What's Obama Got To Do With It? We Need To Step Up To the Plate.

A FB Note originally written on April 26, 2011:

Several incidents over the past two weeks has reminded me, once more, about the fact that so much has been and will remain the same in communities of color. The election of an African American man seems to have served the purpose of putting folks further into the comfort zone of denial. The facts are that the same program still remains in place for people in communities of color. Many with new faces but the intentions and outcomes are the same. The continuation and escalation of violence, exclusionary tactics (called Jim Crow in the late 1800s), under education and unemployment, to name only a few.


I passed a small rally on the way back from the post office in from of PS173 on 8th avenue and 149th street on Friday. Students and teachers were calling attention to the takeover of a charter school board that they graciously allowed to take space on the 3rd floor of the school. The board renovated the space putting in marble tiles, updated computer systems and state of the art educational tools and furniture. The public school in the remainder of the building is still using furniture from the 1950s and -60s and has to fight for basic supplies. This charter school board is now trying to lobby Mr. Klein to allow them to take over the entire school and push the public school children and their families out. This very same story happened last year with a school around the corner from me on 144th street between 7th/8th avenues called Countee Cullen. I did some volunteer work for them and they eventually beat back the vultures. I exchanged info with a couple of teachers from PS173 and told them I would get contact info for them so they can find out how C. Cullen handled their business with the city and charter corp. that wanted to wholesale snatch their school. I did some research in other inner cities throughout the US and this appears to be a new tactic for excluding children in certain neighborhoods and income brackets (which boils down to children of color being in the majority). A Google search came up with a myriad of articles on takeovers by mayors, charter school boards and private sector groups from Pennsy, Michigan, Milwaukie, LA, Chicago, etc.; an article in the Independent detailing the rise in occurrences (http://www.indypendent.org/2010/01/29/taking-the-public-out/); and loads of studies detailing the basic formula for these takeovers, how they hide under the auspices of "No child left behind", etc. This stuff is no different from the segregation tactics of the mid 1950s thru 60s, it's just slicker like many of the oppressive, exclusionary racist policies that have been resurfacing across the socio-economic spectrum. They are designed to make the greater, privileged society think things are cool when the folks who have to live it continue to see the same treatment their grandparents and parents endured.

In the area of the justice ("in-just-us") system I continue to see constant police violence, manipulation and abuse of power. Last week a 86 year old woman was beaten nearly to death during a 'routine' investigation of a 14 year old boy, who happened to be her grandson, and had her residence listed as 'last know address'. The boy was implicated in a shop-lifting incident at a local bodega where some milk and other items were taken. They wanted to know his whereabouts and proceeded to beat the info out of her. Last night, on the corner of 145th street and 7th avenue, a block from where I reside, a mentally impaired young man - wearing a medical bracelet AND chain indicating this fact - was beaten unconscious and placed in the back of the squad car. With his head hanging out of the door and his eyes lolling, they attempted to close the door. A bystander had to yell at them in order to prevent the door being closed against his head. The gentleman was threatened with arrest. Another bystander, recording the entire incident, was wrestled with so that the officer could confiscate his cell phone. Others created a diversion and the gentleman was able to flee. Friends of mine who live in a building overlooking the area were able to see the entire incident clearly and relayed the story to me. The beaten young man's girlfriend, who is also mentally challenged but higher functioning (the young man cannot speak) tried to get the police to understand that they had the wrong guy. The person they were looking for left a bodega and instead of confronting him outside the establishment as he was leaving, the officers followed the 'suspect' for a few blocks. He somehow ended up walking in front of the young man and his girlfriend and they mistook the young man for the other guy. (??) Two days ago some friends of mine were playing chess at 145th street Park when several officers approached them, lined them up against the fence and proceeded to check them and the entire line of tables for alcohol. Folks had beer and small wine bottles IN BAGS not open to view yet somehow tickets were issued for having open containers of alcohol to the folks who had beers only. The summer hasn't even started yet. I can only imagine how it's going to be out there this simmer: constant harassment. We are adults and many who relax at the game tables are veterans yet we are not afforded the right to enjoy sitting in the park without being harassed about petty garbage. Folks on the street, in front of their residences or bodegas are being approached by police when they display any kind of hand to hand exchange. Some of these incidents end up in violence, abuse or with the person being arrested. The case is dismissed, of course but that person's time was wasted and their life was disrupted. Young boys 10-12 and 13-14 are being chased down and thrown to the ground.- for taking silly crap like potato chips. I saw a young man no older than 14 with three grown police men on top of him and one standing with his foot on the boy's back! They are starting folders on children as young as 9-10 years old for stuff that we've all done as kids - silly stuff like jumping the turn-style or climbing the pool fence and going swimming when it's closed. Police are getting 'collars' for this kind of thing in our neighborhoods!

I have experienced profiling and unwarranted searches myself and was arrested once for trespassing in my place of residence. I stayed overnight in jail just to have my case dismissed. At 12% of the population, African Americans make up 80% of the incarcerated with Latinos right behind them. The unemployment rate in NYC is 54% for Africa American males and cities across the US post similar percentages (this kind of disparity hasn't changed since the enactment of co-called civil rights laws).

Racism and it's results effect folks on a daily -- contrary to what others who do not experience living in black, brown or yellow skin (unfortunately that is the criteria to which the majority of people in this society view other human beings) may want to believe, it has never stopped. Since Jim Crow was enacted at the end of the 19th century to this day -- it has been the same deal for people in my communities.

It won't stop until those who are placed in that category referred to as privileged have the courage to change their paradigm and remove the blinders of denial. And I do not mean rich people, politicians or those who have stolen power. I am referring to the folks who live outside these neighborhoods and who have been afforded, by the afore mentioned political structures, to partake of certain benefits by virtue of the arbitrary connotation of a class and race called 'upper middle class' and 'white'. This silent majority, in tandem with the struggling classes, has the ability to reshape the current socio-economic structure into a more feasible and equitable existence. We just need you to take the self imposed blindfold off, remove the gag from your mouth and step up to the plate.

A Sista Making It Crystal Clear

FB Note originally written on July 13, 2011

In any forum where I express my thoughts, opinions and experiences regarding being an African American woman, there are plenty of Caucasian folks who like to assign a chip upon my shoulder. The usual defenses come up: let's get passed this race 'thing'; Why don't you 'people' let it go already; I'm tired of hearing about race, etc. Well, I'm tired of dealing with race myself. So are other folks of color. Yet, there are conditions in this society that make it impossible for us to do so. Why should Caucasians be exempt from having to deal with the issues of people of color?  The thing is, there are so many privileges that Caucasians take for granted on a daily. Therefore, I'd like to state, for the record, that I don't intend to be a good 'Negro' or a 'safe' Black. I never was. Now I will tell you why: I know who I am and what my experiences have been. I have been to enough places and have had this Physical Experience for enough time, to understand that my experiences are shared by other people of color: African American, Caribbean, S. American, Latino, Asian and Indigenous (American, African, Australian & New Zealand).

I am rational enough to understand what happens to me when I interact with people and society at-large; I am intelligent enough to interpret these experiences; I am intuitive enough to see the underlying dynamic contained in those experiences; My heart is open enough to learn from experience; I have understanding enough to know that experience is Knowledge; I am untamed enough to express my thoughts and opinions regarding these experiences openly.

I will get passed race when it is no longer a behavior that creates perceptions and conditions in this society that are harmful to the existence of others. I have talked to enough people of color and had enough of my own experiences to know without doubt that racism and xenophobia are alive and kicking throughout Western cultures. It is engrained even more deeply in US veins. It taints every corporate entity and every institution from education to law enforcement. And, it permeates our political environment. Welfare, Social Security, Medicaid -- any so called entitlement program are pariahs.  In fact, using the word 'entitlement' implies that the recipient is getting something for nothing and therefore, does not deserve it; or has to jump through hoops to prove such 'entitlement'.  All one has to do is equate a program or service with a brown or black face to entice Caucasians to deride it.

Why such diligent and vigilant indignation towards Mr. Obama? I am no fan of politicians, yet I have NEVER seen so much vitriol placed at the feet of an American president. Even Clinton didn't experience the same level of ignorant, petty, nit-picking and he was in the midst of a sexual nightmare. Hillary had her mud slung too but no where near the disrespectful things I have seen throughout the media regarding Mrs. Obama -- a president's wife has never been so derided and cheapened as a human being.  I saw a cartoon of her depicted a a Hottentot!! Bent over Uncle Sam's lap as he whips her with the American flag. That metaphor represents the epitome of sexual looseness and animal baseness. And basically says, 'Your place, Missy, is as the White master's slut not in the White House, you uppity b!tch.'  It took a while but after much outrage by the NAACP, it has since been removed. The search I did on Obama images gave me a large amount of negative images compared to positive for both of them.  I understand that all politicians get roasted but when you do the same kind of search for other polls, well, yo - even Ms. Palin doesn't have the same ratio of poz to neg.  I did not see anything that over-masculinized her or made her resemble jungle animals. And, of the few that sexualized her, she was portrayed like a pin-up girl not a 'hoe' or 'chicken head'. The amount of racist images were disturbing. I have several in a photo album called 'Ms. Obama'.

S. American, Caribbean and African 'illegal' immigrants are treated like animals and spoken of as if they do not have a right to seek a better economic situation for themselves. Yet, many Caucasians are here today enjoying the privilege of being White in America because their Italian, Irish, Polish, Greek, Russian, French or British ancestors fled the jacked up circumstances at home and arrived at these shores smuggled in the bottom of boats. Let's keep it real: A very LARGE many did NOT come through Ellis Island, my friends. And what about the ones that came before the good old Statue of Liberty. Matter of fact, did you know she has chains around her feet hidden under her dress? The original design had them in the open to speak to the fact that people of African descent were still not afforded the same freedoms as those who were not born here. After much argument, they decided to conceal them. You can only see them if you're in a helicopter. This is not included in the Ellis/Liberty tour. A professor with knowledge of this brought it forward during a round and was rebuffed until she pressed the issue. This is a great example of the systematic exclusion of significant cultural aspects of others who are not White that goes on in every institution of education and culture in the US. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 1999 Egyptian exhibition overlooked and belittled the African nature of that ancient land and its people. And, a significant Tibetan collection was relegated to the Newark Museum back in 1994 because it was too much of a 'problem'.

The educational system, in particular, has perpetuated this climate of disparaging treatment. History consistently leaves out everything but European exploits. It either belittles, negatively distorts or omits the contributions of people of color entirely.  Religion has its input too: the sons of 'Ham', etc. And, 400 years of combined oppression in the form of chattel slavery, Reformation, Jim Crow, 'Black Laws', indentured servitude (Blacks, Chinese, Native Americans), internment (Blacks, Japanese, Native Americans), and the supposed Civil Rights Amendments. There is a saying in the South, "There is no amount of respect that is due a Black man that a White man will give him." These actions and behaviors form perceptions and those perceptions are embedded in this society. Carried from parents, teachers and religious 'leaders' to children. Those children grow into adults that me and other people of color have to traverse every day. We have to be subjected to and yet expected to accept and get around these behaviors and limitations. Pull up our own bootstraps. Yet those strings are a set up: old, ratty and dried out. Ready to snap at any moment. So, we're left right back where we started and then, blamed for not having the proper boot straps.

The vestiges of economic and socio-political games abound to this day. The late Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" details how the CIA in tandem with the DEA flooded inner city neighborhoods with crack cocaine to fund clandestine activities in S. America. Ongoing economic oppression and exclusion of people, resulting in declined living conditions in their communities, breeds escapist behavior. They knew the drug would spread like wild fire. Mr. Reagan then instituted a 'War On Drugs'. It was well understood that Whites overwhelmingly used coke as folks of color did crack and getting busted with powder cocaine did not carry the same level of charges as crack. Thus began the outrageous disparities in the social justice system,  that still continues unchecked today, with African Americans making up 80%+ of the incarcerated when they only comprise 12% of the general population. Latino's and Asians are right behind, respectively.  Mandatory Minimum sentences (leveling up to 20ys for 1st offenses) and the Rockefeller Drug Laws (just recently got amended after 30 ys) resulted in motherless children and fatherless households. The foster care system is flooded with children of color. Those constructs create representational and voting disparities as well. And, job viability is compromised when one has been in jail.  All this adds up to a community-wide economic and socio-political disaster that repeated itself in every inner city in the US. People's lives were deliberately destroyed yet what did Olly North get? Appearances on talk, and news shows and his own cable TV program and Reagan got reelected to four more years of his foot on the neck of poor people. Bogus boot straps, indeed.

Police presence in communities of color is completely out of control. Especially in gentrified neighborhoods like mine. Stop and Frisk, breaking down doors, consistent ticketing for Class C misdemeanors (riding bike on sidewalk, smoking, drinking in the park, jay-walking, standing on a corner or in front of a store). Here in Harlem we have seen a large influx of Caucasian residents and for the past two years, between the hours of 4pm and 7:30pm there are police couples and/or quads on every other corner of the the main avenues. This has never happened before. Seniors playing cards or chess in the park are being frisked and put up against walls and fences. Many of them are veterans who risked their lives so those police officers can have jobs. They are trying to enjoy an afternoon of game with a bottle of wine or beer (which they keep concealed in a bag and out of view). Yet, they are continually profiled and being ticketed.  This does not happen in the Italian community, a quarter mile away, on the upper east side where old men playing dominoes are doing the exact same thing. Actually, they have coolers of beer and wine next to their tables but somehow don't get the business from popo. Young White students smoking a joint in Central Park also get over while a young brother walking down 145th street with his doob in his wallet gets stopped and frisked and lo -- a joint. Then, off he goes to the precinct.

People in my communities have long been tired of the BS.  That's what Hip-Hop was originally about. They spoke of the sh!t we have to contend with in the 'hood and at our jobs and in society as a whole. But Hip-Hop was confiscated by the recording industry, homogenized and commercialized just like the other music forms contributed by Blacks. Blues into Rock, Soul into Pop and R&B and Jazz into 'Smooth' Jazz. They have systematically whittled out the serious messages that rappers were discussing, back in the late 70s through mid 90s, and now will entertain only those who submit caricatures of our lives: pimps, hoes, thugs, gangstas -- even Eminem couldn't get off his trailer park aesthetic because it spoke too loudly of and resonated with his comrades who lived in inner city Detroit. And in early 2000, it came out, through 2 women who were journalists for the LA Times, that NY and LA had set up task forces that routinely profiled rappers and their crews. They shared info and warned each other when certain artists were coming into their respective cities. As if these young people are terrorists!. They denied for years their menacing of various artists with surveillance, trumped arrests and out right violence against them. Oops, there goes some more snapped bootstraps!

So, society keeps claiming that we have everything we need, we just gotta pull up those bootstraps they give us. Yet, the bootstraps just keep breaking.

The current generation isn't really interested in being included in anything 'American'. America has served to do nothing but diss at every turn so why bother. What they want is to just be left alone to survive the best way they can. Without the socio-political games, the police intervention, the trumped up legislation and whack education. Many folks I know teach their own children and the number of people of color doing this in NY State has increased. Interestingly enough, and coincidentally (?), the legislature has made some amendments making it more complicated and, therefore  difficult, to meet the curriculum requirements for homeschooling. Here go the games again.  Snap goes the bootstraps!!

The unemployment rate for Black men is 52% in NY state with Latinos on their tails. The 2009 regency exam results put Black youth in their Junior year of High School in NY public schools at 3rd grade levels in mathematics, yet Joel Klein was still employed as Commissioner of Education until recently. The new prospect has no former experience in education.  A kid swiping a bag of potato chips gets hauled away in cuffs and a rap sheet is started on them. How would Caucasians feel if that routinely happened to children in their communities? Kids in my community can't be kids and do stupid, right of passage-type stuff like that without being branded criminals.  There are people living, teaching and policing in my community that feel like Black and Latino kids ARE criminals, out the gate, because of the color of their skin. Caucasian folks who reside here are clutching their purses when walking past me or a group of folks that look like me. Or taking a wide birth around us, like we've got the plague, lol. I want to ask them, 'Why did you choose to live here if you are afraid to walk about in the neighborhood?' Rents up here can't be that cheap -- I know mine isn't.

People should not have to experience Life under these unequal, oppressive, exclusionary, biased and trumped conditions set forth by the US according to skin color.

Now, still wanna say I have a chip? Go ahead, of course, you have a right to your own thoughts. Yet, consider that you will only be revealing your own rigidness. Why so angry about me reminding you of the violence, oppression, exclusion and down right wrongness of what happens to people of color 24/7--365 in every inner city and rural area of this country? Why so avid about denying what's going on in this society? In the Third World? In Europe? In the Middle East? Why so unwilling to open your Heart and listen?

Only open discussion will change this environment.

I am dedicated to this and again, I will tell you why:  

On Being A Divine Entity Having a 'Black' Experience: My physical experiences here, although illusion, are non the less palpable. The Dalia Lama says we are not to deny our experiences in our physical forms but embrace and learn from them. My Life as a woman of color is not separate from my Spiritual development but intrinsically connected. I cannot deny what happens to me and others in my community in lieu of Soul; that is a perverse form of denial that will only result in unwholeness and block my Road to Compassion. I work with children of color on a regular basis and I see what living in this society does to them. I cannot be inactive with regard to this. These children are our future.

So there you have it.

I am a Sista and I'm making it perfectly clear what is up with me talking about this fake-ass construct called Race. Yet, be it ever so b^llsh!t, it has established perceptions in people that are very destructive to the lives of too many innocent people: Children - ALL children of all creeds, cultures, religions and sexual orientations.

HOOD STORIES: Series I - La Bodega 

-- My daughter's partner, in a NJ 'hood goes to the store. Police are coming hears a racing police car as it rolls up on the sidewalk and halts at the store's entrance. So, her man walks away from the counter apprehensively, like most young men of color living in the 'hood, and he leaves the store. The store owner rushes out yelling, "Yo, man you forgot your cookies." Her partner could give to $hits about those cookies, "I'm gonna just keep walkin', I'll be alright...just keep walking". Why popo rolled up on the sidewalk in front of the store, where children could have been coming out and been hit, is one more example of the disrespect people in inner cities have to endure from those sworn to protect and serve.