Freedom through Speech Radio: The New Year's Resolution Show

Do me a favor. Take a good look at the video above. You don’t need to watch all of it, but just enough to get the gist of what the brother is attempting to articulate. The brother Paul Brunson, who bills himself as The Modern Matchmaker and a certified life coach, made the video in response to the Washington Post article Bitch Is the New Black which had the black blogosphere all abuzz a few weeks ago.

We began a discussion of the article and the issues it raises on our BlogTalkRadio show, Freedom through Speech Radio, about two Sundays ago, but because of time constraints, we were never able to bring closure to the issue.

But this is the thing with me. I am almost apt to agree with the brother, but in the same instance, I believe that his explanation is only part of the truth; the reasons why successful black women cannot find suitable life mates are so numerous and at once so personal and individual that no singular explanation can suffice. What are your thoughts on this issue?

Also, we will be discussing the events and issues of this past year as well as the events and issues which stand out in the upcoming year. And my co-host and blog sister, OneChele, has a new book which hit bookstore shelves on January 1st, Heard It All Before, so we will definitely have to discuss this.

Our special guests tonight are the gentleman mentioned earlier, Mr. Paul Brunson of onedegreefrom.me, and every man’s dream, Tracy Renee Jones of mebeinganonymous and tracyreneejones.com.

So, come on over and join us at 8 PM EST on Freedom through Speech Radio on Blog Talk Radio.

From Behind the Mask: My New Year's Resolution

We wear the mask that grins and lies,/It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes —Paul Laurence Dunbar, “We Wear the Mask”

I want to be an honest man and a good writer. –James Baldwin

Okay, I guess it is time for me to end my vacation from blogging or any other meaningful and constructive pursuits. This holiday season I simply did nothing but rest and relax, enjoy the company of my wife and children, and get my mental together.

Though I am usually annoyed by inactivity and idleness, this season of unproductiveness seemed so much different; it allowed me to step back from the usually relentless fast pace of my life and put engage in a bit of self-examination and put a number of things in perspective.

A week or so ago I wrote a post highlighting President Obama’s propensity toward compromise. However, in thinking things through this week, I realized, or was finally willing to admit, that I share that same propensity.

Perhaps, it is all those years being the only or one of a few African Americans in majority white institutions. Perhaps, somewhere along the way, I found the path of least resistance to be the most desirable path. Perhaps, I learned that to move forward, I must necessarily present myself as none-threatening and subdue my voice in such a way that it does not offend.

But perhaps my acquiescent attitude arises out of past privation. I have tasted the metallic emptiness of hunger and want before, and I do not wish to go back. I cling tenaciously to my precarious station in life.

Nevertheless, over the years I have developed a repertoire of masks that I skillfully and seamlessly slip in and out of given the situation. There have been some days that I have changed masks so frequently that I have to stop and remind myself just what mask I was wearing. And with each change of masks, I can only question whether or not I leave a bit of myself clinging to the innermost surface of the mask.

During this holiday season, I happened to find myself at a little impromptu get together with a number of friends and colleagues, some of whom I have known since grad school or as far back as undergrad. We were having a good time, and I let my guard down and really cut loose.

However, on the periphery there was one young lady who I don’t know very well but who I have met and spoken to on occasion. But this whole time she is staring at me with this perplexed look on her face. Finally, I just had to give in and ask her just why she was staring at me in this manner.

She shook herself out of her trance and told me that she had never seen me like this before. She had never seen me so animated. She had never seen me so full of life. Then someone else spoke up and said, “Well, this is the real Max. This is the one we all got to know back in the day but who rarely comes out anymore.”

And someone else chimed in: "Yeah, just during holidays and when we are by ourselves."

Then everyone fell silent for a minute and looked around as if some accusation had just been made.

The real Max? This hurt me, threw me for a loop. Then all those other Max-es are fake? If this is so, then I spend most of my time being something I am not simply to appease others, to appear less threatening, to go along just to get along? The real Max, huh?

But this is my one New Year’s resolution: I will drop the masks, and I will begin to take risks. I will not continue to abdicate my strength because this abdication has become my weakness. I will endeavor to push onward, ever upward toward my goal of becoming, just as Baldwin wished, an honest man and a good writer.

And just what do you propose to do differently in the up-coming year?

Because I Still Believe in Magic (Merry Christmas to You & Yours!)

As a child, I believed in Santa Claus and magic much longer than most children my age, especially those children growing up in the inner-city. I almost had to.

My parents’ economic situation vacillated wildly between boom and bust; there were times when we had more than plenty while there were others in which we had practically nothing at all, in which we were scraping the bottom of the proverbial bucket.

I didn’t understand it then, and I still, even in adulthood, have not been able to understand it. Both my parents were college educated professional people, so what can explain those rough spots in my childhood when we had practically nothing? Someday I will ask them. But it was during those times of bust that my hope, my faith, my belief in magic, deepened.

I remember one Christmas in particular. I had to have been maybe as old as twelve or thirteen at the time. We were in one of those bust periods. Things had gotten so bad that year that my parents finally gave in and accepted public assistance.

But I guess cabinets stacked with government peanut butter and powdered milk and juice and other foods is better than a cabinet stacked with nothing at all, but I know this weighed heavily on my father, a fiercely proud man. In fact, once I saw my mother bring the food into the house, I knew we had hit rock bottom.

The closer we came to Christmas, the direr our situation became. And the general malaise that had settled over our household worsened when my father drug in the most anemic Christmas tree I had ever seen in an effort to raise our spirits. Instead of lifting our spirits, that tree instead became a symbol of our lack.

So, our mother began to prepare us early for a disappointing Christmas. “Children, I don’t know what kind of Christmas we will have this year,” she would tell us. And because I am the oldest, she would pull me aside and try to explain to me the best she could what was happening so that she might enlist me in tamping down the expectations of my younger brothers and sisters.

And I tried to understand. I did. But I am sure you understand the difficulty of making a child understand something so complex. When I made mention of Santa Claus to my mother, her face at once became a mask of disbelief and pity.

However, in face of such a stark reality, isn’t it only natural that a child should reach for the only surety in his or her life—their naïve but unshakable belief in magic?

On Christmas Eve, my father left the house long before I got up, and I did not see him the whole of the day. My mother sat around wringing her hands and looking forlorn and making hushed phone calls. I spent the day hoping against hope that Santa Claus was real because by this time I realized that only elves and magic could help up at this point.

Late in the evening my father finally called, and after a short hushed phone conversation with him, my mother put my brothers and sisters to bed, let me know that she had to step out for a few, and left me in charge. But the moment she closed the door behind her, I fell fast asleep.

In the morning, I awoke to the smell of a baking ham and greens and other Christmas delectables. I took a second and swallowing the lump in my throat, and not knowing what to expect, but clinging steadfastly to my belief in magic, I quickly and excitedly woke up my brothers and sisters.

When we rushed into the den, there my mother stood wiping her hands on her apron and displaying the biggest smile I had seen on her face for quite some time. “Merry Christmas,” she exclaimed. “Santa Claus has been very good to somebody this morning. But be quiet as possible. You don’t want to wake up your daddy. He’s awfully tired this morning.”

She stepped aside to reveal our little anemic Christmas tree with gifts piled high and wide underneath. And we tore into them with an amazing fervor. And then that afternoon, we had a feast the likes of which we had not seen in quite some time.

Later that night, our faces greasy from leftovers, we debated who should give credit to for such a great Christmas, Santa or Daddy. Perhaps, because I was the oldest, I should have had more sense, but I threw my support solidly behind Santa. Even though I believed, or in the back of my mind suspected, that we had such a wonderful Christmas due to the machinations of my father, I still needed to, had to, cling to my belief in Santa Clause.

I had to believe that there is a propitious force present everywhere and in all things that picks up where your efforts fall far short.

When the chips are stacked against you, when nothing is going your way, and when you have done everything within your power to overcome but nothing seems to be working, perhaps then it is time to remember when we still believed in Santa Claus, when we still believed in magic, and know that somehow something positive will happen, and things will work out in our favor.

Is there a different standard of conduct for elite African American athletes and successful people of color in general?

No, this is not another Tiger Woods post. I’m too through with Tiger and his foolishness. However, this post does deal with elite African American athletes and their treatment in the media and by American culture in particular, and in the end, I extend the argument to include successful people of color.

This conversation grows out of one I began several days ago with Symphony of the blog Essential Presence about the Billy Corben directed documentary The U (a promotional clip is embedded above) which chronicles the rise and fall of the University of Miami football program during the 1980’s and early 1990’s.

According to the documentary, prior to the 1980’s the University of Miami was a lily white campus in the sleepy, lily white Miami suburb of Coral Gables with a failing football program. However, this all changed with the acquisition of Coach Howard Schnellenberger who was given the charge of rebuilding the program.

Coach Schnellenberger had the genius idea of rebuilding the program by going into the inner-city and ethnic neighborhoods of Miami and stocking the Miami football program with the best players, the vast majority of whom were black, which resulted in the University of Miami football team absolutely dominating college football for more than a decade.

And this domination was thorough and complete. However, they became more notorious for their on-field antics and off-field exploits than their football prowess. On the field, they danced, they clowned, they acted a complete and utter fool even as they were completely obliterating opponents. For this the team was labeled pompously arrogant.

Off the field they conducted themselves in an even more egregious manner; over the years, several players were arrested on charges ranging for assault to dealing drugs. For this the team got the reputation of a roster of criminals funded by rapper Luke Campbell.

But for all their on- and off-field exploits, during this period, the football team not only made a ton of money for the university, but they brought the university unprecedented exposure and prestige. Every game was a sellout, not to mention the millions for bowl appearances, and because of the success of the football program, the student body population grew by leaps and bounds.

Perhaps it would not be an overstatement to say that the University of Miami is what it is today because of the success of its football program. However, the football team’s reputation as a gang of lawless, arrogant thugs prevails.

This is my question to you, and I really hate to deal in hypotheticals, but I can only wonder how America would have treated, would have labeled, the University of Miami football team if that dominant team had been anything other than a group of predominately inner-city black kids? Would the terms have been different for Notre Dame? This brings us to our favorite foil as of late, Tiger Woods.

Every since he turned pro, Tiger Woods has absolutely dominated the sport of golf. And not only has he dominated the game; he has transformed the game as no golfer has before him. But even as he cut a wide swath through his competition, he has always been seen and labeled as arrogant.

And with this latest faux pas, the media and the golf establishment appeared only too eager to pounce. The golf establishment even characterized his actions as somehow outside some unwritten moral code of the pro golfing community. But I’m willing to bet my dollar to your dime that if there was some golf groupie sex to be had, Tiger was not the only one having it.

The common dominator here is money; money has the capacity to buy access to people and pleasures not available to those without it. And I am sure that for those who have it, those people and pleasures are hard to say no to.

Furthermore, what about the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena? This is another example of athletes who have absolutely dominated their sport, yet in seemingly every move they make, in every utterance, they been defined as ungraciously arrogant.

But I have not noted any such arrogance. Instead, I see their on the court posture as extremely competitive, extremely passionate, perhaps to a fault, but not arrogant. Most competitors, most people who reach the very pinnacle of their field seem to display many of the same behaviors. So why must they downplay their ability and accomplishments for their conduct to be deemed acceptable by some undefined, ever-changing standard?

And we can extend this argument far beyond the milieu of sports. I may be wrong; sometimes I feel that perhaps I am wrong more than I am right. From the limited purview of my subject position, I may simply be inserting inequities and inconsistencies where none exist. But it seems to me that standards of conduct differ for successful people of color.

While others may be given the latitude to celebrate their victories, to indulge in the excess allowed by the access that money and power provide, people of color are required to be humble, almost obsequious, in their success perhaps so as to be as non-threatening as possible.

But again, perhaps I may be wrong. What do you think?

President Obama, you can be remembered as being pitiful or powerful, but not both

I came late to the Obama bandwagon. While I suspect many of my friends, family members, and colleagues threw their support behind him early simply because of his race, I withheld mine until late in the primary season chiefly for that same reason; I knew that the importance of this presidential race was such that we could not waste our efforts. And I reasoned that America would not vote for a black man, and Obama’s campaign would go the way of Jesse Jackson’s, or Al Sharpton’s, or Shirley Chisholm’s in the early seventies.

But I did finally come around. I did finally get on the bandwagon. And for most of the summer until well into the fall, I, along with my wife and kids, did our very best to make his campaign successful. We canvassed. We stuffed envelopes. We made phone calls. And unbeknownst to me, practically every time we got one of those email messages asking for money, at least once or twice a week, my wife responded.

I was not the only one. Many people bought into his message of hope and change. Each time I attended a campaign event, the number of people and their sheer enthusiasm and optimism completely overwhelmed me; it more resembled a movement and not a campaign.

However, all around me I sense that campaign and inaugural day ardor is dampening. I sense that enthusiasm, that anticipation—the sense of hope and desire for real change—which defined the campaign is transforming hard and fast into disaffection and cynicism. And I lay the blame at the feet of President Obama.

There is an old military axiom that states that no matter how well crafted or well thought out the battle plan, that plan must necessarily change once the enemy is engaged. So, that being said, I understand that perhaps once the president took office the realities he faced might have caused him to revisit, re-evaluate, and revise those ideals he espoused during the campaign.

Furthermore, I understand the machinations of politics. The very nature of politics implies compromise. And in making a decision, the political implications of that decision sometime drive that decision; often because of political expediency and exigency, the best decision is not always the right decision.

With that in mind, I have remained reserved while others have criticized the president early in his term. In some decisions I could readily discern the political rationale, while others I just gave him the benefit of the doubt, but with this whole Health Care Reform debacle, I can no longer remain reticent.

The president must have known, had to have known, the difficulty of passing any type of health care bill with a public option attached early on. Leading up to his assuming office, or within the first days of his assuming office, I am more than certain he discussed his vision for health care reform with Democratic leaders in order to determine where they stood; to not to have done so would be tantamount to political malpractice.

In looking back, I now realize that when he gave his health care speech in August, he knew then. His downplaying the need for the public option during that speech was a tacit harbinger of what was to come. But at the moment he realized that he could not get any decent health care bill through the Senate, if he was really serious about a public option, he should have then looked for another option, another means of pushing his legislation through.

Certainly when he realized that the other side was not going to play by the rules, when he realized that the other side was going to engage any means necessary, no matter how unethical or immoral, to preserve the status quo, when he realized that members of his own party was going to stand in the way of him fulfilling his campaign promises, he should have then accepted that the normal give and take of politics was not longer commensurate to the situation; extraordinary problems require extraordinary solutions.

I understand the notion that we get what we can now and then build on that foundation. But this is the problem with that. The urgency is now, and what can be done to bring the bill closer to what is desired in the future depends entirely on factors that are rapidly spinning beyond the control of the current sitting Democratic officials. Additionally, after this debacle, how many of those seats will remain in Democratic hands? How much longer will Democrats hold the balance of power?

These are the facts as I currently see them. This is the new reality that must be dealt with despite whatever battle plans might have existed. The other side has no interest whatsoever in bipartisanship, and the senate is wholly dysfunctional and has ceased to serve its purpose. If anything, the whole health care debate has made it plain that our government officials have ceased to be beholden to the people, but have become instead vassals of various business interests and/or industries.

This changes the game and the rules of play. Rational appeals to common sense and decency are wholly insufficient and fall on irrational and immoral/unethical ears, and the traditional political avenues are strewn with duplicity and questionable motives. So, all that’s left is for President Obama to step outside his zone of comfort and make those decisions and take those actions requisite to moving his agenda forward, the agenda promised those who worked so hard to get him elected, through all available means, to include good all fashioned political arm-twisting and intimidation.

Those historical figures which proved effective in facilitating real change and engendering hope in those who followed them did so by operating outside the status quo. They did so by throwing caution to the wind and putting themselves and their aspirations in the back seat and doing that which needed to be done for the good of those they served.

It is time for President Obama to stand fully erect and go blow for blow. The time has passed for issuing passes to those who have seemingly been disloyal and disingenuous in their actions; those persons seemingly have begun to see this as not a political favor but a weakness. All attempts at negotiation and compromise have appeared to those looking on, to include me, as complete and utter capitulation; the goal of negotiation and compromise is to reach an acceptable middle ground and not give, give, give until there is nothing left to give and then call it a victory.

President Obama has secured his place in history as the first African American president; however, the question then becomes what will history say about his performance as president? He will either be seen as being a complete failure or great; the epilogue will be either very pitiful or powerful, but it cannot be both. He has allowed the opposition and members of his own party to set the terms and formulate the rules in such a way that there is no middle ground.

We Got a Full House Tonight on Freedom thru Speech Radio

Are you satisfied with the Health Care Reform compromise? Do you think the president delivered far less than he promised? And what about Joe Lieberman? He seems to have used the whole healthcare debate to get some payback for what was done to him years ago.

How do you think all this will affect the Democrats in the 2010 and 2012 elections? Do you think they have blown it once again? They seem to have a special knack for standing in their own path.

And last week there seemed to be a rather animated discussion going on around the blogosphere surrounding the Washington Post article entitled “Successful, Black, Lonely.” Why are professional African American women having such a hard time finding mates? Are there just not enough African American men to go around, or are they simply being too picky?

We will be discussing these issues and more tonight at 8 PM EST on Freedom through Speech Radio, the blogtalkradio show I host along with OneChele of Black n’ Bougie and RiPPa of Intersection of Madness and Reality.

OneChele is ill this evening, but we have some special guest to fill the void. We have a full house. Joining us will be Seattle Slim of happynappyhead.com, Tracy Renee Jones of tracyreneejones.com, and CareyCarey of Carry Me Home.

Do we act differently when we think white folks are watching?: Toward a Definition of Coonery

So, this past Sunday a good friend sent over the above photo and a link to several photos like it with Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele clowning around with some of his interns. The text of the email read, “Have you ever seen such coonery in your life!?”.

I was preparing to type back my assent when my wife came into the room, so I decided to share the photo with her. “Hey, look at this, baby. Have you ever seen such coonery in your life!?”

So, she takes a peek of my shoulder, and then she reminds me that I have many similar pictures that I have taken throughout the years with students and/or assistants. But she doesn’t stop there; she throws in a clincher just before she walks off: “Were you cooning when you did it?”

Darn her for throwing in truth and reality where it does not belong. But I had to admit that she had a point. I have taken similar photos with students and/or assistants throughout the years, and coonery was never my aim; I meant only to have a little fun and/or bond with those young people under my tutelage. Perhaps my judgment of Chairman Steele was colored by my assessment of him which is right there along with foot fungus.

However, just to be sure, I shared the photo and link to my Facebook page with the question, “Is this coonery or a man simply having a light moment with his interns?”, and several people commented. The vast majority labeled his actions outright and abject coonery. However, more than one person just saw a nerdy black man having fun with his interns.

But the comment that caught my attention asked the question, “Why it is always labeled coonery every time a black man acts a little silly or smiles a bit too broadly?” I had to take a step back and figure this one out.

If it were a high-ranking African American Democrat, would we still have come to the same conclusion? Would we have called it coonery if it was President Obama in the photo clowning around with his White House interns? Would we have called it coonery if it was anyone but Chairman Steele in this photo clowning around?

Or do we simply seem embarrassed for ourselves and for Chairman Steele because we believe he is showing his black behind, and white folk might be watching?

I remember when I was growing up, and I could judge the race of the person on the other end of the phone by the manner in which my mother spoke. My mother was an English teacher, so her grammar was always impeccable; however, when she spoke to white people, she added a special tone and timbre to her voice. She seemed to believe that her already pristine speaking voice was not good enough for white people.

And recently during a discussion of culture and stereotypes with one of my classes, a young white male who works as a waiter admitted that he favored serving African Americans because we tend to grossly over tip in an effort to overcompensate for the stereotype that blacks don’t tip. But we don't want to risk being uncouth do we, especially when white people are around.

While I am at it, let me admit my own complicity in this matter. When I am with my own, I gets buck from time to time; however, when I find myself surrounded by those of a certain hue, I tone it way down. I am careful that I am not too loud or too intimidating; big, loud, bald black guys scare white people sometimes.

I remember when in high school the gospel choir advisors took us to a chorale competition at which we were the only all black choir. Before they would even let us off the bus, they gave us the long speech on how to conduct ourselves. They concluded this speech with the admonishment, Don’t you dare get in there and act black on us!”.

And as we waited to perform, we watched the other choirs laughing and joking and being teenagers while we set as straight as possible, quietly and demurely in a corner. Any attempt to smile or laugh or even talk to our neighbor was meet with a stern look of rebuke. And though we were considered one of the best choirs in the region, we performed poorly on that day; it was though our spirit was crushed. But everyone complimented us on how well-behaved we were.

However, I do know and concede to the notion that there are standards of public conduct that should and must be followed, and I am not talking about these. I am talking about those moments when we seem afraid to be ourselves, when we cannot laugh out loud or even smile, when we alter our conduct to the detriment of our selves simply because we believe white folk is watching. Perhaps, we will only be free when we can get past the notion that we must conduct ourselves a certain way simply because certain eyes are upon us.

Do we act differently when we think white people are watching? Can someone give me a definition of coonery?