A Hotep’s MidSummer Night’s Dream

I am convinced that there is a small population of grown Black men out there who sleep in oversized cribs every night, passed out after guzzling a sippy cup of warm milk, and then snore loudly with visions of humiliated Black women dancing in their heads. Why else would a grown man spend time at his computer to contrive this depraved view of interracial romance? (And it’s a shoddy image, I might add. Those poses are physically impossible. )

 

A butter Hotep with too much time on his hands.

A bitter Hotep with way too much time on his hands.

A young cousin of mine texted this photo to me, as an FYI on the types of people who should stay away from the Internet. It looks like a desperate attempt, by some cuckoo out there, to portray modern interracial romances as fundamentally depraved and unnatural. I probably won’t ever find out who created this crazy image, but I’m pretty sure it was a Hotep.

Hoteps are supposedly pseudo Black intellects, stuck reliving the glory days when the Moors occupied Spain and Old Mali dominated West Africa, and Black Africans were basically the shit. Any graduate of a liberal arts college that drew a significant representation of African-American students, particularly a state college or university, knows this Hotep type. When I was in college, a lot of these guys went around addressing every eligible Black woman as a “Nubian queen,” and when they did manage to wrangle a girlfriend, marry and have kids, they gave their children these cloying, pretentious, regal sounding names. Often it seems like the children’s naming practices were less an expression of authentic nod to one’s cultural heritage, and more likely a display of symptoms of any number of disorder resembling Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s like they were on the auctioning block just the other day and named their children “Your Majesty” or “Royal” in a desperate attempt to cling to a life where they held their rightful station in their rightful ancestral home, in Africa.  No ruler is complete without his or her intriguers at court, and so let’s not forget the Hotep’s henchmen, the silly women, sometimes called handmaidens, or — more disagreeable to me — Mammies, who encourage their foolishness by supporting their misogynistic campaigns!

I’m used to seeing nasty comments about Black women who marry out, and how quickly the language can take an abusive turn. People who hate marriages like mine say we are nothing but bed wenches, white men’s whores, concubines to, get ready, recessive-gene maggots. And I kid you not on the last one; I’ve read this in the comment section of an article. I couldn’t take this photo seriously for any reason at all, including the fact that the graphic design work is second rate, and it isn’t possible for any individual to hold another that way. But I will say this: This graphic is less an indictment on Black women’s supposedly ignorant and foolhardy decisions to marry white men than it is an expression of the Hotep’s need to thrive off of the idea that Black women are miserable without them, regardless of how much solid evidence says otherwise.  Dream on, Hoteps. Black women who marry out certainly aren’t in the grip of a white supremacist terrorist. No matter how much you wish we are headed for disaster, all evidence says we and the kids are doing quite well, thank you. Take the steps to speak to a psychologist about these misogynistic tendencies of yours, and address whatever disorder it is that makes your short circuit and descend into irrational thinking.

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America’s Real Race Problem Is Denial

A few months ago Americans started to toss around a catch phrase called “a conversation about race.” Well, this week a deranged, racist young man with strong delusions of restoring American democracy to its white supremacist glory did everything he could to provoke a conversation about race in this country, by slaughtering nine people who gathered in a church for prayer and Bible study. And despite the jolt that Dylann Roof’s massacre delivered to our collective mind frame as a country, some Americans are being abject simpletons, and are actually using their platforms to say that the attack was not, in fact, racially motivated.

Of course, a lot of this denial of a blatant racial attack comes from FOX News. But anyone with basic powers of logic will acknowledge that Roof hated Blacks, has a long track record of revering white supremacist regimes, and that he deliberately targeted Blacks for murder when he planned the shooting and sat next to the congregants for an hour prior to the shooting. I’ve read up on the history of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., and if you do the same, you’ll realize that it was a hub for Black activism and advocacy in the South, and it has been targeted multiple times over its history for hate-driven violence and intimidation.

Black churches in general stand as places where Christians can not only get spiritual rejuvenation, but activists can find supporters to their cause. Unfortunately, racists also know that they can find Blacks in these houses of worship, and target them for violence. It’s been said that Dylann Roof wanted to trigger a “race war” with the killings. Well, to him and any other nut job out there, I say we’ve already fought a race war. It was called the American Civil War, and the racist South got its ass handed to it. If the nut jobs that Dylann Roof represents want to provoke a second “race war,” and we are forced to give them another humiliating ass whuppin, will they then shut up and stop waving their defeated Confederate flag already? The pride of the South is America’s shame. Face it.

The incredible irony is that the environment that created this monster, this avowed white supremacist, is in complete denial about his clearly articulated motive for the slaughter. So when you have people going on FOX News saying that we have to take a close look at whether these attacks were actually attacks on Christianity, it just indicates to me how unprepared Americans are to start making progress on the racial tensions in this country. They can’t even acknowledge that a problem exists. They’ll come up with a number of lame theories to explain the actions of Dylann Roof and others.

So we want to know if we need to have a national “conversation about race,” or if we’re overdoing all this “racial shit.” Well, let’s try to look at this a different way. Dylann Roof, the mass murder suspect, was apprehended by law enforcement without incident, clothed in a bullet-proof vest so that a vigilante wouldn’t take him out. He will now go through the legal process and hopefully be brought to justice. Was the same due process extended to Michael Brown, Eric Garner or Walter Scott? These men were not saints, but I don’t think petty theft and child support arrears are grounds for their killings! Since when is an on-the-spot death penalty an acceptable way to deal with petty theft and child support arrears?!

What about the two Black girls who were brutally thrown around by much bigger and stronger white male officers, in two separate incidents at neighborhood swimming pools, one in McKinney, Texas, and the other in Fairfield, Ohio. Both girls were wearing swimsuits, and I doubt they concealed deadly weapons in them. How can any rational person fail to see the differences in the police responses to these situations? Still not convinced? Well the late monster Timothy McVeigh blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, then watched the destruction from nearby, feeding his already sick mind with images of people being blown apart. Then he had the nerve to say that the murders of the children were collateral!! He got a trial. No police officer shot him dead on the spot in the back.

It’s not my style to define myself based on others’ perceptions of me. But when hate groups flourish, and police officers respond to Blacks with brutality, I know there is a difference between me and Hubby, and the way our country sees us. And I laugh at people who say silly things like: “I don’t see color.” “There is no such thing as race.”

Maybe the reason some of these pundits cannot bring themselves to call out racism when the see it is because they would come to an awful realization. In order for them to see racism in someone else, they’d have to admit that it exists, and perhaps they’d have to admit that this country has a problem, and they are part of it, with their idiotic assessment thatb the is had nothing to do with race. Maybe the reason they come up with soft, lame explanations like “it’s mental illness,” is to distract us from the real problem in this country. Why they would want to do that, I don’t know, since depravity and destruction await if we diddle and do nothing. Well, maybe that’s OK with them, too.

The Regressive Thinking Behind Rachel Dolezal’s Scam

One of the greatest aspects of living in North Jersey is its multiculturalism. You don’t have to try very hard or go very far to run into people of every description. Integration helps us to coexist as we are, without the pressure to stop calling ourselves Black, white, mixed, Asian or what have you. Someone should have explained that to Rachel Dolezal, the Caucasian woman who just resigned as the president of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP.

A lot has been said about Dolezal’s racial confusion since last week, when her parents revealed that she is white, with no Black ancestry. Writers and pundits keep on raising the question of what it means to be Black or Caucasian. Is this Blackface? Can she fairly be compared to Caitlyn Jenner? Poppycock to all of it! Rachel Dolezal’s dogged insistence on identifying as Black undermines our efforts as a society to achieve harmonious racial coexistence, and that is the real issue.

White America (I said it, now deal) has a shameful, dark past of extreme cruelty and depravity toward Blacks and Native Americans, in particular, which was driven by greed, a false sense of white superiority, and racial hatred. That history cannot be denied. When minorities began to organize themselves and resist these forces, they had to face the reality that, as minorities and people who are not omnipresent or omnipotent, they needed to strike partnerships with whites who had a strong moral compass, and who could help spread the message of the need for freedom and justice. That’s how the NAACP came to be, when it was founded by Blacks and whites in 1909. White abolitionists, and later white civil rights workers dedicated their time, talent and treasures to the work, and often risked their lives. But that did not make them Black, and when Blacks began to earn money, found schools, relearn their own histories, reclaim and expand on their own histories, and move into the Middle Class, it did not make them white!!

In an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today Show, Rachel mentioned the fact that at one point, she obtained full custody of her Black adopted brother Isaiah, and that since he called her “Mom” at that point, she couldn’t plausibly be seen as white and be his mom!! That is what set me off.  Zahara Jolie-Pitt, who was born as Yemsrach in Ethiopia, plausibly has white parents, and white and Asian siblings. Ask Halle Berry and Paula Patton, both of whom identify as Black, about their Caucasian mothers, and how those wise women helped prepare them for certain racial realities as they went out into the world. Dolezal’s statement completely undermines the idea that Americans can be different racially and culturally, yet move past the surface and embrace each other and relate to each other as human beings.

Zahara Jolie-Pitt ZaharaMomDad1

More has come out about Dolezal’s past, which undermine her imaginary Blackness, including a 2002 lawsuit that she filed against Howard University, alleging discrimination against her because she was white. Not Black or a woman, but white. I refuse to watch this deceiver derail a much-needed conversation about race in our country and confuse my daughter as she discovers her identity.

Yesterday I read Baby Girl a newspaper story about flooding in the republic of Georgia, which resulted in zoo animals escaping their pens and roaming the streets of the capital. This is a reading family, a thinking family, and I cannot imagine what Baby Girl is going to think after gets a load of this lady!

An Antique Photo, A Lingering Question

While flipping through Flickr, I came across this antique photo of what appears to be an interracial American couple. They seem to be well to do, judging by the smart cut of his suit, and her fashionably billowy sleeves. And she made sure to tell her ladies’ maid, or whoever assisted her, to do her best work on the hair. OK?

Little did they know that one day couples like theirs would flourish in America!

Little did they know that one day couples like theirs would flourish in America!

 

The question is: Are they a mixed couple, and is she Black? Certainly her facial features suggest a strong influence of a Black parent or two grandparents. And we know plenty of dark-skinned people with fine, even thin, facial features. The Flickr caption notes that the previous owner of the card described the woman as an “African American beauty,” but it is not clear how the photographer, F.B. Clench, described them. The curator didn’t think it was clear that she was Black, but no other suggestion was offered. Her hair looks silken, but beyond that I don’t see anything that puts her African descent into question. Her eyes remind me of Ethiopian and Eritrean women I’ve met and regularly see around town or at church. Was she descended from Ethiopians? It is hard to say, since commerce and missionary relationships between the U.S. and what was called Abyssinia at the time was very light. Who knows if Abyssinians had established their networks here in the U.S. and intermarried by 1889 and 1898, when the photo was taken.

In any case, they look wonderful, and I took special note of their posture and smiles. They actually look relaxed, like they wanted to be there and get their money’s worth. They are leaning toward each other, touching, and they even seem aware of the camera, and what a remarkable occasion it was to have their portrait professionally done. Unlike a lot of the other facial expressions you find in Victorian-era photographs, middle-and high-class people frozen in hard-bitten stoicism, stiff and awkward, as if taking a picture was an alien experience and an imposition. I wouldn’t want to be remembered like that for all time. These fine folks are dressed to the nines and happy to be there! Thumbs up.