Mood Music Monday

I heard this song over break and love it. The video is from Sergio Leone's 'Once Upon a Time in the West." It's the climax, so if you haven't seen the movie but want to, I wouldn't watch the vid...but I really love the song and it goes well with the action. Enjoy.

Sen. Reid's Purported Racism

Off-hand, I don't remember how often I've mentioned Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) on this blog, but suffice it to say I doubt I've ever said anything positive about him, let alone committed it to print. He is easily in my top 10 most loathed Democrats and every time I hear him speak I have an urge to throw something at the television. That said, I have a hard time jumping on the "Reid is a racist" bandwagon after this excerpted conversation from 2008, printed in a soon-to-be-released book:

He was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one," as he said privately.  Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination.

Well, yeah.

Sure, "Negro" is an outdated term, but as George Will pointed out on This Week this morning, there is nothing factually wrong with what Reid said. And, whether white people want to recognize it or not, "light-skinned" blacks have historically been favored in society--and thus more politically palatable. It is a fact of which black people are acutely aware.

Save Denzel, most blacks noted for their beauty, trustworthiness, or intelligence are light-skinned.* In the years since the abolition of slavery, even the most recognized civil rights leaders--as opposed to those relegated to support roles--have been predominantly light-skinned, with the much maligned Marcus Garvey being the most notable exception.  This isn't to say there aren't other exceptions, but darker blacks are the exceptions to the unwritten light-skinned preference in both the black community and the American population as a whole.

I'm not saying it's right, mind you. But I remember how we, as black children, had a litany of insults for dark-skinned classmates and, also, their mothers. (cf.) Sure, it was just one aspect of many that were fair-game for ridicule, but there was just never a corollary for those of us 'light-skinneded' with "good hair" (cf.).

As for the dialect: if you didn't see the fundamental difference between the speaking styles evident in Rev. Al Sharpton's Sunday morning sermon-speak and the refined politicians in the debates when he last ran for the White House, you were clearly not paying attention and probably so drunk you went deaf. His "candidacy" was only given any airtime by the DNC because they wanted to throw a bone to the black vote--no one ever thought it was anything but a token gesture to appease the black vote by airing "black" issues. I was insulted that they even let him up on stage to embarrass himself and illustrate the difference between the educational haves and have nots. (That more women weren't similarly insulted by Sarah Palin's pride in her own incompetence four years later is astonishing to me.)

In sum, sure, it's embarrassing for the Senate Majority Leader to have this private conversation aired in public. But for all of my problems with him and what he's said, I'm much more concerned with his hyperbolic slavery analogies to those who oppose welfare for big insurance companies than I am his use of anachronistic language in describing a political reality. Reid is an out-of-touch old white guy, but I've heard nothing to make be believe he's a racist.


*One area of entertainment where skin tone seems to have no limiting effect is comedy. While both the very dark late Robin Harris and Bernie Mac waited longer for mainstream recognition of their acts than other less-funny comedians, I would attribute that to the blue nature of their comedy, not the very dark shade of their skin.

Partnership for a Drug-Free America Subsidizes Pro-Drug Use Author

Imagine my surprise to see an ad from the Partnership for a Drug Free America next to a blogpost by my former colleague Jacob Sullum (Click to enlarge):

For those of you that may be unaware, several years ago, Jacob wrote an excellent book entitled "Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use."

I'm all for reaching out to new audiences, but I'm doubt too many Hit and Run readers are going to flip their stance on drug prohibition because a banner ad told them that drugs are, like, ya know, bad.

But hey, if they want to give money to reason, more power to them! Maybe AHIP will start buying ads on Cato@Liberty next to Michael Cannon's posts on insurance company welfare "health care reform."

A Quick Comment on Avatar

Someone directed my attention to Conor Friedersdorf's Avatar review/critique of other reviews. As most of Conor's writing that I have read, it is a well-written piece and worth a read if you're into movie reviews that delve into cultural commentary. That said, I think he--and other reviewers I respect--tend to read way WAY too much into Hollywood blockbusters.

My two cents on Conor's review, thus engaging myself in the over-hyped Avatar circle-jerk:

I think most of the commentary for and against the film give the film too much credit. I saw it, and I enjoyed it insofar as it was a nice escape with eye candy for awhile. But the story wasn’t compelling at all, regardless of what political or moral message you try take away from it.

The movie was riddled with cliche after cliche and, since we’re talking about intellectual laziness, how on Cameron’s Blue Earth something so insultingly unsubtle as “unobtainium” made it through so many edits to the final product shows the vacuousness of the filmmakers and the process. I felt repeatedly insulted by the hit-you-over-the-head messaging, ranging from the aforementioned “unobtainium” to the saran wrap transparency of the pre-attack speech by the strike force leader. Add the predictable deaths and the god awful attempts at foreshadowing (e.g., the circles around the tree) and you have a pile of shit.

A visually stunning sparkly blue pile of shit in 3-D, but it is what it is. I don’t regret seeing it, but there is such a thing in reading too much into a Hollywood blockbuster.

UPDATE: for some reason this post is getting traffic today. But if you're a sci-fi nerd like I am not, you know that 'unobtainium' is a trope in the genre. I stand by my critique of the film despite my ignorance of unobtainium. thx, mgmt. 

Just for Fun Friday Monday

I decided to do something a little different today. I usually save my funny stuff for Friday, but I heard this on Sirius Satellite Radio's Raw Dog Comedy channel while I was touring the Midwest on vacation and, if your day is anything like mine, figured you could use the laugh.

There is no video to speak of and the audio is mostly safe for work, save one has a few explicit exclamations, but isn't filthy.

Enjoy!

Crash As Worst Movie of the Decade

Why I love Ta-Nehisi Coates:

With that said, I don't think there's a single human being in Crash. Instead you have arguments and propaganda violently bumping into each other, impressed with their own quirkiness. ("Hey look, I'm a black carjacker who resents being stereotyped.") But more than a bad film, Crash, which won an Oscar (!),  is the apotheosis of a kind of unthinking, incurious, nihilistic, multiculturalism. To be blunt, nothing tempers my extremism more than watching a fellow liberal exhort the virtues of Crash.

If you're angry about race, but not particularly interested in understanding why, you probably like Crash. If you're black and believe in the curative qualities of yet another "dialogue around race," you probably liked Crash. If you're white and voted for Barack Obama strictly because he was black, you probably liked Crash. If you've ever used the term "post-racial" or "post-black" in a serious conversation, without a hint of irony, you probably liked Crash.

Amen.

Where I've Been

I am acutely aware of my recent blogging drought. It isn't for lack of desire or material, believe me. Rather, I have been making a concerted effort to focus my research and, consequently, my writing on a narrower range of topics. (I was also on vacation.) This will never be a simple, one or two topic blog, but my writing has been inconsistent and, at times, too reactionary. The insta-comment is inherent to the nature of blogging, but I've noticed that my reaction and desire to get a comment out right away has compromised my analysis, even in the short term. Part of this process of focus has also forced me to reevaluate my writing style and the aims of this blog.

As far as I know, I have two primary audiences that read this blog with any regularity. The first was my primary intended audience when I started this blog back in 2007: the everyday "real" American that is too busy being a productive member of society to pay attention to much of what goes on in Washington and, probably, someone who doesn't have a sophisticated or fully flushed-out political ideology. (Perhaps a preconceived and probably right-leaning political allegiance, but without the ability to distinguish Burke from Rousseau.)

The second audience is a small number of colleagues and counterparts in the DC area: wonks, for lack of a better term.

Most of what I have written on this blog is of little interest to wonks: they know it already. My analysis, whether one agrees with it or not, tends to be simple-to-digest and more concerned with principle than  nuanced policy argument. As I try to make my transition into the established DC wonkatariat, I need to address issues that make them think, instead of making them simply nod or roll their eyes.

Thus, going forward, the intent of this blog is to integrate more nuanced policy arguments into my writing without getting too far into wonkspeak and talking beyond the people from whom this blog--and my original column at the IDS that shared its name--was originally intended. I know that, at times, I will fail one audience in favor of the other, but I hope to minimize those failures and develop my own voice that bridges the large divide between the place I come from and the place I am today.

Comments always welcome.

JPB

NB: I don't necessarily at all stand behind some of what I wrote when I was at the IDS. The transition from life-long Republican to small "L" libertarian was a process that was in its infant stages the year I was at the paper.