president | The Urban Intellectualist

You Ain’t Black… not with a capital B

Posted on May 23, 2020 by karyn deshields

Okay let’s start here… The Breakfast Club is not necessarily the place one needs to go to explain ones political platform and policies to the Black community… but someone on Uncle Joe’s staff, that’s Joe Biden if you didn’t know, figured it was a good idea. So he talked with Charlemagne, I refuse to call him the god of anything, about what will ultimately amount to a pile of nothing anyone will remember because he made this statement…

If you got a problem figuring out if you are for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black.
Joe Biden, The Breakfast Club Interview

So what’s the MF fuss?

Let’s first just keep it all the way one hunnid… Uncle Joe meant… you ain’t Black with a capital B. Cuz the truth is if you are not for the freedom and liberation of all Black people from systems of oppression, you might be born black, but you ain’t “loving this melanin, beautiful as we are, stand up against racism, rooting for everybody Black, for the culture” Black! If you are… there are just some things you will not do. Period! One if those things is voting for the incumbent in November. Period, the Sequel!

Now Uncle Joe has apologized, it was a gaffe, a mistake, he misspoke… BUT the sentiment of what he said is correct. And this is coming from an educated, privileged, middle class, professional, and militant AF Black woman… mostly educated and militant if anyone is asking. You should tho… ask about me. I’m Blackity Black, Black mixed with Black. I don’t play those reindeer games, and I despise anything that seeks to hint that all that is Black is not beautiful. We are who they (supremacists) want to be, but they can’t. So they paint us lesser than, in need of saving, uneducated, ignorant to try to cover up all of this colorful wonderfulness and inherent goodness.

Recall… we didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us because white nationalists threw it at us. So we good people out here in these mean streets. It was our sister who was pushed, shoved, and struck by supremacists at the incumbent’s rally. It was our people he called “the Blacks”… as if we are some foreign object and not native people. It is President Obama, who we showed up for by the bus loads, that lives rent free in the incumbent’s head as the recipient of the Presidency by affirmative action and at the expense of some other old White man. He abhors Black success… because in his mind it is never supposed to usurp White success.

Donald J. Trump is the President of the United States because old and angry White men hate women and Black people, and poor angry White people never thought they’d be in the bottom of the totem. They thought, at least we above the Blacks… until Obama. I mean Jay-Z, a Black rapper became a billionaire. Kanye West married the rich White girl who had no talent to speak of…none. Beyoncé… well she bodied everybody constantly. And Mrs. Obama was a movement by herself. And White folks were big mad, bigly.

So the patriarchy reviled, attacked, sabotaged, and voted against Hillary Clinton. The racists, which outnumber the patriarchy, enter old and young, bitter, and angry White women, were trying to right the wrongs of a Black man at the helm by reestablishing the White norm. White primacy. The black peoples who voted for him want to be White-ish. They want to be free of these burdens of not being accepted, being treated as lesser than, having their success challenged. And they will throw others of us under the bus to get there. But that comes with the territory… it’s the hard water, spiders, and tall weeds that come on that forty acres. It’s our mule… but it comes with all this sauce, this dope AF, creative, historic, beautiful, overcoming, uplifting, communal, and fly ass sauce!

So if in November you are confused about who to vote for, because in the 80s, Joe Biden wrote a crime bill during the height of the drug game and the proliferation of assault weapons in communities across the country, I suggest you free your mind. Today, unarmed young Black men and women are being gunned down and hunted by police and other White people in daylight, on social media, and on camera not because of drugs or guns but because they are Black… period. We should be holding those people whose jobs are paid for, in part or whole, by our tax dollars and especially those we elect, to the highest standards. Racism and promoting a cost policies is a no go. You cannot care about your Black progeny and your Black ancestors if you vote in favor of anyone who supports that.

So while the media has big fun with Uncle Joe, keep your eyes on the prize. We need a leader in this country who values all of us and our humanity. Who speaks out against police brutality against black and brown people, who hires people who will promote our education and fair housing, and who doesn’t think there could ever be anything good about white supremacists who run over innocent people in the name of superiority. And if you would ever vote for a man who thinks that your mama is a second class citizen and only deserves a job that includes ironing his big ass draws… you ain’t Black with a capital B. You just black and you hate yourself.

Joe Biden for President 2020 … suckas!

The Blues on my Left

Posted on February 21, 2020 by karyn deshields

The Blues has always been totally American
As American as apple pie
As American as The Blues
As American as apple pie
The question is why?
Why should he Blues be so at home here?
Well, America provided the atmosphere– Warren G, Do You See

Listen y’all… I’m gonna make an impassioned plea for y’all to get wise and stop all of this foolishness goings on regarding this election. Let’s not spread foolishness and fuck shit… please.

1. We can decide we will vote for the Democratic candidate and STILL decide who that nominee will be, or better yet won’t be. We can do both. There is nothing that says I must vote for a racist and sexist vile human being on either side of the ticket… because he’s Democrat. Nope.

2. We can be honest about who these candidates are and what they stand for during the primary, when we are supposed to do just that. Debating about who is better does nothing to fuel the incumbent. Nothing.

3. The rules are different for minorities (hence why we have ZERO on the ballots as of today) and women. Period. There are two women running for the Democratic ticket, no minorities. Inclusivity and diversity are buzz words with no real meaning it seems.

This is America! It is a White Patriarchy. It is born of racist ideology. It’s patriarchy is promulgated by its sexism. It justifies its sexism and racism by implementing policies and systems that keep women and minorities on the lower end of the wealth spectrum thus forcing women and minorities to rely upon them to get a piece of the pie. But women rising up to realize their full potential risk and power is a more dangerous premise for White men. Especially White women.

Hear me clear. No longer satisfied simply being his mate, when she is now interested in doing for herself and controlling her own outcomes, that’s a huge problem for many rich White men. I’m sure you are thinking… nawwwww it’s Black people over everyone that he wants to see fail. Well, I would venture that he doesn’t care much about us at all to even consider us… we often are not considered as a whole. But “his women”… oh he cares. He cares a lot. So much do that he will sabotage her success to have her remain by his side where he believes she belongs.

That truth plays out on the national stage in politics. First, the two women running both have a long history in politics and frankly are wealthy. Kloubachar has a hefty investment portfolio and has been in politics since she became a prosecutor in Minnesota in 1999. Similarly, Warren has made about 8 million from book deals and started her political career in 1998 when he work as a bankruptcy professor led to her heading many congressional committees and establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2011. Compared to a male in the race who has been polling and doing better in the caucuses and primaries than either woman, Pete Buttigieg. He has been a mayor since 2011. That’s the brunt of his experience. It’s very telling.

Let’s go back… Hillary Clinton 2016. She was accused of actually criminally, regarding something that many Secretaries of State had done before her. Yet she spent a whole campaign trying to overcome it and it likely is what cost her the Presidency. Meanwhile her opponent had filed for bankruptcy several times, been sued for breaking contractual agreements, and had charges pending regarding his sexual assault of women… even stating on camera that he sexually assaulted women. Yet we talked about her pantsuits and emails. But her pantsuits. But her emails!?!? AND he was elected.

Women in politics face much harsher standards than men. How they dress, their hair, their voices. How they handle frustration, anger, disrespect, and abuse. How they respond to blatant sexism. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez (AOC), Ayanna Presley, and Rashid Tlaib, all American minority women were told to go back where they come from by the incumbent. Michelle Obama’s clothes and their cost were picked apart like she loves me not flowers. Similarly, a now deleted tweet by Washington Examiner conservative columnists Eddie Scarry commented on AOC’s attire saying she “[doesn’t] look like a girl who struggles.”

I guess if we dress well that’s a problem, if we wear pantsuits that’s a problem, and if we don’t dress well enough or our skirts are too high, those are problems too. FOH with your inequitable scrutiny and standards.

In a recent Facebook discussion, I noted that five out of the six Democratic candidates have criminal justice violations in their past, except Elizabeth Warren. I affectionately call her EDub because she’s a gangsta. Anyway… I was met with an article by the questionable Washington Examiner that stated, “Elizabeth Warren’s new campaign racism scandal…” which was a bunch of sensationalized fluff over a few minority women who had quit her campaign in light of mismanagement and lack of diversity initiatives in her Nevada campaign group. Definitely an issue, but not a racism scandal. But this is the same media force that lives to berate her with articles titled :

“Elizabeth Warren is over”

“Elizabeth Warren wins that debate-for Bernie Sanders”

“Elizabeth Warren is ruining the case for a female president”

The same paper that boasted:

“Why won’t Hillary Clinton just go away.”

“Hillary Clinton: Why?”

and “Hillary Clinton should definitely keep talking” regarding the 2016 Democratic Presidential nominee. It’s not just conservatism, but sexism. The paper simply does not attack, disregard, and disrespect men in the same manner. Interestingly enough that same FB person who was backing Bloomberg… a Black male. A Black male backing Michael Bloomberg? Say it ain’t so…

Yep, Michael Bloomberg! This guy is like a painting of Trump during Picasso’s blue period… that mofo is still racist despite claiming to be a Democrat. Racism knows no loyalty. Yet he has been doing oddly well in the polls, despite being the partisan twin of the incumbent. For all of Trumps “my Blacks” and pussy grabs, he can see dudes racism and raise him sexism.

He’ll see you: “Ninety-five percent of your murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O.. You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16 to 25. …The way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them against the wall and frisk them.”Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Aspen Institute, 2015. And raise you… In 1989 when a male salesperson at Bloomberg L. P. was getting married, Bloomberg said to the female salespeople, “All of you girls line up to give him a blow job as a wedding present.” In another 1989 incident, he asked a female saleswoman he was unhappy with… “if the clients asked you to lay down and strip naked so they could fuck you, would you do that too?”

Despite being beaten like he stole something by EDub, called out as a racist and sexist by EVERY other candidate… he didn’t drop out after getting molly whopped on fight night. He won’t. He won’t have to. He’s a White man… he deserves all the things right? He’s the most qualified because he’s rich, right? He must be smart, right? His acts are egregious, sure… but clearly not egregious enough for there to be total outrage and rejection of him as a potential candidate. This is America. He’s the worst of what there is to offer. But he’s a man so his suits, hairstyle, or morals don’t matter. With all of their Blacks, women, and gays matter rhetoric, even many Democrats don’t stand behind their claims. But blue is not only for boys.

When we, especially women, claim that a woman can’t win… we strengthen the systems that make us believe that very thing. Women are astronauts, pilots, professors, coal miners, coders, mechanics, professional football coaches, CEOs, and Presidents in many many countries across the world. Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghani, Isabel Perón, Corazon Aquino, Benazir Bhutto, and Vigdís Vinnbogadottir were all female leaders of countries in the 1960s and 1970s. This is America… we can make and raise your babies but…

Still waiting.

Told me I was fit to wear a crown…and then you let me down. –Billie Holiday, You Let Me Down

Caught You Slippin Up

Posted on July 1, 2018 by karyn deshields

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.

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References

Pew Research, 2017.
The Washington Post, 2015.
CBS News, 2012.