Erykah Badu -- Window Seat

All right, I often joke that ... uh ... carnal relations with Erykah Badu must be revelatory, to say the least. I mean, Outkast was outlandish and all before Andre 3000 stepped to the goddess. But afterwards ... my God! Common was cool, but one night with Badu turned him out to make Electric Circus, one of the freakiest--and coolest--hip-hop experiences (way) out there. And now, folks are all over Badu's latest baby daddy, Jay Electronica. So, I'm thinking ...

Anyway, this video's getting all kinds of media-generated-to-sell-more-copies "CONtroversy" because Badu shows us what all those gentlemen's hysteria has been about all these years. I wanted to show the video because it fits well within the Tome theme for this past week. Besides, Mrs. Unknown loves the woman.

Enjoy. The new album, New Amerykah Part 2, drops today.




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Health Care Quote of the Day

French President Nicolas Sarkozy comes to Columbia University to slam his Conservative American counterparts:

"Welcome to the club of states who don't turn their back on the sick and the poor ...

"[W]hen we look at the American debate on reforming health care, it's difficult to believe.

"The very fact that there should have been such a violent debate simply on the fact that the poorest of Americans should not be left out in the streets without a cent to look after them... is something astonishing to us."

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And You Thought I Was Just Being Paranoid

Dad used to always tell me one of his favorite Dick Gregory jokes: "A black man in this country who is not paranoid is crazy." So, I'll admit that I, too, can walk around like a Rockwell video in the making. However, I am not--I repeat, not--simply being paranoid about what I just said about the Tea Baggers. Here, take a look.







Oh yeah. And the FBI just conducted several raids on some Midwestern militia types. It'll be interesting to see what's going on there.
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Potty Mouth Bill Is Right

I have my problems with Bill Maher, but this rant is not one of them. He is so right he's actually left.




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True Colors

I have to admit, I am somewhat surprised with the utter surprise the mainstream media seems to greet the recent Tea Party insanity. I feel that anyone could've seen this coming. It's been three years in the making. The homophobic and racist comments, the spittle on Rep. Cleaver, the death threats, and cut gas lines are only a continuation of the arc started in 2007 and may very well just be a precursor of things to come.

That arc started its trajectory in Iowa when two Clinton campaign workers started an anonymous email accusing Barack Obama of being a closet Muslim. While Clinton disavowed the email, that same missive continued to appear in people's in-boxes all across the country, and through not-so-subtle innuendo they continued to use Obama's race and supposed otherness to play against the fears of a disaffected white working class, somehow suggesting that he would be "dangerous" for this country. This strategy did indeed work in states like Pennsylvania where that population was large enough to affect the election. And up until the very end of the primary contest, they continued to contest the legitimacy of his win.





Republicans picked up the thread during the general election campaign. "Barack Hussein Obama." "Palling around with terrorists." For the "real Americans" who just could not grasp, could not handle, and actually feared a black man's being President of the United States, the seeds were planted and were nourished by the Clintons and the GOP. And when Barack Hussein Obama actually became the President of the United States, their worst fears were realized.

Those fears have been simmering since the slave revolution in Haiti, the utter paranoia that black folks would somehow take over and seek revenge. They have been fanned throughout American history, and now, to them, that day is here.

The Birthers expressed it with their claims that Obama isn't legitimate because he was never born in the US. And when that wasn't enough, the Tea Party was born. When you listen to their complaints, when you listen to their ringleaders, Beck and Limbaugh, and when you listen to their GOP cheerleaders, you hear that fear. You hear that eschatological mania that the end is near. John Boehner himself rages on about "Armageddon." And among the complaints of Marxism and Nazism, of death panels and abortion, of "government take-over" and of illegal immigrants taking our health care, you hear one common refrain: "We need to take our country back!" back to when "this country was free!"





As all revisionist thought goes, they have a romantic notion of this country's freedom that was not free for a lot of us but definitely was for them. When these middle-aged and elderly (and some of their progeny) envision America, they are not thinking of DC 2010 but Selma 1960. And yeah, for them, this country was most definitely free.

Hell, white folks had so much freedom, it was murder--for the rest of us. The white working class never had it so good. They had good jobs with good pay. One man could work 40 hours, support an entire, rather large family, buy a house in the suburbs, relax on weekends, and even take a vacation or two.

Women cooked the meals, tended to the kids, and did the housework. Blacks weren't allowed to compete for the same jobs, didn't go to the same schools, and couldn't even find their neighborhoods even if GPS had been invented at the time. Latinos were called "Spanish," and they couldn't even tell you what one fucking looked like. Orientals were just enemies you had to travel to the other side of the world to fight on occasion. And all these other races and religions we are now surrounded by didn't even exist in their minds.

Now everything's changed.

There are no good working-class jobs. The illegals have taken them all. They fill up our schools for free. Take our health care for free. Fill up our jails and our welfare rolls. Along with the blacks. Who do nothing but rape, rob, and rap. The Arabs blow up our buildings. And the Asians own this country lock, stock, and barrel.

So yeah, I'll say it: The Tea Party movement ain't nothing but about race.

Sure, economics are definitely involved. After all, there really are no good working-class jobs in this country. But the white working class never blames the white ruling class who has shrunk their wages, broke their unions, and outsourced their jobs. They never do. They always blame the coloreds for their demise and the demise of this country. It is a fear that has consumed them since the birth of this nation, and it continues today. And now, they feel justified in that fear because a colored is running the damned country!

As Tom, a middle-aged white guy, told me when I went to a Tea Party rally: "They're just a bunch of racists. They're scared. They don't know where this country's going. They see Obama in the White House and a Latina on the Supreme Court, and it pisses them off."





There is a "New World Order." The country is less and less white, and they find minorities running the country and, to them, running this country down. They don't see a place in this new world for themselves. They are trapped. Cornered. Just like those Southerners in Selma back in '60. And just like those Alabamans, the Tea Baggers have decided to fight back. And they know just who to fight back against, the very symbol of all that's wrong, evil, and anti-American about this country--Barack Hussein Obama!

But these Tea Baggers can't come clean. They can't actually say they don't like Obama because he's black. Even racists get a little tetchy when you call them racists, and many of them actually don't want to be identified with such sentiments even as they voice them every day. So, instead, you get all this garbled rhetoric. We hear that the man is a Communist and a Nazi and an Islamic terrorist. We hear that he's taking over the country, taking away their freedoms. That he is dangerous and illegitimate.

The Republicans, seeing political opportunity and caring nothing for moral responsibility, have joined the mob. They have contributed in ratcheting up the rhetoric. They harangue about how dangerous Obama is, the Communist takeover. John Boehner himself has called health care reform "the most dangerous legislation" he has ever seen. Palin "targets" Dems with cross hairs while Glenn Beck openly encourages taking up arms and encouraging "revolution."

With their fears being drummed into hysteria, with their very own media and political leaders encouraging that hysteria, with open talk of taking up arms and revolution and a wacko slamming his plane into an IRS office being hailed a "hero," how can we be in the least bit surprised that these people are physically assaulting politicians and cutting people's gas lines praying for murder?

Their cause has become a righteous one. Stopping Obama is now their patriotic duty. And this weekend is only a precursor, their Boston Tea Party, if you will. First, they're targeting the "niggers, faggots, and baby-killers" who run Congress. But these fools are working themselves up for someone to take out Obama. All this hyperbolic vitriol has been in preparation for that eventuality. They want someone to get worked up enough to actually take that shot, and they want to feel justified when they're happy that someone has done it.

So, don't think this past week's violence was just a one-off. It was a mere flirtation that may very well come to a bloody conclusion. There will be many Tea Party sympathizers who will be turned off by what has happened and will slink away from the movement. But others will simply feel even more victimized by the criticism. They will become even firmer in their convictions. And someone will act.

Alabama militiaman Mike Vanderboegh is openly encouraging people to throw bricks at Congressmen's offices. Many Tea Baggers are planning to protest Congressmen's private residences. And rumor has it that there's a planned open-carry gun rally in Virginia on the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing (April 19) because they want to get as many guns as close to DC as possible.

Media talk around the Tea Party movement since August has been shrouded in uncertainty and speculation. The mainstream media has been suspicious, but they are utterly loathe to call anybody out as "racist" or "violent" or "dangerous." But that shroud has been lifted this week. Oh, they are trying to hide behind the rhetoric of "government take-over" and the yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flag. But only a fool or an opportunistic GOP hack can't see what the Tea Party really is. And someone needs to stop these fools before we are all watching a sea of red on CNN.





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Hell No You Can't!

I'm sure a lot of you have already seen this video. But it's so funny, I thought I'd share it with you unfortunate few who've not seen it yet.

I think it perfectly sums up the quandary that the GOP finds itself in right now. It's damned near impossible to fight hope with anger. And America fashions itself a "can-do" nation. To constantly say that we can't do something just pisses us Americans off--and even if we can't we'll steam right ahead just to prove you wrong.


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To All Those Tea Baggers Who Hate Health Care Reform & Love to Cherry-Pick Thomas Jefferson Quotes to Make Your Point--Here's One for Ya

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the the Consent of the Governed..."

--Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence [Emphasis added.]


Makes you wonder what good, ole TJ would've thought about universal health coverage. After all, to quote your gal, Monica Crowley, on The McCoughlin Group: "You cannot have Life if you are Dead."
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Obama Derangement Syndrome

"Obama Derangement Syndrome," a new and rather apt term coined by John Avlon, meaning "[the] pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism" is spreading like wildfire through the Republican ranks. According to the latest Louis Harris poll, this is what these "Hatriots" (also an Avlon term) find themselves believing:

--57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim

--45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president"

--38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"

--24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."

Click here to read more about the insanity.

The asylum has long since crumbled to dust. Boehner has the keys but he only rattles them furiously to increase the furor. If you thought the passing of insurance reform would serve to quell the mob, you are sadly mistaken. These lunatics will not be satisfied until they are drinking Obama's blood and squishing around in his organs.

You may laugh at their madness, but, believe you me, these fools think they are at war. Don't be surprised if and when they actually bring it to us.

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The Barack-Obama-Signing-Health-Care-Legislation Video of the Day

Now you just know that after all the T's are crossed, the I's dotted, and the ceremonial pens are handed out as souvenirs, The Big Brutha and Mrs. Michelle are going up to the Lincoln Bedroom and Cabbage Patching to this Old School Jam. Oh ... to be a fly on that wall.



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Hitler, Stalin Plan Gay Marriage in Celebration of Obamacare

TPI--Warsaw, OH


"This is a glorious day!" trumpets Adolf Hitler, in his finest, Versace tuxedo. Joseph Stalin, decked in Vera Wang, nods in enthusiastic agreement.

Many historical observers would have never thought that this day would ever come. Many are probably rolling over in their graves as you read this. But these two dictators, who many have considered to be on opposite sides of the political spectrum, and who waged a devastating, four-year war against each other that left tens of millions dead, are uniting today--in marriage. Who is responsible for their pending nuptials?

Barack Obama.

"It is almost impossible to believe that I, the very definition of white supremacy," chortles Hitler, "would find such a kindred spirit in Barack Obama. But he's like the son I never had."

"Me, too," shines Stalin. "He stands for everything I stood for. Believes everything I believed in. He is the perfect Soviet!"

"The perfect Nazi!" Hitler heatedly corrects.

The two stare angrily at each other. Then, Stalin licks his thumb and rubs it against Hitler's moustache.

"You had some schmutz, darling."

"Oh, thank you, dear."

The two bloodiest dictators of the twentieth century kiss and hug. All is right again.

"It's like Addie and I got together and had our own child," Stalin says. "And we named him Barack Obama."

"We are so proud of that boy," Hitler says, wiping away a tear. "He will finally fulfill the thousand-year reign of the Aryan race I long dreamed of!"

"And make the world one, single proletariat!" Staling adds.

"He is half-black, ya know?" I hesitantly correct.

A big, burly Ss soldier steps forward and growls. Hitler holds up a hand and stays the beast.

Stalin laughs. "And I was part of the 'demon Asiatic horde'!"

Hitler laughs, too. "I was young. I said things I didn't mean back then. I am sure you have done the same."

"I once said that Kid N Play were the best rap group in history," I confess.

We all laugh at that one. "Ridiculous!" Stalin pours vodka.

"So, you two are no longer enemies?" I venture.

"We were until Barack brought us together," Stalin says. "We realized that he alone could bring our dreams to fruition."

"The total destruction of the United States," Hitler beams.

"The utter smashing of the capitalist state and thieving bourgeoisie," Stalin growls.

"The glorious creation of one, great National Socialist--"

"--Soviet Republic of the United States of America," Stalin concludes, dreamy-eyed. "Wondrous, isn't it?"

"The N.S.S.R.U.S.A.?" I ask. "And how will he go about doing all that?"

"'Go about'?" Stalin asks. "Why, he has already done it."

"Yes," Hitler agrees. "He got the health care bill passed. Didn't you see it?"

"Uh, all of that is in the bill?" I ask.

"Yes. The forced exile of all Spanish speakers." Stalin.

"The covert sterilization of the Africans." Hitler.

"The death panels that will elmminate the old, the weak, the infirmed." Stalin.

"The total annihilation of the Jews." Hitler.

They both sigh, "Ah ... the Jews."

"It makes you wonder why the white working class protested the damned thing so vehemently," I say. "It sounds like they're the main beneficiaries of the legislation."

"I blame affirmative action," Hitler says.

"Of course you do," I say.

"It brought down your education system," he continues. "Those Tea Party people don't realize how good they got it. The country will soon be theirs again!"

"Yes! One large--"

"Aryan!"

"--proletariat!!!"

"Because of the health care bill?" I ask again, incredulous.

"Read the bill!" Stalin commands.

I start reading--fervently.

"And when we were reading the bill ourselves," Stalin continues, "we started realizing how much we have in common."

"How we were silly to think that Nazism and Communism were actually two, competing ideologies," Hitler added. "Those Tea Party people made us see the light. JoJo and I were actually fighting for the same things. The same things Barack Obama is fighting for."

"It's one of the things all three of us have in common." Hitler.

"We all like schnitzel." Stalin.

"And Marlene Dietrich movies." Hitler.

"Jay-Z." Stalin.

"And who doesn't love killing Jews?" Hitler.

"Uhhh ..." Me.

"And then, when we saw on page 1046 of the bill, the page that legalizes gay marriage, we realized that we had to make our newfound love known," Hitler declares.

"It is the only way to pay proper tribute to Barack Obama for all he's done for the cause of Communism!"

"And Nazism!"

"And who can resist that moustache," Stalin says, twinking Hitler on the nose.

"Oh, you silly Asiatic."

The two men hug. They do truly look happy. It's a bright, shiny day in Warsaw. I wish you all could be here to see it.

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GOP Talking Point Bingo Card

Here, I caught this over at Brown Man Thinking Hard and thought you'd find it interesting. Scare Tactics Made Simple, AND Fun for the Whole Family!!!




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Freaknik: The Musical

Yeah. I was there. Freaknik. 1994. I'd just moved to Atlanta after spending most of '93 in the Czech Republic. I was just creeping out of my culture shock and starting to hang out in the city. I'd recently met Skip, who was to become one of my best friends, and he strongly encouraged me to join him at this thing called "Freaknik."

I was 23. I had nothing better to do. I went. Thank God!

After living in a 99.9 percent white country all that time, to see all those young black folks in one place was a revelation. All that ass shaking, all the videotaping, that sister with a snake up her skirt, folks hanging off of porches, all that drinking, all that ... uh ... smoking ("Is that the Chronic? Is that the Chronic?"). I was so--shall we say--"overwhelmed" that I was--let's call it--"exhausted," I was "asleep" by 11 o'clock.

Something that good, black, and, yes, illegal could not last for long. The white folks in Atlanta were pissed! At the time, I just chalked it up to good ole boy racism. "The City That's Too Busy to Hate" is really just too passive-aggressive to actually show that hate. They use their campaign contributions to hold their Vanilla Sway over Chocolate City Lite.

(Of course, I later amended this ... a little. After all, those porches all those students were hanging off of were private residences that they just took over. But still ...)

In '95, Piedmont Park was off-limits. And Freaknik became a great, big College Cruise through downtown Atlanta. Soon after that, Freaknik was dead.

So, when Triple T told me there was a new cartoon series on Adult Swim about Freaknik and that it was a lot like Boondocks, I was intrigued. I looked into it and saw that the cast includes Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Big Boi, Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, and George Clinton and Bootsy Collins, I was on that mess like government cheese on your colon.

But, while watching it, I got this strange sense of deja vu that left me pretty damned flat. It was the same feeling I got when watching Undercover Brother--through joke after joke harking back to the old Blaxploitation movies of the '70s, I kept thinking, "Wait, doesn't I'm Gonna Get You Sucka already exist?" Freaknik: The Musical isn't like Boondocks, it's basically ripping off Boondocks.

The show is just a retread, and, of course, isn't as good as the original rubber that has been fucking with our minds since Aaron McGruder got national syndication with his comic strip. Lord knows, black folks are funny, and we do a lot of shit that we can make fun of (NOTE: I said we). I don't understand why Freaknik just mines the exact same ground that Boondocks already has.

OK, first, they make fun of Kid 'N' Play. Didn't folks do that, like, 20 years ago?

They stole the idea of preppy rappers from Fear of a Black Hat and added a special twist of homophobia thrown in to, I guess, "keep it real."

Having the Boulé being the secret organization ruling over black life could've been funny. And the fact that the Boulé was Oprah, Cos, Reverend Al, Jesse, and Russell Simmons was also good. But all it was was the Black Intelligentsia that had Tracy Morgan on the run on 30 Rock. And those scenes must've been stolen whole-heartedly from the Boondocks' banned BET episodes. They even turned Rev. Al into, of all things, Robocop.

Lil' Wayne's Trap Jesus episode was the only bright spot. Our heroes roll into New Orleans during the day, when someone says, "I thought the sun never shined in the ghetto." A "gangsta" Moon immediately appears and caps the sun. And having a drug-selling Messiah who's been wanting to sell drugs since he was nine-years-old was pretty damned funny.

The rest of the series, though, is an utter waste of time. Borrowed irreverence just falls flat. You feel like you've been through all this before. The press material's talking about how it took T Pain two years to make Freaknik come about. I guess it just took him that long to rip off all the material he used to "compose" these episodes.

I guess that's what you get when your DVR doesn't have enough memory. And Freaknik: The Musical is what you get when rappers and musicians think they're actually writers.

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My 500th Post!!!

I don't know if this is really that big of a deal in the big, bad blogosphere. But I personally can't believe I've lasted 500 posts and damn near two years now. So, Big and I went out and celebrated this great event, Tome-A-Palooza. Fun was had by all--though most of us decided to hold it all night. That boy spends way too much time in the bathroom.

To further celebrate, I'd like to go back in the day when Ice Cube was not only gangsta, but I "used to dream that he'd come and kill my whole family."




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Joke of the Day

This past weekend, former Alaska governor, Sarah Palin, went down to Florida for the Orange County Republican Party's annual Lincoln Day fundraiser to heckle that district's Democratic rep. Alan Grayson, letting off such barbs as "I won't say anything about Alan Grayson that can't be said around children." But, like any good performer, Grayson had a few gems of his own up his sleeve for the aspiring heckler. This being the best one:

"Scientists are studying Sarah Palin's travel between Alaska and Florida carefully. They hope to learn more about the flight patterns of that elusive migratory species, the wild Alaskan dingbat."

After this health insurance reform bill passes, Grayson plans to tour this nation's comedy clubs. Check his website for tour dates in a town near you.
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Spittin' (Bible) Verses

People, My Peoples:

The next time your pastor, that wo/man of the clothe, the earthly representative of all that is holy and Christ-like, comes at you preaching about how homosexuality, gay marriage, gay adoption, all things gay are evil, and spits Leviticus 20:13

"If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

and Romans 1:26-27

"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

or any other Bible verse, please quote Genesis 9:20-27 back at them:

20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

Yes, it's the dreaded curse of the Son of Ham, which many of their white, preaching counterparts used against our ancestors to justify enslaving our black asses. They, of course, will say, "No, that's different. Homosexuality is a sin." To which you could and should reply that their Christian brethren used Genesis 9:20-27 as proof-positive that blackness itself was a sin. In fact, you can amend, "Some still preach that today."

Hmmm ....

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The Big Brutha Gives Big Bucks

This from over at Politic365.

Obama has chosen 10 charities to give his Nobel Prize proceeds ($1.4 million) to. He has spread the wealth in a--shall we say--rainbow of causes:

1) Fisher House -- $250,000 -- they help provide housing for families of soldiers receiving care from the VA.

2) Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund -- $200,000

3) College Summit -- $125,000 -- they help elementary and middle-school students prepare for high school and go on to college.

4) The Posse Foundation -- $125,000 -- they provide scholarships to high school students.

5) United Negro College Fund -- $125,000

6) Hispanic Scholarship Fund -- $125,000

7) American Indian College Fund -- $125,000

8) Appalachian Leadership Education Foundation -- $125,000

9) Africare -- $100,000 -- they run a myriad of development programs in Africa and are near and dear to myheart. C. Payne is still the man!

10) Central Asia Institute -- $100,000 -- they promote community-based education in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan -- which a special emphasis on girls.


Now, all he has to do is get those damned Corpocrats off their asses to pass health care reform, banking regulations, and student loan reform ...

I wonder what Rush and Glenn will say about all this National Socialist charitable giving which totally shows how much he hates Whitey.

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Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing

Today at work, I am surrounded by nothing but war. I can either laze in the blood and gore of the French and Indian War with John F. Ross's War on the Run, thrilling to many luxurious tales of men ripping out their live enemy's intestines while he screams, scalping them while they still breathed, or freezing to death in the New England wilderness and being reduced to cannibalism; or I can luxuriate to the stories of slaughter about the outgunned and outmanned Marines of Charlie Company in Hai Lan, Vietnam in Doyle D. Glass's Lions of Medina; or, for much lighter fare, I can read about the Bataan friggin' Death March in Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman's Tears in the Darkness.

What a crap day.

I need to do two things after leaving this madness:

1) Not listen to NPR and avoid the latest offal spewing out of the Charnel House of Representatives;

and

2) See if I have any Stevie Wonder on my damned iPod.




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Beat a Bitch

I, like most of you, I assume, like to think that I am always on the right side of any given argument. Of course, I know I'm not ... well, I suspect it ... or rather I concede that there might be some validity to the idea. Might. But I do know that people will always disagree with me, and, unlike in my youthful days, I hardly get upset if they do. But there are times, when I'm talking to someone, when I just can't figure out how the hell we are actually on opposite sides.

One such incident happened last week when I was talking to a sista about domestic violence. I feel that I'm a man of my age on this one. Domestic violence has gone from something that just happened that there wasn't even a term for to a private matter to a public embarrassment to an actual crime to actually a crime that authorities have been pressured to take rather seriously. It's not as though it doesn't still happen, but, in most segments of society, a woman beater is a bit of a pariah and is looked upon with contempt.

I have been raised to believe and do vehemently believe that it is gravely wrong to hit a woman. I could hardly even imagine putting my hands on a woman. It's just one of the most contemptible acts a man can commit.

But last week, when I expressed these sentiments, the sista simply shrugged, and said, "Bill, you've been out of circulation awhile. So you might not realize it, but there are a lot of crazy bitches out there."

A part of me wanted to be surprised by this, but it wasn't. Truth be told, this was not my first convo with an African-American woman where I was told that it may sometimes be necessary to "beat a bitch."

I wish there were some sort of discriminating factor--age, class, education level--that would easily allow me to disregard these females' disregarding the seriousness of domestic violence, that would allow me to say, "They just don't know no better." But these women were all highly-educated, at least middle class, and of varying ages. In other words, they did know better, and yet they still felt, under certain circumstances, it was OK for a man to hit a "bitch." As I was once informed, "There's a difference between hitting a woman and hitting a bitch."

Now, I remember back in the early '90s when Ice Cube tried to explain this false dichotomy to bell hooks. While a fanatic of both, I found this argument to be a load of horse shit. Not that I think that every woman is actually a bitch. It's just that we all look for justifications when doing wrong and there's probably not a single person who's about to do wrong to a woman who doesn't think she is, indeed, a bitch and deserves what she is about to get. To believe that this load of crap may actually be a prevailing sentiment--even among women--disturbs me to no end.

But I'm not at all sure how prevalent this sentiment actually is. I'm not sure. Maybe I've just stumbled upon a few outliers here. What are the odds? But if I have actually come across a common sentiment, how is it that, while most of society finds domestic violence reprehensible, some black women find it at least tolerable if you hit a woman if she's been designated a "bitch"?

Misogyny is an easy answer. Men who hate women will always feel justified in hitting them. Women are not immune to misogyny and may very well feel that some of their sisters do need to get knuckled down and learn a lesson from time to time. But why would it appear that misogyny has a greater hold in the black community than it does in many others?

One can point to racism, of course. Black flesh has historically been devalued and dehumanized. Black women have had little cultural value outside of the sexual gratification of white and black men. And what good is a sexual tool if she's also got a mouth on her? Sometimes she needs to be shut up and take her proper place at the base of this racial totem pole called America.

But I think that would be ignoring all the gains of the Civil Rights, Black Power, feminist, black feminist, and men-against-violence movements. It would say that all the very real social, economic, and educational gains made by black women have had little to no effect on the collective black psyche (if we can say there is such a thing).

We can blame that reliable, old bugaboo, hip-hop. After all, I think it's now a law to have at least 1,297 references to "niggers" and 4,315 references to "bitches" on every mainstream rap album. And, as the Queen Latifahs and MC Lytes gave way in the mainstream to the Foxy Browns, Lil Kims, and "hoochie mamas" spitting on the mic about how often they swallow, strong female presences within the genre have been replaced by self-admitted "bitches." We often say that parents can counteract such cultural influences, but these influences are powerful. Two decades of these images can affect how little girls see themselves.

I'm perfectly willing to blame Tyler Perry.

The ever-pervasive stereotype of the "sassy" black woman who's always looking for a fight.

Whatever you like.

But I would really like to find out why.

Now, I know essays like this usually conclude with a nice, pat answer. A solution to the problem. But I admit it--I don't have one. I've written this as an open question--because I've got lots of 'em. I don't know how pervasive this sentiment actually is. I don't know if I keep running into the exception or the unspoken consensus on this issue.

Hell, I could just be talking out my ass. Lord knows it wouldn't be the first time. But this is something that gravely concerns me. I'm raising a little girl here. The very idea that she could one day be tagged a "bitch" and then tagged in the eye and folks be relatively cool with it, that she was somehow "asking for it," simply terrifies me.

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Big Ben and Jacko: Some Fools Never Learn

Late Friday afternoon, I went to B.M. Wexford's co-office to ask a favor. Being a fellow native Pittsburgher and Steeler fanatic (redundant?), he swiveled his computer screen and flashed me the latest TMZ report on Ben Roethlisberger's latest legal woes. As you probably know by now, Big Ben is the subject of a criminal investigation over whether or not he "sexually assaulted or sexually manipulated" a 20-year-old college student in Milledgeville, GA, last Thursday night.

Like many of you, I'm sure, I was shocked and not shocked at the same time. A bunch of us stood around talking about it, contemplating Roethlisberger's guilt. Then, a book I'd recently read at work, Ian Halperin's Unmasked. kept popping into my head.

Unmasked is a morbidly fascinating, unauthorized biography of Michael Jackson's last two decades on this Earth. I don't know how much of this book is true, but, if Unmasked is even half true, MJ lived one of the most tragic lives a celebrity could have ever lived.

As you'd expect, most of the book focused on Jackson's child molestation allegations. Halperin began the book project, convinced MJ was a pedophile, and claimed he was determined to prove it in this book. The problem was he couldn't prove it; he couldn't really find any convincing evidence; and ended the book pretty convinced the Jackson, indeed, was not a pedophile.

Now, I've been a Jackson hater for most of my life, but I've always been skeptical about MJ the Child Molester. I mean, all those kids over at Neverland, all those sleepovers, yet all they could find were two allegations out of thousands upon thousands of families. And those two accusations came from families that were incredibly shady.

But Michael's guilt or innocence don't really matter all that much. He's dead, after all. We'll never really know. And our feelings about Jackson's guilt will probably mirror our feelings about what we felt about what Jackson had become these last 25 years. The other reason it doesn't matter is that, like it or not, the word "pedophile" will always be attached to Michael Jackson's name. After all, the man had been accused twice of the same crime and, as the Governator said when he had to deal with sexual harassment allegations, "where there's smoke there's fire." No matter what you think of Jackson, you will always be wondering about those allegations, defending those allegations, or dismissing them as pure bullshit. However, they will always be connected to your memories of Michael Jackson.

The same thing is about to happen to Ben Roethlisberger. Yeah, his first accuser, Andrea McNulty, brought a very strange civil suit against Big Ben last year. She never went to the police nor the hospital; she waited a year to file a civil instead of a criminal case; and she was asking for only $100,000 from a multimillionaire who supposedly raped her. It was all very bizarre and left us with a lot of room to doubt the woman's claims.

But this one, while also a bit strange, is harder to ignore. He's seen all over town with this 20-year-old college student. She goes immediately to the police and the hospital. There are tons of witnesses seeing them together. And this is the second time Roethlisberger has been accused in less than a year. What did Schwartzenegger say again? Oh yeah, right. "Where there's smoke there's fire."

Presuming, for the moment, that Roethlisberger's innocent, I have the same question I had when reading about Jackson: What the hell were you thinking?

For Jackson, after getting gamed by Jordan Chandler's parents (the father having committed suicide last fall) back in '94, his name being dragged through the mud, and his insurance company having paid millions to have it all go away, you would've thought that Jackson would never have had another kid at Neverland ever again. Or, if he did, he'd do it around tons of eyewitnesses, parents in every nook and cranny, and, as soon as the street lights came on, he'd grab a megaphone, and scream, "All right, everybody! Get the fuck out! Don't let the door hit ya where the Lord split ya!"

No more private meetings, no more watching movies together, and never, ever, ever would he have another sleepover.

You would think that Jackson would've realized that he was a target, and, while it would've been a victory for cynicism, he would've severely changed his behavior. So, he'd never have to relive that nightmare.

You'd think the same would apply to Roethlisberger. If he is, indeed, of either or both charges, you've got to wonder what the hell he was doing at that club. What was he doing, at 28, hanging out with that 20-year-old woman? Has the tragedy of Steve McNair taught him nothing? Doesn't Big Ben realize that he'd be a target. After all, everybody would be thinking, "Where there's smoke there's fire."

You'd think that, before Ben even thought about kissing a woman, he'd have his private investigators provide him with family genealogies, high school and/or college transcripts, character witnesses' testimony, and blood work-ups. You'd think that, with civil charges hanging over his head, he'd either be spending the off-season in a monastery or simply not even coming anywhere close to any woman he hasn't known for at least the last decade. In other words, he--and Michael--should've remained utterly and completely above all suspicion.

Now, for Jackson, his Peter Pan fixation is a bit more understandable. He never really did have much of a childhood. What he did have was filled with fame and terrifying abuse. People have done nothing but want, want, want from the man since he was pre-pubescent. Folks have lived off of him since the same time. There were few people he knew who did not try to exploit him. And there were even fewer around who didn't screw him over at some point and betray his trust.

He must not have been able to trust even the most innocent human interaction. Children, while not totally without guile, are so innocent that you can often see their guile a mile away. Children were probably the only people Michael Jackson could ever trust in his world. So, in a way, even if Jackson were not a pedophile, you can understand why he just couldn't keep the kiddies out of his life.

But what about Ben? What was his excuse? Yeah, yeah. Guys think with their dicks. But we also think with our wallets. We also think with our lungs, which generally don't like being exposed to stale prison air. We also can think with our rectums, many of which don't want to be exposed to prison love.

In some ways, it's easier to understand if Roethlisberger is actually guilty of one or both of the supposed incidents. It makes more sense that he's an uncontrollable sexual predator who needs to have his ass thrown in jail. After all, why else would a man who's facing a civil charge for sexual assault turn around and sexually assault yet another woman in a public bathroom? It's utterly psychotic.

Or, if innocent, completely moronic. Roethlisberger should've realized he has a big target on his chest. He should've been nowhere near those women. So, if he's not guilty of sexual assault and/or sexual manipulation (could someone please explain that one to me?), he is most definitely guilty of some incredibly poor judgment. That, too, is believable. He does have a history of such reckless behavior. But with whatever happened in Milledgeville, I'm starting to wonder what else "Big Ben" has a history of. 'Cause we all know what word will now forever be attached to the name "Ben Roethlisberger."

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Here Ya Go, Hip-Hoppers--You Might Like These

Have a good weekend.













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