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6.30.2011

6.29.2011

Poet's quote of the day:

Many people have serious academic degrees but cannot find a job, and sadly their degrees are so limited that they cannot even think about how to create a job for themselves."
-Haki Madhubuti

6.13.2011

Spoken Word: "Amateur Please"

This is me performing my poem, "Amateur Please" at Soul Restoration hosted by Deana Dean at Celeste. It goes down every Thursday at Soul Vegetarian East, 205 E 75th St 7pm-10pm.

6.03.2011

Lenelle Moise is coming to the South Side

TUESDAYS at POW-WOW, Inc
Jeffrey Pub every Tuesday   
7041 S Jeffrey
8:00 - 10:30 PM 
$5 donation

6.02.2011

Detroit: Save My City


Detroit: Save My City
Part 1 of the experimental documenty by Ivan Azaan

Check out the Save My City blog at http://www.savemycity.wordpress.com/ and more of Ivan's videos onYouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/IvanAzaan313.

6.01.2011

Mixed-Race Presidents: The difference between Barack and I

“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,”  Cornel West says. “It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation. When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening. And that’s true for a white brother. When you get a white brother who meets a free, independent black man, they got to be mature to really embrace fully what the brother is saying to them. It’s a tension, given the history. It can be overcome. Obama, coming out of Kansas influence, white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable.



As an American of mixed-race (black and white) decent I have been dissapointed not only in President Barack Obama's lack of political fortitude on behalf of the underserved but also with his representation of his racial identity and honestly it wasn't until hearing Dr. West put his assessment of Obama's identity so bluntly that these dots connected so clearly for me.

On the 2010 US Census President Obama checked one box (black) for his racial identity and to me that said he wanted to portray his blackness first and foremost, but where/when did his "black" identity develop? Why not identify the African tribe of his father and the white class privilege passed down from his mother? Politics maybe?

I have read "Dreams From My Father" and though Barry told stories of playing ball with black homeboys in Hawaii and trouble dating a white woman in college,  not until he came to the South Side of Chicago to organize black people and eventually join them, at least in spirit, through the African-centered church he eventually "betrayed"on his way to the top (along with  Dr. West as he claims) did Barack Obama seem to learn the meaning of a collective black experience.

Growing up absent a Black American family, community, church.... in Hawaii, Indonesia, etc. I believe Barack did develop (and did not develop) certain tendencies and sensibilities that have gotten him to where he is currently, standing with the power based of our nation, old rich white men.

Personally, I have always known I was a "mixed girl". Growing up in racially integrated neighborhoods in Tacoma, WA, I knew my "black side" of the family and the "white side", and after my mom married my half-mexican step-father, I had the Spanish-speaking side that mostly lived down in California. I was never confused about where I wanted to eat Thanksgiving dinner, but it wasn't until I got to my predominantly white college campus and found myself leading the Black Student Union that I began seeing myself as primarily "Black." In that context, it was important for me to represent and promote "Black culture" because the campus was in desperate need of that leadership and I was seen by my peers as capable. I never would, nor could,  have taken on the presidency of our student body government. I left that task to my Samoan friend from Seattle, who I'm sure would admit felt more comfortable socially with the conservative white demographic, but even she struggled tremendously to find common ground. Unlike our nation's current president however, as student presidents, we had the humility and foresight to know we definitely couldn't do it alone. Cue college black female version of Dr. West to keep us in check (she knows who she is).

That experience taught me a lot about race, culture and my own identity as a mixed-race Black American. When I got to Chicago I picked up the rest from the art, poetry, sermons, and friendship of people like Jeremiah Wright, Jesse Jackson, Arvis Averette, Steven Saunders, Haki Madhubuti, Margaret Burroughs, M'Reld Green, and a brave Black brother I dated from Detroit.

Currently, I'm dating an amazing woman of European decent from suburban Michigan. My partner and I have challenging discussions about everything under the sun, including race, culture, and class but unlike Barack, my identity isn't threatened by the cross-racial relationship. I like to think it's beause really we're more similar than we are different. Maybe if Barack was more honest about his own identity, interests and fears, starting with himself, he would still have friends that challenged him like Dr. West and we could truly get to the bottom of this broken system.

WORD OF THE DAY: ASSIDUOUS

Assiduous [as·sid·u·ous] adj.  1. Constant in application or attention; diligent: "An assiduous worker who strove for perfection."  2. Unceasing; persistent: "Assiduous cancer research."