Wednesday, August 31, 2016
america the beautiful.
a moment of clarity.
words.
"...To those outside the black community, people who are largely unaware of the nuances of black life in America, professional athletes speaking out on social issues appears to be breaking news. To black people, however, they have seen this hustle. They know it when they see it. They have seen the likes of Jack Johnson (beats white men in the ring, dates white women), Muhammad Ali (his Muslim faith), Allen Iverson (tattoos and cornrows), Cam Newton (touchdown celebrations, being black in a space usually reserved for white men), Serena Williams (her body and hair) and now San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick all written and talked about by white sportswriters who take a paternal tone and an air of understanding what goes on in their lives and communities. Yet those who pride themselves on scooping their colleagues on the next big story or writing the hottest of takes can't figure out what ails many of the people they cover.
This is a tale of two views, and it is black and white.
...the tone that some sportswriters use in these instances is racially insensitive at best, and it's something black people are all too familiar with. We openly talk about these topics in church, at the barbershop and in Facebook groups. We see it in the critiques of President Obama, with All/Police/Blue Lives Matter, and in every comment section of an article on Chicago's heartbreaking violence. We often take on that weight. It is an added layer to what goes with black life in America.
The idea that racism doesn't affect athletes is a myth, an urban legend propped up by the system that perpetuates many of the problems black people in America face to this day. It's the people that don't face these problems that don't understand that.
..."This is not something that I am going to run by anybody," Kaepernick told NFL Network. "I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed.
If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right."
This is what black athletes have to deal with and always have dealt with.
...Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also weighed in, writing for the Washington Post: "What should horrify Americans is not Kaepernick's choice to remain seated during the national anthem, but that nearly 50 years after Ali was banned from boxing for his stance and Tommie Smith and John Carlos' raised fists caused public ostracization and numerous death threats, we still need to call attention to the same racial inequities." He went on to write: "Failure to fix this problem is what's really un-American here."
...Racism is much more complex than we like to imagine. It's more than a word; it's a system that is backed up money, politics and the criminal justice system. We live in a country where when media pundits called U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte, a 32-year-old man, a "kid," for lying about his brotastic experience at the Rio Olympics, but a Cleveland police officer can kill Tamir Race for doing just that – being a kid. A country where Kaepernick is deemed as being unpatriotic, for exercising his constitutional right to freedom of speech, but Dylann Roof can burn the American flag and walk into an A.M.E. church and murder people. A country where a presidential candidate whose slogan is "Make America Great Again," wants to criticize a black man who just wants justice is the epitome of not just hypocrisy, but it's also downright fucking absurd. Black lives seem to matter on game day when America needs to be entertained. The rest of the week, not so much.
Kaepernick used his platform, for all intents and purposes, to call America on its shit. There's nothing wrong with loving our country, while having an honest conversation on how we can make things better. No laws were broken and nobody was hurt. He was just exercising his right to get some peace of mind."
ROLLING STONE: Colin Kaepernick and What White Fans Don't Understand About Black Athletes
words.
"...To those outside the black community, people who are largely unaware of the nuances of black life in America, professional athletes speaking out on social issues appears to be breaking news. To black people, however, they have seen this hustle. They know it when they see it. They have seen the likes of Jack Johnson (beats white men in the ring, dates white women), Muhammad Ali (his Muslim faith), Allen Iverson (tattoos and cornrows), Cam Newton (touchdown celebrations, being black in a space usually reserved for white men), Serena Williams (her body and hair) and now San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick all written and talked about by white sportswriters who take a paternal tone and an air of understanding what goes on in their lives and communities. Yet those who pride themselves on scooping their colleagues on the next big story or writing the hottest of takes can't figure out what ails many of the people they cover.
This is a tale of two views, and it is black and white.
...the tone that some sportswriters use in these instances is racially insensitive at best, and it's something black people are all too familiar with. We openly talk about these topics in church, at the barbershop and in Facebook groups. We see it in the critiques of President Obama, with All/Police/Blue Lives Matter, and in every comment section of an article on Chicago's heartbreaking violence. We often take on that weight. It is an added layer to what goes with black life in America.
The idea that racism doesn't affect athletes is a myth, an urban legend propped up by the system that perpetuates many of the problems black people in America face to this day. It's the people that don't face these problems that don't understand that.
..."This is not something that I am going to run by anybody," Kaepernick told NFL Network. "I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed.
If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right."
This is what black athletes have to deal with and always have dealt with.
...Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also weighed in, writing for the Washington Post: "What should horrify Americans is not Kaepernick's choice to remain seated during the national anthem, but that nearly 50 years after Ali was banned from boxing for his stance and Tommie Smith and John Carlos' raised fists caused public ostracization and numerous death threats, we still need to call attention to the same racial inequities." He went on to write: "Failure to fix this problem is what's really un-American here."
...Racism is much more complex than we like to imagine. It's more than a word; it's a system that is backed up money, politics and the criminal justice system. We live in a country where when media pundits called U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte, a 32-year-old man, a "kid," for lying about his brotastic experience at the Rio Olympics, but a Cleveland police officer can kill Tamir Race for doing just that – being a kid. A country where Kaepernick is deemed as being unpatriotic, for exercising his constitutional right to freedom of speech, but Dylann Roof can burn the American flag and walk into an A.M.E. church and murder people. A country where a presidential candidate whose slogan is "Make America Great Again," wants to criticize a black man who just wants justice is the epitome of not just hypocrisy, but it's also downright fucking absurd. Black lives seem to matter on game day when America needs to be entertained. The rest of the week, not so much.
Kaepernick used his platform, for all intents and purposes, to call America on its shit. There's nothing wrong with loving our country, while having an honest conversation on how we can make things better. No laws were broken and nobody was hurt. He was just exercising his right to get some peace of mind."
ROLLING STONE: Colin Kaepernick and What White Fans Don't Understand About Black Athletes
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Monday, August 29, 2016
find your wings...
FILE UNDER: Coming Attractions.
FLAVORWIRE: ‘Empire’ Season 3 Trailer Confirms Mariah Carey Guest Role
FLAVORWIRE: ‘Empire’ Season 3 Trailer Confirms Mariah Carey Guest Role
a moment of clarity.
FILE UNDER: AMERICA
words.
"...While black men only make up six percent of the American population, they comprise a staggering seventy percent of NFL rosters. However, their power is mainly found on the field, since there are currently no African-Americans who are a majority owner of any team and no African-American CEOs or Presidents. The majority of NFL players are black, while the NFL fan base is 83 percent white and 64 percent male. These are people who pay staggering amounts of money to watch black men who have their bodies battered on the field. As long as they run and tackle, keep their helmets on, and their mouths shut, then they are acceptable to the white mainstream public. However, when black athletes choose to point their aggression not towards each other but to larger, systematic inequalities, that's when the backlash begins.
...What Kaepernick and Ali as black athletes unleash through their political activism is a rupture in what is expected of them and how their allegiance to this country has never been rightfully earned.
Toni Morrison once said, "In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate." Kaepernick's protest, just as Ali's refusal to participate in the Vietnam War, tapped into an entrenched, historical fear of race in this country, that blackness is by default anti-American. This is why when gymnast Gabby Douglas did not place a hand over her heart for the pledge of allegiance during the 2016 Rio Olympics, she was heavily criticized to the point where she released a public apology. Meanwhile, white shot-putters Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs kept their hands down at their side and no one questioned them. Whiteness is considered to be intrinsically American; therefore, a white athlete's allegiance to the flag is assumed whereas with black athletes, it is more heavily enforced. White people want minorities to pledge their allegiance to the flag and stand for the National Anthem because then it reinforces the false belief that everyone is equal and uniformly protected under the law and constitution. It is a form of cognitive dissonance that African-Americans are coerced into believing in; they are encouraged to forget that the flag's creation transpired when African-Americans were still slaves and that the full version of the National Anthem condemned slaves who sought to fight with the British people in order to achieve freedom.
...People aren't merely upset because he is disrespecting the flag; they are upset because Kaepernick's anger illuminates just how divided this nation is and has always been."
ROLLING STONE: What Colin Kaepernick's National Anthem Protest Tells Us About America
words.
"...While black men only make up six percent of the American population, they comprise a staggering seventy percent of NFL rosters. However, their power is mainly found on the field, since there are currently no African-Americans who are a majority owner of any team and no African-American CEOs or Presidents. The majority of NFL players are black, while the NFL fan base is 83 percent white and 64 percent male. These are people who pay staggering amounts of money to watch black men who have their bodies battered on the field. As long as they run and tackle, keep their helmets on, and their mouths shut, then they are acceptable to the white mainstream public. However, when black athletes choose to point their aggression not towards each other but to larger, systematic inequalities, that's when the backlash begins.
...What Kaepernick and Ali as black athletes unleash through their political activism is a rupture in what is expected of them and how their allegiance to this country has never been rightfully earned.
Toni Morrison once said, "In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate." Kaepernick's protest, just as Ali's refusal to participate in the Vietnam War, tapped into an entrenched, historical fear of race in this country, that blackness is by default anti-American. This is why when gymnast Gabby Douglas did not place a hand over her heart for the pledge of allegiance during the 2016 Rio Olympics, she was heavily criticized to the point where she released a public apology. Meanwhile, white shot-putters Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs kept their hands down at their side and no one questioned them. Whiteness is considered to be intrinsically American; therefore, a white athlete's allegiance to the flag is assumed whereas with black athletes, it is more heavily enforced. White people want minorities to pledge their allegiance to the flag and stand for the National Anthem because then it reinforces the false belief that everyone is equal and uniformly protected under the law and constitution. It is a form of cognitive dissonance that African-Americans are coerced into believing in; they are encouraged to forget that the flag's creation transpired when African-Americans were still slaves and that the full version of the National Anthem condemned slaves who sought to fight with the British people in order to achieve freedom.
...People aren't merely upset because he is disrespecting the flag; they are upset because Kaepernick's anger illuminates just how divided this nation is and has always been."
ROLLING STONE: What Colin Kaepernick's National Anthem Protest Tells Us About America
Friday, August 26, 2016
a moment of clarity.
FILE UNDER: AMERICA.
words.
"...“To say it plainly: there is a definite increase in the number of white people I see walking around,” she tells me. “L.A. is an extremely segregated city. When I was growing up, it would be rare for me to see a white person grocery shopping at the Ralphs in the Ladera Center or grabbing a smoothie from Simply Wholesome. Now it's rare for me not to see a white person in these types of places.”
There isn’t anything wrong with different people beginning to appreciate all that this area has to offer. However, the dangers of the changing racial demographics were recently hammered home by a segment on KCRW’s local news show "‘Which Way, L.A.," in which a young white woman vented her frustration over her family’s inability to afford housing even in “transitional” neighborhoods like Windsor Hills.
Roberts heard that interview and it gave her pause.
“Transitioning from what? This area has been home to stable individuals and families for generations," she said. "Did she mean it's transitional just because the majority of the families living there happen to be a different color?”
To those of us who have lived there, the neighborhoods surrounding Crenshaw Boulevard are more than just real estate investment opportunities. Where else can you find this large concentration of black elders, black artists, black youths and black business owners? It isn’t rare to find the third or fourth generation of a black family living in a house or apartment along Crenshaw. Roberts says that new residents spurred by gentrification might not understand this when they move in:
“I worry that the new development may encourage people from outside the black community to indulge their prejudices without acknowledging the rich history and assets that already exist here,"..."
LOS ANGELES TIMES: A calm before the storm of gentrification on Crenshaw
words.
"...“To say it plainly: there is a definite increase in the number of white people I see walking around,” she tells me. “L.A. is an extremely segregated city. When I was growing up, it would be rare for me to see a white person grocery shopping at the Ralphs in the Ladera Center or grabbing a smoothie from Simply Wholesome. Now it's rare for me not to see a white person in these types of places.”
There isn’t anything wrong with different people beginning to appreciate all that this area has to offer. However, the dangers of the changing racial demographics were recently hammered home by a segment on KCRW’s local news show "‘Which Way, L.A.," in which a young white woman vented her frustration over her family’s inability to afford housing even in “transitional” neighborhoods like Windsor Hills.
Roberts heard that interview and it gave her pause.
“Transitioning from what? This area has been home to stable individuals and families for generations," she said. "Did she mean it's transitional just because the majority of the families living there happen to be a different color?”
To those of us who have lived there, the neighborhoods surrounding Crenshaw Boulevard are more than just real estate investment opportunities. Where else can you find this large concentration of black elders, black artists, black youths and black business owners? It isn’t rare to find the third or fourth generation of a black family living in a house or apartment along Crenshaw. Roberts says that new residents spurred by gentrification might not understand this when they move in:
“I worry that the new development may encourage people from outside the black community to indulge their prejudices without acknowledging the rich history and assets that already exist here,"..."
LOS ANGELES TIMES: A calm before the storm of gentrification on Crenshaw
atomic dog.
LIVE!
with george clinton and funkadelic.
MORNING BECOMES ECLECTIC: Funkadelic (feat. George Clinton and Parliament)
with george clinton and funkadelic.
MORNING BECOMES ECLECTIC: Funkadelic (feat. George Clinton and Parliament)
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