So Fresh and So Green | Madam Toussaint on Going Green, Art, Hip Hop, and Politics

Hence, for me, the search for individual racists, and narrow individual acts of racism, is about as useful as the search for a pack of low-fat Oreos.

I guess it helps. Kinda.

We should be proud that in the 21st century we have a black president, the clearest evidence that white supremacy, and white racism, as a system of consumption, has been vanquished. But we should be humbled by the clear evidence that we don’t really understand what we defeated, how we did it, or how it’s legacy haunts us today.

I once thought the curse of not grappling with a system that sent 600,000 men to their deaths would be racial violence. Now, I think that curse might be the habit of sweeping things under the rug. In the case of people, it’s fine.

The old die and the young forget. But I’m not so worried that we don’t get the deeper meanings behind Selma. I’m worried that intellectual laziness is addictive.

We can get away with not understanding slavery; the 99 cent hamburger, not so much. People forgive. They have to. Planets are different. ~Ta-Nehisi Coates

In case you were wondering Ta-Nehisi Coates’s first name is pronounced (more…)

I like this. From Marvel Comic’s Truth: Red, White & Black by Bob Morales and Kyle Baker.

“Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.” ~Carter G. Woodson, the “Father of Black History”, founder of Negro History Week, a precursor to Black History Month

Every year Black History Month brings up a lot of issues for me. After a few recent conversations I decided to address those issues this entire month!

Firstly even as a child I felt Black History Month was poorly taught. Maybe that’s a given if you’ve ever had to sit through an awkward white teacher trying to make a classroom full of Black kids understand the need for a Civil Rights Movement or benefits of slavery.

Not to be left out, I also take issue with Black adults who don’t offer Black children the same rehashed Black History stuff in sporadic bouts with even less context than what is offered in school. Saying things like “People didn’t march on Washington for you to have your pants sagging” is absurd. “Young people need to read more” also useless unless you’re willing to offer a serious reading list a comment like that should be left out of conversations with young people.

The History of Black people on this planet is too important a subject to be so mishandled every year. Dragging out the old MLK “I Have A Dream” speech for children to see once a year is a criminal. Shaving that man’s life down to one speech does us all an injustice everywhere.

They call this guy “The Teacher”.

Here’s a few of my issues with BHM itself:

All this talk of BHM and more of my peers learned who George Washington Carver was than Carter G. Woodson who started BHM in the first place.

Why does George Washington Carver get to be so popular for all the wrong things?

We were allowed for far too long to perpetuate the idea that BHM was the shortest month of the year because Black people just can’t catch a break in this white man’s country. As kids I doubt we were ever taught how BHM got to be in February in the first place. (more…)

Nia Long did an ad and a video for animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). She also did a photo ad to help put the T&A in PETA. It’s nice to see the Love Jones actress around again, but naked Nia or naked any chick isn’t going to make me stop anything. Difficult to even remember what the ad is for…or against.

“All living things should have the freedom to live” she said in the interview. She also mentions that animal rights and not supporting the fur trade were things she didn’t consider before becoming a mother. That all sounded really heart felt to me. But I thought her statement about animal cruelty being “no different from slavery or the Holocaust” was hyperbole, though it seems like a popular point of view in some circles. I almost feel like she’s trying to oversell her case to her interviewer. This feels like the type of statement some in PETA were waiting to hear a real live Black person say.

This is actually being called:

Animal cruelty is not like the Jewish Holocaust (I’m assuming that’s the holocaust she’s talking about) nor is it like the Trans Atlantic African Slave Trade. (more…)