A man told today how he was shot three times in a London street for wearing a Barack Obama T-shirt.
Dube Egwuatu was buying a mobile telephone top-up card in an off-licence when the gunman confronted him and glared at the top, which carries an image of the Democrat US presidential candidate underneath the legend ‘Believe’.
The man then launched into a tirade of racist slurs, shouting ‘I f***ing hate n*****s’ and urging 36-year-old Mr Egwuatu to leave the shop with him.
The man then left the shop but when Mr Egwuatu re-emerged, the attacker was waiting for him in broad daylight with a threatening-looking dog and holding a gun behind his back.
Realising what had sparked the increasingly violent assault, the terrified Mr Egwuatu zipped up his jacket to cover the image of Mr Obama and walked to his car.
But the shaven-headed man, who was white, followed Mr Egwuatu and after pulling open the passenger door pointed the gun at him.
After pleading with the man to leave him alone, the married former street warden put the keys in the ignition and turned the engine on.
The attacker then fired the gas-powered ball-bearing pistol three times, hitting the civil servant in the face, hand and shoulder.
Fearing for his life and bleeding heavily, Mr Egwuatu raced away in his car and found somewhere safe to call for help.
He was taken to hospital and later sent to have a piece of metal removed from his jaw.
Mr Egwuatu, a data analyst with Croydon Council, said: ‘The venom in his voice was frightening.
‘He was telling me that he was going to kill me.
‘I couldn’t believe it was happening – and just because I was wearing an Obama T-shirt. He was trying to make me walk somewhere quieter, saying: ‘I’ve got something for you,’ and ‘I’m going to kill you.’
He added: ‘Obama inspires me, his educational track record alone is quite unbelievable – that is why I was wearing the T-shirt.
‘I did not think for one minute it could stir up such powerful feelings of hatred and I never said a word to him.’
Mr Egwuatu’s wife, Angela, 35, said neither of them had experienced anything like it during their childhood in Nigeria.
Mrs Egwuatu, an immigration officer, said: ‘At first my feelings were pure horror and now it is pure anger.
‘If he had been carrying a real gun I would have been a widow. It is just ridiculous.
‘I don’t know how a person’s mentality works. Why would a T-shirt get you to the point where you want to shoot someone.’
To the untrained eye, ball-bearing guns like the one used in the attack look every bit like a real firearm.
The potentially lethal weapons are often converted by criminals to fire real bullets, and can be bought easily in high-street shops and on websites.
The Met said it was investigating the incident, which took place in South Norwood, and that police searched a nearby house which the attacker was seen going into.
No one has been arrested.
Plus this lovely video from the early stages of the DL.
So my cousin (a heterosexual woman) just sent me this, in the piece author Jewel Woods expounds about Black Male Privilege and runs down a list of the ways in which Black Man are privileged in our society. While I applaud this brothers’ efforts some of the points he brings up I really don’t get nor do I think they are good examples of privilege whether for black men or any other man. Here are a few examples
“13. I do not have to worry about the daily hassles of being terrorized by the fear of gaining weight. In fact, in many instances bigger is better for my sex.”
Says who? For those whom weight matters I have rarely seen the gender of the obese person really matter, often times obese or overweight individuals I find lose sexuality in the face of their larger society, they become a “a fat person”.
This one under “Sex and Sexuality” was extra entertaining
15. I can purchase pornography that typically shows men defile women by the common practice of the “money shot.”
I can also purchase porn that typically find men defiling men by the common practice of the money shot, it doesnt make it privilege.
All joking aside I think that Mr. Woods should be applauded for taking up this discourse but I find a lot of his “100 reasons” to be heterosexist and one dimensional. If Mr. Woods would like to truly challenge the ways in which Black men assert their privilege I suggest he take a deep look in the mirror and ask himself why he felt the need to make a list of male privilege that has an overwhelmingly one-sided view of manhood. It seems to me to be screaming Black Gay Men don’t count because they aren’t real MEN…hmph maybe thats the real “privilege”..
A friend sent me a link to this first film today and this one I saw last weekend. I rarely go to the movies or endorse cinema but these are exceptions. Also what else am I supposed to do until Jumping the Broom comes out later this month…
While things have been frustrating and thats putting it lightly I thought something amazing to do would be to point out something that has me buzzing…the discourse that has taken place on race and politics. Both seperately and the ones that have happened in the context of one another have been fascinating and have really (regardless of why they came about) have made me happy… I thought I would compile some media to be used as a source of inspiration, starting here there is also the article pasted below that I loved…
This is Your Nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise
9/13/08
For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege,
or who are looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps
this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like
Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that
of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to
judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even
as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly
typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’
redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if
anyone messes with you, you’ll “kick their fuckin’ ass,” and talk
about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a
responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather
than a thug.
White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in
six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out
of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community
college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to
achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as
unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first
place because of affirmative action.
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town
smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state
with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island
of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people
don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S.
Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means
you’re “untested.”
White privilege is being able to say that you support the words
“under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough
for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be
immediately disqualified from holding office–since, after all, the
pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t
added until the 1950s–while if you’re black and believe in reading
accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because the
Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school,
requires it), you are a dangerous and mushy liberal who isn’t fit to
safeguard American institutions.
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make
people immediately scared of you.
White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member
of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from
the Union, and whose motto is “Alaska first,” and no one questions
your patriotism or that of your family, while if you’re black and your
spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with
her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s
being disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers
and the work they do–like, among other things, fight for the right of
women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end
to child labor–and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if
you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month
governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in
college and the fact that she lives close to Russia–you’re somehow
being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t
even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your
running mate anyway, because suddenly your presence on the ticket has
inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your
party a “second look.”
White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support
your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or
being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being
black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political
machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.
White privilege is when you can take nearly twenty-four hours to
get to a hospital after beginning to leak amniotic fluid, and still be
viewed as a great mom whose commitment to her children is
unquestionable, and whose “next door neighbor” qualities make her
ready to be VP, while if you’re a black candidate for president and
you let your children be interviewed for a few seconds on TV, you’re
irresponsibly exploiting them.
White privilege is being able to give a 36 minute speech in which
you talk about lipstick and make fun of your opponent, while laying
out no substantive policy positions on any issue at all, and still
manage to be considered a legitimate candidate, while a black person
who gives an hour speech the week before, in which he lays out
specific policy proposals on several issues, is still criticized for
being too vague about what he would do if elected.
White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years
whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely
criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an
explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring
Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in
speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment
on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just
a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a
black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S.
Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of
U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its
effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates
America.
White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when
asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for
asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely
refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly
means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly
intellectual and nuanced.
White privilege is being able to go to a prestigious prep school,
then to Yale and then Harvard Business school, and yet, still be seen
as just an average guy (George W. Bush) while being black, going to a
prestigious prep school, then Occidental College, then Columbia, and
then to Harvard Law, makes you “uppity,” and a snob who probably looks
down on regular folks.
White privilege is being able to graduate near the bottom of your
college class (McCain), or graduate with a C average from Yale (W.)
and that’s OK, and you’re cut out to be president, but if you’re black
and you graduate near the top of your class from Harvard Law, you
can’t be trusted to make good decisions in office.
White privilege is being able to dump your first wife after she’s
disfigured in a car crash so you can take up with a multi-millionaire
beauty queen (who you go on to call the c-word in public) and still be
thought of as a man of strong family values, while if you’re black and
married for nearly twenty years to the same woman, your family is
viewed as un-American and your gestures of affection for each other
are called “terrorist fist bumps.”
White privilege is when you can develop a pain-killer addiction,
having obtained your drug of choice illegally like Cindy McCain, go on
to beat that addiction, and everyone praises you for being so strong,
while being a black guy who smoked pot a few times in college and
never became an addict means people will wonder if perhaps you still
get high, and even ask whether or not you ever sold drugs.
White privilege is being able to sing a song about bombing Iran
and still be viewed as a sober and rational statesman, with the
maturity to be president, while being black and suggesting that the
U.S. should speak with other nations, even when we have disagreements
with them, makes you “dangerously naive and immature.”
White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW
has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being
black and experiencing racism and an absent father is apparently among
the “lesser adversities” faced by other politicians, as Sarah Palin
explained in her convention speech.
And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could
possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with
George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is
skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and
the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because a
lot of white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya
know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more
years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.
White privilege is, in short, the problem.
And then there is also this…
Reflections on White Anti-Intellectualism
(Or, What’cha Want With all That Book Learnin’?)
By Tim Wise
September 14, 2008
To hear an awful lot of white folks tell it, the problem with
black people is that they just don’t want to work hard enough in
school. They act up and refuse to study or get good grades, because
they don’t want to be put down for “acting white.” In other words, the
African American community is beset by a culture of
anti-intellectualism, contrasted, one supposes with our own white
culture of studiousness and academic achievement.
When making this argument, and knowing that it might sound a bit
disparaging, even racist, we white folks love to refer to the
high-profile black folks who agree with us. So we point to Bill Cosby,
for instance, who said this same thing a few years ago and hasn’t
stopped saying it yet. The fact that a dozen or so studies have found
that there actually is no unique peer pressure or ostracism that black
kids experience for doing well in school (over and above that which
all kids who are viewed as brainy often face) fails to move them. The
fact that longitudinal data actually shows that black students are the
most likely to believe in the importance of getting a good education,
the least likely to cheat and the least likely to skip class appears
to matter not.
But what I have always found interesting about the
anti-intellectualism charge coming from whites and pointed at persons
in the black community, is how readily it emanates from a group of
people (white adults) who seem to actually revel in
anti-intellectualism, as evidenced by our voting behavior and
political sensibilities, made especially clear during the current
political campaign.
What else but a deep contempt for education (or book learnin’ as
we sometimes jokingly refer to it in the South) could explain why
Barack Obama’s Harvard Law School education can be mocked as elitist
and out of touch, while John McCain’s bottom-feeder academic record
and Sarah Palin’s four colleges in six years and degree from the
University of Idaho, makes them ready to lead, and more like “normal
people?” (And please, don’t tell me how it isn’t his education that
poses the problem, but rather his comments about rural folks clinging
to God and guns when times are tight, since a week after he made that
comment, Dick Cheney implied that West Virginians were all a bunch of
inbreds, and rural whites didn’t seem to care, since at least he isn’t
an uppity black guy).
What else but a deep contempt for education could render Obama’s
time as a law professor, teaching constitutional law at one of the
nation’s finest law schools, all but irrelevant in the eyes of
millions? To hear a lot of people tell it, his time in the classroom
doesn’t count, and doesn’t indicate anything about his fitness to be
president (even though, ya know, being an expert on the Constitution
is intuitively a good thing for the president to be, or one would
think), but having been a prisoner of war, or a hunter and hockey mom,
and “just like the neighbor next door,” makes you fit for the nation’s
highest offices.
What else but a deep contempt for education could explain the
free pass given to George W. Bush for bragging at a Yale commencement
a few years ago that he had been a C student, but that was OK, because
even with a mediocre academic record you could go on to be president?
If a black person told students that, they’d be viewed as downgrading
achievement, but not Bush. Is it the accent? Is that all it takes to
make people think you’re one of them? A bubba drawl and the spinning
of downhome homilies? Or the fact that you like to shoot guns? If this
is the love for learning, and the intelligence that white folks seem
to think blacks inadequately value, can I suggest that perhaps such
intelligence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?
What else but a deep-seated anti-intellectual streak could
explain why so many white voters in 2000 and 2004 regularly mentioned
how they preferred Bush because he was the “kind of guy you feel you
could have a beer with” (as if that had anything to do with being the
leader of the so-called free world), and how they disdained the
intellectual certitude of Gore and Kerry, whose command of policy
details made them feel like they were being talked down to?
What else but a commitment to the long-term abdication of
critical thinking could explain why millions of whites take so quickly
to Rush Limbaugh: a guy whose motto for years was that he would “tell
you what to think” and whose fans call themselves “ditto” heads (as
in, “same as above,” which is nearly the perfect metaphor for people
who follow someone else like sheep).
In fact, the white love of anti-intellectualism in politics goes
back quite a ways further than that. So when Ronald Reagan decided to
skip out on a policy briefing during an important overseas trip, all
so he could watch The Sound of Music on television, or when he
regularly failed to know the names of foreign leaders, most white
folks still loved him and considered him a great leader. Perhaps it
was because he had a ranch, liked to wear cowboy hats, and had that
folksy aw-shucks grin?
As a white person, and as one with plenty of antiracist and
critical-thinking white friends, I realize that not all whites fall
into this anti-intellectual trap. Perhaps most don’t. But it appears
that enough do to make a difference in elections. And surely, the
embrace of anti-intellectualism is at least as severe in the white
community as it is in the black community, where we constantly hear
talk of it, coming from the very white folks who then turn around and
tell us that the Earth was created only 5000 years ago, and that
despite having no scientific training, they are sure that global
warming is a myth, but that Obama really is a Muslim, or maybe the
anti-Christ (as once-upon-a-time celebrity, Victoria Jackson claims on
her website).
In short, when it comes to “acting white,” if the term means
paying no attention to policy details, but rather voting for the
person who you’d most like to hang out with at a sports bar, then
perhaps we need not only black and brown folks to forswear such
lunacy, but for those of us who are white to turn on whiteness too. To
not do so would be to confirm that whiteness is inversely related to
mental acumen. I for one, would like to think we were capable of
better. But as for evidence to support my hope? Well, I’m still
waiting for that.
–
Paul A. Burns, PhD
University of Michigan ‘07
Cornell ‘98
All of this is powerful becasue we are talking about it and that to me works and is beautiful…it will charged me forward and keep my mind agile, hope it does the same for you.
I trying to not be completed blown out by the happenings of the political landscape recently.. So much going on that I almost feel like I might be standing still or more is being made of a rather same election cycle. I was almost ready to throw my hands to the sky but then I read this. It made me smile and I can now go left foot, right foot…forward and do what needs to happen. The words this author have offered up must be fed on like essential life fruit, without it we are dead. I like the author refuse to speak the name anymore, or talk about lipstick until it’s all over. Like I believe about so many things speaking it out loud gives it power and I don’t want to be a part of anything that does that. I ask you all to do the same? I don’t want to see anymore Facebook “what are u doing” mentioning being frightened, or scared for ourselves. We are better than that and we have to be stronger now more than ever. If we compromise ourselves or throw our hands up, I for one think we should lose. So the next time you want to give up go here and sign up to do something. Look at this and laugh because tragedy and comedy are essentially always linked and we must talk this ridiculousness for what it truly is. DON’T BACK DOWN!!! WHOSE STREETS MY STREETS!!!
So I have been consumed today with the circus that is NY politics but I took a breather this afternoon to read some news and as I gazed through Salon I stumbled upon a blog they like called Angry Black Bitch. Now of course I was drawn to it for just the name (as I identify with it) but upon reading I must say kudos to this lady from St. Louis who is rocking it out and keeping it ever so real. Today she was pontificating about the news coverage of the elections and what her opinions were on it, so I decided I might follow her lead and throw my 2 cents in.
I have read (and will unfortunately continue to read) the multitude of political meandering going on about this presidential election. I have read pieces talking about the historical part, the trashy bits, the he said she said phenomenons and the like. What has escaped me is solid pieces that truly define the cross roads that we are at as a country. I mean we can talk all day about the personalities that are playing out here and who deserves what, but the honest truth is that in this country we are a M.E.S.S. What really kills me is that it’s not one segment of the population, when I look about I see examples of it everywhere. From folks losing their homes, to people sending their children off to die to the rise of modern racism (Islamic Hate). No section of the mass American public seems to be able to get it together. Let it be known that I include myself in this larger group, I like many people I know struggle from paycheck to paycheck and overdue notice to overdue notice.
So when I hear people talking about what matters in this election, I am dumbfounded that people don’t seem to get it. We are on the verge of a meltdown people, if America was your sister or cousin you would have been on that Intervention show begging them to get into rehab. So the question remains about who is the best Doctor (Presidential prospect) to fix what ailes us? I of course have my own opinions about who that is and won’t speak about it here, as I still think asking someone who they are voting for is the ultimate in poor taste. I do however beg everyone to start also having these internal conversations with yourself. Instead of asking whose spouse is doing what or whose children are cutier or less slutty…PLEASE PLEASE begin to ask who is going to protect the rights of your vagina? Who is going to make your student loans not bankrupt you? Who is going to bring your cousin home from Iraq in one piece and who could care less if he came home in a body bag? At the end of the day whoever you think makes the better choice for your life make it happen and go out and vote on November 4th.
Ever since Governor Palin attacked Senator Obama last week in her acceptance speech I have read and heard multiple comments lashing out at community organizing. I have heard everything from “it doesn’t work” to it’s a lefty cause and that it is overwhelmingly inaffective. I have heard more about groups like ACORN and Saul Alinsky in the main stream media in the past week than what I ever thought possible. Having done my fair share of organizing over the years I am completely familiar with the word and have more than a few books on the subject. What I find so disgusting about all of this however is the amount of people from the outside now jumping on the Palin’s bandwagon and throwing rocks. What really gets me going is that these people are either privileged individuals who have never been low income or disenfranchised so who are they to judge a process that they never participated in. I know that by writing this I am not doing anything for the pattern that suggest community organizing is about lefty’s as I probably am I, however…
I would first like to point out that talking about community organizing and groups like ACORN as synonomous is offensive. While they do a great deal of work on organizing they are by no means the only group out there doing this type of work. Also like any subject or culture for that matter they are a tiny piece of a much larger and complex world. Along those lines, while many in the controlling groups may not like their tactics( i.e. direct action) how dare they attack them for using it. The “tactics” that they employ have won real results for the people that they work for and with. Results that otherwise would not have ever been given to these people or addressed in a serious and fourthright way.
On another note, I read in an article this morning that community organizing is majority funded by government. As a person that works to raise funds for community organizing groups this couldn’t be further from the truth. While it may have been the case earlier on in the history of organizing, currently most groups that do organizing recieve little to no money to do it from the government. These groups are funded by like minded individuals and foundations that see the power in what they do, so decide to put their money where their mouth is.
In response to the attack by Ms. Palin the Obama camp has sent out various emails highlighting the disgust they feel about them. What I find so amazing is that the community organizing model has been the crux of the Obama campaign so far. So it amazing me when people I know who are voting for Obama (so they claim) have jumped on the bandwagon in support of the demonizing agenda. The idea that you can mobilize people from the ground up and empower them to affect (dare I say it) CHANGE in their lives, seems to offend these people. I only find myself wondering what these people feel like they have been a part of over the last 18 or so months. If Obama’s campaign to the White House has not been an example of the power of community organizing then I’m not sure what is. While it is fine for people to disagree (although I am finding more and more that they don’t know what they disagree with) it makes little sense to me that they belittle a process that has so inspired them.
I have been an advid fan of politics for years and will be into the future, and in this presidential race we have seen pockets of folks formerly immobilized politically now involved. I guess I should not be angry about the barrage of attacks on organizing I have seen lately. It seems to me that people like Palin, the Republicans and H&M liberals have fear in their eyes. Fear of the people who have been silenced politically for so long marching into the ballot box and changing the world as we know it. SO mock as you will the power of organizing, but despite the rhetoric it may just work.
So many things occured in the last 24 hours I don’t know where to begin… So I decided do a quick link list
Political stories to be found here and an interesting one here.
“HIV in NYC 3 times the National Average”, I know, I know and guess what Black Gay Man are leading the race…I’m shocked and I’m not the only one. Check out the horror of public health, and never to be offbeat the NY Times
