The Nightshift Chronicles

New Home for The Night Shift

2007-07-01T23:15:00.000-04:00

Not quite the end of an era, but The Night Shift Chronicles is exploring new housing options. We now reside at thenightshiftchronicles.com Feel free to drop by when you're in the area to get and check out what we are up to.

Best,

The Nightshift Chronicler

Race Matters

2007-06-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

The candidates for the Democratic Party nomination gathered in Washington on Thursday for a debate hosted by Tavis Smiley and billed as the first "all-america" debate, one in which black and latino votes, journalists, and politicos demonstrated our collective strength by putting the question of racial justice at the center of the conversation. It's a good first step, however long overdue. Read more ...

Easy Going Evening

2007-06-11T11:27:00.001-04:00

‑“EASY GOIN’ EVENING”

My mom cooks like Stevie Wonder makes music. Her recipes channel the spirits of our ancestors just as his notes bring the bouillon of Black sound and expression to the listener’s table. “Easy Goin’ Evening” is his rendering of the subtle spiritual sounds that serve as the backbone of so much of Black music and culture. It’s his homage to the great-great-grandmothers and -fathers who sang when they couldn’t speak, who played instruments so that their hands could feel the silk of sound after enduring so much contact with the pointed teeth of labor.

Composing something as touching as “Easy Goin’ Evening,” or as epic as Songs in the Key of Life, requires an overwhelming sensitivity to what moves people. We can all respond to sound, but it’s through the processes of seasoning and basting that sound turns into music. How artists cook their sound goes a long way toward getting us to take it in, find it delectable, or want to share it with someone else. For me, long before I knew what that bit of magic called “Mom’s cooking” was, or before I figured out what music was, I knew that it had the ability to make people happy when done up right.

I spent the first five years of my life in Pétion-Ville, Haiti, before coming to New York in 1981. My dad’s four teenage sisters and my paternal grandparents used to watch over me. My aunts would often choose me as the lucky chap with whom they could practice their imagined dances with the boys who battled for their attention after school. They would take me out onto the front porch of my grandparents’ house and hold me in their arms or place me on the top step. They pirouetted and spun as I played the role of Jean-Pierre, Jacques, or whoever else they decided was their suitor. My most common response would be to clap enthusiastically to the beat of the sounds coming from my grandparents’ little transistor radio. And when my aunts bypassed the radio in favor of their own voices, my response became even more animated. As an audience consisting of my grandparents and a few other family members looked on, I hopped up and down on that top step, teetering, on the verge of falling off and potentially sacrificing a tooth to the tooth fairy. Those moments seemed so exciting. I hoped they would never end.

But in the winter of 1981, those experiences did indeed come to an end. It was a few weeks after the day I had spotted a scary-looking white woman walking up the hill to my grandparents’ house. I’ll never forget my aunts and grandparents’ response when I reached the top of the hill and warned them that there was a white woman (a ghost!) wearing big brown sunglasses in our midst. They started laughing. And then my grandmother asked: “How does she look?”

“She looks white,” I responded, sending them barreling over in laughter. I’ve yet to live that response down because “white” is the last word that anyone would ever use to describe my mom’s deep brown skin. However, at five years old, having never seen this woman before, having been blinded by the sunglasses she wore, I should have been forgiven for thinking this woman might be one of the ghosts who chased after me in my nightmares.

The scary-looking lady was not a ghost, but she was coming after me, and a few weeks after she arrived I boarded a plane to return to the United States with her. The laughter that accompanied the woman’s arrival had passed, replaced by the tears of people who had spent the past five years taking care of me. I carried a heart full of those tears all the way to New York.

When my mom and I got to Kennedy airport, a tall, thin, brown man was waiting for us. I vaguely recalled seeing him in the pictures she had brought with her to Haiti. When he crouched down and spread his wings open, she gave me a slight nudge on the shoulder to suggest that it was okay to go greet him. Before I could take one step, I was swept up in his arms and being spun around. I felt a kiss on my cheek, but I was so dizzied by the sight of all the people milling and scurrying about the airport that I couldn’t settle into the affection enveloping me. As I began to unleash some of the tears I had stored away, I felt the thin giant’s five o’clock shadow grazing my skin as he bounced me up and down and sang a diddy. I stopped crying, trying to make out what he was singing, but before I could understand any of the words, he had already stopped. His lips were now locked with my mom’s.

My stomach and mind were spinning as I continued taking in the scene. I was confused and scared because I didn’t really understand who this brown eagle was and the sounds and faces floating around me were totally incomprehensible.

We soon arrived at our apartment in New York, the place I was to call home. The only sounds I can remember from that moment were the last remnants of my crying pleas to be returned back to “Papa,” my grandfather. My noise was enveloped by a cold, wintry silence that someone born and reared in tropical Haiti had yet to encounter. There were no aunts scurrying about exchanging stories about boys. There was no yard where people could convene to swap stories as they roasted corn or sweet potatoes. There were no animals, chickens in particular, milling about on the periphery. It was just me, my mom, and my dad amidst a gaggle of closed doors.

They lived in a one-and-a-half-bedroom apartment that had a vestibule to the side that was to serve as my room. The vestibule had its own door, a little closet, and a bed with a few toys scattered on top—including a stuffed dog that I would go on to call “doggie” just like every dog we ever had in Haiti.

This being the first time my parents were putting their son to bed—surrounding him with all these riches, in the home they had been working for the past five years to put together—I’m sure they weren’t prepared for my response. I was scared by the combination of darkness, solitude, and silence that took over my imagination as soon as my mom and dad kissed me and closed the door (something which I’m sure they had learned to do from the television shows they were fond of watching). So I wailed like an elephant that had just been speared.

My dad immediately came back into the room and tried to comfort me. I remember him sitting on the side of the bed and rubbing my stomach as he told me that everything was going to be alright. He had this smile on his face that indicated that he was laughing not only at me, but at himself and my mom for their naïveté. It was his way of wiping away the tears. When I appeared to have calmed down, he got up and, this time, left the door open but again turned off the light.

Before he could make it back to his room, I was already crying again and screaming for “Papa.” Thinking that I was calling for him, Dad came back into the room, but I just kept on screaming. He tried reassuring me that he was there, but my father didn’t get it. He wasn’t my “Papa.” And the more he tried to make me believe that he was, the more I cried.

He took me out into the living room and turned on the lights. First he went to the stove to start warming up some milk. Unaware that it was too hot to drink right away, I took a sip and burned my tongue. Dad thought this was funny and laughed at me as he tried to console me to keep me from crying. After the milk had cooled down, I took a gulp again, but a leathery film had settled on top of the milk, and that made my stomach turn. My fear was quickly being compounded by an upset stomach.

Leaving the table, Dad strolled from the kitchen area to the living room and crouched down in front of the shiny gray contraption nestled in the corner of the living room between the worn navy blue sofa and matching recliner. As he sat in front of the shiny contraption, he stroked the fuzz brimming across his chin. I tried my best from where I was sitting in the kitchen to figure out exactly what he was doing, what this contraption he was surveying was.

After a few moments of crouching, he seemed to have found what he was looking for and removed this object from the bowels of the contraption. It was a big flat square, about the size of his abdomen. He looked it over, spinning it top over bottom in his hands to get a look at its underside. It must have met with his approval because he stood up and pulled out a shiny black disc that glistened like caviar shells and proceeded to blow on it. Reaching down ever slightly, he flicked a button on the machine, drawing a sound out of the two brown columns that sat beside it—boof. Carefully, he lifted the hood of the contraption and placed the disc underneath a silver branch that had a point at the end. Then he reached his arm down, touching the front of the apparatus again, and gradually the twin columns began emitting more familiar sounds.

The silence in the room was vanquished by a series of trumpet blasts and a sinewy series of bass guitar chords. The musician whose voice was being broadcast through the columns welcomed everyone to the party and told them that tonight was going to be great. A special plea was made to the men to take their woman and advance to the dance floor with her before someone else did. Upon hearing this, Dad chuckled and began to limber his body to the pulse of the sounds.

His body wasn’t the only thing beginning to loosen up; little by little, I felt myself being transported back home on the wings of this konpa, the musical form developed in Haiti that incorporates elements of other Caribbean sounds, including merengue, salsa, and zouk. This bit of konpa was like sweetbread, and my stomach and soul took to the treat. For the first time since I’d arrived, this place felt a little like home.

My mother must have recognized the sounds as well because she was drawn out of her room. She smiled as she brushed the slumber out of her eyes. When she realized that she had my attention, she sashayed over to my dad and told me to watch because I would have to do this with my wife one day. My dad’s long arms made their way across my mother’s back as they danced around the room in perfect time with the song. I watched and gradually began to smile. During one of their turns, my mom caught a glimpse of me smiling and she motioned for my dad to look at me. A few more turns and she sashayed over to me, her hands well out in front of her, so that they would reach me long before she did. She pulled me away from the table and the three of us danced together, my mom on my left side holding my left arm, and my dad doing the same on my right. I remember staring up and looking at these grown-ups and watching them being reborn as my parents, for the first time feeling as if we were family.

The combination of laughter and music sealed my relationship with my folks that night. I wish I could give you the name of the exact artist and song my dad played that evening, but I can only relate the feelings my heart and mind imbibed. What matters most is that the sounds that filled the room made my parents happy, and I let myself get swept up in their glee. To this day, Haitian artists such as Tabou Combo, Ska-Shah, System Band, and Coupé Cloué hold a special place in my heart, much the same way that artists and bands like Earth, Wind & Fire, the O’Jays, the Whispers, and Curtis Mayfield have a strong hold on the imaginations of my peers born and bred in the United States. Many of my peers would eventually be able to go back to these artists by finding echoes of their voices in hip-hop samples, whereas my relationship with konpa—like my relationship with my parents—would grow blurry the more “American” I became.

I’m glad I haven’t lost the sense of wonder that swept over me the first time I saw my dad turn on his stereo. Even as I grew older, I still continued to be amazed when he went to turn on the stereo; he appeared to drift off to an enchanted island as he closed his eyes, drew his lips into a smile, put his right hand over his belly, his left one suspended in the air, and started to dance. After doing a few turns across the living room, he would either go into the kitchen and regale my mom with a story about Haiti or call a friend to talk about the days when they were young studs roaming the streets of Pétion-Ville.

Nothing ever seemed to bother my dad. He was often silent, seemingly introspective, sitting in the living room with his long legs extending far beyond the front of the couch, and his pants unbuckled to liberate the paunch that was becoming too much for his trousers to contain.

Regardless of whether I was studying in the next room or even asleep, he would still play his music loud—often inciting the neighbors to complain. It was loud enough for him and my mom to hear it in their room on the other side of the apartment with the door closed. Back then I never gave a second thought to what might be going on in their room during these retreats because, well, I didn’t have a second thought to give. Since my brother was born a year after I came to the States, I eventually realized they were dancing indeed. Horizontally.

Years later, when my parents had long stopped retreating to their room to “listen to music,” my dad would still sometimes turn the music up and go to his room, but he would simply fall asleep, leaving it to my mother to turn off the stereo when she was ready.

Since she was always doing one form of housework or another, having the radio on was a soothing accompaniment for her. The radio generally stayed on for most of the day, and if I needed to have some quiet in order to concentrate, I would have to turn off the stereo myself.

The first time I turned off the stereo I was about seven years old. I made sure to lower the volume knob, and returning the record that had been on the turntable back into its sleeve, I felt powerful, as if I had undergone a rite of passage. That first time, as my dad floated off into slumber and my mom hummed-sang a tune in the bathroom as she washed her uniforms for the upcoming week, I felt as if I had taken another step toward becoming a man.

The other sound I came to love soon after my move was my mother’s voice. Whether she was washing dishes or scrubbing one of her uniforms, once she recognized a tune on the stereo, she sang along. Sometimes she sang a song word for word, but more often there was a bit of singing interspersed with long stretches of humming. And there were times where she just made up her own words.

Her singing was undoubtedly the best type of music in the house. Whenever she sang, it felt as if we were all being given a reprieve from whatever ills were afflicting us. Her feathery alto had the strength to drive any talk of bills, work, or other disenchanting topics out of the house. Unlike the blaring sounds and machismo posture of heavy metal and rap music, or the übertailored images of Black boy bands that I eventually imported into the house, my mom’s singing voice held no traces of aggression or cosmetic enhancement. Her voice was pure in the sense that it never called attention to itself; no one ever asked my mom to sing, but she somehow found her way to singing. It was another form of expression for her, a way to convey feelings, memories, and ideas that needed a medium other than regular conversation or speech. Indeed there was often sorrow in her spirit sounds, but aggression? Never. Her singing seemed to be telling me that the male artists I was bringing into the house might be able to teach me how to dance or walk, but she alone could teach me how to fly.

Her voice could carry my father to Haiti and transform him into the young man she thought so fondly of, perpetually reintroducing him to the young woman he had fallen so deeply in love with.

My mom also had the ability to transport me to hysteria whenever she tried belting out the latest Lionel Richie or Michael Jackson song. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard a woman with a deep Kreyol accent singing “Beat It.” Sometimes I would run in from a baseball game in the parking lot to use the bathroom or get a bite to eat and would find Mom in the bathroom, washing her uniforms in the sink, her knees slightly bent, head down and moving side to side trying to keep time with the hands that were dutifully engaged in their labor. As she washed, she shimmied from side to side singing “Beat it, beat it . . . tatoodoo, too, doodooo, toooot . . . Meb bop, pop pop pop, pop . . . Beat it! Beat it!” For her, the beat and the lyrics were one. Not a word of it made sense to anyone else, but it was worth seeing the joy her singing brought to her face.

Mom mashed up “Beat It” like it was a garlic clove in the bowl of her mortar. However, for a song like “Easy Goin’ Evening,” she was bound to be gentler. When this song came on she’d hum it as Stevie wrote it. If she was particularly moved or troubled by the never-still waters of Black womanhood, she’d conjure up poignant Kreyol lyrics to go along with the song. During these moments Mom sounded like a Haitian Mahalia Jackson appealing for “Jesus Christ to kenbe mwen [Jesus Christ hold me].” Often such appeals were offered as she baked chicken, fried plantains, cooked red beans and rice, and kept her eyes on the gravy in a kitchen that seemed on the verge of melting under the weight of all this activity in the July heat, all the while keeping her eye on the clock to make sure that she had enough time to get ready for “work.” Easy going evenings were as rare for Mom as the musical acumen needed to compose a song such as “Easy Goin’ Evening” and the rest of the Songs in the Key of Life.

On “Easy Goin’ Evening,” Stevie honors the legacy of all mothers with four minutes of subtle elegance, just like my mom honored her own mother’s life by wearing at least one article of black clothing—even wearing a black t-shirt underneath her nurse’s uniform—for seven years after her mother passed away. It was her way of paying her dearest respects to the woman who had brought her into the world. After seven years, her sartorial elegy complete, she started wearing bright colors again: orange linen skirts, red shoes when she and my dad went dancing, and her pink robe, which replaced the black one that had become a morning staple. Mom’s seven years of wearing black is like the verse-less “Easy Goin’ Evening” because both reveal an affinity for tradition and their power lies in what is not said.

By Any Means [Unecessary]

2007-06-04T19:49:00.001-04:00

During a recent news report about the Guyanese men arrested on "suspicions" of conspiring in a terrorist plot to detonate John F. Kennedy airport in New York the broadcaster mentioned that the FBI has reported that "homegrown terrorism" was receiving a boost in African American communities because of the teachings of Malcolm X. If I had been watching Fox News or the Colbert Report I would not have given a second thought to the matter-of-fact delivery of this statement. It makes sense that Bill O'Reilly for example might jump on a soundbite like this because it presents a unique opportunity to tackle one of the icons of the radical left, and more specifically a black political leader whose legacy liberal whites arguably have to reconcile on their own right. On the other hand, Stephen Colbert limns out statements like this in order to point out peculiar facts such as Malcolm X has been dead for over forty years, and at the time of his death he was reviled by "black Muslims" in the Nation of Islam and there have always been subtle rifts between African American Muslims and those from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Therefore, to say that "the teachings of Malcolm X" are suddenly inciting Islamic fundamentalists in the United States is akin to saying, the US economy is threatened by the resurgence of John Reed Clubs on college campuses throughout the country.

This is not too suggest that Malcolm X bears an irrelevant/impotent political legacy, I actually believe quite the contrary. Still, I am rather suspicious of any accusations that "his teachings" are inciting insurgents in African American communities. I will gladly accept that poverty, the expansion of the prison industrial complex, police brutality, and even hip hop is spurring dissident activities in the US at this time, but not the teachings of Malcolm X.

But does the FBI seriously believe that there are radical sects in Brownsville, South Central LA, the 9th ward or the south side of Chicago reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and plotting to blow up the world? If they do, we are in more trouble than we thought, because not only do I believe that the FBI believes this, but also because there are stations like B.E.T. reporting this without any second thought.

Seriously, why is that we can be inundated with hours of conversation dissecting the word "nigger," or "ho," its usage by rappers and other members of the African American community, but the insinuation that Malcolm X's writing is inspiring terrorists is presented so matter of factly. Secondly, why does the 60s generation get all the credit for trying to upend the political system in this country while those in their 30s and 40s like myself are presented as flip flopping followers of the generation that preceded us, and too scared of the generation that came afterwards to offer anything relevant?

By suggesting that the "teachings of Malcolm X" are suddenly causing African Americans of any religious persuasion to rise up, the FBI and anyone in the media disseminating this information is misinforming the public in order to evade discussions of the issues currently facing African Americans. Exhuming the legacy of Malcolm X brings to the fore a controversial African American political figure at a time when other enemies of the state such as Al Sharpton and rappers continue recreating themselves as either affable political commentators (a la Sharpton), or marketable icons like many of today's rap artists. Without any other option on how to combat "homegrown terrorism," because after all creating jobs and stalling police brutality wouldn't help, the FBI proves that if anyone has bought into Malcolm X's teachings, they definitely have, and by any means necessary, they are continuing to misinform the public.

The Nightshift Chronicler

Slow Down Heart

2007-05-29T13:59:00.000-04:00

Slow Down Heart
Michael A. Gonzales
copyright © 2007

In the fall of 1965, when Dawn Rodgers was fifteen years old, the sleek boogie of Motown music had been as vital to her existence as blood and water. Living in a regal Harlem building on a 116th Street and 8th Avenue, Dawn had converted her bedroom into a soulful shrine of her favorite singers: countless seven-inch 45s were sprawled on the carpeted floor, and Ebony magazine pictures of Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Little Stevie Wonder and The Supremes hung on the white wall.

Across the room, on top of an antique dresser, was the blue record player that had been a Christmas gift from Dawn’s father before his sudden death from a heart attack two years ago.

When she first unwrapped the present, it reminded her of a magical, aqua hued jewel box. With its mono-speaker and hard cover, the record player was her most prized possession.

On the weekend, Dawn and her lanky girlfriend Barbara Jean played the records repeatedly, dancing like American Bandstand regulars as their wavy press combed hair flipped.

As Barbara Jean belted “ooohhs and aaahhs” in the background, Dawn grabbed a broomstick from closet and strained her vocal chords singing lead on “Baby Love,” “Tracks of My Tears,” “Where Did Our Love Go” and other soon to be classic tracks.

Yet, since buying the sweet swoon of “My Girl” from Shadow’s Record Store-the first record Dawn had bought-the sweet song held a special place in her heart. As Barbara’s charm bracelets jiggled, Dawn perfectly pantomimed those silky moves.

For the rest of the story go to...
http://blackadelicpop.blogspot.com

Youth Uprising

2007-05-18T18:26:00.001-04:00

The Nightshift Chronicler had the pleasure of trailing along with author Ferentz Lafargue on his stop at Oakland's Youth Uprising. Lafargue, in town promoting his memoir Songs in the Key of My Life, visited the organization to conduct a creative-writing workshop with some of the young people in the organization's media arts program.

Youth Uprising is a Bay Area seeded youth service and development organization that delivers programming for 2500 young adults between the ages of 13 - 24 in the Oakland area. Their programs range from film and music production, to career enhancement, to peer mentoring, all of which are housed in their immaculate center. The program's mission is to be "a leader in the advancement of youth leadership development as a means of affecting positive community change by ensuring that youth and young adults are supported in actualizing their potential"

Lafargue's workshop started off slowly as the author sought to find his bearings in front of these tech-savvy youth. Finding his nook in a shared appreciation for music, Lafargue drew those in attendance into the activities by asking the attendees about their favorite songs and artists. Selections brought up were varied as expected--except with the surprise that three of the male students selected Tupac's "Dear Mama" as one of the most influential songs in their lives. The testimonies delivered by the participants were moving and often drew long pauses from Lafargue as he sought to compose himself and get back into the role of facilitator.

As he milled around the center after the workshop, Lafargue had this to say about his experience at Youth Uprising:

I've done a number of these since publishing Songs, and each time I learn so much from the students. Each time I am surprised by what they bring to these workshops. In fact I am having to consider what precisely I am doing in these conversations, what am I really offering, because of how deeply affected I am after doing each of these sessions. What was striking about this group at Youth Uprising is how passionately the students were making use of the space. They respect each other and earnestly cherish the opportunities afforded through this program. I could tell that as many of them were sitting there they were chomping at the bit to get back to their own work. It's inspiring to see such a band of youth committed artisans in their studio.

Lafargue hopes to continue engaging young people long after his tour, or as he says, "as long as I can make a contribution."

The Nightshift Chronicler

Hip Hop Literati

2007-05-18T17:30:00.000-04:00

On May 13th, The Nightshift Chronicler had the privilege of attending The Hip Hop Literati reading curated by Adam Mansbach at La Pena in Berkeley California. Mansbach, author of Shackling Water and Angry Black White Boy curated this evening as part of the Hip Hop Theater Festival currently happening in the Bay Area. The evening toasted the work of writers such as Jeff Chang, who read from a forthcoming memoir, co-author of Grub and renaissance man Bryant Terry, spoken word luminaries Chinaka Hodge, Tomas Riley, Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai and George Watsky, as well as American Book Award winning poet, Matthew Shenoda.

I am still waiting on pictures from this event to share with everyone because the murderow's line-up was as good as advertised. Everything from Watsky's duel with the infamous "Mc Hardcore," to Chang's poignant reflections of life in Hawaii, to Tsai's searing meditation on the ramifications of falling in love with an artist. Riley also neatly captured this author's imagination with his heartfelt rendering of a lotto line bearing a boatloads of San Francisco's proletariats assembled under a mango manicured telephone pole.

Mansbach's offering from his forthcoming novel, The End of the Jews, was layered with a piquant wit and manipulation of the languages of coming of age in a Black and Jewish world worthy of invoking comparisons to Roth's Goodbye Columbus and Beatty's White Boy Shuffle, Mansbach's book is sure to captivate readers.

Terry began the evening discussing his work since Grub and desire to take the words off the page and toward pronounced action by readers and citizens committed to making healthier food and lifestyle choices. A living representation of anti-nihilistic impulses of the 70s baby hip hop generation, Terry walked the audience through a conversation about food justice and options for sustainable development on a local level.

The evening concluded with Songs in the Key of My Life author Ferentz Lafargue reflecting on Stevie Wonder's masterful tribute to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in the song "Happy Birthday." After recanting a story from his book about hearing Wonder perform this live in South Africa at a conference in honor of Nelson Mandela, Lafargue led the crowd in a rendition of "Happy Birthday," for Stevie Wonder and two audience members celebrating birthdays on May 13th.

En fin the six score in attendance to see this coterie of writers experienced a savory blend of art and activism, testimony and critique, and some dope beats courtesy of the Bay Area's own DJ Max Champ.

The Nightshift Chronicler

Black Panthers, Basquait, and more

2007-05-16T10:54:00.000-04:00

Sloth normally prevents me from going further than circling gallery shows I should go see in Time Out or the New Yorker, and then, two weeks later thinking, Whoops! Guess that's closed now. But now that my semester is over and the sun is shining, I managed to shake off my torpor long enough to see four great shows currently up in Chelsea ...

Something is Happening in Haiti

2007-05-06T07:34:00.000-04:00

Breaking News: Something Happening In Haiti

Courtesy of SheRealCool

2007-05-05T21:50:00.000-04:00

There's no other way to put this, but I miss Arrested Development. Part of it is nostalgia, and part of it is prompted by seeing a quartet resembling them perform last week. 1992's 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life Of... still holds up really well and they had a great stage show.

I really don't have much else to say, except I miss Arrested Development....

She’s Stooping to Conquer

2007-04-12T11:55:00.000-04:00

She’s Stooping to Conquer

Every once in a while you’ll hear a stand up comic crack a joke about reading Playboy magazine for the articles. As with all jokes, its irreverence relies on the imagined possibility, in this case a person flipping past the nude beauties in order to read articles like this 1965 profile on Martin Luther King Jr. Playboy editors have always incorporated fascinating profiles and recruited notable writers to make a case that the magazine provides its readers with more than naked women, but also provocative commentary on the world in which we live.

That said, many people also do not read the magazine because it is populated by images of naked women. Some believe that these images are pornographic, and if not that, then they commodify women’s bodies. These two arguments are grounded in the belief that the pictures represented are not art…

I bring this up because I find myself facing this dilemma now that one of my favorite bloggers, JB of She Real Cool, has started blogging at KING magazine. KING is a lad magazine in the vein of Maxim and FHM geared toward African American men, or lovers of the Afro American woman’s body. JB has an undaunted critical eye and an ever evolving engagement with jazz and poetry. In other words she’s someone who’s judgment I trust, and trust enough to read wherever her words might take her.

Which brings me to my dilemma: now that she’s writing at KING, do I, can I, should I, just read the articles? Do I disregard the alluring images of women captured beneath the headlines, “Bad Seed,” “Class Act,” or “Double Team,” as I read one of JB’s latest musings? What if I were to do so while at work and of my students were to walk in, wouldn’t it just confer some of their suspicions that my gender analysis may not be as acute as theirs?

These questions, or rather this quandary interests me because it sounds like the one gripping rap fans torn between the beats and rhymes, a conflict, that these days is only really important because we have allowed it to fester long enough. Indeed, it’s one that should have been done away with years ago, much the same way that the doo-wop, be-bop, blues and early African American rock n roll musicians helped do away with minstrelsy, thereby paving the way for the glorious harmonies of the sixties and seventies that people often wax nostalgic. Of course this did not stop blaxploitation or the emergence of an ethically irresponsible commercial music industry, but it did provide us with a half-century of glorious music.

Writers have never been divorced from this conflict either as practictioners or citizens in the culture industry. A writer’s life and writing often involves breeding intimate relationships between sinners and the saved, vices and those who have fallen prey to them, and of course conflict and content. The content needs conflict to be good and great writers like all great artists exude conflict from their pores.

If this sounds like trivial rambling, I encourage you to ponder this, what must it feel like being an anti-misogynist at a lad magazine. She Stoops to Conquer, JB’s blog at KING functions as the antithesis to everything the magazine represents. JB operates as part writer, part ombudsman, and part conscientious objector---in other words the conflicted content.

The Nightshift Chronicler

Don Imus Must be Fired

2007-04-11T09:18:00.001-04:00

Don Imus must be fired. We should all honor freedom of speech, but freedom of speech does not condone insensitive and seemingly incorrigible comments. Freedom of speech should not protect Don Imus in this situation because if he retains his job, we face a greater risk, the declining significance of the apology in America.

Ok, in all honestly, public apologies really do not mean anything. Let me take back that last comment because if we look at the litany of public figures who have offered apologies over the last twelve months,George Allen, Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, and Isaiah Washington have all offered for derogatory remarks that they made in public., we see that these apologies rarely really a sincere conviction to changing. This makes sense because in a homophobic, misogynist and racist society, virtually everyone will at some point trip and make an offending comment. However, the fact that we are inevitable to make mistakes does not mean that we should not face the consequences.

Thus far, Imus has been suspended two weeks for calling members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team “Nappy headed hos.” In an era where media outlets repeatedly push compromising pictures of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Tara Reid one understands where Imus finds the precedent for his disregard for women. The lives of these young white starlets is often presented as a never-ending episode of “Girls Gone Wild” on the entertainment news programs and tabloids.

However, these women are young, white, extremely wealthy, and there is clearly an industry invested in their exploits. There is no comparable coterie of young black women and clearly no one is interested in the exploits of young black women—no—B.E.T. does not count because it’s often the male rappers and r&b heartthrobs that drive that machine.

In most cities women college athletes are often minor stories with the majority of the attention going to their male peers. The success of women’s college basketball teams at the University of Tennessee, Connecticut—and—Rutgers over the past two decades has indicated that women’s athletics have the ability to anchor a universities athletic department. C. Vivian Stringer’s team at Rutgers has done the most impressive job in this arena because unlike her peers at Tennessee and Connecticut, her team has kept that athletic department afloat without a national powerhouse in either men’s basketball or football.

Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, another woman coach, a white woman coach, has been the only member of the holy trinity of college basketball coaches extending her support for Imus’s firing. Summitt arguably realizes that Imus’s comments disparaged her team members as well, and just as importantly, it is unlikely that Imus would have made these comments about members of Geno Auriemma’s team at UConn. Imus would have surely found more subtle ways of disparaging the white male Auriemma’s athletes, if at all.

As you could have guessed Stringer is the lone African American woman coach in this trinity. What does that matter you ask? Imus wasn’t calling her a “nappy headed ho.”

Oh he was, he may not have thought he was, or rather he thought he wouldn’t get caught doing it, but he was calling C. Vivian Stringer a nappy headed ho. It’s not his fault, someone had to do it, she was too big for her britches, Rutgers couldn’t go on being a school known for women’s basketball. Rutgers’ football team had finally come alive this year and awakened to national prominence under head coach Greg Schiano, the man who turned down a job offer at the vaunted University of Miami this year to remain at Rutgers.

No, I’m not implying that Schiano or anyone else at or affiliated with Rutgers put Imus up to making his racist and misogynist comments.

What I am clearly saying is that a week after playing in the women’s national championship game C. C. Vivian Stringer has to defend her players who were assaulted as “nappy headed hos.” Weeks after their bowl game appearance the members of the Rutgers men’s football team were still being feted at NBA games and award dinners. Their white male coach did not have to defend the integrity of his players because no one dared to challenge his own integrity. He had made history and was treated as such.

At a point in time when she should be hosting boosters, raising more funding for her team and the athletic department that she has helped keep afloat, C. Vivian Stringer has to spend her time holding press conferences answering back to disparaging comments made against her team, and arguably herself. Knowing that he couldn’t call C. Vivian Stringer “a nappy headed ho,” to put her in her place, Imus instead chose to attack her players because that would have the same effect.

Don Imus should be fired because by calling the members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos” he defamed the team and their coach. He should be fired because his actions have undermined the success of one of the most respected women in her profession, and a public institution’s revival. Don Imus’s comments have initiated a racist and sexist maelstrom that in any other workplace are grounds for dismissal.

He doesn’t work at Rutgers you say. Correct, Don Imus, does not work at Rutgers. However, he does work at a public forum which implies that he works everywhere. He’s the voice of listener’s everywhere, and his firing is an apt sign that calling African American women “nappy headed hos” is not permitted anywhere.

Al Gore and Mos Def

2007-04-08T09:59:00.000-04:00

Artist on Aritst: Al Gore and Mos Def

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The Raging Bull

2007-04-01T11:53:00.000-04:00

While I can not prove this, I have a hunch that Maurice Clarett is laughing as he watches Ohio State's resurrection to national prominence in basketball. Most media outlets carelessly present Clarett as a thug or a pariah without ever acknowledging that not only was his decision to challenge the NFL's early entry rules legitimate, but when compared alongside what occurs every year in college basketball, it's downright sacrilegious that Clarett's case was overturned. Throughout this entire NCAA basketball season analysts have fawned over "one and done" NBA prospects Kevin Durant and Greg Oden. Many commentators speak of Oden and Durant as if they already have their NBA contracts lined up and there was a recent article pointing out that this was the better year for Durant to turn pro because if he waits until next year, he will have to compete with other stars in the making OJ Mayo and Derrick Rose, both of whom are currently high school seniors, for lucrative sneaker contracts once they've done their year of college service during the 2007-08 NCAA season.

As their basketball peers run off to the professional ranks college football phenoms must compete until either their junior or sophomore years in order to qualify for the NFL. The difference between spending one year in college versus two years may seem trivial to most people, but for star athletes like Adrian Peterson, Ted Ginn Jr., and Michael Bush, three football players who have had to work their way back from major injuries and reassure NFL scouts that they're worthwhile draft prospects, that extra year sometimes means playing in the NFL or tearing your ACL.

Although, it's not just the double standard that applies to college basketball players that I think has Clarett smiling and shaking his head, because after all the basketball players are still pawns in the same NCAA monopoly. Clarett isn't the only oracle who sees through the duplicitous nature of big-time college sports. He's the one to have been most prominently publicly undressed by his bid to challenge the NCAA corporation which treats athletes like property, chattel even, particularly when you hear broadcasters calling football and basketball players "thoroughbreds," "beasts," "horse," or "animal."

The most fascinating thing about this current NCAA tournament is how Tubby Smith's decision to leave Kentucky has caused such an upheaval in the coaching ranks. From the moment he went left college basketball analysts on ESPN have been besides themselves with glee over the potential coaching changes and insider information about how other coaches will use Smith's departure to siphon raises from their universities. This morning it was reported on ESPN's The Sports Reporters that Kentucky is supposedly considering offering Florida basketball coach Billy Donovan 4million per year to become their head basketball coach.

To put it in realistic context, that's the equivalent of IBM paying someone 4million dollars a year to run one of their internship programs. The fact that IBM would not do that even if the interns were the top programmers at MIT, Caltech and Stanford speaks volumes to the absurd and unwieldly salaries currently tended to high profile college coaches. It continues to amaze me that boosters, college presidents and athletic directors fail to realize that coaches at smaller colleges are doing the same job for much less, and the high school coaches from whom they inherited these young men, are doing it for even less. There is no rationale explanation for why two of the most non-nba coaches in the last thirty years are being so far outpaced by their collegiate peers in terms of salary. Dematha High's Morgan Wootten and St. Anthony's Bobby Hurley Sr. have been two of the best basketball coaches at the high school level in the last 30 years and neither of them command salaries that are even close to being on par with what their (sometimes lesser talented) collegiate peers make.

When Donovan's alleged Kentucky offer was raised during the Sports Reporters conversation, the response by one of the guests was "there's no way that Florida is going to pay Donovan more than 4million because Urban Meyer only makes 2.5. million."

Urban Meyer is the coach of Florida's football team, the same team that beat the Ohio State team, which if he had stayed in school for four years, Maurice Clarett would have been starring for. He would have been playing alongside classmates Troy Smith and Ted Ginn Jr., well at least alongside Smith, because Ginn injured broke his ankle on the first play of the title game, an injury that dealt a fatal blow to OSU's title hopes and a minor blow to Ginn's NFL prospects.

As this drama plays out Maurice Clarett sits awaiting trial. He's on no one's draft list for the upcoming NFL draft and has been eclipsed by Smith, Ginn Jr, Oden and Mike Conley as OSU's favorite sons. Clarett on the other hand exists as a tragic lesson about what "greed" and looking out for "your own best interests," or daring to "challenge the system" can do to a young man. And while Florida and OSU's basketball thoroughbreds get ready for their tilt on Monday night, Clarett is the raging bull who has been securely locked his pen--for whom there will be no breakout game.

The Nightshift Chronicler

Bling: Planet Rock

2007-04-01T01:34:00.000-04:00

I attended a screening of Raquel Cepeda's documentary "Bling: Planet Rock" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last night. It was part of the Creatively Speaking film series curated by Michelle Materre spotlighting films that "convey a realistic universal portrayal of people of color." "Bling" recounts the experience of rappers Raekwon, Paul Wall and Tego Calderon as they travel to Sierra Leone to learn about that nation's diamond trade and the violent war that it spurred in the 90s-2001. These rappers were invited by Cepeda who was already in the process of developing this documentary exploring the broader relationships between violence and bling in the United States and war and diamonds in Sierra Leone. Cepeda's documentary hinges on the keen connection between the ostentatious buying habits of rappers and Sierra Leone's alternative narrative of violence and struggle. In other words, if American rappers are often talking about war and suffering what happens if they are brought face to face with members of a society who have been ravaged by one of the deadliest civil-wars in recent memory.

"Bling" has many elements working in its favor, not the least of which is the incredibly charasmatic Raekwon. Without the presence of his more gregarious Wu-Tang brethren Method Man or the late ODB, Raekwon, aka Raekwon the Chef, has a forum to exhibit an extroverted persona that some might find as a departure from mello Wu-Tang manner. He emerges as the lightning rod to which the camera remains fixated as the rappers make their way through Sierra Leone. Raekwon is at times silly and sullen, seemingly negligent, vulnerable and undoubtedly touched by what he witnesses.

Paul Wall and Tego Calderon operate on two different realms. Wall plays the dual role of artist and jewelry store owner. This latter career enables him to capitalize on rapper's cultish affinity for diamonds in very tangible ways that eclipse the everyman attitude he strives to relay. Calderon on the other hand is intimately connected to his African roots--declaring in one of the films more profound moments, "I didn't go to school but I did go to Africa." He does not play the part of naive actor in this film. Instead throughout the documentary Calderon maintains a conscientious demeanor that gives it a much needed bout of gravity.
Further grounding the film is the presence of former child soldier Ishmael Bael who makes his first trip back to Sierra Leone during the filming of this documentary. Bael fills in the gaps that rappers by no means could and gives Cepeda an eloquent authorial voice through which to relay the factual/historical background of life and conflict in the country. Bael receives support in this task from current residents of Sierra Leone who survived the war and who work in various rehabilative shelters serving various segments of the nation's population. These survivors range from women who were raped to the former child soldiers.

While there are still a number of issues that need further analysis, not the least of which is the plight of women survivors, and the post-war relationships between men and women, the film is a notable accomplishment for helping to bring forward the complex relationships between art and capital in these very different yet interconnected societies. It is a production well worth seeing.

As mentioned earlier the screening was part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Creatively Speaking film series curated by Michelle Materre. The series continues on April 1st 2007 with a line-up of films focusing on women directors and films homing in on the plights and stories of women in the African diaspora. A full schedule can be found here....

The Nightshift Chronicler

Two Voices on Obama

2007-03-09T10:21:00.000-05:00

Nightshift Contributors Kamau B and D-Nice recently chimed in on the Barack questions.

Kamau B begins a series of Obama posts on his blog with the following:

For Blacks, Blasting Barack a Myopic Mistake

Black Americans are cool, at best, in their support of Senator Barack Obama. Central to that lack of enthusiasm is the criticism that he is not really black in the specific African American sense of the term. It is repeatedly noted that his father is Kenyan, his mother is white, he did not grow up in the United States and he was not outraged by Senator Biden’s simple remarks; therefore, he cannot intimately relate to the legacy and identity of the black American....Read more

Writing for Color Lines Magazine, Dorian Warren-aka-D-Nice offers the following:

Rainbow Redux
By Dorian Warren

I never thought I’d think or say this: I miss Jesse. With all the distracting hubbub about Barack Obama’s blackness, I’ve been missing the Reverend’s voice. Where is Jesse Jackson and why is he M.I.A.?

It’s hard for me to think about Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s campaign for presidency without immediately contrasting it with Rev. Jackson’s two runs for the Democratic nomination in 1984 and 1988. We’ve gone from “Keep Hope Alive” to “the Audacity of Hope”, from the “Rainbow Coalition” to “There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America..." Read More

A Postmodern Porgy and Bess?

2007-03-08T14:43:00.000-05:00

A Postmodern Porgy and Bess?
By T.N.

Now that Jennifer Hudson safely got the Oscar and had her day, I can finally voice my reservations about Dreamgirls and that song.

Firstly, as Jennifer Holliday explains in a recent interview, that song basically ruined her career. She was more or less Effie herself when was cast in the role, which she played a significant part in expanding into both acts of the musical (originally, that song was meant to be her swan song). Just a teenager, whose talent and ambition got her basically used and dumped by show business. It was pretty desperate and ungracious to sing it Oscar night from a neighboring roof-top, but basically, whose to tell her she hasn't the right? The song both made and ruined her career.

As for the song itself...Read More at Blue Gum

Black History Month

2007-02-28T10:21:00.001-05:00

Black History Month?

As a person who’s been in school all his life Black History Month, which draws to a close today, has always been a peculiar time for me. In elementary school, it meant teachers taking time away from Social Studies class to instruct us about Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. In junior high school, it meant history teachers taking time to discuss Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. And in high school, it meant history teachers…you get the point. Harriet Tubman and Phyliss Wheatley were thrown in there somewhere, and at some point, some teacher filled us in with this “neat” bit of trivia, Carter G. Woodson started Black History Week.

Later on in life, McDonalds and other conglomerates really got in the mix and offered Black History Month Calendars, or other promotional materials bearing the face of Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Douglass. It eventually got to the point where by mid-January I’d see posters advertising Black History Month in stores in my neighborhood and on campus. Black History Month was the time for public television stations to introduce new documentaries, and television shows to premiere their sentimental tales about notable African American firsts or obscure sports and entertainment figures. February was also the month for my friends to joke about “why did we get the shortest month of the year?” or declare that “every month should be black history month.”

However, this year, I could honestly say I did not have a black history month. For the first time since I lived in Haiti I did not attend one event that was specifically designated a Black History Month event. I did not get a free Black History Month gift with my “Value Meal Purchase,” nor did I learn about someone recently uncovered by 20/20 or ESPN. No one came up to me this month and said, “I just saw [insert either Michael Eric Dyson or Cornel West] give a talk, what do you think of him?”

This was not intentional at all and I actually attended other gatherings focusing on the contributions made by Blacks to history, but which for reasons that I do not know the intricacies of, were not promoted as Black history programs.

I haven’t figured out whether to be incensed or indifferent about this occurrence. Should I be concerned or consider it an anomaly? If the djembe drummers tap Black History month in the forest and I’m not there to hear it, is it still Black History Month?

Then again, maybe I’m the only one experiencing this absence.

Spike Lee is 50!

2007-02-26T09:41:00.000-05:00

While reading Black Enterprise the other day I saw something that took me by surprise. Spike Lee is 50. BE’s special entertainment issue did a profile on Mr. Shelton J. Lee who’s better known as Spike Lee, and guess what, Spike Lee is 50 years old—or at least he will be on March 20^th.

But since I’m a proponent of the New Afrikan birthday system, he’s already 50.

Let that marinate for a second, Spike Lee is 50.

So what you say?

A friend of mine Phil likes to tell this story about when Lee’s movies first appeared in the 80s they were like rock concerts, or rather rap concerts, because previously white movie theatre lines were now teeming with young black moviegoers. When She’s Gotta Have it came out in 1986 The Beastie Boys had people rocking out with Licensed to Ill, we were swooning under Anita Baker’s Rapture, Run DMC was instigating us into Raising Hell, and the Notorious one was Duran Duran not B.I.G.

Public Enemy, the rap group, who Lee was often associated with earlier in his career were signing their first Def Jam contract back in 1986. Now as Chuck D tours college campuses and Flava Flav blurs the line between reality and minstrelsy, Spike Lee instructs us about what really happened with the Levees.

Spike Lee is 50?

As rappers beef between being 80s or 70s babies, make videos about chicken soupin’ it, makin’ it rain, walkin it out, or showcasing how they can get buxom black women to poke it out, Spike Lee turns 50, gives credence to the idea that getting older with dignity beats out fanning the flames of one’s status as a celebrity.

He doesn’t own the Nets or the Knicks, he’s just 50.

Another anecdote: last spring a student in one of my classes was doing a paper on School Daze. Usually when students come into my office to discuss their research papers, I’m good for throwing out a couple of selected readings off the dome. However this time, nothing was coming up. In fact, I had to work to submerge a few smirks and giggles as I thought of the countless hours, dorm rooms, coffee shops, couches and bottles of wine I’ve exhausted with friends over the past twenty years talking that film. These conversations are not documented anywhere else but in fond memories and broken hearts. Spike Lee is 50?

Oh Lee’s films do take and have deserved many of their critical beat downs. He’s been accused of being everything from color-struck to paternalistic, heavy-handed to vain (for his habit of inserting himself as characters in his movies). People will debate for hours whether Girl Six or She Hate Me are perverted, quirky or just outright offensive. More than likely, someone will scream out during any discussion of Lee’s filmography “he got robbed on Malcolm though. That film should’ve won the Oscar.” Was that really fifteen years ago? Is Spike Lee really 50? He is, ain’t he? Spike Lee is 50?

Now that Martin Scorsese has finally won his long-deserved Oscar, and American cinema needs a new legend who has yet to win an Oscar to fawn over, it appears as if Lee is now set to step into the role. He has the long career, the grey hair, ornery personality, and vision that stars flock to regardless of the budget. Now that Spike Lee has turned 50 black cinemaphiles can wait for the glorious day when Lee is feted for his body of work, and not just his latest work. The thought of what kind of film he’ll create to garner this illustrious prize inspires goose bumps. Maybe he’ll do a Thelonious Monk biopic. No, maybe he’ll do a story of a black upper middle-class family whose lives are torn asunder when their eldest son is arrested. I don’t know, but I can’t wait to see it.

Spike Lee is 50….

Theorizing Blackness

2007-02-24T16:19:00.000-05:00

Please drop in next week Thursday for this symposium at the CUNY Graduate Center.

"Theorizing Blackness"

A Symposium:

Participants

William E. Cross Jr. Professor of Social Psychology, CUNY Graduate Center

Leith Mullings (Anthropology, Poli Sci) Presidential Professor of Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center

Jerry Watts (English, Sociology, Poli Sci). Professor of English, CUNY Graduate Center

Moderator: Ferentz Lafargue, Assistant Professor of Literature Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts Thursday

Thursday, March 1, 2007

4:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Martin E. Segal Theatre

The Graduate Center of the City University of New York

365 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10016

(between 34^th and 35^th Streets)

This event is FREE and open to the public

For more information contact:

212- 817-2076

atakeall@hotmail.com

A New Crew is Born

2007-02-20T22:26:00.000-05:00

Today is a new day at The Nightshift Chronicles. There are nine new contributors joining the blog. Their presence is a blessed occurence, so please keep an out for their postings, and support their ventures both here on The Nightshift Chronicles and elsewhere.

The Nightshift Chronicler

Bastards of the Party

2007-02-07T18:26:00.000-05:00

Growing up in NYC I didn't really become familiar with the gang scene in LA until the emergence NWA. And even after they came out, crews like the Decepticons, A.T.C, and the Hollis Crew were fierce and time consuming enough that the Bloods and Crips barely entered my imagination. As I matured and "gangsta rap" and west coast rap artists become more popular so did the Bloods and Crips. The movie Colors also, played a major role in spurring my voyeuristic intrigue about what was really happening over there in LA. When the Stop the Violence and We're All in the Same Gang movements took hold, I was one of the many people asking why are we killing each other, but asking this question from the comfort of my Jamaica Queens home, that was divorced from the gang conflicts in LA. We may have had crews, crack and kingpins in New York, but it's hard for New Yorkers to really fathom the genocide that has been slowly mounting in Los Angeles. Worst of all, we may have mocked our brothers and sisters out west, threw up W's, and shaken our heads as our younger cousins Crip-walked, but for the most part most New Yorkers of my generation were spared the atrocity that our friends in Cali lived through.

New York, as is the case with many urban centers across the country has been infiltrated by Bloods and Crips offshoots in the last decade, a situation that became increasingly prominent during my time away from the city from 1998-2003. When I returned home in 2003, it was unsettling hearing younger cousins talk about friends who professed to being down with the Bloods, and watching news broadcasts of raids occuring in Brooklyn.

When The Game came out in 2005 he professed to put the West Coast back on the map and help set the record straight, and in some ways he did. He's the anti-Ice Cube in the sense that Cube was the gangsta that Amerikkka was not ready for, while Game was the latest in the calvalcade that America has been perversely embracing. With Game's record contract came shoe endorsements, a movie deal, none of which could have materialized without a platinum selling album, and the transposition of the Bloods from the organization that Americans hated and feared to the one that became a common place marker for the expendability of black life, and the indiscriminate nature of consumerist appetites for entertainment.

Now, in 2007, filmmakers Antoine Fuqua and Cle "Bone" Sloan have done what rappers have failed to do in 17years, put LA gangs in their proper context. Bastards of the Party documents two organizations, the Bloods and Crips, that are as American as the Democrats and Republicans, Coke and Pepsi, Yankees and Red Sox, except rather than settle their battles with ballots, bottles or baseballs, they do it with bullets. Bastards of the Party is a narrative about forty years of political disenfranchisement that stretches from the tail end of the Vietnam War to the current war in Iraq, a time period that also features the dramatic historical markers known as the Cold War, Iran-Contra, Apartheid and now Darfur.

It's an incredibly moving experience told through a cinematic lens as eloquently honest as a Morrison novel, and just as brutally vulnerable. Sloan's vision is not that of the outsider, but rather the insider. Like all great narrators he's the soldier that survived the war, the death camp and in return for escaping the grave, he's offered a medium through which to tell his story. Watching the documentary you'll notice that he's not as much offered a medium, but rather called up or haunted upon to bring this story to life.

In a generation that has long lived on the false dreams that Biggie or Tupac may have been the next Malcolm or Martin, Cle Sloan has come along to give us hope yet again, not that these slain civil rights leades will be revived, but instead that someone, somewhere will again show an appreciation for black life. This film asks if not now, when? If not Darfur, Haiti, then how about Compton? If not reform our schools, our streets, then how about our prisons?

I urge everyone to check their local listings to see Bastards of the Party, because as the documentary grimly implies, as each passes, so do the lives of the men and women seeking nothing else except survival.

HBO Viewing Schedule

NYTimes Review

Most Important Draft Pick Ever

2007-02-02T12:47:00.000-05:00

While talking about the NBA with my brother the other day it finally dawned on me that the 2003 NBA draft is the most important draft of this decade, and may well have decided the future of some NBA franchises for the next twenty years. In fact, one can make a case that the 2003 draft was more important than the 1984 draft that yielded Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley and John Stockton. It remains unclear whether the 2003 draft will produce as many Hall of Famers as the 1984 class, but from a sure business model for many franchises, if not the league as a whole, it will have a far greater impact. The teams with the last two picks in the first round the Phoenix Suns, did better than most of the teams in the middle with their selections of Leandro Barbosa and Josh Howard respectively. The Bulls found a point guard in Kirk Hinrich and with this group the NBA found a nice blend of international and American talent that helped the league make further inroads in the worldwide market, while restoring the interest of fans in the United States.

You must think that I am crazy for saying that there is a more important draft than the one that produced Michael Jordan. And if you think that’s crazy, listen to this, I think Darko Milicic was a more important draft pick for the future of this league, than Michael Jordan.

Blasphemous. I know. But hear me out, I am not suggesting that Darko is a more important player for the history of the league, just a more important draft pick. My brother didn’t buy it either, but I’m still going to try to persuade y’all.

It was amazing to hear Darko blame the Pistons for the setbacks in his career while reading a recent article on him in the NYTimes. In his mind, it’s as if there was no way off of the bench for him. The strange thing about this is that Darko has been a bench player during his entire career. He was on the bench on his club team in Europe, rode the pine for the Pistons, and is now riding the pine for the Orlando Magic. Given that piece of information, it seems ludicrous that an organization would invest upwards of 15million dollars in a player with that resume. Making matters worse, is that he was surrounded by the most talented group of players to be appear in the same draft in years; Lebron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, Josh Howard, Kirk Hinrich, TJ Ford, Leandro Barbosa and Boris Diaw. If you’re keeping count that list includes the league’s current scoring leader, Anthony, a defending championship MVP, Wade, and the reigning most improved player, Diaw.

In hindsight everyone knows that Jordan would go ahead of Hakeem and Bowie, but Bowie was an All-American at Kentucky and were it not for the injuries that derailed his career, he would’ve still been a lottery pick. The comparison to Kwame Brown is also off base because Brown was selected over high school peers Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry, neither of whom have become the superstars that Darko’s classmates have become, and in the case of James and Anthony, already were.

If you’re a Pistons fan it must pain you to watch Chris Webber limp up and down that court knowing that your team could’ve easily had a frontline of Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace and Chris Bosh. Worst of all, it must really hurt to hear Joe Dumars refuse to admit his error.

But none of this really explains why I think Darko might be the most important draft pick in NBA history. There have been other players who did not live up to expectations, and Darko may very well end up being another Raef LaFrentz, who is the player he most reminded me of when I heard about Darko in 2003. However, there has never been a player in the annals of sports so gratuitously mythologized—nor has there ever been an organization to so blatantly fall for that myth. Sure the NFL produces a workout freak every year during its draft, but those players are still often alumni of top football programs, and not semi-pro players off of the street, which is essentially what Darko was when the Pistons drafted him. I’d go a step further and say that Darko was the NBA version of the fake pitcher that Sports Illustrated chronicled in an article in the late 80s who had a 110mph fastball and sundry other skills that were off the charts. In that article SI was poking fun at the cult of baseball scouting and the legendary characteristics often attributed to phenoms. No baseball team was misguided enough to draft that player, but for some reasons, with a wealth of NBA ready talent in their backyard, the Pistons saw fit to travel to the outskirts of Europe to check out the 18 year old seven footer who can run, jump, shoot threes, block shots and chew gum at the same time.

How ironic, that while Darko continues putting up inconsistent nights for the Magic and tries to convince himself that he’s actually an NBA caliber player, the magical 18 year old prototype who the Pistons were fawning over will be making his first all-star start. Although his name isn’t Darko, it’s Chris Bosh.

As of now we should be prepared to measure Darko not by his career output, especially in comparison to his other draft classmates, but to critically consider how deftly he and his agents, and their number one cheerleader at the time ESPN’s Chad Ford, hustled the Pistons into drafting him.

Jordan may have pulled many a magic trick during his NBA career (especially when playing the Knicks), but he could never have pulled off the caper that Darko pulled off on draft night 2003.

The Nightshift Chronicler

M.L.K. Weekend?

2007-01-13T12:36:00.000-05:00

It’s really startling to consider that less than forty years after his assassination and just as we are entering the second decade of the federal holiday recognizing his life and work, so many people see Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as a party weekend. I am not opposed to partying during “King Weekend,” as long as these parties have a purpose. For example if promoters for weekly parties decided to give a portion of that weekend’s proceeds to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or countless other organizations working for the public good, I would have no objections to such a party on “King Weekend.” Unfortunately, that is rarely the case. Instead, what has occurred is that many people have turned what was to be a holiday honoring the African American crusade for freedom into a niche-marketing angle. If this is already occurring within our lifetime, I am afraid to imagine what this holiday will look like when our children are in their thirties. Will they be subjected to car salespersons promoting huge price slashes because it’s “King Weekend?” Better yet, will “King Weekend” be designated as the first major shopping event of the New Year, and department stores all across the country will roll out their Kente print banners to lure people in their aisles? I can see it now, someone will coin the phrase “The Dream Shopping Weekend,” and business owners will follow suit and offer 75% discounts on all items in their stores.

All of this may be light years away, but then again….

Uncle Bush Needs You

2007-01-11T10:55:00.000-05:00

President George Bush’s announcement last night that he intends to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq has been forthcoming for weeks. The fact that it comes on the heels of the disclosure that over 3,000 American soldiers have already died in combat in

Iraq

and another 10,000 have been injured severely enough where they could no longer perform, made the President’s proposal even more alarming. Bush’s desire to rebuild Iraq is rapidly decaying into a Sisyphean tragedy. The debate over the mission that the President has sent American troops is no longer over whether it’s noble or ignoble as was during the earlier days of the war in 2003, but now strictly over whether it’s suicidal. Considering that, the falsified evidence put forth to stir this latest stage of the Iraqi War was that Saddam Hussein possessed “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMDs), it’s worth pointing out that the President’s policies have seemingly become their own WMDs. The steadily increasing casualty rate, that in addition to the American military lives lost, more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers and civilians have died since 2003 tragically iterates this last point.

The war in Iraq bears particular significance for the various installments of hip-hop generations. While broadcasters like Bill O’Reilly and the various sports networks are quick to identify controversial figures like 50-Cent, Allen Iverson and Eminem as members of the “hip hop generation,” they never discuss the connection age-wise and in terms of musical interest between the soldiers fighting in Iraq and those striving to make their way through poverty and despair in America’s inner-cities and rural areas. While they are fighting very different types of battles, many in this generation are inspired by the same music and artists, and I do not necessarily mean rap artists. Being a member of “the hip hop generation” does not mean that one solely listens to rap music much in the same way that being an American does not mean that one is automatically Christian. Yet, pundits have no qualms about invoking God and Christ when discussing whom these soldiers are turning to for guidance, while often being paradoxically muted about the connections between soldiers and hip-hop.

To bring this meditation to a close, poor people in the United States, particularly poor Black and Latino-Americans have been lured into military service as a means of escaping poverty for the almost a century now. Since the late 1970s, military enlistment has often been presented as a way of escaping prison, the other institution that preys on young Americans. However, there has been no other period in the last thirty years where the stakes have been higher for young people in the United States. Before he can send out those 20,000 troops to Iraq, President Bush must first find them and train them. This means that those of us with younger brothers and sisters, cousins, etc. currently graduating from high school we have to be particularly diligent in educating them about the realities they are facing. They cannot use military service as a means to pay for college or economic mobility without honestly being prepared to risk their lives. Failing grades, schools and poor job prospects/economy places poor people at an extreme disadvantage and we must resolve ourselves to make sure that prison and military service in an unjust war are not the prevailing options for our brothers and sisters. We must be determined in acknowledging that President Bush may need us, but he need not kill us.

The Nightshift Chronicler

R.I.P. James Brown

2006-12-25T08:33:00.001-05:00

It was rather immature of me, but since I was about seven or eight years old, most things were rather not mature of me, so immature may not be the correct word. I’ll always remember getting a particular sense of pride in knowing that many of the other kids on my block didn’t have a song like “Say it Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)” that they could sing along to. Surely, most of Puerto Rican, Dominican and South and Central American neighbors had their own cultural anthems in Spanish that I was not privy to, which actually made James Brown’s classic an even more powerful statement for me because everyone I knew understood the lyrics. You had to be Black, and Proud, to sing “Say it Loud,” and once I was introduced to the 1968 classic, I was to the umpteenth degree.

One particular memory of that song was when a group of friends and I were hanging around in the old parking lot behind what was then May’s department store in Jamaica Queens. There were about eight or nine of us and we had just finished one of our makeshift baseball games in the lot. As we stood there listening to the broadcast from either New Yorks 98.7 kissfm, or 107.5 WBLS, “Say it Loud,” came on and as I was wont to do, I started singing along, dropping in the refrain every time it was proclaimed. One of my friends started laughing at me—he was actually one of my tormentors—always poking fun at me for everything that seemed to be flaws in his image. He was two years older and like me he was overweight and wore glasses, that unlike me, he had to repeatedly re-orient back to the bridge of his nose. His constant adjusting of his glasses made them a more prominent feature on his face, than mine on mine, which probably explains why he felt incumbent to always call me four eyes.

Well on this day Sam figured that I again would be an easy target because I was the only one to have stepped off the railing and doing a two-step as I sang along to “Say it Loud.” The dirt specs from the rubber baseball that we used were whisking off my hands as I clapped them together. My other friends remained perched on the railing nodding their heads. Jesus dribbled the baseball on the pavement to the beat of the song, while Javier matched his pace by pounding the bat head along the same ground. When Sam pushed off the railing where he had been leaning and trying to mimic me started singing, “Say it loud, I’m white and I’m proud,” we all stopped what we were doing and turned our attention to him. As he laughed at his own antics, we tried making sense of his delirium taking place in the foothold of the sun. We would’ve had our heads cocked and looking at him cockeyed just for playing the fool, but that he was doing his trick in directly in the path of the sun made our squinting all the more pronounced.

I’ll never forget our friend Christian looking at Sam and saying with the utmost disdain, “what the f..k are you doing? You ain’t white! Sit your fat ass down.”

Sam tried explaining his dance, that he was just mimicking, that he was just…but no one was listening. James Brown was on and while they were willing to permit my offbeat singing and dancing, the crew was not willing to condone Sam’s blasphemy.

When I awoke this morning to the news that James Brown had died I immediately returned to that scene and countless other moments like that one in the particular where Brown’s music was a permanent fixture to post baseball game sessions. As we were being reared by hip-hop, with occasional visits by our pop aunts and uncles, our “godfather of soul” stood out the most. He was the only one from his generation who when one of his songs came on the radio, the dialed stayed in place. His most popular recordings may have been practically thirty years old by the time we were listening to them in the mid-eighties, but they felt as if they had just dropped the week before.

Brown’s recordings had not only reached the legendary stature of being timeless, but they were also timely, arriving at just the exact moment to help another generation deal with the complex issues of rhythm and identity.

I have a feeling that now that now that he has passed on Mr. Brown will be in peace, but not resting. He’s probably already speaking with Mozart about a song that he’s always wanted to do with him. And if you listen very closely to the heavens and to your soul, you will be able to hear it any day now.

The Nightshift Chronicler

My Melo, My Man

2006-12-18T13:34:00.000-05:00

The NBA just handed down the suspensions from Saturday night’s brawl. Carmelo Anthony, currently the league’s leading scorer and a contender for most valuable player received the harshest penalty, a 15-game suspension. Knicks guard Nate Robinson and Nuggets guard J.R. Smith garnered 10-game suspensions for their role in the melee and Knicks guard Mardy Collins was hit with a 6-game ban from the court.

I believe the player suspensions were fair. Although, while he threw and landed a punch, I thought Anthony deserved a suspension more in line with what Robinson and Smith received.

What upsets me however is the fact that neither coach was suspended for their role in their fracas. Broadcasters and talk-radio hosts have been comparing the Knicks and Nuggets spat at the garden to the fight that erupted at the Palace at Auburn Hills toward the end of a Pistons and Pacers match two years ago, but Saturday nights events were dramatically different. Yes there was a fight that trickled into the stands, but the comparisons between the two ends there. The Pistons and Pacers were bitter division rivals and the Pacers were the lead challengers to the Pistons throne. In Ben Wallace and Ron Artest the principal protagonists in that fight, you had two of the most aggressive and equally petulant players in the league, therefore making it almost inevitable that as long as these two players continued battling against each other on the court, there was going to be a confrontation sooner or later.

At the same time, you also had two organizations and coaches that had a considerable amount of respect for each other. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle may have been bitter at his dismissal at the hands of Joe Dumars, but he, Larry Brown, Larry Bird and Dumars did not over-hype their falling out. If they did it would be an affront to the hard-working residents of Michigan and Indiana who have been coping with layoffs and firings for the last twenty years without nearly as lucrative back-up plans as Carlisle found in the Pacers. In short, you can not blame the coaches for this battle.

In the Knicks and Nuggets battle however, George Karl and Isaiah Thomas deserve to shoulder part of the blame and punishment for their role in instigating the fight. Karl and the rest of his North Carolina Tar Heel brethren/Larry Brown acolytes need to get over the fact that Brown was fired. Making snide comments in the press and trying to elicit sympathy for Brown is absurd, a fact that Phil Jackson pointed out last month when he called Greg Popovich for advocating for Brown, but none of the other coaches who have faced “unfair” dismissals. Beating the Knicks by sixty will not avenge Larry Brown, and if Marcus Camby were to have gotten injured as he’s wont to do, or worse Anthony, during the closing minutes of that fourth quarter, Karl’s pettiness could have cost his team even more.

Secondly, Isaiah Thomas needs to reel in his players. Thomas is one of the thirty greatest players in the history of his sport and he should realize the difference between players who talk a great game and those who play one. Right now he has a slew of players who talk much better than they produce. His guards are particularly guilty as they each are trying to carry on the legacy of their esteemed coach, but in media laden New York brimming with fans ready to throw any athlete under the bus regardless of how great he is (e.g. Patrick Ewing, Reggie Jackson and Alex Rodriguez) sometimes it’s best to speak softly and play hard and let your performance dictate your legacy (e.g. Derek Jeter and Charles Oakley).

Right now it’s all speculation whether or not Thomas instructed his players to commit hard-fouls on Nuggets players going to the basket, but as more evidence is presented, it’s becoming easier to believe that if he did not do it explicitly, it was conveyed implicitly. Knocking out someone at the end of a game should not be seen as a display of pride, but rather a brazen disregard for the mission at hand, play good basketball, win games, and in the event you lose, learn from your mistakes.

The Nightshift Chronicler

Romantic Call

2006-12-11T17:52:00.000-05:00

When this video came on, the first thing that came to mind was do these NBA cats know that they have the same fashion taste as Patra? Okay, I know many players who wear these arm sleeves first worn by AI, then female rapper Eve, probably do have some kind of elbow pain. All the exercises that they go through during the course of the year are bound to put enough strain on their elbows that they develop some kind of tendinitis. I'm not sure about some of the cats on college and in high school rocking these things though....

Anyways, the elbow sleeve was not the only discovery in this video. Little did I know/remember that the legendary 2pac had a cameo in this joint. I'm always a 50/50 cat on Pac, but I do remember enjoying his music and work when he was not involved in the east vs west fiasco.

As I continue longing for a few of those good ol' southern california days, the sight of Pac, Yo-Yo and Patra driving around, makes me nostalgic for not only the city of angels, but being young and having fun in the early 90s.

And while I'm at it, peace out to Jamaica High School class of '94 and everyone else who was getting down to Patra, Shabba and Mad Cobra back in the day.

The Nightshift Chronicler

I Ain't Sayin' Nothin'

2006-12-08T22:07:00.000-05:00

But I bet that this dolphin would be better than half the cats out right now

They Shootin' 3: Expendable Black People Zones

2006-12-05T20:21:00.000-05:00

As the fallout over the Sean Bell continues the usual jockeying over who's more "innocent" is ratcheting up in the New York media. The police officers claim that they were "justified" in shooting, which is another way of saying that they are innocent of the accusations being leveled against them. On the other side, the survivors Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield have the lack of a gun and their bullet-riddled car as proof of their own innocence. The police attorneys remained adamant that there was a fourth shooter, who miraculously has yet to appear. Along with taking needed attention from the two men lying in their hospital beds, this defiant search for the fourth shooter, presumably the lone guilty party in this case, this quest takes away from the most glaring issue: If the undercover officers were in the club investigating accusations of drug dealing and prostitution, why did they follow the non-drug carrying or prostitute bearing trio of Bell, Benefield and Guzman out of the club?

Wouldn't wielding all of their might on these three jeopardize their entire investigation?

Just a thought.

Remaining on this question of guilt and innocence for a few more moments, NYTimes Columnist Bob Herbert produced this opinion piece on the December 4th narrating another incident in which a group of young people were intimidated by undercover officers. Except this time there was no shooting and the multi-racial group of Ivy-League graduates, one bound for Harvard Law. Herbert's piece is entitled "Presumed Guilty" as in the two black men were presumed guilty of stealing the car in which they were sitting. However, as it turns out this article might have been well served being titled 'very lucky':

It turned out that the cops were acting on a mistaken computer report that Mr.
Rowley’s car was stolen. As frightening as the incident was, the four people in the car were
lucky that none of the cops opened fire. “I spent that night in jail,” said Mr. Rowley, “and
a lot of the officers told me that if this had been elsewhere — for example, if this had been
in the Bronx or Harlem — I’d have been dead.”

The quote comes from one of the victims pounced upon by the officers in front of the Union Square train station at 14th street in NY's Village.

I was alarmed (definitely not surprised) to hear the declaration "if this has been in the Bronx or Harlem — I’d have been dead.”

Are we all ready to agree that Black people living in certain sections of New York city are expendable? We know about the health concerns of living in communities without adequate grocery stores, and chemical plants that increases one's chances of asthma and lead poisoning. Should we just go ahead and list certain districts as EBPZs (Expendable Black People Zones)? Maybe come up with traffice signs, better yet, tolls to iterate that you are entering a EBPZ at your own risk.

For most of the twentieth century African Americans knew that we had to alter our behavior if we traveled through the South, the original EBPZ. The murder of Emmett Till brought these horrors to the fore of the nation's consciousness and those working in the Civil Rights Movemements of the 50s, 60s, and 70s did their best to eradicate as many of these EBPZs as possible. It appears now that we are now at the tipping point, either there's going to be a new proliferation of EBPZ as African Americans are gentrified out of the prime spaces in major cities and segregated into new/old ghettos--or and I hope this happens, that some serious changes occur and we never hear these words again "if this has been in the Bronx or Harlem — I’d have been dead.”

This would have to be a national programme, because as the case of Brandon Burks, the 16year old Michigan teen shot and killed on Sunday November 26th, this phenomena extends well beyond New York. Burks's case also involved a plainclothes police officer, this time one moonlighting as a security guard.

One might say that it's a tragic coincidence that Bell and Burk's deaths took place on the same weekend, but the facility with which African Americans have been able to avail testimonies of similar incidents suggests that these deaths go far beyond coincidence.

Police officers as a whole should not be unjustly indicted for the actions of a few.

Instead, what we need is a very frank national discussion about policing before the American nightmare of totalitarian regimes really take shape. The fact that so many African Americans in particular, and young people in general can easily rattle off incidents of harassment at the hands of police officers suggests that too many Americans are forced to vascillate between fearing officers and having to rely on them, neither of which is conducive to effective police work.

They Shootin' 2: Legend of Bronco Blanco

2006-11-30T07:57:00.000-05:00

I'm still thinking about the murder of Sean Bell. It's eery listening to people in New York talk about the death and rattle off the litany of names, Eleanor Bumpers, Michael Stewart, two of the many that proceeded the most famous prior to Bell's, Amadou Diallo.

It was also this week, that I received a link to this article by John Ridley appearing in Esquire, where Ridley announces "So I say this: It's time for ascended blacks to wish niggers good luck." Ridley's article essay homes in on two events in 2001, one which he believes did not deserve the backing and attention it received by African-Americans, the death of Cincinnati's Timothy Thomas at the hands of office Steven Roach. The other event, the immense power wielded by Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell during that same year, of course climaxing with the events surrounding September 11th and its aftermath.

I would agree with Ridley that Rice and Powell do not get enough credit for their impressive professional accomplishments. I have long argued that Rice is an intriguing example of the post-Civil Rights story because her accomplishments have been superb, but her politics have been surprisingly anti-thetical to those traditionally associated with the movement. Rather than banish her, I think her presence calls for more examination of Black conservatism in the 60's.

However, it should also be noted that Powell participated in two of the most unpopular or at least controversial, and longest lasting wars in this nation's history, Vietnam, and the fifteen year's war in the Middle East. High ranking chiefs, Black or White in either of these wars, have managed to ascend to the status of their predecessors in WWI and WWII. But I digress....

Reading Ridley's article in light of the Bell incident, brought up a question, do we remember a wealthy or upper middle-class Black person being murdered by Police?

There are testimonies by figures like Danny Glover and their bouts with racial profiling, but can someone recall when one of these random, unjust, police shootings involved a relatively affluent African-American. I can't.

Some are reading this and saying a "Black person dead is a Black person dead," and that's true, but I would hope that we all could agree that class does matter. I'm not going to accept any arguments that rich Black folks stay above the fray that has to the death of our less affluent brothers and sisters, because if the police shootings are as random and inexpicably racist as we'd like to believe, then surely the cops aren't thinking, "That's Bob James, CEO of James Inc."

There's another reason that I bring this up. The Bell incident occured on the eve of the failed OJ Simpson interview and book release where he goes through a "hypothetical" reenactment of the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. Correct me if I am wrong, but when Simpson interrupted broadcasts of the '94 NBA finals and my friends were set to watch him and Al Cowlings escorted by police through LA, weren't they driving in a car? If I remember correctly, it was a big white Bronco wasn't it? I could be mistaken.

Oddly enough, the deadly weapon that Bell and his friends were wielding was a car. Just yesterday a police lawyer was on the air saying that the authors were justified in shooting because there was a weapon involved, "a car." A Nissan Altima to be exact.

No one should deny the fact that the officers involved in the Bell shooting believed there life was in danger when that car was put in gear. That said, we also recognize that shooting to impede the car also implies shooting to stop the passengers.

Of course it's coincidence that Bell would dovetail behind Simpson in the national headlines, random even, but no less random then the fates of these two men when they tried driving off.

Now if Ridley wants to argue that "It's time for ascended blacks to wish niggers good luck," then I hope that he realizes that he's at least a decade late in offering his greetings.

The Nightshift Chronicler

They Shootin'

2006-11-29T06:56:00.000-05:00

This past weekend on Saturday November 25th NY resident Sean Bell was murdered by undercover officers. The officers were allegedly investigating a Jamaica Queens strip club for prostitution and drug trafficking, when allegedly mr. Bell and his friends who were attending his bachelor party became involved in a dispute at the club. Along with Mr. Bell, two of his friends Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield were also shot, but they have survived.

The number of bullets belted out in this shooting have evoked comparisons to the 1999 Amadou Diallo incident in which the Liberian born immigrant was shot 41 times by New York police officers as he reached for his wallet. This incident also bears a strong resemblance to the Patrick Dorismond murder of 2000 where the Haitian immigrant was murdered outside a manhattan club after a scuffle with undercover officers who tried selling him drugs.

Sean Bell's murder has brought the spotlight back on to the NYPD and the tactics employed by their undercover officers. On Sunday Al Sharpton led a march through Jamaica, Queens. The resistance struggle does not end there however, and as another series of events planned for this week attest, while all violent encounters involving police officers do not end with death like Mr. Bell's murder, they are not as rare as many people believe.

If you want to have your voice heard, there are two events taking place today in Manhattan in which you can participate:

Public Hearing on Police Brutality at 4pm
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
515 Malcolm X Boulevard
New York, NY 10037-1801
http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html

at 6:30pm
The Audre Lorde Project, a LGBTST People of Color Center for Community Organizing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 29, 2006
Communities of Color and Social Justice Activists mobilize for Picket Line &
Press Conference outside 6th Precinct Wednesday, Nov 29th 6:30pm – 7:30pm
(233 West 10th Street)
Media Contacts:
Dustin Langley 646-354-8056 dustin@action-mail.org or
Imani Henry 646-342-9673, ikhenry@alp.org

I Shouldn't Have Left You

2006-11-20T08:08:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you, without a dope [post] to step to.....

It's definitely been a minute since I did this job and I feel that I may be a bit out of practice. So please excuse me the next few days/weeks as I try getting the skills back (that's for those of you who think I have skills in the first place.)

Fortunately, two of my favorite bloggers Gary Dauphin and JB have been banging out some jewels, and I know that those of you reading from the ATL have checked out my homie Mike Molina's work. If not, please get up on it...

As for what's been keeping me away, the usual, the church and the book. The job and the book. The friends and the book. But as you could tell mostly the book. We're making good progress, it's back in production, getting typeset as I type, so pray for me that it drops on May 8, 2007 as expected.

Man since I've been away the Democrats took back control of the house and senate, and just like keeping with the 1994 retro theme of this year's midterm elections, OJ came out of the woodworks to offer a hypothetical confession. There's surely a French Philosopher out there ready to explain this OJ confession to us, so si'l vous plait hurry up and write that book so we could understand what a hypothetical confession says about the soul/nature of the American psyche/condition in this day and age.

Speaking of French Philosophers I joined the blog roll at MadMaestroNews, check out my first post over for them that I put up today if you get a chance. Okay, they're not french philosophers, they're a hip hop production collective, but these days hip hop producers might as well be french philosophers. You'll get that one later tonight when you turn on 106 and Park or whatever the hip hop show on MTV2 is called.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't offer a belated moment of silence for Gerald Levert and Ruth Brown...

May you both rest in peace.

Till next time,

The Nightshift Chronicler

Underside of Black Income Gains in Queens

2006-10-02T16:15:00.000-04:00

I know something is serious when my brother forwards me an article about it, which is the case with the article from Sunday’s New York Times discussing how Queens has become the first county in the country where Blacks have a higher median income than Whites have. On the surface, this article appears fairly innocent and the statistical information that it offers is relatively tame. However, once the author begins delving into possible explanations for this phenomenon the article becomes unsettling.

One of the reasons given for the shift in median incomes is the increase in West Indian and other Afro-immigrant populations into Queens. Implied is that these immigrants bring in a better work ethic and a more determined effort to overcoming the obstacles that have impeded the progress of African-Americans. What this line of argument always fails to consider however, is that West Indians and natives of other parts of the African Diaspora have always been present in the United States. There have been waves of immigration from the Caribbean and Africa for well over two hundred years. In the twentieth-century these waves of immigration have also been concurrent with African-American migrations in and out of this country.

For example, while the wave of immigrants from the Caribbean in the mid to late 1970s may have firmly entrenched themselves in neighborhoods like Laurelton, Cambria Heights and Rosedale, many African-Americans of the same age have now repatriated to southern states like Georgia, North and South Carolina, where they can get more for their dollars. There are also those Caribbean immigrants who have left Queens for the warmer climes of Florida. Thus, many of the homes who the people in Roberts’ article are proudly proclaiming have increased three times in value have also undoubtedly paid for homes three-times their size in other parts of this country.

As a person who grew up in the area discussed in this article, I also found the piece troubling because while the residents and scholars are quick to tout the income achievements, no one is discussing that the public schools, particularly at the high school level in these districts have suffered considerably during the last fifteen years. Three of the main high schools in charge of preparing students from these districts for college, Jamaica, Hillcrest and Thomas Edison, have had to overcome massive cutbacks to academic and extra-curricular programs as the white residents of these residents gave way to African-American, and now as African-American residents give way to Caribbean, African, South-Asian, and South-and-Central-American immigrants. In addition, with the passage of the Immigrant Reform and Responsibility Act in 1996, navigating the legal process has become increasingly precarious for immigrants who face expulsion from this country for minor offenses. It’s great to have a home triple in value, but what is that really worth when you’re stuck between dealing with a public education that fails to serve your children at an alarming rate, and a prison system that appears much to eager for their presence.

Therefore, when placed in this dour context the gains that this article suggests have been made by Blacks in Queens are arguably yet another pyrrhic victory.

Mehret: A Documentary

2006-09-07T15:58:00.000-04:00

I just found out about a fundraiser for this documentary taking place tonigh and encourage everyone to attend....Click here or on the title of this post for more info on the documentary.

There'll be an open bar from 7:30 - 8:30 and two screenings. The first is at 8:30pm and the second is at 10pm. Location is Southpaw 125 5th Avenue Park Slope. Complimentary Ethiopian Cuisine Provided by Queen of Sheba Restaurant.

Donations are 10 in advance and 15 at the door.

2006-08-31T08:33:00.000-04:00

I have returned from Haiti and there’s much to report from the trip. However, because of my manuscript’s deadline and the beginning of the academic year I’ll have to keep my comments brief. So here goes…

Digicel in Haiti

On June 19^th blogger Alice B from kiskeyAcity posted an entry about “Jamaica based telecom” giant Digicel’s arrival in Haiti in May. As I sat in the back seat of my uncle’s pickup on the ride from the airport and saw hordes of Digicel ads on billboards my mind ventured back to Alice’s post. My uncle, a Haiti-Tel subscriber, and DadVoila, a Comcel-Voila subscriber, thought that Digicel’s presence was tame and seemed to agree with the many of the respondents to Alice’s blog entry.

Imagine my surprise then when I arrive at my grandfather’s homestead and see a Digicel antenna staring back at me as I stood on my aunt’s balcony. There is also a Comcel-Voila antenna within range, but the Digicel antenna seemed towered over it. In a country that to my knowledge doesn’t have any skyscrapers to speak of, cell phone antennas are beginning to take that role and altering the visual landscape of the island. These enormous caterpillars are now obstructing breathtaking views of the mountains and downtown Petion Ville. These antennas are a small price to pay for more jobs and a competitive phone market where consumers benefit, at least in the interim.

Ironically enough, my little cousin who had a Digicel phone experienced the most phone troubles during the course of my trip. There were numerous times where he had to roam around his house and or my grandfather’s courtyard in search of a signal. I do not know whether his experiences are emblematic of other Digicel users’ experiences, but I could not help chuckling at the sight of him walking around the house staring intently at his phone and gritting his teeth for the appearance of more bars on his mobile, meanwhile his carrier’s antenna was less than half a mile away. C’est une comedie…

We need more people/We need better coverage

Throughout the trip, my aunts and uncles kept on reiterating that when I get back I tell my family members in the states that Haiti is not as nightmarish, or rather to use their word, “[as] diabolique,” as they think. They pleaded with me to encourage the other folks in my family to start reciprocating with the visits and to suspend with the horror stories about the country that are going to keep my younger cousins living in the states from ever developing a relationship with the island. I will elaborate more on these conversations later, but it is understood that they were rather thought provoking.

Along the same lines, one night while watching Tele-Ginen, a Haitian news broadcast, a reporter was talking with a man from Cite Soleil. During their conversation the Cite Soleil resident praised the reporter/Tele-Ginen for being the lone station courageous enough to come into Cite Soleil to see how things really are, rather than just churning out dreadful tales about the district without ever stepping foot. I could neither verify nor dispute the man’s praises for Tele-Ginen, but I did find his comments to be emblematic of the concerns of most Haitian residents about how the island is being represented.

Lighter Notes

Note 1: Never Do It Again

One of my aunts told me that I let the airline take advantage of me by not bringing more luggage/cargo into the country. Her comments made me rethink my decision to travel light, and I was struck with a moments worth of guilt for not bringing gifts for everyone. “What did it matter that my parents had just arrived here with a barrel of provisions and who knows how many suitcases,” I thought to myself, “I could’ve still brought more.” Then she cut me a look and as to reinforce her point, “never let them do that to you again,” and my guilt quickly subsided, “oui ma’tante” I will never let the airlines take advantage of me by traveling light again.

Note 2: I Rest my Case

Regular readers of this blog know about my ongoing dispute with fellow Haitian blogger The Haitian Eclectic over the Shakira and Wyclef song “Hips Don’t Lie.” I think it ranks right up there with peanut butter as great contributions, but The Haitian Eclectic doesn’t have much of a taste for it. Well, on my last night in Haiti, I was watching videos with my youngest cousin Saradia when “Hips Don’t Lie” came on. She asked me if I like the song/Wyclef and I proudly said “yes.” Saradia then announced her own adoration for this song, punctuating her comments with, “I don’t know how anyone cannot like this song, or anything that has Shakira and Wyclef in it.”

Until next time,

The Nightshift Chronicler

Press Release: Haitian History Made Tuesday August 22, 2006

2006-08-21T14:25:00.000-04:00

Press Release: Haitian History Made Tuesday August 22, 2006

Tuesday August 22nd 2006 marks a momentous occasion in Haitian History as Ferentz Lafargue attempts to become the first Haitian ever to travel to Haiti with one bag, a carry-on at that. American Airlines, the Haitian Embassy in New York and Miami have called a press conference to mark this important event. Wyclef Jean will be on hand at the press conference to perform a reggaeton song recorded specifically for this occasion called “One Bag.” Talks are underway for a stamp featuring either Mr. Lafargue and his bag, or just the bag itself.

If successful, Mr. Lafargue will complete the feat first attempted by Jean-Jean Jean-Michel in 1976 when he tried traveling from New York to Haiti with a single bag only to be guilted by a ti-gran into adding one of her bags to his luggage after she had gone over the weight limit with her baggage.

As Marie-Lourdes Pierre-Jeannot, Haitian Ambassador to the United States said in a pre-released statement, “Mr. Lafargue’s one bag passage to Haiti ranks right up there with Garcelle Beauvais debut on the venerable Jamie Foxx show. It’s a day that Haitians every where will remember fondly.”

Additional reporting provided by The Nightshift Chronicler

Click - Send - Kenbe La (3x)

2006-08-16T08:11:00.000-04:00

As I prepare for my first trip to Haiti in five years, I’m already being reminded of one of the predicaments that technological disparities between my relatives in Haiti and my family in the States. Usually, whenever I’m in Haiti I take a slew of pictures. Then upon my return to the US, I develop these pictures. More often than not copies of these pictures make their way back to my relatives in Haiti. Sometimes a relative or friend traveling there brings them back, and other times, usually after much delay, I’ll walk them over to post office and mail them myself. This all sounds fairly simple and quaintly 20^th century.

In fact it is very simple and very 20^th century. No one has ever complained, even when once it took me a year to mail back the pictures. After a conversation with a friend last night I realized this year I might have a larger problem than my swift as molasses approach to the mailbox. Since I’m now the owner of a snazzy new digital camera that enables me to instantly see my picture taking follies, I no longer have to wait to see how my photos came out. I’m also able to prop said digital captures on flickr, kodakgallery, shutterfly or a host of other sites so my trendy friends can take a gander. This is all good when I’m lampin’ in the bay or making my way through various NY functions, but what good does this techno leap forward on my part do for my little cousins or aunts in Haiti who only care to see how they look.

The cousins who are in their teens/early twenties have access to the net at school and will spend an occasional afternoon in an internet café googling their crazy cousin in the US who’s supposedly writing a book.

Wait, just burn a cd and send them the pictures on disk you say? That would work except for the fact that there’s not a home computer to be found in the house.

I’d send down a laptop, but I’d actually have to send down for sets to make it clear that I’m not playing favorites…so we can scratch that idea as well.

Oh wait. Don’t worry your hearts. Don’t rush and take pity on my poor beleaguered Haitian clan because we’re neither poor—on occasion beleaguered—but that too soon passes. Please do not attempt to do anything in Haiti that you have yet felt moved to do in many of this nation’s ramshackle communities.

My problem, if it can be categorized as such, is that after my trip I’ll still have to walk over to the post office and mail out those pictures. I’ll have to take more than five seconds of my time to think about my loved one. I’ll have to sacrifice a few less than sterling photos to save a few cents on shipping, and to spare my aunt of curling her lips when she gets an unflattering shot of either herself or one of her children.

I guess it really ain’t a problem at all that in my otherwise click and send world, I am still blessed with opportunities to think, move slowly and write and sign an occasional note with kenbe la.

Brownsville Film Festival

2006-08-15T11:45:00.000-04:00

As always, if you're in BK, come check out another one of the borough's gems.

You Give Me Fever

2006-08-14T13:44:00.000-04:00

When Peggy Lee sang "You Give Me Fever" I don't think she was being literal. However, after my experience at Brooklyn's Bi-Monthly House Party in Fort Green Park yesterday, maybe Ms. Lee knew something about the power of music that the rest of us don't. After taking a few spins in the dance meadow last night I came home feeling an on rush of chills.

At first I thought it was the byproduct of the headache from earlier in the evening, itself the result of minor dehydration. When I awoke this morning to find both the headache and the chills still there, I ventured it was only a sign of fatigue. But when I couldn't stay awake for most of the morning, I finally went to the medicine cabinet--brought out the thermometer and there it was a fever....

Did Soul Summit give me the fever? I don't really know. Indeed I was captivated by the records being spun. It was good to feel my body move in ways that it had not moved in months, reminding me that sometimes it has a life of its own, its own impulses, its own ways of expression.

Did Soul Summit give me the fever? I don't really know. I didn't get too close to any of the beautiful Brooklyn people in attendance. Each sweaty body seemed to find their own patch to glean. Many more bodies stayed un-sweaty, choosing instead to cruise the meadow with their natural-hair-niggerati-fedora wearing-peasant skirt sauntering sheen that they'd rather not upset unless the right person came along.

Did Soul Summit give me the fever? I don't really know. I didn't get a chance to hear my favorite house-joint Aly-Us' "Follow Me," or Keith Thompson's "Living on the Frontline." These are my two favorite house songs each reminding me of fairer place in time. "Follow me" takes me back to my old Jamaica Queens haunts, and "Living on the Frontline" takes me back to that night in Oakland in May 2003 when everything seemed to be just right, after just recently having been so wrong.

Did Soul Summit give me the fever? That I really don't know. All that I know is that I'm laid out in my apartment, swigging Tropicana Oj as if its my last chance at redemption. There's no music ringing in my ears---just a body spent from moving to its own beat.

The Nightshift Chronicler.

"Keep This Nigger-Boy Running"

2006-08-10T10:49:00.000-04:00

Many people have been writing of late when former Ohio State tailback Maurice Clarett’s downward spiral began. Tony Kornheiser, co-host of the popular ESPN program Pardon The Interruption recently offered up the theory that Clarett’s downfall can be tied to the ascent of Lebron James. Kornheiser contends that Clarett must have gotten jealous of all the attention being lavished upon his fellow Ohio prep-school phenom. Unlike James, Kornheiser points out, Clarett did not have the NBA waiting for him after graduating from high school. Instead, he’d have to toil as a “amateur” athlete in college football, he’d have to wait three years for his big payday.

We all know how impatient young people, so three years must have felt like an eternity for Clarett. That eternity surely seemed longer when in the second game against Washington State during his lone season at Ohio State Clarett hurt his knee, forcing him to sit out his next game against Cincinnati. He’d miss another two games after injuring his shoulder in the Wisconsin tilt, an injury that forced him to sit out part of two others. These injuries were on top of the ones he suffered while playing at Ohio’s Harding High school, all of which combined must have exacerbated Clarett’s anxieties that his chances at scoring it big with an NFL payday are fleeting.

I have always thought however that it was not any of Clarett’s injuries that really led to him making a tragic series of decisions after launching a legitimate contest to the NFL’s policy that players under the age of 20, or whose high school classes have not completed two years of NCAA football can not be drafted. Clarett like anyone else watching the ACL tear that Miami tailback Willis McGahee suffered during that game undoubtedly shook 2003’s Fiesta Bowl between Miami and Ohio State. Many initially thought that McGahee’s injury was going to severely damage his NFL prospects and all but guaranteed that he would not be drafted in the first round of that April’s draft. In one fell swoop, all of McGahee’s college accomplishments seemed to have been nullified by an injury that jeopardized his professional career.

As Clarett’s life continued taking one tragic turn after another I imagined him standing on the opposite sideline as McGahee was carted off the field muttering to himself, “that ain’t gonna be me.” Ever since that game Clarett has been hell bent on getting into the NFL on his own terms. When his battle with the NFL over their draft policy ended with a defeat, he became even more resilient in showing the world that he was still the star tailback whose goal line strip of Miami safety Sean Taylor as he scuttled downfield with an interception return helped propel Ohio State to a National Championship.

In a tragic irony McGahee, the tailback whose team not only lost the double overtime classic, but who also appeared to lose his NFL career, has become a pro-bowl caliber NFL player. He has posted two successive 1,000 yard rushing seasons and looks as if he is settling into the peak of his career among the upper echelons of professional tailbacks. Clarett on the other hand looks to have imbibed the nightmare that everyone thought laid ahead of McGahee as he laid on the ground writhing in pain.

When he was arrested this past Tuesday with a half-finished bottle of vodka and a horror-movie assembly of weapons, two assault rifles, two handguns, and a hatchet, Clarett had fallen deeper into his nightmare. He was no longer wading in quicksand, but on the verge of putting himself in a casket.

Reporters on all the sport shows have returned to mouthing off about how Clarett is a waste of talent, using sports cliché’s like “he could’ve had it all,” “he had everything in the world,” “he’s a disgrace to ____.”

In truth, Maurice Clarett is none of those things. He is a young man that fell out of one pipeline program and into another. His “character issues” are our own societies “character issues:” materialism, greed and a penchant for luring young people into prisons. When you read the stories about him never do you hear anything about any outside interests, stints in the high school band, chess team, or volunteer work that provides the reader into who he was other than a football player. Thus one is left to conclude that Clarett could not have been anything else but a football player, and as long as he was playing football no one had a problem with that because he did it well. Or as he said in a recent phone conversation with ESPN writer Tom Friend:

I haven't done s---. I have done nothing but f------ run a football. Don't confuse yourself. I've done nothing but run a f------ football. Don't try to make it bigger than it is.'

Clarett’s quotes shortly before his arrest reminds me of the note that the protagonist in Ellison’s Invisible Man is prompted to read by his grandfather after the battle royale:

“To Whom It May Concern,” I intoned. “Keep this Nigger-Boy Running.”

Three years after he last ran a football, after Lebron became a mega-star and after McGahee embarked on one of the best comebacks in the last decade, Maurice Clarett is still running. Liberated from the battle royale that passes as college football Clarett embarked on a journey not unlike Ellison’s Invisible Man. His journey has been as surreal, as tragic and most importantly, as enlightening—or rather as visible as the Invisible Man’s. America is getting a front row seat to its closeted sport: watching niggers run. Ellison knew it, Wright knew it and if you’ve read Beloved you know that Morrison knows it.

Clarett’s name will not be place alongside Brown, Sanders, Smith, the NFL’s great tailbacks, but alongside the Invisible Man, Bigger, and Sethe. If those names don’t fit, maybe they’ll call him OJ if the jury decides to acquit.

Still none of these characters really provides us further insight into who Clarett is or what motivates and interests him. Through his conversation with Friend he’s told us not to make his plight any “bigger” than it is, so the lit-theorist in me has to oblige, even if I feel that it is a bit Biggerish.

Third World Order it is....

2006-08-03T08:41:00.001-04:00

"You could imagine my surprise two years later in 1996 when while listening to Funkmaster Flex’s radio show on New York’s Hot 97 I heard the beginning of what I thought was Roberta Flack's pristine “Killing Me Softly.” My first thought was that Flack must have passed away, or something else tragic happened to her, because I couldn’t figure out why Flex would be playing this soulful classic on his hip hop program. Then I heard it, the Roy Ayers sample that had..." Ferentz Lafargue

Most of you were right there with me in 96 so I don't need to go on any further. As I was writing an entry on our beloved Fugees the other day I journeyed over to Youtube to see if they had the "Killing Me Softly" video, of course they did, what was I thinking. A phone call, a need to stretch my aching back, oh yes, I realized that I somehow had left the kitchen faucet on went over to turn it off. Using the opportunity to get a snack and a drink of water I didnt make it back to my screen until the tail end of the video when I caught something that shook my senses almost as profoundly as the first time I heard the group's rendition of "Killing Me Softly."

After years of hearing folks bemoaning the demise of the legendary Fugees, I think we should've seen the writing on the wall when they made this video. Clearly, they had other things in mind then satiating our wanton desires for infectious covers of soul classics....

Third World Order it is....

The Nightshift Chronicler.

Rock Dis Funky Joint

2006-08-01T14:34:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if any rapper carried a group like Wise Intelligent did Poor Righteous Teachers back in the day. I bet if you name any other rap group you'll be able to come up at least with some kind of argument for the value of the various members. For example A Tribe Called Quest could have never flourished without Fife and even a cracked out Flava Flav somehow continues to merit participation in Public Enemy. I don't really have much else to say about this group besides the fact that I liked them back in the day...Plus I'm sure y'all would just rather watch the video then hear about the woman I used to date from Trenton who used to get really animated whenever PRT was brought up in conversation. Listen to her talk you'd swear they were the Beatles....

Without any further ado I present to you Trenton's version of Run DMC...

Thanks again Youtube for another find....

Charles Puts Foot in Mouth....

2006-07-30T20:08:00.000-04:00

I was all set to post on this quote made by Charles Gibson during a recent Q&A with New York Magazine reporter Joe Hagan in the magazine's June 5th edition when I noticed that I have been sitting on this for too long because a few other media outlets have already confronted Gibson on this issue.

Gibson alleges Hagan's reporting did not capture Gibson's intent, but if you look at his attempts explaining himself--it appears as if Hagan was actually dead on.

When asked by Hagan:
Will you report from the field as much as NBC’s Brian Williams?

Gibson responded
That’s because of Katrina; you saw him going down there. Now he’s in Africa. I don’t know why you do that. Why the hell do you go to Africa? It’s certainly an interesting choice. We’ll do travel, when it warrants.

I have quite a few friends who have reservations about the media's lionizing of Bono, but everyone acknowledges that his efforts are worthwhile and have had an impact. Moreover in a news industry that has become all too obsessed with the dealings of Brangelina/Britney and K-Fed or the latest missing co-ed to do enough due diligence to really educate the public on what's happening in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Lebanon, the last thing, even if its in jest, that any newsman should do is scoffing at another anchorman's using the American public's supposed celebrity worship to ignite a discussion on very important global concerns.

Having said a zillion things myself that should have never come out of my mouth, I understand Gibson's mistake (somewhat). So do not consider this post an attempt to start the fire Charles Gibson brigade.

Instead I would like to suggest something else, since Gibson has gone on record and proclaimed that he'll do travel "when it warrants" let's start a campaign to show him why Africa warrants travelling to. Whether your main concern is the war in Congo, the ongoing strife in Darfur or the relative tranquility enjoyed in countries such as Ghana or Tanzania I encourage as many people as possible to either email the good folks at ABC News and let them know why you think Gibson needs to get over to Africa.

They can also be reached via mail at:
You can also reach us at: ABCNews, 7 WEST 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.

This will undoubtedly not change the amount of attention given to Africa related matters as a whole, but it should further reinforce to Gibson why he needs to think twice.

blowin in the wind

2006-07-15T16:42:00.000-04:00

blowin in the wind, originally uploaded by ferentz76.

I am still getting re-acclimated to being back east and trying to catch up on the writing assignments that I have to turn in. Gradually, I'll start posting with some real verve again, but in the meantime I thought I'd share some images from my excursions out west with everyoe....

The Post-Slavery Futbol Helix: Notes of a "Confused Haitian"

2006-06-27T19:19:00.001-04:00

I have been slow to write about the world cup because I didn’t really know where to jump in. I had an idea for a piece about how Michael Jordan might’ve become the greatest soccer goalie of all-time if he ever took up the sport, this piece was inspired by watching footage of Trinidad’s goalie Shaka Hislop.

I’ve also been on the move too much to really sit down and flesh out that idea or anything really substantial about the world cup, not to mention some event just create their own narratives and they don’t need writing hacks like me to intervene.

All of this seemed to change however this week when I got caught up in what can only be described as Ghana-mania during my stay out here in California. Ghana-mania began last week Thursday when the friend who I was staying with in LA woke me up at 6am PST to watch the Ghana vs United States match (the match started at 7am PST and we had been out til 2am). It was a good spirited morning but my friend kept on blasting the ESPN broadcasters for being too American-centered, and she was right, they were very American-centered—but I felt for very good reason, millions of dollars had been invested in this American team that either wildly underperformed or was grossly overhyped. The broadcasters were doing their job trying to explain to the average American viewer which one it was.

It was hilarious watching the Ghanaians in attendance calling all the Afro-American players “traitors” for playing against their homeland, then two seconds later conceding that the Americans could have them because they weren’t that good anyway. Since it’d been years since I last played the beautiful game, I forgot exactly how much trash-talking goes on both on and off the pitch. Yankee and Red Sox fans have nothing on soccer fans when it comes to cutting down their adversaries. Fortunately, as a Haitian, I was playing the role of Switzerland and enjoying the serenity of my neutrality—or so I thought.

Ghana-mania was ratcheted up a notch when my friend and her dad turned their attention my beloved Haiti and our absence from the World Cup field. I made the error of telling them that Haitians are strong supporters of Brazil and many have adopted Brazil’s team as their own—an admission that led to my friend’s dad declaring “Haitians are CONFUSED.” Ghana-mania was now in full effect as the Ghanaians not only had a victory to celebrate, but a new whipping boy, the “CONFUSED” Haitians of the world.

Being the gracious host that I am I bit my tongue, and did not say anything, deciding instead to wait calmly until Ghana played Brazil in their next match—then we’d see who’s confused.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten exactly when that match was so when I got this email appeal from a friend this morning, I was, for a lack of a better word, “CONFUSED:”

"Les gaulois nos ancetres", vous connaissez bien cette expression que les francais ont utilise pour laver les cerveaux des noirs sous l'esclavage et la colonisation. Les haitiens, qui ont ete les premiers a rompre le fardeau oppresif de l'esclavage--ont toujours compris que nos vrais ancetres sont des Africains de Dahomey (aujourd'hui le Benin)...Mais parce que la region n'etait pas encore nettement separee, il est aussi possible que nous avons de meme des ancetres de La Cote d'Or--aujourd'hui le Ghana. C'est dans cet esprit chere famille que je vous encourage a soutenir le GHANA contre le Bresil dans le match aujourd'hui!! Je sais que cela n'est pas facile puisque les Haitiens soutiennent les bresiliens comme une equipe preferee, mais aujourd'hui rappelez-vous: LES GHANEENS NOS ANCETRES!!

["Les gaulois nos ancetres" this all too familiar expression was used by the French to brainwash Black minds during slavery/colonization. Haiti, as the first country to break free from France's colonial yoke, never trusted this lie--Haitians always know that our real ancestors are Africans from Dahomey (present day Benin)...of course, because this was before West Africa was divided into countries, it is possible that we do have ancestors from the region known as The Gold Coast--present day Ghana. It is in this spirit of pride in our African roots that I encourage all family members to root for GHANA against Brazil in today's World Cup Match! I know this will be hard because as Haitians we tend to root for Brazil as a favorite team, but on today let us remember--les ghaneens nos ancetres!!!]

It wasn’t the fact that I had to read French first thing in the morning that confused me, but I couldn’t really figure out what prompted my friend to send this appeal. Sure I knew she had a Ghanaian husband, so that must’ve changed her allegiances, from Ghana to Brazil, but her email had thrown a huge wrench in the post-colonial soccer matrix. Like most post-colonialists I eagerly look forward to any matches that pit the former colonizers against the former colonized (e.g. Trinidad vs. England and Angola vs. Portugal). I look forward to these matches with bated breath hoping that the former colonized will still it to their former colonizers.

However, never did I think of these matches in a post-slavery context. It was easy to laugh at my Ghanaian friend and her dad taunting the African-American players, but it wasn’t until I received my other friend’s email this morning that I realized that there really was something in those taunts, there were some traitors on the pitch, but, I wouldn’t be so quick to label the African-American players as traitors (which of course they are not). If we are talking about traitors and the legacy of slavery—and reading soccer through a post-slavery then on what side exactly should members of the African Diaspora cast their allegiances in matches where an Africanist nation like Brazil plays a African nation like Ghana?

Let me put this another way, should black folks in the Americas root for Brazil because it was the Ghanaians ancestors and their other West African compatriots who sold our ancestors into slavery?

Before I could answer this question for myself, I got a SMS message from my Ghanaian friend informing me that things were looking bleak for Ghana against Brazil—without pausing I wrote back “that’s what y’all get for selling us into slavery.” This reply had nothing to do with the post-slavery matrix that I am trying to make sense of, but was a bitter reflex response to the ribbing I took from her and her dad the previous week.

The match ended, and like most Haitians I know I am happy that Brazil won. As a futbol fan I am genuinely interested in the fate of this Brazil team as they seek to not just win the World Cup but seal a place for themselves as the greatest team in Brazilian, if not World Cup history. Their only Brazilian peers being the 1982 squad that featured the legendary foursome of Eder, Sócrates, Falcão and Zico, but which failed to win that year’s cup in spite of all the brilliance they displayed dribbling the ball on the pitch. Each time they step onto the pitch this year’s squad with Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Kaka are fending off the ghosts of that 1982 team just as they must be focused on outplaying their opponents.

Those who saw the match saw Ronaldo score his 15^th goal in world cup play to become the tournaments all-time leading scorer. This historical moment meant a lot to soccer fans who saw one of the best players from the last decade do what he does best, score, but was clearly another heartbreaking blow to Ghanaians whose team was defeated 3 – nil.

Ronaldo’s goal five minutes into match may have decided the outcome, but it does little for answering the question posed earlier, on whose side are the children of the African-Diaspora to hitch their wagons when their diaspora-cousins battle those long lost family members from the motherland?

Two interesting articles on Joe Gaetjens, the Haitian born member of the 1950 US national team shown in the picture at the beginning of this post being carried off the field by his teammates; Gaetjens scored their lone goal in the team’s World Cup upset of England in all of places Brazil. (Photo courtesy of www.wikipedia.org)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_v_United_States_(1950)

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/sports/gaetjens.htm

Oaxaca Teachers Strike

2006-06-26T20:56:00.000-04:00

As some of you might have heard teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico have been on strike since May 22nd, and have been engaged in a standoff with government officials--that at times has turned violent. The government of Oaxaca appears intent on doing whatever it takes to make the teachers to concede to their demands, but the teachers have been putting a resilient effort. This Wednesday, June 22nd, The Professional Staff Congress, CUNY's Teacher's union is holding yet another rally outside the Mexican Consulate in Manhattan to show support for our comrades in Oaxaca. If you're in NY and able to attend, do try making it out to show your support.

Labor/Teachers Rally to Support

Striking Teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico

Wednesday, June 28th

4:00-5:30 pm

The Mexican Consulate

(27 E. 39th St. between Park and Madison Aves.)

PSC-CUNY, the union of faculty and professional staff at City University of New York, is calling for a picket at the Mexican consulate to support our brother and sister Mexican teachers fighting a bitter, difficult strike in Oaxaca, southern Mexico. We call on the Mexican authorities to stop the violent use of police against the strike, and to meet the just demands of Local 22 of SNTE (National Education Workers Union). On June 14 Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortíz sent 1,700 armed state police against the teachers, bombarding them with tear gas from a helicopter, causing nearly 100 injuries and, reportedly three deaths among teachers and their children. As teachers and as unionists we must protest this outrage.

“This government is capable of anything,” one of the union leaders said, but added that the Popular Assembly “is prepared for any eventuality,” and that “none of our members will take a single step backward” (Jornada June 22, 2006). A New York Times report on June 22, describing the failure of the dawn police raid on June 14, confirmed the teachers’ resolve: “The raid failed miserably, as the teachers armed themselves with sticks and stones and fought running battles with the outnumbered police.”

June 22 marks a month into the teachers’ strike and encampment in the historic center of Oaxaca. The strike is for higher pay, but also for schools, supplies, and student stipends.

The teachers of Oaxaca and their allies in the Popular Assembly inspire us with their courage under attack and their effective organization. We call on all New York City unions, our students and other concerned citizens, to join us to protest police brutality against these teachers and to support their strike.

PLEASE JOIN US!!!

For more information contact Mary Ann Carlese at the PSC at

212-354-1252 ext. 225 or mcarlese@pscmail.org.

I've Always Been More of a Moet Brother

2006-06-25T12:57:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago while checking out Nah Right's blog I spotted a post about Jay Z's decision to ban Cristal from his 40/40 clubs and in effect calling for an all out boycott of the champagne because of remarks made by the company's president in an interview with the economist. Having never carelessly spilled a bottle of the bubbly over a bevy of video vixens and party goers, much less purchased one, like many rappers and some other select members of the "hip hop generation," I knew this boycott would have no bearing on my life whatsoever.

That said, I did think it was good thing that "El Presidente" was being more civic minded. And since he's a trendsetter hopefully this will be a trend that more rappers will follow. So with your help maybe we can convince rappers to expand the list of boycotted items beyond Cristal and to include other items whose manufacturers seem to have very little regard to their products impact in black communities. Here are my first three entries on what should be a long list of items that it would be kinda dope to see what would happen in the hood if MCs stopped dropping their brand names in their lyrics.
Smith and Wesson

Luger Pistols

Crack Cocaine

Those are my top three, do you have anything to add to this list?

The Verdict is In...But A New Battle Arises

2006-06-25T12:16:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I blogged about the parent and student protests at a downtown Manhattan against the city's plans to allow a charter school to share their space while the charter school waits for their building's completion. Well it appears that the verdict came in, and on Friday afternoon the Mayor's office announced that the Ross school will not be moving into the building occupied by NEST--a public school in lower manhattan. Read the Times article(s) to develop your own conclusions on this matter, but I for one believe that it shows what capital, organization and a good media campaign can bring about.

Ironically, I spied the dispatch about the NEST parents victory while reading another article about the upcoming Supreme Court reviews of desegregation or racial inclusion policies of public school boards across the country. It seems that some conservative and anti-affirmative action groups are upset that some school boards are taking race into account when admitting students. They are angry that these school boards have the gall to make their classrooms, hallways, and lunchrooms look like the rest of the United States.

I will concede however, that I do agree with the conservatives and anti-affirmative action millitia that integrating predominantly white schools is not the ideal solution to solving the racial inequalities in our nation's public schools. Shuttling African-Asian-and-Latino-American students out of their districts does not negate the fact that there are underfunded schools in the districts that they students are shuttled out of. This is a particularly vexing situation for suburban and rural school communities where schools that are predominantly white are often lamenting their inability to attract and retain non-white students. The inability to solve or at least develop more sensible programs for public education at the k-12 level impacts attempts to alleviate racial disparities at the collegiate level---where sometimes the schools seem to be at even more of a loss on how to address these issues.

You won't find any answers here--at least not yet--but let's at promise to continue keeping an eye on these developments so as to make sure no one is caught off guard in the future. As always comments and links to relevant resources are always appreciated.

Images From The West Coast

2006-06-25T04:28:00.000-04:00

"deconstructing the ubiquitous image of a haitian brooklyn blogger"

2006-06-19T14:41:00.000-04:00

On Sunday June 18th I bumped into Alice who Blogs at kiskeyAcity while walking through ft. greene with a friend (you can read Alice's own account here: kiskeyAcity: Brazil v. Australia @Smooch)

This was the second time she and I met, the first time being in 1996 when she and her cousin organized a screening of Raoul Peck's film "A Man by the Shore" at Barnard College in NY.

But that's not the reason why this recent encounter was worth noting. You see a few months ago I spotted Alice's blog on my friend Rich's blog The Homelands. Rich is the self proclaimed "Haitian Eclectic," who would be so hot right now if he just took my advice and got himself a Vespa.

After spotting Alice's blog on Rich's site, I linked her and she eventually linked me. I was notified of this link by Nyasha-zasha who blogs at The Global Parish. Yemi, as I call her, went to law school with Alice and was rather excited by the fact that her classmate and I had met, at least virtually. At that time I had not realized that Alice and I had already met...

That did not come until a friend--who prefers to remain anonymous--contacted Alice after seeing her link on my site and realized that she was friend's with Alice's cousin, the same one who co-organized the film screening I attended.

This connection was confirmed when Yemi came over to show me the pictures Rich had taken while accompanying her during one of her sojourns through NY's Garifuna community after they met at my birthday party where Rich was the official photographer.

So, I don't know if you call this six degrees of separation, a small world, kiskeyAcity,the global parish, the homelands, or as Yemi has declared: "deconstructing the ubiquitous image of a haitian brooklyn blogger," to me it's just another day on the nightshift.

I am not a slave

2006-06-09T09:29:00.000-04:00

I'm not a slave.'

Words spoken by a black nanny to the white boy in her charge.

Atlantic Center Mall

Brooklyn, NY
June 8, 2006

One of the books featured in my dissertation is Octavia Butler’s Kindred. It has a simple, but yet very troubling premise: a black woman in 1976 Los Angeles is inexplicably pulled back into 19^th century Maryland and has in order to ensure the well-being of, Rufus, the young scion of a plantation. Readers of speculative fiction do not have trouble suspending disbelief and following Butler’s protagonist, Dana Franklin, back and forth between the 19^th and 20^th centuries. What often irks some people about Kindred is that there are those like myself who do not believe that this relationship is not entirely fictive and is in fact one of the troubling legacies of slavery.

“Slavery is over.” I am often reminded—or even better yet—“It is ideas like this that keep people black people from moving forward.”

The refusal by some to acknowledge that the hierarchical system at play in the United States was ratified during the centuries of trans-Atlantic slavery is precisely the reason why I think that situations like the one faced by Dana Franklin actually manifest in twenty-first century America. I know that people do not physically travel back to the 19^th century, but many white and black Americans must nonetheless still replay some of the defining dramas of slavery. Case in point, the scene outlined in this post’s epigraph. Part of me felt like saying “I told you so” to some of my detractors—but the more powerful sentiment was a journey back to the poignancy of Butler’s text and its continued relevance. The black nanny and the young white boy most likely never got a chance to read Butler’s work or meet her in person before she passed away earlier this year, but she managed to capture a piece of their life together—a slice of the tension that exists between them and history.

Rufus: "You're not a slave are you?"

Dana: "No"

(Kindred, 29 - 30)

And speaking of history, did I mention that this scene took place in the Atlantic center mall.

C’est finis.

A Nigger by any Other Name

2006-06-08T09:30:00.000-04:00

One of the things that I strongly support is parental involvement with their children's schools. Reports confirm that schools where large numbers of parents are actively involved tend to serve students better. Imagine my surprise then, when while reading Elissa Gootman's article in Tuesday’s NYTimes I squrimed at one of the byproducts of a well heeled public school parent community.

Now as a scholar of African-American Studies I am not so naïve to believe that all forms of parental involvement are good and that there have not been instances where racism has been the inducement for parents springing into action. The civil rights movements throughout the 20^th century offer countless examples, and not just in the southern hotbeds, but also in northeast corridors as the school desegregation efforts in Boston in the 1970s revealed.

What struck me about Gootman's article is how the black and Latino students/families, the real root cause of the issue, were virtually absent from this debate pitting a wealthy philanthropists and these less wealthy public school parents. In spite of their absences though, these students/families wer somehow omnipresent. With Morrison’s essay collection Playing in the Dark still fresh on my mind because I taught it this past semester, the accord between the writer, representatives of philanthropist Courtney Sale Ross and the NEST students and Parents, and I, the reader, in being able to catch the metonyms of urban blackness and Latino-ness. This pact is so pronounced, and so crucial to the exercise undertaken by all involved that when one of Ms. Ross’s lawyers appears to be on the verge of breaking this pact, it leads to an outburst from one of the NEST parents:

Brooks R. Burdette, a lawyer for the charter school, drew gasps from NEST parents when he said of the charter school parents, "They are some of the more colorful faces in your courtroom."

"What am I? What am I?" an outraged NEST parent, who is Indian-American, said during a break in the proceedings.

This eruption is the only instance where someone’s race/ethnicity is explicitly mentioned and reinforces the point that throughout the rest of the article we are expected to assume that when the reporter refers to a NEST parent or student that person is white. Similarly, metonyms such as “underserved” and “community activists” are the invocations for the black and Latino students and parents. The language itself is not the concern, but as Morrison suggests in Playing in the Dark, particularly in her chapter on Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not, the acceptability of this language indicates how readers and writers are complicit in shaping the racial projects of their eras. In To Have and Have Not, Hemingway uses the appellations “nigger” and “Cuban” without any deliberation when referring to his black (I use black instead of African-American because the “Cubans” can also black—and therefore indistinguishable niggers in Hemingway’s treatment”) rather than giving them proper names like he does all the white characters in the novel. Morrison contends that “nigger” and “Cuban” become the proper names for these non-white American characters, thus while it may not give us any conclusive evidence on whether or not Hemingway was a racist, it vividly illustrates the racialized logic that enabled Hemingway and his reader to be on the same page as it were when it comes to this system of naming.

Assuredly if pressed to answer for themselves the NEST students and parents who wrote letters and offered appeals like the ones below, they would deny any allegations of racism:

"They're trying to destroy our school," cried Arianna Gil, 12, a NEST seventh grader, at the Cipriani rally, as she handed out gift bags embossed in silver lettering with the NEST logo and filled with publicity materials. She warned of "complete chaos" if the Ross charter school moves in.

As part of an assignment, students wrote letters to this reporter, warning of dirty hallways, overcrowded classes and a Ross takeover of the NEST cafeteria, with its round tables and purple neon sign.

I am willing to accept any ‘we’re not racist’ arguments if NEST students and parents can also provide enough evidence showing that they and their children have been subjected to a body of literature instructing them that “chaos” and “dirty hallways” are the byproducts of an increased ‘white’ presence in their schools. They will get gold stars if they can offer evidence that does not demonize poor or working class whites, but which illuminates the pitfalls of increased fraternizing with their “middle-class” white counterparts.

The “gifted” students and parents should not be ashamed if they find this task difficult because it is the problem facing American society as a whole, and it’s what allows for the reader, writer and the subjects of the article to understand the importance of eschewing direct mentions of whiteness, even though it permeates the article. This problem also engenders the strategic invocations of blackness and Latino-ness that are only there to amplify and highlight their presence for readers whose racial sight or hearing might be impaired (i.e. those in the “I don’t see color camp”).

If I were to offer a proposal for resolving this stand-off, it would not include any serious disciplinary action against the parents/students at NEST. The last thing that I want to encourage the NYC Mayor's office is to do is conjure up some draconian law for curbing parental involvement. I would however encourage the Chancellor's office to change the guidelines at NEST to increase its overall number of students. The logic being here if the campus could accomodate the incoming Ross Academy students, then it should be able to accomodate the same number of students from the local community--especially black, Chinese and Latino students--as well as students from low income and working class families. The committed NEST parents should be able to work in concert with the parents of these incoming students, especially if they know going in that failing schools are not only the result of inactive parents, but more often the government's willingness to let certain communities fall by the wayside.

I would then encourage Ms. Ross to redirect her efforts to one of the numerous under-funded schools in the city and working with the parents, teachers and the chancellor’s office to (1) help revive that school (2) bring her global academy to life without disrupting that school’s current mission to serve its students. One possible benefit from partnerships between schools and private benefactors is that it can relieve students and families from feeling as if they have to relocate writ large in order for positive changes to occur in their lives. Philanthropists and government leaders can not continue giving students and families in low-income and under-resourced communities the impression that only a select group of young ones are worth salvaging. Instead the goal should be to work with young people within their own communities and to give clear signs that already existing institutions are worth reviving.

These suggestions may appear elementary, but since the disease impairing the educational system/process is so fundamentally ingrained in this nation's conscience that it took every last bit of restraint on my part to not offer this curt response to the article: it's about time that the NEST students and their families (and might I add the nation as a whole) read the writing on the wall and learn to color outside the line.

Looking Towards the Préval Presidency

2006-06-01T08:42:00.000-04:00

The United Nations

Association of New York’s

Young Professionals for International Cooperation

Presents

Looking Towards the Préval Presidency: A Reading and Discussion on Haiti's Future

with Journalist and Author Michael Deibert

Thursday, June 1, 2006

6 – 8 pm

Wollman Hall, The New School

65 West 11^th Street, 5^th Floor

New York, NY 10011

Drinks & light appetizers will be served

This is a free event for YPIC and non-YPIC attendees

******

Summary:

With the inauguration of Haiti's new parliament and the government of President René Préval in May, Haiti opens another chapter in its often tumultuous history. Join us along with journalist and author Michael Deibert at The New School for a discussion of that history and where that Caribbean nation may be heading.

Michael Deibert's first book, Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti (Seven Stories Press), has been praised by The Miami Herald as "a powerfully documented exposé," by The San Antonio Express-News as a "compelling mix of reportage, memoir and social criticism," and by the filmmaker Raoul Peck (director Lumumba and Sometimes in April) as a book that "manages to show in the most intimate details how a democratic movement went wrong and how a heritage of valuable victories and painful sacrifice was slandered by a charismatic leader and his cronies." A chronicle of Deibert's years spent reporting from Haiti, Notes from the Last Testament is a riveting narrative account of the events leading up to and including the overthrow of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004, an event which Deibert witnessed first-hand.

Author Bio

Michael Deibert first visited Haiti in 1997 and served as the Reuters correspondent in Port-au-Prince from 2001 until 2003. His writing on Latin America and the Caribbean has appeared in Newsday, The Miami Herald, The Village Voice, The Economist Intelligence Unit, Salon, and The Guardian, among other publications.

A Tale of Two Songs

2006-05-31T14:45:00.000-04:00

Keeping with this “Intellectual Chocolate” theme, I’m reluctant to invoke Du Bois unnecessarily, but I have no other words to articulate this but to say that I am wrestling with a minor bout of “double-consciousness.” You see I have two guilty pleasures occupying my mind these days and I am not sure how either of one is contributing to making my life or the world a better place. Unless of course making me and I presume other folks happy can count toward making the world better.

These two guilty pleasures are both musical and each channel sides of me that at my advanced age I sometimes wonder if its best kept hidden. The first song is Chamillionaire’s “Ridin Dirty.” It’s the first rap song that I have heard in a while where I could truly say that I get it. “Ridin Dirty” does not have any of the bells and whistles that tend to attract me to rap music these days (e.g. sick production that completely overshadows weak lyrical skills or intricate word place that has me feeling myself each time I figure out one of the puns). The production and lyrics are tight, but what makes this song stand out for me is that it tells a tale that I could easily relate to as a black man—the seemingly never ending mission of cops to catch black men “ridin dirty.”

Call it what you will racial profiling, racism or police harassment, but it does very little to accomplish its goals of stopping criminals. Instead it creates another terrain in which black men could be suspicious of police officers. In full disclosure I have never been pulled over by a cop while driving, but that has not made me any more comfortable whenever they were within range and I was driving because I was always mindful of the hassle that might ensue if I were to get pulled over. I always wondered if my suspicions about them, might give them a reason to stop me—and causing an unnecessary disturbance for both parties. That was until I was pulled over once, not while driving mind you, but while riding my bike in my Brooklyn neighborhood.

My girlfriend at the time and I were on our way back from a Sunday afternoon bike ride through Prospect park and Park Slope. We had just about around the corner from her apartment so I hopped on the sidewalk in anticipation of my ensuing dismount. At which point I was stopped by two members of NYPD. At first I was told that I was stopped because riding a bike on the sidewalk is illegal in New York (a law that I had heard of, but which seems rarely ever enforced and more applicable to congested Manhattan streets then this barren Brooklyn one). Nonetheless I conceded to this fact and told the officer that my girlfriend lives around the corner and I hopped on the sidewalk because I was jumping off of it in a second, at which point one of the officers says that he thinks they should run a check on me. “Are you serious?” I ask him—totally surprised by this development. “Yes. We are serious,” the officer replies.

At this point my girlfriend has caught up and vouches to the fact that she lives just around the corner—but now the officers’ story has changed to “there’s been an unidentified black man” snatching purses as he rides by on the sidewalk and they want to check on whether I have any “outstanding warrants.” While thumbing through my wallet/pockets for my driver’s license I come across my Yale ID—which I produce for the officers first (since they only asked for an ID. I gave them an ID) and then when I come across my license I give it to them. “Uh, You’re a student at Yale,” the officer who has the Yale ID in his hand asks. “yes, I am in fact a Ph.D. candidate there,” I reply.

The other one who has my driver’s license looks stunned and trying to regroup himself asks “why do you have a Queens address on your license?”

“I grew up in Queens and since that license has yet to expire and I do not currently own a car—I haven’t had a reason to update the address.”

Meanwhile the other officer holding the Yale ID is still stunned, “wow you go to Yale!” he declares while turning over the ID to his partner.

His partner stares at the ID for a few moments, looking at me and the picture to make sure it is in fact the same person and that the name matches up with that on the driver’s license—seeing that they are one in the same he proceeds to inform me that they are going to let me off with a warning this time, and that for future reference I need to be careful about riding on the sidewalk, and tells my girlfriend to be wary of the purse snatcher.

It’s still not clear to me how I actually violated any laws necessitated me getting stopped and receiving a warning—but I do know that these officers were intent on making me feel like a suspect and worse so one in a “crime” that was not even remotely connected to why I was stopped. If this can happen to me on a bike—then I need not imagine what happens when they stop men in cars, which are larger and therefore offer officers more space to “search.”

So when I hear Chamillionaire’s “Ridin Dirty,” I feel as I immediately get it, there’s no need to wonder whether or not he has had this experience, because I have had it and just as the song suggests these incidents are less about whether the person stopped is innocent or guilty of a crime, but that citizens and officers have been resigned to taking part in a cat and mouse game that benefits no one.

Switching gears, this second song, Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie,” has just been stuck in my head ever since I heard in Jamaica last weekend and I wanted to implant it someone else’s head. I have a few stories to tell about this song, such as how it prompted an impromptu belly dancing lesson from a friend at a party that I attended a few weeks ago. Or the one about me begging the DJ to play it at a friend’s BBQ this Saturday…but those stories are neither here nor there. The song is infectious on its own and you are probably best served by listening to it for yourselves and creating your own “hips don’t lie” memories.

Now how does this contribute to my double-consciousness while I’m very content in my life as a professor, and am drawn to explicating the real life connections between a song like “Ridin Dirty,” another part of me believes that I was born to dance…and maybe even to belly dance. While Shakira’s hips don’t lie, I wonder whether or not I am living one and that I may in fact be the Haitian Michael Flatley…the lord of the dance…the belly dance.

These questions are not going to be answered with one blog entry, so while I plug along writing my books and articles and teaching the good fight, I’m also going to keep on practicing my hip drops and waiting on that coin belt a friend promised me….

Now if if the song does not stick in your head—hopefully that image will.

Intellectual Chocolate

2006-05-30T08:07:00.000-04:00

The other day I unveiled a new persona, Intellectual Chocolate, and as usual many of my friends thought it was insane. Of course those who got the Coming to America reference were grateful for an opportunity to wax poetic about that ingenious piece of cinema. Along with Eddie and Arsenio the film featured late eighties heavyweights like John Amos, Louie Anderson, Vanessa Bell Calloway and James Earl Jones, as well as a cameo by some dude named Samuel L. Jackson. This list does not even include folks like Garcelle Beauvais, Cuba Gooding Jr, Frankie Faison and Eriq La Salle, all of whom also became household names. (Now if you don't know who Frankie Faison is, then you need to get on amazon/netflix or whatever and cop the first three seasons of The Wire.)

There's another reason why intellectual chocolate came to life; if you ever get a chance try checking out Hazel Carby's book Race Men. Of particular concern here is chapter 1 where she discusses the intense valorization of W.E.B. Du Bois by certain black male scholars. Thinking back to Carby's argument in that book, brought to mind an Easter present that I have been incubating in my fridge.

When these two visions were combined with the sweet memories of days long gone where Coming to America was a vhs staple--a new figure was born--Intellectual Chocolate.

I don't know what will become of Intellectual Chocolate but in the meantime all that I can say is "How sweet it is"

Haitian American Day Parade

2006-05-26T09:42:00.000-04:00

Haitian American Day Parade
Sunday May 28th, 2006
1pm
Presented by The Haitian American Day Parade Committee

Parade Begins at Nostrand Avenue and Empire Blvd and Proceeds to Foster Avenue
For More Information Call 718-434-9250

Katherine Dunham/ "A Place in the Sun"

2006-05-24T10:43:00.000-04:00

"A Place in the Sun"

by Stevie Wonder

Like a long lonely stream
I keep runnin' towards a dream
Movin' on, movin' on
Like a branch on a tree
I keep reachin' to be free
Movin' on, movin' on

'Cause there's a place in the sun

Where there's hope for ev'ryone
Where my poor restless heart's gotta run
There's a place in the sun
And before my life is done
Got to find me a place in the sun

Like an old dusty road
I get weary from the load
Movin' on, movin' on
Like this tired troubled earth
I've been rollin' since my birth
Movin' on, movin' on

There's a place in the sun
Where there's hope for ev'ryone
Where my poor restless heart's gotta run
There's a place in the sun
And before my life is done
Got to find me a place in the sun

You know when times are bad
And you're feeling sad
I want you to always remember

Yes, there's a place in the sun
Where there's hope for ev'ryone
Where my poor restless heart's gotta run
There's a place in the sun
Where there's hope for ev'ryone
Where my poor restless heart's gotta run
There's a place in the sun
Where there's hope for ev'ryone...

Dr. Dunham speaking on Shango; courtesy of Shango 123 via youtube

New Exhibit: Through Our Eyes

2006-05-23T08:19:00.000-04:00

This exhibit goes up on Thursday May 25th and runs through June 18th at the Riverside Church. Check out The Brotherhood/Sister Sol website for more information on the exhibit and other events.

Through Our Eyes

May 25th - June 18th

The Riverside Church
91 Claremont Avenue b/w 120th and 122nd Streets

1 to 116gh Street or 1,2, or 3 to 125th Street
M-104, M-4 or M-5 to 120th or 122nd Streets

Admission is Free

For More Information Call 212 283 7044

As

2006-05-15T16:16:00.000-04:00

As
By "The Eldest Daughter of Deborah W. Brown"

"Simile: A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as. " -- Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Stevie Wonder's "As" – it's like a quasi ode to the simile. It's also the song where Stevie tracks the infinite nature of his love by painting a picture of what "always" looks like. "Always" is coterminous with events like "the day that 8x8x8 is 4" and "the day that you are me and I am you." It is that last line in particular that reminds me of my mother.

The day when I am like my mother.

I was a relatively outgoing, eighties-ninties girl, who strived to keep up with the times, had long and straight relaxed hair, loved hip-hop, R&B, and McDonalds, read books about Nancy Drew, and was of course, always up on the latest fashion trends. I was really smart, but unlike my mother, I was cool. I was an apple.

She was an orange. With her shyness and quiet demeanor my mother does not fit the typical "strong black woman" image. In fact, if you tried to apply it to her, it would consume her size two, overly sweet, chocolate frame. To the teenaged me, she was a nerdy woman, who was way too good at math, science, and computers, worried way too much about my sister and me, told ridiculously corny jokes ( e.g. last month she reminded her friends that it was brown pig month . . . don't ask), read these really "weird" books on religion and black history, always wanted to eat healthy food like whole wheat bread and brown rice, who played Beethoven and Bach on the piano; a woman whose hair went from Jherri curl to afro, and who never quite grasped the concept that green, purple, red and sky blue should never make an appearance on one's body at the same time.

So I would cringe at any comparison of myself to . . . her. My fear: even the most innocent of comparisons might open the door for other, more insidious comparisons – if we looked alike, then next thing you know, folks will say that we dress alike. (The horror!) Or that we have the same sense of humor (The insult!). And the more they said it, the more likely I might actually become like her. As her…

…

As I type this up, running my hair through my fro, with my Nancy Drew books long packed away, and my Betty Crocker Healthy Food cook book on the shelf next to my book, "A Case for Faith", a computer science and engineering degrees under my belt, about a decade older than my teenage self, I wish I could remember the moment – if there is in fact only one – in which I realized who I was becoming like. As. Who my mother was. Is. . . . Behind the mismatched colors and shy disposition is a strong black woman. Strong because with her taste for both Beethoven and naptural hair, she defies typicality. And strong because she is comfortable being a unique version of strong. And strong because she insisted on loving me when I was too cool to want to be anything like her.

But she is. A woman who I want to be like. A woman who I want to be as. She is "the certainty of the earth's path around the sun" as I am "loving her always." [FN1] Thanks, Stevie.

Love Light in Flight

2006-05-15T15:55:00.000-04:00

Love Light in Flight
By Cameo Brown

As I sit here on Saturday, May 13, 2006, celebrating the birth of Steveland Hardaway Judkins, a.k.a. Stevie Wonder, I am also listening to my mother singing background on “Love Light in Flight” from the Woman in Red soundtrack, and patiently awaiting my birthday, which is tomorrow, Sunday, May 14, 2006 – Mother’s Day! Yes, I was born on Mother’s Day (Sunday, May 14, 1978) to Antoinette Dimple Brown, a woman whose voice is as angelic as her spirit.

I have always relished in the fact that I was born on such a special day, a gift to my mother who had lost her own only a couple of years before to breast cancer. It is so eerie how the universe has a way of aligning the stars just right and placing just the right people in your life. If I remember correctly, Stevie contributed the beautiful red blanket that covered my grandmother’s casket, and he is also the one who later sent my mother to Seth Riggs (an amazing vocal coach). I have heard stories my whole life about “Stevie” - the recording sessions and his humorous disposition. In fact, I have met him a few times and even tutored his daughter once!

Music, lyric and song have been central to my development as a young woman. My mother’s gift – her voice – and her undying love for music have made a huge impact on my life. She has always encouraged me to think critically about artistic expression and its relationship to others. The combination of instruments (drums, voice, horns, etc.) with lyrics that speak of the human condition in all of its complexity is magical! I give thanks to my mother for being an example of how a human being can use one’s voice to inspire and enlighten, to bring joy to the hearts of others.

Growing up, much of what I heard in my household (if it wasn’t in fact my mother) was Stevie Wonder. Of course, “Love Light in Flight” will always remind me of my mother because her voice rings through the background! In terms of lyrics, “As” most closely resembles the way that I feel about her – unconditional, almost indescribable love! Stevie couldn’t have said it better. BUT, the song that really reminds me of my mom is “Creepin,” mostly because Minnie Ripperton is singing background with Stevie and my mother absolutely loves her – sounds a lot like her in fact.

This time of year is always special, a reminder of what is truly important – Love and Creativity.

"I Just Called to Say I Love You"

2006-05-10T12:23:00.000-04:00

I Just Called to Say I Love You
By M.F. Baker

Last night I called my mom since I hadn’t talked to her in a week or two. She was in the midst of writing and illustrating a children’s book, papers strewn around the living room, no one home to bother her. Neither her husband nor any of her four adult children around to disturb her creativity; allowing her to bask in a rare luxury. She recently got a mini grant from the elementary school she teaches kindergarten at to create this book, the school my three younger siblings and I attended.

“Tell me what’s going on in New York” she says. “Well,” I say, “work is simmering down and I’m looking forward to the summer, oh and I’m going to Miami for a meeting in a couple of weeks....I’m gonna try to visit Uncle Peter while I’m down there.” In a worried tone, she says “Be careful down there, it’s a big city.”

My response, “Mom, New York is a big city.” We burst into laughter at the absurdity of her constant worrying. Then she brings up a sobering story about how my younger sister’s dorm-mate’s little sister had recently been found burnt to a crisp in a nearby park. “It’s like that story about I.... she says. Didn’t you know her older sister?” Yes, I thought. “It’s just scary that two of my daughters know the older sisters of two young girls that have been brutally murdered,” she says. We sat on the phone in silence for a little bit, each of us reflecting on the insane world we live in.

I changed the subject, “I’m going to a Stevie Wonder party this weekend.” I chose this non sequitur because I knew the halcyon response it would generate. Without fail, every time I mention Stevie she says, “You know I saw him perform when he was 12 and I was in the 8th grade? He came to Cincinnati and performed during this hay-ride we were on.” A hay-ride? I thought, how 1960’s middle-America, “You mean he performed in a barn?”

“Yeah”, she said, “I remember him playing the harmonica. It was crazy because we were practically the same age, but he was this rising star.” I asked her if she remembers any of the songs he sang/played. We burst into laughter again, realizing that the likelihood of her remembering anything more about the event than she had already shared was unfathomable. Thirty-plus years of smoking weed will do that to you, I guess. My mom doesn’t remember much, including the time of day I was born, but she remembers when Stevie played harmonica in a barn in Cincinnati.

Despite her early exposure to the man, I didn’t grow up listening to Stevie. She married my Jamaican father and reggae was the music of my childhood. Dennis Brown, Peter Tosh, Freddy McGregor, Bunny Wailer and of course the rising star of my childhood, Bob Marley. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I was exposed to the range of Stevie’s music. Peers introduced me to his music, the music they grew up listening too with their mothers and fathers.

The one Stevie Wonder song that resonates with me most from my childhood and that reminds me of my parents when we lived in Jamaica before moving to Boston is “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” It was one of the countless "songs from foreign" (said with jamaican accent) reggae artists would claim for themselves using their Caribbean beats, melodies and rhythms to orchestrate their own reggae remake.

On mother’s day, or better yet, whenever the moment strikes you, don’t forget to call just to say “I love you.”

Happy Birthday

2006-05-09T23:33:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday

By Wardell Franklin

My mother’s record collection contained a variety of classical, jazz, Latin, and 1960s and ‘70s rock LPs. She also had smattering of R&B and soul albums. Aretha Franklin was far and away her favorite, although she was also very fond of Roberta Flack. There were also two Stevie Wonder records nestled into the small shelves beneath the stereo system in the room that was once the dining room but became my mother’s home office when I was about nine or ten. One of the records was Stevie’s colossal 3LP Anthology. It had a striking double gatefold pink cover and the six sides of music encased within offered an incredible introduction to Stevie’s early catalogue. The songs were hummable and sing-along-able, and ranged from the electricity of “Fingertips” and “Workout, Stevie, Workout” to the soothing reassurances of “My Cherie Amour” and “Blowin’ In The Wind.” I spent a lot of time with those records.

But I spent as much – if not more – time with the other Stevie LP my mother owned, Hotter Than July. I was drawn in (again) by the cover art, as well as by the more contemporary sound of the album. And while I had only vaguest sense of the politics embedded in “Master Blaster (Jammin’)” – “Peace has come to Zimbabwe…” – I could nod my head and sing or dance along with many of the songs. However, it was the final song on the album that grabbed a hold of me and refused to let go.

In 1984 I was a little bi-racial black boy trying to untangle the complicated and confusing webs of race and identity while being raised by my white mother in a multi-ethnic, but still predominantly white, environment. My West African father was little more than an apparition who lived an ocean away and who passed through my life once a year or so. My mother did her best to help me find my way – taking me to concerts and poetry readings and restaurants that would expose me to black culture and to my Nigerian heritage. I often resisted her efforts, as little boys (and brooding teenagers) are wont to do. There was much that I had to figure out on my own and my mother, to her credit, supported me and allowed me the space to do so.

Among the long list of things I had to figure out was why Martin Luther King, Jr. – the quintessential figure of peace, goodwill, and harmony I had been learning about since I started school – had been murdered and, moreover, why most of my peers were so nonchalant about the holiday that honored him. Stevie’s tribute, “Happy Birthday,” lifted me up and comforted me. I would sometimes sit by my mother’s record player and play it over and over and over again. There was a certain somberness, or at least seriousness, in Stevie’s monologue in the middle of the song that spoke to my own racial questioning and longing and occasional sadness as I tried to figure out exactly what kind of world I was growing up in. But this was always mitigated by the pure joy of the chorus and it was this unbridled celebration and hopefulness that I latched on to and which transfixed me.

Sometimes I remember those moments listening to “Happy Birthday,” reflecting on King and his vision and its relationship to me as solitary ones. Just me. By myself. Alone. But when I really think back, I realize that I was not alone. My mother was there. Sometimes literally, like when she would take me to a King Day service at a local college or a downtown church, or when she would just come into my room to check on me. Just as often, however, she was with me figuratively, supporting me as I traveled on my journey. For that, and for introducing me to the magical world of Stevie Wonder, I am forever grateful.

My Cherie Amour

2006-05-09T09:07:00.000-04:00

My Cherie Amour

by The Nighshift Chronicler

My cherie amour, lovely as a summer day. My cherie amour, distant as the milky way. My cherie amour, pretty little one that I adore, you're the only girl my heart beats for,how I wish that you were mine.

Stevie Wonder

I was blessed to have more than one Mama growing up. Because my parents emigrated to the NY while I was still a baby leaving me behind in Haiti under the supervision of my aunts and grandparents, it was not until I was five that I actually realized that my mom was my mother. Up until then the three women who you see pictured here, along with my grandmother who I’ll talk about in another post, were Mamas to me.

To this day whenever I go visit my aunt B.—the one kneeling—she never fails to remind me that she used to change my diapers, take me to the doctor for shots and nurse me back to health whenever I got sick. When she closes out her stories she walks over and either gives me a kiss on the cheek or a pulls me along for a hug before proceeding to tell me, “you’re my first son. You know that right?”

The answer is always yes.

I had gotten accustomed to Aunt B’s ritual by the time I went back to Haiti with her in 1990 for my first visit since leaving in 1981. So I guess I should not have been surprised when the other two aunts pictured here, Zizi on the left and Rosa on the right, told the very same stories that I had been hearing aunt B tell for years. And just like Aunt B. each time one of them finished telling one of their stories she also reminded me that I was her first son.

What I remember about growing up with my aunts however has nothing to do with coughing up anything and except for the time I fell asleep with a wad of gum in my mouth and woke up the next morning with gum matted throughout my hair and a pillow stuck to my head, I rarely ever recall crying in their presence. My memories are of them standing me onto my grandparent’s porch and proceeding to use me as a stand in to practice their imagined dances with the boys that used to battle for their attention after school.

At first they’d place me on the top step and stand on the pact on the right side of the stair case to dance with me. But as I grew they had to put me a step lower and it took more of an effort for them to snap me off the staircase at the end of our dance and sprint across the courtyard with me in their arms, tickling me and passing me along from one to another like a little cherubic baton.

But while danced, I played the role of Jean-Pierre, Jacques or whoever they decided was their intended suitor. Each aunt would take turns dancing with me—or rather dance as they held my arms, thrusting themselves into spins, all the while smiling at me as if I was the one leading our tango. After a while I couldn’t hold hands any longer and would get really excited, clapping merrily as they started dancing in a circle with each other, poking me in the belly after every three pirouettes or so—all four of us becoming more animated as the musicians on the little transistor radio really got into their song. Sometimes I got so excited hopping up and down, forever teetering on falling off and sacrificing a tooth to the tooth fairy.

Maybe it was because I never fell off that step no matter how close that I got to the ledge that made those moments seem so exciting, and had me hoping that they would never end.

It was probably because of the dances that I fell in love with Stevie’s “My Cherie Amour.” That song reminds me of those moments on the porch steps with my aunt-Mamas, being called Cherie, being loved. “My Cherie Amour” reminds me of when love was playful, instead of painful, when it was about dancing, teetering on the edge but never falling and being tickled in the end by the whole experience.

“My Cherie Amour” reminds me of these three women, my aunt-Mamas who rather than give up their youth to take care of me, instead decided to share it—spoil me with sweets—wads of gum that went to my head rather than mutating into cavities. These three aunt-Mamas made magic out of miracles and a believer out of me.

Easy Going Evening/My Mama's Song

2006-05-08T15:43:00.000-04:00

This weekend the Nightshift Chronicles will celebrate two very special days: the first is the birthday of Steveland Hardaway Judkins, a.k.a Stevie Wonder, which falls on May 13^th. And second is Mother's Day, which is being honored on Sunday May 14, 2006. Since the stars have perfectly aligned these two holidays on our calendars, I thought I should do my best to make sure that are acknowledged to the utmost degree. Therefore, I’m proud to announce the first annual Nightshift Chronicles Mama's Week.

In honor of Mamas Week, I am asking the good folks out there reading to submit a testimonial about the Stevie Wonder song that best speaks to your relationship with/reflections on/memories of/feelings for your mama or mamas (since many of us have women and in some cases men in our lives who have played that role). Over the course of the week, I will turn over the front page of The Nightshift Chronicles to your testimonials about Mama written in the key of Stevie. Feel free to email pictures that compliment your testimonial as well, and of course, don't forget to tell mama.

Easy Going Evening

by The Nightshift Chronicler

My mom cooks like Stevie Wonder makes music. She channels the spirits of our ancestors via her recipes that are scrawled on a worn composition notebook; the pages that were once white now range from onion yellow to potato brown around some edges. Her meals nourish my family. Mama's white rice and with navy bean sauce avec lambi et plus banane peze ease away dad's hunger pangs for days long gone in his native Haiti. Her fried chicken with collared greens, mashed potatoes and gravy were at times the best stewards that my brother had as we sought to fit in with our African-American classmates. Whenever she made that meal, which she learned to make in the states, my brother and I had something to talk about with the other kids at school the next day; for once our mama cooked something they could understand—something many of them also loved.

Yes, my mama's cooking is like Stevie's music. Her pots are her tableau for conjuring up the bouillon of expressions that we have come to refer to black as black music...Stevie's music...

When she cooks she likes to carry out her own tunes out loud. Sometimes she sings. Sometimes she hums. It’s the humming which I enjoy most and which reminds me of Stevie’s “Easy Going Evening.” I love it when Mama hums because it always appears as if she is trailing off somewhere else. At times I imagine her drifting off to Haiti, thinking about to when she and dad were teenagers and they’d spend their Saturday afternoons at the “cinema,” or maybe she’s journeying off to a space at I don’t know about. One of the many spaces that women learn to keep from their kids and husbands so as to not give all of themselves away in trying to make other people happy.

During these moments she’d hum in a falsetto about an octave higher than the chords coming out of the harmonica on “Easy Going Evening.” As she plucked one carrot after another out of the pot to peel it, the discarded layers dropping into a bowl initiating a brown-orange hail storm inside the kitchen sink. In perfect time with the strokes she was leveling on the carrot she’d hum a medley of her favorite songs. One song that almost always made it into this medley was “Amazing Grace,” a song that she picked up by watching Ray Charles perform on tv. Where there normally vocals in the song Mama inserted her trademark movements; she’d cock her head back; she’d wipe her brow with her forearm, and my favorite—and this is the only time she’d was guaranteed to leave her spell to say something—she’d pivot to the left and then lean back on her right leg, place her right wrist on her hip and look in my direction, suck her teeth and say “if I had a daughter she could be peeling these carrots for me so that I get started with the rest of the meal.” This was my cue to drop what I was doing: reading/watching television/doing another chore to relieve her of the peeling so that she could tend to the rest of the meal.

And as I started with the peeling, taking over the reigns of the hale-storm, Mama would go back to humming—go back to that place that she only knew existed—go back to her song.

One More Try

2006-05-05T08:39:00.000-04:00

Normally I'd be talking about Biggie with a tag line like that, but......

For those jaspora looking for something else to do besides checking out Carimi on a Friday night...why not make the trek to the east vill to check out this premiere by paisyen Patrick Ulysse

"One More Try"

Friday May 5th, 2006.

UNIMIX FILMS
Presents
FUNDRAISER/PREMIERE OF "ONE MORE TRY", a short romantic comedy
@
The Pioneer Movie Theater
155 East 3rd Street
(between Avenues A and B, but closer to A)
New York, New York 10009
Only Two shows:

6:45pm and 7:45pm

Mezanmi please be on time as seats are limited
Donations between $10 and $10,000

"One More Try" features Macc Plaise and Chantal Tuffet.

PS After party at Star 64
64 East 1st Street
bet. 2nd and 3rd Avenues closer to 1st Avenue
from 8:30 pm to 11 pm

Please forward to all.

Akeelah and the Bee

2006-05-04T23:42:00.000-04:00

Before the customary discussion about how another “good” film marketed toward African Americans/featuring African Americans went unsupported at theatres gets underway, I would like to encourage people to check out Akeelah and the Bee this weekend. I got a chance to see it on Sunday and it was a really enjoyable film. What struck me about it is how the writers tried bringing the adage “it takes a village to raise a child” to life. Rather than letting the young protagonist become overwhelmed by her burgeoning success—Akeelah and the Bee—shows us there is another option. The film captured very well the heavy price for success that young African-Americans are sometimes expected to pay when suddenly thrust in front of cameras/microphones and distracted from being able maintain the sense of order and discipline in our lives that made the success possible in the first place.

Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett do well in this film, but admittedly these are roles that both actors could pull off with their eyes closed. The young woman Keke Palmer is the true star (as well as a dead ringer for a pre-teen Angela Bassett). Palmer does an excellent job of being nerdy/silly/confident/vulnerable—in a word—she performs the frailty of strength that childhood embodies really well. Not to be outdone are J.R. Villarreal, who plays Javier another one of the spelling bee contestants who quickly befriends Akeelah, and Sahara Garey (Georgia) Akeelah’s best friend in her South Central neighborhood. Villareal and Garey help anchor Palmer in the two worlds she has to navigate.

It’s a great film to not only take your kids/younger siblings/mentees to see, but also one to really sit down and talk with them over whether they understand what happened on screen. The lessons imparted in Akeelah and the Bee will also resonate with adults seeking to revive their connections to their communities and a younger generation that is not as foreign or as “insolent” as adults often presume.

After checking out Akeelah and the Bee make a date to watch 2002’s Spellbound, the documentary from which it draws its inspiration, if you have not seen it.

And again, if you do not check out Akeelah and the Bee while its in theatres you are exponentially increasing the likelihood that you will have to engage/suffer another discussion about lack of support for positive images of African-Americans within the next month.

Also, if you check it out, leave a comment so that I could know what you thought about it--this way I'll know whether to keep future movie recommendations to myself.

For Where Are We Marching?

2006-05-02T17:00:00.000-04:00

Each time I attend a march I am always left feeling a bit empty and wondering what was/will be the tangible impact of that day’s actions. This feeling has increased over the years as the not only the number of causes to march for has increased, but so has the efficiency of these marches.

Take for example yesterday’s rally in Union Square renouncing the unfair immigration legislation being considered by the senate. When people left Union Square and started marching toward city hall it seemed so natural, flawless that I could not help wonder if there was something wrong with that flawlessness. The streets were cleared, no one was literally stepping on anyone else’s toes (a fact that I realized when my friend pointed out to how clean her sneakers had remained during the entire rally) and everyone knew where we were going, as if we were all on a walk home. Yesterday’s march and many marches in New York City over the past two and half years have reminded me of my walk home during the blackout of 2003.

As I made my way to Brooklyn from Manhattan I was in awe of how huge the crowd traveling along with me: “is this that what subway employees see everyday?”—I remember asking myself as we made our way through downtown Manhattan and over the Brooklyn Bridge. Like the black out, most NYC marches follow a similar pattern (1) massive crowds walking south in Manhattan toward Brooklyn or city hall, (2) people incredibly orderly more so than on an average subway commute where there’s a lot more pushing, shoving and disregard for personal space, (3) both the gritty and glossy images that many associate with NYC are subsumed by the mundaneness (for a lack of a better word) of most New Yorkers in comfortable shoes, backpacks and t-shirts gathering together trying to prove a point.

However what the blackout proved though, is that it was once the throngs made it back to the outer boroughs that New Yorkers really defined themselves; scores of people held impromptu barbecues so that their food would not go to waste and neighbors, many people who were normally too busy or too introverted to interact with each other were suddenly found sharing food goods and stories on fronts lawns and building roofs. Other than the occasional block party, that was the only day I ever saw the residents on my block barbecuing because on any other given day in New York it would seem absurd for those living in our buildings to gather out front hovering over a grill as if we lived in some suburban enclave.

I wonder if its possible to cultivate a similar form of spontaneity and sense of community after a rally, especially now that rallies and marches have become somewhat uniformed in NYC (and I imagine the same is happening in Chicago/DC and Los Angeles) a way for the momentum to extend to the outer boroughs. I wonder if New Yorkers are capable of being as kind and cordial with our neighbors in large group settings without the banners of a cause or being ushered by police, and whether we are capable of opening ourselves up like we did during the black out.

I ask these questions in the aftermath of the immigration rallies because I do not want to lose the momentum of solidarity. After years of watching immigrants of all different hues ant nationalities being accused of everything from bringing AIDS and other infectious diseases to this country—most notably Haitians and those from Sub-Saharan Africa—to being vilified as terrorists—I think the challenge is less about showing government that immigrants are important to America—but it should be to remind ourselves to never forget that our fellow US residents, regardless of what stationery they have saying that they have a right to be here, have rights that need to be respected. Yes we can speak nostalgically about Irish, Italians and Jewish immigration (quite honestly I find it a bit troubling that people tend to speak of these groups emigrating to the US only in the past tense as if they are not still making their ways to these shores), but American citizens need to become more proactive in calling for economic and security agendas that are set apart from spurious actions/claims by members of a supposed “axis of evil” and “illegal immigrants.”

The throngs of people coming to the shores and across the borders of the US are not arriving like pariahs in the night to steal American babies, jobs and livelihoods—in fact one can make an argument that Americans are more guilty of these actions abroad than immigrants to the US—what they are coming here to do is take part in a project that is a little over two centuries old. America never was and never will be America and that is precisely the beauty of America. This nation is a work in progress—there’s an imagined end goal—AMERICA—but that end is still very far off. If Americans have lost sight of this fact then it is not the fault of the multitudes who come in from abroad to lend a hand, but rather shows how culpable those who call themselves Americans have become at outsourcing the future and integrity of this country to those aliens that we call politicians. In a country that has gone through one acknowledged major period of Reconstruction and countless other periods where it has had to reassess its priorities—one should consider the legality of but with a few exceptions (emphasis on the few) the make up of our elected officials/representatives has barely changed in the last hundred years in terms of class, ethnicity and race. It’s paradoxical to consider that this nation has had a father and son elected president before it has elected a woman, an Afican-Asian-Latino-or-Native American.

Going back to my earlier point about marches, in the same way rallies have become streamlined, efficient so have all of our other means of civic/participation and engagement. Even when we are seeking to disrupt the system these days we seem to be acting in accordance with the system. Yesterday’s march was a success because it brought out hundreds of thousands of people all across the country in support of immigrant rights but sooner or later we are all going to have to realize that the question may not be exactly for what are we marching, and instead, for where are we marching?

Smoke Signals Part Deux

2006-05-01T12:59:00.000-04:00

This morning I woke up reminding myself to remind myself not to forget to go to the Immigration Rally taking place this afternoon at Union Square. I had to do all this reminding because my mind has been somewhat overextended of late and I have missed taking part in some events/actions because they slipped my mind.

Anyway, looking at today’s NY Times and come across this article about a woman accused of defrauding Garifuna and other immigrant communities in New York. It appears that the accused, Maria Elena Maximo, started out offering immigration support, computer and job assistance to Caribbean immigrants in the Bronx. The article alleges that Maximo gradually began defrauding some of her clients and/or improperly filing their papers with the INS.

There are probably a dozen stories like this written every year, and it clearly points out to one of the countless difficulties that immigrants face when trying to adapt to or securing residency in the United States. Unfamiliar with the language and laws of this country, and eagerly wanting to stay in the United States, immigrants often turn to people like Ms. Maximo to help them maneuver through the legal system. Members of immigrant communities in the US often end up turning over their life savings—and sometimes going into debt to pay for such services. Therefore when Americans are quoted as saying that immigrants are taking jobs that “we don’t want,” it’s not because they are desperate for money, but they are often desperate to make use of any opportunity to acquire something that some Americans take for granted, their citizenship. If you’d ask most Americans, like many immigrants there’s at least one other country that they’d like to, or be open to spending part of their lives, be it the “old world” (e.g. England, France, Ireland or Italy). I do not mean take for granted in the pejorative sense, simply that there’s a basic human instinct to live someplace new, different—maybe even exotic—but we only like to grant or concede that impulse to those who can afford the lifestyle. In a sense it’s ok for rich celebrities to travel the world as they choose, butchering languages, and presumably naively offending natives as they parody their customs, but for some reason it is inexcusable for hard working natives of other countries to come to the united states and adopt the otherwise ballyhooed ethos know as the “American work ethic.”

We all know that what ms. Maximo is accused of doing is wrong—we should also know that sympathy are not the only emotions to be extended to our brothers and sisters from different shores, or as in the case of “Mexican immigrants,” people who are repatriating territories that not too long ago was theirs. We should also know that people like Ms. Maximo are byproducts of a system that needs to be reevaluated and overhauled. Spending time trying to catch “illegals” and prosecuting people who are ‘illegally helping illegals’ shows how (1) outdated immigration policy is in this country, and (2) how absurd the legal framework for categorizing immigration “offenses” is in the United States. In my estimation the United States would have a more effective immigration policy if it improved its relationship with the world, and became a model citizen in multi-national organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank, rather than one of the many bad seeds trying to bear fruit.

There was another reason why ms Maximo’s story caught my attention. For the past few months I have been collaborating with a friend trying to develop a project that is part ethnomusicology, part cultural history of the Garifuna.

She’s hit roadblock after roadblock in trying to develop her project—but as far as I can tell once she hits her stride what she produces should be nothing short of amazing and will be one of the things that people have to revisit in the libraries for years on end. In the time that I have known her, I’ve heard about her attending countless events showcasing the talent brewing amidst the NY Garifuna community and seen her own attempts at getting her project out in the open for more support.

However it was not until today’s article in the Times that I saw a major paper cover something happening in the New York Garifuna community. And as if Maximo’s story is not tragic enough, her ascent is connected directly to the Happy Land massacre of 1990 in which scores of people died trying to get out of a club that erupted in flames. The reporters are doing their jobs and writers in pointing out that this same community that was literally burned in 1990, is now being burned, albeit figuratively, by one of their own—a person in whom they had invested their hopes and dreams.

Ironically, my friend’s hope and dream is to reverse this trend—change the narrative arc of the Garifuna from tragedy to triumph—from a dying past to a very alive and living future—so that the next time we see smoke emitting from their midst the world will know how to read their signals.

From the mouth of babes

2006-04-30T09:16:00.000-04:00

This image comes from the May 1st issue of The New Yorker.

Now raise your hand if you can relate.....

I wish I could write like this....

2006-04-29T22:30:00.000-04:00

I was so blown away by the comment/response pasted below to my March 23rd "Words Exchange" post that I had to bring it to the fore as its own entry. All I had to say when I read it was wow....The author was a cat who seems to by the tag Kev; Kev if you're out there reading my hat goes off to you. And for the rest of the world take in Kev's gems:

But from the abyss, is it words that will save us? I used to think so. But what is the abyss? The abyss might be a good metaphor for disease (dis-ease). With dis-ease (disease), it seems the problem is often either too much of something, or not enough: hypotension/hypertension, microencephaly/macroencephaly, manic/depressive. What is the middle ground, the normal state, and will words deliver me there? Will words steer my relationships with others -- everyone, but especially friends (those people I share common judgments with on matters that matter) -- within that middle ground, however vast or narrow (I suspect more vast than narrow) it is?

A week ago 5 minutes into morning prayers I realized I was being silly in my communication with God. I wasn't asking God for material riches, but I was asking for unearned richness of character and fronting like I was willing, then and there, to do all the things necessary to make those riches redound. So I thought, this is silly: I am being insincere. Which lead me to the following reflection:
Life cannot be meaningful (meaning-full cf. meaning-some) unless your acts honor your vision of justice and truth as you know it. This occurs to me as I realize that in everything I take on, I have the power to make it meaningful. I can apply the type of sincerity that is a hallmark of prayer, or I can be less than sincere and hope that unearned riches will be my supplement. Bad habit.
Three weeks left into my graduation thesis (purely a collection of words, if nothing else) but I can make the time I have left meaningful.

Purpose is both found and made. It is the product of the situation you find yourself in: your inherited mind and body. It also comes out of engaged acion: after eight hours of work, two months of diligent application to the theorem, the next step (maybe not the answer, but the next step) becomes clear. After a year on the stage crew, the next step becomes clear.

Do words fit into this paradigm? Sort of: we need to honor the opportunity of community, which might include honoring the perspicacity of words, and yet, we know sometimes there's slippage in how someone else will understand the words we use. Speaking with sincerity may be the best bet.

Purpose: callings are myriad, the middle ground is vast. Yet it takes decent hearing. Good words, but even better hearing.

Toussaint vs. Toussaint

2006-04-28T19:29:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I posted an entry about Lil Kim’s Countdown to Lockdown that I took down a few days later because I did not like how it read. Some friends who checked out the piece have been asking me why I took it down, and while I have been telling them the truth that I thought it was poorly written, I also felt as if I wasted my time writing it. Pointing out how B.E.T. programming targeted at young adults does not represent black women that well is like pointing at the sun in Hawaii—it does not take that much effort.

I then challenged myself to write about things slightly more difficult or which I could say something new about—rather than things that I am merely just adding another loud voice into the chorus. Unfortunately it seems I can not get away from this lockdown theme as much as I try. This week’s saga revolved not around Lil Kim, but Roger Toussaint, the leader of Local 100 Transit Workers Union, who led the December transit strike in New York. Toussaint was released today four days into his ten day jail sentence.

The Toussaint issue has been fairly conspicuous because (1) he was bold enough to lead the union in a strike, (2) the strike seemed relatively successful until his union voted down their agreement, (3) the MTA and New York government’s response bankrupt the union by leveling 10million dollars worth of fines against it, (4) NY officials and media representatives insist on referring to it as an illegal strike. Taylor Law aside, since when are strikes ever legal?

Of course one can not overlook race and ethnicity in this issue because not only is Toussaint black, but his union is also largely black and Latino, therefore making it only logical that they’d be poorly treated by NYC govt. and media officials. One friend went as far putting Toussaint’s imprisonment in a historical context evoke his namesake Toussaint L’Ouverture, the leader of the Haitian revolution who was seized by the French after leading the slaves in Hispaniola in an illegal uprising against their French slave masters. This might be a stretch, but then again, what’s in a name, if not a legacy?

I still have not made up my mind on this subject. Sure, I supported the strike. I am in support of Toussaint. But for some reason I think that there’s more to be done on this subject—but exactly what? If you got any ideas let me know, I’m all ears…

In the meantime here are some pieces to check out on the situation…

Haitian Revolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution

Roger Toussaint

http://www.maravalinc.com/angela/roger_toussaint.htm

Transit Workers Union + Strike

http://www.twulocal100.org/

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/12/20/nyc.transit/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/27/nyregion/27mta.html

Taylor Law

http://www.goer.state.ny.us/CNA/bucenter/taylor.html

Labor Notes vs Roger Toussaint

http://www.lrp-cofi.org/TWU100/RTW/LN.html

It's a Different World

2006-04-26T08:41:00.000-04:00

I know my parents love me,
Stand behind me come what may.
I know now that I'm ready,
Because I finally heard them say
It's a different world form where you come from.

Back in the day, Thursday nights meant that I was in front of the tv screen getting ready to watch the crew from "A Different World." I remember once telling a friend that I intended on applying to Hillman College. He fell out laughing and offered to give me a thousand dollars if I get into Hillman; this pissed me off so I punched him in the chest and told him that I would get into Hillman. After all, how hard could it be, Ron Johnson got in. He then offered to give me ten dollars if I could just get an application. It took a little convincing but I eventually realized that Hillman College did not exist.

The future was always and still is a different world for me. I spend too much time thinking, planning, strategizing about how I will make things happen in the future. It's the one place where I have always felt comfortable living in, which probably explains why I focus on it so earnestly.

Little by little though, I'm starting to build a similar relationship with the past. I like to think of myself being more athletic, energetic and romantic--not in terms of love--but in terms of what I thought that each day would bring. At one time each day was another opportunity for change in myself and the world and I tackled each as such Admittedly I do more planning than tackling sometimes these days.

Having gone through college and graduate school, two endeavors that were at one time future projects, I am starting to go back and redo in my mind experiences from high school, much like I might have exerted energy at one time, thinking about the fabulous dorm life I was going to have at Hillman, and who was going to play the Whitley to my Dwayne Wayne. Every once in a while I might give a second thought to not going to the senior prom, or never going out for the basketball team.

There are also moments when my future and past intersect. For example the first time I stumbled upon the show My Sweet Sixteen, I thought it was absurd/crazy/and the kids being featured only alternated from freakish to hellish. Was this how rich kids really lived? The same question that I asked while growing up watching shows like "Silver Spoons" or Beverly Hills 90210 is the same question I find myself asking as kid after kid enjoys one ostentatious birthday party after another.

It's been a while since I watched that show (I actually watched three episodes to get to the much hyped "Divo" episode) but when I found this article "MTV's 'Super Sweet 16' Gives a Sour Pleasure" in today's NYTimes, I had to take a peek. I was curious to read Ogunnaike's take on the show, to see what someone closer to my age thought about the show. Not surprisingly the author, and some of the adults questioned shared my sentiments on "Super Sweet 16."

Just as I was about to pat myself on the shoulder, I noticed a link to another article "Student's Prize is a Trip into Immigration Limbo." Unlike the kids in "Super Sweet 16," Amadou Ly, the young man featured in this other Times Piece had no over the top celebration in front of him. He had no "Bentley's" much less "A Bentley and two homes," like one of the kids mentioned in the "Super Sweet 16" article coming to him. Amadou's plight it goes without saying is much dire than those of his peers featured in the MTV show.

Interestingly enough, these are two sides--maybe even the same side--of the American Dream. On the one hand "Super Sweet 16" promotes the opulence and lavish lifestyles that make America attractive to immigrants, make Americans self-conscious about how we handle our success, and the competitive spirit that makes that success possible and prompts the efforts to top over successful Americans in even the most trivial endeavors.

Amadou's story is also the American Dream, the immigrant kid lifting himself up by the bootstraps, the community patrons interceding on his behalf, and the competition on which his future rests, a competition one might even presume is filled with other young men and women biding for a similar American Dream. For some their performance has been attached to college acceptance, the post 1965 unequivocal green card necessary for climbing up the social and class ladder in the United States.

Amadou, and Aaron (one of the young men mentioned in Ogunnaike's piece) are living in different worlds but same cities, sharing citations in the worlds most prestigious paper on the same day, but being brought to the fore by different writers. The mythic Hillman is a very real possibility for Aaron, while for Amadou it appears to be a real myth at this point as he rides to Atlanta, or "Atalanta," as W.E.B. Du Bois liked to refer to it in Souls of Black Folk. And a century after Du Bois wrote his reflections on "Atalanta," a young man, Amadou, is still dropping his golden apples in hopes of getting his suitor's hand, in hopes of finding the American dream. And as he searches for the dream another young man, Aaron, lives it:

Here's a chance to make it,
If we focus on our goals.
If you dish it we can take it,
Just remember you've been told
It's a different world form where you come from.
It's a different world form where you come from.

Bronx BiAnnual

2006-04-24T16:57:00.000-04:00

I’m damn near thirty (8 ½ hrs away to be exact) and have been seeing my name in print since I was about fourteen years old. And while I am far from what you would call a prolific writer, I still get a thrill whenever I see my name in print. Maybe one day it’ll become second hand, but for now it always amazes me, “did I do really do that?” I often ask myself when a new project has completed the publication length of the course. The next thought usually is, “I wonder if anyone’s going to read it?”

What’s prompting this reflection you ask?

Well today when I went downstairs to check the mail I was pleasantly surprised to find my complimentary copies of the debut issue of Bronx Biannual, a new journal edited by Miles Marshall Lewis. Bronx Biannual has been called “an urban Paris Review,” an intriguing nomination considering how urban Paris is for some of us in our imaginations. For those whose leanings are slightly more Francophone rather than Francophile, after reading the essays by Adam Mansbach, KRS One and Greg Tate, you’ll be forgiven for mistaking Bronx Biannual for an updated version of Tropiques, the journal founded by legendary Martinican poet, philosopher and politician Aimé Césaire and his partner Suzanne Césaire an equally dynamic poet and philosopher.

You may have never heard of Tropiques, but might be familiar with the better known Présence Africaine, another journal that the many of the Négritude, Harlem renaissance and black modernist literati in general were affiliated with. Whether Bronx Biannual becomes Tropiques or Présence Africaine depends a lot on what the readers decide. Not necessarily just in the sense of appreciating the writing, but in a more practical sense of enjoying the medium through which it is being conveyed—a bound journal. In an age where we’re being ushered further and further into the realms on online media, Lewis is rather daring in banking that people will care enough about not only reading, but holding what they are reading in their hand to invest in this journal.

Of course I am slightly biased. I do not have a financial stake in the success of journal, so I’m not in it for the money. I’m in it for the—hmm—I’m in it for the happy—or maybe even—the giddy. You know the giddy. You’ve surely gotten the giddy at one time or another. Some folks get the giddy when they buy a new gadget, think of when you got that new Blackberry, those new Manolo Blahniks, or those Nike dunks with a color scheme made exclusively for you. That’s the giddy. That’s the feeling I get when I see my name in a by line and hold the paper/book/magazine in my hand or read a like following from MuMs’ piece “Angels in the Realm of Paranoia” that’s featured in the journal:

Every now and again

They do to the beat

Move like the cherubim in rhythm

Reencounter clockwise

Never cross the eyes.

They know how the God creep

They listening for signs...

I’ve been listening for signs since I was fourteen and I got my first piece published in The Hilltopper, Jamaica High School’s student newspaper. Sixteen years later I’m still “listening for signs,” doing “to the beat” the only thing that I know for sure will give me “the giddy.”

It remains to be seen whether I am angel in the realm of paranoia, because I do believe there is something to this concern about the future of the bound text. I also know, or think I know how the God creep, and longer that we can go without crossing those eyes, the more opportunities we all will have to get the giddy, and the more chances there will be to reencounter each other in clock wise ciphers. Or could it be as the God once said, “In this journey you’re the journal I’m the journalist.”

Harlemite Miles Marshall Lewis, could not follow the leader no mo, couldn’t wait for another solo from hip hop’s own Godot, Rakim—and with his right hand man MuMs (amongst others) has sent us looking for signs in a time piece called Bronx Biannual trying to yet undo our propensity to look for dime pieces….But I digress.

Here is where I tell you to check out Bronx Biannual and to holla at yo boy to let him know what you think…and in the meantime, I’ll keep enjoying the giddy.

New Orleans Knicks

2006-04-22T08:27:00.000-04:00

One of the ugliest seasons in New York Knicks history ended this past week and I for one stupefied by every minute of it. Going into the season I was genuinely moved by that scene of Stephon Marbury breaking down during the NBA press conference discussing Hurricane Katrina. In that press conference he gave us insight into Stephon, stripping himself of the “Starbury” moniker for a moment and reminding us—and more importantly himself—that there were larger events occurring that one needed to contend with.

It seemed that within moments press coverage around Stephon went back to being about how selfish of a basketball player that he is and that his “style” of basketball will eventually run its course with new coach Larry Brown and the two would end up feuding. Not to dismiss the plausibility of the Marbury and Brown feud, but I wonder if it had to be so inevitable? I ask because if you watch and follow sports enough you’ll hear enough about the unwillingness of athletes and coaches to open, to give writes anything beyond trite sound bites: “give 110 percent” and “take it one game at a time” are two of the more popular ones. But there on that late summer day, Stephon gave the world 110percent of Stephon, he took it “one game at a time” and that game was the dramatic disaster known as Katrina, and it seems as if no one took notice. No one really took into account that this man may have broken down—to the point that being engaged in a petty feud or head games with his coach, are the last things on his mind.

Instead of really exploring this, trying to figure out why this kid from Brooklyn cared so deeply about the faces and lives of the people from New Orleans, writers went back to the game of basketball…well sort of.

I have not live long enough to know really how great sports writing was in the good ol’ days, but I doubt that it was all that great, better than now—maybe—but not great as a whole. What I do know is that most writing about basketball and sports in general is often not about the sport at all, it’s about the men and women who play the sport. Writers have led us to believe, partly because they themselves have been led to believe that these men and women make their sports, reinvent it to fit their generation. The best example of this phenomenon is when writers and commentators refer to Allen Iverson as being of the hip hop generation because of his cornrows, tattoos and baggy shorts. Not that that they are wrong, Allen Iverson is definitely hip hop, but so is Ray Allen, who as far as I can tell does not have any tattoos, and seems to wear baggy shorts as a common sense alternative to the John Stockton shorts that surely must have caused a fair bit of chafing. In fact, Iverson is Allen’s senior, older than him by a month. He’s even a year older than Tim Duncan, with whom I share not only a birthday, but a connection to the same hip hop generation that Iverson is affiliated with, at least by birthright if nothing else.

And of course Marbury is also hip hop, which of course is one of the reasons that he and Brown did not get along. You see Brown is old school, a product of days gone by, a day when things were better, when guards passed first and shot second, deferred to their coaches and everyone lived happily ever after as big men launched outlet passes down the court. Hmm. Brown is old school eh. Guards passed first and shot second—kind of like how Oscar Robertson and Pete Maravich used to do right?

All joking aside, what I am trying to say is that in Marbury is also old school in his own way; and I do not just mean old school because he’s practically a ten year veteran in the league. He’s old school in the sense that he remembers a hip hop era where artists and musicians were trying to say and do something—and that something often mean standing up to authority. He’s old school in the sense that he knows his New York Knick basketball history too. However he does not fawn over Red Holtzman and Al Mcguire like Brown does; Marbury’s sharpest Knick memories probably revolve around the matriculation of another Brooklyn bred New York point guard to the Knicks, Mark “Action” Jackson, who himself was considered “hip hop,” and was overshadowed and pitted against superstar coach to be Rick Pitino. Jackson was not the only New York point guard jettisoned out of the garden prematurely so was “uncoachable” hip hop point guard Rod Strickland. Marbury has to be forgiven if he might have been a little defensive and apprehensive in his play and approach to this season because in his mind the writing was on the wall. If one needs to know one’s past in order to know where thou art headed, then Marbury surely knew as soon as Brown was hired if he does not play Brown’s way, he’s hitting the highway.

So what does he do, he tries being a good soldier, produces his worst individual and team statistical seasons in his career. Not only that, while he’s trying to play nice, his coach is bashing him in the media, sports commentators are calling him selfish and a locker room cancer—yet every time I turn on a Knicks game Marbury is at center court right in the middle of the post game prayer (an activity that if I remember correctly he did not take part in when he first joined the Knicks) and during the game jumping up and down ready to praise the accomplishment of a teammate. If anything, lying prostrate while he took this character assault was far from hip hop, it was human.

And now I am back to that original scene, Stephon Marbury, being consoled by Antonio Davis and NBA players’ association president Billy Hunter, as he tries to speak on the tragedy that occurred in Louisiana. He was not showboating. He was not disrupting the offense or playing the wrong way during that press conference. He was doing what the world, the media, refuses to let him be—be human.

If I were to venture to guess, this must have been the most difficult year in Stephon Marbury’s professional basketball career. If you go back to that scene at the press conference when he started breaking down he compared the faces of the kids in New Orleans to the faces of his own children. This was not Latrell Sprewell randomly implying that seven million per annum was not enough for him to feed his family. No what Stephon was saying is that in those faces he saw the possibility of losing it all, his family, everything that he’s worked for, his own life and to reiterate, the lives of his children. This must have been a daunting realization for Stephon because if after three years of doing the Chapelle Show Dave Chapelle could walk away in order to reassess where his life was going, I could only imagine what it must be like for the man once deemed the best sixth grader in the country, as he inches ever closer to thirty, to mortality. It must be a strange moment to be Stephon Marbury and trying to suppress reconsidering those days spent at the “Garden,” the legendary Coney Island playground where he honed his basketball skills. “Would life have been simpler if I were a lawyer—or a music producer behind the scenes?” I imagine Stephon asking himself from time to time before punctuating his thought with, “I may not be as materially rich, but my kids would not have to read this trash about me in the paper everyday!”

Similar to how I did not believe that America needed baseball and football to move forward after 9/11, I was not convinced that Stephon Marbury needs basketball to move forward with his life. I could be wrong—and I probably am wrong. However if you looked at this season, you could see where I am coming from. Instead of giving the man the time to rebuild and provide him with the necessary support in the media, writers abandoned him, left him to be and outside of some salacious stories about corruption and supposedly outlandish proclamations, Stephon Marbury was left behind. Ironically, this is arguably the same fate that befell the city of New Orleans.

This year’s New York Knicks, I would add are this years New Orleans. While on the flip side, the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets had the season many optimists predicted for the Knicks. In the ideal world, Stephon Marbury and Larry Brown would have hit it off like Byron Scott and Chris Paul and the Knicks would have given every team in the league a run for their money, and judging by the lackluster records of the bottom four Eastern Conference Playoff teams, maybe even made the playoffs. Instead while the Hornets became this year's feel good story, the Knicks became a monumental disaster that to hear Malcolm Gladwell say it, people will be studying for years to come. Gladwell was talking about business students picking through the deals made by Knicks executives, while I am referring to the years of investigation that will go into figuring out what exactly happened and is happening in New Orleans.

Back to the comparison: the Knicks had a six game winning streak. New Orleans had Mardi Gras. The Knicks have Isiah Thomas and Louisiana has Mary Landrieu and Kathleen Blanco in executive offices, the Knicks have Isaiah Thomas and Larry Brown—all four of whom seemed to be over their heads and wallowing in their own messes this year. James Dolan plays the uberwealthy scion making him the doppelganger for George W. Bush. Because of their innocent pronouncements that are blown out of proportion, shaved heads and beleaguered looks on their faces during the past eight months, Stephon and New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin seem to be perfect matches. Except, I think New Yorkers—especially black New Yorkers really like Stephon. I am not convinced that the same applies for Nagin.

However, all of this will be decided within the next few days and months as the people of New Orleans—whatever that means after Katrina—return to the polls and the New York Knicks brass makes decisions about the future of their franchise. I hope for the sake of both institutions that the people in charge make the right decisions.

More importantly, I hope that Stephon enjoys this offseason, gets a chance to spend time with his family—moves away from the circus that was the 2005-2006 New York Knicks and comes back, if he comes back as “Starbury,” then so be it because even that would still only be the human thing to do.

Words Exchange

2006-03-23T16:26:00.000-05:00

There was a story on the radio about the English Screen Actors Guild. It seems a lot of actors were not joining because so many of the names had been taken. So if your name just happens to be Roger Moore, and you wanted to keep your name and join the union you'd have to wait until Roger Moore died before you could do so.

What would it look like if writers had to do the same for words? Once a person realizes that they want to be a writer they'd put in a petition for a batch of words. You can only get new words when someone dies and there's a lottery held and you put in a bid for a word. Or you can trade words with another writer. Imagine Toni Morrison calling you and telling you that she'll trade you August, a word she had bought from the Faulkner estate with the money she made as an editor. In return she'd like your word beloved because she has this story she's trying to get out of her marrow. Marrow she tells you is a word that was once owned by Charles Chestnutt, you know, the famous turn of the century African-American writer.

Sensing your hesitation she agrees to toss in Carson McCullers' and Dorothy West's old word wedding because she bought that one for five dollars from this writer who was just trying to raise some money to buy groceries for a week, but she eventually realized that like most women of her generation, that word might not be worth as much. Therefore she'll throw it into the trade for beloved because you might be able to get some use out of it.

Right now, as much as I love Morrison’s work, the author whose words I’d probably most want to own, or in fact may owe a huge debt too because of how his language parachuted throughout my speech in the last year is John Kennedy Toole. Immediately after reading it Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces immediately shot up to the top of my favorite books list. It’s wonderfully imagined and even more exquisitely written. Words that for me always seemed mundane, trite and sometimes even harmful exploded off the pages of A Confederacy of Dunces with a vigor that I have never encountered in another book.

Prior to reading Toole words such as “abomination,” “corruption,” or “abortion,” had become stale in my writing and thinking; and if you had asked me what a “pyloric valve” was, I would probably told you to ask your mechanic. But as I read A Confederacy of Dunces these words blossomed again like a plant long thought dead which for inexplicable reasons buds anew one spring.

Well enough of my thoughts on the man’s words, I’ll let them speak for themselves:

A firm rule must be imposed upon our nation before it destroys itself. The United States needs some theology and geometry, some taste and decency. I suspect that we are teetering on the edge of the abyss.

John Kennedy Toole

Some how, some way, instead of thinking about the fact that this week marks the 37^th anniversary of his suicide, I wonder if we would not improve our theology and geometry by giving some serious thought to the import of those words in our contemporary moment.