What is wrong with this picture?

1.)   He is the President. She is being disrespectful. As hell.  Period. Point Blank. End of Discussion.

2.)   White privilege conditions white people not to see white rage. However, it makes them hyper-aware of Black threat.   Newt Gingrich is white rage personified. And for it, he gets loads of applause.  So is Jan Brewer, but usually we think of white rage in masculine terms. Gender stereotypes condition us not to see white women as being capable of this kind of dangerous emotional output. We reserve our notions of female anger for Black women. Such hidden race-gender logics allow Brewer to assert that she “felt threatened,” even though she was trying to handle the situation “with grace.”

Now look back at the picture: who is threatening whom? Couple white rage with white women’s access to the protections that have been afforded to their gender, and you have something that looks ironically like white female privilege. Yes (yes, yes), the discourse of protection is based upon problematic and sexist stereotypes of white women as dainty and unable to care for themselves, and yes, these stereotypes have caused white women to be oppressed by white men. But remember, gender does not exist in a racial vacuum. It is performed in highly racialized contexts, and history proves that what constitutes oppression for white women in relation to white men, dually constitutes privilege for white women in relation to Black men. (I’m not spoiling for a fight today, so anybody who feels uncomfortable with such assertions should probably go read some Patricia Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics and then try again.)

What I know is this: 100 years ago (less than, actually) a Black man even standing that close to a white woman would’ve gotten him lynched.  (Seriously, I just discovered that even accommodationist Booker T. Washington was beaten in New York in 1911 for talking to a white woman.) And I know that if a Black woman had wagged her finger at Bush II or even Bill Clinton, we would have seen her faced down, handcuffed, with Secret Service swarming. When your race and gender grant you opportunities to be treated with dignities that others don’t have or conversely, to heap indignities on those people, that is what we call privilege. Deal with it.

3.)   Unchecked white rage has always been dangerous for Brown and Black folk in America. Jan Brewer’s Arizona is not safe for Brown people and by implication, not safe for Black people (Presidents included). Not only has she terrorized and racially profiled immigrant communities, but she has gutted one of the model Ethnic Studies programs for high school students in this country.  If there were ever a time for Black and Brown solidarity, it is now. And hell, lest we forget, Arizona is not even safe for white women. It is the vitriolic racial climate that Brewer’s anti-immigrant, anti-Latino policies have helped to foment that led to the violence against Gabby Giffords.

(It’s amazing what different stories these two pictures tell.)

4.)   This picture demonstrates something important. The logic of racial supremacy dictates that white people are most comfortable when people of color do the affective labor involved in maintaining white supremacy. (No disrespect to Gabby Giffords: of course, I don’t think this hug shared between colleagues supports white supremacy. But this kind of bodily connection is important for humanizing Black public figures, and it is the logic of that which I’m getting at.)

Historically, it was not enough to be placed in positions of servitude; affecting an attitude of subservience was also critically important.  Failure to be deferential could get you killed, even if you were doing the tasks at hand. The term “uppity Negro” hasn’t always been a slogan to rock proudly on a t-shirt.  Something happens when Black and Brown folks decide that we do not exist in the world to make white people comfortable. And white folks feel it.

This is why a movie like The Help so powerfully resonates with White America, and with countless facets of Black America as well.  The affective labor of white supremacy prefers Black people in certain postures, like for instance dishing out hugs and words of affirmation to  little white girls who will become white women that they, indeed, “is smart, is kind, is important.”

As if the world would ever teach anything different. The effect of such labor is powerful: white America feels more comfortable with the disturbing realities of racism, and Black people can convince ourselves that our humanity, and indeed, our struggle is being acknowledged.  Even her well-deserved Oscar nomination has not convinced Viola Davis of such ridiculousness. (And um, would someone help Charlize Theron get a clue?)

5.)   Finally, I just have to say it: If Jan Brewer and any other bad-ass wants to leave here with the fingers and toes they came here with, I would suggest they keep their hands to themselves. Because frankly, I wish a*&%$# would wag a finger in my face… Kudos to the President for keeping his cool.

By Fashion Correspondent Joseph Lamour

Thanks to the Obamas are in order, fellow African Americans! Black people–like me!–can look in a closet and not immediately reach for the saggy jeans and other “street wear codes.”

At least, according to Elle France.

For the first time, the chic has become a plausible option for a community so far pegged [only] to its street wear codes…

-Nathalie Dolivo, in French Elle
Tendance [Trend] – Black Fashion Power

Nathalie Dolivo, a writer for the magazine’s blog, seems to think that since the Obamas are so fashion-forward, they serve as a public forum to inspire African Americans to dress more fashionably in 2012. First of all, lady, this is the fourth year of Barack’s term. You’re a little late with this intensely racist idea, aren’t you?

That’s not even the worst of it. Dolivo goes so far as to coin the term, and this hurts me to type it, “black-geoisie”.  Now, we really should institute a “Sh-t Fashion Magazines Say” to add to the hundreds of others on YouTube. We have a wealth of material to work from. First we had Slave Earrings. Then we had the whole Rihanna, N*ggabitch debacle. To which Rihanna herself replied with a heartfelt “F*CK YOU”. And now this. It seems like American magazines are on their best behavior! Good work.

Dolivo uses a picture of Janelle Monae in the post to show how far we’ve come from over-sized pants, but Monae is a musician who’s particular style existed since her music was first released in 2003, well before this “black fashion renaissance” (Dolivo’s words, not mine) was to have taken place. And of course, much before public consumption as well.

The post has since been removed from Elle France’s website. Without an apology, I believe the magazine is hoping they can deny the post was published–or published in error, at least , if caught (too late for that!). Elle, you can’t un-ring a bell.

By Arturo R. García

From telling Congress, “I intend to fight obstruction with action” to calling for a more “common sense” approach to handling the country’s growing income gap, last night’s State of the Union address seemed to boil down to President Barack Obama telling his would-be opponents this election year, Come at the King, you best not miss.

But rather than quote more pundits, Racializens, we’d like your take on the speech: was it fair of him to call on Congress to deliver “comprehensive immigration reform right now,” while not mentioning the DREAM Act by name? Can Obama’s announcement of a task force to investigate what he called “the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis” and his “common sense” line be called, as The Guardian’s Gary Younge suggests, a response to the Occupy Wall Street movement? Was his take on what he described as partisan obstruction, as Indiana governor Mitch Daniels said in the Republican response, needlessly decisive?

If you missed the speech, the New York Times has a full transcript here. Otherwise, the floor is yours.

The life of the average Iowan or New Hampshirite doesn’t reflect the reality of the average American. Take a look at New Hampshire’s demographics, and you’ll see a state that’s nearly 94 percent white, with wealthier residents than the many states, far fewer foreign-born residents, and higher levels of educational attainment. Iowa is much the same: 91 percent white, high rates of home ownership, and low rates of poverty.

The short answer for why Iowa and New Hampshire matter: Symbolism. The Iowa caucuses are the first electoral events of the presidential campaign season; the New Hampshire primary is the first primary.

The long answer: The process leading all the way to the general election starts here. In Iowa on Jan. 3, voters will meet in 99 conventions to elect county-level delegates. Those 99 county delegates select district and state delegates, who will eventually select the delegates that attend the national Democratic and Republican conventions—-where those delegates confirm the presidential nominee. (Remember the frantic counting of delegates that happened before Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign? The Iowa caucuses are the first step there.)

And it’s worth noting that Barack Obama won the largely white Iowa caucuses in 2008—Schaller calls it “one of great racial ironies of modern American politics”—which was the first sign that he actually was a viable candidate.

- From “Why (Very White) Iowa and New Hampshire Mean So Much In Politics,” by Shani O. Hilton

By Guest Contributor Maegan La Mala, cross-posted from Vivir Latino

It’s a long way from April, when hardly anyone paid much mind to my critique of the role Cecilia Muñoz, the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, was playing in her defense of the indefensible, the increase in detentions and deportations, and the growing criminalization of communities these increases requires.

Now, there are petitions, open letters, appearances, articles, and attacks. I knew that taking a position that directly challenged Muñoz as the Latina spokesperson for an administration that has actually done worse to our communities would be controversial and would also demand that community organizations who claim legitimacy in their role as community representatives be held accountable. I did/do this, not because it is in my mission statement, nor because I am beholden to any entity beyond the vecinos I stood doing laundry with on Sunday mornings, whom week after week watched Muñoz lie to them on behalf of an administration that promised change. The words in the American Prospect article are completely my own and I stand by them.

It is easy for organizations, their leadership, and the public relations departments housed within them, to attack an individual writer, calling them ill-informed and accusing them (me) of doing a disservice to the community. What has proven more difficult is answering the questions that remain. This is not about what services a specific organization provides nor about if they have condemned an immigration policy that deports an average of 400,000 people a year, leaving thousands of children in foster care. What it is about is answering precisely how does supporting Cecilia Muñoz serve the community? Claims about her attempting to change immigration policy fall flat in the face of reports that show that prosecutorial discretion is not being exercised, bolstering accusations that the Morton Memo and alleged reviews of deportation cases are nothing more than public relation tools.

As more data and documents are released and ICE fights tooth and nail to hide a paper trail that more than likely contains proof of the intentions behind their detention and deportation policies and practices, it falls on organizations claiming to represent community to show why shielding spokespeople for an administration that has failed in fulfilling it’s promises is beneficial.

Everything else, just like in the Obama administration is just PR.

By Guest Contributor Jen Chau, cross-posted from The Time Is Always Right …

In the past couple of years, I have noticed a certain complacency that I never noticed before, in my eleven years of leading Swirl. The same passion and the same excitement around building multiracial communities had faded a bit. In the one year leading up to the Presidential election, we launched five new chapters (the norm had been a chapter every year or every other year). People were excited by the energy created by Obama’s campaign, and they were motivated and eager to be a part of creating supportive and inclusive multiracial communities.

And then once Obama was firmly placed in the White House, something happened. It got quiet.

My theory was that it was all related to the claims that we were now in some sort of post-racial wonderland. I think it very much had to do with the fact that Obama is of multiracial heritage. This fact resulted in a sort of sitting back. A sentiment that sounded like, “we’re good now.” The idea that Obama understood so many of us, and that he cared about diversity was something that gave people a reason to relax. Take a breath. Stop pushing so hard. I understood this and even felt a bit of it myself. The other reality is that in an individual’s development, one may feel a strong desire to connect to community at one point and not at another. Swirl has always understood and been supportive of this.

Organizations, academics, student leaders still continued their work, but it was clear that a lot of people – our members, our “audience” – were….gone. I heard the same from other groups – that membership started to lull. Student campus groups folded. It seemed that people didn’t need our mixed groups in the same way they had, previously. Before Obama. Before “check all that apply” on the U.S. Census.

But had things changed all that much? Yes, we are counted now. We know the numbers of multiracial people and interracial couples in this country. But do people start understanding one another and become supportive overnight just because we have a tally? Do things feel different for a multiracial person or a mixed family on a day to day basis?

Yes and no. I have heard from many people that things are better. That they are not questioned nearly as much. That people no longer stare in awe as they talk about the fact that their mom is black and dad is white. That they feel comfortable being all of who they are, at all times. It always makes me happy to hear that this is what people are experiencing. It means that progress is being made.

But others still experience the awkward questions. The demand by strangers to “prove” they are one thing or the other. Moms being asked how long they’ve been babysitting their own children. Stares, rude comments, family tensions and sometimes divisions. This is all still real and still happening.

And your experience, in part, is impacted by your context. Your circle, your larger environment. Where you live. In pockets, multiracial people and families are supported, recognized, understood. In others, far from it.

There are many ways that we have to fight racism and ignorance. It’s absolutely critical that things happen on the institutional level, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the corresponding changes automatically happen at the cultural or individual level. And vice versa. Just because a change occurs on one level doesn’t mean that the others follow neatly in line. We have the ability to “check all that apply” on the Census (which is huge), but that doesn’t mean that individuals immediately understand the complexity of multirace. Things don’t change overnight. We know this logically, but it seems that we sometimes want to pretend it isn’t the case (see “post-race”). I want to live in bliss too, believe me. But a real one, that we work hard to create for ourselves…not a superficial one that we wish into being.

This piece was prompted by a New York Times article on a mixed family. I hope that their story (and others) help to illustrate all that still needs to be understood.

By Guest Contributor M.Dot, cross-posted from New Model Minority

Returning a book back to the library Monday, I decided to look at the magazine section. I came across the most recent issue of The Nation and decided to pick it up. I know that Professor Harris Perry had discourse with Cornel West and Chris Hedges in May around President Obama’s positions and policies around race, racial alliances, identity and class. So I decided to read this article because it seemed to be a follow up to the conversation. It also helped that the title was “Breaking News: Not All Black Intellectuals Think Alike.” #Heheheh.

A particular part of the article spoke to me, the section where she connects voice to citizenship. She writes:

Citizenship in a democratic system rests on the ability to freely and openly choose, criticize and depose one’s leaders. This must obtain whether those leaders are elected or self-appointed. It cannot be contingent on whether the critiques are accurate or false, empirical or ideological, well or poorly made. Citizenship is voice. West exercised his voice, and I mine. But the history and persistence of racial inequality and white privilege in America means that the exercise of voice for black citizens is fraught with the dangers of surveillance. It’s yet another challenge of being black and exercising citizenship in the United States. Even as we articulate our grievances, black citizens are haunted by that “peculiar sensation” that W.E.B. Du Bois described as “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”

I thought of voice and the fact that two White men have been impersonating queer women of color on the internet.

I thought of how my colleagues, other Black women who are teachers and graduate students from across the country who write anonymously on the internet for fear of retribution from their departments and future potential employers. Whereas on the other hand, here are these two heterosexual White men assuming the identity of women of color, to further their own career ends.

I thought of how I routinely have to tell Negro men to sit down when they try and debate me about gender theory, racial theory or political economy on the internet. It’s not that I don’t mind being challenged, that is a part of the game. The issue is their willingness to challenge me while being woefully under read. When I am dialoging with people who know more than me in an academic setting or on the street, I shut the hell up and listen and learn. These men, and some women on the internet learn real quickly that they can learn from me  or ask me questions, but unless they know my arguments, and the arguments of the people I have read, I will sit them down with the quickness. My work will be respected. This ain’t JV, this is elite. I have the bills and bifocals to prove it.

As a Black woman that writes about race, gender, pop culture and sexuality on the internet, I was excited when I saw Harris Perry write,

I vigorously object to the oft-repeated sentiment that African-Americans should avoid public disagreements and settle matters internally to present a united front. It’s clear from the history of black organizing that this strategy is particularly disempowering for black women, black youth, black gay men and lesbians, and others who have fewer internal community resources to ensure that their concerns are represented in a broader racial agenda. Failing to air the dirty laundry has historically meant that these groups are left washing it with their own hands.

To say it another way, failing to air our dirty laundry leaves the deviants, the single mothers, the queers, the lesbians, the gays, the felons, the hustlers, the sex workers-basically anyone who is lewd and lascivious shit out of luck.

Using your voice makes you a target, but as Audre Lorde has famously said, your silence won’t protect you.

You use your voice lately?

How did that turn out?

You choose NOT to speak up lately?

How did that turn out?

By Arturo R. García

No, seriously, does Salon have beef with Melissa Harris-Perry?

Twice this week, the online magazine – freshly rebranded as “aggressively populist” – has taken shots at the Tulane University professor, MSNBC contributor and columnist for The Nation in the midst of two positive columns regarding President Barack Obama.

(Full disclosure: Racialicious’ Editor, Latoya Peterson, has contributed articles to Salon in the past.)

Wednesday, Gene Lyons opened a piece praising an Obama appearance in Cincinnati by referring to her as “one Melissa Harris-Perry” and attacking her recent column in The Nation:

See, certain academics are prone to an odd fundamentalism of the subject of race. Because President Obama is black, under the stern gaze of professor Harris-Perry, nothing else about him matters. Not killing Osama bin Laden, not 9 percent unemployment, only blackness.

Furthermore, unless you’re black, you can’t possibly understand. Yada, yada, yada. This unfortunate obsession increasingly resembles a photo negative of KKK racial thought. It’s useful for intimidating tenure committees staffed by Ph.D.s trained to find racist symbols in the passing clouds. Otherwise, Harris-Perry’s becoming a left-wing Michele Bachmann, an attractive woman seeking fame and fortune by saying silly things on cable TV.

Lyons’ opening grafs read like Microaggression Madlibs: “Lonely battle”? “Yada, yada, yada”? “trained to find racist symbols in the passing clouds”? Likening a black columnist’s reasoning to the Ku Klux Klan? Methinks he doth protest too much, and he’s already getting some well-deserved blasts, like this response from Elon James White:

You can like Dr. Harris-Perry’s theory or not, but 1) its a theory not an etched in stone condemnation and 2) it’s based in reality. It’s based in feelings many in the Black community have wondered when hearing attacks from White liberals. It’s based in issues that have been previously pointed out within the progressive movement. You could make the argument that race has nothing to do with White liberals issues with Obama and I wouldn’t have an issue with that. But to dismiss one of the great Black public intellectuals of our time because it made you feel uncomfortable is completely ridiculous.

And that’s the problem. Dr. Harris-Perry made folks feel uncomfortable.

White liberals enjoy the concept that they are immune to accusations of racism. They’re LIBERALS. They obviously are totally and completely not racist so how could you ever dare even pose the possibility of such a thing? Matter of fact? Since White liberals are so “obvi” not racist they can dismiss this feeling amongst Black folks as silly and tell them to stop it. You can even get all Dave Sirota on us and say how this hurts the civil rights movement. Because questioning the possibility of racism obviously makes equality harder right? Thanks sir!

What got Lyons’ goat was Harris-Perry’s column comparing Obama’s presidency to Bill Clinton’s – and the decidedly different response each has gotten from white Democrats:

Today many progressives complain that Obama’s healthcare reform was inadequate because it did not include a public option; but Clinton failed to pass any kind of meaningful healthcare reform whatsoever. Others argue that Obama has been slow to push for equal rights for gay Americans; but it was Clinton who established the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy Obama helped repeal. Still others are angry about appalling unemployment rates for black Americans; but while overall unemployment was lower under Clinton, black unemployment was double that of whites during his term, as it is now. And, of course, Clinton supported and signed welfare “reform,” cutting off America’s neediest despite the nation’s economic growth.

Today, America’s continuing entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan provoke anger, but while Clinton reduced defense spending, covert military operations were standard practice during his administration. In terms of criminal justice, Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which decreased judicial disparities in punishment; by contrast, federal incarceration grew exponentially under Clinton. Many argue that Obama is an ineffective leader, but the legislative record for his first two years outpaces Clinton’s first two years. Both men came into power with a Democratically controlled Congress, but both saw a sharp decline in their ability to pass their own legislative agendas once GOP majorities took over one or both chambers.

Harris-Perry also writes that Obama’s bid for reelection “is a test of whether Obama will be held to standards never before imposed on an incumbent. If he is, it may be possible to read that result as the triumph of a more subtle form of racism.”

While Lyons suggests, correctly, that the White House will want to steer clear of defining the 2012 campaign along a racial paradigm, he refuses to do so without taking another dismissive swipe at Harris-Perry:

The sheer political stupidity of turning Obama’s reelection into a racial referendum cannot be overstated. It would be an open confession of weakness. Whatever its shortcomings, this White House is too smart to go there. Harris-Perry will have to fight this lonely battle on her own. Voters can’t be shamed or intimidated into supporting this president or any other. They can only be persuaded.

Yeah, because a woman who fills in for Rachel Maddow doesn’t have any fans, or people who share her observations. Not to mention the fact that Lyons should be more familiar with “one” Harris-Perry. After all, one of his colleagues had already written a column about her earlier this week.

Sunday, Joan Walsh – who you might recall likened herself to the President as being a victim of “identity politics” – also portrayed Harris-Perry as peddling some Strange Colored Thinking, albeit more politely:

I’m not sure how to argue with a perception, which is by definition subjective, but I’m going to try, because this is becoming a prevalent and divisive belief. When I say Melissa Harris-Perry is my friend, I don’t say that rhetorically, or ironically; we are professional friends, we have socialized together; she has included me on political round tables; I like and respect her enormously. That’s why I think it’s important to engage her argument, and I’ve invited her to reply.

Harris-Perry fired back with a blistering critique of liberal defensiveness, which included what’s usually referred to online as THIS:

I was taken aback that Walsh emphasized the extent of our friendship. Walsh and I have been professionally friendly. We’ve eaten a few meals. I invited her to speak at Princeton and I introduced her to my literary agent. We are not friends. Friendship is a deep and lasting relationship based on shared sacrifice and joys. We are not intimates in that way. Watching Walsh deploy our professional familiarity as a shield against claims of her own bias is very troubling. In fact, it is one of the very real barriers to true interracial friendship and intimacy.

(To her credit, Walsh reportedly apologized to Harris-Perry afterwards.)

In her column, Walsh noted that Salon “came to prominence” during Clinton’s presidency as a counter to right-wing smears on him, and perhaps that’s the most telling line in this whole debacle: we’re just over decade removed from the Clintonistas’ heyday, and the traditional progressive movement finds itself forced to try and rebuff voices from all sorts of different quarters: from Harris-Perry, Maddow, from the #OccupyWallStreet movement, leading to an unusual “show, don’t tell” moment: In trying to defend their bonafides against the professor, Walsh and Lyons are only illustrating her point.

Throughout our history, change has often come slowly. Progress often takes time. We take a step forward, sometimes we take two steps back. Sometimes we get two steps forward and one step back. But it’s never a straight line.  It’s never easy. And I never promised easy.  Easy has never been promised to us. But we’ve had faith. We have had faith. We’ve had that good kind of crazy that says, you can’t stop marching. 

Even when folks are hitting you over the head, you can’t stop marching. Even when they’re turning the hoses on you, you can’t stop. Even when somebody fires you for speaking out, you can’t stop. Even when it looks like there’s no way, you find a way — you can’t stop. Through the mud and the muck and the driving rain, we don’t stop. Because we know the rightness of our cause — widening the circle of opportunity, standing up for everybody’s opportunities, increasing each other’s prosperity. We know our cause is just. It’s a righteous cause.

So in the face of troopers and teargas, folks stood unafraid. Led somebody like John Lewis to wake up after getting beaten within an inch of his life on Sunday — he wakes up on Monday: We’re going to go march. 

Dr. King once said: “Before we reach the majestic shores of the Promised Land, there is a frustrating and bewildering wilderness ahead. We must still face prodigious hilltops of opposition and gigantic mountains of resistance.  But with patient and firm determination we will press on.” 

So I don’t know about you, CBC, but the future rewards those who press on. With patient and firm determination, I am going to press on for jobs.  (Applause.)  I’m going to press on for equality. I’m going to press on for the sake of our children.  (Applause.)  I’m going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I am going to press on.  (Applause.)

I expect all of you to march with me and press on.  (Applause.)  Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We’ve got work to do, CBC.
- Image and transcript courtesy of BET

The full transcript is here, but below are the segments I found most interesting.

TAVIS SMILEY: The bottom line is that our body politic—I want to be clear about this—both Republicans and Democrats, both Congress and the White House, and for that matter, all of the American people, have got to take the issue of the poor more seriously. Why? Because the new poor, the new poor, are the former middle class. Obviously, the polls tell these elected officials, these politicians, that you ought to talk about the middle class, that resonates. Well, if the new poor are the former middle class, then this conversation has got to be expanded. We’ve got to have a broader conversation about what’s happening to the poor. And the bottom line for me is this, Amy, with regard to this legislation and all others that are now demonizing, casting aspersion on the poor. There’s always been a connection between the poor and crime, but now—between poverty and crime, but now it’s become a crime, it would seem, to be poor in this country. And I believe this country, one day, is going to get crushed under the weight of its own poverty, if we think we can continue to live in a country where one percent of the people own and control more wealth than 90 percent. That math, long term, Amy, is unsustainable. We’ve got to talk about poverty.[...]

AMY GOODMAN: A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll found 86 percent of African Americans expressed approval of the job President Obama is doing, even as support for him has slipped among other groups. This is from the Washington Post. The view is nuanced, though: “Among blacks, approval of the president’s economic policies has weakened, with only 54 percent saying the policies have made the economy better compared with 77 percent in October.” Cornel West, you have been both a supporter of Senator Obama in becoming president and a fierce critic. These polls are shifting, even among his hugest support group. What about what has happened, and where you think President Obama is trying to take the country, and where you think it needs to go?

CORNEL WEST: Well, I think, on the one hand, large numbers of black people rightly want to protect President Obama against the vicious right-wing attacks, the Fox News-like attacks, the lies about him being socialist, Muslim and so forth. On the other hand, the suffering intensifies. It’s very clear that President Obama caves in over and over and over again. He punts on first down. If you’re in a foxhole with him, you’re in trouble, because he wants to compromise, you want to fight. He doesn’t have the kind of backbone he ought to have. So black folk find themselves in a dilemma: how do we protect him against the right-wing attacks and at the same time keep him accountable, especially when it comes to poor and working people?

Unfortunately, Tim Geithner and his economic team have nothing to do with the legacy of Martin King, have indifference toward poor and working people. He listens to them, hence he’s rightly associated much more with the oligarchs than with poor people. We hope he changes his mind. We hope he gets a progressive economic team, even though, as you know, many of us are exploring other kinds of possibilities in the coming election, given his lukewarmness.

It’s well worth a full listen, particularly as article after article has dropped on our completely unsustainable plutocracy, particularly the unbelievably high racial wealth gap. However, I am withholding a full analysis until a bit later in the year – long time readers will remember that my initial decision back in 2008 was based on the candidates proposed poverty plans. Once the GOP field stabilizes, we will take a look at what all candidates (including Green and Independent) have advocated for in terms of legislation around poverty.

In the meantime, West and Smiley are attempting to spark a conversation on poverty that is long overdue. However, their credibility as messengers is a bit skewed – both Smiley and West have had public falling outs with Obama over matters that are equal parts policy driven and ego driven. Still, I don’t think we can afford to ignore their pointed message. London is on fire, financial markets are in a crisis, and at some point, Americans will have to acknowledge our debts to each other or lose our children to the Pied Piper.

Over the weekend, Drew Westin took to the NYT to discuss Obama’s “lack of passion”:

Those were the shoes — that was the historic role — that Americans elected Barack Obama to fill. The president is fond of referring to “the arc of history,” paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics — in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time — he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for at least a generation.

When Dr. King spoke of the great arc bending toward justice, he did not mean that we should wait for it to bend. He exhorted others to put their full weight behind it, and he gave his life speaking with a voice that cut through the blistering force of water cannons and the gnashing teeth of police dogs. He preached the gospel of nonviolence, but he knew that whether a bully hid behind a club or a poll tax, the only effective response was to face the bully down, and to make the bully show his true and repugnant face in public.

IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze.

Westin argues that Obama hasn’t proactively shaped the narrative. Thoughts?

By Arturo R. García

Didja hear the one about the guy who impersonated President Obama in front of a room full of Republicans? Turns out he was allowed to make fun of a black man, but not a Bachmann.

Thank you, I’m here all week.

But seriously, folks, if you watch the video above, you see that Obama impersonator Reggie Brown got off to a good start with his set at the Republican Leadership Conference. A transcript, and other “highlights,” are under the cut.

My favorite month is February, Black History Month. You see, Michelle, she celebrates the full month, and, you know, I celebrate half.

My father was a black man from Kenya, and my mother was a white woman from Kansas, so yes – my mother loved a black man. And no, she was not a Kardashian.

Most of you know, I still haven’t been able to quit smoking. I’m afraid I might need some outside help. Take a look at this picture somebody snapped of me in the 2008 campaign … Yeah, one year later, someone snapped this photo.
(A picture is shown of Obama with five cigarettes in his mouth)

I need help! Somebody! But the worst part is, presidents age so quickly. Now, look, this is general George Washington before he agreed to be our first president … he’s looking nice and young. This is President Washington while he was our President … and this is George Washington today.
(A picture is shown of former first lady Barbara Bush’s head on Washington’s body. The audience laughs, boos can be heard.)

See what I mean? Now, here’s Dubya before 9/11 …
(A picture is shown of George W. Bush on the phone. The audience cheers and applauds.)
He’s looking good, decisive, on point … and now after 9/11.
(Another picture of Bush is shown. The audience laughs)
Not so good. Confused. Now, look at this, I love this photo. We were ready to take on the world.
(A picture of the Obamas is shown.)
I had my team of experts use the latest computer technology to predict what Michelle and I are gonna look like at the end of my first term.
(A picture of Fred and Ethel from “Sanford and Son” is shown. The audience laughs.)

Conference chairman Charlie Davis would later say, ““He was funny the first 10 or 15 minutes” – in other words, the period covering the Obama jokes – “but it was inappropriate, it was getting ridiculous.”

So when did Brown start to work too blue? Go fig, when he started mocking some prominent Republicans:

The impersonator took a shot at former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, saying Pawlenty missed the conference because “he’s having his foot surgically removed from his mouth.”

“Don’t worry: it’s covered under Obamneycare … along with spinal transplants,” Brown said.

Pawlenty has struggled this week after previewing his criticism of former Gov. Mitt Romney’s health care overhaul in Massachusetts that was a model for Democrats’ national plan. Pawlenty first called it “Obamneycare,” a hybrid of “Romneycare” and “Obamacare.” But when given the opportunity to use the term while sharing the stage with Romney during a debate Monday night in New Hampshire, he balked.

Pawlenty later said it was a mistake not to offer a stronger criticism.

The impersonator joked about Romney’s Mormon faith and about polygamy, and Rep. Michele Bachmann’s tea party support.

Organizers then cut off Brown’s microphone and turned on music. He was shown off the stage.

For his part, Brown seemed to take the whole thing in stride. He told WMAQ-TV he was yanked because of time constraints, and got a warm reception at a RLC after-party Saturday night. Then he moved on to a Sunday night gig doing a few bits at a WWE show in Washington D.C.

Meanwhile, the joke has ended up on the RLC: even having an Obama impersonator appear was the kind of thing GOP stalwarts Haley Barbour and Bobby Jindal said during the conference the party shouldn’t be doing. And now more people are talking about Brown’s appearance than the fact that Texas Libertarian Ron Paul and former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman finished atop a straw poll held at the conference, ahead of Pawlenty, Romney, Bachmann and the lone POC candidate, Herman “Muslims get the special oath” Cain.

By Guest Contributor Tami Winfrey Harris, cross-posted from What Tami Said

Hmmm … I’m just digesting Joan Walsh’s analysis of the Cornel West v. President Obama controversy. Now, I think West’s attack on Obama was petty, personal and, perhaps worst of all, an example of destructive policing of blackness from within. So, I was with Walsh until she went here:

But there’s a way in which this whole controversy looks like progressives devouring their own tail. From the left, West attacks Obama for not being black enough; I’ve written about being attacked as a clueless, entitled white progressive for criticizing Obama; in a pro-West backlash, black Obama supporters are being dismissed as “elitist” fronts for white liberals and that half-white guy in the White House. It’s crazy. Read more…

Whoa … whoa … whoa there, Joan! In her article, Walsh goes from pointing out the silliness of “not black enough” charges to using West’s foolishness to imply that analysis of political opinion through the lens of race and other identities is without merit–particularly when leveled at, well, Joan Walsh.

It struck me that Walsh compared criticism of herself to West’s slap at the President. Because I have, in the past, accused Walsh of being “a clueless, entitled white progressive” not for criticizing Barack Obama, who, as our country’s leader should not be immune to criticism. I have criticized him myself. I have inferred that Walsh is a “clueless, entitled white progressive” because of her race-biased commentary during the 2008 presidential elections and afterwards. Consider Walsh’s response when embattled Illinois Gov. Blagojevich appointed Roland Burris to Obama’s old Senate seat:

In her post, Walsh admits that some writers she holds in esteem disagree with her on this–Folks like Digby and Jane Hamsher. but their arguments in favor of Burris (like those of most reasoned people) rest on the Rule of Law. As crappy as it is that Blago got to make this appointment, it seems he is within his legal right to do so. (Read more on why I think the Senate should seat Burris now.) No one seems to be making the Blagojevich/Burris debacle about race, but Bobby Rush…and Joan Walsh.

Walsh snidely refers to Burris as a “champion of professionally black Chicago activists” and rightfully calls him out for opposing Carol Moseley-Braun during her Senate run, in favor of Alan Dixon, who sided with Clarence Thomas over Anita Hill. But then she gets to the crux of her argument:

Imagine that Blago had appointed a white Roland Burris, middle-of-the-road, relatively clean but not a big reformer, a four-time loser for governor and senator with one statewide win behind him/her, who isn’t given a strong chance to run and win in 2010. I find it hard to imagine that Obama and Reid would have reversed their principled anti-Blagojevich stand to back a vaguely qualified but mediocre white cadidate. And what about poor Rep. Danny Davis, the black Chicago congressman who reportedly turned down an appointment by Blago because that’s what he thought a good Democrat was supposed to do? If Davis knew Reid and Obama would fold so quickly, he might be the one sitting in Washington being hailed as the junior senator from Illinois right now.

Ah … Walsh thinks Burris is an affirmative action hire. An incompetent black person being handed an undeserved position of power, just like Bara…oh, I won’t say it. Now, I shouldn’t need to point out (especially to a “professional” feminist–See how condescending that sounds, Joan?) that mediocre white men get appointed to things all the time. It is women and racial minorities and gay people that have to be exceptional. I can’t help thinking that all of this is really about Clinton vs. Obama…again. Walsh is still licking her wounds about Obama winning the Democratic nomination and, as her recent political recap proved, is still angry at those “fools who threw the word ‘racism’ around carelessly.”

Please get over it, Joan. Read more …

My beef with Walsh isn’t that she is ambivalent about Barack Obama; I’m mad at her racial f-ckery. And calling out said f-ckery does not amount to playing “identity politics.” From, I think rightly, calling out West, Walsh pivots to a bit of Tea Party-ish wingeing about analysis of race and politics. You know how Tea Party types always disingenuously claim that they are being accused of racism just for criticizing a black guy, rather than, say, all those racist emails, sound bites and placards featuring Obama in tribal dress with a bone through his nose?

Walsh writes:

But I continue to observe a disturbing ad hominem campaign against Obama critics (the Twitter war rages on, with or without me). If you’re white, it’s “white privilege” speaking. If you’re black, you’re old or jealous or angry you’re left out of Obama’s inner circle. If you’re neither white nor black, you just don’t get American race relations and you should “STFU.” Just today on Twitter, I saw two (white) progressives I respect make wildly contradictory and nasty generalizations about a grouping of Obama critics (of different races; I wasn’t among them): One suggested they’re trashing the president for fame and money; the other that they’re angry they’ve been marginalized by Obama’s popularity. Which is it?

It couldn’t possibly be that any of these people, whatever their age, race or social class, wherever they went to school, have genuine differences with the president? (Or conversely, in the case of Obama defenders being attacked racially and personally, have wonderful and sincere reasons for continuing to support him fervently.)

Of course the election of the first non-white president has sparked lots of debate of race and racism, just as Hillary Clinton’s historic run for the White House sparked talk of gender and naked sexism. We are a highly gender- and race-biased country. Having a man of color or a woman in prominent and powerful spaces touches a sore spot. Sometimes the discussion is foolish: like folks evaluating Obama’s blackness or worrying whether Sarah Palin could handle the vice presidency…because she is a mother…a charge that would never be leveled at a man with children. But the 2008 presidential election and Barack Obama’s presidency have also sparked a lot of sharp analysis of the ways America still fails at race and gender. It’s not all bullshit. Some of it needs to be said.

I would love to have a meaty discussion about what Barack Obama owes progressives, including members of the black community. I’d like to talk about whether black people are really more loyal to Barack Obama than, say, Bill Clinton. I’d be game to discuss whether the vitriolic Twitter discussions Walsh cites are responses to Barack Obama’s blackness or simply reflective of the nature of social media. But by shoehorning herself into this latest article, Walsh reveals a particular sensitivity to racial criticism and, in my opinion, undermines and overshadows her larger points about political discussion.

So, since I’m a jerk, I watched part of the Bin Laden press conference, read the post-play this morning, and waited for the inevitable conspiracy theory to pop up.

I didn’t have to wait long. In an elevator, someone leaned over to me and confided, “Oh, I hope you don’t believe that’s real. Where’s the body? If they killed him, they’d have a body, right? I won’t believe he’s dead till I see the body.”

According to reports, the body was buried at sea.

So I cracked, “Well, we’ll just have to wait till he drops an album with Tupac. They could call it “Until The End of Time (We’re Staying in Cuba.)”

And while Amaru records is working on that, can someone please call Aaron MacGruder? It’s time for him to finish that plotline where Riley was gonna remake himself as a rapper named Bin Laden, and Huey was calling in tips about Americans aiding Bin Laden.

But if he came back, it would only be a matter of time before Lalo Alcaraz brought back the Beandocks:

Which means there would be two indignant ass brown folks in the daily comics pages, and that would be two too many.

Bush 1 and Bush 2 (a.k.a. The Empire Strikes Back at Your Foxhole!) both decide to change their phone numbers since the Navy Seals who carried out the operation keep leaving voice messages like this:

At the Dyson Show, me and the producers were creating the fantasy playlist for Obama’s next press conference. I forgot what Teria said, but I put the question on Twitter.

I went with:

Carmen suggested:

Obama can’t continue to brush dirt off his shoulder, especially as half of it already landed on the Donald’s toupee during the Press Correspondent’s Dinner.

Sophia Coppola needs to clear out her schedule to do the Osama biopic, especially considering her penchant for 80s music and wrecked mansions.

Exhibit A: The final scene in Marie Antoinette.

Exhibit B: Osama’s mansion, post-mission.

Coincidence? Or artistic retelling just waiting to happen?

Arturo disagrees. Clearly, the next shots released of Bin Laden’s mansion will have the promo line “Next time, on Extreme Home Makeover…”

Also, Arturo reminds us not to believe the Navy Seals just yet – another prominent assassin has taken credit for Bin Laden’s downfall:

Compiled by Arturo R. García

For decades, we have held in contempt those who actively celebrate death. When we’ve seen video footage of foreigners cheering terrorist attacks against America, we have ignored their insistence that they are celebrating merely because we have occupied their nations and killed their people. Instead, we have been rightly disgusted — not only because they are lauding the death of our innocents, but because, more fundamentally, they are celebrating death itself. That latter part had been anathema to a nation built on the presumption that life is an “unalienable right.”

But in the years since 9/11, we have begun vaguely mimicking those we say we despise, sometimes celebrating bloodshed against those we see as Bad Guys just as vigorously as our enemies celebrate bloodshed against innocent Americans they (wrongly) deem as Bad Guys. Indeed, an America that once carefully refrained from flaunting gruesome pictures of our victims for fear of engaging in ugly death euphoria now ogles pictures of Uday and Qusay’s corpses, rejoices over images of Saddam Hussein’s hanging and throws a party at news that bin Laden was shot in the head.

This is bin Laden’s lamentable victory — he has changed America’s psyche from one that saw violence as a regrettable-if-sometimes-necessary act into one that finds orgasmic euphoria in news of bloodshed. In other words, he’s helped drag us down into his sick nihilism by making us like too many other bellicose societies in history — the ones that aggressively cheer on killing, as long as it is the Bad Guy that is being killed.
- David Sirota, Salon

It was a joke that turned out to be shockingly topical on [Seth] Meyers’ part, though a decade-long search for the terrorist mastermind certainly warrants the occasional bit of humor about his evasive techniques.

Meyers quipped: “People think bin Laden is hiding in the Hindu Kush, but did you know that every day from 4 to 5 he hosts a show on C-SPAN?”

Post-punchline, Obama gave a toothy smile — and was he even blushing? Perhaps his look was one of genuine surprise to hear bin Laden’s name come up in a joke, knowing secretly what was happening in Abbottabad. Perhaps he was just responding heartily to the humor. One thing’s for certain: we wouldn’t want to be across the table from Barack in Vegas.
- Nick Carbone, Time

Courtesy of The Atlantic

Here, you know, I think Republicans should stand up and certainly salute Barack Obama for making some — again, for making some very tough choices that his own base did not want him to make. That takes courage, that takes leadership, and we saw the results of that courage and leadership saying no to his own base yesterday.[...]

[These are] decisions that he probably did not believe as a candidate he didn’t think he’d have to make…Going against his own ideological leanings to do what he believes he has to do.
- Joe Scarborough, MSNBC (via The Daily Kos)

“What I have said is we’re going encourage democracy in Pakistan, expand our non-military aid to Pakistan so that they have more of a stake in working with us, but insisting that they go after these militants. And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act, and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaida. That has to be our biggest national security priority.”
- Barack Obama, Oct. 7, 2008 (via Crooks and Liars)

I sincerely hope that those people who believe that Obama is some sort of secret Muslim working in cahoots with those who hate America find themselves chastened. Those people are out there — I’ve seen the Tea Party signs and crazy blog posts/emails — and I hope they are eating crow today. (sorry, must pause to roll eyes from back of head after spontaneous eyeroll/head shake combo). Not that there’s anything wrong with being Muslim! It would be fine if Obama were Muslim. He could still defend America as many U.S. troops who are Muslim do everyday. But that’s been used as a swipe to undermine Obama’s patriotism – the whole “Obama is a secret Muslim hellbent on destroying America” and it’s clear now that people who believed that were clownin’ hard.
- Cheryl Contee, Jack & Jill Politics

Image courtesy of The New York Times

Look, part of the argument against this reduction is that it was reputational, for staying in Afghanistan. ‘We can’t look like America was driven out.’ ‘We can’t go away with our tail between our legs.’ All of those metaphors. Well, we just killed Osama bin Laden, and I think that takes a lot of the pressure away — a lot of the punch away from the argument that ‘oh, it will look like we walked away.’”
- Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), in an interview with ThinkProgress

Our economy is defined by greed. The top 1 percent of earners take home a quarter of income in this country. Wall Street banks are logging record profits while the Treasury Department professes helplessness at the fact that tens of millions of people are still losing their homes to those banks. Because of that foreclosure crisis, the stunning racial wealth gap—the typical black family has a dime for a dollar of wealth held by its white counterpart—will surely grow worse. The White House is paralyzed with inaction in the face of all of these challenges. But it can kill, so we are great.

We have the world’s most expensive health care system, and yet in 2009 infant mortality in the U.S. was higher than in 29 other countries and the worst among rich nations. Why? In large part because the infant mortality rate is so high among black and Latina women. We cannot find justice for them, but we can kill and call it justice.

We have a $14 trillion deficit. A massive giveaway to defense contractors lurks inside that number—a transfer of public funds that has been justified, in ways both explicit and implicit, by the evil visage of Osama Bin Laden. And now, Washington is as likely as not to make up the loss by taking apart the safety net that once created something like economic justice in America. But the president would like us to agree that we are great because we can kill.
- Kai Wright, Colorlines

By Arturo R. García

A transcript of President Obama’s remarks from Sunday night is under the cut. But we’d also like to get your reaction to the killing of Osama Bin Laden, carried out during a U.S. military operation in Pakistan. Did you first hear the news on Twitter? Did you witness or take part in celebratory gatherings like the ones in Washington D.C. and New York City? What are your thoughts on those celebrations? What happens now, not just in America, but in the Middle East?

Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory — hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to the ground; black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon; the wreckage of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak and destruction.

And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.

On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.

We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda — an organization headed by Osama Bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.

Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counter-terrorism professionals, we’ve made great strides in that effort. We’ve disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot.

Yet Osama Bin Laden avoided capture and escaped across the Afghan border into Pakistan. Meanwhile, al Qaeda continued to operate from along that border and operate through its affiliates across the world.

And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of Bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.

Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice.

Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama Bin Laden and took custody of his body.

For over two decades, Bin Laden has been Al Qaeda’s leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies. The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat Al Qaeda.

Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must –- and we will — remain vigilant at home and abroad.

As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not –- and never will be -– at war with Islam. I’ve made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.

Over the years, I’ve repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where Bin Laden was. That is what we’ve done. But it’s important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to Bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding. Indeed, Bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well, and ordered attacks against the Pakistani people.

Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts. They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates.

The American people did not choose this fight. It came to our shores, and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens. After nearly 10 years of service, struggle, and sacrifice, we know well the costs of war. These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief, have to sign a letter to a family that has lost a loved one, or look into the eyes of a service member who’s been gravely wounded.

So Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to Al Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done.

Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.

We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country. And they are part of a generation that has borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day.

Finally, let me say to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 that we have never forgotten your loss, nor wavered in our commitment to see that we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on our shores.

And tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.

The cause of securing our country is not complete. But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it’s the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place.

Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

With all of the jokes about “Birthers” and Donald Trump’s toupee as well as the leftysphere excoriating the mainstream media for not taking Trump to task for his antics, Jack and Jill Politics’ Baratunde Thurston breaks down what we lost due to Trump’s BS.

Transcript after the jump.

It’s been a very difficult morning for me. Got the news that President Obama released his long-form birth certificate due to the increasing media circus surrounding claims that he is not one of us. That he is not an American. And it comes at a very interesting time for many reasons, one of which is, it’s April 27 2011 and this just happened. So that’s really interesting to me. Also because I’m reading, right now, a book by Manning Marable called Malcolm X a life of reinvention and he unearths a lot of amazing detail and correspondence around this exceptional American. But through this book you also get a window into the civil rights movement throughout this country’s history – especially the 40s 50s and 60s and you are reminded if you read this book or see a documentary special or know anything about the complete history of the United States, you’re reminded of the extraordinary level of sacrifice that has been involved in allowing all Americans to exist as, be treated as, participate as Americans. To be that which they are took a lot of work. A lot of tears, a lot of pain, a lot of death.

There were people who dropped out of their ordinary lives, sacrificed their personal safety, their reputation, their ability to earn money, to intervene on behalf of those who they also saw as American. They got on buses and Freedom Rides. They sat in, they died in waves and waves of domestic terrorism so that someone like me could go to a voting booth and not be asked by some racist poll worker to pay a tax or prove that my grandfather wasn’t a slave or pass a literacy test that got increasingly difficult the more I passed it. And today, the President of the United States had to prove that he was an American, to the satisfaction of the 75 percent of Iowa republicans who doubt that or the 43 percent of National Republicans who believe that or the one heinous low-class individual who took credit for it after: Donald Trump.

A man who was given every advantage – who inherited millions and lost it all twice but had that opportunity because no one’s ever had to ask him to prove anything. A man who lacks intelligence, compassion, common sense, respect, decency, or an understanding of WHAT THE FUCK it means to be an American that he would come out moments after the President of the United States – and I stress that: the President – released his long-form birth certificate – and Donald Trump comes out moments later and says, “I’m really proud of myself – but it shouldn’t have taken so long. I wanna see the birth certificate for myself. I want to test it for authenticity. I don’t want the press asking me about birth certificates anymore.”

I find it hard to summarize in mere words the amount of pain and rage this incident has caused. It’s humiliating – not just to Barack Obama, not just to the office of the President, not just to Black Americans who died and those who supported our quest for freedom. It’s embarrassing to the entire nation that we would sit and let this nation. We have all been debased by this incident. By a charlatan, by a con man, by a mere promoter of himself. And for him to take credit for this, and for him to revel in it, and yet not be satisfied makes him no better than a Klansman. No better than a Bull Connor. No better than an anonymous, privileged white man in the 1950s who, regardless of his position in society, knew his position was higher than that of a common nigger. And that is what the fuck Donald Trump has done to the President of the United States. To the office of the President of the United States. To me. And to you.

I am disgusted. I have cried, because I know my own ancestors paid a very high price, and never would have imagined that we might have the President that we do, but certainly, part of their joy in the ancestral, celestial skies right now has been greatly diminished by what has happened here today. I hope that eventually, not just in the post-mortal world of karma and spiritual justice, Mr. Trump pays an exceptional price. I hope that price comes during his life. To then be able to walk around, a super-free, super-white, super-privileged man lording over all who would pay attention – which is far too many – at what you have done has got to cost you something in this life, as well.

I don’t wanna hear about The Apprentice. I don’t wanna hear about your new cologne. I don’t wanna hear about the new tower you’re building in whatever fuckin’ town. That cologne smells of racism. That tower is built on the blood of disrespected slaves and freedom fighters, and that show is merely a showcase for the dishonor you have brought among anyone who would call themselves an American.

My name is Baratunde Thurston. I’m heartbroken over this.

Hat tip to reproductive-rights activist Shelby Knox for this:  today the anti-choice group Life Always, the group behind the billboard that was taken down in New York City due to the melding of online and offline activism, reveals its latest billboard in a press conference in Chicago.

According to Life Always’ press release, about 30 of these outdoor ads will be place around Chicago’s South Side, where President Obama served as a community organizer and where First Lady Obama grew up.  So, since using the image of a darling little Black girl stirred up a fiasco instead collective guilt over not wanting to carry a fetus to term,  the group decides to go for double-barrel sentimentality with the placement of this message: the soft spot that some Chicagoans have for their  hometown heroes and connecting the termination of a pregnancy to the nationalist trigger-word of “genocide.”

To further push the racial-guilt sappiness, Life Always Board Member Reverend Derek McCoy, one of the attendees at today’s press conference said, “Our future leaders are being aborted at an alarming rate. These are babies who could grow to be the future Presidents of the United States, or the next Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington or Maya Angelou.”

::Direct laser side-eye::

What would be great is if any or all of these celebrities–especially the POTUS and the FLOTUS–publicly told the anti-choice group to get their names out of the group’s mouth because they’re not feeling the anti-choice  message.

According to Huffington Post Chicago, other leaders joining Rev. McCoy include “former 2nd Congressional district GOP candidate Rev. Isaac Hayes, Rev. Ceasar LeFlore, [sic] and Pastor Stephen Broden, an anti-choice activist who ran for office as a Republican in Texas last year.” The press conference for the first billboard, to be hung in an empty lot at 5812 S. State Street, Chicago, will be held at 11AM.

By Guest Contributor The CVT, cross-posted from CHOP-TENSILS

With the lead-up to Obama’s inauguration, there was a ton of chatter about multi-racial people and what that meant for the future of the U.S., in regards to racial relations and understanding.  (*1)  Some years passed, the 2010 census went down, and now the conversation seems to have reappeared in the public arena.  (*2)

The ideas are nothing new, of course: there are drastically more people claiming a mixed-race identity than ever before, with the numbers expected to continue trending upwards; and somewhere around 2060, the U.S. is expected to be less than 50% white.  The resulting question is deceptively simple – does this mean that we are getting closer to a “post-racial” world, and that, subsequently, racial conflict and inequality is on the downslope?

My simple answer?  Um . . .

Hell no.  And that’s it.

But for those of you who would like a bit more complicated answer, I’ll see what I can do here.

Check the “Multiracial” Box

I’m going to start this all off with a quick tear through some points I’ve mentioned in the past that touch on why current statistics on “mixed-race” folks doesn’t necessarily mean anything in regards to racial understanding or equality.  For those looking for a quicker-read, y’all can just stick to that.

For those looking for a little bit deeper analysis (and why I referenced Facebook in this post), that will come in the last section.  Cool?

Alright, here we go . . .

Statistics.

First off, I know statistics and how people use (or mis-use) them to come to questionable conclusions, and let’s just say that the statistics we’re looking at here are questionable, at best.  (*3)

It’s basically just a matter of sampling – nobody’s going to deny that “multiracial” wasn’t an official option until the last decade or so in  any official data collection attempts.  So the question is – how can we compare current numbers of “multiracial” folks to past numbers, if there are no past numbers?

We can’t.  At least not accurately.  Instead, folks employ all sorts of other statistical methods (all with their own flaws) to extrapolate that data from what they can find from past records.

But past records didn’t allow for “multiracial” individuals.  For all practical purposes, we’ve been talking “one-drop” up until now, so any “mixed” people were “monoracial” back in the day.  Hell – even Obama isn’t acceptably “multiracial” in a lot of folks’ eyes today.  So any guess – no matter how “statistically rigorous” – on how many “multiracial” folks there used to be is just that: a guess.

So yeah – anecdotally-speaking, it seems like there are a lot more mixed folks, but we can’t really prove that.  It’s probably true, but I bet it’s a much smaller increase than everybody’s claiming.

“Mixed kids are a step towards greater overall racial diversity.”

So let’s say there really is a huge increase in mixed folks in the U.S.  Then what?

The bolded statement above?  A huge assumption that’s not necessarily true, either.

Let me give you an example: take a bi-racial (white/Asian) gal.  Say she marries a “mono-racial” white guy and has kids.  In all likelihood, what are those kids going to look like, and how are they going to identify themselves, racially (and be identified)?  Yeah – probably as “white.”

So, in that case, the mixed girl was actually an interim step towards less blood of color in her family’s genepool.  Add to this example the fact that most white-and-”other” mixed folks tend to marry and have kids with other “monoracial” white folks (especially in Asian communities), and it just stretches out the case that mixed kids often lead to less racial diversity on an overall level.

Is this the majority of the cases?  (*4) Maybe, maybe not.  But it’s certainly common enough to dispense with that particular myth, and call into question the drastic increases expected based on current numbers.

“Brazil.”

Brazil is ridiculously mixed (between 40 and 50% of the population).  There are specific names for many of the different racial combinations possible, because it’s so common.

So Brazil must be “post-racial,” right?  Um.  Not so much.  The racial hierarchy remains the same, color-wise (lightest skin at the top, darkest at the bottom). They just have more names for the “in-between” folks.  Subsequently, there is just as much (or more) racism and conflict, but with more epithets to throw around.

Great.

In the States, Hawaii is the most-mixed State by far, and the extent of racial conflict (kids throwing stones at white people in the street, for instance) and tension definitely competes for the highest in the U.S.

In real life, greater levels of true diversity (ie. not just a couple “token” folks, but more evenly-represented groups) tend to bring on greater levels of conflict.  Because, in those situations, when there is cultural misunderstanding and/or negative interactions, the “majority” doesn’t have the overwhelming numbers to make the “other” folks just “shut up and take it.”  Suddenly, “those minorities” are actually speaking their minds and standing up for themselves on a regular basis – and this shakes things up, obviously.

“We’re all human beings.”

We are.  It’s true.

However, that doesn’t make race “not matter.”

It does mean that some mixed folks have better racial understanding and ability to “see it from both sides.”  It also means that plenty of mixed folks have no f-ing clue, or don’t care, or “don’t want to get involved” just like all the rest of humanity.  Meaning a whole lot more ethnically-ambiguous folks like me doesn’t necessarily suggest that “understanding” is going to increase at all. 

And finally . . . “The Social Network”

So I don’t agree with the pundits.  I don’t think the numbers mean what other folks want them to mean.  Great.

That said, it’s more than that.  Because I worry about how people are using these numbers.  How people are talking about the “inevitability” of a more-diverse nation, and the subsequent “inevitability” of greater racial understanding as a result.

My problem with that is that it’s so passive, and it completely ignores how social/political change actually happens in the world.

To better understand what I’m getting at, let’s check out Facebook, the newest world superpower:

The most current statistics I can find seem to have Facebook carrying about 250 million users, with the numbers continuing to increase.  (*5)  The site is pretty much omnipresent, as far as modern media goes,  they made a dramatic movie about it that got all sorts of Oscars love, and now folks are claiming Facebook’s responsibility (along with Twitter, of course) in fomenting revolution across the Middle East . . .

Now how the Hell did that all happen?

To state the obvious – they created a social movement, which worked like any other social movement:  First, some guy (or multiple guys – I’m not trying to judge) got an idea and got a bunch of hard-working folks together.  Then, these folks took all sorts of risks and developed a product.  Next, they convinced other folks higher up to take their own risks to fund it and push it out into the world, “early-adopters” took some social risks to get on board, then more folks, bla, bla, bla . . . and then Facebook took over the world.

But was any of it “inevitable”?

Well, let’s look at Facebook about five years ago:  Lots of folks were using their product, they were in the public eye, they were getting a decent chunk of MySpace’s market share.  Other up-and-coming social networks were out there, too, but Facebook was near the top.

So what if the Facebook folks had seen all that and said, “We’ve arrived. We’ve been increasing in size steadily, and if we continue to grow like that, we’re going to be huge in five years.  So let’s just chill on it, leave our product as-is, and wait for the world domination to begin . . .”?

Um.  Right.  That seems patently ridiculous, and it’s obviously not what they did to become the power that they are today.

And yet, with another social trend – that of “increased multi-racial individuals in the States” – we all want to read the statistics and pretend that it’s all going to continue and keep getting better without any extra effort on our part.  Folks want the comfort of thinking, “I don’t have to actively do anything at all, and racial conflict will handle itself – see the numbers?”

As if thousands of individuals (maybe millions) haven’t sacrificed and risked and fought for the last many generations to get to this point.  As if thousands (and millions) more won’t have to fight to keep up the momentum and get beyond this current, still-unequal, state.  As if Facebook could have gotten so huge without “normal” people signing on as active users.

The same applies to the U.S. today.  Everybody got all “rah-rah” and excited about voting for Obama, patted themselves on the back and hit the streets for his victory, and then said, “we arrived.”  And now?  Our lawmakers are more racist (Arizona), classist (Wisconsin), and nationalist (“outsourcing” debates), than any other period in my generation’s lifetimes.

Because Facebook has active users, and Obama got the equivalent of millions signing up for an account (a vote) without ever checking or updating it.  And then everybody gets disappointed with the results?  Please.  The U.S. president only has the power to do what is “safe” or generally acceptable enough to get away with.  And if the general public isn’t doing the work to make “equality” safe or acceptable for the lawmakers to act on . . ?

So.  There are probably more mixed folks in the States.  Meaning more interracial relationships.  Possibly meaning a little bit more racial understanding in the world.  Right now.

But where is it all heading?  That, we can’t know.  No passive numbers or statistics can tell us that.  Only the actions of large numbers of individuals.  Only risk and hard work.

And right now?  While a bunch of us are passively looking at these statistics or patting ourselves on the back for a freaking vote, the Tea Party and Arizona and Wisconsin lawmakers are getting active users ala Facebook.

So great – you signed up for an account.  But now what are you going to do to make your “social network” mean something?

(this article was written by the CVT, who has no affiliation, public or private, with Facebook or any of their people . . .  really)

(*1) I wrote on it back then.  However the writing was, in my opinion, pretty bad, which is why I’m “re-visiting” in this fashion, but if you want to check it out for a laugh, it’s here.

(*2) With articles such as this one from the New York Times.

(*3) I’ve seen some pretty shady “data massaging” in my past work in the field of Psych research.  Sadly, I’ve since learned that that’s pretty standard practice, which is why I’m certain that the majority of scientific “findings” out in the world are complete fabrications.  When results are the only way to get more funding (via grants, etc.), people do what they have to do to get “results.”

(*4) I’m kicking myself here, because I read a great article that had all the numbers on this many years ago, and I haven’t been able to track it back down.

(*5) Unfortunately, I’m not one of those 250 million, cuz I live in China.