The Starbucks while Black incident and the Lie to Me show

The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, PA.

Would you like a less academic way to learn about unconscious and conscious racial bias? Were you puzzled by the Philadelphia police commissioner's stance or why some black people appear to have little empathy for other black people's struggle with racism?

I'm thinking now of Commissioner Richard Ross, who is black. He could have been more thoughtful with his comment regarding the Starbucks incident. As it is, he said, his officers "did absolutely nothing wrong,” and that the men who were arrested, Nelson and Robinson, were disrespectful to officers. (Related: Choked for Challenging) I'm sure some see his stance as simply his job, his duty to stand up for his men. 

But what about tone? What about acknowledging that six police officers for two men is a bit much. Ross has since apologized for his handling of the issue.

Of course, I and others wonder about the Starbucks manager who called the police. Her 911 call was brief, and she did not mention the ethnicity of the men. But what's her background, what was her logic, and what will Starbucks do with her?

In any event, if you can find this old episode of Lie to Me, I recommend you watch it. The show's available in Netflix's library, I believe. The episode is about a black fireman who shows disgust for a murdered black fireman who had spoken up about racism in his firehouse. And after you watch it, think about taking the bias test at Project Implicit.

Lagniappe: Remember in 2015 when Starbucks tried to "start a conversation about race" in its shops with its "Race Together" campaign? People hated them for it.

Rattle Magazine published my poem last month

Almost a month has passed since Rattle Magazine published my poem "Digital Anthropologists Find Our Hashtags" for its Poets Respond series. The poem explores specifically the consecutive shooting deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, by police officers in the first full week of July.

Just hours after I submitted the poem, a sniper killed and wounded police officers in Dallas, Texas. That week of July brimmed too much with violence, grief, and pointed fingers. So, although I was pleased Rattle had accepted the poem, I was also too through with humanity to share at this blog my poem's publication on Tuesday, July 12.

I share it now because since then I've gotten notes and calls from people telling me how they felt about the poem, which you may read at Rattle's site. Acknowledging publication at my blog is appropriate.

The poem was one of two the magazine published that week following the shootings. On Sunday, July  10, the site posted "The Dead Line," a poem by Nicole Homer, a poem that uses repetition to good effect.

Also, the website for the Academy of American Poets, Poets.org, published a poem by the current Poet Laureate for the United States, Juan Felipe Herrera, entitled "@ the Crossroads--A Sudden American Poem." Herrera's verse also addresses the present crisis and sorrow of police relationships with black and brown communities. Clearly he wrote his poem after the Dallas tragedy because the epigraph names the slain officers and is dated July 10. Homer and I wrote our poems before Dallas.

Sadly, by the time America solves this problem, by the time we all do the hard work of facing the root causes of this race-related crisis and too often reasonable distrust of police of officers, the world may have volumes of poems exploring or tackling this subject. There is no easy solution here because solutions means behaviors and systems must change, and people fear change, especially when change challenges the foundation of long-held world views and practices.

Verse can soothe, make space for catharsis, and initiate dialogue beyond the heated center. Poetry may not be as popular as it once was in this nation, but the art remains a source humans turn to during troubling hours.

Teaching black children to be slave catchers

Nothing reveals more than U.S. slave narratives (such as the one that follows) the psychological damage done to the enslaved in the U.S.A. and the ways slavery destroyed the black family. The horrific dysfunction of American society during slavery undoubtedly remains with this nation, and we should not forget what happened during that part of history as some people would like us to.

In the following slave narrative, a former slave, Anna Baker, tells an interviewer from the Writers' Project of the Works Project Administration (WPA) about life pre-Civil War and after it. She was a little girl during the slavery era and relays how her master petted her and groomed her to report to him what the adult slaves said and to tell him if anyone planned to run away. She did as he told her but also reported to the slaves what white people said. Anna was less than eight years old doing this.

Symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome are also clear. The former slave, an old woman at the time of the narrative, still talks about "the good white people"making it possible for her to eat. Previously she'd told of the Ku Klux Klan coming for her grandfather. And this is just a snippet of the story.

Some white historians and slavery apologists over the decades have taken some of these narratives in which a slave seems to have liked the master and tried to rewrite this damning history as "a beautiful era" of kind masters and Southern gentility, a period during which black people loved being slaves. The more astute, however, know that slaves learned to dissemble for the sake of survival and if not dissembling about being happy had been conditioned to accept their lives.

The slavery system kept black people illiterate and masters taught slaves only what they wanted them to know. People can be brainwashed into thinking even rapists and sadists are doing what's best.

Slave masters also trained themselves and non-slave-holders to buy their propaganda even creating terminology based on fallacious science, such as the drapetomania diagnosis. That theory promoted under scientific racism that slaves who wanted to escape were mentally ill.

To those who argue black people and other Americans should stop discussing slavery and racism because it perpetuates pain and anger, please understand that the effects of trauma appear to be passed on genetically, so not talking about horror doesn't make its evidence disappear. Furthermore, as many scholars have pointed out, the Civil War did not the end of oppression of black people. The Civil War did not even end slavery, just that type of slavery. After the war came racist backlash during Reconstruction which resulted in Jim Crow laws which birthed the birth/school to "prison pipeline we see today" and other forms of institutionalized racism.

No, we don't talk about racism and slavery too little. We need to talk more. We should talk about this history and hack a its vestiges until justice prevails.

Anna Baker, Ex-slave, Monroe County
FEC
Mrs. Richard Kolb
Rewrite, Pauline Loveless
Edited, Clara E. Stokes

ANNA BAKER
Aberdeen, Mississippi

Anna Baker, 80-year old ex-slave, is tall and well built. She is what the Negroes term a "high brown." Her high forehead and prominent cheek bones indicate that there is a strain of other than the pure African in her blood. She is in fair health.

"Lemme see how old I is. Well, I tells you jus' lak I tol' dat Home Loan man what was here las' week. I 'members a pow'ful lot 'bout slavery times an' 'bout 'fore surrender. I know I was a right smart size den, so's 'cording to dat I mus' be 'roun' 'bout eighty year old. I aint sho' 'bout dat an' I don't want to tell no untruth. I know I was right smart size 'fore de surrender, as I was a-sayin', 'cause I 'members Marster comin' down de road past de house. When I'd see 'im 'way off I'd run to de gate an' start singin' dis song to 'I'm:

'Here come de marster, root toot too!
Here come Marster, comin' my way!
Howdy, Marster, howdy do!
What you gwine a-bring from town today?'

Dat would mos' nigh tickle him to death an' he'd say, 'Loosahna (dat was his pet name for me) what you want today? I'd say, 'Bring me some goobers, or a doll, or some stick candy, or anything. An' you can bet yo' bottom doller he'd always bring me sampan'.

"One reason Marse Morgan thought so much o' me, dey say I was a right peart young'n' an' caught on to anything pretty quick. Marster would tell me, 'Loosanna, if you keep yo' ears open an' tell me what de darkies talk 'bout, dey'll be somp'n' good in it for you.' (He meant for me to listen when dey'd talk 'bout runnin' off an' such.) I'd stay 'roun' de old folks an' make lak I was a-playin'. All de time I'd be a-listenin'. Den I'd go an' tell Marster what I hear'd. But all de time I mus' a-had a right smart mind, 'cause I'd play 'roun' de white folks an' hear what dey'd say an' den go tell de Niggers.—Don't guess de marster ever thought 'bout me doin' dat.

"I was born an' bred 'bout seven miles from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I was de baby of de fam'ly. De house was on de right han' side o' de road to town. I had four sisters an' one brother dat I knows of. Dey was named Classie, Jennie, Florence, Allie, an' George. My name was Joanna, but dey done drap de Jo part a long time ago.

"I don't recollec' what my ma's mammy an' pappy was named, but I know dat her pappy was a full blooded Injun. (I guess dat is where I gits my brown color.) Her mammy was a full blooded African though, a great big woman.

"I recollec' a tale ray mammy tol' me 'bout my gran'pa. When he took up wid my gran'mammy de white man what owned her say, 'If you want to stay wid her I'll give you a home if you'll work for me lak de Niggers do.' He 'greed, 'cause he thought a heap o' his Black Woman. (Dat's what he called her.) Ever'thing was all right 'til one o' dem uppity overseers tried to act smart. He say he gwine a-beat him. My gran'pappy went home dat night an' barred de door. When de overseer an' some o' his frien's come after him, he say he aint gwine a-open dat door. Dey say if he don't dey gwine a-break it in. He tell' em to go 'head.

"Whilst dey was a-breakin' in he filled a shovel full o' red hot coals an' when dey come in he th'owed it at 'em. Den whilst dey was a-hollerin' he run away. He aint never been seen again to dis good day. I'se hear'd since den dat white folks learnt dat if dey started to whip a Injun dey'd better kill him right den or else he might git dem.

"My mammy's name was Harriet Clemens. When I was too little to know anything 'bout it she run off an' lef' us. I don't 'member much 'bout her 'fore she run off, I reckon I was mos' too little.

"She tol' me when she come after us, after de war was over, all 'bout why she had to run away: It was on 'count of de Nigger overseers. (Dey had Niggers over de hoers an' white mens over de plow han's.) Dey kep' a-tryin' to mess 'roun' wid her an' she wouldn' have nothin' to do wid 'em. One time while she was in de fiel' de overseer asked her to go over to de woods wid him an' she said, 'All right, I'll go find a nice place an' wait.' She jus' kep'a-goin. She swum de river an' run away. She slipped back onct or twict at night to see us, but dat was all. She hired out to some folks dat warnt rich' nough to have no' slaves o' dey own. Dey was good to her, too. (She never lacked for work to do.)

"When my ma went off a old woman called Aunt Emmaline kep' me. (She kep' all de orphunt chillun an' dem who's mammas had been sent off to de breedin' quarters. When dem women had chillun dey brung 'em an' let somebody lak Aunt Emmaline raise em.) She was sho' mean to me. I think it was 'cause de marster laked me an' was always a-pettin' me. She was jealous.

"She was always a-tryin' to whip me for somethin' or nother. One time she hit me wid a iron miggin.
(You uses it in churnin'.) It made a bad place on my head. She done it 'cause I let some meal dat she was parchin' burn up. After she done it she got sort a scared an' doctored me up. She put soot on de cut to make it stop bleedin'. Nex' day she made me promise to tell de marster dat I hurt my head when I fell out o' de door dat night he whip Uncle Sim for stealin' a hog. Now I was asleep dat night, but when he asked me I said, 'Aunt Emmaline say tell you I hurt my head fallin' out de door de night you whip Uncle Sim.' Den he say, 'Is dat de truf?' I say, 'Naw sir.' He took Aunt Emmaline down to de gear house an' wore her out. He wouldn' tell off on me. He jus' tol' her dat she had no bus'ness a-lettin' me stay up so late dat I seen him do de whipping'.

"My pa was named George Clemens. Us was all owned by Marster Morgan Clemens. Master Hardy, his daddy, had give us to him when he 'vided out wid de res' o' his chillun. (Marster Morgan was a settled man. He went 'roun' by hisse'f mos' o' de time. He never did marry.)

"My pa went to de war wid Marster Morgan an' he never come back. I don't 'member much 'bout 'em goin', but after dey lef' I 'member de Blue Coats a-comin'. Dey tore de smoke house down an' made a big fire an' cooked all de meat dey could hol'. All us Niggers had a good time, 'cause, dey give us all us wanted. One of 'em put me up on his knee an' asked me if I'd ever seen Marster wid any little bright 'roun' shiny things. (He held his hand up wid his fingers in de shape of a dollar.) I, lak a crazy little Nigger said, 'Sho', Marster draps 'em 'hind de mantelpiece.' Den, if dey didn' tear dat mantel down an' git his money, I's a son-of-a-gun!

"After de war was over my ma got some papers from de progo[FN: provost] marshal. She come to de place an 'tol' de marster she want her chillun. He say she can have all 'cept me. She say she want me, too, dat I was her'n an' she was gwine a-git me. She went back an 'got some more papers an' showed 'em to Marster Morgan. Den he lemme go.

"She come out to de house to git us. At firs' I was scared o' her, 'cause I didn' know who she was. She put me in her lap an' she mos' nigh cried when she seen de back o' my head. Dey was awful sores where de lice had been an' I had scratched 'em. (She sho' jumped Aunt Emmaline 'bout dat.) Us lef' dat day an' went right on to Tuscaloosa. My ma had married again an' she an' him took turns 'bout carrying me when I got tired. Us had to walk de whole seven miles.

"I went to school after dat an' learnt to read an' write. Us had white Yankee teachers. I learnt to read de Bible well' nough an' den I quit.

"I was buried in de water lak de Savior. I's a real Baptis'. De Holy Sperrit sho' come into my heart.

"I b'lieves in de Sperrit. I b'lieves all o' us when us dies is sperrits. Us jus' hovers 'roun' in de sky a-ridin' on de clouds. Course, some folks is born wid a cloud over dey faces. Dey can see things dat us can't. I reckon dey sees de sperrits. I know' bout dem Kloo Kluxes. I had to go to court one time to testify 'bout' em. One night after us had moved to Tuscaloosa dey come after my step-daddy. Whilst my ma an' de res' went an' hid I went to de door. I warnt scared. I says, 'Marster Will, aint dat you?' He say, 'Sho', it's me. Whar's yo' daddy?' I tol' 'im dat he'd gone to town. Den dey head out for 'im. In de meantime my ma she had started out, too. She warned him to hide, so dey didn' git 'im.

"Soon after dat de Yankees hel' a trial in Tuscaloosa. Dey carried me. A man hel' me up an' made me p'int out who it was dat come to our house. I say, 'Dat's de man, aint it Marster Will?' He couldn' say "No", 'cause he'd tol' me twas him dat night. Dey put 'em in jail for six months an' give 'em a big fine.
"Us moved from Tuscaloosa while I was still a young girl an' went to Pickensville, Alabama. Us stayed dar on de river for awhile an' den moved to Columbus, Mississippi. I lived dar 'til I was old 'nough to git out to myself.

"Den I come to Aberdeen an' married Sam Baker. Me an' Sam done well. He made good money an' us bought dis very house I lives in now. Us never had no chillun, but I was lef' one by a cousin o' mine what died. I raised her lak she was my own. I sont her to school an' ever'thing. She lives in Chicago now an' wants me to come live wid her. But shucks! What would a old woman lak me do in a place lak dat?

"I aint got nothin' lef now 'cept a roof over my head. I wouldn' have dat 'cept for de President o' de United States. Dey had loaned me some money to fix up de house to keep it from fallin' down on me. Dey said I'd have fifteen year to pay it back in. Now course, I knowed I'd be dead in dat time, so I signed up wid' em.

"Las' year de men dat collec' nearly worrit me to death a-tryin' to git some money from me. I didn' have none, so dey say dey gwine a-take my home.

"Now I hear tell o' dat barefoot Nigger down at Columbus callin' de president an' him bein' so good to 'im. So I 'cided to write an' tell 'im what a plight dis Nigger was in. I didn' say nothin noxious[FN: obnoxious], but I jus' tol' him plain facts. He writ me right back an' pretty soon he sont a man down to see me. He say I needn' bother no more, dat dey won't take my house 'way from me. An' please de Lawd! Dey aint nobody else been here a-pesterin' me since.

"Dat man tol' me soon as de old age pension went th'ough I'd git thirty dollars a mont' stid[FN: instead] o' de four I's a-gittin' now. Now won't dat be gran'? I could live lak de white folks on dat much.

"I'se had 'ligion all my born days. (I never learnt to read de Bible an' 'terpet de Word 'til I was right smart size, but I mus' o' b'lieved in de Lawd since 'way back.) I'se gwine a-go right 'long an' keep a-trustin' de good Lawd an' I knows ever'thing gwine a-come out all right.

"'Twixt de Lawd an' de good white folks I know I's gwine always have somethin' t'eat. President Roosevelt done 'tended to de roof over my head."

Related: "There Goes the Wind" at the Harvard University Press blog

Black Woman at the Intersection: Sean Penn vs. Lee Daniels

This is not going to be some super thoughtful post such as one Tammy Winfrey Harris would write. This post is just me saying, "What the hell!" Sean Penn has filed a $1,000,000 defamation lawsuit against Lee Daniels, the man behind Fox's saucy, ground-breaking, hit show Empire. And as a black person who is also a woman, here I am squished at the intersection of being female and black. To whom should I remain loyal in this situation, a wealthy black man pointing out the plight of black people or women who are also opppressed? What is my opinion and why did Daniels and Penn have to go public with their jackass behavior?

On one side we have Penn pulling a typical white male of privilege move. He's suing a black man for millions of dollars for saying something numerous white-owned magazines have reported for decades.

And on the other side we have Daniels, a successful black man who seems to be more concerned about defending a man who's admitted to beating women than he is to finding a better way to tell reporters, "Stop asking us about that." He instead said something that gives the impression that it may be okay for Howard to beat women because white men do it all the time and get away with it. I know that's not what he meant, but it feels like he's in the ballpark of that poor logic.

The Penn-Daniels feud began with Daniels's statement in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter regarding one of the Empire stars, Terrence Howard. In an effort to defend Howard against constant questions about his domestic violence incidents, Daniels called out racism and brought up Penn's name along with Marlon Brando's in a "white guys have all the luck" kind of way. (He should have gone for Sean Connery, too, while he was at it.)

"[Terrence] ain't done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn, and all of a sudden he's some f—in' demon," says Daniels. "That's a sign of the time, of race, of where we are right now in America."

See what Daniels tried to do there? But his deflection game is off.

He's alluding to the the double standard to which black men are held versus white men. And it's true that black men are berated and punished more harshly than white men for the same crimes. But Lee, really? Who writes this man's talking points, and why didn't he follow the advice given to everyone else working on Empire? If asked about Howard, say nothing.

I can possibly understand why Daniels, as Empire's co-creator, thought he should speak out, but he definitely said the wrong thing because:

1. Howard has beaten women.
2. It's never a good idea to defend yourself or others by saying, "Well, Johnny over there is also guilty."

Here is what Daniels could have said, "Terrence knows he was wrong. He has admitted to his deeds, and he's trying to change. How does constantly bringing it up help him work through this?"

Let me stop here a moment and say, "It is wrong for men to beat women." And "It is wrong for men to beat women."

But Penn, you also have a lot of nerve.

Multiple entertainment and gossip news sources, such as Huffington Post and TMZ, report Penn's lawsuit claims:

Daniels' statements are "egregious," as well as "reckless and malicious," as Howard has "reportedly, and publicly, admitted to physically abusing at least one woman and reportedly been arrested approximately five times for violent acts against women." As such, Penn finds the comparison to the "Empire" star to be untrue, claiming that while he has had brushes with the law, "Penn (unlike Howard) has never been arrested, much less convicted for domestic violence, as his ex-wives (including Madonna) would confirm and attest.'

It may be true that Penn was never arrested or convicted of domestic violence, but Daniels's statement was neither "egregious" nor "malicious." Reckless? Maybe -- but not for the reasons Penn says. It was a reckless statement because Daniels should have avoided saying anything that sounded like he was defending a man who's admitted to beating women.

Maybe Penn's suing because he is hard up for cash and craves the spotlight again. He also claims that Daniels mentioned him to get publicity for Empire. Again, really, Penn? Who's riding high right now, you or Empire? Didn't your last film, The Gunman, lose money?

As far as malice goes, that's probably just lawyer talk. Unless Penn's attorney can prove that Daniels has some seething beef against Penn, it's hard to argue malice. The lawsuit is probably just blowing smoke, too. A cease and desist letter telling Daniels that Penn has never been arrested or charged with such an act and maybe a public statement saying, "I want Daniels to stop it" would have sufficed. All the lawsuit is doing is reminding a new generation that Penn used to be extremely volatile and violent. I mean, how many people under 30 would know that Penn spent time in jail for assault without this lawsuit spotlighting him?

It's even difficult to argue that what Daniels said was egregious because Daniels is only slightly older than I am, so we're of a generation that recalls Penn's former life as Hollywood's bad boy.

About 30 years ago or so, I recall, stories that police had to go to Penn's home because his then-wife, Madonna, accused him of domestic violence. As that screen shot shows, the Associated press reported the story in 1989. Did Penn sue the AP wire? Has Penn been suing every publication and news show that's repeated the story since then?

Madonna's accusations may have been purely her speaking in anger because the pair was going through a vicious divorce, but it's also true that due to Penn's repeated run-ins with police for punching people in the face and hitting at least one guy over the head with a bottle, it's reasonable that Daniels and everyone else who read an article like the AP story back then to have believed that Madonna was telling the truth.

That the superstar dropped the charges against her husband later means nothing. Any divorce lawyer will tell you that women are pressured to drop domestic violence charges all the time, and many do. "Do you want him to have this on his record? This will ruin his career. He won't be able to bring in any income." That's usually the kind of thing women are told. So, some of these women decide not to see a prosecution through, especially if they feel guilty about their part in the fight or split. They know the American justice system prefers pure victims.

Did Sean Penn hit Madonna? I don't know, and if he did, he's probably not that man now. I think that he's matured and has learned to control himself. He's also tried to help people and do more good in the world. Still, is his getting in a huff and suing Daniels is a sign that Penn is regressing?

I believe that like anyone else Penn, as well as Howard, wishes people will stop bringing up his past misdeeds whatever they may be. Nonetheless, my questions to him are: Why doesn't that 1989 AP story say something like, "Penn denies ever hitting his estranged wife?"

Also, Daniels didn't start the rumor that Penn has beaten a woman. Madonna did that. Why isn't he suing her and the many publications that have since then reported the accusation? Why is Daniels his target?

Alexie and Another Dolezal

Posts about Alexi's editorial were the first thing I saw when I entered the Facebook vortex today, and the topic was so full of smoke and mirrors identity issues that my head exploded. Here are its contents:

The summer was strange and wonderful, but since my return to the real world my mind's been full of American splinters, namely race matters, even race matters in the poetry community. Call me an observer.

The last time I wrote anything on this topic I think it was the Hoagland-Rankine thing at AWP, which I've since moved offline except for the initial post. Then last week I poked at the wall a little myself when I discovered the Poetry Foundation suffers from a certain obtuseness about European denigration of Africa and African-Americans. Other than that, I am essentially a nobody in the world of poetry, and let that admission serve as the excuse you need not to read this lonnnnng essay that I pecked out before I even realized I was writing.

On the blood trail of even more well-earned AWP drama about lack of diversity with blind push-back from a Kate Gale, the poetry community has been again upturned with Sherman Alexie's recent editorial for The Best American Poetry 2015 anthology in which he justifies his inclusion of a poem by a white man who used a Chinese  woman's name. This white man was apparently in the middle of a WMT (white man tantrum) when he did this, the conniption some white men have when they perceive everything they say and write is no longer the Word of God.

He pretended to be Chinese because he wanted to prove that people of color are favored over white people in poetry publications these days or something like that. This attempt is akin to what Rachel Dolezal wanting to prove about Africana studies, I think. She did, after all, first sue Howard University for "reverse discrimination." And it's definitely what Mindy Kaling's brother wanted to prove about med school admissions except he did so because he believes black people are favored over Indian and Asian people. Even getting harassed more by the police and store clerks didn't turn his unethical ship around. The difference is the impostor poet targeted Asian people and did not change his speech or subject matter. He merely lied about his name.

That said, no matter what others may assert, the impostor's poem selected for BAP 15 was still published because of its white maleness and affection for the hegemony. Alexi admits he thought first about the oddity of such colonialist affection in what he thought was a Chinese mind when he first put the poem in the maybe pile:

"When I first read it, I'd briefly wondered about the life story of a Chinese American poet who would be compelled to write a poem with such overt and affectionate European classical and Christian imagery, and I marveled at how interesting many of us are in our cross-cultural lives, and then I tossed the poem on the "maybe" pile that eventually became a "yes" pile."

Identity always plays a role in the creative process and how we perceive the world. In the Alexi case the European aesthetic still won. Alexie was curious about the poem as banana and in that way he reveals something’s going on in his head regarding his own appleness. (Yes, I’m playing off the Oreo trope.)

When I worked at a black weekly back in the 90s, whenever we didn’t seem to be down 100% with “the struggle” the editor would say, “That’s 'cause you’re not black in your mind!” The statement always struck me first from the view of slavery as death of the self (Slaves are forced to take on the identities of the masters.) and later as the ways in which the colonized often suffer from Stockholm syndrome. Even when we resist, some thread of whiteness remains in us because it’s difficult to not be influenced by the culture that surrounds you with claims of superiority.

So, Alexie's published a poem that's not Chinese in its mind, so it is not "Chinese;" therefore it has no real validity as proving a point about people of color being more privileged in poetry publications (statistics prove they are not). The only thing it's proven is how Sherman Alexi's mind works.

Poems that show no evidence of the ethnic identity of a poet of color are not “ethnic” poems. If I write a poem about a love of nature in a way that has no relation to how I identify as a black woman, then I’ve written a nature poem, and unless people know I’m black, the assumption of authorship defaults to white poet. If I write a poem about my old life in the Jersey suburbs that reveals nothing of my identity other than frustrated housewife, then it’s a life poem also known as a white poem and it's assumed the speaker is the stereotypical frustrated white housewife.

Someone could publish an anthology of a hundred poems written by people of non-European descent, but if in reading them you get no inkling that any of the poets were written by black, brown, and yellow people, and none of the poems challenged the status quo of white supremacy, you would be reading a white anthology also known as vanilla. It would be an anthology with which even a conservative white male might be comfortable, and it too would probably be called something something American.

This doesn’t mean that POCs should only write poems that reveal their ethnic heritage or overtly protest the hegemony. It means that often publications produced by white publishers get to count having a representative publication when they actually don’t have any such a thing. What they have is another book that completely upholds the white perspective and Western-European aesthetic but happens to include some people known to have darker skin.

Think of my current governor Bobby Jindal and his position in the Grand Old Party. Think of the words that come out of his mouth. The GOP counts him as evidence that they’re open to everyone, but who is Piyush "Bobby" Jindal really? Is he saying anything different from his Duck Dynasty friends?

Alexie has over-analyzed himself away from the anger he could have maintained and convinced himself that he published that poem simply because it’s good, but he’ll never know the truth about the poem:

1. He can’t un-think his first curiosity about what kind of Chinese person was that in love with European culture.
2. He could not separate his ego from his initial decision to publish the poem and from his desire to prove that he was still objective when he learned of the deception. Nobody is that objective. In fact, it’s the Enlightenment Age mind that privileges white male notions of rationality that has Alexi thinking he could be objective at all. He fought with his own thread of whiteness and his own maleness and  those aspects of himself won.

I noticed that he never discusses whether the poem moved him other than to a place of confusion and curiosity.

So, even if the impostor had actually been a Chinese poet, the poem itself added nothing to diversity in the anthology no matter what Alexie told himself when he accepted it and what he says now. The poem may be a good poem, but it was its perceived unique identity that drew him in. Would it have made the cut if the BAP used a panel of editors from different backgrounds? We'll never know.

When Christians praise themselves for not rioting . . .

Dear fellow believers in Charleston, South Carolina, who are also black like me:

I thank God that you have praised Him through this trial. The loss of nine sisters and brothers is a tremendous burden for a church and family to bear. The recognition that racial hatred still breeds in your state and this nation is frightening, but as witnessed on national television, you have a strong faith.

From this tragedy Americans have shared the moving experience of grieving family members offering forgiveness to the killer. That obedient response is a testimony to these families' faith and the teaching they have received. Indeed, I think what we’ve witnessed through you in Charleston is an instance of how God may be glorified in suffering. And yet, I must caution you.

In Charleston, I have also observed on television a troubling response. A few black Christians speaking to reporters have patted themselves on the back for “not rioting.” I cannot help but think that they praise themselves in reference to the #BlackLivesMatter protests that have turned violent in the last year in places such as Ferguson, New York, and Baltimore. So, it sounds to me that what these black Christians in Charleston want the world to believe is that they are better people than those who have rioted since the deaths of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray.

Yes, it’s good that more violence did not the result grief and anger over the massacre at Emmanuel AME Church, but comparing the response of mature Christians to the reaction of young black people in Ferguson and young black people in Baltimore is not fair.

First, the comparison sounds similar to the Pharisee praying “I thank God that I am not like that sinner over there,” not that you are pharisees, but it does seem strange that you would praise yourselves and appear not to understand what has happened in the rest of the country. Second, in terms of protest, your situation in Charleston and what has happened elsewhere are not truly the same.

The shooter in Charleston was not a government representative, such as a police officer, and your police department did not behave as though nothing had happened (as Florida police did following Trayvon Martin’s death). Your police chief and mayor sprang into action to condemn the murders and find the perpetrator.

So, who would you have rioted against, the police department and mayor for doing their jobs? Or is Dylan Roof someone to riot against? Did you pay taxes for Dylan Roof to protect you? The white supremacist culture in general may seem like something to riot against to some people sometimes, but who riots against a wind?

It's understood that peaceful people prefer peaceful protest. Still, even Dr. King understood why oppressed people sometimes riot. Understanding rage and condoning its actions, of course, are not the same thing. Then there's the reality that Christian people who actually believe what Jesus taught tend not to become violent.

The question for you is this, Has your dignified response to these murders and the evil acts against you come by your own grace and power or by God's?

My heart goes out to you and the nation, but I hope none of you, including preachers, will use this tragedy to compare yourselves to other black people in pain in order to condemn them. I hope that you will not stand on the necks of other black people to lift yourselves in America’s eyes.

But I'm sure you will move forward in grace because you have the Humble Servant in your hearts. And nothing will separate us from His love.

Peace and Grace to you,
your sister, Nordette

Everybody Loves Rachel Dolezal (Video)

If you used to watch "Every Body Loves Raymond," then you may have seen the episode called "Robert's Date" in which Raymond's brother begins to dress and behave like how he thinks black people talk and behave. Robert also quickly jumps to a conclusion about how Judy thinks of him.

I immediately thought of that episode when I first heard of Rachel Dolezal pretending to be black for years.

UPDATE: Rachel Dolezal has resigned as head of the Spokane Chapter of the NAACP. MSNBC interviewed her parents. Her mother thinks she still hasn't taken responsibility for her deception, but hopes Rachel gets the help she needs. Her father got a tad choked up thinking how she used to call him "Papa." And then there's the news that while at historically black Howard University, she identified at white and sued the school alleging that they had discriminated against her because she's white. However, the courts disagreed.

Late night, June 13, I wrote this post but did not get back to it until today. When I heard about this perplexing and vexing story last week, I thought I would not comment, but I've found myself dropping thoughts everywhere such as tweeting about what's wrong (partly) with applying a term like "transracial" to Dolezal's identity issues.

I ended up writing that tweet after watching Melissa Harris-Perry's show on Saturday. I was surprised that discussing this mess with Alysson Hobbs she risked playing into the hands of white conservatives by accepting the term "transracial" could be legitimately applied to Dolezal's presumption. What an unwise move!

Also, the discussion on the MHP show Saturday did not clarify how passing for white and passing for black are not the same. They seemed eager to legitimize the possibility that Rachel Dolezal truly has a black identity. Hobbs said, "There certainly is a chance that she identifies as a black woman and their could be authenticity to that."

But on today's show she attempted to clarify what she meant. As you may guess, I was among many who found her position troubling. She said today that she is trying to find the language to discuss that some people may feel like they belong to another "race" more than to their biological kin. (Of course some people feel that way, but should they do what Dolezal did?)  However, on Dolezal herself MHP slowly backed away, saying Dolezal's lecture on black hair was too much. Finally, the depth of the woman's deception hit her.

Regarding the term "transracial," Megan Willett at Business Insider has already covered why it" should not be applied to Dolezal's misrepresentation of her ethnicity, and I add to her point that I wouldn't use it for no other reason than how the term will be used politically.

I could have also also written a long piece arguing that the head of the Seattle NAACP's actions -- wearing dark make-up, kinking and braiding her hair, claiming a black man is her real father when that's not true--are proof of her white privilege, but Michael P. Jeffries writing at the Boston Globe has covered that point well.

I think some people are cutting her too much slack by applying identity theory inappropriately to this woman. However, there may be any number of psychological issues underlying her condition.

The Huffington Post interview with her parents (end of this post) touches on the possibility that she may be unstable.

@nordettewrites this gave me clarity ... pic.twitter.com/BpDE8vBvjE

— ~ Dwana (@JustDwana) June 13, 2015

Also, today a fellow blogger sent a link to Alicia Walters's article at the Guardian addressing why she, as a black woman, objects to Dolezal's masquerade, "I became a black woman in Spokane. But, Rachel Dolezal, I was a black girl first." Walter writes:

"Rachel Dolezal may have perfected her performance of black womanhood, and she may be connected to black communities and feel an affinity with the styles and cultural innovations of black people. But the black identity cannot be put on like a pair of shoes. Our external differences from the white majority might be how others categorize us as black, but it’s the thread of our diverse lived experiences that make us black women."

I've considered that she may have resented her parents' adoption of black children. My daughter tossed that notion aside and generously suggested that Dolezal has some kind of "racial dysmorphia" akin to body dysmorphic disorder.

And while others have decided Dolezal is simply another narcissists on the loose, Elisa Camahort noted on her Facebook page the high number of racial harassment incidents the woman's reported and decided she may have some kind of one-off  Munchausen's By Proxy syndrome, a Blackhausen By Proxy, if you will. An amusing concept, but that notion occurred to me as well when I first began reading about the controversy.

I do have some sympathy for Dolezal if her pretense is rooted in some kind of mental distress and self-loathing. Never healed, that sucks no matter how it comes about. As I wrote on Elisa's page, in some situations whites have been known to wish they were black. Harry Connick Jr. said he used to wish it as a boy because all the great jazz musicians he knew were black men.

Then there is the "race is a social construct" crowd. I agree that race is a social construct, but I also believe Dolezal's choices indicate she may not. She thinks race is physical;

But who really knows. I find this mess all rather headache-inducing, which is why I think I'll just watch the "That's Not My Baby" scene with Katt Williams again, and remember the funny clips from the Everybody Loves Raymond episode I've posted above. Both involve someone trying to pass whiteness off as blackness. In both cases the people fail. But for more video commentary, try this link.

The video below is an excellent interview with Rachel Dolezal's parents followed by commentary from scholars and journalists. It's moving. No parents who love and believe they've done their best with a child wants to have that child reject them.

National Slave Ship Museum: A fully-functioning slave ship sailing the Mississippi to entertain you, how about that?

Today I find myself in a bit of an emotional quandary. The National Slave Ship Museum, a project that I thought had died quietly already, appears to be alive and well. According to a local station, the New Orleans City Council approved last night a proposal to build this museum. But raising my eyebrow at this questionable endeavor proposed for the New Orleans Riverfront is not what troubles me. What's really tearing me up is that I must write my objections about a project that is the dream of an elder and a fellow lover of Black History in Louisiana, and encourage him to do no harm.

The National Slave Ship Museum is the dream of black, “amateur historian” Lloyd Lazard, 74. He first proposed the project in the mid-90s, going so far as to lobby the Department of the Interior and gain a thumbs up, reports New Orleans City Business, and he's been at it ever since. I applaud this kind of tenacity, but what will happen after Mr. Lazard passes on?

In 2005, the proposal for the museum was included in a riverfront revitalization plan for New Orleans (.pdf). In 2013, the key players stepped forward again and registered National Slave Ship Museum, Inc., with the state of Louisiana as a non-profit corporation. Antoinette Harrell-Miller of Kentwood, Louisiana, a genealogist, is listed as a director. Clifton James of the Urban Design Research Center, the architect who designed the proposed complex that's pictured above, is listed as its agent along with Lazard.

I'm not against museums about slavery or any attempt to educate the public about this sordid era of American and world history. Also, I'm glad that a group of black Louisianans have taken the initiative to stand up for Black History amid idealizations of the past fostered in this state.

My concern is that this project sounds like something that could easily devolve into a garish, Disneyesque-knock-off theme park (Epcot not Magic Kingdom). If not so grand as Disney, then maybe it will be the colorful Yeehaw! of Opryland in Nashville. So, one minute a slave ship, the next a party on deck with a brass band. I mean, this is New Orleans.

On the Council's approval of the plan, WVUE reports:

“The proposed $170 million museum will include a life-size interactive slave ship built inside a new five-story building and a riverfront park with an amphitheater and two replica African villages.

The museum complex will also include a Creole Caribbean African restaurant, an herb and vegetable garden, a DNA lab, an exhibit and meeting space.

As a part of the museum experience, visitors will have the opportunity to travel aboard a fully functioning replica slave ship that will sail to Natchez, Miss., and Scott's Bluff in Baton Rouge, located near Southern University.” (emphasis added by me)

Does this sound like a museum that will educate the nation about the loss of thousands of lives during the Middle Passage and the enslavement of millions of Africans around the world through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade? Or does it sound more like a Fantasy Land complete with riverboat rides?

A "fully-functioning replica slave ship" sailing down the Mississippi River with tourists would be an abomination.

The loss of black lives under the slave trade and the enslavement of black people in America should be treated with the same solemnity and sacred care shown victims remembered with the United States Holocaust Museum not the brashness of a theme park passing for museum.

The people involved in this project (Lazard, Harrell-Miller, James) seem to be sincere, community-oriented people and activists. Lazard wants to not only feature American slavery but slavery around the world. Still, their vision for a museum about the dehumanizing horrors of the slave trade feels short-sighted and distorted. As you may grasp, this vision to approach slavery as consumable amusement "museum" is the root of my objection.

Louisiana has a problem reconciling with its slavery history. The tourism industry here repeatedly prefers to sugar coat or blatantly lie about slavery's atrocities, and it sounds like this proposed venture will be no different. For instance, one article at the Uptown Messenger, after mentioning that Lazard sees a vision similar to the World War II Museum and the Holocaust museum (or the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center), continues with this quote from someone else who may be involved:

“One component of it is incredible horror and destruction, but they’re mostly places of hope and victory and heroes,” said Michael Mayer, a West End boat builder.

Well, that's just what America needs given its current dysfunction on race and the Black experience, a slave ship museum that lets visitors leave feeling they've been in a place of hope surrounded by victory and heroes. Instead of grasping the depravity and horror of it all, folks can stroll along with their children saying, "See that! Everybody's overcome. Slavery all worked out for the mutual good."

I hope that's not what Mr. Mayer meant, but that's what I envision happening. How would that outcome be helpful?

Also, any comparison between the Underground Railroad and a slave ship is ludicrous. Through one black people seek self-determination; through the other they are chattel.

This project calls to mind that slave-ship video game that turned out to be a promotion for a slavery documentary. Thinking it was real, people protested, wondering who would want to interact with slavery as entertainment.

And another thought arises: How strange that the white man who turned Whitney Plantation into a slave museum painstakingly ensured visitors could not leave comforted and thinking "it's all good," but with this proposed slave ship museum we see a group of seemingly sincere black people bending over backwards to make a slave ship experience enjoyable, to fashion black suffering as an attraction. Is it possible this project needs a dash of white guilt?

I can't help but feel this project has probably mushroomed into a toxic cloud of imprudence since Lazard first shared his dream.

Gena Haskett of Los Angeles, writing on Facebook, also cannot fathom how such a presentation of the Middle Passage and slave trade would be acceptable to anyone concerned about education and African-American history.

"Will they re-create the rapes, the physical abuse and the tossing overboard of sick and dying Africans? Sea water and feces are not good smells to have near a restaurant. I have more questions but I'm feeling queasy from the ones I just presented. Not good. Not good at all to base it on abduction ships."

New Orleans, my hometown, has a rich history that includes being a major port through which slaves came from Africa, and as anyone can gather through the state of Louisiana’s plantation tourism, the enslavement of Africans was big business throughout the state. But this plantation and slavery tourism has always been painful and problematic.

With the exception of the Whitney Plantation exhibit that focuses on the lives of slaves instead of the "genteel" lives of their masters, the cruelty and horrors of slavery have been largely sanitized by the local tourism industry. Certainly this sanitizing has served not to tell the public the truth but to glorify and mythologize the antebellum South.

So, despite the most likely good intentions of the people involved to date, I am concerned that the proposed National Slave Ship Museum ultimately will fall into this same kind of minimizing that trivializes the hellish lives of the enslaved or turn the tragedy of the Middle Passage into some kind of amusement park ride.

I am also concerned that in the end the slave ship museum will be little more than a money-making operation no matter its “non-profit” status now, and so it will become just another way black bodies are exploited by the local, state, and Federal governments as well as major corporations. Nonetheless, I am not asking simply that this museum project end.

I am asking for national dialogue and complete transparency in the process, including sourcing, research, staffing, management, and funding. Also, since it’s called the National Slave Ship Museum, I ask that that the national community be made more aware of the plans. We need a deeper discussion about whether this is project is on the right road and much broader oversight. New Orleans, after all, is not the guardian of the legacy of slavery alone nor may it alone presume to speak for the millions killed or crippled by the slave trade.We are, after all, still living with its damage.

But how did this slave-ship museum project get this far? Why didn't one of our black city council members declare, "Hell no! On our ancestors' graves and again, no! Not like this. Never like this."

Please sign the petition demanding that the New Orleans City Council sends this museum's planners back to the drawing board. Click here and sign.

Let's take race out of the Freddie Gray case a moment and see what we have

While I agree there is a racial bias element in the Freddie Gray case that needs to be addressed, let's just remove that important factor for a moment. Let's remove it and see if we can all agree that the Baltimore police officers who arrested Gray did not do their jobs well and that failure resulted in a young man's death.

In one critical point, the Baltimore officers did clearly not follow state law. So, they are at the least guilty of criminally negligent homicide (or whatever Maryland calls it when you put another person's life in danger). Let's calmly consider the facts we know.

In 2013, the state of Maryland adopted a seat-belt law. Every passenger and driver must wear one. According to news reports, despite that law, Freddie Gray was not secured in the police paddy wagon by a seat belt.

Since Gray was handcuffed and shackled, he could not be expected to put on his own seat belt. He was in police custody and therefore at the mercy of the police. So, when the officers did not secure him in a seat, the put his life in danger. Since he died as a result of the officer's failure to follow state law, they are responsible for his death,

In a recently released report, "investigators say that Gray was mortally injured in the van and not during his arrest." Further, it's said that his spinal injury was the result of him slamming against the back of the van (Gray's spine was severed at the neck).

Another prisoner who was in the van says that Gray appeared to be trying to injure himself. I argue that it doesn't matter in this case. If the officers who put him in the van had put a seat belt on him, he would not have been able to throw himself anywhere.

According to a CNN report, the officers did not seat belt Gray because you have to get into an intimate space to put a seat belt on some. They were afraid he would bite them. Oddly, they could handcuff him, and later an officer shackled him, but they say they couldn't get close enough to him to put a seat belt on?

Most people in Baltimore city police custody are not seat-belted in paddy wagons, says CNN's source, but police have begun to seat-belt paddy wagon passengers since the Gray incident.

Bottom line, it doesn't matter how crazy Gray was in the back of that van. If he had been seat-belted, he would not have been slammed into the back of the van. Whether he did it on purpose is irrelevant. Once someone is in police custody, his body is under care of the police, and in this case police actions prevented a man from putting a seat belt on himself, and then they did not do it for him. That's negligence.

I can't help but think here about the meaning of Habeus corpus -- "you have the body." They had his body.

Where is the compassion of the people excusing the police in this case? Is a nation that never holds police accountable for anything really a free nation?

'Selma' Director Ava DuVernay Talks with MHP About Women in the Civil Rights Movement (Video)

‘Selma’ director Ava DuVernay visits #nerdland Film director Ava DuVernay, nominated for a Golden Globe for the critically-acclaimed “Selma,” joined host Melissa Harris-Perry Sunday for an extensive interview. Watch the full conversation, on MHPshow.com.

Melissa Harris Perry played clips of her interview with Selma director Ava DuVernay on her MSNBC show earlier today. They discussed Martin Luther King Jr.'s infidelity and how DuVernay chose to explore it from Coretta Scott King's perspective, and the two talked about DuVernay's decision to focus on the women in the movement in her award-nominated film.

Later they discussed the LBJ controversy around the movie, which is an "unfortunate distraction," says DuVernay, from the importance of the film and what Civil Rights leaders accomplished. The film is not about President Lyndon B. Johnson, she declares. I agree.

From the perspective of ethics while crafting creative nonfiction, I can nitpick her decision to misrepresent LBJ as being against voting rights for African-Americans (and I have nitpicked it on Facebook before), but I also think that ultimately this is a minor issue in the shadow of the film's significance and DuVernay's vision.

So, I disagree with former Johnson aide Joseph A. Califano Jr.'s assertion that the film should be barred from awards and no one should see it. That's just petty, old white man pouting. Furthermore, he exaggerates greatly when he says the Selma campaign and the march across the bridge was LBJ's idea. I listened to the recording of the conversation between LBJ and MLK that Califano references, and while it's clear LBJ was not anti-voting rights, it's equally clear he was not the mind behind the Selma strategy.

I think Califano misinterprets King's relative silence as LBJ talks to him as that of an ignorant man being advised to take actions he has not already considered rather than simply a wise man letting the President of the United States of America talk. Plus, the Selma campaign was already underway before King's talk with LBJ on January 15, 1965.

DuVernay, who is up for a Golden Globe tonight, says her goal with Selma was to recreate the spirit of the movement. She was not trying to recreate history in detail.

Notice that I did not step to the "Well, look at Spielberg's Lincoln and that Frederick Douglass was left out completely" argument to support DuVernay's decision. MHP tugged on that one today, but for me, "tit for tat" arguments are usually emerge from small thoughts.

Apparently King is shown in an authentically human way, too, in the movie. We see him taking out the trash, joking about diets with friends, and loving music, say people who have seen the film already. So, I look forward to a more realistic portrayal of this great but humanly flawed man.

The best thing this movie can do is make the current and future generation of young people grasp the cost of freedom for African-Americans. Unfortunately, too many remain clueless about the past that created the present. DuVernay says that as she went around the country with the film she discovered deep ignorance about what happened in Selma. Some people thought the name "Selma" was the name the name of a character played by Oprah Winfrey.

I'd like to say I'm shocked, but in viewing the key words used when people are searching for my Martin Luther King Jr. poem, "Remembering a Life," I detect a great deal of ignorance about King himself. Some people think that King is someone who wrote a famous poem called "I Have a Dream." So, given that people remain ignorant of who Dr. King was despite the spotlight we shine on him, is it any surprise people don't know the actual history of that walk across the bridge in Selma? It's not as though this moment is covered much in schools.

Selma opened in theaters a few days ago.

That kid in the black jacket is not Antonio Martin

This clip posted on ImGur.com is going around on Twitter, and a lot of people think the kid in the black jacket with the cell phone is Antonio Martin. I thought so, too, at first. But then I noticed the third figure in the clip.

Yes, the kid in the black jacket is holding a cellphone and not a gun, but that kid in the black jacket is also not Antonio Martin.

Unfortunately, Antonio is the kid with the backpack at the edge of the frame, lower left corner. As you may be able to see, he lifts up his arms, and the officer backs up. The friend then jumps back.

Whether the gun was loaded or not, whether Martin fired or not, we know that if you point a gun at an officer right in front of him, he's most likely going to draw his weapon and shoot, especially if you're a black person. I could write more about the evils of guns here, but been there, done that.

As most sane people are, I am anti-police-brutality and overreach. Furthermore, I firmly believe that people of color are often mistreated and prejudged by police officers in general. I'm not one of the people who automatically believes the official versions of events when I hear them, including Officer Wilson's story for the Mike Brown shooting, which is why I marched in protest here in New Orleans.

But I believe as well that when you fight the good fight, you must be fair and have your facts straight. In the Antonio Martin case, some of us are so anxious to find police at fault that we are buying any story that contradicts the police narrative and then not bothering to check facts. That's a good way to sound unreasonable.

Yes, police officers kill black men at a disproportionate rate compared to white men, and that crisis is worthy of our righteous anger, but is it wise to blow up even when police officers do their jobs and face situations in which they must defend themselves from people with guns?

We can't expect police officers to not draw and shoot when a gun is pointed at them, and the person pointing the gun is that close. They're human, so I'm sure they're not fear-free when someone waves a gun in their faces. So, while I can't say for a fact Antonio Martin had a gun, based on what I see when I look at the Antonio Martin surveillance footage the teen assumed a stance and moved as though he had a gun. So, I think this is not a case for second-guessing the officer.

My heart goes out to Toni Martin-Green, Antonio Martin's mother. Everything she's said about her son is probably true as far as she knows or wants to know. So, I'm low on patience with people making fun of her for saying that her son was trying to turn his life around. Wouldn't we all hope that was the case if we had a child in trouble? So, I hope his mother gets the help she needs to get through this.

As for Antonio actions, he may have been trying to get his life on a better track, but late Tuesday night, December 23, his life skipped that track. He made a bad decision, and it cost him his life.

I know some of us are so infuriated by the way police treat members of the black community that we will still doubt the Berkeley police department's version of events even in the face of evidence that support it, and that skepticism is understandable. Police departments around the country have been caught in lies before. The Ferguson police were not honest, efficient, or respectful after the Mike Brown's shooting, and more recently in the Tamir Rice homicide, the Cleveland police had already released a false report and stood firmly behind it until video showed the report was a lie. But in the tragic case of Antonio Martin, the police officer appears to be telling the factual truth about what happened that night.

Does that mean we should only stand up when the dead child is a "perfect victim"? No, it does not. Does that mean we should no longer demand investigations when police shoot black people with "criminal" histories? No, it does not. Does that mean Antonio Martin's life and death can be deemed less significant than the deaths of others? No, it does not.

Does that mean that our community, education system, and American society failed Antonio Martin? Probably. He was only 18 years old, and according to cognitive scientists, the teen brain is not mature. Human brain development goes on longer than we've been led to believe.

Sadly for us all, there probably were adults in Antonio's neighborhood and leaders in the Berkeley community who saw the Martin household was in peril, in particular the oldest boy, Antonio, but no one wanted to get involved or no one felt inadequate for the task.

More than likely there was some program proposed that would have helped families like Antonio Martin's family, but the bill and funding for that program never passed in Congress or Missouri's state legislature because it was labeled "more welfare." Most likely there's some program that's been proven successful that could have assigned someone to intervene on Antonio's behalf when he first showed signs of frustration with his life circumstance or got into trouble, but in the name of individual accountability and fiscal responsibility, for the love of tall tales about bootstraps, that program was cut.

Does the American population as a whole really want to help people like Antonio, or does it just want to sit on its ass and demonize people who have the deck stacked against them? It's a difficult question and the answer, I'm sure, is complex. And maybe taking time to throw tantrums about the killing of Antonio Martin is part of our journey toward finding an answer. I don't know. But I do know that we should be fair in our allegations when the police kill a member of the black community. I know we have to weigh evidence and choose our battles.

When we don't get our facts straight, it gives our opponents an opening to overwhelm and distract us with minutia. It gives them a way to do what they would prefer to do, ignore the real problems, dismiss the truth. Knowing this is how the world works, can we pause, reflect, and focus again on the central points of our protest? Can we shake off distractions and move on?

Unity of purpose is a beautiful thing, but a mob mentality smothers wisdom.

When a movement grows organically: Why #CrimingWhileWhite complaints waste time

A friend of mine on Facebook asked me what I thought of this article by Kara Brown at Jezebel, "The Problem With #CrimingWhileWhite." And here is what I said with some additional information added to the post today:

I saw arguments like Brown's the same night I posted on this #CrimingWhileWhite after I saw it on Twitter. I think she's wrong.

Sometimes black people sound like they live in bubbles as much as some white people do. I'm not saying Brown's in a bubble, but she does seem to assume a lot, such as everybody sees what she sees when she says people in general don't need it "spelled out" that black people are treated differently from white people by the police. She says this is so because we're "literally watching it happen in real time."

Oh, yeah? Tell that to the Grand Jury in Staten Island. It's not like there weren't examples of disparity in treatment before the Eric Garner decision. Unfortunately, I don't have time to list in this post all other incidents that have been caught on tape and reported that did not result in death but remains evidence of different treatment. I'm including these three, though: one from 2009, "Choked for Challenging," another from last year, "NOPD officers shoot man to death in bed," and another, "CHP officer beats black homeless woman on side of road."

Following these incidents police and their apologists used everything from declaring the person "was a threat" over to "the particular officer involved is a bad apple" in order to get people to look the other way.

A pivotal talking points for people who agree with the decision of the Grand Jury in Eric Garner's case is, "This wasn't about race." The family of Eric Garner is also saying his treatment and killing had nothing to do with race. People declare it's not about race because they either don't want to see race as an issue ever or because they do not understand what people mean when they say "systemic racism." They look at individual cases. No forest because eyes on trees.

Blacksplain vs. Mansplain vs. Whitesplain vs. Poem

I wrote the poem "Song of the Fatigued Blacksplaining Folk" during National Poetry Month of this year, and recently turned it into a digital poster that's embedded farther down in this blog post. As the title indicates, and to borrow the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, "I am tired of being sick and tired" of explaining racism in America and how racist policies hurt not only people of color but the entire country.

Of course, living under Jim Crow laws, Ms. Hamer had a much tougher life than I did. Still, I get frustrated sometimes because some of the words that come out of the mouths of some white people sound like they'd be fine with returning to Jim Crow. Yes, there are many "white allies," who want America to live up to its credo, but there area also many who refuse to even attempt to understand systemic racism and how it contributes to many of the problems found in black communities, especially poor black communities.

Also, the last two years have been more difficult than usual because of the increase in the number of unarmed black people killed by either police officers or by white citizens. Both the officers and the vigilantes tend to claim they felt threatened even when the black person, often a young black male, is unarmed. Essentially they assert black people's bodies are weapons.

I had the pleasure of reading my poem at the Poetry Buffet at Latter Library on St. Charles Avenue earlier this fall. The multi-ethnic audience appeared to enjoy it.

© 2014 Nordette N. Adams

Click picture to enlarge.

You may have heard the invented words mansplain, which is a combination of man and explain, and whitesplain, as in white people explaining. The word blacksplain is a combination of black, meaning black people, and explain. However, unlike mansplain, which is the word given to a condescending explanation a male gives to a female, the word blacksplain is usually not associated with condescension, unless, of course, a white person is defining it who's shown him or herself to be a racist jackass. If that's you, then a black person may have blacksplained something to you in a condescending manner before.

Usually to blacksplain is to explain some aspect of black culture, history, heritage, or experience to a person who is not black. That person may be a sincere person who is asking a potentially offensive question but does not mean to offend. Or that person may be a racist jackass who still doesn't understand that America works this way: A black person has to be able to shift between white culture and black culture/white world and black world easily in order to be successful. But often white people don't have to know anything significant and factual about black people in order to be successful.

Frequently black people end up blacksplaining on some racism-related topic. For example, at UrbanDictionary.com, the first definition of blacksplain is actually an example of racist hate speech that's allowed to remain there probably because their editors are hipsters (see hipster racism) who think it's okay to have the offensive defintion since a more accurate definition follows it. In reality, the definition of blacksplain on that website is very similar to how n*gg*r used to be defined in the Webster's dictionary as "a Negro person." Only the worst stereotypes are included in the definition, but they let it ride because I guess they consider themselves "urban."

The word urban is often used as a euphemism for people of color, primarily black people, Latinos, and Mexicans, but as is the often the case, on one hand its used to marginalize people of color and on the other a white person uses it to make money. An even better example of that phenomena would be the success of Thug Kitchen. At CNN, healthy food activists Bryant Terry does an excellent job of blacksplaining why Thug Kitchen is problematic.

Now for the term whitesplain, it usually means that a white person is speaking condescendingly to a black person or other person of color when giving a white person's definition of racism (often wholly inadequate and stuck on overt racism) or is explaining why everything in America is fair and just: black people just need to work harder, and what about that "black on black crime" and those fatherless households. Another example of whitesplaining involves a white person telling a black person that in their eyes skin color is irrelevant. "I see everyone as the same. I'm color blind," they say, even as they speak to the black person in ways that make skin color very relevant.

It's possible also for a black person to whitesplain the world because frequently you may come across black people who have internalized the white supremacist propaganda against black people and don't think much of their own black skin and culture. For instance, it's possible that a black person wrote the first blacksplain definition at UrbanDictionary.com. Ironically that definition reads like whitesplaining.

But I'm not going to write here again all the reasons I am tried and worn out from blacksplaining. If you're interested in why that may be, though, please read my post on Toni Morrison's 1975 lecture. I'll just say here that I was a lot less tired before Trayvon Martin's death and the violent deaths of black people who have followed him since then and who were pre-judged and killed because they are black. And I'm really disappointed in myself that I've written this blog post that has some blacksplaining in it again.