The Popeye's Conspiracy

There's a Popeye's at 14th and N. Sometimes, on the walk home from work, I pass it. The smell of deep-fried chicken, flour and fat almost incapacitates me, every time.

I've written about this love of Popeye's before -- it lives on. And while I try to resist, a few weeks ago, Popeye's called my name every so sweetly, with its bright lights and Cajun spices. And I responded. I was gonna have a two piece basket with dirty rice and a biscuit. And there was nothing anyone could do to stop me.

I walked in. It was almost closing time, so staff was milling about, cleaning, putting chairs away. This made the wait for the chicken a bit longer, but I knew it would be worth it. There was another guy there getting his deep-fried fix, too. A middle-aged Black man, well-dressed. I could see him as someone's cool uncle, or a DC city bureaucrat. Something relatively substantial.

Once we both got our food (with extra honey for the biscuits), one of the employees dropped his mop, reached for the key in his oversized apron and unlocked the door from the inside to let us out.

And that's where things turned left.

Happy-uncle/DC-employee-chicken-lover-man stopped me.

"Excuse me, son, can I talk to you?"

I went into defense mode. I'm not at all scared of strangers in DC. I've just had my fill of people you'd never suspect asking you for change, Metro fare, or your attendance at whatever rally/festival/event they're planning. My chicken was getting cold. I was not the one for dawdling.

"Yes?" I replied, with exasperation.

"Did you notice that in there?!"

"No. What?"

"There were NO Black folks working in that Popeye's!"

"Ohhhh…"

"They're exploiting us!"

And the tirade began. To this guy, Popeye's Chicken, frequented SO often by people of the Negroid persuasion, was engaging in criminal behavior by not having a staff that looked just like the customers. And to him, the fact most of the employee's working in that Popeye's that night were Latino made it even worse.

To this guy, it was a conspiracy.

"They're taking our jobs! Pretty soon, we ain't gonna have nothing left!"

I just smiled, nodded and prayed this wouldn't get any worse. Chicken man finally got the message and let me leave. I was shook.

It was like I had just gotten into a run-in with Uncle Ruckus from a bad rerun of The Boondocks.

What was this guy saying?! Arguing for Black folks holding on to low-wage, dead-end jobs with employers that give our communities heart attacks, strokes and diabetes on a regular basis is like an ex-slave railing against abolitionists because they took away his fancy, expensive chains.

And blaming Latinos for taking these jobs is just an argument that tries to make the exploited the exploiters.

In all honesty, I am hard-pressed to recall EVER hearing such coonery in my life. It would make Michael Steele turn over in the casket he sleeps in every night.

For a bit, I thought I had to do something to address this insanity, this modern-day slave mentality. It made me want to get Bill Cosby on the phone with the quickness.

But, when it was all said and done, I just had to laugh about it. Some crazy just needs to be crazy by itself. Some minds refuse to be changed. And not every dumb idea deserves activism.

Ultimately, it's a lesson learned. I should probably stay away from Popeye's. (High-blood pressure is no joke, and I really don't want to see Chicken man ever again.) And I should better understand that for some folks, liberation itself is the enemy. For better or worse, we won't get free until we choose to be.

From The NSABM
(BTW: Posts like these can get lonely. Leave a comment to keep it company.)

In Other News...

As Obama took to the podium in the White House Rose Garden to accept his Nobel Prize, a visibly intoxicated Kanye West rushed the stage, snatching the mike, proclaiming: “I’mma let you finish Mr. President, but I just gotta say, Bono had one of the best years for peace of all time. OF ALL TIME!”

Being "Authentically" Black

Yesterday, the New York Times told us that First Lady Michelle Obama has some White ancestry. Michelle's family story, one in which a Black women slave has the children of a white male (usually a slaveholder), is actually a common one. But I'm sure more than a few people heard the news and had to step back and ponder. Wasn't Obama the one with the White in him? Michelle's from the South Side of Chicago!

Reading the story, and some of the follow-up dialogue on the Times website made me think about the way I see my ancestry -- and my Blackness.

I think I'm Black -- really, really black. 110%. Quintessentially, American-ly, slave descendant, Civil Rights marching, negro spiritual and lively church service Black. I never allowed myself to flirt with the idea of a mixed heritage.

I remember having a conversation with a friend in graduate school. His mother is Latina, his father White. We were talking about race, and I told him, rather emphatically, how happy I was to not have any White blood in my body.

Only now do I see how inconsiderate, hateful and delusional that statement was.

But that was the space I occupied at the time. In another situation, having a random, casual conversation with about five or six people about facial characteristics (of all things), a friend told me that I had "White" facial features. I almost left the table. And I stewed about it for days, examining myself in the mirror, squeezing my nostrils together, sucking in my lips, pushing down on my cheek bones.

I've never really tried to process why I feel/felt so strongly about being "authentically" -- purely -- Black. I talk about race often, but usually in the context of how non-Blacks see Blackness. I never really stopped to think about how I see myself.

The Times piece made me start that dialogue. It's definitely not over yet. But I've come to at least one conclusion.

For me, part of maintaining "pure" Blackness meant that I never had to entertain the idea that I, or anyone in my ancestry, ever benefited from White privilege.

It wasn't a way for me to constantly claim victimhood -- it was a way for me to completely disassociate myself from any part of our racialized society that was on the wrong side of the issue. Never could you call me one of the oppressors, or think of me as someone who unfairly benefited from a racial hierarchy in which Blacks were on the bottom of the heap for hundreds of years.

No. I, Sam Sanders, was "pure" Black. I was above the fray. Untainted. Better than.

Clearly that's wrong. I would harshly decry that same mindset in a White person. (And write about it ad infinitum.)

What's even worse than this mindset, (which I'm moving away from), is the visual reality of my own family.

My father was light-skinned. His hair was wavy. It is very likely that a slave master's blood seeped through his veins, and therefore my own. Clinging to my idea of "pure" Blackness wasn't just wrong -- given who my father is, it was a fairy tale.

It's always interesting to see what people hate in others. Often, it's a part of them, too. I saw myself as a crusader against monolithic characterizations of race and denials of its complexity. But when I really thought about it, I realized I was perpetuating mindsets I set out to vanquish.

So, I'm putting it all out there. The craziness of some of my personal beliefs, the internal grappling over these issues, the flaws in my logic. All of it.

Because I think that while I'll probably never have race quite figured out, I will at some point be at peace with it. Enough to clearly see myself through it. Maybe not in the way I imagined, but perhaps in a way better than I thought it could be.

GOP: Grinchy Old Party

There are some things sacrosanct in US politics. Barbeque, grandmothers, the flag. And the Olympics. They're just things we all agree are good, inviolable, quintessentially American.

Then cometh the Republicans. They've criticized Barack Obama for daring to go to Copenhagen to lobby on behalf of Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games.

When suggesting that the First Lady should handle the pitch herself, Steele said, "…the goal should be creating not job opportunities seven years from now, but today." Oh, I get it. Because we won't need jobs seven years from now. At all…

Steele continued. “If [healthcare] is that important, Mr. President, then stay home and get it done.” I doubt he meant that. The GOP has been complaining for months now that our President and that pesky federal government should keep their hands off healthcare. And now, when Obama might have his mind elsewhere, even if only for a few hours, the Republicans feign disgust.

Other heads of state, including Vladimir Putin and Tony Blair, lobbied forcefully -- and successfully -- for the Olympics to come to their backyards. The other contenders for the 2016 games are sending their heads of state and monarchs as well. When Blair was lobbying for the Games, I remember seeing dozens of "London 2012" signs all over the Foggy City during a study abroad trip. Pushing for the Olympics is not only commonplace -- it actually works. As Robert Gibbs retorted, would Steele rather see Madrid get the Olympics?

It's not like our dear Michael is new to this twisted logic This is the guy, who, single-handedly, in one interview, railed against government healthcare while arguing for the preservation of Medicare, while at the same time saying it’s a horrible damaged system, but nevertheless, he was going to protect it, by keeping other people from enjoying the same benefits.

This is the same guy who vociferously declared that race would not at all affect him in is criticism of our first African-American president. And then said Obama was wrong in pushing NY Governor David Paterson to not seek reelection, all because of race. "I found that to be stunning that the White House would send word to one of only two black governors in the country not to run for reelection," said Steele. Like Steele really cares about David, or Black people for that matter. Don't get me started…

But enough about Michael. Other prominent Republicans are doing a good job of turning on the crazy as well. Enter Peggy Noonan. The former Reagan speechwriter, current Wall Street Journal commentator, and newly minted Kennedy School IOP Fellow (SO glad I graduated when I did), said of the President's recent media blitz on Sunday morning talk shows, "I think the media environment allows a modern leader to be something subtly damaging, and that is boorish."

Boorish. Humbly and calmly making your case without yelling and crying is somehow more "boorish," than the party she defends, which supports crackpot claims of kill-Granny death panels, and remains silent when their supporters carry loaded guns to Presidential town halls.

It continues. Jon Kyl, the pro-life, Republican Arizona senator, argued against making maternity care required coverage under health insurance policies, on the grounds that since he didn't need it himself, he shouldn't have to pay for it. The ever-sharp Michigan senator Debbie Stabenow shot back with a well-placed "your mom." That a pro-life Republican would argue against maternity care, which saves the lives of thousands of mothers and children, on the grounds that HE doesn't need it, isn't just sexist -- it's hypocritical.

Ultimately, it seems Republicans will never be satisfied with anything Obama and the Democrats do, and they'll keep using insufficient logic to defend their animosity. Therefore, from this point forward, I will refer to the GOP, collectively, as "The Grinch That Stole The Olympics." I can see the screenplay writing itself now…

Taylor Swift > Rihanna

I'll be the first to mimic our President's words and call Kanye West a jack@$s for what he did to Taylor Swift at the VMAs Sunday. As a self-proclaimed Kanye West fanatic, (I even began referring to myself as "Kanyo East" in grad school, seriously), I cringed when I saw the tape.

The outcry was harsh, but ultimately deserved, but when compared to the last awards show fiasco America experienced, Rihanna and Chris Brown before the Grammys, the lack of an equally universal condemnation of Chris Brown is troubling.

I know that, for the most part, we all deplored what Brown did to Rihanna. And ultimately, I hope, his career will be ruined because of it. But there was a portion of folks who asked what Rihanna did to deserve it, or whether or not she provoked him, or if she was lying. Sadly, people most likely to say those kinds of things after Chrihanna-gate broke were disproportionately young.

The New York Times' Charles Blow chronicles in detail the alarming figures surrounding America's youth and violence in their romantic relationships. And a Boston Herald survey found that almost half of teens asked felt that Rihanna was to blame for the assault.

In light of these numbers, and the vile stuff I read about Rihanna in various blogs and comment walls after her beating, I kinda feel like we've all gotten more upset by Kanye grabbing Taylor's mic than by Chris Brown almost snatching away Rihanna's life.

Let me be clear, I don't, AT ALL, think this is about race. I will repeat: THIS IS NOT ABOUT RACE. I'm not suggesting that we cared less about Rihanna because she's Black.

I am suggesting we cared less about Rihanna because we still don't care enough about domestic violence. And for some of us, the public embarrassment of Taylor Swift was more important to us, (and maybe less out of the ordinary for us), than what many considered the "private" or "personal" issue of Brown's attack on Rihanna.

We too often in this country make domestic abuse a silent issue. It's "none of our business." We "don't know all that's going on." Etc, etc, etc.

That's wrong. And it's got to stop. Not just for Rihanna, but for the countless number of women, and girls and boys and even men, who are victims of domestic violence every minute.

Just because Rihanna wasn't beat on a VMA stage doesn't make her bruises any less painful, or our ambivalent response any less disgusting. Seeing how we all jumped to Taylor's defense after the Kanye debacle, I know, or at least hope we can do better the next time we see domestic abuse. Whether it be on TV, next door, or even closer to home than we'd like to admit.

Eric Holder, Mojo-Thief

I keep imagining a strange political scenario. It's got US Attorney General Eric Holder and Barack Obama, dressed to the nines as they always are, huddled in some back room of the White House, exchanging daps and pleasantries.

Motown's playing in the background. And I swear, Obama's smoking a cig.

But all is not well. I'm witnessing a transferal of power. Barack Obama is giving away his mojo, bequeathing his progressive bona fides to Mr. Holder himself.

Since the start of the Obama administration, I've been more and more impressed with Eric Holder, and increasingly disappointed with Barack Obama. Our President has waffled on torture, backed down on a health insurance public option, and kind of forgotten that gay people even exist. He's been quiet on HIV/AIDS and Sudan. And he just Jeremiah-Wright-ed Van Jones.

Holder on the other hand, is investigating the detainee torture of the Bush era. He gave a controversial speech during Black History Month urging America to have an honest discussion about race. He spoke out in favor of an assault weapons ban. He did the right thing in the Ted Stevens case. He's been pretty much unabashed in kicking up dust and setting things straight.

Where Obama's slowly losing his mojo, Holder seems to be hitting his stride.

Yeah, I know that everything Holder does is a part of the Obama administration's agenda, but I still feel like our AG is running rip shod while our Commander in Chief is kinda running scared.

I wonder if this is all pre-meditated. What if Obama knew everything couldn't be as good as the campaign? What if he saw his centrism coming? What if he's living vicariously through his Attorney General?

What if there can only be one Black, amazingly-dressed, gifted, progressive Superman in DC at once?

I don't know, but I sure hope not.

What if the Cop had been a Wise Latina?

The White Cambridge police officer who arrested renowned Black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. last week used to teach a course for officers called “Racial Profiling” and is a police academy expert on cultural diversity. Seriously…

Seems like the course isn’t working.

Even President Obama acknowledges that the evidence supporting the existence of racial profiling throughout the country is strong, as police forces throughout the nation argue that they are doing their best to combat the practice. But when a diversity coach ends up a primary in the biggest racial profiling case of the last few years, you know something’s not right.

Diversity training isn’t enough to stop profiling. Because teaching diversity to often nearly monolithic police forces is like trying to teach kids how to swim without a pool. The tools aren’t there to support the theory. To say that you can “teach” diversity to law enforcement agencies that overwhelmingly lack that very quality is a sham.

We know that law enforcement agencies in America have historically lacked diversity, even as they serve communities that continue to become majority-minority. And we know that part of the way to combat the subliminal bias that often leads to racial profiling is to hire a force of all shades and have officers who have had several positive interactions with people of color, either on the force or in their personal lives.

What would have happened if the police officer called to Gates’ home were Black, or Latina, or a woman? It’s very likely that subliminal bias affected the Officer Jim Crowley’s interaction with Gates as well as Gates’ interaction with Crowley. The cop saw an angry Black man. Gates saw a racist White, male cop. How much of the situation could have been de-escalated if the cop better reflected the diversity of a changing American landscape?

What’s upsetting is that as we now come realize even more how important diversity is in our law enforcement agencies, particularly our police forces, we’ve seen conservatives argue over the last few weeks, during the Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination hearings, that efforts of municipalities to make their fire departments more diverse are wrong. Even as a New York judge recently found racial bias in New York Firefighter exams.

Something’s got to give. The Gates story is one all too common, only for most Black males that end up in run-ins with police officers, the end result isn’t primetime news coverage and dropped charges; often it’s a bullet.

The Henry Louis Gates case serves as a reminder to us all. Even in this age of Obama, race still matters. Inequality still exists. And diversity still must be actively pursued. Gates probably summed it up best himself, saying in an interview shortly after his arrest, “The only black people who truly live in a post-racial world in America all live in a very nice house on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

On Wise Latina Judges

I got to DC Monday. Since unpacking the big yellow moving truck, I’ve been tempted to go down to the Hill and to sneak into the Senate confirmation hearings for potential Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Much has been made of her nomination, particularly some comments she’s made in the past. Some Republicans, Newt, Rush and the like, have taken to calling her racist because of them. The most incendiary comment, at least to that ilk, was Sotomayor’s statement that a wise Latina judge might make a better decision than a White male judge, by virtue of her life experience.

Although articulated crudely, the assertion has some merit under closer inspection. The idea that life experience influences decision-making is definitely one that we all can agree with. And that experiences not that well-represented on the Supreme Court, like those of women, minorities, those who speak English as a second language, etc., should be welcomed there is something I wholeheartedly embrace.

But Senate Republicans have taken to accusing Sotomayor of succumbing to “biases and prejudices” because of her race. In their eyes, her being a Latina means her vision is clouded by pro-immigrant sentiment, angry fist-raising activism, quota-loving White hate, and maybe even a dash of arroz con pollo.

This reasoning is flawed. By questioning Sotomayor’s ability to see the law clearly because of her race, and not questioning other judges, many of them White (and male), these Republicans subtly imply that the only way be inherently unswayed by bias is to be White. To them, if you’re a minority (or a woman), there’s a constant risk that your race or gender will unduly influence you, sway you to be “unfair,” to be an activist instead of an umpire. Ultimately, to them, being a minority means being unable to control our dark, otherworldy passions. Being intellectually inferior and in constant need of supervision.

That type of thought is racist. Not Sotomayor.

All judges are influenced by their backgrounds. John Robert’s privileged life has led him to constantly rule in favor of wealth and corporate interests. Clarence Thomas’s youth as a dark-skinned Black man in a color-conscious South affected him as well. And I’m actually elated that someone like Sotomayor, whose life has been affected by her climb from poverty to the Ivy League, who is an example of minority success, and who happens to be a very wise Latina judge, might make it to the nation's top court.

For the bullies in the Senate who seek to hold up Sotomayor’s confirmation, bias is only there when you’re a minority who doesn’t agree with them. When Senate Republicans play this game: only questioning the intentions of those they don’t agree with, particularly when they’re women of color, the only “bias and prejudice” they put on display is their own.

On Prayer

I'm praying today. For a job. Not one of those kind, humble, "I'll accept whatever you allow, Lord" kind of prayers, the ones you could easily see in your aunt's living room, stitched on a cute piece of cloth, with praying hands next to the text, in a tiny picture frame, on her bookshelf, which always has more knicknaks on it than books.

No, this is different. Not an ambivalent prayer of reserved hope. No "If I win or if I lose" pretense. I'm desperate. This prayer is blunt. "Lord, I know you hear me. I need this job. For real. Help a brutha out. LET'S DO THIS." This prayer is straight Old Testament.

Back home, in San Antonio, Catholic nuns used to pray for the Spurs to win the NBA Championship. Really. It would be on the news. I'm not quite there yet. No praying for my fellow applicants to miss their flights to DC, or fumble over their words in the interview, or mysteriously lose their voice.

I just need to be better than them.

I've stopped wondering if I'm devout enough to pray. Did I drink too much this week to ask God a favor? Haven't been to church in a while; does that void my entreaty? I've looked upon flat-screen TVs and shiny new MacBooks with lust in my heart. Does this mean my supplications will fall on deaf ears?

I'd like to think they won't. But even if God's grown tired of my prayers, they still help me out. Prayer focuses my requests, letting me know what I really desire. It helps me separate the wants from the needs, winnows the stuff worth fighting for away from the "what the hell were you thinking!" foolishness I often delude myself with. Prayer shames me into working for those true goals myself, because, of course, the Lord helps those who help themselves.

So yes, I'm praying. To God, and in a way, to myself. Not gently, not quietly, without pretense. I'm praying. And waiting to see how it all turns out.

The Change We Voted For

Barack Obama seems to like making Republicans happy. Over the last few days, he’s agreed to continue Bush-era military tribunals, refused to release photos of detainee abuse by US hands, kept quiet as Nancy Pelosi gets raked over the coals about when or when she didn’t know about US-sanctioned water boarding, and appointed a Republican, the governor of Utah in fact, to be ambassador to China.

These are all things the GOP likes. And seeing Republican pundits praise Obama’s decisions on TV is strange. A few weeks ago, the guy was a socialist. Now he’s exercising sound judgment.

I suppose this falls under Obama’s definition of post-partisan politics. He’s not liberal. He’s not conservative. He’s smart. A pragmatist. Constantly searching for consensus.

That’s admirable. And it helps us all remember that Obama is not just the President of the people who voted for him. But I’m troubled by his slow and steady watering-down of campaign promises.

I could care less about the new China ambassador, or the fate of Nancy Pelosi (she’s quite the fighter; she will survive). I can even understand the rationale to keep the photos under wraps. But these bigger questions of torture and due process deserve better.

Guantanamo was supposed to be closed by now. We were supposed to get to the root of why torture took place, who did it, and ensure it never happened again, even if that meant some prosecutions. We were supposed to welcome in a transparent government, one that wouldn’t just have a 100-days Flickr photo stream, but would be honest about the country all the time, even if that meant the photos in question didn’t show us in our most positive light.

While the presidency is different than a campaign, we’re all kind of expecting Barack Obama to be different than any other President. He’s really intimated that from Day 1.

By voting for “Change,” we thought we were voting for “Better.”

I’m not giving him a big fat fail yet. But I want him to go back and look at his speech he made the day he announced his run for the Presidency or his words when he denounced the Iraq war, or his performances during the Presidential debates. That Barack Obama seemed more resolute. In how he saw the world, in what was right and wrong, in his duty to bring integrity back to the White House.

That’s what I voted for. And that’s what I want.