For Ghetto Nerds and Grognards: Just Like a Good Iron Monger War Profiteer, Pratt & Whitney is Caught Selling U.S. Military Technology to China

The Canadian arm of the aircraft engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney closed a six-year U.S. government probe last week by admitting that it helped China produce its first modern attack helicopter, a serious violation of U.S. export laws that drew a multimillion dollar fine. 

At the same time it was helping China, the company was separately earning huge fees from contracts with the Pentagon, including some in which it was building weapons meant to ensure that America can maintain decisive military superiority over China's rising military might. 

The Chinese helicopter that benefited from Pratt's engines and related computer software, now in production, comes outfitted with 30 mm cannons, anti-tank guided missiles, air-to-air missiles and unguided rockets. "This case is a clear example of how the illegal export of sensitive technology reduces the advantages our military currently possesses," Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton said in a statement released on June 28. 

The events are once again raising questions about the circumstances under which major defense contractors might be barred from government work. Independent watchdogs have long complained that few such firms have been barred or suspended, even for egregious lawbreaking, such as supplying armaments or related equipment to a hypothetical adversary. 

Nothing in the settlement agreement, in which Pratt & Whitney and two related companies, United Technologies and Hamilton Sundstrand agreed to pay a total of $75 million for multiple violations of export rules, directly threatens Pratt's existing or future government contracting.

Gangster Capitalist Mitt Romney and his handlers are trying to massage away the difference between "outsourcing" and "offshoring" in order to protect the 2012 Republican Presidential nominee's reputation as a defender of the common man and the American dream.  

Regardless of this exercise in Orwellian newspeak, we are reminded once more of how corporations are sociopathic, and not at all beholden to notions of patriotism, nationalism, or the Common Good.

More from the Atlantic:

When Hamilton finally discovered the military use of its software in Feb. 2004, it shut down its production in less than a week. Pratt, still holding out hope for the large civilian helicopter contract, picked up where Hamilton Sundstrand left off and exported its own versions of the software to China through June 2005. 

Prosecutors, in a court filing, said the company turned a "blind eye" to any doubts because it was hungry to earn up to $2 billion from the civilian program. Canadian authorities, after being told about the parallel Z10C helicopter, approved the export of 10 engines. 

Pratt & Whitney's Canadian subsidiary next asked its sister subsidiary Hamilton Sundstrand -- headquartered in the United States -- to write the software needed to control the engines, without saying that the purpose was to equip a military helicopter. From January 2002 to October 2003, Hamilton Sundstrand exported 12 versions of the software to Pratt & Whitney, which sent six of those on to China for use in the development model of the Z10 helicopter, according to the settlement agreement. 

United Technologies made a limited disclosure about its involvement to the State Department in 2006, after an institutional investor said it was researching the company's role in helping China's military and threatened to disinvest. The company has now admitted that disclosure -- which claimed the company believed at the outset there were dual civilian and military helicopter programs -- was inaccurate. 

In the end, Pratt got little more for its troubles than a federal probe. In early 2006, China's Aviation Industry Corporation told Pratt & Whitney the supposedly parallel civilian helicopter development would be scrapped. Instead, China said it would instead build a much larger civilian helicopter, too large for the engines built by Pratt & Whitney.

According to the Justice Department's statement announcing the settlement, the first batches of the Z10 attack helicopter were delivered to the People's Liberation Army of China in 2009 and 2010.

China is a (rising) superpower. It is not at all outside of the realm of reason or possibility that the United States and her allies will be in a conflict with China in the near future. Yet, an American company sells them the software and technology necessary, in violation of the law, to make their war machine more effective at killing American soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines.

There will be few if any consequences for this act of treason. The issue is too technical for the public to latch onto as presently framed; political elites live in a revolving door universe where they move seamlessly from the public to the private sector; and the military-industrial complex has so much money and influence over American life that few folks have the moral fortitude or personal integrity to speak up against it.

Apparently, such trading of technology and secrets between "rival" nations by their corporate actors in order to profit maximize is not at all new or novel. 

For example, I am finally finishing up Adam Hochschild's World War One social history To End All Wars. There he details a similar story of corporate self-interest working contrary to the public good. 

Until reading  To End All Wars, I did not know that during World War One German and British companies traded weapons and material with each other while the citizens of those respective countries were simultaneously killing each another by the millions.

Henry Ford was a notorious anti-Semite and Nazi sympathizer. His companies made arms and equipment for the Allies while also providing material support to the Nazis during World War 2.

After the horrors of World War One, the Nye Report on the "merchants of death" concluded that arms manufacturers had a vested interest in war, would act to encourage conflict, and were agents who had little commitment to peace, international stability, or global order. If given the chance, the iron mongers would create and encourage war and killing in order to fatten their bottom line and the shareholders' wallets. 

The corporation is a sociopathic entity. Consequently, if the corporation was a person it would likely be a serial killer. It has been decades since what was good for General Electric was good for Main Street. Ironically, many Americans--especially conservatives where such a belief is held with religious zeal--take this sentiment to still be true.

If the modern corporation is indeed sociopathic, would it not follow that its CEO's and managers are similarly inclined? Why does this not automatically disqualify a candidate like Mitt Romney as a potential protector of the general welfare and steward of our national prosperity?

Freedom Dreams: Paul Gilroy on The Age of Obama vs. The Age of Malcolm X

I occasionally bemoan how the Internet has taken the mystery out of geek and nerd culture. Like others, I too am worried about how social media and the democratization of information has encouraged a dysfunctional public discourse. Anyone can claim expertise with little vetting; opinion based news is now dominant; emotions and feelings are privileged as a type of evidence in lieu of empirical rigor and critical thinking.

However, there are times when the Internet and the digital revolution can aid learning as opposed to stifle it. This great panel discussion about the legacy of Malcolm X is one such example. In the near past, it would have taken months or years for a video or transcript of an event such as this one to circulate. Now, the public has ready access to these types of conversations. This is a net gain.

The featured panelists at the Legacy of Malcolm X conference held in February 2012 are a wonderful mix of thinkers. Paul Gilroy is a noted and highly accomplished philosopher who is best known for his foundational work The Black Atlantic. Tariq Ramadan is a scholar of Islamic Studies, a philosopher, and is frequently called upon to comment on the relationship between religion, secular ethics and law, and the future of a more cosmopolitan Islam. Zead Ramadan is Chairman of the Board for the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Center, and was a family friend of the late Malcolm X.

Heroes are (almost by definition) myths. Some members of the public hold on to these fictions in order to find strength and inspiration. Others find these fictions troublesome and thus take great pleasure in disabusing people of silly thoughts and childish dreams. 

As we have discussed here on a number of occasions, I like my heroes a bit rough around the edges. For me, the details of a person's shortcomings, complexities, and quirks makes them more accessible, and an object of more admiration as opposed to less. Martin Luther King Jr. may have been a womanizer and in many ways a hypocrite (and even a plagiarist). Muhammad Ali was a cruel trickster and provocateur who manipulated the country's ugly racial politics to his own ends.



Malcolm X may have had sex with a man (to some this is an unforgiveable possibility).

Moreover, despite how Brother Malcolm is lionized, he was not a perfect thinker, and much of the political ideology he channeled was not a good fit for confronting the practical political realities (and constraints) of Jim and Jane Crow America.

Their accomplishments are made no less great because of these facts.

Paul Gilroy's intervention about black masculinity and how we, black men in particular, invest ourselves in Brother Malcolm is one of the high points of this panel. But as we approach the 2012 Presidential Election, Gilroy's plain spoken realpolitik observations about Barack Obama as a man whose race is secondary to the institutional constraints placed upon him merits (re)emphasis. As he suggests, we can be a society where race is meaningless, but where racism and white supremacy are still a changing same which governs much of American political and social life.

For all of the talk in 2008 about post racial America, and the promise of a President who happened to be black, many in the public forgot that whoever is elected to the country's highest office is a cog in a bigger machine. To believe that you could have radical transformational change through institutional politics was a chimera and a joke. The system is designed to be sedentary, slow, and constrained by inertia. As such, the Age of Obama vs. the Age of Malcolm is a false comparison. The latter was a figure who worked outside of the system (and in fact created little actionable political change); the former is a product of a multicultural, elite class which is deeply invested in maintaining the status quo of the American as a passive consumer-citizen in a market democracy, and of protecting America as an empire.

Many first time, as well as young voters, did not understand this basic fact of American political life. Now, they are disenchanted and less likely to support Obama in the 2012 election. He is not a radical. He is not a "black" president. Obama is quite simply the President of the United States, and a figure who is part of a system which is beholden to certain interests above and beyond all others.

How do we reenergize these disaffected voters? Can we work with their newly gained political maturity in the interest of the Common Good in order to mobilize them against the plutocrats and the Ayn Rand Tea Party GOP? Or are they just disgusted and are going to sit this election out, thus letting Romney, the far worse of the alternatives, into the White House come November?

Suggestions Please: On the Obligatory Necessity of Developing a Commenting Policy for We Are Respectable Negroes

I like to ask folks for feedback. One of the things I have to decide in the next few months as I move We Are Respectable Negroes forward is what to do about an official commenting policy. 

When I started We Are Respectable Negroes I wanted to create a salon of sorts where different people could talk about topics and issues that are not receiving due attention in the mainstream media. Consequently, there is much complexity of thought and opinion surrounding the various issues addressed on this site. We talk about race, politics, popular culture, history, academia, and other issues of both private and public concern. Sometimes these exchanges can become impassioned. However, they should still be grounded in mutual respect, intellectual honesty, and rigor. 

I also decided to have a relatively relaxed policy towards comments and posting. I have chosen to leave the option available for folks to post anonymously for example. I also do not require OpenId or registering in order to comment here on WARN. I did this so that new folks could feel free to contribute without being unduly hindered. Blogger's software is also not very robust in the options it allows for comment moderation. Consequently, this choice was a practical one as well.

I have a few questions--especially for those of you who read WARN but do not comment--this is also a chance for lurkers to introduce themselves as well. 

Is the current tone of the comment section encouraging or discouraging you from participating? Are there issues you would like to discuss but feel that your point of view would be dismissed, subject to bullying, or otherwise rejected prima facie by other posters? Is there anything I could do as an administrator to make you more likely to chime in?

We have a nice group of folks who always comment. My goal is to broaden that community as much as possible, while still allowing for civil discourse. As we broaden the conversation, out of necessity we are going to have to ensure that some basic rules of order, politeness, and common sense are stated plainly for those new arrivals.

At some point, I am going to have to write a more formal commenting policy. For now, here are my principles going forward here on We Are Respectable Negroes. Please feel free to make suggestions.

1. Don't be impolite. Please be respectful of the other commenters. The goal here is to have a robust conversation. WARN is not a "chat site" or place to "try to get your name up" by "owning" other people. This site is also not an opportunity for you to blog by proxy. If you want to share your talking points, propagandize, write a treatise, or free ride, you should start your own web project. If you would like to offer up a guest post please email me and we can talk about your proposed idea.

2. Keep the conversation moving forward. Chime in on the topic at hand, relate it to other pertinent matters. Share some readings, links, or other material that could enlighten us. Conversations have a life of their own. That can be indulged without derailing the topic at hand.

3. Disagreement is welcome and encouraged. We Are Respectable Negroes is not an amen corner. However, if you cannot disagree without calling names, acting childishly, or generally being a jerk, then please refrain from posting. I am pretty flexible and pragmatic. Readers who have been here longer and have a track record get much more leeway than new arrivals. The rule still generally holds. Such is life. 

4. I reserve the right to delete comments which are not moving us forward or that otherwise violate these very basic guidelines for civil conversation. I also reserve the right to ban repeat offenders. I have only done this on one occasion. I hope that I will never have to do so again. After talking to other people who have been writing online for much longer than me (and are much more successful at it), I am slowly coming to see the wisdom of occasionally pulling the weeds out of the garden in order to encourage growth and new life.

5. I write about the topics which interest me. I do not write for the approval of others or to otherwise please people. I enjoy learning from all the good folks who have found their way to WARN. However, I am not going to be subject to the whims of others who get upset because I do not parrot or mirror their political views, hobbies, or interests. As I always say, the Internet is a big place; feel free to start up your own project.

6. I believe in free speech. However, free speech is not a license to be rude, uncivil, harass, bully, or heckle others here on WARN. If this is your preferred means of interacting with people online it is not a good fit for We Are Respectable Negroes.

7. For now, I am going to leave the "anonymous" option available for those who would like to comment. However, I am going to be very robust in policing comments written under that category. I would suggest picking a name and using it for purposes of encouraging responsible dialogue where we can all learn by talking--and hopefully listening more--to each other. 

Fifteen Kids and Three Baby Daddies: Of Welfare Queens and the Guilt of President Obama by (Black) Association

This is going to be a huge story in the Right-wing media. 

The 2012 presidential election is going to be very, very close. It is a given that Mitt Romney and the Tea Party GOP will use any means necessary to defeat Barack Obama--honorable or otherwise. In addition, they are much buoyed by the recent unemployment data which suggests a further stagnating economy and an extremely vulnerable incumbent: no President in the modern era has won reelection with unemployment figures as dismal as those offered up on Friday.

In these next few months I am going to be detailing the nuts and bolts of how Mitt Romney and the Tea Party GOP are going to use sophisticated appeals to white racial resentment in order to defeat the country's first President who happens not to be white. 

For example, as I suggest here, Mitt Romney's "Obama isn't working" slogan is one of the most nakedly racist campaign slogans which American politics has seen in many years. 

This is part of a broader strategy. The Republican primaries featured almost every degenerate and racist stereotype that can be used to slur black personhood and humanity: their strategy was so brazen that it even included a "black" candidate named Herman Cain who was a walking double-corked, race minstrel. 

The 2012 election will only see more of this Southern Strategy 2.0 redoubled for the Age of Obama.

To this point, the Tea Party GOP has successful deployed Ayn Rand conservatism, with its language of "surplus/unproductive" people and "job creating" citizens, to hoodwink the white authoritarian inclined populist classes into supporting policies which are against their immediate political and economic self-interest(s). 

Attitudes about the State, "big government," and taxes are closely tied to racial animus and hostility. These are dog whistles and code words for white conservatives which enable them to talk about "lazy" black and brown people. Without exception, these appeals are rarely, if ever, centered on how the white middle class is subsidized by the submerged state.

Consequently, the mouth-breathing Tea Party Populists who want lower taxes and a strong national defense (or alternatively, love Social Security and despise "big government") can valorize themselves as "real Americans" and the "guardians" of the national prosperity despite the internal inconsistency of their own political views.

As Martin Gilens and others have smartly detailed, beliefs about poverty are inexorably connected to stereotypes about race. In the white popular imagination, to be poor equals to be a person of color. Gender is part of this narrative as well. This is especially true in the Right-wing conservative imagination: women are to be controlled by men. Black and brown women especially so. 

Political narratives about poverty are also claims about morality, as well as the value of certain groups of people over others. Because conservatives are incapable of acknowledging the force and power of social structures in determining life chances, poor people are framed as being immoral, lazy, craven, decadent. and
They deserve their circumstances. As such, they should be "dispensed" with.

Stories such as the above about a black woman with more than a dozen children by numerous men are going to be increasingly common as the 2012 Presidential election approaches. 

Why? Stories about "professional victims" activate white racial resentment. Such feelings work to win over independent leaning whites and solidify conservatives in their hostility towards President Obama. Because political ideologies are part of a bundle of beliefs that are not cleanly separated, political attitudes which link black and brown folks together (in however tenuous a manner) with poverty and crime have great currency in American politics. 

This racial frame can be easily applied to other issues. It synergizes with the ghetto underclass meme and the Welfare Queen stereotype. Consequently, it also hurts President Obama on issues like healthcare reform and the economy. On the surface, these issues would appear to have little to do with matters of race. However, conservatives understand that if they can attach a black or brown face to any matter of public concern, this move could potentially undermine white public support for the President. 

Ultimately, it does not matter that health care reform should be a race neutral issue, or that poor whites outnumber poor people of color. Alternatively, that we can construct similar stories about wayward white baby daddies, fecund irresponsible white women with kids by multiple fathers with no resources or jobs, and who live on the public dole with hands out expecting Joe Q. Public to support their irresponsible habits, and said narratives are rarely circulated via the mass media.

Since the 1960s, the face of poverty in America has been African American. As such, "black" poverty and "black" degeneracy will be repeated themes in Romney's Ayn Rand-like campaign language of "productive citizens," "job creators," and "lazy" "parasites."

President Obama is guilty by (black) association. There is little, even allowing for a Bill Clinton Sistah Souljah moment, that Obama can do to remove such a vulnerability. Consequently, it is critical that this Right-wing con game be called out at every opportunity.

Herman Cain TV: A White Tea Party Conservative Enabling National Platform for Coonery and Buffoonery

I was a Herman Cainaholic. I have been sober for almost a year. Now, commenter Sabrinabee has forced me off of the wagon. Damn her. 

So, "if you can laugh at me, then you can laugh at yourself?" By implication, white folks' embracing of race minstrelsy Steppin Fetchit coon foolishness is actually an act of self-effacing humility. No racism here; to even suggest as such is unfair and mean to those good white conservatives who just want a laugh...as they always have:

The coon caricature is one of the most insulting of all anti-black caricatures. The name itself, an abbreviation of raccoon, is dehumanizing. As with Sambo, the coon was portrayed as a lazy, easily frightened, chronically idle, inarticulate, buffoon. The coon differed from the Sambo in subtle but important ways. Sambo was depicted as a perpetual child, not capable of living as an independent adult. The coon acted childish, but he was an adult; albeit a good-for-little adult. Sambo was portrayed as a loyal and contented servant.

Indeed, Sambo was offered as a defense for slavery and segregation. How bad could these institutions have been, asked the racialists, if blacks were contented, even happy, being servants? The coon, although he often worked as a servant, was not happy with his status. He was, simply, too lazy or too cynical to attempt to change his lowly position. Also, by the 1900s, Sambo was identified with older, docile blacks who accepted Jim Crow laws and etiquette; whereas coons were increasingly identified with young, urban blacks who disrespected whites. Stated differently, the coon was a Sambo gone bad...

Unlike Mammy and Sambo, Coon did not know his place. He thought he was as smart as white people; however, his frequent malapropisms and distorted logic suggested that his attempt to compete intellectually with whites was pathetic. His use of bastardized English delighted white audiences and reaffirmed the then commonly held beliefs that blacks were inherently less intelligent. The minstrel coon's goal was leisure, and his leisure was spent strutting, styling, fighting, avoiding real work, eating watermelons, and making a fool of himself. 

If he was married, his wife dominated him. If he was single, he sought to please the flesh without entanglements.

Herman Cain is one of the greatest race minstrels in American history. He is also a brand--one who now has a global platform for circulating his own version of new age race minstrelsy. 

I mean that as a complement. There is a certain amount of artistic and performative genius necessary for Herman Cain's political blackface routine. Cain is utterly humble and transparent. He has no shame or embarrassment. This transparency enables Cain to connect with his audience by legitimizing their racism, and yearning for a time when it was okay to wear the burnt cork, and before "the blacks" got all sensitive and uppity.

I have a question. Is Herman Cain part of one of the best psyops in recent memory? Is his game that deep?

At present, the race minstrelsy coonery and buffoonery ranking of inequalities would look something like this:

Tyler Perry > BET > Herman Cain > Mantan Moreland

However, Herman Cain TV could push him to the front of the pack.

In total, Herman Cain is the anti-matter relative to Barack Obama. If the latter's ascendance represented a cultural high point for black respectability, Cain's popularity is a function of the white body politic's psychic overcompensation in response to that same moment.

New Age Race Minstrelsy Strikes Again: 6-Year-Old Black Child Rapper "Stars" in Viral "Booty Pop" Video

As a rule, I try not to give degenerate low culture such as the "Booty Pop" video a broader platform than it deserves. I am also breaking a second rule in that I usually do not use profanity: this video featuring six-year-old Albert Roundtree Jr. is pure fuckery.

The past ain't even past, it remains alive long into the present. Booty Pop is a 21st century version of the centuries old racist archetype known as the picaninny.

Picaninnies as portrayed in material culture have skin coloring ranging from medium brown to dark black -- light skinned picaninnies are rare. They include infants and teenagers; however, most appear to be 8-10 years old. Prissy, the inept and hysterical servant girl in Gone With the Wind (Selznick & Fleming, 1939) was an exception. 

She was older than the typical picaninny, but her character was functionally a picaninny. Picaninny girls (and sometimes boys) have hair tied or matted in short stalks that point in all directions; often the boys are bald, their heads shining like metal. The children have big, wide eyes, and oversized mouths -- ostensibly to accommodate huge pieces of watermelon. 

The picaninny caricature shows black children as either poorly dressed, wearing ragged, torn, old and oversized clothes, or, and worse, they are shown as nude or near-nude. This nudity suggests that black children, and by extension black parents, are not concerned with modesty. The nudity also implies that black parents neglect their children. A loving parent would provide clothing. The nudity of black children suggests that blacks are less civilized than whites (who wear clothes). 

The nudity is also problematic because it sexualizes these children. Black children are shown with exposed genitalia and buttocks -- often without apparent shame. Moreover, the buttocks are often exaggerated in size, that is, black children are shown with the buttocks of adults. The widespread depictions of nudity among black children normalizes their sexual objectification, and, by extension, justifies the sexual abuse of these children.

We have a black President, but we also have a global popular culture in which the most debased images of black humanity are a type of currency that stands in for our personhood.

The black superpublic is made real...again. If anyone would like to defend the Booty Pop video as innocent, harmless entertainment, please do so. I need the laugh.

What is the Common Good? Why the Supreme Court's Ruling on Obamacare is an Opportunity for a National Civics Lesson

In civics class we learn that federal courts decide whether laws passed by Congress and the state legislatures are constitutional. Therefore the federal courts are the guardians of our Constitution. That is certainly true, but it not the whole story. In fact, the most important function of the federal courts is to legitimate state building by the political branches...

Some have called Roberts' opinion statesmanlike, putting aside personal ideology to apply the law. Others have called it clever, handing conservatives an ideological victory while giving Democrats a policy result they like. My own view is that the Court as a whole performed the traditional function of federal judges in our constitutional system. The political branches sought to build out the American state and change the terms of the American social contract. The Court legitimated this result, but set new ground rules for politics going forward.

What does the decision mean in terms of constitutional doctrine? Much will depend on who wins the next several presidential elections.

As expected and fitting given its importance, the Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act (the "ACA" or what conservatives have derisively labeled "Obamacare") has generated much national discussion. For all of the partisan hackery, hysterics, bloviating, right-wing madness and appeals to a Civil War, as well as orgasmic histrionics, there are some really smart people, who are saying some really smart things about the Supreme Court's decision--and what the debates surrounding the Affordable Care Act tell us about American politics and political culture.

[There is so much good stuff out there on this issue; please do send in your reading suggestions as well.]

The Supreme Court's decision upholding the ACA is a lightning rod for the deep divides of party and ideology in the United States where one person's belief that it is reasonable, long overdue, and ethically justified to provide a modest extension of the social safety net through the ACA, is another person's tyrannical decision by "big government" to usurp their individual rights and liberties. These fractious moments--if folks can get past the yelling and reason interfering with emotion--are actually opportunities to conduct a national civics lesson.

Trevion Davis vs. Trayvon Martin: Is "Racism Chasing" the Slot Machine of Blogging and Online Media?

CBS Atlanta 46

A few months ago the great John Scalzi of Old Man War fame, and author of the new book Redshirts, generated quite a bit of controversy with his essay Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is. I am usually not a fan of working through the complex realities of race, power, and politics, via analogy. In my experience, such examples, when used to simplify complex social realities, flatten more than they reveal. That qualifier having been offered, John Scalzi's piece was quite spot on in how it discussed, in a novel manner, the realities of white privilege in post civil rights, Age of Obama, American society.

Yesterday, I took the bus to the casino in order to escape the heat afflicting Chicago. I love slot machines. I also love people watching on the bus. When done together, both bring me to a happy place...especially so if I end up winning a few dollars at the casino. This, the randomness of the slot machine, and learning to surrender to it, is a cathartic and zen-like experience for me.

When I returned home I looked online to catch up on the latest controversy of the day.

As a "black blogger" (I am still trying to figure out exactly what that means), many of the stories which are forwarded to me revolve around matters of racial injustice. Some of these news items are important and deserve more attention. As we saw with the Trayvon Martin murder, the Internet and the independent media/blogosphere can do a good job of shaping the public discourse towards a positive end. I am always keenly on the lookout for such  moments, causes, and opportunities.

However, some news items where the topics just happen to coincidentally involve a person of color, as opposed to revealing something substantive about the relationship between the color line and power, just leave me shrugging my head in disbelief. 

For example, the cause of the day is the shooting of Trevion Davis by the Atlanta police--while the former was robbing an innocent person's home. An important detail: this teenager was armed with a replica gun and pointed it at the officers before he was shot and killed. My motto here is a simple one: if you live a life of crime the wages of sin are death. It is readily apparent that given his life vocation, Trevion Davis was killed because he was a street pirate who just happened to be black, violent, criminal, and stupid. 

[Who knows? Perhaps, my disinterest in such stories is a function of home training and common sense.] 

I understand how a given public can be deeply suspicious of the police--this is especially warranted given how police authority has been used to harass, kill, wrongly arrest, and beat innocent people, many of whom are members of marginalized communities. Nevertheless, I can only respond with consternation at the excuse-making and denials by Davis' family in response to his death. As my mother says, you know what your kids are capable of; don't act surprised when the seeds you have planted bear fruit.

Those of us who are "race men" and "race women" have to be very cautious about how we expend our very limited political capital. Like any people, not all of our folks are noble, perfect, valorous, or good. We hurt ourselves by claiming tragedy and victimization where the matter is crystal clear, and is really about agency and personal responsibility. The infantalization of African Americans, be it by white conservatives or white liberals, or as in the Trevion Davis case by black opinion leaders, is damaging to our pride and dignity as a community.

This brings me full circle. As WARN has grown over time, I have become increasingly interested in the meta level rules that govern social media, the blogosphere, and online communities. By analogy, the garden variety racism chasing embodied by the faux controversy that is the Trevion Davis shooting, reminds me of the recent day I spent playing the slot machines.

There is really no rhyme or reason to winning at the slots. You put your money in, push a button, and win or lose. However, there are various strategies that can be used if one wants to be less unsuccessful and to maximize the return on their investment. Likewise, there are tried and true strategies that can be used to drive traffic, get attention, and rise in prominence online.

Let me be clear. I am not discounting the skill, ability, gifted sense of timing, and creative talent which distinguishes the best online writers and personalities from the vast majority of average players. I would never do such a thing. However, I am compelled to ask how do we balance the formula--if there is such a thing--for being "successful" online with a commitment to truth-telling, rigor, and intellectual honesty?

Thus my question: is racism chasing the slot machine of blogging? 

Here are some suggested slot machine strategies. Do they parallel those used by successful bloggers and other online writers? If so, what does it suggest about the role of digital and social media media as a means of influencing and shaping public opinion?

****

Slot Machine Tip #1 - Each spin of a slot machine is entirely random.

Slot Machine Tip #2 - Slot machines pay out less than they take in.

Slot Machine Tip #3 - Don’t fall for slot machine myths. Slots don’t get hot or cold, and wearing your lucky red blouse isn’t going to increase your odds of winning. The slots don’t care how many times you play, what you’re wearing, or the temperature of the coins being inserted. They’re going to give you an equal chance of success or failure on each spin.

Slot Machine Tip #4 - Anyone who promises to share a winning slot machine system with you is either lying or delusional. There is no such thing as a winning slot machine system, because all slots are designed to take in more money than they pay out.

Slot Machine Tip #5 - Know when to stop playing. Before you walk into a casino, figure out how much money you can afford to lose. When that amount is gone, it’s time to call it quits for the day. If you lose your predetermined amount and still find yourself headed to the ATM machine or the Western Union office, there’s a distinct chance that you have a gambling problem.

Slot Machine Tip #6 - Learn the rules of the game. Some slot machines can be confusing at first, so take the time to examine the rules printed on the machine. How many lines need to be activated? How many coins can be played on any given spin?

Slot Machine Tip #7 - Don’t play progressives.

Slot Machine Tip #8 - Playing maximum coins doesn’t matter in the long run.

Slot Machine Tip #9 - If you want to lose less money, play the lower denomination slot machines. You’re going to lose more than you win on any slot, but playing the lower denomination games means you’ll be putting less money in on each spin. While the overall return on cheaper slots is less, it’s still surprisingly easy to bust out while chasing a payout on a five-dollar machine. Stick with nickel or penny slot machines and you’ll be playing for hours.

Slot Machine Tip #10 - Always use a slot card (also known as a player’s card). While using a slot card doesn’t increase your odds of winning, it will allow the casino to monitor how much you play and possibly make you eligible for comps such as free meals and hotel accommodations. Registering for a free player’s card only takes a few minutes, and you can end up saving money in the long run, especially if you’re a frequent slots player.

Slot Machine Tip #11 - Stay away from video reel slots.

Slot Machine Tip #12 - Play in casinos with the best payback percentage.

The next time you visit a casino, be sure to keep these slot machine tips in mind. While you may still end up losing money, the advice provided in this article will ensure that you’ll be able to play longer and smarter than those around you.

Class Now Trumps Race in America: Have Conservatives Gotten the Memo Yet?

Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, issued a strong warning to anti-poverty advocates at a forum on social connectedness at the Aspen Ideas Festival Saturday, urging the audience to get beyond talking about poverty and race and start thinking about social mobility and class instead.

"Those two conceptual moves, framing it as poverty and thinking about it as a matter of race, have a very deep history... and I think both politically and analytically that's an almost fatally flawed framework," said Putnam, the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, in response to remarks from co-panelists Anne Mosle, vice president of policy at the Aspen Institute, and Mario Small, chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago.

For most of American history race has overdetermined life chances. Social capital, life spans, health, wealth, and rates of inter-generational class mobility were all impacted by the color line: here, white Americans received a de facto leg up by virtue of their skin color; black and brown folks were penalized by their status as racially marked individuals whose citizenship was contingent and not full.

Robert Putnam, elder god, and author of the foundational book Bowling Alone, is now complicating this narrative. Along with one of his heirs apparent, the University of Chicago's Mario Small, they are suggesting that class now appears to be trumping race in determining one's life trajectory. If black folks have long been maligned as the poster children of the ghetto underclass, Putnam suggests that macrolevel changes in American society are now beginning to impact white people in similar ways.

"You say poverty to most ordinary Americans, most ordinary voters, they think black ghettos," he continued, whereas over the last couple of generations "class, not race is the dominant -- and becoming more dominant -- dimension of difficulty here."

"Relatively speaking, racial differences controlling for class are decreasing while class differences controlling for race are increasing in America," he said. "Non-white folks with a college education are looking more and more like white folks with a college education and white folks who haven't gotten beyond high school are looking more and more like nonwhite folks who haven't finished high school." 

This is a complex story--and one that will be the subject of much discussion in the near future--as it unsettles many of the long standing assumptions held by social scientists, and experts in public policy, about the nature of poverty in America.

It is clear that America's economy has contracted, and thus put its most vulnerable workers at risk. Consequently, the de facto subsidies used by the submerged state to keep white semi and unskilled labor solidly among the ranks of the middle class have long been disappearing.

Black and brown folks were made victims of neoliberalism, and its gangster capitalism ethos, many decades ago. Urged on by the Republican Party through its skillful deployment of the politics of racial resentment and the Culture War narrative, the white working and middle classes sneered and mocked "the welfare queens" and "ghetto underclass" for their "shiftlessness," poor decision making, and "decision" to not abide by "traditional family values." Thus, the ghettto underclass were "surplus" citizens who "earned" their status as second class citizens.

As Charles Murray demonstrates in Coming Apart, the language and political logic of "surplus," "pathological," and "non-productive" citizens is now being applied to the white poor and working classes. One can never forget that globalization, the Great Recession, and Ayn Rand capitalism takes no prisoners. It is simply a matter of who these elites come for first in the interest of profit maximization. In the United States black and brown folks have historically been the most vulnerable groups. Therefore, their position made them the most precarious and expendable.


Here, the miner's canary got ethered; instead of feeling empathy for the bird, the white guy (perhaps an ethnic who just earned his racial bonafides) holding the cage smiled, happy that it wasn't (yet) him...fate is indeed a trickster as he/she is now laying dead in the bowels of the cave.

America is increasingly a bifurcated society of the haves and have nots, where the rich have seen record corporate profits and growth in income during the worst economy since the Great Depression. Simultaneously, the poor, middle, and working classes have been financially eviscerated as the Great Recession cut away all of the metaphorical fat and left only the toughest muscle and bone. Inevitably, this would impact the body politic across the color line where economic Darwinism would leave some black and brown folks, and many whites, in a strong position, while casting off the others onto a human waste pile.

While respecting Putnam's and Small's prescient insights, I am concerned about how a downshifting of race as an overarching variable for framing the relationships between social capital and upward mobility could imperil our ability to explain broader changes in American political economy. Race and class have historically operated (and continue to do so) as interlocking variables in American social life. To abandon such a foundational understanding is too bold a move and one that comes with great risks.

America is organized as a racial state. While it has evolved, this fact has not changed. In a capitalist society, one where whiteness has been protected as property by law and social convention, those norms run deep. They are not easily discarded. Moreover, as an empirical matter, there is a substantial body of data which details how being born black in America negatively impacts your standard of living, chances at getting a job, return on investment in higher education, makes you more likely to be harassed by the police, die at an earlier age, subject to disparate treatment by the criminal justice system, and face unfair burdens in both housing and lending practices.

As a complement this reality, the following two examples are damning and devastating arguments in favor of a nexus of class inequality through the machinations of race and white supremacy in practice.

First, as the book Black Wealth/White Wealth compelling demonstrates, a poor white person has a better chance of moving to the highest income bracket in a lifetime than a black person born at the top of the income scale has of remaining there. In fact, a rich black person born to the upper class is more likely to fall to the bottom rungs of America's income pyramid than they are of remaining there--as compared to a white person born into the same cohort.

Second, while the Great Recession has hurt the middle class in America, white folks have maintained (if not increased) the amount of wealth they have relative to black and brown Americans.

It is a given that most Americans have been hurt by this economic catastrophe. And of course, capitalism is "creative destruction." But, if class is increasingly less important for determining life chances, it seems odd that on an aggregate level that white folks now have at least two dollars for every ten cents which African-Americans hold in wealth--a differential that has increased during the time of the Great Recession.

Robert Putnam's and Mario Small's argument(s) that race is now trumped by class is sweet music for those of us who have long yearned for interracial, cross class alliances, that break the color line in the pursuit of shared social justice and political struggle. The real world often interferes however. The wages of whiteness are real, sweet, and tempting. They are made even more so when imperiled.

For example, white working class men still support Mitt Romney even though they admit that Obama will do more for people in their class position. Although they are doing much better than black and brown folks in the Great Recession, the white working class is more upset, angry, threatened, and negative about the future.

If they possess any construct validity at all, Whiteness and White Racism are ultimately about maintaining a sense of group superiority over people of color. American history has repeatedly demonstrated that Whiteness is the "complexion for the protection." As such, Whiteness is remarkably aspirational and long sighted. To point, White people--good noble race traitors aside--have consistently chosen racial affinity over class alliances across the color line.

Why? Because White elites have compensated the White masses, not always well, for doing so.

This pattern continues into the Age of Obama. The Tea Party GOP is a White Nationalism political party that mines anti-black and brown affect, as well as white racial resentment, to encourage many white Americans to sell out their substantive economic interests in exchange for a superior position in the country's racial order.

Consequently, the members of the White Right are paid the psychic wages of Whiteness as they suck at the tit of  "real America," "Christian," "god and country," sloganeering.

Professors Small and Putnam have demonstrated that the milk of this source of material nourishment is drying up. The sad irony then becomes that many White conservatives (and others who are overly White identified) that are wedded to their position in the racial order will keep sucking away, ever more desperate for its life force, and made more paranoid (as opposed to less) that a black or brown person will want a taste of that shriveled political breast from which the psychic and material wages of Whiteness flow.

Mario Small and Robert Putnam are likely correct that class is soon to eclipse race as both a determinant of life chances and predictor of social mobility in American society. The unfortunate reality remains that broad swaths of the American public have not yet gotten the memo.

Whenever Conservatives Complain About "Obamacare" You Should Sing The Tea Party GOP Diarrhea Song

The Supreme Court decision upholding President Obama's health care reform bill has provided an opportunity for the ideologically crazed, professional liars, faux Right-wing populists, conspiranoids, and propagandists to play their assigned roles in America's latest national drama. 

Representative Jean Schmidt runs around in a fit of political-religious orgasm and ecstasy in a mistaken celebration of the Affordable Care Act being struck down. Tea Party "Christian" evangelicals, channeling their own selfish remix of Jesus Christ's gospels, lay prostrate on the ground and pray that the Republic is saved from the tyranny of having to modestly extend health insurance to the sick and the needy. Republican governors are threatening a constitutional crisis by refusing to implement President Obama's Affordable Care Act. 

Not to be undone, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann engage in their typical mouth utterances as they call out for the Tea Party Mushroom People to mount up on their Hoveround scooters, put on Colonial era clothing, gather up yee old sword canes, and take the fight for "liberty" and "freedom" to that black usurper in the White House and his treasonous political bed mate Chief Justice John Roberts.

In total, these histrionics are just the latest examples of a long habit where the Tea Party GOP proves itself time and time again to be full of bullshit bovine scatology.  

Of course, everybody poops. But, the response by the Republican Party (and conservatives in mass) to the Supreme Court's upholding of the Affordable Care Act is so overflowing with political fecal matter that they have earned their own unique version of the famed Diarrhea Song.

What follows is my gift to them.

The Tea Party GOP Diarrhea Song

When Mitt Romney flips and flops about things he once endorsed

Diarrhea chh chh chh, Diarrhea chh chh chh

When the Tea Party moans and growns while collecting Social Security and Medicare 

Diarrhea chh chh chh, Diarrhea chh chh chh

When Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh open up their mouth holes and tell their daily lies 

Diarrhea chh chh chh, Diarrhea chh chh chh

When your friends who watch Fox News believe that they are well-informed  

Diarrhea chh chh chh, Diarrhea chh chh chh

When your relatives talk about death panels at the family barbeque

Diarrhea chh chh chh, Diarrhea chh chh chh

When Sarah Palin with her head full of stupid bloviates

Diarrhea chh chh chh, Diarrhea chh chh chh

When the Right-wing echo chamber says that insurance is a crime cause you won't go bankrupt from a broken leg 

Diarrhea chh chh chh, Diarrhea chh chh chh

When Republicans cheer sick and dying people cause they find it funny 

Diarrhea chh chh chh, Diarrhea chh chh chh

When the New Right talks about States' Rights and picking up their guns to get that black guy 

Diarrhea chh chh chh, Diarrhea chh chh chh

When Republicans talk about Dred Scott and how health care reform will lead to Civil War 

Diarrhea chh chh chh, Diarrhea chh chh chh

When you try to watch Fox News or listen to Right wing talk radio and it makes your tummy burst  

Diarrhea chh chh chh, Diarrhea chh chh chh

In this, our time of the great Right-wing derangement, singing The Tea Party GOP Diarrhea Song may be the only way to maintain your peace of mind when faced with the sociopathic and vitriolic madness of folks determined to view the expansion of basic human rights, and the social safety net, as a type of enslavement and oppression.

The Tea Party GOP Diarrhea Song is a populist project. We all know the truth behind the lyrics; at one time or another we have all experienced it. In the spirit of crowd sourcing, do feel free to add your own verses to this version of The Tea Party GOP Diarrhea Song as we find a way to speak truth to power by raising our voices together.