Category Archives: Guest Columnist

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Master Manipulator? Or Sad Girl? (From Fellow Blogger WitchyWisdoms)

A very thoughtful read!

 

Truth be told, I got the idea for this blog post by watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

And some of these women have supremely repressed issues that not only keep bubbling to the surface, but end up shaping their reality.

And it got me thinking… are the people that we think are master manipulators, puppeteers, or social chess players really that cunning? Or is fear the one running the show?

Like for instance, at the end of my infamous relationship, I called my ex boyfriend a sociopath. I was convinced that he had all of his ducks in a row and was playing a game with me in order to bleed me dry.

But upon further contemplation, I’m realizing that the moves he made that led me to believe he was psychotic were actually his feeble attempts at trying to hide his tracks. He would steal cash from my secret spot in my intimates drawer, and when I would freak out thinking I had lost money, he would suggest keeping a log of the money I put in there after a nights work or walking with me to deposit it in the ATM.

Sociopath, right? Well, not exactly.

He had an impulse, and a hunger to feed. His heroin habit was life or death, so he stole from me. In lucid moments, he would feel guilty and not want to do the things he’s done, so he would suggest honorable solutions to protect HIMSELF.

Where I thought he planned his abuse, like the reversed King of Swords who is indicative of a mastermind, I was giving him far too much credit. In actuality, he was swimming in a swirling pool of lies, depression, anxiety, and hopelessness, which is told by the Nine of Swords. His despair created the illusion of calculation.

Don’t be confused, that is not an excuse for him. Rather, a deeper understanding into the sadness that repressed emotions create and how they can shape your world. When I would ask him if he took the money, he would scream and shout and cry, much like the girls on that reality show. He was sad. And he was caught.

If you see a girl/ boy/ whomever who seems calculated, they probably don’t even realize they are doing it. They are guided by a hunger that they need to feed, and their impulse, their trauma, is creating a world in which it is the epicenter. If you’ve lost your husband and you fear so greatly that you will lose anyone else, that trauma is going to live your life for you, if not dealt with. It might show up by trying to gain someones trust by telling another persons secrets. Or giving yourself over completely to someone right away. Or isolating a specific, maybe less aware, individual so that you two become synonymous. And that is not creating a bond. That is creating codependency.

So if there is someone that you fear in your life that seems like a calculated shrew, take a closer look. There’s probably some pain there. And if this person is you, maybe it’s time to stand still and face the trauma. Stay aware, and stay witchy ( *)

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WednesdayWisdoms: What Are You Grateful For? (From Guess Blogger Witchy Wisdoms)

It is easy for us to say that we are grateful for everything we have, but what does that mean? What is everything?

If we wrap up all of the intricacies into one term labeled “everything,” we minimize some of the most important aspects in our lives. So for this weeks practice, we’re going to make a list.

I want you to start out with a list of twenty things that you are grateful for. I know that sounds like a daunting number, but once you get flowing you’ll realize you have so much you never accounted for! You can start with some big ones: the fact that you’re alive, your family, that you have two legs (if you do) just to get the ball rolling. Then, slowly, get more and more personal. Is there someone in your life that makes it better? Is there a particular family heirloom that makes you smile every morning? Do you possess a skill or trait that makes your world a better place?

I wrote my list above. Look it over and see if it brings you inspiration. Then write yours out. REALLY set time aside for it. And when you’re done, post it somewhere you will see everyday. Above the kitchen sink or bathroom mirror. Somewhere super visible. Post it with a mala or your favorite crystal. Bring some light and energy into it. The more emphasis you place on this list, and the more reminders that you have to be grateful, the less space you will have in your heart for the negative.

And you are highly encouraged to KEEP ADDING! If you think of something new to be grateful for, pop that bad boy of the list and watch it add some more shine. Sprinkle it with glitter. Kiss it with lipstick. Love that list because it makes your world great.

Stay grateful, and stay witchy ( *)

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Being Alone: From fellow blogger Witchy Wisdoms 4/19/17

This sister has some deep and very meaningful messages. Wanted to share this one.  Enjoy or reflect.  Thanks Witchy!

WednesdayWisdoms: Being Alone

I think a lot of the reason why we dive into unhealthy behaviors is because we’re afraid of being alone. It can be terrifying to be by ourselves and faced with our truths, so we run in a myriad of ways.

When I started this blog and publicly dove into the depths of my mind, I was all alone swimming in a scary pool of self doubt. But I needed to explore the depths before going back to the surface. It cleansed me.

So for this weeks practice, I want you to be alone. Read a book, write in a journal, do a yoga session, make jewelry, read your own tarot cards, do arts and crafts, take a bath, literally ANY hobby. But do it without distraction. Not with a glass of wine. Not while the TV is on. Not with a huge bag of chips or candy.

Go on a date with yourself and see what you find. What is intriguing in your mind? Do you find that inner critic coming up? Can you follow the advice from last Wednesday to quiet it?

Spend at least an hour doing this solitary activity, and then, when you are done, write down how you feel. Write down what you learned. Make concrete observations and force yourself into self awareness.

The more you practice this, the more you will learn to appreciate yourself. You will open up a Pandora’s Box of creativity, but maybe not until you flush out some monsters. This exercise, over time, will increase your confidence because YOU will know YOU inside and out.

It might be scary at first, and if it is, write it down. Write down why. Show yourself some compassion for being scared. It takes courage to face your truth.

So get out of your comfort space, get alone, and stay witchy ( *)

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Hey Rush… Healthcare’s Been Passed – Get To Steppin BEEEACH!

 Rush Limbaugh Costa Rica

 Of course his punk ass ain’t goin nowhere!  All talk!!!!!!!!

By Boyce Watkins, PhD on Mar 23rd 2010 9:44AM

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh gave America reason for hope recently, when he made a public pledge to move to Costa Rica if health care reform were to pass through Congress. In a move that pleased many of those who would like for Limbaugh to return to the rock from which he came, Limbaugh promised that if Obamacare were implemented, he would make the big move to the country whose health care system he respects:”If this passes, and it’s five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented — I am leaving the country. I’ll go to Costa Rica.”

What’s most ironic about Limbaugh’s pledge is not just the fact that millions of Americans would love to see Limbaugh leave the country, but that Costa Rica has a far more socialized health care system than we have here in the United States. Not only does the country provide universal health care coverage for its citizens, but the country has a strong public option. The system also works quite well, as Costa Rica has a life expectancy second to only Canada in the Western Hemisphere. The country’s health program was rated “excellent” by a study in the American Journal of Public Health.

So, Limbaugh inadvertently did his liberal enemies a huge favor by drawing attention to the country whose socialist health care system he admires. Limbaugh, one of the right wing talking heads who constantly rants about Obama’s alleged socialist plot to take over the world, has (surprise) put his foot in his mouth.

Of course, once health care reform passed through the House of Representatives, Limbaugh started back pedaling. If it seems as though he’s being a hypocrite for running away from his previous pledge, the answer is “yes.” Limbaugh, the man who once argued that drug addicts should go to prison, is himself a recovering drug addict. But Limbaugh fully understands that he is a clown-like public figure only meant for entertainment. It is our fault for actually taking him seriously.

This incident also points out one other important truth about Limbaugh that the world has yet to fully realize: The man is not very smart. He is uneducated (well, he did get his high school diploma), and a terrible person to be in a position of influence within American politics. His public smack down of black Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele reiterates the fundamental disrespect that he has for black people as well. I jokingly refer to Limbaugh as part of my “Axis of Ignorance,” including himself, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. When these three men are off the air, that will be a huge step toward living in a truly post-racial America. Their very existence as prominent media figures is a manifestation of the fact that we’ve got a long way to go.

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Step Off – Interesting Take on National Stepshow in Atlanta

By JASON WHITLOCK
The Kansas City Star

In the final days of Black History Month, in the city that gave us Martin Luther King Jr., we, African-Americans, surrendered yet another acre of the moral high ground as it pertains to racial equality.

Channeling our inner Glenn Beck, we bitched and moaned last week so loudly about the results of a national step-show competition won by an all-white sorority that we provoked Coca-Cola/Sprite to retroactively name a black co-winner.

I’m not joking. On Feb. 20, the ladies of Arkansas’ Zeta Tau Alpha shocked their black competitors, winning Sprite’s made-for-TV, Ludacris-hosted “Step Off” and $100,000 in scholarship money.

Stepping is a form of competitive, stomp-and-clap dancing done by traditionally black college fraternities and sororities.

Zeta Tau Alpha’s victory is the equivalent of 21-year-old Tiger Woods winning the Masters in 1997.

Imagine the reaction had former Augusta National chairman Hootie Johnson and the PGA Tour announced five days after Tiger’s historic victory that an unexplained “scoring discrepancy” meant Tiger had to share his green jacket with Phil Mickelson.

Yep, the Masters would now be called the Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton Invitational.

Here’s what to call the Sprite Step Off: Tea for the Party.

The troubling element of the tea party movement that is fueled by racial animosity has a story to share at the next gathering. The moral of the story will be that black people have no issue with being just as discriminatory as the white power structure they rail against.

There’s no other way to interpret what happened in Atlanta, the birthplace of King.

Four black judges and an Albanian — Chilli of the group TLC, R&B singer Monica and choreographers Devyne Stephens, Zack Lee and Aris Golemi — awarded the crown to ZTA, the lone white participant.

“Let me reiterate, this is from the judges’ scores,” Ludacris told the nearly all-black crowd inside Atlanta’s Civic Center. “They tallied the judges’ scores up. They double-checked the judges’ scores. So you need to understand that the first-place winner is … Zetas.”

The crowd booed lustily and disgustingly.

Members of Delta Sigma Theta walked off the stage.

In the aftermath, bigots put on the KKK hoods of the new millennium — Internet anonymity — and flooded message boards and YouTube with ridiculous postings about “cultural robbery,” the inferiority of ZTA’s performance and conspiratorial rants.

Last Thursday, Coca-Cola/Sprite buckled — and/or enhanced MTV2’s “Sprite Step Off” TV show — elevating the second-place finisher, Indiana University’s Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, to co-champion.

“Due to the extremely narrow margin between the first- and second-place winning sororities, we conducted a further post-competition review and discovered a scoring discrepancy,” Coca-Cola said in a statement. “There is no conclusive interpretation, nor definitive resolution for the discrepancy.”

On Tuesday, I contacted Coca-Cola looking for additional comment. Lori George Billingsley, Coca-Cola’s director of community and multicultural communication, said the company had no further comment beyond the statement.

She confirmed that there were five judges, but she said Coca-Cola wouldn’t release their names or identify their race, which I hunted down.

I did talk to AKA national spokeswoman Melody McDowell. She was pleasant but reluctant to address the critical issues.

I asked her about the obvious double standard illustrated in this incident and whether she was concerned about sending a dangerous message.

“We haven’t been focused on any controversy,” McDowell said. “Our girls just came to step and win a scholarship. Whatever happened, there were two winners. I think everyone walked away happy.”

Yes, white bigots were happy because they walked away with a new justification for their bigotry. And black bigots were happy because they could take pride in shaking down Sprite for $100K in scholarship money for the AKAs.

Everyone’s a winner!

Except for those of us interested in fairness. Except for those of us wise enough to realize the foolishness of black folks throwing away the moral high ground on race in such a reckless manner.

Almost two decades ago, as a way to promote unity on the Arkansas campus, the AKAs invited all the white fraternities and sororities to participate in an annual step competition. Zeta Tau Alpha has been the most diligent and passionate white Greek organization in the step show. The Arkansas AKAs taught the Zetas how to step.

ZTA’s victory in the “Sprite Step Off” should have been a wonderful national story about inclusiveness and embracing activities outside your culture.

The crowd at the Civic Center cheered wildly during the Zetas’ “Matrix”-inspired performance. It wasn’t until the results were revealed that the audience turned on the white sorority and rained boo-birds.

“We just tried to ignore it,” ZTA dancer Alexandra Kosmitis told me Tuesday. “We really didn’t know what to do. It was the first time we’ve stepped where there wasn’t 100 percent acceptance and support. But before this, we’d only competed locally.”

Reminds me of Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion. For years he was denied an opportunity to fight for the title. White critics blasted him for a deliberate and intelligent fight style, the same strategy that made “Gentleman Jim” Corbett a beloved champion before Johnson.

When Johnson finally won the title, white people begged for a “Great White Hope” to beat Johnson.

In our continued fight for equality, why have we strayed so far from the moral high ground Martin Luther King placed us on? Are we in need of a “Great Black Hope”?

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Maureen Dowd Breaks It Down!

Pretty much what I have been saying all along!  Dowd gives us a little history on the Southern Senator.

Boy, Oh, Boy

9/13/2009

WASHINGTON

The normally nonchalant Barack Obama looked nonplussed, as Nancy Pelosi glowered behind.

Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t.

But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!

The outburst was unexpected from a milquetoast Republican backbencher from South Carolina who had attracted little media attention. Now it has made him an overnight right-wing hero, inspiring “You lie!” bumper stickers and T-shirts.

The congressman, we learned, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol and denounced as a “smear” the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the ’48 segregationist candidate for president. Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.

I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.

I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.

But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

“A lot of these outbursts have to do with delegitimizing him as a president,” said Congressman Jim Clyburn, a senior member of the South Carolina delegation. Clyburn, the man who called out Bill Clinton on his racially tinged attacks on Obama in the primary, pushed Pelosi to pursue a formal resolution chastising Wilson.

“In South Carolina politics, I learned that the olive branch works very seldom,” he said. “You have to come at these things from a position of strength. My father used to say, ‘Son, always remember that silence gives consent.’ ”

Barry Obama of the post-’60s Hawaiian ’hood did not live through the major racial struggles in American history. Maybe he had a problem relating to his white basketball coach or catching a cab in New York, but he never got beaten up for being black.

Now he’s at the center of a period of racial turbulence sparked by his ascension. Even if he and the coterie of white male advisers around him don’t choose to openly acknowledge it, this president is the ultimate civil rights figure — a black man whose legitimacy is constantly challenged by a loco fringe.

For two centuries, the South has feared a takeover by blacks or the feds. In Obama, they have both.

The state that fired the first shot of the Civil War has now given us this: Senator Jim DeMint exhorted conservatives to “break” the president by upending his health care plan. Rusty DePass, a G.O.P. activist, said that a gorilla that escaped from a zoo was “just one of Michelle’s ancestors.” Lovelorn Mark Sanford tried to refuse the president’s stimulus money. And now Joe Wilson.

“A good many people in South Carolina really reject the notion that we’re part of the union,” said Don Fowler, the former Democratic Party chief who teaches politics at the University of South Carolina. He observed that when slavery was destroyed by outside forces and segregation was undone by civil rights leaders and Congress, it bred xenophobia.

“We have a lot of people who really think that the world’s against us,” Fowler said, “so when things don’t happen the way we like them to, we blame outsiders.” He said a state legislator not long ago tried to pass a bill to nullify any federal legislation with which South Carolinians didn’t agree. Shades of John C. Calhoun!

It may be President Obama’s very air of elegance and erudition that raises hackles in some. “My father used to say to me, ‘Boy, don’t get above your raising,’ ” Fowler said. “Some people are prejudiced anyway, and then they look at his education and mannerisms and get more angry at him.”

Clyburn had a warning for Obama advisers who want to forgive Wilson, ignore the ignorant outbursts and move on: “They’re going to have to develop ways in this White House to deal with things and not let them fester out there. Otherwise, they’ll see numbers moving in the wrong direction.”

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Paula Abdul, American Idol and Pay Equity for Women

*** I admit, I have never been a fan of American Karaoke Idol.  But when I heard about Paula Abdul leaving the show, I thought to myself, “Straight Up?”  I mean, that is a lot of money to turn down in light of what she, Simon, Randy and that other lady does.  Which is much of nothing in the whole scheme of things.  I said to myself, “Paula must really be rich and set for life to walk away from a ‘job’ where you get paid millions to basically, let’s face it, show up and do much of nothing.  But after hearing Michel Martin’s comments, I can definitely see the other side of it.  I still don’t care about American Karaoke, but I do believe the subject matter to be very relevant! 

 Michel Martin, Host of NPR’s “Tell Me More”

Michel Martin

Finally, and I can’t believe I’m talking about this either. But I have to weigh on Paula Abdul’s decision to leave “American Idol.” I know, I know. Sonia Sotomayor she is not.

Ms. PAULA ABDUL (Entertainer): …that, I, you know, there’s something, first of all one thing that I was kind of – I was kind of surprise you picked that song. But when, well first of all, you’re like this bright light in this competition. You, you’re…

MARTIN: Now published reports suggest she is leaving because she wanted a raise from the approximately $3.5 million in salary and benefits she receives now to somewhere in the range of $10 million and the producers said no.

Now 3.5 million sounds like a lot of money and it is. I wouldn’t sneeze at it until you consider that host Ryan Seacrest just signed a deal worth something like $45 million for the next three years. Simon Cowell is said to be making some $30 million a year. And Randy Jackson is said to be making close to that, for doing what exactly? The same thing she does.

Of course, reporting about entertainment salaries is notoriously unreliable. The people who get paid to put out these stories have all kinds of incentives to lie in either direction. But let’s just assume that the reports are within range of accurate. What exactly does any of these three men do that merits their receiving three to 10 times the pay for doing the same work as Abdul does? Anybody? Anybody?

Could I just tell you ladies and gentlemen, this is what pay equity is about. It’s about women getting paid the same as men for doing the same work. A gap that’s been so well documented that it hardly bears arguing anymore. A December 2008 study by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank, estimated that women in all occupations in all parts of the country and in all education levels experience this gap and it amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost wages over the course of a 40-year career.

Paula Abdul

I would submit it’s so taken for granted that it actually generates headlines and no small amount of unflattering commentary when women like Barbara Walters or Katie Couric or Julia Roberts actually do manage to get the same pay. The attitude seems to me, why do they deserve that? I don’t know. Why does anybody?

I understand that pay is often not about what you deserve but about what you can negotiate. And I get that it’s hard to feel sorry for anybody who makes that much money for doing something that doesn’t look all that hard, coming up with new trite things to say about bad singing and worse clothing. And I get that pay can often hinge on intangibles, star power, chemistry. But in that score, it’s hard to argue that there should be any difference at all.

As Paula said in her statement on Twitter announcing her departure, she has clearly been integral to the success of this iteration of “American Idol.” Her loopy Earth mother routine, her mesmerizing incoherence, it’s hard to argue she is somehow less compelling than the three other regulars on the show.

Even her off screen antics, ethically questionable as they may be, generate buzz for the program. And while I think the allegation that she had a dalliance with a contestant is serious if true. If it is true she should’ve been fired and she wasn’t.

I have a minister friend, a community activist who will sometimes mention to me some person who’s getting jammed up and assessing its overall importance he’ll tell me, that’s too bad but ain’t marching for him.

Now I can see why you might say, I ain’t marching for her. But maybe somebody should be. Maybe all those teen and ‘tween girls who are so busy texting and calling in and generating millions of dollars in profits to that show should ask themselves, if Paul Abdul can’t get paid the same money for doing the same work as Randy, and Simon, and Ryan, can I?

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Jay-Z vs. The Game, Music, & Foreign Policy Power Tactics

I came across this story recently, and thought it quite clever and interesting.  In addition to the original post by the author Marc Lynch, there is a feature on the story from today’s Morning Edition page on NPR.org.  Basically he compares foreign policy conflicts to rap feuds.  He has a compelling argument too.

After reading the story below, you can have a little more fun with it by listening to this older commentary by music critic Steven Ivory.  This clip is from 2004 but it’s relevant he touches on Kim Jong Il and how to avoid a nuclear war with North Korea if our president takes him out for a good time.

Enjoy!

Jay-Z vs the Game: Lessons for the American Primacy Debate

by, Marc Lynch of ForeignPolicy.com

Late last week, the Los Angeles rapper the Game launched a blistering attack against the legendary New York blogger rapper :>) Jay-Z.   At a series of European shows, the Game led crowds in cheers of “F*** Jay-Z” and “Old Ass N*****”, and at one point went into an obsenity laced (but rather wickedly funny) rampage against Jay-Z’s fiance’ (wife?) Beyonce.  Over the weekend, he released “I’m So Wavy [Too Hardcore to be a Jay-Z]” an inconsistent but catchy attack on Jay-Z (note: all links are to songs which are almost certainly NSFW and which you might find offensive; you’ve been warned).  When I started feeding this stuff to my friend Spencer Ackerman last week, his first take was that “the countdown to the end of the Game’s career starts today.” Mine, me being a professor of international relations, was to start thinking about how this could be turned into a story about the nature of hegemony and the debate over the exercise of American power.  (That, and how I could waste time that I should be spending on real work.)

See, Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) is the closest thing to a hegemon which the rap world has known for a long time.  He’s #1 on the Forbes list of the top earning rappers.  He has an unimpeachable reputation, both artistic and commercial, and has produced some of the all-time best (and best-selling) hip hop albums including standouts Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint and the Black Album.  He spent several successful years as the CEO of Def Jam Records before buying out his contract a few months ago to release his new album on his own label.  And he’s got Beyonce.  Nobody, but nobody, in the hip hop world has his combination of hard power and soft power.  If there be hegemony, then this is it.  Heck, when he tried to retire after the Black Album, he found himself dragged back into the game (shades of America’s inward turn during the Clinton years?). 

 But the limits on his ability to use this power recalls the debates about U.S. primacy.  Should he use this power to its fullest extent, as neo-conservatives would advise, imposing his will to reshape the world, forcing others to adapt to his values and leadership?  Or should he fear a backlash against the unilateral use of power, as realists such as my colleague Steve Walt or liberals such as John Ikenberry would warn, and instead exercise self-restraint?  

 The changes in Jay-Z’s approach over the years suggest that he recognizes the realist and liberal logic… but is sorely tempted by the neo-conservative impulse. Back when he was younger, Jay-Z was a merciless, ruthless killer in the “beefs” which define hip hop politics.  He never would have gotten to the top without that.  But since then he’s changed his style and has instead largely chosen to stand above the fray.   As Jay-Z got older and more powerful, the marginal benefits of such battles declined and the costs increased even as the number of would-be rivals escalated.  Just as the U.S. attracts resentment and rhetorical anti-Americanism simply by virtue of being on top, so did Jay-Z attract a disproportionate number of attackers.   “I got beefs with like a hundred children” he bragged/complained on one track. 

His ability to respond actually declined as his power and enemies list grew, though. As a young 50 Cent spat at him (twisting one of Jay’s own famous lines), “if I shoot you I’m famous, if you shoot me you’re brainless.”  He’s generally avoided getting embroiled in beefs since reaching the top, only occasionally and briefly hitting back at provocations from rising contenders like 50 Cent, Lil Wayne, and others.  Responding to every challenge does not become a hegemon. Indeed, it would be counter-productive and exhausting, and would likely trigger even greater resentment among other rising rappers.  Better as hegemon to rise above the fray and accept the sniping of the less powerful while reaping the rewards of a status quo which he dominates and profits from excessively. And that’s what happened:  his wealth, status, and structural power rose inexorably despite the potshots and abuse and unmet challenges — indeed, the only real hit he’s taken was self-inflicted, the critical shrug given to the middling “Kingdom Come” album.

 When he learnt this lesson might also offer insights into how great powers in IR learn.  He changed his style after his most famous beef, and the only one which he lost:  his battle with the Queensbridge legend Nas.   The reasons for his loss are instructive.  Jay-Z launched what Nas later described as a “sneak attack” at a time when the latter’s mother was ailing. Why?  Because Nas was at the time recognized widely as the king of NYC rap, and Jay-Z (the rising power) saw that only by knocking off the king could he seize the crown for himself.   A few brief skirmishes — a Jay-Z freestyle mentioning Nas, the first “Stillmatic” response from Nas — then led to the full blast of “The Takeover”.   Rather than fold, Nas hit back with the instant legend “Ether”.  It went back and forth, and then, crucially, Jay-Z misplayed his hand. In “Super Ugly”, about 2 minutes in to a pretty good track, he escalated to a crude personal revelation about his sexual exploits with the mother of Nas’s child — prompting Jay’s mother to call in to a radio station to complain and forcing Jay to apologize.  The lesson:  just because you’ve got an ace card doesn’t mean you should play it… better to keep it in reserve, for fear of triggering a backlash. 

 But what happened next is even more interesting.  The beef actually helped both:  it lit a fire under Nas, who renewed his career, while Jay-Z continued to ascend to his current position (with the Black Album probably still standing as the pinnacle). Jay-Z acknowledged his defeat (on Blueprint 2) and learned lessons from it (while taking a few last shots, and claiming credit for reviging his rival’s career (“I gave you life when n**** had forgotten you MC’d”).  Nas opted to settle the beef, reconcile, and sign on with Def Jam Records — where he became one of Jay’s leading and most valuable artists.   In a world of unipolarity, both win through co-optation, reconciliation between enemies, and the demonstration that the gains of cooperation outweigh the gains of resistance.  

 Which brings us back to the Game.  The Game (Jayceon Taylor) is a wildly erratic, brilliantly talented L.A. gangsta rapper, a protege of Dr. Dre who started off with 50 Cent and G-Unit.  After an ugly break with them, he unleashed a barrage of brutal attacks on G-Unit and 50 Cent culminating in an epic 300 bars freestyle.  The Game clearly won the battle on its merits, but 50 Cent’s career continued relatively unharmed (he was #1 on last year’s Forbes list before being displaced by Jay-Z this year, though his reputation as a rapper has declined significantly after some mediocre albums and a humiliating defeat in a public showdown over album sales at the hands of Kanye West, of all people).  Meanwhile, the Game established himself as a solid solo act.  In that  war between a rising power and a upper-echelon middle power, both ultimately benefited.   

 Jay-Z is a bit different, given his hegemonic status and the absence of a prior relationship. The Game has always had a particularly odd, passive-aggressive relationship with Jay-Z.  His first hit “Westside Story” contained a line about not driving Maybachs (Jay’s signature car) which everyone took as a diss.  The Game panicked, and spliced into the title track of his debut album “The Documentary” a radio interview explaining that he had meant it as a shot against Ja Rule (everyone’s favorite hip hop punching bag) and that he “never takes shots at legends, that’s just not something I do.” Yeah, right.  Over the next few years, he would routinely go out of his way to say that he was not dissing Jay-Z even when it sounded like he was (“before you call this a diss, and you make Hova pissed, why would I do that, when I’m just the new cat, that was taught if a n****take shots to shoot back, defending his yard, yeah standing his ground, I’m sayin if you gonna retire then hand me the crown.”)  Think of him as a rising middle power (#13 on the Forbes list, down there with Young Jeezy, he helpfully explains on I’m So Wavy) eyeing the king, ambitious and a bit resentful, and looking for an opening.  

 So what prompted him to finally cross the line and attack Jay-Z?  There doesn’t seem to be anything in the public record to speak of — the proximate cause was a throwaway line in a Jay-Z freestyle which didn’t even attack him (“I ain’t talkin’ about THE GAME”).  His ego has always been there, and the Jay-Z obsession (in “360” earlier this year, he memorably rapped over Jay’s Million and One beat “I’m the king and you better respect it, all I need is Beyonce and a Roc-a-Fella necklace”).  Maybe he really just wants to test himself (he says on his Twitter feed “I ALWAYS FELT I WAS GOOD ENUFF 2 GO BAR 4 BAR @ JAY IN A “LYRICAL BEEF”), the way rising powers do.  Or maybe he just is hoping for publicity… wouldn’t be the first. But none of that explains the timing, even if it might account for the attack itself.  So let’s go with the IR analogies for a moment.

 The Game’s own account suggests that he saw vulnerability in Jay-Z’s over-extension.  First, supposedly Jay-Z got Chris Brown blackballed from the BET Video Awards by threatening to stay home if he performed.  Second, D.O.A., the first single off of Blueprint 3, attacked a whole generation of rappers using the Autotune program to sing (including such great powers as Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, and Kanye West as well as the hapless T-Pain). Taken together, that might add up to a growing resentment which could be exploited. Maybe he calculated that now was the moment to strike, and that the rest of the middle powers will ally with him to topple the tyrant.  

 But still, the timing is odd for a “power transition” narrative, given that Jay-Z is set to release his new Blueprint 3 album in September and has done a whole series of verses with other leading rappers in recent years (including Nas, Lil Wayne, and T.I.) which is to hip hop as “alliances” are to International Relations.  He may be old, but hardly looks like a declining power…. although perhaps Game simply detects weakness in Jay-Z’s age.  After all, he tweeted at one point that he “really don’t hate jay’s old music, but this new sh!t is convalescent home elevator music.” He clearly understands the extent of Jay-Z’s structural power, daring a long list of influential DJs to play I’m So Wavy.  

 So what does Jay-Z do?  If he hits back hard in public, the Game will gain in publicity even if he loses… the classic problem of a great power confronted by a smaller annoying challenger.   And given his demonstrated skills and talent, and his track record against G-Unit, the Game may well score some points.  At the least, it would bring Jay-Z down to his level — bogging him down in an asymmetric war negating the hegemon’s primary advantages.   If Jay-Z tries to use his structural power to kill Game’s career (block him from releasing albums or booking tour dates or appearing at the Grammy Awards), it could be seen as a wimpy and pathetic operation — especially since it would be exposed on Twitter and the hip hop blogs. 

 The Realist advice?  His best hope is probably to sit back and let the Game self-destruct, something of which he’s quite capable  (he’s already backing away from the hit on Beyonce) — while working behind the scenes to maintain his own alliance structure and to prevent any defections over to the Game’s camp.  And it seems that thus far, that’s exactly what he’s doing. We’ll see if that’s a winning strategy…. or if he’s just biding his time getting ready for a counter-attack.   Either way, I’ve succeeded in wasting a lot of time so… mission accomplished!

by

Is Gay The New Black?

LZ Granderson says criticism of President Obama by the gay community has gone too far.

LZ Granderson doesn’t think so. 

(CNN) — Far from flowing rainbow flags, the sound of Lady Gaga and, quite honestly, white people, stands a nightclub just outside of Wicker Park in Chicago, Illinois, by the name of The Prop House.

The line to get in usually stretches down the block, and unlike many of the clubs in Boystown and Andersonville, this one plays hip-hop and caters to men who may or may not openly identify as gay, but without question are black and proud.

And a good number of them are tired of hearing how the gay community is disappointed in President Obama, because they are not.

In recent weeks, one would have thought the nation’s first black president was also the nation’s biggest homophobe. Everyone from Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black and radio personality Rachel Maddow to Joe Solmonese, the president of Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest gay advocacy group, seem to be blasting Obama for everything from “don’t ask don’t tell” to Adam Lambert not winning American Idol.

In their minds, Obama is not moving fast enough on behalf of the GLBT community. The outcry is not completely without merit — the Justice Department’s unnerving brief on the Defense of Marriage Act immediately comes to mind. I was upset by some of the statements, but not surprised. (After the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, President Ronald Reagan’s initial handling of AIDS and, more recently, Katrina, there is little that surprises me when it comes to the government and the treatment of its people.)

Still, rarely has criticism regarding Obama and the GLBT community come from the kind of person you would find standing in line at a spot like The Prop House, and there’s a reason for that.

Despite the catchiness of the slogan, gay is not the new black.

Black is still black.

And if any group should know this, it’s the gay community.

Bars such as The Prop House, or Bulldogs in Atlanta, Georgia, exist because a large number of gay blacks — particularly those who date other blacks, and live in the black community — do not feel a part of the larger gay movement. There are Gay Pride celebrations, and then there are Black Gay Prides.

There’s a popular bar in the heart of the nation’s capital that might as well rename itself Antebellum, because all of the white patrons tend to stay upstairs and the black patrons are on the first floor. Last year at the annual Human Rights Campaign national fundraiser in Washington, D.C. — an event that lasted more than three hours — the only black person to make it on stage was the entertainment.

When Proposition 8 passed in California, white gays were quick to blame the black community despite blacks making up less than 10 percent of total voters and whites being close to 60 percent. At protest rallies that followed, some gay blacks reported they were even hit with racial epithets by angry white participants. Not to split hairs, but for most blacks, the n-word trumps the f-word.

So while the white mouthpiece of the gay community shakes an angry finger at intolerance and bigotry in their blogs and on television, blacks and other minorities see the dirty laundry. They see the hypocrisy of publicly rallying in the name of unity but then privately living in segregated pockets. And then there is the history.

The 40th anniversary of Stonewall dominated Gay Pride celebrations around the country, and while that is certainly a significant moment that should be recognized, 40 years is nothing compared with the 400 blood-soaked years black people have been through in this country. There are stories some blacks lived through, stories others were told by their parents and stories that never had a chance to be told.

While those who were at Stonewall talk about the fear of being arrested by police, 40 years ago, blacks talked about the fear of dying at the hands of police and not having their bodies found or murder investigated. The 13th Amendment was signed in 1865, and it wasn’t until 1948 that President Harry S Truman desegregated the military. That’s more than an 80-year gap.

Not to be flip, but Miley Cyrus is older than Bill Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell.” That doesn’t mean that the safety of gay people should be trivialized or that Obama should not be held accountable for the promises he made on the campaign trail. But to call this month’s first-ever White House reception for GLBT leaders “too little too late” is akin to a petulant child throwing a tantrum because he wants to eat his dessert before dinner. This is one of the main reasons why so many blacks bristle at the comparison of the two movements — everybody wants to sing the blues, nobody wants to live them.

This lack of perspective is only going to alienate a black community that is still very proud of Obama and is hypersensitive about any criticism of him, especially given he’s been in office barely six months.

If blacks are less accepting of gays than other racial groups — and that is certainly debatable — then the parade of gay people calling Obama a “disappointment” on television is counterproductive in gaining acceptance, to say the least. And the fact that the loudest critics are mostly white doesn’t help matters either.

Hearing that race matters in the gay community may not be comforting to hear, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

**** BB&G Notes – Opinions for either argument are welcome.  Please come intelligent regardless.