Category: Culture

Suds Ahoy!

I'm just finished with an interesting documentary about the history of beer brewing in the US. I know many of the broad outlines but lots of the specific details are fascinating. For instance, it wasn't until the 1970s that beer was consumed at pre-Prohibition levels. It took 40 years!

Hmmm, I think all this new information means I need to head to Oaken Barrel sometime soon.

FDO

I’m a Political Man… and I Practice What I Preach

Hey, I love the Cream song 'Politician'.

 

I'm in the storm before the calm of Finals week. Spending time to blog has felt like a true luxury item as of late. I hope to take some time to do more this weekend.

 

Today's big, early DC news is kinda local for me. Ft. Wayne IN is a couple hours away. (Close enough that I've driven to a bar there to watch my favorite unknown guitarist perform. Blessings, EJ.) Their US Rep Mark Souder resigned today because of a sexual relationship with a staffer. This is perfect timing for me because my US History classes are learning about Bill Clinton's impeachment trial.

 

Part of the follow up involves comparing the expectations we have of high school students at a Jesuit school compared to the expectations of the American public for our Presidents. When students learn that the leaders of the House prosecution of Clinton, Henry Hyde and Newt Gingrich, also had extramarital affairs, they are shocked. Hopefully the Souder news will help indicate how common this situation is among political figures.

FDO

Obviously the 6th Believer

I can't believe I'm still finding more Bob Dylan songs I like but had never heard/paid attention/'got' before. I'm more and more convinced he's not just the best songwriter ever but that 2nd place is far far away.

 

FDO

Why President Obama Is Black

I’ve had students challenge President Barack Obama’s Blackness, asking why it is that he and everyone else seems to consider him Black although he has approximately equal Black and White parentage. Usually I just talk about the one drop rule and social perception without going much deeper. Often students will chime in that Obama never really had a choice, insisting that Black was the only race he could have been in America.

 

The revelation of his single Census box identity as Black has ratcheted up this conversation and led to some interesting responses. Melissa Harris-Lacewell suggests that Obama created “a definitional crisis for whiteness” by transforming the expectations of what Black and White lives are supposed to look like. She believes Obama won election in 2008 largely because his life hit all the marks previously associated with success in the White community and his decision to identify himself as Black is a deliberate effort to embrace his Blackness.

 

John Judis subtitles his piece on the subject “Why Barack Obama Isn’t Black” and discusses the one drop rule as a legacy of slavery and racism while positing that Obama did the expected but not best thing by indicating himself as Black only. Refusing to accept the paradigm, Judis seems to say, is the only way to remove the power of race as a social construction.

 

Even though I understand the hue and cry, the President’s choice seems remarkably simple to me: He thinks of himself as Black. That in no way diminishes his affection for his mother and grandparents; it certainly doesn’t elevate his absent father. Barack Obama was born in America and has been defined as Black for his entire life. How many of us have ever said (or even thought) Barack Obama is the 43rd White man to become President? Our country does not define Whiteness in the same ways we define Blackness and President or not, that’s the reality for Barack Obama in the same way it is for everyone else.

 

Judis wants the President to begin challenging conventional notions of race by checking more than one box. I would suggest that Harris-Lacewell provides a great answer to that request. Living as he does, accomplishing what he has, being who he is challenge race theory more than any form possibly could.

 

FDO

Easy Like Sunday Morning

I’m sitting on my front porch, typing a probable blog post about President Obama’s census form choice. A car just rolled past with two men in it. The driver was White and he had a Black passenger. Almost as soon as I noticed the passenger, he noticed me. Instinctively, learned of course but definitely unthinking, I raised my hand and my head in greeting. He was doing exactly the same thing to me.

  

FDO

Remix America

I wrote this poem a couple years ago and a NY Times article today encouraged me to post it. I love the phrase and the sentiment behind it.

Remix America

 

 

Mestizo mulatto hyphenated hybrid

Mixed up creole cultural mélange of meaning

As who we are and what we used to be pale
next to tomorrow’s endless postmodern possibilities of

Perpetual people driven progress

 

All the ‘I’s and ‘US’s can become ‘They’s and ‘We’s sooner than YouTube presents the next

Macaca spewing hate monger would be divider

Who unites us in disdain

For his antiquated rhetoric of race,

Religion and righteousness

The 3 Rs that used to keep the South backwards,

Black folks scared and the rarely compassionate conservatives

entrenched in their oh so corrupting power

 

The beauty of the remix

And the America it is frenetically remaking

Is that all the little boxes

Will mean the very same thing in the end

 

More empty spaces we can fill

Exactly as we choose

 

© Gayle Force Press 2008

Obama’s Best Weekend Ever

Well, at least since his inauguration.

Not only is the world still buzzing about healthcare reform passing but now he's achieved the most substantial nuclear arms reduction in the last couple decades AND gained the country around $8 billion through the Citigroup bailout. Kudos, Mr. President. Let's hope this roll continues!

 

 

FDO