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Saturday, February 25, 2017
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Sunday, January 15, 2017
underclass v middle class
"The
demands of the "black" middle class are not the demands of those that
occupy the public imagination as criminals and drug dealers. I do not
believe that people think that the public intellectual Ekow Eshon is a
criminal or that Oxford educated UCL academic Nathaniel Coleman is
styled as a gang leader on a regular basis or Cambridge educated lawyer
Kevin Bismark Cobham considered a coke dealer. I do not believe that
they are excluded from consumption; so they struggle to speak to this
politics. I appreciate that they have risen to the highest levels but I
don't think that an excellent education alone makes one a credible voice
on the issues that those in the "black" poor experience. I do not
believe that left-wing academic conversations about "structural racism"
do anything but add some nice theories to the canon of left-wing thought
to sit on the shelf so the next generation of "race" men can sit down
and pontificate on them; in libraries, lecture halls and at
Pan-Africanist intellectual gatherings.
The urban "underclass" need politics and policy that is realistic and improves their day to day lives like the raising of the threshold on personal allowance; prison reform; legalisation of cannabis and decriminalisation of drugs; an overhaul of stop and search; funding for legal aid; mental health funding; large scale investment in social housing; digital inclusion and living wage jobs in our inner cities. We are not interested in another ideological; theoretical fairytale but some intelligent policy that tackles the issues rather than a simplistic request for positive action that will fundamentally expand the gap. "Race" politics is the home of the "black" middle class and not those down to earth folk struggling on the breadline from one day to the next."
Read the full article here
The urban "underclass" need politics and policy that is realistic and improves their day to day lives like the raising of the threshold on personal allowance; prison reform; legalisation of cannabis and decriminalisation of drugs; an overhaul of stop and search; funding for legal aid; mental health funding; large scale investment in social housing; digital inclusion and living wage jobs in our inner cities. We are not interested in another ideological; theoretical fairytale but some intelligent policy that tackles the issues rather than a simplistic request for positive action that will fundamentally expand the gap. "Race" politics is the home of the "black" middle class and not those down to earth folk struggling on the breadline from one day to the next."
Read the full article here
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
From Du Bois to Lamar
“Lock our bodies but can’t trap our minds!” he would shout later, jumping freely around the stage. “Trap our bodies but can’t lock our minds!”
Lamar launched into a searing attack, rapping the entire first verse of his song “The Blacker the Berry,” the subtext of each shared lyric making clear the otherwise unnamed object of his rage: white supremacy. And in those moments, when Lamar first spoke, between the force of the words and the force of the beat, his entire body jolted as if struck by lightning, as if lit up with a police Taser, as if volts of force rushed through him, froze him in place, then rushed through him again. This, too, orchestrated to reveal the deeper meaning of his lyrics to come: that the secondary status of black bodies is comprehensive, exhaustive, systematic, shocking one’s entire system, jolting, seizing.
The deeper meaning of the lyrics to come—their subtext played out by the drama on the stage—is part of a rich tradition, the continuance of a conversation with some of the earliest black protest writers.
That’s a lot to unpack: disillusionment and resolve; countering
negative messaging about black bodies and heritage; acute awareness of
racial hatred against black life and culture; threats of vengeful action
arising from the pressures of racial prejudice; recognizing the
calculated hand of systematic racism in the destruction of black
communities… A lot under that hood for sure.
...
This lineage predates black protest writer W.E.B. Du Bois’s loosely linked essays in The Souls of Black Folk, but that is where I first began digging all those months ago. Though subtext permeates Du Bois’s collection, it’s in the short story “Of the Coming of John”—the tale of two Johns, childhood friends from a rural Southern town, one white, one black—that the sub-textual tricks are especially powerful. Both characters are going to college, celebrated and encouraged by their families, but the whites of the town discourage the education of black John.
“It’ll spoil him, – ruin him,” they said. “And they talked as though they knew,” Du Bois, the narrator of this sole fictional piece in the book, tells us.
The blacks of the town are so excited that “full half the black folk followed [their black John] proudly to the station, and carried his queer little trunk and many bundles. And there they shook and shook hands, and the girls kissed him shyly and the boys clapped him on the back.”
But, as the whites of the town, proud of their white John and all his possibilities (perhaps he can return and become governor, or mayor, or something more), shake their heads at the foolishness of the black excitement about the black John, the blacks cannot contain their excitement about their John’s eventual return.
read the rest here
Lamar launched into a searing attack, rapping the entire first verse of his song “The Blacker the Berry,” the subtext of each shared lyric making clear the otherwise unnamed object of his rage: white supremacy. And in those moments, when Lamar first spoke, between the force of the words and the force of the beat, his entire body jolted as if struck by lightning, as if lit up with a police Taser, as if volts of force rushed through him, froze him in place, then rushed through him again. This, too, orchestrated to reveal the deeper meaning of his lyrics to come: that the secondary status of black bodies is comprehensive, exhaustive, systematic, shocking one’s entire system, jolting, seizing.
The deeper meaning of the lyrics to come—their subtext played out by the drama on the stage—is part of a rich tradition, the continuance of a conversation with some of the earliest black protest writers.
Been feeling this way since I was 16, came to my senses
You never liked us anyway, fuck your friendship, I meant it
I’m African-American, I’m African
I’m black as the moon, heritage of a small village
Pardon my residence
Came from the bottom of mankind
My hair is nappy, my dick is big, my nose is round and wide
You hate me don’t you?
You hate my people, your plan is to terminate my culture
You’re fuckin’ evil I want you to recognize that I’m a proud monkey
You vandalize my perception but can’t take style from me
And this is more than confession
I mean I might press the button just so you know my discretion
I’m guardin’ my feelings, I know that you feel it
You sabotage my community, makin’ a killin’
You made me a killer, emancipation of a real nigga [1]
...
This lineage predates black protest writer W.E.B. Du Bois’s loosely linked essays in The Souls of Black Folk, but that is where I first began digging all those months ago. Though subtext permeates Du Bois’s collection, it’s in the short story “Of the Coming of John”—the tale of two Johns, childhood friends from a rural Southern town, one white, one black—that the sub-textual tricks are especially powerful. Both characters are going to college, celebrated and encouraged by their families, but the whites of the town discourage the education of black John.
“It’ll spoil him, – ruin him,” they said. “And they talked as though they knew,” Du Bois, the narrator of this sole fictional piece in the book, tells us.
The blacks of the town are so excited that “full half the black folk followed [their black John] proudly to the station, and carried his queer little trunk and many bundles. And there they shook and shook hands, and the girls kissed him shyly and the boys clapped him on the back.”
But, as the whites of the town, proud of their white John and all his possibilities (perhaps he can return and become governor, or mayor, or something more), shake their heads at the foolishness of the black excitement about the black John, the blacks cannot contain their excitement about their John’s eventual return.
read the rest here
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
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