The Root's Damon Young is Wrong: Straight Black Men are not oppressive patriarchs!

Damon Young, previously of Very Smart Brothas, now of The Root wrote a poorly argued, badly reasoned and completely fact free post which claimed, "Black straight men are the white people of the black community". By this strained metaphor, he apparently meant to say that black straight men are the evil patriarchs of the black community who are oppressing heterosexual black women and black gays of either gender. Young writes many posts like this. It is his calling card. This particular one stood out to me not just because of its usual simple mindededness and lack of empirical data but from the sheer bile towards black men shown by someone who is a black man himself. Progressive black people are often quick to see the self-hate when it is on display by someone who is on the right like Jason Riley or Sheriff Clarke. The left, particularly its feminist circles, can have just as much anti-black male animus. But assessing our privilege (or lack thereof) on these facts considers only our relationship with whiteness and with America. Intraracially, however, our relationship to and with black women is not unlike whiteness’s relationship to us. In fact, it’s eerily similar. We’re the ones for whom the first black president created an entire initiative to assist and uplift. We’re the ones whose beatings and deaths at the hands of the police galvanize the community in a way that the beatings and sexual assaults and deaths that those same police inflict upon black women do not. We’re the ones whose mistreatment inspired a boycott of the NFL despite the NFL’s long history of mishandling and outright ignoring far worse crimes against black women. 

We are the ones who get the biggest seat at the table and the biggest piece of chicken at the table despite making the smallest contribution to the meal. And nowhere is this more evident than when considering the collective danger we pose to black women and our collective lack of willingness to accept and make amends for that truth.

It gets worse after that.

Farmer Tennes, East Lansing and Gay Marriage

We previously have discussed many times that the First Amendment does not protect you from dealing with the consequences of your speech visited upon you by a private entity. If I shared derogatory, confidential, proprietary or private employer information in any of these blog posts, my company would immediately walk me out of the door. I would have no recourse. Many people have used Twitter, Facebook or other social media to share ideas or images that their employer and/or other people found hateful. Often, these people have been fired or have faced calls from the public to lose their job. For many of us I would bet it depends on just whose ox is being gored before we decide if we will join the latest digital mob howling for blood. That's just human nature. I am more sympathetic to some "victims" than I am to others. You probably are as well. There often is a First Amendment issue when the government attempts to punish you or harm your livelihood just because of your speech. That's usually not allowed. Although the Supreme Court has legalized same sex marriage throughout the land, it emphatically did not make anti-gay discrimination illegal to the same extent as racial or gender discrimination. 

The 1964 Civil Rights Act doesn't include gays. And Congress has until now resisted calls to change the law. Some states have made laws against gay discrimination; see the lawsuits over religious bakers refusing to cater gay weddings. But many others have refused to do so.

Worst Hack in History: Time to Get Rid of Equifax??

You probably heard that Equifax suffered the worst hack in its history. Hackers viewed or stole the private personally identifiable information of approximately 143 million adult Americans. I am talking about your name, your maiden name if applicable, your address, your date of birth, city and state of birth, your income, your previous addresses, and of course your social security number. Equifax not only failed to secure this critical information but also some Equifax big shots allegedly sold Equifax stock after they discovered the hack but before the news became public. And Equifax took its sweet time before informing the public. A few people have since lost their jobs but other than that Equifax or its principals haven't suffered any legal criminal or civil penalties. It's unclear as to exactly how much Equifax or its two other primary competitors, Experian and TransUnion CAN be regulated or fined. They theoretically fall under the bailiwick of the FTC and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau but neither of those organizations have the power to impose harsh penalties. And the current Administration is not exactly known for its belief in keeping a short leash on corporate behavior.

In the online age some have become blase about sharing personal information but this incident could change that. Individual consumers never handed over their information to credit bureaus. It was their employers, insurance companies, banks and/or creditors who did that. This data could be a jackpot for criminals around the world. There is literally no end of mischief someone can get up to if they have all of your personal information. 

Book Reviews: The Force

The Force
by Don Winslow

Winslow is a skilled writer who has done his research into the NYPD. Winslow dedicated this book to the cops killed in the line of duty. This book is not the simplistic self-righteous agitprop of the TV show Bluebloods. Winslow is too talented for that. But when Winslow says that we rely on the police to protect us or that we give the police conflicting goals that complicate their jobs I don't think that me or mine are really part of Winslow's "we". Life is indeed complex, as are Winslow's characters. Still, having read this book I wonder if I could trust Winslow to be willing to convict a cop in real life. But it's just a novel so who knows. Maybe that's part of Winslow's skill.

Winslow tries to hit the issue of race head on as best he can. People often disingenuously defend themselves from charges of bigotry by claiming that they can't possibly be racist because they have had sex with someone of a different race, have friends of different races, work with people of different races or like music by people of a different race or so on. That's all malarkey. People have different facets. We are all mixes of good and evil. It is possible to have a cordial work relationship with people of different races while telling nasty racially hostile jokes to people within your own race. You can mentor someone of a different race while simultaneously passing along Obama monkey jokes. For obvious reasons people may like the attractive opposite gender members of a race that they otherwise truly despise. You can love your mixed race nieces, nephews or grandchildren and still wish your sibling or child had married within their own race.

Racist people can love and respect and even be willing to die for a member of a race they hate because that individual has proven themselves to them in some way.  The Force's primary protagonist is a walking example of how humans contain all these contradictions.

Movie Reviews: Wind River, Jackals

Wind River
directed by Taylor Sheridan

Just like the movie Sunlight Jr., reviewed here, Wind River is a film that shows that entertainment and socially relevant education can mix well together. Films don't have to be painfully and obviously didactic to get their message across. And films can also be thrilling without being stupid. When you make a film that is often about the impact of structural racism, some people will immediately become defensive. They will point out that as far as THEY are concerned they're innocent of malicious intent or actions. Then the film never gets a chance to entertain because some audience members have already shut their minds to the director's or writer's message. On the other hand, some films about racism put all the blame on individual bigots who are walking stereotypes of racialized enmity. Although people like this do exist, they are not quite as numerous as they used to be. But their filmic depiction allows the mainstream audience to more easily disassociate and feel better about themselves, even if they engage in the same behavior. Wind River walks the line between these two poles. Its villains are deliciously bad but are still recognizably human in their evil. 

And even the good guys can still suffer from a racialized blindness. This is highlighted in a very powerful scene between a white female FBI agent and the father of a murdered Native American girl. The white woman is arrogant and naive enough to question the parents' grief. The next scene makes it clear that this was a mistake based on racial assumptions by the FBI agent, who is a good guy. Her good intentions don't prevent her from saying the wrong thing.

Disrespecting the President is Fine..if the President Is Black: Jemele Hill, Donald Trump and Barack Obama

You may have heard that ESPN personality and Detroit native Jemele Hill ran into some controversy when she recently tweeted that President Donald Trump was a white supremacist, which is a big part of why he was elected. Now if you are an employee as opposed to the owner of the means of production you always run a risk of losing your job if you say something political. Your statements could mess up your employer's revenue flow or associate your employer with beliefs that your employer does not hold. That's just the way it goes. So it was one thing when various conservatives and racists crawled out of the woodwork to attack Hill. That was to be expected. What was a little different though was that the White House, through its oleaginous spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Hill's tweets were fireable offenses. The level of hypocrisy here is just off the charts. Now there is a larger issue, which I may address a little later when I have more time, about people's social media statements, heartfelt, stupid, inappropriate or otherwise getting them in trouble with the public or their employer. There's a lot of that going around right now. It's seemingly almost every day! But like I said, I have no time to write on that at present.

But let's remember that Donald Trump was (is??) a prominent member of the birther movement. He argued that President Obama wasn't American. He also called President Obama a racist. Can you imagine the conservative response if the Obama White House had publicly called for Trump to lose business opportunities or be fired from The Apprentice because of his racist or stupid statements? Additionally the people who are currently screaming about the need to fire, censor, or censure Hill are mostly the same people who are also screaming about the need for free speech to include conservative and/or racist viewpoints. In short like a lot of people they believe in "Free Speech for me, but not for thee".

Movie Reviews: Breakfast At Tiffany's

Breakfast At Tiffany's
directed by Blake Edwards

Based on a book by Truman Capote, this 1961 film made some big changes to the novel in order to get a heterosexual mainstream audience. It succeeded at that, becoming a very well known romantic comedy. It is probably equally as well known today for launching actress Audrey Hepburn into the stratosphere as a style icon of coolness AND for featuring noted actor Mickey Rooney in yellowface and buckteeth, playing a racist caricature of a Japanese man. Even for 1961 this sort of thing was becoming passe but it is what it is. Thankfully Rooney's role is small. But it's like eating a salad and finding a half-eaten rat turd on your fork. Completely takes you out of the enjoyment. Rooney and Edwards always said that no offense was intended and that they would have changed it if they could. Whatever. The thin leggy gamine look which defined Hepburn and her role in this film was ironically something that may have been forced upon her by her horrific experiences and near starvation in the Dutch resistance during the WW2 German occupation of the Netherlands. 

This movie is all about cool. Everyone (with the notable exception of Rooney) is cooler than the other side of the pillow. Although the movie makes its implications pretty strong it still keeps plausible deniability as to the activities of one of the main characters. I think this was because in the 1960's people didn't want to spell everything out. That was considered crass. But this movie is a forerunner to such films as Pretty Woman but also movies like Car Wash in which the impoverished man seeks the woman. And obviously this film hearkens back to stories like Cinderella.