I Am a Community Organizer

And I will be blogging on Monday, 8 September, along with blogs such as the The Young Black Profession Guide, The Electronic Village, The Jose Vilson, From My Brown Eyed View, The African American Political Pundit, Springer’s Journal, and Inkognero in honor of the great work that Community Organizers do.

Please join me, and ask your blogging buddies to do so as well. I’m not interested in stories meant to score political points (although I’m pissed at the political cynicism that would attack community organizing). I’m interested in stories about the grassroots, the community organizers out there that are doing their thing via blogs, social networking, real life organizing that doesn’t have a (D) or (R) following it. That’s what I’d love to hear about. Since Community Organizing has been brought into the limelight, I would love to hear how those involved are working for progress and transformation. Progress and transformation from the ground up. So, while a lot of this action day will be political in nature, I’d like to see some posts, comments, whatever springing from my own post that are more focused on grassroots, non-denominational progress.

If that sounds like you, please participate and please leave a link in comments so that others can find you.

Black Weblog Awards

The winners have been announced. Congrats!

In Which I Proceed To Kick Ass

At least that’s what Devious Diva seems to think. And who am I to argue with her and her blogging awesomeness? If she says so, then it must be.

So, here I am, kicking ass, and proudly showing it off.

Now, as an ass kicker, there are rules. Failure to follow these rules will result in your ass kickingness card to be revoked.

Choose 5 bloggers that you feel are “Kick Ass Bloggers”
Let ‘em know in your post or via email, twitter or blog comments that they’ve received an award
Share the love and link back to both the person who awarded you and back to MammaDawg
Hop on back to the Kick Ass Blogger Club HQ to sign Mr. Linky then pass it on!

Ok. So, now I need to name those 5 bloggers that are Kicking My Ass. Here goes.

Matt Bastard. He (and his crew at Bastard Logic) is a frickin’ progressive force to be reckoned with. And by progressive, I don’t mean the usual racist, homophobic, sexist, trans-hating bs that often passes as progressivism these days. His blog was also just nominated for the Best International Blog award in the Black Weblog Awards. I’m not the only one that recognizes.

Eric Stoller. Eric is the definition of friend and ally. Don’t believe me? Look that shit up. It’s in the dictionary. I swear. He’s an anti-racist, social justice activist, computer geek, and he works in /blogs often about education. What’s not to love? Procedeth over to his diggs and watch the ass kicking ensue.

Renee at Womanist Musings. I’m relatively new to her blog, and damn, I’ve been missing out on some amazing writing and thinking over there. She’s one of the few people I know of that can call herself a humanist and I don’t cringe. Most folks now-a-days that call themselves humanists do so in the interest of shoving something unseemly, like their racism, sexism, or disablism under the rug. You know what I’m talking about: those folks that cry “Why feminism? Why womanism? Why not be a humanist?” When Renee says it, you can bet she’s for real.

Black Amazon My love for Black Amazon knows no bounds. With no tolerance for bullshit, she wields her machete-like pen (or is that keyboard?) at all the nonsense and pretensions that surround us and confront us daily. Looking for some truth dealt with no holds barred. This is where you need to be.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville. Melissa rocks (as well as the whole crew at Shakesville). Her writing is always insightful and witty. I love the playful use of language that permeates her posts, and she is always on point. Again, this is progressivism as it should be, not that fake shit.

Wait, is that five already? Damn. I could go on and on, but alas, this time I will abide by the rules and stick to just five. Check these bloggers out, for sure, but if you’re looking for more, there’s a big long list of link love for all your bloggedy goodness needs.

Black Weblog Awards Nominations Are Up

The nomination process for the 2008 Black Weblog Awards started on 1 August. If, for some strange reason, you don’t know about these awards, you can read about them here. To get to nominating your favorite black owned and operated blogs, go here. They’ve also got a forum running now as well.

Here’s who I nominated:

Best Blog Community: Electronic Village
Best Culture Blog: Ultraviolet Underground
Best LGBT Blog: Pam’s House Blend
Best Video Blog: Ill doctrine
Best International Blog: Black Looks
Best Blog Post or Blog Post Series: The Roma Series at This Is Not My Country
Best Design: All About Race
Best Group Blog: African American Political Pundit
Best Personal Blog: Problem Chylde
Best Podcast: Positive Hip Hop Podcast
Best Political/News Blog: Jack and Jill Politics

I’m not sure if you can go back and nominate blogs in categories you didn’t nominate anyone for the first time. I hope so, though. I’ve got a few more blogs that I’d like to nominate.

Arte y Pico Awards

The wonderful blogger and AfroSpear member MsLadyDeborah has honored me with an award!

The Arte y Pico Award

As Lewis Hyde would argue, “a gift that cannot be given away ceases to be a gift.”¹, and it is in that spirit that the Arte y Pico Awards (along with other blogger awards like the Thinking Bloggers Award) operates. Here’s the rundown:

The “Arte y Pico” award, you must know that it comes with a few rules. These rules are listed below:

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2. Each awardee has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award: http://arteypico.blogspot.com/

5. Display these rules.

And now, on with the awards! I must admit; there will be no surprises here, since I’m constantly hawking the genius of these bloggers…

Nezua at The Unapologetic Mexican

Kai at Zuky

Devious Diva at This Is Not My Country

Blackamazon at Having Read the Fine Print

Purple Zoe at Ultraviolet Underground.

Now, y’all know I’m not one to go around following the rules. So, I’m gonna add a few more to the mix for good measure:

Villager at the Electronic Village

Brownfemipower at La Chola

XicanoPwr at ¡Para Justicia y Libertad!

Prof Black Woman at WoC PhD

Carmen D. at All About Race

Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I added five additional bloggers. Take this as an historical moment. It’s one of the few times that a black person can do something out of line and Barack Obama won’t have to answer for it.

1. Lewis Hyde, introduction to The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. New York: Vintage Books, 2007 [↩]

Mammies and Niggers: We Ain’t No Joke

This is going to be one of those rambling, “where the hell is Kev going with this type of posts.” Just so you know.

I’m pissed. I’m pissed off at this thread in particular right now; and no, I’m not pissed at Ilyka for rightfully expressing outrage at the offensive use of a mammy figurine for “preventing drunk dialing.” I’m pissed at the people flooding that thread twisting and contortioning themselves into every possible shape imaginable to try to excuse themselves or their friends of having fucked up. To wit:

One might also posit that there are a literally endless number of more harmful examples of pervasive racism in our current, living culture to get up in arms about — there’s the black man in pop culture having the option of being a musician, an athlete, or a prisoner; or the black woman’s similar pop culture pigeonholing as either the Sassy Best Friend Who Gets Maybe Twelve Lines Total in the Romantic Comedy That’s Out This Week or, simply, the ghetto ‘ho. I would wager any of these stereotypes has a lot more negative bearing on African Americans living today, in the 21st Century, than The Mammy

Oh, you’d wager that, huh? After reading several comments written by people of color expressly stating that they were offended, YOU still know more about what has a “negative bearing on African Americans living today.” Yeah. Right. Gotcha.

But it get’s better:

I know this will convince exactly 0.0% of the people reading this, but Sarah, who has the Emancipatia figure, is a friend of mine, and there is not a racist bone in her body. I think it’s perfectly valid to discuss this, but some of you need to stop patting yourselves on the back. There is a danger that you can look right at real honest-to-god racism and not see it, because you’re too busy being proud that you know Aunt Jemima was a little off-color. Maybe that’s even part of the joke.

Um, yeah. You see, Joshua, this is where, as Tim Wise would say (and really, I suggest that you spend some time reading his work) your “whiteness is showing.” A good number of comments on this thread were written by people of color, and you want to claim that these same people might not know “real honest-to-god racism” when they see it? As if we haven’t lived it our entire lives? Oh, but you thought everyone on the thread was white, didn’t you? Because everyone on the intertubes is white, right? And we just don’t get the joke. No, trust me. We get the joke, and it’s not funny.

And then we get what I was just waiting for: the “I’m sorry if” non-apology:

I want to say that I do feel embarrassed for not realizing that not everyone would know the context here, for just assuming the rest of the world would know that Emancipatia was purchased, given, named and displayed with total knowledge of how gross it was that she was ever manufactured. The purchase was not a smug hipster joke, it was someone being so horrified that this thing existed that they had to show it to someone else, one of those so bad you have to laugh to keep from crying situations. And the joking commentary from my friend Brian was his attempt to distract me from something awful happening in my life at the time, nothing hateful. I don’t think this thing symbolizes someone choosing to wait on me or any of that other nonsense previous commenters suggested. I do regret putting that on the internet without any context or explanation, and I apologize if I’ve offended anyone. This was thoughtless and foolish on my part, but definitely not racism.

First of all, if you haven’t yet, I want you to now stop reading and follow the link to the mammy figurine picture and commentary. Now, notice that there is nothing, absolutely nothing that suggests any sort of horror or condemnation. Nothing.

I don’t buy it. The center does not hold.

I want to be clear here, however; NO ONE is calling anyone a white-sheet wearing, cross-burning white-supremacist. You just fucked up, is all. You were blind, is all. You can get past that if you just stepped back for a minute and actually LISTENED to what people are saying to you and just owned your shit. We all know that you meant no harm. That’s not the point. The point is that the harm was done when you didn’t mean it. That, often, is more hurtful than when the harm was intended. Get it?

And I just have to say, I cringe every time I read “I’m sorry if…” It rings so false and so condescending that I’m inclined to stop giving people the benefit of the doubt the minute I read it. So what? Are you saying that if you didn’t happen to offend someone then you’re not sorry? Again, own your shit. If you mean it, say “I’m sorry THAT I offended you.” Otherwise you can just stfu.

Now, on to Dog Chapman.

What does Dog Chapman have to do with this particular rant, you ask? A hella lot, actually. You see, it really pisses me off that people are so willing to dismiss legitimate claims of grievances, that people are so willing to say, “just get over it and focus on the important stuff” when it is so obvious that all of this is connected. One thing leads to another. Let that racist mammy figure slide, and the next thing you know you’ve got Dog Chapman or Michael Richards. Next thing you know….

“But really, it’s all just a joke. Don’t you get it?”

Again, yes. I get it. It’s not funny. And I’m not going to get over it. It’s time for you to deal. This matters and I applaud those that are willing to call it for what it is.

So, if any of you Emancipatia owners still don’t get it, I would like you to think long and hard about Dog Chapman. I would like you to realize that you’re feeding into this same bullshit, regardless of your intentions. Think about how Chapman and his supporters are making THE SAME EXACT ARGUMENTS OF INNOCENCE as you are.

Really, just think about it (listening helps too!)

This post is my contribution to the Day of Blogging for Respect in Media. If this mess pisses you off as much as it does me, then you should consider hitting them where it hurts, their pocket books.

Other Bloggers for Media Justice:

1. Purple Zoe purplezoe.blogspot.com/
2. Kevin slanttruth.com/
3. Yobachi www.BlackPespective.net
4. Tolu Olorunda www.yourblackworld.com/blogs/yourblackpolitics.htm
5. Aaron www.politicalseason.blogspot.com/
6. She Codes blackwomenvote.blogspot.com/
7. Francis Holland francislholland.blogspot.com/
8. Dr. Boyce Watkins blog.boycewatkins.com/
9. Villager electronicvillage.blogspot.com
10. Vanessa Byers www.vanessabyers.net/
11. ChangeSeeker whyaminotsurprised.blogspot.com
12. Jerome kid-kidfunkadelic.blogspot.com
13. Hawa fackintruth.typepad.com
14. Bluelinchpin bluelinchpin.blogspot.com
15. Deborah msladydeborah.blogspot.com
16. newblackwoman.blogspot.com
17. Sojourner’s Place sojournersplace.blogspot.com/

In Solidarity: Global Day for Darfur

Today is the blogging Global Day for Darfur, as organized by Danielle at Modern Musings. There are 25 bloggers participating today, so head over to Modern Musings for a list of participants and please read what they have to say.

The mission of this blogging day is to Educate, Motivate, and Activate.

See also great sites like Human Rights Watch, Dream for Darfur, and Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth for up to date information.

The genocide in Darfur has been going on for five years now. This from Save Darfur:

After five years of conflict in Darfur, children are reaching school age having experienced nothing but armed conflict. A million Darfuri children have grown up displaced, living in camps for refugees and internally displaced persons, many without opportunities for education, without knowing the meaning of home.

This from Human Rights Watch:

(New York, April 7, 2008) – Five years into the Darfur conflict, women and girls need protection from rape and brutal attacks still being committed by government forces and armed groups throughout Darfur, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

Neither government security forces nor international peacekeepers have provided sufficient protection for women and girls, who remain extremely vulnerable to rape and other abuses during large-scale attacks and even in periods of relative calm, Human Rights Watch said. Survivors of sexual violence face numerous obstacles to justice, leaving them without meaningful redress. Where the perpetrators are soldiers or militia, the chances of prosecution are still more remote.

The Olympic Games being held in Bejing this year has brought a renewed scrutiny on China and its human rights record. Senators Clinton and Obama have called on President Bush to boycott the Olympics Opening Ceremony. I applaud their stances, but I also think it is important to remember the role that U.S. imperialism often plays in its attempts to “help” countries in need. So yeah, what about the Congo? It is important to stand in solidarity with the Darfur victims, to aid them as best we can, but we must be careful to insure that any U.S. involvement in this crisis is not just another profit oriented excursion at the expense of dark-skinned folk’s lives.

What can we do to help?

Email Corporate Sponsors of the Olympics

Turn it off

Petition the International Olympic Committee

Ask the Candidtates

Ask President Bush and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to take immediate steps to stop the killing in Darfur.

Explore all of the other options of what you can do

Peace, to have meaning for many who have only known suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health and education, as well as freedom and human dignity.

Ralph Johnson Bunche (1904-1971)