Oh, and did I mention to you that he’s Black? More on this later.

Cam Newton is Hip Hop Culture

At present moment, Cam Newton has become the King of the Culture Clash. Take it from Ryan Clark’s words, it isn’t an issue of skin color but of cultural misunderstanding:

He’s not disliked because he’s brown-skinned. He’s disliked because, culturally, it’s hard to understand for most people. For many years if you look at the Black quarterbacks that were accepted, it wasn’t about skill set. … Russell Wilson is a brown quarterback. But Russell Wilsons’ culture is easier to understand. Russell Wilson doesn’t dance. Russell Wilson doesn’t have the hip hop culture. … So for the Caucasian fan, for the fan who doesn’t understand that culture, Cam Newton’s culture is too young (and) hip hop, too young (and) brown. [1]

To be honest, Ryan Clark is actually on point (mostly). A lot of the other Black quarterbacks are much more “user friendly” for the average Caucasian fan. And by “average”, I mean the fan that expects professional Black people to present themselves in a certain way. Russell Wilson comes to mind immediately due to his ability to promote products and to leave feathers unruffled. Give Ryan Clark his credit: there are cultural disparities at play here.

Cam Newton is Unapologetic Black America

Still, I would be remiss to not point out that being Black is the biggest issue at play here.

The main reason that Cam Newton faces all of this scrutiny for his actions is that he refuses to apologize for it. Yes, he will dance in the end zone. Of course, he posed for pictures at the end of the NFC Championship with the rest of his team (most of those posing where Black players as well). Yes, Brian Urlacher wants Cam Newton to be more like Peyton Manning even though Peyton would be like Cam if he possessed Newton’s skill set. And has The King of Dab offered an apology for any of his actions?

Fuck no. And he’s not going to because he’s not supposed to.

Yet, there is that other reason for the scrutiny that many of us either ignore or lack awareness of: Cam refuses to be the 40 Million Dollar Slave. Yes, my good people: William C. Rhoden hit the nail on the head when he built this literary monument of Black athletic oppression. If we haven’t paid attention, we should have noted that Cam Newton is a one of a kind Black athletic quarterback. With Black athletic evolution comes White backlash.

You have seen it happen a million times before. Black Jack Johnson faced backlash. Althea Gibson faced backlash. Jackie Robinson faced backlash. Major Taylor faced backlash. Serena William’s entire career is a running gag of backlash. And now Cam Newton faces it from a 2016 styled perspective of race and Black respectability.

Many white people aren’t going to care for Cam because he refuses to wear the shackles of decorum that has hampered the careers of many Black men and women before him. Also, he doesn’t plan on pleasing people that consciously (or unconsciously as prejudices and racism works) want him to pander to their beliefs of how a Black athlete should act. He has worked too hard to jump the hurdles of stardom, competition, and his own ego. He has become more than what many analysts thought he would be. With no recourse, Cam Newton has exceeded the racial expectations of America.

Thus, many people need to either accept him for what he is or keep it moving. As long as we know that Cam Newton is not here for White America’s acceptance, the better off many people will be.

Now you all can dab on that if you will.

The post Cam Newton and the Forty Million Dollar Slave appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Eddie Glaude, Jr. is an associate professor of religion and African American Studies at Princeton University and his previous two books very much followed the academic path of converting a dissertation into a book and a second book on his current research topic.  This third book, however, is a book that is meant for the public beyond the nominal sense of which the other books are publicly available.  One of my close friends had mentioned that Glaude was coming out with a book last December and I told him, “It’s already on Amazon pre-order.”  To date, Democracy in Black is the only book that I’ve ever pre-ordered, and I’m glad I did.  I didn’t know quite where he was falling with the book–academic or not–and it was clear by the first pages, sans footnotes, that this was a book intended for the masses.

The book began and ended with the events in Ferguson with the backdrop of the Age of Obama.  The temporal intersection of these events has been one of those topics that not many people have written about yet.  2016 promises to be a year in which publications by black authors will undoubtedly tackle the topic.  Glaude, in 2016, provides a particular perspective on the Age of Obama that previous years and previous authors could not: there is no need to hope for what Obama can be.  While some may color it as cynical, I chose to read his analysis of the Obama years as one of stark reality, one through the lens of recognizing what he has termed the value gap.

Admittedly, once I read Glaude ticking off the statistics of just how bad it is to be black in America I rolled my eyes.  I remember saying to myself, “I already know this stuff.”  I also found myself wondering was this approach for me or for my white brothers and sisters who may pick up this book.  This led me to more internal questions: do the white people who read this book already know this stuff–hence them picking up the book? or are random ignorant white people going to pick up this book and be transformed because they understand the concept of the value gap?  Nevertheless, I kept reading.

Glaude does what many black folk do at dining tables every weeknight, through text messages to other black friends and co-workers after a microaggression at work, over Christmas dinners and certainly at beauty-shops and barbershops across the nation: attempt to properly diagnose what the hell is wrong with this country.  I would surmise, part of this is from the idea that we can’t fix the problem (more like problems) without properly addressing the root concern.  My bookshelf is filled with books from the last seven years from seminary and forward that have attempted to do that.  The bookshelves of my parents house that have Haki Madhubuti, Frances Cress Welsing, Lerone Bennett, Toni Morrison, Cornel West and Lerone Bennett are similarly filled with people who have conceptualized the same issue surrounding how white supremacy was part of the founding of American democracy and the ways that the outgrowth of race and racism have so unequally disaffected black America.

Mid-way the book, Glaude switched to doing what I considered to be great cultural criticism.  The front half of the book was established along the lines of social science analysis, heavy in statistics and replete with stories that gave a human aspect to the numbers while the back half seemed to be more reflective of his lived experience.  And anyone who is familiar enough with my writing knows why I found the second half much more engaging.  Among that which I enjoyed the most was his treatise on HBCUs in the context of black institutions as free spaces.

Without these organizations and the forms of black politics they facilitate by providing what social scientists call “free spaces”– spaces where folks learn self-respect, public skills, and the value of civic engagement–we lose one of the crucial ways to close the value gap.  These institutions enable a political vision of American democracy without white supremacy.

Glaude also held the president of the United Negro College Fund’s (UNCF) feet to the fire, Michael Lomax, for his accepting of money from the Koch brothers.  One of the quips was acknowledging the rock and hard place that the venerable institution find themselves stuck in-between by not accepting the money.  Echoing the famous UNCF quote “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” he retorted that “And a soul is a terrible thing to sell,” upon accepting $25 million from the Koch brothers.  This ability to play the rhetorical dozens–or in more contemporary terms to shade people–in book form provided some anecdotal wisdom that is part of African American life and culture here in this country.

With a book published in the final full year of the Obama presidency, it disavows the reader from any notion that Obama will do anything different in the ultimate year of his lame duck-ness and Glaude is keenly aware of this.  The cultural critique he asserts about the Age of Obama is one of the best I’ve read so far.  And to that point, I appreciate the redemption of Cornel West in the midst of this.  Again, Glaude plays social scientist and political scientist and connects dots on the black politics in the 20th century in ways we don’t see in the mainstream media and perhaps in ways which modern black politicians aren’t even aware of themselves.  As he closes out the book, he offers three ways in which we can have a revolution of value.  The serendipity of highlighting the esteemed Rev. William Barber, II as an embodiment of a revolution of value was not missed as Barber’s book calling for a “third reconstruction” was released the same day as Glaude’s.  Finally, Glaude actually offers a real, tangible and actionable response to all of this:

We need to do something that bold.  Something that will upset the entire game.  In 2016, we should call for an “electoral blank-out.”  We vote in the national election for the presidency of the United States, but we leave the ballot blank or write in “none of the above.”  This isn’t your standard call for a third-party candidate or an independent black political thrust.  Nor is it a rejection of our sacred duty to vote.  Exercising the franchise is sacred….  Elections are important, but they are hardly the work of democracy. For too long we’ve been sold a bill of goods that this person or that one will do what we need, if only we can get them elected.  This promise wants us to believe that voting is democracy.

The emboldened text is my emphasis and the italicized one is direct from the quote.

I can appreciate the imagination it took to cobble the disparate pieces of black America–the designation Glaude uses in the book–and bring them together in a sense that didn’t fall into the habit of making black life reductionist and singular.  I think there were moments in which he might have in one section and didn’t in another, but I would argue that that’s indicative of the way most black people live and operate their lives; some moments require them to be black for the whole and other moments they are merely one of many.

For much of the book, Glaude takes this diagnostic approach which I get, but I’m not sure if I agree that it’s the best way to address race in this country.  I get it because it’s familiar.  It’s what I grew up hearing from all of the great centers of African American culture that is the South Side of Chicago and beyond, but I got older and suddenly the disillusionment of life settled in and I’m not sure that’s the best approach.  For me, I could easily see white liberals grab onto the concept of “value gap” as the new catchphrase for understanding black malaise in much the same way whites seemingly co-opted Ta-Nehesi Coates’ notion of “the struggle.”  For many, it was just an intellectual play-thing, a transfixed curiosity, only to be discarded once the next black person offered a new idea.  Coates, for all of his righteous indignation, didn’t require white folk–or black folk for that matter–to do anything!  To use Victor Anderson’s notion, I do believe that there needs to be a transcendent move beyond ontological blackness, and for much of this book, it didn’t read as though Glaude necessarily believed in that notion.  However, after the mid-way point as he begins putting forth cultural critique, he writes

If we are going to change how we see black people, white people–and only white people can do this–will have to kill the idea of white people.  It is the precondition of America’s release into a different democratic future.  If we don’t do this, we condemn ourselves to whatever tragedy awaits at the end of our current path.

I couldn’t agree more.  Moving beyond ontological blackness almost certainly requires the dismantling and disavowal of ontological whiteness.

For the first time, I live tweeted this book.  Which I’m not sure is  sacrilegious to a text or not, but old methods and sensibilities be damned.  As a result, one of my friends who pastors a church in Kentucky asked would this be a good book his church could read.  And I answered yes.  This was a good book to read while snowed in over this extended weekend, and a relatively quick one.  Quick in the sense that the readability has a wider swath than some of the more academic books that have been published on similar topics.

The book closed on the events of Ferguson, fitting the protests and marches of Black Lives Matters not as the continuation of Selma–something that so many tried to do–but as the springboard to a new envisioning of democracy, “a democratic way of life without the burden of the value gap or the illusion that somehow this country is God’s gift to the world.”  This is a democracy in black.

The post Review: “Democracy in Black” by Eddie Glaude Jr. appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Kendrick is Christian.  Coates is an atheist.

Kendrick who’s song “Alright” from the album was released as a single recently seems to have captured the sentiments of hope with a simple refrain “we gon’ be alright” when he performed at the 2015 BET Awards on top of abandoned and graffitied police cars.  Coates’ much anticipated book was written in epistolary format, borrowing from James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, is a book intentional void of hope; Coates is intentional in anchoring his lens of commentary and critique in the struggle and how he understands the black male body.

Every thirty or so pages Coates made sure to let the reader know that he was not Christian, atheist in fact.  For him not having that as a tradition in which he was raised in, he opted for the body over that of the soul.  The discussion of the black male body is a running theme in much of Coates corpus of work, and is the string that ties his letters to his son together.  For me, as someone with a theological and spiritual background, engaging a discussion about the black body, and in this case, the black male body, is a discussion we don’t have often.  Or at least as often as we should.

Because of that, if I had my way, I would want to be a fly on the wall and put Ta-Nehesi and Kendrick in a room together and hear what they would have to say to one another.

I’m uniquely interested in how these two would reconcile the yearnings of hope and the insistence of the struggle.  Coates hangs his hat that struggle is the only thing he can offer his son.  Going so far as to name his child Samori, which means “struggle.”  Decidedly, Coates ran as far as humanly possible away from hope as something to offer both his son and obviously to the reader as well.  It is a text entered into the vade mecum of blackness that stands out because it does not rush toward some hope of a future that’s different.  Melvin Rogers, associate professor of African American Studies & Political Science at UCLA wrote in Dissent Magazine that

After all, the meaning of action is tied fundamentally to what we imagine is possible for us. But when one views white supremacy as impregnable, there is little room for one’s imagination to soar and one’s sense of agency is inescapably constrained.

Coates is no James Baldwin.  Either in terms of his writing style or content.  As Rogers pointed out, Baldwin was a son of hope, Coates is not.  Instead, Coates does write in a Baldwin-esque mind frame by delivering some inconvenient truths to an America that may or may not be willing and ready to receive it.  Cornel West, in a rather scathing response simply said Coates was a “mere darling of White and Black Neo-liberals” which begs the question is Coates work landing just in the ears of white liberal sensibilities or does the impact go farther.

Coates’ dogged insistence on the body strikes a strong chord with a black generation shaped and formed in the gap of modernity and postmodern sensibilities wrestling with their place in a global society and also what it means to be a citizen of the American empire.  For many of them, or rather us, part of the struggle has been at what point does spirituality, namely Christianity run out?  At what point does it no longer exist to have wells deep enough to carry the pain and the despair.  When I read West’s Facebook post against Coates, that’s namely what I saw: two diametrically opposed ideologues over the issue of whether to hope or not.

Kendrick’s life story growing up in the streets of Los Angeles and Coates’ life growing up in inner-city Baltimore are both life stories I don’t overly identify with personally, but growing up on the South Side of Chicago, they are both known testaments that are well within the sight of my vision.  How could two people with similar life experiences be at such opposite ends of a spectrum when it comes to the future of black lives in America?  My gut feeling is to side with Kendrick; to entrench myself with the thought that we gon’ be alright.  However choosing to talk about the plunder of the black body, a running theme beyond just his latest book but even in his famous essay “The Case for Reparations” resonated with me in a way that I had not been able to put into words prior.  Being able to read a text that gives vocabulary, that gives utterance to unnamed emotions is liberating, spiritual in fact.  The way that Christians understand that the Holy Spirit “makes prayer out of wordless sighs and aching groans” is similar in the way that reading the words of a text or listening to music can move the inner-being.  Something about the realness of Coates refusal to move past the pain reverberates with my soul.

The irony of that.

If Kendrick and Ta-Nehesi were in a room together, I would hope they would discuss what it means to be black for them.  Is it first understood on the personal level or is always understood in the collective.  I wonder what type of music do they listen to in their off time.  Do they feel that they occupy a particular platform given their ascendancy to being public figures?  What does black masculinity mean to them and how do they choose to see other black men through that–do gay, bisexual and trans-men fit into that paradigm?  What about black women?  How do they understand them speaking on behalf of other people, or do they reject that notion altogether.  It would be interesting to know what type of relationship they have with their parents or had with grandparents.  How influential were male figures in their life versus that of black women?  Do you hate white people?  What is the role of white people in a Black-centric worldview?  If Kendrick asked Ta-Nehesi why he’s choosing to leave America and move to France, I would certainly wonder how he’d respond to that.

It’s not a foreign concept knowing that many black artists expatriated at some point to Europe in the 20th century such as Josephine Baker, Richard Wright, Nina Simone and even James Baldwin.  Author Thomas Chatterton Williams came under assault after an op-ed piece for the New York Times earlier this year when he suggested that black Americans could find a type of refuge in Europe advocating for a “next great migration” conjuring the Great Migration when blacks left the South in search of warmth from other suns in the northern cities like Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York.  Coates seems to be following in that tradition.  While personally, I don’t see Europe as a place of expatriation for me, I get it.  I would hope Kendrick would ask that question to Ta-Nehesi: why won’t you stay?  Perhaps Ta-Nehesi would flip and say “why won’t you leave?”

Ta-Nehesi and Kendrick are two sides of the same coin, perhaps.  Well, maybe to place them as diametrically opposed to one another isn’t fair to the complexities that the human existence hold, let alone what it means to be black–both in body and in soul.  I wouldn’t expect this conversation to have some grand conclusion, that finally we’ve can consider the matter settled in anyway.  Soul-talk, I would contend, doesn’t like that, and neither does the vast majority of what Cornel West calls the black prophetic Christian tradition.  This trope is never more apparent than in the black preaching tradition that not only focuses heavily on hope, but also providing conclusionary theology: while God may be abstract, there will be a conclusive statement about what God is.  As much as that is is a theological declaration birthed out of one’s belief in the soul, their eschatological trajectory as well as basic religious and doctrinal beliefs, it also functions as a very secular sociology that one’s humanity requires a conclusion.

Assuming that Kendrick subscribes to some of the basic tenets of Christianity that places the conclusion in the hereafter, I would really like to hear he and Ta-Nehesi try and make sense of what I see as two different points of conclusion.  Is one right, the other wrong?  How is one’s lived existence altered because of the belief that this is it, versus the idea that there may be more to come.

So if the gods of blackness are kind, please let this conversation happen–and let me there to see it.

[Originally posted at Uppity Negro Network]

The post If Ta-Nehesi Coates and Kendrick Lamar Had a Conversation… appeared first on Madness & Reality.

As you can imagine, the debate has been drawn along political lines, and has forced many to take sides. The question, however, is whether we are properly informed. Personally, I believe the media has done a disservice when it comes to this debate. In my opinion, the law has been misrepresented.

Newsflash: Stand Your Ground had nothing to do with the George Zimmerman trial; nor did it have anything to do with the Michael Dunn trial. Listening to media talking heads, certain civil rights leaders and attorneys you’d be hard pressed to believe differently. But, the truth is that many of them are agenda driven and as such, they cite the law incorrectly.

This from The Urban Institute:

We turned to the Supplemental Homicide Report (SHR) maintained by the FBI, which includes all reported homicides in the US, including justifiable homicides, to determine what types of cases—and how often—civilian use of deadly force was justified.

 

First, it is important to note that justifiable homicides are exceedingly rare. Between January 2005 and December 2009 there were more than 73,000 homicides in the United States but less than 2 percent (1,148) were found to be justifiable.

 

We combed the data to identify homicides which resemble the known facts from the Trayvon Martin case—cases in which there was a single victim and a single shooter (both of whom were civilians and strangers) and in which the victim was killed by a handgun.  We identified 4,650 of these cases in the SHR. Of these, just 10.9 percent (506) were ruled to be justifiable homicides.

 

However, we note that these numbers vary by whether a state is a SYG state. In SYG states, 13.6% of homicides under these circumstances are found to be justified. In non-SYG states, only 7.2 percent are justified.

A few things to consider thanks to FBI stats.:

• Of 73,000 homicides in the U.S. between ’05 and ’09 less than 2% were justified.
• Interracial homicides make up about 3% of all homicides.
• Justifiable homicide are rare and Stand Your Ground hasn’t led to an increase.

On the eve of a major protest of Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law, we explored the legislation, and how it has been misinterpreted largely by the media. Joining us in this discussion was Andrew F. Branca, an attorney whose specialty is self-defense law. He is also the author of The Law of Self Defense. Hopefully listening to the audio above can be insightful.

This week’s episode of Madness & Reality Radio was compelling. Seriously, the information shared in the interview above was invaluable. So much so that it can be considered a life saver should you ever be forced to defend yourself as a victim of an attack or altercation. Do take the time to listen and a share the audio above, and click here to listen to the full episode.

The post Stand Your Ground: Understanding the Law of Self Defense appeared first on Madness & Reality.

I could remember getting in trouble after being caught with one of my favorite porn mags in school. I was doing what all pre-teen boys would do at the time, but my teacher didn’t see it that way. As my luck would have it, apparently it was against school policy to share pornographic material with other pre-pubescent boys like myself. Yep, for me, that was just another one of the horrors of attending Catholic school.

Back then, I was so sure that had I been fortunate to attend a regular public school ( or maybe even a charter school), my transgression wouldn’t be such a big deal within the school at least. Reading the following story, you might see that I was right. But I can’t front, sexual curiosity and the occasional suppression of woodies and hormones aside, I would have to say that my experiences within a parochial school system wasn’t too bad. But I must say, things would have been extra nice if those nuns bought me books like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ for reading class.

This from NBC 10 Philadelphia:

A Philadelphia mother wants her son’s high school teacher fired after he bought the teen the novel Fifty Shades of Grey for in-class reading.

Maya Ladson says she was shocked to find a copy of the racy read in her 14-year-old’s book bag back on March 9. That shock turned to outrage when she found out how he got the book.

“The minute I found out about it, it raised concern,” the mother told NBC10.com Thursday. “This is not OK to me. This is major.”

Ladson’s son, who is a 9th grade student at Eastern University Academy Charter School in the East Falls section of Philadelphia, asked for and was given the book by his teacher and adviser Philip Aidoo.

According to the school, Aidoo asked students for a list of books they would like to read during an independent reading period. Ladson’s son’s requested Fifty Shades of Grey. Aidoo then went online and ordered the book.

Ladson acknowledges that her son asked for the book.

“It clearly states on the cover, that the book is for mature audiences and has high sexual content,” Ladson said. “This was a 100-percent act of negligence. There should never be pornographic material purchased and distributed to a student by a school teacher.”

Eastern University Academy Charter School Chief Operating Officer Yvonne Turner calls the teacher’s actions a mistake.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Aidoo did not have an awareness of this popular book and ordered it with his own money,” she said. Turner says Aidoo also ordered books for other students, all of which were G-rated.

“I find it highly unlikely that a teacher who teaches reading and has a classroom for sustained silent reading period is unaware of contents of material that he’s giving to the students, let alone the material being pornographic material,” Ladson told NBC10.com.

Once Aidoo’s purchase was brought to the school’s attention by Ladson, officials immediately launched an investigation, according to Turner.

Officials met with Ladson and Aidoo and made a recommendation of action against the teacher, which the school didn’t disclose. Ladson said she was not satisfied with the recommendation and filed a grievance with the school’s board of trustees. They heard the case and decided Wednesday to suspend the teacher for one week without pay.

Ladson says a suspension is not enough and wants Aidoo removed from the school.

“We all agree that it was a very serious mistake, however, it does not warrant a termination,” Turner said.

After Ladson told officials about the Grey incident, the school held a meeting with the parents of all the teacher’s students to notify them about the situation, according to Turner. Aidoo has taught math and advised at the 7th-12th grade school for several years.

“We heard nothing but high praises and support for Mr. Aidoo,” Turner said. “We have to deal with these things in a fair and impartial way which the school has attempted to do.”

Ladson says her son’s education has been compromised. Turner says the school is putting together a plan to move the 14-year-old to another class for the next trimester. The school has also enacted a policy that officials must now approve any purchase intended for students, she says.

The school has been on break for the past month. Ladson says when classes resume on Monday, she plans to protest outside the school with other parents. (source)

Watch the video below:

In all seriousness, if I were the mother of this kid I would want to know why in the hell was my kid requesting that he be able to read Fifty Shades of Grey while in school any damn way. Maybe this all happened for a good reason. Maybe, this outraged mother may pay more attention to her horny-ass-son now that this is out like my mother did to me when I was 14-years-old. The way I see it, bringing home that book is better than bringing home a baby or an STD.

The post Teacher Buys Student ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ for Reading Class appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Not since Mat Johnson’s “Hunting In Harlem” has a book from this genre, grabbed me from the very beginning and carried me to the very end at such a rapid pace.

Rappers, purveyors of urban literature, and TV producers are being found murdered in gruesome fashion. Word on the streets of the besieged city of Koontown is that vampire crack babies are the perpetrators.  Former international supermodel-turned cop-turned private detective, Genevieve “Jon Vee” Noir is hired by rap impresario Hustle Beamon, to find out who’s killing off his business partners and top selling rap artists.  Together with her former Koontown Police Department partner Detective Willie O. O’Ree, Jon Vee navigates the dark, dank underbelly of Koontown; coming up against pimps, dubious record executives, secret sororities, disreputable politicians, and government conspiracies to get to the bottom of the savage murders plaguing the city lest the crimes threaten the already fragile détente between Koontown residents and a nearby gentrified neighborhood of Toomer Way.

In scathing and often explicit commentary about Black urban pathology, Bill Campbell leaves no stone unturned in his fourth book.  From the controversial cover to its title, language, and plot devices; Campbell presents a raw illustration of today’s cult-of-personality and its sanctimoniousness, and the dirty business of city politics.

Born into a color-struck legacy complete with “good hair”, deliberately light-skinned, lithe, and affluent private detective Jon Vee, tries to reconcile her own self-loathing as she flaunts the privilege her light skin has afforded her, along with her family’s seemingly willful miscegenation; with trying to understand the lives of the poverty stricken and exploited denizens of the city she’s trying to help.

Hopelessly out of touch with the realities and street codes of the inner-city, Genevieve is tireless in her quest to help restore order to the city of Koontown, which is on the verge of becoming a dystopian wasteland for greedy “White settlers” to come and pluck real estate from the ashes at a bargain price, and for Black elitists to rebuild in the image they deem acceptable for the good of the race. The tall protagonist does this while assuaging her own lineage.

Bill Campbell interweaves elements of sci-fi horror with noted facts about America’s history of ills against people of color as well as, present day politics, and the continued marginalization of poor folk who reside in the inner-city amid chaos and violence. [I’d be remiss if I didn’t note the similarities between Hustle Beamon and hip-hop business magnate, Russell Simmons, who himself has been labeled a hypocrite and accused of being a poverty pimp.]

Thirty-year-old harried grandmothers, a talking vagina that sings Negro spirituals, the effects of social engineering, slain straight-A students, a busy city morgue overseen by a shady medical examiner and that runs like an industrial factory with machines performing the autopsies, the concept of “Niggerdom” ascribed to poor Black people by the Black elite, the posturing of hardcore rap artists [from sheltered backgrounds], intra-racial bigotry … Campbell lays it all out on the table, splayed open like the bodies in the city morgue. Also impressive is the book’s accompanying soundtrack [a novel idea… pun intended], which features catchy J Dilla-esque beats, executive produced by Triple Threat.

“Television news constantly feeds us reports of black criminality, black underachievement, and black addiction. Our entertainment industry gives us a steady diet of black depravity, shoveling pimps and hustlers and playas and thugs down our throats. We can watch them on our televisions, in our movies; listen to them on our radios, iPods, and smart phones; we can read about them on our Kindles and Nooks and even—heaven forbid—actual books and thrill to their tales of violence, greed, and penicillin-resistant promiscuity.” 

Campbell wrote in a January missive about what prompted him to write Koontown Killing Kaper.

The book’s bold and explicit approach to deconstructing some of the issues that Black America is often fraught with, may not be for everyone; but for anybody else not opposed to in-your-face satire that upends rap culture, wishy-washy church rhetoric, and politics; it’s definitely a tour de force worth reading and mulling over.

Koontown Killing Kaper is available for Kindle and can be purchased on Amazon, or visit www.koontown.com for more information.

The post Thug Life: Bill Campbell’s “Koontown Killing Kaper” appeared first on Madness & Reality.

In a post-apocalyptic world where resistance to an overheated environment defines class and beauty, Eden Newman’s white skin brands her as a member of the lowest class, a weak and ugly Pearl. The clock is ticking: if Eden doesn’t mate before her eighteenth birthday, she’ll be left outside to die.

If only a dark-skinned Coal from the ruling class would pick up her mate option, she’d be safe. But no matter how much Eden darkens her skin and hair, she’s still a Pearl, still ugly-cursed with a tragically low mate-rate of 15%.

Just maybe one Coal sees the real Eden and will save her-she has begun secretly dating her handsome co-worker Jamal.

I haven’t read the entire book, but based on the generous excerpts I’ve been able to without having to pay and Foyt’s own misguided views on what constitutes anti-racism and racism, I’ve gleaned all that I need and then some, so more than enough to offer a critique on Foyt’s work.

To reiterate: Eden is a young “Pearl” [white woman]; part of an endangered “minority” race, struggling to survive in this dystopian underground civilization where another group of people identified as Coals [read: Black folks] reign supreme, due to having survived some cataclysmic event in greater numbers. The catastrophe left the earth’s surface radioactive and the Coals immune to the heat, due to the high levels of melanin in their skin. However, it’s unsafe for those with pale skin to be above ground. Survivors have been overtaken and reduced to the lower class and are trying to pass [in blackface].

Time is imminent for Eden because, unless she finds a male Coal to mate with before her 18^th birthday, to dilute her own DNA, she’ll be cut-off from receiving government resources, relegated to the hot surface above ground, and left to die. Not to mention the privilege, reassurance that she’s desired, and protection that’ll be restored to her if she’s successful in her quest to be mated with a Coal.

As if the synopsis weren’t dubious enough; the book’s YouTube page is a treasure trove of foolery consisting of a trailer showing the Eden character in blackface, lamenting her plight as a genetically undesired, but rare and delicate Pearl; as well as mock dating profiles featuring over-eager Ambers [Asians],  oversexed Coal women with little else to offer beyond freaky relations, and Coal men who believe dating a Pearl from the lower end of the totem pole still outweighs having to date a female Coal on his same social level.

There are so many troubling things wrong with the tired tropes about people of color and interracial relationships Foyt trot out in her book and follow-up responses to critics, I don’t even know where else to continue from…

… Perhaps an incident from her childhood, where she was “slandered” by a Black boy hurling an unspecified racial slur “usually targeted at Blacks” from a school bus when she a young girl, saying vile things about her “bee-stung lips”, is what inspired “Save The Pearls”; her weak attempts at trying to romanticize “passing” and explain away blackface while having implemented a plot device where Eden smears body paint on her face called “Midnight Luster” and applies red lipstick to make her lips look fuller; her fetishizing of the “Coal” males, reducing them to nothing more than sexual commodities to be approached with the utmost caution by female “Pearls” and manipulated into being “mated with” for status; dark equaling smarmy and dangerous; “Pearl” equaling delicate and rare;  this sentence describing the book, from her site: “this captivating novel set in a terrifying future, which is all too easy to imagine” — because apparently a world where Blacks are the ruling class is a world she or her readers shouldn’t have to fathom; the fact that the female protagonist seems to bemoan the loss of her White privilege and White female desirability, which is no longer pedestal-ed– [Ms. Polka Dot bikini was Eden’s kind, right down to her long blond hair and big blue eyes. And yet, according to the antique Beauty Map, she had been prized for her beauty—which meant, if Eden had been born in an earlier time, she too might have been beautiful.] — And of course there’s the author’s puzzling classifications and traits she uses for people of color versus the non-offensive slur she ascribes to Whites.

For all of Foyt’s “color free” anti-racism rhetoric, what she fails to realize is that she still seems to equate darker skin as something negative, to be tip-toed around. I’m not sure if it’s prompted by residual feelings from her encounter with the Black boy from her youth, but she definitely stokes the long-held trepidation some White people have towards Blacks, and any denials to the contrary is complete nonsense as evidenced in her delusional HuffPo post…

“Conceivably, if the book had not reached the African-American community of readers, if such a category still exists, perhaps there might be some backlash. The first young African American reader who responded to me loved the book. But then, she’s the kind of free spirit who would eschew limiting herself to a single category.

Or perhaps — and this is what I hope — the YA generation sees race in a way that is unique to them, unique in our history. After all, they have arrived on the scene decades past the integration of schools and Jim Crow, even well past the days of The Cosby Show.

Soap-mouth-washing words that were forbidden in my youth now populate rap songs so often I wonder if, happily, they have lost their vile connotations.

I have endeavored to raise my children with a color-free mentality. My son once mentioned that his color was white while mine was tan. This was said with no more feeling than if he’d been describing the different colors of our bedrooms.” [Oh.]

It seems as if Foyt has been actively deleting the backlash she claims she hasn’t been receiving, from threads on the book’s Facebook fan page and suggesting that critics are engaging in reverse-racism. Her denial about the world around her runs deeper than I could ever imagine, and ignorance is a blissful and serene vacation for folks like her.

Her desire that people buy and read her book seems to come with strings attached; and those strings dictate that folks [read: Black readers] need to extol her narrow views on interracial dating, race, and race-relations and hopefully renounce their identities and personal experiences with racism in the process … sort of like the “free-spirited” African-American who offered her positive feedback, because she doesn’t seem to grasp that Eden’s narrative serves as a voice of condemnation of the Coals, despite her plotting ways to “be mated” with one. Victoria Foyt’s delusions about race, racial identity and  interracial dating has her thinking that she has the right to decide how people of color should and shouldn’t feel about race, dating across racial lines, and blackface; so no thanks. I don’t like having my intelligence insulted.

The post “Save The Pearls”: Eden Newman, White Privilege, & Interracial Dating appeared first on Madness & Reality.

 Tony Morrison’s controversial novel “The Bluest Eye” evokes many different feelings in its readers. There have been numerous attempts to ban the book due to its subject matter dealing with rape, child molestation, western beauty ideals, Colorism, class, and racism. One thing is certain; “The Bluest Eye” is one of the most important works of American fiction and undoubtedly should be incorporated on any student’s reading list. 

The post The Bluest Lie appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Recently the internet or should I say the Black blogosphere was ablaze with discussions centered around the upcoming book Bitch Is The New Black by Helena Andrews. In case you missed it, this was all sparked by a Washington Post article titled Successful, black and lonely which profiled Ms. Andrews, and her upcoming book and movie. On this very blog alone we featured an entry written by Seattle Slim on the subject that of bitch being the new black; you can catch it right here, as well as a post written by myself [here] that really made for an interesting discussion.

Recently on our Freedom Through Speech radio show, Paul Carrick Brunson – The Modern Day Matchmaker & Relationship Coach – owner and operator of the matchmaking service One Degree From Me sat in on our discussion of the book, and the “phenomenon” of the lonely successful single black woman. Paul was able to secure an exclusive interview with Helena recently which I thought to be very insightful. I know how some of you just hate watching videos embedded in blogs. But do me a favor and check it out and tell me what you think:

This is where it really gets good; pay attention:

So what are your thoughts on the interview? Though short, does it give you a better insight as to who is Helena Andrews? Seriously, I’d like to know what you think. And you know why? I’d like to know because I’ll be honest, with as much talk as this book and the WaPo article has generated. I think the perception of Ms. Andrews being this cold hearted bitter bitch destined to become the neighborhood cat lady in 30yrs came to life. And I think purposely the Washington Post played into that stereotype as the media often does.

Which just tells me that though we as black people bitch about how we’re perceived stereotypically. We often do the same thing to ourselves as a byproduct of our internalized oppression when we read stories about us that comes from people who are not us. Personally, I’m looking forward to the book and movie in the future; I think it will be well received. Having said that, I personally think the interview does her justice in helping to dispel much of the negative backlash. And I say that with the realization that there’s no way you can get to know someone in the matter of eighteen minutes.

You can subscribe to my man Paul’s YouTube channel OneDegreeFromMe to view a host of insightful and informative videos with tips on dating and more. If you’re on Twitter you can follow Helena Andrews (@helena_andrews) and Paul Carrick Brunson (@onedegreefromme) as well because unlike asshole celebs, they’ll actually interact with you. And to tell you the truth, if I wasn’t married I would have already totally scooped up Helena. She doesn’t seem like the angry black woman to me anyway. What? You heard her; she likes dudes who are funny and loves to debate. Now tell me that ain’t me, right?

The post Meet Helena Andrews author of the upcoming book Bitch Is The New Black appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Well, there is this one blog in particular that I wrote some time ago. Yes and this blog bugs the shit out of me to this day. The blog is titled “Women with Tattoos”. I don’t know if you’ve had the chance to read or see it but it was from way back. So what about the blog you hate RiPPa? What could it be that you said? You know how you don’t usually care about whatever comes out of your mouth or fingers? Yeah I know, I’m usually like that, but this one here is different. Well, you see, to this day, I get a lot of traffic to this site because of that blog. I’m not playing; that post gets a lot of hits – if you haven’t read it I suggest you click the provided link above (shameless plug). So why would you want us to go read that post RiPPa if you regret it? Trust me; you have to go read it to understand.

You see, the subject of the post was the picture of a woman with a tattoo of a penis on her chest. You know, just above her cleavage? Yeah, right there. I found that pic online, and I just had to write about it. What bugs me now is that people are still hitting that post every single day. Why? Because of the picture I used. Yup, I suspect that the people hitting that post are all thirsty ass trolls lurking the Internet for women. Why do I think that? Because they never leave any damn comments on the thing! They probably do a search on Google for Black women with penis tattoos on their chests because they’re into that sort of thing, and voila′, up pop my post. The messed up part about it is that they probably don’t read the post, and now they think I’m a Black woman with a penis tattoo on my chest. I swear I hate people who don’t read.

Speaking of which: why and how does Steve Harvey have the number one book on the New York Times bestseller list for like the last 4 weeks? No seriously? This guy has a book called: Think Like a Lady, Act Like a Man. Why you hatin RiPPa? No I ain’t hatin. I think it’s a valid question. Of course, my girl fungke blak chik wrote about this last week, and yes it was hilarious, and yes I agree with her stance on him going from comedian to relationship expert. My question is: who are the women reading this book? I mean, a few weeks ago, Tyler Perry had the number one movie in the country for consecutive weeks. Yup, and I doubt his movie was number one and made the type of money it did because of overwhelming support from Black people. Keeping it real? I think that movie blew up because of White audiences. Seriously, I doubt people were storming the theaters to see just how foine little “Rudy” from “The Cosby Show” has grown up to be.

Call me naive, but I never knew that White people have a thing for Black men in drag going to prison. So what does that have to do with Steve Harvey RiPPa? Well, other than the fact that I think his big ass head is Photoshop on somebody else’s body in the pic above (that plus the fact that he looks like a jug of orange Kool Aid), I just don’t believe that there are that many Black women buying this book. I’m willing to bet that a vast reason for the success of his book has to do with White women. Huh? Yeah, I think White women are buying his book. I mean hell; he did appear on Oprah twice pushing the book didn’t he?

So why would White women be buying that book RiPPa? Ain’t like White men are not marrying their asses, right?!!

Well, maybe the White women have an inner Mandingo fetish like I mentioned in this blog a while ago. Or maybe they all (Black women included) have seen the promotional pics like the one above and think Steve’s old ass, with his five foot tall teeth, is naked in the book, and tells jokes in it?! Hell I don’t know. I do know if I was a woman, that I wouldn’t be taking relationship advice from some dude who’s been married like three times, and cheated on his wife. But then again, maybe just like the people who troll the Internet for women with penis chest tattoos, they don’t actually read.

The post Black Men in Drag, Internet Trolls, & Steve Harvey appeared first on Madness & Reality.