Just saw that my recent commentary on Katrina is out. Give a listen and let me know what you think. In fact, check out my first commentary on Katrina as well…written at last year’s meeting of the American Political Science Association.
I’m leaving later this evening to go to the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. I’m presenting a paper entitled “The Not So Minimal Consequences of Watching Rap Videos.” I’ve been keeping it under wraps because I wanted to wait to see how it held up under serious scrutiny. I’ll probably drop it when I get back. If I see any interesting presentations, or books coming down the pipeline I’ll holler. And I might just take the time to do some photoblogging. We’ll see.
What if you brought together over 100 of the world’s most innovative thinkers at one roundtable…and then asked them (simultaneously) to answer 100 questions culled from thousands submitted from all over the world?
What if the responses were videotaped and available over the net? (more…)
Oliver Stone’s recent movie on the World Trade Center has come under criticism because of casting issues. You can hear my spin on it. A number of us have fallen victim to the fakelore of white supremacy. This is one case where it is pretty clear to me that black people aren’t the ones with self-esteem problems. My man T3 is on the same page as I am. Take a listen, let me know what you think.
Story here. The details haven’t come out yet. I’m suspecting it’s going to be tied to seniority. But let’s say for the sake of discussion that each worker is going to get offered something like 60 grand to walk.
My dad just retired from Ford. He told me once about an older (white) worker he used to talk to. They stopped talking when my dad casually asked him about investing. We know what the black/white wealth gap looks like. What we don’t know is how much of this gap is due to a knowledge deficit rather than a pure resource deficit? Whites living in suburban Detroit can make money just off of their house, because as long as their neighborhood is 90% white or more, people will want to move into it. The only piece of knowledge the average white homeowner needs to know here is the knowledge he has as soon as he recognizes that “white” is more than the absence of color.
But how much of this knowledge comes from older co-workers telling him what do to with his money? Telling him how to invest, what to invest in?
I’ve already heard about one brother who quickly went belly up after taking a buyout from GM.
I’m thinking a WHOLE lot more are soon to follow.
Some years ago I read a piece in Rolling Stone on Thailand, on its burgeoning (sex) tourist industry. There was one quote that stood out to me: “Thailand is the last place on Earth where you can be a White Man.” (more…)
It looks like homeboy Ken Blackwell is going to go down in defeat. The type of defeat you can’t politically bounce back from. I thought this would be a good time to bring an old draft out. One of the biggest critiques levied against Cousin Jeff was that he wasn’t properly “representing” hip-hop, or hip-hop activists. When people talk about “representation” in hip-hop, the range of meanings they associate with representing are pretty clear.
But how do these meanings intersect with representation as a political concept? The more I think about this Cousin Jeff thing (and can somebody tell me who the hell came up with that moniker? How about “Ill Jeff” or even “Mos Jeff”…but Cousin Jeff?!?), the more I think it represents an opportunity for activists, and for academics to think seriously about the relationship between the two. Cousin Jeff is at base a PR cat. He was involved with the NAACP. He was involved with the Empowerment Temple. In both of these cases his actions in those organizations arguably “represented” a larger constituency. And there were clear mechanisms of accountability–if he got out of line, there were very clear ways he could be taken out.
Representation in a political sense has a few different meanings:
If we had the capacity to institute a direct democracy there’s no way in hell we as citizens would have the time to cast all those votes–so we appoint representatives to cast votes on our behalf. We appoint them through elections, and this makes the representatives “legit” and also gives us some institutional means of taking them out if they don’t act right.
A flag for example–why the hell would even conservatives think about instituting a law banning burning a piece of cloth with some colors and some other design elements? Because the flag represents more than that. A king or queen in a parliamentary democracy is similar.
How does this mesh with meanings of representation prevalent in popular culture?
So through the hhpc’s yahoo email list I found out that “Cousin Jeff” of BET fame is working on the campaign of Ken Blackwell. Folks were putting him on blast because they think he’s sold out, but more importantly because he makes the hip-hop movement look weak. Dumi asked me what my thoughts were on it. (more…)
I briefly blogged at oldschoolrepublicans.net until I told my homeboy that although he was a Republican (and made the strongest argument I’d heard in favor of blacks joining the GOP) I didn’t roll like that. In my most recent NPR piece I talk about some of the recent scandals involving the GOP and racism. I’d say “the GOP and race” but you all know what whenever someone mentions “race” in a statement like that they really mean racism.
Woke up this morning, putzing around on the desktop.
“There was a car crash this morning.”
What?
“A car crashed into a motorcycle. The rider hit the windshield and was thrown across the street!”
Damn. (more…)
