The Dr. King You (Probably) Don't Know

In order to make Dr. King suitable for mass (white) consumption, the media sanitized him so thoroughly that they've turned him into a magic negro of epic proportions. In a way, because he achieved the near-impossible in his lifetime and is arguably the reigning symbol of the civil rights movement, he is the ultimate magic negro. This is especially disturbing in light of the fact that towards the end of his life, he was considered a radical and a menace to the status quo. How did we get from there to here?

It was probably that one speech that everyone knows, the iconic "I Have A Dream" moment, the one that is the stuff of legend, the one that is played so often, it's become synonymous with who he is and what he believed, that really sealed things shut. Black and white children holding hands, the table of brotherhood, blah, blah, blah. How shocking it must be for some to see clips like the one below. He's a different Dr. King than the one we've been taught to know and love. He is angry, impassioned. Defiant, really. And black. Really really black -- and proud of it. We can see his hurt and despair. And his rage. Kind of makes you wonder what else they're not showing us, doesn't it. (Thank God for youtube.com!)

Why isn't this Dr. King ever quoted? You can certainly glimpse him in his Letter From A Birmingham Jail when the local clergy asked him to wait before he initiated another civil rights march:

We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, 'Wait.' But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: 'Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?'; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading 'white' and 'colored'; when your first name becomes 'nigger,' your middle name becomes 'boy' (however old you are) and your last name becomes 'John,' and your wife and mother are never given the respected title 'Mrs.'; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness'; then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

Ah, Dr. King -- it's so nice to meet you...



PS: Here's something you should read very carefully: The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. You Don't See On TV.

In Defense of Black Women, Black Hair and Michelle Obama (...not that they need it...)

fyi: this essay was previously posted in the notes of my facebook page in response to what my friend tanya wrote on the subject. (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/note.php?note_id=67000069825&ref=nf) everyone's responses inspired me to work on a few blackgrrl essays that i've been marinating on all summer, so there will be more where this came from in the very near future. enjoy.

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I’m going to try to make this brief.

After a lifetime of ostracism, ridicule, genuine curiousity (from American black folk, even -- walking up to me and touching my hair and asking me a million stupid questions!) and much humiliation and degradation all around, I have natural hair – and yes, I’ve had it for quite some time. I vascillated with hair choices for awhile when I first came to New York City, but then I got a plum role in the original cast of the first national tour of RENT and signed a hair rider that allowed them to do whatever they wanted to my hair, within reason. in this case: perm my hair – and then bleach the hell out of it, to give it a look that they thought was “edgy” and “cool”. (Because apparently, nothing is edgier than a black woman who dyes her hair blonde. Especially if you're European.)

Yes, I was financially compensated for this hair rider. Was it worth it? Well, hair does grow back. Eventually. It’s an awfully long wait until it does. To paraphrase Tom Petty, The waiting is the hardest part. I remember going to bed in tears when all of it started falling out in bright yellow clumps. (sigh.) But that wasn't my moment of natural hair clarity. Truth be told, I decided that I wanted natural hair after my mother accidentally dropped a large smoldering boiling lava hot straightening comb on the back of my neck when I was 8 or 9 years old. I couldn’t do anything about it until I grew up. That’s right: my mother continued to straighten my hair until I was out of her jurisdiction. Would it surprise you to know that I shaved it all off when I hit college? (Ah, the good life...)

That hair meltdown in RENT wasn't the beginning of the end, it was the last straw. I actually had bald patches and scabs on my scalp when I left the show. More on that some other time.

I should probably tell you that I’m from the South – the ATL, to be exact – and that, for pretty much all the black women that I knew as a kid and as I grew older, natural hair was the exception, NEVER the rule. The understanding was that you weren’t presentable unless your hair was bone straight, without a hint of kink. Don’t get me wrong. Every once in awhile, you’d see someone with an Afro but it wasn’t condoned and it wasn’t EVER anything to aspire to. Dreadlocks? Unthinkable.

I have returned to the South more often than I care to admit and walked through black malls and stores and shops and eateries and whatnot, and I have had conversation come to a stone cold stop when they get a look at my natural hair, no matter what it’s doing. Black folk will stare at me, they will point at me – like I’m a walking freakshow, on display. Please understand me and don’t get it twisted: these magic moments didn’t happen 20 years ago. They happened last Christmas.

Are there black folk down South with natural hair and dreadlocks and such? Why, yes. But in my experience, it’s the exception, not the rule. It’s not common. Not by a long shot.

And if I had a dollar for every time a black man gave me hell because I insisted on having natural hair – from my 92 year old daddy to the guys I went to college with and then some – I could probably buy the apartment building I live in.

Should I bother telling you that I have yet to meet, date, make out with, casually pass by in the street or otherwise involve myself with any white guy -- gay or straight, foreign or domestic or any other variation therein -- who doesn't love my natural hair just the way it is, whatever it happens to be doing? Yeah, I probably shouldn't mention that. Let's just pretend I didn't say it.

Maybe this is a Southern thing. Maybe this is a black thing. Maybe it’s me. I don’t know.

How I got from that “bone straight” mentality to a totally natural Afro of near Angela Davis proportions that now rests comfortably on my head like a well-earned crown is a story that will probably make a great movie someday. My point is, I have struggled with my hair, and in my personal and professional life, I have had to contend with others who struggled with it, too. And in so doing, they struggled with me.

So it was with genuine interest that I read Tonya Steele’s empassioned note “In Defense of Michelle Obama (not that she needs defending)” http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/note.php?note_id=67000069825&ref=nf

Tonya was ranting and raving and she was very angry, and in her anger she was a roman candle of sorts, touching on a lot of different issues that sparked me -- way too many points to address in one fell swoop. The one thing that she said that clicked with me was what she said about black folks and low self-esteem. So, away we go.

There’s been a lot of wonderful things floating around out there about Michelle Obama. The thing that always makes me cringe is that when there’s an avalanche of love and respect for any public figure, the backlash (which is inevitable, by the way) swings just as hard in the other direction, and people find reasons to lash out at them and rip them to shreds with the same boundless energy that they used to throw their arms wide open and celebrate them.

This is especially hard to take because it’s a black woman in the crosshairs – and it ain’t Lil’ Kim this time, with a three foot wig on her head and her titty hanging out with a pastie over the nipple. It’s someone that’s a whole lot like me and my black female friends and acquaintances. Truth be told, Black women like us aren’t supposed to exist. In the entertainment industry/media, we are anomalies to everyone except Tyler Perry. And suddenly one of us breaks through the claptrap, holds the media transfixed and captures the imagination of the world. So of course, this is a hot topic.

But the backlash is coming. Look at the way conservatives jumped all over that moment Michelle had with the Queen of England. They’re coming for her. And don’t think that she doesn’t know it.

But I digress.

Michelle Obama is a public figure. Because of this, absolutely everything she says and does matters a GREAT deal – from the shoes on her feet to the hair on her head to what she likes to snack on in the middle of the night. Get this, loud and clear: It matters, it matters, it matters. A bigger part of the reason why it matters so much is because it reverberates around the world ten thousand-fold –in retail sales, in goodwill and most definitely in attitude, and of course in images/photo ops. And as you well know, a powerful image can change the world.

Lets face it – her presence alone has been enough to shock the hell out of most people. If she had natural hair, it would start a revolution.

Are black women free to do whatever they want to do with their hair? Well – theoretically, yes. We all have free will, we can all do whatever we want within reason. But black hair has always been political and a place of contention because it’s the most obvious way that we as black women have to show the world that we are conforming and yielding to the status quo and what it dictates as acceptable and/or beautiful. Don’t believe me? Sisters who are working their way up the corporate ladder or who make a living in a corporate world know exactly what I’m talking about. Ask one of them if I’m wrong. Your natural hair is unacceptable in that environment because it’s considered a threat – and thusly, by default, so are you.

Is anyone in that conservative company going to tell you that? Of course not! That would make it too easy for you to sue the living daylights out of them and stage a Putney Swope-style takeover of your own. (Hm. Another screenplay idea…I’m full of them today…)

This isn’t the kind of thing that you necessarily have to think about if you are an artist, or if you own your own business or if you are a musician – unless you’re in front of the camera. As an actor, I think about it a lot because what my hair looks like dictates whether or not I get the gig. Interesingly enough, casting agents love the Michelle Obama look – so if I go into the audition with a wig that looks like her hair and some pearls, they’ll be more inclined to cast me than if I showed up with natural hair. Talent be damned. It’s all about the black woman they know, the one that they’re comfortable with. It’s not about the individual.

Think about it. Can you name any black actresses in Hollywood with natural hair – besides Whoopi? Essence Magazine – the premiere black women’s magazine in this country, by the way – did a story about Black Hollywood actresses. Not a kink in the bunch. And can i just tell you how profoundly disappointed i was when my friend Ralph gifted me with a bunch of African women's magazines from his Christmas trip to Africa -- and they ALL had perms and weaves!

Not that there's ANYTHING wrong with that...but dang.

How about R&B stars, black pop stars? When was the last time you saw a black music video that featured natural hair? You’re thinking about Erykah, or maybe Lauren. Right? It's not that there isn't ANY natural hair out there. It's just that usually, it's the exception. It's not the rule.

If you’re on camera, you’re probably conforming, too -- just like the black folks who have to work on a corporate plantation. At the very least, you’ve come to that fork in the road and figured it out one way or the other. I know I have.

(If you're on facebook, check out my facebook profile pic. Yup.That’s a wig.)

That corporate illustration is just one example of what I’m referring to. There are many, many more.

Here’s the thing that gets me. Over the years, I’ve had long winding conversations with black women who are downright terrified of not straightening their hair anymore because to quote one friend, they don’t know what they’d look like if they did. Like all of a sudden, she’s going to turn into some sort of beast because her weave and her perm is gone. But what she’s really afraid of is that this is the way the world would treat her. Like a beast. It’s not just what she sees when she looks in the mirror. This reverberates all the way through every aspect of her life – from that corporate desk job to the brother that’s interested in her to the church she attends. When you care what everyone thinks, all of that stuff matters. Please believe me – there are plenty of black women out here who care a great deal as to whether the brother in question finds them attractive and are perfectly willing to do whatever they have to – hairwise and otherwise – to secure him.

Caring what everyone thinks reeks of low self esteem. That’s really at the heart of it all.

No black woman should hate their hair in its natural state or feel as though they are diminished or somehow lesser than because they don’t have a perm. The truth is, way too often in this day and age, this is the case. I’m insulated from having to deal with a lot of that junk because I’m an artist and I live in NYC. And yeah, I love it that black men are making these declarations about loving natural hair and all but if you’ve really got your head together, there’s no need to feel compelled to control or manipulate black women by telling them what to do with their hair. Or verbally abuse them. Or emotionally abuse them. Or physically attack them. Or denigrate them in any way.

Then again, I think that low self esteem/emotionally damaged people are the reason why a lot of things in this world are askew.

In closing, to paraphrase Tony Brown’s Journal: This is just one black woman’s opinion. Thanks for reading this. And thanks to Tanya for inspiring it.

Black Man Fridays - The Murder Of Fred Hampton, Parts 1 - 4

i always liked this brother.

he was honest, sincere, and very smart - a gifted communicator, a college student, a young father and husband, and an officer in the black panther party. how cool that he could see the positive impact of his hard work in the community and how it was making a difference in the lives of so many people. but it was the twang in his voice that got me. he seemed so down to earth and folksy and accessible. even now, when i see film clips of him casually talking politics, he feels like someone i used to know.

fred was killed - actually what i should say is, murdered - in his apartment by the chicago police in conjunction with the fbi. it seems that j. edgar hoover - everyone's favorite crossdressing homosexual! - was willing to do anything to twart a black power movement, even if that meant assassinating all of its officers.

i think the black power movement was extremely dangerous to the status quo because it was so inclusive. all power to all people wasn't just a chant they threw up in the air at rallies. they meant it. such a radical shift would have destroyed everything that edgar held dear. everyone would have stopped obsessing about things like race and gender issues and they would have focused on what's really going on.

here's the documentary "the murder of fred hampton" in four parts. i know it's a little long, but trust me - it's well worth watching. and really, shouldn't we always make every effort to know our history?

heavy construction

my former landlord sold all of the buildings on my side of the street to a particular company that's hell-bent on evicting tenants and renovating their cavernous apartments and filling them with pricey touches until they look like something out of home and garden magazine. and yes, that's exactly what they look like. i know because i've wandered through them while they were being deconstructed, and i've passed by the first floor windows and peered in like every other pedestrian on the sidewalk to see exactly what progress looks like. all year long, the workers kept at it like well organized trained ants -- dumping refuse, using massive cranes to swing in lumber and dry wall and whatever else they couldn't drag up the stairs or fit into the elevator, replacing all the windows in all the buildings, and on and on it went. it was crazy.

it's still crazy, actually. the evictions are still happening and they're still renovating vacant apartments -- like my little old lady mercedes place on the first floor. they worked all the way through the christmas holidays with no overtime or bonuses or anything. then again, i suppose that's typical. the question lingers: when are they going to be finished? or are they playing "flip this building" and making everything pretty enough for someone else to make that point of purchase? or are we going condo eventually?

it's not just the apartments that are getting a massive overhaul. they've fixed the elevator and put in a deluxe model, put up well-lit awnings at each entryway, scrubbed out the building's marble floors, slapped up plaster on the walls and painted the hallways and lobbies in soothing neutral colors.

this is the kind of change that frightens me.

the construction workers -- all of them, africans from all over the entire diaspora, from mali to brooklyn -- would gather up the block and sip coffee and congregate. when i would tromp off to start my day in the wee hours of the morning, they'd be there, like some outdoor secretarial pool, chatting and whatnot. they would always stop talking when i would walk by and resume when i was out of earshot. one day, i said good morning, black men. i said it brightly, like i'd known all of them all my life. and each of them waved at me and said, good morning black woman in the exact same way. after that, whenever i hit my block, i got a million greetings and compliments and salutations. the west indians. the west africans. the southerners up north, like me. the yankees. solidarity is a beautiful thing.

i don't know any of their names. we call each other brother and sister and that's more than enough.

the next thing you know, they were in my apartment -- plastering these cracks that are forever running through my walls, fixing and replacing plumbing pipes and all kinds of stuff. anytime any of them came over, i let them eat cake. when they were down the hall, they let me wander through an apartment they were fixing that had the exact same layout as mine and they told me how much the landlord was going to charge. naturally, i balked. basically, it was a four-figure downtown price for an uptown set-up. no one in the ghetto would pay it. no one in the ghetto could afford it. so who is all of this for, anyway?

with the economy in peril, i'm starting to wonder.

what black men think -- a response to the "Black In America" CNN special

in the face of media hype and bunkum surrounding the CNN special on the state of our nation, it's always a good idea to get an intelligent thought-provoking black response -- especially if that response is from a black american man regarding statistics of black american males.

i don't trust anything the media tells me -- about what's happening in the world, on my home turf and most definitely what's happening with me and my black community. it's simply not in their best interest to tell me the truth. and that goes double for the government.

enjoy.

CNN: Black in America

i have a bad feeling about this one.

what makes this especially frustrating is that i've received at least a half-dozen email blasts encouraging any black anybody to see it. i'm going to make every effort to watch both specials with an open mind.

first up: the black woman and family, on hdtv wednesday july 23th at 9pm.

The New Jersey Four

before i'd read about the new jersey four on a fellow afrospear's blog, i knew nothing about their plight. why? i hadn't heard anything about this on the local or national news. if it was talked about in the black blogosphere, i missed it. even the lesbians i know weren't informed. that's not a cop-out on my part, or theirs. it's the truth.

contrary to what anyone may assume, i don't have an internal rss newsfeed that's race and gender specific, automatically informing me of any and every injustice that applies to me as an african-american and as a woman. where would i -- or anyone for that matter -- have heard about this incident if it weren't publicized ad nauseum somewhere?

when something horrible happens to people of color nowadays, a media-savvy publicist is almost as necessary as a good lawyer. you have to climb to the top of the heap of news items and wave your flag of information as high as you can, and you have to keep waving it until your situation gets the attention and the coverage it deserves. i'm sure that any major media outlet in this day and age would mark this as a story on non-interest but as a black female, i have to disagree. anytime a black woman anywhere defends herself against a male attacker and goes to jail for it, you have my full and undivided attention.

and anyone who's warped enough to believe that this country and its legal system is just and fair to everyone needs to have their head examined.

the details are right here but the story in a nutshell is this: on august 16, 2006 four african-american lesbians walking through the west village were verbally harassed and physically assaulted by a black man, so they did the unthinkable: they defended themselves.

all of this was captured on video from a surveillance camera at a nearby store, including the two men who finally came to their rescue and proceeded to beat living crap out of the guy -- dwayne buckle -- that started the whole thing in the first place. later as mr. buckle recovered from his hospital bed, he said that the two men were responsible for his injuries. visual proof didn't matter, either. on june 14, 2007 all 4 of them -- venice brown (19), terrain dandridge (20), patreese johnson (20) and renata hill (24) -- received sentences ranging from three-and-a-half to 11 years in prison. none of them had previous criminal records. two of them are parents of small children.

do i have to tell you that they were convicted by an all-white jury? hm. i guess not.

the updates are promising. according to the new york times article, ms. dandridge's conviction has been reversed and her indictment dismissed because there wasn't enough evidence to support a guilty verdict. ms. hill has been released because her conviction couldn't be upheld, either. ms. brown and ms. johnson are still in prison, awaiting appeals.

this clip is a testament to the way things are coming together in a grassroots way all over the country to suport this cause.




the new jersey 4 blog has the latest updates, benefits, concerts and anything else you'd need to know about them -- including their contact information, to send donations, letters of support and encouragement.

yikes.

racial profiling, leonardo blair and the NYPD

i don't understand how any thinking american can possibly believe that we live in a democracy, that the system in place is fair and just (if we have the same level of education and experience, shouldn't we all get paid equally?) or that white privilege and racial profiling don't exist. i don't think there's any way that we can fix the problems in this country if we aren't willing to acknowledge them.

i know plenty of black men that have had this happen to them. for the sake of the entire NYPD, they'd better hope and pray that it never happens to me.

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'NY Post' Reporter's Racial Profiling Suit Counters 'Post' Editorial
By Joe Strupp
Published: May 07, 2008 3:32 PM ET NEW YORK

On the same day that a New York Post editorial claimed racial profiling was not a growing problem, one of the Post's own reporters filed suit against the city claiming to be a victim of such profiling. Leonardo Blair, 28, a Post staffer since May 2007, filed the lawsuit in U.S District Court in Manhattan, according to a copy provided by the New York Civil Liberties Union. The complaint claims Blair was subjected to racial profiling while walking from his car to his home in the Bronx on Nov. 28, 2007.

A Jamaican immigrant and graduate of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, Blair claims he was harassed by police while walking along the street with his then-fiancee. In the lawsuit, he alleges that Officer William Castillo, one of several defendants the reporter names, stopped him due to his dark skin color and without cause. "Officer Castillo angrily demanded of Mr. Blair whether he spoke English," the suit stated. "Mr. Blair, surprised by Officer Castillo's mocking tone, replied under his breath in Spanish that he did not."

Eventually, after being frisked, Blair was arrested, the complaint states. "Mr. Blair was not engaged in any illegal or improper activity, and nothing in his behavior or conduct would provide the basis for reasonable suspicion that he was engaging in any wrongdoing," the lawsuit contends. “Leo Blair was handcuffed and hauled to a precinct house for simply walking down the street,” said Donna Lieberman, NYCLU executive director. “Walking while black is not a crime, and yet every year hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers are stopped, searched and interrogated by the police for doing just that. For justice in our city to be truly just, the NYPD needs to start treating all New Yorkers fairly, regardless of the color of their skin.”

Blair said in a statement: “The only reason why I declared to these officers that I was a reporter for the New York Post, that I was a graduate of Columbia University, is because I wanted it to end. I should not have to pull on cards to be respected as an individual.” Blair was issued two summonses, one alleging he disobeyed a lawful order and the other alleging he made “unreasonable noise.” A judge dismissed both summonses on Feb. 8, NYCLU stated. The NYCLU, in a statement, said it "is asking the court to issue a declaratory judgment that the defendants violated Blair’s constitutional rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. It also is asking that all records of Blair’s arrest, including those entered in the NYPD’s massive stop-and-frisk database, be sealed or expunged."

A New York Police Department Public Affairs spokesperson said the department does not comment on lawsuits. Ironically, the lawsuit was filed the same day that the Post editorialized in defense of police who have come under fire for alleged racial profiling. The issue was recently raised again after statistics released earlier this week revealed that New York City police stopped more people on the streets during the first three months of 2008 than during any quarter in the six years the police department has reported such data.

"Police overreach? Well, consider this: Last week, a killer said to be wearing a 'Team Fresh' gang T-shirt fatally stabbed an 18-year-old who was standing his own front porch. Isn't it a pity that the killer didn't encounter a stop-and-frisk team on his way to the scene of the crime?" the Post editorial said, in part. "Taken another way: How many young men didn't fall victim to weapons confiscated by the teams? A lot, we'd guess. If cops stand down, as critics demand, it'll be welcome back crime and chaos. And good-bye, peaceful New York."

Editor Col Allan and Editorial Page Editor Bob McManus did not immediately return calls from E&P seeking comment.

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Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is a senior editor at E&P.

sean bell protests start at 3pm today!

for interactive map, click here!

i don't know if you're aware of it or not, but there are pray-in protests scheduled at 3pm today in 6 strategic pockets in the city, led by al sharpton and sean bell supporters, as well as mr. bell's friends and family. the intent is to create enough of a furor peacefully to get the federal government to prosecute the police for violating sean bell's civil rights. ideally, the streets will be flooded with people in prayer from harlem to brooklyn -- but i'm not sure how viable that is when the police can arrest you if you are in a group without a permit or if you do not disperse when you are told to do so.

after the nonviolent protests of the 60s and 70s, the state, federal and local authorities know how to deal with this kind of outrage. they know how to process it through the jails and the court systems. and they have laws in place to prosecute them -- for nonviolent protesting. people who aren't involved and who could care less will inevitably feel beset upon -- because if people gather anywhere near the numbers that they're anticipating, it will bring rush hour traffic to a screeching halt.

i think the only way left to protest something like this is to write a song about it that everyone will want to hear and sing along to -- something that is so innocuous, they won't even know what they are singing about, until it's too late.

still and all, i think a pray-in protest is a noble gesture. and at least someone somewhere is doing something -- because dying in a hail of bullets is the last thing that sean bell deserved.

Meet the Mandingos

my, my, my. such colorful times we live in.

what someone's sexual fetish is says more about them than just about anything else -- probably because sex isn't something that we learn by group behavior. whatever you're into is you. with sex tourism on the rise, it seems that people everywhere are becoming more open and deliberate about persuing that obscure object of desire. and the love/hate relationship that the world has with black people/black culture need hardly be stressed. with all of this in mind, here's an interesting article that some would hardly consider surprising.

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They're gentlemen in the street, thugs in the bedroom, and your wife's steamiest fantasy.
-By Sanjiv Bhattacharya

Jeff didn't always like black guys. He was prejudiced—he admits it. As one of the few white kids at his school in the southeast of Washington, D.C., he fought a lot with black kids and was occasionally beaten up. When he later ran a string of gas stations, he was robbed: A black guy held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger—but the gun didn't go off.

"Honestly, that experience helped me a lot," he says. "I used to be very conservative. I didn't spend much money. Now I enjoy life. I'm much more open. Especially sexually."

It's a measure of how far he's come that Jeff (not his real name), now 40, is telling me this while we're watching a black guy have sex with his wife, Amber (not her real name), 37, at an interracial orgy. In Jeff's house. On his bed. The man screwing Jeff's wife is Branford (not his real name), a 30-year-old massage therapist who's not holding back—this isn't lovemaking, this is a proper pounding. Forget Amber—that's just how Jeff likes it.

In some ways, Jeff hasn't changed at all—he's the same football jock with small eyes, a wide head, and a big man's shyness; he's still a staunch Republican with a firm handshake and a solid golf game. But after surviving the holdup and two failed marriages, he set off in search of a new life. He moved from D.C. to Clearwater, Florida, where he sells mortgages, not gas. He bought a $700,000 home on a fairway of a country club, where he's yet to see a single black member. And he met Amber, a divorcée with a sag of victimhood on her face. Jeff and Amber have been married for three years and in "the lifestyle"—as swingers like to call it—for two. At one point Amber started talking about black guys. "I wasn't thrilled," says Jeff. "Nope, wasn't a fan." But she persisted, and he decided to go along. "I like seeing Amber get off," he says with a shrug. "It excites the hell out of me. And it's better if they're black. All Amber wants is sex. Black guys get that. And I know that Amber would never date a black man."

Jeff's casual bigotry aside, tonight's orgy is fairly typical. Amber's two boys, 11 and 13, have been shipped off to their grandparents' house, and their rooms have been suitably modified—the posters are off the walls, the clothes have been put away, and the lightbulbs have been changed to red. By 8 p.m., the incense is lit, the Jacuzzi's bubbling, and the DJ is spinning Sean Paul and Jay-Z by the swimming pool. Within an hour or so, the guests—23 white couples and 3 black couples—have arrived, all of them here specifically to have sex with single black men often a decade or two their junior. There are 12 such men in the house tonight. They call themselves Mandingos. And this is a Mandingo party.

In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina fiasco and the killing of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man, by police officers in New York last November, America's relationship with race—notwithstanding the enthusiasm surrounding Barack Obama's bid for the presidency—remains troubled. For the Mandingos, meanwhile, the parties continue. The man who arranged tonight's event, Art Hammer (a name he uses solely for Mandingo parties), started the Florida Mandingo group four years ago, just after his divorce. An enterprising 42-year-old black swinger from Tampa Bay, he has since become the go-to guy when it comes to organizing gang bangs and orgies for couples—the vast majority of whom are white—with a fetish for black men. So it was Hammer who sent the Evites for this "pajamas and lingerie" party and secured the attendance of the guests; it was also Hammer who booked the DJ, paid for the finger food, and brought the "courtesy condoms." Amber and Jeff just had to open their home. An advertising-sales guy by day, Hammer has done a bang-up job of marketing the Mandingos among the swinger set. The name Mandingo comes from Mandinka, a West African tribe that, in the antebellum South, was prized and bred for strength and virility. (Not that Hammer necessarily has Mandinka roots; he has no idea—"I'm Art Hammer," he says. "Not Art Haley.") Mandingo is now a byword for black male sexual prowess. When Hammer established the Florida Mandingos, two other (unaffiliated) groups—the So Cal Mandingos and the NYC Mandingos—were already up and running. Today new groups keep sprouting—in Atlanta, Chicago, Oakland—but Hammer's is the most prominent, the only Mandingo group invited to host a "Chocolate Fantasy Suite" at N'awlins in November, the second-biggest swinger convention in the country.

"The fantasy goes both ways," he explains. "The women get to fuck our guys while their husbands watch, and we get to fuck rich white women, really mutt 'em out. It works! But people in this lifestyle are affluent—I'm talking judges, CEOs, FBI agents, important people—so before they invite a bunch of black men into their homes, they want to know they're safe, they're not going to get robbed, and everyone is discreet. So that's what I provide—a gentleman in the street and a thug in the bedroom."

Hammer's "A-team" comprises 20 of the more than 100 single black men on his books; many of them are here tonight. "They have to have at least eight inches, and most have a college degree. They have to be able to role-play, and most important of all, they have to be gentlemen. It's the difference between Notre Dame, where you're a student-athlete, and the University of Oklahoma, where you're an athlete-student. We don't just take jocks."

Hammer is a model Mandingo, if a little old. Chipper and Ivy League-educated, he was raised on Long Island and served with the Special Forces. Almost half of the Mandingos at the party are ex-military men. There's also an accountant, an engineer, and a software developer, all in their early thirties. The youngest, Charles (not his real name), is 25 and a second-year law student. While they all uphold a strict standard of behavior, their individual opinions of these parties vary widely. Oddly, the crassest among them is the oldest, John, 47 (ex-Air Force, now a software salesman). Ever since his divorce went through in 2003, after some 20 years of marriage, he has been relishing his opportunity to "sling dick" without any responsibility. "Couples, for me, are perfect," he says. "There's no girlfriend-boyfriend shit. You keep her when I'm done—thank you very much. No valentines, no birthday. I'm a pig."

By contrast, Jared (not his real name), 36 (a car and pet-cleaning-equipment salesman who's in the Army Reserve), likes to write poetry and refrains from using words like pussy and fuck. He describes interracial orgies as a "heightening experience," proof that prejudice may be on the wane. "I find the yin and yang of the two colors mixing very erotic," he says. "I believe the world is looking beyond color now more than ever. And people are getting more attractive. Sexier people are having more babies. Look around!"

It's not clear where Jared is looking. These women resemble Kathy Bates more than they do Kathy Ireland. As they hover around the snacks on the kitchen island, the Mandingos mill among them in silk pajamas. And almost instantly, while the women's mild-mannered husbands chat about real estate and the PGA, the games begin. Hands rove from chicken wings to breasts, from chips to hips, from guac to cock. One couple grind by the sink and feed each other meatballs. Husbands and wives start slinking off with their chosen Mandingos. The party has begun its carnal ebb and flow, between nookie in the bedrooms and foreplay in the kitchen.

Hammer himself won't have sex tonight out of principle—the swinger equivalent of "don't get high on your own supply." He's the host here and a diligent one, always circulating and making introductions—he's the one who knows everyone's sexual predilections. Meanwhile, Jeff will manage to squeeze in two brief blow jobs before the night is over. The rest of the time he seems to be cleaning up empties and replacing trash bags. He's an obsessively tidy man—"my OCD husband," Amber calls him affectionately.

"No one's having sex on the sofas," he says, looking pleased. "I left the throw cushions on to encourage people to use the bedrooms—a little something I learned at the last party. Especially because we've got a couple of squirters here tonight. You don't want that on the microfiber. Not good."

Watching the Mandingos in action, one immediately notices two things: that most of them are packing more than eight inches, and that they're better-looking than the women they're pleasuring. Jared, for instance, is a chiseled and muscular six feet, probably the best-looking of the men. His first encounter is a ménage à trois with Maryam (not her real name), a pudding of cellulite, and her chiropractor husband, Rick (not his real name), who's all back fuzz and belly. Rick adopts a lavatorial squat near Maryam's face and thrusts his penis at her. Jared's presence seems like an act of charity, not that he'd say so himself. "No, no, there was attraction," he insists. "They're very nice, polite people. It's an inner attraction."

"Listen, black guys like bigger women because they can tear it up," says Branford, the masseur who had sex with Amber earlier in the evening. "They might look like librarians, but look at them go from room to room, taking double-digit dicks all night. It's awesome." In comparison, he finds that younger, hotter girls are scarcely worth the effort. "They think lightning shoots out of their pussy—'Oh, you want sex, what are you going to give me?' Here you get the soccer mom who's like, 'I just want you to fuck the living shit out of me.' That alone is hot."

Branford is an evangelist for the Mandingos. At the last 70 or so parties, he's brought his table and given free massages. "I make great contacts here," he says. "This gets my name out there; that's why I don't charge." The way he sees it, interracial orgies are the new golf—a way to interact with rich folks. Charles, the law student, also sees the benefits. "When you network with someone, it's because you have something in common. Whether it's golf or tennis or . . . .interracial sex," he says. "I haven't used it to my advantage, but I'm not opposed—I've definitely had sex with lawyers in the past."

According to Charles, both black and white friends he has told are usually intrigued, even impressed, by the Mandingo party scene. Shelby (not his real name), Jared's ripped 29-year-old cousin (ex-Navy, now a firefighter), tells me that those who are repulsed tend to be for sexual rather than racial reasons—men by the thought of having sex around other men, women by the wanton promiscuity. This isn't to say that they chatter about it at the watercooler—most of the Mandingos keep their weekend activities a secret from their co-workers.

But the Mandingos themselves have their own issues with the lifestyle. For example, there's seldom kissing or going down. It's a rule for some—Jared won't kiss or come unless he's with someone "special." Of course, the no-kissing rule is a prostitute's code. Not that the Mandingos get paid for sex—it's against the rules. Each guest at Hammer's parties pays an annual membership—couples pay $30 and Mandingos $75. Everyone pays an additional fee of $30 for each party.

But occasionally the rules are bent. Some Mandingos confessed to receiving tips of $100 and more after private sessions with couples at last year's N'awlins in November swinger convention. Others brag about the vacations they've been taken on. "I've been to Vegas twice, all expenses paid," says John, the software salesman. "The Bahamas, Miami. One couple took me twice. After a while, you feel like a piece of meat. But hey, they're not using me to mow their damn lawn. They're using me to fuck the wife."

Jared, too, for all his idealism, has felt used in the past. Once, when he was with a couple from Sarasota, the husband directed all the action and the woman didn't say a word. "I felt like I was just—excuse my language—'a dick' for his wife," he says. Unfortunately, a similar thing happens tonight—a heavily medicated husband starts belching out commands—and Jared just walks out, leaving the wife frustrated and embarrassed.

Jared believes that, the stereotype of black male potency notwithstanding, the fundamental dynamic in the interracial swing scene—that of black men dominating white women—is fueled by a combination of white guilt and female sympathy. But Hammer, who is an impresario of these fantasies, sees another potent element at play: the humiliation of the white husband. Up to four times a week, Hammer is asked to arrange cuckold scenes in which the husband is submissive to his wife, who is, in turn, dominated by a Mandingo. "He can't participate, he can only watch," he says. "And afterward, he has to clean her up." Then there are the public-humiliation fantasies, in which a white man asks a Mandingo to kiss and grope his partner in public while he watches. Even here at the party, there's an air of humiliation. Some of the husbands I speak with confess that they're no longer able to satisfy their wives. And while others say they get off on watching, they're never fully committed. "It kinda kills me sometimes," says one partygoer, Kevin (not his real name), listening to the submission fantasies of his girlfriend, Gail (not her real name). "Because I'm not dominant. I'm really an easygoing guy."

What all this means for race relations in the age of Obama is difficult to say. Though he's had a disappointing night, an optimistic Jared still likes to think that the more the races share fluids, "the more these taboos will disappear and we'll all realize we're not that different." But as the clock strikes three and only the stragglers remain, you see the races pulling apart. The Mandingos are hanging out by the pool table, talking reverentially about the white women they've had—"Dude, she took, like, 12 guys; her husband has to let her go, there's no way one man can satisfy her . . ." The only white people still there are out by the pool. Neither Amber nor Jeff will be seeing any of the black men they've invited to their home tonight until the next party, to be held in a month's time. Though Jeff has allowed Branford to be intimate with his wife, he won't be calling him for a beer after work. And if they should see each other at the mall, they'll usually look the other way—it's all part of the swingers' pact.

I find Jeff at the end of the night, busy cleaning up the kids' bedrooms—their grandparents will be returning them in a few hours, and the sheets need to be changed, the lightbulbs switched, the evidence removed. Shining a flashlight underneath the 11-year-old's bed, he tuts and tsks. "There, look, a condom wrapper! I missed one of these once, and the kids found it. You know, I leave a trash can in every room, but still, some people . . ."

where are our black leaders?

there are some who ask: why don't we african americans have more black leaders at the helm? the answer is, they killed them.

martin luther king, jr. wasn't the only one who was murdered. here's my personal favorite: fred hampton -- pre-law student, leader and tireless organizer for the black panthers. fred was shot down at the age of 20 in a chicago police raid. when a crossdressing closeted j. edgar hoover decided fred and his constituents were dangerous, the CIA, the FBI and the Chicago police department worked in concert to murder him and many others. of course, no one was jailed for any of this.

what was so dangerous about fred, anyway? was it the free breakfast program that the black panthers facilitated for underprivileged black children? was it his ties to communism and socialism? or was it his reigning cry: power to all people -- black, white and otherwise?

i think the argument was shifting from a racial to an economic one, and this made the government and the status quo very uncomfortable. remember: upon his death, dr. king was planning another march on washington, this time for the poor and disenfranchised. it had been building up for months in other parts of the country in 1967 - 1968. many thought that there would be some sort of an insurrection. and then they killed king, and the march never happened.

ever since then, the unspoken mantra seems to be -- distract them with race and gender issues, so no one will address economic issues. while we're squabbling, they're running us into the ground with outsourced jobs, non-electric cars, wars we don't want and debt that we could never hope to pay.

but i digress.

i love the way fred addresses a crowd. he talks as though he's speaking to one person, not a hundred. like it's just him and you, discussing things. and the call and response he initiates -- so southern, just like that twangy accent he refuses to gentrify. it's almost like he's chewing what he says before he says it. i LOVE that.

mostly, i love how impassioned he is and how knowledgeable and how much he cares.  he would have been a tremendous leader...

oh, lebron

why is it that whenever a black male athlete is on the cover of a nationally distributed and well-respected magazine, he looks like a wild beast of some sort that someone just unleashed onto an unsuspecting public -- yet when his white counterpart is featured on the cover, he looks like a strong, handsome (sexy, even!) conquering hero, with his foot on his helmet and his shirt off and him looking out past you, into the horizon and everything, like he can see the next game he's going to win?

come on, now. i can't be the only one that sees this distinction and wonders about it.

what's especially heinous is that this is the first black man on the cover of VOGUE magazine. all of the black male models we know and love, black models that were ruling the runways in paris and milan and gracing everyone else's magazine cover, these people waited until 2008 to feature a black man on the cover? then again, that shouldn't be surprising when you consider that they didn't put a black woman on the cover until 1977. (and yes, it was beverley johnson.)

lebron james (also called "King James" by the way -- i like that) says he was putting on his game face for this shot -- but why would he need that look for a VOGUE magazine cover? shouldn't he save his game face for the actual game?

he certainly hasn't pulled out this game face for the commercials he's done. we've all seen "the lebrons" in the sun, haven't we: lebron, dressed in an all-white suit and carefully shaped spherical afro looking for all the world like an elegant dandy, pulling off a spectacular swan-dive in slow motion into a large swimming pool and smiling at the camera beatifically as he seems to lounge underwater, all the while surrounded by various and sundry characters at poolside who turn out to be lebron himself, a la eddie murphy/the nutty professor.

not surprisingly, it's my favorite one: lebron as comedian and character actor is so unexpected, and what with all the assumptions/stereotypes about black people not knowing how to swim/being afraid of the water, a poolside oneupsmanship/showdown against his many selves was effing brilliant. what's next, i wondered? will "the lebrons" go skiing?

oh, you haven't seen my favorite lebron commercial, you say? well, here it is.



what's in this commercial is a far cry from what i see on the cover of VOGUE for the month of april: a King Kong for the 21st century, with giselle as fay wray.

i suppose one could say that i'm being overly sensitive or touchy, that it's just a magazine cover, that it doesn't matter. but actually, it does. in a media-saturated world where such images are carefully thought out and planned by people who are supposedly intelligent and educated and worldly, any visual inference that portrays black men as dangerous, angry, violent animals is not a good thing and it really shouldn't be celebrated as such. subconsciously, people are absorbing those images as truth and they treat black men accordingly.

you don't even want me to get into the images that are floating around out there about black women. you really don't.

the racism inside all of this is so obvious, it feels idiotic to explain it. it's like my friend ralph, driving up on a white skateboarder in the middle of the street at 120th and 5th and yelling at him to get out of the road. the kicker was that marcus garvey park was right there, mere inches away, but he'd rather skate in the street. (seriously, that really happened...)

interestingly, there are a lot of people who disagree with me on this. and one of them is lebron. hey, it's the april issue, it's out there. at this point, what else can he be but magnanimous?

boy. they'd better hope i never get famous.

a timely article

WILLIE HORTON AND ME

By ANTHONY WALTON; ANTHONY WALTON IS A WRITER AND FILM MAKER WHO NOW LIVES IN PORTLAND, ME., AND LOS ANGELES.

Published: August 20, 1989 The New York Times

I am a black man. I am a young black man, born, let's say, between Brown v. Board of Education and the murders of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman. Or, in the years that followed the murder of Emmett Till, but before the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I am one of the young black Americans Dr. King sang of in his ''I Have A Dream'' speech: ''I have a dream that . . . the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood . . . that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. . . . I have a dream today!''

Though I have a living memory of Dr. King, I don't remember that speech. I do remember my parents, relatives, teachers and professors endlessly recounting it, exhorting me to live up to the dream, to pick up the ball of freedom, as it were, and run with it, because one day, I was assured, we would look up and the dream would be reality.

I like to think I lived up to my part of the bargain. I stayed in school and remained home many nights when I didn't have to in the interest of ''staying out of trouble.'' I endured a lonely Catholic school education because public school wasn't good enough. At Notre Dame and Brown, I endured further isolation, and burned the midnight oil, as Dr. King had urged.

I am sure that I represent one of the best efforts that Americans, black Americans particularly, have made to live up to Dr. King's dream. I have a white education, a white accent, I conform to white middle-class standards in virtually every choice, from preferring Brooks Brothers oxford cloth to religiously clutching my gold cards as the tickets to the good life. I'm not really complaining about any of that. The world, even the white world, has been, if not good, then acceptable to me. But as I get older, I feel the world closing in. I feel that I failed to notice something, or that I've been deceived. I couldn't put my finger on it until I met Willie Horton.

George Bush and his henchmen could not have invented Willie Horton. Horton, with his coal-black skin; huge, unkempt Afro, and a glare that would have given Bull Connor or Lester Maddox serious pause, had committed a brutal murder in 1974 and been sentenced to life in prison. Then, granted a weekend furlough from prison, had viciously raped a white woman in front of her fiance, who was also attacked.

Willie Horton was the perfect symbol of what happened to innocent whites when liberals (read Democrats) were on the watch, at least in the gospel according to post-Goldwater Republicans. Horton himself, in just a fuzzy mug shot, gave even the stoutest, most open, liberal heart a shiver. Even me. I thought of all the late nights I had ridden in terror on the F and A trains, while living in New York City. I thought Willie Horton must be what the wolf packs I had often heard about, but never seen, must look like. I said to myself, ''Something has got to be done about these niggers.''

Then, one night, a temporary doorman at my Greenwich Village high-rise refused to let me pass. And it occured to me that it had taken the regular doormen, black, white and Hispanic, months to adjust to my coming and going. Then a friend's landlord in Brooklyn asked if I was living in his apartment. We had been working on a screenplay under deadline and I was there several days in a row. The landlord said she didn't mind, but the neighbors. . . . Then one day, I was late for the Metroliner, heading for Harvard and a weekend with several yuppie, buppie and guppie friends. I stood, in blazer and khakis, in front of the New York University Law School for 30 minutes, unable to get a cab. As it started to rain, I realized I was not going to get a cab.

Soaking wet, I gave up on the Metroliner and trudged home. As I cleaned up, I looked in the mirror. Wet, my military haircut looked slightly unkempt. My eyes were red from the water and stress. I couldn't help thinking, ''If Willie got a haircut and cooled out. . . .'' If Willie Horton would become just a little middle-class, he would look like me.

FOR YOUNG BLACKS of my sociological cohort, racism was often an abstract thing, ancient history, at worst a stone against which to whet our combat skills as we went winging through the world proving our superiority. We were the children of the dream. Incidents in my childhood and adolescence were steadfastly, often laughingly, overcome by a combination of the fresh euphoria of the civil rights movement and the exhortations and Christian piety of my mother. Now, in retrospect, I can see that racism has always been with me, even when I was shielded by love or money, or when I chose not to see it. But I saw it in the face of Willie Horton, and I can't ignore it, because it is my face.

Willie Horton has taught me the continuing need for a skill W. E. B. DuBois outlined and perfected 100 years ago: living with the veil. I am recognizing my veil of double consciousness, my American self and my black self. I must battle, like all humans, to see myself. I must also battle, because I am black, to see myself as others see me; increasingly my life, literally, depends upon it. I might meet Bernhard Goetz on the subway; my car might break down in Howard Beach; the armed security guard might mistake me for a burglar in the lobby of my building. And they won't see a mild-mannered English major trying to get home. They will see Willie Horton.

My father was born in a tar-paper, tin-roof shack on a cotton plantation near Holly Springs, Miss. His father was a sharecropper. His father had been a slave. My father came north, and by dint of a ferocity I still find frightening, carved an economic space for himself that became a launch pad to the Ivy League, to art school, to professional school, for his children.

As the song by John Cougar Mellencamp says it, ''Ain't that America. . . .'' But a closer look reveals that each of my father's children is in some way dangerously disgruntled, perhaps irrevocably alienated from the country, their country, that 25 years ago held so much promise. And the friends of my father's children, the children of the dream Dr. King died to preserve, a collection of young people ranging from investment bankers to sidemen for Miles Davis, are, to a man and woman, actively unsatisfied.

DuBois, in ''The Souls of Black Folks,'' posed a question perhaps more painful today than in 1903: ''Training for life teaches living; but what training for the profitable living together of black men and white?''

I think we, the children of the dream, often feel as if we are holding 30-year bonds that have matured and are suddenly worthless. There is a feeling, spoken and unspoken, of having been suckered. This distaste is festering into bitterness. I know that I disregarded jeering and opposition from young blacks in adolescence as I led a ''square,'' even dreary life predicated on a coming harvest of keeping-one's-nose-clean. And now I see that I am often treated the same as a thug, that no amount of conformity, willing or unwilling, will make me the fabled American individual. I think it has something to do with Willie Horton.

BLACK YOUTH CUL-ture is increasingly an expression of alienation and disgust with any mainstream (or so-called white) values. Or notions. Cameo haircuts, rap music, outsize jewelry are merely symptoms of attitudes that are probably beyond changing. My black Ivy League friends and myself are manifesting attitudes infinitely more contemptuous and insidious; I don't know of one who is doing much more on the subject of Dr. King's dream than cynically biding his or her time, waiting for some as-yet-unidentified apocalypse that will enable us to slay the white dragon, even as we work for it, live next to it and sleep with it.

Our dissatisfaction is leading us to despise the white dragon instead of the dragon of racism, but how can we do otherwise when everywhere we look, we see Willie Horton?

And we must acknowledge progress. Even in our darkest, most paranoid moments we can acknowledge white friends and lovers. I wouldn't have survived the series of white institutions that has been my conscious life without them. But it is hard to acknowledge any progress, because whites like to use the smallest increment of change to deny what we see as the totality. And, even in the most perfect and loving interracial relationships, racism waits like a cancer, ready to wake and consume the relationship at any, even the most innocuous, time. My best friend, white and Jewish, will never understand why I was ready to start World War III over perceived slights at an American Express office. In my darker moments, I suspect he is a bit afraid of me now. In my darkest moments, I wonder if even he sees Willie Horton.

Some of you are by now, sincerely or cynically, asking yourselves, ''But what does he want?'' A friend of mine says that the complaints of today's young blacks are indeed different from those of generations ago because it is very difficult to determine whether this alienation is a clarion call for the next phase of the civil rights movement or merely the whining of spoiled and corrupted minority elites who could be placated by a larger share in the fruits of a corrupt and exploitative system that would continue to enslave the majority of their brothers and sisters.

I don't think there is any answer to that question. I also think that the very fact it can be asked points to the unique character of the American race question, and the unhealable breach that manifests itself as a result in our culture and society. I don't think, for good or bad, that in any other ethnic group the fate of an individual is so inextricably bound to that of the group, and vice-versa. To use the symbol and metaphor of Willie Horton in another way, I do not think that the lives and choices of young white males are impacted by the existence of neo-Nazi skinheads, murdering Klansmen or the ordinary thugs of Howard Beach. I also, to put it plainly, do not recall any young black man, even those who deal drugs in such places, entering a playground and spraying bullets at innocent schoolchildren as happened in Stockton, Calif. It is not my intention to place value considerations on any of these events; I want to point out that in this society it seems legitimate, from the loftiest corridors of power to the streets of New York, to imply that one black man is them all.

And I want to be extraordinarily careful not to demonize Willie Horton. He should not be a symbol or scapegoat for our sins; he is a tragically troubled man - troubled like thousands of others, black and white - who was unwittingly used by a President to further division and misunderstanding. If anything, Horton is a particularly precise example of the willingness of those in power to pit us against one another. One lately fashionable statement, about to slide from truth to truism, is that blacks have the most to fear from lawless blacks. Any clear-eyed perusal of crime statistics will prove this. But what does it avail if the media, if the President, use this ongoing tragedy merely to antagonize and further separate Americans?

I THINK THAT WHAT I am finally angry about is my realizaton of a certain hollowness at the center of American life. Earlier, I mentioned the sense of having undergone a hoax. That hoax, as I now see it, is that the American community is putatively built upon the fundamentals of liberty and justice for all, that it is to be expected that the freedom to compete will result in winners and losers, and that the goal of society is to insure fairness of opportunity. In light of the events of recent years, I begin to see that we are, competing or not, winners or not, irrevocably chained together, black and white, rich and poor. New York City is a glaring microcosm of this interrelatedness, which can be thought of as either a web of fear ensnaring and enslaving us, or as a net of mutuality that strengthens us all.

As events like the Central Park rape illustrate, the world is becoming ever smaller, and it is increasingly difficult to consign social problems to realms outside our personal arenas of concern. I see the connection between Willie Horton and me, because it affects my own liberty. It was not always an obvious connection.

Another quote from Dr. King brings the issue into focus: ''. . . most of the gains . . . were obtained at bargain rates. The desegregation of public facilities cost nothing; neither did the election and appointment of a few black public officials. . . .'' To move to the next level of progress, we must face the fact that there are going to be costs, especially economic costs. To hire two black firefighters means two white firefighters won't be hired, and this is no easy reality. Racism is ultimately based on power and greed, the twin demons of most human frailties. These demons cannot be scapegoated, as the saga of Willie Horton proves. They are more like the Hydra, and will haunt our dreams, waking and other, regardless.

this is willie horton

for those of you who were born in the 1980s and have absolutely no idea who the willie horton is that i mentioned in my last post, i thought i'd enlighten you. his mugshot was called "every suburban mother's greatest fear" and his name is pretty much synonymous with everything that white america is afraid of when they think of black men, incarcerated or not.

here's his big moment: the commercial that cost dukakis the 1988 presidential campaign against bush the senior.

where this blackgrrl stands, part two -- "interracial dating" and the cool guy

i decided a long time ago that when it came to dating, i wanted someone that was basically a good guy, and i really didn't care what race he happened to be. finding a smart, decent, cool, God-fearing person would prove to be difficult enough. why cut my chances of meeting that special someone by setting up racial barriers? to my way of thinking, it just didn't make any sense.

i knew very early on in the dating game that just because a guy is an african-american, that didn't mean that he would understand me or "get" where i was coming from or get along with me -- or find me attractive. as a matter of fact, a lot of african-american guys find me patently unattractive because i don't straighten my hair -- believe it or not. (note: i said african-american. not west indian. not african. african-american. but i digress.) it's the wierdest thing, to walk through greenbriar mall in atlanta and watch black folk stop eating to stare at my hair.

here's an interesting sidebar: i don't straighten my hair because it is at its strongest and healthiest and most beautiful when its in its natural state. it's expensive to chemically treat it, too. do the math: if you trot to the beauty parlor every other week or so for a touch up, that money invested wisely long term could probably buy you a house or give you an early retirement situation in no time.

besides -- i don't think i should have to affect a white standard of beauty to be presentable. or pretty. if some african-american man thinks otherwise, that's his problem.

unconsciously, i realized that because i had essentially become the person i wanted to date, that's exactly what i usually attracted: men who wanted a cool girl, irrregardless of race. oh, there was the occasional righteous brother who preferred me with a perm, or who was genuinely disgusted that i'd dated "outside of my race." as far as i was concerned, that made them much easier to sort through. i didn't care how black or white or whatever he was. he's not cool, i'd casually observe. i cannot date him. and i would move on.

case in point?

years ago, some white guy was trying to chat me up at a party somewhere deep in the heart of brooklyn and i wasn't having it. somewhere in the midst of the conversation we were barely having, he told me that he only dated sisters. what baffled me is that he said it in this confidential "just between us" tone. the implication was that i had nothing to worry about because he understood who i was and where i was coming from -- he was familiar with me, with my culture, my people. bad move.

"who are you calling 'sisters,'" i snapped, "black women aren't sisters to you. you have to be a brother to say that." he vehemently disagreed. we were off to the races. i remember watching his face change as he realized how deep he'd stuck his foot in it. that's when i said, why would you only go out with black women, anyway?

to his credit, he tried very hard to explain himself. he went on about how beautiful black women are, how intelligent, how much more interesting they are than white women -- blah, blah, blah. as he went on, what i couldn't stop thinking was, there's some great looking white women out there that really are all that. why is he systematically excluding them? why would someone not date within their own race? it reeked of self-hate but he didn't see it that way. fortunately, i did.
(it's a preference, he said. no it's not, i countered. it's a fetish. amazing, the things people will say to justify themselves.)

my friend happens to be one of the coolest guys i've ever met. i think we're kind of spoiled because we're artists and we don't really live in america. we live and work in new york city -- a place where it's very easy to meet and hang out with people of different races and nationalities and cultures. here, your life can be as segregated or as diverse as you want it to be.

last night, i made my friend watch the online component of nbc's african-american women: where they stand series called love in black and white. he sat there quietly holding my hand, occasionally crinkling his nose in disapproval. when it was over, he said it sounded like the black women in question were dating white guys because black men weren't available. like the white guy was a consolation prize, and if some black guy came along, she would dump him. to his way of thinking, race is not a reason to date anybody.

and that's when the obvious struck me: it's really not about black women dating white men. it's about black women dating the cool guy. why wouldn't anyone say that on this segment? why can't anyone think it? they were so conditioned to think in terms of black and white that they couldn't see it any other way. ridiculous. it's a big world out there, ladies. lots of men, all over the world. the one for you could be anywhere. he could be anyone. a turkish businessman. a polish bar owner. a chinese chef.

it could very well be that the cool guy that God wants for you is probably in Prague right now, having a latte.

why?

i know, i know. he was mentally deranged, he had a hairbrush and they thought it was a gun. i mean, even his momma thought he had a gun. but what about the cop who kept shooting when the victim was down? what about witnesses who said the victim had already dropped the hairbrush by the time the bullets started flying? why did five cops have to shoot him at once? what about the cop who shot at him more than anyone else did -- even when another cop told him to stop, told him the guy was down, why did this particular cop continue to shoot?

why did it take 18 shots to "disarm" this guy? why do they always have to shoot to kill? couldn't they have shot him in the foot or the arm or something, like they used to on the rockford files or whatever? they didn't kill the guy every time they shot at him on hawaii five-0, so why is that the policy now? (i know, i know -- that's television. but still.) why doesn't this "the cops shot him 41 times" or "tomorrow would have been his wedding day" stuff ever happen to white people?

when are cops going to stop getting away with shooting black men?



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Man, 18, Is Fatally Shot by Police in Brooklyn



A young man was fatally shot last night in a hail of 20 bullets fired by five police officers who responded to his mother’s 911 call for help in a domestic dispute in Brooklyn, the authorities said.



The police said they believed that the man, Khiel Coppin, 18, had a gun. But when the gunfire stopped, it turned out that he had been holding a hairbrush.


Officers went into the building at 590 Gates Avenue, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, about 7 p.m. The police said they were responding to a 911 call from the mother reporting domestic abuse and asking for help to “deal with this,” and that on the call a man was overheard threatening to kill her and claiming “I have a gun.”


One resident of the building, Andre Sanchez, 17, said that after the police arrived, he saw from the hallway through the open door of the apartment that the officers inside were talking to Mr. Coppin, who was in a bedroom and opening and closing that door as they spoke.


Mr. Coppin then climbed out a first-floor window and confronted more officers outside the building, and multiple shots were fired at him, bystanders said. Wounded, Mr. Coppin fell to the ground and was handcuffed, witnesses said. He was taken to Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center, where he was pronounced dead, the police said.


It was unclear how many of the 20 shots hit Mr. Coppin, a law enforcement source said.
Mr. Coppin’s mother, whose name was not released, was among the people outside the building during the shooting. Earlier in the day, she had called a hospital psychiatric unit asking for urgent help in dealing with her son, the law enforcement official said. Psychiatric workers came, but Mr. Coppin was gone. After waiting two hours, the workers left, and later, Mr. Coppin returned.


Two bystanders who said they saw the shooting said that Mr. Coppin was not armed, but was carrying a hairbrush when he climbed out the window and that he dropped it when the firing began. The two witnesses also said they both heard one officer yelling for the shooting to stop.
According to the police, another witness described Mr. Coppin as concealing the hairbrush under his shirt, pointing it outward.


A restless crowd quickly gathered and grew to as many as 150, as some neighbors shouted protests against police brutality. “You need training — this is absurd!” one woman shouted out a window to the police. Another man pressed against a yellow crime-scene tape and said: “I’m not trying to start a riot. I’m just saying it’s not right.”


The site and surrounding blocks were cordoned off as dozens of police officers, detectives and community affairs officers arrived to investigate the shooting and control the crowd. Community leaders at the scene included City Councilman Albert Vann.


Witnesses and the police offered different details about how the shooting occurred.


Mr. Sanchez said that just before the shooting, he went outside and saw several officers there with guns drawn. Mr. Coppin approached the window, backed away, then returned and stood on the sill, Mr. Sanchez said. When an officer told him to get down, he jumped to the ground and started to go through a gate in the fence in front of the building, Mr. Sanchez said.


An officer told Mr. Coppin to put up his hands, and when he did he dropped the hairbrush and the shooting began, although one officer called out to stop the gunfire, Mr. Sanchez said.
Officers started chasing Mr. Sanchez and knocked him to the ground after, he said, he protested: “Why you got to shoot him like that, for nothing?”


A similar description of the shooting was given by Precious Blood, 16, who said she heard about 10 shots fired, most if not all by one officer. Another officer called out: “Stop, stop, stop shooting — he’s down,” she said, but the shooter kept firing, “like he was playing with a toy.”


The law enforcement official gave a different version of the encounter, saying that Mr. Coppin charged toward the officers and refused repeated orders to stop. The police said they were also exploring the possibility that Mr. Coppin was trying to prompt a shooting, a phenomenon known as “suicide by cop.”


Mr. Coppin’s mother was at the 79th Precinct station house last night and gave a statement to the police, they said.


The five officers who fired all passed Breathalyzer tests, the law enforcement officials said.


Al Baker and Annie Correal contributed reporting.

all of us, dressed in black

i got an email from stephen this afternoon, telling me that black folk all over the country are going to wear black tomorrow. (needless to say, i've got just the dress.) there is to be a march and a rally in jena, louisana -- and the organizers asked that everyone who couldn't attend dress in this way, as a show of solidarity for the jena six.

every black anybody that i contacted already knew all about it. unbelievable, the way forwarding email amongst us nowadays is basically like beating the african drum to pass along pertinent information. its moments like this one when i can't help but think that, in spite of what the media says -- and in spite of what we tell ourselves -- we really are much stronger and more unified than we seem to be able to grasp.

okay, i have to say it: all these bling-bling african-american millionaire knuckleheads out here on shows like mtv cribs bragging about their solid gold toilets and the swans in their expansive backyard ponds and all the tacky crap in their 50 room mansion and whatnot -- and who steps up with a $10,000 donation for the defense fund? david freakin' bowie. what's sad is that his gesture is probably all that most people know about what's happened.

i'm sure that a lot of people think that it's business as usual in the south -- like racism lives down there and no place else. sean bell would disagree, if he could. so would yusef hawkins. and amadou diallo. one would think that in these media saturated times, we'd be hearing all about the jena six. believe me, the world is watching -- and reporting -- even if most americans don't know anything about it yet.

no one will ever be able to convince me that there aren't two countries called america: one for white people and another for everybody else. we can drink from the same water fountain, we can use the same public toilets, but we can't get the same level of justice. now, that's progress.

well. if you want to protest tomorrow, here's a few suggestions:

1. wear black. because absolutely everyone should.
   
2. register to vote -- and then when the next election rolls around, get out of the house and do it, no matter what.
   
3. sign the petition to the louisana governor
4. sign the petition to the justice department
5. call your congressperson. seriously, ring their phone all the way off the hook -- because this whole situation is nuts, and no one with any real degree of authority seems to care.
6. better yet, email them.
   
7. make a donation, if you've got it like that.
8. and last but not least, mychal bell has been in jail for no reason since 2006, so if you've got the time (and an SASE), write him a letter
   

and if you want to know what the deal is, this video pretty much sums it up.

i really couldn't believe this...

but after i gave it some thought, it made a lot of sense.

think about it: once upon a time, it didn't matter who impregnated your mother or how light-skinned you were. once upon a time, we were all black. no one attempted to cross those racial lines unless they were trying to pass -- a life-threatening proposition in the best of circumstances. we are just as varied -- or should i say "mixed" -- as we ever were. the only difference is that nowadays when there's a white parent involved, the person in question is no longer black. they're biracial.

take strom thurmond's illegitimate black daughter, essie-mae washington-williams, for instance. when she publicly announced who her daddy was a few years ago (and promptly joined the United Daughters of the Confederacy by the way, which is almost like joining the Klan as far as i'm concerned), she was referred to as biracial by the press, although initially they decided that she was a black woman. she'd certainly lived all of her then 83 years as a black woman and was certainly subjected to racism, segregation and jim crow aplenty of as a southerner. somehow strom made all the difference. that got me to thinking: what if i shook my family tree and some white people fell out? would i be biracial or would they come up with another name for me, too?

it seems that to white america, biracial means "not one of them," when historically, nothing could be further from the truth. if this keeps up, our power base will splinter drastically and politically, we'll be another brasil: a country full of black people, with hardly any black people at all.


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News bulletin: Barack Obama is a black man

By Leonard Pitts Jr. Originally published February 4, 2007

Apparently, it comes as quite a surprise to some people that Sen. Barack Obama is black.

I'm driven to this realization by the response to a recent column in which I referred to the senator as African-American. Many people wrote to correct me on that. Among the most memorable was a guy who said: "I heard his dad was a radical Muslim from Africa and his mom was a white atheist from Kansas City. If that be the case, wouldn't he be half a black man and half a white man? If he's a half-breed, shouldn't you do a correction?"

Then there's the gentleman who wrote following Mr. Obama's mild criticism of a recent comment by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the effect that Mr. Obama was the first "mainstream" black presidential candidate "who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." The e-mail writer saw Mr. Obama's response - he called the comment "historically inaccurate" - as a fatal misstep, a sign of a philosophical alliance with the dreaded Revs. Jesse L. Jackson and Al Sharpton, and it changed, he said, his view of Mr. Obama. "Up to now," he wrote, "I did not see him as an Afro-American."

Most folks were less ... strident than these two, but the core concern was the same: Mr. Obama should not be identified as African-American.

To which there is an easy answer: I call him African-American because that's what he calls himself.

There is, however, another answer that is not so easy.

If Mr. Obama asked to be identified as biracial, I would accommodate him because I believe that, within broad limits, people should be allowed to define themselves as they please. But with that said, I must confess I've always found that term rather meaningless insofar as the African-American experience goes.

That's not to criticize anybody who feels compelled to honor a multiplicity of heritages. For the record, many - maybe most - African-Americans are multiracial. One of my ancestors was Irish. My wife has Japanese and American Indian forebears. But my point is less about how one sees oneself than about how one is seen by the world at large. And I'm sorry: You can be as "biracial" as you want, but so long as your features show any hint of Africa, that world is going to give you the treatment it reserves for "black."

Assume for a minute Mr. Obama didn't have a famous face. Assume he was just another brother tooling down Main Street. Do you really think the cop who pulls him over for no good reason is going to change his tune if he is told Mr. Obama's mama is white?

"Oh. Sorry, Mr. Obama. I didn't realize you were biracial. Have a good day."

No way. You may be many things, but if one of them is black, that trumps the rest in terms of how the world sees you. Black is definitive.

Granted, this is, at some level, a silly conversation: As a scientific construct, race is meaningless. But as a social construct, it's anything but. So Mr. Obama becomes, inevitably, a Rorschach inkblot of our racial maturity. Meaning that what people see when they look at him so far seems to say more about them than him.

Which brings us back to Mr. Biden's remarks. I'm not qualified to judge the "nice-looking" part. But articulate? Even their critics would concede that Shirley Chisholm, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Sharpton - all black, all former contenders for the presidency - talk real good.

Bright? They seems intelligent enuf.

Clean? I stood near Mr. Jackson in an airport once. He didn't smell.

What Mr. Biden surely meant to say is that Mr. Obama is the first black presidential candidate who is potentially electable. But what he wound up saying is revealing, and what it reveals is not pretty. Mr. Biden was not the first. He won't be the last.

Meantime, I've got two words of advice for those folks who are surprised to learn Barack Obama is black: Eye. Doctor.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for The Miami Herald. His column appears Sundays in The Sun. His e-mail is lpitts@miamiherald.com.