BLACK LIVES MATTER: ARKANSAS

THE REVITALIZATION OF A MOVEMENT:

here are a few pictures and videos from the last few weeks in Arkansas.

no justice, no peace.

white "fear" of african americans.

Negative Stereotypes of African Americans, continuity and change over time:

Post-Civil War:

THE NADIR:

Intellectual inferiority, Black culture as a joke:

Lemons, J., "Black Stereotypes as Reflected in Popular Culture, 1880-1920", American Quarterly 29, (1977): 102, accessed November 27, 2014, doi: 10.2307/2712263

Inherently Criminal:

• WWII 

From a brief period of time, the US government actually attempted to negate some of the stereotypes that it had propagated about African Americans. When blacks refused to support the war effort because of the treatment that blacks civilians received at home and black soldiers received abroad, the US gov't began to create films highlighting black excellence and banned negative portrayal of blacks in the media. (do not be fooled, this was done for the sole purpose of manipulating blacks into supporting the war and no actual legislation was passed to change the way they were treated at home or on the war front)

Read about that here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3092347

• Post-Civil Rights 
• Black Americans owe Ronald Reagan 1,000 thanks for the way that they are portrayed in the media today.

criminalization and de-humanization:

system-riding "welfare queens"

Lastly, here is an article explaining how, in spite the passage of time, the portrayal of blacks in the media has not improved: 

Race and Ideology: African-American Images in Television Advertising

i don't want to hear shit that the top 1% has to say about poor people

i'm TIRED of hearing upper and upper middle class people tell working class that if they just work hard enough, one day they too will be part of the socioeconomic elite.

i'm even more tired of hearing upper and upper middle class people justify this by saying that the 'working class' people either aren't working (and "riding the welfare system") or, if they are working, they're not working hard enough:

PLEASE watch this short video explaining wealth distribution (or, rather, the lack thereof) in america.

Yesterday I had a socioeconomic elite tell me this and then say (completely unaware of my life story) that, as a Dartmouth student, I should understand this better than anybody. This person then proceeded to insinuate that because I am here, I am better than the folks back home in Arkansas who "choose to be oppressed".

what this person and many others in their position do not understand/cannot see/do not know is...

This was a typical week in my life before I got to Dartmouth. 

I worked two retail jobs in two different cities. They were literally days that I opened at one job and then as soon as I got off, I had to drive across town and close at the other. I frequently worked 11+ hour days.

This was a typical pay for TWO weeks of work.

(and even now at Dartmouth, I'm tutoring 6 of my peers (up to 3 hr/week each) for money)

I WAS LITERALLY WORKING ~45 HOURS/WEEK AND STILL MAKING LESS THAN $500 A PAY PERIOD.

and its not because i was doing mediocre work. there is this erroneous notion that retail employees just sit around all day and ring people up.
FALSE. we have sells goals to make and actively have to make people think that they want/need the merchandise.
I WAS LITERALLY THE LOWEST RANKED, LOWEST PAID EMPLOYEE IN THE COMPANY (sales associate), yet I had the highest sales in my entire store the entire 2 years that I worked for the company.

guess what i got for that?
not shit.
not motherfucking shit.
except for the 10 CENT PAY RAISE  that any employee gets for every 6 months that they work for the company. (I was hired in at minimum wage, $7.25/hour at the end of my sophomore year of high school. When I left for school in September, I was making $7.60/hour.)

unless you have felt the absolutely sickening feeling when you realize that someone thinks that you're worth $7.25, less than the cost of a HEADBAND at Claire's,

UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN MADE TO GET PEOPLE TO COME INTO THE STORE THAT YOU ARE WORKING IN AND CASUALLY SPEND OVER $100 ON FAKE NAILS FOR TODDLERS, WHILE KNOWING IN THE BACK OF YOUR MIND THAT THAT'S LITERALLY HALF OF THE MONEY THAT YOU MAKE IN A WEEK, 

STFU.

"upper class" people, the next time that you want to try and speak on behalf of the "lower class", DON'T.

drag your kids, drag your wife: silence perpetuates ignorance.

first and foremost, allow me to make it clear that...
if you have ever been dragged by me, it is not because i dislike you or think that you're dumb or morally corrupt. its actually quite the opposite. 

I feel like there is this misconception surrounding my lack of hesitance to call people out on their bullshit.

i do not drag out of hate. if you get dragged its because i love you and i want to you do better. (hence why you have never seen me drag the Young Cons.)

most people do not intentionally try to perpetuate messages of racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ect. often times they're just regurgitating the idiotic messages that they have been programmed to believe by the people that created and/or are profiting from message.

UNLESS WE LET PEOPLE KNOW THAT THESE MESSAGES ARE UNTRUE AND EXPOSE  DANGER/POWER/REPERCUSSIONS OF PERPETUATING THIS MISINFORMATION (drag them), THEN THEY WILL NEVER KNOW THAT WHAT THEY ARE SAYING/DOING IS WRONG AND WILL CONTINUE TO SAY/DO THESE THINGS. 

i too have been dragged. my parents actually drag me on a pretty much constant basis, which allows me to stay humble enough to recognize my mistakes and then do better. tbh, i would drag the fuck out of my former self.

if you're too afraid to speak up when you hear people say stupid ass shit, they will continue to say and maybe even believe this fuckery. this not only hurts them, but also hurts their audience because they then go and spread the fuckery to others.

i don't care who you are. wealth, power, and notoriety do not shield you from the drag. i would rather people think that i'm an asshole than allow others to be ignorant. 

if you ever need to be humbled, go through your old Facebook posts. 

hold people accountable. 

uncle ruckus in a suit: dear Lawrence Otis Graham

“People like Oprah and Bill Cosby shouldn’t be compared to Jay-Z and Beyonce,” Graham said. “While all the people on the list will be millionaires and billionaires, it is also about where did you go to school? Who are you married to? What med school did your granddaddy go to?” - Lawrence Otis Graham

first read this article:

I taught my black kids that their elite upbringing would protect them from discrimination. I was wrong.

"Lawrence Otis Graham is an attorney in New York and the author of 14 books, including “Our Kind of People” and “The Senator and The Socialite.” - the Washington Post

Lawrence Otis Graham

"It is the moment that every black parent fears: the day their child is called a nigger." - L.O.G.

     First of all, the fact that you think that every black parent's biggest fear is being called that, exposes your willful ignorance. I guess that you thought that your "Ivy League education" , "house in a liberal New York suburb and an apartment on Park Avenue", "preppy clothes, perfect diction and that air of quiet graciousness", and the fact that you casually throw around words like 'accoutrements' excused you from the every day racism that black americans encounter every day. Life is not Princeton University. Life does not give out AP Credit for racism and allow you and your family to place out of it. 

       The fact that you even italicized the word 'nigger' like its such a foreign term and concept...I just cannot. 

      The child reaction to this (" “Why would they do that — to me?” he whispered breathlessly into the phone.") reminds me of when a family buys a new born kitten and treats it like a baby and ,at some point in the future, the cat sees itself in the mirror for the first time and is legitimately shocked to find that it is not a human. 

     I think that the real issue here is that you're an Uncle Tom(or Ruckus) who managed to convince himself that the Ferguson protestors, Trayvon Martin, and the everyday black american were/are inferior/criminal and choose deserve the discrimination that we face because we choose not to assimilate to this white-washed 'politics of respectability'. I hope that your son's traumatic incident shows you that the solution to racism is not assimilation because black people are not the problem. The problem is the racist ass attitudes and institutions, so if you want your son to stop being called a 'nigger', stop fighting the victim and start fighting the perpetrator. no matter how much you assimilate, at the end of the day society still sees you as less than human. 

OH and maybe if you would have allowed your son to listen to rap music, he would've learned this lesson 10 years ago when Kanye West tried to warn him:

the mosaic exhibit: my problematic not-fave. have you not seen how gattaca ends.

So...the official name for the 'Mosaic Exhibit' (according to The Dartmouth) is
 "The Changing Face of Dartmouth" , modeled after the National Geographic's "

"The Changing Face of America"

In the 125th anniversary edition of the Nation Geographic, it was (somehow) determined that

  this is what the average American would look like by 2050. 

Aside from just being really fucking stupid, here are some obvious flaws with this project and the 'logic' behind it:

1) the opening line of the Changing Face of America article is 

"We live in a country where race is no longer so black or white."

this statement is the basis of the entire photography project. this statement is also false and here is why:

We live in a white society. (see my previous post, just because we're no longer getting lynched does not mean that everything is OK)

2) America is NOT a 'melting pot'.
In American schools, we are taught from a young age that America is the 'Land of Opportunity' and a cultural 'melting pot'. 
The term melting pot is not fit to describe America because it implies that there is one homogenous American culture. Well, even the most basic concept of the "foundation" of America (white people don't know how to keep their damned hands to themselves) reveals why this is absolutely not true. America is not a melting pot. America is a salad bowl comprised of many different cultures. This ideology that we will have one homogenous "AMERICAN" race in 2050 completely disregards culture and history.

3) 2050 - 2014 = 36 years.
slavery 'ended' more than 150 years ago...the Civil Rights Act was passed 50 years ago...and my people are still being murdered and criminalized by the american government. stop.

4) Ameliorating White Guilt
this ideology allows white people to not have to address the obvious racial disparities that exist in modern day america, as well as relieving them of past guilt for past actions.

5) Since when can we just make these far reaching claims with absolutely NO scientific backing and then portray them as facts.
seriously. we live in a pretty empiricist, see it to believe it, 'fact-based' society. there is absolutely no research that supports these claims. 

6) "National Geographic Determined What Americans Will Look Like in 2050, and It's Beautiful" 

"let us applaud these growing rates of intermixing for what they are: An encouraging symbol of a rapidly changing America." 

do i even need to explain the obvious message that this sends to african americans today.

7) politically correct ethnocide.

ethnocide, as defined by Bartolomé Clavero:

"Just as genocide kill bodies, ethnocide kills only souls and people are spared."

look. i get that the (stated) PURPOSE of this exhibit was to "explore racial, cultural identity", but the application and implications of it have achieved the exact opposite. 

stop this tomfoolery.

colin powell is my problematic fave: you're fucking wrong. which is okay. so admit that and do better.

what is a problematic fave?

problematic: "frequently used in progressive political settings among White People of a Certain Education to avoid using herd-frightening words like "racist" or "sexist.""

alternative definition:

 "A blanket term that describes any action that upholds a system of oppression for any oppressed groups. Most commonly used in social justice communities."

*note: these definitions come from Urban Dictionary because this concept was created (if not created, popularized) by (white) Tumblr 'social justice bloggers'.

who is colin powell? 
my childhood crush, first black secretary of state (cool!) under Bush (oh.).

a few facts about colin powell:
1)  son of Jamaican immigrants
2) raised in the South Bronx.
3)"...member of the Board of Trustees of Howard University, and of the Board of Directors of the United Negro College Fund. He serves on the Board of Governors of The Boys & Girls Clubs of America and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Children's Health Fund."
4) supports affirmative action.

a few more facts about colin powell:
1) was avid supporter of "don't ask, don't tell" 

• (on sexual orientation) "'behavioral characteristic' that could undermine military order and discipline"

2) donated the max. amount allowed for one person to give in a primary election (2007) to john mccain.

3) "ronald reagan was a father figure to me, george bush an older brother..." - Colin Powell

so...the discrepancy between fact set 1 and fact set 2 kind of explains his 'problematic-ness' (i don't think that very many blacks raised in south bronx (the birthplace of hip-hop) would be able to identify ronald reagan as their "father figure.)

you're fucking wrong. which is okay. so admit that and do better. (why i respect colin powell in spite of his obviously flawed ideology) 

1) gay rights

• moved to re-peal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that he originally endorsed.
• 2010: "Attitudes and circumstances have changed..."
• while i don't agree with his justification for his state ideology, HE ADMITTED THAT MAYBE HE WAS WRONG AND INSTEAD OF CONTINUING TO SUPPORT THIS OBVIOUSLY FLAWED POLICY, HE (more or less...probably less) BEGAN TO ENDORSE THE IDEA THAT MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, GAY INDIVIDUALS SHOULD NOT BE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST EITHER.

2) after (economically) propping up John McCain in the 2007 primaries, HE OPENLY ENDORSED BARACK OBAMA IN THE 2008 & 2012 ELECTION.

3) he (more or less) told rush limbaugh to shut the fuck up.

• "Can we continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh?" Powell asked. "Is this really the kind of party that we want to be when these kinds of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts?"

point being: 

colin powell has said and done some very stupid shit, however, when he realizes that something he has said or done is stupid, he acknowledges that and ceases and desists that behavior. 

if you realize that something you're saying/doing is stupid...stop saying/doing it. don't knowingly propagate ignorance, hate, or mis-information just because it hurts your ego to admit that you were wrong.