The Marc Steiner Show.

The Terrordome.

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For those of you nearby I am presenting at a workshop on spatial inequality tomorrow (Friday) at 10am. The title of the workshop is “Borders, Buildings & Bounding: Cross Cutting Solutions to Displacement & Devaluation of Communities of Color.” I’ll be speaking about spatial inequality and its different forms, focusing on a dynamic called “municipal underbounding.”

In other news this week President Obama rolled out a new Fatherhood Initiative. I talked about it like a dog on NPR.

Well…not really like a dog. I’ve too much respect for dogs.

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Sharpton’s eulogy excoriated black-on-black violence and police misconduct. ”I’d rather tell you to start looking at the man in the mirror,” Sharpton said. ”We’ve all done something that contributed to this.” ”This is it,” he added. ”This child is the breaking point.” Using this frame allows Sharpton to point the finger at black cultural dysfunction and police misconduct at the same time.

In as much as Aiyana’s death occurred while the police were trying to detain a murder suspect, I understand this. Common sense would suggest that there is blame to go around in this instance, right? If the police story is correct, then perhaps young Aiyana’s grandmother shouldn’t have struggled with police, perhaps she shouldn’t have allowed the murder suspect into the house in the first place. Even if the family of the victim is right, the family still bears some responsibility because the murder suspect was able to stay in the house in the first place.

Again, this is the common-sense narrative. It comes to mind without even thinking about it. But I suggest we broaden the perspective to ask another set of questions, a set of more critical questions. Why was a reality TV show on the premise? We now take real-life crime shows like The First 48 and Cops for granted. But these shows not only bring ”real life” into our homes, but they also sensationalize crime, arguably even more than shows like the recently canceled Law and Order, because they are real life.

More here.

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, originally uploaded by Asa Beal.

One of my students is currently studying abroad, and has been taking pictures of graffiti that he’s seen while in Europe. I’m going to showcase some of his shots here.

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After the meeting, Tavis Smiley called into the Tom Joyner show, and strongly criticized what he understood to be Sharpton’s comments. Sharpton responded in turn, and this led to a heated exchange between Smiley and Sharpton on Sharpton’s radio show.

It also led to a thoughtful piece by Cornel West.

I had a chance to talk to Dedrick Muhammad briefly about this issue. Although I think there’s a tendency to take something like this and examine it through the lens of ego, particularly given the individuals involved, Tavis and West are on point.

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Above Dr. L’Hereux Lewis gives a keynote lecture at Morehouse College, his alma mater, about the issue of “black male privilege”, something that may seem contradictory to some of us given the stats we are all familiar with. If however we take a black politics rather than a racial politics lens I think the concept becomes clearer. He talked about the lecture above with Michele Martin on Tell Me More.

Here is my take. Although I’m not sure the language is quite right, I think he and others working in the field are onto something.

I had a chance to talk to him for about ten minutes or so about the issue.

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But I digress.

So I’ve begun doing the research for my second book project (on neoliberalism in black politics) in earnest. The NAACP is one of the entities I am interested in studying, not just because they are the oldest and most venerable civil rights association, but because of two administrative moves made in 1977 and in 1996 respectively. In 1977 they changed the title of the Executive Secretary to the Executive Director/CEO. IN 1996 they eliminated the ELECTED office of President and established the title of President/CEO.

The latter move effectively takes away the ability to select a President from NAACP members at large, and to an extent from the 67-member National Board of Directors. The former move sounds like a simple name change–I don’t know whether any formal responsibilities changed–but I think it signals something a bit more. Different thoughts come to mind when we think of an “executive secretary” than come to mind when we think of an “executive director/ceo”. In fact, different thoughts come to mind when we think of an “executive director/CEO” than when we think of an “executive director.” Indeed, the very term “CEO” has become in some ways more powerful than “congressman” or “senator”.

I imagine that the reason both of these moves occurred was to bring the NAACP into the modern era of civil rights advocacy. But what does this mean exactly? What do we lose when we take the ability to elect a leader and replace that with an executive headhunting firm? I’d argue that this move is part and parcel of the neoliberal shift in black politics, the shift towards a corporate management approach to race relations and to black politics. And although the first NAACP leader with corporate experience (Bruce Gordon) was not chosen until 2005, it seems that the organization was moving towards this point much much earlier.

Thoughts are welcome.

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