Jarrett-Carter.com

You have to respect the contributions of folks like Jesse Jackson and Cornel West. They paved the way, set the tone, and any other term you can come up with to say “they did it first.”

But doing it first usually doesn’t translate to doing it best, and that’s the situation we currently have with these trailblazers questioning the incoming leadership of Barack Obama.

Just a few days ago, Jesse Jackson cautioned a church congregation in Baltimore about symbolism and substance, recognizing Obama’s victory as a momentous moment, but not a moment to overshadow the long trail ahead.

This morning, Dr. Cornel West was a guest on Democracy Now!, criticizing Obama’s cabinet appointments and names that are being raised as potential appointees. Dr. West went so far as to liken himself a modern Frederick Douglas that will put pressure on the modern day Abraham Lincoln.

Frederick Douglas? Really?

There’s no secret about how much this means to folks, but the Golden Days crew is going to have to fall back a little. Everyone can acknowledge and understand that an Obama presidency is not going to be the people’s revolution. The promise of such a movement got him elected, but the bottom line is that broke families and greedy corporations don’t exactly translate into grassroots heaven.

And while a bottom-up movement is the so-called back bone of American history, now is not the time for such hopeful ambitions. Maybe in eight, but certainly not four years. What needs to happen now is jobs, housing and international diplomacy.

Of course it would be nice if corporations and government suddenly got the notion to stop screwing people over, but that’s been the common practice for too many years. You can’t expect a boon of middle class prosperity when the middle class has been expertly complacent for the last eight years under a system designed for the ultra-rich.

And if we’re lucky, the country will be open to an inclusive discussion about moral responsibility, legal equity, and educational value.

Barack Obama was packaged and sold as the answer to all of our problems. For black folks, he was and is the face of cultural ascension. That advertising will only be as faulty as we make it, because if we remain stagnant in communities and believing the hype delivered by Dr. West and Rev. Jackson, the ideal of self-improvement that Obama expertly rode into the White House will be lost in a four-year hail storm of scrutiny.

It’s a classic case of Old School vs. New School, with the new face of African-American leadership staring down upon the shoulders of those who lifted him up. Both sides have something to offer for the good of the country and the people, but one side has more to lose than the other. Old school has been criticized and ostracized for the better part of 40 years. 2008 and beyond will be their golden years for sticking it to the man, cooling their march-burned heels, and publicly lamenting how generations lost the hope.

Unfortunately, the New School has to shoulder their expectations, along with managing the delicate hopes of a country just getting used to knowing that black folks can want the same things they want without brandishing guns or a cranking up a boombox while asking for them.

Come January 20, school will be in session for everyone.

Usually when you have a person in a position of power trying to affect progress, the topic of discussion rarely falls back on that person. Issues, strategies and ideology has this funny way of moving ego and selfishness out of the way.

This is not the case with Michael Baisden.

Don’t get me wrong. I fully believe that his genuine intent is to help people better themselves. He knows he has a growing national platform, and he should be commended for using his platform to advance issues pertinent to minority communities around the country.

But when you listen to him, you realize that helping people is not his primary agenda. Letting people know that he is helping people is his primary agenda. You can’t go five minutes on his show without the shameless self-promotion of HIS personal website, how fortunate HE is to be on the air, and how much HE wants to be the foremost media presence and event planner in the country.

It’s his show, and he has every right to be as self-centered and obnoxiously confident as he wants to be. Lord knows plenty of people are buying into it. But Michael Baisden can’t and shouldn’t have it both ways. He can’t be a leader of men and an advocate for societal progress and simultaneously advance himself.

Baisden’s ideal is to build a fortress of unity and progressive movement around his personal master’s suite of wealth and fame. After a while, the room will be adorned with plenty of accolades and memories, but how strong will the fortress be?

When you think back to past civil rights leaders, athletes, actors and everyday folks who worked tirelessly for causes bigger than their own lives, the public persona was never one of “look at what I’m doing,” but rather, “look at what we need to do.” Martin Luther King Jr. never sang “I Shall Overcome,” Cornel West never speaks about how important his philosophy is to black people, and even though Maya Angelou is the one who knows why the caged bird sings, she spends her time gracefully translating its song to those in need.

Even Barack Obama told us that its not about him.

Baisden on the other hand needs a couple thousand more registered users on iseecolor.com before he will be satisfied. And don’t forget getting those tickets to his New Year’s party down in Miami. And if you haven’t heard from him prior to reading this, his contract is almost up and he’s trying to decide if he should do this radio thing anymore.

It is universally true that if we focus on what we should do together, we’ve got no time to think, speak or act out about what one of us is doing more than the other person.  Jackie Robinson said that a life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives, and while Michael Baisden has made plenty of impact,  its easy to see how he can take the most notable act any human can commit, service to others, and make it a self-aggrandizing, individualistic pursuit of affluence and recognition.

But don’t mind me. Maybe that’s just how grown folks get down.

This must be a dreary day for those who live their lives in cynicism.

Here you have a day about defying odds, realizing hope, and changing things from the every other angle but the one right in front of you. So many people have spent so much time in their intellectual capacity, breaking down odds and analyzing meaning, that today will likely throw them into a funk.

Because most of the country, and the world for that matter, is taking today to invest a few happy feelings.

You remember those feelings from childhood, anxiousness, wonder, excitement. All of the feelings you began to push back when you grew up and realized truths about how people lie, how life doesn’t always give you what you want, and that evil sometimes does win.

I have many friends, present and former, who live their lives like this. They get so caught up in why hope is an exercise in futility, that their greatest sense of aspiration falls prey to cycnicism. Of course, there is some validation to trusting nothing; black folks have gotten pretty far by being more careful than a cat on the kitchen counter.

And at the beginning of this campaign, it was our natural reaction to be afraid and less than optimistic. What else has this country afforded us the opportunity to be? It was all good when sports and music welcomed us with open arms, and even when we started creeping around government with our Ron Browns, Colin Powells and Condoleeza Rices, nobody thought that it would get this far. Especially not us.

But then we had a Barack Obama come around and let us all know that fear did not have to be an option. Yeah, we’ve heard it through the years, but he was calm when he said it. He was eloquent in the way he said it, and from all appearances, he believed it.

So we believed it.

We believed that we could vote for him and not worry about protecting him from assassination with a lack of voting. We believed that one vote could make a difference, and that we did have a little money to give to the campaign.

And that makes cynic sick, because their entire premise of existence rests on the regular human reaction of overstanding. No black man has ever been president, so why would the country change now? No one has ever raised that much money, so how could he raise it now?

Things are so messed up now, they can’t possibly be fixed.

But one thing cynics don’t and usually can’t count on, is when people eventually get annoyed with their doomsday prophesying. Sometimes, it feels good to live without hearing about how close we are to death.  Sometimes, believing does work. Maybe not for the numbers, or for that argument, or even for that job application, but sometimes, your woman does stick around. Your dad is nice to you one afternoon.

And the best candidate for the job gets the job.

So, I hope the cynics are going to be okay this evening. Hopefully, all of those brain waves don’t drag them under and drown them in “how did this happen?” Maybe we’ll all get lucky, and those cynics use their energy to question why change took so long in the first place.

I’ll admit, I’ve been out of the loop for a couple of days regarding black popular culture. Between starting my second year of graduate school and getting a new job, things have been kind of hectic on the homefront.

Not to mention the fact that I’ve got like 39 other blogs that need tending to.

So maybe I’ve just been away from the T.V. too long, and Rev. Al Sharpton has been spitting game that I haven’t heard about. Between the Republicans trying to call Sarah Palin a pig on the low, and Kwame Kilpatrick surpassing Kwame Brown as the most despised man named Kwame in America, I figured Rev. Sharpton would be front and center on these hot button issues.

If you’ve seen my boy, tell him I’m looking for him. I’ve come to rely on his blustery brand of rhetoric, dipped in thick and rising sermonic tones, and served hot over pissed off conservative analysis. He’s got a lot to talk about these days, and while I may be out of the loop, I could sure use a dose of that Civil Rights stuff.

Before Barack Obama accepts the democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States in Denver tonight, we should take the time to reflect on what got him, and us, this far. To that end, here is the text of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have A Dream” speech, delivered on this date, exactly 45 years ago.

45 years ago, a 16-minute speech changed the course of history. So while watching Obama’s historic acceptance speech, give thanks for those 16 minutes offered up by the King.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. [Applause]

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

The New York Times has done an incredible job on the racial ramifications of Barack Obama’s run for the presidency of these United States. Their latest offering outlines the possible signals of the end of the civil rights movement as a result of Obama’s, and other black politicians’ political ascendancy and merit.

“I worry that there is a segment of the population that might be harder to reach, average citizens who will say: ‘Come on. We might have a black president, so we must be over it,’ ” said Mr. Harrison, 59, a sociologist at Howard University and a consultant for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies here.

“That is the danger, that we declare victory,” said Mr. Harrison, who fears that poor blacks will increasingly be blamed for their troubles. “Historic as this moment is, it does not signify a major victory in the ongoing, daily battle.”

A more than valid point. America has never been worried about the well-spoken, well-intentioned negro. This country has always been and always will be afraid of the uneducated and exploited African-American, who doesn’t know much, but does know they can’t lose what the country never afforded them the opportunity to have.

And to that end, there will be endless consternation on both sides about what are fair and equitable resources in education, how much social programming means in urban and rural settings, and how the media can balance dueling perspectives on belief systems and their impact on national legislation.

Just because the country is willing to elect a black man as its leader doesn’t mean that the country has a crush on people of color. It means one of two things; that Bush was genuinely that bad of a president and people want to make up for the mistake in a big way, or that the country is more respectful of intelligent leadership, no matter the color of the person dispensing it.

By and large, many white folks are likely to assume the all bad things in society are most likely to be committed a minority, and most likely a black person. To that end, they are going to put laws, rules and safeguards in place to ensure that it doesn’t happen. Black folks, and soon enough Hispanics, are likely to continue disliking this form of preemptive action, and will continue rallying against it in the name of freedom.

And that’s not a black or white thing, it’s an American thing.

So don’t worry. Civil Rights will be here to stay with Obama and beyond Obama. Because the truth is that we’ll never be fully civil to each other, and we’ll always have the right to be that way.

It’s 2008, and many black folks throughout the diaspora are still hung up on being gay.

What a shame.

I was directed to this particular topic by a wonderful post on the Black Snob, who did a wonderful job outlining some famous black African-Americans who happen to be gay. I had not constructively thought about the number of black celebrities who were openly or somewhat-openly gay before, and it kind of opened my eyes to just how far back our culture is on accepting part of our culture.

It’s not enough to look at each other and ask, “why is it such a big deal about who I’m sleeping with?” It is a big deal in black culture, and that’s the first thing we have to recognize. To ask the ageless question of why does no service to looking at the spiritual and cultural nuances that make homosexuality such a taboo topic.

The real question is why does it matter so much? Its along the same lines as condemning a person for viewing pornography, favoring certain sexual positions or preferring certain body types. You can’t make or break what you like; and the more you try, the deeper the pool of guilt and dangerous behavior gets.

There’s no problem in frowning your face up at someone’s preference. Just don’t frown your face up and refuse service, or disallow them from religious expression, or blot them out of opportunities for happiness and success. Because once that happens, life underground has a funny way of creating massive earthquakes.

Like an AIDS epidemic, the concept of “Down Low,” heightened divorce rates and a whole lotta mistrust.

Imagine if everybody was cool with the fact that some people are gay, much in the way that we tolerate different religions, different fashion tastes and ideals about life. Imagine people putting religious pomp on the shelf and taking the time to appreciate the circumstances of others. That would be something black folks in America haven’t felt in our entire history.

An imagination totally free of fear.

The deaths of Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes last weekend kind of shook me on two fronts. The constant reminder that life is indeed fleeting and fragile made me consider how lucky I am just to have made it this far.

Then, I reflected on the careers of Bernie Mac and Issac Hayes, and thought about what their careers meant to black culture. Bernie Mac was an icon in black comedy; a careful and thoughtful blending of rage, irony, and thankfulness. He was negotiated everyday, ordinary pains and made them tangible to any audience, anywhere. He was not a political mouthpiece, nor a lightening rod for controversy. He was just a funny guy saying the things you always thought about, in a way you never thought about them.

Isaac Hayes was a musical extraordinaire, who was able to check the pulse of the culture and prescribe for it an elixir of soul and mellow funk. His songs are a veritable soundtrack to the happy feelings of the 70’s, with a hint of the blues that spawned the excitement behind being able to actually be happy. Hayes transcended generation gaps with a genuine sound, and a humorous and appealing nature that anyone at any age could appreciate.

Fortunately, we live in an age of information where they will never truly be forgotten. The copies of their movies and concerts will sell like wild-fire in the next few days, and children of today will be formally introduced to their talent and charisma.

They get to live forever, almost like they never had to leave.

Bernie Mac is in the hospital undergoing treatment for pneumonia, so why is one of the top search terms on the web today “Bernie Mac dead?”

Every time a famous black person is in the hospital, people are trying to figure out if he or she is dead. It’s like health care for black celebrities can only be admitted at the hands of Dr. Jack Kevorkian.  Just in the last ten years, I can remember hearing death rumors about Louis Farrakhan, Luther Vandross, and Whitney Houston.

Entertainers and civil rights leaders just gotta stay up on their vitamins, push ups and prayers, don’t they?

In news to be filed under the “finally” category, Judge J.P. Mauffray, the presiding official over the remaining Jena 6 battery trials, has been removed from his position. The move comes after several instances of impartiality against the defendants, including remarks about the youth being “trouble makers” and “a violent bunch.”

Mauffray’s removal comes not a moment too soon. While most of the attention is focused on his remarks, the matters of inappropriate charges being levied against the teenagers and the unlawful trial of Mychal Bell fly relatively under the radar. While these charges and decisions were ultimately overturned, it took thousands of black folks across the country rallying for justice to inspire movement; an accepted practice in 2008 by both sides, but one that should only be used in cases of emergency in 2008 and beyond.

The best part about this whole thing is that white folks (outside of the White House at least) are starting to get the picture that blatant racism is a style best worn by history. There are too many resources for anyone to do something that has the stink of prejudice all over it. The Internet and black radio have gotten our sense of smell at an all-time level of sensitivity.

The worst part, I fear, is that not enough people are in tuned with what kind of activity is necessary to combat obvious discrimination. In 2008, Maryland is the new Mississippi when it comes to segregation and racism in super and obvious doses. But its black residents have yet to rally for their cause en masse.

Oh well. I’m just a humble member of the new black literati. FREE THE JENA 6!