The 56th Annual Grammy Awards...

      

I don’t usually watch award shows. They are a bastion of white, upper-class nepotism and are usually corny and boring. But yesterday, I ventured to watch the 51^st Annual Grammy Awards. Mainly because of the tension between seven-time nominees Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and seven-time nominee Kendrick Lamar. Nowhere was this tension been more apparent than in the category of Best Hip Hop Album. Macklemore and Lewis’ The Heist was up against Lamar’s good kid. m.A.A.d city. Much hoopla was made earlier about whether or not Macklemore’s music was too pop to be in the Hip Hop category in the first place and as this excellent article by Insanul Ahmed shows the Grammys have always been out of touch with hip-hop as a cultural movement. So, of course the committee would find a white guy rapping more palatable and more deserving of praise. When Macklemore ended up winning Best Hip Hop Album  he made sure to shoot Lamar a message via Instragram to state that the Compton rapper was robbed. Interestingly enough, Mack claimed he was going to say something along those lines in his acceptance speech, but the music cut him off and he “froze.” Likely story.

            But I want to concentrate on Lamar for this reaction piece and to delve deeper into why an album like good kid couldn’t win against The Heist. Lamar’s 2012 project is an elegiac concept album. It gives the listener a glimpse into everyday life in Compton. Lamar takes you along as he rides around the city with his friends. He witnesses the dangers of life in the city, such as gang violence and police profiling, but also has more mundane adventures involving romantic exploits and talking shit with the homies. The story culminates with the death of a friend’s brother, which induces a catharsis in Lamar and gives his life renewed meaning. Many call the album cinematic, and I agree. It is easy for the listener to visualize the scenes that Lamar weaves together. It is also an uncomfortably honest album and while it is intimate it makes the listeners very aware of their own distance from the violence happening ‘on-screen.’ I can’t listen to a song like “Money Trees” and not be aware of my own class-privilege. And yet, for the specificity of Lamar’s life circumstances, his genius has always been the ability to pull out universal truths. We have all “died of thirst”, been found spiritually wanting, regardless of whether we have ever experienced gun violence. And that is the beauty of Lamar’s craft.

            Which brings me to why it could never win against The Heist, because an album about Black death and Black mourning is just not as appealing to white folx as an album about thrift shops, “dancing like the ceiling can’t hold us”(whatever the fuck that means) and vague concepts like hope. White folx don’t want to face the reality of what it means to be Black and poor in this country, because they don’t want to face their own guilt. And Macklemore is the picture of white liberal innocence.

            Furthermore, Lamar, unlike that predecessor of his, Tupac, is a master of subtlety. I sometimes fear that his messages get lost in the mix. This was pretty evident during Lamar’s performance of “mAAd city” with rock group Imagine Dragons. You see Lamar rapping lyrics about seeing, “a light skinned n*gga with his brains blown out” as a child and then you see Taylor Swift obliviously doing her best Black girl interpretation in the front row. Don’t get me wrong, Lamar killed the performance. But I just get the feeling that most white middle-class consumers don’t get it and don’t want to get it. They wanna get buck and have all the swagger, but they don’t wanna think about the struggle in which that swagger was forged.

            Now, let me close this piece out by saying that Lamar has a lot of problems himself. He is homophobic and misogynistic. A lot of emcees these days think they’re gonna write one song ‘for the ladies’ and then go back to calling women hoes and bitches and it’s supposed to be all good, like they get it. Well, “Poetic Justice” is a catchy song, but it doesn’t excuse the misogyny found on good kid as well as Section 80, Lamar’s previous project.

            But based on pure talent and storytelling ability alone, that award last night should have been Lamar’s. I mean, I didn’t even mention that Lamar raps, sings and does vocal impersonations and modulations on good kid. And I think the inability of the academy to ‘get it’ is indicative of a larger trend of pathological whiteness that consistently refuses to understand Black humanity. But one thing is for sure, good kid. m.A.A.d city is a classic that will be remembered for a long time. Which is more than we can say for Macklepop, what’s-his-face-producer-guy and the Scheist.

… and  you don’t stop….

           

            

Powerlessness

            It’s funny how my past constantly ensnares my consciousness.

            When I was 17 years old, I was having dinner with my then best friend’s family. My hometown is overwhelmingly white and middle class. We were discussing the ‘achievement gap,’ a hot topic at the time. Black students at my high school were not achieving at the same rate as their white counterparts. In my early adulthood, I have come to see such metrics as a testament to the failures of the educational system, rather than any failure on the part of Black students.

            But, I digress. As the conversation went on, I tried to point out to my friend’s parents that Black people in this country have been systematically oppressed since slavery. She then looked me in the eyes and said, “Well, if you compare a Black person in the American ghetto to an African person, who do you think is better off?”

            What I should have done is smacked that melanin-lacking racist in her mouth. But being that she was my best friend’s mother I took a breath and clumsily explained that the continent of Africa had been colonized by Europe. My knowledge of African history was at the time minimal (a testament to my white-washed history education). Still, I knew that what she had said was wrong on many levels. She actually denied that any African country had ever been colonized, until her husband kindly let her know that she was wrong.

            Clearly, this woman was a racist and an idiot. The fact that she could look me in my face and tell me that for all of the rape, lashings, beatings and dehumanization my ancestors went through that my people and I were somehow ‘better off’ is a testament to her deep running pathological racism. Unfortunately, as time went on, it became clear that my best friend was not immune either.

            I have since cut off ties with that family. However, this memory still stings. I think I have finally pinpointed the reason. This woman who was so obviously virulently racist was a doctor, a respected member of the community. In other words, she had power. And even in the supposedly liberal community I lived in, she was allowed to thrive.

            I think this memory is indicative of my current psychological plight. Now that I am old enough to truly see my life’s narrative for what it is, I realize that I am a small speck of brown in an ignorant but powerful mass of white. And there is nothing more dangerous than an ignorant and powerful majority. Just living feels very much akin to swimming upstream.

            But at the same time, I hope that facing injustices, no matter how micro or macro, has made me a more understanding and compassionate person. For, truth be told, I cannot say that I have never been in the wrong, that I have never hurt another person. As I begin to find the others who feel like I do about this world I hope to learn how to be sensitive to historical traumas and how to be a just person, not only in rhetoric but in action. And that is all I have to bolster me against the unending tide of injustice that I struggle against everyday.

            It’s easy to get lost in the past. Shit’ll make you feel powerless real quick. I can’t tell you how many times I have beat up on myself with a whole slew of ‘should’ve could’ve would’ve’ scenarios. Many of them have to do with past experiences of racism that I wish I had stood up to more effectively, or recognized more quickly. Some of them have to do with scenarios where I fucked up, where I was on the side of wrong. But I am learning to let go. And in learning to let go I am moving forward. And Goddess knows there are many mistakes to come. But when the do come I know I will meet them with grace. And that gives me hope.  

            

White Supremacy In the Colorblind Age: A Circle (Jerk) of Misery

            

           If you’re into astrology at all you will know that the New Year coincided with a New Moon in Capricorn. Now, I’m no expert, but perhaps that confluence of events explains why this past year seemed so back loaded with chaotic events. This included the announcement by Ani DiFranco that she was holding a retreat at a former plantation. She recently canceled the event and you can read her facile apology here. The debacle included the silencing of Black feminists, white women pretending to be Black on the internet, not to mention Saul Williams accusing Black people of being too quick to anger. Williams, in the wake of DiFranco’s mea culpa, has since rescinded the comment.

            But it is 2014 and in the spirit of resolutions I would like to address the sentiment that was expressed by Williams. I too am sick and tired of being angry. But unfortunately for Black people in this country the anger will stop when and if the daily drain of white supremacy stops.  

            Part of what is so crazy making about modern-day amerikkkan racism is the fact that white people have been afforded rhetoric of neutrality. This means that the terms ‘human being’ and ‘white person’ have become synonymous. White people can claim to stand for the whole of humanity, while disavowing any experience that deviates from whiteness, labeling it ‘divisive.’

            This leads to what I call the circle (jerk) of misery. Because white people are so convinced that their ideas, experiences, etc. are racially neutral it becomes hard to call them out. This rhetoric of neutrality also empowers many white people to tell folx of color how they should or should not feel, which is, from what I can tell, what happened in the wake of the Ani DiFranco debacle. To make matters worse, many white folx are simply unaware of the systemic nature of racism. This refusal leads many folx of color to become angry. Specifically Black folx are already perceived as overly angry. Anger directed toward white folx who uphold white supremacy leads to allegations of reverse racism. Which is funny, because if those same white folx would have just listened in the first place a lot of stress could have been avoided on all sides.

            So this is the dilemma. How do you reason with someone who, by the unspoken racist norms of our society, does not have to listen to you?

            I don’t know. But what I do know is that I am tired of being angry. And that at a certain point confronting colorblind racists uses you up more than it actually solves anything. Despite all of the disingenuous talk of seeing beyond Black and white that colorblind racists such as DiFranco propose, the truth is that it is Black ancestors who were raped and brutalized on those plantations. Their ghosts still languish there. And let us not forget that modern-day incarnation of slavery, the prison industrial complex. Most of the folx populating our prisons look nothing like DiFranco or her supporters.

            This is why I propose that Black folx and folx of color learn to disengage. It’s hard when you’re daily bombarded by bullshit. But it’s time to move on to bigger and better things. Not that we shouldn’t concentrate on holding racists accountable. I’m very glad that DiFranco is cancelling the event. But we need a multi-tiered strategy if we are even going to achieve a semblance of racial justice. And I am no stranger to burn out. Part of the resilience of modern-day white supremacy is that you can argue about it until you are blue in the face, but it is so subtle that it will always be de rigueur. Which is why at some level we need to be strategic about which battles we choose to fight, when to shut out the bullshit and how to move forward. Now more than ever is a time to be creative and to use guile, secrecy. If there are white folx who don’t wanna hear the truth, then shit, do what Grandad from the Boondocks does and just don’t tell them. The ignorant will be undone by their ignorance. It is time that we fortify ourselves and find new ways to operate. I’m not exactly sure what this looks like yet, but I’m working on it.

            One of my New Year’s resolutions is to let go of the things that use me up rather than revitalize me. I am hoping that we can all redirect our energies in ways that are personally rejuvenating.

(Note: I realize that in this article I am forced into gross generalizations about Black and white folx. Unfortunately, given the nature of this article and the polarizing event that it describes, I had to use generalizations in order to get my point across).