A Conversation With Psychiatrist David Reiss About Professional Wrestling and Mental Health

Psychiatrist David Reiss is the guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. David and Chauncey first connected in a previous podcast discussion of the passing of the late great professional wrestler "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes.

This is a continuation of that great discussion and David does some great sharing and teaching.

David is a mental health practitioner who in addition to his private practice and consulting has worked very closely with athletes from a range of backgrounds including professional wrestling. 

David and Chauncey have a fun and wide ranging conversation that is not just good fun for those folks interested in the theater and drama of professional wrestling, but includes insight about America's broken mental healthcare system, police brutality, concussions and sports, over diagnosis of PTSD, and the over medication of the American public. David also shares some great stories about the great personalities and interesting people he encountered while working at horse racing tracks while in medical school back in the not too distant past. 

As a bonus for this episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, David and Chauncey reconnected to discuss the recent Hulk Hogan racism imbroglio. 

In this episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Chauncey also briefly shares his thoughts on the de facto murders of Sandra Bland and Samuel Dubose, is very angry about the killing of Mr. Cecil the Lion, and pitches some ideas for reality TV shows while watching the horrific Dating Naked. 

Chauncey also gives an update to the Sherlock Holmes-like mystery that he has been investigating in his neighborhood A hint: Chauncey has actually seen one of the people involved in the mysterious tale of "letters thrown out of windows in the middle of the night by a person who may or may not be a prisoner". 

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes and at Stitcher as well. Please update your Itunes and other information so that you continue to "subscribe" to the show.

This episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show with David Reiss can also be "watched" on the official Youtube channel. It can be downloaded from Libsyn here.

Semi-Open Thread: The Execution of the Black Man Sam Dubose by the White Thug Cop Ray Tensing

I made a promise to not share videos of people being killed by America's out of control neo slave patrollers here on ChaunceyDeVega.com or to otherwise circulate them online.

I will make an exception for the video of Sam DuBose being shot in the head without cause by a murderous thug cop named Ray Tensing.

Dubose was killed in a summary execution. Ray Tensing committed an act of extra-judicial murder.

As I often ask in these moments, when America's police's habit of killing people because they can, come to light through videographic and other means, how many other Sam Duboses are there in the United States?

I am still collecting my thoughts on the matter (I had a piece ready to share here on Black Lives Matter and surveillance, but will delay it; I also wrote a short essay after watching the video that will appear here in short notice).

As I was flummoxed in response to the white racial terrorist mass murder Dylann Roof's deeds in South Carolina, how can black folks offer their forgiveness so fast to those who kill and hurt us without fear or shame?

To wit. Samuel Dubose's mother said in a press conference earlier today that, "I can forgive him. I can forgive anybody. God forgave us."

This is unfathomable to me. Is this learned behavior from a black church tradition that has done more harm than good to the critical thinking of black people? How can black Americans demand respect when we are so quick to forgive those who do us harm, where black Americans are denying ourselves our own human right to feel, to be angry, to seek justice, vengeance, and blood payment?

What are your thoughts on this latest episode in the black necropolis in the Age of Obama? Will there be a local uprising? What will our young lions do?

Tuesday Randomness Inspired by a Right-wing Sewer Dweller: Why I Consider It a Complement to be Called "Blacula". An Interview with the Amazing William Marshall

It is so hot here in Chicago that INSERT PHRASE. 

Please help me out, so I can include the joke in this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show that I am in the process of editing.

I appreciate a good bon mat, turn of phrase, or entertaining dig. I usually don't give Right-wing sewer dwellers any attention, but one of them made a pretty funny observation in response to my recent interview with Ring of Fire TV about the Right-wing hate media.

Said Right-wing urinal cake eater said that I was "Blacula". He or she likely does not realize that they gave me a complement.

I laughed because outside of his role in that exploitation flick, few folks know of William Marshall's amazing acting and stage presence. If I can channel 1/10th of his gravitas and intellectual weight, I would consider myself lucky.

Do you have any tales of unintentional complements meant as insults that make you smile? Great actors or actresses who are known for one genre/niche role, but who deserve(d) a much broader mainstream audience and appreciation.

And just because I can as the proprietor of this online salon, here is a fun bonus treat that should send shivers down your spine and a punch to your soul.

Sir Ian McKellan reads a passage from Shakespeare's Sir Thomas More on the Marc Maron Show:

Sharing My Recent Appearance on Ring of Fire TV: The Fox News Right-wing Hate Machine White Supremacist Nexus

As is my habit of sharing and soliciting suggestions, complaints, insights, or other observations, here is my guest appearance on Ring of Fire TV last week.

The Right-wing hate media is expansive--it includes the mainstream Fox News hate media and also more open and honest white supremacist websites. I am increasingly concerned that the average American has no idea that Fox News and the Right-wing echo chamber have been mainstreaming "old fashioned" white supremacist narratives and talking points under the cover of "fair and balanced".

The result? The weaponization of the Right-wing American public.

Right-wing domestic terrorism can be directly connected to the Fox News hate media. Dylann Roof, John Russell Houser, and others of that ilk are the hell spawn of Right-wing media epistemic closure.

Farron Cousins and I talk about those issues, and also pivot for a brief discussion of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, Bernie Sanders, and their disruption of last week's Netroots Nation meeting.

I think this was a good appearance. I have slowed down my cadence significantly since I first began doing TV spots last year. I also feel more comfortable being expressive and pivoting to different subject matter as necessary. Forward march...to borrow from a friend of Chauncey DeVega.com.

Sandra Bland's (Black) American Nightmare: Cars, Cops, Racism, and the Road

It is likely that almost every black American has a story—familial or personal—about being unjustly harassed or otherwise treated badly by this country’s police. These stories begin in childhood and continue throughout life. I, for one, am lucky to have survived my own encounters with police and other security forces. Sandra Bland was not as fortunate.

Bland, as has now been widely reported, was driving from Chicago to Texas to take a dream job at her alma mater Prairie View A&M University. She changed lanes to allow a state trooper, Brian Encinia, to pass. Encinia decided to stop Sandra Bland for an “illegal lane change.” As recorded on Encinia’s dashboard camera, the situation begins badly and ends even worse: Sandra Bland’s basic questions about Encinia’s behavior go unanswered. Encinia becomes agitated that she, a black woman, would dare question him. He orders Bland out of the car, then threatens to “light her up” with his taser.

By this point, Bland must be panic stricken; the state trooper throws her to the ground, assaulting her, injuring her arm and head. The videotape of the incident appears to be altered. The police report is vague and imprecise. Sandra Bland is dead three days later, supposedly hung, having committed suicide with the garbage bag used as a makeshift curtain for her jail cell. This is not a good death.

Responsible black parents tell their children (and those others in their charge) about how to deal with America’s police:

Your life is at risk in every police encounter. The police are not your friends, not if you are a person of color in America. The police could kill you. They are racist, and the system which they are part of is racist. Know your rights but realize that your rights will likely not be respected, because you are black. Do what is necessary to survive. Please come back home alive.

Sandra Bland found herself in the middle of those parables and lessons. As a Black American, she knew how badly it could all end. During the 8 minute long dashboard video, she is narrating her own death.

Sunday Semi-Open Thread: 'Pacific Standard' and the 'Texas Monthly' do Some Great Truth-Telling on the Monster John Russell Houser and the Victim Sandra Bland

Some late night/early morning link sharing for a Sunday. As is our habit do treat this as a semi-open thread to share whatever matters of private or public concern that you feel are appropriate.

Saturday was a hot day here in Chicago. My excitement for the day consisted of trying to perfect my pork katsu, watching UFC, and sitting inside with my shirt off and the air conditioner on. I also got to watch the aftermath of an electric transformer explosion (it looked like lightning and sounded like thunder) that stranded travelers on a nearby Metra Electric train. All of the lights and noise from the many fire engines and rescue personnel must have been great masturbation material for the local pyromaniac.

I found two essays and a comment that I felt would be of interest to you, the kind readers and friends of ChaunceyDeVega.com

[And yes, I have decided on a new name for the site as shared on last week's podcast.]

One of you sent me a link to this essay in the Pacific Standard on the toxic, angry, white, Right-wing gunman John Russell Houser who killed three people and wounded 8 others in a Louisiana-area movie theater on Thursday.

At the Pacific Standard, Ted Scheinman wrote:

Lafayette White Privilege Sleight of Hand: Have You Read CNN's 'Who commits mass shootings?'

Another day; another mass shooting in the United States.

Another day; another mass shooting in the United States by a white man.

Another day; another mass shooting in the United States by a Right-wing white man who was weaponized by the Right-wing Fox News echo chamber hate media.

We have talked about this phenomenon many times here at ChaunceyDeVega.com.

I have discussed this unending reality several times on the RT Network and Free Speech TV.

[It is eerie that I spoke with Farron Cousins on Right of Fire TV last evening about how the Right-wing media is weaponizing its followers.]

We know the script and the white terrorist bingo card game. John Russell Houser, the Lafayette mass shooter, will be humanized, guns will no be central to the "national conversation", Right-wing ideology will be left not critically scrutinized, and toxic white masculinity will go unmentioned by the mainstream corporate media.

The mainstream corporate media is unwilling to state in a plain and direct way that white men are disproportionately represented relative to their percentage of the United States population among those people who commit mass shootings.

CNN has just posted a short piece entitled "Who Commits Mass Shootings" that continues this evasion. Do read the story and see if you catch the written/rhetorical sleight of hand that Dana Ford uses in the essay to avoid stating an uncomfortable truth about white men and mass gun violence.

What are your thoughts on the Lafayette mass shooting? What white privilege gamesmanship have you noticed in how the mainstream news media is discussing John Russell Houser's murderous deeds?

A Conversation With Film Director Jonny Campbell and Labor Activist Bill Fletcher Jr.

There are two guests on this week's installment of The Chauncey DeVega Show. It is full of goodness, teaching, learning, and great conversations.

The first talk features Jonny Campbell. He has directed HBO's recent miniseries Casual Vacancy based on the work of Harry Potter's J.K. Rowling. 

Campbell also directed the zombie TV series In the Flesh on the BBC, in addition to the classic Dr. Who episode Vincent and the Doctor.

This conversation was great fun. Chauncey and Jonny have a great dialogue and to and fro about the choices that a director makes in helping to create a final product, the choices one makes in terms of adapting a book to film, life lessons learned in the business, advice for intrepid screenplay and script writers, the zombie genre, and other related matters.

The second part of the podcast is a sit down at the virtual bar with brother Mr. Bill Fletcher Jr. 

Mr. Fletcher is the former director of the activism and advocacy group known as TransAfrica. He has also been on the editorial staff of the print and online magazine known as Black Commentator. Bill is a wonderful guest. He also shares some great mentoring, wisdom, advice, and guidance about social advocacy work, aging gracefully, the importance of labor unions to American progress, labor, the color line, and how social change workers can maintain positive energy in the face of adversity.

Great stuff.

In this episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Chauncey also updates folks about his local neighborhood Sherlock Holmes mystery, his cooking mistake and (then) salvation from last week's podcast, and gets angry about all of the noise that seems to occur whenever he wants to do his intros and outros for The Chauncey DeVega Show.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is in the process of transferring over to the podcast hosting service known as Libsyn.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes and at Stitcher as well. Please update your Itunes and other information so that you continue to "subscribe" to the show.

This episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show with Jonny Campbell and Bill Fletcher Jr. can also be "watched" on the official Youtube channel. It can be downloaded from Libsyn here.

What Are Your Thoughts on 'Black Lives Matter', Netroots Nation, and Bernie Sanders?

I appreciate all of your kind and smart comments on this thread about renaming "We Are Respectable Negroes". I am fortunate to have such a smart group of kind people who read and comment here on the site. I learn so much from all of you. Please keep offering your insights and suggestions on my dilemma.

Tuesday, I had a great conversation with Ring of Fire TV. My segment--which is about 13 minutes--will air this Thursday and Friday. I am not sure if the whole segment will make the show. If not, it is quite likely that the segment in its full length will be posted online.

During that dialogue with host Farron Cousins, he and I talked about my essay on Dylann Roof, Donald Trump, and the Right-wing hate media. We then pivoted to a closing discussion of Bernie Sanders and the Netroots Nation Black Lives Matter protest that occurred earlier this week.

I was not prepared for Farron's question; I am glad that he shared it. 

I spoke what I feel is the truth. I am in this weird liminal space: I have gotten so much more confidence in the last year where I have been chatting with Ring of Fire (and others), yet remaining always careful, but being much more "myself". I know such a description is vague. I also trust that you get my meaning. 

Ultimately, in being "me" with the volume turned up, I try to speak the truth even if it is impolitic. Some folks may be surprised at my comments about Black Lives Matter and their theater--all the world is a stage, is it not?--at Netroots Nation.

I am very curious as to your thoughts about the Black Lives Matter activists and their intervention at Netroots Nation. What are your feelings and analysis of Black Lives Matter and their choice of tactics during that event? If you were advising Bernie Sanders about Black Lives Matter and "black issues" what would you tell him to do?

You have my ear. Please play some songs that I can try to do a cover of, with attribution whenever possible, if I am asked to sit in with the band in the near future.

I Need Your Help With Renaming 'We Are Respectable Negroes'

Some of you have noticed that the name "We Are Respectable Negroes", both in Google and other search engines, as well on the tab in your browser, has changed to the name "Indomitable".

When change occurs it should be swift. However, this does not mean that change should come without contemplation or explanation to others or oneself.

The name of this project was born of a specific set of circumstances, timing, and personalities involved. As is common in life, personalities move on one person stands alone, and the times change.

As I have said many, many, many times these last few years I never would have imagined that a fun and humble blogger project would have actually evolved into something that would receive national attention, be mentioned by a Republican presidential candidate, and both hated on and praised by folks in the national (and international) new media. I owe all of that to the good folks such as you who have shared, commented on, and sent good energy to "We Are Respectable Negroes".

What I have tried to do here, is much broader than the topic suggested by the words "respectable" and "negroes". Moreover, as much as I love the name "We Are Respectable Negroes", it was a sign post on a journey that is still ongoing. As readers of the site know, I am fond of military analogies and metaphors. I am not interested in throwing horses at tanks. That struggle is honorable. It makes for a great poem, song, play, book, or a film. Alas, it is ultimately self-defeating and tragic. One can still be the cavalry--albeit now outfitted with tanks, armored fighting vehicles, helicopters, and at some point in the near future, mecha and powered battle suits.

The word "negroes" in the title of the website has also cost us precious time and energy because what I felt was smart and witty more than seven years go, could also be a distraction. If a name is costing a person great opportunities--for whatever reason--it is a liability.

I have some considerable gifts. A sense of names and branding is not one of them.

I have decided on renaming "We Are Respectable Negroes" with the name "Indomitable". This could be permanent. "Indomitable" could also be temporary.

I am very partial to the energy that is summoned by "Indomitable", but I also know that there are other words and phrases that could convey that energy with more aplomb.

As such, I would like your help.

1. The new name will not include any reference to matters of race, racism, black people, negroes, the color line, etc. etc.. I may include that as a sub-header or line on the logo/header however. What I am doing here will remain the same, evolve with the times, and keep on broadening as well.

2. I tinkered with calling the site "WARN" as an homage to the original name. I decided not to, as a good friend and adviser asked me, "what are you warning the reader about? Doesn't sound very welcoming to my ear."

3. The header/top image will likely change too, so please do not be wedded to the photo of me and my cat niece. I am probably going to have a comic book like panel or image done for the site by a professional artist.

4. Part of me thinks just calling it "Chauncey DeVega" and having it listed as "the official page of political essayist and cultural critic Chauncey DeVega" in the browsers/search engines. That seems efficient. But, I keep coming back to having a name, as the eponymous option feels naked to me.

What are your suggestions? Any thoughts or concerns? We are all friends here, so please share any feelings, disappointment, happiness, worry, or like thoughts. If you feel like this is all my call give the go ahead and blessing if you so choose.

Donald Trump and Dylann Roof: The Hate That the Right-Wing Fox News Hate Media Produced

Right-wing domestic terrorist Dylann Roof killed nine African-Americans in a Charleston church because he felt that “his country” was being “stolen” from him by African-Americans and other people of color. Republican Presidential candidate and reality TV show star Donald Trump believes that “illegal” immigrants from Mexico are predators who are stealing jobs and resources from America while they rape and murder white women. Dylann Roof is an overt and unapologetic white supremacist terrorist. Donald Trump is a “belligerent, loudmouthed racist.” He is also a leading 2016 Republican presidential candidate.

The overt white supremacist websites that taught Dylann Roof his racist beliefs, and the more “polite” and “respectable” right-wing media outlets such as Fox News, are part of the same political communication ecosystem. Both Dylann Roof and Donald Trump are channeling the racist political values and talking points that are generated on a daily basis by Fox News and the right-wing propaganda machine. There, ideas circulate back and forth between the “mainstream” media and its peers within the white supremacist political community. Talking points are refined and developed; the issue or controversy of the day is circulated; trolls (often hired by right-leaning public relations firms) are deployed to online comment sections in an effort to create the illusion of consensus on the part of the “silent majority” and “real Americans” on any given issue — all while silencing dissent and harassing those people they do not agree with.

Experts in political communication and media have described the denseness of ties, shared links, and the alternate reality created in the right-wing media (both traditional and digital) as exhibiting a condition of “epistemic closure.” What that means is this: Because contemporary conservatism has created a bizarre and twisted reality for those who consume its news media and other information sources, a state of extreme political polarization has been created. If citizens cannot come to agreement about basic facts, they are crippled in their ability to solve common problems of shared public concern. This crisis is made even more acute by how recent research has demonstrated that those people who listen to Fox News and other right-wing media outlets are more likely to hold erroneous beliefs about the nature of political and social reality. In essence, Fox News is not “news”—it functions as an organized disinformation campaign that propagandizes its followers into accepting right-wing lies and distortions as empirical fact.

The “conspiranoid” fantasies of your crazy uncle or well-intentioned but profoundly ignorant grandmother — who repeatedly forward you emails claiming that Obama was born in another country; or that the United States’ first black president hates white people; or about how the Democrats will create death panels to kill the elderly; that “White America” is a victim of “racism” by black and brown people; or that the United States military is planning to invade Texas — are not born of the ether. They are a product of an echo chamber, a product that is designed to derail, distract, and delegitimate the government.

William Saletan's Act of Parrhesia: The Chattanooga Mass Shooting was a 'Legal' Act of War, Not Terrorism

As explained by imminent political theorist and philosopher Michel Foucault, parrhesia is:

"parrhesiazesthai" means "to tell the truth." But does the parrhesiastes say what he thinks is true, or does he say what is really true? To my mind, the parrhesiastes says what is true because he knows that it is true; and he knows that it is true because it is really true. The parrhesiastes is not only sincere and says what is his opinion, but his opinion is also the truth. He says what he knows to be true. The second characteristic of parrhesia, then, is that there is always an exact coincidence between belief and truth...If there is a kind of "proof" of the sincerity of the parrhesiastes, it is his courage. The fact that a speaker says something dangerous — different from what the majority believes— is a strong indication that he is a parrhesiastes.

In my own writing and public pedagogy it is a principle that I strive to fulfill.

Parrhesia comes with risk.

William Saletan, writing at Slate, has just violated a basic rule in mainstream, corporate news, American public discourse with his new essay "The Chattanooga Killings Aren't Terrorism". There, he dares to suggest that America engages in acts of war, violence, and yes "terrorism" abroad, but that the American people would howl in protest if the same standards of behavior and acts were committed against the "homeland".

He writes:

The Myopia of Whiteness: David Brooks Offers Intellectual Flatus on Ta-Nehisi Coates' New Book

Greece is being strangled by the Austerity monster. Radicalized political Islamic thugs are killing innocent people in the United States and abroad. Racist cops keeps snuffing people out.

I would rather have a good laugh than discuss such dire matters. The intellectual flatus produced by David Brooks is always a source of comedic relief. He is a national treasure; his comic timing is unmatched.

Whiteness is privilege, a type of property, invisibility, and normality.

Whiteness is a type of possessive investment that pays both a material and psychic wage to its owners and beneficiaries.

Whiteness can be renounced and denounced; the privileges of whiteness still accrue.

Whiteness is a type of myopia.

Whiteness can bend reality to suit the perspective and desires of those people deemed to be "white".

Whiteness is a lie.

Whiteness is history; Whiteness is the present.

Whiteness compromises the morality and ethics of White People.

Whiteness causes piss-poor thinking.

In keeping with the harm that Whiteness does to the thinking and intellect of White People, writing in today's New York Times, David Brooks offered up the following turd in his response to Ta-Nehisi-Coates' new book Between the World and Me:

A Conversation With Historian Gregory Downs About His New Book 'After Appomattox'

Historian Gregory Downs is the guest on this week's edition of The Chauncey DeVega Show. Dr. Downs is the author of the new book After Appomattox, which offers an analysis of the post Civil War era South, Reconstruction, American freedom, and the struggle for African-Americans to defend their newly one gains in the face of white racial terrorism. Professor Downs' new book is an excellent history of American politics and a corrective to misunderstandings about the Civil War and its aftermath. Dr. Downs also writes for The New York Times in its on-going series on the American Civil War.

Gregory does some great teaching and sharing in this episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. He disabuses Chauncey--in a very nice way--of some of his misconceptions about the United States Constitution and its relationship to chattel slavery, shares his thoughts on writing for a popular audience in The New York Times, and explains the particular historical relationship that Black America has with the United States government and why the Black Freedom Struggle can be described as being "emancipated into the arms of the State". 

Chauncey and Greg also do some sharing about graphic novels and other "popular" depictions of American history. 

In this episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Chauncey also talks about the Bill Cosby sex scandal and the misunderstood racial politics of The Cosby Show, shares some thoughts about Ta-Nehisi Coates' new book, and tells a tale of intrigue and crime while applying his Sherlock Holmes-like powers of detection and investigation to solve a local mystery.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is in the process of transferring over to the podcast hosting service known as Libsyn.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes and at Stitcher as well. Please update your Itunes and other information so that you continue to "subscribe" to the show.

This episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show with Gregory Downs can also be "watched" on the official Youtube channel. It can be downloaded from Libsyn here.

You Have Been Duped: The Republican Party's Confederate Flag Carnival Game Magic Trick

The Confederate flag will no longer fly over the capital of South Carolina. It was taken down on July 10, 2015; an African-American member of the state color guard presented the American Swastika/Treason Flag to the Confederate Relic Room and State Museum. The image and timing are powerful: the Confederate flag, a symbol of white supremacist violence against Black America was removed during the tenure of Barack Obama, the United States’ first black president, and given to the Confederate Relic Room and State Museum by a black man who is employed by one of the founding states of the treasonous Confederacy.

Last week, the Memphis City Council voted to move the grave of Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife from a public park. A monument in his honor will also be removed from the same site.

Forrest was one of the founding members of the Ku Klux Klan, the largest terrorist organization in American history. The Ku Klux Klan is the United States’ version of ISIS, as the former burned alive, tortured, raped, and killed many thousands of black Americans during the decades following the Civil War and through to the fall of Jim and Jane Crow American Apartheid in the middle of the twentieth century.

The removal of the Confederate flag is a triumph of symbolic politics—what is a type of political behavior where the visuals, optics, appeals to emotion, showmanship, theatrics, and other gestures are often a substitute for the instrumental and substantive advance of material public policy goals that impact the life chances of citizens.

The Republican Party is the nation’s largest white identity organization. In the post civil rights era the Republican Party embodies the union of white supremacy and conservatism. Their surrender of one of the United States’ most potent symbols of white racism, white grievance mongering, and racial resentment is a ploy—one that is a distraction from deeper and more substantive political issues that serve the Common Good and the long Black Freedom Struggle.

Ultimately, the Republican Party’s much belated support for removing the Confederate flag is a type of political magic trick and carnival game.

The Uncut Version: 'Dylann Roof, Guns, and Toxic White Masculinity'

My essay "The plague of angry white men: How racism, gun culture and toxic masculinity are poisoning America" was recently featured over at Salon. The Right-wing trough urinal sewer dwellers are still upset over the basic truth-telling I offered there. The piece that appeared at Salon was significantly shortened from the original. What follows is the original piece uncut and unabridged.

****

Dylann Roof was not silent before he murdered nine black people in their church, shooting and reloading multiple times, destroying their bodies with his white rage. He did not shout obscure or difficult to translate Latin phrases. Dylann Roof was not a blank slate or deep and nebulous well who left no written justification or explanation for his evil deeds. White racial terrorist Dylann Roof told his African-American victims why he was going to kill them.

As though it was a type of forced civic duty and obligation, Roof said to his victims: “I have to do it.” He then shared his grievances: “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country and you have to go.” Then he let off a fusillade of bullets.

A superficial reading would suggest that the “our” is simple to decipher: Roof is channeling his white nationalist understanding of “America” as a country synonymous with and exclusively for “white” people. This is the logic of the phrase that “America is a white man’s country.” The “our” is also signifies the control and possession of white women’s bodies and personhood by white men.

The idea of black men raping white women is a centuries-old White American fantasy: It is the justification for the lynching tree, where thousands of innocent black men were made into “strange fruit.” The lynching tree also reinforces a cultural lie, that white women are the most desired among all others, and tries to conceal how many white women from both before the founding of the United States, through to the Age of Obama, willingly have had relationships with Black men, a perfectly banal observation that nonetheless enrages white supremacists.

Nationalist and politically chauvinistic ideologies tend towards patriarchy and sexism. White nationalism is no exception. As such, Dylann Roof’s white racial terrorism is an act of violence, and one that is grounded in a particular understanding of gender: “Male” or “female” are designations of human, sexual, biological difference. “Masculine” and “feminine,” however, are social constructs that are not fixed, which change over time, and in response to particular arrangements of social and political power. Here, gender is a type of performance (in its most binary and simple form) as a given person acts “male” or “female.” And toxic masculinity is a performance that emphasizes violence, control over others, sexual aggression, and a lack of emotion and vulnerability. Dylann Roof—with the guns, violence, resentment, right-wing politics, and racism—is the extreme embodiment of toxic white masculinity.

Shameless Self-Promotion: Chauncey DeVega's Guest Appearance on 'The Root and Roots Show'

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to chat with Gregory Abdur-Rasheed on his Blogtalk Radio show Root and Roots. He is cool folks and I appreciate his relaxed and friendly--yet still solid--conversational style. Gregory is a veteran of traditional radio: you can hear this in his voice and by how he establishes a nice rapport with his guest.

Gregory and I go about 90 minutes. I prefer a relaxed long-form conversation as it enables us to talk about a range of topics, including, but not limited to, the Charleston Massacre, Obama, science fiction, the economy, and Gregory's work in prisons.

I had a good time on the Root and Roots show. I think you may find it entertaining as well.

The show can be listened to below or directly here.

How has your weekend been? Any fun stories, discoveries, or other matters of public or private concern to share?

Am I the only person who had a tear in their eye from the Star Wars: Episode 7 "behind the scenes" video from Comic-Con or had a nerdgasm from the Batman versus Superman trailer?

The Root and Roots Show

A Conversation With Documentary Filmmaker Shan Nicholson About His New Film 'Rubble Kings'

Documentary filmmaker Shan Nicholson is the guest on this week's edition of the podcast known as The Chauncey DeVega Show.

His new film Rubble Kings, explores the gang culture of New York during the 1970s and how it gave birth to hip-hop music and culture. Rubble Kings is also an excellent documentary about young people's political activism, a great and exciting examination of social change and youth culture, and a fun exploration of what I like to call "hidden history".

Friend of the podcast Bill the Lizard also stops by as well. Chauncey and Bill the Lizard talk about the new Terminator: Genisys movie, banter about their Star Wars: Episode 7 anxieties, and recap their online Skype role-playing game session with the traditional dice, pen, and paper game Pendragon.

In this episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Chauncey tells us about going to the Socialism 2015 conference in Chicago, taking on some emotional baggage from listening to folks who have lost loved ones to police thuggery and murder, and how he was told that he is also too sexy and well-dressed to take the Socialist women for a ride on Space Mountain.

Chauncey also shares a story about braving bacterial meningitis to escort a random stranger to the hospital, and gives some tips to young black folks who hang out with colorblind white public mouth bloviating racists.

The friends and kinds folks who donated to the June fundraising drive that is used to support The Chauncey DeVega Show and ChaunceyDeVega.com are also given proper thanks in this new installment of the podcast.

This episode was a nice and fun opportunity to do some catching up after a brief 2 week hiatus, to recharge the emotional batteries, and to have a few laughs with a good friend.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is in the process of transferring over to the podcast hosting service known as Libsyn.

To give listeners a chance to transition over and to redirect their subscriptions, the show can still be downloaded or hot linked at its old host.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes and at Stitcher as well. In the next few weeks, those sites will have to refresh their feed to the new host. We will post updates on that transition as it occurs so that the fans and followers of The Chauncey DeVega Show can update their subscriptions.

This episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show with Shan Nicholson and Bill the Lizard can also be "watched" on the official Youtube channel. It can be downloaded from Libsyn here.

The Problem with 'Racial Capitalism' and the Confederate Flag

The Confederate Flag is “The Treason Flag”. The Confederate flag is also the American Swastika, the banner of a society based upon the charnel houses and slave labor camps described in Edward Baptiste’s brilliant and devastating book The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism.

In the aftermath of The Charleston Massacre, there have been demands by many Americans that the Confederate flag be removed from public spaces. Corporations such as Amazon and Walmart have decided to no longer sell the flag. This desire to discard such a problematic and onerous symbol has even extended to the digital and virtual worlds: Apple has removed video games and apps that contain images of the Confederate Flag.

These moves are an example of what Professor Nancy Leong describes as “racial capitalism”, a practice that is based on the management of racial stagecraft and optics, neoliberal multiculturalism, and maximizing the superficial in the interest of profits. Racial capitalism has little to no substantive social justice component, and in many ways can work against meaningful social, economic, and political progress for people of color.

It would seem that for companies such as Apple, it is far easier to “ban” the Confederate Flag than it is to diversify one’s senior management and corporate leadership.

The following claims are not exclusive of one another.

First, private companies are free to decide what goods and services that they will provide within the boundaries of the law.

Second, the Confederate Flag should be removed from public spaces. It is a symbol of hatred, violence, rape, murder, exploitation, and evokes a type of Herrenvolk whites only democracy that formerly enslaved black Americans for centuries, before transitioning into the American Apartheid of Jim and Jane Crow for decades and leaving many tens of thousands of black folks murdered by white racial terrorism.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is Working at the Height of His Powers in His New Essay 'Letter to My Son'

This image of a conquering, imperialistic, American kaiju or Elephantmen seemed an appropriate accompaniment.

At present, Ta-Nehisi Coates is working at the height of his powers. He is Macho Man versus Ricky "the Dragon" Steamboat at Wrestlemania 3.

When I grow up I want to be able to write like Coates does in his new long-form essay "Letter to My Son" which is now up at the Atlantic:

An excerpt:

"Specifically, the host wished to know why I felt that white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence. Hearing this, I felt an old and indistinct sadness well up in me. The answer to this question is the record of the believers themselves. The answer is American history.

There is nothing extreme in this statement. Americans deify democracy in a way that allows for a dim awareness that they have, from time to time, stood in defiance of their God. This defiance is not to be much dwelled upon. Democracy is a forgiving God and America’s heresies—torture, theft, enslavement—are specimens of sin, so common among individuals and nations that none can declare themselves immune.

In fact, Americans, in a real sense, have never betrayed their God. When Abraham Lincoln declared, in 1863, that the battle of Gettysburg must ensure “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” he was not merely being aspirational. At the onset of the Civil War, the United States of America had one of the highest rates of suffrage in the world. The question is not whether Lincoln truly meant “government of the people” but what our country has, throughout its history, taken the political term “people” to actually mean.

In 1863 it did not mean your mother or your grandmother, and it did not mean you and me. As for now, it must be said that the elevation of the belief in being white was not achieved through wine tastings and ice cream socials, but rather through the pillaging of life, liberty, labor, and land."

Damn. Please do take your time to read the whole essay. It is lethal verbage and conjuring from the awesome Ta-Nehisi Coates.

'Rough Crossings' on Independence Day: Never Forget That More Black Folks Fought for the British than the Colonials

As you feast on entrails, drink high fructose corn syrup and other poisons, I hope that you enjoy the July 4th holiday, what is a celebration of a country built on the genocide of First Nations peoples, the enslavement of black people, and racist settler colonialism.

The United States is not a country of immigrants--immigrants assimilate into a new culture--rather it is a country of white settlers who wiped out the people already living here and then imposed their values on them while creating a founding mythology of "empty land", "Manifest Destiny", " and American Exceptionalism". As you watch the fireworks, most of them having been made in China, do reflect on those facts.

On July 4th, I, like many others in the so-called commentariat, share American icon Frederick Douglass' searing and brilliant speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"

Alternatively, I have also shared my adoration and affection for one of the baddest black men to ever live (and who deserves his own movie), a real life version of Tarantino's Django, the one and only former black slave turned scourge of white slavers in New York and New Jersey, he who was Colonel Tye, leader of the Black Brigade.

On this July 4th, we should be reminded that more black people fought for the British than the Colonials. Why? Because American Independence was a war to protect the institution of chattel slavery by creating a herrenvolk whites only democracy that defined freedom in opposition to the enslavement of African-American human property.

This fact is often ignored or obscured in American popular memory because 1) black leadership need(ed) to reinforce the loyalty and "real Americanness" of African-Americans as part of their freedom project and 2) White America's public memory alternates between viewing black folks as perennial outsiders and disloyal while pointing to the end of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement as proof of the inherent goodness of white folks and the American democratic project.

Simon Shama's book Rough Crossings is an excellent exploration of how both black human property and free peoples responded to and navigated The Revolutionary War and The Founding. After you have eaten and drank to the point of exhaustion, emptied your bowels and bladder, and perhaps rutted with a ready and willing person (or persons if you are so lucky) Shama's discussion of black freedom and slavery in colonial-era America will give you some clarity of thought about the real meaning of Independence Day.

Have You Read The New York Times' "Looking 'White' in the Face"? If Not, You Should

I hope that the weather is as nice where you are as it is here in Chicago.

The July 4th weekend is approaching so I will be asking more questions and sharing short posts here on the site than the usual habit of posting longer essays. We will pick up our normal routine next week. 

The speculative piece on Fox News and the burning of black churches is over at Salon as well if you want to check out the comment section there to see what the Right-wing sewer dwellers are up to.

I am also migrating the files for The Chauncey DeVega Show over to Libsyn (here is a link to the page as it develops and gets finalized if you are curious). Moving the files is time consuming and tedious. But, it was necessary and now that I am getting more accurate stats it would seem that folks are listening to and downloading the episodes even before my formal announcement that the site is "live". Good stuff.

I am also going to be attending some panels at the Socialism 2015 conference here in Chicago. If you happen to be there don't hesitate to say "hello". 

[Some questions. How do Socialists feel about cologne? Is my favorite pink shirt too individualistic and loud for the Socialism conference? Are there any room parties? Or are Socialists a dour and boring bunch?]

In can be pretty hard on the mainstream corporate news media and the 4th Estate. Given the high levels of journalists malpractice in the era of 24/7 cable news and corporate media consolidation, they are more than deserving of criticism and scorn. Nevertheless, there are moments when outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post do some good work.

The last few days featured some great writing and content that deserve to be praised.

17 Ways That 'Fox News' Will Explain 'Who is Burning Black Churches?'

Black America's "blues sensibilities"--as well as that of other peoples who have historically suffered under Power and somehow found a way to survive and triumph--means that laughter is one of the ways that we navigate times of trouble and sorrow. Other people(s) crumple under the littlest of pressure and pain; to both our detriment and advantage Black America marches on, indomitable as the miner's canary, we who are the moral conscience of the United States. This is both a blessing and a curse.

White racial terrorist Dylann Roof has been arrested. He subsequently confessed to killing 9 black Americans in their Charleston, South Carolina church in order to create the spark for a "race war".

However, it would seem that America's white terrorist network is still operative, hitting "soft" but symbolically potent targets such as historic African-American churches.

To point. Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church is the 8th such building to burn down in the approximately 10 days since the Charleston Massacre.

On this unfortunate event, Time offered the following comment:

Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church, a prominent African-American church in Greeleyville, S.C., caught fire late Tuesday. It is the eighth black church in the southern U.S.A. to burn in 10 days. 

Greeleyville, about 60 miles northwest of Charleston, has seen similar fires before, the Charleston Post and Courier reports. Mount Zion was burned to the ground by the KKK in 1995, part of a string of 30 fires in black churches that spanned two years. 

An investigation into the fire’s cause will begin after it is safely extinguished, chief of the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division Mark Keel told the Post and Courier. He noted that that the thunderstorm that pounded the town of 375 Tuesday evening could have ignited the church. Meteorologist Pete Mohlin of the National Weather Service told the paper there was a lot of lightning in the area around 7 p.m. but he could not say if it had caused the fire. 

Parishioners across the south are surveying the damage a string of similar fires has caused this week, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports, starting in Knoxville, Tenn. on June 21 and moving to Macon, Ga and Gibson County, Tenn on June 23; Charlotte, N.C. on June 24; Elyria, Ohio on June 25; and Tallahassee, Fla. and Warrenville, S.C on June 26. 

Three of those fires have been ruled arson, one was determined to be caused by a falling branch and faulty wiring, and the others remain under investigation. Several have been blamed preliminarily on lightning; weather in the south this week has been turbulent.

While Twitter has been trending the #whoisburningblackchurches hashtag, the mainstream corporate news media has been relatively silent: there is no mass panic about what seems to be a highly unusual series of events in the aftermath of The Charleston Massacre, the F.B.I.'s report on the extreme threat posed by Right-wing domestic terrorists, and the increase in white hate group activities in the Age of Obama.

In these times, we cannot overlook how the Republican Party is the United States' largest white identity organization, and how Fox News and the Right-wing media are their propaganda arm. Together the two have created a logic and worldview that via "epistemic closure" functions as an alternate reality for it viewers. In this bizarro world, white people, Christians, the rich, men, heterosexuals, and "real Americans" are somehow made into "victims". To sustain the Right-wing media's white victimology paranoiac frame necessitates distorting black pain, suffering, and white on black racism, into a series of events that serve white privilege and the white racial frame.

As such, how will Fox News engage in "political aikido" and white victimology propaganda as they discuss (if at all) the repeated and highly suspicious spate of fires at African-American churches?