Marching for Justice With #BLMCHIYOUTH

Leaving the house sometimes, I imagine what it would be like if I never came back. What if the run of good luck that has kept me from the fate of so many Black men and women who meet guns or bullets or chokeholds or night sticks runs out? All of those awful possibilities came rushing back to me last Sunday as I got ready to go to the #BLMChiYouth protest against the police shooting of Paul O’Neal.

I said goodbye to my five year-old daughter, Lucy. She was cross-legged on her bed looking at a book. I gave her a hug. She asked me where I was going. I told her about the Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Chicago.

“Are there going to be police there?” she said. She brushed a strand long brown hair away from her forehead.

“I guess so,” I said.

“You’re not going to get arrested, are you?” she said. I still couldn’t get the image of all those police officers standing around, slapping fives, checking themselves for injuries, while the life ebbed out of the young man at their feet, his hands shackled behind him. What a terrible way to die.

“No, baby,” I said. I gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I’m not planning on getting arrested.”

After navigating traffic and finding a parking spot, I got to Wrigley Square about thirty minutes late for the protest. The sun was still high in the sky, and people were crowding the sidewalks, enjoying the last moments of the weekend. On the square there were about 200 or so people sitting on two sides of a grassy field. The crowd skewed younger and whiter, but there was a good presence of black and brown faces as well. Across the street, lines of police were arrayed along Michigan avenue.

The protest organizers stood in a circle at the fountain nearby. Eva Lewis, a young black woman with long black and purple braids, thick glasses, and yellow ankh earrings was earnestly reading a long list of names over a bullhorn. The names were all people who had been killed by police.

I walked around the perimeter of the square so I could get a lay of the land and get a sense of the group’s vibe. Despite the fact that I grew up in Berkeley, California, where demonstrations are an unofficial part of the curriculum, large gatherings always make me nervous, especially when they involve interactions with police. The Dallas shootings at a BLM rally last month added yet another layer of gruesome possibility. But despite my discomfort, there is something deeply satisfying about getting with a bunch of like-minded people to draw attention to an injustice that should not be ignored. Exercising the right to free public assembly and speech makes me feel most American, I suppose.

I immediately noticed the white guy with dirty blonde hair and a large green backpack walking near the crowd’s edge, muttering about something Eva had said.

“Did she just say that America was created to protect white men?” he said. He repeated the question over and over, shaking his head and laughing. I moved away so I could keep an eye on him and the nearest exit. From the way some of the black people in the crowd were stealing glances at him, I wasn’t the only one wary of his disbelief.

On the other side, I noticed a light-skinned brother taking deep draws on a cigarette, also muttering about the proceedings. He had a blue baseball cap tipped forward at a jaunty angle. He was skinny, but tall and tense. He surveyed the crowd with disgust, his eyes light green and googly.

“This shit weak,” he hissed and shook his head. “This shit lame.”

He didn’t appear to be talking to anyone in particular, but a woman with a notepad sidled up to him and identified herself as a reporter. His face brightened a little as he talked and she scribbled.

Honestly, I had some concerns, too. Having white allies is important to any stand against white supremacy, but I can’t help but have Malcolm X’s Message to the Grassroots speech in my head, where he complains about white influence making the March on Washington whiter and more palatable. Like cold cream in hot black coffee was the analogy he used. Being black often means occupying spaces designed with the comfort of white people in mind. I didn’t want to protest with knuckleheads, but I also didn’t want this to be about making white people feel comfy.

After a moment or two, Eva came back out and made a shocking statement about what we were going to do: the goal of the march was to shut the streets down, but not get arrested.

I’ve been to a lot of protests and before an event gets started, usually you’ll get advice about what to do if you got arrested, but can’t recall anyone ever saying the goal was to avoid arrest. Protester street cred is supposed to come from getting locked up. Throwing your body against the gears of the machine, and all that. But this new approach felt oddly subversive.

“If you a CPS student, I know you not trying to get arrested,” she said. “Because I know I ain’t.”

It was startling to hear a young activist pragmatically consider what a clash with the police might mean for her and all the people gathered together. There are times when an effective protest may require people sacrificing their freedom, but she was letting us know that this wasn’t that kind of party. (Besides, there's ample evidence that mass arrests are a tactic being used to dismantle BLM movements around the country) I had already promised Lucy I was going to be coming home that night, but hearing Eva say this made me not feel like I had to carry the promise like a secret.

As a teacher, I admired her classroom management acumen as she made everyone repeat several times that no one was going to get arrested. She also said that we needed to stick together. If we were by ourselves, we should find a “protest buddy” who could look out for us. We shouldn’t put our hands on anyone. We shouldn’t cuss at police. We should not do things that would get us arrested. We should listen to instructions from the organizers. Racism, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia were all unacceptable.

Everyone was smiling and looking ready to go. The gaggle of young women and men who were organizing the event were holding a powwow on the side to go over the final details, and Green Eyes came over. He moved his hands wildly, but seemed mostly calm as he mansplained how “weak” and “lame” the nascent protest was and detailed his idea for making it less so. They tried to placate him by listening, but he stomped away when he didn’t get the reception he wanted. He walked to the center of the still-seated crowd.

“You see those motherfuckers over there?” he said, pointing to the police lining the sidewalk on the other side of Michigan Avenue. “They taking this shit for a joke. I’m tired of this bullshit”

Eva grabbed a bullhorn and yelled back.

“If you have any respect for the black girls who are putting this together, you will stop.”

But Green Eyes was in his own world, at the center of everyone’s attention. He was a model of righteous black fury. Cursing and jabbing at the air. The crowd fidgeted and news cameras were hoisted on shoulders. I felt the impulse to pull away from the spectacle, but an older brother with a black beret and a large black liberation flag stepped in front of the young brother. And then another one of the young poets, and another, and another. Nobody was being overly aggressive, just letting him know what he’s doing is not acceptable. They surrounded him like bullshit antibodies.

It was tense for a moment as he yelped, “Get your goddamn hands off me,” but then the organizers told everyone to stand up and we were on our way. Crisis averted. As we marched down Michigan, a chant starts, “No justice, no peace, no racist police.”

Green Eyes approved.

“See, that’s what the fuck I was talking about,” he beamed.

Walking down State, the organizers tell everyone to link arms and come in tight. I’m hesitant because I don’t know anyone, but I guess that’s the point. They encourage us to share names with one another (Two college-aged white kids, Elaine and Kareem, are on either side of me) just in case anything happens. As we’re marching and yelling, I’m a little surprised at how connected and strong I feel amidst the tall buildings and roaring traffic.

Side note: Participating in public protest nowadays means being ready to not only confront the stares of bystanders, but also their cameras. A protest should disrupt the normal flow of people and capital so the public is forced to consider the injustice. Disagree with the cause or not, people are forced to think about what they think, even if what they “think” is just a product of brainwashed thinking. The thing that’s complicated now is that people insulate themselves from thinking by holding their phones up. When thought and emotion get too intense, people feel the impulse to point their cameras at it. I notice the wry smiles on people’s lips as they stare at their screens as we pass. I wonder are they thinking about police brutality or how many likes their footage will earn them. Hashtags in their eyes.

As someone participating in protest, this raises the stakes because at any moment, anything could happen that could be beamed to screens all over the world. Don’t trip over your shoe. Don’t throw a rock. Don’t say the wrong thing. Really, the police don’t need to patrol a crowd that’s being recorded, and recording itself.

But I also get it. The young ladies who organized the protest had put the whole thing together online and were very aware of how to use it to their benefit. They encouraged people to take out phones and take pictures of them and tweet about the event. After all, that’s how I heard about the event. So it can be an important tool, but you wonder when the effort to encourage awareness mutates into a performance of “wokeness”.

I saw the scruffy white guy from earlier as we walked up State. He had a friend with him and they were both sipping cans of Milwaukee’s Best. The crowd was chanting  “Black lives, what? Black Lives Matter!” and these guys are chanting “All lives matter!” Some people around me hear it and yell at them, but they just flash silly grins and keep chanting. I leaned over to one of the guys.

“Why are you doing that?” I said.

“Well, because they do matter,” he said, matter-of-factly.

I agreed that all human life is significant, but that wasn’t the question that Black people have had to answer in this country. The question of valuing the lives of Black people is the question that Paul O’Neal faced as he scrambled over that backyard gate, heavy with breath, school backpack jangling with nothing but a screwdriver inside. (By the way, why was he so committed to that little backpack? He was either driving around in a brand-new stolen Jaguar with the backpack pressed uncomfortably against his seat or he grabbed it in and put it on after he crashed his car and fled the police gunfire. Something about it was important to him. He’ll never be able to tell us why.) Black Lives Matter is necessary because it’s an answer to a question that this country has not yet set itself to come to terms with.

I didn’t say all that too him, but basically I fussed at him like I would fuss at a student who was being disruptive during class presentations. He got the point and apologized. I told him I was glad he was there and how important it was for guys like him to represent, but I restrained the impulse to share my name with him and I walked away.

My adrenaline had gotten going talking to Milwaukee's Best and within a few steps I felt like I had been running wind sprints. The sadness came all of a sudden and the weight of why we were marching put lead in my feet. I stopped chanting and just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, just being a part of the crowd. Just being a vessel for someone to use for good purpose.

I credit the organizers for that moment. Not only did those young ladies take ownership of the event, providing a very clear vision of what they wanted to happen, they also did little things that made me feel cared for, like encouraging those who had come on their own to link up, like pausing the march to have people share hugs with people they didn't know, to adopting chants the crowd contributed. All stuff that made me feel cared for. Stuff that made it easier to just breathe and be present.

And maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. Black women have always done this kind of organizing, it’s just patriarchal nonsense that has kept some of our best and brightest leaders on the sideline. I noted the young brothers who formed a line of security and consulted often with the main organizers. The love and respect that they showed was a model for everyone there.

I had to leave the march early to keep my bedtime appointment with my two year-old, but I felt a bit of catharsis as I drove home. I didn’t leave the rally feeling like I had ended police brutality or the state-sanctioned murder of black people in America, but it certainly left me with a vision of the type of leadership that will move us there. That will move my children there. Thank God for that.

Misstraknowitall Presidential Debate Strategy

Hillary's opening statement

Hillary during the rebuttal period

Hillary's Closing Remarks

What we talk about when we talk about Yo White Daddy...

Yo Daddy is so White, that all his slave ships were zero emission.

Okay, so in the past year or so, I've been tormented by a stream of White Daddy jokes. I'm not sure exactly where it came from, but I was always really fascinated and horrified by the specific genre of Mama joke that has to do with Blackness. You know: "Your mama so black she...followed by something hella racist about her blackness." If you need a reference, Google it.

Anyway, I started tweeting them to my friend Ross and we went back and forth with it. But then I couldn't stop because they kept coming to me. And I tried to tweet a few out, but it was around the time I was looking for a job and that didn't seem to be helping things, and plus it didn't seem like people really got them. Maybe they still won't; I don't know. In some ways I don't really get them.

But hopefully people get that a good Yo Daddy So White joke has nothing to do with actual skin color, but the color of a certain type of perception, a white supremacist perception. A perception that actual White people don't even have a monopoly on. A perception that dictates so much of our inner discourse, whatever your race.

The homie, Rion Amilcar Scott, published them on Queensmob, so check them out now before I have to issue my public apology and go into a racism treatment program.  

Cecil the Lion: No Angel

Haven't you had enough of these people getting all weepy-eyed for Cecil the Lion? Do you see any gazelles getting misty? Everybody's acting like this is some big loss. He had so much potential. He was getting good grades. He said he was gone buy his mama a house one day. Pfft.

Seems like every lion that gets shot these days was getting straight As in school. But let's stop being PC and admit that all it takes to make the honor roll in these safari schools is to take bullets and be on the news. Cecil was eligible for a 2Pac Pell Grant. Big deal. And so what he was headed to college. Community college doesn't count.

I had my suspicions, but I was ready to keep an open mind until I did a little digging and found his Instagram feed. Below are some of the disturbing images I captured before his account was taken down. Please spread the word about the brave White American man who had the bravery to fly half way around the world to make us safe from this super-predator.

And even if these images are not enough to encourage you to change your mind about the hunting, not killing, of that dangerous lion, please support Walter Palmer as he fights extradition to Zimbabwe. Do you know what they do to White people in Zimbabwe? Can you even imagine? We can't have brave White American Men called to account in racist countries that have not received the Light of Freedom.

Turning Their Backs on Justice

If the police want to turn their backs on NYC mayor Bill DeBlasio, that's their prerogative. They are citizens and have the right to make a political stand, even on their jobs. To assail that right is to assail the 1st amendment rights of all workers. Unlike the military, they have a union that can sound the alarm when something is wrong in the system. In this way, the political expression of police is deeply tied to the health of our democracy. And that's why the stand that many in the political leadership of police unions have chosen to make has been both disappointing and unsurprising. 

Talkingpointsmemo.com has an interesting article about the reactions of police unions to widespread police brutality protests. The article notes that police are feeling under threat and their political leadership is more aggressively answering their critics. The back-turning on DeBlasio is the most high profile, but before that Gabe Crocker, president of the St. Louis County police association, was publicly demanding "discipline" for what he deemed the "misconduct" of Saint Louis Rams players who protested with a Hands Up salute before a game.

Note to Rams Players: Hands up only denotes innocence
when you're catching a football. For a touchdown.

The article talks about the shift in philosophy in law enforcement after 9/11, that went away from community policing to counter terrorism and how it lead to a deterioration in community relations. Charles Wilson, national chairman of the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers, puts it this way:

"People just don't think the system is working fairly for them. In some respects, I have to tell them, 'No, it's not,'" he said. "The basics of community policing are still the same. You have to understand the people in the community. You have to be able to gain their trust and respect.

Now that's a start. We need police union bosses to make more speeches about the ways that the integrity of police work has been undermined by the prison industrial complex: how officers are encouraged, and sometimes required, to put as many black men in jail as possible, no matter their innocence or guilt; how decades of corrosive drug policy has snatched whole generations of black lives, either on street corners or behind bars;  how some municipalities use the court system as a fundraising enterprise, ensnaring poor communities in a web of exorbitant fees for tickets and court services; how police lives are endangered to enrich the lives of white collar criminals on both sides of the law. Give that speech and I'll burn all my hoodies, remove Chief Keef from my spotify, and give out free belts to all the children with the lowly pants. Ha-lle-lu-jah.

Instead, they want to talk about respecting the law. They want to talk about accountability. They want to talk about "impoverished culture." They want to restrain us with bootstraps and Cosby sweaters.

Cos Conspiracy Note: Cos is no conspiracy victim. If ever the people who conspiritate
needed his pudding pops and victim blaming, they need it now. Don Lemon ain't cutting it.

One of the main dilemmas that police as a political force have is a simple equation that hasn't changed much since this country was a tiny Slavecom startup: demand for police is proportional to White fear of Black men. There are whole libraries with laws designed to imprison black bodies. And there's a job, with a badge and a gun, for each of those laws.

Slavery Note: Amendment 13 doesn't ban slavery, it bars
involuntary servitude "except as punishment for crime". 

It's no slander to police at large to point out this connection. In its most humane form, police work, whether it's in America or Europe or Africa or Asia or wherever, ensures that justice and the rights of the afflicted are protected. We are, quite simply, how we police. The people who are willing to take up this responsibility, people of moral conscience and humanity, should be honored for their sacrifice. They tend to us in our most human, and inhuman, moments. They can restore a sense of order and hope to shattered lives. The problem is that the inherent injustice of the system makes it so hard to act morally, especially when such action threatens political capital.

It would also be hypocritical as a teacher to deny the connection my profession has to the justice system. Teachers can pretend like we don't see the prison pipeline awaiting our students at the door, but it's there. Ask a prisoner where they learned their first lessons about systemic brutality and they'll probably direct you to an elementary school classroom.

Illustration: Seth Tobacman

And that's one of the reasons that it's so important to have organized teaching labor that has the opportunity to have a voice, even if that voice has been compromised by self-interested politics at times. Think what you want about Chicago's teacher strike a couple years ago, but who else was willing and able to put the corporate takeover of our school system on blast? Who else but Karen Lewis was calling out the inherent racism in the setup? Teacher's unions are far from perfect, but who else is going to be left to speak on behalf of poor children of color once they're gone? 

And that goes the same for police. Teachers have to defend ourselves from critics who say that we care more about our salaries than reforming the educational system that inequitably serves the children in our care. In order to have any credibility within the communities they work, police have to show they are advocates in reforming a racist justice system designed to destroy the lives of poor people of color. It's a tall order, that flies in the face of entrenched economic and political interest, but anything less is criminal.

N Team Six

Misstra Knowitall received a disturbing communique from Eric Snowden, the former government contractor turned whistle blower. Snowden decided to finally release the most damning government secret the American government does not want you to know about. What secret would shake the pillars of our government to its absolute core?

The President of the United States has a highly specialized team of secret service agents whose only mission is not to protect Barack Obama from assassins, but to protect him from being called a nigger in public.They are known as N-Team Six.

You might have this thought: Nobody would call the President of the United States a nigger to his face!

Slap yourself for having the previous thought. There is always someone out there willing to call a black man a nigger, no matter what color house he currently receives mail at.  Make a note.

Secondly, remember this?

Captivating isn't it? Just imagine all the (additional) bombs we would have had to drop on Baghdad if even one of those loafers would have connected upside W's fragile bird skull. Cheney and Rumsfeld would be tripping over their scythes to connect the whole thing to Iran's nuclear program. Yellow Cake on the Isotoners. Next thing you know: WWIII

With Obama, that the threat is even more pronounced. You don't even have to throw a shoe. All you need is one shaky Youtube video with the President out at some political function, crossing paths with a redneck who wants to get famous. There's been a couple of near-misses in the past.

Joe the Plumber

This doofus asked a single question in a slightly confrontational way and overnight became a cross between Walter Conkrite and America's Next Top Model.

Janet Brewer

She scolds the President of the United States like he was a valet at Steak and Shake and gets on the New York Times Bestseller list. Meanwhile, Michelle is the angry black woman.


And then there's this guy.

During the President's state of the Union address he got up and called the leader of the free world a liar. You know as he was sitting there, palms sweating, practicing what he was going to say, it had to occur to him that he could write his name in history forever if he stapled that little six-letter word to the back of his outburst. (Relative) good sense may have prevailed, but according to the Snowden files, the scene could have ended much differently..

The President's anger is clear in the tape, but what's not clear is the purpose of his elbow shift right afterwards. According to the documents, that gesture is the secret presidential signal to the N-Team Six snipers in the top balcony. No, he didn't call me a nigger. Joe Wilson doesn't know how lucky he was that night..

Aside from disturbing the President's boiling reservoir of ancient slave anger, resulting in dead rednecks, there is a bigger concern. When you think about it, America having Black president is an absurdity. It becomes even more absurd when you realize that it's in the national security interest of this country to make sure that said President is not brought to the "nigger level". That's the same country that employs the President to maintain the "nigger level" in the first place. So, if they assassinigger the President, we could potentially see a fracture in the space-time continuum. 

But these threats to our security are not just domestic. According to Snowden, there's been quite a few times where an insult to the President almost resulted in the button being pushed.

Chinese President President Xi Jinping

German President Angela Merkel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Russian President Vladamir Putin 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai

So, let us not forget the unsung bravery and valor of the people who really keep this country safe: N TEAM SIX. We salute you.

Into the Darkness

There's something deeply sentimental about the world of Star Trek. It's a vision of the future that might have been prophetic if not for the exponential curve of technology. If humans weren't already changed so much by technology, we might be able to really believe that a ship as powerful as the star ship Enterprise would be commanded by a person like James T. Kirk, a cool white dude who charms the ladies, kicks butt,  and crashes the ship every movie.

But the technological advance that would make a ship like that possible would need computing power unencumbered by the judgment and sentiment of a slothful human brain. Star Trek: Into Darkness would have been real short if HAL was running the show. Opening scene: Spock is in the volcano. Closing scene: Spock dies in the volcano. The end. Kirk would be nowhere near the controls.

What's the matter, Dave? Are you burning?

We persist in creating these computer-designed worlds where we are still masters of computers, yet many of us can't live now, in 2013, without our phones.

Thought experiment: Think about how painful it was the last time you lost your phone. How traumatic was it? Not having your data backed up feels like losing a close friend. Even if you;re data is retrieved, the experience is bittersweet, clouded by the doubt that maybe there was something lost.

We've transformed so much of our lives into data that a hardware crash feels like a death. The Ponce Deleon's among us cluck their tongues and lecture about flash drives as if they carried the water of eternal life. We're still waiting for that Lazarus device that will raise us from our purgatory of stored data after bodies have gone away. We're tripping. 

We employ a four character code to gauge the intelligence of our children, our most precious source of intellect. The test doesn't test our ability to feel, to empathize, to create--all of the qualities that will ensure our survival. Tripping.

Spoiler alert: We're not going to "win" against the computers, and that might be okay. It all depends on the types of computers that we create and award intelligence. Far too many of the most powerful computers in the world are used to kill or enslave people.

But what if instead of making our computers really good at killing and controlling humans, we used them to increase our capacity for understanding among all forms of life? Not just what's out there in space, but what's in our own hearts? 

And what does that look like? I'm not sure, but I know James T. Kirk is not involved.

What is involved is experiencing more of our lives without pictures or videos or dead screens. Put it down, turn it off, put it away. Take your headphones off and talk to that person who makes you nervous. Say hi and upgrade your emotional technology. 

The Violence Monopoly

This is the Cuomo:

It's named after Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, who is pushing a ban on extended clips for  semi-automatics. It's plastic. It's the product of a 3D printer. It works. You can find the specs for it online.

Although it may seem like a gun control story, it gets at a much bigger issue: the true power to deter a tyrannical corporate state is going to be based in technology, not guns.

Those that think they're standing up for "freedom" or "rights" are a century behind the times. If you don't have access to technology than a gun will never protect you in the world that's taking shape around us. 

Sooner than you think, there will be plastic guns that can be printed and immediately put to use. The right to bear arms will immediately be redundant because guns will be produced so cheaply and with innocuous materials. The plastic guns will be everywhere, kind of like the way the metal ones are in my neighborhood.

That scenario is untenable for a number of obvious reasons, but also because our government needs to have a monopoly on violence. And a monopoly on making money off the mechanisms of violence. So, now the government has a serious question to consider: who can and cannot have a 3D printer? If you want to protect the liberty of your children, you better be less worried about oiling up your Bushmaster and more worried about what happens when they move to seize the internet.

In the words of Andre 3000, "While you running around rantin and ravin about gats, nigga they made them gats, they got some shit to blow out our backs, from where they stay at"

Side note: What is so 3000 about being in a Gillette commercial?

But woe to my community when these guns become more widespread. I doubt we'll get 3D printers in the hood any time soon, but I'm sure there will be a lot of bright eyed entrepreneurs looking to sell our shorties plastic shotties. 

The War on White Terror

I'm glad the White House released evidence that we've all long suspected: NeO is really just a Jake Sully in disguise. Same narrative, different genres. 

 
It was funny to hear the commentators saying that they doubted NeO could clap em. The underlying assumption is that he's soft. That he can't fight. He's already proved them wrong. Do we have to review the debate footage with John McCain.

Or remind you of when he said this:

Or any of these people:

Jack Ryan

Alan Keyes
Clark Kellog

Jesse Jackson
Somali Pirates

Bill Clinton
Donald Trump

Jim Demint
Osama Bin Laden
Mitt Romney

Whether you dig him or despise him, if your honest with yourself you have to admit that dude doesn't touch the canvas often. Now that doesn't mean he's going to come through and save the day on gun control. I kind of doubt he will.

But he's got to do something. If it hasn't hit home by now, he'll never get it: Somebody has to stem the flow of gun overproduction. The people who are making billions on this are not patriots. These are multinational corporations, run by people who aren't worried about the Constitution. The only part of the constitution that corporations are ready to defend involve making money. Some might say it would be irresponsible to the stockholders if it was any other way.

I have students who know the girl who was killed the other day in Chicago. The ones who knew her talked about how good a friend Hadiya Pendleton was. She had just got done performing at the inauguration, for Christ sakes. Dead a week later. Unfortunately she's typical. Her death seems just as inevitable as the slaughter at Newtown. I'm not trying to hard or cynical, but I don't see how a major move against death sellers is not inevitable. He has to take on the corporations that support the NRA puppet. The corporations that flood the hood with cheap killing machines. But first he has to convince the White man to stop being so scared. Call the initiative: The War on White Terror.

The War on White Terror is all about getting white folks to stop being so scared all the goddamn time. Of course the president wouldn't frame it that way. His slogan could be something simple like, White People Ain't Got Nothing to Be Afraid of. Up to this point he's been trying to run a covert campaign with the same message. That's why he was bowling and throwing baseballs and making beer in his garage. And it's mostly worked, but what about all of the people who just don't like Black people? You holding a gun is never going to look right.  

In order for that photo to be a political asset, you have to convince that same white man that it's a good thing you're skeet shooting. As far as he's concerned, you could be holding a Mac-10 or an uzi or a spear. At the end of the day you're just an agitated nigger who needs to be pacified. If NeO released the photo to help White Americans to confront their fear of a Black Planet, I'm all for it. If he did it to try and get in the good graces of racists, I'm not feeling it. 

But in the meantime, Mr. President, Misstra Knowitall stands ready to do whatever I can to assist in the War on White Fear. My first initiative will be to sell a line of greeting cards that you can send to your white friends. The occasion: Thank You for Not Being Racist! Even if they are racist, send it to a white person you appreciate. Not only will you do a good deed, you'll do a good turn for your country.

Stay tuned for the link to my Etsy. 

Django: An Unlikely Black Fairytale

I met Robert Croston in Teach for America purgatory summer training. Dude is an awesome school leader and had something smart to say about Django, so I'm turning over the mic.

_________________________________________________________________________________

At it’s core, Django: Unchained is a counter-narrative and graphic fairytale about a black man’s commitment to honor his marriage vows and reunite with his wife despite the institutional fetters of slavery.

But of course, this is no kid's fairytale. The damsel in distress is an enslaved comfort woman and the knight in shining armor is a runaway turned bounty hunter. In this story, the dragon gets shot through the heart, the ogre gets kneecapped, and the castle is blown to smithereens.

Django (Jamie Foxx) is a black slave that hooks up with a bounty hunter by the name of Dr. King Schultz (Christopher Waltz), who gives him freedom and a new job: hunting white fugitives. Despite his new employment and emancipation, Django never gives up on rescuing his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who was sold down the river to Mississippi's fourth largest plantation: Candieland. Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) owns the plantation and his loyal houseman Stephan (Samuel L. Jackson at his sinister best) runs the show. 

When Django tells Schultz his story, the German marvels at Broomhilda's name and recounts a Norse legend about a maiden named Broomhilda who was freed from mountaintop captivity by a shining knight. As the bounty hunters mount up for their quest, it's hard not to see the enterprise as a fairytale. 

Foxx does not have to act an ass like the last black actor to land a major role in a fairytale box office smash. In fact, Django, according to Monsieur Candie, is more than a Mandingo fighter, a violent black male slave dripping testosterone; he is a 1 in 10,000 type “nigger” (sic). His ability to defer gratification—for blood or sex—in order to carry out the clever ruse they use to purchase Broomhilda’s freedom distinguishes him summa cum laude from all other Romeos and Prince Charmings. 

Unfortunately for a fairytale about black lovers, Foxx’s and Washington’s performances are on the pedestrian side. Apparently all that was needed was pretty faces and household names to fill the roles. Interestingly, Django’s altruistic appeal to take Broomhilda’s beating for running away is the single most passionate scene they share during the entire film. Foxx and Washington spend little time on screen with each other expressing their love in words or touch beyond the predictable passionate kiss after the heroic rescue of the final scene.

Django’s selfless love compels him to traverse KKK-saturated lands and defy black codes to rejoin his wife. But beyond his death-defying conquest, Django’s love for Broomhilda is only weakly portrayed by his daydreams, which call to mind a General Mills farmer imagining his long-lost award-winning sunflower.  Broomhilda is more like Django’s stolen property, an object to be possessed rather than a cherished companion. As a married man, I would have preferred to see daydreams of the wedding ceremony, “honeymoon”, or a hand holding stroll through the field. 

Despite all this, Django is an American Legend. Django does what maybe 1 in 10,000 men would do as a fugitive: He risks almost certain death to infiltrate and destroy the master’s house in order to save his wife and restore his family. Django is more than a cinematic tale of gore. It's a clarion call to black men to fight for their families no matter the racially oppressive economic and social conditions of America. Even so, as Americans, we should consider the Broomhildas of our personal and collective hearts held captive by any number of institutional “isms,” especially racism and capitalism. Pursue her with a reckless abandon; there is no tomorrow.

-Robert Croston