Isley Brothers
Another one of my favorite groups of all time! This is a relatively recent concert, which means most of the original lineup wasn’t in the mix anymore unfortunately. Still, Ernie’s burning bright on guitar and Ronald still has the sweetest pipes after all these years.
Talk about your old school? Oh yeah. This is it, cuz.
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Gengen Genocide
My good friend Villager at Electronic Village posted this video last week, but I thought it was so well done and so important that it should be posted here again for anyone who may have missed it.
Villager has been doing a phenomenal job keeping the focus on Darfur for a long, long time, and he deserves huge props for that level of dedication and commitment.
The thing I love about this cartoon is that it “makes it plain” so that anyone can understand the issue, but without dumbing it down. And it cuts like a knife. As a number of Afrospear members have been pointing out for awhile, there is a blood-drenched connection between China and the atrocities still occurring in Darfur.
However it does need to be said that there was initially a fair amount of frantic activity surrounding the matter over the past year that seemed to cause at least some amount of backpedaling by China. Some of you may remember last year when certain high-profile types like Steven Spielberg and Mia Farrow created enough of a stir through persistent high-profile and well-covered agitation that the Chinese eventually began to make some moves like urging the Sudanese government to accept a peacekeeping force (Farrow really launched the Hollywood attack on the China Olympics and is responsible, as I understand it, for popularizing the term “Genocide Olympics”, a term which was originally coined by Eric Reeves of the Save Darfur Coalition who also produced this video [much thanks to Yobachi for getting me straight on this] ). Of course, that “urging” never quite got much further than that according to a May, 2008 post on Farrow’s own Miafarrow.org website tracking the progress - and lack thereof - of what’s happening in Darfur.
But even that little bit of activity never would have happened if the celebrity spotlight had not focused such a harsh and uncompromising light on China and its unconscionable backing of the Sudanese government. That’s one thing about celebrities, especially socially conscious celebrities, is they know how to work a set and create a memorable scene.
Mia Farrow with children in Darfur -- ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO BY NASSER NASSER
At this point an Olympic boycott simply isn’t gonna happen, and I’m not sure that would have been the best way to make the message heard anyway. As hard as these athletes have trained for so very long, I have to admit I don’t think it would have been right to punish them and hold the Olympics hostage for what China is doing or, more importantly, for the decision of the Olympics committee to even agree to hold the Olympics there in the first place. The athletes had nothing to do with that, and it would be a mistake to establish that pattern, especially since I doubt a boycott by itself would have significantly changed Chinese government behavior. I remember when the United States boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan back when Jimmy Carter was still president, and it was a big mistake.
But what Farrow, Spielberg, and others started doing last year to focus consistent, relentless international pressure on China’s sore spot is much more effective than a boycott of one single two-week event could ever be. By using the Olympics as an educational platform - and a launching site - to blanket the world with ceaseless waves of damning information about China’s immorality could create a momentum that simply cannot be ignored. A momentum that elevates a murmur to the level of a scream for justice.
It’s that kind of momentum, that kind of steady drumbeat, that eventually set Mandela free and overthrew apartheid South Africa.
For those interested in learning more about the Darfur situation, check out this excellent Frontline documentary. This link - and this one from Team Darfur providing additional critical updated info about the latest in relationship to the Olympics - is also courtesy of Yobachi, who turned me onto it.
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PHOTO BY ESTIMMEL
GETTY IMAGES
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So let’s see now, what do we have here?
Oh look! There’s President Barack Obama in Muslim garb, giving the fabled “fist bump” to his beloved wife Michelle, who is suddenly sporting an Angela Davis style afro and carrying what looks to be an AK-47 rifle over her shoulder. Meanwhile an American flag is burning in the White House fireplace and some generic Muslim is featured in a photo on the wall. Perhaps the anonymity is on purpose, meant to encourage a “name your favorite terrorist here” sort of thing. Because Arabs and terrorists, like black people, as we know, tend to all look alike.
We did it, boo!
This sounds ridiculous, right? If your answer was “No, that sounds about right,” then you are an idiot, you were never planning on voting for Obama in the first place, and why are you still here? If your answer was, “Yes, that does sound ridiculous,” then your IQ is still well above that of the vegetables in your freezer and I commend you. If your answer was something along the lines of “Of course that sounds ridiculous, dummy. That’s not the point. The point is that this picture on the cover of the New Yorker magazine was in poor taste and whoever greenlighted that decision to run it should either be fired or severely reprimanded,” well, responding to that may take a few more minutes.
Here’s the thing about satire that I think a lot of folks don’t get, at least if it’s good satire; satire makes its greatest impact by cutting deep. If it makes you go “Holy shit!”, then chances are it did its job correctly. Yes, those cartoonish, exaggerated images of Obama and his wife were offensive, but the satire would not have worked if they were cute.
Take a closer look; this whole one-frame cartoon is driving a stake through the heart of all the crazy shit that has been said about the Obamas, and by squeezing it all into that single frame it makes it that much more plain how ridiculous it all is. There’s the fist bump, which goes back to the Night of the Fox News Anchor-Barbie suggesting during her live broadcast that maybe it was some sort of terrorist signal. There’s Obama in Muslim garb, harking back to the photo taken of him wearing those threads and all the hubbub it caused. There’s the flag in the fireplace, mocking the flag pin-as-patriotism controversy. And there’s Michelle as Angela, reminding us how she has been portrayed as the angry black female who was never proud of her country until just this year.
Remember the good old days when Obama wasn’t black enough? DAMN that seems like a long time ago…
For me? The cartoon works. Feel free to point your slings and arrows in my direction, but I think it is making a huge mistake to demand that the New Yorker staff cartoonist - or whoever drew this thing - be covered in pig fat and set ablaze at the stake. And yes I know the Obama campaign is said to be “outraged”, and that Obama himself is said to be outraged, but that doesn’t change my mind on the issue and I’m a huge Obama supporter. Because in addition to the fact that this is satire that works, this is the New Yorker, folks. Readers of the New Yorker tend to be pretty damned well-educated (you might even say ‘elite’) which not only places them in Obama’s camp, but it means they are most likely smart enough to understand satire. No self-respecting reader of the New Yorker is going to change his or her vote based on some cover art.
As for those who insist that it’s not only the New Yorker readers who will see this because the image is already around the world (hell it’s even on this blog for Christ’s sake), I still say big deal. Anybody still sitting on the Fence of Judgment who is dumb enough to fall down on the side of McCain because they were scared to death by a big bad cartoon is not somebody who I’m terribly worried about. As cynical as I am, I still believe that even most of my worst enemies and critics are smarter than that.
So lighten up. y’all. Seriously. It’s cool.
And all Power to the People.
SHAMELESS PLUG FOR MY WIFE: http://thedspotredeux.blogspot.com
So, anyway, it’s no longer news that Michigan has the weakest economy in the nation, right? If any state is worse off than we are, they will most likely have ceased to exist by the time I finish writing this post.
So long. Farewell.
In Wayne County, which is the county where I happen to live, we have just about the worst economy in Michigan. And in Detroit, which is the city where I happen to live, we have the worst economy in the County. I’m not quite sure about the economic ranking of my particular block, but judging by all the vacant houses up and down the street I’m afraid to ask. So that means I live in the city with the worst economy in the County which has the worst economy in the State which has the worst economy in the nation.
(INSERT DEEP BREATH HERE)
This also happens to be the city with one of the highest rates of home foreclosures in the nation. The same city that used to have the highest rate of single home ownership of any city in the nation.
And, finally, this is the city with the largest black population of any major American city. I believe we’re also the poorest major American city, last I checked, although Cleveland is right up there and at one point was ahead of us. There is a lot more desperation here than education, which explains why predatory lending flourished here like a weed in a pile of fertilizer. It also explains why the casinos are considered to be our great and powerful salvation, but I’ll deal with that some other day. Suffice it to say that you can build a casino on every block and it still won’t save you from a mayor posing beneath the weight on an eight-count indictment and a city council with four members being investigated by the FBI. Figure it out.
It’s long been said that, at least in this country, the ownership of land is the basis of all power. Columbus didn’t “discover” the buffalo, nor did he “discover” the “Indians.” What he “discovered” was the land that gave sustenance to all of them. And when the “Americans” (not the “Indians”, right?) decided they needed to be liberated from the British, well…why was that? Largely because they wanted this land for themselves, not as representatives of the British. Besides, the British were becoming a pain in the ass with all that taxation without representation bullshit.
So now let’s move forward a few centuries to Detroit’s muscle years, back during the city’s heyday. At that time it was (justifiably) considered remarkable that more African Americans owned their own homes here in this city than any other city in America. Here in Detroit, in the motor that drove America, black folks owned their own piece of the rock. We owned land.
But now here we are in the new millenium, not quite a half century after the good old days (??), and what’s happening? The blackest city in the nation is now suffering from more home foreclosures than anyplace else in the country. And that same pattern of blacks being disproportionately slammed by foreclosures is happening all across the country. So the piece of the rock we once owned is now chained around our collective neck as we are being tossed aside to make way for whoever is coming to sweep up and rebuild once we’re out of the way.
If we don’t figure this out, and I do mean fast…?
SHAMELESS PLUG FOR MY WIFE: http://thedspotredeux.blogspot.com
Summer in Detroit:A Documentary Film on The Cass Corridor
This is interesting. Not sure who these folks are (listed in the opening credits) behind this mini-documentary, but it’s a nice enough little flick about what appears to be a sincere enough group of white church folk who I’m guessing don’t live anywhere near the ‘D’ themselves but who decided to venture down into the Cass Corridor back in 2006 to try and connect in some way.
Yeah. All right.
Admittedly my first gut reaction as a black Detroiter (that’s almost an oxymoron these days, isn’t it?) was to grimace, roll my eyes, and mutter, “Shit. Here we go again. Another onslaught of well-meaning white kids with stars in their eyes dying to assist the poor, downtrodden negroes.”
After which they go home, fire up the laptops, and congratulate each other via email, Facebook, and whatever else about how they spent a portion of their summer roughing and toughing it with ‘real people’ from the ‘hood where they got so in touch with their inner humanity and the oneness of us all and all that other recycled ’60s hippy love-the-world-change-the-world stuff (which was actually cool and headed in the right direction until a lot of those hippies became ex-hippies, put on suits and ties and went to work for Daddy Inc. making Daddy Inc. bucks).
Not all of them, of course. But I’d gamble it was close to a majority who abandoned the revolution once the jackboots began showing up in force and the price of free love and joints just wasn’t worth it anymore. Especially not for those who had options. Even hippies gotta eat, man.
But then maybe it’s unfair to judge these kids with that measuring stick. After all, that damned stick is more than 40 years old. And who knows, right? Maybe they really did do some good on that summer day back in 2006. Maybe some of them really were changed deep down enough to commit themselves to a life of making a difference and giving birth to community.
So for now, I choose to resist my harsher impulses, put my cynicism on a choke chain, and simply say that working to improve the ‘D’ is always a good thing.
SHAMELESS PLUG FOR MY WIFE: http://thedspotredeux.blogspot.com/
For someone who has flown so high and so brilliantly it is both painful and enraging to see how far - and how quickly - Jesse Jackson has fallen with the self-inflicted wound of one sick quote. The man who has dedicated his life to the advancement of African Americans has forever stained his legacy with what? A needless and twisted comment targeted against a fellow African American who is running for President of the United States. And who might actually win. And who Jackson said in public that he supported.
If you haven’t already heard the quote then you need to go somewhere else to dig it up because I’m not repeating that crap here. But if you, like most literate folk, are familiar with the quote, then compare that to the following gems offered from another, more fondly remembered Jesse. These were gathered from this great site:
EBONY Magazine photo
“America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth.”
Jesse Jackson
I hear that melting-pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven’t melted.
Jesse Jackson
I cast my bread on the waters long ago. Now it’s time for you to send it back to me - toasted and buttered on both sides.
Jesse Jackson
LA Times Photo
When the doors of opportunity swing open, we must make sure that we are not too drunk or too indifferent to walk through.
Jesse Jackson
UPI Photo
Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.
Jesse Jackson
NEW YORK TIMES Photo
Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.
Jesse Jackson
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Video: Tear The Roof Off The Sucka
We want the funk, y’all. For now and evermore. One nation, under a groove. And always remember; Uncle Jam Wants U!
SHAMELESS PLUG FOR MY WIFE: http://thedspotredeux.blogspot.com/
Dive bars. The kind where smoke, funk, and sweat is etched into the walls so thick it fashions its own layer of wallpaper. The kind of bar where a sign reading “unsafe at any speed” should be hanging on the front door from a crooked, rusty nail.
God forgive me, but I do love those joints so. Perhaps it comes from having performed literally hundreds of gigs in clubs like these over the course of more than 20 years in the trenches of the music business that’s got me so twisted, but I’ll be damned if I’ll apologize for it.
I’m talking about the authentic smoke-filled bars, each with their own star-studded cast of memorable, disreputable characters with names like Gray and Shamrock hunched over a beer and frowning at it, or perhaps holding court before an imaginary audience of wildly clapping fellow barflys. I’m not talking about the House of Blues cookie cutter pseudo-joints adorned with the specially-designed, tailor-made artificial funk flown in. Probably from some factory in China.
These haunts are one of the more happily perverse reasons why I love this city. No question the nose-tickling uptown scents of various and assorted Starbucks variety enterprises are shoving their way into the mix, and that’s fine. Seriously. I’m all about diversity, and you gotta have your upper crust to balance off your lower urges. But Detroit simply does not feel like Detroit without some good old throat-chokin’ grit and funk.
Like Nancy Whiskey’s over there on Spruce, for example. A true neighborhood bar, now poised on the edge of the endangered species list, where the smoke gets packed in so thick that some nights it looks like everybody’s cryin. Even the woman holding the machine gun with her foot on the runner of a big black gangstermobile in the picture on the wall above the bar. Or take the Comet Bar off of Cass Corridor where I first saw my buddy Howard moaning the blues nearly 15 years ago with Dave Watson on drums, which was several years before I actually met the two of them and started gigging with them both for awhile.
And yeah, I still call it the Cass Corridor.
Which brings me to two things, one of which I’ve already discussed before and in the process kinda managed to piss off a friend and fellow blogger. Or at least I think I did. And didn’t mean to. But here’s the thing; I have a serious problem with any type of legislation that says cigarette smoking should be banned in bars. To me that’s like saying Coke should not be sold from vending machines.
PHOTO BY MARKO GEORGIEV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
If you want to ban smoking from restaurants? Fine. I get that. Folks come in there to eat and no-smoking sections in restaurants are pretty much of a joke. Plus you have kids in restaurants. So I get it.
But banning smoking in bars? What the !!!@#%%$#@!! are bars for, if you can’t light up?
And for the record, I quit smoking two years ago, so this isn’t about me whining because I feel oppressed. This is about the fact that those grownups who still smoke damned sure know the risks by now, number one. Number two, they probably know the cigarette companies are run by obscenely well-paid liars who could give a fuck if their product causes cancer and other health problems. But number three, if these folks know all this and still wanna fire up, then I figure they ought to have at least one location on Earth where they can drink, puff, and relax together with other like-minded sorts.
As for the bartenders and other bar employees who took the job and now have the nerve to claim they didn’t expect there would be cigarette smoke, and that (cough, cough) this is just so very unfair, well…
Bullshit.
Because if you took a job? In a bar? Where everybody at the bar was firing up as you filled out your job application? Or as you shook hands with the owner when you agreed you could start that night? And who also had a cigarette dangling from his lips as he smiled and said see you t’nite?
And you still didn’t know??
This irritation in my gut, which is slowly escalating past the rant stage to honest pissed off status, is being sorely provoked by those up in Lansing who last month agreed to ban smoking from bars, restaurants, and workplaces, because it’s ridiculous. Like I said, restaurants I understand. The same goes for workplaces. And for that matter, if the owner of a bar wants to make his/her place smoke free, that’s cool. It’s probably what the patrons of that particular establishment want, and God bless. But for the rest of the late night street warriors who have been shunned with the sign of the cigarette cross out of everyplace else except the neighborhood bar? No. Sorry. I’m not going for it. There are more than enough places for non-smokers to hang out these days without fear of inhaling second-hand smoke.
But there was a second thing I was supposed to get to as well, which is this great site I stumbled on which got me off on the tangent about smoking in bars in the first place. The site is Detroit.com, and the specific section that got me going was the “Detroit Local Bars, Neighborhood Bars, and Dive Bars” section. Man, this is great for the night owl reprobate that lives inside so many of us.
PHOTO BY KATY BATDORFF, GRAND RAPIDS PRESS
A lot of the bars listed I know quite well, plus a few I notice they don’t have listed. Let’s just say I understand why.
I could go on with some rather entertaining tales and remembrances about some of these establishments, but I’ll put a hold on that until another time. For now I’ll just say, in the spirit of we-all-gotta-live-together community? Live and let live.
Even if some of those alive choose to put their lives on the auction block.
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