Sunday, July 31, 2011

Biracial blues.

I just read an interesting article over at "The Grio" from a writer named Jessy Schuster. It deals with her biracial heritage and what she perceives as the wrong way to approach the subject.

"My French accent has always been source of questions in Miami. Despite my 11 years of residency in the so called "melting pot" city, I have never spent one day in Miami without answering the "where are you from' question. It became my daily routine but as the years passed by I also realized that another question has been thrown at me even before I started talking.

'What are you?', or 'what is your ethnic background?' has become the new rite of passage for any social event I am attending. At the beginning, I was amused by the question as I felt empowered by a mission to educate people on mixed offspring, but the usual reaction I get when I explain that my father is French "from France, and not Haiti", and that "my mother is black from Guadeloupe, a French island in the Caribbean" is what started to really aggravate me.

Mixed children are born with no real same combination of genes and features. I have three sisters and we all display different skin tones, body type and facial features. United Colors of Benetton could have hired us for their international billboards ads. I would have been the light skin woman with kinky hair and a muscular body and prominent behind!

Everyone asked me the question, blacks, white, and Latinos among others, but there is a difference between white people and black people asking the question. The first group will have that surprised look as I announce the "French" part of my heritage, then a high pitch "really?" usually escapes their mouth as they start a cross examination with questions such as "not Haiti? Or a Brazilian background? Are you sure?"

The need to discern where the black features on my face or body come from is always stronger than just accepting my answer. I guess every French person should come dress with a beret and a baguette at hand while singing "La vie en rose" and having PepƩ le Pew on a leash.

This is exactly what bothers me when the question comes from a white person. Most of the time, they look disappointed when I explain that I am a mixed child born from a black woman and a white man, as they were expecting a more exotic and interesting explanation.

When I usually return the favor, they often look surprised and simply answer " I'm from here" or "I'm from New York." I have yet encountered someone who would explain "My mother's family came from Poland, and my father's side fled England for a better life in the State, and that is why I am white with green eyes!" So if they don't feel obligated to give me their geological tree story when I ask them, why should I?" [Article]  

I think I see where you are coming from Jessy, but I never get questions about my Maroon and Jamaican heritage when people meet me, (except if I break out into deep patois) so I can't really relate.

Jessy's blog.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

"What a Feeling!"

"A day after a crowd of violent youths roamed through Center City and randomly attacked two men, the city's top enforcement officials decried the assaults and business leaders called for a stepped-up police presence.

"We will not tolerate marauding, destructive youth terrorizing our city," said District Attorney Seth Williams. "We will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law, and we are working with the police to find ways to prevent these occurrences."

Four people, including an 11-year-old boy, who took part in the attacks face charges with assault and conspiracy.

They were among a crowd of young people who swarmed the sidewalk at Juniper and Walnut streets about 9:15 p.m. Friday and pounced on a 33-year-old man, punching and kicking him. Police say the attack appeared to be random.
Moments later, at 15th and Sanson, a mob descended on a 59-year-old man and kicked, punched and beat him. This attack, too, was random, police said.
Both men were treated and released at Thomas Jefferson University Hopital.[sic]"[Source]

Flash mobs are nothing new. They have been as popular as cheese steaks here in Philly this year, but at some point we have to get on these [so called] parents a little bit.

The parent [or parents] of that eleven year old ought to have their parenting license taken away. They should also be fined and be made to pay for whatever damage their little domestic terrorist caused our fair city.

The po po has a task force; the DA's office has a task force; and merchants in our fair city are taking these incidents quite seriously. Everyone seems to be serious except the parents of these little monsters. Why? For the record, when you parents do get involved, the results are always good.

And let me get the racial angle out of the way with this issue right now, because I know that it will invariably come up: Yes, these little terrorist are usually young and black, and yes, they usually attack -mostly- white people going about their business.

But this is not because they are out looking for white people per se, this is because white people just so happen to be the ones frequenting the areas that are targeted. There is no plan for a secret racial takeover by way of out of control urban youths. Just bad parents who shouldn't be parents in the first place failing to control their damn kids. So relax my white friends, it's all good. Bad parenting is not limited to one particular race.

Finally, did the permed one sell out to Comcast?

"Al Sharpton is back under the mainstream microscope for a series of conflicting interests regarding his co-sign of the Comcast/NBC merger. The Daily Beast claims that Sharpton’s endorsement, which makes him the first “major” black leader to offer one, came with handsome payoffs both for Sharpton and his primary employer – Radio One.

“The Daily Beast has already reported that just months after Sharpton played a pivotal role in pushing the merger, he became a regular substitute host and appears now to be in line for a fulltime anchor post on Comcast’s MSNBC. As awkward as that coincidence is, how about a conflict of interest he did not disclose in his letters to the Federal Communications Commission – or his other pro-merger activities?” the Beast asks.

The site claims that Sharpton cheered on the merger when it had already paid dividends to Radio One and its affiliate TV One. After the merger, Radio One’s ownership of TV One rose to 50.8 percent, a conveniently timed stock transfer that Comcast admitted to facilitating. Radio One/TV One also became part of the basic cable package in Chicago and Miami after the deal, underlining the benefits that sprung from the companies close ties with each other.

“While Radio One is the largest single shareholder in TV One, Comcast has been its partner since TV One’s inception in 2004 and, until recently, held almost as much stock in the television network, 34 percent, as Radio One, 36.8 percent. In fact, Comcast’s role in the launch of this network, which targets a national black audience, was cited repeatedly by the company when questions were raised about its diversity track record during the yearlong debate about this merger,” the Beast reports.

So not only did Sharpton publically attach himself to a controversial cause that has already indirectly paid him for doing so, he virtually signed away the rights for the media giant to tokenize those African-American news mediums. He has been a much bigger asset politically than he has as a host for both his primary employer and his (possibly) future employer, Comcast/NBC. And this is the man who will soon become a trusted “journalist.”' [Source]

Say it ain't so, Reverend.










      





 

Friday, July 29, 2011

Nnamdi is welcome but David Williams is not.

I am a little pumped right now folks; Nnamdi Asomugha just signed with my birds.

That's two high profile free agents we stole from "Zoo Yawk" in the last couple of years. Nice.

Now we have three shutdown corners, let's see how things work out from now on. Welcome to the neighborhood Nnamdi, I hear that you are not only a great player but that you are a great citizen as well. You will do just fine here.

Speaking of welcoming someone to the neighborhood, it looks like some of you Negroes aren't exactly welcome in certain neighborhoods down in Houston.

"A Houston man is alleging that once he moved into his upscale Houston neighborhood, the racism followed.

David Williams, a 24-year-old African American website owner originally from Boston, moved to the Houston neighborhood where homes are valued from $400,000 to $3 million earlier this year.

When he arrived, he said he noticed that people looked at him strangely, but didn’t think about racism too much until he and his friends were denied entrance to the subdivision.

The security guard went on to tell him that he received orders from the top to not let him and his friends in.

“Look, I’m not allowed to let you guys in. We personally don’t have a problem with you, but we’ll lose our jobs.” [Source]

Look Negro, how are those hard working folks supposed to know that you are a business owner from Boston and not some rapper from the Third Ward?
Times are hard out here, we can't have you Negroes driving down our property values.

Finally, isn't A-merry-ca a great country? Where else can you (allegedly) kill your daughter and ask for 1.5 million to talk about it?

Breaking News! The winguts finally got their debt ceiling bill passed.218 votes.
Good for you Mr. Tan Man. But please, let's not hear that it was a bipartisan bill.
I mean just ONE dumbocrat voting for it would have been nice.

So it's on to the Senate. Now let the fun begin. 

Funky Friday

In the last month or more I have listened to this cut below a few times too many on my way to work and wrote this post several times over in my head as I inched closer to this point of freedom.

I understand that George Michael intended the lyrics to reflect his break from his record label.  Some read further about his coming out but that is his business and the former speaks louder to me.

Toward the end of Edward Said's life he had become increasingly disillusioned with academia and the academy.  At Columbia University he was celebrated for his sharp postcolonial mind and also hounded by faculty and administrators who wanted his tenure revoked because of his politics, in particular his views on Israel's occupation of his Palestinian homeland.

I don't think Said's struggle is very different for many of us who just don't fit into manufactured spaces.  From the guy packing shelves to the woman checking your bags at the station.  We do what we have to and what life demands of us.  And it is rarely easy.

But we also dream.  At least we should.  About being free and making decisions that are embracing and meaningful.

I made a mistake leaving the academy.  I saw Said's critique of the academy and the stooges who are busy capitalizing its intellectual purpose.  To contest their creep I used Said's adaptation of the Gramscian ideal that says one can be an organic scholar and and activist despite the business of academia.

It is not an easy place to be but it is meaningful because the classroom is where ideas are contested, raised, and laid down.

I miss that.  Young minds.  Undergraduates in particular who are still fresh and not yet programmed to function in lines that run parallel with the material and spiritual dysfunctions of capitalism. 

At Salary Hell I was rudely awakened to a world where thinking is about packaging sound bytes and producing state-driven drivel that makes those in power seem as if they are in the business of intellectual production.

They are not.  They are in the business of elite replication and its standing oppressions.

I should have known that I would not fit into that world.  I should have been smarter and braver than my fears about disappearing at a rural University where nothing worked.

I should have soldiered on for students who are much the same like those at more prestigious schools.

But you never too old to learn.  To take your mistakes and misgivings and thank the Great Spirit for one more time to try a second chance - and then do so again. 

The academy is not perfect anywhere.  In recent years capitalized managers have taken it over and reduced it to a grocery shop where flimsy ideas are produced for consumption by increasingly alienated consumers.

But all is not lost, not entirely.

Inside the academy there are still thinkers who like Edward Said carry the ideal of tying ideas to notions of justice, equality, inclusion and mostly, freedom.

And by that I mean the freedom to live meaningfully and not to just exist and go through the motions of life as you count its milestones and furniture and then end up taking the long way home just to find a space to breath.

It is a storyline as old as Socrates' critique of the decay of Athenian democracy.  We have not moved far from Socrates.  His willingness not to be a credit inside the system but rather to contest its very essence is a very relevant ethical and moral base for struggling toward better intellectual ideas - the kind aimed at better lives and universal freedom.

I expect that in time I will be back in academia.  It is inevitable.  Not sure when.  But I am gonna take some time off and do the thinking and writing that is needed to renew the vigor of serious activist scholarship.

And the blog will persist though it will slow in the coming weeks.  I need some time just to be inside real conversations - the kind with kind faces. 

Still, I am grateful for this healing space despite the excesses I produce when my mind is like a child in a playground.

I remain the son of Fatima and Ahmed and this post marks the start of yet another chapter.

 "Now I'm gonna get myself happy" ...

Onward!


I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I stopped the show
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone I forgot to be
Take back your picture in a frame
Don't think that I'll be back again
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes do not make the man

All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see
Is that I don't belong to you
And you don't belong to me, yea yea
Freedom

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Debt ceiling, child support, asthma, and panties.

I see that as of me writing this post, Mr. Tan Man has still not gotten enough votes to pass his debt-ceiling bill. The magic number for Mr. Tan Man is 217. Good luck there buddy. You are going to need it tonight. These tea party wingnuts don't care about little things like the future of our country. I swear, some people sure know how to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory".

Speaking of tea party wingnuts; yet another one of them has some splainin to do:

"(Reuters) - A Tea Party-backed U.S. Congressman who has lectured the U.S. government about getting its financial house in order owes more than $100,000 in child support payments, a lawyer for his ex-wife said on Thursday.
Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, who was narrowly elected in a Chicago suburban district during the Republican sweep of 2010, denied the allegations and said he would fight them in court.

His ex-wife Laura Walsh failed to receive full child support for about five years from 2005 to late 2010, her lawyer Jack Coladarci told Reuters.
Walsh resumed full payments to support their three children after he was elected to the Congressional seat, which pays a salary of $174,000 per year, the lawyer said.

"These latest attacks against me are false and I will fight them in the appropriate venue," Walsh said in a statement on his web site, referring to the Cook County courtroom where Laura Walsh brought the case. The divorce documents detailing the apparent delinquent payments were first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times.
The attorney for Laura Walsh said the congressman needs to make good on the $117,437 he owes, plus interest.

"Laura is getting help now because he has a job where we can find him," Coladarci said. "But it is difficult to raise three kids, and she is not remarried, and she is supporting them basically on her salary." [Source]

Mr. Walsh, here is how you fight these attacks: PAY YOUR DAMN CHILD SUPPORT!

I wonder if Governor Krispy Kreme is still thinking about running for President? If he is, he might want to make sure that he works on his asthma problem. Maybe if he would spend a little more time in his state and focus on the people's business he could concentrate on staying healthy.

Finally, why aren't some of you who were up in arms about the TSA agents feeling up grandma not up in arms about this story?

"NEW YORK — A Harlem woman is suing JetBlue Airlines after she was kicked off her Florida-bound flight for allegedly wearing no panties.

Malinda Knowles, 27, said she was in shock when a JetBlue employee put a walkie-talkie between her legs to see if she had on any panties.
“I didn’t want to show him anything. He wanted me to basically show him my crotch. I was completely humiliated. It was vulgar. It was macho. It was rude,” said Knowles, who is 27 years old.

She was escorted off the plane at LaGuardia Airport. She was wearing a baggy blue t-shirt over short denim jeans. She was taken to a hangar, where she lifted up her T-shirt to prove she met the dress code.

“‘Oh, she’s wearing shorts,’” the JetBlue fashion police responded, according to Knowles." [Source]

This adds new meaning to the name JETBLUE....let me stop.

I'm out. Oh, and it's 10:30 PM, and there is still no wingnut bill.

How come when ... ?

How come when you quit your colleagues suddenly like you and find out you indispensable and they tell you how they gonna really miss you?

How come when you quit you find your colleagues a little more tolerable but keep your office door closed cause your ass can't stand them anyway?

How come when you quit those in charge want you to keep in touch?

I spent a few hours cleaning out my office today and taking sh*t off the office laptop.  Can't tell you how liberating it feels to delete sh*t they thought I filed in triplicate for the shareholdaz and the auditazz.

This office was the grandest one I have ever had.  A direct view of bums from the fourth floor standing around just a short walk from the Union buildings.

In the year that I have been in the office I received guests in the sitting area.  Never had a sitting area with a large roundtable and comfortable chairs before.

I liked walking around my desk to meet visitors and colleagues and sit across from them shaking my head hoping they asses would just roll so I could get back to thinking about resigning.

How come when you resign they send the nicest lady in HR to do an exit interview and you wonder why you never noticed her fynness before?

Is it a ploy to stop you from telling the f*cks just how much you hate them and the job you should never have taken even though your last job sucked just about the same?

How come when you unemployed it always seems so alluring to be employed and the other way around?

How come when you quit you keep waking up for weeks thinking "I f*cking hate my job" and then roll back to sleep and meet up with your unemployed boys for lunch at 4pm and talk about that pretty lady from HR you should have banged before or during the exit interview?

OK so maybe a little delusional "how come" projection here but you feeling me, right? :0)

How come when you move out of your old place you worry that they won't give you your whole deposit back and you always right?

How come when you buy sh*t for your new place you always forget you had it already packed away in a box from the last time you moved?

How come when you busy moving all the bras you never saw and they women want to stop by to tell you Pretoria ain't never gonna be the same again?

How come when you moving out of town there is at least three women who want to sleep with you but just never got around to coming over but now want to do so all on the night before you leave?

How come when you very busy moving and noticing all the sh*t you did not when you were just stuck at your job and your spot you can still find time to answer emails and to blog?

No really.  I mean what you think?  You busy like hell but you still find the time to write to folks who think it is OK to drop three sentence emails once in a while when they worried your ass ain't even feeling them anymore?

How come when you stop writing those folks it takes them by surprise that your ass is way pass even giving a f*ck about them or their supposed busy schedules?

How come when you need not to be talking sh*t about trifling asses on your blog that colleagues and other related professionals read in-between counting the big bucks they make being so much more anonymous and professional than you  ...you do anyway?

How come when you meet people in person you wonder why they don't blog too?

How come when you laugh at sh*t folks tell you two days after you throw a tantrum about your feelings it always seems funnier to you than it does to them?

How come a woman you have an enormous crush on can sum up your broken ass game as you walk out the door flustered in eleven words and three punctuation marks without flinching an eye?

  Mr. oh i like you too much so sorry, gotta go.

Ouch.  She onto me already!

Moms if you not reading please get that Aunty N. woman to help you turn the computer on and delete my blog.  I'm about busted and my game is done.

That's what happens when you live online and your tired sh*t works online and then the real world ... whammo!

Please don't be writing me emails to explain that ass whupping in eleven words.  Suffice it to sing "the old boy just ain't what he used to be ... ain't  what he used to be ... "

Did anyone say Jerome in da houseeeee?



Just saying ... "it always seem like I'm getting hurt by some damn woman ... " ;0)

Onward!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Debt feelings.

"I need your help. I can't tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we're gonna hurt some people.
 ...Whose car we takin'?"


That was Ben Aflleck's character, Dougie MacRay, trying to get his boy to accompany him on a beat down in the movie, "The Town".

It's also the line from the movie that republicans met and chose to watch in order to rally around each other for this debt ceiling debate. Nice. It's apropos, seeing that it is a movie about a bank robbery, and these clowns are holding up A-merry-ca.
Anyway, like a good Negro, my man Allen West volunteered to drive the car. (Because that's what good Negroes do.) 

"After showing the clip, Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), one of the most outspoken critics of leadership among the 87 freshmen, stood up to speak, according to GOP aides.“I’m ready to drive the car,” West replied, surprising many Republicans by giving his full -throated support for the plan."

I'm ready to drive the car, massa. *shaking head*. What is wrong with these Negroes like Star Parker? (h/t to Carlos for this story)

BTW, I have been getting a lot of e-mails about this valedictorian case in Arkansas. And, believe me, it has my racism antenna's up. But could someone tell me if the principal, Derrell Thompson, is a brotha? If he is, he should be jigging right along with Star and Allen. Sometimes your own people can be so much worse than "the man". Mental slavery is a b*&^h. 

Speaking of slaves, I bet that the folks in the top 5% income category of this country wishes that we were all their slaves.

Now it's that phony ass preacher, Rick Warren, telling us that half of America pays no taxes. (A lie! I think he meant income taxes, but that's not the point.) The point is that this rich ass phony has joined the rest of the "let them eat cake" crowd by trying to parrot a well used wingnut line.

 "HALF of America pays NO taxes. Zero,” Warren wrote. “So they’re happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES pay taxes.”

The post was interpreted by the popular blog
“Wonkette” as a dig against Americans whose incomes do not qualify them to pay taxes.

The post has since been removed from Warren’s Twitter feed, and he acknowledged that the tweet "did sound mean" in a subsequent
tweet addressed to a blogger who wrote had written a lengthy response."

Folks, make no mistake, this is what this debate is about in Washington. It's why the wingnuts will not budge on their debt ceiling position. They do not want to raise taxes on their wealthy friends.

Meanwhile, GE just decided to send even more jobs to China. The same GE that paid ZERO taxes last year. How ironic that O actually tapped the head of GE to be one of his job creation experts. He is creating jobs alright; just not in this country.

O, when will you learn; stop pandering to these people. I know you wanted to seem like a centrist by dancing with this man, (Jeffrey Immelt) but it won't work. This man, and people like him, only care about lining their own pockets and the company bottom line.

Finally, ( I know I am all over the place tonight, but this debt ceiling crap has me pissed) yet another example of do as I say but not as I do from Washington:

"Like many members of Congress, Rep. Michele Bachmann has been a fierce critic of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, blaming the government-backed loan programs for excesses that helped create the financial meltdown in 2008.
And like millions of other home purchasers, Bachmann took out a home loan in 2008 that offered lower costs to the borrower through one of the federally subsidized programs, according to mortgage experts who reviewed her loan documents.

Just a few weeks before Bachmann called for dismantling the programs during a House Financial Services Committee hearing, she and her husband signed for a $417,000 home loan to help finance their move to a 5,200-square-foot golf-course home, public records show. Experts who examined the loan documents for The Washington Post say that they are confident the loan was backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

Seeing problems with the programs — especially the high costs to taxpayers — hasn’t stopped a concerned public or other members of Congress from taking advantage of the lower interest rates that come due to government backing.
Bachmann has been the most outspoken critic of the loan programs and other government subsidies among Republican presidential candidates. Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty also has called for dismantling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Experts who reviewed his mortgage documents said that there was no way to tell whether his home loan from 1994 had government backing." [Source] 

I think I will head on out to Home Depot to buy a pitch fork.

    









"Klein Baas Did Not Mean to Shoot Us"

I just read a comment by Nolwazi and I can't stop laughing.  Let me explain why and weave this post into context.

Black folks have over the centuries of racism created escape mechanisms to deal with the pain and degradation of being oppressed.

Humor is a key mechanism.  Music is another.  And there are others (literature).

When I was a child my dad used to listen to Gospel Soul.  Mahalia Jackson was one of his favorite artists (damn now some Muslim bigot gonna say I grew up in a Christian home).

Maybe.

Well if you consider that my dad's listening habits must have influenced me to the extent that one of my favorite Commodores songs is simply entitled: "Jesus is love."

But I digress.

I remember being about 15 and watching my dad watching a gospel singer on television doing a rendition of "Old Man River" and his eyes were moist as he said:"You must have lived oppression to sing like that.  That feeling cannot be manufactured.  It must come from deep inside where resistance to oppression is born."

It is for this reason that I cannot fully embrace white artists who are described as soul or neo-soul singers.  It is not the same listening to Michael Bolton or Simply Red doing old Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes songs, for example.

But this post is about the art of using humor to contextualize oppression and its politics.

A month or more ago Nolwazi called to talk about this and that and it ended up being a conversation of about four hours.

Somewhere in the conversation we got to talking about sellout black folks who will bend backwards to make excuses for white folks even where they have experienced racist brutality at one time or the other.

It is at this point that Nolwazi said that even where white farmers have shot and killed black folks some would offer the excuse that "Klein baas did not mean to shoot us". (klein bass equals little massa and his father is groot baas, or big/daddy massa)

"No no klein baas just made a mistake.  We know klein baas is not like that," she added as I went into laughing convulsions.

Some of these same folks would slash the face of another black person who called them out but yet could hardly muster enough righteous anger to condemn klein baas for his brutality (the white madam too).

To appreciate the deconstruction of white racism and the centerpiece of klein baas (the smaller oppressor who was nurtured by black folk who worked for his father, groot baas) it is necessary to know the race history and dynamics of apartheid, particularly as it played out in rural farming areas.

Whiteness in these contexts constructed black folks to be obedient.  Non-questioning and child-like.  They did not make a fuss, accepted the divine authority of whiteness and just played along hoping that the crumbs would reappear on their plates from day to day.

If my dad was to describe why I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt and my eyes looked like I had popped blood vessels from smoking crack he would say: 'You can't fully understand what Nolwazi was saying unless you know what klein baas was capable of and how black people were deployed to support whites even in their brutality."  

Knowing how brutal klein baas was and still is in many contexts - especially when farm laborers are killed for supposedly looking like intruder animals (dogs and baboons) - it is seemingly ludicrous to make excuses for him today.

But some obedient ass-kissing black skins do exactly that and the system rewards them for their cooperation.  Apartheid may not be legal anymore but the structures that it put in place still demand loyalty to the supremacy of klein baas (the racial state and its capitalist support system, for example). 

There is more depth and complexity though and despite the hilarity there is also a story about the way in which black folk have taken on a greater humanity to even love klein baas, despite.

That love may be delusional and it may speak to the oppressed mind in Fanon and Biko terms.  But Nolwazi's humor captured a tragedy of black life under white oppression and balanced it against a time when Mandela and Tutu and others are telling the still downtrodden to forgive klein baas, despite.

In other words to serve klein baas, still.

She was not degrading the black experience.  She lives the black experience and its gender jeopardy as a woman everyday.

Instead, her humor highlighted the tragedy of apartheid in the post-era where that tragedy is still consequential and very much unresolved.

Humor does not erase the pain and suffering.  It merely makes it more bearable and it also sharpens the anti-racist scalpel as it must.

Humor about our oppression also tells stories of what we have endured.  And without these stories we would simply disappear ... 

And for these reasons and more, this blog says Nolwazi is one of the funniest and most serious kickers of racist ass in South Africa.

Onward! sista soldier.

PS: Your ass should be on stage where folks who know can see your brilliance my sista!

And maybe klein baas will get why we still so angry even after Oprah was given a doctorate in White Piss Studies at that University just in case klein baas and his daddy felt bad.

Don't you just f*cking hate sellouts?

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

"The least among us."

Here is a sobering thought for you Negroes: The average *income (that should be *actual wealth and not income. I thank the anonymous commenter for correcting me on that.) for black households in A-merry-ca is $6,000, while for whites it is $113,000.00. Yep. This is the worse it has been since 1984. This recession set white folks back 10 years but it set us blacks folks back over 20 years. So folks, this racial wealth gap is no joke. Wealth in black households fell 54% since this study was done and it fell 16% in white households. Oh, and before you all go blaming O for all of this, just remember that these studies are from 2005.[Study]

So anyway, "Houston, we have a problem". And the problem will continue to manifest itself in ways that you cannot imagine. Kids are not learning in urban schools, and even if they were getting an education; the job prospects for them are really bleak. The head of African American households (usually single mothers with limited job skills and education) are getting laid off, and they are having to depend more and more on a government that is being slashed to the bone by wingnuts and their minions with no clue.

His Oness was on television last night begging the A-merry-can people to call their elected politicians to tell them that we are in deep s&^%, and that unless they (the poli-tricksters)get together to raise the debt ceiling all hell is going to break loose. A-merry-ca will lose it's triple A credit rating (Great, wait for the black man to get in charge before you f&^% with A-merry-ca's credit. Digression alert! You Negroes really need to stop stealing your children and grand children's social security numbers to buy s&^% and then f&^%*ng up their credit before they are old enough to vote.) 

Anyway, this is fast becoming a game of chicken. Wingnuts on one side sticking to their plan to derail the government because the tall beige man is the HNIC.
(Forget the fact that voting to raise the debt ceiling has never been a problem before.) And Obamacrats on the other side standing by their man.

But hey, such is life in A-merry-ca; we have to protect the rich and make sure that their taxes are not raised while the peasants and the masses keep voting against their own interest.

I see that my friend Glenn was at it again. This time he compared the kids that were slaughtered by that mad man in Norway to Hitler youth camp attendees.

".. he questioned what the victims were doing at a summer camp run by Norway's ruling Labour Party. Beck said the camp "sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing."

Really Mr. Beckkk, you mean like this one? Dope!

Finally, a post wouldn't be a post without a little racism chasing. This one comes by way of the state of Kentucky. (h/t to Monica for e-mailing me about this story)
This is Monica's letter to judge Kattie King:

"Dear Ms. King,

I'm extremely disappointed in how you handled a recent case regarding a young lady in your courtroom. You put this African American woman in jail for five days because you did not agree with her conduct in your courtroom. When I first heard about this incident, I guess I was prepared to see some wild, crazy, behavior. When in fact, all I saw was a young lady who had short personal conversation which you "rightfully" interrupted and then you asked her to leave your courtroom. Since the conversation was over. She went QUIETLY without any disrespect back to her seat. At that point, you escalated this situation. Video: http://alturl.com/cvgwq

On the other-hand, you released a white man, who had FOUR DUI's from jail. Source: http://alturl.com/h4fzm How in the world does someone have Four DUIs and doesn't serve jail time? But a young African American woman who was not on trial, you sentenced to five days in jail because you didn't like her courtroom demeanor. Are you kidding me? Do you not see the racial disparity of injustice. You made sure she WENT TO JAIL. But you allowed a REPEAT DUI offender walk out of the courtroom.

You do not have the maturity, level headed-ed demeanor to hold your position. You are a hot-head who feels the need to put certain types of people in their place. You are not fair and too inexperienced to hold that position. Putting a young woman in jail for five days is extreme. Her behavior did not warrant that type of punishment. For the record, I do not know or have ever met that woman.

Do the judicial system a favor - resign. You are not fit to wear that robe.

Monica Green"
 
 
Monica, I doubt if the good judge will even read your letter. But don't worry, I published it here. 








    

  

¡Viva la RevoluciĆ³n Cubana

Fifty-eight years ago today (July 26, 1953) the Cuban revolution began when armed rebels under the leadership of 26 year old Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago and the barracks in Bayamo.

That revolution still stands as one of the most inspiring in the last century.  And it is fitting to remember those who gave their lives for a revolutionary ideal: The emancipation of the oppressed masses (la emancipaciĆ³n de las masas oprimidas).

In posts below I have been talking about love and revolution (el amor y la revoluciĆ³n) and at times it may seem paradoxical to tie these two concepts/terms together.

But as I pay quiet tribute to the s/heroes of the Cuban revolution my mind turns to perhaps one of its most notable and iconic leaders, Che Guevara.

It was Che who best captured what love and revolution means in struggle when he said the following in Socialism and Man:
"At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.  It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality ... Our vanguard revolutionaries must idealize this love of the people, the most sacred cause, and make it one and indivisible … one must have a great deal of humanity and a strong sense of justice and truth in order not to fall into extreme dogmatism and cold scholasticism, into an isolation from the masses. We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force."
May the Cuban Revolution live on into the future as the struggle toward the emancipation of all oppressed peoples persists!
  
¡Viva la RevoluciĆ³n Cubana. Que este dĆ­a nos recuerda que todos lo importante que es para atar el amor a la revoluciĆ³n y la lucha hacia la emancipaciĆ³n!

La lucha continĆŗa, incluso cuando los tiempos parecĆ­a mĆ”s difĆ­cil que nunca. La revoluciĆ³n es inevitable, y como dijo Fidel, la historia absolverĆ” a los revolucionarios.

¡Adelante! a la liberaciĆ³n de todos los pueblos oprimidos.


¡Viva la RevoluciĆ³n Cubana

¡Adelante! (Onward!)

PS: El amor es una condiciĆ³n humana universal y sin revoluciones amor estĆ”n condenados al fracaso. Y sĆ­ sĆ© que hay algo mĆ”s que un tipo de amor. Cualquiera que sea su forma, que todo lo vence. Especialmente el temor de ser amado.

Image Credit

A Muslim Bigot

In the four plus years that I have written this blog I have received hundreds of racist and anti-Muslim rants.  Some are aimed at my skin color and others are aimed at my religion.

In this time I have never received a complaint or reprimand from a Muslim about my views on Islam or the way I live my life.

But there is always the exception and I want to share these two incoherent pieces of crap that were posted to the blog today.

**********
Abu Laila Al Afriki has left a new comment on your post "Are You Muslim? !!!"
"are you a muslim? christianity and judaism comes from islam has been around since aadam alayhi salam. the christians and jews are mushriks. they worship jesus and their rabis. it would do you good to study up on milat ibraheem. and see what you truly know about nabi ibraheem. what are you doing amongst drunk kafir and telling everyone anyways, you want to defend islam but you are at parties what a hypocrite."
**********
Abu Laila Al Afriki has left a new comment on your post "South Africa Votes for UN Resolution 1973 ..."
"ya akhi you are a muslim what are you doing. you love the kufaar. you love democracy and freedom. this is all against islam and Allah's sharia. you may write well but you have little understanding. we are muslims. who cares what these kufar have to say. we are not south africans but rather we are a part of the ummah of muhhamad pbuh. we need sharia not democracy which puts man as sovereign instead of Allah. you have pictures and quotes made by kufaar and mushriks. why do you honour those who reject islam."
***********
Yeah you reading this intolerant fool right.  According to him, Islam is against non-Muslims and democracy.  It's in the Sharia he says.  What nonsense!  There is no such rulings anywhere in Islam.

He also takes exception to posting pictures of non-Muslims.  The pictures part is the nonsense that some Muslims believe is anti-Muslim.  And this they get from where?  The prohibition against pictures or images (especially with eyes) is not found anywhere in the Qur'an.

But let me speak directly. 

None of the folks I supposedly "honour" here reject Islam.  Who do you think you dealing with?

I am not one of the teenage sons of the men and their ummah who keep you fed while you spew rubbish and dirty our religion.

The pathology contained in your quotes above is not my Islam.  You won't find me limp shaking my bearded ass in contexts that defile the religion more than celebrate its inclusivity and revolutionary ideals.

Islam does not predate Judaism and Christianity fool.  Read your Qur'an.  Islam is the logical and recognized outgrowth of both those sister religions and it is the last prophet (pbuh) who proclaimed when he was done that "on this day I have perfected your religion for you."

In the Qur'an are more verses that extol the beliefs of Judaism and Christianity and none that make any of your ludicrous statements.

So you would be contesting/questioning the Qur'an when it says that among the believers are the Jews, Christians, Sabians, and those who accept Allah's (God's) supremacy?

Its bigots like you I find more offensive than the white racist sh*t that is flung at me here and elsewhere.

Don't come on here with your holier than thou sh*t and think you profound.  You not.  I have read some of the incoherent crap you post on that other similarly piss-poor blog you claim and if I was you, I'd do some learning and get someone to help you with elemental basics.

Sh*t like how to construct arguments, to capitalize and punctuate sentences, and not appear to just be a dense kook.  Well cause ... you make us all look like idiots.

It's your kind of idiocy that is used to stereotype and oppress us.

I shudder to think what your views on women might be.  You like the Taliban fool.  Islam is not an oppression meted out by uneducated yet over-confident asses like you.

You worry about my level of education.  You read here?  You should.  You might learn something more than just rubbing your fat head against a carpet five times a day and hoping your ass will do enough to make it into heaven.

Islam is an egalitarian revolution.  It is not the hatred you spew against believing humans.

And save your ass from replying here in a tone that thinks you know Islam better than me or that you have power over me.

And use your real name fool.  What you afraid of?  What the f*ck is Afriki?  How delusional and contrived are you really?

This blog has no space for bigots like you or the kind of myopic fanatics that would have lynched the last prophet (pbuh) if he were around calling you on your incoherent rantings.

Allah alone judges fool.  The Qur'an proclaims that "God is most merciful and compassionate" over and over again.

Where is the mercy and compassion in your hatred?  How are you different than the hate mongers who persecute Muslims?

And how dare you question whether I am a Muslim or not?  Who f*cking died and appointed you in charge of determining who is and who is not Muslim?

There are a whole lot of non-Muslims in this world who stand for what is right and give their lives to defend our common humanity.

Among those are the people of the Books of Moses (pbuh) and Jesus (pbuh) and they are our brothers and our sisters and I will die for their right to believe what they will and what they want.

It is the Islamic thing to do.  Our history is replete with Muslim martyrs who defended Jews and Christians.

What are you doing other than spreading intolerant hate?

It is our Qur'an that proclaims that there is no compulsion in religion.  We cannot force anyone - even those among us - to do and see what we think is right.

Only Allah judges.  Read your Qur'an in a language you can understand - save all that pious chanting for your down times.

In my mind and my politics you are an antiquated piece of vile sh*t I will resist with every ounce of my being.

My Islam is not the Islam you have defiled.  So take your bigoted crap elsewhere.  Or send me an email and we can meet and work this sh*t out in person since you are in South Africa.  laher@iname.com

Onward!

Monday, July 25, 2011

Is O showing the sisters enough love? And mass transit blues.

O, you better be careful, you don't want to play with the black female vote. I know that most sisters will still ride or die with you (Mrs. Field included) but you have got to start showing them some love.

Faye Anderson, a friend of mine, and a blogger who I respect, wrote a piece about it, and wouldn't you know it; today I noticed that Dr. Boyce Watkins wrote about it as well.

I saw Faye at a conference down in D.C. and she was telling me that quite a few sisters were pissed at O but none would go on the record. (Unlike moi, Faye is a real journalist.) Now I love Faye, but I am not sure who, exactly, O could have invited to represent the black female civil rights community? And why is this even an issue? Shouldn't we all be uniting around common goals about what is best for our community and A-merry-ca as a whole?
Dr. Watkins disagrees with me:

"Dr.Julianne Malveaux would have been a perfect choice, since you don’t exactly see scores of black women with PhDs in Economics from MIT. Given that the men had gathered to discuss job creation and economic growth within the Black community, I can only imagine that Dr. Malveaux might have something productive to say.

The fact that Dr. Malveaux, along with every other talented Black woman in America, is consistently left to the side in these important conversations should be disturbing to all of us. As we fight for the civil rights of our community, we might want to take a second to realize that we are not immune from the temptation of oppression. With all due respect to the men who’ve taken the time to meet with the president, I grow increasingly disturbed that the powerful Black female political voice has been largely kept in the background. Given that Black men are the most marginalized group of people in American society, it is clear that Black women led the way in building the passionate energy that gave our nation its first Black president.

Adding insult to injury, Dr. Height mentioned to President Obama that it is time that a Black woman be allowed to serve on the Supreme Court. Instead, the Obama Administration barely glanced at the thousands of talented Black female attorneys and judges across the country, and chose another Harvard University alum (Elena Kagan) with a horrifically racist hiring record. Kagan was the right political move, but the wrong ethical move, and President Obama surely knows this.

The goal in making these points is not to bash President Obama or the men who conduct meetings with him. It is to make it clear that Black men must take the lead in insisting that women be allowed to advocate for our community as much as our men. I hope and expect that Jealous, Sharpton and Morial are in agreement. I also hope that powerful Black women will speak up on this issue as well.

When fighting for what is rightfully yours, there comes a time when you no longer need to be diplomatic. Let’s move Black women away from the back of the political bus."

Thoughts?

The next time I go to San Francisco, I will be renting a car. The mass transit po po out there doesn't f&*^ around. Dead for not having a fare? WTF?

And, finally, speaking of mass transit. I know times are tough in A-merry-ca for you Negroes with the recession and all, but you have got to stop taking your anger out on white people. That s&^% is not cool. "Can't we all just get along"?

"A Bronx man was viciously assaulted and robbed on a subway train Sunday by four men who he says taunted him for being white.
Police confirmed they are investigating the assault and robbery of Jason Fordell, 29, but have not labeled it a hate crime.
They are seeking the four assailants, who fled the scene. A fifth passenger who police say spontaneously joined in the attack has been arrested.
"Everyone on the train was egging them on," said Fordell, 29, of the early-morning attack on the 4 train." [Source]

Mr. Fordell, let me be the first to apologize to you on behalf of all peace loving Negroes everywhere. That should not have happened. And, to be fair, if it had been the other way around I would probably be blogging about it. Probably....

Oh ohhh, there is an update to this story:

"Police were unable to find the gang, but they were able to find and arrest 54-year-old Barinthe Ramoutar, who Fordell fingered as the eager straphanger. Last night a judge released Ramoutar without bond.

“It’s simply physically impossible,” Ramoutar’s lawyer, Trudy Strassburger, said of the attack yesterday.

Her client, she says, is a balding fruit salesmen with no criminal record and arthritis, from 24 years working as a welder, so bad he cannot make a fist. She says that the arrest was just a case of mistaken identity.

Fordell identified him on the platform at Jerome Avenue and Fordham Road a good 45 minutes after the attack is said to have occurred.
The judge apparently agreed with Ramoutar’s lawyer enough to release him without bond. However, he still faces charges of robbery, assault and grand larceny.

Meanwhile, the four other attackers, three black men and a hispanic [SIC] man, remain at large—which makes it very hard for police to determine if the attack was in fact racially motivated, as Fordell has claimed.
Also not helpful to his argument?

The fact that Fordell has since admitted that, after being called names, he resorted to racial slurs himself on the fateful train ride. “They’re calling me cracker, and so I called him spic,” a beaten Fordell told WPIX.

When the station then asked, “If you’re using racial slurs, why should police call it a hate crime?” Fordell responded, “because they’re the ones who started with me.” [Source]

Mr. Fordell, those Negroes were still wrong, but your hands were not exactly clean. There was clearly some "color arousal" issues going on (thanks for that word, Francis)and being "color aroused" in certain situations is never good.

A Greater Freedom

I've made a lot about confronting the past in my academic writing and elsewhere.  It makes sense that if we are to move past being stuck it needs getting unstuck.

But it is harder than just the intent.  The promise may beckon but old habits and untruths are nurtured and held onto like an old comfy sweater.

There is a closeness to the dysfunction of wallowing in the abyss of personal unhappiness.

It is much the same for states because states are no more than groups of people who are tied to stories and myths.

Capitalism and racism are constructed stories.  Myths.  And where stuck in dysfunction it needs to be confronted.

A broken spirit and being that won't heal and embrace another view is much the same.

The process toward becoming unstuck is not known.  Or rather not definite or defined.  There is no one plan.

But to live and thrive inside the limitations of the human condition it is necessary to confront.

I like to think that life is incomplete without a confrontation toward a greater and more complete truth.  I also sometimes think that truth is not a place, not an arrival, or something to be uncovered.

Truth is a lived principle.  It is flexible but it is also an uncompromised acceptance that there is a greater system that ties us.

And so truth in many instances is the manner in which we embrace a confrontation toward becoming unstuck.  It is the honesty to show your limitations and to accept your frailty and to know you are not alone.

I know someone who does not embrace the word confrontation.  And I know someone else who worries that confrontation means shouting and violence.

It is more.  A larger complexity than just its colloquial meaning seems to suggest.

There can be no moving forward without confronting the past.  Its ugliness.  And its beauty.

Confrontation is the eagerness to know more and to accept more, and even less if necessary.

But there never is just one confrontation or a final confrontation.  There is also never a certainty to what will emerge when you ask hard questions about what was, what is, and what will be - and even less when you try to connect these layers.

Last night my confrontation failed to gather my sense.  That part of me that sees beyond being stuck did not convince.  The part that is practiced in the art of living beyond being defined from outside and inside fell flat.

Around 3am my eyes stared deep.  It was time to leave but stay truthful.

But I would do it again.  Because it is noble this truth telling.  This laying out of self toward a greater understanding.

Where the outcome is unfinished it merely beckons another time.  Another try.  And sometimes not.  Knowing that contour is the substance of being practiced and living instead of merely existing.

And even where the other side remains unmoved it is still a way forward.  A way beyond just being stuck in being stuck.

And as one truth is confirmed it is necessary to find more ... truths.  Through confrontation.

It is the human condition.  This need to grapple with knowing the unknown.  And it is just as human to be settled with not knowing it all.

That precarious balance is not the stuff of being stuck.

Being stuck is simply not moving.  It is a defeat grounded by the fear of remaining stuck.  And sadly, that fear is a prescription to stay stuck.

And so fear of the unknown is not a viable option toward becoming unstuck.  Confronting the unknown offers opportunities to become unstuck.

And if you so desire, it also offers a decisive move toward a greater freedom.

Onward!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

That is not a bible in Mr. Breivik's hand.

Talk about a rush to judgement. Just check out this wingnut site (don't miss the comments section) for all the talk of those evil Moooslims right after the [right]wingnut lived out his Glenn Beckkk fantasies in Norway.

Seems my man had his own little manifesto where he decried multiculturalism and all the race mixing and immigrants who are heading to Western European countries.

"Text in the video rails against the 'Islamization' of Europe and 'cultural Marxists' and asserts that the majority of Europe's population will be Muslim by 2050 'unless we manage to defeat the ruling Multiculturalist Alliance.'
"'elebrate us, the martyrs of the conservative revolution, for we will soon dine in the Kingdom of Heaven,' the video says."

Norway has what, four million people? Here in A-merry-ca we have over three hundred million. Hmmm, what are the chances of another Behring Breivik appearing right here in the land of the [only some are]free? I am guessing that it's pretty good. And you all wonder why I am just as suspicious of Bob as I am of Muhammad.

Finally, I thought that it was only places like Louisiana and Texas that suffered from environmental racism. Boy was I wrong. Apparently just up the road from me in New York there are clear examples of the big R "rearing its ugly head." 

Folks, don't forget to wear your gas masks the next time you are up in Harlem.







My Dress-Down

By the time I reached the driveway of number 11 late Friday night I felt betrayed by the gods. Behind me lay a string of mishaps topped off by a near full speed head-on crash with a driver on a cell phone and an encounter with a gorge of a pothole that caused my car’s body to flex so severely that my windshield shattered.

As I opened the gates to pull my car into the driveway Founder bolted toward me and her energy held me as my heart slowed for the first time in seven or more hours.

Moms prepared all my favourite foods and I ate quietly listening to her tell me this and that and then she asked: “What is wrong Ridwan, why are you so quiet?”

As if possessed I started to tell her that my dress-down Gandhi lifestyle was gonna kill me in a country where it matters to be driving a half a million rand car.

“But you don’t like being like that. It is against your principles,” moms replied.

I understand all that and have tried to live simply but just hours earlier as my car screeched and jerked violently and almost flipped I had a moment to think that I could live with a brand new BMW or Mercedes or whatever because those cars have ABS brakes and airbags and crumple zones.

My hatchback VW is a coffin on wheels. “If you have an accident in that car Ridi it will be like 1980 all over again. The doctors at the hospital will know you were driving a Citi Golf,” my boy Cliff once joked as we drove across town in his silver 3 series BMW.

“Did the idiot driver stop to see if you were OK?” moms asked.

He did not. He drove off. My car stalled but I managed to let it roll off the highway where a white man was changing a flat tire. He told me how lucky I was to escape and then he asked me if the idiot driver was a “kaffir” (a nigger).

I turned from that man. Turned my key and thanked my yesteryear hatchback anyway and drove off fuming.

Somewhere close to a town called Dealesville I hit a series of gorge-like potholes so hard that the windshield shattered.

It was at that point that I got out of the car to stare at the dark sky and ask the gods if they had had just about enough of f*cking with me for the day.

No answer was forthcoming. Just like that other time and the three million other times before that.

“What kind of car would you buy if you allowed yourself to have a nice car,” moms asked.

I stopped thinking about things like that in 2005 when I stopped thinking about the kind of anything I wanted in my life.

Somewhere toward the end of that year I watched what I thought I wanted unravel into deceitful and hollow contradictions that reached deep inside of me and twisted my faith in my hands, my knees, and mostly, my heart.

I closed my feelings and opened my head to reason past the urge to care about caring.

Recently I have been thinking that maybe my grandmother was right when she said that if you waited too long to love with all your heart it would be too late to love at all.

I wondered about deceit, denial, distrust, forgiveness, and forever when I sat quietly for hours in Gandhi’s ashram in Ahmadabad.

Would Gandhi love beyond the fear of being hurt again? Would he open up his email, if he had email, only to close it with a sigh of distance that is as unintended as it is familiar?

Did Gandhi ask his wife to forgive him for raising his hand? Did she?

As I made my way back to Pretoria inside the quiet noise of my father’s old Isuzu truck today I thought about conditions that go along with unconditional love.

What will it take to set aside that past weight that turns every slip into a fall?

What kind of redemption and what kind of songs are needed to put an end to too long?

"... Won't you help to sing.  These songs of freedom?

'Cause all I ever have: Redemption songs ..."
 
Onward!

Arundhati Roy — “Every day, one is insulted in India"

New Statesman
Sophie Elmhirst

July 20, 2011.

After winning the Booker Prize in 1997, Arundhati Roy could have been a “pretty lady who wrote a book”. Instead, she took up a host of political causes . . . and fell out with her country’s elite.


Three years after Arundhati Roy published her first book, The God of Small Things, she cut off all her hair. The novel won the Booker Prize in 1997 and Roy had been hailed as a voice of an emerging nation, a literary heroine with a beautiful face, an Indian writer able to define the post-colonial imagination. Her own country revelled in her success - here was a photogenic ambassador for modern India, superpower of the future.

Knowing Roy as we do now, her reaction to the adulation seems predictable. She is a natural rebel, disdainful of mainstream popularity. There could be no way more visible to demonstrate her contempt than shearing off her long, dark hair. As she told the New York Times in 2001, she didn't want to be known as "some pretty lady who wrote a book".

Roy has not published any fiction since The God of Small Things, much to the impatience of the six million people who bought that book (and, you imagine, her agent David Godwin). Over the past 14 years, she has instead devoted her energy to India's most urgent political challenges: nuclear tests, dams, Kashmir, Hindu nationalism, terrorism, the emergence of a super-wealthy elite and the 800 million citizens who still live on less than Rs20 (30p) a day.

Roy's version of India is uncompromising. The country, she says, is in "a genocidal situation, turning upon itself, colonising the lower sections of society who have to pay the price for this shining India". Its leaders are "such poor men because they have no idea of history, of culture, of anything, except growth rates". The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, is a "pathetic figure as a human being". Democracy is thriving "for a few people, in the better neighbourhoods of Bombay and Delhi". The Indian elite are "like an extra state in America". The country has a defence budget of $34bn this year. "For whom?" she asks. "For us." In her account, there is a war taking place, not with Pakistan or China, but within India's borders: the sham democracy has turned on its poorest citizens.

There is something incongruous about listening to Roy talk in her gentle voice about the Indian state's campaign of violence as we drink tea in a five-star Westminster hotel. She sits in an upholstered chair, legs delicately folded beneath her, a grey shawl wrapped around her shoulders. But then incongruity seems to be one of Roy's closer companions. She prefers to be at odds with convention, to confound expectations.
"There are people who have comfortable relationships with power and people with natural antagonism to power," she says. "I think it's easy to guess where I am in that.

Roy has not limited her antagonism to India: over the years, she has lambasted US foreign policy, accused Israel of war crimes and called for the Sri Lankan government to be investigated for genocide. But her most recent book, Broken Republic, is a return to the heart of her country. In the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, she says, the government is waging war on forest-dwelling tribal people in order to gain access to the land's mineral wealth (the mountains are full of bauxite, coal and iron ore).

Of the three essays in the book, it is the second - "Walking With Comrades" - that has garnered the most attention. Roy describes her secretive journey into the Chhattisgarh forests guided by a militant resistance group of Maoist rebels who fight the Indian army and police on behalf of the indigenous population. The piece opens dramatically - the flourish of an accomplished storyteller - with a note slipped under Roy's door, inviting her to meet the rebels in the town of Dantewada at one of four specific times. She is told she must carry a camera and a coconut to identify herself.

Over three weeks, Roy follows the Maoists through the forest, sleeping in their makeshift open-air camps under the stars. The rebels become her friends and, at times, the object of her awe ("there is a sea of people, the most wild, beautiful people"). She ends the piece with her departure: "When I looked back, they were still there. Waving. A little knot," she writes. "People who live with their dreams, while the rest of the world lives with its nightmares. Every night I think of this journey."

It is a typical passage in Roy's non-fiction - heightened emotion, the sense of a life experienced at extremes, populated by a cast of heroes and villains. She is beguiled by the Maoists, whom the Indian media and politicians vilify for their brutal resistance (the group has abducted and murdered villagers, including children, as well as frequently killing policemen and members of the security forces). Roy acknowledges their violence in her book, saying of the wider Maoist movement that "it's impossible to defend much of what they've done". But her sympathies rest with the individual activists she meets in Chhattisgarh and she has no problem, in principle, with their methods. Even though Roy identifies with Mahatma Gandhi's vision of self-reliance, she sees his advocacy of non-violent resistance as little more than "pious humbug".

The book, she says now, was "accidental". Roy does not work to commission; she has no interest in following anyone else's agenda. She writes according to instinct. "It's not some project-driven life, you know, where you're like: 'Oh, let me go to England and promote my new book,'" she tells me. "All my books are accidental books - they come from reacting to things and thinking about things and engaging in a real way. They are not about, 'Oh, did it get a good review in the Guardian?' I don't care."

Instead she wants her work to mean something to the disenfranchised constituency to which she attempts to give a voice. "All these essays, they've been translated into every Indian language and sold, made into pamphlets. I've had people in villages telling me that they sleep with 'Walking With Comrades'."

After Roy left the forest, she received a note from one of the rebels. She has memorised it, and recites the message in Hindi before translating it for my benefit: "After you wrote [your article], there was a wave of happiness that went through the forest." That simple line, she says, meant "more than any book or prize or good review - anything".

The prize counts, though. Roy would not find a publisher, let alone an audience, for her non-fiction if she had not won a prestigious literary award for her novel. "She's well aware her profile comes from the Booker," Simon Prosser, her editor at Penguin, tells me. "She often says that prizes and money don't really matter to her, but I think what does matter to her is using that position to get her message across." Prosser acknowledges that there are far fewer people who would want to read her analysis of the state of modern India than would buy her next work of fiction, and yet he is committed to publishing her political writing, placing her in the same bracket as Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein. These, he says, are writers who are "very different in style, but belong together in terms of their passion and their selflessness".

Bugbear of the rich

Where does rebellion begin? Not just teenage rebellion - the casual flouting of parental authority - but lifelong dedication to resistance, to wrangling with power wherever and whenever you encounter it. Roy says she spent her early years "terrified of being stuck". She was born in Shillong, Meghalaya, in north-eastern India, in 1961 and grew up in Aymanam in Kerala (where The God of Small Things is partly set), but was horrified at the thought of a future spent in a traditional rural community. So she escaped, moving to Delhi when she was 16 to study architecture.

She has an unconventional family history: her mother, Mary, who set up a school in Kerala, was to some degree an outcast in their Christian community after marrying a Hindu (Roy's father) and then quickly divorcing him. In old age, her mother has not lost her defiance. In "Walking With Comrades" Roy describes her mother calling her the day before she travelled to the forest: "'I've been thinking,' she said, with a mother's weird instinct, 'what this country needs is a revolution.

Roy's own revolutionary spirit is only fired by the enmity she encounters at home. "Every day," she says, almost proudly, "one is insulted in India." Last October, she was charged with sedition for a speech she made about the disputed territory of Kashmir at a seminar in New Delhi. The complaint was lodged by an advertising executive, Sushil Pandit, an associate of the leadership of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

A month later, the women's wing of the BJP attacked and vandalised Roy's house, filmed by a crew from the cable channel Times Now (which Roy has described as "Fox News on acid"). The crew had mysteriously arrived before the party activists. Such ties - threaded between business, politics and media - are common among the Indian elite, and Roy has become a primary target.

The novelist and essayist Pankaj Mishra - the first to champion The God of Small Things after Roy sent him the manuscript - worries for his friend. He describes over email a "culture of intimidation" in India: the open threats from right-wing television anchors, the "crazies" who launch court cases. They all seek to drive Roy out, just as they pushed the veteran artist M F Husain into self-imposed exile in 2006 (Husain died in a London hospital in June). Their hostility is so feverish, he says, because they feel betrayed. The woman the elite of India once declared their literary icon "turned rogue" and, more to the point, turned on them.

But, he insists, their opposition is not representative. Her enemies, Mishra says, are "the Facebooking and Twittering elites, who naturally dislike her and who manage to amplify their dislike more loudly than the many more Indians from much less visible and influential classes who find her a valuable, even indispensable, critical voice". He believes you need to see Roy in a village, a small town, somewhere far from the television studios and affluent neighbourhoods of Mumbai and Delhi, in one of the thousands of places where they have no access to a computer, let alone the internet, to understand how beloved she is among the wider Indian population.

It would be simple to leave it at that: Roy as a woman of the people, loathed by the rich and powerful whose hypocrisy and cruelty she exposes. But fellow writers and activists have also struggled with her polemical stance, even when they have supported her cause. In 2000, Ramachandra Guha, a leading academic and author, wrote an essay in the Hindu newspaper criticising her campaign against the construction of the Narmada Dam in Gujarat (which, Roy said, was going to displace half a million local people). Guha suggested that Roy was careless and lacked judgement, and that her advocacy had undermined the fight against the dam, serving only as a distraction. She accused him in turn of being out of touch, a "creature that didn't make it into the Ark".

When I contacted Guha, he was reluctant to speak about Roy, saying he had nothing further to add. But his argument has been taken up by other Indian academics, such as Jyotirmaya Sharma, a political scientist at the University of Hyderabad and former senior editor of the Times of India. Sharma agrees with Roy in principle: the issues she raises, he tells me on the phone, "are first-rate". Like Roy, he believes that large parts of the Indian state are essentially criminal in their behaviour. Yet he cannot abide the way she chooses to frame her argument, or the tone - "sanctimonious, pompous, holier than thou" - in which she expresses it. She contributes nothing, he says, to proper public debate other than cooking up a controversy in which she is the central player, "people saying we love her, we hate her". "You cannot talk to the woman," he says, so overbearing is her self-righteousness.

As for the substance of her recent book, he thinks she is simply wrong in the romantic picture she paints of the Maoists, who in his view are as criminal in their actions as the government. In conclusion, he argues that "she's the Tony Benn of India". I suggest that in Britain this might well be taken as a compliment. Sharma pauses amid his rising fury and mutters, "Relics have their uses."

Sharma's bluster is typical of Roy's intellectual critics. Some put it down to professional jealousy - she is one of the few anti-establishment figures from India heard and read intently by a large international audience. This means, crucially, that she is paid well for work that would normally be found languishing in undersubscribed journals in her home country. Sharma would dismiss the notion that he craves her celebrity and success, but you can't help but wonder - as he scorns her choice to live in an upmarket neighbourhood of Delhi - if he might not like to live there, too.

Insider on the outside

Roy's commitment to prolonged protest has not made her life easy. There are the threats, attacks and legal actions, but there is also personal sacrifice. Although she mocks Gandhi, she seems to share elements of his self-denial. Her first marriage, to the architect Gerard da Cunha, broke down and her second (in 1984), to the film-maker Pradip Krishen, is complicated: the couple live separately. She tells me the pressure she feels, both from herself and externally, is exhausting and affects "everything in my life, everything!" - including her "most personal relationships".

To live her life, immersed in activism at the most local level and in subjects that are difficult and unpopular, is in part to cut yourself off. It is also to renounce the comfortable lot of a successful novelist. That is what Prosser means when he speaks of her selflessness. She spends her time travelling across India, talking and meeting with activists, not frittering her even­ings away at literary parties.

Yet in some ways that kind of dedication is as selfish as it is selfless: it is pursued in a singular way, perhaps at the expense of those close to her. Roy is puzzled by her predicament. "How do you draw the line," she asks, "between how much you can give and be effective? Because you don't want to become some exhausted, pathetic martyr to something and you don't want to bore yourself, either."

For Roy, to be a writer is by definition to offer yourself up to the cause. "You are not somebody on the outside, commenting," she says dismissively. She can read a piece of work and know within "three paragraphs" if the writer is serious or if it is merely a project, the labour of someone who wants to be seen to be engaged. She knows instantly whether they are "outside or inside" their subject.

Being on the inside is fundamental to Roy, but it is not always straightforward. To what extent can a wealthy, Delhi-living author inhabit the condition of an indigenous rural population? “I know that my comrades are glad that I have some resources . . . that I can politically deploy," she says. "It doesn't help them if I stay in the forest, you know."
In her view, writers should be part of the struggle. Roy deplores what she describes as a "terrible shift" that has occurred in the perception of both the purpose of writing and the position of a writer in society - how the writer is presumed to be a fringe player, a mere observer. Mishra says that, in India, the line between literature and politics is anyway more blurred. In the west, he mocks, "people go silent for years while working on a novel and then emerge to sign a petition or two".

In India, you cannot escape politics - it shapes your daily life and intrudes into your private world. And no one embraces that intrusion more avidly than Roy. "I see Arundhati writing on the run," Mishra says, "while deeply and consistently engaged with her world."

Roy, I think, would like that image - the way it reflects her dedication to the causes she espouses but is coloured by a flash of daring. When she lies in a forest, gazing at the stars and hearing the stories of her Maoist companions, she is as enraged by their plight as she is entranced by the wonder and mystery of her adventure. It is this romanticism that so irritates those critics who might otherwise share her politics. Yet it also displays the gift of a storyteller. She happily sacrifices her credibility among the intellectual elite in order to win respect among the people she wants to help.

There is no doubt about her fervour: it is not cynical and not just for show, but that does not mean it isn't riddled with contradictions. Roy has one foot in a five-star London hotel and the other in an Indian forest (where the night sky, she says, is like a "thousand-star hotel"); she lives in luxurious isolation in Delhi but comes alive in public meetings in small Indian towns. And she recognises, poignantly, that she is "too complicated" for the Maoists to belong fully to their cause.

“The whole skill," she tells me earnestly, "is deploying your voice from the heart of the crowd and yet insisting on independence, not as some individualist who wants to be a star but as an individualist who has a particular way of living, or thinking, or loving." As a statement, it seems to capture a conflict at her core: she is the insider on the outside, part of a movement and yet, as a writer, inevitably alone - the individual at the heart of a crowd.

Arundhati Roy's "Broken Republic" is newly published by Hamish Hamilton (£17.99)
 
Sophie Elmhirst is an assistant editor of the New Statesman
 
Comment: Roy is one of the most brilliant anti-imperialist anti-neoliberal minds around.  She is not liked by the elites in India or anywhere else because she sees through their accumulation pretenses.
 
I have to admit that I have not been able to get through the God of Small Things in about 8 tries.  But then I rearely read fiction.  Still, it has not grabbed me like her political essays do.
 
Can't wait to read Broken Republic - it should get to South African bookstores by mid-2015 so I may have to buy it on Amazon.
 
Onward!
 
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