versed in Black identity politics, hence Obama putting on his du-rag for a campaign speech. But White people have long been able to lump their particular sensibilities under the broad label of "mainstream" or "american". This was always best represnted by the position of President, leader of the free world, and presumably white bred, white educated, etc. etc. Now it's different. Now we know the first family doles out dap, and quotes hip hop lyrics. Good times.

So, not wanting to be passive and redundant, it seems the only step in further understanding what matters in the world now is to start a Post-Racial Fight Club. So here we go:

Welcome to Post-Racial Fight Club.

The first rule of Post-Racial Fight Club is you must talk about Post-Racial Club, A LOT!

The second rule of Post-Racial Fight Club is you must talk about Post-Racial Fight club some more!

See, when you use the term "post-racial" you can't help but seem smart and aware and progressive. Go ahead, say it to someone who went to college.... doesn't it feel good? Don't you feel better about yourself? I know I do. So next party, make sure you bring it up, especially if any members of the Multi-Culti are in attendance.

The third rule of Post-Racial Fight Club is if someone says "stop, you don't understand their people's struggle" and points to an historical tragedy where you can see the legacy of it still in effect today, the fight is over ... continued...

Post-Racial Fight Club [Jewcy]
Original Rules of Fight Club

women should get down with Post-Racial Fight Club too

cat fight club
woman fight club

The Perfect Political Woman: Coming Soon, Like Maybe 2012, or 2016

Amanda Fortini at NY Mag raises some valid points. While there has been much trumpeting about the progress for females in the wake of the campaigns by Hillary Clinton and VP nominee Sarah Palin, the end rewards have been muted at best.

Granted, in the realm of American politics, there's a measure of progress simply by seeing a couple women so prominently in the spotlight; it's not an unmitigated blessing. Amanda writes:

"In the grand Passion play that was this election, both Clinton and Palin came to represent—and, at times, reinforce—two of the most pernicious stereotypes that are applied to women: the bitch and the ditz.

What I don't think she satisfactorily conveys, however, is how those archetypal female stereotype boxes may simply add up as part of the cost of losing. Which is to say, if Obama lost he'd be a lot more like an Inaccessible Elitist Bougie Negro stereotype than he is now.

But because he won, because he was an individual who brazenly defied those characterizations, such an assessment sounds as silly as it should.

So while Fortini's closing sentiment, "Many will say we’ve come a long way this year. The truth is we have a long way to go." -- is true, it's also shortsighted. It doesn't accomodate a perspective that appreciates how much ground one perfect political candidate can cover.

This is part of the largesse of Obama's legacy. We may have wondered how much a Black president mattered, and then we saw it mattered so much more than we could imagine, and not just in our nation's borders, but around the globe.

We couldn't exactly predict the overwhelming magnitude of The Big O's appeal. His perfectness. Sure you can speculate and rationally deconstruct a perfect multi-racial presidential candidate, and it would be Obama. But he's special because he played the game perfect. Every misstep was anticipated, every major mistake avoided. He threw a perfect game, against a substandard opponent and it resulted in a landslide.

So yeah, Hillary and Palin proved to be flawed, and maybe the media will transform those flaws into caricature. But all women need to find is their Super Woman to show how long distances can be leaped in a single bound.


How The Year of the Woman Actually Set Women Back [NY Mag]

images:
post-it
perfect woman van
perfect man