WRITE WHAT I LIKE

Must-Read: The Irrelevant Rev. Sharpton

This is the one I've been waiting for.

Just as the good Revs prepares to preside over "nigger" loving Dog the Bounty Hunter's racial cleansing,  New York based writer Ta-Nehisi Coates has quite tidily excoriated the  "President of Black America" in this piece from the Washington Post:

"There's another reason why the media have elected the reverend president of black America. For cable networks, Sharpton is the gift that keeps on giving. He provides an easily disposable villain, a simple out for his most loyal constituency: white racists. For those who already doubted the humanity of black folks, who believe that we spend our days counting the ways white people owe us, who think we chant "Reparations now!" at least once every seven minutes, the bombastic Sharpton is a perfect confirmation.

Sharpton ceded the high ground long ago. When he becomes the face of often legitimate racial injustices, his critics are then free to snort, "Yeah, but it's Al Sharpton." Sure, that's unfair to the cause. But the reverend is no victim. Largely lacking mass traction with black America outside of New York, Sharpton needs the media to keep up the illusion of his relevance. The pact is simple: He gets a platform, and the media get great television."

Though the hateration is fierce, it's warranted.  Maybe you'll disagree... Only one way to find out.

Race for the Oscars

Old But, Good.  This piece was origninally published on 23 February 2007.

Just ahead of Sunday night's ceremony, I've been doing some thinking about this "historic" year for Black people at the Oscar's. With a record 5 nominations, a chorus of voices (including Newsweek) are arguing, again, that barriers are being broken.

I wrote Race for the Oscars, posted over at COLORLINES, to argue that getting behind the glam of the red carpet and symbolism historic firsts, we see a Hollywood still fractured along the color line.  A preview:

And I am Telling You, I Don’t Buy It.

It’s true; Oscar night does play an important symbolic role.  Awarding Black actors allows Hollywood a moment to exhale.  A brief period to release the nasty burden of criticism surrounding a highly inequitable film industry while rehearsing popular stereotypes and congratulating roles that comfort anxieties held by the larger society. 

Black people, in turn, look to one of our own receiving the award as a mark of progress; if we are accepted and applauded on the red carpet, why not off? The gleam of Oscar is a welcome distraction from the truth that life for Black folks in Hollywood and beyond is cause for more rage than rejoicing. 

Read more here.

The Price of the Ticket

Old, But Good.  This piece was originally published on 01 May 2006.

In the 1920s my great-grandmother Isabella migrated with her parents to Cleveland, Ohio seeking a more prosperous life. At an early age she went to work at her family's store, a smoke shop and grocers, to support her parents and brothers during the Depression. As a young woman, she spent her days scrubbing the cold floors of Cleveland's elite. By night she felt the heat of the press as she laid creases in their tailored shirts and expensive dresses. Isabella worked hard to do the jobs that others would not - the jobs that built America.

Her story represents that of millions of people in the U.S., but don't be fooled; it is no immigrant narrative. Isabella was black, like me, and her story, rendered invisible by the current deliberation on immigrant civil rights, is that of many Black Americans.

There is little question that the current immigration debate, though coded and contrived otherwise, is entirely about race. Yet, the framing made popular by immigrants and their advocates is so hostile to Black people and our American experience that it seems impossible for us to stake a claim with this movement. Today's immigrants will find that without Blacks, and a commitment to challenge racism beyond the reach of immigration policy alone, their movement will lose both its moral authority and the practical victory it hopes to achieve.

The language of today's movement directly evokes a painful history. Immigrants who laid claim in the past to this re-imagined American dream colluded with a system of racism that made the hope of health, safety and happiness an empty promise for Black people. Immigrants on the march today threaten to go the way of the Irish, the Italian and the Jewish: they may pay the price of the ticket for American citizenship by yielding to a racial hierarchy that leaves Blacks at the bottom.

Keep reading "The Price of the Ticket"...