Thanks much for reminding some and enlightening others that there is nothing wrong with being black.  I wish I could get my coworkers to read this, they spend so much time downing us a people they don't realize they are talking about themselves as well.  I love being black, I love my black people, and I love my black men.  The good the bad and the ugly.  I wish people would stop analyzing us and just do the right thing.  Keep It Simple Stupid!

This comment is probably going to cause a fire storm but I couldn't care less about being black.  I am acutely aware of the issues, historic and current, caused by people (i.e. idiots) who assign undeserved value to skin color, facial features, and hair texture. To whole concept is really stupid.  On a cultural level, I pick and choose what I want to be a part of...and it just so happens, I imagine due to my particular upbriging, that I associate with many things that would be consider 'black' culture and I most certainly love myself.  

As long as any group culture doesn't impose on other people's rights then, as far as I, and common sense, am concerned live long and prosper.

"***, if you don't like fried chicken then something is wrong with YOU!"

D. Chapelle

<a href="http://cobb.typepad.com/cobb/2003/10/my_dungeon_shoo.html">Baldwin</a> is the right place to start.

"There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of their identity."

Except that was 30 years ago, and white people aren't so white any longer.

Jesus, Jimi, you're like a guy who won't shut up while I'm trying to watch a movie: what answer did David Wilson guy come up with?

Thanks Jimi.  I get tired of black people being treated in the media like anthropology projects.  I work around people of all races and cultures.  Trust and believe black people are no more messed up than white, yellow and brown people.  Everybody has issues.  

PingBack from http://pcashperspective.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/jimi-izrael-on-the-documentary-meeting-david-wilson/

thanks Jimi. great post.

This is an excellent post.

However, I find the reference to interracial dating/marriage as a problem or a way to "circumvent an aspect of blackness," to be generally consistent with another trope that denies the legitimacy of a group of human beings: people who identify as mixed race, multi racial, etc.

Obviously, in America there is no such thing as racial purity, but those who have created identities based on their multiple heritages are not attempting to circumvent blackness, but simply to articulate an identity that feels more "true" to them; more importantly, as Obama has said repeatedly, a mixed race identity does not preclude an understanding of racism nor an identification with blackness. Thus in most cases, these two identities are not mutually exclusive.

To suggest that mixed marriages and biracial people are simply trying to avoid being black is an old trope of the tragic, sell-out mulatto who is always broken and in need of repair. How is that different from the perception of blackness as broken. This is basically positing another problematic question--What is wrong with mixed race people?

I am also concerned by the fact that you chose a female example, as that is another trope--the black woman as deserter of blackness through her association with non-blacks. This trope is problematic not only because it judges people on the basis of their willingness to be open to loving others who may be different, but because it is a trope based on blaming women, implying that women should partner with black men and that in not doing so have betrayed black men, as if a woman's decision to be self-determining is an aberration deserving of ostracism.

As a mixed race woman who loves black men, women and white and multi-racial Others, I always include a critique of white dominance in my view, and specifically the criminalization and problematizing of black men.

In other words, I would never ask the question:

What is wrong with black men?

As this, too, as you have pointed out is a trope of dominance used to create a limited, monolithic and dehumanizing portrait of a complex, varied, and vitally important segment of humanity.

Peace,

Rebecca

Juwanza Kunjufu once said [paraphrasing] "If we're (black people) so dumb, why are there so many obstacles placed before us?"

I rest my case.

Thank you for reminding folks that there is nothing wrong with being black.

Hi Rebecca.

I don't think I chose that particular example in order to vilify black women's choices or question Kris Turner's (or any other black women's) blackness. I got no bones with interracial love.  At all.

Rather, I think when we look closely at Kris Turner's script, the dominant thesis is  "what's wrong with black men?" And the lack of good black men has become another aspect of The Negro Problem, you see, open for discussion in the zeitgeist. It's become fodder for mainstream news programs and papers.  While you personally may not ask that question,I think Kris did, rather directly. I think she's encouraged others to. I also think it's a worthy discourse.

However..

"Jungle Fever" was an indictment of black men that interracially date-- interesting to me that there is no "Something New" for black men. Black men should just be happy to find a woman, I guess. We don't deserve choices. This, because we presume black men to be The Problem.  Always. And specifically, Turner's thesis is largely that black men are The Problem: them who aren't smart or secure enough to see that the protag is wonderful and fabulous. But "Something New" isn't a romance. When the protag's white paramour puts the rush on her in the foyer, (rape?) the film reveals itself for what it is : far less a love story than plantation pornography. Science Fiction.

Turner examines a very esoteric piece of the Negro Problem--and offers up interracial dating not as just a part of life, but as The Solution. That's why I chose her film as an example.

best and all

jimi

A is sick but B goes to bed, shivering, pulls up the covers and hunkers down sweating.

Makes no sense, right?   Well ------------- It may, with a little imagination:  Think of a process consisting of, say, explicit/overt/external-to-internal transference followed by implicit/covert/internal transformation. Ergo: B is really sick too, albeit that it ORIGINATES in A’s ailment.  No matter, AT THIS POINT B has to get over B’s AND A has to get over A’s.  Now the $64000 question: Assuming the former could and does happen, how is stage 1 of the above process eliminated, or at least cut off, if the latter does not happen?   As an attempt at an answer, in deference to being succinct, let me pose another question:  Which is likely to happen first, if either is to ever happen, the United States of Alkebu-lan (Africa) or the eradication of the NOWS (an acronym defined below)?

Take A as the first letter of America (then think more broadly, i.e. globally, and think "Euro" group) ----- both levels apply.  Then take B as the first letter of Blacks (then consider that term, "The Negro Problem" ------- look it up in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negro_problem) ------ then broaden it out to Poads (people of African descent) globally.

The relevant disease is called the NOWS (the neurosis of white supremacy).  Its offshoot is called the NOBI (the neurosis of black inferiority).  

The cure:  Well as Jimi Izrael said:

“Because I am not a problem.

I Am The Solution.”

Imagine, again, then:  EACH poad (as much as possible) internalizes this concept and acts, on a sustained basis, to bring its truth to fruition.

Jimi,

What is wrong with yor page? All comments

are chopped off.

In light of this Negro problem you have assessed what do you think about the commentators on air talking about Rev. Wright.

I like the microscope part.