Category Archives: Injustices and the world we live in

NewBlackMan: Whistling Dixie (the remix): The Southern Strategy in the Age of Color-Blind Racism

Posted on by Standard Reply

Whistling Dixie (the remix):

The Southern Strategy in the Age of Color-Blind Racism

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

In recent weeks, with the GOP establishment coming to the aid of Mitt Romney and because of Newt Ginrich’s efforts to sell himself as an outsider, an increasingly visible narrative has emerged: as the anti-GOP establishment. Given Newt’s racial politics and his entire campaign strategy, it is hard to think of Newt as anything but the GOP establishment.

At the same time, there has been a growing sentiment about the hegemony of colorblind racism within the GOP. “Colorblind racism is the new normal in American conservative political thought,” writes Edward Wyckoff Williams. The “2012 Republican candidates are using egregious signals and dog whistles to incite racial divisiveness as an effective tool for political gain. But when confronted about the nature of their offensive rhetoric, the answer is either an innocuous denial or dismissive retort.” The codes or dog whistle politics are not new, nor is the denial. While the audacity of race denial may be on the rise, the clarity of the GOP’s race politics have been on full display. No secret decoder is necessary especially as we look at the larger history of race and the GOP.

Like so many of his fellow competitors, Newt’s racial demagoguery, his demonization of people of color, and his efforts to scapegoat have been a daily reality during the 2011-2012 GOP presidential primary. This is nothing new from Newt, who has made his career on the demonization of “welfare moms,” “illegals” and a “food stamp president.” In 2007, Newt took exception with bilingual education, announcing: “We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.”

This has continued during the current election cycle with his recycling of the Moynihan report and his policy initiatives focusing on teaching black kids a work ethic. The language, the policies, and the centrality of race illustrate the profound ways that Newt Gingrich is the GOP establishment. As the voice box for the racial ideologies and the torchbearer for the GOP’s southern strategy (demonizing people of color in hopes of galvanizing white voters to support a party that doesn’t represent their economic interests), Newt’s denied GOP credentials is almost laughable.

This is the party of Nixon, whose southern strategy sought to scapegoat African Americans. This is the same man, who talked about “Negro bastards” who “live like a bunch of dogs” on welfare rolls. This is the GOP that was led by Richard Nixon, who one said:

Bill Rogers has got — to his credit it’s a decent feeling — but somewhat sort of a blind spot on the black thing because he’s been in New York,” Nixon said. “He says well, ‘They are coming along, and that after all they are going to strengthen our country in the end because they are strong physically and some of them are smart.’ So forth and so on.

My own view is I think he’s right if you’re talking in terms of 500 years,” he said. “I think it’s wrong if you’re talking in terms of 50 years. What has to happen is they have be, frankly, inbred. And, you just, that’s the only thing that’s going to do it, Rose.

This is the party of Reagan, who described outrage from working Americans over the sight of a “strapping young buck using food stamps to buy T-bone steaks at the grocery store.” When not demonizing black men, he spoke about “welfare queens” in Chicago, “who drove a Cadillac and had ripped off $150,000 from the government using 80 aliases, 30 addresses, a dozen social security cards and four fictional dead husband.” This is the same Reagan, who started his presidential campaign in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi with an “ode to state’s rights,” a theme that continued with his defense of segregationist Bob Jones University and his denunciation of the voting right act as “humiliating to the South.” As the patriarch of the party, it is no wonder that racist rhetoric and appeals are central to the 2012 campaign.

Continue reading @NewBlackMan: Whistling Dixie (the remix): The Southern Strategy in the Age of Color-Blind Racism.

NewBlackMan: Silence, Innocence, and Whiteness: The Undemonization of Kevin Love

Posted on by Standard 1

Silence, Innocence, and Whiteness:

The Undemonization of Kevin Love

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

The Minnesota Timberwolves battled the Houston Rockets this past Saturday. Normally not on my radar, an incident involving Kevin Love and Luis Scola compelled inquiry even as the media remained silent. Purportedly frustrated over a non-call, Love not only fouled Scola, but as the Houston power forward lied on the ground Love proceeded to step on his face as he ran back to the offensive end of the court. “I fell down. He was kind of right there,” Love explained. “I got Size-19 feet. He just happened to be there. I had nowhere to go. I got tripped up. I had nowhere to step. It is just heat of the moment-type play.” The non-explanation aside, Love simultaneously identifies the incident as an accident and justifiable.

If an accident, why does he feel necessary to describe it as an unfortunate situation or to reference what happen between the two of them in game on Monday? “Love also referenced an unfortunate incident in Houston on Monday, when Scola attempted to throw a ball to deflect it off of Love out of bounds but the ball hit Love square in the groin.” Offering an explanation that seemingly justified his accidental behavior, Love was not alone in the exoneration process.

What followed the game, and the several days since there, has been silence – crickets in fact. Despite the fact that one of the league’s emerging stars stepped on an opponent’s face, the media has found little reason to write about the event. References to the event notwithstanding and a series of articles that have asked viewers to weigh in whether it was intentional or not, the overall media discourse has rendered Love’s stomping on an opponent’s face insignificant by its relative silence.

Even after the NBA announced a 2-game suspension for Love, the sports punditocracy has been muted in its criticism of Love, choosing rather to focus on his apology. Several headlines noted that in wake of the suspension, he has apologized yet again, having already apologized to Luis Scola following the game. In headline after headline, Love is constructed as apologetic, even though there is no specific apology provided by any of the news outlets (example #1, example #2). Instead they reference his statement issued on the team’s website:

“We got to talking about it, and as long as Luis and the Rockets are OK, then I’m OK with it,” Love said. “I feel like it was a learning experience, and it won’t happen again. There were no ill-intentions. I was trying to get him on a foul on the way up. I wasn’t trying to stomp him or anything like that. Just moving forward, and hopefully we win these next few games.

His post practice comments are further illustrative of a lack of contrition and a desire to give explanation rather than apology:

I don’t want to be known for that. I want to be known as a stand-up guy who happened to make a mistake with a size 19 shoe and just move on. So everybody knows there were no ill intentions there. It’s been a chippy year. It’s not only us. It’s not only the Pacers, the Rockets or anything like that. It’s a lot of games. The guys are tired. Games are being drawn out and guys are worn down.

Denying any “ill-intentions,” while describing it as a learning experience, doesn’t constitute an apology. The lack of criticism, the efforts to explain Love’s actions as resulting from his emotions, out-of-the-ordinary behavior, and otherwise not indicative of Love’s character reflect an overall effort to downplay the importance of his stomping on an opponent’s face.

Compare this response to the recent media criticism directed at Andrew Bynum. Following Game 4 of the 2011 NBA playoffs, which saw Bynum knock JJ Berea to the floor with a very hard foul, he was lambasted in the media. Called a thug, as player who was ejected for “dirty hits,” and as a player who exhibited, “stupidity, cowardice and unprofessionalism”;

Continue reading @ NewBlackMan: Silence, Innocence, and Whiteness: The Undemonization of Kevin Love.

Paterno, White Patriarchy and Privilege – Entertainment & Culture – EBONY

Posted on by Standard 1

Paterno, White Patriarchy and Privilege

OPINION: The hero’s farewell given to the disgraced coach speaks volumes

By David Leonard Writer

When the news broke that Penn State’s football coach, Joe Paterno had died of lung cancer, one might have thought there had been some sort of great national tragedy based on the media coverage. The spectacle that began with this “breaking news” did not end with the initial reports, but has continued with ample columns, discussions, tributes, and memorials to a football coach. Described as an “icon” a “revered coach,” “a leader,” and “a legend,” Paterno has been further lionized the short time after his death. Ivan Maisel, in his tribute to Paterno, captures the hyperbolic tone of the post-death commentaries

The 409 victories, while record setting, are not the full measure of the man. The young men he left behind, the campus to which he devoted his life, a campus whose leaders shoved him aside in the panicky, feverish days after the scandal broke, also give testimony to the life of Joseph Vincent Paterno. The whole of his life renders the seismology of modern-day journalism moot. The facts of a 62-year coaching career were shaken. They did not topple over.

Eulogies citing his success on the field, his millions of dollars in donations, his “fatherly” relationship with his players, and his importance in the community, have sought to elevate Joe Paterno as saint. Despite everything that has happened, the sports punditry has sought to resuscitate a “the image of Joe Paterno,” one which Bomani Jones noted “is null and void.”

This is not to say that media coverage has erased his connection, involvement, and culpability for the alleged child molestation committed by assistant coach Jerry Sandusky (see here for discussion). The tragedy in his death rests with the cloud of uncertainty, contempt, and unease about Paterno’s legacy. The ubiquity of the memorials reflected a societal unease that “he was, like so many of the characters in the books he told us to read, unable to have a perfect ending.” The references to the scandal become the pretext for the celebration because without it, there would be no reasons for the story of redemption and hero worship to the extent we are seeing. His connection to the sex abuse scandal has thus been pushed aside, serving as little more than a footnote to justify the societal mourning of a great football coach. “I really do believe that the drama of his last two months has fueled the media barrage. There is a high-octane effort aimed at defining his legacy as positive. That takes a lot of sweat equity given the recent scandals,” noted Dave Zirin in a message to me.

In many regards, the discussion around his death is framed around the last few months, his firing, the scandal itself, and his involvement. This is why there is so much celebration and this is why it is breaking news. It is difficult to imagine the extent and scope of the commentaries and celebrations had the last two months not occurred; I would be hard pressed to come up with an athlete or sports figure (celebrity) whose death has provoked so much memorializing as we have seen with Joe Paterno.

The efforts to memorialize and the hyper celebration also reflect the power of White masculinity and nostalgia within the cultural landscape. Described as a “model of law-abiding sportsmanship,” “a disarming mix of a lofty diploma and Brooklyn-bred blue-collar grit,” and as someone committed to education and honor, Joe Paterno’s importance exists apart from titles, victories, or football within the national conversation. As noted by Rick Reilly, Paterno “was a humble, funny and giving man who was unlike any other coach I ever met in college football. He rolled up his pants to save on dry cleaning bills. He lived in the same simple ranch house for the last 45 years. Same glasses, same wife, same job, for most of his adult life.”

The celebration of Paterno as patriarch, as the embodiment of a White working-class ethic, as a coach of a different era, sits at the core of the demoralization of Paterno. The national mourning in this regard reflects both a desire to redeem him in the face of the sex abuse scandal and to celebrate nostalgia for a different era of college sports and a heroized White working-class masculinity.

Continue reading @ Paterno, White Patriarchy and Privilege – Entertainment & Culture – EBONY.

A Super Failure: Domestic Violence and Football’s Big Game | The Feminist Wire

Posted on by Standard Reply

A Super Failure: Domestic Violence and Football’s Big Game

February 3, 2012

By David J. Leonard

For the longest time I have heard that Super Bowl Sunday was a day of heightened domestic violence. Linked to alcohol consumption, frustrations over the game outcome, and a day of uber masculinity (as opposed to hyper masculinity), the narrative has identified Super Bowl Sunday as one particularly dangerous to women. Thus, with the Super Bowl approaching, I decided to look into this issue in broader detail.

As one searches Super Bowl and domestic violence, one is confronted with a clear theme: that any connection between the two is a myth and a hoax. Citing a 2007 study from Oths & Robertson that “examined 2,387 crisis call records covering a previous 3-year period,” Dr. John M. Grohol identifies the claim as urban legend, a “largely debunked myth that domestic violence calls spike around Super Bowl Sunday.” Similarly, in “Super Bowl or Super Bull? Six Super Bowl Myths Busted,” Sarah Weir disputes the often-uttered claim:

This story stemmed from a Public Service Announcement that aired at the beginning of the televised broadcast of the 1993 Super Bowl match between the Dallas Cowboys and the Buffalo Bills that warned, “Domestic violence is a crime.” Although a number of articles debunking the claim appeared in various newspapers, the idea has persisted. Football is so overtly macho and physical it’s no wonder that it gives some people, especially those who don’t enjoy or understand the game, the chills. However, in 2006, Richard Gelles, an expert on domestic abuse from the University of Pennsylvania said, ‘This kind of ‘urban legend’ trivialized the causes and consequences of domestic violence.’

The efforts to dismiss, deny and minimize the issue of domestic violence and its relationship to hyper masculine sports spectacles is revealing; the efforts to oversimplify it as a source of opposition is reflective of the right’s anti-feminist agenda. For example, according to Christina Hoff Sommers, who the Daily Caller identifies as the “American Enterprise Institute resident scholar and equity feminist,” an oxymoron to say the least, “Women who are at risk for domestic violence are going to be helped by state of the art research and good information,” she said. “They are not going to be helped by hyperbole and manufactured data.” Similarly in “Super Bowl Sunday and domestic violence: A hoax,” Dr. Charles Corry laments the Super Bowl myth is yet another example of how feminism is corrupting society through denying the attacks on men.

Unfortunately, the Super Bowl Sunday violence myth is just one of many myths surrounding domestic violence. Most studies are suspect and highly skewed. Men and women initiate domestic violence in roughly equal proportions, yet judges and police are trained and intimidated politically not to question a woman’s claim of domestic violence, effectively passing judgment on the accused man.

Ignoring facts, such as “One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime,” or “majority (73%) of family violence victims are females,” Corry, whose National Justice Foundation focuses its attention on seeing men as victims of sexism, is reflective of the anti-feminist opposition discourse.

In examining the reports and the literature, it is unclear as to the relationship between domestic violence and Super Bowl Sunday. While there is no causal relationship, there is clearly anecdotal evidence from shelters that suggest that Super Bowl is a day where domestic violence is an issue. Yet, it is important to look beyond causal relationships to reflect on the structural factors that contribute to the issue of domestic violence. As Jackson Katz, co-founder and director of MVP Strategies, noted to me, the issues of alcohol abuse, gambling, the ubiquity of parties and social interactions increasing the opportunity for conflict, and the presence at home (people are less likely to be working on the weekend), provides a structural reality to reflect on the issue of domestic violence.

Continue reading @ A Super Failure: Domestic Violence and Football’s Big Game | The Feminist Wire.

NY GIANT Victor Cruz: Salsa, Sadness and the American Dream – Entertainment & Culture – EBONY

Posted on by Standard 1

NY GIANT Victor Cruz: Salsa, Sadness and the American Dream

 The story of the Giants star is too often framed by racial stereotypes

By David Leonard Writer

The tremendous “rookie” season of Victor Cruz will come to an end on Sunday. While in his 2nd official year, the 2011-2012 campaign was ostensibly his first go-round in the NFL, and what a year it has been. While the nation obsessed over a mediocre quarterback at the expense of other players, Cruz had an amazing season. Rivaling the historic rookie season of Cam Newton, Cruz has been spectacular with 82 receptions, 1,536 receiving yards and 9 touchdowns, dominating during the postseason. Yet, that hasn’t been the story of Victor Cruz, nor has the media discourse sought to highlight his Black-Puerto Rican identity, forsaking for a narrative of sports as a great equalizer, of football as the melting pot, and ultimately the NFL story as evidence of the American Dream and American exceptionalism.

The media narrative surrounding Cruz has been simple, if not misleading. He rose from the ashes of poverty, despair and mistakes to NFL stardom. Focusing on disciplinarity and the efforts to pull himself up by his bootstraps, the celebration of Cruz has been much more a celebration of the American Dream and those in his life who made all of it possible. According to Ohm Youngmisuk, Cruz “nearly became another academic cautionary tale of a talented athlete who never made it because he didn’t take school seriously.” Reflecting tough love and an accountability, he was dismissed from University of Massachusetts because of his GPA and other academic failures. After attending Passaic County Community College and County College of Morris, he was able to reenroll back at UMASS. The media has eaten up the narrative, framing this path as unusual and part of his maturation process.

Equally telling, the story emphasizes how those adults outside of his family, helped him, demanding that he change his attitude and approach: “At any point, he could have strayed and never made it back to college — like so many others. But Marsh-Williams’ [the school’s assistant dean/provost of undergraduate advising] message stuck with him like a stingy cornerback,” writes Youngmisuk. And he adds: “Marsh-Williams demanded accountability, had little sympathy for one of UMass’ best athletes….(he)lectured Cruz with more tough love than the no-nonsense Tom Coughlin ever could.”

As part of the celebrated immigrant, bootstraps narrative, several stories chronicle his upbringing as one where he was “raised by a single Puerto Rican mother.” Playing on stereotypes of absentee Black fathers, the narrative erases the complexity and tragedy of Cruz’s life, turning him to a caricature of sorts. While his parents never married, it is clear that his father was part of his life. Mike Walker, a firefighter in Paterson, New Jersey, committed suicide in 2007 following a car-accident and a battle with depression.

The failure to talk about his relationship with his father (or to provide context about mental health, suicide and the African American community), and the efforts to celebrate how coaches, administrators and to a lesser extent his mom provided him with the necessary tough love and disciplinarity, is particularly disconcerting. Cruz is reduced to an advertisement for the American Dream, for the idea that hard work, discipline and proper values will lead to stardom.

Although much has been talked about in relation to his Latino/immigrant background, little has been said about his Black ancestry or even his Nuyorican identity. At one level, the media focus on his Latino background given their scarcity within sports culture. Among a group of 31, including the Patriots’ Aaron Hernandez, Arian Foster, Marc Sanchez, and Tony Romo, Cruz has come to embody a generation of Latino football players. Yet, the narrative surrounding Cruz seems more interested in celebrating his story as an immigrant story, a story of opportunity for Cruz and others to learn “the American way.” “It is a telling example of the natural progression the sport has made in Hispanic communities across the United States,” writes Jorge Castillo. “As the generations following immigrants from Latin American countries assimilate into American culture and, with it, take up America’s sport.”

via NY GIANT Victor Cruz: Salsa, Sadness and the American Dream – Entertainment & Culture – EBONY.

The Economics of the Super Bowl: On ‘The Woodstock for the 1%’ | Urban Cusp

Posted on by Standard Reply

The Economics of the Super Bowl:

On ‘The Woodstock for the 1%’

By David J. Leonard

UC Columnist, Eye on Culture

America’s biggest unofficial national holiday, Super Bowl Sunday, is more than a football game. It is a celebration of military prowess (in 2011, the Navy spent 450,000 tax-payer dollars to conduct its 2011 flyover), excess, and a culture of wealth. With tickets going for $3,000-4,000 a piece, and millions of dollars going to local businesses (although this number is often overstated), the economics of the Super Bowl are as important as questions about Rob Gronkowski’s injury and the potential dominance of Giants defensive line. Yet, the economic question transcends the issues of the “local economy” as the Super Bowl is yet another party for the rich, by the rich, and of the rich.

“The Super Bowl is perennially the Woodstock for the 1%: a Romney-esque cavalcade of private planes, private parties, and private security,” writes Dave Zirin. Tony Koreheiser once described the Super Bowl as “a celebration of concentrated wealth,” while Dave Zirin, in his discussion of festivities in Detroit a few years back, identified the festivities as a 2-week “binge.” Still relevant today, Zirin describes the Super Bowl as little more than a cross between Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and My Super Sweet 16:

Every Super Bowl Sunday, corporate executives and politicians exchange besotted, sodden backslaps, amidst an atmosphere that would shame Jack Abramoff. Only this year the bacchanalia — complete with ice sculptures peeing Grey Goose vodka and two tons of frozen lobster flown directly to the stadium — is happening in the United States’ most impoverished, ravaged city: Detroit.

The image of the Super Bowl as Americana, tailgates, beer and hot dogs, is a misnomer at best, given the predominance of America’s 1%. 2010 set a record for the number of private jets landing for a Super Bowl with 400, only to be left in the dust with 600 private jets in 2011. “For the private jet business, the Super Bowl is the, well, Super Bowl of private jet rentals. Every year, like monarchs to Mexico, a swarm of private jets descends on the big game to unload the rich and powerful football fans,” writes Robert Frank. There’s no tailgating under the tail fins, or downing buffalo wings on the wing of the G550. But for some reason, private-jetting and football have always gone well together for February’s big game.” The 2012 Super Bowl may surpass these past records.

Planes are not the only excess. According to one report, 35% ticket holders write off the game as a business expense. Highlighting the ways in which the Super Bowl is a party for billionaires, whether it be team owners, corporate executives, or other members of the 1%, the disparities and disconnect that will be on full display this Sunday, should give pause.

The 1% has a lot to celebrate at the Super Bowl given the amount of money generated because of the football game, very little of which goes to the players and the other people who make the game happen. According to Wall Street Journal report, over 5 million NFL fans will stimulate the economy through upgrading their television in anticipation of the game. Additionally, on average those watching the game spend 60 per person in food and merchandize. The Super Bowl is an economic bonanza.

Continue reading at  The Economics of the Super Bowl: On ‘The Woodstock for the 1%’ | Urban Cusp.

NewBlackMan: Sampling Again: Shawn Carter and the Moynihan Report Remix

Posted on by Standard Reply

Sampling Again: Shawn Carter and the Moynihan Report Remix

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

I have resisted the temptation to write about the media spectacle surrounding the recent birth of Blue Ivy Carter. The obsession has been striking on so many levels: (1) it seems to reflect a desire to represent Shawn Carter and Beyoncé as royalty. Their cultural visibility and power reaffirms a narrative about the American Dream and post racialness. Blue Ivey Carter becomes evidence of multi-generational wealth; her arrival in the world affirms the American Dream as Beyoncé and Shawn Carter now have millions of dollars AND the prescribed family structure (not sure about dog and picket fence). (2) There also seems an investment in constructing hip-hop as growing up as evident by a politics of respectability and through a patriarchal nuclear family. The media discourse has imagined a family (or children) as the necessary step toward becoming an adult.

Mark Anthony Neal brilliantly reflects on this particular aspect, noting how the media has constructed Carter as ushering in a new era for hip-hop. “There are of course other examples of rappers who do take parenting seriously.” More importantly, Neal works to disentangle lyrical flow from parenting:

To be sure, writing a song about your daughter is the easy part. Fathers are often lauded for the more celebrated aspects of parenting: playing on the floor, piggyback rides, the warm embraces after a long day at the job. Mothers, on the other hand, are often faced with the drudgery of parenting, like changing soiled diapers, nursing, giving up their careers to be stay-at-home moms, and the criticism that comes if they don’t live up to societal notions of what “good” mothering is.

The celebration of Shawn Carter’s fatherhood and the lack of commentaries regarding Beyoncé as a mother are telling on so many levels. At one level, it reflects the erasure of mother’s labor, as noted by Neal. Yet, at another level it reflects the desire to stage yet another referendum on black fathers and mothers within the public discourse. For example, Joanna Mallory recently penned: “Jay-Z anthem to fatherhood is music to the ears of black leaders and family advocates.” Arguing that, “72% of African-American kids are raised without a dad,” Mallory celebrates the birth of Blue Ivey Carter because she inspired her dad to write “Glory:

“But she is also rich in love, as Jay-Z exults in his song “Glory.” The best part? A lot of other babies are going to benefit. Because Jay-Z’s ecstatic reaction to being a dad will be the strongest boost yet to a growing movement in the black community encouraging responsible fatherhood.

Concluding that the song is a necessary remedy for absent black fathers is emblematic of the media discourse here: sensationalistic, simplistic, and wrapped up in a narrative of distortions, misinformation, and stereotypes. It is yet another reminder those critics should not wax sociological.

Having already written about this in regards to Colin Cowherd and Touré, I thought I might just recycle part of the “Blaming Black Families” piece, albeit with a little remix (I swapped out Cowherd’s name for Mallory). The fact that critics, politicians, and the public discourse continually recycles the same fallacious and troubling argument mandates that I merely recycle my work as well.

The efforts to recycle the Moynihan report, to define father as natural disciplinarian and mother’s nurturing, to link cultural values to family structures, and to otherwise play upon longstanding racial stereotypes, is striking.

Continue reading at NewBlackMan: Sampling Again: Shawn Carter and the Moynihan Report Remix.