It is the express or implied utter audacity to say or do something knowingly out of sheer White privilege or supremacy. It is also a group activity where White people react and respond to that audacity with surprise, amazement, confusion, denial at the heinous activities of those of Caucasian descent that they would demonize from another racial group. So now that we know what it is, a little talk on it…
So this past weekend I was literally disgusted by and simultaneously baffled by the Woody Allen documentary Allen v. Farrow. The movie documents Woody Allen’s obsession with Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter and his sexual abuse of her as a child. It also highlights his relationship and marriage to her older adopted child, Soon-Yi Previn. Moreover, however, it highlights Allen’s adoration even during and after these allegations and the media’s vilification of Farrow and questioning of the truthfulness and memory of his victim. It made me angry that I loved the movie “Blue Jasmine” and had watched and supported it, after knowing of his marriage to Soon-Yi, even though his sexual abuse of Dylan Farrow I was unaware of. Like my utter distaste and disgust for R. Kelly, I took on a similar feeling of Allen. But I watched these White actors and actresses, as Allen’s films rarely have any people of color, call him genius, brilliant, praise him, gush over his talents and his personhood. The caucasity.
Woody Allen is a vile creature. He ruined the lives of these women and their mother by sexually abusing them in the home she chose to share with and welcome him into. These women will forever be traumatized by his presence and America’s adoration of him… not just as an artist but as a man. These actors and actresses were aware he was married to the adopted child of his partner of 12 years and had at the time allegedly molested her other daughter. He predicated his financial support of his other children, biological or adopted, with Farrow on then condemning their mother and sister publicly. He is a monster. Everyone should agree. White, Black, Puerto Rican. The act of dismissing this, especially so strongly in the White community… caucasity.
Piers Morgan & Sharon Osbourne… the British caucasity… it’s international. So first, royalism is a code word for racism when it insinuates that a Black person in a royal role is somehow against the royal code. It is no different than that former President questioning the birthright of Barack Obama to be the President. So, defending that shit is what… you guessed it… caucasity. It is also something else… racism. Defending racism is racist. You don’t have to lynch Black peole to be racist. You can sit next to and touch Black people and be racist. You can claim to have Black friends and be racist. You can never have called a Black person a nigger and be racist. Defending racism makes you racist. Period.
But for Sharon Osbourne to have the express gall to tell a Black person, who was actually extending grace to her racist sympathizing ass, how to react in a conversation about racism… ooooh chile. Sheryl Underwood should have Queens of Comedy’ed her ass and cussed her out to the white meat. That was some of the most extreme caucasity ever. It was also dangerous. I don’t promote violence… but folks have been jumped on for much less. Plus, you can’t hide behind being British. You just racist. I don’t care if you live off the Nile in a small home, you have tribal marks, and you are mashing casava for tonight’s fufu… if you are White and you defend racism or you try to judge what a Black person experience’s due to her race, you racist and you are displaying pure caucasity.
Apparently there is a documentary in the college admissions scandal with Aunt Becky. I don’t have the energy to talk about that at length… just know this… folks been worried about getting in trouble using someone’s Southfield (a close suburb of Michigan) address so their kid’s could escape the reality of their poor Detroit neighborhood school if they couldn’t afford or didn’t want to pay for private primary school. That’s for a basic kindergarten through twelfth grade education… that everyone needs to get a minimum wage job. But we got millionaire’s paying for kids to gain admission to a university and taking photos rowing for scholarships when Madison can’t even swim?!? What is you doing Rebecca?!? You can PAY for these brats to go anywhere in the country where they can legitimately gain admission… do that. Don’t display this level of caucasity please…
It’s simple… White people don’t get to play by different rules and the rest of us are going to be silent about it. Nope. We are calling you tf out. If you believe that White privilege and supremacy are tools that you should use to gain advantage, you are a ridiculous and racist person… and you are the poster child for caucasity. Know what it is, reject it, or be labeled. It’s simple. And Black folks will gather others together in the name of caucasity if they want to join… cuz that shit is wack.
Black people are lazy, stupid, overly sexual, uncivilized, aggressive, domestic, loud, lewd, brutish, ape-like, eat fried chicken and watermelon, have wild unruly hair, large facial features, and are made to serve White people while seeking approval from White people.
Jewish people are greedy, crooked, overly powerful, frugal, loud, overbearing mothers, pushy, unattractive, neurotic, manipulative, with wild curly hair, big aquiline noses, and too big suits, eating bagels.
Might some of those things be true of one or two Black or Jewish people? Of course. I’m Black and I keep a watermelon in the fridge. Might many of these things be unfair and discriminatory depictions of all Black or Jewish people. You bet. What is the difference between an unfair and discriminatory stereotype about ALL people in a group and a fair cultural observation of group behavior? I would say the difference is hard to tell!
Nick Cannon, media mogul, was fired by ViacomCBS for making what were deemed anti-Semitic comments in his podcast, Cannon’s Class while interviewing former Public Enemy member Professor Griff last year. Griff left the group after making comments about Jewish people being wicked. During the podcast, the two spoke about the origin of Hebrew people, Griff’s comments, common stereotypes of Jewish people, and the history of Jewish people in American business. The follow comments by Cannon were found to be be be anti-Semitic in nature:
1. Cannon stated Black people are Hebrews and therefore cannot be anti-Semitic.
2. He compared the dominance of Jewish people in the media and entertainment as comparable to the Rothschild’s in banking. The Rothschilds have been accused of creating natural disasters, assassinating Lincoln and Kennedy, and controlling the global economy.
3. He commented it was a shame Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a powerful and positive leader, had been silenced in Facebook. Farrakhan has been labeled by both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center as anti-Semitic and anti-gay.
4. Cannon stated people without melanin were lesser people, motivated by fear and insecurity, and used power and manipulation to overcome their deficiencies to those people with melanin, particularly Black people.
I won’t bother with the last two statements. Having something positive to say about a person who has made negative comments against Jewish and gay people does not equate with being against Jews or gay people. I’m not a big Farrakhan fan but I have watched a diatribe or two of his and liked THAT particular message. I am neither anti-Jewish nor anti-gay. I also disagree with censorship. If the President can call Mexicans rapists and the white supremacists can call Black people everything from monkeys to niggers without so much as a slap on the wrist, Farrakhan has the right to free speech as well. Also, while I wholeheartedly disagree any group of people is inferior to another, I do agree that fear and insecurity, along with lack of knowledge and a desire to maintain “have” status over the “have nots” motivates racist behavior and systems of policy against Black people. That’s not a Jewish people thing, that’s a White supremacist and privilege thing.
We are in an interesting time. People get fired from their jobs because of tweets and retweets. Black Twitter calls for the firing of racist White supremacists who are caught on social media or on video making discriminatory comments and exhibiting racist behavior. Yet White people who make fake police reports on Black people walking their dog or grocery shopping are left alone until we take to social media to demand action. Similarly, murders of Black people on videotape go free for months unarrested. Yet Black people who make discriminatory statements are fined or fired real quick, and the words whitening is being taken off toothpaste.
Last week, Philadelphia Eagle DeSean Jackson was fined by the team for posting a fake Hitler quote referencing the greed of Jews and labeling Black people at the true Israelites. He further praised Farrakhan as well. When Nick Cannon’s almost year old podcast was made known to ViacomCBS they immediately fired him. At a time when police officers who murder unarmed Black people often go weeks or months before they are suspended or arrested, this swift action by ViacomCBS, a Jewish owned company, points to a level of hypocrisy in the entertainment industry that insulates Jewish people from backlash it only recently had afforded to Black people.
Here’s the truth. Semites are a group of people who came from regions where Semite languages were spoken, including the Middle East, Western Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa. Arabic, Amharic (an afroasiactic language in Ethiopia), Hebrew, and Tigrinya (Ethiopian and Eritrean) are the most widely spoken of those languages. The term became synonymous with Israelis over time, who were monotheist, white Semite and non-Semite speakers. However, it was a “term of art” so to speak for anti-Jewish. Using the term Semite to historically reference Jewish people exclusively is both incorrect and like many things in history, steeped in White privilege and absent non-White influence. Semites were Arabic, African, and Israeli. Much of what is labeled anti-Semitism ignores anything that is not against White Jews. However a Black person can make anti-Semitic statements. It’s actually and unfortunately very common.
“You ever wonder why Jewish people own all the property in America? This how they did it.”
Jay-Z “Still Nigga”
The Black/Jewish dichotomy is brewed in real and presumed exploitation and manipulation of Black people by Jewish business men, music and entertainment moguls, and lawyers. It’s a tale as old as time. While we actually share oppression and a history of slavery, the success of Jewish people post WWII in America caused a new set of realities in our community. Jewish people were our landlords, store owners, grocers, and bankers. Then they left our neighborhoods as places to live and they simply became places to make money off of our backs, in the eyes of the Black people. That held true in the entertainment and music industries as well. In 1950, the Chess brothers, Leonard and Philip started Chess Records featuring black blues acts such as Muddy Waters, Etta James, Howlin Wolf, and Little Walter. Most of these artists didn’t receive any royalty payments until MCA acquired these labels and paid out back owed royalties to them and their estates. Very similarly, rap group NWA was famously taken advantage of by its manager Jerry Heller.
“Industry rule number four-thousand-and-eighty;Record company people are shady”
-A Tribe Called Quest, Check the Rhime
Jewish ownership in media is omnipresent. The Ochs Sulzberger family, which controlled the New York Times for more than a century, is of Jewish origin. Jewish-American businessman Eugene Meyer bought the Washington Post in 1933. Sam Zell who owns the Los Angeles Times is also Jewish. Robert Igor runs Disney and Sumner Redstone runs the company that fired Cannon, ViacomCBS. Top executives at Lorimar, Marvel, Warner Brothers, MGM, Spyglass, Columbia, Fox, CBS Sports, Lionsgate, CBS News, 20th Century Fox, ABC, Goldwyn, Imagine, CNN, USA Network, and Bloomberg among others are all Jewish. Similarly in music, popular names like Lyor Cohen, Clive Davis, Hans Zimmer, Barry Weiss, Phil Specter, Rick Rubin, Lou Perlman, David Geffen, and Ron Fair are just a handful of Jewish music execs. So statements that Jewish people run the media, while not totally true, certainly appear that way when a disproportionate percentage of the creative industries executives are Jewish compared with only 2% of the population. If not control, surely influence.
From news stories that highlight the negative pasts of victims of police brutality and police murder as an attempt to justify the act, to the bad contracts and exploitation of Black artists, specifically rappers, to the lack of roles forgoing to Black actors and actresses on TV and in the movies, these executives play a part. From the neighborhood slumlords taking our hundreds to the executives determining our millions, for many creative Black people, there is an unfortunate truth experienced as a result of working with record and media companies, and many of these companies are run by Jewish people. That doesn’t mean all Jewish people are exploitative but certainly these are real experiences of exploitation. Not necessarily a Jewish thing but a money and power thing.
“The grocer was a Jew, and being in debt to him was very much like being in debt to the company store. The butcher was a Jew and, yes, we certainly paid more for bad cuts of meat than other New York citizens, and we very often carried insults home, along with the meat. We bought our clothes from a Jew and, sometimes, our secondhand shoes, and the pawnbroker was a Jew–perhaps we hated him most of all… In the American context, the most ironical thing about Negro anti-Semitism is that the Negro is really condemning the Jew for having become an American white man…”
-James Baldwin, “Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They’re Anti-White”, The New York Times, 1967
While I’m in no way agreeing with everything Nick Cannon said, we don’t gain knowledge without understanding facts. Most of what he said, minus his negative commentary and opinions, is based on fact. We know what a Semite is and we can list Jewish executives who own or run media and entertainment conglomerates and give instances of when the dynamics between Jewish executives and Blacks were less than fair. Black people make up a large percentage of the musicians who are taken advantage of by bad contracts created by manipulative record companies and lawyers. Black actors and actresses often bring the box office numbers and awards, when nominated, but can’t demand the same salaries as their White counterparts. These very real realities are decided at many of the companies I listed above. While we have to be careful not to let our cultural observations and experiences become condemnation of an entire group of people, we must also speak truth to power. It truly is no fun when the rabbit got the gun!
As for Nick Cannon, he’s demanded ownership of Wild N’ Out which he created and has been offered programming time on Diddy’s Revolt channel. He’s got a net worth of around $30 million and took in $10 million last year. He is still cashing Drumline checks and owns a management company. Ladies and gentleman, I give you the rabbit!
These racially diverse people burnt commercial Minneapolis to the ground in the exact same manner that George Floyd lost his life on the ground.
THIS is a revolution.
Racism is a tool of power. It is a direct action supported by the system in power to oppress a certain race of people from forward progress and opportunity. It was used to colonize every part of the world inhabited by people of color to raze the land, steal its resources, and torture and traumatize its people into burying their past to survive their present. Mentally and emotionally scarred people can only grow and rebuild with time and healing… not when that torture and trauma is constantly relived. We begin to believe we must adhere to the values of the culture we’ve had forced upon us and are virtually ignorant of the one our ancestors, the first people, the creators of civilization, were born into. We have exhausted trying to live an American Dream not meant for us. It’s time we gain knowledge of self, for when we know who we are and where we come from, we know our destination, our next move.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
1. Knowledge of Self
We are the original people. Aristotle, Thales, and the great Greek and Roman philosophers learned at the feet of Egyptian and Ethiopian scholars. At the Temple of Waset in Kemet, Greeks and Romans alike were taught mathematics, science, the building blocks of language, art, medIcine, and free intellectual thought. That’s our truth. Africans were/are communal and tribal, we lost that in favor of American individualism. That’s theirs, not ours. Africans were/are creators not destroyers. That’s theirs, not ours. Africans are/were both intellectually sound and in tune with nature not overly dependent on technology. That’s theirs, not ours. We are leaders not just followers trying to catch up to White success. As such, Black people must unlearn and relearn who we are. To gain power WE MUST believe we are powerful.
“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity”
Sun Tzu
2. Educate
We take that newfound power to build by organizing… first educating ourselves in every trade, legal, medical, and financial arena. We must also educate our children and anyone who wants to know about our history, real American history, and world history. One cannot effectuate change by wishing and hoping other people act or don’t… we change ourselves. We pivot until we get our shot. Then we shoot… not with bullets but with truth. You don’t just speak truth you act in truth. You show your enemy (yes racists and White supremacist and NOT White people are our enemy) who TF you are. Racism is built on lies that paint us as less intelligent and civilized. We don’t have to prove that to be untrue… it is untrue. What we do need is a multi level approach to ensuring our unalienable rights are upheld. We aren’t guests in America, we are the architects. But no one will listen to your truth unless you grab the mic. We must react with our forward movement. But be a ninja about it…
“The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent.”
Sun Tzu
3. Organize
I have watched these chaotic protests in many cities that are infiltrated by those who in turn incite more violence and hide in plain sight. Protests since the Tulsa Riots have resulted from police brutality and resulted in razing communities. We can’t show up with choppas at the legislature, we’ll be shot on sight. So we destroy the things built in our communities, often not owned by us, because of proximity and out of anger. Going forward, we must be organized, prepared, smart, resourceful, and stealth at all times. If you ever see me at a protest we all coming in all Black, faces cover, basically unidentifiable. We got rags dipped in milk or vinegar, two fully charged cell phones each, important phone numbers written on our arms (lawyer, ACLU, mom, hubby, friends, the person with bond money), several of the same sign, water, a planned route, scarves for anyone who shows up unexpected, and a promise of peace for the safety of all involved.
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
In addition to our preparation on the ground level our preparation beyond the classroom needs to be as stealthy and as smart. Buying stock in the American businesses we have helped build; starting our own businesses; supporting making those businesses quickly profitable; creating communities that are self-sustainable with schools, farms, medical facilities, retail, and opportunities for ownership; using our resources to grow and build not to accumulate; voting systematically (votequadrant.com); running for office in every state, every elected position, en masse; using our money to support Black candidates with an agenda to pass and support legislation that tears down the system that supports racism, law by law. Ensuring “we the people” are all considered and treated like human beings.
Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
-Sun Tzu
The time has come for Black people in America to declare war on Racism and White Supremacy. There is an art to this. We are by far the more creative. On every level we need to come correct. Racism is the biggest racket going. The biggest Ponzi scheme ever. We created real hustling. It’s time to put that skill to good use. Our children’s children need not be born victims.
“I hustle for my last name, not my first.”
-Damon Dash
THIS is a solution.
Dedicated to every unarmed Black person who has been shot and killed in the name of justice, unjustifiably, whose murderers walk the Earth freely today. This is for Trayvon, Mike (Brown), Philando, Eric,Breonna, Botham, Sean (Reed), Sean (Bell), Oscar (Grant), Sandra (Bland), Alton, Ronald, Kendra, Jordan, Amadou, Atatiana, Korryn, Ahmaud, George, and every other Black person who lost their life at the hands of a coward.
Fear is a bitch with a vengeance. When it’s coupled with both the possibility of death and tbe loss of power, it’s not just a bitch, it’s a lowley bitter savage that’s hungry of soul and cold of heart. It’s ugly and treacherous and grimy. It’s the thing that filth and wretchedness are made of at their core. The center of hatred.
Racism is fear’s first born.
While we sit in our homes binge watching and critiquing the humor, wardrobe, and audacity of Black AF, two disturbing AF videos have emerged of Black men in Indianapolis and Atlanta being gunned down. One, Ahmaud Arbery during a jog when he was hunted and left for roadkill like an animal by a White father and son team, in what they claimed was vigilante justice. The other Sean Reed was driving, pulled over, got out of the car asking his Facebook Live viewers to come help him minutes after he was shot down by police officers, one who jokes after murdering this man that he may have to have a closed casket. It’s the same soup warmed over that we’ve gotten used to burning the roof of our mouths with… videos of our Black men being killed with no concern for their humanity. It’s Trayvon, Mike, Eric, Botham, Oscar, Renisha, Jordan, Tamir, Sandra, Philando, Amadou, and Freddie on repeat. These murderers don’t abide by the scales of Justice but by the code of the Grand Wizard. In a land where a young Black woman can be manhandled by grown men at the soon to be elected President’s rally, simply because she protested and disagreed while Black , it is no surprise Black men can be dead AF at the hands of those who pledged to protect and serve and men who claim to seek justice. There is no justice or protection for us.
When They See Us?
They won’t ever see us. We live in their neighborhoods in Calabassas, Brentwood, the Hamptons. We win their awards, when we are properly honored, and we aren’t properly honored because we’ll win their awards. We dominate their sports. Our faces are on their televisions and movie screens. We sit on Forbes lists ahead of many of them. We aren’t hidden, they know we are there. They see us with their eyes but they don’t plan to acknowledge us, our skills, our talents, our bodies, or our lives. Separated only by the color of our skin, the White people who hate us, they see us, but not as worthy of air, sun, life. Not worthy of this country’s nationality. If that ain’t some… I brought you in this country, Ill take you out … hateful AF foolishness, I don’t know what is.
Mostly, they are afraid that we will take their power because we have taken some of their accolades, prizes, and money as our own, through our own toil. But like a true bully, these bullies will only lay their weapons down if we either fight them or disarm them. They once poked holes through our bodies with water hoses and dog fangs, now they hide behind badges and semi automatics to riddle our bodies with bullets. Vigilantism is illegal, not jogging. Murdering a man who was no threat to you and then joking about it shows premeditation, he is supposed to run from murderers. They are afraid we will win their wares, secure bags they thought they had a skin color right to, and collect allies that share their skin tone but not their hatred. They should be. Bullets don’t kill spirits, they strengthen them. We get sadder but also stronger as a collective with each bullet you pierce our people’s skin with.
They are also afraid we will take their legacy. With the exception of a few acceptable Black faces, most of America’s history is only positively attributed to white people’s actions. They were the heroes, builders, creators, thinkers, great minds, and the politicians who shaped America and American government. When Ida B. wells (posthumously), an abolitionist, and Kendrick Lamar, a rapper, were awarded Pulitzers… trust it set some of them off. The higher we excel, the less their claims of higher intelligence, civility, and worthiness matter. The higher up we get in government and law making roles, the more we can pull back the veil on these institutionalized policies and systems that allow murderers to go free for months and allow judges to let their murderers go free. We saw that video of Arbery and our social media presence, sharing, and loud demands for justice had to at least be considered. But even small victories matter when our lives are being snuffed out.
Their legacy is also threatened by each biracial couple and child, White boy at a Travis Scott concert, White girl twerking on Tik Tok and speaking in what she thinks is some colloquial Black language. Cash me ousside. Howbowdat. It’s threatened by their mothers who love Oprah and Iyanla, and their wives who are our allies because every White woman is not the stereotype calling the police because Black people are having a BBQ, clutching their purse at our site, or being some version of privilege and acceptable American ignorance. They still carry confederate flags, wear their Make America Great again infamous red hats, and think Jim Crow is an actual White nationalist hero. They semi worship the American flag and the vestiges of a country where their Whiteness made everything they did acceptable. As they lose that foothold slowly but surely.
The Racist AF want us to be Invisible AF by diminishing us in any way possible. Ain’t no coming back from death. Nothing makes you more invisible. They don’t want to see us.
We here AF tho.
That’s the thing about Black people, we have been stolen and taken, beaten and bruised, relegated to 3/5th, razed, and shot dead. But still we rise. We find beauty in our ashes. Roses grow between the concrete squares that jungles. Let’s see… Black women are the largest growing sector of entrepreneurs in America. We have used the power of social media to make us small fortunes. We run for political office, and despite the stones thrown in our path, we win. We are billionaires… in America. We are the mighty Phoenix… we soar despite… even death. We have found our voices. We have already pierced America with our very existence, bullet free. But imagine us with the means to protect ourselves. That fear seeps from your wounds. Your hate is like a boomerang. Watch out for the ricochet.
Despite our accomplishments, we still end up in some second class holding cell despite being born in this country, citizens by jus soli. (law of the soil). We may not ever win in your courts, because they weren’t built for us. That’s the lesson. America’s internal structure was not meant to shelter us but to keep us out. The rules are different for us. We can’t just wear clothes, go to the store, drive, play, jog, watch TV, catch public transportation, or listen to music in your America. But we have been paying attention, we are whole billionaires out here, whole judges, whole Presidents. We win your awards and take your titles. We want nice thing too. Also. In addition. As well. We don’t want your power, we just want to harness our own. We don’t want your legacy, we just want to live long enough to build our own. See us. Or don’t. But we see you … AF!
You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still like air, I’ll rise-Maya Angelou
So listen, in Michigan and Louisiana, the number of Black people diagnosed with COVID-19 is wildly disproportionate to our population. We represent 40% of all Michigan cases, with over 7,000 cases in Wayne County, where my hometown of Detroit is situated. 70% of Louisiana cases with 4,000 in Orleans county where New Orleans is located. So folks are popping off about how Black people are responding and not complying with government orders. But there is a lot of background there.
Black people have a storied history in America. You know it, I won’t go into it from Jamestown to today… but our relationship with the government is weakened by our VERY REAL experiences. The government told us we were free people after the Civil War… the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1963, yet it wasn’t until June 19, 1865, that Union General Gordon Granger arrived at Galveston, Texas, bringing news to the town that the Civil War had ended and that all slaves were free. I could go on and on. But let’s not act like because the government or its figure heads say something that it’s gospel, truthful, or humane. Just a few months ago the COVID virus was similar to the flu; the numbers would go down in April because it’s warmer; and anyone who needed a test could get it. All lies. We are told if we obey the law and are law abiding we will be protected by police, yet Oscar Grant, Tamir Rice, and Sandra Bland.
So we, meaning Black People, have to fix the messaging and re-deliver it.
Here’s the rub. If a Black man in a hoodie is a thug, a Black man in a red or blue bandana tied around his face may be seen as a gang member… that’s not far off. If a Black man driving is a threat, then a Black man in a face mask who you cannot identify, looks like a thief and might be considered one. Do we really believe that these brothas want to mask up or trust the repercussions of being out in public looking like a ninja assassin… hell naw. “Mask on. Fuck it, mask off!” But a mask strapped around your face is much better than a ventilator strapped around your face. So it’s necessary… but we should understand why it might not particularly be trusted.
As far as staying inside. No one should be having basketball games, parties, BBQs, none of that. But again, many people in the Black community work in the service industry, a lot of whose jobs are considered essential. We have to grocery shop. We should be taking walks and staying active. Some of us can’t afford to put two weeks worth of groceries in the house at one time. Others of us need to take public transportation to get to our destinations. Still very many of us were still attending events (social, professional, community) well into March, because no national plan of action was put into place by the Pandemic Response Team… cuz your President got rid of them to give his son-in-law a job. A lot of Black people who are middle class belong to social, cultural, community-based, and professional groups for support and networking not available to us otherwise. Those events were likely hotbeds for spreading the virus. You have to understand who and why we are FIRST, before you judge. We have to not lose sight of who and why we are to remember why we might be a little less willing to blindly obey government.
So let’s share our very real experiences with COVID-19, so people are aware of how real, prevalent, and important it is to follow CDC recommendations. Let’s dispel rumors and misinformation. Let’s share how we are staying healthy, boosting our immunity, staying active, staying positive, keeping our spaces disinfected, and washing our hands. There are many people making masks, I know a few myself. Wearing one glove to grasp door handles and touch high traffic surfaces while you are out is smart. Cleaning your home, washing your hands immediately when you enter your home, using Lysol on items from outdoors, and just overall heeding the dangers and transmission of this virus is smart. But we must also be understanding and compassionate.
This is unlike anything any of us have experienced. Or children are out of school, many of us are working from home or not working at all, it’s stressful, it’s weird AF, and it’s real life. It represents the beginning of the rest of our lives, as things will never be the same. Let’s help each other embrace our current norms and focus on being healthy enough to adjust to our new normal when this pandemic is over.
Pandemics are not new… SARS, HIV, Ebola, the Bubonic Plague, cholera. But let’s talk about the very real human cost of a pandemic such as this, that leads to quarantine and social isolation. Corona Virus, aka Rona, she is not a sweet ole girl… she’s more like a… social, economic, and emotional savage. She gives no fucks, has RBF like a mug, and she will be cruel.
The Truth About Rona…
We already have seen and heard every way this virus has spread and how we can help prevent it. There is no vaccine and in America there are few tests. In addition to the physical challenges, Rona doesn’t just stop there. Recently I started a business, the blackkside, a social experience sharing and curation company in Detroit, which promotes cultural inclusivity in new businesses. So first, Rona is a sack chaser because she wants all my money. I can’t get the bag if we can’t go into social venues and restaurants. She’s eating my 401k and investments for breakfast and lunch. Bag thwarted. But when they take our bag, we buy low … stocks that is. That was a freebie for ya!
Then there is the psychological cost…
Anxiety and depression are real, but not one in the same. My business partner is Kafi… she’s our team social butterfly. She is ready to go all the time. I am the business mind… budgets and organization. I’m the DJ, she’s the rapper. Kafi goes out on Tuesdays. She’s a regular like Norm at her local bar. She never meets a stranger, and will probably hug you every time she sees you or parts ways with you.
Kafi needs social interaction because she’s an extreme extrovert. Lack of human socialization for someone like Kafi can lead to loneliness and ultimately depression. Today in Michigan all restaurants and bars were ordered to close with only delivery and take out options available. Most workers are working from home. Group events over 50 are prohibited, and soon a curfew may be instituted as in New Jersey. Kafi is not okay… I mean she is, but she needs her friends and family to check on her, offer to visit, invite her over. She doesn’t have the Rona but the Rona ain’t making her feel good inside.
Depression can be acute or chronic, situational or long term. Either way, it needs to be taken seriously and individuals who feel like they are moving from basic boredom and loneliness to a deeper and more emotionally difficult state need to reach out to others during this time. Pandemics are not just about the virus, the economic impact, and being infected. The truth about Rona is that she won’t just hurt you physically, yep she’s violent, but she can also leave you feeling emotionally unbalanced. Be proactive and find ways to have some small social interaction to keep yourself healthy in every way.
Now, me, I’m an introvert. A lot of people don’t believe me, but trust me I’d rather be home, in my pjs, with a few folks I really dig, than in a group with too much talking. This whole thing has affected me in a much different way. “Stay home. Stay away from folks. Stay watching Netflix. Stay happy!!!!” That’s my current ministry… and the threat of this virus outside of that safe bubble gives me anxiety. I mean I’m the poster child of wishing I was home alone.
Today, after a weekend of social distancing, I had to present at my job where I interview people from every country under the sun, many of whom have likely traveled, been around someone with the virus, and desperate to get the benefit they present for. It is not an unlikely idea that people who might be infected could end up less than three feet in front of me… coughing like a non-cigar smoker in Churchills. The very thought of that as I got dressed this morning made me sweat. I started feeling anxious, and just wanted to get back in my safe and quiet bed. But alas, I could not. I got in the car and listened to some of the raunchiest and murderous rap music I could find… it calmed me. Don’t judge me mmm kay.
I walked in the building, cleaning each knob or handle with my Lysol wipes before I touched it, and the sweat again caused my hair to cling to my forehead. It wasn’t until it was confirmed that we could work from home that I calmed down fully and all worry left me. I was feeling full on anxiety at the thought of having to interact with people who might present despite their travel or health history. Sure enough, a guy who had returned from China less than 15 days ago sat in my co-workers office smiling at her waiting on her to start his interview, like he wasn’t exposed to the plague a few short days ago. Luckily she discovered his travel and promptly escorted him out. Had that been me, I might have spazzed out on his premeditated pandemic spreading ass. I will happily sit at home… it’s going out DURING A PANDEMIC that’s my problem. I mean don’t nobody want Rona.
So check on your people. Whether they are extroverted or introverted, this new normal may cause some mental health issues that we might be ignoring because of the exponential spread of COVID-19. In the meantime, if you are extroverted, FaceTime a friend or have a FB Live dance or craft party (people will watch because they are weird voyeurs). If you are introverted, you should be good. But it’s safe to make it official… every little step you take outside, Rona is definitely in control… You, you, you know it!
Only modern marriage has been concerned with the notion of romantic love as its impetus. Historically in America and currently in most countries and cultures, marriage serves a far greater purpose for continuing and maintaining legacy through progeny, wealth, and cultural traditions.
Anti-miscegenation laws in the US were enacted in many colonies in the early 1600s, forbidding marriage between African slaves and White colonists. Even as white men were allowed without punishment to engaged in most often forced sexual relationships with Black women, marriages between Black men and White women were strictly prohibited. Into the early 20th century many states enacted miscegenation laws also banning minority races from marrying each other . The Supreme Court ruling of Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) struck down those laws as unconstitutional. Many legal historians and sociologists have cited the threat of miscegenation as the primary reason for segregation laws from the 17th to early 20th century. These laws were used to set racial boundaries, control immigrants, and set up a racial hierarchy.
That’s racism at its finest!
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Yesterday I read an article on Black Detour, You Can’t Be Pro-Black and in an Interracial Relationship, which stated emphatically, “If your priorities and values are centered around your culture and Black identity, you will marry within your race.” I paused, then continued reading to the end, attempting to save my analysis and opinion until I had read the writer’s entire thought. I wanted to give full respect and consideration to a premise that I honestly initially just wanted to reject, upon reading the title. The article centered on the idea that if you are about the forward progress of the Black culture and against White supremacy, you will want and seek that Blackness in the person you share your life with, because marriage is not just about love but about social politics. This isn’t the first article of its kind and many Black people agree, so it’s not a novel idea. For somereason this article struck me different. I read it twice, just to make sure I mentally touched each word and thought…
And I ended where I started, nope!
I’ve lived a bit longer than the writer, she’s a college student, and a very good writer I must add. But wisdom and experience bring clarity and understanding. Be clear, this is simply what I believe is my more experienced and learned opinion, not a disrespect of her opinion at all… just a different one.
But still, nope!
Let’s take this step by step.
The institution of slavery was a brutal exercise of terrorism and violence against native African people and their progeny in the United States for hundreds of years. From 1619 to 1865 our people were stripped of their traditions, culture, history, language, freedom, and humanity. The brutal mental and socio-political effects of slavery far outweigh the physical brutality, and the initial racial hierarchy that created the institution very much still exists in America. We enjoy freedom, but in many spaces we are still not totally free, included, and accepted members of the American nationality, which we own by birth. We have existed in a cycle of white supremacist control and prejudice since day one at Jamestown. White supremacy or prejudice, the chicken or the egg.
The enactment of miscegenation laws to further the white supremacist agenda was the definition of psychopathology. Slavery was not unique to America, but the sustained use of free forced labor to build a few colonies into the wealthiest nation in the world. In other words the ability to concocta plan to kidnap, torture into submission, miseducate, assimilate, and degrade a group of people and convince the majority of the people this horrible and inhumane injustice was ok. Then to turn the narrative on its head to spread the notion that because of our skin color difference, we were less human and needed this form of treatment; that’s the stuff of a psychopath. Over time, racism and white supremacy have taken on much more sociopathic nature, just wild and reckless actions in the name of racial purity and the rejection of difference. Who are we if we take on these pathologies. I’m pro-Black but I will never be a a Black supremacist.
Let me assure you, I’m educated, middle class, I’ve succeeded in terms of the American Dream, but I am not immune to the system of racism and the virulent White supremacy that infects far too many of our White counterparts. I have been targeted because I’m smart, Black, and female by mediocre White men and scared but protected White women. I grew up in Detroit, Michigan. My parents were big Afros with fist picks and Black Panther Party Black. I’m my Grandma played the numbers around the corner; dressing not stuffing; hair braided in the summertime; Pink Oil moisturizer; bamboo earrings; asymmetric hairstyle Black. My high school graduating class was 98% Black, and 98% college educated. I’m pro-Black; Black and Proud; Young, Gifted, and Black; Blackity Black. But I’ll never be a Black Supremacist.
Marriage is a civil institution, and in most of Western civilization it has morphed from a contractual agreement between families into a partnership agreement between individuals. In America, the results of immigration and war changed the priorities of marriage as different cultures brought their traditions and women went to work. The changing gender roles and integration put people in different spaces, so women no longer looked to men primarily to take care of them and people if different ethnic, racial, and cultural groups were in closer proximity to one another. As the climate changes, so does the landscape. Interracial marriages grew in number as the climate changed.
Love has always been the foundation of relationships between humans, how that love or genuine care for another began, was expressed, or was manifested has certainly changed over time. But love, at the end of the day, is the expression of understanding and acceptance of another in their truest form. Love is a choice to grow with that person and support them in finding their true self. It is void of all prejudice, celebrates difference, rejects ego, and is never an act of power or control. To declare that to be proud to be Black, and for the forward progress of the Black culture in America is impossible if you partner with someone other than a Black person is a statement of power, control, and supremacy. It seeks to keep us separate to advance some notion that the purer our Black, the better.
Purity is a racist notion. In every iteration of the word where race is concerned, pure equals White. There is no such thing as racial purity. Europeans have colonized almost every country in the world, and they have had jungle fever, rainforest fever, dessert fever, you name it, since the beginning of time. Miscegenation was began by White colonists and continued by White people until it was in their best interests to control it. They did so under the guise of purity… yet that didn’t keep Thomas out of Sally’s bloomers. So clearly, purity was just a decoy. Power and control were the captains of that ship… and the love boat simply doesn’t sail with them at the helm.
People should be free to love who they love. Regardless of how they arrive at that choice, it’s their choice to make. That choice does not alone take away someone’s pro-Black card. Any Black person about the forward progress of Black culture is going to marry someone who is also about the forward progress of Black culture. That is not an idea that is bound by race. Ultimately, anyone pro-Black should first and foremost be pro-humanity, pro-inclusion, pro-equity, and pro-diversity. Our allies, regardless of their heritage, share that with us. That is what we should desire to see in the image of our partners… real acceptance and understanding. Love.
We can uplift, support, and celebrate all of who we are, what we produce, and our talents and still be interested in being members of the larger society that respects all people, who they are, what they produce, and their talents. Period. White supremacists have tried to paint us throughout history as savages, ignorant, unable, uneducated, thugs, miscreants, nothing more. But we are as unique, creative, intelligent, talented, and different as humans are. Yet ancestrally we come from a more communal culture that is unlike the individualistic culture that is America. Our nature is different, and that is okay. It’s neither better or worse, right or wrong, it’s just different. If we start rejecting difference, we are no better than the supremacists our ancestors were tortured by.
If we attempt to police love by injecting it with prejudice, we are attempting to build our own systems of race based exclusion, in the image of White Supremacy. I refuse to believe that is who we are. That is not who I am. I once married, and if I marry again he’ll likely be a Black man. I could also meet and eventually marry a man of any race who was interested in all people being celebrated, respected, included, and considered not in spite of their differences but because of the richness and diversity of difference. But trust…
To simplify pro-Blackness as one thing is to simplify Black culture… it’s too colorful, creative, and beautiful to fit in a box. We can spread love, promote love of all colors, still and root for everybody Black… at the same damn time!
So today I saw this video by Steve Harvey, and it spoke directly to the idea of Black exhaustion. At what cost do we buy into this theory that we are only worthy of success if we work ourselves to the point of exhaustion. It’s a known fact that healthy people need to rest their minds and bodies to combat stress and disease… yet, he states, “You cannot sleep eight hours!” Why not, and under what authority do you make that claim?
But hey this is the guy who tells women how to Act Like a Lady… go figure.
Let’s talk about this idea that to be successful and Black is to be perpetually exhausted … only if we play by rules for a game we were never intended to be allowed to play.
Okay so I had a whole other post planned… I’ll release that later. But I really want to talk to y’all about Kanye West because y’all concern me. Really you do. Take a psychology class, read an article on mental health, see all these posts about “support Black mental health” but then watch how you act. You don’t support a person’s basic rights… let alone their right to an opinion that doesn’t match your own. We put Brandt Jean on trial for forgiving. We wanna cancel Ellen because she sat with Dubya. Really?
Well I’m gonna tell you my opinion. Fight me. You might want to after this. I don’t care… this is what I do. Now read…
…
So recently he made some comments and y’all like, see keep dude cancelled cuz he’s on that bullshit again. Now I’m not gonna go back in time and argue my case for or against, but I will say this…
You cannot be for supporting Black mental illness and judge him through some other lens. You cannot also preach about privilege and racism and not see that in the past our elected leader has used this man to validate his position that he’s for “the Blacks”. We all know he’s not, but in a state of unmedicated mania, we can certainly understand, if we seek to, that this man should have been protected from that monster, not allowed to sit down with him and further his agenda as a result of his mental instability.
Okay so fast forward to this past Saturday, let’s break down what was said…
“Abraham Lincoln was the Whig Party—that’s the Republican Party that freed the slaves,” … That is truth. The Whig party was the modern party mid 19th century, that rose up in opposition to hard nosed racist Andrew Jackson, while his followers formed the Democratic Party… the party of the “people”… who were considered only the White men who could vote. They morphed into the Republican Party primarily huddled around the idea of anti-slavery. Yes the parties have “realigned”… but that does not negate his point. He was referring to being called a coon for his affiliation with the party.
“You black, so you can’t like Trump? I ain’t never made a decision only based on my color,” West said. “That’s a form of slavery, mental slavery.” Ok, so I cannot say I’ve never made a decision based on race. However, what a position to be in. To be so personally unaffected by the economic and social disadvantages of race to be able to see things from a different vantage point. Be clear that doesn’t mean race and racism aren’t important and present, but that as a singular human you can see outside of and around race, because your position allows you to. Black people VOTED for Trump, will likely again. He spoke about rights… the right to vote for whoever one desires. That is true, it is his right. We focus so much on what other people are doing we don’t focus enough on ourselves and how we play a role.
I see my social, political, and racial responsibilities involving as much my vote as my economic stability, promotion of that to my child and my peers, and use of whatever small or large platform I have to promote understanding, health, love, and more economic stability. This is America. For the love of money people will…
So while I dislike Trump, I understand it is within the right of anyone else to choose. Freedom of choice is huge. You can’t argue a woman’s right to chose then shit on his rights. I don’t listen to R. Kelly and I have not for years, he’s a child rapist. Other people do. I’ll take a racist over a child rapist any and every day if the week if I have to choose. But I get to choose. If I’m Kanye, I’ll take the racist who embraced me to use me over the Black people who condemn me and cancel me constantly and with vitriol.
Brandt Jean likely understands as does Ellen.
“Social media is designed to make you think slower. … They want to slow you down and control you”
Welllllllllllllllllllll… I can’t find the lie. Sorry. So you read an article, it contains quotes, but did you go and watch whatever they took quotes from. Chances are, EVERY TIME, the quotes, in QUOTATION MARKS are not exact quotes and are used to match the writer’s intent. So instead of reading or listening to what was said you are told what was said. Every article. Every. ERY. This quote was not about Trump but about him not paying attention to critics on social media. These are not unlike things we sat ALL the TIME.
If you got it from the internet, chances are you don’t have all the answers.
Keep in mind, this man doesn’t live in our world. He’s married to a woman who makes money because she’s a White woman with an ass and has gained more and more fame based on her relationships with Black men. He’s a genius. He’s mentally unstable. He sells out stadiums. We praise God with dude… who we hated a year ago. He’s a complicated individual. Our relationship with him is complicated.
Listen, I get it, we want our big names, the powerful, the verbose, the opinionated to stand up and out for US. I understand that. But we cannot want that so badly that we a) fail to do our part and b) ignore their ability to choose their own path and voice their own opinions. We cannot want others to be so woke, that we sleep on their rights.
Do you know where you live? You see, we have not been hoodwinked, bamboozled… we hoodwinked and bamboozled ourselves Black people!
In case you forgot:
This time the politicians gathered together and decided to take back their majority interests in a country becoming much more like gumbo than chowder in the great American melting pot… Plymouth Rock didn’t land on us, we forgot about it. We forgot that while America is Apple pie, baseball, democracy, and freedom… it is also chitlins and Jim Crow caught a nigger by the toe bondage meets a grabbing pu**y President and kids in dog cages. It is racism, sexism, inhumanity, and rape culture. The vestiges of slavery. Freedom for some.
It’s a tale as old as time, WE know all too well. Yet we didn’t exercise all of our rights, the real dream and the hope of slaves. Instead we sat out of the ultimate game, the greatest show on Earth, the Great American race… and kept our votes like movie tickets from our first date, locked away, too precious to see the light of day. The Black vote declined 7% in the 2016 Presidential election, the one with the greatest potential impact. 765,000 LESS Black people voted in 2016 than 2012. (1) That is an outrage!
It was the worst of times. And we set it in motion, the more you pledged you wouldn’t vote, the higher the stakes got. You think they don’t care about us, they do, but only in respect to how low they will go to beat us at a game they were sure they rigged against us. Slavery, capitalism, gerrymandering, elections, the electoral college, and everything in between was a part of the big plan put into place to strengthen the big lie. Everything their ancestors learned, they learned at the feet of Egyptians. Pythagoras, Thales, Socrates, Plato, Euclid, and Homer… all studied under Egyptian priests. Imhotep, an Egyptian architect, poet, mathematician, and astronomer was in fact one of the first philosophers and helped construct the pyramids based on mathematical formulas in 27B.C., long before Greece was thought of.The underlying systems in this country are a big FU to that history. You dimply cannot be great if you are fighting to live, learn, eat, and have a drink of water. It was political prohibition. And the only way to dismantle it is to use the greatest tool of political power, the vote.
It was like we didn’t believe him. Like he was pulling our coattails.
“…they’re sending…drugs and rapists.” (Mexico)
“…she got schlonged.” (Clinton when beat by President Obama)
“…torture works…”
“The only card she has is the woman card.”
“Look at my African-American here!”
“He founded Isis” (regarding President Barack Obama)
“You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs…I will get over 95 percent of the African-American vote”
Why didn’t we believe him?
Our “representational government” has been 80% white, 80% male, and 92% Christian since 2015. (2) Furthermore that top 2% we hear about, well 66% of Senators were in the top 2% and 41% of Representatives in 2012. (3) The American Dream… that whole premise was a fallacy. Come here and be all you can be… not.While a few of us have broken the code and learned the secret password, we don’t broadcast it because we too have been brainwashed to think elevation is for the few and not the many. Wealth for the privileged is a birthright that buys them a position. We have to work for ours, 10 times harder. Systematic oppression is written into the laws. The only way to change those laws is to put people in office who truly represent your interests. Vote.
We failed.
So in a little over 500 days, we have watched a man ban groups of people from entry, break down Unions, withdraw from the UN, set in motion a plan to get rid of key government agencies, promote HBCUs (hahahaha…. he wants us out of State colleges and universities and especially Ivy League institutions), and allowing companies to hire H1-B non immigrant workers with less red tape, blurred the lines between church and state. He will get a chance to nominate two Supreme Court judges in under two years, setting off a plan to build a moat around Ruth Bader Ginsburg filled with the fountain of youth… oh the Supreme Court. In just a few weeks they have set out to reinstitute the travel ban, opened all your cell phone data to police, crippled labor unions, set in motion an overturning of Roe v Wade, and allowed voter suppression and gerrymandering that disproportionately affect people of color. Yep… all of that!
So where do we go from here… I don’t know. We fix the Democratic Party? We help as many of us excel as possible? We EACH register to vote, and vote every single time? We build for our kids so they in turn build for their own? We claim our worth in a system that constantly claims us unworthy? We stop trying to mimic and we live in our truth? We learn from others and history so we don’t repeat it? I don’t have all the answers but I know this to be true: we are here!! Texas isn’t gonna succeed and give us our own state. We aren’t all going back to Africa, or even to Canada. We have to participate in the process, or we shouldn’t be surprised when there is an Ofdonald, wearing nun wings, Melania is in teal with a tight chignon and dreadful disposition, and Gilead is real life.
The Urban Intellectualist 