Here is a brief video clip from my recent appearance at a fundraiser for Community Change, in Boston. I am discussing the recent Newsweek cover story about the recession and “beached white males,” and the way the authors missed the real story. It’s not that white men are the hardest hit in this recession–they aren’t by a long shot–but because of privilege and entitlement, they have had the hardest time coping with the exigencies of an imploding economy…sadly, instead of using the experience to foment solidarity with folks of color, many are missing the larger lessons…
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Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Can Hip-Hop Handle 'I'm Gay?'
Lil B, the prolific, Internet-obsessed Bay Area rapper, announced at Coachella that he would call his next album I'm Gay – a provocation that extends past the comfort zones of many rap fans. Lil B is known for assuming alternate identities (previous releases include the songs "I'm Miley Cyrus" and "I'm Charlie Sheen"), but this was his most surprising move yet. GLAAD questioned his motives – was this a prank, or a stealth macho move akin to other rappers' use of the phrase "no homo?" Lil B's response – surprisingly serious and empathetic – was to express "major love for the gay and lesbian community," despite apparent death threats.
This isn't the first time gay culture and hip-hop have come into contact, but since Lil B is a rapper right on the fringe of the mainstream, and he's putting himself in the middle of the genre's long-term conflict over homosexuality, Ann Powers wrote to Tavia Nyong'o, professor of performance studies at NYU and blogger at Hear is Queer to talk about where his decision might take the debate.
Read more here
This isn't the first time gay culture and hip-hop have come into contact, but since Lil B is a rapper right on the fringe of the mainstream, and he's putting himself in the middle of the genre's long-term conflict over homosexuality, Ann Powers wrote to Tavia Nyong'o, professor of performance studies at NYU and blogger at Hear is Queer to talk about where his decision might take the debate.
Read more here
African-American Pastors Unite to Revive Marriage and Fatherhood
Group Issues "Call to Action" for the Black Church to Ignite New Social Movement
GERMANTOWN, Md., April 26, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An interdenominational group of African-American pastors has united to ignite a movement to renew marriage and fatherhood in the African-American community.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110426/DC88568LOGO)
The movement, led by 10 pastors in partnership with National Fatherhood Initiative, Urban Ministries, Inc., and The National Center on African American Marriages and Parenting, has been initiated by a "Call to Action," which educates and inspires the black church to address the declines in marriage and father involvement that plague the black community. Clergy around the country will be recruited to sign the Call to Action, indicating their desire to join the movement to reverse these destructive trends.
Since the 1960s, marriage and fatherhood have declined faster in the black community than in the rest of the population. In 1970, seven out of 10 African Americans between the ages of 20 and 54 were married; today, just four in 10 are (compared to nearly six in 10 in the general population). Today, one in three children in the country live apart from their biological fathers, but two of three African American children do.
Social science research over the past several decades has showed that children who live outside of a married, two-parent home face significantly greater risks across nearly every measure of child well-being: poverty, delinquency, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, school performance, and emotional and behavioral problems.
Read more here
GERMANTOWN, Md., April 26, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An interdenominational group of African-American pastors has united to ignite a movement to renew marriage and fatherhood in the African-American community.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110426/DC88568LOGO)
The movement, led by 10 pastors in partnership with National Fatherhood Initiative, Urban Ministries, Inc., and The National Center on African American Marriages and Parenting, has been initiated by a "Call to Action," which educates and inspires the black church to address the declines in marriage and father involvement that plague the black community. Clergy around the country will be recruited to sign the Call to Action, indicating their desire to join the movement to reverse these destructive trends.
Since the 1960s, marriage and fatherhood have declined faster in the black community than in the rest of the population. In 1970, seven out of 10 African Americans between the ages of 20 and 54 were married; today, just four in 10 are (compared to nearly six in 10 in the general population). Today, one in three children in the country live apart from their biological fathers, but two of three African American children do.
Social science research over the past several decades has showed that children who live outside of a married, two-parent home face significantly greater risks across nearly every measure of child well-being: poverty, delinquency, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, school performance, and emotional and behavioral problems.
Read more here
Marriage Equality' And The Civil Rights Movement
Same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue for many gay Americans, but many African Americans disagree. Rep. Byron Rushing (D-Mass.), a straight, black politician, hopes to change that. Thomas Allen Harris explores Rushing's work on behalf of gay marriage in a documentary short, Marriage Equality.
Here and read more here
Here and read more here
Saturday, April 23, 2011
African-American Communities: More Environmental Challenges
Need a reason to celebrate Earth Day? Here's one. According to the Center for American Progress, more than 71 percent of African Americans and 66 percent of Latinos live in areas that fail to meet one or more of the Environmental Protection Agency's air-quality standards.
The EPA says that our minority communities are susceptible to more environmental challenges because we tend to live closer together and are more likely to live near toxic wastelands and sewers. Additionally, because of the high incidence of air pollution in our communities, we also suffer from higher rates of asthma and other respiratory diseases.
Read more here
The EPA says that our minority communities are susceptible to more environmental challenges because we tend to live closer together and are more likely to live near toxic wastelands and sewers. Additionally, because of the high incidence of air pollution in our communities, we also suffer from higher rates of asthma and other respiratory diseases.
Read more here
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The legend of the persecuted white guy
"The Beached White Male" -- this bellowing cover headline from the new issue of Newsweek is only the latest installation of the most resilient parable in American cultural mythology: The Legend of the Persecuted White Guy.
This narrative has been part of the media mix for the larger part of the last few decades, from the 1980s when it was alleged that civil rights initiatives (affirmative action, busing, etc.) were persecuting whites, to the last decade, which lamented whites as "America's forgotten majority," to the present political moment in which the first African-American president is accused of caring only about his fellow minorities and harboring "a deep seated hatred of white people."
Newsweek's iteration of this Persecuted White Guy story, which claims that the economy is now rigged to make sure white males "don't have a freakin' prayer," follows USA Today's implication that "older white males [are] hurt more by this recession" than anyone else, and New York Times columnist Ross Douthat's (subsequently discredited) argument that "white anxiety" is justified because white working-class students are supposedly among "the most underrepresented groups" at elite universities.
Read more here
This narrative has been part of the media mix for the larger part of the last few decades, from the 1980s when it was alleged that civil rights initiatives (affirmative action, busing, etc.) were persecuting whites, to the last decade, which lamented whites as "America's forgotten majority," to the present political moment in which the first African-American president is accused of caring only about his fellow minorities and harboring "a deep seated hatred of white people."
Newsweek's iteration of this Persecuted White Guy story, which claims that the economy is now rigged to make sure white males "don't have a freakin' prayer," follows USA Today's implication that "older white males [are] hurt more by this recession" than anyone else, and New York Times columnist Ross Douthat's (subsequently discredited) argument that "white anxiety" is justified because white working-class students are supposedly among "the most underrepresented groups" at elite universities.
Read more here
A New Study Says That African Americans Aren't Saving
We have all heard it; now we have a study to back it up. Most African Americans do not save their money. According to "The African American Financial Experience," a study released over the weekend by Prudential Financial, African Americans aren't saving the way they should. Prudential found that only 20 percent of African Americans believe that they are on track to meet their savings goals for retirement, and nearly twice as many say they haven't even started.
Read more here
Read more here
Friday, April 1, 2011
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