The Birds and Disease

You know, people sometimes get after me about criticizing so many of these black churches in our communities, especially the ones where our preachers decide to join forces with the bigoted, sexist, right-wing slime attempting to force its phony "family values" agenda down the nation's throat. Sure, I know a lot of that is driven by greedy ministers trying to cash in on the Bush Administration's efforts to bribe the churches into complicity via faith-based funding. But the sad truth is, there are also some naive, narrow-minded clergymen out there willing to sacrifice all of the interests and needs of their parishioners and the black community as a whole just to engage in dead-end moralizing.

Some stunning numbers from recent federal study, though, shows just how pernicious these right-wingers' agenda can be for all Americans in general, black folks in particular. According to a recent study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in four American teenage girls has some sort of sexually transmitted disease.

Even more alarming, a full ONE HALF of black teen girls in the study had suffered from one type of STD or another.

And yet, despite the alarming statistical and anecdotal evidence that our girls are endangered by herpes, chlamydia, HPV and other preventable ailments, many black churches continue to fight sex education in our schools. They continue to diminish the importance of condoms and continue to stand against groups that seek to make condoms available to our teens. They continue to promote abstinence-only programs that have shown clearly to be ineffective.

I realize that black folks are a traditionally socially conservative people. But that doesn't mean that's necessarily a good thing. And now that many black preachers allow themselves to be pimped by the right-wing agenda in an effort to exploit that conservatism, we are finding that not only is our narrow-mindedness not a good thing, it may very well be helping to kill us. (That, too, is part of the right-wing agenda, might I add.)

We cannot afford to maintain these Puritanical notions about sex and sex ed in the black community. We have to teach our children about safe sex and not only teach in an academic sense, but urgently promote real-life application of safe sex lessons.

Teach ya sons how to put on rubbers. Teach ya daughters how to put them on boys, too. Teach them about dental dams and spermacides, same as you teach them about self-respect and intimacy.

Most of all, though, teach them that sex is not dirty, not bad, that it's something they should feel comfortable talking about.

And yes, teach 'em that when you screw, you run the risk of having babies. Creating life is always one potential result of sex, and I agree that teenagers should never be saddled with the burdens of parenthood.

Neither, though, should they have to risk death.

Hillary Has Torn Her Drawers

I'm glad to see that Barack Obama's church is finally standing up for embattled pastor Jeremiah Wright, although I wonder whether it's too little too late.

As Sen. Obama's march to the Democratic nomination has seemed more and more inexorable, Hillary Clinton has become more desperate, more shrill, more willing than ever bloody her rival with smear tactics, whisper campaigns and blatant appeals to white supremacism. Her campaign has cast aspersions on his heritage, his name, his religion and, recently, his pastor. More and more, it's becoming clear that Barack Obama is not simply running against Clinton. He's running against the absolute worst of white America: its racist sickness; its deep-seated delusions about white beauty and superiority; its lies about our nation's foreign policy; its patent hatred for anything even remotely unlike itself.

Hillary Clinton has appealed to all of these things. She has courted the worst elements of the national psyche, all in the hope that white racism will save her election chances. She has turned on black folks in the most crass, obvious and irrevocable ways. For years now, Black people have supported her and her husband almost blindly. We've tagged him "the first Black president," defended them against scandal, welcomed them into communities like Harlem. And what have we received in return? Backed in a corner and desperate to capture the Dem nomination, the Clintons have thrown black people under the bus.

That's a favor that, if Hillary Clinton somehow does win the nomination, more than a few of us are ready to return. I, for one, will not vote for her if she wins the nomination. I can't say for sure yet whether I'd vote at all for President -- voting for McCain is out, but I may still write in Obama's name -- but I know I'll never support a Clinton for anything ever again.

Of course, even if she doesn't win, she has bloodied Sen. Obama's image so badly that his task of winning the White House, at one point a foregone conclusion, now looms as an increasingly unlikely mission.

I still believe Barack Obama can win, that he can overcome the smears and lies that the Clintons and their Republican fuckbuddies have thrown out there to short-circuit him. If he does, I'm willing to bet that Black Americans will get past the racist displays that the Clintons have paraded in front of us and move forward with trying to unite the Democratic Party and this nation. But if he loses -- given the racist dynamics that his rivals have played to to surpass him -- I'm willing to bet that the Democratic Party will never be the same again.

It certainly won't have many of us to kick around anymore.

WTF Is Nigganalysis?

"Nigganalysis" is the term I've coined for the uncompromising world view that courageous working-class black people express daily when honestly assessing the bullshit state of our people's conditions all around the globe. Nigganalysis is grounded, informed, intelligent and -- most important of all -- unafraid in its willingness to stake out intellectual ground that the American mainstream finds offensive. Nigganalysis doesn't set out to offend anyone. But nigganalysis also can't afford to give a fuck if you get offended, just as long it's being true to the realities of the conditions of black folk. 

Nigganalysis is not about glorifying stereotypical "nigga" behavior or thought — nor is it seeking to validate the gross mischaracterizations of black folks established by white America. Nigganalysis acknowledges, however, that, to the degree that he exists at all, the "nigga" is a thoroughly American creation, brought about by the soul-crushing oppression of American white supremacism. To the degree that all black people have been victimized, humiliated, traumatized, terrorized and permanently scarred by white supremacism, to that same degree are we all "niggas." It is in this context that, whenever we attempt to critically examine our circumstances, our place at this point in history, we engage in nigganalysis. 

Refusal to acknowledge our conditions is denial. Passively accepting what's been done to us is cowardice. Calling this shit for what it is each and every day, without ever losing sight of the daily sacrifices we make to exist within the selfsame shit you call out as fucked up -- that, my friend, is nigganalysis.

Nigganalysis is expressed by all kinds of black folks everyday, whenever we look out on the world for ourselves and analyze what's going on irrespective of what other people think. Nigganalysis drives the comedy of Paul Mooney and Dick Gregory, fuels the lyrics of rappers like dead prez and Lupe Fiasco, inspires the politics of activists like Amiri Baraka and informs the attitudes of athletes like Gary Sheffield, Eton Thomas and Craig Hodges. 

Nigganalysis provokes defiance, talks shit and compels black men to stand up. Nigganalysis is about assessing what is even while trying to figure out what should be.