Brown Man Thinking Hard

Will Angry White Man Performance Win Gingrich GOP Nomination?

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:31:00 PST

S. rarely says much about current events when we get up in the morning. But today she was visibly agitated over the visual of the group, comprised largely of white men, who stood up and clapped when Newt Gingrich angrily put the CNN debate moderator in his place last night. If Gingrich’s goal was to be the only topic of conversation going into the South Carolina GOP primary on Saturday, then he performed beyond expectations. His televised histrionics, which will be played and replayed endlessly over the next two days, might even help him win the South Carolina primary.

But is being the angry white man in the race enough of an asset for Gingrich to win the nomination?

Will white Republican women identify with Callista Gingrich, who carried on a six year affair with her now husband when he was married to someone else, as their idea of a future First Lady? Will conservative women who have been replaced by trophy wives after helping their husbands stay afloat during their lean years be able to push the button for a man who made over $3,000,000 last year but only paid $19,800 in alimony to his ex-wife? As a woman on Twitter succinctly puts it, “the average person cannot relate to ‘a devout catholic mistress’.”

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE AT BIG THINK

Will Angry White Man Performance Win Gingrich GOP Nomination? | Resurgence | Big Think

Media Gives GOP Race Baiting A Free Pass

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:56:00 PST

Rick Santorum gives me the impression that if he was on Mars, campaigning for the Martian vote, he would still find a way to blame black Americans for taking the tax dollars of white Americans. I don’t know what kind of constituencies Santorum is used to representing, but out here in real America, nobody is buying his “I must have said ‘blah’” bullshit. If you’re going to race bait, Mr. Santorum, be a man about it like your opponent Newt Gingrich. After all the racial fear mongering of Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and the 70’s version of Ron Paul last week, it took a couple of doses of the James Brown classic “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)” for me to get my equilibrium back.

But why do these guys do this and think they can get away with it? Because the news media is full of punks and pontificators who heartily embrace this notion of a public figure “walking back” a statement, a handy Media Mulligan that allows these candidates to make all sorts of reprehensible comments, confident that they will be able to deny their own words and get a do over later. The Fourth Estate has shirked its duty to hold the feet of those who govern or wish to govern to the fire, preferring instead to be considered as a an adjunct PR department for the candidate’s campaigns.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT:

Media Gives GOP Race Baiting A Free Pass | Resurgence | Big Think

Is Iowa Caucus Relevant Without Minority Participants? | Resurgence | Big Think

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:41:00 PST

The America I live in is not 90% white. The America I live in does not have more hogs than people. The American I live in does not have 60% of the electorate who describe themselves as evangelical Christians. While I can understand the media’s need for nostalgia, and our own American reverence for rituals, I have never quite been able to discern why the political preferences of Iowans should have any relevance for the rest of us.

“The prominence and first-in-nation position of Iowa and New Hampshire do elevate white primary voters over non-white ones, and in both parties,” says Thomas Schaller, a professor of political science at University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Why (Very White) Iowa and New Hampshire Mean So Much in Politics

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE AT BIG THINK

Is Iowa Caucus Relevant Without Minority Participants? | Resurgence | Big Think

House GOP Too Stupid To Quit While They Were Ahead

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 01:33:00 PST

Unrestrained obstructionism as a political strategy practically guarantees that the epitaph on the GOP’s 2012 presidential aspirations will read “too stupid to quit while they were ahead.” Is John Boehner serious about not holding a vote on tax cut extensions for the middle class because he thinks it might pass? Can House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the Republican who has completely and utterly failed at his primary function—keeping the party as united as possible when holding roll call votes—see that he stands a good chance of replacing Ebenezer Scrooge as the epitome of a cold-hearted miser on the eve of Christmas?

Every conservative in Congress these days claims they are either a Tea Party Republican or a Reagan Republican, but they are all really Reactionary Republicans, ready to demonize anything their political opponents support at the drop of a hat. There is a point, though, where the demonizer can become the demon. The general public doesn’t care about the political pickle John Boehner is in. What they see is a guy who won’t hold a vote on their tax cut extensions, tax cuts that will otherwise expire in 11 days because Boehner knows it might pass.

“The gop has become so reactionary it has no longer has any guiding principals. They define themselves by taking the opposite position to their political opponents and now they don't know what their talking points will be until they know what to be against. No wonder they are rudderless”
Anonymous comment on political blog

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE AT:

House GOP Too Stupid To Quit While They Were Ahead | Resurgence | Big Think

Governor Brownback Needs To Fire His Communications Director

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:00:00 PST

Governor Brownback’s communications director, Sherriene Jones-Sontag, has taken a 100% certified molehill—an indecorous tweet from a bored school kid who happened to be in an audience in front of the governor at the time—and turned it into a textbook example of how to build a mountain of negative public opinion for your boss overnight. Could you imagine Governor Chris Christie’s staffers making a decision like this?

Ms. Sullivan didn’t actually make any critical comments in person, but the tweet, sent out to a following of about 60 people (though it’s over 800 now), somehow caught the eye of the Governor’s Director of Communication, Sherriene Jones-Sontag, during her daily monitoring of social media mentions of Governor Brownback. Shocked – shocked! – that a teenager’s tweet about a politician was “disrespectful,” she complained to the high school. “It’s also important for students to recognize the power of social media, how lasting it is. It is on the Internet,” she said.
High School Student Punished For Joking Tweet About Governor Brownback

It is on the internet, Ms. Jones-Sontag. The internet, the one the rest of us uses when people like you aren’t clogging it up with press releases you and your staff are bulk emailing by the thousands to people who aren’t reading them, actually thrives on these David versus Goliath narratives. And when I put a link to this article on twitter, Ms. Jones-Sontag, I will be sure to give you and your minions your own hashtag: #HisUnderlingsBlowALotToo.

READ MORE AT BIG THINK

Governor Brownback Needs To Fire His Communications Director | Resurgence | Big Think

History Is Everywhere On Big Island Of Hawaii

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:21:00 PST

Usually on Thanksgiving I put on a sweater, crank up the heat, eat some turkey and watch some football. This year, I am trying to decide between kayaking along the coast of Hawaii’s Big Island or simply slipping on one of the many Hawaiian shirts I’ve packed, cracking a beer and just enjoying the view. I started out with good intentions towards keeping up a steady stream of blog posts this week, but the temporary office I chose, a picnic table on a outcropping of volcanic rock thirty feet above the waves, probably wasn’t the best choice for getting my creative juices flowing. And my body still has no idea what time it really is.
One of the unique things about Hawaii is the prominence the islands give to the stories of those whose lives shaped the nation’s 50^th state. To have the equivalent kind of heritage displays in a continental U.S. state like say, my home state South Carolina, you would have to have a tableau of the Dred Scott decision, a replica of a slave auction block, and a depiction of juju in every rest stop in the state.
History is everywhere here. You can go to one of the numerous state parks and see Hawaiian tikis. You may be in the middle of a shopping mall and see a sign that says “0.3 miles to the petraglyphs”. Here in Keahou, at the Kona Surf and Racquet Club just south of the Kona commercial district, there are two or three heiaus, sacred places surrounded by large piles of black lava rock, scattered throughout the complex where we are staying.

History Is Everywhere On Big Island Of Hawaii | Resurgence | Big Think

Controversy Thy Name Is Cain

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 07:09:00 PST

The Republican Party has a big problem right now, and his name is Herman Cain. He can’t win the nomination, he won’t go home, yet he makes all the other presidential candidates look like also rans, mostly because he is very, very good at speaking through the TV cameras to right wing America.

The GOP brain trust has got to be wondering right about now how to graft Herman Cain’s effusive personality onto Mitt Romney, who is going to turn into a yellow stripe if he gets any more middle of the road. Aside from Jon Huntsman, who came off yesterday like he was an applying for a job as a teaching assistant in a college philosophy department, and Rick Perry, who needs a stunt double for any comment over two sentences, the rest of the field of Republican presidential hopefuls are a chorus of Negative Nancy’s whose palpable disgust at the idea of Barack Obama sitting in the White House has turned them all into grotesque caricatures of themselves. The pessimistic drumbeat of their gloomy rhetoric is so depressing it overshadows any constructive ideas any of them may have.

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Controversy Thy Name Is Cain | Resurgence | Big Think

"Our Blacks Are So Much Better Than Their Blacks”

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:08:00 PDT

"Our blacks are so much better than their blacks. To become a black Republican, you don't just roll into it. You're not going with the flow..."
Ann Coulter on the Sean Hannity Show, October 31^st, 2011

“Volcanic” is probably too gentle a word to describe the Mount Vesuvius that raged within me as I tried to process this sentence. I will leave it to someone like Melissa Harris-Lacewell to deconstruct the tone of ownership in Coulter's voice that jumped right off the screen and smacked me and countless other African Americans dead in the face. To Ann Coulter, and her surrogates, all I will say is this—there is no need to apologize, or walk this statement back, or tell me that I am “taking it out of context”, because I got the message loud and clear the first time. This is just the kind of thing that makes black people yank out their credit cards, pull up www.barackobama.com, and click the "Donate Now" button.

READ MORE AT BIG THINK

"Our Blacks Are So Much Better Than Their Blacks” | Kris Broughton | Big Think

Can Herman Cain Beat Sexual Harassment Rap?

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:53:00 PDT

Twitter exploded last night when news about payoffs to former employees of the National Restaurant Association who had accused Herman Cain of sexual harassment during his tenure hit POLITICO’s front page. Since the Sunday night game between the Eagles and the Cowboys was a bust, I started rooting around the nether parts of the internet to see what people were saying about these revelations.

After wading through comments at the conservative websites Redstate, FreeRepublic, and Townhall for awhile, the conspiracy theories started to run together, although there seemed to be three main threads. About a third of the comments went right for the jugular and blamed all of this on President Obama and the “liberal” media. Another third of the comments seemed to take the position that one of the other candidates for the GOP presidential nomination had been in possession of this information for awhile, waiting for the right time to leak it to the press. And the remaining third of the comments were all over the place, with a few people going so far as to suggest that Mr. Cain’s camp had planted this story themselves to in order to draw support as the victim of a smear campaign.

Can Herman Cain Beat Sexual Harassment Rap? | Resurgence | Big Think

Elizabeth And Hazel Story Humanizes Little Rock Nine Icon

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:30:00 PDT

Elizabeth And Hazel Story Humanizes Little Rock Nine Icon | Resurgence | Big Think

“Two, four, six, eight, we don’t want to integrate!” The black and white picture from the fifties of a teenaged white girl yelling racial epithets at a young black coed who marches through an angry white mob to desegregate a Deep South high school in 1957 is world famous.

"I walked South on Park Street toward 14th Street until I got in front of the school. I walked across the street and started to go up on the sidewalk. About 12 members of the National Guard stood in front of the school along the sidewalk on the West side of Park Street. As I stepped from the street to go toward the sidewalk the National Guardsmen stood in front of me and would not let me pass them.

They held their rifles in front of them but did not point them at me. I tried once to walk around them and as I did they moved to the side in front of me and would not let me pass. They did not say anything to me and I did not say anything. I then walked back across Park Street to the East side and walked South again to the corner of 16th and Park Streets where I sat down on a bench.

I want to say there were white people all along the East side of Park Street as I walked along, and they moved along with me as I walked. Some of them followed me closely also.”

Statement by Elizabeth Eckford to FBI Special Agents Gilbert Strickland and Robert Hickam September 4, 1957

Not much was known about Elizabeth Eckford, a member of the Little Rock Nine, as the pioneering African American students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas came to be known. Even less was known about Hazel Bryan, the young white girl who personified to the rest of the world all that was wrong with the South. Elizabeth And Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock by David Margolick attempts to fill in the blanks and tell us what has happened to these two women through the years.

Herman Cain Is GOP Affirmative Action Baby

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 11:21:00 PDT

I've been having a high old time the last couple of weeks watching both Republican presidential candidates and TV political pundits squirm whenever the phrase “9-9-9” is uttered. Nevertheless, Herman Cain has shown no real ability to raise the tens of million dollars a serious candidate needs to compete nationally. Herman Cain has proffered no viable field strategy to build sustainable voter support for his candidacy across the country. Herman Cain didn’t have more than a handful of campaign staffers on his payroll until last week. Herman Cain is not willing to answer tough questions about the positions he has taken and the things he has said. No matter how you slice it, Mr. Cain looks like the GOP’s definition of an affirmative action baby, and there isn’t a thing the Republican Party powers that be can do about it.

Herman Cain Is GOP Affirmative Action Baby | Resurgence | Big Think

CLICK THE LINK ABOVE TO READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE AT BIG THINK

Candid Cain Is Suddenly Too Black For GOP Faithful | Resurgence | Big Think

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 07:47:00 PDT

We've Got DISQUS now at Big Think! Come on over and give us a piece of your mind!

How does Herman Cain become the bad guy for telling the truth, something every true blue member of the GOP says they want to see more of in a candidate? If you are a Republican, you really need to stop for a second and ask yourself—what other answer could a successful African American who has never shied away from the color of his skin possibly give to such a loaded question about race that wouldn’t sound like he was the second coming of Stepin Fetchit?

If Mr. Cain, who has suffered recent loss of key campaign staffers and is averaging in the teens in presidential nomination polls, was really seen as a serious contender for the nomination, he might find that his recent comments to Christiane Amanpour on ABC’s This Week about Rick Perry's connection to the Niggerhead Ranch could put his candidacy in jeopardy with conservative Americans.

Read More at Big Think

Tavis Smiley And Cornel West Want To See Peel And Stick “Black Agenda” Labels On Obama Policies

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 06:36:00 PDT

Today's topic at my blog "Resurgence" on BigThink.com:

Tavis Smiley And Cornel West Want To See Peel And Stick “Black Agenda” Labels On Obama Policies

To Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, and all other African American pundits who want to own the conversation about the black community - President Barack Obama is not Captain Save-A-Negro. He is the president of the entire United States. The way Smiley and West have been carrying on lately, though, you would think President Obama is supposed to wink his eye at the TV camera at least once a week and whisper, "I'll get that hook up for y'all when I get done with this announcement." What do these two commentators expect the president to do? Open up special branches of the U.S. Treasury in black communities that sell dollar bills for fifty cents?

Which is why I was pleasantly surprised the other day, while cruising through the Ta-Nehisi Coates blog at The Atlantic, to come across a video recording of professor Randall Kennedy's appearance on Tavis Smiley's PBS show. Kennedy, the author of The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency, provides an analysis of the dilemma Barack Obama faces as America's first African American president that is so rational and thoughtful that I took the time to transcribe some of his more illuminating comments.

The Help Elbows Accepted Historical Narrative Of The South Aside

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:37:00 PDT

Today's topic at my blog "Resurgence" on BigThink.com:

The Help Elbows Accepted Historical Narrative Of The South Aside

For some strange reason, I ended up watching the new movie The Help yesterday, less than twenty four hours after viewing Driving Miss Daisy for the first time. The most enduring conclusion I could draw from the whole experience? General Sherman should have burned every god damned thing in the entire Confederacy down to the ground during the Civil War.

In my mind, Viola Davis had already earned the Oscar for best actress for her portrayal of maid Aibileen Clark as soon as I saw the look in her eyes, a soul numbed stare that America had invested over three hundred years of intense and unceasingly relentless physical and psychological terror to produce. The combination of outstanding cinematography and astonishingly precise dialogue in both films had me, a middle aged African American man who has lived in the South his whole life, short of breath and anxious, even though I knew it was all make believe. The brown skinned actors on the screen who so artfully brought these two scripts to life were not just actors, but people who looked and acted just like members of my own extended family. They are my great uncles and aunts, they are my grandparents, they are stand-ins for the stars of my family’s own sagas from this same era. Much of this family lore ends benignly, just like these two movies did, which has always led me to wonder about the unspoken stories with much, much worse endings.

Sean Yoes at WEAA still needs your vote!

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 05:37:00 PDT

My man Sean Yoes STILL needs your vote in the WEAA Talent Poll!!! His entry in the competition is a new radio show called The Dialogue.

Why am I asking you to vote for Sean Yoes and Dr. Renee Parks? I am a regular guest on Sean's current affairs show on WEAA, the AFRO's First Edition that airs on Sunday nights. Two years ago, I had never been a guest on a radio show in my life, but Sean made it seem like it was as easy as pie.

You can do this in less than 5 seconds from your desk at work - just click this link.

You can do this in less than 5 seconds from your IPhone - just click this link.

So VOTE for The Dialogue!!!

Debt Ceiling Deal Smells Like A Subprime Loan

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 04:05:00 PDT

Today's topic at my blog "Resurgence" on BigThink.com:

Debt Ceiling Deal Smells Like A Subprime Loan

With the nerve wracking threat of a default by America on its outstanding debt being broadcast on all the news channels practically twenty four hours a day, I am reading a lot of chatter on the web by progressive Democrats who are insisting that President Obama suddenly morph into Samuel L. Jackson and start kicking ass and taking names. Conversations at the more extremist conservative websites I’ve come across often veer off into John Wayne territory, with calls by staunch Tea Party supporters for the GOP congressional leadership to simply reject any compromise proposals and stand their ground. Neither one of these groups should be wasting their time on the charade of this artificial debacle, because the fix has been in for some time.

How The Debt Ceiling Talks Have Strengthened President Obama | Resurgence | Big Think

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:28:00 PDT

Forcing President Obama to focus on the debt ceiling issue night after night for weeks on end has changed him for the better. Unfortunately for congressional Republicans, this manufactured fiscal crisis has drawn battle lines in the sand that are impossible even for the president and his cherished bipartisanship ideals to ignore. President Obama normally has a tendency to see himself as a open minded big picture thinker with the ability to keep a lot of balls in the air at once, tethered to no particular ideology other than the most efficient solution to a problem. This may be a good way to manage an administration, but it leaves something to be desired when it comes to the care and feeding of a presidential image.

It often takes a crisis to get this president to remember that he is a Democrat. In fact, it often takes a moments like these to get this president to remember how to speak directly and clearly to the masses on whose behalf he ostensibly toils in the Oval Office.

How The Debt Ceiling Talks Have Strengthened President Obama | Resurgence | Big Think

U.S. Press Too Busy Cheering On Vile Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn To Be Real Reporters

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 11:47:00 PDT

I didn't pay any attention to this Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape case until I started reading "can DSK resurrect his political career?" type headlines. Because the victim in this case is not a squeaky clean, never broke the law before type of person who can be portrayed as an innocent wide eyed victim, does that mean that the same act of forcible sexual conduct that got Strauss-Kahn locked up in the first place, the act that we have established WITH PHYSICAL EVIDENCE, is moot?

The victim, who has been relegated to being "the maid", or "the chambermaid", is written about as if she is so much trash for daring to spit out Strauss-Kahn's unwanted sperm from her mouth AND COMPLAIN ABOUT IT. As if she is less than a human being for NOT HAPPILY THROWING HER LEGS OPEN and allowing someone with DNA matching Strauss-Kahn's to rip at her vagina to his heart's content.

Why is this case really going south? Could this revelation about the direct connection between Strauss-Kahn's legal team and the D.A.'s staff have something to do with it?

The attorney said he found out for the first time when he read a recent New York Times article that one of Vance's top aides is married to one of the lawyers on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case. Thompson explained: "That troubled me because I believe that as a lawyer for the victim, the DA had an obligation to tell me that one of his aides is married to one of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's lawyers."

I had to read this IN A TURKISH NEWSPAPER'S ONLINE EDITION, because the punk ass motherfuckers in our press are too busy cheerleading Strauss-Kahn to victory as the next president of France.

Can you believe this shit? Is Cyrus Vance Jr. or III or whatever version of the acorn he is that has fallen from the tree of A FAMOUS FATHER that fucking stupid? But then again, I guess it doesn't matter if the national press doesn't see fit to lambaste the Manhattan D.A.'s office about such an obvious conflict of interest for a few days.

Our jails here in America are full of men who have been convicted of rape on less evidence than what has been publicly revealed in the case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Maybe the latest allegation against Strauss-Kahn by the blond haired, doe eyed French novelist Tristane Banon will provoke some of our slack assed media types to remember how to do some homework on their favorite international playboy banker.

"It ended really badly. We ended up fighting. It finished really violently . . . We fought on the floor. It wasn't a case of a couple of slaps. I kicked him, he unhooked my bra, he tried to open my jeans . . . I said the word 'rape' to scare him but it didn't seem to scare him much, which suggests he was used to it."

— Tristane Banon, French journalist, in a 2007 interview reprinted in The Telegraph.

Most of the people who hold themselves out as journalists and publishers should just jump off the top of the nearest tall building for all the good they do their profession. If rich white man worship is the beacon that guides their so-called "research" into ALL aspects of the case, they need to just print a disclaimer on the front page of their publication, just like cigarette manufacturers do - WARNING: THE WAY WE DOWNPLAY FACTS, LOGIC, AND ESTABLISHED LEGAL PRECEDENT IN ORDER TO PANDER TO THE NEEDS OF THE RICH, FAMOUS AND POWERFUL MAY CAUSE A READER'S HEAD TO EXPLODE.

Investigative journalists should need bullet proof vests. They should require a bomb sweep of their houses every so often. They should have the crooked and corrupt among us afraid of every issue they publish, lest another one of their sordid secrets sees the light of day.

Instead, we get love notes to a vile, ill mannered motherfucker like Dominique Strauss-Kahn strewn all across the front pages of our papers and our evening news because he is rich, speaks French, and has become an expert at appropriating the power derived from handing out a pile of someone else's money as if it is was his own.

Today At Big Think: Why The Hell Is Strauss-Kahn Wearing A Halo All Of A Sudden?

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 12:58:00 PDT

Today's topic at my blog "Resurgence" on BigThink.com:

Why The Hell Is Strauss-Kahn Wearing A Halo All Of A Sudden?

The words in every story I read about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape case seem to trill at the thought that he may go free. I am seriously convinced that we really should think about closing all of our journalism schools down. How does Strauss-Kahn, a man with a long sordid history of abusive behavior towards women whose sperm was found on the uniform of accuser Nafissatou Diallo, get to wear a halo all of a sudden?

Murder is always murder. Assault is always assault. It would seem to follow that rape is always rape. But rape is often seen by the public and the press as situational, although the number of variables involved in determining whether a person has been raped are very similar to the number of variables involved in determining whether a person has been assaulted.

The number of women who have been willing to go on record about Strauss Kahn’s tendency of sexual harassment and violent sexual behavior towards women suggest very, very strongly that the number of women he is likely to have sexually terrorized in his lifetime is up into the triple digits. Because for every woman who is willing to talk about this to the press, you can believe that there are dozens who will not.

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Today At Big Think: Sean Hannity's Sucker MC Obsession With Common

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Sat, 14 May 2011 09:46:00 PDT

Today's topic at my blog "Resurgence" on BigThink.com:

Sean Hannity's Sucker MC Obsession With Common

This fake controversy about the rapper Common and his invitation to a White House poetry reading had me thinking about “Sucker M.C.’s”, an old rap song by RUN-DMC. Sean Hannity has proved once and for all that he is a real Sucker M.C., a “sad face clown” who “just ain’t right.” To Hannity’s core Fox News audience, the kind of people who delight in listening to him decry subversive Negro madness, this manufactured controversy lines right up with what they want to believe about African Americans.

But most of my mulling has not been about Hannity and his Hee Haw Posse of attack dog guests over at “We Wish We Were A Real News Channel”, who will be sputtering and muttering about a Christian vegetarian pro-life rapper from Chicago for the next six weeks, a rapper whose biggest group of supporters are white and college educated. Some of my mulling has taken place because unlike most of the general public, I actually go to real live poetry readings from time to time, the kind that feature poets no one has heard of yet. And some of my mulling has taken place because I grew up on rap music, and have often wondered, at various junctures during my early adulthood, what it would have been like to try my hand at rapping for a living.

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Today At Big Think: You Are More Likely To Drown Than Die From A Terrorist Attack

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Fri, 06 May 2011 11:34:00 PDT

Today's topic at my blog "Resurgence" on BigThink.com:

You Are More Likely To Drown Than Die From A Terrorist Attack

A friend of mine sent me a text message yesterday. “Should we be worried about retaliation?” I was in the middle of something, so I gave her a one word reply. “Yep.”

It wasn’t until later that I thought about the level of anxiety that the public is feeling right now. So even though I need to give some topics other than the Osama bin Laden whirlwind some attention this week, I've decided that stuff can wait another day while I try to come up with a more satisfying answer.

My first inclination is to tell my friend that if she were to apply the laws of probability, as boring and as predictable as they are, to the likelihood of her or her loved ones being the victims of a retaliatory terrorist act, she would find out that she is more likely to:

-- You are 12,571 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack

-- You are 1048 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack

--You are 404 times more likely to die in a fall than from a terrorist attack

-- You are 87 times more likely to drown than die in a terrorist attack

-- You are 13 times more likely to die in a railway accident than from a terrorist attack

--You are 12 times more likely to die from accidental suffocation in bed than from a terrorist attack

--You are 8 times more likely to die from accidental electrocution than from a terrorist attack

EXCERPT SOURCE: News Blaze

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Today At Big Think: “If Obama Gets Bin Laden They Will Forget He’s Black”

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Fri, 06 May 2011 09:34:00 PDT

Today's topic at my blog "Resurgence" on BigThink.com:

“If Obama Gets Bin Laden They Will Forget He’s Black”

I heard about the death of Osama Bin Laden the same way a lot of other people across the country did – while I was doing something else on a Sunday night other than watching cable news on TV. In fact, I was sitting outside, finishing off a mediocre but still satisfying stogie while in the midst of firing up my trusty dusty laptop when S. opened the door, all ready for bed with her curlers in her hair, and said “they killed bin Laden.”

It took me a few moments after she had closed the door to process everything she’d said. Then I sat the laptop down, laid my cigar down gently and went into the house to get the phone, for the words my buddy had uttered back in the spring of 2009, soon after the death threats against President Obama had escalated and the Tea Party had been born, came back to me.

“…come on man…I think if he gets bin Laden they will forget he’s black.”

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Today At Big Think: Donald Trump Slapped Black America In The Face This Week

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:05:00 PDT

Today's topic at my blog "Resurgence" on BigThink.com:

Donald Trump Slapped Black America In The Face This Week

The sixty four thousand dollar question this week is, “how long do we have to wait before Donald Trump and the rest of the inhabitants of Pale Nation, that stubborn subset of white Americans who still feel like they are doing all of us minorities a favor by letting us breathe the same air they do, realize that this discombobulating feeling they have been wrestling with these past two and a half years is going to be permanent?”

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President Obama Chumps Donald Trump and the Birthers

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 06:24:00 PDT

Today's topic at my blog "Resurgence" on BigThink.com:

President Obama Chumps Donald Trump and the Birthers

Donald Trump has been running around the countryside, playing the CEO of Village Idiot, Inc. to the hilt these last few weeks, and our lazy, unprincipled national media corps has hung right with him, broadcasting every inane, bombastic utterance that explodes from his mouth. I figured President Obama was going to release his birth certificate at some point, although, for my money, I would have waited a little longer, just to keep Karl Rove from sleeping at night as this cancerous obsession with the legitimacy of our President’s citizenship ate away at any chances the GOP had to regain the White House.

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Today At Big Think: Why Does Having Black Friends Matter So Much To Racial Bigots?

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Man) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 01:20:00 PDT

Today's topic at my blog "Resurgence" on BigThink.com:

Why Does Having Black Friends Matter So Much To Racial Bigots?

When someone these days is exposed publicly for perpetrating an act of racial bigotry against African Americans, somewhere during their non-apologizing and excuse making, you are almost certain to get the phrase “I have friends who are black”.

Why does that matter? What does it mean? Is the perpetrator trying to tell us that the kind of black people they claim as friends are the type of black people who simply love being denigrated and belittled? Or that their black friends are all direct descendants of Buckwheat, ready to start skinning and grinning at the first sign of any racist bon mots? Or that the rest us black people are just being uppity, and need to quit expecting to be treated like human beings all the time?

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