Review: Soul On Ice

Soul On Ice
Eldridge Cleaver

Remarkable! 

Eldridge Cleaver shared in his honest, raw, revealing and unapologetic autobiography, a collection of memoirs, essays and vignettes that changed the way I view my experience and society as a whole.  His passion and eloquence made this book very easy to read and hard to put down.  Eldridge is a heroic iconoclast!

I particularly enjoyed his portraits of the SuperMasculine Menial, Amazon, Omnipotent Administrator and the Ultrafeminine.  These sexual image classes come to life in his theory about the historically racist society that borne them.  The natural emotional entanglements and repercussions that result are unfolding right before us. I can discuss this topic alone at length.  But, if you want to understand why the opening Monday Night Football skit (Nov 2004), which ended with a  near-naked blonde in the arms Terrell Owens, outraged many white men while many Black men didn’t understand what the fuss was about, then read Part Four!

Speaking of sports, “Haven’t you ever wondered,” Eldridge asks, “why the white man genuinely applauds a Black man who achieves excellence with his body on the field of sports, while he hates to see a Black man achieve excellence with his brain?”

This book made me “adjust” my attitude toward white women.  My reaction when I realized that I was “indoctrinated” by a Euro-centric beauty standard was not as nearly as extreme as Eldridge’s who says, “I flew into a rage at myself, at America, at white women, at the history that had placed those tensions of lust and desire in my chest”.  I simply, treat “Beckys” as if they’re invisible and give them no acknowledgement whatsoever.  My interaction, if necessary, is absent of  eye-contact and full of disdain, simply as a matter of principle.  This is of paramount importance.

I am starting a local chapter of Ofay Watchers Anonymous.  Anyone interested in joining?

-Lazarus

(written:  11/30/2004)

Review: Darwin’s Athletes

Darwin’s Athletes:  How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race
John Hoberman

Painfully Important

I was drawn to this book because I’ve felt for a long time that Blacks, despite the handful of highly-paid professionals, were being exploited in modern sports.  I had to table my critique of those Black athletes who made it as professionals.  How dare I refer to them as “40 million dollar slaves¹“  when I, myself, was merely a 40 thousand dollar slave?   Indeed,  I have been exploited in the corporate arena only at an exponentially lower compensation package.   I had concerns that were deeper than financial freedom.

Despite our dominance for decades, the power was still concentrated in the hands of the white male.  The subliminal colonial imagery remains a splinter in my mind.

Furthermore, it bothered me that the arenas of sporting events were filled whites, the same whites that would cross the street if some of the same players on the field, sans uniform, were coming towards them; the same whites that would vandalize your home while wearing a Westbrook² jersey should you dare to move into their neighborhood. 

Finally, I was interested in finding out more about the consequences of the “Hoop Dreams” of many of our Black youth.

Hoberman’s thesis is controversial and painfully important.  He attempts to addresses my concerns as well as many other racial dimensions of the modern sports world. The book is strongly argued and excellent researched.

You may never look at sports the same way again.

-Lazarus

1 - refers to title of  ‘Rhoden’s book, 40 Million Dollar Slaves.

2- Brian Westbrook of the Philadelphia Eagles

Review: Black Bourgeoisie

Black Bourgeoisie
E. Frankin Frazier

Skillful Analysis

Like The Mis-education of the Negro, this book is perhaps more relevant today than when it was first published in 1957.  E. Franklin Frazier’s Black Bourgeoisie skillful dissects the growing black middle-class.

Frazier contends that the black bourgeoisie have unconditionally accepted the values, morals, and the standards of beauty of whites.  Even with this emphasis on conformity to white ideals, they will never gain the acceptance they seek.  Despite their “wealth” the black bourgeoisie will continually be the subject of contempt for whites and consequently will be excluded from participation in white society.  At the same time because of their social isolation and lack of cultural tradition there are effectively alienating themselves from their own and are “in the process of becoming NOBODY.”

This is one of the most important books I’ve read [all year].  It caused me to do a thorough self-examination and view at how I was representing myself.

-Lazarus

(written:  12/20/2004)

Review: Between God and Gangsta Rap

Between God and Gangsta Rap

Extravagant Rhetoric

While I’m one of Michael Jordan’s biggest fans, Dyson’s attempt (in Crossing Over Jordan) to make Jordan a successor of Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson fails because Jordan has never confronted a segregated society or white authority.  This critical dimension of  “Black athletic heroism” is missing.  Jordan’s battles, by no means meager, were fought and remained on the court.  Sorry Mike. (Jordan and Dyson)

If you have the patience to sift through the superfluous speak of a self-proclaimed intellectual you may find some nuggets of interest.  I found his views on affirmative action and Dr. Martin Luther King interesting and different.  However, these are few a far between in book which is a virtually a compilation of album reviews and rants from a sycophant.

Furthermore, from reading Black Bourgeoisie (by Franklin E. Frazier) I learned that sometimes bourgeoisie blacks will emerge themselves in a particular facet of Black culture, in many cases “Negro music”.  Although physical and socially removed their people they and claim cultural ties to their “blackness” through the music they’ve studied.  Dyson has done this with rap and with great finesse.

Some should explain to Mr. Dyson(and his white readership) that if you need an interpreter for a rap album then, maybe it isn’t meant for your consumption.

-Lazarus 

(written:  12/16/2004)

Review: At The Hands of Persons Unknown

At The Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America
 Phillip Dray

This book took me through a wide range of feelings and emotions. There were times when I had to put the book down because I was on the verge of tears after reading some of the detailed and unflinching accounts.. I was nearly overwhelmed with feelings of shock and revulsion. (I will never forget Mary Turner, Sam Hose, Thomas Moss, or Claude Neal). You will find yourself reading at times, as I did, with open-mouthed horror. Yet the book is not merely a compilation of statistics and graphic accounts of lynching. It is a powerfully written comprehensive examination of the shameful tragedy.

I was amused by the pseudo-scientific theories put forth by the “so-called intellectuals” that reinforced and comforted Whites in their racist beliefs and practices.

I was amazed by the lengths to which Whites sought to undermine Black advances and maintain a strict caste system at all costs. The “solidarity in the name of white supremacy” and the institutionalized racism allowed white mobs to terrorize Blacks.

I was ashamed that I was not aware. I found myself saying thing like “I DID NOT KNOW!”, “How can I just be learning of this?”, “How could I, a college-educated Black man, not know of the anti-lynching crusade of Ida B. Wells?” Before reading this book I didn’t know what lynching was. I viewed lynching as an anomaly, a frenzied group of vigilantes carrying out a clandestine assassination of a Black man. I NOW understand lynching as an American tradition, a systemized, institutionalized reign of terror that was used to maintain the power Whites had over Blacks and to keep Blacks fearful and forestall Black progress. For decades lynching was a constant source of intimidation to all Blacks and a constant reminder of their defenselessness.

I was frightened to learn that this was allowed to happen within in this country under the color of local, state, and federal law! In this “so-called civilized” society humans were routinely being burned at the stake in front of a throng of thousands. The hardest part came for me when I started to reconcile the timeline within my own family history and realized that my grandfather’s parents were alive during the height of the lynching, when, it was estimated, 2 -5 Blacks were lynched per week!

How did we survive? When did it stop? It is clear that the spirit of lynching lives on. (Rodney King, Yusef Hawkins, Amadou Diallo, James Byrd Jr.) If this phenomenon were to resurface today, what would we do to counter it? Can we depend on the collective white consciousness? How about our own political influence? Or perhaps we could look to our leaders, those, who of course, have to yet pass the color line and disappeared into the white majority.

I was motivated to share what I learned. This book was important to me on many different levels. It reinforced my attitudes towards white women. It strengthened my resolve to ensure I exercise my right to vote. I was introduced to heroes. Men and women like Ida B. Wells, William Monroe Trotter, James Weldon Johnson, and Walter White.

I imagine Whites recoiling in shame when confronted by the deeds of their ancestors.

kNOw Justice. 

kNOw Peace.

-Lazarus