His blog site is titled thedailykush.com, and he has been an open advocate of marijuana.  Knowing this personal history I quickly dismissed his actions, assuming that he was probably high, and made a bad decision, as most people under the influence of any drug often do.  While admitting his words not to be politically correct, and understanding wholeheartedly how it could be offensive, I accepted it as an honest mistake from a young white male, thinking he was more down with it than he really was (as one of the comments on his twitter suggested).

Perhaps I am giving you him a pass because I like his artform and I respect what he is doing overall for hip hop.  Or perhaps just because I see the irony in going to Rutgers and saying nappy headed hoes, after  Don Imus got blasted for it (I know how much <a href=” http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/03/50-irony/”>white people love irony</a>).

Also being a fan of illdoctrine I saw his response immediately after being posted, and I agree with his view on the situation.  While I think Asher (yes we are on a first name basis) was just joking, I think the guts to make a joke on such a serious topic stemmed from a post modern approach to African American culture, and in this instance African American women.  It would not be so far fetched to believe that Asher posses this post modern view, as he is a white guy sitting atop of the mountain that has previously been thought to be a blacks only mountain (speaking of hip hop here).

With all of this being said I do not believe African American women should begin to dismiss the legitimacy of Patricia Hill Collins’ notion of African American feminist thought.  The racism of yesterday if no longer here, but today there is a different kind of racism taking place, and all jokes are not as politically balanced or unintentionally harmful as Roth’s was.  I think for the black woman to continue to define herself she must continue supporting Collins’ urgings.  Women are still sexually clad in videos and misrepresented in the country.  Though women have learned to embrace their sex appeal, it should not be the only means of representation, which I think Collins was trying to prove.

I do not think people are intentionally disregarding the legitimacy of Patricia Hill Collin’s black feminist thought, not Asher Roth, or similar white men at least.  As illdoctrine said, there is the belief that we are now in a post racial world.  This may have one falsely believe they are in the clear to say anything they want if they truly are racist.  There is the idea that in order to prove not to be a racist you have to see the world without color, meaning people are trying to get rid of black and white.  Illdoctrine states, this may not be the case.  We should not try to ignore race as if it doesn’t exists, pretending as if things are not that big of a deal because we are all the same on the inside, Asher’s statements have proven this to be wrong and harmful. But, instead we should acknowledge race, honor it, and simply be accepting of it.

Clearly, the thought that the doc has is not one to negate Collins’ thoughts.  It would be hard for anyone who is not an African American woman to understand exactly how important it is to retain some black feminist thought.  There are countless misrepresentations in the media of the black woman, that need to be fixed, and the only way to make progress is to maintain the thought.

I am sure there were some nappy headed hoes at Rutgers on the night of Asher’s performance, but to generalize so broadly was wrong and hurtful, which I am sure was not his intention.  As a public figure, in the future he may have to think both harder and longer before he updates his twitter page.  He is a young artists with a lot of maturing to do.  With a hit single entitled, “I Love College” it is obvious that he speaks to a certain demographic.  Asher’s voice would be much better utilized if he were to work instead on being antiracist by acting as if he has the pass (thereby leaving his white listeners to believe they too have the pass to whatever they want if they have black friends).

The first blog I chose to read was http://thomalbright.wordpress.com/.  The author of this wordpress is Thomas Albright, a “white 22-year-old male who comes from a rural community.”  Reading Thomas’ racial identity card, I am surprised to learn that he is grew up in a community lacking racial diversity.  I say I am surprised because all of my previous encounters with him have been in African American Studies courses.  He states that he is a Psychology and AAS double major, which I find similarities in being a Psych major and AAS minor.  I like how he can admit that he sees “things through a white male from a lower middle class perspective,” and despite that he has devoted himself to learning about other cultures and trying to better understand other perspectives.

The second blog I chose to read was http://dynamicwoman86.wordpress.com/.  The author of this blog is a 22 year old female from Columbus Ohio, a more urbanized city.  The dynamic woman, known as Sherrell, chose to attach a picture of herself to her blog.  I feel this was her way of showcases her blackness. While most chose to simply describe their racial identity and the baggage that comes with it, Sherrell chose to proudly show her race and mention that she is a graduating senior with plans to attend graduate school; something that many from African American heritage do not get to attain, already setting herself apart from many others in the group.  She admits she comes from a life of struggle and has found strength through, but warns readers to judge her by reading her entries and get a feel for what the everyday modern black woman is going through.

The Power of Self Definition is relevant in understanding the ways in which middle class African American women define themselves in the 21st century.  This is especially true because today’s black woman does indeed have truly defining herself, because the times are not yet fully accepting of her.  ““Black women’s lives are a series of negotiations that aim to reconcile the contradictions separating our own internally defined images of self as African American women with our objectifications as the others” (pg. 99).  The black woman must learn to socialize within the fraternity and still keep sorority strong.

According to the media the black woman is sexually promiscuous, angry, uneducated, snappy, and cynical.  The black woman Collins is speaking to should try to negate these stereotypes and form her own self, not one that is placed on her.  In order to gain strength within the nation and for themselves, this placement is mandatory. Once defined by themselves Collins believes the limits are absent.

I would also agree that Sexual Politics of Black Womanhood is relevant for understanding the African American woman in the 21^st century.  As I stated that black women has been deemed sexually promiscuous. Since slavery the black woman has sexually abused and oppressed because of it.  Collins argues that this oppression and abuse still happens today, maybe not with the same commonness of rape as in the days of slavery, but today with exploitation. “Black women receive no such redeeming dose of culture and remain open to the type of exploitation visited on nature overall.”  The role of jezebel is continued to be used and coined to black women, associating them with pornographic materials and deeming them all to be prostitutes.  In order to this overcome this oppression black women must learn to as Hill states “define themselves”

Before seeing Julie Dash’s Daughter of the Dust the only knowledge of the Gullah I had was from a late 90’s tv show that came on Nick Jr. by the name of Gullah Gullah Island.  Dash’s depiction of the Gullah people was drastically different from Nick Jr.’s .  They both had a strong emphasis on the heritage and providing a strong bond amongst the family.

Many women on the campus of Spelman felt they were being sexually harassed and assaulted by the men at Morehouse, the very same men who were supposed to be viewed as their brothers, looking out for them with the best intentions. The women on the campus of Spelman didn’t so much care about the code of silence, and their assumed duty to their black brothers, but more or less rights and wrongs. They were not willing to jeopardize their own safety for the security of a male who didn’t care about theirs.

Deborah Gray White’s Too Heavy a Load brings to the table the observation that the social contract between black men and women is nothing new. During the women’s auxiliary movement women were expected to stand by their husband’s side. The organizations they formed were expected to hand over profits, and be governed by the men organizations. The women simply did not feel this to be appropriate and though they wanted to stand by their men, they also had to make the decision to stand on their own. These circumstances forced them to decide between being black or being a woman on many different occasions.  “The entire issue of sexual exploitation, then, spoke to the issue of class. As noted earlier, clubwomen correctly believed that the sexual exploitation of black women originated during the slavery era, when white men used black women to increase the slave population. When whites forbade legal slave marriages, separated families, and took sexual advantage of slaves, they further debased them” (69). The women at Spelman were tired of debasement and wanted to assert themselves as people first, then black women. The black men at Morehouse and from the history books couldn’t as readily understand woman’s need to set themselves up as women, because the battle appeared to be one between “the man” and the black man.

Being a black man I can see very much importance in the social contract, however, I do see the point from the women’s side and feel black men everywhere could do a little better at making sure we make it easier to uphold for our women. We could make it easier by treating them as women, as people, as our sisters, and our equals.   Black men have to gain an understanding of our sisters desire for an identity; one that does not automatically demean and debase them as sexual objects to be at our disposal.

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Over on Teresa Wiltz blog she ask the question “Whats Up With Waxy Michelle?” Wiltz takes note that Michelle and Barack Obama have been immortalized in the wax museum. Her problem with their immortalization is the wax statue does not accurately portray Michelle. The museum in fact chose to lighten Michelle up a few shades, perhaps perpetuating detrimental stereotypes that have confused and bruised the ego’s of black youth for generations. Most of us have seen the mini documentary of by Kiri Davis “A Girl Like Me,” , which showed the danger in promoting negative connotations with dark shades and not being proud of who you are.

Wiltz criticizes the decision to brighten Michelle Obama’s hue, saying we should accept her as she is. “Last week’s whirlwind European tour proved that the world thinks Michelle is quite fabulous, thank you, in all of her natural brown glory,” and so should all of us here in America. Little girls have enough to worry about while trying to stay as thin as the models on the magazine covers, by trying to get them to believe there is not only a weight requirement to beauty but also a complexion requirement we are doing them a disservice.

Michelle is beautiful in all of her chocolaty goodness, and if we embrace her as she is, it may go a long way to balancing out some of the past harm that has been done to our young sisters to portray her in her natural shade.

Charles Johnson’s “Middle Passage” puts two characters Calhoun and Isadora in a position where marriage is put to the fence by way of blackmail.  Papa pulling Calhoun to the side and saying “Now, a man should pay his debts, it seems to me” (15), clearly sets up this is something of subtle intimidation for Calhoun to see his way.  Papa lets him know by cooperating and marrying Miss Bailey all of his debt would be absolved, Calhoun still does not care. He protests acknowledging that he does see the blackmail that is occurring in front of him and then proceeds, “The hell you are! I’m not getting married! Never!” (16).  While this whole thing has been planned out from Papa and Isadora’s side, it doesn’t  fall in line with what Calhoun has in mind for himself as far as his happiness is concerned.

Eugene Genovese’s historiography “Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made” showed the men being the ones doing more of the blackmail through a trade and expectation.  White slave owners had a patriarchal role over the black males, black males then felt the need to assert the masculinity over black women.  This was often a harmful and detrimental thing to the wholesomeness of the black relationship, though there were some circumstances where wholesomeness was gained.  A husband offered women a lot of things including a sense of freedom.  “The freedmen, Miss Botume noted, spoke affectionately of their wives, but in such a way to suggest they were property, virtually slaves” (490).  This treatment of protection and freedom but still being “slaves” signifies a form of blackmail that does not properly portray honest and pure love.

There was also the idea that marriage was a way of emasculated men.  By coercing a man to marry you a dehumanizing and forcing him to inherent a “resistance of struggle for a decent family life as of demoralization” (491).  The work the women provided was not enough to counter balance this feeling of less than man.  Yeah work was getting done, but with it came a job of trying to protect wife and family from harm and rape, which was very hard.

From both of these excerpts you can see two very different reasons why blackmail does not form a wholesome relationship especially in the black relationship.  In Charles Johnson’s piece we see blackmail as keeping a man from being happy which is one of the basic expectations from life.  Despite the blackmailing party’s miniscule good intentions it was still encroaching on Calhoun’s self satisfaction and the plan he had set out for himself.

In Genovese’s article blackmail was a driving force for the dysfunction found in the black relationship, and something that can lead to extreme dissatisfaction with life and possibly insanity.

In either case, or as stated in general, blackmail is not the way to go to procure a mate.  If a marriage is to last and be filled it bliss, it should start out as bliss.  Many experts believe that things should be 50/50 from each contributing partner.  When one person brings in more of the load in the beginning in hopes of sailing later the equation can easily become off balance.  Having a partner to love and care for you is supposed to keep one from going insane not drive them to insanity.  These blackmailing techniques are probably some of the reason for such high divorce rates today.  Shotgun weddings are not the way to go, as we have learned from history.  Love happens naturally in nature between a man and a woman who’s souls connect magnetically, not with the signing of a contract.

The interesting thing about all three of these men is that even though they were great at their craft, that is not what they will be remembered for.  Wynn points out “Tyson is also often compared, both explicitly and implicitly but always unfavorably with Muahamad Ali,” (104) Ali who is today regarded as one the greatest boxer of all time.  Tyson though arguably comparable to Tyson is much more remembered for his wild antics.  He was the man who said “I will eat your babies,” who bit a piece of Evan Holyfields ear.  Wynn made a point to compare Tyson to some of the 90’s rapper, most notably Tupac, who made a point to spit in the face of “the man.”  Tyson admits to having too much anger in his system.  His inability to censor himself because he is a aproduct of the ghetto, running the world without restraints.

Zine Magubaune writes “The Return of the White Negro” about Dennis Rodman and RuPaul.  Magubaune argues “Dennis Rodman and RuPaul played a minstrel role.  By calling them white negroes Magubaune affirms that they were heroes for white America.  They represented what whites felt black culture was about and the deindustrialization of America.

These three individuals all played the same role for public. They came from middle America, broken homes, and poverty stricken neighborhoods, and were able to stick it to the man.  The endorsement deals and channels these men showed up on were the channels everyday beer drinking men were watching. These men were saying fuck what you think, this is what it is, something all of us wish we could say at one point or another, and were all loved for that exact reason.

In “The Store” Jones gives the reader two different women whom both from afar could appear to be right in line with hook’s “matriarchal black woman.”  The story revolves around a young man who is in pursuit of a young lady by the name of Kentucky.  Kentucky starts off playing the strong and dominant role in the relationship.  It has been joked around by many popular comedians that women control men with their “pussy”.  Upon telling the story of the first time the he was intimate with Kentucky he explain, “I had waited a long time, something quite unusual for me.  I had started to think I would be an old man with a dick good for nothing but peeing before se would let me get beyond heavy petting” (91). Kentucky then goes commanding his attention by giving him the rules in a true matriarchal fashion, “Listen: Thou shall have no other woman before me. I can take a lot but not that” (91).  Though those words appear to resound with confidence, upon looking more closely it becomes apparent that she says those things out of her.  By asking him to give solely her his allegiance it was an admittance that he had hers.  On page 94 he admits “Kentucky and I fell into an easy, pleasant relationship, which is not to that i didn’t tip out on her now and again.”  This admittance that even though the relationship is pleasant he still feels the need to tip out is more of a contributing factor than a black women having problems with docility.  In “Doing the Work of Love” bell hooks calls this the reneging from the social contract in the form of betrayal (121).

In “Young Lions” Jones paints a relationship where the woman, Carol, is being completely taken advantage of by a man who is too involved with his own world to totally grasp the concept of love being a work.  Carol invest as much of herself as possible into the relationship.  This investment is expressed through the frequent writing of notes professing her love to Caesar.  Upon returning home at night Carol would often find the “notes still pinned to the pillow, undisturbed and so perhaps unread” (55). In order to gain the attention she desire she began posting her notes on milk cartons.  Despite putting them to the milk carton, they still were left undisturbed.  Carol then admits that she didn’t care what wrong Caesar did in the streets as long as he remained romantically faithful and away from other women.  This reneging and betrayal from Caesar’s end would have been the contributing factor not a power struggle between the two parties.  Caesar was so much in power that he convinces Carol into going out and robbing a woman with him, simply by reminding her that he doesn’t “ask a whole fuckin lot” (72).  It is clear who does all the submitting and who the powerful one in this particular depiction from Jones.

The idea of women being the all powerful figure does not hold true according to the relationships that Jones has painted.  I do believe however, matriarchal do women exist, especially once their resumes start to grow in length.  Perhaps if Kentucky didn’t make her boy work so hard in the beginning of the relationship, he wouldn’t have become bored so early on.  Perhaps is Carol didn’t smother Caesar when he was home, he would have felt no need to run the streets.  The betrayal does happen on the male’s end, yes, but would it happen if not for the pressures given to men?  There honestly cannot be any one reason why the black relationship has lacks success rates.  Both women according to Jones only wanted loyalty, and no one person wants only one thing from another.

I am taking African American studies 440 in an attempt to learn more about why the black community seems to lag behind others in the United States. Many social problems are formed during childhood, and perhaps if some of the issues can be addressed, I can help some of tomorrow’s youth not fall into the same traps (including my own children…. when I have them).

Spike Lee in Four Little Girls, went out with the same hope, to inform the world. The church bombing, like the children living in Henry Horner, are a part of a history that many in the world do not know about. Lee seriously wanted to inform the public that things during that time were worst that just being told to change seats on a bus. Reading There Are No Children Here I do not feel pity for the children of Henry Horner. It does however give me a drive to want to do something, to help, to change the way these children live. In a neighborhood where birthday parties are ruined gang shootouts it becomes hard not to feel bad for anyone in that situation, but I do not believe Alex Kotlowitz mission was to get a tear out of any of his readers. I do however believe he hoped to educate the world to the problems of our public housing system, school systems, and the effects it has on those individuals who have been left with little to nothing. Perhaps if Kotlowitz painted the children as hopeless I would be able to see them as something to pity, but he does a good job of giving them small things to look for. The children’s favorite song was LL Cool J, I Need Love, a song which I like a lot. Pharaoh, loved school, and had the faith in himself that would take him to high heights.If there was one thing to feel pity for from Kotlowitz’s ethnography is would be the quote found on page 29, “There are a lot of people in the projects who say they’re not going to do drugs, that they’re not gonna drop out, that they won’t be on the streets. But they’re doing it now. Never say never”. The fact that many fall into traps knowingly is a sad thing to feel pity for, but otherwise, I believe Kotlowitz wants to gather empathy; empathy being: the identification with and understanding of another’s situation, feelings, and motives.

When I look at myself I see a black man ready to take on the world. I have already having proven my dexterity and drive. I am socially capable of expressing my views and opinions with words rather than grunts, or force. I have made my way onto a university campus, surpassing the presumed age and status those from the same community I grew up in are expected.

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. I shortly moved to Flint, Michigan, which is currently recognized as the 3^rd most dangerous city in the nation. Growing up in a single mother household, I share the story more than 40% of the black community shares. Life was never as easy as it seemed to be. I understood that if I ever wanted anything out of life, I was going to have to step up and get it for myself, in addition to working hard.

Though growing up in Flint, we moved around quite a bit. I believe the frequent moves form location to location helped me grow as a person. I have attended school with people of different ethnicity, religion, economic, and social standings. Because I have been around so many different kinds of people, and actually tried to learn and gain something from each friendship, I believe I deserved to 20 year old man. The color black only physically defines who I am. Life’s experiences have made me the person I am.

African Americans are a homogenous group of people/ African Americans are culturally diverse, but share a common history of political disenfranchisement.

To say that African Americans are homogenous is to say we are all the same. Like with every other American group, there are differences based on religion, culture, region, and individual experiences. Those who grow up in the south opposed to the north are going to have different views on life, and different opinions on what is important. Life on the east coast is different from life on the west. This same idea when applied to blacks keeps us as a people from being homogenous. Those from the north, south, east, and west are very different when it comes to style of dress, dance moves, vernacular, and upbringing.

There are some commonalities that blacks share. Most of these similarities date back to a time no one can fully remember. But there is a system that has been designed to minimize growth. The thought that black people are homogenous, comes from those who have yet to overcome life’s hurdles and mature despite the traps that have been put in place. For those on the outside looking in, there is no desire to see differences in progress amongst our people.

African Americans are family-oriented.

After checking the statistics and seeing that close to 50% of African American mothers are raising their children by themselves it is hard for me to agree that the African American house is family-oriented. Also adding to my hesitation is the fact that divorce rate is highest amongst African American couples. On top of that, there is an 80% chance that black women will not get married if they do not find their mate in college. With children being born in wed-locked families and never seeing a functional family, it becomes hard for them to understand how a proper relationship should work.

The black household is one that promotes unity. I know in my home, I always had my mother and my grandmother to count on. I have countless friends who have this same support system.

Community is also a big thing with African Americans. There is a belief that all from the same neighborhood (hood) should look out for each other. Neighbors can feel comfort in going to ask for sugar. The popular motto, “I am my brothers keeper” is often adopted by schoolyard friends.

Seeing African Americans as family-oriented in the traditional sense is hard considering most blacks today have no template to follow, and lack the same intrinsic conditioning many whites have. But if you look at the community as a family (as our African ancestors do) African Americans have done an ok job in maintaining a family orientation.