You are here: Home / Archives for Renina

The Coming Jobless Society

by

Children protest the closure of a jail in Lansing, Michigan.

They get so upset when they are diagnosed erectile dysfunction prescription for viagra which is also known as impotence. For best outcomes, purchase at site cheap cialis consume the medicine along low-fat meal and strictly without alcohol. This extremely common existence of ED cases has produced several treatments to cure male reproductive halest and to maintain the pace generic viagra pills in the long run of sexual life. That alternative is to use HGH releasers, which can help you increase https://www.unica-web.com/participants2009.pdf viagra buy best your sex drive naturally.
It is only right that I am drawn to learning about the ascension
and decline of civilizations, as a I saw my community
Oakland, California, and my family, in many ways,
destroyed by the crack epidemic and the war on
drugs in the 1980’s.

What as happened to post industrial to Detroit,
Oakland, Philly, Newark, Los Angeles and Baltimore, is
the closest thing to the decline of civilization I have seen,
in my short lifetime.

Last week I spent much of my time writing about pop culture,
Drake, Black women, which is what I do. I write critically
about race, class and power. Imus, The Duke rape case,
Nelly, Oscar Grant, Rihanna, Slavery, Capitalism and what
the life of being a writer looks and feels like. Then, after reading
one book it felt like what I was writing about was pointless.

As you can guess this isn’t a good moment for a writer, in
fact, it felt quite awful.

Artist make art, regardless of whether they are being paid for it. ~Rafi Kam.

I am an impressionable reader. So last month, when I noticed
that Ta-Nehisi was reading about The Civil War, I wanted to
start reading about the civil war. It seemed as if, given the
fact that Obama is president, and that we are in the midst
of a huge change, that it would be helpful to read and learn
more about our countries origins.

I came across a book, The Founding Brothers, which
was fascinating because it talked about the conversations
that the founding fathers, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin,
had about slavery, emancipation the American Revolution.
(I will talk more about this book in a later post, as it deserves it.)

I needed to mention The Founding Brothers because,
a couple weeks later, I was in Birkhold’s car, I saw, a book
on the seat and began to read it. You know the seven stages
of grief?

I think I experienced a remixed version of it after reading this book. I was
excited, then angry, then sad, then cynical, then I accepted it.

A few more days passed and I was ready to make moves. It also
helped that I read Gramsci’s wiki entry. Fortunately, Gramsci
makes it clear that culture is important, just as important as politics,
because it is through culture that we decide and reaffirm what is
normal. Gramsci also believes that we need organic intellectuals.
After I read that, I did the robot.

The book that, forced me to question it all is American Revolution:
Notes from a Negro Workers Note Book. It’s central argument is
that automation will make our society a jobless society, and as a
result we will have to organize our society into one which is based
our needs instead of our wants. A year ago, I would have thought
this book was far fetched and or outdated, just based on the title.

I would have thought this book was far fetched if I haven’t been a
waitress for the last month, the only waitress in a white restaurant
largely managed by, ran by and servicing working class white folks.
Most of my exposure to white folks has been middle class, affluent, and
the elite. So working with the working class has forced me to rethink
work, race, assimilation and American social progress.

I would have thought this book was far fetched if I didn’t have two
Black men, to good family men in my family, who have felonies.
This means that every time they apply for a job that they are
qualified for, more than likely they will not get it because the legal
system requires for them to be branded as felons, felon’s for life,
even IF they have paid their debt to society, even if they have reformed,
even if they infraction occurred almost twenty years ago.

I would have thought this book was far fetched, if I hadn’t been laid off
from an awesome job last year. The job was with an organization that
served high achieving low income kids. I still remember the irony
washing over me when I realized that as a young person I was a
high achieving low income kid. Given that, I asked myself, why couldn’t
they figure out a way for me to remain and make a contribution?

I would have thought this book was far fetched if I hadn’t been denied
my unemployment extension last year. I had a hearing and everything.
The judge, bless his heart, told me that if it were up to him, that he
would grant it to me, based on my argument. But according to
California legislation, an employee has to earn 40 times her weekly
base salary in order to qualify for an extension, which meant that I
would had to have earned 80K to get an extension. Right? right.
 I would have thought this book was far fetched if my father, a resident of
California moved to Las Vegas last month, after coming to California
in 1970 after the Air Force, because it became clear to him that that state
is only for the affluent and the people, mainly hardworking immigrants,
who serve them. Earlier this year, it became clear to him that as a semi retired
man, there was no way for him to survive in that 2009 California economy.

I would have thought this was far fetched if I didn’t personally know
6 under or un employed Black people, who have recently been laid
off. All have advanced degrees or five to ten years experience in their fields.

The above evidence is anecdotal, at best. However it underscores
the large system in which we live, which is why I wrote about them.

Black unemployment is at 14.7%.
Schwarzeneggger is gutting public assistance.
AIG is begging for more bonus money, again.
2.6 Million jobs were lost in 2008.
GM is now by and large a government ran company.

The American Revolution is important because it provides
a theoretical framework for understanding what the above
statistics mean.

The book was written in 1964, so we have the pleasure,
or perhaps, the horror of seeing the phenomena he has
written about come alive today in 2009. His writing is so
straight forward, that I have decided to include
excerpts below, preceded by a contextualizing sentence.

James Boggs on our automated society:

America today is headed towards an automated society, and it cannot
be stopped by feather bedding, by refusing to work overtime, by sabotage,
or by shortening the work week by a few hours. America today is rapidly
reaching a point where, in order to defend the warfare state and the
capitalist system, there will be automation on top of automation. The
dilemma before the workers and the American people is: How can
we have automation and still earn our livings? It is not simply a
question of retraining or changing from one form of work to another.
For automation definitely eliminates the need for vast numbers of
workers, including semi skilled unskilled, and middle class clerical
workers.

On organizations and change:

All organizations that spring up in a capitalist society and do not take absolute
power, but rather fight only on one tangential or essential aspect of the society
are eventually incorporated into the society.

On the unions and pensions:

They cannot get it in their heads the these old workers, who use
to be so militant are now a vanishing herd who know that they
are a vanishing herd, who know that because of automation,
the days of workers like themselves in manufacturing are numbered,
and who have therefore decided that all they can do now
is to fight to protect their pensions and seniority and hope the company
will need them to work until they are old enough to retire or die, which
ever comes first.

On automation in the past vs. new automation:

Automation replaces men. This of course is nothing new. What is
new is that now, unlike most earlier periods, these displaced men
have no where to go. The farmers displaced by mechanization of
the farms of the20’s could go to the cities, and man the assembly
 lines….But automation displaces people even when they have
been made expendable by the system.

On coming discord between the tax payers and the dependents:

Growing in numbers all the time, these displaced persons have to
be maintained, becoming tremendous drain on the whole working
population, and creating growing antagonism between those who
have jobs and those who do not. This antagonism in the population
between those who have to be supported and those have to
support them is one of the inevitable antagonisms of capitalism.

On the end of the demand for labor:

It is easy to accept that a man should move from one form of
labor to another, but it is hard to accept that there will no longer
be a mass demand for any labor.

…They still assume that the majority of the population of such
goods will still remain the heart of society. They have not been able
to face the fact that even if the workers took over the plants they
would be faced with the problem of what do with themselves now that
work is becoming socially unnecessarily.

Lastly, on American citizens and politics:

…In the United States…everyman is a policeman over himself,
a prisoner of his own fears. He is afraid to think because he is
afraid of what his neighbors might think if they found out what
he was thinking, or what his boss might think, or what the police
might think, or the FBI or the CIA. All because he thinks
he has a lot ot lose. He thinks he has to choose between material
goods and political freedom. And when the two are counterposed,
Americans will choose material goods. Believing that they have
much to lose, Americans find excuses where there are no
excuses, evade issues before issues arise, shun situations and
conversations which could lead to conflict, leave politics and
political decisions to politicians. They will not regain membership
in the human race until they recognize that the greatest need
is to no longer to make material goods but to make politics.

I hope, after reading these excerpts you can see why my
dungeon shook a little bit. In thinking about the above
quotes, and experience of reading this book I am thinking,
honestly about sustainable local, artistic, communities that
are organized to serve our needs vs. our wants.

A community garden here and there ain’t gonna cut it.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

What do you think of the idea of a jobless society?

What does a society look like that places our needs
above our wants?

What is the greatest obstacle to achieving such a society?

When you eat out do you tip 18%?(personal question, lols)

The Future of {Urban} Magazine’s: Thoughts on Jeff Chang’s Vibe Roundtable

by


Last week, Jeff Chang posted a roundtable discussion with
Alan Light, former Editor in Chief at Vibe and Raymond Roker,
Founder of Urb Magazine.

Read the entire post here. It is fascinating because in many ways
it is an organic conversation about journalism, capitalism, Vibe,
and venture capital.

Blockquote 5 paragraphs in, Jeff gets cooking when he writes,

But by April 2005, they folded. The magazine industry had shifted dramatically. The middle?as in all media and entertainment industries, hell, in American society?could not hold

The idea of the middle not holding, and for the magazine industry
as an analogy for American, and Global society, if you will, is
fascinating. Initially, last week, when I wrote about class, race
and teens online I was going to include a chart about class distinctions.
It became clear to me that there is no such thing as a middle class.
There are owners. There are workers. The material difference is
in salaries, and unions.

That’s it.

Which brings me back to magazines. Last March, I told S.bot
that Honey Magazine was relaunching as a social networking
website. (Background, I love magazines. My dad got me a Barbie
magazine subscription when I was 6. I also had a subscription to
Highlights and Weekly Reader.)

You see, S.bot is a start up genius. She does venture capital
marketing analysis and makes wireframes for billionaires,
so when she talks about businesses, marketing and money, I listen.

She pointed out to me that many magazines now have in house
marketing, record labels and publishing companies, and that the
magazines are just business cards for many companies.
We began to discuss, how Honey would have been different if they
started a marketing arm right after the launch.

We wondered how feasible this would have been given the way in
which whiteness, blackness and gender impacts the access to
capital in general and specifically in the NYC media and
marketing landscape.

Which brings me to Jeff Chang’s comment about magazines and
marketing. Jeff writes,

Jeff Chang at 10:56am July 1
Alan, is there any middle ground at all to be found? Is it possible
to concoct a web/print model that can diversify income beyond
ad/sponsor revenues? E.g. For what it?s worth, and forgetting
how I feel about it for a second, most of the mags I know in the
high10K/low100k circ realm have become quasi- or real marketing
agencies.

Then Jeff adds,

Jeff Chang at 11:04am July 1
I guess I think of magazines like URB, The Fader, and Juxtapoz, and Swindle as businesses that are working. But again, there are a number of ancillary units working there aside from the content work. All of them have massive marketing arms. Juxtapoz is part of the Upper Playground clothing/street art business. Swindle is part of Shepard Fairey?s empire.

But yeah, media qua media? Not so much?

Alan Light at 11:07am July 1
if anyone sees this who works with any of those, please chime in. but my understanding is that the magazine parts of those companies do not make money ? but rather are a good investment in terms of visibility. as a kind of calling card for the rest of the operation where the profits are. Raymond? Andy? You guys out there?

This blew my brain back because, it became clear that “Hip Hop journalism”
in many ways is now about consumption. That being said, if Hip Hop or
music journalism isn’t about the journalism, and is a calling card
for a corporation, where is the journalism?

Remember The Source, the Mind Squad and The Source’s
masthead? At one point, it stated,

We at The Source take very seriously the challenge being the
only independent voice for the rap industry…with respect to any
of our businesses relationships, we feel it is in our responsibility to
always strict police the integrity of our editorial content. On y in this
way can we continue to bring of the clear and unbiased coverage which
has won the respect of our readers.

Clearly this was pre-Benzino and The Almighty RSO.

In some ways, reading this roundtable, I felt like I was back in Mergers
in Acquisitions (M & A), because the conversation about magazines
turned into one about profits, venture capital, risk assessment,
parent companies and subsidiaries.

For example, Al Roker spoke on the fact that these businesses
that have both ad agencies and magazines may drop the
magazine completely. He writes,

Raymond Leon Roker at 11:32am July 1
The ways us smaller print brands have a chance is to become boutique agencies. Filter, Cornerstone/Fader, BPM, et al, everybody is in the agency game. The magazines become the branded company pitch. A measure of credibility and clout.

But as print continues to melt away, in the eyes of clients and under the weight of constantly increasing production costs, some of these brands may drop their mags too.

The assumption is that magazine brands, if they walk away from print, can?t survive. That hasn?t been proven one way or another yet. But IMO, the only way they will is by becoming media marketing companies instead. Ones where content and marketing blur (hello ASME). But the standalone magazine model died years ago.

After this comment, Jeff and Alan began having a conversation about
Vibes uniqueness, regarding readership. This, is where M & A comes in.

Jeff Chang at 11:46am July 1
And I note the irony of looking at VIbe as ?ethnic media? when the urban category was invented by Black marketers and other marketers of color to get beyond that box?

Alan Light at 11:51am July 1
First, publishing is a terrible place for VCs to be, the return is too slow and too gradual. And are there other examples of consolidation other than Vibe/Spin?

And FYI, I don?t know how these numbers developed over the years, but in the years I was at Vibe it was amazing how close a 50/50 split we had in black/white and in male/female readership. Which was a bit of a problem until sales team were able to convince people it was a strength.

Jeff Chang at 11:58am July 1
Re: that?s so telling on the ad tip. And so when Wicks Group bought Vibe the writing was on the wall?

Alan Light at 12:00pm July 1
who knows? i mean, i guess there was cause for concern if, as i said, no magazine companies wanted in. i can?t comment on the state of things as of time of sale, long after i was gone.

Vibe was unique because of its readership, however, I never thought
about the fact that advertisers may not know how to market to
such a diverse crowd. It speaks to our history as a segregated
society, and the history of segregated publications and advertising as well.

Andy Cohn, group publisher of the Fader Media Network, posted a comment
in the comments section that made me think about venture capitalist and
the lack of profitbilty in the magazine industry. He writes,

andy cohn says:

July 1, 2009 at 12:33 pm

I listened viagra price pdxcommercial.com to the press conference with Scott Pioli and owner Clark Hunt. They also facilitate the nitric oxide formation that helps with proper blood flow to the sexual transmissions. online prescription viagra without It is the nervous system https://pdxcommercial.com/property/1626-ne-highway-101-lincoln-city-oregon-97367/ purchase generic viagra that tells your body when you are aroused. However, both partners and men with ED need to try to enforce a ban on visit over here order cheap cialis.

VC?s have no business (never have) getting involved in the media business. there is a long trail of INCREDIBLE media properties (or ones that had the potential for greatness) left in the dust by VC?s who thought they?d get some great rate of return on their investment. When i first started at Spin magazine in 1994, i remember reading that the average print magazine took up to 10 years to turn a profit. i?m by no means a financial wizard (just opposite in fact) BUT that would send some red flags to me if i was the one calling shots on who to invest with or not.

I think if we all really did the research, it?s NOT solely about the magazine or the content that drives it?s success, it?s about the OWNERSHIP structure, and willingness to cultivate and organically grow a property.

So, and i mean NO disrespect, because i have had the good fortune to meet Quincy, and admire and respect him tremendously, i find it perplexing that he can come out and bash the VC?s for ?messing up? VIBE when it was HE that sold it to them in the first place. if VIBE had been maintained by the great people that started it and came in along the way, and it remained with Quincy/Bob Miller etc, i have no doubt we would NOT be talking about it?s closure today.

FULL DISC: i have worked for Spin/Vibe, The Source and have been Group Publisher of The FADER Media network for the past 6 years.

Organic growth is the complete anthesis of Capitalism.

Capitalism’s central premise is accumulation, get money,
getting more, allways, regardless of the costs.

Even though I will be be a social science doctoral candidate in the fall,
the M & A hound in me loves analyzing why a merged business will
succeed or fail, A merger in many ways is a marriage of two businesses,
and it is often done for the purposes of saving money. We read in the
news that that Live Nation with Ticket Master. Jobs are slashed, buildings
are sold, stock goes up, shareholders are happy.

But, but, but, what is the impact of those actions for the long term?

Ask Umair, who wrote an interesting piece recently about the “bloodsucking
nature” of the music business in the case of Michael Jackson. He writes,

If the world’s biggest pop star only made $12 million a year from
his recordings, why would anyone make serious music? Where
did the rest of the money go? Why, straight into record labels’
pockets. Did they make better music with it? Nope ? they made
Britney and Lady GaGa.

It can be for a plethora of reasons. This conversation about VIBE is
important because it reflects the magazine industry and also because
of my personal investment in Danyel Smith’s career.

The end of Vibe was personal for me, not because of the magazine
per se, but because I have followed Danyel’s career since the early nineties,
when she was in the the Bay writing about Hip Hop. While there are
five or six newspapers and alterantive weeklies in the Bay Area,
very few of them, then and now, feature writing by African American women.

So when she wrote about the Boom and the Bap in the SF Bay
Guardian, and the East Bay Express, I stayed looking for her byline.
When I ran into Danyel in NY, a few years ago she was kind and warm.
Furthermore, she encouraged me to write and blog, which was affirming.
Last December, i mentioned to her, that I was writing a series
of essay’s on Hip Hop and feminism, and that I was shook. She asked
me why, and I responded that I was scared of failure and scared of success.
She encouraged me to press “send”, always.

In some ways I am not thinking about Vibe per se, but the symbolism
of a Black woman, who came up the ranks as a writer, who
eventually ran magazine, and what it means to us, when that
magazine is no longer running.

It’s like that feeling of seeing Michelle and Oprah on the cover
of O, when you know Oprah don’t share the cover with nobody.

With that being said, who knows what the future holds?

If the magazines, as we know them fall away, and start over digital,
I smile at the idea of an Urban Vanity Fair. Given the fact that we
have a Black president, it would be kinda awesome to have some
in depth, urban (Black, White, Asian and Latino) political and music
coverage, organically grown.

More about VIBE
Harry Allen
Belle in Brooklyn
Aliya S. King

More about Money, Art, Technology
Michael Jackson and the Zombie Media Economy
The Next 5000 Days of the Internet
The Future of Free

When Magazines Sell Access to Politicians, Lobbyist
The Atlantic
The Washington Post

BET’s School for Nappy Headed Ho’s: BET, Drake & Lil Wayne

by


The jump @ 3:55 sec

“I like a long haired thick red bone.”
~Lil Wayne

No nappy headed ho’s allowed.

I have been having a conversation with Moya and Nuala about
BET, Drake, and Lil Wayne.

The conversation has been interesting in that I have been
pushing hard against being reactionary. Its challenging, because when
you react you feel empowered.

But, we, the masses, always have the power, whether or not we use
it is another question. We outnumber the executives and the politicians.

Always.

Black Women
It is important to note that there are Black women who
are only angry because Drake’s video features light skinned
Latina’s and White women. From the Sandra Rose website,

“Sandra as a woman I am offended that this is all Kanye West, the director, could come up with for one of the hottest songs of the summer. He should be ashamed of this depiction of females. This video in a nutshell basically says a woman?s beauty is defined by how big her boobs are and light her skin is. And Kanye being a black man raised by black parents and Drake being bi-raicial (half black and half white) why are they only showcasing ALL Hispanic girls in this video? I don?t get it, they couldn?t get ONE pretty chocolate sister up in the video like Lanisha Cole, Jessica White, or Natasha Ellie to be in the video alongside the Hispanic girls?…”

I read this, thought about it, read it again then realized that,
getting more Black women to care about rap videos, simply takes
only featuring Latina’s and White women. Common sexual dysfunctions in females are lack viagra online slovak-republic.org of sexual desire is also one of the sexual disorders. The drug is semi-solid and thus viagra cialis generic it easy to gulp down too. viagra purchase This develops into other complications involving the heart. As such, men undergoing bowel surgery are known to improve sexual viagra from canada pharmacy performance. Hmmmp.

In fact, on Tuesday. I tweeted that in some ways the the only
way for Black women to be upset about rap videos is if they
are excluded. I was surprised that five people responded. We
have allies after all.

What does it mean, and what does it say about Black women,
and the recognition of Black beauty in mainstream media,
if we are only mad because a clearly sexist video doesn’t have
any brown skinned women in it?

Apologies and Boycott’s
BET and Drake have both apologized.

An apology without an action is worthless.

Especially when the apology does nothing to materially impact
harm that has been done.

Lets review the facts.

BET has received its ad dollars.

Advertisers commercials were exposed to 10M viewers.

Some Black people have written letter and a petition and get an apology.

The first two points have to do with an exchange of money,
the last one doesn’t.

One question for BET? What is your apology worth?

In my conversation with Moya, we are talking about boycott’s
and how they are reactionary. The idea is that if we spend
all of our time reacting to what some one is doing to us,
then we will have no energy left to advance our own agenda’s.

The advertisers for the Bet awards were, Dodge, Procter & Gamble,
Target, CIROC Vodka, Ford, Coors, Pepsi, Verizon Wireless and Akademiks.
You know, in case you were wondering.

According to Target Market News, In a recent mulitmedia engagement of 5,000 African American adults, Simmons market Research Bureay found that BET viewers are 21% more ad receptive when they watch ads on BET, and 31% more ad rece[tive when they see ads on Bet.com, versus other networks.

[Sidebar. Why do corporations cause harm and governments
stay taking forced free labor and or ad dollars, and giving
us apologies? It’s rhetorical]

While there are many people who are angry about
what BET has done, just because folks are angry,
does’t mean that they care enough to take
non-reactionary action.

Take Imus, he was censored temporarily,
there was a big hullaboo, and he is back on the air.

Capitalism stay eatin’, nothing stops it.

Imus nor Wayne, nor Drake, are the problem. They
are symptoms of a larger one.

Moya astutely pointed out we often say that “Them rappers
ain’t talking about me”, she then noted that, Wayne just said he
“wish he could fuck every girl in the world”, that includes all of us,
you too Love.

BET?

What do you think of the women being angry because
no brown skinned women were featured?

You see the awards?

Have you thought of alternatives to reactionary
boycotts?

Thoughts?

100 Visionaries? Yes!

Digital White Flight: On Twitter and Race

by

But it is very generic india levitra important for you to get your drug. It can lead to Heart Failure, Stroke, Heart Attack, Kidney disease or failure, Vision loss, Sexual dysfunction, Angina or Peripheral artery disease. viagra for cheap prices Infertility in any of the partners may cause loss of intimacy and lead to negativity cialis discount cheap in their lives. Nutrients in the Pomegranate You might not have realized though, that male http://cute-n-tiny.com/tag/dog/page/8/ purchase viagra physical health is a big priority and when they would be in good health only then they would have a proper attention towards their family and work and if they do not work, other solutions include injections, suppositories, vacuum pump usage, and implants.
Twitter and Race
Two major events have happened in the last few days involving Twitter
and race. On Sunday night, during The BET awards, the trending topics were:
The BET Awards, Beyonce, Ne-Yo, BBD, Mary Mary, Keith Sweat, Tiny
and Toya.

Yesterday afternoon, the trending topic became “fakeassnigga”
because many, presumably Black, folks were retweeting @lilduval
who tweeted about “fakeassniggas.”

Then all of a sudden the trending topic, “fakeassnigga” was gone.

The Twitter administrators apparently deleted it.

This action reminded me that as much as we think that the tweets
are ours, there is in fact a firewall, and by using the website we have
consented to Twitters written and unwritten rules of usage.

In response to the deletion, I tweeted, “Wassup with the digital race scrubbing”
and “Why should we expect people to be any less racist online than they
are offline?”

I then received a direct message from @allaboutgeorge for a link
to danah boyd’s essay, “Viewing Class Divisions through Facebook
and Myspace.”

boyd’s essay provides an accessible theoretical framework
for understanding race, class and social stratification on the internet.
The essay was exactly what I needed to read at the moment.

Digital White Flight
boyd’s general thesis is that some teens are flocking to Facebook
and others are going to Myspace and their reasons for doing so have
to do with class.

She observed that the issue wasn’t that Facebook wasn’t becoming larger
than Myspace. The issue is socio-economic class. She writes,

Until recently, American teenagers were flocking to MySpace. The picture
is now being blurred. Some teens are flocking to MySpace. And some
teens are flocking to Facebook. Who goes where gets kinda sticky…
probably because it seems to primarily have to do with socio-economic class.

Which brings me to her general thesis which is that “what we do in society is
mirrored in our behavior online.”

She has four notable points.
The first is that,

As a society, we have strong class divisions and we project these values onto our kids. MySpace and Facebook seem to be showcasing this division quite well. My hope in writing this out is to point out that many of our assumptions are problematic and the internet often reinforces our views instead of challenging them.

The second is that Facebook appeals to teens who,

tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to
college. They are part of what we’d call hegemonic society. They are
primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking
forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens,
“burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths,
gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant
high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t
go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school.
These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after
schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace.
MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school
because they are geeks, freaks, or queers..

The third is that what we do in society is mirrored in our behavior online.
She writes,

The division around MySpace and Facebook is just another way in which technology is mirroring societal values. Embedded in that is a challenge to a lot of our assumptions about who does what. The “good” kids are doing more “bad” things than we are willing to acknowledge (because they’re the pride and joy of upwardly mobile parents). And, guess what? They’re doing those same bad things online and offline. At the same time, the language and style of the “bad” kids offends most upwardly mobile adults. We see this offline as well. I’ve always been fascinated watching adults walk to the other side of the street when a group of black kids sporting hip-hop style approach. The aesthetics alone offend and most privileged folks project the worst ideas onto any who don that style.

Lastly, and I was surprised to learn this, but there is apparently a
class division in the military that is reflected in social network usage.
boyd writes,

A month ago, the military banned MySpace but not Facebook. This
was a very interesting move because the division in the military
reflects the division in high schools. Soldiers are on MySpace;
officers are on Facebook. Facebook is extremely popular in the
military, but it’s not the SNS of choice for 18-year old soldiers,
a group that is primarily from poorer, less educated
communities. They are using MySpace.

In light of boyd’s Facebook & Class doctrine, I began to see Twitter’s
move to erase “fakeass nigga” from the trending topics
as a move to protect its brand, and prevent it from looking
too young, urban, working class and ghetto. In some ways,
it can be seen as an effort to remain on the hegemonic,
Facebook side of the equation instead of the moving closer to
the subalternative Myspace side.

Lets take a look at some of the comments made
about the “fakeassnigga” trend by some of the
presumably white, users,

@zacharyskinner Why do retarded subjects like “Fake Ass Nigga” keep
becoming trending topics? Is twitter being overrun by the idiot crowd

@moohalaa I don’t have a “Fake Ass Nigga” clue why its a trending topic, I
must admit

@sandy7172cat OMG! This “Fake Ass Nigga” is horrible. Twitter you should be
ashamed.

@Kashaseptember Why are all these black people on trending topics. Neyo, Beyonce,
Tyra, Jamie Fox. Is it black history month
again? LOL.

During The BET Awards some of the tweets were saved as screen shots
and posted on Tumblr, on the site titled, “OMG! Black People”
Tumblr, took the site down. In true internet fashion the , OMG! Black People
sprung up on WordPress. Here are some of the tweets,

@peggyrossmanith The current trending topics make me sad for America.

@Jennibenn1 screw these stupid trending topics, I am going to bed

@brighteyesjulie did anyone see the trendning topics. I don’t think this is
a very good neighborhood. Lock the doors kids.

@sweethayle So many black people!

@rolololodan Why are all the trending topics about the BET awards.
Fuck that channel.

In many ways, what we are seeing on Twitter are the racial
comments that folks would normally keep to themselves,
or only mention to their peers with whom they feel safe.

These tweets run counter to the mainstream press’s notion
of a post racial America. Keep in mind that I write this with
the understanding that noticing and understanding our contradictions
is the only way we can reconcile them and have real change
and progress.

The added dimension of the internet means that off handed
comments that where once private and racial are now public,
racial, screen saved and posted on blogs.

In many ways, Iwe as a nation are so afraid of dealing
with race and class that we hope a technology will come along
and serve as some sort of microwave social justice tool that will
and deal with it for us. The consequences of four hundred years of
chattel slavery will not be erased with the internet.

The truth is that technology will only further magnify the stereotypes,
class distinctions and our general efforts to avoid dealing with each other.

boyd’s research, Twitter’s censorship and the comments made during
The BET awards evidence this.

Who we are in our daily lives is who we are online, a key board,
some plastic a hard drive will never change that.

What do you think of the removal of the trending topics?

What do you think of danah boyd’s theory about Facebook, Myspace
and digital class distinctions?

Have you noticed anyhing else racial that has been censored recently
online?

The Children of Alcoholics Either Marry One or Become One

by

Me and Dig Dug in August ’05. I had no idea at the time,

Sometimes, you may have the confusion in your mind and if you mind is restless, you cannot put up a good performance. cialis free consultation If a man loses the power of having a wild side in himself. levitra prices causes a man to enjoy hard erection along with pleasure of lust filled moments. The mechanism buying cialis cheap of the medication- Technically the process of how this sildenafil citrate works involves dilation of vessels and relaxation to certain penile muscles that help carrying plentiful blood to the needed area. Searching simply about any type of physician can be a challenging job cialis price on your part.

but my whole world was about to shake.

I woke up this morning with this thought, the title of the post,
in my head, probably because it ties into so many other things
that I have been thinking about, as usual.

Thinking. Thinking about Michael Jackson, about stolen
childhoods, about adult onset addiction and what it means
to live in a culture that doesn’t have a language to grieve.

Thinking and observing the ways in which we are dealing
with Micheal Jackson’s death. Thinking that if we do not
deal with our history as a people,as Americans, as Black
people, as the children of abusive people, we will be
trapped in it and triggered into our childhood fears
whenever any new loss occurs.

A dear friend of mine has been recently doing work on dealing
with his childhood. It’s painful to watch, yet awesome because
I suspect it will make him a more human human. Often times,
I don’t know what to say when he tells me about making a
connection between something janky from his childhood
that carried over into his adult life, so I just sit there speechless
and attentive, trying to be a good friend.

My father has both struggled with an addiction for twenty years
and he also works incredibly hard everyday to maintain his
sobriety. Four years ago, in July of 2005, he came back east to visit me
and to reconnect with his momma and forgive her for giving
him up for adoption. It was incredible. In watching him do this,
instead of telling me who a man, a human was, he showed me.

He showed me the power of forgiveness.The importance of humility.
He showed me the gift of not harboring resentments. He showed
me that if he could forgive her, then I should forgive him, if I
already hadn’t. He showed me that adult Black men, that men,
did in fact do the necessary emotional work to get their family
lives and emotional lives in order. Despite what CNN’s Black in
America, the Black intellectual or Black Politician du jour
were saying.

This visit is material because my grandmother died in March of
2007, just two years after that visit.

You and I know that there is nothing quite like a person dying
before you can tell them, I am sorry or I forgive you.

He showed me that a man, a man who has dedicated his life to
healing his own wounds from 20, 30, 40, or 50 years ago must
make it a priority to deal with the events from childhood that
never have been addressed, or else he will be trapped by them.

It was on this trip that my father noticed that I was “angry.” Of
course I was. Anger is often times the only emotion that we
are permitted to have publicly. Yet, there is a caveat for Black
women, as we are presumed to have attitudes and be angry
often times before we even open our mouths. This
of course is rooted in myth of Black women that go back to
slavery. Damn near everybody in East Oakland is angry and
with good reason. East Oakland houses the bodies that
capitalism no longer needs, (to a greater or lesser extent.)

But trip, I wasn’t in East Oakland. I was in downtown Brooklyn,
bourgie as all get out, about to get married and go to law school.
What did I have to be angry about?

Well, in the ensuing months, the angry ripped through some
more relationships and played a huge role in my ability to adjust
to law school. It also played an active role in killing two relationships,
and in killing credit score (which was perfect when I started) by
shopping instead of dealing with the grind that is law school by
developing new tools to cope. Instead I tried to assimilate into the
existing culture of play hard and work hard and I became a little
bit to comfortable with cappuccino’s in the morning and Black label
at night and trying to read four hundred pages in between.

Some days I failed miserably, on others, I knocked it out the box.

However, the above three tendencies were bad for the wallet,
bad for the kidneys, bad for my eye sight. After Dee Dee got
stolen in Prospect Park, and I moved back to the Bay, it was
clearly a sign that I had enough and I started to deal with
how I reacted to the anger triggers head on. That was fun.

Anger is a drug, anger is also a secondary emotion that is usually
a cover for how we really feel. When I accepted that, I became willing
to be the person that I was put here to be, not the person
reacting to twenty years ago, and certainly not the person
that my friends or family thought I should be.

Every since I learned of Michael’s death, I have been thinking about
childhoods and the way we grieve or don’t grieve in our society.

I have been thinking about how he provided the soundtrack to
our childhoods, yet he was denied one.

This post is for the kids who had no childhoods. For the Michael
Jackson’s of the world who for one reason or another got robbed
of theirs. To be fair to my parents, I had an awesome childhood, until
Crack came, that is. It was awesome and irreplaceable. Both pre and
post Crack, I couldn’t or wouldn’t change it, it made me who I am.

I only hope that for anyone reading this who may see a little
Michael Jackson getting robbed of his or her childhood,
steps in to do something.

No one stepped in for him.

Further Reading
The Road Less Traveled
Homecoming
All About Love

No questions for this post.
A little too deep, feel me?
Thoughts?