It's time for this year's Black Weblog Awards! Vote carefully, thoughtfully and without any attachment to an outcome, and you might learn something and find a few new folks to add to your own list of regularly read sites. (See any good ones? Pass them along, please.) The best part of blogging is not about glory or gain, but knowing your own mind more truthfully over time, not to mention deepening worthwhile connections and forging new and fruitful ones.
I feel victorious that what I sacrificed myself for is now right in name.
What’s in a name? For some, the switch from a department named Afro-American Studies to one entitled African and African-American Studies in 2003 simply reflected the department’s growing focus on two separate, although necessarily intertwined, fields of study.
Yet for others, this change represented a dramatic shift in a university administration that has not always been welcoming to the existence of a department focused on “black studies.” Throughout the late seventies and early eighties, the Afro-American Studies department had to fight not only to teach courses on African subjects but also simply to stay alive. For these early advocates, this name change was a long time coming. [...]
Mes cousins jamais nés hantent les nuits des Duvalier
[...] My father worked in a Port-au-Prince shoe store at the time, and he recalled how Macoutes would walk into the store, ask for the best shoes, then simply grab them and walk away. He couldn’t protest or chase them or he risked being shot. His boss finally came up with a solution. He ordered a large number of third-rate, non-leather shoes that looked like the real thing but cost only three dollars. Most of the Macoutes who walked in either didn’t care or couldn’t tell the difference. If they asked to try on a pair of shoes, my father was to show them only the cheap shoes. Papa always got a knot in his stomach when a Macoute asked him if there were any other shoes. He’d try not to shake as he replied, “Non,” all the while bending and massaging the three-dollar shoes to make them appear more supple. In the end, it was this experience of bending shoes all day and worrying about being shot that started him thinking about leaving Haiti. [...]
| Go read the rest of Edwidge Danticat's New Yorker essay "Marie Micheline"
Slant Truth:You were one of the first outspoken Black political bloggers I discovered.
Skeptical Brotha:His passionate defense of truth and progressive values set him apart as a blogger of heft and of heart. His passing is a tremendous loss for us and I extend my profound condolences to his family and to all those who knew and loved him.
Brownfemipower:His blog was actually the first blog I ever read–I was devastated by Hurricane Katrina and went to their site to get up to date, on the ground coverage.
Political Sapphire:[...] In my three years on the 'Net, I have seen over and over through a variety of dust-ups that a major condition which the Left blogosphere imposes on Black bloggers as a prerequisite for acceptance is that we can't really be "Black"; i.e. cannot state our perspective and attribute it to actually having lived lives as Black people in this world, a state that no matter how utopian your outlook is presently different than it is for "the default", i.e. white people. And certainly not loudly. Indeed, the ready use of the trope that "nobody knows your color on the Internet" by white liberals routinely, even if unwittingly, sends a very real message to many Black bloggers new and aspiring (as it did to me, at first) that our true perspectives are simply not welcome. That the uniqueness of a third eye perspective, or voice may indeed be a strike against us, particularly if our perspectives don't line up with the orthodoxy that passes for progressive thought on the 'Net these days. It's the ultimate message, which bluntly most of us already get in the real world anyway: if you want survive, and succeed, you must be prepared to be absorbed into a Black-less Borg and become "the default". You aren't really Black, anymore. Or at least, you'd better pretend you're not. [...]
J's Theater:[...] One other element of his blog that I enjoyed was the periodic recipes: I never tried any of the ones that he and Jen posted, but I thought the recipe-posting was an interesting idea. Farewell, and safe journeys to wherever the best bloggers go!
CultureKitchen:[...] Steve not only made blogging look easy with his obscenely long posts of quality news dissection. He made it easy to be black online. And that's what made him so brilliant, that he never, ever gave up on his negritude.
There's a lot of us negros and latinos online but on the political side of the spectrum and 5-6 years ago, not so much. [...]
Baldilocks:[...] When one's ideological opponent dies, it's sometimes difficult, if not impossible, to say nice things about him/her. However, the nicest thing that I can say about Steve is that I wish that he hadn't died so young and suffered so much along the way.
'If you look at the African-American audience, there is room for several networks'
[...] According to a 2005 Nielsen study, African-Americans watch more television on average than the overall population. That appetite for television raises the question of why BET’s ratings are not higher.
“BET does not have the ratings it should have with 12 percent of the audience being black,” said Leo Hindery, a partner in Intermedia Partners, which owns a majority stake in the Gospel Channel, a cable network. “It has never developed a soul of its own. I would do more sports than they are doing and I would stay with the youth audience.”
Ms. Lee disagrees. “To say we don’t have a soul of our own: I don’t know what that means,” she said, pointing out that the channel did carry black college football games and the ratings were not good.
“When you look at our shows that really work, we get a sizable percentage of the population. We are the No. 1 show in black households. We did a fund-raiser after Katrina and raised $113 million, so there was a strong connect to our programming.” [...]
Also useful: Tom Umstead's Multichannel News blog post "Black Family Channel: Big Loss," which notes that "[n]early one-quarter of all cable revenue comes from African-American homes, according to BET, and yet less than 1% of the industry’s video channels target that audience," and the Center for Creative Voices in Media's take.
[...] Blacks, who make up about 12 percent of America's population remain underrepresented among business owners, even though they are better-educated than before and more likely to offer highly skilled services.
Also, blacks more often conduct businesses on a part-time basis in addition to a full-time job, so their revenues can be substantially lower compared to all small firms.
Interestingly, the states with the highest black business-ownership rates are those with very small African-American populations. Vermont ranks first, followed by Montana, New Hampshire and then Maine.
In all of these states, blacks represent barely 1 percent of the population. My guess is that these states, despite their lack of ethnic diversity, have a strong independent entrepreneurial streak. They thrive on smaller businesses and specialized services and products. [...]
[...] Countless studies show that stressful environments and situations raise blood pressure. And few things are as consistently stressful as being black. By almost every measurable social category — such as income, infant mortality, education, incarceration rates and employment — blacks fare poorly, making everyday life a constant struggle. Only a buried-head ostrich would say that racial discrimination does not play a role in many African Americans' poor health.
What's so pernicious about this "bad gene" theory is that it attributes current health disparities to actions taken nearly four centuries ago, when the more relevant issue may very well be what is happening today. Reducing health disparities to genes obscures more sensible conversations about the contemporary nature of discrimination, how it affects minority health and how best to improve health outcomes. Racial disparities in health are real. But a bit of caution should be exercised when playing the gene card to explain them. [...]
'The symphony is like a big ship, and it takes a while to turn it around.'
[...] Arts groups must reflect their communities, or their very existence is in peril, experts say. The seven-county region is 13 percent African-American, 2 percent Hispanic and 2 percent Asian, based on 2005 U.S. Census Bureau figures. The city, home of Music Hall, is 46 percent black.
"Part of the issue is the pool of people of color trying to get into orchestras has been very small," says Henry Fogel, president and CEO of the American Symphony Orchestra League. "In the 18 years I managed the Chicago Symphony (1985-2003), for auditions that attracted 150 or more applicants, the number of African-Americans was between 0 and 2."
The musicians are the most visible representation of the Cincinnati Symphony, one of the nation's top 25 big-budget orchestras. Seven years ago, the 112-year-old orchestra hired its third African-American.
It's not alone. Nationwide, blacks and Latinos comprise just 4 percent of orchestras. Scores of highly trained musicians compete for few spots. [...]
They know that a Republican appointed me, but they still don’t know what I am.
"I had to deal with the obstacle of limited expectation on the part of people with whom I interacted and the people with whom I worked. If you’ve never seen an African-American in a certain position, a lot of times people will assume there are no African-Americans qualified to do that. [...]" (Waco Trib)
"We want to have a national footprint. There are no national brick-and-mortar African American businesses. You can go from cable companies or store to store and buy Ebony and Black Enterprise magazines, but I don't know where you can walk into an African American bank in Washington, New York, Boston, Charlotte and Richmond." (WaPo)
[...] The number of people in similar straits is rising today with the shifting populations of a globalized world. The emergence of new democracies is also a factor, particularly in Africa, where the granting or removal of citizenship is used as a political weapon.
By the most common count, there are 15 million stateless people in the world, but by its nature, this is a number nobody can know for certain. [...] (NYTimes)
"It's kind of hard to be out on campus and still be successful. As an out gay man, if I wanted to pledge, that door is pretty much shut to me. That's just the way it is." (WaPo)
"Black children really need black dolls. She wanted us to know there was nothing wrong with the way we looked, that we were just as beautiful as the blonde-haired, blue-eyed dolls." (BosGlobe)
[...] Sunday morning is still the most segregated time for America, but many churches will find themselves temporarily integrated by visits from various candidates of all races and their surrogates during election season. Obama shouldn't be expected to abandon his minister to appease political foes, but at the same time it's important he convince voters his preacher is a spiritual adviser and nothing more.
In the black church, your pastor is the considered the leader of your flock; if Obama wants to get to the White House, he will have to learn how to be a shepherd on his own. (JS Online)
"My first choice would be a minority. Because of the situations we've had, the difficulties with the minority populations, we need to normalize and stabilize that so the minority community feels the Police Department works for them." (Statesman.com)
Walking into Sterling Memorial Library wearing socks and sandals last year, folder in hand, Andom Ghebreghiorgis’ ’07 slim stature — 5’8” and 135 pounds — should hardly have seemed threatening. But he had only taken eight steps when a security guard said, “Excuse me, sir. Yeah, come here.” Students behind and in front of Ghebreghiorgis continued onward as the skeptical guard asked, “Are you a student here?” The student pulled out his ID.
“Oh, thank you, you can move on,” the guard said. [...]
"Whether we can win or not, it’s sad we aren’t even participating. Until there is an African American candidate who seeks the party’s support for county office, that will be the measuring stick. When it’s consistent, if we keep getting the same result, we’ll need to address some things in the party. But we haven’t had that measuring stick."
Standing in front of people and asking them to like you
"I grew up a fat kid and was teased quite a bit. I grew up with no self-image at all. I wasn't dealing with who I was. If you were interested in art -- choir, theater -- you had to be around the white kids. It took years to accept me and what I look like -- too tall, too fat, speaks too well, not well enough. I think a person's goal to be happy and content is to be content with themselves. What you think about yourself is extremely important."
You can't get a white actor to play Idi Amin. You can't get a white actor to play Ray Charles.
[...] For the first time in more than 25 years, the Friends of the Black Oscars, the secretive group that sponsored the event, decided that the black Oscars have finally become obsolete. Since 2002, when Halle Berry and Denzel Washington took home best actor and best actress statuettes, African-American actors and actresses have consistently had a more significant presence in the race for Oscar.
This year a record-breaking five African-American actors and actresses — Forest Whitaker, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Hudson, Will Smith and Djimon Hounsou — were nominated. In the words of a member of the Friends of the Black Oscars board, "This year, the Black Oscars will be at Kodak."
"I often used to enjoy the fact that I could name all the black Oscar winners and do it rather quickly because there weren't that many of them. It's getting harder and harder," said Todd Boyd, a professor of critical studies at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts. [...]
Surveyed 1,590 black, white and Hispanic youth nationwide between the ages of 15 and 25
“The Black Youth Project is committed to making the ideas and attitudes of young people our central focus. By asking young people themselves about important issues like sex education, police discrimination, abortion or same-sex marriage, the Black Youth Project is able to provide data that will help build effective policies that can significantly improve the lives and prospects of young black people. This study is about research, not ranting."
A moral compass for America, always pointing us in the direction of truth
"I taught for nearly 70 years. And I would like my students to take up where I left off and to carry on the fight to establish history as a powerful force for good -- a constructive force to rectify the ills of our society -- to change the world, as it were."
[...] Not only has it had the first black president, now it presents the second without even blinking (or commenting, so far, on the Kennedyesque nature of the Palmer family). The non-issue represents a subterranean hipness to "24" that rarely gets mentioned as everyone ponders how superhero character Jack Bauer not only saves Los Angeles and, in turn, the country year after year, but how he does it in 24 hours without ever eating or going to the bathroom.
It's easy to dismiss "24" and the minority president issue as a case of a non-political series choosing action (everything blows up on "24" and the pace is incessant) over making a statement. But that conveniently ignores the fact that "24" has, in the prior two seasons, become surprisingly political, just not about the color of the president. [...]
"You can relocate cattle but you can't relocate history. We as a black culture don't have an awful lot to relate to, and now they want to kill one of the only things we do have."
"All of my friends had to buy Pepsi. I kept stockpiles of Pepsi in my house. All the places I went had to have Pepsi. If I was out with someone and they ordered Coke, I might have thrown a glass of water in their face. ... My wife would say, 'I think you're going crazy -- Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi!'"
“The vision right now throughout the community is all the same vision, which is that the archives are important. It’s an important way of pulling the community together. It’s an important way of highlighting African-American history and culture. And it’s something that needs to happen right away.”
"We have noticed an error which all journalists seem to make. Whether from mistake or ill-intention, we are unable to say, but the profession universally begins Negro with a small letter. It is certainly improper, and as no one has ever given a good reason for this breach of orthography, we will offer one. White men began printing long before Colored men dared read their works; had power to establish any rule they saw fit. As a mark of disrespect, as a stigma, as a badge of inferiority, they tacitly agreed to spell his name without a capital. The French, German, Irish, Dutch, Japanese, and other nationalities are honored with a capital letter, but the poor sons of Ham must bear the burden of a small n.
"To our Colored journalistic brothers we present this as a matter of self-interest. Spell it with a capital. To the Democratic journals we present this as a matter of good grammar. To the Republicans [the party to which most Blacks were allied at the time] we present it as a matter of right. Spell it with a capital. To all persons who would take from our wearied shoulders a hair's weight of the burden of prejudice and ill will we bear, we present this as a matter of human charity and beg you SPELL IT WITH A CAPITAL."
| Glen Ford's Black Agenda Report (via Dissident Voice) dispatch "James Brown: The Man Who Named a People" quotes "Black lawyer Ferdinand Lee Barnett, founder of the Chicago Conservator. In 1878, the newspaper’s first year of operations, Barnett wrote an editorial titled, 'Spell It With a Capital.'"
That's the other side of being in the driver's seat.
[...] We are about to become the first large metropolitan area with a majority African-American population. That hasn't happened ever in America before.
If we become the model of a well-managed, safe and prosperous city, then we, and the nation, won't be talking about race in the way that we have so often spoken about it in the past.
Ihosvani Rodriguez's South Florida Sun-Sentinel article "Athlete touts an alternative: Record-holding black swimmer promotes the sport to minority children" has a data point: "Statistics from USA Swimming, the sport's national governing body, show less than 1 percent of the 300,000 competitive swimmers in the country are black. In the Olympics, the United States has had only four black participants in aquatic sports: Anthony Ervin in 2000 and Maritza Correia in 2004 in swimming, and in 2004, Genai Kerr and Omar Amr represented the country in water polo."
Rutgers Law School professor Tanya K. Hernandez's Los Angeles Times op-ed essay "Roots of Latino/black anger: Longtime prejudices, not economic rivalry, fuel tensions" has this, and more, to say: "The fact is that racism — and anti-black racism in particular — is a pervasive and historically entrenched reality of life in Latin America and the Caribbean. More than 90% of the approximately 10 million enslaved Africans brought to the Americas were taken to Latin America and the Caribbean (by the French, Spanish and British, primarily), whereas only 4.6% were brought to the United States. By 1793, colonial Mexico had a population of 370,000 Africans (and descendants of Africans) — the largest concentration in all of Spanish America."
There's no mourning, no lament. It's all about thanksgiving, joy, anticipation.
[...] Watch Night on New Year's Eve began with 18th-century European Protestants, though today it lives on mostly in predominantly African-American congregations.
Since the Emancipation Proclamation, these late-night gatherings hark back to the long wait for freedom, according to Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, professor of theology and women's studies at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. Kirk-Duggan, a Christian Methodist Episcopal minister, wrote about the services in her book More African American Special Days: 15 Complete Worship Services. [...]
