Tyrone Takes America 2.0

This post is a bit long, but i guess it has to be…

I have been in New York City for a long time. I have seen many controversial things happen here, between “law enforcement” and the minority public. The backlash from these events for the most part gains and loses momentum based on media coverage,etc. I have seen these high profile “community leaders” step out in front of the camera and take full advantage of the ensuing volatile political climate only to sit back down in the pockets of the establishment when the noise was over. All of these things have happened in the Sean Bell case…

…but never like this.

This is the one, isn’t it? The one event that can change things forever. In every volatile period there is such an event. The one thing that is so explosive that it triggers a response that shakes the ground beneath us. Well whether or not we realize it now, that’s exactly what has happened.

Many of you have heard me talk about my disdain for the NYPD at length, but i can appreciate the idea that those of you who aren’t here, could never really understand climate that “law enforcement” has created especially in areas occupied by minorities. The funny thing is that it even seems to be invisible to those people who live in other parts of the city, or even to those who live in these areas but don’t find themselves out in the community much. I would like to say that I believed that because of this constant tension, that there was no way these officers would be getting away with shooting at unarmed men 50 some-odd times - but i didn’t. In fact, i knew deep down inside that these guys were getting off and it sounded to me like everyone else did also. It’s been kind of funny to hear myself and others regurgitate the bullshit that we wanted to believe; things like “i can see the other two officers getting off, but not the cat that reloaded his gun twice”; things that we felt like we should still have enough faith in our society to believe, but really didn’t. Then on that morning, when they announced the verdict, i stepped outside my office ti hear the loudest, most earth-shattering sound i had heard in lower Manhattan since 9/11…silence.

Nothing. Cops everywhere..streets crowded..police barricades up in preparation for a fallout…but otherwise, nothing. Black folks walking around, smiling, chatting, whatever…just like any other day, acting as if the enemy had not struck what could be the final blow to any threat we may have posed to this police state they are creating. So this past weekend, when numerous people talked to me and sent me text messages about this boycott and march in response to the verdict, needless to say there was no way i was participating. It is just kind of hard for me to believe that we are still marching in response to these things, when it is clear that the “authorities” are perfectly willing to allow us to have our march (just as long as it’s orderly and non-threatening of course) because they know things will go right back to normal the day after. Yes, I know that Martin Luther King and other great leaders in our past used demonstrations successfully as an instrument of dissent, but what makes us think that the same tactics will be effective decades later, when all the variables have changed? How can we expect to depend on the same solution to be effective in a different time, to solve what quite frankly is a different problem?

I say this to you with an odd kind of sadness - not only for Sean Bell and his family, but for the millions of black men like him who didn’t die, but are just are sitting in jail cells with no one to stage marches or boycotts for them. I am especially disappointed by the fading likely-hood that we will ever truly desire to take back control of our environment.

I have exerted a lot of energy over the past week discussing this whole thing with friends and family. I have heard all kinds of heinous arguments about how Bell and his friends should not have been at this shady place and how one of his friends brought the whole thing on by talking about getting his gun and and so on. Through all of this, it remains clear to me that we have very little hope if we refuse to change our thinking. We are unable to come up any thing else besides meaningless marches and temporary boycotts because the foundation upon which we built this society is structurally flawed. Maybe our time will be better spent discussing with each other a new way to approach human relations. Only then will we be able to intelligently dissect issues of race and class and such. Of course, first we would need to admit that our current approach is not working.

I know what many of you will say, so let me say it for you to save time:

“So what are you proposing we do then, Tyrone? You don’t seem to have a solution”

You are right, i don’t claim to have an absolute answer for these problems. I don’t think any of us do, but before we ever get answers we have to make it o.k. to question things. Nothing I have said today was said to mean that i have a working system for all, ready to be implemented. Instead, what I am saying is that no one else has found one either, so its time we started looking.

“Tyrone, there is no way, in the society we live, that people will change anything on such a grand scale. You have to be realistic.”

Maybe, you’re right - keep in mind also that there are people who are counting on you being right; people who have designed the oppressive initiatives that allow these things to happen around the notion that you are right. These people understand that generally, we wait until it’s our own son/friend/brother/cousin gets shot to care. So if you are right, then they have already won.

Folks, if we don’t learn to make the problems of our brothers and sisters our own problems, then i’m afraid we have no chance.

I urge you all to add any thoughts you may have. Please.

8 Comments »
Filed under: The Police State, The Race Card, The Short Arm of the Law

The media outlets have Americans in a position where we are getting just as fired up for Super Tuesday as we get for Super Sunday. You would think that is a good thing, but it’s really not. Not yet, anyway. Here is the U.S. of A. we have this thing about elections. The electoral process is forced down our throats as a symbol of organization and democracy, when nothing could be further from the truth. We have the least inclusive elections of any industrialized nation and even if we didn’t would still be an issue. The issue lies in the fact while just about everyone who is voting knows who they are voting for, not many people have a clue about what they are actually voting for.

Whenever there is a election discussion and someone talks about the candidate they are backing, I like to ask them a simple question - why? It is a rarity that anyone is able to answer. Everybody is good at repeating the cliches that they hear from other people and from the media and coming up with their own empty words about it, but very rarely have i heard an honest or original or about why any one of these candidates should be president. The fact of the matter is that most people just do not care enough to gain any understanding of what it is they should be looking for in a candidate. That means that the vast majority of people are not voting for anyone in particular, but are simply voting for an image. If you can’t tell me why having the candidate your are endorsing in office is beneficial, then you are simply caught up in the hype. Which is why the candidates spend so much money trying to sell you images and ideals in the first place. This has to change. As long as this is the case, no politician will ever have to say or do anything significant to win votes. When that happens, we end up with exactly the type of government that we have today.

5 Comments »
Filed under: Election '08, Politics

I managed to catch good part of last night’s Presidential debate on CNN I hadn’t watched the last few debates on either side, but after landing on the channel I figured why not watch at least some of it. It’s not news to anyone how vicious the battle has been between between Clinton and Obama over the last couple of weeks and how much venom has been spit of late (mostly uni-directional). Last night however, there wasn’t much of that. Both Obama and Clinton were pretty low key. I have to say though, I was pretty impressed with Obama last night. I have been impressed by this guy for a while, but this is different. I’m not by any means a wagon-jumper, but it just seemed to me that although he was playing nice and they were both getting equal time, he was obviously in control.

John Edwards is officially gone now, and to be honest its a smart move. I have felt for quite some time that he conceded this race a long time ago in his mind and has been playing his hand for a vice-presidential bid. He hasn’t exactly rolled over in any of the debates that i saw, but he has always been careful not to be too aggressive, especially to Senator Obama. I think he realized a while ago that he will not be able to overcome the momentum of the race/sex barrier breaking campaigns he is up against. It looks to me as though he has been kind of aligning himself with Obama more than Clinton. Maybe, it has something to do with his former running mate John Kerry endorsing Obama instead of him. In any case, i think its a pretty smart approach. Maybe, he will have a better chance at it from the vice-presidents seat in 2012. If this is so, it makes sense for him to drop out and stop spending money. He’d better be careful though. If last night’s lovefest continues, he may find that seat hard to claim

1 Comment »
Filed under: Election '08, Politics

Folks, you can imagine my horror when i went to my site and saw some portal page for a domain registrar, instead of my blog . It turns out that my web host, who I haven’t had a problem with to this point had failed to transfer and renew my domain name and never notified me of this. So after yelling at them for a day and a half, and still being unable to get so much as an acknowledgement of their error, I am likely changing hosts. I would host this site myself, but quite frankly its not worth the trouble and the risk of downtime when i could just pay someone else to host my sites. Anyway, my apologies for the brief absence. Back to work.

1 Comment »
Filed under: Uncategorized

Ok, I wont lie to you, I can’t stand Bob Johnson - and that’s being nice. This cat is the quintessential Uncle Tom. I am not in favor of television raising kids, but I have always wondered how this black business mogul and founder of BET has never seen anything wrong with the images that are carried across his network every day. We can honestly say that his channel is the prime culprit in the dumbing-down of young black adololescents. He has made tons of money selling ignorance to black children. Yet here he is, barrel-clawing Barack Obama publicly. Now that’s rich.

I have mentioned this to folks before and some have agreed with me while others presented the argument that we might all do the same thing if presented with the opportunity to make the money that he has made. To be honest, I can understand that argument in a capitalistic society. But thats not what it is, this guy just straight up loves the house. Its as simple as that.

Bob Johnson has been buck-dancing on the porch of the establishment for quite some time. And while he is obviously entitled to his opinion, it irks me that this long-standing house negro has the nerve to be talking about Obama’s supposed lack of leadership in the black community compared to the Clintons, when he himself not so long ago stated that his network is a business and that being the President of BET did not mean he had any responsibility to promote positive images within the community. So what does he know or care about who’s fighting or not fighting in the struggle? He’s making his money and that all that matters.

So my advice to Bob Johnson is to lock himself away in the house that he bought with the sale of his soul and stay out of plain view. If he doesn’t think he has any responsibility in the black community then we have no need to listen to anything that he has to say.

If the Billary campaign is so pro-black, then this is not the type of cat that they want endorsing them. Unless of course, they are more into the numbers than they are into the uplifting of minority communities that they speak of.

11 Comments »
Filed under: Election '08, False Leaders