A Conversation with Henry Giroux About the Condition of American Democracy One Year After the Election of Donald Trump

Henry Giroux is the guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. He has written dozens of books and articles including America at War with Itself and the forthcoming The Public in Peril: Trump and the Menace of American Authoritarianism.

During this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Professor Giroux and Chauncey evaluate American democracy one year after Trump's election, wonder about how to stay positive during such a horrible time, and ponder what resistance looks like against American fascism. Professor Giroux also explains the dangers of malignant reality, why Trump's voters will never leave his side, and makes a bold prediction about the 2020 presidential election.

This week's episode also features some bonus content that can be heard at the end of the show. Documentary filmmaker Charlie Siskel stops by the virtual bar and salon to discuss his new project American Anarchist. Charlie also shares some insights learned from the making of the documentary projects Bowling for Columbine, The Awful Truth, and Finding Vivian Maier. And in the spirit of our ongoing discussion about Donald Trump, Charlie works through his initial thoughts about a documentary on America's fascist-in-chief demagogue.

In this week's episode, Chauncey DeVega tells the truth about the murderous and evil Republican "tax bill" which passed during the middle of the night last Friday. Chauncey is also disgusted by the Democratic Party and all the so-called liberals and progressives who are unable to stop the Republican Party--as well as how the American people are sheep who have not taken to the streets in massive protests against the Republican Party's destruction of the Commons and efforts to bring the United States back to a time before the 19th century.

This episode with Henry Giroux and Charlie Siskel can be downloaded from Libsyn and also listened to here.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes, Spotify and at Stitcher.

Sorry Van Jones, There was Nothing "Presidential" About Donald Trump's Speech to Congress Last Night

Last night, Donald Trump gave a speech before Congress. It was a parade of lies. His Republican minions applauded because, like a child who is finally potty trained at 8-years-old, Trump did not drop his pants and crap on the floor. The standards are that low.

Apparently, there are some folks who felt that Trump was "presidential" last night. One of them is Van Jones. I have spoken to Van Jones on my podcast series. I enjoyed our conversation. He is smart. I also feel that--and I hinted at this during our conversation--he is a bit too generous towards the Trump trash who installed a fascist, racist, demagogue in the White House.

Jones has been getting some heat online and elsewhere for his comments about Trump. What do you think Jones' angle is here? Is he playing a long game and positioning himself for the future? Does Jones actually believe what he said about Trump? Or is Jones trying to position himself as a type of bridge and diplomat?

A Conversation with Professor Joseph Lowndes About Obama, the Color Line, and the Future of American Politics

Professor Joseph Lowndes is the guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. He is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon and the author of several books and articles including From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism as well as Race and American Political Development.

In this wide ranging conversation, Joe and Chauncey discuss topics such as America's "post-post racial" present and future, the challenge of reconciling history, the past, and the present along the color line, the role of black and brown conservatives in the neo liberal conservative agenda, and the symbolism and shortcomings of the Obama presidency.

During this installment of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Chauncey complains about having to pay taxes (and is angry at the global plutocrats who do not), and talks about Ted Cruz's college onanism habit, shares a story about his college roommate having sex with a strange woman who had a broken arm, and is excited about potentially receiving IRS tax exempt status for his new religion "porkism".

This episode with guest Professor Joseph Lowndes can be downloaded from Libysn and also listened to here.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes and at Stitcher. The Chauncey DeVega Show can now be found on Spotify as well.

A Conversation with "Champion" Joe Lansdale Part 2

I would like to thank the very kind and generous folks who donated to the December annual fundraiser yesterday. There are some really cool and giving folks out there who will be receiving their thank you notes very soon. There was a very nice donation on Thursday night. I am very moved by that kind gesture. So wonderful. I am now just 200 dollars away from the goal for the December annual fundraiser. The monies, as you know, will go towards the video podcast next year and following through on some of the great opportunities that are being finalized for my online and other work.

The sooner we reach that goal the faster I can pull back in the begging bowl and get back to business as usual. As always, if after having taken care of your human and animal family members, yourself, and other obligations, throw some love in the donation bucket so that I/we can continue to grow the site and get our video podcast up and running next year.

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Print author, TV, and film writer Joe Lansdale is the guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. This is the second time that "Champion" Joe has stopped by to chat at the virtual bar and he does not disappoint.

Chauncey and Joe talked about a huge range of topics including, the new Hap and Leonard book and TV series, his new book Paradise Sky which is about African-American cowboy Nat Love, Joe's work on the Batman cartoon series, writing Tarzan, thinking about the movie John Carter of Mars, generational change and codes of honor, manhood, race, martial arts, Ronda Rousey's loss, Bruce Lee, and whatever topics happened to come up.

Champion Joe is always lots of fun and does some great teaching and sharing as is his habit on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show.

This week's podcast also features some Star Wars: The Force Awakens content. Friend of the site and podcast Bill the Lizard stops by to talk with Chauncey about their excitement, fears, and worries about the new movie. This conversation was recorded Wednesday, the night before the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. There will be a special all things Star Wars: The Force Awakens podcast episode next week where Chauncey and Bill the Lizard talk about the new movie. 

In addition to the great sharing and teaching offered by Joe Lansdale and Bill the Lizard, on this 

episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Chauncey talks about the human zoo sociopaths at the CNN GOP primary "debate", discussed the Freddie Gray mistrial for the first thug cop whose inaction/actions led to that horrible death, revealed more about his soda addiction, and talked about going on the David Pakman Show and the accusations that Chauncey looks like a turtle and is high on bath salts.

This episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show can be downloaded from Libsyn and also listened to here. This great set of conversations with Joe Lansdale and Bill the Lizard can be "watched" on Youtube at this link.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes and at Stitcher as well.

Saturday Caption Fun: The Racist Phalanx of Ferguson Whiteness That Enabled Darren Wilson

Friends: Here, Twitty is seen among friends and colleagues, standing next to Darren Wilson (center), the Ferguson officer who killed an unarmed black teen, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles appears in the photo as well (back left, wearing a green shirt) 

I love the British news media.

From the Daily Mail:

The names of two Missouri police commanders who resigned from their positions in the Ferguson Police Department over racist emails have been released amid the U.S. Department of Justice's investigation into the police department. 

Sgt. William Mudd and Capt. Rick Henke resigned Thursday and City Court Clerk Mary Ann Twitty was fired Wednesday. 

It is unclear whether the three were recipients or senders of the 'racially biased' emails included in the 102-page civil rights report released Wednesday by the DOJ accusing the department of illegal practices targeting African-Americans. 

Twitty is seen in an undated photograph smiling as Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who gunned down Michael Brown, an unarmed, African-American teen, has his arm around her. The two are seen appearing joyful among colleagues and friends, including Ferguson Mayor James Knowles.

However, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Henke was associated with a 2008 email suggesting that President Barack Obama would not complete a full presidential term because a black man can't hold 'a steady job for four years.' 

Mudd is reportedly associated with a 2011 email suggesting a New Orleans woman was paid by 'CrimeStoppers' to terminate her pregnancy.

The Justice Department highlighted several other emails in the report including one that featured a photograph of topless, appearingly tribal, women dancing, with the caption 'Michelle Obama's High School Reunion.' 

The report states that the emails illustrate racial, ethnic, or other forms of bias among those involved and states that the DOJ's investigation yielded no indication that any of the officers or clerks involved in the emails were disciplined before this week.

In fact, the report states, there were no instances discovered where recipients asked the sender to refrain from sending such emails, instead, the emails were forwarded along to others.

Do share, how would you caption the above photo of Darren Wilson and his compatriots who implemented Ferguson, Missouri's white supremacist policies that directly led to the killing of the unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown?

Some suggestions:

Happy days!

The Legion of Doom

Why Can't We be Friends?

White Faces in High Places

Boy, You Know You Ain't Welcome Here!

Sundown Towns are the Only Towns Worth Living In!

10 Ways that Racism Killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner

A New York City police officer put his arm around Eric Garner’s neck and choked out his life as he screamed “I can’t breathe!”

A police officer in Ferguson, MO aimed his gun at Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager and shot him multiple times while he reportedly pleaded, “I don't have a gun. Stop shooting!”

Michael Brown lay dead in the street for hours. The police treated his body like common street refuse.

While the police ended the lives of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, it was white racism that actually killed them.

American society is organized around the maintenance and protection of white privilege.

Racism is not an opinion. Racism is a fact. 

The reality of the color line, how whiteness is a type of material and psychological privilege, and that people of color are disadvantaged in American society, are among the most repeated findings in all of the Social Sciences.

Critics of white supremacy and white racism work from the reasonable and informed belief—given the mountains of empirical data in support of the claim—that racism is one of the most powerful social forces in the United States. White racism deniers, and those others who have perverted the notion of “colorblindness” in order to advance and protect white supremacy as one of the United States' dominant ideologies, proceed from the opposite assumption.

Gravity is a fact. It does not need an extraordinary proof. Likewise, the fact of how racism continues to structure life chances in the post civil rights era should be a given for any fair-minded and intelligent person.

Colorblind racism and the white racial frame invert and distort reality: reasonable and sensible claims are rejected in favor of extraordinary proofs for the well documented social reality that is white racism. As such, for white racism deniers and their allies, the standards of evidence are made so absurdly high as to be virtually impossible to satisfy or meet with any degree of confidence or certitude.

Events such as the police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown are a nexus where white racial resentment and white supremacy are made to confront black pain, reasonable hurt and righteous anger.

From the American lynching tree of the 19th and early 20th centuries, to the police harassment and racial profiling of the present, white racial logic deems black humanity to be a type of perpetual threat and poison in the white body politic. The black body must be controlled and terrorized in order to create a sense of safety (and community) for the white public.

Consequently, white racial paranoia twists the murder of two unarmed black people by the police into “justifiable” acts, where the victims of gross and unjust violence are somehow made responsible for their own deaths.

Colorblind racism, white racism denying, and police brutality do the work of white supremacy. They are also micro-aggressions, the goal of which is to exhaust and confuse black and brown people by invalidating their life experiences and assaulting (quite literally in the case of police violence) their personhood. 

Colorblind racism, and the related claims that racism does not influence how police and the broader criminal justice system interact with black and brown people, are also assaults on empirical reality and the truth.

Justice for Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and the many hundreds and thousands of innocent black and brown people who have been killed by the police requires a clear and direct engagement with the twin facts of American racism and white supremacy.

Eric Garner and Michael Brown were killed by white racism. 

What is my evidence for this claim?

A Grotesque Portrait of Power in Ferguson, Missouri: A Heavily Armed S.W.A.T. Team is "Threatened" by an Unarmed Black Man Walking Down the Street

The protests in Ferguson, Missouri over the murder of Michael Brown by a local police officer continued last night. The police are fully militarized and are shooting at, harassing, bullying, and acting like thugs against an entire community whose "crime" is being black and outraged that a young person was shot, and the State has (so far) acted in an irresponsible way as they work to conceal the crime.

According to news reports, the FAA has declared Ferguson a "no-fly zone", police are removing their ID and name tags, and have systematically been harassing and chasing out the news media so that they can fully engage in counter-insurgency military tactics and run amok in violation of the civil rights of the people of Ferguson, Missouri. This is not taking place in some "Third World" country; it is taking place now, here, in the United States when a black man is President, and another is the Attorney General.

[Obama, he who happens to be black and the President of the United States, several hours ago finally found time to issue a comment about the murder of Michael Brown and the events in Ferguson.

Apparently, the suicide of Robin Williams was a more important matter and thus took precedence.]

Despite the local thug police department's efforts to censor and suppress media coverage, there are brave people who are sharing photos and information about the on-going events in Ferguson.

This photo of a police tactical squad facing down an unarmed black man is one of the most powerful depictions of the grotesque nature of power that I have seen in many years.

Readers of WARN know that I am very interested in visual semiotics. The position of the bodies, the N.W.A. "fuck the police" lyric on the mailbox, and how those camouflaged men in fully body armor, wearing surplus boots from the invasions of Afghanistan or Iraq, are facing down an unarmed black man walking in public space in an American community is a profound commentary on power and race.

State power works by maintaining a pretense of its own vulnerability all the while possessing the capacity to exert its will--here a monopoly on violence--over others.

Power also exists in a hyper-aware paradoxical state of authority and legitimacy which is plagued by a fear that it must reassert itself in order to not be made to appear vulnerable.

Moreover, power and race are perverse in Ferguson, Missouri, where the police continue to conceal the identity of the cop who killed Michael Brown for reasons of protecting the former's safety.

Question. Who was protecting Michael Brown from the police?

There is a no-fly zone to "protect" the police and "the residents".

Second question. Do the black people in Ferguson have a secret air force that I am unaware of?

How do you "read" the image of the police military tactical team that is confronting an unarmed black man walking down the street in Ferguson, Missouri? I see overwhelming armed masculine force made to look impotent and weak by the presence of an unarmed black person who they could kill with ease. The police are the cowards; the unarmed black man has the power to provoke, arouse, and anger White Authority by virtue of his mere existence in public space.

White racial paranoiacs (a condition of the white racial frame and the White Gaze that was discussed here) will somehow see an unarmed black person as a threat, and one who is somehow "provoking" the police into shooting or arresting him.

What do you see?

It isn't Rocket Science Folks: On the Civil Unrest Following the Killing of Michael Brown by the Cowardly Thuggish Police in Ferguson, Missouri

On Sunday evening, there were acts of civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. These disturbances were in response to the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, who was shot multiple times by a police officer and whose body was left laying in the street for several hours. Witnesses to the event reported that Michael was shot without reason. The officer apparently shot him many more times once his body was on the ground. The police, have as expected, concocted a wildly ridiculous story to cover up the misdeeds of one of their own.

In response to the civil unrest, the commentariot class issues the 1) requisite condemnation of the "rioters" and 2) acts as though there is some great mystery for why people would take to the streets, "confront" the police, and "loot" businesses in their own community. 

And of course, there will be an obligatory quote from Brother Doctor King that is taken out of context in order to condemn the "bad blacks" in Ferguson, Missouri.

The pressure to follow this public script is especially heavy for black and brown people.

I choose to deviate from those trite rhetorical norms. 

Black people are not allowed to be angry. Black people are also not allowed to show the full range of righteous anger and indignation that is common to the human experience. 

The outbreak of unrest in Ferguson was predictable and understandable. In fact, I am surprised that more communities which have been subjected to onerous, tyrannical, racist, classist, violent abuse by the police do not erupt in protest. 

Like New York and other major cities, the small town of Ferguson has a history of racial profiling and harassing its black residents.

The murder of Michael Brown is a proximate cause of the unrest in Ferguson. It is not the deeper systemic root of the protests. Here too, the news media on both the left and the right will focus on the symptoms--righteous anger and rage--as opposed to the cause (over-policing; the militarization of the police; police racism; social inequality).

What Sort of White Person Do I Want to Be? A Conversation With Dr. Paul Breines, Veteran of the Freedom Rides and the Civil Rights Movement

History is made by people.

It is easy to forget that the past isn't really ever the past.

The United States has or soon will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the monumental legislative gains and victories of the Civil Rights Movement. It is poignant that five decades after the Great March on Washington, Freedom Summer, and the high point of the Black Freedom Struggle, that an African-American is President of the United States. The efforts and spent lives of the black, brown, and white warriors for the full civil rights of African-Americans (and by extension all Americans across the color line) radically transformed the United States. Much work remains to be done; their efforts are betrayed if the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement is viewed as something of the past and not of the living present.

In this new episode on the podcast for We Are Respectable Negroes I had the most fortunate and blessed opportunity to speak with Dr. Paul Breines, a Freedom Rider and activist in the Civil Rights Movement. 

He reminds us that the Civil Rights Movement was and is much more than documentaries such as the magisterial Eyes on the Prize or scenes in movies such as The Butler. 

Paul was so very generous and honest in our great conversation where he provides a first person account of the Freedom Rides, his coming of age as a political activist, experiences with the real, day-to-day folks who had to live under the white supremacist regime that was Jim and Jane Crow, and how he negotiated those experiences morally, ethically, and philosophically. Dr. Breines also connects his work as a political activist to his intellectual work and career as a professor of history at Boston College.

Dr. Breines asks a foundational question during the podcast: what sort of white person do I want to be? The struggle for justice along the colorline would be much improved if more white brothers and sisters were as reflective.

Paul does some great teaching and sharing during our conversation on the podcast. I know that you will learn a great deal from his wisdom and experiences. I most certainly did.

02:18 Given all of the important historical events you were involved in with the Civil Rights Movement, how do you remain humble?

04:25 The Civil Rights Movement was an insurgency. Meeting black men with guns who protected the Freedom Riders, reflecting on the black women and other warriors who supported the movement

07:00 Learning how to be a moral and ethical person from his mother

11:44 How did you decide to become involved with the Freedom Rides?

17:05 Massaging the memory, history, and public image of the Civil Rights Movement

22:20 What sort of white person do I want to be?

26:56 Why did you choose to get involved with the movement and other white folks did not? 

31:07 What did you feel like to be an enemy of the state? Did you think of your work with the Civil Rights Movement in those terms?

33:20 How did you manage your emotions--fear, anger, worry, etc.--in those moments? Some thoughts on being "brave" or "courageous"

37:39 Returning to Madison, Wisconsin after the Freedom Rides

39:30 Memory and reflecting on the Freedom Rides during the 1960s and in later years

43:00 What is it like talking to younger people about the Freedom Rides? What are some of the common questions that students and other young people have for you? How do you feel when you reflect upon the Civil Rights Movement and the Freedom Rides?

46:00 The absurdity of "the race card", white victimology, and racial resentment

54:00 Personal responsibility and signing their last wills and testaments for the Freedom Rides

56:31 How and why did you become a professor? Was your activist work related to your intellectual life? 

64:30 What was it like to be a witness to the Right-wing Culture Wars at Boston College during the 1980s and early 1990s? Some thoughts on life philosophy and life reflections

73:20 Have "we" won or lost with the election of Barack Obama?

81:00 Are young people more or less politically involved and aware than they were during the 1960s?

88:30 How can folks contact you? Concluding thoughts and observations about the Freedom Rides, the law, civil rights, and trying to effect social change

Who Would Ever Want to be 'Black' Anyway? New Census Data Reveals How Hispanics are Crossing Over Into 'Whiteness'

The claim that America is going to become a "majority-minority" nation in the next few decades is a truism that does political work. For Democrats and the left, they see this as an opportunity to expand their voting base by embracing a multicultural America. For Republicans and conservatives, the "browning of America" is a type of threat which they can use to mobilize racially resentful white voters.

However, both perspectives are grounded in a short-term understanding of how race has historically worked in the United States.

A long-term view demonstrates how race is a dynamic process, one that evolves and changes, in response to the political needs and questions of a given moment. As such, who is considered "white" for example, is a reflection of a given arrangement of social and political power: "Whiteness" and who is considered "white" are not fixed or immutable categories.

Truisms and common sense understandings of race do not make them empirically true. New research from the Pew Research Center on the changing racial identities of Hispanic-Americans would appear to upset the "majority-minority" narrative which has come to dominate the media (and the public's) understanding of the color line in the Age of Obama.

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations: 'White Privilege' and How Black Students are 'Rewriting' the Rules of College Debate

Goodness. I am awed...and not in a good way.

Last week, The Atlantic featured a story about how a cadre of "unconventional" black college debaters were redefining that staid and lily white world. 

Does Traditional College Debate Reinforce White Privilege? explores how:

These days, an increasingly diverse group of participants has transformed debate competitions, mounting challenges to traditional form and content by incorporating personal experience, performance, and radical politics. These “alternative-style” debaters have achieved success, too, taking top honors at national collegiate tournaments over the past few years.

But this transformation has also sparked a difficult, often painful controversy for a community that prides itself on handling volatile topics.  

On March 24, 2014 at the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) Championships at Indiana University, two Towson University students, Ameena Ruffin and Korey Johnson, became the first African-American women to win a national college debate tournament, for which the resolution asked whether the U.S. president’s war powers should be restricted. Rather than address the resolution straight on, Ruffin and Johnson, along with other teams of African-Americans, attacked its premise. 

The more pressing issue, they argued, is how the U.S. government is at war with poor black communities. In the final round, Ruffin and Johnson squared off against Rashid Campbell and George Lee from the University of Oklahoma, two highly accomplished African-American debaters with distinctive dreadlocks and dashikis. 

Over four hours, the two teams engaged in a heated discussion of concepts like “nigga authenticity” and performed hip-hop and spoken-word poetry in the traditional timed format. At one point during Lee’s rebuttal, the clock ran out but he refused to yield the floor. “Fuck the time!” he yelled...

In the 2013 championship, two men from Emporia State University, Ryan Walsh and Elijah Smith, employed a similar style and became the first African-Americans to win two national debate tournaments. Many of their arguments, based on personal memoir and rap music, completely ignored the stated resolution, and instead asserted that the framework of collegiate debate has historically privileged straight, white, middle-class students. 

Tournament participants from all backgrounds say they have found some of these debate strategies offensive. Even so, the new style has received mainstream acceptance, sympathy, and awards.

Apparently, an unwillingness to follow established rules and decorum is linked to black racial "authenticity" and "culturally resistant" behavior.

It would seem that Does Traditional College Debate Reinforce White Privilege? is a profile in white liberal guilt intermixed with a quest for negro novelty. 

Did You See Jonathan Chait's Letdown of an Interview About Conservative Racism and White Victimology on MSNBC?

One of my friends of many years was obsessed with extraterrestrials and how they supposedly kidnap people and then conduct sexual experiments on their victims. He would dream about these visitations and put on a public performance of the "Grays" riding their victims to orgasm.

I had a female friend who would call me at odd hours of the night and ask me to talk to her because she had a nightmare where the witches were riding her. Apparently, my voice and a late night visit were the only things that could calm her.

We all have burdens to carry in life.

And we all have our own obsessions.

I would like to thank you for indulging mine these last few days.

Jonathan Chait appeared on MSNBC last night.

His discussion with Salon.com's Brittney Cooper and Chris Hayes on MSNBC was a profound letdown.

There, Chait managed to further the twisted logic of white victimology and excuse-making for white supremacy with his closing comment that yes, racism may be all over the Republican Party's behavior but somehow the public is done a disservice when the media discusses it.

I riddle you that one.

Friday is a semi-open thread salon day here on WARN. I spent time on the Chait fracas because I was mesmerized by the Yellow King.  During that moment what other matters of public concern were we not discussing?

Singing "We Shall Overcome" Did Not Defeat Jim and Jane Crow: A Conversation With Professor Mark Grimsley About How the American Civil Rights Movement Was a Type of Military Insurgency

The Civil Rights Movement and the Black Freedom Struggle did not defeat Jim and Jane Crow and formal White Supremacy in America by just singing songs such as "I Shall Overcome", and accepting public, wholesale, butt whoopings by the forces of American Apartheid.

The triumph of a several centuries-long struggle to remake American society in order to extend full citizenship to people of color was the result of the efforts by strategically and tactically minded people to move public opinion, while also challenging white elites to act in the latter's own long-term self-interest.

Ultimately, the visual of non-violent protesters fighting for civil rights dominates American public memory.

Likewise, a story about tired old ladies such as Rosa Parks--who in reality was relatively young, a secretary for the local chapter of the NAACP, and an agent who was part of a planned protest--dominates how many Americans remember and think about the Civil Rights Movement.

A more critical read of the struggle by Black Americans and their allies to win full citizenship rights reveals a much more complicated reality wherein those day-to-day struggles for freedom existed in the context of the Cold War, sophisticated planning by its leaders and participants, and what was for all intents and purposes, a type of military insurgency against the forces of racial terrorism and totalitarianism embodied by American Apartheid and Jim and Jane Crow.

In this newest episode of the podcast series here on We Are Respectable Negroes, I was lucky to talk with Mark Grimsley, professor of American History at Ohio State University. He is a scholar of military history and author of seven books including The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865.

I was compelled to reflect upon the "hidden history" of the long Black Freedom Struggle because the language of war is common to how so many of us think about the how African-Americans (and others) resisted white supremacy in the United States.

Words and phrases such as "resistance", "opposition", and "struggle" dominate that discourse. Moreover, given how violence was used against the Black and Brown Freedom Struggle by the forces of racial state, I am struck by how the dynamic nature of the Civil Rights Movement, one that combined the carrot and the stick, has been systematically erased from public memory.

Professor Grimsley does some great work here in locating the Black Freedom Struggle and Civil Rights Movement within a larger American tradition of dignity, struggle, resistance, and agency. Black Americans and our allies were sophisticated strategic and tactical thinkers who were engaged in (many cases) a literal war for freedom. Mark's work is invaluable as it serves as a corrective to a flattened version of history, and also validates what many people of color know, knew, and instinctively understand, about the full range of resistance that was marshaled against American Apartheid.

My conversation with Dr. Grimsley is central to many of the issues we have talked about here on We Are Respectable Negroes since its inception about race, citizenship, struggle, and resistance.

I do hope you enjoy the conversation.

3:30 How did you discover your interest in military history?
6:22 What was it like to go to the United Kingdom to study military history and then develop that into your research on the American Civil War?
8:22 Given the current college environment where the customer must be pleased at all costs and the importance of evaluations, what is it like to deal with students who think they know something about war and and conflict and you then have to challenge their assumptions?
12:18 How is history being taught in high schools? How is standard testing hurting the teaching of history in college? What are some common misunderstandings held by hobbyists about the causes of the Civil War and black slavery?
16:03 Why do some many people find the American Civil War so fascinating? How did the Civil War come to be some important to your own research and scholarly interests?
18:46 What are your thoughts on American Civil War reenactors? What is your professional opinion about the accuracy of movies such as "Glory?"
23:15 Is "Glory" an "accurate" movie about the tactics and strategies deployed by the forces fighting in the American Civil War? As an expert what do you think of the movie?
28:45 How is the long Black Freedom Struggle and Civil Rights Movement a type of military insurgency? How do you qualify your analysis?
33:45 What was the light bulb moment when you realized that theories of military science could be applied to the American Civil Rights Movement?
37:04 What was the response to your theories? Why did some scholars respond negatively to the suggestion that the American Civil Rights Movement was a type of insurgency?
40:11 When did the American Civil Rights Movement begin? Was it just in the 1950s or did it begin much earlier? How can we better understand Jim and Jane Crow as military domination and violence against Black Americans?
48:18 If the American Civil Rights Movement can be understood within a military science framework, how do you locate the Colfax Massacre and the events in Albany, Georgia within that narrative?
53:45 Why didn't the defenders of Jim and Jane Crow learn from what happened in Albany in order to defang and defeat the American Civil Rights Movement? Why did the forces of White Supremacy so grossly underestimate the sophistication of the forces working against them? Arrogance? Bigotry?
57:28 Why isn't the martial and armed resistance aspect of the Black Freedom Struggle and American Civil Rights Movement discussed more in the public discourse? How are black shepherds of the memory of the Black Freedom Struggle complicit in suppressing this aspect of the narrative?
64:54 Is the election of President Barack Obama a strategic or tactical victory for the Black Freedom Struggle and the American Civil Rights Movement? How do you qualify and locate his election within your theoretical frameworks?
69:14 What texts would you suggest for those listeners who are interested in learning more about the role of armed resistance and how the American Civil Rights Movement was a type of insurgency?
70:14 What books would you suggest for interested listeners who want to learn more about military history, both in terms of the United States, and globally?
72:30 Where can listeners find you online? What are your future projects?

Shameless Self-Promotion: Chauncey Devega is Scheduled to Appear on the Ed Schultz Radio Show Today to Discuss the Relationship Between Symbolic Racism and Attitudes About Guns

As I do when the opportunity presents itself--I am scheduled as a guest on the Ed Schultz Radio Show today, i.e. Friday, November 15, 2013. My segment should begin on or around 1:30 PM Eastern time. This is live radio so anything is possible, but as of now, things are a go.

I will be talking about this recent essay where I discussed new research on the relationship between symbolic racism, gun ownership, and attitudes about gun policy, more generally.

The Ed Schultz Radio Show can be listened to live here.

As I am fond of saying when a guest on the radio, I will be doing my best to "connect the dots" regarding issues of race, public policy, and the Common Good. I do hope you are able to listen in, tell your friends about my segment, and offer your comments and insights.

"Treason to Whiteness is Loyalty to Humanity": "V for Vendetta" as a Corrective for the White Privilege Collective Action Problem

Here on WARN, we often talk about Whiteness, white privilege, and how white racial identity has been inexorably linked to a sense of who "belongs" to the American political project and those groups deemed by the in-group and the State to be outsiders.

Some folks who comment here, and also on my pieces posted elsewhere, have sincerely asked "what can they do as a white person about white racism and white privilege?"

I can only offer up my thoughts, meditations, and instincts on those questions. I am no sage or oracle.

But, I do have the following advice: practice the Golden Rule; reject white guilt because it is a narcissistic dead end; do not be ashamed of being "white", simply own your own behavior; and locate yourself relative to, and in systems of, privilege, power, history, and the present. No person is an island. We all come with our own credits and debits given to us before our birth--own that fact and move forward. We all can make a choice to live (or not) an ethical and responsible life. It is up to you and me to choose to do so or not.

I also suggest that folks read Noel Ignatiev's interview "Treason to Whiteness is Loyalty to Humanity".

He is down like John Brown, Ignatiev is the real deal. I also smile and laugh at how White Supremacists, the "respectable" White Right, and White victimologists latch onto his famous statement that "loyalty to Whiteness is treason to humanity" like junkyard dogs--even as they are unable and unwilling and incapable of understanding his most basic appeal to a broad understanding of secular humanism, justice, and human equality.

Do read the whole classic piece. The following section is my favorite:

What kinds of relations with people of color are implied when one becomes a race traitor? How does a race traitor act politically with people of color? 

Relations must be based on solidarity. People of color have a wealth of experience with white supremacy, from which others can learn, but the fight against white supremacy is not something to engage in as a favor to anyone. All people who wish to be free have an equal stake—yes, an equal stake—in overturning the system of white supremacy. 

I’m reminded of the old IWW [Industrial Workers of the World, the “Wobblies”] slogan, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” Decades of distortion have reduced the message of those words to the idea that you should oppose injustice against others today because if you don’t it will come your way tomorrow. We believe in the original intent of the slogan. The Bible offers the same instruction: “Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them.” 

Race Traitor does an excellent job of providing examples of individuals rejecting their whiteness and joining the human race, but there is little there of collective resistance. Where is the collective political strategy in a politics of abolition? How do we, collectively, abolish the white race? 

For the white race to be effective, it must be unanimous, or nearly so. The reason is that if the cops and the courts and so forth couldn’t be sure that every person who looked white was loyal to the system, then what would be the point of extending race privileges to whites? And if they stopped extending race privileges, what would happen to the white race? Our strategy seeks to bring together a determined minority, willing to defy white rules so flagrantly they make it impossible to pretend that all those who look white are loyal to the system of racial oppression. 

We wish we could cite more examples of collective resistance. The whites who joined the rebellions in Los Angeles and elsewhere were a good example. The Attica prison rebellion was another. The initiative by Love and Rage to launch a campaign culminating in a day of action against immigration controls and anti-immigrant violence was a good project, but unfortunately it never got off the ground. Collective struggle is crucial, but at some point every white person has to choose, like Huck Finn, between being white and striking out for freedom.

The passage I highlighted is a practical solution to the collective action problem which makes systems of power function. What if all of us who benefit from some type of ascriptive privilege or unearned advantage simply refused to play along? What if we/they chose to wear the mask as in the movie and graphic novel V for Vendetta?

And ultimately, what advice do you have for "white allies" in training who want to join the struggle against White Supremacy?

Masters at Work: Trying to Understand Detroit? Eugene Rivers, William Julius Wilson, and Michael Dawson Talk Race, Black Politics, Globalization, Neoliberalism, and the Age of Obama

I enjoyed my appearance on The Ed Schultz Radio Show on Tuesday where Mike Papantonio and I discussed Charlie Rangel's "cracker controversy". It has been more than a few months since doing radio, but my sea legs came back to me pretty quickly...and without a yardarm inspection. There is a "no prize" for folks who get the joke.
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Detroit is dead. Long live Detroit. Thus, a paradox: those who are following Thanatos' visit to a great American city see the many opportunities available for those with the resources and good fortune to make a play.

What do the rest of Detroit's denizens do? I am unsure. I send them positive thoughts and energy to get through the current crisis.

Despite what conservatives and some others would like to suggest, Detroit was not destroyed, broken, or killed by black folks. Detroit is a bellwether and the miner's canary. Neoliberalism and globalization practiced their yeomen's infectious and dirty handed surgery on that once great city.

Those who vivisected and killed Detroit were interns in the 1970s and late 1960s; those same economic hit men are now running the hospital in 2012. Patients die. Deal with it. Be silent.

If these economic hit men have not arrived in your community already, they will most certainly be there soon.

Are you ready?

Michael Dawson and William Julius Wilson are two of the preeminent social scientists of their (or any) generation. To watch them vibe and freestyle as they talk about race, class, globalization, black politics, and neoliberalism is a privileged opportunity made possible by the Internet.

What were once called "Chocolate Cities" and sung about so lovingly by George Clinton were not just undone by local mismanagement and folly. They were set up to fail by white flight, tax policies which destroyed their revenue, a hostile federal government, and a patronage system which exacerbated the pain and did little to bring any value added to the already significant economic and business challenges faced by America's central cities.

Were the victories of black electable officials in America's chocolate cities in the 1970s Pyrrhic in nature? I would suggest that the answer is "yes".

And once the same models of neoliberal governance and austerity further destroy suburbia, what will the logic of  racial rationalization be as applied to that case? Are the white folks that are in charge of majority white and now economically failed rural, suburban, and ex-urban communities as incompetent as their African-American counterparts? Or will other other more race neutral explanations be offered?

The Pleasure of Conflicting Views From the Daily Kos: Charlie Rangel was Wrong to Call the Tea Party a Bunch of "White Crackers"

One of my favorite experiences at an academic conference was when a discussant did not tear into the panelists (and their submitted papers) with gleeful viciousness. Instead, and I love this devious albeit "nice" move, he said that what he offers are "loving suggestions".

Yes, it is better to lube up the knife with Teflon before sticking it through the Kevlar. The pain exists; it is just more tolerable.

Ian Reifowtiz, who posts over at the Daily Kos, is by all accounts cool folks. I am hoping to have him as a guest on Season Two of WARN's podcast series.

In response to my piece on how Charlie Rangel accurately described the bigotry and racism of the Tea Party, Ian offered up a very nice and considerate essay that can be found here.

Language finds meaning through interpretation. I do believe that Ian "got" what I was suggesting more than he missed. However, I still have some thoughts and a loving intervention to offer in regards to his concern about harsh words and "stereotypes" used to describe the white racial reactionaries in the Tea Party.

One of my long-term projects is researching the concept of "liberal racism". Now, and I am being precise here, Ian is not, from my few interactions with him, a liberal racist, per se. However, his critique of Charlie Rangel's truth-telling about the Tea Party, can be located pretty close to, if not soundly within, the tradition that is liberal racism.

For example, there is a nice and honest embrace of the Golden Rule in Ian's critique of Charlie Rangel's truth-telling as offered here:

We anti-racists have argued for years that the decision about whether a term is offensive or not belongs to the party at whom the term is aimed. We've rightly not tolerated, in the best known example, non-black people claiming that they aren't using the n-word to refer to black people in general, just to the "bad" ones (criminals, etc.). We tell such people that they don't get to decide that their particular use of a slur is not offensive, it's simply not up to them. 

Intellectually, philosophically, morally, and politically, it is untenable to say that the rules of deciding what is offensive are one thing for terms aimed at whites in America, and something else for terms aimed at groups who have traditionally faced discrimination. The same goes, obviously, for other kinds of slurs, those aimed at groups defined by religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Men don't get to say, "I don't mean all women when I say c*^t." And gay people DO get to decide that they want to use the word "queer" as a term of empowerment. 

We who reject bigotry argue that the term belongs to the ones targeted. That argument rests on strong moral grounds, and those moral grounds must apply universally. If we undercut the universality of that argument, we undercut our ability to fight hate. And applying that argument universally gives us the moral high ground when it matters most, namely when we seek to combat bigotry aimed at historically oppressed groups.

I think this is an admirable principle. In practice, such an admirable principle often fails to bring results.

Moreover, Ian's logic is grossly under-theorized. The Golden Rule is a nice lesson to teach children. But, in the real world, do we want to suggest that when the out-group and the less-powerful talk in ways that make the in-group and the powerful uncomfortable that we should defer to them?

We can also not forget that White conservatives and White liberals are both the children of Whiteness and White Privilege.

Both deny the existence of White Privilege. The former rejects it outright. The latter just tries to dance around it. Some white liberals acknowledge that White Privilege is real while writing themselves out of it; other White Liberals want to introduce class as an over-determining variable so that race is made secondary; some White Liberals want to use the concept of White Privilege as a cudgel to beat White conservatives about the head, while denying that they too benefit from a society that gives them unearned advantages due to being "white".

In total, White liberals and others want to be talked to by people of color in a manner that is deferential to their racial privilege. Moreover, White liberals and White conservatives both want to have their feelings "respected" and not hurt by people of color who dare to engage in truth-telling about White Supremacy.

Consequently, White conservatives are for the most part the enemy of the Black Freedom Struggle. White liberals, with the exception of brothers like John Brown and the ride or die Freedom Riders, Abolitionists, and others having been duly noted, are allies of black and brown folks until it becomes inconvenient and challenges Left-leaning white folks' position of domination, privilege, power, paternalism, and ego towards non-whites.

In this way, White conservatives are much more honest racists than White liberals. White conservatives will let you know that black and brown folks are "uppity" and need to know their place. White liberals will often just derail and hijack the conversation by using thinly understood language gleamed from the introduction to books on white privilege or materials they found online.

I am curious as to your thoughts about Charlie Rangel's comments about the Tea Party. Sure, they can be described as impolitic or inconvenient. But, was Rangel wrong or inaccurate in his description of the racial politics of the Tea Party? And am I being to hard on White liberals and liberal racism in my loving intervention?

Na'im Akbar: We Have Raised a Generation of African-American Young People Who Can Choose Not to be Black

I have mentioned Brother Na'im Akbar more than a few times here on We Are Respectable Negroes. He is one of the United States' (if not the world's) preeminent psychologists focusing on issues of "black" racial identity and mental health.

I love the line from Biggie's song "Juicy" where he raps so beautifully how "I let my tape rock til my tape popped."

I did that to several of my recorded Brother Na'im Akbar's lectures--and of course to my DJ Mister Cee mixed tape of unreleased and underground gems by the Notorious B.I.G. while riding in my parents' 1993 Buick Skylark.

Ghetto nerds and striving respectable negros ought not to be embarrassed by their origins.

A given person's intellectual and moral growth usually does not proceed in a straight trajectory: it ebbs, flows, and meanders.

I am forever impressed by authors who write their own intellectual biographies. The level of hubris and self-awareness to do such a thing amazes me. If I ever formally get to do such a thing--doubtful--or more likely my grandkids (if I am lucky) ask about where their strange grandpa came from--I will mention Brother Akbar as being very influential on my thinking and personal growth.

Parade has a feature on the new movie "The Butler" which features a discussion between Oprah Winfrey, Forrest Whitaker, and Lee Daniels. The story is both entertaining and provocative for several reasons.

One, Oprah talking about meditating on her own personal mountain is awe inspiring in its forthrightness and lack of shame for having such material wealth. I like it.

Two, I am getting tired of listening to high profile black men talk about being humiliated and harassed by the police. This public sharing of  the "moments of instruction" as experienced by black men--including President Obama--is really wearing out its welcome with me. Efforts at gaining empathy or sympathy from Whiteness may actually just be a signal of weakness and vulnerability by those who are fundamentally invested in keeping black folks in such a position.

Am I alone in this thought?

[Do read the predictably racist comments on the story. Rich black folks bring out the White Right like few others.]

There is a question in the Parade piece that speaks directly to Na'im Akbar's points in the above talk.

It reads as follows:

On whether young people today know enough about the civil rights movement:

Daniels: I showed the film to my relatives … because I figured they’re the harshest of audiences. And my 30-year-old nephew said to me, ‘Did some of this stuff really happen?’ And I was very upset by that.

Winfrey: They don’t know diddly-squat. Diddly-squat!

I am not surprised that a relatively young black person would say such a thing. I remain disturbed, however.

How do we balance historical memory with being hamstrung by history? Is a generation of young black and brown folks--and yes, whites too--raised in the post-civil rights era who think that "all that racism stuff" is in the past a type of progress, or does it instead represent a state of deep peril?

I worry that we are raising a generation of post-civil rights Age of Obama young black and brown youth who are stunned and shocked by white racism to the point of being crippled by things that our parents, grandparents, and other elders would have brushed off their shoulders with ease.

I am not suggesting that the latter state of affairs was/is preferred. No. I am just disturbed that there is a generation of youth, young people of color, who are going out naked in the world with no armor or life skills to protect them from white racism, either of the "colorblind" or old fashioned variety.

Blindsided, I worry that many young people of color, and their sense of mental security and sanity, will fall like wheat before a hungry scythe during the harvest, as many of them do not have any means of locating and rationalizing what they are experiencing with their Age of Obama, post civil rights era, vocabulary for understanding the realities of the colorline.

For example, many of them are legitimately shocked by what happened to Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman's subsequent acquittal. If they understood American history, and its resonance in the present, these same young folks (and others) would have understood that the extra-legal murder of black folks is the legal system working as designed.

Political Race: Beyond the Racial Profiling and Murder of Trayvon Martin, What of Those Other People of Color and Poor Whites Who Have Suffered Racial Profiling?

We are in the third day of our fundraiser here on We Are Respectable Negroes. I appreciate the kind donations. If you can, as I am very close to my first goal, do please throw some change into the donation bucket if you can. Your support makes me smile. I so very much appreciate it.

After receiving a gift from the readers of We Are Respectable Negroes, I always write folks a thank you note, and try to share what all of the kind readers and followers of WARN mean to me. I am genuinely touched and moved by how in difficult times my friends and supporters online have shared their resources with me. I will do my best to leverage such acts of kindness.

I was raised to thank my benefactors and friends for their gestures of support. Thank you. Home training is hard to shake.

In those emails, I did not realize that I had a common refrain of "I learn from all of you." I very much mean those words. That statement will be a driving mantra for this, and my follow-up posts, today.

The Trayvon Martin tragedy is not just a "black issue." Over-policing, extra-judicial killings by the Racial State and those allied with it, corrupt and broken Stand Your Ground Laws, and ostensibly race neutral attitudes by Conservatives that in practice legitimate old school dominative and violent racism, as we saw with Zimmerman's murder and profiling of Trayvon Martin, are issues of concern for all Americans across the colorline.

I often use the phrase "political race" in my writings here on We Are Respectable Negroes and elsewhere.

I would like to qualify its meaning in a transparent way going forward:

The concept of political race captures the association of those who are raced black--and thus often left out--and a democratic social movement aimed at bringing about constructive change within the larger community. One might say that the canary is diagnostic, signaling the need for more systemic critique. Political race, on the other hand, is not only diagnostic; it is also aspirational and activist, signaling the need to rebuild a movement for social change informed by the canary's critique. Political race seeks to constructs a new language to discuss race, in order to rebuild a progressive democratic movement led by people of color but joined by others. The political dimension of the political race project seeks to reconnect individual experiences to democratic faith, to social critique, and to meaningful action that improves the lives of the canary and the miners by ameliorating the air quality in the mines.

Political race hovers over all progressives, pragmatists, and reasonable folks who want to find a way forward in the Age of Obama.

Trayvon Martin was killed by White Supremacy, White Privilege, racial profiling, and an individual who was empowered by centuries of anti-black prejudice and bigotry to a priori, and incorrectly, judge a young person of color walking down the street as a criminal, one who could be shot dead without consequence.

George Zimmerman's judgement that night was almost proven correct.

If it was not for agitation and activism in the best spirit of the Black Freedom Struggle, there would have been no trial of George Zimmerman for the stalking, hunting, and racial profiling murder of Trayvon Martin. White Government and the White Right media saved George Zimmerman from justice. Those same forces will protect and nurture him in the future. Justice is not blind.

Teach me something if you would. The national discourse surrounding racial profiling and George Zimmerman's murder of Trayvon Martin is missing a very important element and key variable: what of how Hispanics and Latinos, Muslim and Arab Americans, First Nations' brothers and sisters, and Asian Americans have experienced similar patterns of treatment and harassment by local and federal police authorities? Moving forward, how do they fit into the justice claims by all Americans of conscience in response to the murder of Trayvon Martin?

Some of you will find the following a provocative question. Race and class intersect; have poor whites been subjected to "racial profiling" in a local manner akin to that experienced by black folks and other people of color, as well as Muslims, on a national scale?

Is it possible to mobilize poor and working class whites who have been victims of "racial profiling" against the very policies and social norms that killed Trayvon Martin?

Is the (Black) Left Fighting Today's War of Austerity and Neoliberalism With Yesterday's Political Weapons and Tactics?

The election of Barack Obama represents the nadir of Black Politics and the Black Freedom Struggle. A black man may be President of the United States, but the symbolic meaning of his tenure is dwarfed by his practical inability (and unwillingness) to advance policies which serve the unique and specific challenges faced by people of color--economically, socially, and politically--in the United States.

Ultimately, democracy is driven by what elected officials can get for their constituents. "Bring home the bacon" is just another way of saying "what have you done for me lately?"

To point. Black politics in the Age of Obama are broken: an enthusiastic group of constituents are given little if anything of material substance for their support of the country's first Black President. Yet, this same group of constituents continues to vote for and support said (now twice elected) official.

In an era of cruelty, surveillance, and Austerity/hyper-conservatism the Black Left is obsolescent at best, mostly irrelevant, and stillborn at worst.

Michael Dawson, one of the United States' most senior black political scientists, had an excerpt from Blacks in and out of the Left featured by the website Salon.com earlier this week which speaks to these questions.

The Salon piece, as well as the book, are worth reading:

One area that desperately needs the type of innovation and experimentation generated by pragmatic utopian thinking is the institutional arrangements that govern the functioning of modern civil society, the state, and the relationship between the two. 

In his book Democracy Realized, Roberto Unger argued that to achieve truly democratic societies we must concentrate on institutional innovations and experimentation that put into place a robust and humane democracy. For this type of innovation to be designed and implemented, Unger suggested, a “transformative and solidaristic” political project is necessary. That transformative political process in turn requires that “we speak in the two languages of interest calculation and political prophecy,” what I have called the language of pragmatic utopianism.  

One might disagree with Unger’s specific institutional proposals, but he was right in stating that institutions shape our perceptions of our interests as well as our ideological predispositions, and that when designing institutions we must remain flexible so as to be able to adapt to new situations, adopt good ideas from elsewhere, and correct mistakes. 

In short, given the central role that institutions play in shaping our lives, economics, and politics, we can no longer allow them to become rigid and inflexible, unable to serve the needs of society’s citizens. Not only must the institutions themselves remain flexible, but we must be willing to constantly innovate, to tinker, to experiment.  

Only through this type of flexibility and willingness to experiment will it be possible to discover the type of educational institutions Berlant described. Badiou characterized this process as “combining intellectual constructs, which are always global and universal, with experiments of fragments of truth, which are local and singular, yet universally transmittable.”

Where do we go from here?

The language used to discuss "The Black Freedom Struggle" and "Black Politics" which includes terms and phrases such as "counter-insurgency", "resistance", and "People's movements" borrows heavily from military science.