Ta-Nehisi Coates's Blog, page 37

'I'm Dressed in All Black, This Is Not for the Fans of Elvis ...'

I need a second to absorb this verse, but Kendrick Lamar on this Big Sean, Jay-Electronica joint is basically insane (if unquotable within the august walls of The Atlantic).

The thing about this cat is he has lyrics and flows. That sounds like the most cliché praise ever. But frankly, I can think of about five MCs who repeatedly adjusted themselves to the track and also brought poetics to bear. I am not talking about Kendrick as compared to his peers, but Kendrick compared to, like, every rapper I've ever heard. This is like Xzibit meets Busta meets Cube meets Nas. This dude is king right now. 
Jay did his thing too, but I'm ready to hear that full-length joint.

       

"I'm Dressed in All-Black, This Is Not for the Fans of Elvis..."

I need a second to absorb this verse, but this Kendrick Lamar on this Big Sean, Jay-Electronica joint is basically insane (if unquotable within the august walls of The Atlantic.)The thing about this cat is he has lyrics and flows. That sounds like the most cliché praise ever. But frankly, I can think of about five MCs who repeatedly adjusted themselves to the track and also brought poetics to bear. I am not talking about Kendrick as compared to his peers, but Kendrick compared to, like, every rapper I've ever heard. This is like Xzibit meets Busta meets Cube meets Nas. This dude is king right now. Jay did his thing too, but I'm ready to hear that full-length joint.

       

A Parisian Interlude

In these Paris dispatches, I have tried to explain what the long and slow acquisition of French (still ongoing) has meant to me. I've also talked about what language study could potentially mean to young folks who grew up, as I did, in a community where multilingualism is not an explicit goal. In pursuing multilingualism with my wife and son, one thing I've been noticed is that there is money out there for kids to learn foreign languages--Arabic in particular seems to attract a lot of funding. If you are a parent and are interested in any sort of language immersion--or any other opportunities regarding language--please send me an e-mail. I'll give you all the leads I have, and more as they come in. My address is my first initial attached my last name; the domain is the magazine I work for.When we come up in spaces of limited opportunity there are things we can't see. More than that, even when we see these things we often perceive them as being beyond our budget. But our perception is not always the reality. There are opportunities out there. If any parent is any way inspired to take this path with their child, I will gladly do all I can to help. Drop me a line.  

       

Preface to a 30-Volume Love Note

When I was a boy--not older than two--my mother and father left me with my grandmother and drove to Oklahoma. My father is a resurrector. His business, if you may call it such a thing, is scouring the histories for books about people of African descent that have fallen out of print and bringing them back. These were the early days of his trade, his sixth son and his soon to be second marriage. He was rugged. His beard was untamed. His Afro was pathetic. His resume was reckless--military police, canine handler, Vietnam vet, fallen Black Panther lately dubbed "Enemy of the People," advocate for political prisoners, uncompromising autodidact.

My grandmother regarded him with all the skepticism of a Christian woman who'd raised three daughters in the projects and sent them to college. She had not scrubbed white people's floors so that her youngest daughter could be swept away by a Fanon-quoting, George Jackson-loving, no-pedigree-having hustler.
But my father, whatever he looked like on paper, was right as a Swiss clock. He had an essential goodness that cut through bullshit. Even now I call him with issues of conflicted morality. From those conversations I usually come to understand that I am basically wishing for things to be more complicated than they are. Right is right. Wrong is wrong. And these things exist and should not be conflated under a false flag.
My parents drove to Oklahoma in a broke-up Volkswagen. At one point they ran out of money and had nowhere to stay. They were planning to sleep in the car, when they ran into a black man and struck up a conversation. Five minutes in the man looked my parents over and said, "You're coming home with me." My folks enjoyed dinner with the man and his wife. They also got a warm bed. In the morning they pushed on, and through some wild act of God made it back to Baltimore. This was the mid-70s, not so far from a time when black folks--most of whom have Southern roots--were a kind of broad family. Talk to your people long enough (or read "The Warmth of Other Suns") and you come across a story like this--one where black people are dependent on the kindness of strangers who really aren't.
I think about that story when I have enjoyed my share of Frankish hospitality--people inviting me to meet their mothers, share long walks, or debate the particularities of Belgian identity. I spent yesterday at a cottage out near Fontainebleau. The market was incredible. I tasted cheese from a woman's hand. The palace was garish ("barbaric" a friend of mine called it) and clarified why a nation might murder its kings. But I was there as a guest. I was there on someone else's time. I had never done anything like this.
I was standing by a gate when a couple came past looking for directions in French. The man was white. The woman was black. They wanted to get to the river. There was nothing assumed about them. They looked like people. "The thing here," an African-American friend of mine said, "is that black people are never surprised to see us." We don't get the patented head-nod from the black Parisians. At first I was injured. But then I remember what the head-nod is black-speak for: "If a Klan rally breaks out, I have your back." Then I wasn't injured. I was sad. Make of this what you can. I am a particular person, laying my head in a particular place, at a particular time. What you see here is one dude's experience. An anecdote is not a country. This is memoir. It will never be history.
The other day I was in the Latin Quarter. I was at a bar with a man I'd known less than a week. He ordered a bottle of red wine. The wine fell into the glass thick as the water at Gunpowder Beach. I lifted the red lagoon to my lips. It was low and sweet. Mon ami ordered a plate of meat and cheese. (Don't make me say the word.) I was in full black nationalist apostasy. I was so far from tofu, millet and Morning Star that I should have been under some sort of black hippie Fatwah. If 15-year-old me, rocking the phat Africa medallion, rocking thick beads, rocking the Bob Marley Uprising tee-shirt and quoting "Ballot or the Bullet" like the latest Rakim, if that dude could see me now, why he'd pour out libations for my lost and devil-damned soul. 
I had met mon ami at a language exchange. You talk to people for 15 minutes each--half in English half and French, and then you switch. If you like each other, you're free to continue the exchanging on your own. He said, "Tu connais, Edith Wharton?" and I was done. We drank and ate together. I was helpless. He would speak to the waiter and I may have understood every 50th word. I kept thinking, "If I wanted to come back here, if I wanted to bring my wife, I couldn't. I don't know the language. I don't know the culture. I don't know anything." It is the helplessness that hurts, the helplessness before something that haunts you at night. That was the hurt that sent my father into business. That we would leave our history injured him, and he has not recovered to this day. 
I think of my homeboy D.J. Renegade who gave me more education on poetry than anyone's MFA. We used to sit in the Border's in Washington, down on 20th and L, going through Robert Hayden or Amiri Baraka. I read this:

And now, each night I count the stars.
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted
I count the holes they leave.

And it was over. Every time he brought me before a great poem I was injured, because I knew that I would never say anything that beautiful. Yusef Komunyakaa has this line--"her red dress turns the corner\like blood in a man's eye." I read that when I was 19, and thought "If this is writing, then I will just go ahead and hang myself right now." I was injured because this was one less beautiful thing in the world waiting to be written, and even though I knew there were many others, I would never get to write them.
I used to leave my sessions with Renegade despairing, angry, raging inside. And I get that same feeling here. Dans la rue and everyone is speaking French--like it's normal. But it is not normal. It is a whole race of people dancing down a sun-touched street, while I am stuck in the mud and rain. And I want to dance. And it is wrong that anyone else should have the right to dance save at my pleasure. Dans la rue and I am nursing that same old rage. It has been 20 years. A dude orders a café and I want to strangle the words in his stupid throat. And steal them.
That evening, at the wine bar, me and my mens and them talked about identity. Every conversation here comes around to that. He claimed there was no patriotism in France. No, I told him. A country that legislates the preparation of bread and corrects grammar in the street has patriotism and more. Get out of your vocabulary class, he said. The French know nothing about teaching language. See the city.

He paid the bill. We walked out from the Latin Quarter over to the island, past Notre Dame. We were walking opposite from where I needed to go. He seemed in a hurry to show me something. Perhaps this was end of the elaborate con. Maybe this was where his boys jumped out and took all my Euros. I looked around. There was no black people to give the to head-nod to. Damn. And then I realized if it was going to go down, it probably would not be on Île de la Cité, not with the sun still out at least. We walked for a few more minutes and then I saw where he was finally taking me--the entrance to Saint Chapelle. It was built in the 13th century. He left. I stood there gawking for a good 15 minutes, wondering why I didn't stay in school and go for the doc in French history.
I don't really get down back home. I don't go out much. I have all the friends I need. My life is my health, my family, and my writing. C'est tout. I don't think I've ever sat with anyone like that, someone who I barely knew, over a bottle of wine. The whole world has its hand in my pocket. 
But Kenyatta says I am different here--that I am more open. I don't know. I've run into a shocking amount of hospitality here from people who have no idea who I am. They don't know what the Atlantic is. They might be vaguely aware of MIT. Perhaps its that I am American. Nothing has shocked me more than how fascinated people are with us in general, and New York in particular. It opens doors and breeds invitations. I believe some of it is them. They move slower. They take more time. Like people do back in my ancestral home. I expected to find a lot of things coming to Paris. I did not expect to find the South.
       

Preface To A 30-Volume Love Note

When I was a boy--not older than two--my mother and father left me with my grandmother and drove to Oklahoma. My father is a resurrector. His business, if you may call it such a thing, is scouring the histories for books about people of African descent that have fallen out of print and bringing them back. These were the early days of his trade, his sixth and his soon to be second marriage. He was rugged. His beard was untamed. His Afro was pathetic. His resume was reckless--military police, canine handler, Vietnam vet, fallen Black Panther lately dubbed "Enemy of the People," advocate for political prisoners, uncompromising autodidact.

My grandmother regarded him with all the skepticism of a Christian woman who'd raised three daughters in the projects and sent them to college. She had not scrubbed white people's floors so that her youngest daughter could be swept away by a Fanon-quoting, George Jackson-loving, no-pedigree-having hustler.
But my father, whatever he looked like on paper, was right as a Swiss clock. He had an essential goodness that cut through bullshit. Even now I call him with issues of conflicted morality. From those conversations I usually come to understand that I am basically wishing for things to be more complicated than they are. Right is right. Wrong is wrong. And these things exist and should not be conflated under a false flag.
My parents drove to Oklahoma in a broke-up Volkswagen. At one point they ran out of money and had nowhere to stay. They were planning to sleep in the car, when they ran into a black man and struck up a conversation. Five minutes in the man looked my parents over and said, "You're coming home with me." My folks enjoyed dinner with the man and his wife. They also got a warm bed. In the morning they pushed on, and through some wild act of God made it back to Baltimore. This was the mid-70s, not so far from a time when black folks--most of whom have Southern roots--were a kind of broad family. Talk to your people long enough (or read "The Warmth of Other Suns") and you come across a story like this--one where black people are dependent on the kindness of strangers who really aren't.
I think about that story when I have enjoyed my share of Frankish hospitality--people inviting me to meet their mothers, share long walks, or debate the particularities of Belgian identity. I spent yesterday at a cottage out near Fontainebleau. The market was incredible. I tasted cheese from a woman's hand. The castle was garish and clarified why a nation might murder its kings. But I was there as a guest. I was there on someone else's time. I had never done anything like this.
I was standing by a gate when a couple came past looking for directions in French. The man was white. The woman was black. They wanted to get to the river. There was nothing assumed about them. They looked like people. "The thing here," an African-American friend of mine said, "is that black people are never surprised to see us." We don't get the patented head-nod from the black Parisians. At first I was injured. But then I remember what the head-nod is black-speak for: "If a Klan rally breaks out, I have your back." Then I wasn't injured. I was sad. Make of this what you can. I am a particular person, laying my head in a particular place, at a particular time. What you see here is one dude's experience. An anecdote is not a country. This is memoir. It will never be history.
The other day I was in the Latin Quarter. I was at a bar with a man I'd known less than a week. He ordered a bottle of red wine. The wine fell into the glass thick as the water at Gunpowder Beach. I lifted the red lagoon to my lips. It was low and sweet. Mon ami  ordered a plate of meat and cheese. (Don't make me say the word.) I was in full black nationalist apostasy. I was so far from tofu, millet and Morning Star that I should have been under some sort of black hippie Fatwah. If 15-year-old me, rocking the phat Africa medallion, rocking thick beads, rocking the Bob Marley Uprising tee-shirt, rocking the stone-wash and quoting "Ballot or the Bullet," if that dude could see me now, why he'd pour out libations for the lost devil-damned soul. 
I had met mon ami at a language exchange. You talk to people for 15 minutes each--half in English half and French, and then you switch. If you like each other, you're free to continue the exchanging on your own. He said, "Tu connais, Edith Wharton?" and I was done. We drank and ate together. I was helpless. He would speak to the waiter and I may have understood every 50th word. I kept thinking, "If I wanted to come back here, if I wanted to bring my wife, I couldn't. I don't know the language. I don't know the culture. I don't know anything." It is the helplessness that hurts, the helplessness before something that haunts you at night. That was the hurt that sent my father into business. That we would leave our history injured him, and he has not recovered to this day. 
I think of my homeboy D.J. Renegade who gave me more education on poetry than anyone's MFA. We used to sit in the Border's in Washington, down on 20th and L, going through Robert Hayden or Amiri Baraka. I read this:

And now, each night I count the stars.
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted
I count the holes they leave.

And it was over. Every time he brought me before a great poem I was injured, because I knew that I would never say anything that beautiful. Yusef Komunyakaa has this line--"her red dress turns the corner\like blood in a man's eye." I read that when I was 19, and thought "If this is writing, then I will just go ahead and hang myself right now." I was injured because this was one less beautiful thing in the world waiting to be written, and even though I knew there were many others, I would never get to write them.
I used to leave my sessions with Renegade despairing, angry, raging inside. And I get that same feeling here. Dans la rue and everyone is speaking French--like it's normal. But it is not normal. It is a whole race of people dancing down a sun-touched street, while I am stuck in the mud and rain. And I want to dance. And it is wrong that anyone else should have the right to dance save at my pleasure. Dans la rue and I am nursing that same old rage. It has been 20 years. A dude orders a café and I want to strangle the words in his stupid throat. And steal them.
That evening, at the wine bar, me and my mans and them talked about identity. Every conversation here comes around to that. He claimed there was no patriotism in France. No, I told him. A country that legislates the preparation of bread and corrects grammar in the street has patriotism and more. Get out of your vocabulary class, he said. The French know nothing about teaching language. See the city.

He paid the bill. We walked out from the Latin Quarter over to the island, past Notre Dame. We were walking opposite from where I needed to go. He seemed in a hurry to show me something. Perhaps this was end of the elaborate con. Maybe this was where his boys jumped out and took all my Euros. I looked around. There was no black people to give the to head-nod to. Damn. And then I realized if it was going to go down, it probably would not be on Île de la Cité, not with the sun still out at least. We walked for a few more minutes and then I saw where he was finally taking me--the entrance to Saint Chapelle. It was built in the 13th century. He left. I stood there gawking for a good 15 minutes, wondering why I didn't stay in school and go for the Doc in French history.
I don't really get down back home. I don't go out much. I have all the friends I need. My life is my health, my family, and my writing. C'est tout. I don't think I've ever sat with anyone like that, someone who I barely knew, over a bottle of wine. The whole world has its hand in my pocket. 
But Kenyatta says I am different here--that I am more open. I don't know. I've run into a shocking amount of hospitality here from people who have no idea who I am. They don't know what the Atlantic is. They might be vaguely aware of MIT. Perhaps its that I am American. Nothing has shocked me more than how fascinated people are with us in general, and New York in particular. It opens doors and breeds invitations. I believe some of it is them. They move slower. They take more time. Like people do back in my ancestral home. I expected to find a lot of things coming to Paris. I did not expect to find the South.
       

Ending Michael Bloomberg's Racist Profiling Campaign

A federal judge has ruled against the city and its racist application of Stop and Frisk. Here is the excellent news:In a decision issued on Monday, the judge, Shira A. Scheindlin, ruled that police officers have for years been systematically stopping innocent people in the street without any objective reason to suspect them of wrongdoing. Officers often frisked these people, usually young minority men, for weapons or searched their pockets for contraband, like drugs, before letting them go, according to the 195-page decision. These stop-and-frisk episodes, which soared in number over the last decade as crime continued to decline, demonstrated a widespread disregard for the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, according to the ruling. It also found violations with the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. Judge Scheindlin found that the city "adopted a policy of indirect racial profiling by targeting racially defined groups for stops based on local crime suspect data." She rejected the city's arguments that more stops happened in minority neighborhoods solely because those happened to have high-crime rates.I'm still wending my way through the opinion but this portion is very very important:Based on the expert testimony I find the following: (1) The NYPD carries out more stops where there are more black and Hispanic residents, even when other relevant variables are held constant. The racial composition of a precinct or census tract predicts the stop rate above and beyond the crime rate.p> (2) Blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites to be stopped within precincts and census tracts, even after controlling for other relevant variables. This is so even in areas with low crime rates, racially heterogenous populations, or predominately white populations. (3) For the period 2004 through 2009, when any law enforcement action was taken following a stop, blacks were 30% more likely to be arrested (as opposed to receiving a summons) than whites, for the same suspected crime. (4) For the period 2004 through 2009, after controlling for suspected crime and precinct characteristics, blacks who were stopped were about 14% more likely -- and Hispanics 9% more likely -- than whites to be subjected to the use of force. (5) For the period 2004 through 2009, all else being equal, the odds of a stop resulting in any further enforcement action were 8% lower if the person stopped was black than if the person stopped was white. In addition, the greater the black population in a precinct, the less likely that a stop would result in a sanction. Together, these results show that blacks are likely targeted for stops based on a lesser degree of objectively founded suspicion than whites.As I've noted before Ray Kelly and Michael Bloomberg justify the number of stops by arguing that black and Latino men commit the majority of violent crime. This position intentionally ignores the fact the data which shows, even after controlling for crime rates, the NYPD still discriminates. It's very important that people interested in this case understand that. And as always, anyone who is interested in the case really needs to listen to This American Life's reporting on Officer Adrian Schoolcraft linked above.Expect the city to appeal.

       

I Will Jump That Paywall and Fight Every Blogger Here, Bro

Here are a few things I haven't had the chance to blog about but are worth checking out.--Emily Nussbaum on why Sex In The City gets such short shrift in the writing about this new age of great television. I think it's really important to consider the entire argument, but it's very hard for me to get past Nussbaum's conclusion that "endings matter" and in the end:And then, in the final round, "Sex and the City" pulled its punches, and let Big rescue Carrie. It honored the wishes of its heroine, and at least half of the audience, and it gave us a very memorable dress, too. But it also showed a failure of nerve, an inability of the writers to imagine, or to trust themselves to portray, any other kind of ending--happy or not. And I can't help but wonder: What would the show look like without that finale?I don't think this point takes away from the sexism critique, either. The Wire's fifth season was, by far, its weakest. --The great Rebecca Scott on slavery in France. Maintenant. (En français.) I've long resisted comparisons between the slave society of the antebellum America with modern slavery, because I feel that people who do this are often looking to traffic in the moral capitol of that past, as opposed to illuminating the present. But Rebecca is a serious historian who knows both episodes. I'm slowly wending my way through this piece. --Eagles wide-receiver Riley Cooper was caught on tape threatening violence against a black security guard who didn't allow him backstage at a Kenny Chesney concert. Cooper's words were objectionable ("I will jump that fence and fight every nigger here, bro.") But his words on returning to camp are some of the best I've seen from someone whose done or said something racist: "I told them, 'I don't want you to forgive me, because that puts the burden on you, and I want it all on me,'" Cooper said. This is really really important. A few years ago we had a discussion here about atonement, forgiveness and white guilt. My argument was that white guilt is a destructive force, and seeking "forgiveness" isn't much better. As Cooper says it puts a moral burden on the injured party; the injured having already lost his dignity at the hands of the aggressor, is asked to give one more thing. I'd argue it's better to seek forgiveness of oneself, to learn from one's own wrongs. An apology made in hopes of getting something is already compromised. (Witness the era of "if I offended you.")  --Robert Sampson's book The Great American City is really, really important for our conversation here around the challenge of color-blind policy and the long shadow of segregation:Neighborhood social disadvantage has durable properties and tends to repeat itself, and because of racial segregation is most pronounced in the black community. I would add a related implication or subthesis: black children are singularly exposed to the cumulative effects of structural disadvantage in ways that reinforce the cycle. More: The data thus confirm that neighborhoods that are both black and poor, and that are characterized by high unemployment and female-headed families, are ecologically distinct, a characteristic that is not simply the same thing as low economic status. In this pattern Chicago is not alone. To probe the implications of this point in a different but more concrete way, I calculated the per capita income in the year 2000 in black compared to white neighborhoods in Chicago (defined here as census tracts with 75 percent or more of each group). The result was that not one white community experiences what is most typical for those residing in segregated black areas with respect to the basics of income--the entire distribution for white communities (mean = $42,508) sits to the right of the mean per capita income of black communities. Trying to estimate the effect of concentrated disadvantage on whites is thus tantamount to estimating a phantom reality. This is going by income, not wealth which would likely make matters look a good deal worse. At any rate Sampson is observing something similar to what both Patrick Sharkey and John Logan have observed--that the black community because of segregation is singular. One to one correlations, talk of a "white working class" and a "black working class," or a "white elite" and a "black elite," even controls for income, are myopic. There is a great challenge here for traditional "lift all boats" liberal thinking--black America is not merely a community with a disproportionately large impoverished class, but a class onto itself. This is not surprising. Creating a separate class was precisely the intent of roughly 300 years of white supremacist policy (commencing with Virginia's slave codes.) The expectation that this could all be wiped away with 50 years of good feelings was magical thinking. The domestic policy of this country in its pre-history, and most of its actual history was the creation of a peon class, denominated by melanin. The policy has been wildly successful. --Kevin Hart licking shots at Skip Bayless and Stephen A is hilarious. --Le complément d'objet direct. Le complément d'objet indirect. Oh Mon Dieu. Aidez-moi. --I don't know much about teaching foreign language. But if I were king for a day, I would mandate that the first week or two go to drilling the IPA system into heads of schoolchildren. Especially for French. /aʒute/ for "Ajouter" makes the world an easier place. --I've been going through recent back-issues of the X-Men titles. Second Coming is how crossovers should be done. I thought this when I first read the series, but had it confirmed when I went back over it. That story is what the X-Men are all about. (The scene with Xavier and Legion is just lovely.) Unfortunately the rest of the "Cyclops as Malcolm X" era is more hit and miss. There's a beautiful panel with the Hulk and Captain America in AvX ("Yes. Hulk will smash for you.") But I'm not really feeling the X-Men of the "past" now living in the "present." There's a lot going on. I wish Marvel would just settle down for a moment and let the stories breath. Also. Less Storm is always a bad sign.

       

I Will Jump That Paywall And Fight Every Blogger Here, Bro

Here are a few things I haven't had the chance to blog about but are worth checking out.--Emily Nussbaum on why Sex In The City gets such short shrift in the writing about this new age of great television. I think it's really important to consider the entire argument, but it's very hard for me to get past Nussbaum's conclusion that "endings matter" and in the end:And then, in the final round, "Sex and the City" pulled its punches, and let Big rescue Carrie. It honored the wishes of its heroine, and at least half of the audience, and it gave us a very memorable dress, too. But it also showed a failure of nerve, an inability of the writers to imagine, or to trust themselves to portray, any other kind of ending--happy or not. And I can't help but wonder: What would the show look like without that finale?I don't think this point takes away from the sexism critique, either. The Wire's fifth season was, by far, its weakest. --The great Rebecca Scott on slavery in France. Maintenant. (En français.) I've long resisted comparisons between the slave society of the antebellum America with modern slavery, because I feel that people who do this are often looking to traffic in the moral capitol of that past, as opposed to illuminating the presence. But Rebecca is a serious historian who knows both episodes. I'm slowly wending my way through this piece. --Eagles wide-receiver Riley Cooper was caught on tape threatening violence against a black security guard who didn't allow him backstage at a Cody Chesney concert. Cooper's words were objectionable ("I will jump that fence and fight every nigger here, bro.") But his words on returning to camp are some of the best I've seen from someone whose done or said something racist: "I told them, 'I don't want you to forgive me, because that puts the burden on you, and I want it all on me,'" Cooper said. This is really really important. A few years ago we had a discussion here about atonement, forgiveness and white guilt. My argument was that white guilt is a destructive force, and seeking "forgiveness" isn't much better. As Cooper says it puts a moral burden on the injured party; the injured having already lost his dignity at the hands of the aggressor, is asked to give one more thing. I'd argue it's better to seek forgiveness of oneself, to learn from one's own wrongs. An apology made in hopes of getting something is already compromised. (Witness the era of "if I offended you.")  --Robert Sampson's book The Great American City is really, really important for our conversation here around the challenge of color-blind policy and the long shadow of segregation:Neighborhood social disadvantage has durable properties and tends to repeat itself, and because of racial segregation is most pronounced in the black community. I would add a related implication or subthesis: black children are singularly exposed to the cumulative effects of structural disadvantage in ways that reinforce the cycle. More: The data thus confirm that neighborhoods that are both black and poor, and that are characterized by high unemployment and female-headed families, are ecologically distinct, a characteristic that is not simply the same thing as low economic status. In this pattern Chicago is not alone. To probe the implications of this point in a different but more concrete way, I calculated the per capita income in the year 2000 in black compared to white neighborhoods in Chicago (defined here as census tracts with 75 percent or more of each group). The result was that not one white community experiences what is most typical for those residing in segregated black areas with respect to the basics of income--the entire distribution for white communities (mean = $42,508) sits to the right of the mean per capita income of black communities. Trying to estimate the effect of concentrated disadvantage on whites is thus tantamount to estimating a phantom reality. This is going by income, not wealth which would likely make matters look a good deal worse. At any rate Sampson is observing something similar to what both Patrick Sharkey and John Logan have observed--that the black community because of segregation is singular. One to one correlations, talk of a "white working class" and a "black working class," or a "white elite" and a "black elite," even controls for income, are myopic. There is a great challenge here for traditional "lift all boats" liberal thinking--black America is not merely a community with a disproportionately large impoverished class, but a class onto itself. This is not surprising. Creating a separate class was precisely the intent of roughly 300 years of white supremacist policy (commencing with Virginia's slave codes.) The expectation that this could all be wiped away with 50 years of good feelings was magical thinking. The domestic policy of this country in its pre-history, and most of its actual history was the creation of a peon class, denominated by melanin. The policy has been wildly successful. --Kevin Hart licking shots at Skip Bayless and Stephen A is hilarious. --Le complément d'objet direct. Le complément d'objet indirect. Oh Mon Dieu. Aidez-moi. --I don't know much about teaching foreign language. But if I were king for a day, I would mandate that the first week or two go to drilling the IPA system into heads of schoolchildren. Especially for French. /aʒute/ for "Ajouter" makes the world an easier place.

       

Primo Levi's Old Negro Spiritual

As I mentioned, I've been reading Primo Levi's If This Is A Man. I finished last week, but I feel like I need to reread the entire book (which I'm doing) before I give a serious considered response. It's easily my favorite memoir this side of The Life And Times of Frederick Douglass, but there's more to be said. I'll also say that I wasn't really prepared for the ways in which Levi unwittingly evokes the black experience in America. I don't mean this in the sort of cheap way you see The Holocaust deployed as a trump card ( "the black Holocaust") in the Olympics suffering. I mean this in the sense that Levi is writing about genocide, and slavery. There's a gripping chapter where Levi describes the camp awaiting the selections--which is to say the time when certain Jews will be taken out and killed. Reading it, I found myself thinking of my ancestors and how they waited, in the run-up to the fantastic end to American slavery, to see who would selected and sold into the oblivion of Mississippi. Here is a passage that wrecked my world: But where we are going we do not know. Will we perhaps be able to survive the illnesses and escape the selections, perhaps even resist the work and hunger which wear us out but then, afterwards? Here, momentarily far away from the curses and the blows, we can re-enter into ourselves and meditate, and then it becomes clear that we will not return. We travelled here in the sealed wagons; we saw our women and our children leave towards nothingness; we, transformed into slaves, have marched a hundred times backwards and forwards to our silent labours, killed in our spirit long before our anonymous death. No one must leave here and so carry to the world, together with the sign impressed on his skin, the evil tidings of what man's presumption made of man in Auschwitz. That is an old Negro spiritual. That is the Middle Passage. That is how I see my African ancestors here in America, suddenly aware that they will never go back, that they are dead to everyone they have known and loved. I've said before that I never really understood why so much ink was spilled over the relationship between black people and Jews. Jews were white people in my eyes, perhaps white people of another tribe, but white people nonetheless. And yet it was clear to me that some black people--activists and academics--really saw Jews as "different," and also that man Jews saw themselves as "different." My readings over the past year have begun to bring home why. As well as my travels. There's something illuminating about living in a place with other foundational myths, and other foundational evils.

       

Trayvon Martin's America

A week after I arrived here, I gave a talk at the American Library In Paris. The talk was supposed to be about my book, The Beautiful Struggle. But the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial came down earlier that week. I decided instead to say a few words about the long historical process that led to Martin's death. For those of you who regularly read this blog, a lot of this will be familiar. For the talk I pulled from the growing notebook that is this space.

I want to thank the American Library in Paris for hosting me, and thank all the ex-pats (they are legion) who came out to listen. It is shocking how many people around the world are watching us. Around the city here, everyone knew about the case.