I like marking these little milestones. Ten months ago I hit 2,000... and used that occasion to announce my retirement from blogging.
UPDATE (07/25/09): “Boondocks” creator Aaron McGruder joined Twitter two weeks ago... and he also tweeted yesterday about the Skip Gates affair:
My friend Susie (a.k.a. quirkychick), a longtime commenter on this blog, recently donated one of her kidneys to a friend. How deep is that?
You know what? I kinda feel like blogging some more.
As I make my way to the exit, let me recommend a brand new culture blog that many of you might enjoy.
... and one of my last. Shoot, I didn’t think I’d have the stamina to go this long. But the time has come to put this blog on indefinite hiatus. I want my life back.
Happy New Year to all.
My friend S.O.L. commented: “There are two kinds of ‘publishing stars’ that I hate: people who fuck up their own lives and write about them -- despite having no discernible writing talent. And people who fictionalize their lives and write about it as if it were true.
Posted on December 22. I introduced you to Sharece Thomas by way of her YouTube video titled “WHY DA FUCK I GOTTA TIP ??”
Posted on June 25. In which I busted a white dude who pretended to be a black nationalist with a website called power2obama.com. The idea was to frighten gullible white folks by presenting Obama as a race radical. Dude pulled down the site after this post. (Now he’s trying to sell the power2obama domain name for $997.)
Yay me! Thanks to all of you who visit here... especially those who share comments.
I don’t like to beef with other black bloggers. But Michael Fisher called me out in ridiculous fashion the other night, posting Rhodesian atrocity photos and claiming that I’d like to see white folks back in control of Zimbabwe.MICHAEL FISHER: ... So let me ask you straight up, Davis.
Are the African people of Zimbabwe mentally inferior to the European people of England or are they not?
UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: I have no way of knowing. Nor do you. Which is why I don’t make pronouncements about “inferiority.” (If you have evidence that Zimbabweans are mentally equivalent to or mentally superior to the English, please point me to it.)
Anyone, meanwhile, can look at the history of civilizations and determine the advantages and disadvantages of each. Which is useful to do.
The inability of a people to read and write is clearly disadvantageous in a world where the Arabs, the Chinese and the Europeans were not only reading and writing... but applying their burgeoning knowledge base to the creation of wealth by spreading far beyond their borders to buy and sell shit.
FISHER: ... “If you have evidence that Zimbabweans are mentally equivalent to or mentally superior to the English, please point me to it”
I’ll be happy to: ...
You can not defeat a an enemy who is superior in armament, technology, and economic resources by being “intellectually less developed” than that enemy, David.
UBM: Oh for pity’s sake, Michael. You got to come stronger than that.
You know better than anyone that ZANU and ZAPU received money, weapons, political support and – most importantly – military and tactical training from the Soviet Union, Communist China and North Korea. (Could the Zimbabweans have won a war without this help? Apparently they didn’t think so.)
So try again: If you have evidence that Zimbabweans are mentally equivalent to or mentally superior to the English, please point me to it.
FISHER: Once again, you don’t know what you are talking about. ZAPU certainly received military equipment and training from the Soviets, but their army, ZIRPA like the ANC’s Umkonto We Sizwe, put it to very limited use. ZIRPA was useless. In 1973 ZANU had not yet to receive broad material support from the Chinese. Most of the material support the actually received from Tanzania (who last I checked were African),as well as the Pan-Africanist and other black nationalist organizations here in the United States as well as some Maoist formations in Germany, mainly the KBW. ZANU/ZANLA received no support whatsoever from the Soviets and the Eastern bloc.
No matter. Even if the Chinese and the Soviets had trained them in guerrilla warfare to the T, they still were the ones who planned and executed the war.
How is that “weak”? You ever been in the military?
You are such a die hard racist, Mills, that you dismiss any and everything that points to the quite remarkable ingenuity and intelligence of Africans.
The problem with that is, that this is the least intelligent type of racism.
A real white supremacist/racist is a scientist. Else the small minority of truly powerful white supremacists would not be able to maintain the repressive system of white supremacy globally.
They do not underestimate the intelligence, ingenuity, and power of Africans and other non-white people. Else they would have perished a long while ago.
FISHER: Now since I answered your question, how abut you answer my question:
Mills...
“I have no way of knowing. Nor do you. Which is why I don’t make pronouncements about ‘inferiority.’”
Is that so? So what then, Mr. Wordsmith and “Lover of Language”, explains your use of “intellectual” in the sentence “It doesn’t have the history of intellectual... development”?”
UBM: By “intellectual” development I mean such things as a literature and a system of higher education.
UBM: In 1973 ZANU had not yet to receive broad material support from the Chinese. Most of the material support the actually received from Tanzania (who last I checked were African)...
This is getting embarrassing, Fish. The fact is, to this very day, Tanzanian pilots and sailors and military officers are trained in China.
Tanzania receives more foreign aid from China than any other African nation does. The Chinese have been pumping money into Tanzania since 1964, building textile mills and the like.
It was the Chinese who financed and built the Tanzania-Zambia Railway in the 1970s, to the tune of half a billion dollars. (This was China’s largest foreign-aid project ever.)
Ergo... whatever “material support” Zimbabwean freedom fighters received from Tanzania was a byproduct of China’s heavy investment in that country. There is no Tanzanian economy without China.
As for your claim that “ZANU/ZANLA received no support whatsoever from the Soviets and the Eastern bloc,” hmmmm... I was under the impression that by the mid-1970s, ZANU/ZANLA ran guerrilla operations out of Mozambique... at a time when hundreds of Russian, East German and Cuban military instructors were in Mozambique, giving them support.
I know this may not fit your narrative of the black freedom struggle, Mike. But there it is nonetheless.
As for your charge that I “dismiss any and everything that points to the quite remarkable ingenuity and intelligence of Africans”... nonsense.
I simply point out to you (and any of your doctrinaire ilk) that the “quite remarkable ingenuity and intelligence of Africans” was not the sort that led to the development of the printing press, electricity, the internal combustion engine, the radio, the polio vaccine, the Mars probe, or the microchips which allow us to carry on this conversation across the intertubes.
And that has more to do with Zimbabwe’s current position in the world economy than the evils of white racism.
FISHER: ... While I fail to see what the building of the Tanzam railroad and the Chinese training of Tanzanian military personnel has to do with the innate mental ability of an African to grasp and execute the principles of guerrilla warfare, let’s turn to analyzing your statement:
“By ‘intellectual’ development I mean such things as a literature and a system of higher education.”
Now, that’s quite an interesting (mis)use of the term “intellectual development”, which term (until your innovative usage) traditionally referred to the development of the intellect.
No matter.
So let’s plug in your particular wordsmithian usage of the term into your “non-racist” statement:
“Zimbabwe will never be -- and could never be -- what England is. It doesn’t have the history of literature and system of higher education and economic development.”
So now you are saying that the Zimbabweans can never attain the level of the English because of their past lack of “literature and a system of higher education”.
Now why is that?
Seems to me that exactly what any rational person, pan-Africanist or otherwise, would expect is that with the implementation of a system of higher education Zimbabwe could very well be “what England is”.
That leaves us with two choices of how to interpret your elucidations on the mental abilities of Zimbabweans:
Either
(a) you have a very shallow and sloppy grasp of the English language, David, (maybe those “black genes” you are carrying somewhere in your body are keeping your “intellect” from “developing” despite America’s literature and system of higher education?),
or
(b) you are trying to weasel your way out of having stated some pretty reprehensible (and illogical to boot) stuff.
So which is it? Are you intellectually maldeveloped (and I am referring to your intellect as per the proper use of the term) or are you just being a bigot?
UBM: Now, that’s quite an interesting (mis)use of the term “intellectual development”, which term (until your innovative usage) traditionally referred to the development of the intellect.
How else to assess the “intellectual development” of a culture than by its intellectual products?
The burden is on you, Fish, to justify your apparent belief that a society without an alphabet is as intellectually well-developed as a society that produced Oxford and Cambridge universities.
Perhaps an analogy will clarify my position. A few years ago, I read a news article about an Amazonian tribe that one day simply walked out of the jungle and into a modern South American city to begin living. (I can’t remember which country.)
This tribe had never developed the wheel, Michael. This “society” existed for centuries without a wheel.
I have no way to assess the innate cognitive capacity of members of this Amazonian tribe. But I can make the observation (which you shouldn’t have a problem acknowledging) that a society without the wheel is less developed intellectually than... oh, than any modern nation-state.
Seems to me that exactly what any rational person, pan-Africanist or otherwise, would expect is that with the implementation of a system of higher education Zimbabwe could very well be “what England is”.
Why do you expect this? On what basis could you expect this? That Zimbabweans could very well produce and maintain universities comparable to Oxford and Cambridge? Really? That’s your position, Fish?
How long might that take to accomplish? How could Zimbabweans make up a 700-year head start by England in the area of education? England is what it is because of the remarkable ingenuity and intelligence of the English, as attested to by its accumulated literature in areas such as political philosophy, economics, physics, etc.
Anyone who got a kick out of that video with the crazy old man ranting about dead pigs and dildos... revisit my post for a musical follow-up.
John B. also shares obscure and out-of-print tracks. Such as “Goodbye Hully!” by Kenya’s Brother Charlly Computer & the Gloria Kings.
Born in the South African township of Soweto, Arthur went from being a pop-music background dancer to a pioneering producer of kwaito, the groove music influenced by house and hip-hop.
Last weekend, I decided to kill an hour by trolling amongst the hardcore Hillary-loving Obama-haters at the notorious No Quarter blog.UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: What… you guys didn’t hear about the sniper fire Obama had to dodge when he landed?
;^D
HARP: Get back undercover fool
WILDCHILD: wasn’t BOBO too busy playing games?
UBM: Didn’t seem to hurt the morale of our soldiers any, did it?
Please rid your hearts of hatred.
HARP: Yo mama so stupid that she tried to put M&M’s in alphabetical order!
UBM: Yo mama so stupid, she walked by a YMCA and said, “Look… they spelled MACY’s wrong!”
HARP: HaHaHa…Guess who is stupid asshole…my mama has been dead for 22 years now.
UBM: Mine died last April. You shouldn’t have started some shit you couldn’t finish, my friend…
WILDCHILD: M & M’s have been around a lot longer then that.
UBM: When I pray to Obama tonight, I’ll ask for mercy on your soul, WildChild. You know not what you do.
WILDCHILD: I know exactly what I do. I prefer peanut.
UBM: Is that what you meant when you told me to “nut in your mouth”?
WILDCHILD: no, LMAO that’s what BOBO meant when he told you nut in his mouth
SEATTLE MOSS: I have read your posts and never have responded because you just don’t seem too smart and your always full of rage and cursing. maybe you should try some new meds for that problem you have. It’s just a suggestion…
UBM: I’ll borrow some from Cindy McCain. Thanks for the suggestion.
WILDCHILD: He said meds, not makeup.
UBM: I know, WildChild. See, Cindy McCain used to be addicted to prescription narcotics. That’s what I was referencing.
WILDCHILD: ahhh quit your kidding around. If she used to be addicted to prescription pain killers then she wouldn’t have any to give you. Besides you need to pretty up for BOBO, LOL the limo is waiting just outside your door.
SEATTLE MOSS: Go buy your own meds.. Under Endowed.
Your comebacks are pathetic.
So McCain had a real moment with his wife…Big Deal!!
Maybe Cindy did prescription drugs Big Deal!!
They both have more class and care for this country than anything you support anti-American wuss
UBM: Maybe McCain called his wife the C-word in front of other people… Big Deal!
He is a class act all the way! I’m with you, Moss.
And you’re right… my comebacks [are] pretty lame. But I’m trying to work an “ape rape” joke into my repertoire. It worked so well for John McCain… He has so much class!
HARP: I would think the “ape rape” thing took place on Backtrack’s first date with Michelle.
JUST MESSIN WITH YA MAN!!
UBM: Wow… it’s like a battle of wits in a coma ward up in here. I’m done. I earned my $7 tonight… the easy way.
Cheers, mates.
WILDCHILD: yup, LOL you took it up the ass like a champ. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha BOBO wants you.
UBM: ^ Don’t take my word for it, Child. I’ll post this entire exchange on my blog tomorrow… and we’ll let some normal people judge just who clowned whom.
HARP: Coward…I wish Backtrack’s father would have pulled out early too.
“Perhaps it is time to reconceptualize the American model psychologically, culturally, and theologically by factoring out the black race,” Ben W. wrote. “Just as it is impossible to integrate Muslims into Western society, it has been impossible to integrate the black race as well.ADELA G.: ... My wanting an America with far fewer blacks in it has nothing to do with my personal history with black individuals, which has been overall only slightly more negative than my history with whites. (And in fairness, I must add that I know several black people of whom I am very fond and I believe that fondness is mutual.)
It’s blacks as a group that I find too chaotic to live with or interact with. It is this group that I don’t want in American in any significant number. ...
LAWRENCE AUSTER: Blacks are not immigrants, and I can’t conceive of any means by which we make them leave, or where we would send them.
ADELA G.: ... I didn’t mention “making” them leave and, except for dismantling those government programs that promote and subsidize a sense of entitlement based on race, I wasn’t alluding to any governmental or official action, certainly not a policy of forced deportation. Surely you didn’t infer I was hoping white militias would drive blacks into the sea!
... [I]t’s not a question of making blacks leave. It’s a question of creating and maintaining a cultural climate that makes it clear any sense of racial grievance is unwelcome. ...
CLEM: ... I don’t have the answer but I do realize that we must pursue something in this direction. Unless we miscegenate (unfortunately many people see this as the panacea) to the point of all being Borg, what we are currently doing will not and is not working.
The only thing our current path in this country will do is lead to the destruction of the U.S. and of us. ...
AUSTER: A funny thought just occurred to me. We’re all aware of how, despite white America’s good will toward blacks, and staggering efforts to help advance them... the core of the black community continues to see whites as evil oppressors who are conspiring to commit genocide against blacks. ...
That being the case, if white America really began to take away blacks’ privileges and reduce their power and influence, as proposed above, what could the blacks say about whites, that they’re not already saying? The blacks ALREADY believe that we’re trying to harm them in all kinds of horrible ways. ...
BEN W.: ... I don’t have a clear and distinct idea (as Descartes would [put] it) of what “factoring the black race out of America” means.
It might have psychological elements (i.e. no more Hollywood films with black protagonists). It might have economic components (such as no affirmative action or extended welfare programs). It might have legal consequences such as restricting race-based churches from issuing from the pulpit hateful statements against the U.S. ...
These are all practical and incremental steps towards factoring out the racial presence of an antagonistic group.
On a broader scale, it would mean the dismantling of ghetto neighborhoods and dispersal. Where that would lead, I do not know. ...
MARK J.: The present situation with regard to blacks (and Mestizos, Muslims, and other alien peoples in our nation) is unsustainable, but I respectfully argue that the time when whites could maintain the existing system of government while implementing the kinds of changes you’re proposing has passed.
All race-based preference programs need to disappear, and it has to become legal once again to discriminate in employment, housing, and accommodations based on race. But the prohibitions against that kind of discrimination are so deeply embedded now in our laws and established interpretations of the Constitution that it would almost certainly require a series of constitutional amendments to make it legal to discriminate again. ...
Even were such changes possible, we would need to take away the right of blacks and other minorities to vote, because as long as they could vote, we would eternally be at risk of losing control of our nation if they reproduce faster than we do. ...
I think the only alternatives are a civil war or the devolution of the U.S. into another Brazil and the end of the white race as a significant civilizational force.
My bet is on a civil war, when the majority of whites have finally had enough of the corruption, violence, and poverty that comes with sharing a nation with alien people....
One of my all-time favorite culture bloggers is Thembi. She’s always coming up with brilliant concepts and rocking the socks off ’em. And she’s funny as hell.
I didn’t know about PostSecret until today. I tip my hat to Shelly (a.k.a. BoringBlackChick), who blogged about the site last week.
Women be getting stuff off their chests in the blogosphere.
