From Obama to O'bama

Barack Obama takes a seat for an expanded bilateral meeting with David Cameron and other delegates in the cabinet room

fotocredit: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty

jacked from the Graun

Yesterday Barack Obama addressed both the Houses of Parliament (not this pic) as part of his tour to Europe. David Miliband, former Foreign Secretary, now MP of South Shields tweeted:

"Obama speech came alive talking about diverse societies. But not one non-white person on British establishment side of stage."

Though Miliband is part of the very political establishment he derides, this tweet hit home. It's been really weird, surreal even, watching Britain's political elites and media fawn over the Obamas. On Monday Obama was in Ireland visiting the village where his great great great maternal grandfather is said to have come from. And so Obama, or rather O'bama is now an Irishman. To prove it, the Guardian printed an opinion piece with a headline declaring 'Obama finds his inner Irishman.' And the Irish Times ran an interesting commentary by Gavin O'Malley on the political history of the Irish and Black American communities:

"the African American community responded by providing the votes needed to elect the first Irish Catholic president [John F. Kennedy]. The course of history changed. Black merged green and green merged black. Irish-Americans and African-Americans dropped their hyphens... and once again became one."

For those who don't know much, it's informative, but it tends to recall only the good bits about Ireland's past and seems to leave out the bad bits. Seemingly, its o'kay to leave those bits out, as the most of the UK media has done, because on this occasion it's about celebrating the visit of O'bama the 'Irish' President of America. Balance and a more critical approach, would have been a little embarrassing because as there's been plenty of solidarity, there's also been plenty of oppression too. And though present-day Ireland and America certainly paints a better picture of oneness and a people bound by a common identity, it feels strange, but positive, but also weird to watch O'bama being welcomed with a pint of Guinness and a name change. 


Even more awkward was Wednesday. Obama gave a speech in Westminster during which he mentioned his paternal grandfather: 

"It is possible for the sons and daughters of former colonies to sit here as members of this great parliament and for the grandson of a Kenyan who served as a cook in the British army to stand before you as president of the United States,"

Indeed Obama has proved it is possible for the grandson of a Kenyan cook to become President of USA, but the rapturous applause he got shows the bi-polar nature of parliament - which as David Miliband's tweet above notes, is quite unrepresentative. This is the same institution trying to wriggle out of compensating the Kenyans tortured under British colonial rule because the government is not responsible for what happened in its colonies. Obama ever the diplomat, didn't mention how cruelly the British treated his grandfather, a subject he oddly never mentions much. It's odd that, apart from Libya, the highlights of Obama's speech and general tone has been one of acknowledging migrant histories and the benefits of multiculturalism and yet this government believes in 'muscular multiculturalism' and ridiculously proposes no right of appeal on visa rejections. And now that immigration figures have just been released showing an increase in migrants coming on, one can expect to see the right hit the panic button and call for tougher immigration controls. So what was parliament clapping for or was it just the lily-livered lefties?

The King Had A Dream

 Things I've Done by NattyMusic

Like country music meets reggae meets indie, this is Natty. (a guy most Londoners on the underground scene will know bec of the song ColdTown) Born Alexander Alekio Modiano to a mother from Lesotho and an English dad in San Francisco. Aged one he moved to (north) London where he grew up around African and British musical and cultural influences. According to the bio on his website (nattymusic.com), he had the privilege of working with Mos Def, Queen and Razorlight - before releasing his own mixtape for sale. In 2007 he got signed by Atlantic records and performed at the iTunes Festival. Since then Natty's achieved chart success in the UK, Japan and Jamaica as well and has collaborated with the likes of Roots Manuva and Baaba Mal, among many others. If you're in London this summer look out for him at gigs and festivals, or follow him on twitter @nattymusic.


Anyway the song,The King Had a Dream above was produced a few days before Barack Obama's inauguration, but regardless of Obama's failings, the greater message of the song, a people's legacy of triumph against adversity, still hits home - at least with me.

The New KKKlan in the Age of Obama

New Tea Party Ad

 

And then they go 'We have a Black President, we're a post-race nation'. Absolute nonsense! This is dirty, disgusting, KKKlan type politics and I felt so hurt watching this. I wasn't offended by the Joker image before of Obama because I knew the back story of the original artist, but it's appropriation in this context is deeply offensive and so is the Angel of Death comparison. 

In the Age of Obama, the new KKKlan's propaganda operates at a not-so subliminal level.

And then Black people like Lloyd Marcus (rhymes with Ruckus) wanna join this? Really? 

And then you get this other kind of foolishness that just makes me weak! iHave no words! My people, I implore you, enough with this Souljah Boy (thank God my ancestors were slaves so could I rock my bling today) kinda stupid, wake up and realise what's going on.

Update: comment from We Are Respectable N*gros:
The Baracka Flacka Flames video is also proof of an instinct I have long held dear and (usually) kept private to myself: white supremacy is the greatest invention of all time, not because of its durability per se, but rather because of how the subject internalizes it, reproducing the conditions of their own self-hatred and subordination.

I am unafraid to speak to the obligations of black respectability. Sadly, while some of us are ready for the responsibility of having our first Black President, others have clearly demonstrated that they are not. How pitiable and tragic that some confuse a poverty of material circumstances with a poverty of self-respect and black pride.
It's well worth reading in it's entirety: http://wearerespectablenegroes.blogspot.com/2010/10/some-black-people-are-not-ready-to-have.html

vid 1 jacked from Feministing.com & fisttap @sonjasugira for links 2 videos.

Diva Fierce!

pic jacked from AFP/Gawker

fisttap Bombastic Elements for post title and pic

Move over Lady O (USA), Chantel Biya's (Cameroon) the fiercest of the First Ladies at the UN General Assembly. 

iAbsolutely love her hair, that furious red is so outrageous and bold, y'gotsta love it! 

Forget the sniggering NYTimes et al sniggering, it's a good look - if Rhianna or Bey did this, even a model on a catwalk in Milan, NYC or London, wouldn't the paps be snapping them up for the fashion pages and wigmakers naming weaves after the look? Admittedly, sometimes Chantel Biya gets it oh-so-wrong with the outfits, but who doesn't? Even Mrs O, SamCam, Sarah Brown and Carla Bruni have off-ish days. 

Props to Chantel Biya for the attention-seeker that she is, to be so fashion forward and fashion furious to break with the conformity and demureness of international diplomacy. Consigning her to the pile of gaudy African dictator's wives is an erroneous kneejerk reaction that's made far too easily, anyone with an eye for fashion should be able to see this hair as iconic. Yes, iconic! There couldn't be a more fitting, cliché word to use.

BTW Checkout this uber cool blog http://chantalbiyahair.tumblr.com/page/1, for pictures of Mme Biya's hair.

Y'Gotta Love The Kooks

jacked from Bombastic Elements

pic by Ben Birnbaum

Obama Honours WOZA: Women Who Stand Up For Change

WOZA: Women Of Zimbabwe Arise is a women's activist group that leads peaceful demonstrations for regime change in Zimbabwe. Countless times they have been harassed, jailed and their demonstrations disbanded by the police. I've seen these women in the streets on Valentine's Day dressed in red and white giving out red roses to people encouraging them to build a nation of love not brutality. For anyone who thinks that this poses a threat that warrants them being jailed, they are sorely mistaken. I've seen them in court, their case being dismissed as the charges were said to be superflous and rightly so. The way in which these women have been rounded up and thrown into jail speaks volumes about the level of intolerance the Zim govt has for any voice of dissent regardless of the non-violent, non-partisan nature of a movement.

Needless to say the women honored in this video, Magodonga Mahlangu and Jenni Williams (who represents WOZA) deserve this award as token recognition for their tireless efforts to stand up and speak out.

Makorokoto, Tinotenda vanaMai veNyika, Amhlope boMama Siyabonga,
Congratulations and we thank you, Mothers of the Nation.

The Illusionist, The Puppet or The Joker?

B.O AS 'THE JOKER'

Around the world, in its many variations; street art has historically be a form of political expression for the disenfranchised and marginalised and this was the first thought that came to mind when I saw this montage of President Obama as 'The Joker'. However, this poster has become an overnight controversy along partisan and racial lines. The poster first appeared in LA and Earl Ofari Hutchinson of the LA urban policy unit has said, "Depicting the President as demonic and a socialist goes beyond political spoofery." In my opinion, to label this, "demonic" goes beyond political hysteria and is spoofery in itself! Its a gross misinterpretation of the image and where it comes from; its The Joker character acted by the late Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (2008). Obama's Stans (obsessive fans) in the blogosphere have claimed; this is reminiscent of the minstrel show and have described it as racist. Steve Mikulan was quoted in the UK daily, The Telegraph as having stated, "The only thing missing is a noose". This is a far stretch of the imagination, methinks.

The green hair, white face, black-ringed eyes and red lips of The Joker in The Dark Knight is not the same as the image of minstrel as claimed. The minstrel was black-a-face, with red lips whose thickness was exageratted and eyes made extra wide. The picture above is not the same as those of AfricanAmericans denigrated years before; anyone who's watched Spike Lee's Bamboozled (2000) will understand what minstrel means historically and in corporate Amerikkka today. To suggest this poster has the same connotation of black-a-face is absurd and playing the race card; there are real issues of racism more deserving of social outrage than this legitimate satire of a sitting President. The same image was used of Dubya, Sarah Palin, John McCain who were indeed jokers, but not 'The Joker'.

For the Republicans who've delighted in seeing this as criticism of Obama; the joke is on them. America has had a long history of a hyperfear of socialism and anybody who thinks Obama is a socialist needs to realise its 2009 not 1962, the Russians aren't a superpower anymore and neither are they threatening to storm in on Washington. They need to take Socialist theory 101 and read the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. And to fully understand the intersection of race and class in the US; Amilcar Cabral, Angela Davis and Malcom X would be a few names on a long essential reading list of Black Liberation and Socialism 102. If they did, they'd not only realise firstly even in the warped American imagination that equates socialism to 'the death of capitalism and democracy' as Americans know it, Obama has proven to be a true blue. This Banker's President, is anything BUT a socialist proposing to nationalise everything; a man who's passed the biggest stimulus bill in American history and refused to nationalise the health insurance plan can hardly be equated to real socialist revolutionaries like Che or Castro. Secondly, returning to the lesson plan; these Socialism phobes would learn that socialism modelled on the Scandinavian system of The Third Way might actually be beneficial to America where unbridled capitalist greed and foreign aggression are the modus operandae.

In light of the current birther movement and the real racist images of Obama doing the rounds online, this image just makes the Right look even more hysterical, irrational and desperate. Its also extremely hypocritical of them; the same people who ran the country badly for 8 years. The Conservatives are the xenophobic, eugenicist, capitalist architects of social iniquity and to now take up a position of protest in solidarity with the poorer and disenfranchised people disillusioned with the Obama administration would be the real insult of this image, if that was the intended message of the unknown poster.

If Obama's PR team and Stan bloggers are young and smart enough to remember the movie, they'll realise this image was neither racist nor slander. The joker was the best character in that film. Even though everyone pretended he was the bad guy, in reality he was the hero that everyone was rooting for and he made it worth watching. This poster is probably quite accurate in that sense as people like Obama as a person; he is the articulate likeable guy who appears on TV to reassure the people and give them a renewed sense of hope so much that it elides his Bush-lite manner of handling domestic and foreign affairs. The Obama hype machine has spawned an enormous movement of mostly seletively informed (on the details of his policies), but fervent supporters who have knighted him 'the untouchable one' and it is almost forbidden to criticise him.

As a Stan of Obama who belatedly saw the light when the first air strikes left 17 dead in Afghanistan and Somali pirates were murdered at his behest; this is my li'l planet to write what I like (a la Steve Biko) and critique the administration as and when I see fit. Obama has reneged on too many of his campaign promises to deserve status of The Joker, maybe the suave Illusionist, or Wall St's Puppet titles would better suit him; so here's to better thought-out, intelligent, protest street art to come!