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I Wonder What Malcom Would Think of Obama

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I am currently read Grace Lee Boggs’, autobiography and
she is talking about organizing in Detroit during the
1963 Uprisings. I just left off where Malcolm has recently
visited Detroit and gave the Ballot or the Bullet speech.

There was one section, in particular that I found surreal in light
of the fact that we are on the eve of nominating a white
woman or Black man as a presidential nominee.
She writes,

“The Black revolution in he North is less than six months old.
Beginning in Birmingham as a sympathy movement for the South it has now begun to work out its own philosophy…The Black revolution of The North is also confronted more directly with economic issue than the revolution in the south. In the South Negros are still fighting for the right to equal access to public accommodations and for the right to register and vote…..But the North already have these rights…”

Boggs goes on summarizing Malcolm saying,

” …A Negro Revolution and Black revolution are not the same thing …..A negro
Negro revolution is the kind which liberal whites could accept because it would simply incorporate the back man into the corruption of existing white society…A Black revolution would center around struggle for the control of land…”

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Trillion Dollar Budget. Check.
[How you gonna claim you ride for small government and propose
the largest budget in the history of the country].

President Bush submitted a federal budget of $3.1 trillion on Monday, declaring that the spending plan would keep the United States safe and prosperous and, despite its record size, would adhere to his principle of letting Americans keep as much of their own money as possible.

$125B Stimulus. Check.

Cuts to Medicare. Check. What tha f#%*?

MONDAY, Feb. 4 (HealthDay News) — President Bush’s new budget proposal would cut $196 billion over five years from both Medicare and Medicaid — programs that provide health care to millions of poor and elderly, federal officials announced Monday.

The budget will produce a deficit of 410 billion dollars this year and 407 billion dollars next year, up sharply from last year’s 162.8 billion dollars, a five-year low.

How did WE get here?

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Oh. Happy Negro History month.

Civil rights demonstrator attacked by a police dog on May 3, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama.

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Prompted by the revived Ku Klux Klan and by the quickly organized White Citizens Councils, the general reaction of the white South to the sit-ins and other civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s was violence. Bill Hudson/AP

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Reactions? Thoughts?

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Redemption of a Dumped Girl

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So I was single this week. For like a day.
That sh-t hurt.

I could feel the “lets just be friend’s” floating
in background of our conversation on Wednesday
night.

You know that feeling you get, when it just
seems like, “You know what, he just don’t love
me the same?”
Well, it came out. There we were, two legally trained
negro’s going for the each other’s juggler.
That argument was more intractable than
a congressional debate on slavery
reparations, no compromise.

I wish it on no one.
To be fair. He was ambivalent about it about making
the call. I was just in the middle of one of those,
“It shouldn’t be this hard, why is it like this?” rants.

He just swooped in with “Your right, maybe friends
is the way to go.” Now, after last year, with
The Graduate and BL, my position is that a
dude chooses you.

If he wants you around, he wants you around,
and if he doesn’t he doesn’t. It’s as simple as
that. So I didn’t put up a fight.

I was also grappling my desire to write more mainstream.
This thought was triggered by the fact that the Post
just started publishing a new “BLACK” online
magazine. When I first learned about it I was juiced.
Like yeah, maybe I can pitch them some freelance work.

THEN. I went to the site. I was like man, this is like
Slate lite for negros. No criticism. No analysis.

Yesterday, Illiam was going on and on about Michelle Malakin
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This morning,with Michelle on my mind and my desire to
do work around the transparency of public school budgets,
I searched and found a study comparing budget disparities in
Oakland Public Schools. Then I thought, why don’t I create
a map overlaying average teacher salaries, current murders,
and home foreclosure for the purposes of showing how
these three things are interconnected? I felt good.

So I got up from my desk and walked to a private area
to call SJ. When I walked back, there was a vase of flowers
sitting there. I thought to myself, why people gotta leave
THEY FLOWERS on my desk. Then I saw my name on the card.
He sent them to me.

I was speechless.
I was disarmed.
I was no longer angry.

With that simple gesture he said to me and others,
I love her. She is worth surprising.

Then I turned to my g-mail and found this note from a reader which said,

As an English minor, I’m captivated by your writing style that combines prose and blank verse: it’s a powerful format that punches your ideas into the reader. I read things on your blog that sometimes take me a few days to deconstruct my paradigm and then construct the one from which you wrote but doing this enlarges my soul….

(I had to google blank verse.)

And Poof.
Just like that the tumultuous week, full of
uncertainty ended.

The writing doubts dissipated.

The drive to have intense reparation like
arguments ceased.
Speechless is good. *wink*

(By Saturday sh-t was back to looking questionable.
The emotional arms race was back on and poppin’
and I was hesitant to even post this for fear of it being inapplicable.
But I’m going to go ahead and step out on faith and be vulnerable.
This post is my effort at disarmament.)

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When was the last time you had one
of those conversation’s that made things
exponentially worse?

How do you deescalate arguments?

Whats worse being the dumper/dumpee?

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Erykah Badu Now

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Erykah, Erykah, Erykah. What can I say.
I remembered the first time I saw her in Vibe,
right before the “On & On” video came out.

Mesmerized.

Other than Amel Larrieux, no one was on that
laid back, I am going to let my lyrics speak for it self I
don’t give a f-ck if you think that I’m weird sh-t.

It was tight. She was a nappy, with a big ‘ol head
wrap and wasn’t “bigger than a minute” as my
momma would say.

Erykah was a movement.


Erykah sings Happy Birthday to Raekwon. Courtesy of Grand Good.

You may have liked her, hated her, thought she
was fake, but at the end of the day you had an
opinion about her.

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My response was always I like my ignorance,
and I like my light.

From Woody Allen to the Wedding Crashers
I am going to like what I like.

Good art raises questions, so what more
can we ask for from an artist?

To this day, Baduizm, is one of those self-righteous
delicious albums that you can clean your house to,
get your mash in to, ride down Highway 1 to- its simply
that versatile.

Second runner up is Worldwide Underground.

The melodies, the beats and the over all lightness
made that an album enjoyable.

That heartbeat on I Want You.

I never really got into Mama’s Gun, even though
Bag Lady still knocks to this day.

Lets not get into the alleged impact that
she has on men. If you listen to the
homies at Oh Word Baduizm is a disease.

But we all know, if Baduizm were a disease,
cats would be holed up in their rooms
disinterested in a cure.

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What’s your favorite Badu joint?

You notice how she keeps her children out
the spotlight?

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80’s Soul Robotica Music: Santogold, M.I.A and Amanda Blank

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I don’t know if MIA or Santogold are emcees
in the rigid sense of the word.
However, I am warm to the idea of them getting
love and being able to live as artists.

You all know how I feel about having more than the
Rhianna prototype represent who women are in pop music.

We are thick, petit, dark, light, nappy, curly,
bone straight, angry AND content.
Our music should reflect this.

There was an article in The Times this Sunday
about women in hip hop which mentioned
M.I.A, Santogold, Kid Sister and Amanda Blank.

I have a hard time placing them square into
the throws of hip hop. I think they are doing
something a little different.

But this is Post Party like a Rock Star,
Post Yeye + Daft Punk. So it makes sense.

In a way, I feel the more weird and boundary
pusing the music is, the more license I have to
be weird and push the boundaries.

Its a vicious, vicious cycle.

Perhaps they are part of their own genre
of 80’s-Soul-Robotica. But then that phrase
doesn’t even capture M.I.A’s global tension.

Even thought the article mention’s most of
the women discussed in this post I couldn’t help
but feel that the article was missing something,

?There is a reason why these artists are having so much early traction online,? said Josh Deutsch, chief executive of Downtown Records, which will release albums by Amanda Blank and Santogold this spring. ?And it?s because they have such strong voices and strong points of view. Therefore, this process continues in the bile ducts, liver, sphincter of Oddi djpaulkom.tv purchase cheap levitra causing the stones’ formation, blockages, and inflammation. Some are actual rings as their identify company counterparts, and perform just as correctly, but price significantly a lesser amount of. samples viagra It originates best buy for viagra in the dental pulp and/or in the peri-radicular tissues. Side effects are common to develop with the anti-impotence cialis price canada drug. There?s nothing remotely manufactured about them.?

How many times do I have have to hear
“These girls have something to offer” or
“they are saying something different”?



Perhaps we can talk about what it means to
be outside the boundaries and what it means to
be a female in POP music and go against the grain.

What’s really going on?

Which reminds me that I need to netlfix that Dixie Chick
documentary.

The notion of making different music reminds me
of Gregs Tate’s latest rumination on Black
Rockers in this year Pazz and Jopp Poll. He writes,

That said, Black Rockers (or Negroes Who Rock) need our own Pazz & Jop, and really our own Village Voice and our own Grammies, and of course our own extraterrestrial galaxy far, far away. If only because I’d love to show and tell the good news to all those other Black people who don’t rock, but are maybe open to hearing something musical from American-raised coloured folk other than Beyonce, Rihanna, Jay-Z, or Soulja Boy. Because such folk need?nay, deserve?to know how stupendously, consistently genius MeShell Ndegeocello’s The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams is….


Every since my “I Can’t Listen to Nas” post,
I have been trying to figure out what I am going to run to.

As of late, it seems like the Stars are lining up.
I just discovered Ken Starr, NERD is coming out
with a new album and M.I.A. is showing some
running potential.

So, I think I will start with M.I.A.

Tomorrow.

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Listened to any new genre pushing
music lately?

Is the Black Rop-Rock recognition a
long time coming? Where Kelis at?

She the main one in all this.

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Martini Moratorium

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This weekend I had a martini moratorium.

I mentioned in the Credit is the Devil post that
my two favorite hot momma items are dirty martini’s
and vintage dresses.

I like the martini’s with four or five olives.
I like the dresses sheer.

The Saturday of MLK weekend, I had too many ‘tini’s
and it was all Ghostface’s fault.

See, earlier in the day I was talking to our dear friend Sweet Jesus
and it was one of those intractable conversations, where
I just wanna be like love me or leave me alone.

Don’t get me wrong. I go hard for dude.
He has taught me about humility, he appreciates
the fact that I am a dreamer and he has never hated on my
greasiness.

But, the conversation was beginning to make
me wonder if he would just prefer to be my
friend instead. Would that actually be better for us?

Why did I say that?

It was one of those moments where you say
something, and you don’t realize the gravity of it.

We decided to think about it and talk about it
later.

That evening I was listening to my pod. It was the new
Ghostface in fact. The more I listened to it, the more
“ignorant” encouragement I received, the more
I was willing to “to go hard in the paint”.
It accelerated my anger. Eventually,
I got to the point where “I didn’t need a date,
I got Ghost face”.

I mumbled to myself, forget that fool if he just
wanna be friends.

I know, it looks pitiful reading it, but those thoughts
actually ran through my head.

Suffice it is to say I went out, ran into a new lounge owner
who saw my ID said Brooklyn and we wound up
chatting about Smith Street and Bedstuy and
the Martini’s kept coming.

Here is the rub, the next morning I woke up feeling like
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The following day I felt worse, like runny eggs in a cold iron skillet.
It finally dawned on me on Monday afternoon that
I had caught Strep.

ALL bad. There is nothing more humbling then getting sick.

I was calling the doctors, trying to get an appointment.
They were not trying to see me.

Dr. Lopez is not accepting new clients.
Dr. Greenberg can see you in March.

What. But I’m SICK TODAY!

Hence the moratorium.

To top it all off. On Sunday, my favorite,
vintage store, which is open every other Wednesday
from 1:00-1:30pm was open.
So I bought a new dress.
At least it will last longer than the olives in a dirty-flirty.



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When was the last time you told someone
that you wanted to be just friends?

Or for that matter someone told you?

Why do we underestimate the emotional impact
of some of the things we say?

Do you think hip hop has the capacity to accelerate our
ignorance?

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