Political Jay-Z?

Ready for change?
Depends on the change(s).

The Last Poets: Black Woman
Right On! (Juggernaut, 1968)

+A Vote of Allegiance?

For the full article by DeNeen L. Brown, Washington Post Staff Writer from Monday, March 24, 2008; C01: Washington Post l Playahata

In the Obama-Clinton Battle, Race & Gender Pose Two Great Divides for Black Women

Woman has an ocean of wrongs too deep for any plummet, and the Negro, too, has an ocean of wrongs that cannot be fathomed. There are two great oceans; in the one is the black man, and in the other is the woman. . . . I will be thankful in my soul if any body can get out of the terrible pit."

-- Lucy Stone, 19th-century abolitionist and suffragist, after women were excluded from the 15th Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote.

The "isms" have once again been pitted against each other. Sexism or racism -- which ism is deepest? All things being equal, should a woman or a black man be lifted to the presidency? Which "first" is the imperative first?

The admonitions of white feminists urging black women to vote gender over race have cracked open a scab, a festering sore, that had crusted over the history of this country's competing isms. A scab that covered the lingering tension between some white feminists and some black women, with their dual historic burden of race and gender. It is black women, after all, who have faced both sexism and racism in their lives.

In the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, which ism goes first? Some women fear the question, say it is divisive, explosive, should never be asked. But it has been asked -- in the recent writings of feminists including Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan. The question is ripe, reeling under the surface, discussed with muffled outrage by black women grown weary of white feminists seeming to tell them what to do.

BTW
Eff that too…

Complexion Protection

Richard Pryor: Black & Proud & White Folks
From: Craps (After Hours) (Laff, 1972)

The Last Poets: Black Woman
From: Right On! (Juggernaut, 1968)

Meet America, anew, not her masquerade:

U.S. Army Recruitment Command at Ft. Knox, Ky., Sergeant Marcia Ramode, assigned to the Brooklyn, N.Y., recruiting office, in an email to Corey Andrew, gay, seeking to enlist:

“…Go back to Africa and do your gay voodoo limbo tango and wango dance and jump around and jump around and prance and run all over the place half naked there...”

Writer and performer, Victor Varnado, Black albino:

"Race and racism is so arbitrary," he says. "Sometimes people see me and they think I'm 'acting black.' Once, I was in a secondhand clothing store with one of my friends and commenting on the fashion, joking: 'I need baggy pants and long T-shirts what rappers might wear.' And this white woman came up to me and said: 'I really find what you're saying offensive.' And then I said, 'I'm black,' and she was like, 'OK. It's fine.' Then she walked away."
"Recently, somebody told me this horrible stereotype, that all Chinese people know kung fu," started a joke he told on Comedy Central's Premium Blend. "And I disempower stereotypes whenever I get the chance, so for the past six weeks I've been fighting the Chinese. And what I've found is that not all Chinese people know kung fu. But most of them will hit you anyway, because, let's face it, Chinese people are very irritable. Irritable people!
"Some people hear that joke and say, 'Victor, I'm disappointed in you, because you said you hate stereotypes, but you made this horrible stereotype.' That's what people have said, but most of those people are Haitians, so whatever! C'mon. Who listens to Haitians, right?"
And then he puts his hand to his forehead and raises two fingers, forming demonic horns, and laughs like Satan.
Commenting on Varnado’s Satanic satire Mike McGowan, president of NOAH, says that since 1960 there have been at least 68 films depicting albino characters as supernatural or evil. McGowan further comments: “To give the devil his due if you're looking to make a character visually stimulating, giving a character albinism is a quick and easy way to do it," he says. "But I think it is an overused literary device, by lazy writers. Research shows that if you look at the '80s, '90s, and first years of 2000, the use of this hackneyed device increases exponentially.”

Lastly, I wish to formally introduce you to the Mandingos

*I've had the fortune of having Abiodun Oyewole, of The Last Poets, as a family friend. He was a frequent visitor to my home when I was a child.